Big Names Secure Big Wins at EPT Monte Carlo

April 30th, 2018 | by Brian Corlisse

PokerStars’ European Poker Tour (EPT) Monte Carlo has seen the the great and the good ante up in Monaco’s high-end principality.

Steve O’Dwyer giving tips to Partypoker’s YouTube followers has won yet another live tournament title. (Image: YouTube/Partypoker)

Often regarded as one of the highlights of the EPT calendar, the 2018 Monte Carlo event got underway on April 24 with the first of 39 tournaments.

Despite being the first day of action inside Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort, the €10,300 ($12,400) No Limit Hold’em eight-handed showdown attracted 71 players. When the final chips had fallen, Spain’s Juan Pardo took home the trophy and $246,598 after beating Canada’s Timothy Adams ($177,453) heads-up.

The Big Guns Come Out

With the opening event out of the way, the preliminary action continued with the selection of smaller buy-in events before the $120,000 Super High Roller got kicked off April 26.

Featuring a stack of big names, the first major of the festival managed to attract 30 entries and 16 re-entries. As expected, the final table line-up read like a whose who of poker before the cards were in the air on April 28.

However, when the betting was over and the confetti had fallen, it was Canada’s Sam Greenwood left smiling. After starting the finale behind Germany’s Christoph Vogelsang, Greenwood was able to stay afloat while his high stakes peers fell by the wayside.

By the time Ali Fatehi was out in third, Greenwood had taken the chip lead, but things quickly changed. After Vogelsang got the maximum value for his full house, Toronto’s Greenwood was forced to rally.

Greenwood to Sleep Easy After Win

The lead soon switched again and then again before the Canadian finally took control. As the clock passed midnight, Greenwood picked up the remainder of his opponent’s chips with K♠J♣.

Having clinched the match and $1,853,387, Greenwood told PokerStars’ reporters that he was confident he’d made it through the heads-up battle without making too many mistakes.

“When the cards don’t go your way, it can get very frustrating and it’s stressful [but I have] no regrets, no nothing. I can sleep easy tonight,” Greenwood is reported as saying by PokerStars’ blog.

While Greenwood savored his latest victory, Steve O’Dwyer was busy claiming yet another tournament title. With 41 total entries in the $60,000 Single Day High Roller, O’Dwyer was vying for the lion’s share of a prizepool worth more than $2 million.

Despite multiple tournament titles and more than $21 million in winnings prior to the event, O’Dwyer played with the hunger of a novice. Within an hour of getting heads-up, the man known as Mango managed to dispatch with Nick Petrangelo and take home another $818,468 in prize money.