Boris Kolev won the EA Poker Tour Grand Final on Cyprus ($437,000)

The EAPT Grand Final crowned the entire first season of the series, which was relaunched last summer. The tournament was announced at the end of last year, and at the time the scale was staggering: a $2,200 tournament with a $2,000,000 guarantee. Over the past 12 months, the buy-in for the main events of the EA Poker Tour (as it is now called) has settled at €560, and the most expensive tournaments of the season have never cost players more than €1,100. In fact, in the 10 years that the EAPT brand has been making its way around the poker world, you can count the number of tournaments with a buy-in over a thousand dollars on your fingers.

Before the start of the tournament it may have seemed that the guarantee of a thousand entries could not be beaten, but in fact the EAPT GF exceeded even the most daring expectations. After the first flight, the prize pool had already collected almost half of the required two million, with Days 1B-1D still to come. 

A total of 1,565 registrations were collected - a new record for an EAPT tournament since 2013. The total prize pool was $3,004,800 - another festival record. 235 players cashed, with a minimum payout of $3,500. Players played in the ITM area for two days, first at two tables, then down to the winner.

The large number of Russian-speaking players among the participants of the Cyprus series led to an expected strong representation of them at the EAPT Grand Final. Five players from the former Soviet Union competed for the EA Poker Tour trophy (and half a million dollars in prize money, of course), with two Germans, a Bulgarian and a Brazilian battling it out. You could follow the action in the EAPT GF Final live with open cards and commentary.

The final table of the EAPT Grand Final was a true illustration of the unpredictability of tournament poker. Boris Kolev, who started with a 6 BB stack, was able to recover, while former chip leader Uberton Aquinho made it to heads-up play and brutally knocked out Andrei Pateychuk.

A quick recap of the final table:

The first bustout took more than an hour despite a stack of 6 blinds in play. German player Adrian Strobel was left with two blinds, betting with K 7 , but couldn't beat Yuri Brechalov with A 4 . Belarusian Artem Lasovskiy finished in eighth place and was dealt two pairs against Andrey Pateychuk: Lasovskiy defended the big blind with Q 7  and had no chance against a board of Q 7 3 9 Q  - Andrei had K Q .

Dmitry Levin lost a pre-flop all-in with A J  to Yuri Brechalov's Q Q  to finish the tournament in seventh place. Yuri himself was soon eliminated in sixth place after losing a coin flip with A K  to Christopher Putz's pair of fives. Almaz Umarov lost with a pair of fives against a pair of queens of Brazilian Uberton Aquinho and left the battle for the cup in fifth place.

Andrey Pateychuk busted out in fourth place after suffering the toughest heads-up bad beat to Aquinho. Andrei opened with K K , Aquinho made a three-bet on the big blind with J 6 , and with the 15BB left, Pateychuk just called. On the flop K 8 4 , the Brazilian moved all in and Andrey called. The graphics on the broadcast showed a 98% for Pateychuk, but the turn was a 5 and the river was a 7 .

Christopher Putz was eliminated in 3rd place after an unsuccessful attempt to steal Boris Kolev's raise from the button: Putz pushed 18BB on 6 5 , but was hit by the Bulgarian's A Q - the German bought a five on the flop, but Kolev caught a queen on the river.

In heads-up, Boris Kolev and Uberton Aquinho agreed to split the prize pool, leaving $79,000 and the EAPT title to play for. In the key hand of the tournament, Kolev and Aquinho flopped 8 7 6 , with the Brazilian having 8 6 and the Bulgarian having J 7 . The turn was J . The river was a blank, leaving Aquinho with six blinds, which went into the box on the next hand to Kolev's 7 5 < K 3 .

Uberton Aquinho took second place in the EAPT Grand Final for $358,000, a career-best finish by far.

And the champion of the inaugural season of the EA Poker Tour was Boris Kolev. Starting the final table with a stack of just 6BB, Kolev showed that with skill and a little luck, you can win a tournament even if you're at the very bottom of the leaderboard. Kolev was awarded $437,000, the second best performance of his career after winning the World Series of Poker.

This marks the end of the first EAPT season since the relaunch. But on May 17th, the festival will continue its march across Europe. The second season of the series will kick off in the United Kingdom as the EAPT comes to Dusk till Dawn Casino with a £560 Main Event and a £500,000 guaranteed prize pool.