The EPT Sochi poker games for 2019 ended a few hours ago and awarded the prize to Yi Ye. Yi Ye emerged tops in an 879-field runners contest, bagging a sum of 19.3 Million Rubles, which translates to $300,000.
After going heads on with Giorgy Skhulukhiya, he declined his heads-up offer and emerged victorious, earning his first-ever title in the EPT poker games. Lidiya Kozenkova, a famous local player, came fourth in the games.
The last game took place in China, but this time around, all EPT roads led to Russia to play against the European poker gods and an army of Russian poker players.
The Sochi EPT competition was scheduled to run before the WSOP tournament in Europe. It had a chain of exciting poker games that provided the aficionados with epic celebrations and experience.
The EPT poker game launched its first opening act at Sochi Casino in Sochi, Russia. The tournament attracted players in droves with a total of 879 entries all aiming to win the EPT title. The buy-ins in the game summed to 133,000 rubles, equivalent to $250.
Out of the 103 million Rubles prize basket, only 127 places in the top rank managed to scoop the prizes. The grand winning prize would make the winner 19.3 million Rubbles richer, which translates to about $300,000.
Poker guru Chris Moneymaker also got a winning share in this event and cashed out a high prize in the pool. The event hosted one of the most skilled poker players in the game, which made it a good match for the audience, players, and organizers.
Among the prominent players who also cashed out the pool prizes included Marian Mik, Pavel Zuev, Zhe Hu, Mikhail Zub. Others were Mehmet Koglu Arutyunyan Vladimir Dmitriev, Anton Komarov and Vyacheslav Goryachev. Sergey Skorobach, Vincent Remitschka, Ivan Rubin, and Andrey Kotelnikov also grabbed something.
Artem Voziyanov, another notable Russian player, came ninth at the final rounds. Nikolay Fal, Alisa Sibgatova, Aleksandr Leonov, Tibor Toth, Pavel Golovchenko, and Roman Sokolov also had their hands in the game.
However, the EPT final round table consisted of eight players list of Boris Kitov, Natalia Panchenko, Lidiya Kozenkova, Egor Sukhov, Giorgiy Skhulukhiya, Abdul Ali Han, Vladislav Petrov, Boris Kitov, and Yi Ye.
Lidiya Kozenkova, a renowned casino worker and poker player, went in deep and finished fourth. She received a lot of support from her local fans and managed to cash out a cool 6.2 million rubles equivalent to 97,000 US dollars.
Natalia Panchenko made it to the final table appearance. She had a firm promise in the ETP Sochi event. However, she did not make it to the finals. She finished third place, scooping a prize of 8.2 million rubles, which translate to about 130,000 US dollars.
The moment everyone was waiting for, saw China vs. Russia with Yi and Giorgiy going head-on at the grand finale. The game went on for a while, up to the point that they had a discussion. Skhulukhiya asked Ye to agree to a heads-up-deal. Unfortunately, Yi turned it down after realizing that Giorgiy will go away with too much cash.
Yi Ye finally managed to beat Skhulukhiya banking the grand prize of 19.3 million Rubles. Skhulukhiya went home with 11.7 million rubles, about 183,000 US dollars.
The next EPT poker games are scheduled to take place WSOP in RozVegas, Europe.
