Yuri Dzivielevski Wins EPT Monte Carlo High Roller for $448,000

The latest high roller tournament at the European Poker Tour festival in Monaco came with a heavy ticket price and ended with a comeback victory to be proud of for Brazilian pro-Yuri Dzivielevski.

It was a mammoth 16-hour day at the felt for everyone who put up the €25,000 entry fee, which will current conversion was as close to $25,000 as makes no difference for the 74 entries in the field. The close of play saw a dramatic title claimed at the expense of Daniel Dvoress after a heads-up deal sorted out the lion’s share of the $1.7 million prize pool.

Bubble Drama Sees Reixach Axed

As we revealed last month, the 2022 European Poker Tour is back with a bang, with the Monte Carlo stop added to by a number of regional stops on the tour. High roller events have already been the dominating format of 2022, with Jake Schindler winning $3.2 million by taking down the Super High Roller Series Europe event in Cyprus last month. With 11 places paid, everyone turned out for this one, including former Barcelona and now Paris St. Germain footballer Neymar Junior, who was one of several very big names to miss out on the money when his ace-king lost to pocket sixes in a classic coinflip.

One of those to miss out was ‘Bubble Boy’ Sergi Reixach, who won biggest in the Mystery Bounty event just a day earlier, and who featured in the shake-up following Martin Zamani’s controversial comments about Bryn Kenney in the alleged ghosting scandal that has rocked poker. Reixach lost out with ace-ten against Daniel Dvoress’ pocket kings, so bubbled the event in 12^th. With 11 players paid, stars such as Canadian Sam Greenwood (9^th for $50,640) Slovenia’s Rok Gostisa (10^th for $44,420), and Portuguese pro Jose Quintas (11^th for $44,420) all cashed for big scores despite missing out on the eight-handed final table.

The first player to lose their seat once that began was Reza Tabatabai, who won $66,630 for his run to eighth place when his rivered straight was no match for the turned full house of Canadian Daniel Dvoress. Dvoress, who recently won a Super High Roller event out in Cyprus too, was climbing the leaderboard and looking like he would be in the running for victory.

Grafton Misses out on ‘Spadie’ Trophy

With seven players remaining, Sam Grafton was hoping to add to his recent side event victory and ‘Spadie’ trophy win by taking down the top prize in Monte Carlo too. Unfortunately for him, it was the end of the road as he crashed out in seventh place for $85,280. Grafton’s bust-out hand was a dramatic one too as he exited with pocket jacks. His was not the worst hand pre-flop, starting ahead against Dvoress’ pocket tens and Sirzat Hissou’s ace-king. But the board of T-7-2-Q-K saw Hissout triple up, Dvoress end only a short amount lower than he started and Grafton on the rail.

Despite that reprieve, Hissou would be next to bust out. The German cashed for the first six-figure score of $108,380 in sixth place when he saw his pocket aces shove pre-flop overtaken by Dvoress’ king-jack as both his picture cards paired on the flop.

During that period of six playing down to five, Dzivielevski came dangerously close to the exit door too, but having slumped to just three big blinds, somehow managed to double up several times and build himself back into contention. By the time Hissou hit the rail, the Brazilian was well in with a chance. It was not a reprieve that the former number one online poker player in the world was going to pass up.

Kaverman Finally Caves

With five players remaining, there were two fairly brisk exits as Hungarian high roller Andras Nemeth (5^th for $138,590) and Andriy Lyubovetskiy from the Ukraine (4^th for $175,010) as both bowed out before three-handed play. All three players held the lead at different stages, but it was the passionate Liverpool supporter Byron Kaverman who eventually missed out on the heads-up battle.

All-in with the best hand for a pot worth 1.8 million chips, Kaverman held ace-ten against Yuri Dzivielevski’s queen-deuce. The flop of Q-8-3 saw the Brazilian leapfrog his opponent into the lead, and after the three turn and four river, Kaverman had been eliminated, earning $227,420 for his run to the podium places.

Heads up was a brief affair, chiefly because a deal was done between the pair, based on ICM figures at the time, almost 16 hours in. Dzivielevski had 5.3 million chips to Dvoress’ 2.1 million, meaning the Brazilian ended the event with $448,515 to Dvoress’ $387,435. The pair flipped for the PokerStars trophy, and Dzivielevski’s ace-seven suited beat Dvoress’ queen-nine off-suit as a blank board saw Dzivielevski take it down.

With the $100,000 Super High Roller kicking off in Monte Carlo this week, there will another side event trophy to claim before the Main Event begins and is live-streamed around the world.