Looking Back at the European Poker Tour Part Three: The Final Chapter

After 13 seasons, the European Poker Tour will complete its chapter in poker history with its last festival, EPT 13 Prague. The poker tour will be replaced by the recently established PokerStars Championship and PokerStars Festival events.

EPT Prague is already underway, starting off Dec. 8 and running through Dec. 19. The poker festival’s final schedule features many exciting events, highlighted by the €5,300 Main Event Dec. 13 through Dec. 19. EPT Prague runs side by side with the Eureka Poker Tour Prague, which is also the last in its history. Here’s a look at the remaining major events on the schedule:

With EPT Prague coming to an end, there is no time better to look back on its 13 seasons. Part One of the retrospective focused on the early years in Seasons 1 through 5, Part Two focused on the Berlin robbery, the effects of Black Friday and the “mega-schedule” and this final part of the series will focus on the later years in Seasons 9 through 13 when the number of venues was reduced with each offering more events, along with some general stats about the venues and EPT winners.

Here is a look at Seasons 9-13 and some general statistics about the festival:

Season 9 (2012-2013): Less Stops, More Events

Season 9 was the start of a new era. The EPT reduced the number of stops to eight, but the number of events per stop ballooned, offering tournaments with a wider variety of games and poker variants. While many of the most popular stops remained, those eliminated from the prior season included Tallinn, Loutraki, Copenhagen, Madrid and Campione.

Dimitar Danchev

Dimitar Danchev became the first and only EPT Main Event winner from Bulgaria. He traveled outside of Europe for the win, shipping the 2013 PCA Main Event for $1,859,000.

Steve O’Dwyer made it two straight years as the American won the EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final for €1,224,000 ($1,604,972).

Also winning EPT events in Season 9 were Ludovic Lacay (Sanremo – €744,910/$961,807) and Ruben Visser (London – £595,000/$895,370).

EPT Season 9 Main Event Winners

Season 10 (2013-2014): Victoria Coren Strikes Again

Season 10 featured most of the same stops as the previous season with the only exception being that Vienna was placed back on the tour, replacing Berlin.

Victoria Coren

The biggest news of the season was perhaps Victoria Coren becoming the only person in EPT history to win multiple EPT Main Events after she shipped the EPT 10 Sanremo Main Event for €476,100 ($660,947).

This also marked the first time in EPT Main Event history when no players from the United States shipped an event. This was repeated again in Season 12 and remains the case thus far in Season 13.

Among the players to win EPT Main Events in Season 10 included Tom Middleton (Barcelona – €942,000/$1,260,100), Dominik Panka (PCA – $1,423,096) and Antonio Buonanno (Monte Carlo – €1,240,000/$1,715,526).

EPT Season 10 Main Event Winners

Season 11 (2014-2015): Mateos Brings a Title to Spain, Urbanovich Wins Player of the Year

Season 11 stops dropped from eight to seven. For the first time, the poker festival hit the island of Malta. The …

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