It was a long final day and night for the last players of the €10,000 EPT High Roller at the 2023 PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) at Casino Barcelona.

At 2 a.m., the tournament came to an end with Ka Kwan Lau being the last player standing. He was the one who raised the trophy and won the first-place prize of €910,400.

Lau was the chip leader throughout the final table and managed to eliminate the final six players. So with almost all the chips, he dominated Ouassini Mansouri in a short heads-up battle and beat a total field of 475 entrants.

Vladas Tamasauskas completed the podium ahead of two French players, Eric Sfez who finished fourth and Alexandre Reard in sixth, with Tunisia’s Maher Nouira taking fifth place.

€10,000 EPT High Roller Final Table Results

“It was insanely long”

“This last day was insanely long,” Lau said a few minutes after he won. “We returned with 40 players left on Day 3, which is a lot. So we knew it would be long if we were on the final table. But I didn’t expect it to be that long.”

But even though he was proud of this title, Lau remained humble: “I know it would be hard to reach the first place, as No-Limit Hold’em is not my main game. So I was not very confident when I played. But from the start of Day 1, everything was going very well. I had good situations, and I ran very well during the whole tournament.”

This first-place finish closed a very good festival for Lau, as he finished 31st in the €5,300 EPT Main Event for €36,100. Eliminated on Day 5, he was one of the chip leaders on Day 3. “But on Day 4, I played one hand badly. Then I ran with ace-king into aces, and I lost two flips. So this win compensates for the disappointment of the Main Event.”

Day 3 Action

Forty players out of 475 entrants successfully qualified for Day 3 of the €10,300 EPT High Roller with only one goal: take the first-place prize of €910,400. But this dream quickly turned into a nightmare for Song Xue, Edilson Marques, and PokerStars ambassador Rafael Moraes, who were the first players eliminated of the day.

After Lau showed a crazy bluff with seven-four in a four-bet pot, the second level saw the eliminations of the three Romanian players who made Day 3. Adrian Chiforescu and Adrian Cretu went to the cashier almost at the same time and they were followed by Razvan Belea, who couldn’t win his last flip to take another prestigious EPT tournament this year, after he won EPT Paris in February.

The two other EPT champions in the field didn’t get much further, as Patrik Antonius ran into a set to finish 28th (€25,550), and Dominik Panka (23rd, €33,800) was eliminated shortly after the three table redraw.

A host of bust outs then set up the final table and it was one of the shortest stacks, Nicholas Palma, who missed out on making the final nine. He lost a flip to finish tenth for €71,050.

The first final table elimination would take place after two more hours of play. Francesco Pilato’s tournament finally ended in ninth place (€85,250). Minutes later, Toby Joyce was out of the tournament too (8th – €109,450).

Lau then went on a heater at the right time and sent Aleksandr Shevliakov, Reard, Nouira, Sfez, Tamasauskas to the wrong side of the rail in a quick fashion. Lau then sealed the win on the second hand of heads-up.