Jorge Abreu Wins EPT Paris Main Event In Dominant Performance

Jorge Abreu entered the final day of the 2026 PokerStars European Poker Tour Paris main event with half of the chips in play. From there, he never relinquished the chip lead on the way to a career-defining victory that came with a staggering $1,355,348 payday.

On the path from seven players down to a winner, the Portuguese online poker grinder with nearly two decades of experience wielded his stack to its fullest potential. The 35-year-old’s aggression allowed him considerable leeway, and when he needed it most, a couple of memorable, and fortunate, runouts.

“You have to have the poker gods on your side a little bit,” Abreu said, following his victory.

This was Abreu’s largest recorded score yet, smashing his previous top payout of $161,042 that came from a third-place showing in a World Series of Poker Online $1,000 six-max event. He now has more than $1.7 million in lifetime cashes to his name.

This memorable run to the championship on the final day was the culmination of a week-long EPT Paris main event. A field of 1,474 entrants in the €5,300 buy-in no-limit hold’em affair generated a total prize pool of $8,348,736.

In addition to the hardware and the money, Abreu also earned 1,920 Card Player Player of the Year points. This event alone was enough to move him into third place on the POY leaderboard presented by CoinPoker.

Anatomy Of A Victory

The prelude to Abreu’s steamrolling of the EPT Paris main event final table was a long one. It took six days of poker to reduce the field of nearly 1,5000 entries down to seven, with 215 of those players leaving Le Palais des Congres with some return on their investment.

Online poker standout Niklas Astedt (200th), two-time World Series of Poker main event final tablist Antoine Saout (176th), three-time WSOP bracelet winner Timur Margolin (91st), Neil Channing (86th), early EPT Paris side event winners Mathew Frankland (83rd) and Kayhan Mokri (65th), bracelet winner Alex Keating (44th), and two-time bracelet winner Boris Kolev (28th) were among those in-the-money finishers.

The official final table of eight was set late on day 5. American Sami Bechahed, a three-time WSOP Circuit winner and 2023 NAPT Las Vegas champion, then ran his pocket nines into Abreu’s pocket kings to finish eighth for $162,781.

The action was fast and furious to start the final day. Felix Schneiders, who started as the shortest stack, found an early double through Thierry Gogniat, as his A♦K♥ found two pair to beat pocket tens. Schneiders, a 44-year-old from Germany, is a prolific poker streamer who leads the ‘GRND on Tour’ team, covering both live and online poker with over 100,000 subscribers between YouTube and Twitch.

Abreu then lost a big chunk of his stack in a moment of tough luck. His pocket aces fell to Enrico Coppola’s pocket queens, with Coppola flopping top set and slow playing it until the turn of an otherwise innocuous board.

The dip would be short-lived for Abreu, though.

The Fireworks Begin

Even after that pot, Abreu still held a considerable chip lead. He used that stack to put maximum ICM pressure on those in the middle of the pack, and it led to one of the wilder EPT live-streamed hands in recent memory. Nazar Buhaiov opened under the gun with J♦10♦, and Casimir Seire three-bet with pocket queens. Abreu applied the squeeze, cold four-betting with A♠8♠. That’s when the real fun began.

😱 HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THE LIKE?!

An INSANE start to the @PokerStars #EPTParis Main Event Final Table – as several HUGE hands collide preflop! Can Jorge Abreu score a double knockout?! pic.twitter.com/uXJQrXr8Mz

— PokerNews (@PokerNews) March 1, 2026

Gogniat called off his short stack with A♦J♥, and then Tomas Jozonis woke up with pocket kings. Jozonis shoved for less than twice Abreu’s bet, and the sequence allowed Seire to fold his queens. With the size of the pot, Abreu reluctantly called.

The J♠9♠8♦ flop opened up a world of new possibilities. Abreu now had multiple paths to a clean scoop, with a spade or one of the two remaining eights. He promptly spiked the 3♠ turn, making the nut flush to score a double knockout. Jozonis’ second career EPT main event final table ended in a sixth-place finish ($275,176), by virtue of his holding more chips to start the hand than Gogniat (7th – $211,633).

Abreu had five times as many chips as any other player at the final table after dragging that massive pot. Coppola finally closed that gap by absorbing the stack of Buhaiov. In a battle of the blinds, the two competitors went to a 8♥6♣4♥ flop. Coppola led out, Buhaiov shoved for 16 big blinds, and Coppola snap-called with top set of eights. Buhaiov found himself in a cooler, holding 8♠7♦, but he still had outs to a straight.

The turn and river bricked off, though, and Buhaiov fell in fifth place; the Ukrainian earned $357,717 for the second-best live cash of his career, behind a runner-up finish in the 2023 WSOP Paradise Millionaire Maker that was good for $593,500.

By the time the first break of the day arrived, just four players remained.

The Final Countdown

For the better part of two hours, Coppola maintained control of the second-place spot in the chip counts. Seire and Schneiders scrapped to stay in the hunt, but Seire ultimately fell out first. He picked up pocket tens four-bet all in for 16 big blinds. Abreu called with A♠Q♠, and the runout once again smiled upon him with a A♣7♣4♥J♣A♦ board. Seire, a 24-year-old from Finland, more than doubled his previous best live result with this $465,097 score.

Schneiders clung on to his remaining chips masterfully, navigating his start-of-day short stack all the way to three-handed play. He then picked up a crucial double-up with pocket queens against Coppola’s A♣9♠, turning a full house.

Abreu’s aggression seemed as though it might trip him up during this short-handed stretch. Against a newly shorter-stacked Coppola in a battle of the blinds, Abreu shoved with Q♥10♦ from the small blind and ran headfirst into Coppola’s pocket jacks. Abreu’s position improved on a 10♠6♥5♠ flop, idled on a 2♥ turn, and tapped into more magic as the 10♥ river made him trips.

Coppola (3rd – $604,632), a 46-year-old from Turin, Italy, significantly out-earned his previous best result, a fourth-place finish in the EPT Monte Carlo main event in 2025.

Schneiders was guaranteed $211,633 when he started the final day at the bottom of the chip counts, but had multiplied that sum by at least four times by reaching heads-up play. He had an uphill battle to further increase his winnings, though, as he faced a roughly 10:1 chip disadvantage at the start of his match with Abreu.

One More River To Victory

Schneiders had 14 big blinds against Abreu’s 130 big blinds, putting immense pressure on Schneiders’ stack. In the final hand, Abreu limped from the button, Schneiders raised to three big blinds, and Abreu called. On a J♣6♣3♠ flop, Schneiders bet, Abreu raised, and Schneiders just called. On the 7♠ turn, Schneiders checked, Abreu bet, and Schneiders shoved his remaining seven big blinds.

🏆 THE WINNING HAND!

Jorge Abreu is your 2026 PokerStars #EPTParis Main Event champion – putting on a dominant display and defeating Felix @xflixx Schneiders heads-up to claim the title and €1,148,600.

GG’s Jorge! 👏 pic.twitter.com/Mla8GTI9Or

— PokerNews (@PokerNews) March 1, 2026

Abreu called with J♠8♣, and he was well behind Schneiders’ pocket queens. But the 8♦ on the river ended Schneiders’ hopes of a comeback, sealing the title for Abreu. Despite the tough ending, Schneiders was absorbed by a large and boisterous rail that had supported his improbable and entertaining run to second place ($846,473).

Only Positive Vibes

“It’s insane. I’m just exhausted. Super happy, super relieved. I got a monkey off my back,” Schneiders told PokerNews. “We started this journey, like, three years ago, with the stream going on live events, and dreaming of one day playing the EPT. Then I qualified for the EPT. Then I started to get my first cash, then my deeper runs, then Malta was my best run. And I wouldn’t have believed it if you told me that Paris would be the one that I would finish second. I just still can’t believe what happened.”

While luck was certainly part of the equation on several key hands at the final table, the work Abreu put into preparing for this tournament, and accumulating the chips to put him in a dominant position, ultimately paid off.

“At the end of 2025, I decided that I was reviewing my goals and my values and what I wanted to do, and I realized that I was not doing enough for my standards,” Abreu told PokerNews. “I wanted to play more, to study more. I wanted to be more focused. And, I mean, I got really lucky, but I’m pretty sure that my focus, my intention, in the past two months paid off.”

Final Table Results

Photo credit: Rational Intellectual Holding Ltd./Danny Maxwell