The busiest period of the year in tournament poker has players spread across three destinations. While you might think that kind of overlap could hurt turnout, the European Poker Tour, World Poker Tour World Championship, and World Series of Poker Paradise have each put on events that drew tremendous numbers.
At EPT Prague alone, four tournaments drew in excess of 1,000 players, with two of those eclipsing the 2,000-entry mark. Yulian Bogdanov won the PokerStars Open main event in Prague, one of his two trophies on the series thus far, against a field of 3,024, and boasted a prize pool of over $5 million. Bogdanov also took down the €10,200 mystery bounty event, besting a field of 32 entries. In the PokerStars Open high roller in Prague, Sho Homma took down a similarly impressive first-place prize.
The PokerStars Cup, with a buy-in of less than $1,000, brought in 2,140 entries and made for an incredible spin-up for the top four finishers in particular.
While most of the high roller action made its way to the Bahamas, Anonymous took advantage by winning a pair of bigger buy-in events at EPT Prague. Likewise, Youness Barakat set a new career high score in a €25,000 PLO high roller.
There’s more action to come at EPT Prague, but these are some of the side-event highlights of the festival so far.
Japanese Player Breaks Through With $531,630 Win
The popularity of poker in Japan is on the rise, and with that, the degree of success enjoyed by Japanese players is also increasing. Prior to his victory in the €2,700 buy-in PokerStars Open high roller in Prague, Japan’s Sho Homma’s best career result came in Cambodia. Back in February, Homma made a run at a World Poker Tour title, finishing 10th in the WPT Cambodia championship, for $38,500.
Homma blew that result out of the water in Prague. Homma beat out a field of 1,115 entrants to win the PokerStars Open high roller in Prague, for a career-changing $531,630 first-place payout. Along with the trophy, Homma claimed 1,440 Card Player Player of the Year points, his second POY qualifying result of 2025.
There were no deals on the table, with Homma winning outright. He defeated Pasi Sormunen of Finland to complete his run to victory. Sormunen missed out on his career-best live result by just over $1,000, falling just short of the $333,479 he earned for finishing fifth in the 2013 EPT Barcelona main event.
2022 WSOP bracelet winner Mario Navarro finished eighth in this tournament.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Payout | POY Points |
| 1 | Sho Homma | $531,630 | 1,440 |
| 2 | Pasi Sormunen | $332,432 | 1,200 |
| 3 | Vahe Martirosyan | $237,452 | 960 |
| 4 | Murilo Pedroso | $182,660 | 720 |
| 5 | Alan Ferraro | $140,505 | 600 |
| 6 | Petar Kalev | $108,073 | 480 |
| 7 | Tomas Bulksas | $83,152 | 360 |
| 8 | Mario Navarro | $63,952 | 240 |
| 9 | Luca Guglielmoni | $49,210 | 120 |
Barakat Wins PLO High Roller
While the high roller turnout at EPT Prague took a dip due to big buy-in events elsewhere in the world, a handful of standout events drew the players who decided to stay and play in Europe.
Youness Barakat, another in an increasingly common line of pot-limit Omaha tournament specialists, took down a €25,000 six-max pot-limit Omaha high roller. The win, worth $346,379, earned Barakat his second career PokerStars spade trophy. Back in April, Barakat won a €5,200 PLO event at the Chesterfield Poker Club in Estonia.
Barakat also had multiple close calls at the 2025 WSOP, finishing eighth in a $25,000 buy-in NLH/PLO bracelet event and 11th in the $50,000 PLO high roller.
€25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Six Max Results
| Place | Player | Payout | POY Points |
| 1 | Youness Barakat | $346,379 | 252 |
| 2 | Nino Pansier | $217,620 | 210 |
| 3 | Martin Dam | $145,080 | 168 |
| 4 | Tomasz Krzesinski | $96,759 | 126 |
Lehto Claims Massive Spin-up In PokerStars Cup
The €825 buy-in PokerStars Cup event at EPT Prague offered an opportunity for an incredible spin-up.
Four players walked away from this tournament with more than 131 times their buy-in when all was said and done. Kai Lehto of Finland was the overall winner, taking home a $189,540 payday. It was a tremendous result for England’s Paul Grummitt (2nd – $169,650), Switzerland’s Salvatore Falco (3rd – $159,120), and France’s Jean-Baptiste Pano (4th – $131,625). The original first-place prize for this event was $269,100.
While Lehto (pictured above) had been in several previous spots of this magnitude, this was the first six-figure live result for the second, third, and fourth-place finishers.
For his win, Lehto earned 540 POY points. In total, the PokerStars Cup event at EPT Prague generated a prize pool of $1,793,491.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Payout | POY Points |
| 1 | Kai Lehto | $189,540 | 540 |
| 2 | Paul Grummitt | $169,650 | 450 |
| 3 | Salvatore Falco | $159,120 | 360 |
| 4 | Jean Pano | $131,625 | 270 |
| 5 | Onni Huttunen | $70,925 | 225 |
| 6 | Georgios Skarparis | $54,545 | 180 |
| 7 | Georgios Tsouloftas | $41,968 | 135 |
| 8 | Gerald Karlic | $32,292 | 90 |
| 9 | Daniel Wilson | $24,804 | 45 |
Photo credit: PokerStars/Manuel Kovsca/Danny Maxwell
