Over the course of more than 45 events at the European Poker Tour Prague festival, five different players won two titles apiece. Not only were their bags loaded with PokerStars spade trophies, but each of those five players left the event with their wallets considerably heavier, just in time for the holidays.
Yulian Bogdanov started the trend early on at EPT Prague, adding the PokerStars Open Prague main event title to a €10,200 mystery bounty event win.
Near the tail end of the festival, Mahersh Selvakumaran added a €10,300 no-limit hold’em victory to another NLH victory in a €2,100 hyper turbo bounty freezeout. And a pair of mixed game players, Tobias Leknes and Thor Morstoel, showed off their versatility twice over, with two wins each in multiple disciplines.
Poland’s Dominik Panka, a previous EPT main event winner, got in under the wire with a significant win of his own.
The EPT Prague main event has officially wrapped up, and with it, the rest of the festival. But before officially closing the book, here’s a closer look at some of the most notable side event results down the stretch.
Selvakumaran Ends Things On A High Note
Dutch player Mahersh Selvakumaren had a grand total of eight live tournament cashes to his name coming into 2025. He recorded his first live tournament victory at EPT Barcelona back in August, and then found a second PokerStars Spade trophy early on at EPT Prague, in a €2,100 hyper bounty turbo freezeout.
With only two tournament results in live events with buy-ins over €2,100 in his life, a €10,300 event was a major step up for Selvakumaran. He thrived in that new atmosphere, though, winning the big buy-in event outright. The first-place prize of $558,558 was more than twice as large as all of Selvakumaran’s previous live results combined.
The field that Selvakumaran beat was no joke. It included a pair of players with both WPT championships and WSOP bracelet winners, Ole Schemion (5th), and Juha Helppi (6th).
A total of 233 entrants built a prize pool of $2,644,317. For his win, Selvakumaran earned 960 Card Player Player of the Year points, his fourth qualifying result towards the 2025 leaderboard presented by CoinPoker.
€10,300 No-Limit Hold’em Results
| Place | Player | Payout | POY Points |
| 1 | Mahersh Selvakumaran | $558,558 | 960 |
| 2 | Barak Wisbrod | $349,128 | 800 |
| 3 | Nikita Kuznetcov | $249,327 | 640 |
| 4 | Diego Montone | $191,763 | 480 |
| 5 | Ole Schemion | $147,537 | 400 |
| 6 | Juha Helppi | $115,245 | 320 |
| 7 | Marius Gierse | $96,057 | 240 |
| 8 | Anonymous | $80,028 | 160 |
| 9 | Romain Le Dantec | $69,615 | 80 |
Dominik Panka Finds Paydirt
Dominik Panka is best known for his 2014 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure victory, denying Mike McDonald heads up. At EPT Prague, Panka secured his largest live result since 2014, taking down a €3,250 mystery bounty no-limit hold’em event for $368,060.
Panka, who remains one of the winningest Polish tournament players of all time, beat a field of 636 entries on his way to victory. The regular prize pool hit $1,421,269, with $744,120 reserved for mystery bounties.
The win was worth 1,260 POY points, marking Panka’s first qualifying result of 2025.
One of the biggest beneficiaries of the mystery bounty format was Aren Bezhanyan of Armenia. Bezhanyan took home $120,510 worth of bounties, which was more than his third-place payout.
€3,250 Mystery Bounty Results
| Place | Player | Payout | POY Points |
| 1 | Dominik Panka | $368,060 | 1,260 |
| 2 | Nikolai Ogoltsov | $214,951 | 1,050 |
| 3 | Daniele Sacchi | $139,885 | 840 |
| 4 | Aren Bezhanyan | $214,578 | 630 |
| 5 | Kasperi Ilkka | $78,156 | 525 |
| 6 | Damian Rapanowicz | $74,412 | 420 |
| 7 | Ludvig Sterner | $80,262 | 315 |
| 8 | Matteo Cecchetti | $36,387 | 210 |
| 9 | Denys Mazur | $40,482 | 105 |
Leknes And Morstoel Prove They Can Mix It Up
One of the highlights of any major PokerStars-branded series is an opportunity for mixed game tournament players to have options at a variety of buy-in levels. Tobias Leknes, who set a career high live cash with a 13th place finish in the EPT Barcelona main event back in August, had a dream of a run in mixed game side events at EPT Prague.
First, the Norwegian won a €5,200 eight-game mix event, made all the more impressive by the fact that Leknes had won this exact same tournament in 2024. As if that wasn’t enough, Leknes later went on to win a €2,200 ten-game mix event, beating a field of 63 entrants to secure the double.
At the smaller buy-in levels, Thor Morstoel (pictured below) was the fifth double winner of EPT Prague. He took down a pair of €550 buy-in events, scoring victories in the eight-game mix and deuce-to-seven single draw.
€5,200 Eight-Game Mix Results
| Place | Player | Payout |
| 1 | Tobias Leknes | $56,745 |
| 2 | Dario Alioto | $34,047 |
| 3 | Imad Derwiche | $22,698 |
€2,200 Ten-Game Mix Results
| Place | Player | Payout | POY Points |
| 1 | Tobias Leknes | $42,448 | 144 |
| 2 | Claudio Gehrs | $27,600 | 120 |
| 3 | Pierre Morin | $19,598 | 96 |
| 4 | Siarhei Narozhny | $15,070 | 72 |
| 5 | Menikos Panagiotou | $11,606 | 60 |
| 6 | Thor Morstoel | $8,915 | 48 |
| 7 | Alexander Freund | $6,868 | 36 |
| 8 | Michael Schmitz | $5,312 | 24 |
€550 2-7 Single Draw
| Place | Player | Payout |
| 1 | Thor Morstoel | $7,745 |
| 2 | Pierre Morin | $5,054 |
| 3 | Dario Collado | $3,487 |
| 4 | Andreas Froehli | $2,586 |
| 5 | Jonathan Stoeber | $2,024 |
| 6 | Federico Quevedo | $1,568 |
€550 Eight Game Mix
| Place | Player | Payout | POY Points |
| 1 | Thor Morstoel | $13,607 | 96 |
| 2 | Anton Markachev | $8,775 | 80 |
| 3 | Tomer Taggart | $6,271 | 64 |
| 4 | Vegard Dahl | $4,820 | 48 |
| 5 | Sebastian Huber | $3,709 | 40 |
| 6 | Sascha Manns | $2,948 | 32 |
| 7 | Yannick Jobin | $2,363 | 24 |
| 8 | Sorawit Suriyakarn | $1,884 | 16 |
Photo credits: Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd. / Manuel Kovsca, Eloy Cabacas, Jules Pochy, and Danny Maxwell.
