Demus tops huge PokerStars Open Paris for €551,090
Reporting by PokerStars Media Coordinator Jan Kores
Hungary’s Patrik Demus is the newest winner on the PokerStars Open tour, topping a 2,992-entry €1,650 Main Event in Paris to bank a whopping €551,090 in prize money.
That’s the second-largest top prize in the tour’s brief history (only beaten by the €772,000 won by Alexis Nicolai in Barcelona), and at times it looked very unlikely it would head Demus’ way. He was down to only eight big blinds with four players remaining, but forged a comeback to take him to the title and trophy.
“I didn’t expect it, I’m very happy,” Demus said when posing for the winner’s photos. His first live cash came 13 years ago, but we’ve only seen him sporadically since then, preferring to play most of his volume online.
But two years live poker tournaments became too enticing for him. Demus resides in Bali, so it’s no surprise that his Hendon Mob is peppered with cashes from Asian destinations, mainly Taiwan, South Korea, and Cambodia. He won two six-figure prizes last year, but neither as big as his payday here at the Palais des congrès de Paris.
Demus’ switch to live events has proved incredibly fruitful
The victory comes along with a lot of points towards the Medium tier in the PokerStars Live League, and Demus has already confirmed that this win has incentivised him to attend more EPT stops this year.
Before he and his girlfriend, who was on the rail today, head back to the Indonesian beaches, Demus hopes to keep riding the wave of success here at EPT Paris. He said he will be joining the €5,300 Main Event field on Tuesday.
HOW THE FINAL DAY UNFOLDED
Six players returned on Monday to compete for the title, with Adam Martinsson leading the contest. Martinsson quickly dismissed Sebastien Seguin and Benoit Grobocopatel, but eventually fell in fourth place.
Lulei Hu, who has thrived on the low- and mid-stakes scene in the last eight months, added another major score after navigating his stack to third place.
Demus had taken most of Hu’s chips, thanks to two big doubles with ace-ten over king-queen and ace-queen versus pocket sevens.
Great run for Nicolas
That helped Demus nearly tie the chip leader Enzo Nicolas before they met heads up. Nicolas lost a huge chunk of his stack when he bluffed all in on a queen-high board, having missed a flush draw. Demus picked him off with pocket tens to take over the lead.
Nicolas failed to recover, and Demus delivered the final blow when he hit a seven on the river, taking the remaining few bigs from his opponent in a clash with ten-seven against jack-two.
POKERSTARS OPEN PARIS 2026 MAIN EVENT FINAL TABLE RESULTS
- 1st – Patrik Demus, Hungary, €551,090
- 2nd – Enzo Nicolas, France, €346,230
- 3rd – Lulei Hu, Italy, €247,310
- 4th – Adam Martinsson, Sweden, €190,220
- 5th – Benoit Grobocopatel, France, €146,320
- 6th – Sebastien Seguin, France, €112,540
- 7th – Ilan Cukrowicz, France, €86,560
- 8th – Antoine Labat, France, €66,570
PokerStars Open Paris Main Event history:
- 2023: 2,071 entries (from 1,422 players), €1,988,160 prize pool, Alan Goasdoue (France) for €287,830
- 2024: 4,149 entries (from 1,930 players), €3,983,040 prize pool, Mateusz Moolhuizen (Netherlands) for €470,830
- 2026: 2,992 entries (from 1,393 players), €4,308,480 prize pool, Patrik Demus (Hungary) for €551,090
READ MORE
Back to Top
Latest Articles
View Other Blogs
