Friday, 29th March 2024 12:13
Home / Uncategorized / EPT9 Prague: Rumen Nanev wins the Eureka PLO Championship

PLO specialist Rumen Nanev has won the €600 Eureka PLO Championship beating Ben Martin heads-up for the title and €15,000. This isn’t the first PokerStars trophy that Nanev has picked up and you only have to go back to EPT Sanremo to see his last win: €7,600 in a €330 mixed Hold’em/PLO event.

Although Nanev gets the winner’s photo it was actually Martin who ate the largest slice of the prize money thanks to having the chip lead after Danilo Prica busted in third-place. Martin banked €16,300 for a solid showing in the four-card event.

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Rumen Nanev books another win

Event H, 9 December
Buy-in: €600
Game: NLHE
Players: 116
Prize pool: €638,00

1. Rumen Nanev, Bulgaria, €15,000*
2. Ben Martin, UK, €16,300*
3. Danilo Prica, Czech Republic, €6,800
4. Damien Lhommeau, France, €4,900
5. Tomas Geleziunas, Lithuania, €4,000
6. Janne Nevalainen, Finland, €3,080
7. Viatcheslav Ortynskiy, Russia, €2,450
8. Teemu Pulli , Finland, €1,860
9. Ioannis Vogiatzoglou, Greece, €1,240
10. Mihails Morozovs, Latvia, €1,240
11. Fredrik Andersson, Sweden, €1,240
12. Erik Hellman, Sweden, €1,240
13. Vladimir Shekhtman, Russia, €1,240
14. Mikkel Plum, Denmark, €1,240

* Denotes a heads-up deal.

“I actually won (the last tournameny) in the PLO so it feels like this is the second one on the bounce,” said Nanev, beaming after his victory photo.

“PLO is my game of preference at the moment but I play both Hold’em and PLO. I prefer playing cash but I’ve found that I have a lot of edge in the PLO tournaments so I try to play most of them. People make a lot of key mistakes. People’s strategy is, a lot of the time, wrong. I feel that my understanding of the game helps me during the different stages of the tournament. I’ve been short, been middle stacked and big stacked. I have a different strategy for every stage of the tournament,” said Nanev.

Yes, he does seem an analytical sort, but also pretty friendly: Nanev carried a broad smile all the way to the cash desk.

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Runner-up Ben Martin (pictured at UKIPT Brighton)

The 42-year-old from Varna, Bulgaria, who plays at PokerStars under the name ali_baba_ang, considers himself a semi-professional having worked in the casino business as a casino manager for “about 20 years”.

“I’m done with that now and I’m dedicating most of my time to playing poker,” said Nanev.

It seems to be a fairly astute decision from the Bulgarian.

Click through to see all side event results or the live reporting, news and interviews of the main event here. Follow the @PokerStarsBlog Twitter account to keep up to date wherever you are.

is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.

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