The European Poker Tour Monte Carlo and PokerStars Open — two sister series taking place at Sporting Monte-Carlo — are underway, and two record-breaking events are already in the books — let’s take a look at who dominated.
Chris Nguyen is super
As the opening events of the PokerStars Open ended, EPT Monte Carlo officially started with the €100,000 Super High Roller event on May 3. The nosebleed event attracted 53 players who rebought 21 times to swell the prize pool to €7,179,480 ($8,125,904).
And the man who snatched €2 million of that was Chris Nguyen, a from Frankfurt, Germany, who, until about six months ago, was solely on online cash pro. Sure, he had a splattering of cashes playing tournament poker, but nothing like the run he’s on now.
He scored his first seven-figure cash in December in the World Series of Poker’s $26,000 event at Paradise Resort where he finished fifth for $2.1 million.
Enrico Camosci finished second for €1,304,500, with American pro Seth Davies in third for €931,900. Nguyen rejected a deal with three players left.
“I kind of felt that even though it was three-handed, there was so much heads up afterwards, I just wanted to play,” he said.
Orpen Kisacikoglu (€716,900), Leon Sturm (€551,380), and Mikita Badziakouski (€438,300) finished fourth through sixth.
Jon Kyte wins opener
If there was a singular delay to Jon Kyte’s journey to Monte Carlo, he wouldn’t even have played in the €1,100 PokerStars Open Main Event. He got into the tournament as late as player could have as the last seconds of late registration was about to end on Day1E.
But unfortunately for all the other players, the pro from Norway not only got in, but continued his dominance in PokerStars live events in Europe. But this time, he bagged the big one, good for €340,000.
“I have four little PokerStars spadies, but finally the big one!” Kyte told PokerStars Blog after his win. “This is what we play for. Every time I come to a PokerStars event I’m looking at the big trophies, and it feels amazing to finally get one.”
And he did it in an event with a record-breaking field in Monte Carlo — 2,387 total entries (including 1,189 re-entries) who created a prize pool of €2,291,520.
The man is on a tear: 14 of his most recent 20 live cashes have been final-table finishes.
And it’s been going on since he finished second at EPT Prague in 2023 for a career-best €643,000. He also has a fourth-place finish in a High Roller event at EPT Barcelona for €280,750, and he just missed out on his first World Series of Poker bracelet last summer, coming as close as possible in a Omaha8 event for $148,462.
Frances Gilles Cadignan was the runner-up, good for €214,070. Ireland’s Conor Bergin finished third (€153,330), Romania’s Scutaru Liviu Razvan fifth (€117,720), and Spain’s Javier Tazón rounded out the top sixth (€89,320)
The EPT Monte Carlo Main Event is running now until May 10.
