At the beginning of the month, Spain’s Juan Pardo had two cashes for less than $3,000. Now he’s got nearly $1 million in earnings and has been crowned the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo Casino EPT €10,000 NLH Single Re-Entry champ for €201,500 ($246,598).
The tournament, which was played eight-handed, attracted 49 players who rebought 22 times to create a €688,700 ($842,838) prize pool
New Player on the Block
Pardo’s run actually began a couple weeks ago at the Partypoker Millions Grand Final Barcelona when he finished fifth in one €25K Super High Roller for $183,853 and placed second to Davidi Kitai in another for $551,558.
“I got two great results a few days ago in Barcelona, but I still had to win here. Now I got my first one. The taste of victory is impressive,” said the 24-year-old Pardo. “It’s a dream come true. I feel tremendously happy and proud to have achieved this victory.”
While it was his first big splash in the live poker realm, Pardo has had his fair share of success online under the screen name “Malaka$tyle.” His best score to date was winning the 2016 SCOOP $700 NL Hold’em 6-Handed for $92,761.
“I’m mainly an online player but I’ve put in a lot of effort to improve my game in recent years and to take this step to the big live tournaments. My breakthrough couldn’t have been better,” he said.
Riess & Adams Roasted
Juan Pardo overcame a tough final table that included current GPI POY leader Stephen Chidwick, 2016 Super High Roller Bowl champ Rainer Kempe, and 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event champ Ryan Riess.
Pardo was short until he got it all in preflop with pocket threes against both Timothy Adams and Riess. The former, who held kings, bet out the latter on the flop, which had given Pardo a set to triple. Not long after, Pardo’s jacks held against ace-queen suited to send Riess home in fourth place for €94,000 ($115,038).
The title came down to Pardo and Adams, who began the final table as chip leader. The heads-up match ended when Adams shoved his last 12 bigs holding king-nine and running smack dab into Pardo’s ace-king. The board ran out clean and Adams hit the rail in second place for €145,000 ($177,453.
“It was a really up-and-down final table for everybody. It was one of the final tables where the worst hands kept winning the all-ins. But that’s not something I’m not familiar with so I just kind of tried to hang in there and I got heads-up,” Adams said.
The EPT Monte Carlo is comprised of 39 events and will run through May 4. It marks the 12th edition of the EPT held at the Le Sporting Complex in Monaco.
Final Table Results
1 Juan Pardo (Spain) €201,500 ($246,598)
2 Tim Adams (Canada) €145,000 ($177,453)
3 Ryan Riess (USA) €94,000 ($115,038)
4 Paul Newey (UK) €71,000 ($86,891)
5 Rainer Kempe (Germany) €55,000 ($67,310)
6 Orpen Kisacikoglu (Turkey) €42,700 ($52,257)
7 Stephen Chidwick (UK) €33,500 ($40,998)
8 Vladimir Troyanovskiy (Russia) €26,000 ($31,819)
9 Jan-Eric Schwippert (Germany) €20,000 ($24,476)
