Israel’s Boris Mondrus ships EPT National in Prague

Pokerstars LIVE hosted the 2018 European Poker Tour (EPT) Prague and just completed its two featured events, the EPT National and the EPT Super High Roller. The EPT National Event had a buy-in of €1,100. As reported by Gutshot earlier, the event drew 2,486 entries but at the end of day 2, only 30 players remained and further reduced to an even smaller field of 6 on Day 3.

The chip leader to enter yesterday’s Day 4 of the EPT National was Serbian poker player Danilo Velasevic, who had 20,675,000 chips bagged up. Second in chip lead after Velasevic was Italy’s Walter Treccarichi with 16,725,000. However, their chip lead didn’t matter to Israel’s Boris Mondrus, who was 4^th in chip lead entering the final day.

Boris Mondrus was the crowned champion emerging from the EPT National. He took home €382,750 (~INR 3.11 Crores) in 1^st place cash prize, and a PokerStars Players Championship €30,000 Platinum Pass to go with it. Mondrus hails from Israel’s Beer Sheva city, the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel.

Mondrus played some spectacular poker, eliminating all the players on the Final Table but one. He skilfully managed to build a skyscraper made of chips in front of him and was ultimately victorious in the tournament. The runners-up was the Czech player Ondrej Lon, who entered the tournament at 5^th in terms of chip count.

While talking to the reporters on site, Mondrus’ friend who filled in the language gap for him, reacted, saying, “I’ve played Texas Hold’em for a long time, but more PLO. This is a big win. I play cash games; I don’t play tournaments. I’ve played eight to ten tournaments in my life.”

The win is Mondrus’ biggest recorded live win since the 2016 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, where he ranked in the money for $22,648. In jest, Mondrus later said to the press, “I didn’t’ know about the Platinum Pass, until the floor told us today! It didn’t change how I played. It’s a nice surprise. It changed nothing, but for my wife now it’s a problem! It’s a lot of money and now it’s a problem that I’m going to the Bahamas now!”

In heads-up between Mondrus and Lon, the eventual champion had over 5:1 chip lead. The final hand of the event saw Lon opening to 1,300,000 and Boris three-betting to 4,000,000. Lon then proceeded to four-bet shove and Mondrus called instantly. The board came to Ad Ks 3s 3c Qh, sealing the deal for Mondrus, who hit two pair with Ac Qd. Lon’s pocket Eights didn’t matter, and he took home his career best cash of €204,200.

Final 8 pay-outs –

Boris Mondrus – € 382,750
Ondrej Lon – € 204,200
Ali Al Saidy – € 138,400
Danilo Velasevic – € 106,600
Walter Treccarichi – € 89,000
Ut Tam Vo – € 71,800
Mohamad El-Rais – € 54,800
Vasileios Tsaknis – € 39,700

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