PokerStars Team Pro Elias Gutierrez has taken down the EPT Cyprus $25,000 Super High Roller Warm Up for $417,570, netting his second live tournament title.
Due to the Spaniard being an online MTT specialist with a live record stretching back 15 years, this big win almost doubles his live earnings record.
And what a win this is after lining up against some truly great players in a field of 57.
Gutierrez is also a keen poker content creator with more than 200k subscribers on YouTube and 120k more on his Twitch channel.
To keep his fans happy, he brought a team with him to Cyprus to record his entire run in each event.
After sealing victory, Gutierrez spoke to the awaiting media:
“It means a lot because I always feel the pressure of winning, especially creating content. So when the heads-up was not going my way I was feeling very intense.
“The break was great for me. I could relax a bit and rethink what I was doing. And in the end, I end up winning, which is amazing so I’m very happy.
“I would not say that this is validation. At the end of the day I’ve been playing poker for 14 years, 15 maybe, so it’s been a while. It’s true that I’ve been playing online most of the time, but particularly now in the future I see myself playing live poker mainly.”
Action Recap
The prize pool of $1,368,570 in a small field promised us plenty of entertaining action.
There was a long list of big names fighting to make the final table, including Patrick Leonard and Ognyan Dimov who won the €20,000 event yesterday.
Both of these guys sadly missed out, along with Kayhan Mokri, Juan Pardo, and Roman Hrabec.
Elite talent Adrian Mateos was now the man everyone had their eyes on. There isn’t anything in the live tournament game that he has not achieved.
His job was made easier when he hit a miracle river card to make a flush and crack the pocket queens of Mikalai Vaskaboinikau.
As the final nine sat down at the feature table, there were still only eight who would be leaving with a prize.
Gutierrez had the honour of sending Aliaksei Boika home with empty pockets to leave everyone else guaranteed a min cash of $54,700.
Play now became noticeably more aggressive with Zhendong Li and Aleksejs Ponakovs leaving not long after the bubble broke. The latter achieved his third final table in a row at EPT Cyprus.
Alexander Zubov then halted the progress of Enrico Camosci when his pocket nines beat the Italian’s ace-jack.
Gutierrez took two more pots off of him before snapping off a river jam with a set of jacks to leave five left. He finished the job calling off Camosci’s shove with pocket nines which triumphed over ace-queen.
The Spaniard now had a massive lead which was starting to look unassailable.
Zubov was the next man at risk but the board ran out favourably for him to tie with Gutierrez before doubling up with a top pair of aces.
Artsiom Lasouski didn’t have any such luck, exiting the event when Dimitar Danchev’s two pair was enough in a standard all-in confrontation. Minutes later it was Mateos on the brink when Zubov almost stacked him to leave him with only three big blinds.
In the end it was Danchev who was eliminated next after Mateos found a quick double-up and then got a call when he had pocket tens.
But it wasn’t going to last much longer, the two chip leaders were so far in front and soon enough we saw Gutierrez sending home his fellow Spaniard.
With a ten-to-one chip advantage, the heads-up battle didn’t promise much but we were surprised.
A fast double-up was followed by Zubov picking up pot after pot until he had a two-to-one advantage of his own.
A timely break saw Gutierrez return with a new sense of purpose and an early double-up preceded his retaking of the lead.
Minutes later Zubov jammed with jack-ten suited and Gutierrez obliged by calling him off with ace-five. Zubov had straight and flush draws but none arrived and Gutierrez was the champion.
EPT Cyprus $25,000 Super High Roller Warm Up Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
| 1 | Elias Gutierrez | Spain | $417,570 |
| 2 | Alexander Zubov | Russia | $273,700 |
| 3 | Adrian Mateos | Spain | $198,400 |
| 4 | Dimitar Danchev | Bulgaria | $150,500 |
| 5 | Artsiom Lasouski | Belarus | $116,300 |
| 6 | Enrico Camosci | Italy | $89,000 |
| 7 | Aleksejs Ponakovs | Latvia | $68,400 |
| 8 | Zhendong Li | China | $54,700 |
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