Espen Jorstad has won the inaugural €25,000 Super High Roller Warm Up at the Hilton Prague for €277,500.
The Norwegian topped a field of 34 entries to take home the lion’s share of the €807,500 prize pool.
This victory is also notable for being Jorstad’s first EPT title, a compliment to his win in the 2022 World Series of Poker Main Event.
Action Recap
The first notable action of the event was Andras Nemeth coming unstuck with pocket tens twice in quick succession.
The Hungarian high-stakes reg first ran into Espen Jorstad’s pocket aces and later Enrico Camosci’s ace-king was favoured in the run out to leave Nemeth with nothing to show for his two €25,000 bullets.
Thomas Santerne was hoping to bag a second win of the week but he could do no better than 22nd.
Niklas Astedt is on a massive career heater in the live world recently and narrowly missed out on another final table appearance in a major event.
Markkos Ladev broke the money bubble after busting out in eight place and then an amusing arrangement transpired with Morten Klein.
It turns out that he is in a league competition in Norway and needed only €5,000 to beat Kayhan Mokri. On hearing this news, the rest of the table kindly agreed to create an extra paid placing with €1,000 taken from the top five spots.
Fortunately for Klein, this was his saving grace as he left the table in seventh place.
The two Russians at the final table both left soon after. Viacheslav Buldygin took home €56,500 as Espen Jorstad was really starting to pull away from the rest of the field.
Nikita Kuznetsov then followed his compatriot to the rail with a nice €71,700 prize for compensation.
Home player Roman Hrabec ran out of steam to leave Estonian Ilya Nikiforov and Italian Enrico Camosci as the last men standing in Jorstad’s way for a new career milestone achievement.
Jorstad now had what looked like an unassailable lead which turned out to be the reality as he dealt with both of his rivals in a single hand to seize the victory.
The final hand played out with Ilya Nikiforovmoving all-in for 660,000 on the button with J♣ 10♦ and Camosci jammed behind with 9♥ 9♣ for his final 1.6 million.
Jorstad was now looking down at A♥ 10♥ wondering if he could overcall to put himself in with a chance to get the job finished.
After a short think, the Norwegian opted to go with his hand and the board was dealt out.
The Q♣ 8♥ 5♣ flop left Camosci still ahead but the J♠ turn gave the advantage to Nikiforov.
But poker can be very fickle and the A♣ river shifted the lead over to Jorstad who was now an EPT champion for the first time in his career.
EPT Prague €25,000 Super High Roller Warm Up Final Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (EUR) |
| 1 | Espen Jorstad | Norway | €277,500 |
| 2 | Enrico Camosci | Italy | €180,700 |
| 3 | Ilya Nikiforov | Estonia | €124,200 |
| 4 | Roman Hrabec | Czechia | €91,900 |
| 5 | Nikita Kuznetsov | Russia | €71,700 |
| 6 | Viacheslav Buldygin | Russia | €56,500 |
| 7 | Morten Klein | Norway | €5,000 |
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