Canada’s Mike “SirWatts” Watson closed out the 2024 EPT Barcelona festival with a €595,000 win of the €10k High Roller, although Enrico Camosci took the lion’s share of the prizefund after a heads-up deal.
A huge field of 431 entries produced a €4,180,700 prizepool, offering a last chance to bag a potential series-changing score, with the top eight guaranteed six-figure paydays.
Sixty-three players made the paid spots, but didn’t include big names such as Maria Ho, Sam Grafton or Nacho Barbero. It did, however, include San Greenwood, PokerStars Team Online pro Benjamin “Spraggy” Spragg, Scotland’s former EPT champ Niall Farrell, and Hall of Famer, Erik Seidel.
Brutal bubble bustout
There was no such luck for Leonard Maue, however, whose hopes of doubling up were kiboshed by a brutal flop…
Leonard Maue: A♣ A♠
Jon Kyte: 10♦ 8♥
Flop: Q♠ J♥ 9♥
All the chips went in as you might expect…
Turn: K♥
Maue: A♦
…and Maue hit the rail without a cash.
We're down to the final table in the €10k High Roller at #EPTBarcelona.
Jon Kyte and Mike Watson are among the players hoping to take it down and win €818,100.
Follow live updates 👉 https://t.co/PntLnsoNQf#EPT20 ♠️ pic.twitter.com/qe0NZTysoq
— PokerStars LIVE (@PokerStarsLIVE) September 8, 2024
By the time the final table was reached, Kyte was still there, as were Watson and Jesse Lonis, but chip leader by a mile was Italy’s Enrico Camosci.
Lonis bowed out quickly when his A♥ Q♥ couldn’t catch Ladev’s pocket queens, and then Canada’s second hope, Joshua Hopkins, gave his final few bigs to Camosci, leaving the Italian with more chips than the other five combined.
Good cards and aggressive play accounted for Frenchman Malcolm Franchi…
Malcolm Franchi: 8♦ 8♣
Enrico Camosci: J♣ J♥
Flop: 9♥ 7♦ 5♠
Turn: 5d:
River: 7♣
…with Watson downing Estonia’s Markkos Ladev as the short stacks looked for much-needed double-ups…
Markkos Ladev: K♠ 6♠
Mike Watson: A♠ 9♥
Flop: 10♠ Q♥ J♦
Ladev’s final crumbs went in with his open-ended and Watson called with similar, but better…
Turn: Q♠
River: 4♦
Ladev’s 5th place finish was worth €215,950 and he was followed to the rail by Kyte who must have been gutted to see the cards turned over after shoving on the flop…
Jon Kyte: A♥ 8♦
Mike Watson: A♣ 7♣
Flop: 7♥ 7♦ 6♥
Turn: 8♠
River: 3♦
A €280,750 cash for the Norwegian and three left chasing the trophy and an even bigger payday.
3…2…1!
Brazil’s Rodrigo Araujo lasted precisely one more hand, 3-bet bluffing the river to no avail…
Rodrigo Araujo: Q♥ 10♦
Enrico Camosci: J♥ :5:
Flop: 9♦ Q♠ 10♠
Turn: K♥
River: K♠
Heads-up saw Watson and Camosci discuss numbers before settling on an ICM deal that reflected the 16.7million stack of Camosci and Watson’s 4.8million.
Camosci: €734,000
Watson: €575,100
The coveted EPT Spadie and €20,000 were still to be played for and it was mostly one-way traffic in the direction of Canada’s highstakes crusher.
The crucial hand saw the pair play for stacks with a pre-flop raising war that saw Watson all-in and at risk…
Mike Watson: K♣ Q♥
Enrico Camosci: A♥ J♥
Flop: K♥ 5♣ 4♣
Turn: 10♠
River: 7♦
That king in the window reduced Camosci’s stack to less than 5 big blinds and they all disappeared on the next hand to give Watson the title and the trophy.
€10,000 EPT High Roller Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
| 1 | Mike Watson | Canada | €595,000* |
| 2 | Enrico Camosci | Italy | €734,100* |
| 3 | Rodrigo Araujo | Brazil | €365,050 |
| 4 | Jon Kyte | Norway | €280,750 |
| 5 | Markkos Ladev | Estonia | €215,950 |
| 6 | Malcolm Franchi | France | €166,150 |
| 7 | Joshua Hopkins | Canada | €127,800 |
| 8 | Jesse Lonis | United States | €104,800 |
| 9 | Enrico Coppola | Italy | € 80,075 |
*Denotes heads-up deal
For Watson it was a title he had been seeking for a long time, describing the “closing 10k’s” as “kind of like the second chance Main Events for all the EPTs. They have really big fields and prizes.”
He added: “To win in one of those 10k’s is something I wanted to get on the resume eventually and I’m really happy I was able to do it.”
As for Camosci, you won’t find a lot of info about the Bologna-born online grinder’s live successes, Enrico being one of the increasingly common “unknown player” entries in the results bible.
Despite this, it’s likely we will be seeing more and more of him on the live scene and with a WSOP Online bracelet via GGPoker he’s clearly no slouch there either.
