EPT12 Prague: Unofficial Final Table Player Profiles

We are down to nine: unofficial final table profiles below.

Seat 1: Hossein Ensan, 51, Munster, Germany

German player Hossein Ensan is fast becoming a big name at EPTs, and is celebrating his third Main Event final nine appearance in just 16 months. He first came to attention when he took down the first EPT Seniors event at EPT11 Barcelona. He then won a seat in to the Main Event in a live satellite and finished third for €652,667. In March, he finished sixth in the inaugural EPT Malta Main Event for €153,700 and then just a couple of months later, won two side events at the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino EPT Grand Final. He min-cashed EPT Barcelona this season and is now on yet another unofficial final table. Originally from Iran, Ensan moved to Germany when he was 25 and lives in Münster. His home casino is Dortmund-Hohensyburg where the EPT was held in Seasons 3, 4 and 5. Ensan started playing NL 11 years ago, but still considers himself an amateur. He started playing live tournaments in 2013.

Seat 2: Ilkin Amirov, 43, Baku, Azerbaijan

Ilkin Amirov is the first ever player from Azerbaijan to reach the final nine of an EPT Main Event The 43-year-old businessman from Baku has been competing on the live poker circuit for five years, and this is his sixth EPT Main Event cash – his previous best finish coming last December, when he finished 40th here in Prague. Amirov has amassed nearly $800k in live tournament winnings so far. His best result was €105,336 for a third place in the €3k Berlin Cup High Roller in Season 9 and this year Amirov has twice fallen just short of a six-figure prize: he was 13th in January in the $25k PCA High Roller for $98,780 (while his fellow countryman Ilkin Garibli triumphed) and in the summer he made the final table of a WSOP $1,500 NL Event, finishing fifth for an additional $91k. Amirov now seems very likely to achieve another personal best as he's chip leader for the final nine, and only needs one more pay jump for a career-best cash. Amirov also has a solid online CV which includes a sixth place in the PokerStars Sunday Million.

Seat 3: Ivan Deyra, 21, Bordeaux, France

This is Deyra’s first ever EPT and biggest buy-in live tourney. He first started getting interested in poker when he was only 12 after watching French singer and WSOP bracelet winner Patrick Bruel doing TV commentary. His first forays were online, mainly cash games, while he honed his game with video tutorials, books and forums. He started playing more seriously two years ago and is now a very consistent performer in online Texas Hold’em tourneys with buy-ins up to €100. He describes his style as Loose Aggressive and says he pretty much lives and breathes poker! When he’s not playing, he’s reading about poker or watching videos and has learned tons from watching analysis by Belgian EPT Berlin winner Davidi Kitai.

Seat 4: Onur Unsal, 28, Turkey

Unsal’s unofficial final table appearance here in Prague has already made him the most successful live tourney player ever from Turkey. Prior to arriving in Prague, Unsal had $686,110 in lifetime tournament winnings and was just $67k short of the top spot (formerly held by London-dwelling EPT regular Osman Mustanoglu.

Unsal has been playing EPTs since Sanremo in Season 9 and has several results on the tour. However his best results – indeed, most of his cashes - have come from events in Cyprus and include his winning four major events on the Merit and Lebanese poker tours in the last three years. His best EPT cash before now was 29th place in the EPT12 Barcelona €10k High Roller for €28,500.

Seat 5: Slaven "Suarez_BG" Popov, 40, Bulgaria

SCOOP champion Slaven Popov has made the final nine of his second EPT Main Event in just over a year and is, yet again, up against Germany’s Hossein Ensan. Popov was eighth at EPT11 Barcelona (Ensan was third) and his €121,300 cash there remains his best live result to date. Prior to arriving in Prague, Popov – who has been playing for around ten years - had close to $430k in lifetime live tournament winnings and was ranked 12th in the Bulgaria all-time money list. His achievement in reaching the final nine means he is now guaranteed to reach ninth place or better. Popov’s achievements in the live arena are easily matched by his online results which include $560k for winning the 2012 SCOOP-M Main Event and fifth in a $2,100 SCOOP earlier this year for $108,158. After that his 2012 SCOOP victory, Popov invited his former coach Daniel Carlsson to play the Eureka Poker Tour Main Event in Varna, and they both made the final table of the 246-runner event, with Carlsson eventually finishing sixth for €11,900 and Popov fourth for €17,300. The EPT has already had two Bulgarian champions - Dimitar Danchev at the 2013 PCA and Ognyan Dimov in Deauville last season – while four Bulgarians have already picked up trophies here in Prague in side events. Popov, who started playing EPTs in Season 10, is a popular figure in Bulgaria’s poker community and writes lots of blogs, including articles for PokerNews.

Seat 6: Vlado "gorcilo" Banicevic, 37, Kotor, Montenegro

The EPTLive graphics team have had to drum up yet another new “flag” graphic here at EPT Prague with Vlado Banicevic becoming the first ever player from Montenegro to make the final nine in an EPT Main Event. Hailing from Kotor, a small medieval town located in a secluded part of the famous Bay of Kotor, Banicevic already has the top spot on his country’s all-time money list with $466k in live tournament winnings. He’s now extending his lead with a guaranteed €68,560 for making the final nine - the biggest single cash of his live poker career. Banicevic has competed at EPT Prague the last four years and picked up his first (and thus far only) EPT Main Event cash here, finishing 133rd last season. Banicevic made the EPT12 Malta €10k High Roller final table two months ago, pocketing €57,840 for seventh place; his other biggest cash was at Poker EM in Baden in October 2014, where he banked €80k for third.

Seat 7: Thomas Butzhammer, 26, Germany

Originally from Trauenstein in Bavaria, Thomas Butzhammer moved to Vienna in 2011. Many German players have relocated to Austria however Butzhammer's move was more to do with his academic studies than poker. He was already quite well-known in poker circles as in 2010 he competed in the Full Tilt Poker Million Euro Challenge. Out of over 40,000 participants, it was Butzhammer who won a seat to play in a TV show against Mike Matusow, Chris Ferguson and Gus Hansen. Butzhammer had to play a heads-up match against each and - if he won all three matches, he'd receive one million euros. Unfortunately, he lost all of them, but was still got €30,000, a sum that later helped him kick off his professional career. Now 26, Butzhammer’s live tournament winnings already amount to $800k with making the EPT12 Prague final nine his the single biggest achievement to date. Last year, he had a deep run in Prague, finishing 16th for €43,010.

Seat 8: Gleb "Ti0373" Tremzin, 27, Arkhangelsk, Russia, PokerStars player

Russian poker pro Gleb Tremzin hails from Arkhangelsk on the White Sea, one of the northernmost cities in the world. Now 27, he first came to attention at the PCA in 2013 when he finished fourth in the $10k Six Handed Event, earning $157,765. That result is his best to date, but only on the live scene. Tremzin is an online beast playing as "Ti0373" on PokerStars with an online resumé that includes three WCOOP titles and six six-figure results. Tremzin cashed in last year's EPT Prague Main Event but has totally eclipsed that 83rd place with his performance this season. There have already been three Russian EPT champions and now Tremzin is aiming to become the fourth; the last was Andrey Pateychuk who won EPT Sanremo back in Season 8.

Seat 9: Olivier Ferrero, 33, France

The 33-year-old player from Marseille started playing live events recently; his first cash was back in September 2013 at the France Poker Series Cannes Main Event, where he finished in 11th position for €6,100. He has attended a bunch of other live events since then in France, bringing his total live tournament winnings up to $42,991 - not including the €68,560 he has already secured for reaching the final nine at the EPT12 Prague.

For a third consecutive season, the €5,300 EPT Prague Main Event has attracted more than a thousand players. This year, 1,044 took their seats and created a €5,063,400 prize pool to be shared by top 151 finishers. While defending champion Stephen Graner was eliminated on Day 1b, his successor will take home a juicy €921,540 first prize together with the title and coveted EPT trophy.

EPT Prague Main Event history:

Season 4: 555 players, €2,530,240 prize pool, Arnaud Mattern from France for €708,400

Season 5: 570 players, €2,764,500 prize pool, Salvatore Bonavena from Italy for €774,000

Season 6: 586 players, €2,930,000 prize pool, Jan Škampa from the Czech Republic for €682,000

Season 7: 563 players, €,2 730,550 prize pool, Roberto Romanello from UK for €640,000

Season 8: 772 players, €3,501,700 prize pool, Martin Finger from Germany for €720,000

Season 9: 864 players, €4,190,400 prize pool, Ramzi Jelassi from Sweden for €835,000

Season 10: 1,007 players, €4,883,950 prize pool, Julian Track from Germany for €725,700

Season 11: 1,107 players, €5,535,000 prize pool, Stephen Graner from the USA for €969,000

The EPT 12 Prague Poker Festival features a record 97 tourneys at the Hilton Prague from December 5-16, as well as EPT-run cash games running round the clock. A record 185 tables will be in operation and a record 250 staff working the event.