Niall Farrell Wins EPT12 Malta for €534,330

Scottish pro Niall Farrell has won his first major live poker title, taking down the €5,300 EPT12 Malta Main Event for €534,330.

The 28-year-old from Glasgow cut a heads-up deal with Alen Bilic from Bosnia & Herzegovina to seize the title, trophy and cash prize.

Farrell has come close to an EPT title twice before: he was tenth at EPT London in Season 9 and 15th at EPT Barcelona in Season 10. However his biggest result before today was a runner-up finish in the 2013 WSOP $3k NLH event for $366,815. He was certainly one of the most experienced players at today’s final table and already had more than $1.3 million in live tournament winnings to his name before coming to Malta.

He said: "It feels incredible. I ran so pure the last two days. When we got to heads-up, I got good cards but there was one big bluff I made which felt like a momentum swinger. Bilic is a really good player. I've played a lot online with him. He played really tough.”

Farrell turned pro after graduating in law from Dumfries University and has a string of great results online including winning the FTOPS Main Event on Full Tilt last year for $236,232. The Glaswegian is only the second Scot to win an EPT Main Event after David Vamplew took down the EPT London Main Event eight years ago.

Bilic’s €440,000 cash is by far the biggest single prize won by a Bosnian player and puts him second in his country’s all time money list. Prior to today, only three other Bosnians have ever even cashed in an EPT Main Event before and none have come close to making a final. Bilic himself has only cashed once before, 69th at EPT Barcelona for €18,320. The 26-year-old economic graduate from Mostar first took up poker playing online freerolls on PokerStars and is already Bosnia’s top online tournament player with a string of results amounting to more than $2 million. However he said that today’s 77-hand clash with Farrell was the first time he had ever played heads-up live.

The eight finalists included Canadian poker pros Sam Greenwood, who finished sixth for €125,660 and Daniel Dvoress, seventh for €91,550. The last five days of the event were all broadcast live - in 12 languages – on PokerStars.tv, Twitch and YouTube.

One of the biggest stories of the festival was Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden achieving a record-breaking 21st EPT Main Event cash. The 30-year-old Norwegian managed to equal fellow Team Pro Luca Pagano in Barcelona in August, but overtook the Italian in Malta, finishing 29th for €15,620. Lodden has never won an EPT Main Event, but is certainly the most consistent player on the tour, finishing in the top 20 ten times since his first cash at EPT3 Barcelona and accruing more than €1.2 million in prize money. His best result was at the EPT9 Grand Final, where he finished third for €467,000.

Among the other 95 players who made the money were Taiwanese poker pro Kitty Kuo, Shark Cage star Faraz Jaka and Mike McDonald. McDonald was actually the second biggest winner of the festival after taking down the €25k High Roller last week for a €498,575 payday. As well as Lodden, Team PokerStars Pro Matthias De Meulder and Team PokerStars Pro Online’s Isaac Haxton also made the money.

There were more than 200 qualifiers among the 651 entrants in the Main Event and 33 made the money, cashing for €684,980 between them. German player Rainer Kempe, who was celebrating back-to-back Main Event finals, fared the best. He finished fifth for €161,340, following his fifth place finish at EPT Barcelona in August. He qualified both times in online €320 Deep Hyper Turbos. There were also numerous players who cashed after qualifying for just a handful of euros; Romania’s Nihat Karyagdi had the biggest return on investment, turning €20.20 into €10,580 for finishing 68th.

With the festival being held jointly with the Italian Poker Tour and Pagano Events, and Malta lying only 180km away from Italy, it was no surprise that there were more Italians in the field than any other nation, accounting for nearly ten per cent of the field with 65 entrants.

As well as the EPT Malta Main Event and McDonald’s monster cash in the €25k High Roller, there were numerous other high profile events during the 12-day festival at Portomaso Casino. The €10k High Roller is still on going with three players – Americans Mukul Pahuja and Byron Kaverman and Mikalai Vaskaboinikau from Belarus - still in contention for the €430,800 first prize. There were 210 entries, creating a €2,037,000 prize pool. Team PokerStars Pros Jason Mercier and Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier were among the 31 players who cashed, finishing 21st and 30th respectively while title defender David Peters bust in 16th place today. Natan Chauskin from Belarus won the IPT Malta Main Event for €149,560, Darrell Goh took down the €2k IPT High Roller for € 151,670, Steve O’Dwyer won the one-day €10k NL High Roller for € 327,030. Dzmitry Urbanovich, who won four events at the debut EPT Malta in March, won the €5k Mix for €15,760. Team PokerStars Pro Theo Jorgensen won his first ever EPT trophy when he took down the €1k NL Hyper Turbo Bounty for €16,940; fellow Pro Matthias De Meulder won a €500 NL Hyper Turbo while Marcin Horecki won one of the €100 Flipout tournaments.

In all, 1,869 players competed at the festival. There were 9,420 tournament entries with close to €15 million (€14,989,995!) awarded in prize money.

EPT Malta also saw the debut of live Spin & Go tournaments. There were 88 games in total, attracting more than 150 players. Over €13,000 was awarded in prizes including three €1k jackpots.

PokerStars’ Director of Live Events Edgar Stuchly said: “For the second time this year, we have had a truly great festival here in Malta. We are indebted to the thousands of players who have come to this lovely island to celebrate the second stop of EPT Season 12. Huge congratulations to our EPT and IPT Main Event winners as well as the 56 other players who will be returning home with an EPT trophy in their suitcase! We are now looking forward to the EPT12 Prague Poker Festival in December which is set to be a massive event; we have 97 tournament planned for Prague, and a total of 104 tournaments scheduled for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas in January, the biggest live event PokerStars has ever held.”