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Although Georgios "Zisimo7" Zisimopoulos has already won around $2 million online, he has never earned a 6-figure sum at a live event before.
But today the 26-year-old Greek took down the €1,100 IPT Malta Main Event for €142,205 and is the newly-crowned Italian Poker Tour champion. The economics graduate from Athens grabbed the title after cutting a five-way deal. The victory takes him in to Greece's all-time money list top ten with over $440k in live tournament winnings.
Zisimopoulos had an ideal start to the final table, making a huge double up holding pocket aces against EPT10 Prague winner Julian Track, who unsuccessfully tried to bluff him away. "When I made that big double up, I was confident that I was going to win the tournament," said the champ. Zisimopoulos took down the event after beating Polish player Jaroslaw Sikora heads-up. Sikora was originally supposed to be in Thailand but couldn't get a visa so came to Malta instead and took €97,975 for his runner-up finish. Nicolino di Carlo, Michael Feil and Frederik Reusch were the others in the five-way deal.
Although Zisimopoulos has just made the biggest live result of his career, he's not pausing for celebrations just yet. He said: "I am going for dinner now and then will jump in to the Main Event." Conveniently for the new IPT champion, EPT Malta is currently on dinner break giving him a chance to catch up with his fellow countrymen and them to join him in the IPT Malta winner picture: EPT Deauville champ Sotirios Koutoupas and EPT Prague runner-up Georgios Sotiropoulos were among the Greeks who posed for the group picture.
IPT Malta has broken all Italian Poker Tour records with 1,285 participants (all of them uniques). The giant field created a €1,246,450 prize pool and the eventual champion was originally supposed to be rewarded with a €221,200 first prize.
IPT Malta Main Event final table results: 1st - Georgios Zisimopoulos, Greece, PokerStars player, €142,205 2nd - Jaroslaw Sikora, Poland, PokerStars player, €97,975 3rd - Nicolino di Carlo, Italy, €119,585 4th - Michael Feil, Germany, PokerStars player, €101,260 5th - Frederik Reusch, Germany, PokerStars player, €97,675 6th - Georgi Abuladze, Estonia, PokerStars qualifier, €39,000 7th - Ezio Nisoli, Italy, €29,800 8th - Julian Track, Germany, PokerStars qualifier, €21,000
