With the calendar turning over to May, there’s a crackling energy in the air in the world of poker. All of the major tours have action set for this month all over the world, and the European Poker Tour is set to crown a millionaire in Monte Carlo Saturday afternoon.
There are seven players left in the EPT Monte Carlo Main Event from seven different countries and three continents who made it through a grilling 12-hour day of poker Friday to reach this critical stage of the event. Three of the final seven players are set to turn online satellite qualifiers of at most €500 into a windfall of at least €154,900, including chip leader Boris Angelov of Bulgaria.
Also among the remaining seven players who fought through a field of 1,208 entries – a record for EPT Monte Carlo – is American Rania Nasreddine. The Tulsa, Oklahoma native earned her first ever tournament cash outside the United States earlier in the EPT Monte Carlo festival, and now stands a chance to become the first American-born champion of a major live PokerStars-branded event since Chino Rheem won the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in 2019. Nasreddine would be the first American EPT winner on European soil since Stephen Graner won EPT Prague in 2014.
Two other players of note stand to add to previous major live tournament results. WSOP bracelet winner and 2022 WSOP Europe Main Event runner-up Jonathan Pastore will look to claim a second leg in poker’s Triple Crown. Niclas Thumm, who built himself up as a low-stakes online tournament streamer, garnered significant attention when he turned a $25,000 PokerStars Platinum Pass into over $1 million with a sixth-place finish at the 2023 PSPC. He too qualified for the €5,300 EPT Monte Carlo Main Event online for just €500, and on Saturday he’ll be hoping to add a second career seven-figure cash to his ledger.
Action played past the official EPT final table point of eight players, with Jozef Cibicek checking out in eighth before action came to a close on Friday night. Before action resumes at 1 p.m. local time in Monaco (7 a.m. EST, with a live cards-up stream on a variety of PokerStars’ online channels), these are the remaining prizes at stake in the EPT Monte Carlo Main Event:
- €1,000,000 ($1,077,180)
- €620,500
- €442,900
- €340,500
- €261,700
- €201,000
- €154,900
Ahead of Saturday’s finale in Monte Carlo, here’s what you need to know about each of the final seven players vying for the EPT title.
Boris Angelov – 11,500,000 (77 BB)
Age: 27
Home Country: Bulgaria
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $271,209
Biggest Lifetime Cash: $104,605, 6th, 2022 Merit Poker Retro Series Kyrenia $5,300 Main Event
Other Prominent Scores: 1st, 2023 Grand Prix Bratislava Poker Festival €2,500 Pot Limit Omaha for $44,719
Boris Angelov earned the pole position heading into Day 6 of the EPT Monte Carlo Main Event, and he’s eager to finish the job to claim the first major title of his career. According to the PokerStars Blog, Angelov qualified for this tournament via a €500 online satellite and elected not to have his chips put into play until the start of Day 2 – a decision that has worked wonders for him.
Angelov has three previous career tournament wins logged on The Hendon Mob – all in Pot Limit Omaha tournaments, including one during the March 2021 WPT500 Online Festival on partypoker. With a finish of fourth or better, Angelov would eclipse the entirety of his career live tournament earnings.
End of Day Chip Counts:
Day 1: N/A
Day 2: 159,000 (97/153)
Day 3: 1,170,000 (8/49)
Day 4: 2,395,000 (7/16)
Rania Nasreddine – 7,900,000 (53 BB)
Age: 43
Hometown: Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $606,348
Biggest Lifetime Cash: $87,750, 8th, 2021 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown $25,500 High Roller
Other Prominent Scores: 1st, 2022 WSOP Circuit Tulsa $400 No Limit Hold’em for $60,380; 72nd, 2022 WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas for $53,200
Rania Nasreddine is no stranger to the spotlight, be it in poker or otherwise. Back in 2007, Nasreddine appeared on an episode of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” taking home a $25,000 prize. On Saturday, she’ll have another shot at a $1 million in Monte Carlo.
Nasreddine’s live tournament results, which date back to 2007, include a handful of notable results. She’s cashed nine times on the World Poker Tour, with a career-best 26th place finish at WPT Choctaw in 2022 and a deep run later that year in the inaugural WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas that December. Nasreddine’s run in the World Championship came to a brutal end on the featured table, as she ran pocket queens into pocket kings and pocket aces to go out of the tournament in 72nd place.
Nasreddine’s career-best result came in a $25,500 at Seminole Hard Rock back in 2021, and she also has a WSOP Circuit ring win to her credit. She’ll bank a career-best result regardless of her finish, and top-two finish would lock up more cash in a single result than all of her previous live scores combined.
There have been four official EPT titles won by women since the tour began in 2004. Victoria Coren became the first two-time EPT champion in the tour’s history in 2014, with Sanda Naujoks and Liv Boeree also claiming victories, in 2009 and 2010, respectively. Additionally, Maria Lampropulos won the 2018 PCA Main Event for over $1 million.
End of Day Chip Counts:
Day 1: 302,000 (2/356)
Day 2: 507,000 (11/153)
Day 3: 795,000 (21/49)
Day 4: 2,135,000 (8/16)
Jovan Kenjic – 4,750,000 (32 BB)
Age: 28
Home Country: Serbia
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $306,201
Biggest Lifetime Cash: $49,698, 3rd, 2023 EPT Prague €2,200 No Limit Hold’em
Other Prominent Scores: 33rd, 2021 WSOP Europe Main Event for $34,869
Serbia’s Jovan Kenjic has knocked on the door a few times in major events, starting with is first recorded live cash on Hendon Mob in December 2021 when finished 33rd in the WSOP Europe Main Event. He racked up 11 five-figure cashes along the way, most notably in a side event at EPT Prague last December, but there wasn’t a single breakthrough performance to be had – until this week.
Kenjic made a steady climb throughout the tournament, peaking as the chip leader early on Day 5 when he made quad aces in a significant pot. He slipped slightly, to third, as the day wore on, but Kenjic has plenty of room to maneuver or ladder up with several shorter stacks on the chopping block when play resumes.
End of Day Chip Counts:
Day 1: 193,000 (21/356)
Day 2: 349,000 (38/153)
Day 3: 1,610,000 (6/49)
Day 4: 3,255,000 (3/16)
Niclas Thumm – 3,650,000 (24 BB)
Age: 31
Home Country: Germany
Currently Resides: Austria
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $1,018,144
Biggest Lifetime Cash: $1,001,200, 6th, 2023 PokerStars Players Championship
Back in January 2023, Niclas Thumm – aka online tournament streamer ‘flushiisback’ – had the opportunity of a lifetime when he made the final table of the $25K PSPC. With previous live earnings of just $415 in total, Thumm turned a PokerStars Platinum Pass into a $1 million cash with his sixth place finish in the Bahamas.
Thumm didn’t pop up much on the live circuit in the months that followed, with no other live cashes in 2023, but after dipping his toe back in with cashes in Slovakia, Austria, Ireland and Monte Carlo (earlier in this EPT festival), Thumm is back on the big stage with another shot at a seven-figure payday.
End of Day Chip Counts:
Day 1: 124,000 (95/356)
Day 2: 198,000 (81/153)
Day 3: 905,000 (16/49)
Day 4: 1,430,000 (12/16)
Jonathan Pastore – 3,350,000 (22 BB)
Age: 29
Home Country: France
Currently Resides: Mexico
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $1,945,478
Biggest Lifetime Cash: $876,527, 2nd, 2022 WSOP Europe Main Event
Other Prominent Scores: 1st, 2022 WSOP $5,000 6-Max No Limit Hold’em for $771,765
Jonathan Pastore is far and away the winningest player among the final seven, and he has the advantage of having played heads up for two major titles over the last couple of years. In June 2022, Pastore defeated Stephen Song, a very familiar face to WPT fans, heads-up to win a WSOP $5,000 6-Max No Limit Hold’em event for his first gold bracelet.
Then, in November, Pastore was in Rozvadov playing for the WSOP Europe Main Event title. After outlasting a final table that included Timothy Adams, Barny Boatman and Shaun Deeb, among other standouts, Pastore fell in a heads-up battle against Omar Eljach of Sweden.
Pastore will look to mount a comeback as one of the shorter stacks among the final seven, but a win would put him into a select group of players with both an EPT title and a WSOP bracelet.
End of Day Chip Counts:
Day 1: 184,000 (33/356)
Day 2: 424,000 (24/153)
Day 3: 710,000 (23/49)
Day 4: 2,060,000 (9/16)
Derk van Luijk – 3,200,000 (21 BB)
Age: 43
Home Country: Netherlands
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $226,066
Biggest Lifetime Cash: $100,719, 1st, 2022 EPT Barcelona €2,100 No Limit Hold’em
Other Prominent Scores: 3rd, 2022 PGT Italy €15,300 No Limit Hold’em for $60,642; 28th, 2024 EPT Paris Main Event for $32,605
If ever there was a time to beat pocket aces with 
in an all-in preflop situation, doing so with one table remaining in an EPT Main Event is a pretty good time to cash in such a “one-time” chip.
For Dutch player Derk van Luijk, it started with a two-club flop – and it only got wilder from there.
The 43-year-old father of two has a third child on the way, according to an interview with the PokerStars Blog, and van Luijk picked a great time to set a new career-high cash as well – eclipsing a $100K win in a side event at EPT Barcelona two years ago.
End of Day Chip Counts:
Day 1: 101,000 (132/356)
Day 2: 470,000 (19/153)
Day 3: 860,000 (19/49)
Day 4: 1,660,000 (11/16)
Johny Guedes – 1,900,000 (13 BB)
Age: 27
Home Country: Brazil
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $6,836
Biggest Lifetime Cash: $4,661, 105th, 2024 EPT Monte Carlo €2,200 FPS High Roller
At 27 years old, Johny Guedes is on his first ever trip outside his home country of Brazil. Coming into the EPT Monte Carlo Main Event Guedes had a grand total of $6,836 in live tournament cashes, the bulk of that coming during one of the early prelim events during this festival.
Guedes won several online satellites into events during the EPT Monte Carlo festival, including his seat into the €5,300 main event for just €250. He’s now locked up a return of over 600 times his money, with a chance to make it 4,000 times if he can come back from the shortest stack on Saturday.
End of Day Chip Counts:
Day 1: 187,500 (28/356)
Day 2: 218,000 (70/153)
Day 3: 1,810,000 (2/49)
Day 4: 3,570,000 (2/16)