Thomas Eychenne Victorious in EPT Barcelona Main Event

This victory is the 35-year-old Frenchman’s first in the live arena and almost double his previous biggest score when he final-tabled a $25,000 at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in 2023. He’s also winner of a seven-figure prize after Leon Sturm took down last week’s €100,000 Super High Roller.

The 2,045-player field built a prize pool of €9,918,250, shared between the top 304 finishers.

Eychenne was naturally elated when the job was done, clearly struggling to contain his emotions in his winner’s interview.

“It feels just amazing. It’s my first tournament win. I obviously didn’t expect to win when entering a 2,000-player field. It’s tough to put words on such emotions. It’s incredible.

“I was for many years sleeping and visualizing myself at some point winning a trophy and answering questions like I am doing now. It helped a lot. I knew it would come at some point. It was just a matter of time. My work paid off today. Obviously, I was very lucky, but it’s a great accomplishment.”

Action Recap

The EPT Barcelona Main Event took eight days to complete, but when the players arrived for the final day’s action, there were only six contenders remaining.

Romania’s Sebastian Ionita started the day as chip leader but he was soon nudged down the order after clashing with Eychenne who called down three streets with his two pair to beat a whiffed straight draw.

Ionita did make a quick recovery, though, hitting trip queens on the flop and getting paid by Anton Suarez.

Suarez thought he’d made a recovery of his own just a few hands later, but his pocket queens came unstuck against the trip fives of Eychenne to take the field to five-handed.

The Frenchman now found his momentum halted quite abruptly, hitting the skids against Umberto Zaffagnini and then Ionita twice.

Eychenne opened from the cutoff with 10♦ 8♦ and Zaffagnini came over the top with A♥ 9♠ in the small blind.

The flop came down 7♣ J♦ 8♣and both players checked.

The turn was the 10♥ and Zaffagnini bet out and Eychenne called.

The river was the 7♠ and Zaffagnini now fired out a pot-sized bet leaving his opponent in a massive quandary. After a few moments of thought, Eychenne decided to fold what was the best hand.

Eychenne did manage to get some chips back shortly after when he sent Julian Pineda Lozano to the rail with a €379,350 prize.

Tomasz Brzezinski had been making some progress but his day came to an end when Zaffagnini called off his under the gun shove with pocket tens and hit a set on the flop.

Three-handed play began with Eychenne chasing his rivals, hoping that they would clash and do some of his work for him. And that, in fact, is what happened as Zaffagnini attempted an airball bluff when Ionita had a straight.

This left the Italian with a crippled stack which was fully depleted just a couple of hands later at the hands of Eychenne.

This left us with a heads-up match with the players sat with equal stacks but during the discussions for a deal we learned that Eychenne is a heads-up specialist.

So, given that Ionita did actually hold a slender lead, the pair agreed to just chop the money evenly with €100,000 left for the champion.

“I definitely knew I had an edge when he didn’t say anything when I told him I was a heads-up specialist. It’s normal. I played lots of hands heads-up, whether it’s PLO4, PLO5, Hold’em. I have a better understanding. I’ve played a bunch more than him.”

Ionita must have been glad he got this generous deal because the way the match played out was Eychenne skillfully stealing almost every pot until he was holding a commanding lead.

The rest, as they say, was only a matter of technique. A great career-best result, but still some way off what his fellow Frenchman achived in Prague last year when Thomas Santerne bagged three EPT events in a week.

EPT Barcelona Main Event Final Table Results

Mark Patrickson

Professional Poker Journalist

Mark Patrickson is a poker journalist with over ten years of experience. He writes for VIP-Grinders.com, sharing his deep knowledge of poker. He creates interesting content about poker strategy, trends, and news for poker fans worldwide. [more]