Krakow is a 44-year-old online poker manager with a background in journalism. Most recently he co-authored Eli Elezra’s autobiography, Pulling The Trigger.
But he also knows his way around a poker table, and after stepping back from the professional game, Krakow has tripled his live tournament earnings record with this massive prize.
The EPT stop in Prague, Czechia has long been Krakow’s favourite since he picked up his first cash at one of the the popular festivals. Now, 15 years later, he will have good reason to keep coming back.
Turkey’s Bora Kurtulus and Dimitrios Gkatzas from Greece were the final obstacles to overcome for Krakow, but a deal between the trio made sure that everyone was paid handsomely, no matter the final order.
Krakow was thrilled to achieve his dream result and sounded extremely proud to represent his nation in troubled times:
“It’s more exciting than I can put into words. It’s a dream come true. It really is. In recent years, since I got married and had kids, I’ve had less time. So it’s become more of a hobby, a hobby that I love.
“It’s amazing. The country is going through some hard times, and I’m sure I brought some people joy with this win. I’m happy to do that little bit.”
Amazingly, until yesterday, Uri Gilboa’s victory at the 2019 EPT Sochi was the only EPT win by an Israeli player.
Action Recap
It was a group of only seven players who made their way to the playing hall to grind it out to a winner.
Bora Kurtulus, a civil engineer who only plays poker for fun, led the way, closely followed by Matan Krakow.
But it was Krakow who made the right moves from the very first hands of the day. First he got paid with the nut straight against Traian Stanciu and then took a chunk of chip from leader Kurtulus to overtake.
The action was now all Krakow and Kurtulus but it took a while before the eliminations began to flow.
Local boy Vitezslav Cech was out in seventh followed by Ireland’s Conor O’Driscoll a hand later when the Twitch streamer whiffed his flush draw.
Paawan Bansal must have been surprised to have laddered €110,000 by this flurry of good fortune, and even happier to pick up a double-up getting his stack in with a dominating ace against Gkatzas.
The luck didn’t last, though. Bansal soon experienced the wrong end of a couple of races and he exited the event in fifth place with a prize of €269,000.
Stanciu then folded the best hand to leave himself with a crippled stack, son finding no better option than to call off his last few chips with 400,000 in the big blind. Fourth palace and €349,650 for the Romanian.
Immediately, the remaining three players agreed to chop and play for €74,655 and the trophy.
Gkatzas was the first to suffer an unfortunate runout when his two pair ran into trip jacks. He then chanced his king-deuce in the small blind only to get called by Kurtulus with an ace.
That left the Turk slightly behind Krakow when heads-up began although the gap was immediately extended when the Israeli hero-called with ace high on the river.
Kurtulus did mount a brief fightback and requested a smoke break when the deficit was only 2:1. Upon returning, on the very first hand it was all over.
Kurtulus three-bet and called off his pocket eights while Krakow had a straight draw which picked up a flush draw on the turn and finally the flush came in on the river to end it.
Krakow was full of praise for his 54-year-old amateur opponent — “Super nice guy. Tough opponent. He was able to make hero calls against me, like three times. I was getting frustrated.”
EPT Prague €5,300 Main Event Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
| 1 | Matan Krakow | Israel | €778,255* |
| 2 | Bora Kurtulus | Turkey | €757,400* |
| 3 | Dimitrios Gkatzas | Greece | €574,600* |
| 4 | Traian Stanciu | Romania | €349,650 |
| 5 | Paawan Bansal | India | €269,000 |
| 6 | Conor O’Driscoll | Ireland | €206,900 |
| 7 | Vitezslav Cech | Czechia | €159,150 |
| 8 | Ding Fan | China | €122,400 |
* Denotes deal
