A culmination of four starting flights saw 1,516 hopefuls make their way through the doors of the Banco Casino and onto the felt, competing for their share of the €667,040 prize pool.

Three lengthy days of play concluded with Aliosha Staes lifting the trophy and laying claim to the first-place prize of €90,0000; a handsome return on the initial €500 investment to this Winamax Poker Open Main Event, here in Bratislava.

Winamax Poker Open Main Event Final Table Results:

Winner’s Reaction

As his rail often mentioned, Staes was the only Belgian at the final table. “That’s true, but I was mostly the small whale in a shark tank,” he joked, holding his big trophy after his victory. “The level was very, very, very high. It was the toughest field I’ve ever faced. From Day 2 to the end, there were no mistakes,” he added.

Yet, Staes is far from an amateur player. He often plays at Casino de Namur and was even a professional player for several years. Although he returned to work in IT in 2019, he still plays under the banner of Team Poker One, a team of Belgian players that allows staking for live tournaments. This time, no staking was needed, as a single bullet was enough to win the title—the biggest of his career.

Contrary to what he said, he was far from being rusty. “Before Day 3, I had decided to play without holding back, telling myself I wouldn’t be afraid to go all in if necessary. I had to stay focused on every hand. I’m glad I kept my focus the whole way through. I was in the zone, and it went well,” he shared in his post-victory interview.

Despite a long seven-hour final table, Staes “strangely didn’t feel tired.” “Maybe it was the adrenaline, but I felt good from start to finish. And with a good run on top of that, it was cool.”

The fatigue will come later, as he will become a father in two months. “Babies are expensive, so I’ll be able to buy a lot of stuff with €90,000,” he joked. It’s a beautiful project that will likely keep him away from the poker tables for a few months. In the meantime, he has to land in Belgium tomorrow “at 12:30 p.m. to start work at 2 p.m.”

Action of the Day:

Seventeen players returned to the felt early this afternoon with the hopes of etching their name into Winamax history, however, the dream was short-lived for Johnny Andreassen who was the first casualty of the day. Andreassen was on the wrong end of a flopped flush-over-flush collision that saw Dylan Cechowski the beneficiary of his entire stack.

Matthieu Lamagnere final tabled the largest live six-max event ever held when he came sixth in the 5,500 MAD Main Event at the 2024 Winamax SISMIX series in Marrakech, but he was denied back-to-back Winamax final tables after Nicolas Plantin sent him to the rail.

Final Table Action

Valentin Imperatore held the chip lead when the final table of seven was reached, but Cechowski drew first blood, eliminating Menant in only a matter of hands.

With an EPT final table, a WSOP gold bracelet, and finishing second place in the WSOP Europe Main Event already amongst his lengthy list of poker results, Jonathan Pastore was certainly one of the most decorated players coming into today’s final table. However, Imperatore was on hand to extinguish Pastore’s hope of adding a Winamax Main Event trophy to his already plentiful poker career, ending his deep tournament run in sixth place.

Former PMU Team Pro member Cechowski was certainly known to the remaining finalists as fierce competition. With a near-all French lineup, Cechowski’s WPT Prime Aix-en-Provence final table will certainly have been a poignant result fresh in the minds of his opponents. Cechowski couldn’t improve upon his WPT Prime fourth-place finish but added another important final table to his ever-growing resume.

Poker fans were made to wait for the next elimination — a five-hour long dry spell kept viewers of the live stream on the edge of their seat.

The departure of Valentin Imperatore came early into the morning as his short stack ran into the aces of Staes. Imperatore told reporters he was ready to sleep in preparation for his early flight tomorrow as he had to be back in school in just two days.

After a lengthy short-stacked battle between the final three, a dramatic three-way all-in saw Benjamin Hammann exit in third place to trigger heads-up play.

Staes dispatched the last of his six French finalists, Timothe Labassa; his flopped straight had Labassa’s top pair dead on the turn, ensuring the trophy, title, and €90,0000 were his for the taking.

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