Level 33
: Blinds 125,000/250,000, 250,000 ante
2025 PokerStars EPT Barcelona
€5,300 Main Event
Day: 7
Event Info
2025 PokerStars EPT Barcelona
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
Players Info - Day 7
Buy-in
€5,300
Prize Pool
€9,918,250
Entries
2,045
Level
37
Blinds
300,000 / 600,000
Ante
600,000
Entries
6
Players Left
1
Players Left 1 / 2045
Filter
Level 33
: Blinds 125,000/250,000, 250,000 ante
Cards are in the air and play has started on the final day of the Main Event.
Level: 33
Blinds: 125,000/250,000
Ante: 250,000
There is a slight delay to the start of play as the six finalists take their seats and open their bags.
Action will begin momentarily, with updates being provided on a 30-minute delay to match the PokerStars stream.
It’s time for the six remaining players to return for the Final Day of the €5,300 PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) Barcelona Main Event. For one last time, the curtain will rise inside Casino Barcelona as the field of 2,045 entries has been reduced to just half a dozen hopefuls, each with their eyes on the €1,436,000 top prize and the prestigious EPT Main Event trophy.
Romania’s Sebastian Ionita starts the final day as chip leader after bagging 14,725,000 yesterday, and has 59 big blinds to work with. Ionita, who had never cashed in an EPT Main Event before this week, now finds himself in prime position to capture his first major title and take home a life-changing amount of money. Right behind him is France’s Thomas Eychenne, who is a regular on the tour, with a stack of 11,375,000.
Final Table Seat Draw
| Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Julian Pineda Lozano | Colombia | 9,700,000 | 39 |
| 2 | Anton Suarez | Sweden | 8,400,000 | 34 |
| 3 | Tomasz Brzezinski | Poland | 7,625,000 | 31 |
| 4 | Thomas Eychenne | France | 11,375,000 | 46 |
| 5 | Sebastian Ionita | Romania | 14,725,000 | 59 |
| 6 | Umberto Zaffagnini | Italy | 9,525,000 | 38 |
Colombia’s Julian Pineda Lozano (9,700,000) and Italy’s Umberto Zaffagnini (9,525,000) sit in the middle of the pack, while Sweden’s Anton Suarez (8,400,000) and Poland’s Tomasz Brzezinski (7,625,000) round out the lineup at the bottom of the chip counts.
The next elimination will earn €291,800 from the €9,918,250 prize pool, with all eyes fixed on the seven-figure first prize and the EPT Barcelona trophy that has launched countless careers over the tour’s history.
Play resumes at 12:30 p.m. local time on Level 33 with blinds of 125,000/250,000 and a 250,000 big blind ante, with levels lasting 30 hands each until a champion is crowned, dropping to 15 hands per level once play reaches three-handed.
Remaining Final Table Payouts
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | €1,436,000 | ||
| 2 | €898,350 | ||
| 3 | €641,200 | ||
| 4 | €493,250 | ||
| 5 | €379,350 | ||
| 6 | €291,800 | ||
| 7 | Marc Foggin | United Kingdom | €224,450 |
| 8 | Cesar Garcia | Spain | €172,700 |
| 9 | Youssef Zereg | France | €132,800 |
The final table will be streamed on the PokerStars YouTube and Twitch channels on a 30-minute delay beginning at 1 p.m., with PokerNews providing live updates in sync with the broadcast.
Umberto Zaffagnini started playing poker about 10 years ago, and although he is still just a recreational player, he says he is always eager to improve, especially in his favored live cash games.
His previous tournament results are modest – before this, €12,000 is his biggest prize – but he has played them only very occasionally for about five years. But he is very proud of the game he has played this week and is happy that it has paid dividends with an appearance at the final in such an enormous event.
Unlike many of his adversaries in Barcelona, Zaffagnini says he doesn't like online poker; for him, the most beautiful form of poker is live.
He owns a company in Italy that manufactures peristaltic pumps (for liquids), and poker is his hobby, along with football. He is an ardent supporter of Juventus.
Player profiles courtesy of Jan Kores/PokerStars
Tournament Progression
Day 1: 94,000 (153/424, 1b)
Day 2: 131,000 (193/313)
Day 3: 782,000 (32/103)
Day 4: 2,925,000 (5/29)
Day 5: 4,410,000 (7/11)
Day 6: 9,525,000 (4/6)
Career Statistics
Career earnings: $80,031
EPT cashes: 1
Best EPT result: 201st, 2023 EPT Barcelona
Key Hands
On Day 4, Zaffagnini turned a straight against Michael Uguccioni and called a bet of 500,000 on the river as Uguccioni was bluffing with just ace-high.
At the final table, Zaffagnini got creative and bluffed Anton Suarez off a straight draw by raising to 1,800,000 on the flop with just king-high.
If you've noticed a particular piquancy to Sebastian Ionita's play, it's because this 27-year-old is a proud resident of Tecuci. "This is where the mustard is made in Romania!" he says. "It's very famous."
Ionita is not directly involved in the condiments industry, but he still plays an active role in his family business, established by his father in 1991, which sells industrial products for factories. "Welding products, fasteners, hand tools, electric tools," he says.
However, he says that poker is "in his heart" and he has been playing more and more recently, with increasing success. "I don't know if I consider myself professional, but I've been playing for a few years," he says, adding that he is mostly an online player and travels only for major festivals.
This is his third EPT and his final-table appearance represents his best result to date. His biggest career score came for a third-place finish in Cyprus earlier this year, but he also has an outright win to his name, having beaten a field of 477 entries to win a €320 buy-in event in Bucharest last year.
He has travelled alone to Barcelona, but says he is enjoying the experience immensely. "I enjoy playing against very good players," he says.
Ionita today has the opportunity to be only the second Romanian to win an EPT Main Event after Razvan Belea triumphed in Paris in 2023.
Player profiles courtesy of Jan Kores/PokerStars
Tournament Progression
Day 1: 214,000 (18/424, 1b)
Day 2: 213,000 (113/313)
Day 3: 1,067,000 (12/103)
Day 4: 3,670,000 (3/29)
Day 5: 6,820,000 (3/11)
Day 6: 14,725,000 (1/6)
Career Statistics
Career earnings: $300,055
EPT cashes: None
Best EPT result: None
Key Hands
On Day 5, Ionita eliminated former chip leader Martin Nielsen in 17th place after winning a race with eights against ace-jack.
Ionita took the chip lead for the first time at the final table when he went to the river against Anton Suarez. Suarez put out a bet of 2,600,000 and Ionita, holding just a pair of fives on a queen-high board, tanked for several minutes before calling. Suarez could only show a jack-high bluff and Ionita took down the big pot.
Thomas Eychenne started playing poker online while he was at business school, trying nearly every format before realising that heads ups and short-stack play suited him best. So he specialised in those.
Originally from Lyon, France, Eychenne moved to Malta in 2011 and has since enjoyed its vibrant poker and social life, and met his longtime girlfriend there. The couple got engaged last year.
The hard-working Eychenne has always been highly regarded in French poker circles, and these days he not only develops his own game but also helps others. For a while, Eychenne ran a coaching and a staking team, where he mentored young players.
During the COVID pandemic, he decided to record a bankroll challenge, building from €50 to €50,000 in only 50 days, all while streaming on Twitch, and continuing until he reached €100,000. Then, in 2021, he launched an even harder challenge, this time aiming to run up €10 to €1 million. When he was around 20 or 30 percent of the way, he figured he could play live to achieve it faster. A seventh-place finish in the PSPC 2023, worth $801,000, pushed him across the goal line.
The result ignited a new passion for live tournaments, and he has become an EPT regular over the past couple of years as he continues to study to improve his game. It seems to be working. He finished 47th in the WSOP Main Event this summer and has now reached the final table in the third biggest EPT Main Event in history.
Player profiles courtesy of Jan Kores/PokerStars
Tournament Progression
Day 1: 73,500 (207/424, 1b)
Day 2: 396,000 (32/313)
Day 3: 959,000 (17/103)
Day 4: 1,610,000 (16/29)
Day 5: 9,595,000 (2/11)
Day 6: 11,375,000 (2/6)
Career Statistics
Career earnings: $2,738,721
EPT cashes: 2
Best EPT result: 75th, 2024 EPT Barcelona
Key Hands
On the last hand of Day 5, Eychenne had nearly all of his chips in the middle with two queens but ran into Joao Webber's aces. The flop brought a miracle queen as Eychenne came from behind to score the knockout and catapult up among the chip leaders.
Eychenne scored the first knockout at the final table, calling Youssef Zereg's shove with two sixes and ending up with a full house to bust Zereg in ninth place.
Tomasz Brzezinski is originally from Leszno but relocated to Malta 10 years ago. He works in the sports-betting industry and plays poker in his free time. He’s had a few deep runs in the past, including a second place for €34,500 here in Barcelona in the spring, but none of the previous results can match reaching an EPT Main Event final table.
Brzezinski thanked the support he’s received on a Maltese expat poker forum on Facebook, as well as several friends who are on the rail on-site.
The 37-year-old Lech Poznań fan likes to play padel but hasn’t competed in any of the EPT’s own padel events yet – simply because they always collided with his poker schedule.
He will have another chance to get the first EPT padel experience in October when the tour stops in his backyard. “I already had that festival in my plans before this run,” Brzezinski confirmed his attendance.
Maybe he will show up at EPT Malta not only as Poland’s 20th finalist but also the nation’s sixth Main Event champion.
Player profiles courtesy of Jan Kores/PokerStars
Tournament Progression
Day 1: 89,000 (167/424, 1b)
Day 2: 109,000 (215/313)
Day 3: 476,000 (56/103)
Day 4: 1,485,000 (20/29)
Day 5: 6,525,000 (4/11)
Day 6: 7,625,000 (6/6)
Career Statistics
Career earnings: $89,211
EPT cashes: None
Best EPT result: None
Key Hands
On Day 5, Brzezinski had most of his chips in the middle as Alexandros Michas was all in for 2,135,000. Michas was racing with jacks against ace-queen, but Brzezinski made two pair to win the pot and send Michas out in 16th place.
Brzezinski scored the first two eliminations of Day 6, first turning a pair of tens to beat Yohan Rascar's pair of nines. He then rivered two pair against Sergio Carro Marin's pair of kings to set the nine-handed final table.
At the final table, Brzezinski called Marc Foggin's all in for 1,800,000, but both players showed ace-king and were headed for a chop until Brzezinski made a flush on the turn to bust Foggin in seventh place.
