Bora Kurtulus Holds Commanding Lead After Day 5 of EPT Prague Main Event
As the curtain falls on the penultimate day of the 2025 PokerStars European Poker Tour Prague €5,300 Main Event, just seven players remain from the 1,224-entry field. They will return to the Hilton Prague Sunday, having already secured at least a €206,900 payday, but the stakes are higher than ever, with one player being just six eliminations away from the EPT Main Event Trophy and €1,019,300 top prize.
Bora Kurtulus began the day with the second-largest stack, and after five action-packed levels, he finished the night at the top of the counts with 12,325,000, more than a third of the total chips in play. Kurtulus has more than twice the chips of all but one of his remaining opponents, with Matan Krakow ending the night as Kurtulus' closest rival after bagging 9,700,000. Traian Stanciu rounds out the top three with 5,325,000.
Kurtulus, a civil engineer from Antalya, Turkey, has already made his first-ever cash in an EPT Main Event count. He's guaranteed himself at least €159,150, well ahead of his previous best cash of $11,500 and total career earnings of just $58,364, and is in the best position of the seven remaining players to take home the lion's share of the €5,936,400 prize pool.
Final Table Seat Draw and Chip Counts
| Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dimitrios Gkatzas | Greece | 3,075,000 | 21 |
| 2 | Paawan Bansal | India | 2,625,000 | 18 |
| 3 | Vitezslav Cech | Czechia | 2,400,000 | 16 |
| 4 | Bora Kurtulus | Turkey | 12,325,000 | 82 |
| 5 | Conor O'Driscoll | Ireland | 1,225,000 | 8 |
| 6 | Matan Krakow | Israel | 9,700,000 | 65 |
| 7 | Traian Stanciu | Romania | 5,325,000 | 36 |
Krakow has been coming to EPT Prague for nearly ten years, with his first cash at the festival coming in 2016. Since then, he's had plenty of EPT cashes, including two side event final tables and two Main Event cashes, but tomorrow will be the biggest stage he's ever played at. Krakow started the day in the middle of the pack and steadily made his way towards the top of the counts after scoring the first elimination of the day.
Dimitrios Gkatzas found himself in familiar territory today, having made another deep run in this event last year, where he finished 14th. Gkatzas has described himself as more of a pot-limit Omaha player, but his back-to-back deep runs in this event have proven that he can do more than hold his own when it comes to no-limit hold'em.
Also still in the hunt is Vitezslav Cech, who has momentum on his side after finishing tenth in the €1,650 PS Open Main Event earlier this series, earning €41,420. Cech will go into the final day as one of three short stacks, alongside Paawan Bansal, who staged an epic comeback from two big blinds late in the night, and start-of-day chip leader Conor O'Driscoll.
Day 5 Action
The sixteen returning players took a generally cautious approach at the start of the day, with no eliminations occurring in the first 90-minute level. Filippo Ragone started the day as the short stack and was soon whittled down to six big blinds. He doubled up twice, first through Bansal and later through Kurtulus, to survive from the brink of elimination.
Vasyl Pidhrusnyi had the opposite trajectory, starting the day with a top ten stack but finding no momentum from the start. Pidhrusnyi was in a great spot to double in the second level of the day with pocket nines against Krakow’s pocket deuces, but the deck had other plans, and after a deuce on the river, he became the first elimination of the day. Mehdi Senhaji was next to go soon after, losing a preflop race with ace-jack against Ding Fan’s king-ten.
Maria Lampropulos was aiming to become the first woman to secure an EPT Main Event title since 2014, but she got off to a rocky start after folding to a triple barrel from Krakow to get short-stacked. She managed to spike a three-outer to double through Stanciu, but her luck ran out after running into Kurtulus’ pocket aces to bow out in 14th place.
Tobias Peters started the day with a bottom-three stack but quickly doubled up to average through Gkatzas in the opening level. Peters doubled up again after winning a flip against Eyal Maaravi, to leave the latter player with less than one big blind. Maaravi was out in 13th the next hand, and following Xiaowen Zhao’s elimination in 12th, Peters was all-in against Gkatzas again, holding pocket nines to Gkatzas’ ace-queen. A queen on the flop spelled the end of Peters’ Main Event run as he was eliminated two spots from making the final table.
The final table bubble created an interesting dynamic, with three short-stacked players at one table, while all players at the other held above-average stacks. O'Driscoll, who started the day with the chip lead, began losing ground after Cech picked off a bluff on a five-spade board. Meanwhile, at the other table, Bansal was down to two big blinds before mounting an epic comeback. Bansal first doubled through Krakow, before getting several shoves and raises through preflop to effectively double again, this time without showdown. Bansal then got value with a flopped set to complete the comeback from two big blinds to 30 in half an hour. Soon after, Ragone fell in tenth after running into Stanciu’s pocket kings to set up the unofficial nine-handed final table.
Kortulus held a big lead going into the final table with nearly a quarter of the total chips in play. His stack surpassed eight figures soon after the final table began, after holding with ace-ten against Thomas Bazin’s king-jack suited to score the first final table elimination. He continued to dominate from there, picking off a bluff from Krakow with just king-high to extend his lead. Krakow reclaimed those lost chips soon after, waking up with pocket queens after Fan shoved with pocket nines to score the final elimination of the night.
Remaining Payouts
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | € 1,019,300 | ||
| 2 | € 636,405 | ||
| 3 | € 454,550 | ||
| 4 | € 349,650 | ||
| 5 | € 269,000 | ||
| 6 | € 206,900 | ||
| 7 | € 159,150 | ||
| 8 | Ding Fan | China | € 122,400 |
| 9 | Thomas Bazin | France | € 94,150 |
The final seven players return tomorrow, December 14, at 12:30 p.m. to battle it out for the EPT Main Event title, the seven-figure top prize, and all the glory that comes with it. The action will resume at Level 31, with the blinds at 75,000/150,000 (150,000). The coverage will be on a 30-minute delay to match the official live stream.
Be sure to stay locked in with PokerNews tomorrow to keep up with all the action as the final day of the EPT Prague Main Event plays down to a winner.