Between 2013 and 2017, the World Series of Poker (WSOP) descended on mainland Europe just once for its first and last trip to Berlin. In the 2015 WSOP Europe Main Event, Kevin MacPhee became the champion, adding to his EPT Berlin title by winning big again in the German capital. In 2017, the WSOPE festival was announced to have again moved venue, this time to the Czech-German border town of Rozvadov and King’s Casino, the largest cardroom in the world outside Las Vegas.
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More Bracelet Events Than Ever in Europe
With 11 events in total, King’s Casino welcomed thousands of players to the place where poker is the only game in town. Since the WSOP Europe arrived in Rozvadov in 2017, it hasn’t left, and the volume of entries, along with the ever increasing prize pools, means a move is unlikely any time soon.
The opening event of WSOPE in 2017 was a €1,100-entry No Limit Hold’em Monster Stack event, attracting 561 entries. While stars such as Pierre Neuville (11th), Ismael Bojang (8th), and the runner-up Viliyan Petleshkov all came close, it was the Ukrainian player Oleksandr Shcherbak who won the title, claiming his sole bracelet and cash in a WSOP event to date, winning €117,708.
Andreas Klatt won Event #2, a €550 PLO event, while the controversial Czech player Martin Kabrhel became the first Czech player to win on home soil. Kabrhel, famed for his legendarily incessant table talk, outlasted 324 others in the NLHE Super Turbo Bounty event. These events have become more prevalent in recent years on WSOP schedules and have featured in Europe and Las Vegas on the main schedule with great success. Certainly, Kabrhel did, earning €53,557 and winning the first WSOP bracelet of his career.
‘Jesus’ Resurrects His Poker Career… Then Disappears Again
There were wins for French player Theodore McQuilkin in the €1,650 NLHE Six-Max Event #4, and two Czech players, in Matouš Skořepa and Lukas Zaskodny in the Colossus and €2,200 Pot Limit Omaha, events #5 and #6 respectively. After those were concluded, Event #7 ran, and Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson was awarded his most recent and possibly final WSOP title.
Between 2000 and 2008, Ferguson had won it all, with five WSOP bracelets – including the 2000 WSOP Main Event and three Circuit wins.
In 2017, however, Ferguson’s participation alone in the WSOP Europe festival caused a stir. Just a few months earlier, he had returned to the felt at WSOP in Las Vegas only to be greeted by catcalls from fellow players who had lost millions of dollars on Full Tilt Poker, with many in the industry believing Ferguson to have been partly to blame for the crash. Black Friday, which took place in 2011, saw the U.S. federal government shut down online poker in the United States, and Ferguson was one of several former FTP players who took the fall for it, whether rightly or wrongly.
Certainly, Ferguson’s step back into the shadows of the game without any full or frank admission or apology stirred anger in the poker community, and his victory in the €1,650-entry PLO Hi-Lo 8 or Better event was unpopular. Given that the bracelet came with just €39,289, some wondered if ‘Jesus’ might have waited until a win worthier of his $9.5 million in live tournament earnings came along, but the silent Ferguson simply won and departed, having cashed in six of the seven events. Since winning his sixth bracelet, Ferguson hasn’t cashed in a live event since the $1,100 LAPC Million back in 2020 when he finished 143rd, and hasn’t cashed online since the 2020 WSOP Online.
Farrell Bags Triple Crown, Nitsche Nicks High Roller
Two of European Poker’s heavyweights won big at the WSOP Europe festival in 2017, with Niall Farrell becoming Scotland’s most successful ever player and German pro Dominik Nitsche winning his fourth WSOP title.
In the €25,000 High Roller, Farrell ended up on top of the 113 entries in the event, winning a top prize of €745,287 after beating Benjamin Pollak heads-up for the gold. With the victory of his first WSOP bracelet, Farrell sealed a historic Triple Crown, becoming only the ninth man ever to win a WSOP, WPT, and EPT title.
In the €111,111 buy-in NLHE High Roller for One Drop, Dominik Nitsche’s victory was worth even more as the German banked an incredible €3,487,463 up top. The event had even more entries, with 132 taking on the famously charitable event, which helps to sustain water supplies to some of the poorest areas across the globe.
Others to cash included British high roller Jack Salter (19th for €157,652), future 2021 WSOP Main Event winner and German professional Koray Aldemir (11th for €243,169), and Belarussian powerhouse Mikita Badziakouski, who ended up finishing third for over €1.5 million. Heads-up, Nitsche got the better of fellow German Andreas Eiler and afterward was the model of humility.
“It’s really nice. It’s not about the bracelets for me, it’s how well I played. I’m [prouder] of how I played rather than I won. I’ve put a lot of time recently into heads-up cash games, so I felt comfortable all the way through. I felt like I was the strongest player and made no mistakes. I played perfect, there was nothing I would change.”
Maria Ho and MacPhee Both Go Close
There were no bigger surprises at the 2017 WSOP Europe than in the Main Event itself. With 529 entries in total, just 80 players got paid, with legends of the felt such as Matas Cimbolas (71st for €15,721), Phil Gruissem (47th for €20,175), Maria Lampropulos (33rd for €22,895) and Kristen Foxen (18th for €31,337) all earning respectable scores.
The reigning WSOP Europe Main Event champion, 2015 star Kevin MacPhee, busted very close to the title for what would have been an unprecedented back-to-back victory. The American cashed for €74,737 in 10th place as he just missed out on the final table. A continental final table saw Maria Ho lose with king-queen to pocket queens on a queen-high board, then head to the rail in a double elimination. All-in pre-flop with ace-jack for just 10 big blinds, Ho was called in the small blind by Marti Roca De Torres with pocket aces. Then Niall Farrell – going for his second huge bracelet win of the series – reshoved from the big blind with pocket kings. Farrrell and Ho both failed to hit, and the Spanish qualifier, who had played the €10,350 Main Event for a fraction of the entry fee, was in charge.
Two dangerous opponents had been delivered in one hand, and soon, two more departed. Robert Bickley (4th for €335,089) was the highest-ranked British player in the mix, and his short stack shove saw him lose just as Dutchman Mathijs Jonkers did in third for €476,585. The Italian player Gianluca Speranza had a 3:1 chip lead and the backing of top professional Mustapha Kanit in his corner.
The unknown Spanish qualifier, however, would have the last laugh.
Main Event Won by Surprise Champion
Although Speranza started the heads-up duel with the lead, it didn’t last long, with Roca De Torres calling him down with third pair to take a marginal lead. The lead changed hands a little, and Speranza only had to win a coin flip to take the title, but he was unable to do so. Roca De Torres shoved with pocket fives, and Speranza’s call with ace-jack looked golden when an ace landed on the flop. A five on the turn changed the whole story, and Speranza, who was down a very small stack, lost it all in the next hand for just two big blinds. Ten-eight was shot down by queen-five, and a stunned Marti Roca De Torres was the WSOP Europe Main Event champion for €1,115,207. Speranza was consoled by his friends and comforted by a runner-up prize of €689,246.
“I am more nervous now than before when I was playing!” Roca De Torres told PokerNews after the final battle. “I am very happy – it is a dream come true. I don’t know what to say.”
Roca De Torres thanked his friends and family and revealed that his wife was awaiting their second child. He admitted to being nervous about the eventual comeback he pulled off.
“For a moment it looked impossible. But I was growing my stack hand by hand. I tried to play hand by hand and don’t think in the future. Because I thought in the future and this is bad thinking.”
For Marti Roca De Torres, winning the WSOP Europe Main Event was not a springboard to a dominant life on the elite circuit of professional poker tournaments. To date, he has cashed for just under $1.4m, with almost all of his winnings coming in Rozvadov back in 2017. He mostly plays small events in his home country of Spain but for one week in the Czech-German border town that has become synonymous with the World Series of Poker in the years since, Roca De Torres was a poker legend, and his name will live on forever in poker history.
| Player | Country | Prize | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Marti Roca de Torres | Spain | €1,115,207 |
| 2nd | Gianluca Speranza | Italy | €689,246 |
| 3rd | Mathijs Jonkers | Netherlands | €476,585 |
| 4th | Robert Bickley | United Kingdom | €335,089 |
| 5th | Niall Farrell | United Kingdom | €239,639 |
| 6th | Maria Ho | United States | €174,365 |
| 7th | Jack Salter | United Kingdom | €129,121 |
| 8th | Luis Rodriguez | Spain | €97,344 |
| 9th | Stepan Osinovskii | Russia | €74,737 |
2015 WSOP Europe 2018 WSOP Europe
About the Author: Paul Seaton has written about poker for over 10 years, interviewing some of the best players ever to play the game such as Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth. Over the years, Paul has reported live from tournaments such as the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and the European Poker Tour. He has also written for other poker brands where he was Head of Media, as well as BLUFF magazine, where he was Editor.
