Italian Simone Andrian Wins WSOP Europe Main Event
The World Series of Poker Europe 2024 series is in the poker history books, complete with 15 official bracelet events. The prize money has been paid and bracelets awarded, all in the last three weeks at King’s Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic.
Notable Winners
The 15 bracelets went to winners of a variety of countries. Two winners won bracelets in their home country of Czechia: Michael Schuh for the Colossus and Martin Kabrhel in the Diamond High Roller.
Players also claimed bracelets for France, Romania, Ukraine, England, Brazil, and China. And one of those belonged to an 888poker pro. That pro was a woman, PLO specialist and Brazilian poker pro Vivian Saliba, who won her first bracelet.
But two countries dominated, as Italy claimed four bracelets, including the Main Event bracelet. Germany captured three wins.
Andrian Becomes European Champion
Speaking of Italians, Simone Andrian represented Italy well in the Main Event, which the WSOP Europe called the European Championship. The €10,350 buy-in tournament brought in 768 entries, which boosted the prize pool to €7,219,200, well past the €5M guarantee.
Andrian’s journey started fairly well, as he finished in the top 10 on Day 2 of the tournament. He had a fairly short stack at the end of Day 3. That was the day that the top 116 players made the money.
On Day 4, Andrian came in with 46 other players and almost immediately doubled up. He did the same a bit later and kept climbing up the leaderboard. By the time the remaining players combined to three tables, Andrian had such a lead with 11.82M chips that the next player on the board had little more than 5M chips. As the field thinned, he kept accumulating, holding 20% of the chips with 22 players left and still eliminating more players. When play stopped for the final six to bag chips, Andrian bagged 33.5M. He had twice that of Urmo Velvelt in second.
The Italian started the final table by watching the only other Italian bust in sixth place, but Andrian then ousted the fifth and fourth place finishers. However, Velvelt did well during three-handed play. He busted Ran Ilani in third to take a slight lead into heads-up against Andrian. The two exchanged the lead several times. But at one point, Velvelt took a massive pot to climb over 60M, leaving Andrian with fewer than 17M. But Andrian found momentum and two significant double-ups to take that lead into the winner’s circle.
- 1st place: Simone Andrian (Italy) €1,300,000
- 2nd place: Urmo Velvelt (Estonia) €854,000
- 3rd place: Ran Ilani (Israel) €590,000
- 4th place: Mariusz Golinski (Poland) €415,000
- 5th place: David Hochheim (Germany) €297,000
- 6th place: Enrico Camosci (Italy) €217,000
This is Andrian’s second WSOP bracelet, as he won a 6-Max event at WSOP Europe in 2021. He also has titles from numerous tournaments in Europe, notably WPT Prime San Remo Main Event in 2023 and PokerStars Summer Festival Malta in 2023. This Main Event victory, however, is his largest score to date and puts him above the $2.7M lifetime earnings mark.
Lower Turnout
This year’s WSOP Europe saw a general downturn in registration, most notably in the form of several tournament overlays. Four of the 15 events had overlays, the largest of €90K in the Colossus. The GGMillion$ had a €60K overlay, Mini Main Event was short by nearly €50K, and the Turbo Freezeout missed its guarantee by only €9K. Event 2 (PLO 6-Max) beat its guarantee by only €1.740, and even the Opener bested its promised amount by €39K.
To be honest, the World Series of Poker’s focus was elsewhere. Not only was a huge emphasis put on this December’s WSOP Paradise and making it more profitable than its inaugural series in 2023, the entire company was in the process of an ownership change. GGPoker’s parent company (NSUS) bought the WSOP. That announcement on August 1 put the entirety of the WSOP under new leadership.
It has been clear that the new leadership was not very interested in promoting WSOP Europe this year. King’s Casino made the official announcement of this year’s WSOP Europe in April, and the World Series of Poker didn’t publicize it until the series was almost ready to begin. Even then, its updates on the WSOP website were incomplete – usually not even filling in the prize pool, entry totals, or payout sections.
Without any official information, all signs appear to point to this 2024 WSOP Europe as the last of its kind. With NSUS and GGPoker in charge going forward, it is very unclear as to where the WSOP will hold live bracelet series besides Las Vegas and the Bahamas in 2025.
