The EPT Prague main event has been won by a local player, Jan Skempa. He was the only Czech player to make it through to the final table, and beat off the other 583 players who had come to contend in the biggest poker tournament that has ever been held in the Czech Republic.

The players each paid up the €5,000 buy-in for a shot at the title, which is one of the most popular locations on the tour and ran from December 1 to 6. The favorite at the final table was Luca Pagano, a Team PokerStars pro, who was making his sixth appearance at an EPT final table. However, it was yet again not to be his day as he only managed to finish in sixth place.

The final table lasted a marathon 10 hours, and when 23-year-old Skempa ended up going into heads-up play with Eyal Avitan there was still three hours of play to be had. In the end the local player fought off the challenge by the Israeli and took home a healthy pay check of €682,000, leaving second-placed Avitan with €454,000.

Skampa’s victory followed on from his final-table appearance in Portugal two weeks earlier, when he became the first Czech player to reach the final table in an ETP event. After his victory on home turf he said that “winning a large tournament like an EPT in my home town is one of the greatest achievements anyone can have.”