Lukas Zaskodny Wins 2019 partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Europe Main Event

Lukas Zaskodny has won the 2019 partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Europe €10,300 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event, which took place at the King’s Casino Rozvadov in the Czech Republic. The Czech native outlasted a field of 504 total entries in the event to earn the top prize of €906,770 ($1,015,582 USD). This was Zaskodny’s second major live tournament win, having taken down the €2,200 pot-limit Omaha event at the 2017 World Series of Poker Europe to secure his first gold bracelet.

In addition to the title and the money, Zaskodny was also awarded 2,100 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion of this event. This was his first POY-qualified score of the year, but it alone was enough to move him into a three-way tie for 64th place in the 2019 POY race standings, which are sponsored by Global Poker.

Zaskodnyentered the final day of this event in third chip position with eight players remaining, behind the overall leader Charlie Carrel and France’s Romain Lewis. Carrel got off to a fine start, picking up pocket kings against the pocket queens of Rastislav Paleta and winning an all-in confrontation to send the Czech player to the rail in eighth place ($112,000 USD).

Carrel doubled up Roberto Romanello during seven-handed action to lose a chunk of his stack and fall out of the lead. He continued to slide down the leaderboard as play continued and eventually found himself all-in and at risk with KQ racing against the 99 of Josef Snejberg. The pocket nines held and Carrel was knocked out in seventh place ($145,600 USD).

Carrel’s fellow British poker pros at the final table were the next two to join him at the payout desk. Roberto Romanello could not win a race with pocket nines against the QJ of Lewis and was eliminated in sixth place ($190,400 USD). Sam Grafton’s KQ couldn’t outrun the 77 of Zaskodny. The Czech player flopped a set and held from there to send Grafton home with $246,400 USD.

Zaskodny continued his climb up the chip counts by flopping two pair to crack the pocket aces of Severin Schleser. All of the chips got into the middle on the flop and Schleser was unable to regain the lead. He earned $336,000 USD as the fourth-place finisher.

Romain Lewis got his last 13 big blinds in with K9 and was called by Josef Snejberg from the small blind, who held the AJ. The board ran out A7495 and Lewis was sent packing in third place ($479,360 USD).

Snejberg and Zaskodny struck a deal heading into heads-up play, which guaranteed each player better than second-place money while leaving €100,000 and the title to play for. In the end the two players picked up a pair of big hands preflop and got all of the chips in. Zaskodny shoved from the button with 1010 and the chip lead. Snejberg called for his last 98,000,000 holding A10. The pocket tens held and Snejberg had to settle for $804,418 USD as the runner-up finisher.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

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