"Dare2Stream" Star Celebrates Groundbreaking Win at Inaugural EPT Cyprus

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The name of the new EPT 2023 champion was announced this weekend. Joining past stage winners Michel Dattani (PCA), Razvan Belea (EPT Paris), Mike Watson (EPT Monte Carlo) and Simon Wiciak (EPT Barcelona) is 24-year-old Dutchman Gilles Simon.

After a week of play, the top 7 players remained in the tournament from 1,320 entries and it was Simon who topped the list before the start of the final day. But the early stages of the final were not successful for him. In one of the first hands, he lost an AKs vs TT coinflip, left with only 17bb in his stack. But after that, Simon did not lose a single all-in and as a result confidently reached heads-up, where he beat the Italian Andrea Dato and took the main prize of $1,042,000. This is the biggest payout in Simon's career, because a few years ago he played only online and mostly tournaments with an average buy-in of $10.

"It was very difficult," said Simon in an interview after the victory. "The final table turned into a real battle for survival. Who can just hang on, who can continue to play consistently and not make too many big mistakes because the pressure was on and the fatigue after seven days was on the edge."

It’s interesting that Gilles has already managed to become the first winner of something – so he won the inaugural Dare2Stream promotion from the PokerStars room. Then the streamer received a Platinum package as a reward for participation in the prestigious PSPC series. Simon then made the decision to focus more on his career as a poker player rather than as a streamer. And as we see, this has borne fruit.

Spam that 🍆for EPT Champ @Ghilleyyy pic.twitter.com/fd0buJg5iU

— Robin Poker (@RobinPoker_) October 23, 2023