This week’s poker news was a milestone moment for the country of Brazil. For the first time ever, a Brazilian has taken home a European Poker Tour Main Event. We’ve got all of the latest details for you in this week’s poker news.
Simoes Mesqueu Wins 2022 European Poker Tour Main Event
The main event for the 2022 European Poker Tour Monte Carlo has come to a conclusion and we have a winner. The €5,300 no-limit hold’em event saw 1,073 participants battle it out but nobody was able to take down the Brazilian native Marcelo Simoes Mesqueu. Mesqueu took home the biggest piece of the prize pie, collecting a whopping €939,840 of the massive €5,204,050 prize pool. He became the first player from his home country to ever win a main event during the EPT.
For Mesqueu, this was by far his largest recorded tournament victory. Out of the seven titles he has picked up throughout his career, his previous biggest payday was $109,350. When it comes to his total career earnings, he is now sitting at more than $1.4 million.
Money wasn’t all that he gained from the win. He also 1,920 Card Player Player of the Year points for first place. This helped him jump all the way into 17th place in the 2022 POY standings.
Brinkenhoff Wins Venetian High Roller Tournament
Another high stakes, no-limit hold’em tournament has just finished over at The Venetian in Las Vegas and it was Michael Brinkenhoff who came away with the top prize. The $10,000 buy-in High Roller event had a field of just 23 total entries with the prize pool of $230,000 being split amongst the top four players. Brinkenhoff earned $105,800 for his play.
This was a monumental moment for Brinkenhoff, who wasn’t ever able to win a live event in his career up to this point. His previous high score came from a seventh-place finish during the $5,000 buy-in turbo event back in 2017 at the World Series of Poker. As it stands, he holds over $250,000 in career tournament earnings.
Brinkenhoff netted himself some Card Player Player of the Year points as well just to top it all off. He grabbed 180 to be exact though still stands far down the rankings due to it being his first qualifying score of the year.
Shegal Wins Venetian High Roller
Another big winner at the Venetian poker festivities was Vikenty Shegal. He conquered the $10,000 buy-in event, which – given the price cost of entry – drew just 34 participants. However, the prize pool was a generous $340,000, which was split among the top five finishers. Shegal was the final man left standing at the end of it all.
He collected $136,000 for his first-place finish along with some Card Player Player of the Year points. Just in 2022, he has picked up eight final table finishes and $772,721 in earnings during that same span. His additional 1,355 POY points launched him up to 57th place in the standings.
Finally, he earned 136 PokerGO Tour points but it didn’t end up drastically changing his positioning. He still stands outside of the top 30 in that competition.