Online Poker Player Wins EPT Tallinn

Kevin Stani turned a small stake into a big payday in Estonia.

An accomplished live tournament pro may have come into the final table of EPT Tallinn with the lead, but it was an online poker player with only a handful of live cashes to his credit who walked away with first place.

Kevin Stani, an online poker player who won his way into the tournament in a $530 satellite he played on a whim, emerged victorious over a field of 420 players on the European Poker Tour’s first stop in the Estonian capital of Tallinn. The Norwegian has been playing online poker for the last seven years with a focus on cash games, but recently he made the decision to play more live tournaments.

Stani, who entered the final table in second place behind chip leader Arnaud Mattern, bobbed and weaved until play was four-handed, when his pocket eights held up against Dmitry Vitkind’s smaller pair and gutshot straight draw to send the Russian to the rail. Then he four-bet shoved holding pocket threes in a blind-versus-blind situation, ran into Mattern’s pocket queens, and turned a trey to bust the pro and set himself up with the chip lead against Konstantin Bilyauer for the title. Stani’s run-good lasted through the final river card, when he got Bilyauer to call off his stack drawing dead.

For the EPT Tallinn win, Stani takes home €400,000 (US $512,800) on his $530 investment, by far the biggest cash of his live tournament career. His previous best was a 127th-place finish in this year’s WSOP Main Event, good for $57,102. With all his recent tournament success, Stani will be one to watch in London this September when the EPT and WSOP Europe converge on the British capital.