Even in this town of fine dining and haute cuisine, the recipe for winning a poker tournament is as simple as it's ever been: Take a room full of players, and beat well. Serve with plenty of chips… all of them, in fact.
The European Poker Tour Monte Carlo Main Event has been simmering for a week, with the field of 1,195 entries carefully reduced to ensure the cream rises to the top. While the action reached boiling point on more than one occasion, and various players have been left steaming, one man has emerged with the trophy, the title and €1,000,000 in prize money.
That man is Aleksandr Shevliakov, a Russian based in Slovenia who works in IT and qualified for the EPT in a satellite on PokerStars. Over six days of intense tournament play the stony-faced Shevliakov proved he had the right ingredients all along, but the final day of this tournament, in which a combined prize pool of €5,795,750 was awarded, saw more than its fair share of controversial moments right from the start.
New rail rules adopted on the fly
The day started with an unexpected, unplanned and possibly unprecedented ruling from the Floor, which set an unusual tone for the day.
Boris Angelov, who led the final six heading into the final day, was also present at last summer’s WSOP final table, where he finished 5th. There he would have had a front row seat for the controversial ‘coaching from the rail’ incident, in which eventual champion Jonathan Tamayo conferred with friends — and a laptop — in between hands.
During Friday’s Day 5 Angelov made several visits to the rail himself, looking at a friend’s phone and apparently viewing hands from the livestream, which is broadcast with a delay of at least 30 minutes.
This appears to have raised some issues with Shevliakov, who quietly protested at the start of the final day’s play by repeatedly placing only one of his hole cards on the table’s sensors. That led Khossein ‘Amir’ Kokhestani to assert that, if Shevliakov wasn’t going to reveal both hole cards for the stream, no one would.
The Floor was called, several times, and eventually it was announced that a) every player must place their hole cards on the sensors, allowing the livestream to register both cards for viewers (as is standard), but also b) that electronic devices and any coaching from the rail were no longer permitted.
That unexpected but necessary move appeared to calm the situation, but not for long.
Wakil out first in controversial hand
More controversy would soon follow, and it would involve the first elimination of the day. With blinds at 60K/120K, Jamil Wakil raised to 270K from under the gun with 
. That meant the minimum 3-bet would be 420K, so when Shevliakov tossed in 360K — before claiming he did not see Wakil’s raise — the Floor was called once more and he was forced to up his raise to 420K.
Wakil, assuming Shevliakov had intended to open the pot to 3x with just the big blind behind him, decided to turn the screw on Shevliakov with an all-in shove. Shevliakov turned out to have a monster, 
, and called in an instant.
The big slick held up, and Wakil was left looking sickened, out in 6th, as the question of whether Shevliakov had intentionally attempted an illegal raise to induce a shove was on everyone’s mind.
“He did it to someone else,” Wakil said, apparently referencing Shevliakov’s actions in a previous hand from the tournament, as he gathered his belongings in something of a daze. He takes €199,750 back to Canada for his run to the final table.
Same hand, same result
Poland’s Mariusz Golinski was the next to fall, and it would be the same player — with the same hand — to knock him out. With blinds at 100K/200K, Shevliakov was once again dealt , and this time min-raised to 400K from under-the-gun.
Action folded around to Golinski in the small blind. One of the smallest stacks at the table, he elected to come over the top of Shevliakov’s raise with an all-in shove of 3.7M, holding 
. He was dominated, but not down and out. Yet.
That changed extremely quickly, when the flop of 
saw Shevliakov flop the world — the nut straight with a redraw to the nut flush.
The best Golinski could hope for was a chop, but the flush came straight away. The 
turn and the 
river meant it was all over for the Pole, who won €259,900 for his deep run.
Kokhestani shows his mettle - and a 4-high bluff
Soon afterwards, with blinds still at 100K/200K, Angelov put in a raise to 450K from the button holding 
. Kokhestani, on the big blind, held 
and elected to pop it back with a 3-bet to 1.1M.
Angelov didn’t believe him. A 4-bet to 2.6M put the pressure back on Kokhestani and his 4-high holding. But Kokhestani wasn’t for folding, and went for the 5-bet to 4M. Angelov laid down the best hand.
Grinning, Kokhestani showed his bluff.
Shevliakov despatches another
A few hands later, looking down at the shortstack of 2.7M (around 13 big blinds), Enrico Coppola went all-in from under-the-gun.
Did he sense weakness in his opponents? Was he inspired by Kokhestani’s aggressive play with the trashy ? Whatever his reasons, Coppola decided to shove with 
, and it didn’t take long for Shevliakov to call from the small blind with 
.
The board had no sympathy for Coppola’s impetuous shove, running out 
to send the Italian home with €337,900, and give Shevliakov an even bigger lead heading into three-handed play.
Back-to-back Angelov falls in third
The next player out would be last year’s runner-up, Boris Angelov, who wasn’t able to repeat the feat from 2024. Angelov hadn’t been able to get much going throughout the day, and with blinds at 125K/250K had dropped to the shortest of the three remaining stacks when he opted to defend his big blind with 
following a raise to 625K from Kokhestani in the small blind, who held 
.
Angelov was ahead going into the flop, and the 
that dropped did nothing to change that. Kokestani continued with a bet of 700K, which Angelov called, before the 
on the turn changed the complexion of the hand completely.
From being a 70% favorite to win the hand, Angelov was suddenly an underdog as Kokhestani hit top pair. Angelov had an open-ended straight draw, and when Kokhestani put him all-in for his remaining 4.7M chips he had to weigh up his chances of hitting it — or indeed being ahead of his opponent already with his ace-high.
Angelov chewed through his remaining time bank cards before sliding in the call. Needing an ace, jack or six to overtake Kokhestani’s top pair, Angelov went to his friends on the rail, not for a look at the stream but for some moral support, but it would prove to be no good. The on the river was a safe card for Kokhestani, and we were down to two.
Over the past 12 months Angelov has made final tables at the 2024 and 2025 Monte Carlo EPT Main Events, as well as the 2024 WSOP Main Event. We look forward to hopefully seeing him back at the WSOP this summer, where he’ll have the €439,200 he won here to invest in his next poker trip.
Shevliakov grinds down the dentist
Heads-up play started with very even stacks, and while Kokhestani initially pushed ahead the Hamburg-based dentist was slowly reeled in by Shevliakov, though the latter — who played with a stern, inscrutable poker face throughout — was not able to extend a strong lead until the very end.
The Russian and Ukranian played together mostly in friendly silence, with some occasional small talk, but the regular and constant aggression of Shevliakov hinted that he might have the ability to see out what turned into a fairly epic confrontation. There was certainly no talk of a deal.
Not that Shevliakov was a one-trick pony. At one point he laid down a made flush on the river, holding 
in a limped pot that saw the flop checked through, then the turn bet for 400K by Kokhestani and called by the Russian. The 
river completing the flush, Kokhestani bet 2.5M on the river, and Shevliakov — sensing danger — put his king-high flush down. Kokhestani had for another successful bluff.
Around 80 hands into heads-up play, stacks had levelled back up and were fairly even — and deep — and there was a strong sense in the room that it would take a huge cooler to swing the game firmly one way or the other. Then, suddenly, that’s exactly what happened.
On the 186th hand of the final table, Shevliakov completed from the button with 
and Kokhestani checked his . The two saw a flop of 
, which paired both players. Kokhestani checked, then called a 500K bet from Shevliakov.
The 
on the turn gave Kokhestani trips, which he quickly bet out for 1.5M. His opponent called, only to hit the perfect river. The gave Shevliakov the better full house, Kokhestani checked just as quickly as he had bet on the turn, then called the Russian’s bet of 4.5M.
That gave Shevliakov a chip advantage of around 3 to 1, and something changed. The very next hand, after hours of careful and strategic pushing and pulling, the two players got it in preflop as Shevliakov shoved holding 
, quickly called by Kokhestani’s .
The board ran out 
, and all of a sudden it was over, an unexpectedly swift end to an unpredictable final table.
Kokhestani was quick to applaud the new EPT Champion, and won €615K for his runner-up finish. Shevliakov won the million euros, and almost cracked a smile.
EPT Monte Carlo Main Event - final table results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aleksandr Shevliakov | €1,000,000 |
| 2 | Khossein 'Amir' Kokhestani | €615,000 |
| 3 | Boris Angelov | €439,200 |
| 4 | Enrico Coppola | €337,900 |
| 5 | Mariusz Golinski | €259,900 |
| 6 | Jamil Wakil | €199,750 |
Images courtesy of Manuel Kovsca/Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd
