Simoes has done it, closing out an immense run to top a field of 1,073 runners and taking down the prestigious €5,300 European Poker Tour Monte Carlo Main Event! In doing so he also becomes the first Brazilian to ever ship an EPT Main, winning the trophy along with a sick €939,840 in prize money.
Marcelo Simoes is a big player in Brazil, where his previous best score was $109k for first in a $900 BSOP Main Event back in 2017. With this result being almost 10x bigger, he must be walking on air after his trip to Monaco. The Brazilian player was the only representative of South America featured on the final table, busting out players from across Europe and the United States to secure the win, including Spanish PokerStars Pro Ramon Colillas.
How did the action go down?
During six-handed play Simoes really shone, building a huge chip lead thanks to consistently aggressive play. Across a hectic half-hour’s play, German Erkan Soenmez, French Hugo Pingray, US player Jaime Cervantes and Dragos Trofimov from Moldova were all eliminated, leaving just Simoes and Danish player Morten Hvam to fight it out heads-up.
The heads-up itself was also a short one, lasting under an hour. In the final hand, Hvam opened to 500k at 125k/250k (250k bb ante) blinds and faced a 3bet from Simoes to 1.3 million which he called. The flop came down 9♦7♦6♠ and Simoes continuation bet a further 1 million. Hvam considered briefly before shoving all-in, a total of 3.4 million chips, with Simoes snap-calling him.
Simoes tabled K♥K♦ for the overpair, and all Hvam had to show was the K♣T♦ for a gutshot with overs. When the board ran out 5♠, J♦ the Dane was eliminated, and Simoes was crowned EPT Monte Carlo Main Event Champion for 2022.
EPT Monte Carlo Main Event 2022 Winners and Payouts
| Place | Player | Earnings (USD) |
| 1 | Marcelo Simoes Mesqueu | $986,832 |
| 2 | Morten Hvam | $592,872 |
| 3 | Dragos Trofimov | $417,469 |
| 4 | Jaime Cervantes | $313,645 |
| 5 | Hugo Pingray | $239,883 |
| 6 | Erkan Soenmez | $175,402 |
It was a long, hard battle for the Brazilian over five days of intense poker action, and a well-deserved win for this passionate poker player. We are sure that his family and friends back home will be celebrating his win for Brazil for a long time to come. Well played sir.
Image courtesy of Pokerstars
