Uri Gilboa has won the PokerStars European Poker Tour Sochi Main Event for ₽27,475,000 (~$420,000) after defeating start-of-day chip leader Zakhar Babaev in an all-Israeli heads-up contest.
Gilboa has now become the first-ever Israeli EPT champion and at 61 years of age, the consensus here at Casino Sochi is that he is the oldest EPT champion ever as well.
Wearing a t-shirt form the ‘Rocky’ film franchise throughout the later stages of the poker tournament, his friends told him not to change his t-shirt for luck.
It must have worked because Gilboa now adds over $400,000 to his career earnings.
Here are the final table results:
| Position | Name | Country | Payout (RUB) | Payout (USD) |
| 1 | Uri Gilboa | Israel | 27,475,000 ₽ | $412,125 |
| 2 | Zakhar Babaev | Israel | 16,737,000 ₽ | $251,055 |
| 3 | Maksim Pisarenko | Russia | 11,865,000 ₽ | $177,975 |
| 4 | Ivan Ruban | Russia | 8,953,000 ₽ | $134,295 |
| 5 | Vyacheslav Mizun | Russia | 7,091,000 ₽ | $106,365 |
| 6 | Serafim Kovalevsky | Russia | 5,390,000 ₽ | $80,850 |
| 7 | Francisco Benitez | Uruguay | 3,850,000 ₽ | $57,750 |
| 8 | Dmitry Yurasov | Russia | 2,625,000 ₽ | $39,375 |
“I’m glad that I’m the first Israeli winner,” Gilboa told Joe Stapleton shortly after his victory. “You have to know that the standard of Israeli poker is becoming tremendous. We’ve had a lot of achievements at the WSOP and at other European tournaments. I know I’m the first, but for sure I’m not the last.
An experienced bridge player, Gilboa first started playing poker eight years ago and says that playing bridge on the national scene helped him a lot.
Source: pokernews.com
