The United Kingdom’s Ryan Mandara secured his largest poker tournament payday yet on Sunday, October 20. He emerged victorious from a field of 456 entries in the 2024 European Poker Tour Cyprus $10,300 buy-in no-limit hold’em high roller, walking away with $709,285.
Prior to this marquee win in the Mediterranean, Mandara’s top score had been the $257,321 he earned as the champion of the 2018 Irish Poker Open main event. With this latest victory, Mandara grew his lifetime haul to $1,562,093.
Mandara also secured 1,800 Card Player Player of the Year points for the win. This was just his second POY-qualified score of the year, with the first coming in a $1,045 buy-in hyper turbo earlier at this festival. His 1,842 total points are good enough to move him inside the top 200 in the 2024 POY standing presented by Global Poker.
This event awarded more than $4.4 million in total prize money to its top 63 finishers. Among the many big names to cash were two-time bracelet winners Alexandre Reard (55th) and Aleksejs Ponakovs (51st), two-time $25,000 buy-in high roller victor at this festival Elias Gutierrez (41st), bracelet winner Jessica Teusl (36th), bracelet winner Patrick Leonard (28th), Andras Nemeth (18th), recent Super High Roller Bowl runner-up Juan Pardo (11th), high-stakes superstar Steve O’Dwyer (9th), and 2024 World Series of Poker main event third-place finisher Niklas Astedt (8th).
2020 WSOP Online main event champion Stoyan Madanzhiev finished fourth for $297,000. The Bulgarian, who primarily battles in the online streets, now has nearly $5.7 million in recorded earnings after this latest deep run. Madanzhiev ran A-7 into the A-K of Mandara in his final hand.
Mandara also knocked out Jelle Moene (3rd – $386,200) to set a heads-up showdown with Poland’s Sebastian Malec. The two took some time to hash out a deal, ultimately agreeing to lock up $697,115 for Malec and $676,785 for Mandara while leaving $32,500 and the trophy to play for.
Malec held 12,200,000 to Mandara’s 10,600,000 when play resumed. On the second deal of the match Mandara won a big pot with kings and fives besting queens and fives to take a dominant lead. Not long after, Malec got all-in with K
9
trailing Mandara’s 10
10. The board came down 863
84 and Malec was eliminated in second place. This was the second-largest score yet for Malec, who earned more than $1.2 million as the champion of the 2016 EPT Barcelona main event. He now has more than $2.8 million in career cashes.
Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:
Place
Player
Earnings
POY Points
1
Ryan Mandara
$709,285
1800
2
Sebastian Malec
$697,115
1500
3
Jelle Moene
$386,200
1200
4
Stoyan Madanzhiev
$297,000
900
5
Lev Margolin
$228,500
750
6
Adrian Cazacu
$175,800
600
7
Daniel Myers
$135,200
450
8
Niklas Astedt
$110,900
300
9
Steve O’Dwyer
$92,400
150
Photo credit: Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd. / Eloy Cabacas.