Earlier this festival, there was plenty of prop betting on Ylva Thorsrud’s ‘Jevakim’ Twitch stream with plenty of other chatter happening on Discord. Some of the friendly prop action included whether Norway or the rest of the world would win the most trophies this year.

Norway began the friendly competition with the lead after Simon Solberg won the opening event in Event #1: €100 Big Bet Mix Turbo. However, after that it has been all close calls and no cigars for Norway and they will need to pick up the pace in the second half of the festival to at least keep the competition close after falling behind 3 to 1 despite runner-up finishes from a trio of Norwegian in Joakim Bakke on Tuesday and Stian Finckenhagen and Tobias Leknes on Wednesday.

The two-day Event #3: €350 Dealer’s Choice was a challenging affair for all mixed game players as their brains were constantly in motion throughout the event with players able to choose between the following games:

The mix:

• NLH – FLH – PLO – PLO5
• FLO8 – PLO8 – 5cPLO8 – NLO8
• Stud – Stud8 – Razz – 5CD
• NL2-7 – A-5TD – 2-7TD – Badugi
• Badacey – Baducey

The lofty €20,000 guarantee proved to be a place holder with 105 entries blowing both that away with a €31,573 prize pool. This also nearly tripled the €11,978 prize pool created last year before Austria’s Robin Panholzer won the trophy and the €4,788 top prize by defeating a field of 39 entries.

The event not only showcased tons of action but some drama as well. Panholzer advanced to the podium in the hunt to become the first back-to-back champion at the EMPC. This wasn’t meant to be as he hit the rail in third place for €3,830.
Meanwhile, Tobias Leknes, who was hungry for his first title this year and Isaac Barton, who was hunting for his first trophy victory in an international event were facing off heads-up.

Despite Leknes’s initial advantage, Barker defeated his formidable opponent. However, Leknes was more than gracious to give kudos to his opponent for a hard-fought victory.

“I had a blast coming second in the Dealer’s Choice,” shared Leknes. “I lost heads-up to a great fellow who managed to get a very nice comeback heads-up! I chose Badugi at some point, he won all 4 hands making Badugis, then he chose Badugi, continued making Badugis, and yeah he turned it all around and knocked me out.”

The one-day Event #4: €250 Mystery Bounty was not only a new event for the EMPC, but as far as we know it appears this is the first time a mystery bounty event was hosted that featured fixed-limit mixed games.

Players responded enthusiastically as the €20,000 guarantee proved to be no issue with 104 entries creating a €22,194 prize pool.

It was time for the local country of Slovakia to make their voices heard and for the first time, a local player in Ivan Sebeldi advanced to the podium of a 2024 EMPC event. Sebeldi managed to do better than just reach the podium as the trophy will stay home in Slovakia after he defeated Stian Finckenhagen en route to the title and the €3,503 top prize along with any bounties collected along the way.

See the 2024 EMPC Schedule here.