What you saw, and may have missed, in Monaco

EPT Monte Carlo is over for another year, and another superstar joins the ranks of established greats as champion of the prestigious Main Event. Manig Loeser, 30, of Bad Homberg, Germany, finally got his hands on an EPT title, prevailing from a final table that continued a tradition of prolonged last-day battles, stretching past 3am local time.

“It was quite a fight,” Loeser said as he got his hands on the trophy and sealed a €603,777 payday. He agreed a heads-up deal with China’s Wei Huang, who took €552,056.

In addition to Loeser’s extraordinary composure, the final will likely be remember mostly for a nine-hour session between the elimination of Luis Medina in sixth and Nicola Greico in fifth. Although such specific records aren’t kept, it seems highly likely that this was the longest period of six-handed play in any major tournament.

There was never much hope for Medina, who had only 16 big blinds coming into the final and was relatively quickly knocked out, but Grieco was the chip leader at the start of the day and might have been optimistic about chances for victory. As it was, he was fortunate not to have been eliminated within about 90 minutes of final table play, shedding chips with alarming haste. He mounted a comeback to keep himself alive, but it was all ultimately in vain. He did still fall in fifth–it’s just that it was nine hours later.

Ryan Riess, the 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event champion, narrowly missed out on becoming the first WSOP winner to clinch an EPT title, falling in fourth, but not before his audacious and correct all-in call with ten high had wowed the crowds.

Two other hands brought similar gasps from onlookers: one was a bluff from Huang that got Loeser to fold a straight, and the other was simply the craziest chopped pot an EPT final has ever seen. Check out the video below.

This quick summary doesn’t really do justice to the part played in this final by both Huang and Viktor Katzenberger, both of whom came with a whisker of becoming their countries’ first EPT main event champions. China now has two second places, while Hungary still seeks a winner despite multiple final tables. Both of this week’s challengers showed they had what it takes to go better.

Relive the final table via our complete play-by-play coverage (in association with Poker News). Click through a gallery of Main Event images below, and see the full results on the results page.