Boatman becomes the oldest player to ever win an EPT Main Event
The 2024 PokerStars European Poker Tour Paris €5,300 No-Limit Hold ’em main event made history after a huge 1,747-player field was reduced from two starting flights and five more days until a champion was crowned. British poker legend Barny Boatman would become the oldest player ever to win an EPT main event title.
The 68-year-old also took home his biggest career cash of €1,287,800 ($1,390,824) with the win, beating his previous top award of $546,080 at a $1,500 buy-in bracelet event at the 2013 World Series of Poker. Boatman increased his career tournament earnings to $4.8 million.
The sixth tournament title for the London resident gives Boatman 2,160 Card Player Player of the Year points, putting him first in the 2024 POY standings presented by Global Poker.
The huge number of players attracted to the Le Palais des Congrès de Paris created a prize pool of $9,038,000, with the top 255 finishers in the money, but only six would reach the final day. David Kaufmann was the chip leader when play began, with Boatman in third position. Boatman would send Eric Afriat home in sixth ($282,582), and Peter Jorgne bowed out in fifth place for $367,308 after winning $834,707 for second place last year.
Owen Dodd would fall next, collecting $477,522 for fourth place, and Aleksejs Ponakovs was eliminated in third place for $620,838 to reach almost $17.4 million in career tournament earnings.
Boatman held a better than a 2:1 chip lead over Kaufmann and would move all-in on just the second hand of the heads-up showdown for Kaufmann’s last 10,180,000 chips, where he would survive to give himself the title and earn Kaufmann $869,130 as runner-up.
