It was a busy week in the world of poker as the European Poker Tour event in Barcelona produced some big winners. One of those champs was a big surprise as he hadn’t been on the map before. We’ll start there in our weekly recap of the poker news:
Piotr Nurzynski Wins European Poker Tour Barcelona 5,300 Euro Event
An online qualifier has stormed the gate and won the EPT Barcelona 5,300 euro tournament. This was a Cinderella story of sorts since Piotr Nurzynski was a relatively unknown player before this event. He had collected just over $11,000 in career earnings before this. He’s now a millionaire, though, as this win secured him over 1,000,000 euros in prize money plus a $30,000 platinum pass.
Nurzynski barely defeated second-place finisher Haoxiang Wang, who also won over one million euros in the tournament. Taking a look at the rest of the top five, Ognyan Dimov was third and pocketed just over 725,000 euros, Pedro Marques was fourth and collected just under 700,000 euros and Rodrigo Carmo took fifth, making $400,000.
Max Silver Wins European Poker Tour Barcelona 10,300 Euro Event
The action in Barcelona last week had other standout performances as Max Silver earned a big win. He ended championing the 10,300 euro tournament in the Spanish city. He defeated 439 other players to rise to the top, winning just over 600,000 euros (roughly $695,000 US).
Norbert Szecsi was second and Joris Ruijs, who won a smaller side event in Barcelona during the past week, finished third. Szecsi actually won more prize money in a three-way deal among the top three finishers, but he didn’t finish with the trophy in his hands. Ruijs made 488,819 euros for finishing third.
Woman Indicted On Two Dozen Felony Counts In Theft Case
A woman accused of stealing more than $1 million from a poker industry publication was indicted Thursday on two dozen felony counts. Prosecutors say Shelby McCann stole money from Card Player Magazine after she began working for the company as a financial controller in September of 2011.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Jay P. Raman said McCann wrote fraudulent checks to herself, paid credit card debt with corporate funds and individually re-engineered an increase of her own salary. It wasn’t just a few crumbs that she took here and there as the theft amounted to nearly $1.1 million, according to Raman.
While the company was flush with cash at one point, Raman noted that on April 15, 2011, the Department of Justice shut down three of the game’s top online poker websites. Indictments against executives at PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker reduced the magazine’s ad revenue and forced Card Player to slash its staff by more than 90 percent. McCann’s hire at Card Player Magazine, which occurred months after the indictments, had to be seen and understood in light of that event as the company obviously lost a lot of money from those big players.
Along with running the magazine, Allyn Shulman and her husband have won bracelets in the annual World Series of Poker.