Persson Leads Final Table of Eureka 5 Prague Main Event

Persson is followed in the chip counts by Lithuanian amateur Vladas Burneikis, who has 10,800,000. Burneikis is in Prague partly on business but is making good use of his time in the capital by making the final. The best-known finalist is certainly Martin Staszko, the 2011 WSOP Main Event runner-up. He the only player from the host nation to reach this year's final and is also aiming to become the first Czech player to win a Eureka Main Event title. Staszko currently lies in third place with 6,430,000.

Tomorrow's final table action kicks off at 12.30pm and the eventual winner will succeed last year's winner, Balazs Botond from Hungary

The Eureka 5 Prague Main Event attracted a record-breaking 1,893 players, creating a €1,836,210 prize pool divvied up between 279 players. The champion is set to earn €311,000.

Seat 1: Gianluca Speranza, 28, from Italy, lives in Vienna, PokerStars qualifier - 4,750,000
Speranza comes from a family of poker players – his brother Alessandro and father Giampiero also play and Gianluca himself has been attending EPTs since Season 5. Since his first cash in 2007, Speranza has amassed close to $600k in live tournament winnings, a haul which includes three IPT final tables: fourth at IPT6 Saint Vincent for €25k, fifth at IPT2 Malta for €23,000 and seventh in Sanremo in Season 5 for €16,700. He is currently ranked #36 in the Italy all-time money list.

Seat 2: Martin Staszko, 36, Czech Republic, PokerStars qualifier - 6,430,000
No Czech player has ever won the Eureka Main Event but Martin Staszko is in a good position to change that tomorrow. The 36-year-old pro from Trinec, an industrial town near the Czech/Polish border, doesn't need much introduction. He's by far the most successful live tournament player from the Czech Republic and leads his country's all-time money list with $5.9 million in winnings. Staszko's biggest achievement came in the 2011 WSOP Main Event when he was runner-up to Pius Heinz. Two months back, Staszko snagged his first EPT trophy when he took down the €500 Quintuple Draw event in Malta. Among tomorrow's finalists, he's the only player with a home soil advantage.

Seat 3: Meir Ben Shimon, Israel, 30, Israel - 1,670,000
While Staszko aims to become the first Czech Eureka champ ever, Israeli player Meir Ben Shimon is following in the footsteps of two fellow countrymen who have already won a Eureka Main Event. The 30-year-old hails from Tel Aviv and reaching tomorrow's final is already the biggest success of his career so far. With 1,670,000 in chips, Ben Shimon has a mountain to climb though as he is the shortest stack going in to the finale. Ben Shimon mainly plays live, both tournaments and cash games. When asked what his hobbies were outside of poker, he answered "Poker!", clearly confirming his deep passion for the game.

Seat 4: Mihaita Croitoru, from Romania, lives in Spain - 3,120,000
Croitoru was born in Romania, but when he turned ten, his family moved to Spain and he has been living there since then. He considers himself mainly a tournament player and says he started taking poker seriously at the beginning of this year. Croitoru plays online on PokerStars.es and banked nearly €6k in an ESCOOP event back in July. The 22-year-old is playing the biggest tournament of his career and is the youngest player on the final table. He's already got some ambitions beyond tomorrow's final - and says if he finishes fifth or better, he'll play the EPT Main Event as well. He's enjoying Prague a lot and is already thinking of coming back next year.

Seat 5: Cosimo Sabatini, 48, Italy - 1,875,000
Cosimo Sabatini is the oldest player at this year's Eureka Prague final table, aged 48. He's an accountant from the small Italian town of Cassino and his poker CV includes cashes from Italy, Germany, Spain and the Czech Republic. None of them have been particularly big until the Eureka 5 Prague Main Event, which has already brought him by far best result. Sabatini is enjoying back-to-back cashes in this event, but this time, he'll bank way more than he did for last year's 196th place.

Seat 6: Javier Rojas Mederos, Spain - 6,145,000
Javier Rojas Mederos is another poker pro coming to the final table from Spain. He plays pretty much everything - tournaments, cash games and sit & go's. His greatest poker achievement to date came when he won the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up for $83k. The 25-year-old will need to get at least fourth place to beat that result tomorrow.

Seat 7: Simon Persson, 33, Sweden, PokerStars player - 12,565,000
It was a massive clash between Simon Persson and Igor Until that ended Day 3. The Swede knocked out his opponent in ninth place in the biggest pot of the tournament so far and give himself the chip lead going in to the final table. Persson is no newcomer to the live poker scene, he's been competing for years. Two years ago, he was runner-up in the Master Classics of Poker in Amsterdam for €182,913. Online on PokerStars, Persson's best result came five years ago when he banked $144k for first place in the Sunday Warm-Up.

Seat 8: Vladas Burneikis, 40, Lithuania - 10,800,000

When questioned if he's a pro or an amateur, Burneikis answered with a smile and said: "I'm a fish." Hailing from Lithuania, he has been playing poker for a few years, mainly live because - as he says - "live, it's real". Making the Eureka Prague final table is the best result of his career to date. Burneikis is combining business with pleasure on this trip to the Czech Republic - as well as playing poker, he is also here to meet potential business partners.

Eureka Prague Main Event history:
Season 1: 329 players, €231,290 prize pool, Keith Johnson (UK) for €58,400
Season 2: 652 players, €632,440 prize pool, Menikos Panagiotou (Cyprus) for €137,100
Season 3: 1,315 players, €1,275,550 prize pool, Dimitri Holdeew (Germany) for €226,400
Season 4: 1,738 players, €1,685,860 prize pool, Balazs Botond (Hungary) for €206,948

Source: EPT press rls