Antonio Buonanno Wins $1.7m At EPT Grand Final In Monte Carlo

Antonio Buonanno has just taken down the biggest score of his career after triumphing at the EPT Grand Final Main Event in Monte Carlo for an incredible €1.24 million ($1,715,526), having first topped a talented 650 player field over six days, including spending almost 10 hours finishing off his final opponent Jack Salter heads-up.
The Italian pro now boasts $2,106,374 in live tournament earnings, and commenting on his remarkable victory, said: “It was very hard and very long. Salter is a good player. It was very difficult to win this EPT. I played five days very short-stacked, but I think I played good poker yesterday and today.”
The €10,600 buy-in was held at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort, and attracted a good turnout to create a prize pool worth €6.5m ($9m). Amongst the notables then seeing a return on their investment was Sam Trickett in 75th (€19,200), Mohsin Charania in 48th (€24,400), Ole Schemion in 44th (€24,400), Noah Boeken in 33rd (€28,300), David Williams in 24th (€36,700), and Scott Clements in 20th (€49,350).
After the final table of eight had been set, six hours is all it would then take before Antonio Buonanno (A-K) eliminated Malte Moennig (A-5) in 3rd place (€547,000) to go heads-up against UK’s Jack Salter for the title. Having started the final battle with around 80 big blinds apiece, it would then take a record 310 hands before the final hand was played with Salter three-betting all-in preflop holding Kd-7d. Buonanno chose to make the call holding As-4h and after the dealer put out a Jh-9s-2h-Qd-3s board, Jack Salter had to be content with a runner-up finish worth €765,000, while the 47 year-old Italian pro was crowned the champion.
Commenting eight hours into his marathon heads-up encounter, Salter had told one of his supporters, “I would have fallen asleep without the rail..It’s helping me a lot.”
Final Table Results:
1 – Antonio Buonanno (Italy) €1,240,000
2 – Jack Salter (UK) €765,000
3 – Malte Moennig (Germany) €547,000
4 – Mayu Roca (Colombia) €419,000
5 – Magnus Karlsson (Sweden) €332,000
6 – Sebastian von Toperczer (Germany) €258,300
7 – Kenny Hicks(USA)  €188,500
8 – Sebastian Bredthauer (Germany) €128,800