2026 has been a crazy ride for recreational poker player Andre Winkler. In May, he obtained a WSOP Ring with his first-ever recorded live win on The Hendon Mob. Then, in July, the monster score happened. Winkler topped a field of several thousand people at King’s Resort in Rozvadov, winning a €590 buy-in tournament for over €420,000.
And today, at the very same venue, Winkler captured one of only ten King’s Royal Scepter trophies in existence by taking down the €2,000 EPC Masters at the first-ever King’s Million European Championship, beating a field of 346 entries.
“I feel actually a little bit tired, but really great,” Winkler, who walked away with €99,600 after a heads-up deal with eventual runner-up Marco Giordano, shared after a 12-hour day that culminated in his victory.
Thanks to his chip lead at the start of the heads up, Giordano became the most profitable player of the evening. Securing €118,400 in the deal, he received the largest share of the €602,040 pool. However, after a fun but intense heads-up duel for the trophy, Winkler secured the victory, and it was one that he had his eyes on ever since he saw the unique trophies for the brand-new series at King’s.
“Winning the EPM two months ago was a little bit life-changing, so I decided to play way more than I planned. I told my friends that I came here to win one [Royal Scepter], and the series was not working so good for me. I fired a lot of bullets, but it ended well. It’s really crazy that I did it again.”
€2,000 EPC Masters Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Andre Winkler | Germany | €99,600* |
| 2 | Marco Giordano | Italy | €118,400* |
| 3 | Tobias Peters | Netherlands | €58,100 |
| 4 | Pasquale Casella | Italy | €39,900 |
| 5 | MajikMike | Italy | €28,200 |
| 6 | Fatih Sen | Turkey | €20,300 |
| 7 | Catalin Moraru | Romania | €15,100 |
| 8 | Paul Craciunas | Romania | €11,450 |
| 9 | Sebastian Kotowicz | Poland | €9,050 |
* denotes heads-up deal
Although he went toe-to-toe with seasoned pros like Tobias Peters at the final table, Winkler admitted he only really started playing live poker about two and a half years ago.
Since then, he has racked up dozens of cashes at King’s Resort alone.
“I think for the smaller buy-ins, €300 up to €1,000, there are no better tournaments in the world. You can have a €1M prize pool every weekend,” he noted.
“I played online before 2024, but then I decided that I want to go more live. I enjoy it way more. I have already stopped playing online, I just use it to qualify for live events. I spend all my time in casinos all over the world. I wanted to play like 50 tournaments this year, but I think in the end it will be 100.”
Winkler’s Winning Ways
Winkler started Day 2 as one of the big stacks of the 69 returning players, and thus had no issues getting into the 52 paid places. Then, when 13 players remained, the blinds had caught up to Winkler, and he found himself all in with a short stack of eight big blinds. His king-three was at risk against MajiMike‘s pocket eights, but Winkler hit a king to kickstart his fairy-tale run. Soon, the final table was reached, and Winkler started in the middle of the pack with 22 big blinds.
As player after player quickly fell, Winkler stayed mostly uninvolved, instead patiently picking up pay jumps. That is, until play went four-handed and he caught Pasquale Casella bluffing, having hero-called with a low pair. Not much later, Casella bluffed off the remainder of his chips as well, and again, Winkler was the beneficiary.
Peters then fell in third to Giordano in a massive flip, and the remaining duo quickly agreed to chop up the remaining prize pool and play for the glory and the trophy.
Giordano started the heads-up with a two-to-one advantage, but Winkler quickly doubled to take over the lead. Winkler won a few more pots, and eventually, Giordano shoved his king-four into Winkler’s queen-ten. Winkler paired up on the flop and hit a flush on the river, securing the victory and his desired Royal Scepter trophy.