Nik Earns Crowning Achievement in Record-Breaking €1,150 EPC Super Main Event

Oct 07, 2026
4 min read

One name stood above the rest of the field after all eight opening flights of the €1,150 EPC Super Main Event were completed, and that same name returned to the top of the leaderboard following the penultimate day at the first-ever 2026 King’s Million European Poker Championship.

Romania’s Nik was fresh off a final table run in the €1,000 Mystery Bounty just a week ago, and returned to the feature table to finish the job for the largest prize of the series. He outlasted a field of 7,013 entrants to claim his largest live poker win, taking home €546,100 following a four-way deal, along with the King’s Million Royal Scepter after defeating Christophe Vincent in heads-up play.

€1,150 EPC Super Main Event Final Table Results

*Denotes four-way deal

“I play professionally,” Nik told PokerNews shortly after taking down the title. “Mostly, I start to play live before Covid, but before that I played online since 2010. I had some good results also online.”

The tournament smashed the advertised guarantee, finishing with a prize pool of €6,855,207. Several records were set at King’s, including the 1,763 entries on Day 1e alone. Nik was impressed with the inaugural event, and even happier to leave with some hardware after some impressive results in this very room over the last few years.

“I think it was over the expectation, over the guarantee. I think everything was fun, especially when you win, it’s very easy.”

Almost Wire-to-Wire

The King’s poker room was filled for most of the Super Main Event, which spanned over the course of the last seven days. Nik secured the most chips among the 852 players who returned in the money to begin Day 2, bagging up in the middle of the pack. That was only day he did not lead, as he returned to the top of the leaderboard after Day 3 and held a big advantage with almost a quarter of the chips in play.

“I try to play as solid as I can because you cannot put pressure on Day 2,” Nik recalled about his mindset while playing with a big stack. “They will make huge calls and it’s not that good to bluff them too much, so you cannot put too much pressure. But on Day 3, I played pretty solid. I had a big bluff in the beginning of the day, so after that I ran very, very hot.”

Nik then used the King’s Resort stream to scout his opponents for the final day, allowing him to refine a plan of attack on the way to the final table.

“I see how can I play best against a special opponents, but I try to do some adjustment. Besides that, I know how to play ICM and it was easy for me. I think I was most experienced in the tournament, at least in the final table. So I played pretty solid, and I ran good.”

King’s Success

Nik had plenty of experience to draw on once he reached the final table, where he was once again at the top of the chip counts. In addition to the seventh-place finish earlier in this series, Nik won a WSOP Circuit ring at King’s Resort back in January in the €3,000 High Roller and had reached four other final tables here since 2023.

“I had some results, but not as big as this result. It’s very hard to have a better result here.”

Once action was down to the final four, the clock was paused and a deal was struck to adjust the payouts. The deal left more than €200,000 to play for, with the top two players earning the additional money.

“I would not accept the deal if I was the chip leader,” Nik explained. At that point, he was sitting in third as all four players secured at least €400,000. Nik then quickly found a double with pocket eights, and went on to knock out Lyubomir in third place with queens.

From there, Nik held a big advantage over Vincent and locked up the title with two pair on the final hand. He was promptly presented with the trophy, his crown, and attire to adorn for his winner photos.