Same old Song: 2022 Player of the Year wins EPT Barcelona Main Event

American pro Stephen Song has won the 2024 European Poker Tour (EPT) €5,300 Barcelona main event for the richest live payday of his poker career. Song, a Connecticut resident and well-known participant on several prominent poker tours, cashed for €1,290,386 (US $1,425,652) after eliminating England's Andrew Hulme following a heads-up deal.

Song entered the streamed six-player finale with the lead but experienced a wild up-and-down day before pulling out the win. Hulme eventually earned €1,165,614 for second place, as the two players immediately negotiated a deal following the exit of Romania's Marius-Catalin Pertea in third (€674,150). Americans Rania Nasreddine and David Coleman finished fourth (€518,600) and fifth (€398,950), respectively, while Croatia's Boris Kuzmanovic earned €306,900 as the first player to bust in Sunday's finale.

Song and Hulme agreed a heads-up deal which left €56K - and the trophy - to play for.

Dodging elimination in multiple spots

As he admitted in the post-tourney interview, Song enjoyed something of a charmed finale after enduring adversity early on. "It feels like it was just scripted. I couldn't lose, no matter what I did. Sometimes, it's just like that; the cards are gonna go your way every time," Song told PokerStars commentator Joe Stapleton.

But that was later. Early on, Song's big stack dwindled. What began as a narrow chip lead over Pertea soon turned into a fight for survival. He was down to a little over five big blinds when he doubled up twice, the second one a race against Pertea when he flopped a set of fives to stay in the battle.

Pertea cashed for €674,150 in third place, the biggest score of his career to date.

That gave Song some maneuvering room, but he was in and behind a short while later against Hulme, who was at that point during four-handed action the dominant leader. After a jack-high flop, Hulme checked, Song bet, Hulme check-raised, Song moved all in, and Hulme called. Song had , but he was behind Hulme's . Song needed an ace to survive, and he spiked that ace on the river to carve into Hulme's lead.

Song then cracked Pertea's aces with a rivered flush that pushed Song into the lead and left Pertea on the shortest stack. Pertea doubled through Nasreddine once to move into third, but both Nasreddine and Pertea were relatively short and bowed out a short while later.

Nasreddine made back-to-back final tables following her third place finish in Monte-Carlo.

Pertea's exit left Song with a narrow lead over Hulme, and the final two players then agreed to a deal that guaranteed each player well over a million euros, with €56,800 and the title remaining to play for.

Heads-up play went Song's way as well, and he finished the action with in another come-from-behind hand. Song had but trailed Hulme, who was all in with . Instead, a flop gave Song four more outs, and the arrived on the turn to give Song the straight. The on the river missed Hulme's three-out redraw to a better straight, and the title was Song's.

Andrew Hulme couldn't outrun Song, but chopped for over €1 million.

Accolades and numbers

Song's largest career win now headlines a resume that includes major wins on several tours. He won a WSOP bracelet in 2019, and he's collected six Circuit rings in venues scattered across the United States. He also won the 2022 WPT Prime Championship amid the WPT's inaugural World Championship festival, and that result propelled him to twin Global Poker Awards honors as both the 2022 GPI Player of the Year and the Mid-Major Player of the Year. Sunday's big win also moved Song to nearly $8 million in lifetime tournament winnings.

Nasreddine's fourth-place finish was also of special note, as she became the first woman to make back-to-back EPT final tables. She finished third in the 2024 EPT Monte Carlo main event in her last EPT appearance.

The 2024 EPT Barcelona main event goes down as the fourth-largest main in the stop's long history. The main event drew 1,975 entries and offered a €9,578,750 prize pool. Song's win was the 17th EPT main-event triumph by an American, and it snapped a long US drought, since Kevin Schulz won the 2015 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. (British players have won 19 EPT main events, to lead that category.) 

EPT Barcelona 2024 Main Event final-table results:

1. Stephen Song (United States) - €1,290,386
2. Andrew Hulme (United Kingdom) - €1,165,614
3. Marius-Catalin Pertea (Romania) - €674,150
4. Rania Nasreddine (United States) - €518,600
5. David Coleman (United States) - €398,950
6. Boris Kuzmanovic (Croatia) - €306,900
7. Alexandre Fournier (Canada) - €236,100
8. Lin Jianwei (China) - €181,600

Song's rail cheered him on to another big win.

^{Images courtesy of Danny Maxwell Photography/Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd.}