It was a Friday for the ages in Thessaloniki. Not only was it time for Day 1b of the €600 Main Event; the €150 PLO4/5 was also a part of the featured schedule, alongside with a player’s party in luxurious fashion. The Main Event was the cherry on top, though, and after roughly 10 hours of play, Achilleas Kouros bagged the chip lead amongst his fellow 65 Day 2 advancers.
A Star-Spangled Field
The expectations were high for Day 1b of the Main Event. Day 1a had been played on Thursday, the twenty-sixth, and 172 entries collected an impressive €91,160 to the prize pool. These numbers were always expected to be surpassed by the ones of Friday, and that would prove to be the case; Day 1b registered a whopping 247 entries, and another €130,910 was added to the total prize pool.
Many familiar faces were expected to be in the mix during Friday’s action, and this would prove to be the case. Greek poker media virtuoso Georgios “Vladan” Theofanopoulos, old-school poker legend Andreas Vlachos, and €250 PKO winner Theodoros Ampelikiotis were all in the field. Another was Anass Chergui, who had a deep run in the €450 Monsterstack Mystery Bounty. His impressive poker skills were still on full display, and he managed to get a big stack going in the Main Event.
In fact, things were going so well for Chergui that he was actually the chip leader after the conclusion of Level 11. He had managed to do this despite sitting out for one hour; his phone had mysteriously broken the night between Thursday and Friday, and he had to go into town to fix it.
Late registration closed after the break. Ninety players then remained; those who’d be able to survive to more levels would all receive a plastic bag. Some players started to tighten it up, some tried to convert their short stacks to bigger ones, and when all was said and done, 66 players managed to secure their Day 2 seat. Vlachos was one of the players who managed to move on; even though he did not have the biggest stacks, he’ll be someone to be on the lookout for. That also goes for friend of poker.pro, Fotios Ntamaris, a very skillful player who secured a 469,000 stack.
It’s also well worth mentioning that one of the few women in the field, Hristina Nikolova, finished in the top ten of the Day 1b chip counts with 561,000. Nikolova secured her Main Event seat through Thursday’s €60 satellite, and she’s started walking on the path of success. Of course, though, the highest praise goes to Achilleas Kouros, who ended Day 1b as the chip leader, just shy of one million in chips. The full chip counts from Day1b can be seen here.
Party and PLO
While Day 1b of the Main Event was on its later levels, the side event on Friday, the €115 PLO, commenced. A total of 77 entries created a €7,700 prize pool, and all players competed for the €2,510 first-place payout. The nine players who reached the money all waved the Greek flag, and it was Ioannis Kritsotakis who came out on top.
€115 PLO – Results
| Place | Player | Country | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Ioannis Kritsotakis | Greece | €2,510 |
| 2 | Nikolaos Papadakis | Greece | €1,656 |
| 3 | Stefanos Boukovalas | Greece | €1,193 |
| 4 | Dimitrios Aggeletopoulos | Greece | €793 |
| 5 | Ioannis Tsakiris | Greece | €524 |
| 6 | Maria Galli | Greece | €339 |
| 7 | Antonios Spyropoulos | Greece | €262 |
| 8 | Labis Bachos | Greece | €223 |
| 9 | Nikolaos Sakellariou | Greece | €200 |
If the Main Event and the PLO were the gold and the frankincense, the Players Party was the myrrh. The 2025 Greek Poker Odyssea is more than a bunch of poker tournaments; it’s all about having fun. That’s why a Players Party was arranged at the Hyatt Regency. Shuttles were going non-stop from the Regency Casino, and the party redefined the word “vibe”. Free food and drinks, banger after banger from the DJ, dance moves that’ll go down in history, and most importantly, poker players from all over the world coming together.
