The poker world just got a new champion and his name is Marcelo Simoes Mesqueu! The Brazilian player startled everyone when he won the Main Event of the European PokerStars Poker Tour (EPT) on 9 May 2022. He is the first Brazilian player to hold that title despite many other admirable players from his country in the past.
In this article, we’ll tell you more about Marcelo Simoes Mesqueu, such as his road to becoming an international poker star, as well as some more about the tournament he deservingly won.
Marcelo Simoes Mesqueu: Poker Career
Marcelo Simoes Mesqueu hails from Rio De Janeiro, Brazil and he has been slowly gaining fame back home.
By looking at his player stats, which follow his participation in acclaimed poker tournaments, one can see that he was destined for greatness. After all, he won first place in R$ 520 + 80 Pot Limit Omaha at his third official tournament, the Brazilian Series of Poker (BSOP) in July 2010.
Four years later, he won his first major game, $5,000 + 300 No Limit Hold’em – Six Max, at PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, with the prize money numbering over $40,000. Perhaps this win inspired him to enlist in more competitions than previously and he soon became a rather prolific poker player.
Still, most of the poker tournaments he took part though were in Brazil or other South American countries. However, it was probably a good idea to gain some experience locally before moving on the big scene. Mesqueu is currently occupying the second place on the Brazilian leader board, having previously won the Brazilian Series of Poker in 2019.
The European PokerStars Poker Tour
The European PokerStars Poker Tour took place in the iconic Monte Carlo Casino, which surely made participants feel like James Bond. The tournament started on 28 April and it lasted until last weekend – 7 May.
The famous tournament returned after a three-year-long hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic and it came back with a bang. The first event, the €1100 buy-in, attracted 1,918 entries, which is a record number (a growth of 35% since the last one in 2019). It seems like players really missed the prestigious poker tournament.
The Grand Finale of the Main Event
Mesqueu was already a poker talent to be reckoned with, considering his place on the Brazilian leader board and participation in other PokerStars tournaments in South America, but it could be said that his eventual win was not expected by the European poker industry.
By the end of the tournament, there were six players leading the board – Marcelo Simoes Mesqueu (Brazil), Jaime Cervantes (USA), Dragos Trofimov (Moldova), Morten Hvam (Denmark), Hugo Pingray (France), and Erkan Soemnez (Germany). Mesqueu was arguably a clear winner from the start.
Not only did he keep his cool and made good decisions during his play, but once he realised his apparent lead, his playstyle became much more aggressive in a way to double-down and perhaps catch his opponents off guard.
When asked about Brazilian football legend Neymar (who’s also PokerStars ambassador) after the game, Mesqueu confirmed he was channelling his inner Neymar by attacking relentlessly, hoping for his opponents to make a mistake.
At the second showdown between the six leading players, Mesqueu eliminated Soemnez with five-trey against the German’s ace-deuce. He then proceeded to do the same to French-born Pingray with a king-nine. Dane Hvam eliminated Cervantes, and then finally Trofimov left the game, thus missing the EPT Main Event final, a would-be first event for Moldova.
Mesqueu then faced Hvam in a battle for the title. Hvam had managed to catch up to Mesqueu, but the Brazilian never lost the lead. Ultimately, Hvam risked everything with a gutshot in a three-bet pocket, but Mesqueu’s pocket kings prevailed and he was crowned the winner of the EPT Main Event.
Mesqueu was ecstatic and we can certainly understand why. He topped 1,073 entries in the 2022 EPT Monte Carlo €5,300 Main Event. Mesqueu ended up winning €939,840 in prize money, the biggest winning in his career and the biggest prize for the tournament due to the record numbers of entries that year.
Mesqueu thanked his family for the support, as well as his home country. He shared how many Brazilians from all over the world contacted him to congratulate him. He was overjoyed by the fact that his name would be in the poker history books as he is the first Brazilian to win an EPT title of such magnitude.
All we can say is good job, Mesqueu!