Slovak grinder Marek Uharcek claimed the biggest score of his career on September 27, winning the King’s Festival PLO Championship for 95,000 euros after leading the tournament from the opening flight all the way to the final hand. The victory came in the 1,500 euro Pot-Limit Omaha Championship, the marquee PLO event of the King’s Million European Poker Championship series at King’s Resort in Rozvadov, and it capped a nearly twelve-hour final day for a player who describes himself as far more comfortable at a cash game table than in a tournament field.
A Wire-to-Wire Run in the King’s Festival PLO Championship
The King’s Festival PLO Championship drew 286 entries across two starting flights, building a prize pool of 500,000 euros, a strong turnout for a specialist Pot-Limit Omaha event and a sign of how central PLO has become to King’s Resort’s live calendar. Uharcek built his stack on Day 1b and never relinquished the chip lead from that point forward, guiding his stack through the money bubble, the unofficial final table, and eventually heads-up play without ever slipping to second in the counts. That kind of wire-to-wire dominance is rare in a format known for its variance, where big pots can flip in an instant thanks to the multi-way, high-equity nature of Omaha hands.
Final Table Results
Nine players made the official final table, and the payouts reflected the depth of the 500,000 euro prize pool. Germany’s Lucas Giebing finished runner-up for 62,600 euros after a lengthy heads-up battle, while a third-place finisher from Germany collected 42,700 euros. Jan-Peter Jachtmann of Germany took fourth for 29,800 euros, Volodymyr Kokoulin of Ukraine banked 21,375 euros in fifth, and Bulgaria’s Danail Zhelev rounded out the top six with 15,700 euros. Davit Mikhanashvili of Georgia earned 11,800 euros in seventh, a player using the handle lakiseeb collected 9,100 euros in eighth, and Germany’s Bastian Bluem opened the payouts in ninth for 7,200 euros.
A Grueling Heads-Up Battle
The heads-up match between Uharcek and Giebing stretched across nearly twelve hours of total play and included a dramatic swing when Giebing hit a four-outer on the turn to double through and briefly seize momentum. Uharcek later admitted the near-miss rattled him. “It was a relief,” he said of eventually closing out the win, “when he hit a four-outer on me, I was pretty, not upset, but disappointed with the final cards.” The comment captures just how tight the margins were in a heads-up duel that swung several times before Uharcek’s stack held on the final all-in.
Readers unfamiliar with how a four-outer can turn around a seemingly dominant hand can find a full explanation of hand strength and drawing odds in Poker Pro Academy’s guide to poker hand rankings, which breaks down how few outs are needed to flip the equity in big Omaha pots.
A Rare Tournament Win for a Cash Game Specialist
What makes the victory particularly notable is Uharcek’s own admission that tournaments are not his usual habitat. “I’m not really a tournament player,” he said after the win, adding that he typically plays around ten tournaments a year and prefers grinding cash games instead. Despite that limited tournament schedule, this was actually not his first flirtation with a big final table. Uharcek reached a final table exactly one year earlier at the same venue during a WSOP Europe event at King’s Resort, and he has also made two European Poker Tour final tables over the past three years. Those results suggest a player with real tournament instincts who simply chooses to spend most of his time at the cash tables instead of chasing a wider tournament schedule.
Why the King’s Festival PLO Championship Matters
King’s Resort in Rozvadov has built a reputation over the past decade as one of the premier live poker destinations in Europe, hosting everything from WSOP Europe bracelet events to its own King’s Million series, which regularly attracts massive overlays and guarantees that rival stops on the established tour circuit. The PLO Championship has become one of the festival’s signature events precisely because Pot-Limit Omaha has surged in popularity among European live grinders, offering bigger average pots and, for spectators, more dramatic swings than traditional No-Limit Hold’em.
A 500,000 euro prize pool from 286 entries in a specialist PLO event also underscores how far the format has come from its niche status a decade ago. Once treated as a side attraction to Hold’em festivals, PLO championships now draw fields large enough to rival mid-tier Hold’em events at the same series, and results like Uharcek’s, a largely unheralded cash game player closing out a marquee title, only add to the format’s growing reputation as a wide-open proving ground.
What Comes Next for Uharcek
With his biggest career score now banked, Uharcek indicated the win is unlikely to change his overall approach to the game. His preference for cash games over the grind of multi-day tournaments appears set to continue, though a title of this magnitude, and the recognition that comes with wire-to-wire domination of a 286-entry field, may tempt him to add a few more marquee live festivals to his light annual tournament schedule. For now, the King’s Festival PLO Championship trophy stands as the clearest evidence yet that his occasional tournament appearances are far from wasted trips.
