Bulgaria’s Ivelin Kolev is the newest name on the World Poker Tour honour roll. Starting the final table well behind the leaders, he took control three-handed and never let go, beating Said Tahar heads-up to win the $1,100 WPT Prime Cyprus Championship for $171,600.
- Field: 953 entries across five starting flights comfortably beat the $1,000,000 guarantee.
- Venue: Chamada Prestige Hotel & Casino in Kyrenia, Northern Cyprus, with the final table played on Monday, 19 October.
- Winning hand: Kolev’s 6-4 rivered a straight against Tahar’s two pair.
- Bonus: the first prize includes a $10,400 seat in the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas in December.
- Form: it was Kolev’s fifth final table of the Cyprus festival.
A Championship That Almost Didn’t Happen
The WPT Prime Cyprus Championship was originally scheduled for the spring, but it was postponed when the war in Iran caused flight cancellations and travel uncertainty that kept WPT staff from reaching the island. The tour rescheduled the event for 15–19 October and made it the centrepiece of a 13-day festival running from 7 to 19 October, with 14 tournaments on the schedule.
It was the World Poker Tour’s second visit to Chamada Prestige this season. In August the same venue hosted the $3,500 WPT Cyprus Championship, carrying a $2,000,000 guarantee, which Farbod Nazari won for $368,900. Chamada Prestige has been the tour’s base in Cyprus since 2025, and the $1,100 Prime event was positioned as the more accessible counterpart to that high buy-in main event.
| WPT Cyprus Championship | WPT Prime Cyprus Championship | |
|---|---|---|
| Month | August 2026 | October 2026 |
| Buy-in | $3,500 | $1,100 |
| Guarantee | $2,000,000 | $1,000,000 |
| Winner | Farbod Nazari | Ivelin Kolev |
| First prize | $368,900 | $171,600 |
The postponement did not hurt turnout. Over five Day 1 flights the Championship drew 953 entries, with re-entries allowed and on-site satellites offering cheaper routes in. Online, WPT Global ran a satellite campaign into the event earlier in the season, with qualifiers starting from as little as $1.10.
That campaign came with an extra incentive: WPT Global attached a $100,000 “Golden Ticket” Live Champion Bonus for any online qualifier who went on to win the Championship, with the promotion running from 10 August to 28 September. Between the online feeders, live satellites and multiple re-entry flights, the event was built to give recreational players as many routes into a seven-figure guarantee as possible.
Event at a Glance
| Detail | WPT Prime Cyprus Championship |
|---|---|
| Buy-in | $1,100 |
| Guarantee | $1,000,000 |
| Entries | 953 across five Day 1 flights |
| Places paid | 118 (min-cash $2,100) |
| Venue | Chamada Prestige Hotel & Casino, Kyrenia |
| Dates | 15–19 October 2026 |
| Winner | Ivelin Kolev (Bulgaria) |
| First prize | $171,600 incl. $10,400 WPT World Championship seat |
Tahar Starts in Control
When the final eight returned on Monday afternoon, Kolev was nowhere near the top of the counts. Said Tahar had the biggest stack by a distance, and only Andreas Christodoulou came close to matching him. The field had been cut to eight by a double elimination at the end of the previous day.
Play resumed at around 4:00 p.m. local time on a livestreamed final table that produced plenty of back-and-forth action. Ismail Yagci, who started with crumbs, was the first to go, collecting $19,300 for eighth. Sergiu Cornea followed in seventh for $24,800, before Bora Kurtulus ($32,000) and Sweden’s Johan Storakers ($42,500) busted in sixth and fifth.
Christodoulou’s strong start to the day did not last. Without the cards to keep pace, he fell in fourth for $56,000, leaving three players to battle for the title.
The pace of the final table reflected how hard-fought the event had been from the start. Only 118 of the 953 entries made the money, with a min-cash of $2,100, so every player who reached Monday had already survived a long grind through the five starting flights and Day 2. Even so, the final day moved quickly once the short stacks fell: from a restart at around 4:00 p.m., the field went from eight players to heads-up in under five hours.
Kolev Takes Over
By the time three-handed play began, Kolev had become the dominant force at the table. His decisive moment came when he won a 60/40 coin flip to eliminate Joseph El Khoury in third for $74,000. That pot sent Kolev into heads-up play with close to a seven-to-one chip lead over Tahar, a remarkable turnaround from where he had started the day. The tournament was down to two players shortly before 9:00 p.m.
Tahar fought back where he could, but there was no comeback. The final hand saw the chips go in with Tahar holding Q♠ 3♥ and Kolev 6♦ 4♠. The board ran 10♣ 7♣ 5♣, giving Kolev an open-ended straight draw. The Q♥ on the turn put Tahar ahead with a pair of queens, and the 3♠ river gave him two pair — but the same card completed Kolev’s straight, ending the tournament.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ivelin Kolev | $171,600* |
| 2 | Said Tahar | $100,000 |
| 3 | Joseph El Khoury | $74,000 |
| 4 | Andreas Christodoulou | $56,000 |
| 5 | Johan Storakers | $42,500 |
| 6 | Bora Kurtulus | $32,000 |
| 7 | Sergiu Cornea | $24,800 |
| 8 | Ismail Yagci | $19,300 |
*Includes a $10,400 entry to the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas.
A Breakout Year for Kolev
The Cyprus title caps a strong 2026 for the Bulgarian. In August he won an event at the PokerStars European Poker Tour stop in Barcelona for $44,570, and this victory is by far the biggest score of his live career. His consistency in Kyrenia was just as impressive: the Championship was his fifth final table of the festival, a rare run of form across a crowded schedule.
Next Stop: Wynn Las Vegas
The win also opens a new door. The $10,400 package covers Kolev’s entry to the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas in December, the finale of the tour’s Season 24. The festival around it is one of the biggest of the year, with more than 85 events and over $20 million in guarantees, including a new $3 million guaranteed Super Gold Million event.
Coming off the biggest win of his career, it is a chance to test himself on the biggest stage the World Poker Tour offers, against many of the best tournament players in the world — with his entry already paid for by a week of strong poker in Cyprus.
What It Means
- For Kolev: a career-best result and a ticket to Las Vegas turn a solid season into a breakout one.
- For WPT Prime: 953 entries after a forced postponement show that the $1,100 format still draws big fields, and Cyprus remains one of the tour’s strongest European stops.
- For Bulgarian poker: Kolev joins a growing list of Bulgarian players picking up major titles on the European circuit.
With two successful WPT festivals at Chamada Prestige in a single season, expect the tour to return to Northern Cyprus. For now, the spotlight belongs to Kolev, who arrived at the final table as an outsider and left as a WPT champion.
