A thrilling weekend in Monte Carlo saw two PokerStake players having the times of their lives as Jon Kyte won the record-breaking PokerStars Open and Adi Rajkovic reached the top 10 after Day 1a of the €5,300 Main Event. With Monte Carlo packed out with former European Poker Tour (EPT) champions, the principality was a playground for PokerStake players, with one of the biggest wins ever claimed by one of the site’s players.

Kyte Flies Highest in Record Breaker

The PokerStars Open in Monte Carlo is always the biggest warm-up event to the Main Event. With a buy-in of €1,100, the event saw an incredible 2,387 entries (including 1,189 re-entries), creating a prizepool of over €2.29 million, and it was Kyte who took home the top prize of €340,000 in the stunning Monte Carlo setting.

As we described in our preview for this year’s EPT Monte Carlo festival, Jon represented amazing value in the action and with four previous side event wins on the European Poker Tour, the Norwegian is a great pick for PokerStake investors in European competition. Since finishing as runner-up in Prague just 15 months ago on the EPT, Jon has gone from strength to strength and when the six-handed final table began, had a massive chip lead with 26.8 million chips, his closest challenger being the French player Gilles Cadignan with 16.1m.

The Frenchman took out Jack Corrigan in sixth for €70,240 as the final remaining American in the field busted with when Cadignan’s held to reduce the field to five. Jon took the reigns for the next elimination, removing Spanish player Javier Tazón in fifth for €89,320 when the latter’s was crushed pre-flop and post by Jon’s .

French Hopes Fall Late

France is, of course, very close to Monaco and as a result, many French players descended on the venue and the event to heavily populate the PokerStars Open. The Romanian player Razvan Scutaru could prevaricate no longer, calling off his stack pre-flop for 13 big blinds with . Jon had the goods, however, with and they held to send Scutaru scuttling for the cash desk and his biggest ever score of €117,720.

Down to three, Jon had the momentum and the chips. Irish player Conor Bergin initially did well to double-up through Jon when a rivered flush beat the Norwegian’s pocket aces. But luck turned against the smiling eyes of the Irishman and after Jon doubled up himself with bottom set through Cadignan, he stamped Bergin’s ticket when outran the Irish player’s . A board of [Tt] broke Irish hearts and sent Bergin home with €153,330.

Heads-up, the blinds rose and Cadignan was reduced to just six big blinds. He shoved with and Jon called with to win after a board of played out. After late-registering on Day 1e, Jon was one of the last in and that proved poetic as he was the final player still in his seat.

“I had two major bluffs and if they call, I’m out,” said Jon about his early tournament to PokerNews, “They were the only times I was all-in. I have four little PokerStars ‘Spadies’ but finally [I got] the big one. This is what we play for. Every time I come to a PokerStars event I’m looking at the big trophies, and it feels amazing to finally get one.”

Monte Carlo €1,100 PokerStars Open 2025 Final Table Results:
Place	Player	Country	Prize
1st	Jon Kyte	Norway	€340,000
2nd	Gilles Cadignan	France	€214,070
3rd	Conor Bergin	Rep. of Ireland	€153,330
4th	Razvan Scutaru	Romania	€117,720
5th	Javier Tazón	Spain	€89,320
6th	Jack Corrigan	United States	€70,240

Rajkovic The Main Man

After we tipped Austria’s Adi Rajkovic heavily for a deep run in the Main Event earlier this week, the pressure was on to deliver. Pressure, what pressure? Rajkovic was one of the stars of Day 1a in the €5,300-entry Main Event, as 403 entries were reduced to 123 survivors. Finishing eighth among those remaining players, the average chip stack at the close of play was just over 80,000.

Rajkovic bagged up 204,500 chips, not far behind the chip leader David Docherty (279,500), the former Irish Open winner. Others to make the top 10 included American Qing Lu (260,500), Croatia’s Boris Kuzmanovic (208,500) and Indian player Sameer Chaturvedi, who bagged up 196,000 at the end of the night.

With other big names such as Japanese poker stars Masato Yokosawa (191,500), Frenchman Antoine Labat (164,000), American-Irish poker legend Steve O’Dwyer (114,000), American high roller Byron Kaverman (114,000), Spanish powerhouse Juan Pardo (100,000) and chess grandmaster and poker author Maria Konnikova (79,000) all surviving to Day 2 too, it’s sure to be a high-pressure environment as the money bubble approaches. Rajkovic seems bulletproof, however, and PokerStake investors will be hoping for profit as he pushes on towards the latter stages of the event.

PokerStars €5,300 Monte Carlo EPT Main Event Day 1a Top 10 Chipcounts:
Place	Player	Country	Chips
1st	David Docherty	United Kingdom	279,500
2nd	George Tomescu	Romania	275,000
3rd	Christian Alilovic	France	260,500
4th	Qing Lu	United States	240,500
5th	Jeremie Beneteau	France	236,500
6th	Stanislav Petriv	Ukraine	225,000
7th	Boris Kuzmanovic	Croatia	208,500
8th	Adi Rajkovic	Austria	204,500
9th	Mariusz Golinski	Poland	201,000
10th	Sameer Chaturvedi	India	196,000

Pictures courtesy of the PokerStars Blog – follow for all the action from the 2025 European Poker Tour.