Cash game specialists don't always translate their edge to tournament poker, but Marek Uharcek just proved it can happen on the biggest stage available. The Slovak player led the €1,500 PLO Championship at the 2026 King's Million European Poker Championship wire-to-wire, outlasting a 286-entry field across two starting flights to win €95,000 — his first tournament title, by his own account, despite years of grinding cash games.
"I'm not really a tournament player," Uharcek said afterward. "I play maybe ten tournaments per year, I prefer cash games, but this is my first." For a player who plays that sparingly on the tournament circuit, winning a €500,000-prize-pool field at King's Resort, Rozvadov — arguably Europe's busiest live poker venue — is a genuinely notable result, and a reminder that pot-limit Omaha skill developed at the cash tables translates well to tournament final tables, where big pots and multi-way action reward exactly the kind of equity-reading instincts cash players build over thousands of hands.
How the final table played out
The field ground down over nearly 12 hours before a winner was crowned. Uharcek knocked out bracelet winner Jan-Peter Jachtmann in fourth place on his way to heads-up, setting up a showdown with Germany's Lucas Giebing, who ultimately finished runner-up for €62,600.
The heads-up match had a genuine swing in it. Giebing, facing elimination, hit a four-outer on the turn to complete a straight and briefly flip the match in his favor — the kind of survive-and-advance moment that keeps PLO heads-up play unpredictable even when one player holds a big chip lead. Uharcek regrouped, took back control, and closed it out when Giebing missed a needed straight draw on the final hand of the tournament.
Why PLO championships like this matter
Pot-limit Omaha has become the format of choice for a growing slice of Europe's toughest live grinders, and King's Casino has built its reputation partly on hosting exactly this kind of mid-size, high-quality PLO field. Unlike no-limit hold'em, where a single well-timed bluff can carry a short stack a long way, PLO tournaments tend to reward players who can navigate bigger multi-way pots and read board texture precisely — skills that translate directly from high-volume cash play, which is exactly the background Uharcek brought into this field.
A €500,000 prize pool from a €1,500 buy-in works out to roughly 333 effective entries once rebuys and re-entries across two flights are accounted for, which is a strong turnout for a mid-stakes PLO event outside of a marquee WSOP or EPT series. It's also a useful data point on the health of PLO specifically as a tournament format in Europe: fields like this one continue to draw well even as the broader live tournament calendar gets more crowded with competing series.
What this means for players
Cash game experience is a legitimate path into tournament success, especially in PLO. Players who've built a strong PLO cash game but have avoided tournaments because they don't consider themselves "tournament players" should take Uharcek's result as encouragement. The core skill — reading multi-way equities and understanding how draws and made hands interact on wet boards — carries over. Our guide on Omaha strategy breaks down the equity differences between PLO and hold'em that make this transition easier than players expect.
Understand the equity swings that define PLO. The heads-up turn that briefly flipped this final table is a textbook example of how much bigger PLO's variance can be compared to hold'em, since players are working with four hole cards and far more possible draws on every street. Reviewing pot odds and equity fundamentals specifically through a PLO lens — rather than assuming hold'em intuition transfers directly — is worth the study time before jumping into a field like this one.
King's Casino remains a top destination for serious PLO players. Between the King's Million series and its year-round tournament calendar, Rozvadov continues to be one of the deepest and most consistent PLO tournament ecosystems in the world. Players building a European trip around live poker should check our tournaments hub for scheduling alongside other major series.
Compare the format to what you already play. If you're primarily a hold'em tournament grinder curious about branching into PLO, our breakdown of hold'em versus Omaha covers the core strategic differences — starting hand selection, pot sizing, and how much more board texture matters when four cards are live instead of two.
The broader King's Million picture
This PLO title is one of several notable results to come out of the current King's Million series at Rozvadov, a venue that has become something of a proving ground for players looking to build a live résumé outside the WSOP and EPT calendars. With King's Casino continuing to draw deep, competitive fields across a wide range of formats and buy-in levels throughout its autumn schedule, results like Uharcek's — a first-time tournament winner beating a genuinely strong field — are exactly the kind of story the venue has become known for producing. Expect King's Resort to remain a fixture on the European calendar as players continue chasing both the prize money and the increasingly prestigious trophies the series has built a reputation around.
A trend worth watching: cash grinders crossing over
Uharcek's win fits a broader pattern that's become more visible on the European circuit over the past few years. As solver-based study has become standard prep for serious tournament regulars, the theoretical gap between strong cash players and strong tournament players has narrowed considerably in PLO specifically, more so than in hold'em. Stack depths in the early and middle stages of a tournament like this one aren't wildly different from typical cash game depths, which means a player who has spent thousands of hours refining postflop decisions at the cash tables often arrives at a tournament final table with sharper instincts than a field of dedicated grinders might expect.
That's not to undersell what Uharcek accomplished — closing out a 286-entry field, including a final table with a bracelet winner in it, takes composure that doesn't show up in a solver output. But it does help explain why fields like this one keep producing surprise winners with thin tournament résumés, and why European PLO series in particular have become such fertile ground for cash specialists testing the tournament waters. Expect more of these crossovers as King's Casino, Triton, and other high-volume European stops continue to blur the line between the two disciplines.