The MPN is pleased to announce that The Greatest Poker Player in the Universe™ is Dmitrijs ‘PokahPPL’ Meless.

Starting on September 6th, the MPN held the very first Universal Championship of Poker tournament series (UCOP). Over the course of 12 events, the series attracted thousands of players from over 100 different countries, awarding over €240,000 in cash prizes to the winners.

One of the literally several unique features of UCOP was the Greatest Poker Player in the Universe™ leaderboard, in which players could earn points for their tournament performance and for being good representatives of the game.

The leaderboard was hotly contested from the very beginning and sparked a storm of social media activity. Players took to Twitter to share their participation in UCOP, and the events were streamed live on Twitch over 200 times to over 14,000 followers.

Dmitrijs, a 33-year old Triobet player who lives in Latvia with his wife and young son, has played poker for around 11 years, 8 of them professionally. He streams his online poker play on Twitch to over 1,000 followers, commentating in both English and Russian languages.

For finishing first in the leaderboard, Dmitrijs won the Greatest Poker Player in the Universe™ trophy, a €10,000 cash prize, and the everlasting respect and admiration of the poker community. He plans to spend the money on a well-earned holiday in Spain.

"I’m very happy with the success of the first ever Universal Championship of Poker, and would like to congratulate Dmitrijs on becoming the Greatest Poker Player in the Universe™," said Alex Scott, Head of Poker at Microgaming. "But remember that the greatest players of today are not necessarily the greatest players tomorrow. UCOP will be back and bigger than ever, and Dmitrijs will have to defend his title if he wants to keep it!"

You can watch the Greatest Poker Player in the Universe take down event 7 of the series, ‘UCOPs Most Interesting Tournament’, on Twitch at: http://www.twitch.tv/pokahru/v/15376348.