The FullTilt $ 25k Heads-Up World Championship came to a conclusion on Sunday evening as Ashton “theASHMAN103” Griffin saw off respected-pro David ‘Raptor’ Benefield in the final.

In the final four, the winning hand of the semi saw eventual victor Griffin’s pocket ladies hold up against Blair “yogiblair” Andersons’ pocket 5’s. Meanwhile, Benefield edged a close contest with Jim “WinnerFish” Kilarjian to set up the final contest of the championship.

Despite telling PokerPlayer only last month that he would be somewhat forsaking Hold’Em in favour of PLO, Benefield entered the day 2 final bout hoping to take off with the $ 551,250 dollar prize. However having beaten four stellar opponents along the way to the final including last year’s champion David Singer, Griffin was in confident mood.

Ultimately, it was to be the 20 year old from North Carolina who took the title, leaving Benefield to settle for the $ 315,000 runners up payout.

Final Positions

1. Ashton “theASHMAN103” Griffin – $ 551,250

2. David Benefield – $ 315,000

3. Jim “WinnerFish” Kilarjian – $ 165,375

4. Blair “yogiblair” Anderson – $ 165,375

5. Past – $ 94,500

6. Alex “Kadabra” Keating – $ 94,500

7. IvanLendL – $ 94,500

8. Rob “Vaga_Lion” Akery – $ 94,500

More FULL TILT POKER’S $25,000 HEADS-UP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP:

• Poker Life, Poker News: Full Tilt Poker’s $25,000 Heads-up World Championship – $25k Heads-up World Championship

Here are my predictions for this year’s WSOP. Turn your sarcasm meter on.

#1 – Annie Duke will proclaim that the RNG was rigged on the Celebrity Apprentice. Ultimate Bet will avow they have no knowledge of any tampering or impropriety on their site.

#2 – Phil Hellmuth will show up to the Main Event wearing a pink tutu and being accompanied by 12 male strippers.

#3 – Phil Ivey will win/lose more money betting on the Lakers in the NBA Finals than he will win/lose playing poker.

#4 – Daniel Negreanu will pose for approximately 6 million photographs with railbirds, smiling as if it was his first fan photo each time.

#5 – Doyle Brunson will receive a standing ovation when he is eliminated from the Main Event (I'm such a psychic I know).

#6 – Someone, ok make that lots of someones, will fall asleep at their table. Even money on whether it is Jeff Madsen, Mark Vos, or Antonio Esfandiari.

#7 – A poker player we have never heard of will win the WSOP Main Event.

#8 – No woman (unfortunately) will make the final table of the WSOP Main Event.

#9 – Elvis will come back from the dead to kick off the Main Event with a heart stirring rendition of Viva Las Vegas.

#10 – Jennifer Tilly will play in one event and after being eliminated due to a horrible play will state “I'm going back to acting.” Oh wait.

#11 – Shannon Elizabeth will play in one event and after being eliminated due to a horrible play will state “I'm going back to acting.” Oh wait.

#12 – Jean Robert Bellande will play in fifty events and after being eliminated due to horrible plays in each one of them will state “I'm going to try out for Survivor.” Oh wait.

#13 – A member of the media will run in fear for his life after Jennifer Tilly, Shannon Elizabeth, and Jean Robert Bellande come after him for making not completely true (although fairly accurate) statements about their poker playing capabilities.

#14 – Erick Lindgren will win his 2nd bracelet.

#15 – Phil Hellmuth will not win a bracelet. There will be plenty of reasons for this failure and he'll be glad to tell anyone who listens what they are. Especially his wife, “Hey, Honey!”

#16 – Neither will Johnny Chan or Doyle Brunson.

#17 – Daniel Negreanu will though.

#18 – Beth Shak, Evelyn Ng, Maria Ho, Tiffany Marie, Erica Schoenberg, Liz Lieu, Isabelle Mercier, Clonie Gowen, Vanessa Rousso, Kristy Gazes, Sandra Naujoks, and Vicky Coren participate in the highly anticipated “Women in Poker 2009 Swimsuit Calendar.”

#19 – Gavin Smith, Erik Seidel, Men The Master, Dan Harrington, Freddy Deeb, Greg Raymer, Humberto Brenes, Andy Bloch, John Gale, Amir Vahedi, Chau Giang, and David Sklansky participate in the highly anticipated “Men in Poker 2009 Swimsuit Calendar.”

#20 – Not a prediction, but I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

Related articles

---

WSOP to Introduce PokerPalooza to Replace Gaming Life Expo

The 40th Annual World Series of Poker is going to be a an experience unlike those in its past, as celebrations of the 40th anniversary, new tournaments, and better structures will highlight the 2009 Series. Mar 29, 2009

• 2008 WSOP Smashes Records
• 2009 WSOP Events to Be Shown on ESPN TV and Internet Live Stream
• History a Big Player at 40th Annual WSOP
• Pre-Registration Open for 2009 WSOP Events

 

Latest Poker News

---

The Aruba Poker Classic 2009 Kicks off October 3rd

The time is fast approaching for one of the most popular fall events – The Aruba Classic.And just what makes poker players from around the world want to attend this fabulous event? Some of the biggest prize pools and hot poker action is one reason, but location – location – location is the main reason! May 27, 2009

• Is Poker Dying?
• History a Big Player at 40th Annual WSOP
• Charity Opportunities Abound at 2009 WSOP
• What is it about the WSOP?
• Fearless Predictions For The 2009 WSOP
• 2009 WSOP Events to Be Shown on ESPN TV and Internet Live Stream

 

Each year, the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas draws a greater number of women to the tournament series. Though still a minority in most fields, women are a growing force to be reckoned with in the poker world. Many of them, however, come only for the $1,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold’em World Championship, and this year they can do it as a member of the Queen of Hearts team while helping the Nevada Cancer Institute.

The official Queen of Hearts poker team, after three years of participation in the ladies-only event to raise more than $100,000 in funds for charities, is now being managed by Harrah’s Entertainment. The 2009 WSOP will feature the team as in years past and will make its presence known in order to raise money and awareness for the Nevada Cancer Institute. Women on the team are welcome to offer a portion of their winnings to the charity, and their mere presence with Queen of Hearts gear will raise awareness for the Nevada Cancer Institute.

When Harrah’s took over the team, WSOP Commission Jeffrey Pollack noted that they looked to make the Queen of Hearts team “more inclusive versus exclusive as it has been. We are looking into ways that every woman can take part in it.” And as promised, the Queen of Hearts team will be open to all entrants in the 2009 WSOP Ladies NLHE World Championship event. All players will have the opportunity to purchase Queen of Hearts merchandise at the retail stores at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino or online at ShopWSOP.com, and proceeds from the sales will benefit the Nevada Cancer Institute.

Not only will the mere purchase of a specially-designed commemorative shirt or hat contribute to the cause, but players will be given the opportunity to donate 1 percent of their winnings in the event to the Nevada Cancer Institute.

The ladies-only WSOP bracelet event will begin at noon on Sunday, June 7 at the Rio in Las Vegas, and all women are encouraged to play. Last year’s champion, Svetlana Gromenkova, who beat 1,189 fellow competitors to win the $224,702 first place prize, will surely be in the field to defend her title. Expectations are high for the field at the 40th annual WSOP, and it could be a record-setting year for women in poker.

Related articles

---

Charity Report: Shuffle Up for Poker Gives June 4 at Golden Nugget

With so many poker players in Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker this summer, it is only fitting that there be numerous charitable opportunities for notoriously generous poker players. May 22, 2009

• Tyner Launches Ladies Diamond Poker Club
• Poker Plus – The Big Dance
• Jack Link’s Beef Jerky is New 2009 WSOP Presenting Sponsor
• Annie Duke Set to Teach Another WSOP Academy for Ladies

 

Latest Poker News

---

2009 WSOP Queen of Hearts Team Open to All Ladies

Each year, the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas draws a greater number of women to the tournament series. Though still a minority in most fields, women are a growing force to be reckoned with in the poker world. May 23, 2009

• PokerStars Giving Away Free WSOP Seats to Nordic and Baltic Players
• Full Tilt Fever: FTOPX XII Ends With PocketOwnage420 as Main Event Champ
• Ultimate Bet to Award 50 WSOP Seats on June 21st
• Charity Report: Shuffle Up for Poker Gives June 4 at Golden Nugget
• Jack Link’s Beef Jerky is New 2009 WSOP Presenting Sponsor
• Where Are They Now – Gus Hansen

 

Where are They Now is a series of an in depth look at all poker players – not just the pros – as they travel through one long game. Some of the players profiled are deceased but not forgotten.

From time to time we chronicle a player that didn’t bother with a learning curve, and instead went straight to the top in the world of professional poker.  Gus Hansen literally became a star overnight when he entered the Five Diamond World Poker Classic World Poker Tour Event in May, 2002 and won.   Without knowing anything about Hansen, fans of poker learned a few things right off the bat about the player now known as “The Great Dane.” 

The first is that he is a gambler.  Hansen didn’t waste time in preliminary events, instead opting to pay $10,000 dollars to enter his first poker tournament.  Hansen has said he’s a gambler first and a poker player second, and he has certainly shown that time and time again.  Secondly, he won the tournament with a style of poker that hadn’t been seen much before, and has hardly been duplicated since then.  On the surface it appears Hansen plays any two cards because he gets bored, but in reality he’s able to do that because of his top notch ability to read his opponents’ cards.  It’s possible his opponents at that final table way back in 2002, such as John Juanda, Freddy Deeb, and Scotty Nguyen thought he might have just been a flash in the pan, but over eight years later Hansen has proved he’s here to stay.

Gustav Hansen was born February 13, 1974 right outside of Copenhagen, Denmark.  Despite being a few decades apart in age, Hansen focused primarily on backgammon, like Dan Harrington, as a youngster.  Hansen played poker with his friends occasionally, but only as something to do when he wasn’t playing backgammon.  Hansen didn’t realize it at the time, but playing backgammon helped him develop the decision making skills that would later help him at the poker table.  As imagined, the professional backgammon scene wasn’t big in Denmark, so eventually Hansen made it to New York City, also much the same way as Harrington did.

When Hansen arrived in New York City, he became friends with two of the bigger names in the poker world, Huck Seed and Phil Laak.  With friends like that you can’t help but eventually learn to play poker and with the backgammon scene pretty much all but dried up, Hansen turned his attention to the green felt.
 
Gus took the next few years developing his style in the underground card rooms in New York City, and by occasionally taking trips to Las Vegas to test his new found skills against the very best.  At first Hansen said he felt the game came to him easily, but after a few trips to Vegas that saw him lose most or all of his bankroll, he realized he needed to take the game even more seriously if he was ever going to not only survive in the shark infested world that is professional poker, but also become a shark himself.  Over the course of the next few years though, Hansen did nothing but eat, sleep, and breathe poker, and in the early 2000’s he was ready to dive head first into the deep end.

As a child Hansen enjoyed all sports, especially tennis.  Being that tennis is a game that is usually played at the highest levels in a tournament format, it made sense that Hansen was drawn towards tournament poker.  After winning the World Poker Tour event, which was the inaugural WPT event, Hansen wasted little time before succeeding in other tournaments.  In February of 2003, he won his second WPT Event, taking down the L.A. Poker Classic, and just two months later he won his third WPT event, “The Bad Boys of Poker” event.  In the first three poker events Hansen ever placed in he won them all, and added a total of over 1.2 million dollars to his bankroll.  This is arguably the best start to a tournament poker career of all the players we’ve chronicled in the PokerWorks “Where Are They Now Series.”  However, it hardly went downhill from here.
 
In fact, in the first six tournaments Hansen cashed in, all WPT events, he earned four first place finishes, and a third and sixth place finish.  All said, Hansen has finished in the money of nine WPT events, with 7 of those being final tables.  The one tournament nut Hansen hasn’t yet to been able to crack is winning a World Series of Poker Bracelet.  He hasn’t played the WSOP as much as other players, but it’s still a bit surprising, being that he hasn’t even made a final table yet, with two 10th place finishes being his best result.

Since 2005 Hansen has begun to focus largely on cash games, and the largest cash games in the world, at that.  Hansen is one of the few players that can be considered a “regular” at Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.   He has also been featured on the Game Show Networks High Stake Poker.  The episodes he has appeared on have been some of the highest rated shows in the history of the network.  He also participated in the biggest pot the show had ever seen.  He was up against Daniel Negreanu, holding four of kind—fives—against “Kid Poker’s” full-house.  The final pot tallied $575,000.

Hansen’s online cash game exploits have been well documented.  In at least two different sessions, Hansen has lost one million dollars.  It has also been documented where he has gone on downswings lasting weeks, and even months, at a time.  But, by all accounts, he has been able to battle his way back every time this has happened to him, as most good poker players always will.  Also, despite spending most of his time playing cash now, positive tournament results have continued to come as a regular occurrence over the last few years.  In April 2008 he finished second in his specialty, a WPT event for his highest cash ever, and his second million dollar plus cash, for 1.7 million dollars and change.

Hansen also has his hands dipped into a number of other endeavors.  The most profitable one of those was when he decided to become one of the initial investors of the poker room Pokerchamps.com, which made its debut in 2003.  In 2005 Pokerchamps.com was bought by what is now BetFair for 15 million dollars.  Just last month he opened GusHansentv.com, which is to be used as a poker channel.  What has been described as a publicity stunt for the website, Hansen took on poker pro Theo Jorgensen one on one.  Not at a poker table though, but in a boxing ring.  Jorgenson, the underdog won a decision, and $35,000 from a side bet the two had made.  The boxing match didn’t hurt Hansen’s face too bad, as he also acts as a model for a Danish magazine, and has appeared in People’s “Sexiest Men Alive” lists.  Find Gus online at Full Tilt Poker .

*Read Billy Monroe's Blog*

Major Tournament Results
    
03-Sep-2008         € 8,500 Grand Final – No Limit Hold'em
Partouche Poker Tour – Grand Final, Cannes     9th     € 58,000     $ 84,897

03-Jul-2008           $ 10,000 World Championship No Limit Hold'em
39th World Series of Poker (WSOP) 2008, Las Vegas     160th         $ 41,816

04-Jun-2008           $ 10,000 World Championship Mixed Event
39th World Series of Poker (WSOP) 2008, Las Vegas     10th         $ 45,120

19-Apr-2008           $ 25,000 No Limit Hold'em – Championship Event
Sixth Annual Five Star World Poker Classic – WPT World Championship, Las Vegas     2nd         $ 1,714,800

31-Mar-2008         $ 20,000 Week 8 – "Gus and the Ladies"
Poker After Dark III, Las Vegas     5th         

02-Mar-2008         Finals
NBC National Heads-Up Championship 2008, Las Vegas     5th         $ 75,000

25-Feb-2008         $ 20,000 Week 6 – "International"
Poker After Dark III, Las Vegas     4th         

12-Dec-2007           $ 15,000 Doyle Brunson Classic – No Limit Hold'em
Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic, Las Vegas     22nd         $ 57,815

11-Oct-2007           € 7,500 No Limit Hold'em – Championship Event
WPT Spanish Championship, Barcelona     5th     € 100,600     $ 141,340

10-Sep-2007           £ 10,000 No Limit Hold'em – Main Event
World Series Of Poker – Europe, London     10th     £ 41,630     $ 83,832

06-Jul-2007           $ 10,000 World Championship No Limit Hold'em
38th World Series of Poker (WSOP) 2007, Las Vegas     61st         $ 154,194

Jun-2007         $ 20,000 Week 20 – Signature Week
Poker After Dark II, Las Vegas     5th         

Jun-2007         $ 20,000 Week 15 – WPT Multiple Winners
Poker After Dark II, Las Vegas     3rd         

Jun-2007         $ 20,000 Week 12 – International Event
Poker After Dark II, Las Vegas     6th         

19-Feb-2007         $ 20,000 Week 7
Poker After Dark, Las Vegas     3rd         

04-Feb-2007         Poker Superstars III Championship
Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament Season 3, Las Vegas     8th         

14-Jan-2007         A$ 10,000 Main Event
2007 Aussie Millions, Melbourne     1st     A$ 1,500,000     $ 1,192,919

01-Jan-2007         $ 20,000 Week 1
Poker After Dark, Las Vegas     1st         $ 120,000

22-Oct-2006         Semi-Final – Group A
Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament Season 3, Las Vegas     2nd         $ 30,000

15-Oct-2006         Quarter Finals – Group B – Match 2
Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament Season 3, Las Vegas     1st         $ 30,000

08-Oct-2006         Quarter Finals – Group B – Match 1
Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament Season 3, Las Vegas     4th         

09-Sep-2006           £ 2,000 No Limit Hold'em
FullTiltPoker.com London All Star Challenge, London     1st     £ 53,600     $ 100,275

03-Sep-2006         Final 16 – Group C – Match 2
Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament Season 3, Las Vegas     1st         $ 15,000

27-Aug-2006         Final 16 – Group C – Match 1
Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament Season 3, Las Vegas     3rd         

27-Jul-2006         Final
Party Poker Football & Poker Legends Cup, London     2nd         $ 40,000

23-Jul-2006         Heat 20
Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament Season 3, Las Vegas     1st         $ 10,000

20-Jul-2006         Semi Final 2 – Denmark vs USA
Party Poker Football & Poker Legends Cup, London     6th         

29-Jun-2006         Quarter Final 3 – Republic of Ireland vs Denmark
Party Poker Football & Poker Legends Cup, London     1st         $ 20,000

25-Jun-2006         No Limit Hold'em
Tournament of Champions, Las Vegas     10th         

04-Jun-2006         Heat 13
Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament Season 3, Las Vegas     6th         

18-May-2006         France vs Denmark
Party Poker Football & Poker Legends Cup, London     6th         

14-May-2006         Heat 10
Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament Season 3, Las Vegas     4th         

16-Apr-2006         Heat 6
Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament Season 3, Las Vegas     4th         

26-Mar-2006         Heat 3
Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament Season 3, Las Vegas     3rd         

25-Mar-2006         Heat 5
British Poker Open 2006, London     2nd         

26-Feb-2006           No Limit Hold'em
WPT Bad Boys of Poker II, Los Angeles     6th         

25-Nov-2005         $ 120,000 No Limit Hold'em
$120,000 Full Tilt Poker Invitational, Monte Carlo     5th         

20-Nov-2005         $ 25,000 No Limit Hold'em
2005 Monte Carlo Millions, Monte Carlo     62nd         

18-Oct-2005           $ 10,000 2nd Annual Doyle Brunson North American Poker Championship – No Limit Hold'em
Bellagio Festa Al Lago IV, Las Vegas     21st         $ 20,690

01-Oct-2005         No Limit Hold'em Championship
Danish Championships, Copenhagen     4th     DKr 68,083     $ 10,964

16-Sep-2005           € 4,000 EPT Main Event – No Limit Hold'em
Barcelona Open 2005, Barcelona     5th     € 78,000     $ 96,712

27-Apr-2005         Heat 8
British Poker Open 2005, London     2nd         

16-Mar-2005           € 10,000 European Poker Tour Grand Final – No Limit Hold'em
European Poker Tour Grand Final, Monte Carlo     16th     € 15,800     $ 21,030

07-Mar-2005           $ 9,750 Championship WPT Event – No Limit Hold'em
Bay 101 Shooting Stars of Poker, San Jose     3rd         $ 320,000

Feb-2005         $ 400,000 Grand Final
Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament, Unknown     1st         $ 1,000,000

13-Aug-2004         € 5,710 Episode 2
The Gaming Club World Poker Championship (Pot Limit Hold'em), Dublin     10th         

22-May-2004           $ 10,000 World Championship Event
35th World Series of Poker (WSOP) 2004, Las Vegas     150th         $ 15,000

24-Jan-2004           $ 7,500 No Limit Hold'em
2004 PokerStars.com Caribbean Adventure, Caribbean     1st         $ 455,780

19-Dec-2003           No Limit Hold'em
World Poker Tour Battle of Champions, Las Vegas     6th         $ 10,000

15-Dec-2003           $ 10,000 WPT No Limit Hold'em Championship
2003 Bellagio Five-Diamond World Poker Classic, Las Vegas     3rd         $ 276,426

24-Apr-2003           No Limit Hold'em
World Poker Tour Bad Boys of Poker, Las Vegas     1st         $ 25,000

21-Feb-2003           $ 10,000 No Limit Hold'em Championship – WPT
2003 L.A. Poker Classic, Los Angeles     1st         $ 532,490

31-May-2002           $ 10,000 No Limit Hold'em – Final
Five Diamond World Poker Classic, Las Vegas     1st         $ 556,460

Related articles

---

Where Are They Now – John Phan

Where are They Now is a series of an in depth look at all poker players – not just the pros – as they travel through one long game. Some of the players profiled are deceased but not forgotten.John “The Razor” Phan is an example of what keeping your nose to the grindstone will do for you. Apr 17, 2009

• Where Are They Now – Cyndy Violette
• Where Are They Now – Dave Ulliott
• Where Are They Now – Phil Ivey
• The Round Table – Michael Binger – It’s Good to be Binger!

 

Latest Poker News

---

Where Are They Now – Gus Hansen

Where are They Now is a series of an in depth look at all poker players – not just the pros – as they travel through one long game. Some of the players profiled are deceased but not forgotten.From time to time we chronicle a player that didn’t bother with a learning curve, and instead went straight to the top in the world of professional poker. May 21, 2009

• The $100,000 Monthly FreeRoll Party is on Now
• Be a $50,000 High Roller and Go to the WSOP at Mansion Poker
• Poker Plus – The Big Dance
• Money for Nothing and Kicks for Free
• A Review of Check-Raising the Devil
• Texas Poker Bill Dead Until 2010 or Later

 

A major event in online poker is taking place this coming weekend with the second year of Full Tilt Poker’s $ 25,000 Heads-up World Championship. Last year the event was a resounding success with the entrants having to be capped at 64 players, including almost all the Full Tilt pros such as Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson and Gus Hansen alongside the internet’s most fearsome players like Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan, Di ‘Urindanger’ Dang and David Benefield.

Eventually it was Full Tilt red pro David Singer who outlasted the field, beating Emil ‘whitelime’ Patel in the final to collect a cool $ 560,000.

Full Tilt were criticised last year for capping the field at 64 which meant many players who left it late to register missed out. Hopefully there won’t be the same problems at the weekend however. This time the event is capped at 128, which for a $ 25,000 online tournament in the current economic climate, should be more than enough. If the tournament starts with an imperfect number of players (i.e. not 32, 64 or 128) there will be byes for the first round.

Last year the event was railbird heaven with huge names squaring off against each other constantly. This weekend should be more of the same and promises to have some memorable matchups. One of the first players registered is none other than the UK’s Luke ‘_FullFlush_’ Schwartz, who has been beating up the internet’s biggest stars such as Tom Dwan in the chatbox and on the table all year. We should expect fireworks whoever he plays.

The usual cavalcade of Full Tilt pros and nosebleed regulars are also sure to be in attendance so cancel all the weekend plans and prepare for a long stint sitting in front of your laptop this weekend. If you wanted to play, then Full Tilt are offering satellites to this event starting at $ 500. However, be warned as you can’t then unregister and take the money if you qualify.

The event starts on Saturday 23rd May at 8pm GMT and will reconvene on Sunday 24th May for the semi-final and final at 9pm GMT. We will have full results from the event here at PokerPlayer next week.  

This year’s World Series of Poker will have one of the best payout structures ever thanks to the efforts of Jack Effel, Barry Greenstein and several other notable names.

Thanks to the efforts of a dedicated few, this year’s World Series of Poker will have probably the most equitable payout structure ever. WSOP tournament director Jack Effel commented:

"I think this is a poker player’s dream payout. The payouts look really good this year."

Effel became the assistant tournament director of the WSOP in 2005 and ever since he has been working on the creation of a better payout structure. After four years, he thinks he has finally got it right, saying he will probably use this model forever.

The European High Roller Championship event had a total of 779 players who bought into the 25,000 euro event. It attracted a lot of notable pros which included names like Daniel Negreanu, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Erik Seidel, John Juanda, Nelly, Chris Ferguson, Berry Greenstein, Peter Eastgate, Phil Ivey, and many more. Throughout the event Vanessa Rousso showed she was going to be a tough competitor. She steadily added to her chip stack and maintained a consistent lead over the field of players. At the start of the final day there were eight players left and the chip stack was as follows:
Vanessa Rousso- 1,250,000
Tony G- 875,000
Randy Dorfman- 487,500
David Eldar- 385,500
David Steicke- 347,500
Florian Langmann- 274,500
Andrew Feldman- 202,500
William Thorson- 132,000

David Steicke was the first to go out at the final table, but he made 60,000 euro for his efforts. The final three came down to Tony G, Randy Dorfman, and Vanessa Rousso. Vanessa was eager to prove her worth against the guys and held her own at the final table. After some strong play she was able to show she could compete with the big boys and took down the event for 720,000 euro.

EPT Grand Final, Monte Carlo, €10,000 No-limit Hold’em, 28th April – 3rd May 2009

Entrants: 935
Buyin: €10,000
Prizepool: €12,293,896

1. Pieter de Korver, €2,300,000
2. Matt Woodward, €1,300,000
3. Mikhail Tulchinskiy, €800,000
4. Dag Mikkelsen, €600,000
5. Eric Qu, €470,000
6. Alem Shah, €350,000
7. Daniel Zink, €250,000
8. Peter Traply, €170,000
9. Christopher Rossiter, €175,000

The PokerStars.com European Poker Tour has a new Grand Final champion. Pieter de Korver, 26, from Leeuwarden, Holland, a member of the new Team PokerStars Pro Netherlands, has won €2.3million at the richest poker tournament ever held outside Las Vegas.

After six days of high-octane poker in one of the most glamorous destinations in the world, De Korver outlasted a record field of 935 players at the €10,600 EPT Monte Carlo main event. The total prize pool was a staggering €9.35 million.

De Korver only turned pro two years ago and last year triumphed in a PokerStars-sponsored TV show called ‘Poker Kampioen Van Nederland’ which involved some 20,000 players. He then came 28th at the Master Classics in Amsterdam for €8,000. This was his third EPT event but first cash. De Korver staged a remarkable comeback during the nine-hour final table. At one stage he was down to just two big blinds but then won a series of showdowns to take the chip lead. He said: “It’s amazing. I was loving the atmosphere and just really enjoying playing cards. I had a little bit of luck…and then I won. That’s the best part of poker.”
De Korver was cheered on by a large group of friends who had driven overnight from the Netherlands to support him.

A wealth of stars competed in the event, held from April 28 to May 3 in the beautiful Salle des Etoiles at the Monte Carlo Bay Resort. They included nearly the entire Team PokerStars Pro team such as poker legend Daniel Negreanu, current world champion Peter Eastgate and former world champions Joe Hachem, Greg Raymer and Chris Moneymaker as well as rappers Nelly and Bruno “Kool Shen” Lopes, rugby star Sebastien Chabal, footballer Tomas Brolin and tennis legend Boris Becker. Celebrated poker pros such as Phil Ivey, Andy Bloch, Tony G, Liz Lieu and Andy Black also took part.

A total of 157 PokerStars players won their seats online for the prestigious event which attracted entrants from a record 57 countries.

The first ever €25,000 EPT Monte Carlo high roller tournament was like a Who’s Who of poker with the world’s greatest players taking their seats for a first prize of €720,000. The three-day event was won by Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Rousso after she came back from a 3:1 chip deficit to beat American Randy Dorfman. A total of 79 players entered the event.

This year’s EPT Grand Final demonstrated yet again the phenomenal growth of the EPT since its launch in Barcelona in 2004. That event, which cost just €1,000 to enter, attracted 229 players with a total prize pool of €229,000 – somewhat less than the seventh place prize at this year’s EPT Grand Final. The total number of players in season one was 1,468; this season the EPT attracted nearly 8,000 players and generated a total prize pool of over €52million – €13 million of which went in first prizes.

EPT founder John Duthie said: “The loyalty and dedication of the players on the EPT trail has always astounded me and this season has been no different. Next season is looking set to break all records with new venues such as Moscow, and the new structure which proved to be a most welcome addition to the Grand Final.”