The fifth European Poker Tour (EPT) season came to an end last weekend as the main event of the EPT Grand Final was concluded in Monte Carlo. The main event had a 10,000 euro buy-in and featured 935 poker players all looking to take the biggest EPT prize of the season. The total prize fund was 9.35 million euros which made it the richest poker event ever outside of Las Vegas.
Of course, this event attracted many of the top names in professional poker and it was Dutch PokerStars professional Pieter de Korver who captured the 2.3 million euro first prize and the prestige of the EPT Grand Final title.
Pieter de Korver was joined in the final table by three online qualifiers from PokerStars.com – Alem Shah, Peter Traply and Matt Woodward. Dag Martin Mikkelsen, Mikhail Tulchinkiy, Eric Qu and Daniel Zink completed the final table line-up.
At the start of the final table Matt Woodward had the chip lead ahead of Peter Traply with Pieter de Korver down in seventh place.
Despite being second at the start of play, Hungarian Peter Traply was the first player to exit from the final table. Daniel Zink was then busted out into seventh place. Both this players lost out in exchanges with Dag Martin Mikkelsen.
It was then Mikhail Tulchinskiy who eliminated the next two players from the final table – Alem Shah into sixth place and Eric Qu in fifth.
With four players remaining, Pieter de Korver transformed his game from being the short stack to taking the chip lead. Dag Martin Mikkelson was unable to continue his early form and was knocked out in fourth place by de Korver. Matt Woodward then eliminated Tulchinskiy to set up a heads-up final with de Korver.
In the heads-up Woodward regained his chip lead for a short period. It was to no avail though as on the final hand after over an hour of heads-up play, Woodward had the 6 of clubs and 4 of hands compared with de Korver’s 9 and 6 of spades. The turn was the queen of spades and the river was the 7 of spades which ensured de Korver won the title. Woodward therefore collected the runners-up prize of 1.3 million euros.
Pieter de Korver staged a remarkable comeback from being the short stack on the final table and looking like he was going home, to winning the title. He has only been a professional for just two years and this is the 26 year-old Dutchman’s biggest win of his career so far.
The EPT will return again with season 6 later this year.
Here is how the final table of the EPT Grand Final Main Event 2009 finished with the player’s payouts in brackets:
- Pieter de Korver (2,300,000 euros)
- Matt Woodward (1,300,000 euros)
- Mikhail Tulchinskiy (800,000 euros)
- Dag Martin Mikkelsen (600,000 euros)
- Eric Qu (470,000 euros)
- Alem Shah (350,000 euros)
- Daniel Zink (250,000 euros)
- Peter Traply (170,000 euros)
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