Women Making a Run

Three women professionals made a deep run in the Grand Final.  JJ Liu would finish in 44th place and Sandra Naujoks would finish in 36th place.

The woman the world was watching was 2007 WSOP Europe Champion Annette "Annette15" Obrestad. Obrestad was 2nd in chips heading into the third day of the event.  She would make a deep run and final table talks were buzzing around the room.  However, in the end Obrestad would fall short and finish in 13th place.

Final Table Relatively Unknown

The only player of note to make the final table was chip leader Dag Mikkelsen.  Mikkelsen finished 42nd in the 2007 WSOP Main Event.  Outside of Mikkelsen, the only person with any major tournament experience was Matt Woodward.  Woodward has 5 WSOP cashes, including one in the 2006 Main Event.

Freerolling to Millions

Mikkelsen would bust out of the event in 4th place and heads up play would occur between Pieter de Korver and Matt Woodward. De Korver won his way to this even via a freeroll tournament.  De Korver took a chip lead into heads-up play that he would never relinquish.  Eventually he held a nearly 3 to 1 lead to Woodward.

It should be noted that at one point at the final table, de Korver was down to just 3 big blinds.  However, after a triple up and a few double ups, he stood ready to take down this title.

The final hand saw a flop of 10-6-5, all hearts.  All the chips would go into the middle and de Korver was head with 9s-6s against the 6c-4h of Woodward.  Woodward had a flush draw to go with his pair.

The turn fell a queen to give some outs for a chop, but the river 7 allowed de Korver's 9 to play and de Korver became the EPT Grand Final champion.  Pieter de Korver took the €2,300,000 top prize and a sponsorship deal from PokerStars.com.

European Poker Tour Standing Strong

The EPT had almost 8,000 players for its events throughout the season.  Over €52,000,000 in prize money was awarded, making it one of the strongest poker tours on the planet.

In a poker economy that has seen massive shrinkage, the European Poker Tour appears alive and well and ready to move on to another fantastic season.