2009 PokerStars.com EPT Prague

EPT Prague Main Event
Day: 5
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Event Info

2009 PokerStars.com EPT Prague

Final Results
Winner
Winning Hand
j♥j♦
Prize
€682,000
Event Info
Buy-in
€5,000
Prize Pool
€2,842,100
Entries
586
Level Info
Level
32
Blinds
100,000 / 200,000
Ante
25,000

Final Table Time

[user66118]
[user66118]
Good morning once again from the Hilton Casino, and welcome back for Day 4 of the PokerStars.com EPT Prague: The Final Table.

We have found our final eight survivors, and they'll be spending the rest of the day trying to knock each down and out. They're all guaranteed a payday of at least €50,000, but they'll be batting for the first prize of nearly €700,000 that awaits the winner.

We're scheduled for a noon start once again, so we should be underway in a little more than a half hour. Bios of the eight remaining players are the next thing you'll see here, and we'll be back with the live coverage as soon as the cards hit the felt.

Seat 1: Anthony Roux (Provence, France) - 2,839,000

[user66118]
[user66118]
Roux, 26, was studying accountancy when he first tried online poker. He used to spend his evenings playing the video game Quake 3 when a friend suggested he try Texas Hold'em instead. He deposited a dollar and has never looked back. He is now a well-respected high stakes online cash game player at the $10/$20 and $20/$50 limits. He turned pro nearly three years ago. Although Roux has played numerous EPTs, making the EPT Prague final is actually his first EPT cash. He came fifth at the WSOP $2k NLHE event this summer for $120,311 and followed that up at the WSOPE in London a few months later with another fifth place finish in the £1k NLHE event for £28,181 but has never gone deep at an EPT. He currently share a house in London with EPT Live "Voice of France" presenter Benjamin Gallen who says Roux is "an exceptional player."

(Bio courtesy of PokerStars)

Seat 2: Stefan Mattsson (Stockholm, Sweden) - 3,553,000

[user66118]
[user66118]
Although Swedish pro Stefan Mattsson, 30, is a familiar figure on the European Poker Tour circuit and has cashed several times, this is the first time he has had come even close to a final. He has played poker since he was a child and took up Texas Hold'em seven years ago. Although he considers himself primarily a cash game player, Mattsson has notched up over $800k in major tournaments winnings. He first came to international attention when he went deep in the 2006 World Series, finishing 57th for $123,699. The following year he bettered that with a 22nd finish for $333,490. In May 2008 he was runner-up at WPT Barcelona in for €220,000 and this summer came sixth in the WSOP PLO World Championship for $118,462. Mattsson has cashed three times at EPTs but never for huge amounts - 41st at EPT4 Barcelona for €12,550, 35th in Prague last season for €9,700 and EPT Vilamoura two weeks ago where he came 37th for €8,121. Stefan now lives in Stockholm but grew up in Kiruna in Lappland, Sweden's northernmost city, some 145 km above the Arctic circle.

(Bio courtesy of PokerStars)

Seat 3: Larry Ryan (Tipperary, Ireland) - 1,338,000

[user66118]
[user66118]
Larry Ryan won his seat to Prague in a $22 rebuy satellite on PokerStars and is the last remaining PokerStars qualifier in the tournament. The 46-year-old grandfather, who runs his own employment agency in Tipperary, only came to Prague in the first place so that he could gain some experience before the PCA. He has qualified for the PCA but was keen to get more practice at deep-stack tournaments first. EPT Prague is actually the first event he has ever played outside Ireland but he's a familiar figure on the Irish Poker Tour which he has won a seat to four years running. Ryan started playing draw poker as a teenager and took up NLHE six years ago. This is his best live result to date although he came ninth at the Irish Poker Championships in Galway last year for €10k. He has also won a seat to this year's Irish Poker Championships which takes place next weekend and is now the launch event for the new PokerStars.com UK and Ireland Poker Tour.

(Bio courtesy of PokerStars)

Seat 4: Gustav Ekerot (Stockholm, Sweden) - 502,000

[user66118]
[user66118]
Gustav Ekerot, 22, comes from Stockholm and still lives with his parents. Ekerot first start playing poker with friends at school when he was 17. After watching the WPT on television, he started playing some free-rolls online and his success in these gave him the start of an online bankroll. He's a full time poker pro and makes his living by competing in online multi-table tournaments. He has also been successful in live events and came second in Master Classics of Poker in Amsterdam last year for €430,000. When not playing poker, Ekerot likes playing indoor hockey.

(Bio courtesy of PokerStars)

Seat 5: Sven Eichelbaum (Dresden, Germany) - 658,000

[user66118]
[user66118]
Sven, 32, is a painter and runs his own company in Dresden. He's playing poker for three years, both online and live, but the EPT final table in Prague is by far his biggest success so far. Two years ago he finished third at the Baltic Poker Championship for €7.500. "It's just amazing to make the final table here in Prague. I had so many ups and downs", Sven said. But this is not the only reason that tomorrow will be a big day for Sven. His girlfriend Stefani has travelled specially to Prague to cheer him on at the final. "We'll be celebrating tomorrow whatever happens in the tournament as it's also Stefani's birthday."

(Bio courtesy of PokerStars)

Seat 6: Jan Skampa (Prague, Czech Republic) - 3,985,000

[user66118]
[user66118]
Local hero Jan Skampa, 23, has made back-to-back final tables - a phenomenal feat which almost certainly hasn't been achieved since Season 1 when Ram Vaswani and Julian Thew both made the finals of Dublin and Copenhagen. Skampa, an economics student in Prague, came fourth two weeks ago in Vilamoura and now has a good chance of bettering that result in Prague. He is already by far the most successful Czech player on the EPT circuit and is third in the Czech all-time money list.

Skampa is currently studying at Charles's University in Prague, his home city, but spends most of his time playing poker. He learned the game from friends and has been playing seriously for just three years, scoring his first big result last August at WPT Slovakia, $24,508 for eighth place. He followed that with a win a month later, $24,881 at a WPT Cyprus side event before eclipsing all previous results with a fourth place finish in Vilamoura worth € 117,128.

(Bio courtesy of PokerStars)

Seat 7: Eyal Avitan (Ashkelon, Israel) - 2,627,000

[user66118]
[user66118]
Avitan, 34, is almost certainly the only player at this season's final table who has already cashed in a side event. After finishing Day 1b on just 34,000, Avitan slipped across the room to enter a $300 turbo side event - and finished second for $13,500. Avitan took up poker six years ago on a Caribbean cruise and, although he only played three live tournaments so far, he has already had reasonable results. In June, he finished seventh in a WPT Barcelona side event for € 4,300 and he also came sixth in a $500 WPT Cyprus side event in September.

The Israeli realtor came to Prague with his friend Ran Azor who was runner-up at the WPT Championship in April for nearly $1.5 million. Azor has now gone home and Avitan's wife Karen is back in Israel caring for the couple's 11-month-old twins Noam and Shani. The lack of supporters on the rail has clearly had little negative effect on Avitan's game however and he described reaching the final as a "dream come true".

(Bio courtesy of PokerStars)

Seat 8: Luca Pagano (Treviso, Italy) - 2,119,000

[user66118]
[user66118]
Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano has broken his own records yet again here at EPT Prague by making his sixth EPT final table and his 13th EPT cash. The 31-year-old former computer programming student from Treviso, Italy, kicked off his poker career using play money on PokerStars but soon progressed to real money and turned a modest deposit into a monster online bankroll. He is also hugely successful in live events putting together a small fortune in winnings. He has played dozens of EPTs since the tour started in 2004 and is currently in second place on the EPT all-time Tournament Leader Board. Luca was nominated EPT Player of the Year in September 2007. As well as tournaments, he has also won huge amounts at the high stakes cash tables and has had several WSOP side event cashes. His best result to date was 6th place at the Season 4 EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo for € 337,000.

(Bio courtesy of PokerStars)
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