Mickey Petersen Wins EPT Copenhagen 2012
PokerStars Team Online’s Mickey Petersen has won EPT Copenhagen for 2,515,000 Danish Kroner (approx. €340,000) after a six-hour heads-up battle against Belgian Team PokerStars Pro Pierre Neuville, his elder by some 47 years.
The young Dane’s victory at Casino Copenhagen – his first major live result - also earned him a stunning bracelet worth more than €10,000 from the Official EPT Season 8 Bracelet Sponsor Shamballa Jewels.
Known as ‘mement_mori’ online, Petersen is one of the most successful online tournament players Denmark has ever produced. He has regularly topped online Player of the Year and Leader Board rankings and is one of the highest ever earners in PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker with more than $500,000 in winnings. He was runner-up in the 2010 $2,100 no-limit SCOOP event for $169,286 and has also finished third in the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up.
Looking happy but exhausted after his epic heads-up duel, Petersen, 22, said: “How do I feel? Relieved that I’m not playing heads-up anymore! This is so special to me. Not only is it the first time I’ve done well in a live event but doing it on home turf like this is just amazing. It was a long and tough heads-up against Pierre. He was really tough. I have a lot of admiration for him for sticking so long. I was very impressed.”
Petersen, who comes from near Copenhagen, but who now lives in London, min-cashed EPT Barcelona last August and also has ten EPT side event cashes, but today was by far his biggest live result.
Neuville, 69, who came second at EPT Vilamoura in Season 6, is the fourth player to have two EPT runner-up finishes, following Hungarian Denes Kalo, Swedish pro Martin Jacobson and Max Heinzelmann from Germany. Neuville, who won his seat to EPT Copenhagen on PokerStars, first started playing poker more than 50 years ago but took 25 years off while pursuing a career in business. Once retired, he got back into poker, kicking off with the PCA in 2008 where he finished 18th. He topped that result the following season with ninth place at EPT San Remo for €78,800 and then finished second in Vilamoura, a result that helped him win the EPT Qualifier of the Year Award and ultimately his place on Team PokerStars Pro. Neuville also triumphed in the Last Longer contest run by Skrill, the Official Payment Provider Sponsor for EPT Season 8, and gets the event’s DKK 37,250 buy-in credited back to his Skrill account.
A total of 299 players from 35 countries competed in this season’s EPT Copenhagen DKK 37,250 Main Event creating a total prize pool of DKK 10,046,400 (approx. €1,351,000). A total of 48 players made the money including Team PokerStars Pro and 2011 WSOP runner-up Martin Staszko, from the Czech Republic. American Steve O’Dwyer was hoping to better his EPT London runner-up finish but went out in seventh place for DKK 290,000. Former Liverpool and Danish international football star Jan Molby achieved his best ever live result, finishing 45th for DKK 55,000.
As always at EPT Copenhagen, Scandinavians dominated the field. There were 35 countries represented with more than half the 299-strong field came from Denmark (82), Sweden (48) and Norway (21). As well as Neuville, 85 other players won their seats on PokerStars including finalists Aage Ravn, Niels van Alphen and Spencer Hudson.
Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden won the 7,500 DKK NL Turbo Bounty event after beating EPT Prague champion Roberto Romanello heads-up while EPT6 Copenhagen champion Anton Wigg won this year’s High Roller event.
The final two days of the Main Event were broadcast on EPTLive with expert commentary in English and Russian.
EPT Denmark 2012 Final Results:
Mickey Petersen, Denmark, PokerStars Team Online , 2,515,000 DKK Pierre Neuville, Belgium, Team PokerStars Pro, 1,600,000 DKK Bjarke Hansen , Denmark, , 1,000,000 Aage Ravn, Norway, PokerStars qualifier, 740,000 Jacob Rasmussen , Denmark, , 490,000 Niels van Alphen, Netherlands , PokerStars qualifier, 390,000 Steve O'Dwyer, USA, , 290,000 Spencer Hudson, USA (living in Mexico), PokerStars qualifier, 191,400
