Steve O’Dwyer Wins EPT Grand Final Main Event 2013 and €1,2 million

Steve O’Dwyer has won the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino EPT Grand Final Main Event for a massive €1,224,000 first prize after what many consider to be the best final table in history.

O’Dwyer, who was appearing on his fourth EPT final table in 18 months, faced a stacked field that included four Team PokerStars Pros, two of whom were two EPT champions. The 31-year-old communications graduate beat businessman Andrew Pantling heads-up to win the coveted title. As well as his cash prize, O’Dwyer also received a stunning watch worth €9,000 from luxury Swiss brand Slyde, the Official Watch Sponsor for EPT9 Main Events.

O’Dwyer, who lives in Dublin and won his seat online at PokerStars, is a familiar face on the European Poker Tour and was runner-up at EPT London last season for £465,000. Only two months ago, he finished fifth, again at EPT London, for £146,000. His live tournament winnings now total well over $4 million. O’Dwyer said: “People are saying this was the toughest final table of all time so for me to be able to say that I won is unbelieaveable. I am in shock. At the start of the final, I knew I needed to get lucky to win because these guys are so good. It's very satisfying to finally have that title. I will play the €100k Super High Roller tomorrow, and then on to Season 10, and the race to see who can win two EPT titles.”

Pantling, who hails from Canada but now lives in London, took €842,000 for his runner-up finish. The last surviving Team PokerStars Pro at the final was Johnny Lodden, who finished third for €467,000. It was the Norwegian’s 14th EPT Main Event cash, his second final table appearance and the best live event cash of his career.

Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu was playing his second EPT final table and finished fourth for €321,000, bringing his total live tournament winnings to nearly $18 million. Hopes of a double EPT champion were thwarted however when EPT Deauville winner Jake Cody bust in fifth place for €251,000. EPT Sanremo champion Jason Mercier also made the final but was eliminated in seventh place for €137,000.

Today’s card-up broadcast on EPTLive was shown in 11 languages. As well as the stream on PokerStars.tv, there were localised live streams on websites across the world including Sport1.de in Germany, PokerStarslive.fr in France, Poker1.ro in Romania and tvpokerpro.com in Brazil.

A total of 531 players from 56 countries competed in this season’s EPT Grand Final Main Event creating a prize pool of €5,310,000. A total of 81 players cashed including Team PokerStars Pros Victor Ramdin (13th, €37,000), Ville Wahlbeck (29th, €25,000), Marcin Horeck (41st, €21,500), Toni Judet (52nd, €18,500) Christophe De Meulder (66th, €16,000) and Alex Kravchenko (79th, €16,000) plus PokerStars Team Online’s Mickey Petersen. Other notable cashes included John Juanda, Andrew Lichtenberger, Luke Schwartz, Kevin Vandersmissen and Noah Boeken. EPT London champion David Vamplew and American pro Taylor Paur both bust in 80th place so shared the €16,000 prize between them.

The €10,000 Main Event is one of 50 tournaments taking place at Le Sporting Casino in Monaco as part of the ninth EPT Grand Final “Festival of Poker” running from May 6-16.

The excitement isn’t over yet however, because there are still three days of poker left. Tomorrow features a host of tournaments including the Day 1c of the €500,000 guarantee Monaco Cup as well as the first day of the €100,000 Super High Roller event, which seems set to attract at least 30 players.

There have been some great results in the side events so far, with Americans snagging the biggest prizes so far. Steve Silverman took down the €25k High Roller for €775,400 while fellow Paul Volpe won the €10k High Roller Turbo for €130,500 and Zachary Korik took down the €5k NL event for €229,200. Team PokerStars Pros have already won five side events: Max Lykov won the €2k NL event for €114,500; Jason Mercier won the €2k Open Face Chinese tourney for €48,000 and Marcin Horecki won the €200 NL 2-7 Single Draw Turbo event. Team Pros also ripped through the €1k 8-Game with Chris Moneymaker, Matthias De Meulder and Chad Brown finishing 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Irina Batorevich won the €1k Ladies Event for €10,300 after chopping with her best friend Anna Yamshchikova.

Slovak player Jan Bendik won the €1k NL Turbo for €39,400, bringing him ever nearer to the EPT Season 9 Player of the Year trophy. He currently has 3,545 points – some 1,000 of even Main Event champion Steve O’Dwyer who would need to win two further major side events to catch up.

EPT Season 10 will kick off with the EPT Barcelona Festival running August 28-September 7, 2013, and will be followed by six further major events in Europe as well as the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas in January 2014. Each event will be a spectacular “can’t-miss” Festival of Poker featuring a massive range of events for players of all kinds.

- Source:  www.pokerstars.com