Major Poker Prize Taken By A Teenage Player
Published: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 Online-Casinos.com
MAJOR POKER PRIZE TAKEN BY A TEENAGE PLAYER
19-year-old Georgia U student beats all in Monte Carlo poker competition
Another major poker tournament - the European Poker Tour Grand Final in Monaco
held over the weekend - has been won by a "young gun" poker player.
The Associated Press reports that a 19-year-old freshman from the University
of Georgia was the only American remaining as play began on the final day
of the Poker Stars European Poker Tour's Grand Final.
American political science student Jeff Williams won the big event after
beating off competition from a total of 298 players - including scores of world-class
poker professionals and three World Champions - Team Pokerstars' members Joe
Hachem (2005) and Greg Raymer (2004) as well as 2001 champion Carlos
Mortensen.
Jeff Williams won Euro 900,000 ($1,078,000) after a gripping final table.
He paid just $41 to reach the Euro 10,000 buy-in No Limit Texas Hold'em
Grand Final, after he qualified for the event on Pokerstars. His dramatic
win was watched by his parents David and Cindi - a total surprise to their son
- who made the trip across the Atlantic after following his progress on the
PokerStars blog.
The five-day Euro 10,000 No Limit Texas Hold'em tournament - the biggest ever
held in Europe - generated a prize pool of nearly Euro 3,000,000 ($3,552,000).
The EPT is Europe's richest poker tour - with tournaments televised for broadcast
throughout the world. Season 2 featured events in Barcelona, London, Baden,
Dublin, Copenhagen, Deauville and the Monte Carlo Grand Final - with a total
of 2,009 players generating an overall prize pool of Euro 9,824,000.
The dramatic final stages of the tournament on Saturday, March 11 ended with
Jeff in a heads-up showdown against Arshad Hussain, from the UK. Arshad
had spent nothing to reach Monte Carlo after winning a Frequent Player Point
tournament on PokerStars and took home Euro 492 000 for his second place.
Jeff said: "Arshad and I have played each other a lot in heads-up tournaments
on PokerStars and Arshad normally wins. So I was pretty nervous but by then
I had a big chip lead which makes a difference. This whole event has been just
amazing. To reach the final table and then find myself sitting next to Marcel
Luske, one of my poker heroes, was incredible. I am still taking the whole thing
in. I can't really believe it. "
The 3rd and 4th place finishers in the event were also PokerStars qualifers.
Aleksander Strandli, from Oslo, Norway won Euro 251 000 and Marc Karam, from
Ottawa, Canada, won Euro 195 000.
The EPT Grand Final was held over five days (March 7-11) at the glamorous new
Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort. Among the top poker professionals
competing were last year's EPT Grand Final winner Rob Hollink, French singer
Patrick Bruel, Irish star Andy Black and Swedish champion Martin de Knijff.
Team PokerStars was also represented by Aussie Millions winner Lee Nelson, French
WPT Ladies Champion Isabelle Mercier and Italy's Luca Pagano.
The Grand Final also attracted record numbers of media to the French Riviera,
with more than 80 TV, press and online media from around the world attending
- four times the number who came last year. It was also the first tournament
to be covered live by a national newspaper - the Times Online.
