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 EPT3 BARCELONA
NORWEGIAN WINS BIGGEST EVER EPT TOURNAMENT
Date: Saturday 16th September 2006
Venue: Gran Casino de Barcelona
Event: EPT3 Barcelona Open - sponsored by PokerStars.com
Buy-in: €5,000
Bjorn-Erik Glenne, a 35-year-old Norwegian, beat some of the best poker players in the world today (September 16) to win €691,000 at the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Barcelona Open.
At the end of the four-day tournament, the former marketing manager triumphed heads-up against American superstar Phil Ivey to take the top prize in the €5,000 buy-in No Limit Texas Hold'em event.
The tournament was the first event of EPT Season 3 and attracted a record-breaking 480 players. The field was 155 more than last year, making it the largest attendance for an EPT event and creating a prize pool of €2,304,000 - close to double last year's pot.
Father-of-two Glenne, from Oslo, is no stranger to the EPT - he came 19th in Copenhagen last year and 15th in a €1,000 side event in last year's EPT Grand Final. He was the Norwegian No Limit champion in 2005 and is also a high-ranking chess player. A PokerStars regular, Bjorn-Erik enjoys substantial success online.
Phil Ivey, 30, one of the most successful tournament players in history, was making his EPT debut and won €371,000 for 2nd place. Ivey, 30, holds a World Series of Poker record of 24 cashes and 5 bracelets in just four years.
Former market stall trader Dave Gregory finished third and is taking €184,300 home to South Benfleet in Essex, England.
Many other world-class players also took part in the Barcelona tournament including Team PokerStars Team members Joe Hachem (2005 world champion), WPT Ladies Champion Isabelle "No Mercy", Humberto Brenes, Gus Hansen, Marcel Luske and Mike 'The Mouth' Matusow.
A total of 107 entrants in the tournament won their seats on PokerStars. The top-finishing qualifiers were Californian Jon Dull in 7th place, who took €92,200 back to Newport Beach and Parisian David 'Dlopt' Layani in 11th place who won €25,400.
EPT founder John Duthie said: "It's been an incredible start to our third EPT season. When we first came to Barcelona in 2004, it was a €1,000 event with a total prize pool of €229,000. The total prize pool this year was €2,304,000 - more than ten times our first event here.."
Amongst other stars in Barcelona this week were 2005 EPT Grand Final winner Rob Hollink, French singer Patrick Bruel, Noah Boeken (Copenhagen EPT1 winner), WPT winner Juha Helppi, 2003 European champion Torstein Iversen and Ola Brandborn (two-times Swedish champion). The largest attendance was from Sweden with 103 players, making it more than 20% of the field. There were 70 UK players, 45 from Norway, 42 from France and 37 from the United States.
The event also attracted a huge number of media from around the world with more than 50 TV, press and online journalists attending the event.
The next EPT event is next week (September 21-24. 2006) at the Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London. Next is Baden in Austria, then Dublin, Copenhagen & Deauville. The tour will culminate with the Monte Carlo Grand Final which is again taking place at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort in Monaco, starting on March 28, 2007.
For further information, please visit http://www.ept.com or contact Victoria Coxon at
Jackie Cooper Public Relations, Victoria_Coxon@jcpr.com; / +44 20 7208 7216
PokerStars Facts:
PokerStars (www.pokerstars.com) is the world's most innovative online poker site. PokerStars was the first site to introduce features that became industry standard such as sophisticated multi-table tournaments, integrated game statistics, players' notes, personalized images, time bank for tournaments and big bet ring games, satellite tournaments, multi-table sit and go tournaments, and much more.
To date, PokerStars has dealt out over five-billion hands and run more than 25 million poker tournaments, awarding well over $5 billion in prize money. PokerStars is the world's largest poker tournament room, with over 5 million registered player accounts. PokerStars' support team is truly unique, as help and assistance are available around the clock from people who know and understand the game of poker and the importance of impeccable customer service.
The PokerStars.com site is also one of the most secure. PokerStars uses industry-leading security software to ensure the integrity of the system, including encryption, card shuffle randomness and preventative measures against cheating and collusion. Money covering player's balances is held in segregated accounts managed by a major European bank, ensuring that PokerStars can fulfill its obligations to players at all times.
In February 2006, PokerStars.com became the first poker website ever to reach the 100,000 simultaneous player mark. That watershed achievement marked the largest poker event in history. Every week, the PokerStars.com "Sunday Million" is played, which the largest weekly tournament on the planet with a $1 million guaranteed tournament prize pool.
PokerStars is an official member of the World Poker Tour, and the title sponsor of the European Poker Tour (EPT) and the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. In the fall, PokerStars hosts the world's largest online tournament, the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP). PokerStars also sponsors major events around the globe, such as the World Cup of Poker and other exciting tournaments.
During the last three years, PokerStars.com sent more players to the World Series of Poker (WSOP) than any other source or website. A whopping 1,623 entrants (more than 20 percent of the field) qualified to play in the 2006 WSOP via PokerStars satellites. PokerStars is the site where the 2003 and 2004 World Series of Poker champions won their entries into the WSOP. The 2005 world poker champion, Joe Hachem, has also been an active player at PokerStars since 2001. He joined Moneymaker and Raymer as official representatives of PokerStars.com, thus fortifying the company trademark, "Where Poker Players Become World Champions." For more information go to: wwaw.pokerstars.com
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