Pieter de Korver

De Korver from Netherland, stormed a drastic comeback by winning the European Poker Tour (EPT) title steamrolling the other final table participants in the process. It all looked as a dramatic finale to what had proved an incredible tournament.

Walking into the final table with a big chip lead, Norwegian Dag Martin Mikkelsen was heavily favored for the title and the early stages only seemed to confirm this prediction.

Mikkelsen could not mange to turn well his big chip lead into a dominating one, racing his queens versus the ace-king of fellow big stack Peter Traply for a gargantuan 8 million chip pot. Mikkelsen then went on to send German Daniel Zink to the rail in seventh place for €250,000 and it looked like the Norwegian's name was already on the title.

Gradually Russian Mikhail Tulchinskiy's star began to rise as he eliminated Alem Shah and Eric Qu in close series to go forward into second spot on the leader board. But from that moment the whole show belonged to Pieter de Korver. He had returned into the final table as one of the shorter stacks and when Matt Woodward won a big coin-flip against him, he looked to be down and out with just three big blinds.

De Korver was nearing victory by winning double through after double through to smash his way back into contention. In contrast, Mikkelsen seemed frustrated at his inability to finish the Dutchman off. There was no Korver-esque recovery in the offing and a few hands later Mikkelsen went out fourth.

The hand also propelled De Korver into a big chip lead, completing the fairy tale comeback that had looked so unlikely just a short while earlier. As play continued Woodward struggled to cope with the aggression and pressure De Korver piled on him as the vocal Dutch supporters in the crowd helped spur him on. Woodward collected a handy €1,300,000 for his second place finish. Pieter de Korver, however, was the man to claim the title, grabbing €2,300,000 for the win.