Sebastian Pauli, a 25-year-old pro from Germany, brought the heaviest bag of chips to the final table and remained out front until all his opponents had hit the rail, including poker superstars Kevin MacPhee and Jake Cody.
There were 2 negotiations about chopping the prize pool on the final table - first with 3 players remaining and then during heads-up - but the players couldn't agree on anything so play went on and eventually gave Sebastian Pauli the original £499,700 first-place prize (and a Slyde watch).
"I was confident that I had a good chance with the chip lead," Pauli said after the 11-hour long final table. "People are afraid of the chip leader and I knew I could apply a lot of pressure...I'm not really the party guy, I'll sit down with my friends and talk about what has happened."
EPT11 London, £4,250 NL Hold'em Main Event Entries: 675 Places paid: 95 Prize pool: £2,619,000 1 - Sebastian Pauli, Germany, £499,700 (and a Slyde watch) 2 - Kevin MacPhee, United States, £308,500 3 - Kevin Killeen, Ireland, £220,500 4 - Artur Koren, Germany, PokerStars qualifier, £168,900 5 - Jake Cody, UK, Team PokerStars Pro, £133,800 6 - Jakub Mroczek, Poland, £104,200 7 - Jonathan Bensadoun, France, £75,900 8 - Pablo Gordillo, Spain, £51,900
Many congratulations to Sebastian Pauli on winning this event and taking home nearly half a million pounds. Germany seem to be producing a lot of good poker players lately and he looks like another one
The Germans are always doing well in the big tournaments these days so no surprise here and he did have the chip lead for a long time as well. It's surprising that they did not negotiate a deal as they always seem keen to deal at that stage but saying that I suppose all three of them thought they had the skills to win,for these players I don't think the money is the most important thing.