Success at EPT Berlin

European Poker Tour Berlin 2010 event sees record attendance as players from across the globe compete for the guaranteed €1 million first prize that was eventually won by Kevin MacPhee

Kevin MacPhee has recorded his first big win on the European Poker Tour circuit after claiming victory and walking away with the €1 million first place prize at the European Poker Tour Berlin 2010 event.

MacPhee, also known as "ImaLuckSac" secured his record win after qualifying for the event via PokerStars.com. The Isle of Man based domain revealed that it sent 243 players to the €5,300 buy-in main event. A total of 945 players from 48 countries entered the six-day tournament, easily beating last year's number of 667. This was the first time the EPT German stop has been held in Berlin, after previously being hosted by Dortmund. The German capital's debut didn't disappoint, as the record numbers in attendance at Germany's largest poker event created a prize pool of €4,725 million. 29 year old American MacPhee claimed his share of the pot by beating Finnish player Llari Tahkokallio heads up to secure his first big cash in an EPT event. He advised that although he has won 14 seats into EPT events, he has never before has a big cash on the circuit.

Says MacPhee, "winning a European Poker Tour event was a real goal of mine. I have worked very hard for this. It feels awesome. Llari is an extremely good player and I've got a lot of respect for him."

This is not the first time that MacPhee has gone heads up with Tahkokallio, as the pair met at the EPT London event in October. The outcome that time was in favour of the Finn, which saw Tahkokallio claim victory in a £1,000 side event. However, MacPhee is better known for his successes, as he broke PokerStars.com's record for the most tournament leader board points in April 2008 after accruing a profit of more than €73,667 in a month.

As well as paying out a €1 million to first place MacPhee, there were six figure cash payments going as far down as seventh place. Llari Tahkokalli was in second, Marc Inizan third, followed by Artur Wasek, Ketul Nathwani, Marcel Koller, Marko Neumann, Nico Behling, Alfonso Amedola and Norman Kastner. Russian European Poker Tour Live commentator Llya Gorodeskiy came 16th for €25,000 and Team PokerStars pro Jude Ainsworth went out in 19th place for €23,500. Other Team PokerStars Pros to cash included Johannes Strassman, Ben Kang and George Danzer from Germany, Vlad Zguba from Ukraine, Vadim Markushevski from Belarus, Briton Julian Thew, the “Flying Dutchman” Marcel Luske and William Thorson from Sweden.