EPT Monte Carlo: Short-stacked Miracle Korver

Final table of the PokerStars EPT Grand Final featured eight players
racing for the title and nobody expected that the champion would turn
out to be Team PokerStars Netherlands Pro Pieter de Korver.

He
outlasted a field of 935 players and thanks to some great comebacks,
swept away the €2,300,000 first prize after winning Matthew Woodward in a heads-up match.

Korver was down to three big blinds at one stage of the final table but
turned the situation around with great play and deck blowing in his
back. He commented his victory:

"I was loving the atmosphere and enjoying playing cards. I had a little bit of luck and I won. That's the best part of poker."

Dag Mikkelsen (pictured left) opened the day in the chip lead and wasn't showing any
signs of slowing down, as his first victim was one of his closest
challengers, Peter Traply. Mikkelsen's stack continued to grow as it
swallowed chips of another player, namely Daniel Zink who entered the
table as one of the shorter stacks.

Mikhail Tulchinskiy knocked out short-stacked Alem Shah and Eric Qu but
he was still far away from the chip leader. Meanwhile, Pieter de Korver
was at the bottom of the leaderboard holding only 400,000 chips with
the blinds at 80,000/160,000.

In the following hands, Korver doubled up, tripled up, he was on a
winning streak and nobody could stop him. Mikkelsen tried to put an end
to Korver's reign by moving all-in on a board with two sevens and a
six. Korver had an answer to that one also, showing pocket sixes for a
full house and a change in the lead at Mikkelsen's expense.

Matthew Woodward knocked Mikkelsen out shortly after and then did the
same to Tuchinskiy. The play was down to the final two players with
Korver in a dominant position.

The heads-up match lasted for almost an hour until the final hand
approached. Woodward opened the hand with a raise to 750,000 and Korver
called. The flop came ,
Korver checked and Woodward bet 750,000. Korver check-raised all-in and
Woodward thought for a bit before making the call with for middle pair and a small flush draw.

Korver turned over for middle pair with better kicker and with the board revealing , he won the hand and the title.

Here are the final table results: