Jan Skampa wins biggest poker tournament ever held in Czech Republic

JAN SKAMPA WINS BIGGEST POKER TOURNAMENT EVER HELD IN CZECH REPUBLIC

PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC, December 6, 2009: Czech student Jan Skampa has won EPT Prague, the biggest poker tournament ever held in the Czech Republic, for a first prize of €682,000.

Skampa, 23, who beat Israeli businessman Eyal Avitan after a three-hour heads-up battle, finished first in his home city two weeks after a fourth-placed finish at EPT Vilamoura, where he won nearly €120,000. Skampa, who studies economics at St Charles University in Prague, bested a 584-strong field to take down the €5,250 Main Event.

He becomes the first Czech EPT champion and also wins a seat into the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo next April. He said: "It feels great to win. It's my fourth EPT and I won it in my home town - that must be one of the greatest accomplishments you can have in poker. It was tough when we were three-handed but once Stefan Mattsson (who finished third) was out, I felt confident I could win."

Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano extended his own records yet again by reaching a sixth EPT final table and 13th EPT cash but was eliminated in sixth place for €100,000. EPT Prague also provided French pro Antony Lellouche with his eighth EPT in-the-money finish. Lellouche, who came 19th, has won over €800,000 in EPT events.

Team PokerStars Pro Arnaud Mattern, who won the first EPT Prague two years ago, came 63rd for €9,100. Fellow Pros Marcin Horecki, Pieter de Korver and Florian Langmann also took a share of the €2,842,100 prize money.

Irish PokerStars qualifier Larry Ryan, 46, who was playing his first ever event outside Ireland, came fifth for €135,000. Ryan won his seat in a $22 rebuy satellite on PokerStars and has also qualified for the PCA in January and next weekend's debut PokerStars.com UK and Ireland Poker Tour event in Galway. He was one of nearly 70 players who won their seats to Prague on PokerStars.

In the side events, Dutch Team PokerStars Pro Thierry van den Berg came fifth in the €1,000 no limit hold 'em event for €17,300 while fellow team member, Ukrainian Vlad Zhuba, won €5,000 for 12th place in the €2,000 hold 'em event. PokerStars qualifier Melanie Weisner won the €330 EPT Prague Ladies Event for €3,100.

EPT spokesperson Kirsty Thompson said: "Prague has been hugely successful this season with a great turnout. There were some incredible performances especially by Luca Pagano making a record sixth final and Jan Skampa making back-to-back finals."

For blog reports from EPT Prague, please see the PokerStars blog and watch video blogs on PokerStars.tv.

The next event of EPT Season 6 is the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure at the luxurious Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas, starting January 4, 2010. Satellites are running now on PokerStars for the PCA as well as EPT Deauville which takes place January 20-25, 2010 in northern France. See www.ept.com for further details.

About PokerStars:

PokerStars.com is the world’s largest poker site with more than 28 million members around the world. It’s the first choice of the world’s top players with more daily tournaments than anywhere else with the best security online. More hands have been dealt on PokerStars.com than any other site, that’s over 33 billion hands dealt to date and more than 206 million tournaments played.

PokerStars.com operates worldwide under the license from the Isle of Man Government. A recent addition to the PokerStars family, PokerStars.IT, operates in Italy under the Italian Government license.

PokerStars is in the record books, boasting the Guinness World Record for ’Largest Online Poker Tournament’ and ‘Most Players on an Internet Poker Room’.

PokerStars regularly sets the bar high, staging some of the biggest online and live poker tournaments in the world:

• The European Poker Tour (www.ept.com) attracts the best players and currently generates the biggest prize pool of any poker tour
• The Latin American Poker Tour (www.lapt.com) unites the best players in South America
• The Asia Pacific Poker Tour (www.appt.com) does the same across the Pacific
• The World Cup of Poker, a unique fixture on the poker calendar that combines the online and live poker worlds for a team challenge that pitches nation against nation
• PokerStars is also the official sponsor of the; Russian Poker Tour, The Italian Poker Tour, The Czech-Slovak Poker Tour, The Australia-New Zealand Poker Tour

PokerStars is also home to an elite team of sponsored players known as Team PokerStars Pro – a group of established and up and coming players that travel the world competing in international tournaments. For a full list of Team PokerStars Pros visit http://www.pokerstars.com/team-pokerstars/.

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