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The World Series of Poker Europe Main Event didn’t mark the end of high-stakes poker in London. The Grosvenor Victoria Casino played host to the European Poker Tour’s London stop, attracting 596 players to the £5,000 buy-in event. At the end of the day in the European metropolis, Michael Martine23 Martin (pictured) stood tall above the rest, capturing the EPT London title over the weekend and pocketing £1 million. Also at the final table was Eric p3achy_keen Liu, an instructor for poker training site CardRunners. Liu finished fourth and took home ₤234,920. Let’s check out the action from the tournament felts of the EPT London.

Entering the final table, Martin was third in chips with 718,000, trailing Liu’s pace-setting stack of 1.3 million. Martin lost a critical hand with pocket twos when Liu flopped a straight with A-10. His chip stack took an enormous hit, but he hung tough to rebuild it in what CardPlayer called “the greatest comeback in EPT history.” Martin actually busted Liu from the tournament in fourth place. On that hand, Liu held J-10 against Martin’s A-9. The flop came ace high and Martin turned another ace, sealing Liu’s fate. Liu took home ₤234,920 for his efforts.

After Liu’s elimination, Martin continued his hot run, sending Marcin Horecki home in third place. Martin held K-J against Horecki’s K-8. An eight hit on the turn, giving Horecki a temporary lead in the hand. However, Martin hit lightning in a bottle on the river when a jack came. Heads-up against Michael Tureniec, Martin picked off a bluff holding K-10 on a board of J-10-6-3-J. Tureniec revealed that he had Q-4. On the final hand of EPT London, Martin’s pocket fours held up against Tureniec’s K-9. Martin even turned a set for good measure, pocketing a healthy ₤1 million for the win.

Online, Martin took third in the Super Tuesday on PokerStars back in May for $35,535. He finished 10th in the same tournament in July for an additional $5,244. On Halloween of 2006, he won over $70,000 on PokerStars. Martin finished fifth in the EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final earlier this year for $644,130. That tournament was won by Canadian Glen Chorny; Isaac mr. menlo Baron was also at the final table. In other action on the live felts, he finished second in a $5,000 buy-in World Series of Poker Circuit Event at Council Bluffs in February, pocketing $94,263. He finished 12th in the $5,000 buy-in World Championship of Mixed Hold’em during the 2007 WSOP for $22,257.

Liu is an instructor for CardRunners and a former guest on the PocketFives.com Podcast. He goes by the name p3achy_keen online. CardRunners videos initially helped him grow in poker. In his profile on the poker training site, he commented, “CardRunners videos have helped me a lot on my way up, especially Brian Townsend’s PLO videos and I'm looking forward to giving back to the community as they did before me.” He generated a large chunk of his bankroll back in 2006 on PartyPoker, when his quad eights were beat by quad queens. He looked at his balance on Party and was surprised to see over $110,000 sitting in his account for the bad beat. The rest, as they say, is history.

Here were the top 10 finishers in the EPT London:

1st Place: Michael Martin, £1,000,000
2nd Place: Michael Tureniec, £525,314
3rd Place: Marcin Horecki, £303,439
4th Place: Eric Liu, £234,920
5th Place: Philippe Dauteuil, £195,766
6th Place: Alan Smurfit, £153,351
7th Place: Johannes Strassmann, £120,723
8th Place: Antony Lellouche, £81,569
9th Place: Erik Sjodin, £50,574
10th Place: Frode Gjesdal, £50,574

We don’t get a chance to talk about the EPT much here on PocketFives.com, so here are the remaining tournaments in the docket:

EPT Hungarian Open - Budapest
October 28 - November 1, 2008
€4,000 + €350 buy-in

EPT Polish Open - Warsaw
November 15-19, 2008
20,000 + 1,000 PLN buy-in

EPT Prague
December 9-13, 2008
€5,000 + €250 buy-in
 
PokerStars Caribbean Adventure - Bahamas
January 5-10, 2009
$9,700 + $300 buy-in

EPT Deauville
Dates not Finalized
€5,000 + €300 buy-in

EPT Scandinavian Open - Copenhagen
February 17-21, 2009
50,000 + 2,250 DKR buy-in
 
EPT German Open - Dortmund
March 10 - 14, 2009
€5,000 + €250 buy-in
 
EPT San Remo
April 18-23, 2009
€5,000 + €250 buy-in

EPT Grand Final Monte Carlo
April 28 - May 3, 2009
€10,000 + €600 buy-in

Congratulations to Michael Martine23 Martin for winning EPT London from all of us here at PocketFives.com.