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Aaron Gustavson wins EPT London Poker Festival Main Event

LONDON, England -- (PRESS RELEASE) -- American Aaron Gustavson beat world champion and Team PokerStars PRO Peter Eastgate heads-up today to take down the EPT London Poker Festival Main Event for a first prize of £850,000.

The £5,300 buy in tournament was the biggest ever held in the UK attracting 730 players from all over the world. Gustavson, a 23-year-old online pro, was one of 149 players who won their seats on PokerStars.

He and Eastgate, who takes home £530,000 for second place, started their heads-up battle straight after the dinner break. The duel could have taken hours but it lasted only seven hands and 15 minutes as Gustavson's AQ beat Eastgate's A9.

Gustavson, who plays online as "Aguskb" and has a string of successes on PokerStars, said: "I'm speechless, totally overwhelmed. I don't think it's going to hit me for a quite a while. Having this title is amazing – a dream come true."

Gustavson plans to spend some of his prize money buying a house in Vegas and "perhaps a Porsche". He also wins a seat to the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo as part of his prize. His online results include winning the PokerStars Sunday Warm Up in July for $135,000 and 12th place in the PokerStars $530 NLHE World Championship of Online Poker event last month.

Eastgate said: "It's been an amazing ride. I made it to second place, which is far more than you hope for going into a final table. Big applause for Aaron who won – he deserved it. I'm pleased I made it to heads-up." The final also featured PokerStars qualifier Martin Gudvangen from Norway (4th place, £227,000), British PokerStars player Dominic Cullen (5th place, £173,000) and Raymond Wu from Taipei, a member of Team PokerStars Asia, who finished 7th for £87,000.

Among the 104 players to cash were Kevin Schaffel, the PokerStars-sponsored World Series of Poker "November Nine" finalist, Friend of PokerStars Darus Suharto, Team PokerStars PROs Maria "maridu" Mayrinck and Arnaud Mattern, as well as the PokerStars-sponsored former England footballer Teddy Sheringham.

This season's EPT London Poker Festival, which took place at the Hilton Metropole for the first time, featured 16 different events spread over eight days. Side event winners included Team PokerStars PROs Joe Hachem, Jason Mercier, and William Thorson. The Main Event numbers staggered players and media alike and topped last season by more than 100 players. In season one, 175 players entered, creating a total prize pool of £524,000; this year the prize pool was seven times that at £3,540,500.

The last two days of EPT London were broadcast live on PokerStars.tv in seven languages; the event was also filmed for television.

1. Aaron Gustavson, USA, 850,000
2. Peter Eastgate, Denmark, 530,000
3. Nikolai Senninger, Germany, 285,000
4. Martin Gudvangen, Norway, 227,000
5. Dominic Cullen, UK, 173,000
6. Rui Milhomens, Portugal, 124,000
7. Raymond Wu, Taipei, 87,000
8. Karim Bennani Smires, France/Morocco, 50,100

The next event of EPT Season 6 is EPT Warsaw from October 20-25, 2009. Satellites are running now, as well as for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in January. See www.ept.com for further details. Please apply for media accreditation promptly - http://www.europeanpokertour.com/media/ - if you wish to attend EPT Warsaw.

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