EPT result

Bjorn-Erik Glenne, a 35-year-old Norwegian, has beaten some of the best poker players in the  to win €691,000 at the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Barcelona Open.

At the end of the four-day tournament, the former marketing manager triumphed heads-up against American superstar Phil Ivey to take the top prize in the €5,000 buy-in No Limit Texas Hold’em event.

The tournament was the first event of EPT Season 3 and attracted a record-breaking 480 players. The field was 155 more than last year, making it the largest attendance for an EPT event and creating a prize pool of €2,304,000 – close to double last year’s pot.

Father-of-two Glenne, from Oslo, is no stranger to the EPT – he came 19th in Copenhagen last year and 15th in a €1,000 side event in last year’s EPT Grand Final. He was the Norwegian No Limit champion in 2005 and is also a high-ranking chess player. A PokerStars regular, Bjorn-Erik enjoys substantial success online.

Phil Ivey, 30, one of the most successful tournament players in history, was making his EPT debut and won €371,000 for 2nd place. Ivey, 30, holds a World Series of Poker record of 24 cashes and 5 bracelets in just four years.

Former market stall trader Dave Gregory finished third and is taking €184,300 home to South Benfleet in Essex, England.

Many other world-class players also took part in the Barcelona tournament including Team PokerStars Team members Joe Hachem (2005 world champion), WPT Ladies Champion Isabelle "No Mercy", Humberto Brenes, Gus Hansen, Marcel Luske and Mike ‘The Mouth’ Matusow.

A total of 107 entrants in the tournament won their seats on PokerStars. The top-finishing qualifiers were Californian Jon Dull in 7th place, who took €92,200 back to Newport Beach and Parisian David ‘Dlopt’ Layani in 11th place who won €25,400.

EPT founder John Duthie said: "It’s been an incredible start to our third EPT season. When we first came to Barcelona in 2004, it was a €1,000 event with a total prize pool of €229,000. The total prize pool this year was €2,304,000 – more than ten times our first event here.."

Amongst other stars in Barcelona this week were 2005 EPT Grand Final winner Rob Hollink, French singer Patrick Bruel, Noah Boeken (Copenhagen EPT1 winner), WPT winner Juha Helppi, 2003 European champion Torstein Iversen and Ola Brandborn (two-times Swedish champion). The largest attendance was from Sweden with 103 players, making it more than 20% of the field. There were 70 UK players, 45 from Norway, 42 from France and 37 from the United States.

The event also attracted a huge number of media from around the world with more than 50 TV, press and online journalists attending the event.

The next EPT event is next week (21-24 September 2006) at the Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London. Next is Baden in Austria, then Dublin, Copenhagen & Deauville. The tour will culminate with the Monte Carlo Grand Final which is again taking place at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort in Monaco, starting on 28 March, 2007.

Final results:
1st Bjorn-Erik Glenne, Norway, €691,000
2nd Phil Ivey, US, €371,000
3rd Dave Gregory, UK, €184,300
4th David Daneshgar, United States, €161,300
5th Joakim Geigert, Sweden, €138,200
6th Jeff Lisandro, Italy, €115,200
7th Jon Dull, US, €92,200
8th Robin Keston, UK, €69,100
9th Kristian Ulriksen, Norway, €46,100