The ‘fab twelve’ who returned for the final day’s play were:

Richard Toth (holding 611,000 chips), Anders Wijk (562,000), Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier (455,000), Magnus Petersson (428,000), Samir Shakhtoor (368,000), Erik Lindberg (344,000), Theo Jorgensen (339,000), Thomas Holm (299,000), Mark Secher Petersen (195,000), Alexandre Poulain (166,000), Jan Sjavik (128,000) and Cole Morrow (91,000).

With a chip lead and a host of cashes during 2006, including a win in the Poker EM, Hungarian Toth was considered favourite for the title. 

However his chip advantage lasted just one hand into the day as an impetuous Anders Wijk pushed all-in pre-flop holding pocket 10’s.  He was called and beaten by Magnus Petersson clutching Kings.

More huge chip movement followed when another monster hand got paid off handsomely.  This time Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier was the beneficiary performing the double elimination of Mark Sacher and Erik Lindberg with his Aces in the hole.

Within thirty minutes of play we were down to ten and Jan Sjavic, becoming something of an EPT specialist, was next to fall.  Short stacked he made a move with K5 but found a caller in Thomas Holm who held pocket 7’s and flopped another 7 to seal Norwegian Sjavic’s fate.

Holm was to also dispatch Canadian youngster Cole Morrow, another short stacked player forced to make all-in moves, with AK prevailing over the North American’s AT.

We were now down to the final table, eight players already guaranteed a minimum of €50,000 apiece but all chasing the €547,177 first prize.

The majority of the action here was, of course, caught by the cameras and broadcast into living rooms throughout Europe.  What can be more boring than reviewing such action, especially when there were several ‘big hand vs big hand’ all-in pots? 

Make no mistake though, there were also a lot of other fascinating situations, especially when the tournament was down to the final four, which novice players could be well advised to record and study.

Therefore, I’ll simply point out the ludicrously over-sized winner’s trophy and cheque which ultimately went to Magnus Petersson, a 29-year-old financial advisor from Stockholm playing in his first ever EPT and boasting just three years poker experience.

Depressingly, for the likes of myself on the wrong side of mid-thirty, the average age of the finalists was just under 29 and these ‘fast ‘n furious’ youngsters do indeed play as if they have a plain to catch.  Three players were eliminated within the first hour of final table play for example.

As part of his prize Petersson will now go on to Monte Carlo for the €10,000 EPT Grand Final where the old school players like will also be in action hoping to buck the trend and stats which overwhelmingly indicated you have to be in your twenties and Scandinavian to have much chance in an EPT event these days.