Germany has scored yet another major poker victory tonight with PokerStars qualifier Martin Finger taking down the €5,3000 EPT Prague Main Event for €720,000. He joins a growing roster of German speakers who have walked away with EPT trophies this season – Ronny Kaiser (from Switzerland) won the season’s first event in Tallinn, Martin Schleich won EPT Barcelona and Benny Spindler won EPT London. 

Among the 722 players from 50 countries who competed at EPT Prague were German Team PokerStars Pro and world champion Pius Heinz, and fellow Team Pro – and WSOP runner-up – Martin Staszko from the Czech Republic. But it was Irish Team PokerStars Pro Jude Ainsworth who came closest to making the final, finishing 14th for €27,000. His teammate, Juan Manuel Pastor from Spain, came 30th for €17,000 while EPT6 San Remo champion Liv Boeree finished 83rd for €9,000.

As well as Finger, 151 other players won their seat in the EPT Prague Main Event on PokerStars. A total of 722 players from 50 countries competed overall, creating a €3,501,700 prize pool.

As well as the Main Event, there were also 20 well-attended side events. Team PokerStars Pro Ana Marquez’s boyfriend Bryn Kenney won the EPT Prague €2k side event, WCOOP champion Thomas Pedersen from Denmark won the €3k Heads-Up for €20,950, Svetlana Lebedeva won the €330 Ladies Event and EPT Copenhagen champion Anton Wigg won the €5k NL Turbo event for €72,000. At the time of writing, American John Andress and EPT Dortmund champion Mike McDonald from Canada were fighting it out for the €10k High Roller title.

Ukrainian Denys Drobyna won Skrill’s Last Longer contest at Prague having outlasted more than 100 players who took part. He finished fifth in the Main Event for €160,000 - with his €5,300 buy-in credited back into his Skrill account. Skrill, the Official Payment Provider Sponsor for EPT Season 8, has been running Last Longer contests at all this season’s EPTs.

EPT Prague took place December 5-10 at Golden Prague Poker at the Hilton Prague Hotel. The next event of EPT Season 8 is the $10,000 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas. The event runs January 5-15, 2012 at the Atlantis Resort & Casino. The next EPT in Europe is the €5,300 EPT Deauville event in France (January 31 – February 6, 2012), followed by EPT Copenhagen (February 20 - 25, 2012) in Denmark. Satellites for the PCA and Deauville are running now on PokerStars. For more information, please visit http://www.ept.com/ept/season-8/prague-4/),

German PokerStars qualifier Martin Finger has a narrow lead over French pro Nicolas Levi for tomorrow's EPT Prague final table. At stake for the final eight is a €775,000 first prize - but all are guaranteed at least €66,700. 
EPT Prague is running December 5-10 at the Hilton Prague Hotel. As well as their title and cash prize, the winner will also receive a stunning bracelet from EPT Season 8 Official Bracelet Sponsor Shamballa Jewels worth more than €10,000. Skrill, the Official Payment Provider Sponsor for EPT Season 8, is running a Last Longer contest for patched-up players in the Main Event.

EPT8 PRAGUE FINAL TABLE PLAYER PROFILES

Seat 1: Mads Wissing, 29, Copenhagen, Denmark – 420,000 
Wissing is a well-respected cash game and tournament player in Denmark who is known for his merciless style. He is close friends with other Danish pros such as 2008 world champion Peter Eastgate, EPT4 Barcelona winner Sander Lylloff, EPT2 Copenhagen champion Mads Andersen and Claus Bek Nielsen. His live tournament deep runs include last year’s WSOP Main Event when he was eliminated in 25th place by Sweden’s William Thorson.

In September, Wissing made the final of the Partouche Main Event in Cannes before being knocked out in ninth by the eventual champion Sam Trickett. He also recently competed in the International Federation of Poker’s World Championships as part of a seven-man Danish team that included Gus Hansen, Team PokerStars Pro Theo Jorgensen, Mads Andersen and Lars Bonding. As well as his live successes, Wissing has also won several online tournaments including two Sunday majors.

Seat 2: Guillem “GabrielMoyaa” Usero, 21, Valencia, Spain – PokerStars player - 1,405,000 
Usero has been playing poker for two and a half years, the last two as a pro. He mainly plays online cash games – NL $3/$6 to $25/50 levels and occasionally online tournaments, his best online result being third in a $100 Rebuy tourney on PokerStars for around $100k. He also plays live tourneys and his best live result to date – apart from making the EPT Prague final – was fifth place at WPT Barcelona last May for €40,000. He also cashed in the Estrellas Madrid Main Event last February.

Seat 3: Nicolas Levi, 28, living in London, originally from Paris, France – 5,690,000 
Levi came across poker quite by accident, seven years ago, while he was studying computer science in the UK. On his laptop, Levi discovered “a totally different game, a mix of psychology and mathematics”. He said: “From the very first hand, I thought ‘this is the game for me’. Beating chance seemed a very exciting challenge.” Since then, Levi has become a regular on the international poker scene, and never without his signature trilby hat. The Season 8 EPT Prague final is not his first; way back in Season 3, Levi made the final of EPT Dortmund, finishing seventh place for € 85,700. He has also achieved numerous other deep runs; his four WSOP finals include fifth in the 2010 WSOPE Main Event for £208,119 and sixth in the $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold'em Championship for $114.525. Levi been based in the UK since 2000 – and in London for the last four years.

Seat 4: Martin Finger, 21, Frankenberg, Germany – PokerStars qualifier – 5,800,000 
Business science student Martin Finger has been playing poker for about three years, kicking off in home games with friends before finding his way into online poker. This is where he thrives, and he has already earned Supernova Elite status on Pokerstars. Online he grinds the Heads-Up Sit N Gos but he also plays a lot of EPTs. As well as winning his seat to Prague, he qualified for EPT Loutraki a few weeks ago but didn't cash. He has done well in EPT side events however including runner-up in the EPT Barcelona €1k event for €42,000, third in the EPT Barcelona Heads-up tourney in Season 7 and ninth in a €1k EPT7 Berlin side event. Making the final at EPT Prague – where he’s guaranteed at least €66,700 - is by far his biggest live score to date.

Seat 5: Andreas Wiese, 35, Hannover, Germany – PokerStars qualifier - 1,670,000 
Wiese has been playing poker for six years, mainly focusing on live games. He’s been playing tournaments for a couple of years – his best result to date being sixth place at EPT Vienna last season. That was his first major event but he also came third in a €1k side event here in Prague last year and was 14th at EPT Snowfest in March. He regularly plays cash games at his local casino in Hannover and considers himself a “semi-professional” although still working as an anaesthesist at Hannover Hospital.

Seat 6: Ari "BodogAri" Engel, 28, Brooklyn, New York –PokerStars qualifier - 1,670,000 
Back in his college days, Engel used to watch his roommate play online poker, but he didn’t start pursuing the sport himself until after graduation. When he finally threw a few bucks on to a poker site, it only took ten days of gains to convince him to quit his job and take up the game full-time. Since then, Engel has earned close to $2.5 million online, at one point climbing to the very top of the online player rankings. He's also begun to amass a respectable live record that includes two WSOPC rings and more than $500,000 in cashes. Things have gone so well for Engel that he's recently begun to give lessons on tournament poker (see www.ariengel.com for more info) and his students' results indicate that "BodogAri" knows how to teach the game. Now based in Canada, Engel won his seat on PokerStars. This is his first ever EPT.

Seat 7: Denys Drobyna, 28, Kyiv, Ukraine – 1,180,000 
Drobyna is a full-time poker pro who mainly plays online – No Limit cash games at the $5/$10 to $25/$50 levels. Online cash games are his bread-and-butter and he hardly ever plays online tourneys but he does enjoy competing at live events “for fun”. He made his first EPT appearance at Dortmund in Season 4 and reckons he has played around six EPTs so far. His best EPT finish to date was 25th place at EPT San Remo six weeks ago. His best overall live result was 15th place in a 2008 World Series $2k event for $35,843. He said: “I’ve been playing well here in Prague, and I’ve also been lucky. I won a couple of coin flips but you need to be able to fold right, raise right - and get the right cards at the right time. I feel very focused right now; I need to be - there are a lot of good players still in.” Drobyna won Skrill’s Last Longer contest at Prague having outlasted more than 100 players who took part. This means his €5,300 buy-in will be credited back into his Skrill account.

Seat 8: David Boyaciyan, 32, Amsterdam, Netherlands - 3,770,000 
When David Boyaciyan won the Amsterdam Master Classics last month for €382,200, it took the poker world by storm. Not only had a total unknown bested some of the best players in the world, but he wasn’t even a pro. Boyaciyan is a banker by trade who won his seat to the Master Classics in a live satellite. He said: “My advantage as an amateur is that I don’t know who anyone is, so I can’t get intimidated. But I have also been very lucky. I went into the Master Classics final thinking I’d come eighth or ninth. But I was never the short-stack, and that stimulated me to just play tight and see if I could creep up the places.” Following his Amsterdam victory, Boyaciyan decided to play EPT Loutraki and Prague just to see how far his luck would run - and finds himself back on another major final table within the month. But players who think Boyaciyan is ONLY about luck might be chastened to discover that last summer he played two WPTs at the Bellagio and final-tabled both. He comes to tomorrow’s EPT Prague final armed with a lucky chip card protector bearing a photo of his 18-month-old daughter Elina. At the Maser Classics, he had a chip with a photo of his four-year-old son Joel. Both kids are at home being looked after by Boyaciyan’s wife Hilda.

Dutch PokerStars player Patrick Renkers has a massive chip lead going into Day 4 of EPT Prague - with 31 players left. He has 2,423,000 while German PokerStars qualifier Martin Finger in second place has about half that: 1,289,000. Team PokerStars Pros Jude Ainsworth and Juan Manuel Pastor are also still in contention for the €775,000 first prize.

A total of 722 players from 50 countries competed at EPT Prague this season making it the biggest poker tournament held in the Czech Republlc. The total prize pool is €3,501,700; 04 places are being paid.

PokerStars.net Russian Poker Series Kyiv champion Garri Tevosov is chip leader going into Day 3 of EPT Prague with 764,000. Tevosov took the RPS Kyiv title and $180,087 first prize back in March.