After qualifying for his seat via online poker site PokerStars.com, Kevin ‘ImaLuckSac’ MacPhee won the European Poker Tour’s Berlin event last weekend to pocket a record prize of one million Euros in cash.
The Isle Of Man-licensed domain revealed that it sent 243 players to the main event with a buy-in of €5,300 with the 29-year-old American besting Finnish player Ilari Tahkokallio heads-up to take down the first European Poker Tour event ever held in the German capital.
In total, 945 players from 48 countries entered the six-day tournament held at the Casino Spielbank Berlin and created a total prize pool of €4.725 million. A native of Idaho, MacPhee also won a seat to next month’s European Poker Tour Grand Final in Monte Carlo for taking down Germany's largest poker tournament.
MacPhee has a great track record when it comes to winning seats into European Poker Tour events but had never before had a big cash. He stated that he’s been following the circuit since the beginning of Season Five and has won seats into 14 events while competing in 15.
“Winning a European Poker Tour event was a real goal of mine,” said MacPhee.
“I have worked very hard for this. It feels awesome. Ilari is an extremely good player and I've got a lot of respect for him.”
MacPhee is a well-known online player who broke PokerStars.com’s record for most tournament leaderboard points in April of 2008 after accruing a profit of more than €73,667 in a month. This was the second time he had gone heads-up against Tahkokallio after losing in a £1,000 side event at the European Poker Tour’s London event in October.
In side events held at the Berlin tournament, Team PokerStars member Noah Boeken came fifth in the €1,000 buy-in pot-limit Omaha competition while Team Poker SportStar member Fatima De Melo made the final of the ladies event.
