PokerStars EPT Berlin climaxed in a hard fought and high quality heads up between two "old friends", Kevin MacPhee from the USA and Ilari Tahkokallio from Finland. In the end it was MacPhee who took down his first major title.


MacPhee and Tahkokallio had already met heads up last September at a PokerStars EPT London side event and they were joking about a rendezvous long before the final table started. In London, it was Tahkokallio who won, now the tables were turned after a very interesting 3-hour match. Both players took their turns in the lead, but finally it was settled when the Finn made moves at the wrong time: MacPhee raised 700k, Tahkokallio called. Flop 5c 4h 2c, Tahkokallio led for 760k, MacPhee raised, Tahkokallio moved all-in. MacPhee made the call.

MacPhee 4s 3s
Tahkokallio 9h 6h

Turn was the Jh which brought more outs for the Finn, but the river blanked and the game was settled.

In the winner's interview MacPhee said modestly that this win proves his online nickname "ImaLuckSac" fits him perfectly. "Everytime my opponents played back at me, I had a strong hand," he claimed. He also praised his heads up opponent saying he had learnt a lot from him.

MacPhee's largest cash before Berlin was $55k for 6th place at a EPT Grand Final side event last year. Total cashes were $256,000.

Besides 2nd place money, Ilari Tahkokallio made a lot of fans in Berlin. He was involved in a much talked about hand where his sportsmanship was rewarded with a big round of applause from the onlookers. It happened when the notorious robbery took place and Tahkokallio and the Italian player Luca Cainelli were involved in a hand. Cainelli was all-in with AQ vs AT and the board had brought 4 blanks so he was just one card away from doubling up. The panic broke before the river card was dealt and the players left the table. When play was resumed, tournament director Thomas Kremser announced the hand must be declared dead and the chips returned to the players unless both players agree to re-shuffling the deck and dealing the river card. Naturally, Cainelli had no problem with it, so it was down to Tahkokallio. He could have saved himself 400k in chips with 21 players left in the event (and the first place paying €1 million...) but he decided to do the honorable thing and agreed to seeing the river card. Well done sir, is all we can say. The river was another blank and Cainelli got his double-up.

According to this source, a deal was made when there were 3 players left in the event. The players agreed to this: Tahkokallio 640k, MacPhee 614k, Inizan 488k plus 208k for the winner. However, here are the official results:

1 - Kevin MacPhee, USA, €1,000,000
2 - Ilari Tahkokallio, Finland, €600,000
3 - Marc Inizan, France, €350,000
4 - Artur Wasek, Poland, €280,000
5 - Ketul Nathwani, UK, €210,000
6 - Marcel Koller, Switzerland, €165,000
7 - Marko Neumann, Germany, €120,000
8 - Nico Behling, Germany, €72,000

Source: PokerStars Blog.

eptberlin