Young Gun Takes EPT Copenhagen

February 23, 2009 (InfoPowa News) — 19-year-old Finn Jens Kyllonen is the latest PokerStars European Poker Tour champion, having defeated a field of 462 entrants — many of them top Scandinavian players – in Copenhagen, Denmark to accept the main prize of €878,110 (About DKK 6,541,920), appropriately donning an amusing pink "teenage millionaire" hat to do so.
 
The Nordic star-studded field showcased the strength of the game in Scandinavian countries and generated a prize pool of DKK 22,176,000 (about €2,976,644).
 
By last Friday only 40 players remained in contention, with a vigorous and aggressive style of play characterizing the action. Eventually the elimination in tenth position of Mikael Lundell after tangling with Jussi Nevanlinna delivered a final table that consisted of pros such as Roberto Romanello, Andrea Benelli, Thor Hansen, Jonas Klausen, and Rasmus Nielsen. The latter was particularly dominant, taking out several opponents.
 
Sitting around the final table, with the comfort of knowing that even the first to be eliminated would leave with a six-figure check, were Norway's Anders Langset in the chip lead on 1,119,000; Rasmus Nielsen from Denmark on 1,031,000; Finn Jussi Nevanlinna (894,000); Petter Petersson from Sweden (407,000); Peter Hedlund, also from Sweden (367,000); Jens Kyllonen from Finland (366,000); Jonas Klausen (Denmark) on 262,000; and Eric Larcheveque (France) on 221,000.
 
With aggressive play, the final table took only five hours to produce a winner in Kyllonen, less than half the time taken in the same match last year. The heads up between Kyllonen and Peter Hedlund of Sweden was soon over, as Kylonen exploited his 2-to-1 chip advantage to the full in knocking out his last opponent in around 20 fast hands.
 
"I felt like I had an edge on the players so I tried to keep the pots smaller in general and played very aggressively," Kyllonen said. "I won key coin flips and I think I played pretty well."
 
The young champion plans to spend at least part of his newly acquired wealth on a apartment, and he will use some of it to compete in the rest of the EPT events in the current season .