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John Daly won the 1991 PGA Championship while the ninth alternate. While not a "major" an European Poker Tour victory is a large boa-sized feather in anyone's cap. Michael Martin took his 105th alternate card to even enter the London EPT event, and won it after getting down to a mere couple of big blinds while at the final table.

After taking out pro Eric Liu and Team PokerStars Pro Marcin Horecki in fourth and third place respectively, Martin won the final coin flip versus Mike Tureniec to claim the PokerStars guaranteed £1,000,000 first prize.

Check out the full media outline on Martin's continued success in the EPT (making the EPT Grand Finale final table last year):

MICHAEL MARTIN WINS POKERSTARS EPT LONDON MAIN EVENT

LONDON, UK, October 6, 2008 -Michael Martin, of Washington Crossing, PA, won the fifth PokerStars European Poker Tour London Open - and a record $2 million (£1 million) first prize.

Michael was down to just 95,000 in chips when a series of incredible hands resulted in a miracle comeback in less than ten minutes. He then knocked out pro Eric Liu in fourth place and Team PokerStars Pro Marcin Horecki in third place to go heads-up against Swedish PokerStars qualifier Mike Tureniec. In the final hand, Michael had pocket fours (44) against Mike's K 9. A four on the turn secured him the coveted EPT champion title.

Martin, 24, a former college hockey player from Penn State, was 105th on the waiting list to play in the London tournament and very nearly caught a flight home before managing to secure a seat in the sell-out event. His stunning victory follows his fifth-place finish at last season's EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo and second place in the Amsterdam Master Classics last year.

"It has been surreal. I had less than two big blinds and then, just three hands later I was on 1.4 million," said Martin about his amazing comeback. "But I just knew I was going to do something here and having my family watching made me even more determined."

Martin's mother Nancy and girlfriend Jen had flown in overnight from the States to rail him at the final table.

A total of 596 players, including 234 PokerStars players, entered the $9,050 (£5,200) buy-in EPT London Open creating a prize pool of $5,826,418 (£3,349,200). Among those who competed were German tennis legend and PokerStars ambassador Boris Becker, as well as 22 Team PokerStars Pros including World Champions Joe Hachem, Greg Raymer and Chris Moneymaker, PCA champion Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier and Season 3 EPT London winner Vicky Coren.

Also sponsored into the event were four of the PokerStars Million Dollar Men - the WSOP finalists Ylon Schwartz, Peter Eastgate, Darus Suharto and David "Chino" Rheem as well as EPT Season 5 Barcelona champion Sebastian Ruthenberg, Italian slalom ski champion Alberto Tomba, American WSOP bracelet winner Kathy Liebert, and Brazilian Indy stock car racer Gualter Salles.

"This year's EPT London has been a phenomenal success with a record amount of players," said John Duthie, Executive Producer of the EPT. "An amazing standard of players competed at this event for the record £1 million first prize."

The next stop on the PokerStars EPT is the $7,568 (£4,350) Budapest event from October 28 - November 1 at the Las Vegas Casino in the Sofitel Hotel. This is the first EPT Open in Hungary, following the success of recent EPT launches in Prague and Warsaw during Season 4. For more information on upcoming EPT events, please visit http://www.ept.com.

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Photos can be found at the following links:
http://www.yousendit.com/download/bVlBblFITWNTRTVFQlE9PQ
http://www.yousendit.com/download/bVlBblFNR3M1UjVjR0E9PQ

About PokerStars:
PokerStars is the world's largest online poker room (with 15 million players worldwide) and also the #1 poker tournament site. As the premier destination for the top players - with over 100,000 tournaments running every day-PokerStars is renowned for offering the best software and security in the online poker world.
PokerStars;

• Has dealt over 20 billion hands
• Has run more than 100 million poker tournaments
• Entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the first and only poker website to reach the 160,000 simultaneous players mark

PokerStars is the official sponsor of: The European Poker Tour (www.ept.com), PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, Latin American Poker Tour (www.lapt.com), Asia Pacific Poker Tour (www.appt.com) and The World Cup of Poker.

PokerStars is the home of Team PokerStars Pro, a group of 30 veteran and up-and-coming players from around the world who play online at PokerStars and are sponsored by the site in international tournaments around the world. For more information please visit www.pokerstars.net.