Online Poker

February 2, 2008

Eighteen year old Canadian, Mike McDonald, has won the German European Poker Tour event and the $1.3million (€ 933k) first prize.

McDonald, who studied a year at the University of Waterloo, Canada's top maths and engineering college, took up poker after his chess teacher told him it was a good way to make a living.

He literally leapt into poker the day he turned 18, playing in the World Series of Poker Europe in London.

His birthday coincided with day 1b of the event and he turned up, promptly paid his ten grand to play, found himself at the feature table and was eliminated by 2006 World Champion Jamie Gold. But McDonald took few negatives from this experience, playing live more and more and recording his first cash in the EPT Prague back in December.

In the last five weeks he has had five tournament cashes totalling over $1.5 million. And judging by the way he plays – calm, considered, with less gamble than most – it’s hard to see him not making more final tables in the near future.

The only PokerStars online qualifier at the final table, was the first to be eliminated, in 8th place. Christian Harder, or ‘Charder’ was one of the short stacks and took his chance finding A-K in the hole. What he couldn’t predict was Mike McDonald holding aces. The inevitable happened and it was quickly down to seven with Harder picking up €85,500.

The final results were as follows.

1st -- Mike McDonald – Canada -- €933,600
2nd -- Andreas Gulunay – Germany -- €528,500
3rd -- Torsten Haase – Germany -- €307,000
4th -- Diego Perez – Spain -- €234,200
5th -- Claudio Rinaldi – Switzerland -- €193,000
6th -- Johannes Strassmann – Germany -- PokerStars sponsored player -- €152,000
7th -- Thibaut Durand – France -- €120,200
8th -- Christian Harder – United States – PokerStars qualifier -- €85,500

You can qualify for all European Poker Tour events at PokerStars - the world's largest online poker site.