46-year-old Tim Vance from St Louis, Missouri has won Season 4 EPT Copenhagen and a record first prize of 6,220,488 Danish Kroner (€834,964). Father-of-one Tim Vance didn't pay anything to enter the 50,000 DKK No Limit Hold'em event - instead he qualified online with PokerStars in a Frequent Player Point satellite.

Second place - and 3,521,429 DKK (around €472,000) - went to local player Soren Hansen. Both Vance and Hansen, who manages a car paint finish business, became well-known throughout the tournament for their excitable behavior, but when it came to heads-up it became a four-hour endurance test for them both as the chip lead switched back and forth.

Filled with emotion as he picked up his EPT champion's trophy, Vance said "Winning the title was at least as important to me as the money but I knew I was going to win today- I was the best player and I wanted it the most. It was a tough competition though - as tough as anywhere I've ever played and now I just can't wait to call my daughter Nanzi. She's been watching it back home with her grandmother."

The tournament attracted 460 players, creating a record Scandinavian prize pool of 21,086,400 DKK (nearly €3m). Among the players were Team PokerStars Pros Daniel Negreanu, PCA Champion Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Bill Chen, Katja Thater, Dario Minieri, Tom McEvoy and Noah Boeken. Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano cashed in 27th place for 84,346 DKK (about €11k) - making it his eighth time in the money at an EPT. The competitors also included 94 players who won their seats online with PokerStars.

For his win, Vance also receives a €10,000 seat to Europe's biggest poker tournament, the EPT Grand final, which takes place in Monte Carlo from 12-17 April, 2008. The next EPT is in Warsaw, Poland (11-15 March, 2008). Satellites for the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo, as well as EPT Warsaw and San Remo, are running now on PokerStars.

Final results:
1. Tim Vance, USA, 6,220,488 DKK (€834,964)
2. Soren Jensen, Denmark, 3,521,429 DKK (€472,675)
3. Magnus Hansen, Denmark, 2,045,381 DKK (€274,547)
4. Rasmus Hede Nielsen, Denmark, 1,560,394 DKK (€209,448)
5. Daniel Ryan - PokerStars qualifier, USA, 1,286,270 DKK (€172,653)
6. Nicolas Dervaux, France, 1,012,147 DKK (€135,858)
7. Simon Dorsland, Denmark, 801,283 DKK (€107,554)
8. Patrik Andersson, Sweden, 569,333 DKK (€76,420)