Norwegian Andreas Hoivold has won the first EPT German Open - and the biggest EPT event ever held - at the Casino Hohensyburg in Dortmund.

The 35-year-old from Kristiansand won €672,000 after beating off competition from astrong field in the four-day Texas Hold'em event.

The European Poker Tour German Open, played in Dortmund over 8/11 March featured 493 runners and a €5,000 buy-in, contrubting to a prize pool of €2,317,100

Italian football journalist Christiano Blanco, 26, came 2nd for €380,000 and PokerStars Frequent Player Point qualifier Sebastian Ruthenberg, 23, from Germany takes home €220,000 for coming third.

As well as his prize, Hoivold wins a seat for the €10,000 EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final, Europe’s richest poker tournament, which starts March 28, 2007.

The next EPT event is the EPT Polish Open, Warsaw, March 14-17, 2007 - the first to be held in Poland. The five-day EPT Grand Final takes place at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort in Monaco.

Final table results:
1st Andrea Hoivold (Norway) €672,000
2nd Christiano Blanco (Italy) €380,000
3th Sebastian Ruthenburg (Germany) €220,000
4th Gunnar Rabe (Sweden) €189,000
5th Jacob Rasmussen (Denmark) €139,000
6th Erik Lindberg (Sweden) €109,000
7th Nicolas Levi (France) €85,700
8th Thomas Fougeron (France) €60,300

This tournament was also the first EPT event to be televised on the internet.

Everyone knows that poker works brilliantly on TV, and up till now it's been mostly highlights packages and heavily edited repeats.

Watching the action live not only gives a whole different dimension to the viewing, but also allows the audience to pick up valuable strategy tips.

The EPTlive webcast covered the final two days of the EPT tournament, marking the first time a major European poker tournament has been televised via the internet.

www.EPTlive.com is the place to go in future for live coverage. T

The webcasts are produced by Sunset+Vine and feature PokerStars Cardroom manager Lee Jones as guest analyst..