Gavin became a tournament favourite when he revealed that his pink-dyed hair marked his involvement in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer charity. He and his girlfriend Kristen, 21, who suffered breast cancer a few years ago, walked the 39-mile, two-day Los Angeles marathon last September.
During the seven-hour final table PokerStars helped players donate money to the Breast Cancer charity via the site. PokerStars matched player's gifts and now the final donation looks to approach $30,000.
Gavin is no stranger to tournament success, in 2004 he became the youngest player ever to win a World Series of Poker bracelet, aged just 22. He turned pro four years ago and has already made four final tables this year, including 3rd place for $86,685 in the San Diego WSOP Circuit Event in February.
Gavin Griffin, winner of the EPT Grand Final
He's not the only PokerStars player to succeed at this Monte Carlo Grand Final, three more reached the final table - allowing PokerStars to claim an easy-to-calculate 50% of the eight-man final table as PokerStars own. Our statisticians probably needed PokerStars-branded calculators to make the proud claim that €3.6 million, a remarkable $4.9 million, was won by players who might log in and play PokerStars Sit and Go's now and then.
Do you remember I mentioned PokerStar's special European freerolls in a previous post? Well, Jacob Larsson won an EPT seat playing as 'Toke2k' in our Swedish freeroll, he finished 27th at the EPT Grand Final and won €26,550. Kristof De Smedt, or 'deLuxy' to his PokerStars friends, won his Monte Carlo trip in the Belgian freeroll, and he finished 17th for €33,180. Both must be very pleased with these 'something for nothing' results!
Here's the Final Table payouts, with PokerStars players listed in bold type.
1 Gavin Griffin (USA) €1,825,010
2 Marc Karam (Canada) €1,061,820
3 Soren Kongsgaard (Denmark) €610,550
4 Kristian Kjondal (Norway) €471,180
5 Josh Prager (USA) €391,550
6 Steve Jelinek (UK) €305,270
7 Andy Black (Ireland) €238,910
8 Ram Vaswani (UK) €159,270
EPT director John Duthie claimed, "This season has seen the EPT turn into something truly incredible - sell-out events across Europe with record numbers of players, and record prize pools. The Grand Final attracted the toughest field ever seen for a poker tournament in Europe, including stars like Marcel Luske, Gus Hansen, Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, Joe Hachem, Greg Raymer, Barry Greenstein, Vicky Coren and Phil Hellmuth. Two of Europe's finest players - Ram Vaswani and Andy Black - both made the final table." And I'm sure we all understand his feelings, when he said, "I am gutted that I couldn't play myself."
Well, EPT season 4 kicks off in late August in Barcelona. PokerStars blogs will keep you posted on all the EPT news. Who knows, maybe next year you can find your way to Monte Carlo and be the PokerStars player we're talking about?
