It seems like the last few EPT events that I’ve seen have featured little known winners. And this trend definitely kept up after Ivan Freitez defeated fellow unknown Torsten Brinkmann to win the 2011 EPT Grand Live Final.

Now this isn’t to say that Freitez was a total bum before he won the biggest EPT tournament of the year. In fact, he had 13  cashes prior to the EPT Madrid win; however, it’s not exactly like the poker world was talking about the Venezuelan before he graced poker news headlines everywhere.

The same goes for Freitez’s heads-up adversary Torsten Brinkmann, who was known by few people outside of his mom and dad before finishing runner-up in the 2011 EPT Madrid. Looking past their anonymity, I’m glad that both players were able to put themselves on the poker map with the big finishes

As far as those who poker fans might actually recognize, Alex Gomes was the big story going into the final day since he was chasing a triple crown (WPT title, EPT title, WSOP bracelet). The Team PokerStars member was hoping to become part of an elite class that only includes Gavin Griffin and Roland De Wolfe. However, those dreams ended when Eugene “FishosaurusREX” Yanayt busted him out.

Yanayt was another interesting story since he made headlines earlier in the year for losing over $2 million in one month at Full Tilt Poker’s cash tables. However, he was looking to get some of the money back, which he did manage to do to an extent. If you’d like to see how much Yanayt made, along with the rest of the results, here is a look at the final table:

1. Ivan Freitez – €1,500,000
2. Torsten Brinkmann – €900,000
3. Tamas Lendvai – €550,000
4. Andrey Danilyuk – €400,000
5. Juan Maceiras – €315,000
6. Eugene Yanayt – €250,000
7. Alex Gomes – €185,000
8. Andrew Li – €130,000