Lebanese father-of-three Joseph Mouawad, who nearly didn’t come to the PokerStars.com London European Poker Tour tournament because his friends couldn’t accompany him has gone on to win the event - and a record first prize of £611,500 ($1,247,000).

Mouawad, a 47-year-old property developer from Beirut, qualified online for the tournament on PokerStars. He was one of nine qualifiers who cashed in the event, winning a combined total of £1,184,307 – more than half the total prize pool of £2,038,400 (approximately $4,156,000).

Mouawad defeated Florian Langmann, 24, the reigning German champion to take first place. Mouawad went all in with Q3 and was called by Langmann with 89. The flop of Q96 paired up both players but another queen on the turn gave Mouawad.

"I didn't expect to win at all,” said Mouawad. “It was fun, and a big achievement, and I went up against some great players.” Mouawad has been playing poker for 15 years but only took up Hold’em when it became popular in his local casino. “There are now a lot of successful players from Lebanon including Joe Hachem and Freddie Deeb.” Mouawad, the third Lebanese player to cash at an EPT, also wins a seat at the €10,000 EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final next April.

A total of four PokerStars qualifiers made it to the final table, out of 60 who won seats – a record for an EPT event. They were Marcel Baran, 28, from Aschaffenburg in Germany, who won £203,840 for third place, Josh Egan, 23, from Auckland, New Zealand, who won a Double Shoot Out on PokerStars and came 4th for £203,840 and Fredrik Haugen, 19, from Gothenburg, Sweden, who £124,342 for 5th place.

Also playing in London this week were Team PokerStars Pros Daniel Negreanu, Noah Boeken, Hevad Khan, Dario Minieri, Katja Thater, Luca Pagano and Chris Moneymaker – who came 17th for £12,230.

A total of 392 players took part in the event.

The next EPT is the Baden Classic in Austria, from 7-10 October , closely followed by EPT Dublin (30 October - 3 November).

Final results:
1. Joseph Mouawad, Lebanon, £611,500
2. Florian Langmann, Germany, £346,528
3. Marcel Baran, Germany, £203,840
4. Josh Egan, New Zealand, £152,880
5. Fredrik Haugen, Sweden, £124,342
6. Antony Lellouche, France, £97,843
7. Paul Mendes, UK, £77,459
8. Ian Cox, UK, £57,075