It was déjà vu all over again. Here we were at a SCOOP final table. It was a $2,100 event. They were playing Stud Hi-Lo, and Shaun Deeb was dominating. Was I in some sort of time warp or didn’t I already write this article two days ago?

If Deeb made history two days ago then what was left to say today when he did it all over again? Today, Deeb won his third SCOOP title of the series without raising a sweat. It was the fourth of his career, and in doing so, made a mockery of the SCOOP Player of the Series race. Deeb could probably take a day off, but somehow, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Today’s event was SCOOP Event #26-H $2,100 Stud Hi-Lo which attracted a field of 74 runners to create a prize pool of $148,000 — almost double the original guarantee.

Among them were previous SCOOP champions, Sunday Millions winners and a host of professionals including Team PokerStars Pros Alex Kravchenko, Bertrand Grospellier, Ville Wahlbeck, George Danzer, George Lind III and Anders Berg.

With the top 12 players getting paid, Team PokerStars Pros Theo Jorgensen and Kristian Martin snuck into the money, but missed the final table which was formed after about 9.5 hours of play:

Final Table Line up
Seat 1: DazzleO (29772 in chips)
Seat 2: slammedfire (41988 in chips)
Seat 3: shaundeeb (82890 in chips)
Seat 4: Fred_Brink (31916 in chips)
Seat 5: caprioli (52541 in chips)
Seat 6: kasparov007 (28460 in chips)
Seat 7: E. Katchalov (64571 in chips)
Seat 8: PerpCzech (37862 in chips)

It was arguably the toughest SCOOP final table line up ever assembled with each player holding exceptional poker credentials.

Daniel “DazzleO” Ospina was a previous SCOOP champion, Fred_Brink held a Razz WCOOP title while slammedfire was had a previous SCOOP runner-up result to his credit. Kasparov007 won a SCOOP title back in 2009 in this very same discipline, while PerpCzech had multiple SCOOP final tables this series including a win in Event#19-M Triple Stud.

Then we move onto Rodridgo Caprioli — one of the finest SCOOP players in history — with two previous SCOOP wins including a win in Event #4-H Badugi earlier in this series. Throw in Team PokerStars Pro Eugene Katchalov with a previous WCOOP title in 2009 to go with WPT and WSOP titles as part of $7 million in live tournament earnings.

And then there was Shaun Deeb. The runaway SCOOP Player of the Series leader had already caused a stir on Mother’s Day when he won his second title of the series. That stir would near seven on the Richter scale if he could do it all over again today.

First to go was Daniel “DazzleO” Ospina. He three-bet on third, bet and called a raise on fourth, before his last chips were all in by fifth street. Ospina started with a pair of tens and could only improve to two pair on a board of [Td][Th][9c][2h][Qs][2d][6s] as kasparov007 started with a low draw but spiked trips to scoop the lot with a board of [3h][7d][6d][5c][Ah][5s][5d]. Ospina took home $4,810 for 8th place.

Despite claiming the first victim of the final table, kasparov007 was still one of the short stacks. kasparov007 dropped further after losing a solid pot to PerpCzech, before the antes got hold. With kasparov007 all in on third street, Shaun Deeb and Fred_Brink continued betting throughout and ultimately chopped up the pot. Deeb made a flush for the high, Fred_Brink caught an eight-six low, as kasparov007 couldn’t only muster a pair of eights with an eight-seven low. kasparov007 collected $6,290 for 7th place.

Fred_Brink was on the short stack but it was slammedfire who was next to go. Slammedfire led the betting on every street before Shaun Deeb raised it up on the river to put his opponent all in. Slammedfire made the call with [3c][5s][5c][5d][7s][Kd][4c] for trip fives as Deeb caught a full house with a board of [9d][Qh][Qs][3d][3s][4s][Qd]. Slammedfire missed out on that elusive SCOOP title but $7,770 for 6th place should be some consolation.

Fred_Brink landed a double up with a six-high straight to scoop against Eugene Katchalov’s pair of aces as Katchalov was in the danger zone. But he held on long enough to outlast Fred_Brink who clashed with Rodridgo Caprioli with a raising war on fifth street seeing Fred_Brink’s last chips committed. Fred_Brink could only manage [2d][Js][Ah][Jd][7d][8c][Kc] for a pair of jacks which wasn’t enough to better Caprioli’s [Qc][9c][Ac][5d][Qs][5s][8d] two pair with queens and fives. Fred_Brink added $10,360 to his bankroll for 5th place.

The pressure was now on Katchalov, but he couldn’t hang on any further. Just moments later, the Team PokerStars Pro stuck his chips in on fourth street with his board running out [Kc][2c][5c][Ks][5d][Qs][7c] for kings up, but Caprioli bettered that with [4d][As][Ad][Tc][5h][Th][2h] for aces up. Another impressive SCOOP run for Katchalov ended in 4th place for $14,060 in prize money.

Caprioli held the chip lead in what was a tight contest, with three very experienced and talented Stud players. The lead swapped around on several occasions, with Deeb surging into the front, before PerpCzech won two back-to-back scoops to take control. The second of those saw PerpCzech sustain heavy warfare from Deeb, while holding just a pair of jacks:

RSS readers click through to see replay

That hand sparked some interesting banter between the two:

PerpCzech said, “i just read shaun deebs soul”
shaundeeb said, “play everyhand”
shaundeeb said, “and call down 100″
shaundeeb said, “youll be right sometimes”
shaundeeb said, “we can play after if you want”
PerpCzech said, “only gonna read your soul once”
PerpCzech said, “once is good”
shaundeeb said, “and the 7 times you called me dwn dead”
shaundeeb said, “i said nothing”
PerpCzech said, “never mind then”
shaundeeb said, “dunno why youre such a **** online”
shaundeeb said, “and so nice in person”

The banter seemed to focus Deeb as he commented that he was determined to win all of the Stud SCOOP titles. He mounted a small comeback before PerpCzech proved his soul-reading abilities were no fluke with another impressive call down to sixth street with just a pair of deuces for the high and no low hand:

RSS readers click through to see replay

PerpCzech said, “am i allowed to talk sith now?”
shaundeeb said, “i mean if i bet i win”

Again the banter seemed to spark Deeb as he kicked up the aggression before PerpCzech was able to scoop consecutive pots once again to take over the chip lead.

While PerpCzech and Deeb continued to duke it out, Caprioli was caught in the middle of the storm. Caprioli got short and pushed his last chips on fifth street against Deeb. He started with a low draw, picked up some high cards, but ended up with neither as his board ran out [8d][3s][Ad][Jh][Kc][9h][2c]. Deeb tabled [5d][4c][7s][7c][Jc][2s][Qc] for just a pair of sevens which was enough to take it down and eliminate Caprioli in 3rd place for $20,720.

Heads-up chip counts
PerpCzech (250217 in chips)
shaundeeb (119783 in chips)

The two continued to throw friendly barbs in the chat box as Deeb landed the first significant blow, scooping a pot with a single pair of kings.

That was soon followed by the biggest pot of the tournament:

RSS readers click through to see replay

The action got very heavy on fifth street before slowing down by the river with Deeb’s two pair enough to take it down and assume the ascendency. But PerpCzech wasn’t going to just lay down. He fought back to even things up before Deeb collected back-to-back 100k pots, one with a very nice wheel straight, to leave PerpCzech crippled.

Moments later PerpCzech was all in on third street with his board running out [Kd][6d][9h][Ah][5s][Ts][8c] for just ace-high as Deeb made a pair of threes on his board of [Tc][2s][Kh][4h][3h][3d][8h] to claim the win! PerpCzech continued his fine SCOOP series with another $27,380 score as Deeb made history (again) to win his third SCOOP title of this series, the fourth of his career and another $40,300 in prize money.

Number of entrants: 74
Places paid: 12

Final Table Results
1st shaundeeb (Mexico) – $40,330
2nd PerpCzech (New Zealand) – $27,380
3rd caprioli (Brazil) – $20,720
4th E.Katchalov (Ukraine) – $14,060
5th Fred_Brink (Denmark) – $10,360
6th slammedfire (Canada) – $7,770
7th kasparov007 (Germany) – $6,290
8th DazzleO (Colombia) – $4,810

Looking for more SCOOP reporting? Visit our special SCOOP 2012 coverage section.

Tags: australia | estrellas poker tour | eureka poker tour | france | italian | latin-america | planets | rio | theo jorgensen | wpt

Over the last few years, Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb has been a dominant force in PokerStars tournaments including a pair of WCOOP titles and a SCOOP PLO crown. The online phenom, who once retired at 24-years-old (only to un-retire a few months later), can now add another SCOOP title to his resume after a tumultuous, yet remarkable come-from-behind victory in Event #10-High $2,100 Stud.

The event attracted 64 runners. Only the top 8 places got a cut of the $128,00 prize pool, with $41,600 set aside for the champion.

A couple of familiar faces from Team PokerStars Online and Team PokerStars Pros were testing their Stud acumen, including George Danzer, George “Jorj95″ Lind, Alex Kravchenko, Eugene Katchalov, Anders “Donald” Berg, Jason Mercier, and ElkY. Only two of them would cash in this event: George Lind (8th place) and George Danzer (4th place).

Shaun Deeb winning the EPT Kyiv High Roller event

Deeb jumped out to an auspicious start and quickly amassed a stack. He held chip lead for the first five hours of the tournament before the pack finally caught up to him.

With 10 players remaining, Shaun Deeb and George Danzer, George Lind were all skating on thin ice as the shortest stacks at the final two tables. With only eight spots available at the final table, two players were going to get stiff-armed and go home with nothing because only the final eight paid out.

With nine players remaining, action switched to hand-for-hand for both the money bubble and the final table bubble. Deeb was the shorty and despite having a target on his back, he managed to evade an elimination on the bubble. Deeb doubled up to a shade under 10k after winning a pot with a flush draw (that got there) against PearlJammer’s two pair. Later that orbit, Deeb won a hand with an Ace-high flush, which crippled PearlJammer to under 1,700. A few hands later, PearlJammer bubbled out in 9th place. Rough spot. No one wants to be a Bubble Boy, especially after almost ten excruciating hours of Stud. PearlJammer missed the money and the final table by the narrowest margin.

Event 10-High $2,100 Stud – Final Table Chip Counts:
Seat 1: Andy McLEOD (82,281)
Seat 2: TheMuppet (30,757)
Seat 3: Speedpokah (56,244)
Seat 4: shaundeeb (22,904)
Seat 5: GVOZDIKA55 (82,084)
Seat 6: Pat Pezzin (28,184)
Seat 7: PokerStars Team Pro GeorgeDanzer (13,282)
Seat 8: Team PokerStars Online George “Jorj95″ Lind (4,264)

Team Online George “Jorj95″ Lind advanced to the final table with the slimmest of stacks, meanwhile Andy McLEOD held a slight lead over GVOZDIKA55.

LIKE A ROLLING STONE: George Lind eliminated in 8th place

George Lind made a valiant stand with his last 2,984 in chips with ([Tc][Ts])[5h]. By sixth street, Lind picked up an open-ended straight draw, but failed to improve. GVOZDIKA55 won the pot with a pair of Kings when his hand finished up with [Kc][7h][Ad][Qs][4s][Jh][Kh]. Lind was the first player to bust from the final table. He collected $5,120 for eighth place.

TOMBSTONE BLUES: Speedpokah eliminated in 7th place

GVOZDIKA55 had the bring in for 480, Speedpokah raised to 1,600 with [5d], but Deeb re-raised to 3,200 with the [Jd] showing. GVOZDIKA55 folded and Speedpokah called.

On fourth street, Speedpokah checked with (X-X)[5d][Qd], Deeb bet 1,600 with (X-X)[Jd][Th], and Speedpokah called.

On fifth street, Deeb bet 3,200 with (X-X)[Jd][Th][Qs]. Speedpokah held (X-X)[5d][Qd][2h] and decided to raise to 6,400. Deeb three-bet and Speedpokah capped it at 12,800. Deeb called.

On sixth street, Deeb’s hand improved to (X-X)[Jd][Th][Qs][Jc]. He bet out 3,200. Speedpokah held (X-X)[5d][Qd][2h][7s] and responded with, “Jeez. GG.” He then moved all-in for his last 1,552.

At showdown, Speedpokah lost with [Ad][Ac][5d][Qd][2h][7s][Tc] because his pair of Aces could not beat Deeb’s King-high straight with [Ks][9d][Jd][Th][Qs][Jc][2s]. Speedpokah was knocked out in seventh place, collecting $5,760.

With six players remaining, GVOZDIKA55 held the lead with 89.5K in chips, but Andy McLEOD was hovering with 88K. Deeb chipped up to almost 50K. Pat Pezzin was bringing up the rear with 14.5K.

FROM A BUICK 6: Pat Pezzin eliminated in 6th place

When Deeb took his seat at the final table, he embarked on a vicious heater and almost took over the lead after winning 55K pot against GVOZDIKA55. Deeb won with two pair — Aces and nines — holding [Ad][As][5s][Jc][9s][Qc][9d] and chipped up to almost 99K. He’d secure the lead after he took out a short-stacked Pat Pezzin.

On 3rd street, Deeb was dealt [4d] and burdened with a 600 bring in. Pat Pezzin raised to 2,000 and Deeb called.

On 4th street, Pat Pezzin held (X-X)[5h][Ac] and bet 2,000. Deeb called with (X-X)[4d][Qd].

On 5th street, Pat Pezzin held (X-X)[5h][Ac][2h] and bet 4,000. Deeb raised to 8,000 with (X-X)[4d][Qd][6h]. Pezzin called all-in for his last 1,448.

Deeb ended up with [6c][5d][4d][Qd][6h][Tc][8s]. He whiffed on a diamond-flush draw but his pair of sixes were good enough to beat Pezzin’s pair of fives with [Td][5c][5h][Ac][2h][3c][Kc]. Deeb won the pot and chipped up to 108K. Meanwhile, Pat Pezzin was dunzo, but he won $7,040 for sixth place.

With five remaining, Deeb held the lead with 108K. TheMuppet was in second with 99K. Andy McLEOD was last with 22.4K.

BALLAD OF A THIN MAN: GVOZDIKA55 eliminated in 5th place

Short-stacked GVOZDIKA55 found himself fighting for his tournament life in a back-alley multi-way brawl. Andy McLEOD picked up the [2c] on 3rd street and was saddled with the bring in for 600. TheMuppet called 600 with [9h]. GVOZDIKA55 raised to 2,000 with [Qd]. Andy McLEOD and TheMuppet both called.

On 4th street, GVOZDIKA55 held (X-X)[Qd][9s] and fired out 2,000. Andy McLEOD called with (X-X)[2c][7h]. TheMuppet raised to 4,000 with (X-X)[9h][2d]. GVOZDIKA55re-raised to 6,000. Andy McLEOD bailed. TheMuppet capped the betting at 8,000 and GVOZDIKA55 called. It was heads-up.

On 5th street, GVOZDIKA55 was all-in for his last 544. TheMuppet called. GVOZDIKA55 finished with [Jd][Qh][Qd][9s][Th][3h][Ac] for a pair of Queens. However, TheMuppet won the hand courtesy of two pair — nines and deuces — with [Jd][Qh][Qd][9s][Th][3h][Ac]. GVOZDIKA55 was knocked out in fifth place, but he won $9,600.

With four to go, Deeb sat like a tranquil Buddha in the top spot with 145K and the TheMuppet was second place with 125K. The two shorties were Andy McLEOD (29K) and GeorgeDanzer (19K).

HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED: George Danzer eliminated in 4th place

It was Andy McLEOD’s turn to ride the momentum roller-coaster. Andy McLEOD seized the lead after winning a couple of pots off of Deeb, and then picking off George Danzer.

Danzer was short-stacked and made a stand on 4th street with a gutshot, but the Team Pro from Germany failed to improve. Danzer’s [Tc][Js][9h][7s][Ts][2h][Kh] could only mount a final stand with a pair of tens. Andy McLEOD won the pot with two pair — Jacks and treys. George Danzer hit the road in fourth place, which was good for a 12,800 payday.

You can also view Danzer’s hand in the replayer:

RSS readers must click thru to view replayer

With three players remaining, TheMuppet held the lead with 128K, but Andy McLEOD was not far behind with 123K, and shaundeeb slipped into last place with 69K.

JUST LIKE THOM THUMB’S BLUES: Andy McLEOD eliminated in 3rd place

At the start of Level 21, Deeb had slipped to under 30K. Both TheMuppet and Andy McLEOD held similar sized stacks around 145K. McLEOD’s stack got as high as 190K but that would be his peak. The bleeding began after he lost a substantial amount of his stack against Deeb. Andy McLEOD thought he was good with a pair of Kings, but Deeb was sitting on trip Aces and [As][Ah][3d][9c][Ac][6h][4s]. Deeb won the pot worth almost 83K.

A couple of hands later, Andy McLEOD’s decline continued when he lost a pot worth over 91K to TheMuppet’s full house — [9h][Qh][9c][5h][6d][6h][6c]. Deeb mugged Andy McLEOD on the next hand as he sunk even lower.

McLEOD made a stand with his last 12,603 in chips. He was all-in on 4th street with (X-X)[Kc][7s] against TheMuppet’s (X-X)[6d][5d]. Andy McLEOD finished up with two pair — Kings and Jacks — with [Td][Jd][Kc][7s][Jh][6h][Kd], but TheMuppet won the pot with a Seven-high straight holding [4c][4s][6d][5d][3d][Js][7c]. Andy McLEOD was knocked out in third place. The Aussie won $19,200 for his efforts.

After 11.5 hours of Studlicious play, Event #10-H was down to its final two players.

HEADS-UP:TheMuppet (United Kingdom) vs. shaundeeb (Mexico)
Seat 2: TheMuppet (184,904)
Seat 4: shaundeeb (135,096)

“You’re in trouble,” wrote Deeb in the chat. “I left a few gulps of my Orange Crush for HU.”

The only thing standing in TheMuppet’s way of a SCOOP title was the infamous Shaun Deeb and his ominous “Waffle Crush” avatar.

QUEEN JANE APPROXIMATELY

Deeb struck blood first winning an 80K pot with an Ace-high flush holding [Ts][2s][Td][Js][3s][4d][As]. Deeb surged to over 225K and even got as high as 264K, before TheMuppet staged a comeback, winning a 81K pot with trip fours. He rattled off wins in three out of the next four hands, including a 97.6K-sized pot when Deeb held [8s][4h][4d][2c][7h][6c][5c] for an eight-high straight, but TheMuppet countered Deeb with a Queen-high straight holding [9d][Qd][Td][6h][8d][Jh][8c].

The Muppet eventually seized the lead after winning a pot with Jacks and treys. He was ahead 184K to 135K.

Deeb regrouped and fireworks ensued. During a blitzkrieg-like attack, Deeb won 14 out of the next 15 hands, and reestablished himself as the leader with a 244K to 75K advantage.

TheMuppet was on the brink of busting out when he picked up quad deuces against Deeb’s trips.

Check out the quads hand here in the replayer:

RSS readers must click thru to view replayer

The quads gave TheMuppet a little jolt of energy, but it was too little, too late. He went on a mini-rush and got back into contention after winning an 82K pot with a Queen-high straight. But, Deeb launched a counter-attack and went on the offensive. He all of a sudden found himself up almost 3-1 in chips for the first time all game. TheMuppet was wounded and staggering on the ropes. Did Deeb have enough to finally knock him out as the tournament passed the 12.5 hour mark?

DESOLATION ROW: TheMuppet eliminated in 2nd place; Shaun Deeb Crushes First

After a crippling blow winning a 100K pot with trip Cowboys, Deeb improved his the lead 306K to 13K. He did everything in his power to deliver the fatal knockout, but he couldn’t connect it.

After winning another hand to avoid elimination, Deeb didn’t know what to say to TheMuppet. He typed, “I think that’s 12 times. 10 of them I was ahead.”

But I guess the 13th time is lucky, right? Short-stacked bombed it all-in on 5th street with (X-X)[Kd][9s][3s]. Deeb called with (X-X)[4d][Jd][Ks]. TheMuppet finished with nothing bit King-high after the board ran out [8c][Td][Kd][9s][3s][6h][4h]. TheMuppet fought a valiant effort and won $26,880 for a runner-up finish.

Congrats to Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb for slaying TheMuppet and winning his second career SCOOP crown. Deeb also won $41,600, which is enough cheddar to buy him all the Orange Crush, bananas, and fried fish he wants for the next year.

Check of the final hand in the snazzy replayer:

RSS readers must click through to view the replayer

SCOOP Event #10-H $2,100 Stud – Final Table Results and Payouts:
1. Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb (Mexico) – $4,160
2. TheMuppet (United Kingdom) – $26,880
3. James “Andy McLEOD” Obst (Australia)- $19,200
4. Team PpkerStars Pro George Danzer (Germany) – $12,800
5. GVOZDIKA55 (Russia) – $9,600
6. Pat Pezzin (Canada) – $7,040
7. Speedpokah (Finland) – $5,760
8. George “Jorj95″ Lind (Canada) – $5,120

For a complete schedule and satellite information for remaining events, visit the SCOOP home page. While you are there, don’t forget to check out the statistic page and see who is sitting atop the leaderboard.

Tags: archives | entertainment | ept | facebook | harrah's | news | pca | planets | russian poker series | tournaments | UKIPT | wcoop

As our American friends tend to enjoy repeating, the great game of cricket can be impenetrable to people who don’t really understand its subtleties. It is indeed the sport in which a game can take five days to complete and even then no one wins.

Another of cricket’s unusual quirks is that for long periods, even the most avid follower will not really be able to tell who is in the lead. “Who’s winning?” someone might ask late on day two, and the cricket fan will likely reply: “Difficult to say really” before rambling on about the state of the pitch, the importance of the next partnership, overcast weather conditions due for day five and such like. You will often be well advised to wander away and leave them to it.

Major poker tournaments can be a lot like cricket in this regard. Once the felt starts cracking early on the fifth day, it can be much more difficult to get a read on the tricky players. And flushes are far more common under overcast skies.

Of course not. That is a joke. That is a cricket joke. But the wider point is this: much like cricket it can sometimes be really difficult to know who is winning a major poker tournament for much of the time. A player can double up on the first hand and surge to the top of the leader board, but the chances of them still being there at the end are very slim indeed.

Similarly we almost never see a pillar-to-post champion. You can be chip-leader at the end of the day before the final, but if you have a stinker when the tournament gets to the business end, your dreams will be in tatters.

The high roller event

As reporters, all we can really do is write what is happening at any one time, without any specific inside knowledge as to its longer-term relevance. A player getting knocked out is terminal for him or her, but the winner of the hand is only marginally more likely to go on to climb the winner’s rostrum.

At the moment, my colleague Donnie Peters is writing the hand-for-hand updates on this EPT High Roller. And he is also updating the chip count page. You can easily follow all that by clicking in the usual place, and that offers the most traditional answer to the question “Who’s winning?”

However we can also offer a brief snapshot, to tell you what’s going on right now in the tournament room. Its relevance is unclear. But it is only marginally less relevant than the chip-counts.

Boeree mixing it with Ivey
Few players over the past few years have been more focused and committed on a career in poker than Liv Boeree. She is the player who went from rank amateur on a reality show to the dizzy heights of EPT champion and Team PokerStars Pro. And almost all of it was due to hard work, persistence, and knowing how to grasp opportunity when it is presented.

Liv Boeree, high rolling

For all amateur poker players in the modern game, the pinnacle of achievement is playing against Phil Ivey, still clearly in the top three poker players alive, and maybe in the top one. Young players have gone to sleep for about the past 10 years dreaming one day of locking horns with Ivey.

For Boeree, that dream is now reality. In this High Roller event, she is now to Ivey’s immediate left – and she is making her positional advantage pay. Boeree has about 30,000 more chips than Ivey and is really putting him to the test.

Just recently, Boeree, on the button, had bet 21,000 on the river, looking at a board of [4d][4c][6d][as][9s]. Ivey was deep in contemplation, his unflappable demeanour visibly undermined. He counting out calling chips, then counted out raising chips, then put them down again. He peeled off his headphones and tossed them on the table. He looked to the sky, then to the ground. Then he called and was shown [6c][6h]. Ivey scooped up the sixes, put them with his own hand, and tossed the four cards into the muck.

Boeree is not only tangling with Ivey, she’s putting him to the test.

Hello, the internet
You might have heard by now that Viktor Blom is the man behind the Isildur1 account. His online performances have probably been watched by more people than any other player’s. Today he is back in the live environment, playing his second $25,000 bullet in the High Roller. And yet it must be like home from home.

Viktor Blom

Also on Blom’s table this evening are Bryn “BrynKenney” Kenney and Sami “LarsLuzak” Kelopuro, two other huge online players. Alex Kravchenko and Dan Shak, live pros both, are also involved on that table. It could yet get very ugly indeed.

How about this for tough
Lex Veldhuis busted some time ago from one of the most difficult tables ever assembled in live poker. And Mike Watson has also now bust from there. But no worries, because this slab of felt is still a beast: Alex Gomes sits with Sorel Mizzi and Max Lykov and Patrik Antonius and Ivan Demidov.

Rather them than me.

Click here for live updates from The PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final

Tags: 2011 | european | harrah's | lapt | pca | rio | SCOOP | tcoop | team pokerstars pro | UKIPT | wbcoop | world-series

We’re going to try to avoid making any glib comments about the reunification of the field for Day 2, the Easterly 243 of Day 1A being brought into the fold of the Westerly 502 of Day 1B. Too late, that just happened. Looking ahead we can see a healthy 329 players shuffle in for level 11 and it’s fair to say that close to two-thirds of that number will find themselves going empty-handed to the iron rail by the end of level 16, when the curtain falls on Day 2.

Chip leader Cengiz ‘coin-flip’ Ulusu may have a terrifying 242,800 stack but that certainly doesn’t mean he can expect to have a smooth day. One seat to his left, the God seat if you will, is EPT London winner David Vamplew, and two seats further is double bracelet winner JP Kelly. Toss in Team PokerStars SportStar Boris Becker into the mix and it should make for an interesting table (table 36).

The full seat draw can be found below and particular note should be taken of table 18 (Jake Cody, Will Moolson, Andrew Chen, Davidi Kitai and Andrew Chen), table 14 (Kevin MacPhee, Dominik Nitsche, Heinz Kamutzki, Jakob Karlsson and Giuseppe Pantaleo) and table 19 (purely because Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier and Victor ‘Isildur1′ Blom are sat next to each other). There’s plenty of talent at the table, much known some yet to bring itself to our attention. Play has just begun. Stay with us for updates, chip counts and features for the next nine hours (it has been semi-confirmed that there will be no dinner break).

“I’m through to Day 2! Where’s my seat?”

“…oh, that’s my table”

(Table, seat, name, chips)
1 1 Ronny Purschwitz 66,000
1 2 Ismael Bojang 127,300
1 3 Nuno Coelho 8,500
1 4 Dimitrios Ben-Ari 45,800
1 5 Johannes Holstege 78,600
1 6 George Danzer 54,100
1 7 Mathias Schulz 35,900
1 8 Vasiliy Demushkin 101,500
1 9 Patrick Schlegel 26,100

2 1 Vanessa Selbst 17,000
2 2 Cesar Garcia Domínguez 184,400
2 3 Armin Zoike 40,000
2 4 Kathrin Elena Schwierz 92,400
2 5 Bernd Werner 31,800
2 6 Walid Bou-Habib 61,000
2 7 Igor Pihela 73,000
2 8 Andrey Zaichenko 148,700
2 9 Matthias Koerber 51,400

3 1 Zachary Korik 34,300
3 2 Filippo Bianchini 23,400
3 4 Matthew O’Brien 62,800
3 5 Mario Puccini 198,900
3 6 Andreas Puhl 75,500
3 7 Grzegorz Derkowski 111,400
3 8 Per Linde 42,100
3 9 Lucien Cohen 56,100

4 1 Andre Andrade 35,300
4 2 Stefan Huber 58,000
4 3 Ramon Demon Cserei 122,200
4 4 Dieter Christmann 17,500
4 5 Florian Dohnert 26,800
4 6 Jeffrey Hakim 66,300
4 7 Alexander Eser 101,800
4 8 Jonas Gutteck 82,200
4 9 Igor Kurganov 48,300

5 1 Keven Stammen 30,700
5 2 Alexander Meidinger 36,000
5 3 Bahadir Kilickeser 108,000
5 4 Mustafa Navruz 64,100
5 5 Manfred Hammer 55,200
5 6 Matthias De Meulder 14,500
5 7 Selim Citak 77,300
5 8 Daniel Yeheskel-Hai 43,000
5 9 Peter Turmezey 124,600

6 1 Stephane Albertini 142,500
6 2 Michael Wasserman 118,800
6 3 Pavel Gonchakov 74,100
6 4 Bill Chen 62,100
6 5 Samuel Albeck 52,700
6 6 Yury Kerzhapkin 20,000
6 7 Artem Litvinov 93,800
6 8 Philipp Salewski 41,500
6 9 Matt Kay 28,900

7 1 Shaun Deeb 33,100
7 2 Joao Ribeiro 196,600
7 3 Victor Ilyukhin 13,300
7 4 Bahram Zohri 56,600
7 5 Alex Kravchenko 49,000
7 6 Ori Miller 65,000
7 7 Pratyush Buddiga 39,800
7 8 Gunther Schett 76,700
7 9 Pascal Hartmann 95,100

8 1 Søren Reffstrup 40,100
8 2 Jean-François Lauzon 21,200
8 3 Martin Vallo 70,000
8 4 Ivo Pester 27,100
8 5 Dmitry Grinenko 106,200
8 6 Marco Falanga 50,600
8 7 David Kahan 60,100
8 8 Renato Almeida 86,100
8 9 Ariel Celestino 153,300

9 1 Nikolay Bibov 12,300
9 2 Joe Ebanks 97,000
9 3 Bryan Piccioli 125,900
9 4 Santiago Nadal 78,500
9 5 Andre Dos Santos 42,100
9 6 Seppo Parkkinen 27,000
9 7 Gregory Gokey 54,900
9 8 Azad Jabrayilov 35,800
9 9 Koray Aledmir 67,600

10 1 Alex Casals 34,400
10 2 Hidir Özcan 79,300
10 3 Robert Schulz 25,000
10 4 Daniel Smith 173,600
10 5 Joseph Mouawad 43,000
10 6 Ondrej Vinklarek 53,600
10 7 Oleg Mandzjuk 15,500
10 8 Robin Lindqvist 62,700
10 9 Marc Wright 182,600

11 1 Alfonso Amendola 55,000
11 2 Wilfried Harig 87,300
11 3 Charlotte Van Brabander 36,300
11 4 Henrique Pinho 22,100
11 5 Fabian Holling 31,000
11 6 Gokhan Onal 42,700
11 7 Thomas Dolezal 126,300
11 8 Gereon Sowa 71,300
11 9 Dmitry Stelmak 104,600

12 1 Oleksii Kovalchuk 59,000
12 2 Rüdiger Seidel 100,400
12 3 Haritos Kalfopulos 15,400
12 4 Angel Guillen 123,400
12 5 Ulrich Hellriegel 84,600
12 6 Gerasimos Deres 70,100
12 7 Tobias Wagner 31,100
12 8 Michael Landmann 44,800
12 9 Jan Collado 36,700

13 1 Christopher Lovett 17,400
13 2 Anton Makiievskyi 60,700
13 3 Jason Tompkins 107,500
13 4 Vladislav Varlashin 39,800
13 5 Tomasz Krzesinski 85,300
13 6 William Thorson 72,000
13 7 Iliodoros Kamatakis 138,800
13 8 Ates Cengiz 50,700
13 9 Olaf Sagorski 32,500

14 1 Patrick Börnicke 55,000
14 2 Kevin MacPhee 139,100
14 3 Dominik Nitsche 35,100
14 4 Heinz Kamutzki 62,700
14 5 Giuseppe Pantaleo 10,400
14 6 Pierre Huter 82,000
14 7 Jakob Karlsson 116,800
14 8 Stefan Jahne 26,700
14 9 Jimmy Ostensson 47,800

15 1 Maksim Semisoshenko 72,000
15 2 André Morath 10,800
15 3 Marius Pospiech 40,200
15 4 Robert Heidorn 30,300
15 5 Sören Vöhrs 114,900
15 6 Ali Azabdaftar 49,700
15 7 Dmitry Bayramov 91,700
15 8 Konstantin Tolokno 58,600
15 9 Azmi Korkmaz 143,300

16 1 Ran Azor 42,300
16 2 Paul Otto 107,100
16 3 Mathias Kuerschner 123,100
16 4 Norbert Hölting 35,300
16 5 Jan Bendik 53,800
16 6 Stefan Modde 67,600
16 7 Stefan Bormann 14,100
16 8 Jimmy Simard 25,900
16 9 David Sonelin 82,100

17 1 Oleksandr Bichuch 11,700
17 2 Matej Cepon 108,500
17 3 Ilan Boujenah 48,400
17 4 August Schlegl 31,900
17 5 Guy Boscart 60,200
17 6 Arash Maragheh 39,300
17 7 Konstantinos Tsirakidis 168,100
17 8 Carlos Gutierrez Gonzalez 71,300
17 9 Danny Neess 90,800

18 1 Tim Mitchell 73,000
18 2 Eric Vuissoz 59,000
18 3 Will Molson 94,900
18 4 Zahlan Nabil 22,300
18 5 Jake Cody 149,700
18 6 Davidi Kitai 197,700
18 7 Zoltan Szabo 33,500
18 8 Andrew Chen 47,200
18 9 Mihai Manole 38,800

19 1 Dan Murariu 74,200
19 2 Kim Ofverstrom 52,000
19 3 Janne Juutilainen 14,300
19 4 Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier 40,900
19 5 Viktor Blom 109,900
19 6 Bozidar Miljkovic 136,600
19 7 Alex Kell 25,900
19 8 Thomas Melzer 61,400
19 9 Steffen Schulz 92,000

20 1 Dmitry Vitkind 105,700
20 2 Samantha Cohen 61,400
20 3 Rick Streefland 27,700
20 4 Harry Maurer 20,000
20 5 Michael Watson 71,400
20 6 Vladimir Geshkenbein 201,600
20 7 Rhys Jones 87,100
20 8 Jan Heitmann 48,600
20 9 Martin Stausholm 35,800

21 1 Tim Bettingen 128,100
21 2 Ross Loggie 83,700
21 3 Javier Etayo 38,400
21 4 Halil Karaca 21,600
21 5 Fabian Quoss 26,900
21 6 Paul Knebel 63,700
21 7 Johan van Til 46,300
21 8 Faraz Jaka 106,000
21 9 Stefan Mattsson 56,900

22 1 Jeremy Nock 68,800
22 2 Eugen Fritzler 92,000
22 3 Alexander Isenberg 57,700
22 4 Florens Feenstra 32,400
22 5 Anthony Picault 37,500
22 6 Jens Weigel 199,600
22 7 Richard Lyndaker 17,900
22 8 Philipp Gruissem 46,700
22 9 Michiel Brummelhuis 173,500

23 1 Olivier Busquet 50,400
23 2 Stefan Höing 38,300
23 3 Paulo Sarmento 21,600
23 4 Daniele Nestola 31,800
23 5 Aleh Plauski 119,200
23 6 Kasper Kjeldsen 60,200
23 7 Rupert Elder 79,400
23 8 Pietro Sibione 99,300
23 9 Parker Talbot 69,300

24 1 Scott Baumstein 132,600
24 2 Georgios Tzimas 31,600
24 3 Luca Cainelli 81,200
24 4 Vadzim Kursevich 37,700
24 5 Azziz Abdelmalki 45,800
24 6 Ruben Visser 63,600
24 7 Segey Baburin 53,700
24 8 Jasper Wetemans 99,700

25 1 Pierre Neuville 7,800
25 2 Kai Kumpulainen 53,200
25 3 Susanne Kaufer 76,100
25 4 Boris Caleta 63,800
25 5 Alexander Petersen 24,000
25 6 David Yan 139,000
25 7 Kristian Lunardi 42,500
25 8 Franz Ditz 34,400
25 9 Paul Vas Nunes 99,500

26 1 Juan Manuel Pastor 23,300
26 2 Mariusz Klosinski 61,100
26 3 Mikalai Pobal 70,500
26 4 Senal Egziabher 128,800
26 5 Ashkan Fayaz 34,200
26 6 Vladimir Troyanovski 82,700
26 7 Fernando Cimaglia 103,800
26 8 Andreas Kauffeldt 50,100
26 9 Daniel Suarez 40,800

27 2 David Jacob Light 81,800
27 3 Barry Greenstein 55,600
27 4 Norman Balla 46,600
27 5 Theo Jorgensen 64,500
27 6 Jens Kaiser 120,500
27 7 Roy Jany 34,000
27 8 Frederic Hebette 96,800
27 9 Max Leonhard 39,800

28 1 Urs Kohler 69,300
28 2 Moritz Kranich 36,800
28 3 Kenny Hicks 109,600
28 4 Hans Martin Vogl 25,600
28 5 Mario Nagel 88,200
28 6 Jorge Ríos Ríos 11,200
28 7 Marc Radgen 57,300
28 8 Mikael Viuff Hansen 45,100
28 9 Salman Behbehani 131,900

29 1 Patrick Tinner 15,900
29 2 Spencer Hudson 104,900
29 3 Simon Ravnsbaek 125,100
29 4 Ishak Noyan 59,600
29 5 Stefan Fuchs 39,700
29 6 Mohamed Razab 71,000
29 7 Maik Schrader 31,000
29 8 Martin Jacobson 48,200
29 9 Phillip Huxley 87,400

30 1 Daniel-Gai Pidun 61,400
30 2 Konstantinos Nanos 37,000
30 3 Albert Bernardo 112,200
30 4 Ilya Gorodetskiy 73,200
30 5 Peter Sturzel 52,400
30 6 Artur Zaremba 22,100
30 7 Anton Wigg 152,200
30 8 Josh Prager 28,600
30 9 Patrick Renkers 90,900

31 1 Alex Bilokur 69,100
31 2 Koen De Visscher 82,100
31 3 Sam Chartier 107,500
31 4 Damien Langlois 35,000
31 5 Peter Jepsen 136,700
31 7 Carlos Oliveira 56,800
31 8 Michael Winzen 24,000
31 9 Jeff Sarwer 44,300

32 1 Kalle Niemi 125,800
32 2 Joris Fontaine 87,400
32 3 Reinhard Dersch 36,300
32 4 Peter Zakrent 26,300
32 5 Diogo Borges 20,600
32 6 Walter Beckmann 60,400
32 7 Oleh Okhotskyi 108,300
32 8 Martin Quack 69,600
32 9 Mathias Kasek 44,700

33 1 Hussain Zbib 96,400
33 2 Ole Schemion 59,900
33 3 Andreas Vlachos 139,400
33 4 Vojtech Ruzicka 42,600
33 5 Mike Hoffmann 23,700
33 6 Eduard Bhaggoe 67,900
33 7 Guy Bachar 12,000
33 8 Stephen Chidwick 34,400
33 9 Oleg Bychkov 81,000

34 1 Diogo Cardosa 16,000
34 2 Chady Merhej 57,800
34 3 Elliot Smith 64,600
34 4 Calvin Anderson 205,100
34 5 Kevin Vandersmissen 115,100
34 6 Taylor Paur 84,700
34 7 David Van Der Vorst 35,200
34 8 Mohsen Tayfeh 47,900
34 9 Thang Duc Nguyen 29,900

35 1 Ana Marquez 48,200
35 2 Enrico Rudelitz 60,000
35 3 Steven van Zadelhoff 18,000
35 4 Ilkin Amirov 70,000
35 5 Jordi Riba Corrons 26,500
35 6 Steven Thomsen 90,100
35 7 Bogdan Kozhokar 107,200
35 8 Yorane Kerignard 122,400
35 9 Ahmed Debabeche 37,900

36 1 Cengiz Ulusu 242,800
36 2 David Vamplew 72,600
36 3 Mario Walkner 90,900
36 4 JP Kelly 54,900
36 5 Sebastian Winkler 109,900
36 6 Michel Abecassis 45,900
36 7 David Boyaciyan 20,800
36 8 Stephan Rach 36,200
36 9 Boris Becker 27,000

37 1 Simon Persson 62,300
37 2 Kevin Iacofano 51,100
37 3 Roman Romanovskyi 110,200
37 4 Stefan Huppa 73,700
37 5 Anton Thorarinsson 40,800
37 6 Thomas Cibak 91,900
37 7 Kristian Verlaan 34,200
37 8 Yury Gulyy 23,100
37 9 Brahim Oubella 176,700

Tournament snapshot
Level 11: blinds 600-1,200, ante 100
Players: 329 of 745
Click here for live coverage and more features.

Tags: 2011 | italian | lapt | pca | planets | portugal | rio | Super Tuesday | tournaments | videos | world cup of poker

In the 1964 film Zulu Colour Sgt. Bourne utters the immortal line: ‘The sentries report Zulus to the south west. Thousands of them.’* Walking into the tournament room here in the Hyatt Hotel, Berlin it’s easy to share that sentiment. Squeezing past the large security guards you’re greeted with a vista of poker carnage; tables tight with players battling while TV cameras circle ahead ready to swoop down to feast upon the fallen. It certainly doesn’t make it easy to move around the tournament floor.

Situated in the middle of the room, right in the thick of it, is a table with Jeff Sarwer, Tim Bettingen and Chris Moorman. Sarwer, animated as usual, is engaging Moorman in what appears to be interesting banter but it’s nigh-on impossible to get near so instead I opt to circuit the edge of the fighting picking perhaps the one spot that seems to be unused. Within seconds I’m having to move to let EPT Snowfest runner-up Russell Carson move by. The Canadian is wearing grey sweat pants and a dark navy beanie hat, like he’s off to run up the steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art reprising a somewhat lightweight Rocky.

*The actor whose line it was, Nigel Green, has somehow been ushered to one side and the quote attributed to screen legend Michael Caine who played Lt. Gonville Bromhead.

Jake Cody: taken one in the gut?

Elsewhere ElkY, Sandra Naujoks, Alex Kravchenko, Mike McDonald, Sorel Mizzi and William Thorsson all look deadly serious, facing down the masses with a stony determination. They’ve all had to beat the hordes before and likely will do so again.

Alex Kravchenko enjoying the thrill of battle

Then another soldier fell, Adam ‘Roothlus’ Levy topping his 40,000 stack into Andreas Vlachos’ limped aces. Levy submitted to the old early position limp-raise trick, albeit with kings. Another player steps in to fill the breach. This will be repeated again today, tomorrow and the days after that until just one player remains. Around €800,000 will go to the winner from a prize pool of around €3,700,000. Full confirmation is yet to be signed off but the 100 or so players that will make the money will find out about that tomorrow, well before the bubble bursts on Thursday.

But on the upside, there are loads of side events to play too! Click through the link to see what suits or just wander around Berlin instead.

Tournament snapshot
Level 7: blinds 250-500, ante 50
Players: 410 of 543
Click here for live coverage and more features.

Tags: Asia Pacific Poker Tour | delicious | entertainment | fighting | gambling | micromillions | pca | philadelphia | tournaments | wcoop | World Series of Poker

As mentioned already we have a lot of big names playing today. Here’s the seat draw that has been released to us but with late registration continuing for another hour yet we can expect some more names to be added.

There are some incredibly tough tables out there. Take a look for yourself.

Will Jonathan Duhamel’s 2012 heater continue?

1 1 The Duc Ngo
1 2 Stephan Rach
1 3 John Gale
1 4 Koray Aledmir
1 5 Jeff Hakim 
1 6 Andreas Lutz
1 7 Mihai Manole
1 8 Andreas Piesik
1 9 Russell Carson
1 10 Dmitry Stelmak

2 1 Samantha Cohen
2 2 Boris Becker
2 3 JP Kelly
2 4 Mazen Rishani
2 5 Eduard Bhaggoe
2 6 Steven Thomsen 
2 7 Erik Sturkenboom
2 8 Maksim Semisoshenko
2 9 Thorsten Bäuerle
2 10 Marcin Horecki

3 1 Antoine Nahas
3 2 Frank Sypplie
3 3 Igor Pihela
3 4 Mario Puccini
3 5 Frank Lemmer
3 6 Olaf Kadler
3 7 Mike Mcdonald
3 8 Ilias Dimitru
3 9 Andreas Puhl
3 10 Kenny Shih

4 1 Pierre Huter
4 2 David Kolmberger
4 3 Ismael Bojang
4 4 Marcel Schreiner
4 5 Alexander Eser
4 6 Nicolas Chouity 
4 7 Jörg Bartel
4 8 Selim Citak
4 9 Christopher McClung
4 10 Gerd Wandel

5 1 Kristian Verlaan
5 2 Vojtech Ruzicka
5 3 John Andress
5 4 Konstantinos Nanos
5 5 Amir Sonsino
5 6 Peter Jepsen
5 7 Sören Vöhrs
5 8 Agentur Teichmann
5 9 Christian Buse
5 10 Toni Judet

6 1 Khalil Youssafi
6 2 Ali Azabdaftar
6 3 Oleksandr Bichuch
6 4 Sascha Brombacher
6 5 Marc Radgen
6 6 Stefan Rapp
6 7 Daniel John Neilson
6 8 Heinz-Georg Geissler
6 9 Juha Helppi
6 10 Pius Heinz

7 1 Johannes Strassmann
7 2 Schahin Shad-Manfaat
7 3 Paul Knebel
7 4 Papacek Roman
7 5 Keven Stammen
7 6 Seppo Parkkinen
7 7 Florens Feenstra
7 8 Parker Talbot
7 9 Kakwan Lau
7 10 Bruno “Kool Shen” Lopes

8 1 Jacques Quaiss
8 2 Nedzib Suman
8 3 William Thorson
8 4 Albert Bernardo
8 5 Mickey Petersen
8 6 Robert Rohr
8 7 Peter Akery
8 8 Erik Scheidt
8 9 Walter Beckmann

9 1 Matt Kay
9 2 Thomas Brauner
9 3 Stefan Modde
9 4 Gerasimos Deres
9 5 Jan Bendik
9 6 Jorge Ríos Ríos
9 7 Mikhail Korotkikh
9 8 Benjamin Kang 
9 9 Norman Balla
9 10 Roland Bachmann

10 1 Alexander Meidinger
10 2 Paul Würdig
10 3 Frederic Schwarzer
10 4 Tobias Reinkemeier
10 5 Shalom Turgeman
10 6 Ori Miller
10 7 Max Leonhard
10 8 Bernd Vogelhuber
10 9 Samer Hanna
10 10 Mikhail Semin

11 1 Alessandro Laubinger
11 2 Hendrik Dürschlag
11 3 Cengiz Ulusu
11 4 Karim Abillama
11 5 Fabrice Soulier
11 6 Jonathan Duhamel
11 7 Gaetano Dell Area
11 8 Jakob Karlsson
11 9 André Mayer
11 10 Fredrik Andersson

12 1 Jason Gray
12 2 Massimiliano Bellon Bellucci
12 3 Ramil Boyazitov
12 4 Dmitry Bayramov
12 5 Tim Bettingen
12 6 Jordan Addison Lewis
12 7 Jeff Sarwer
12 8 George Danzer
12 9 Timo Pfützenreuter
12 10 Thang Duc Nguyen

13 1 Stefan Höing
13 2 Jozef Hancin Hentz
13 3 Timothy Mitchell
13 4 Sebastian Winkler
13 5 Andreas Blumenthal
13 6 Arpad Sarkezi
13 7 Dominik Nitsche
13 8 Denis Noykin
13 9 Boris Caleta

14 1 Grayson Ramage
14 2 Zahlan Nabil
14 3 Carlos Gutierrez Gonzalez
14 4 Jordi Riba Corrons
14 5 Mustafa Navruz
14 6 Jan Djerberg
14 7 Kilian Kramer
14 8 Ben Thavisin
14 9 Marc Wright
14 10 Sandra Naujoks

15 1 Jan Kasten
15 2 Andreas Vlachos
15 3 Peter Zakrent
15 4 Kim Ofverstrom
15 5 Leroy Aussems
15 6 Franz Ditz
15 7 Dan Murariu
15 8 Matas Dilpsas
15 9 Peter Andersen
15 10 Bohdan Kozhokar

16 1 Walid Bou-Habib
16 2 Reinhard Dersch
16 3 Michael Wasserman
16 4 Jimmy Simard
16 5 Siyu Sha
16 6 Martin Finger
16 7 Jonathan Dennis Karamalikis
16 8 Michael Keiner 
16 9 Rolf Eibel
16 10 Matthew Jarvis

17 1 Richard Lyndaker
17 2 Paul Vas Nunes
17 3 Stefan Wrenger
17 4 Tony Stockhecke
17 5 Salman Behbehani
17 6 Grzegorz Derkowski
17 7 Per Emil Mattsson
17 8 Michael Zammar
17 9 Enrico Etienne Rudelitz
17 10 Paul Berende 

18 1 Andreas Setz
18 2 Jan Veit
18 3 Chaya Nabil
18 4 Alexander Isenberg
18 5 Cesar Garcia Domínguez
18 6 Andrew Badecker
18 7 Kim Lindqvist
18 8 Adolfo Vaeza
18 9 Uwe Sieben
18 10 Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier

19 1 Andre Vieira Andrade
19 2 Ihar Koshal
19 3 Yevgeniyy Timoshenko
19 4 Alex Kravchenko
19 5 Herbert Otto
19 6 Daniel Rodriguez
19 7 Athanasios Polychronopoulos
19 8 Tim Gerdes
19 9 Rino Mathis
19 10 Roman Romanovskyi

20 1 Jörg Krupp
20 2 Dr. Daniel Wichmann
20 3 Adam Szabo
20 4 Martin Herb
20 5 Victor Ilyukhin
20 6 Kimmo Kurko
20 7 David Jacob Licht
20 8 Vadzim Kursevich
20 9 Johannes Hoffmann
20 10 Raik Bernhardt

21 1 Guy Bachar
21 2 Liutauras Armanavicius 
21 3 Robert Merklinger
21 4 Peter Bosen
21 5 Roberto Romanello
21 6 Sharkota Siarhei
21 7 Halil Karaca
21 8 Wilfried Härig
21 9 Oleh Okhotskyi
21 10 Rhys Jones

22 1 Arvi Vainionkulma
22 2 Spencer Hudson
22 3 Filippo Bianchini
22 4 Erich Kollmann
22 5 Janne Juutilainen
22 6 Friedrich-Carl Alexander Franz
22 7 Konstantinos Tsirakidis
22 8 Andras Tokaji
22 9 Christian Krupp
22 10 Victor Ramdin

23 1 Lewis Hunter
23 2 Stefano Locorotondo
23 3 Stefan Huppa
23 4 Michael Winzen
23 5 Maik Schrader
23 6 Joni Jouhkimainen
23 7 Tomasz Krzesiñski
23 8 Dieter Christmann
23 9 Anton Ionel
23 10 Armin Daniel Zoike

24 1 Mikael Viuff Hansen
24 2 Frederik Jensen 
24 3 Rüdiger Seidel
24 4 Haritos Kalfopulos
24 5 Ruben Visser 
24 6 Stephan Klam
24 7 Markus Wetzel
24 8 Kim Lars Theibach
24 9 Constantin Meyer
24 10 Dmitry Vitkind 

25 1 Mario Walkner
25 2 Mathias Kasek
25 3 Michael Watson
25 4 Pietro Sibione
25 5 Marc Gork
25 6 Tim Finne 
25 7 Mohsen Jalal Tayfeh Shokor
25 8 Olaf Knebel
25 9 Jimmy Pan
25 10 Phillip Huxley

26 1 Richard Bruning
26 2 Pierre Fehner
26 3 Patrick Sacrispeyre
26 4 Daniel Smith
26 5 Govert Metaal
26 6 Zoltan Szabo
26 7 Giuseppe Pantaleo
26 8 Thomas Graupner
26 9 Weidong Wu
26 10 Ronny Purschwitz

27 1 Robertas Vaitkevicius
27 2 Joshua Prager
27 3 Andras Stumpf
27 4 Arnaud Mattern
27 5 Wim Eduard J Neys
27 6 Christoph Weigel
27 7 Garlef Konstantin Rinne 
27 8 Xuan Liu
27 9 Artem Litvinov
27 10 Paul Michaelis

28 1 Martin Mulsow
28 2 Mike Hoffmann
28 3 Jean-Philippe Rohr
28 4 Christian Jambor
28 5 Joe Ebanks
28 6 Andras Nemeth
28 7 Stephen Chidwick
28 8 Segey Baburin
28 9 Patrick Schlegel

29 1 Mariusz Klosinski
29 2 Jan Peter Jachtmann
29 3 Jari-Pekka Juhola
29 4 Teresio Ciancanelli
29 5 Jasper Wetemans
29 6 Martin Jacobson
29 7 Alex Kell
29 8 Steffen Schulz
29 9 Andrey Pateychuk

30 1 Kathrin Elena Schwierz
30 2 Simon Ravnsbaek
30 3 Константин Сергеевич Русских
30 4 Daniele Nestola
30 5 R.H.G. Van Bergen
30 6 Georgios Karakousis
30 7 Anton Kraus
30 8 Hannu Peltola
30 9 Leon Tsoukernik
30 10 Martin Stausholm

31 1 Moritz Kranich 
31 2 Yazbeck Georges
31 3 Sean Farshid Jazayeri
31 4 Davidi Kitai
31 5 Melvyn Van Der Sleen
31 6 Thijmen Stocker
31 7 Fabian Deimann
31 8 Tuncay Tutus
31 9 Daniel Yeheskel-Hai

32 1 Tobias Wagner
32 2 Steve O’Dwyer
32 3 Nguyen Minh
32 4 Simon Boss
32 5 Tyler Reiman
32 6 Urs Kohler
32 7 Charles Serry
32 8 David Boyaciyan
32 9 Ankush Mandavia

33 1 Javier Etayo
33 2 Alexander Just
33 3 Lex Veldhuis
33 4 Martin Tonnesen
33 5 Ilya Gorodetskiy 
33 6 Stefano Puccilli
33 7 Agris Klaise
33 8 Koen De Visscher
33 9 Matthew O’Brien

34 1 Juan Manuel Pastor
34 2 Filippo Marcolini
34 3 Zachary Korik
34 4 André Morath
34 5 Deniz Artuc
34 6 Peter Turmezey
34 7 Mikalai Pobal
34 8 André Fiedler 
34 9 Gregory Gokey

35 1 Ludovic Riehl
35 2 Jan Horni
35 3 Nima Saken Shaft
35 4 Rick Streefland
35 5 Andreas Wiese 
35 6 Manig Loeser
35 7 Christopher Lovett
35 8 Norbert Hölting
35 9 Jan-Eike Wilken

36 1 David Van Der Vorst
36 2 Vincent Van Der Fluit
36 3 Gianluca Marcucci
36 4 Thomas Dolezal
36 5 Bernd Werner
36 6 Adam Hui
36 7 Denys Drobyna
36 8 Robert Werner Zipf
36 9 Ghattas Kortas

37 1 Patrick Börnicke
37 2 Mikica Mitrovic
37 3 Marco Rederer
37 4 Raoul Refos
37 5 Michael Eichhorst
37 6 Guido Kempkes
37 7 Sorel Mizzi
37 8 Martin Vallo
37 9 Bahadir Kilickeser

38 1 Laurent David
38 2 Ben Wilinofsky
38 3 Adam Levy
38 4 Guy Boscart
38 5 Andrey Zaichenko
38 6 Baris Ergün
38 7 Viktor Blom
38 8 Friedrich Räz
38 9 Chris Moorman

39 1 Taylor Paur
39 2 Guy Goossens
39 3 Dominic Hofmann
39 4 Aschkan Fayaz
39 5 Menny Ben Haim
39 6 Mircea Puica
39 7 Mick Graydon
39 8 Bahram Zohri
39 9 Fernando Cimaglia
39 10 Youssef Mallat

40 1 Danny Neess
40 2 Thomas Cibak
40 3 Ivan Todorovic
40 4 Fatima Moreira de Melo
40 5 Michiel Brummelhuis
40 6 Dieter Albrecht
40 7 Kevin Iacofano
40 8 David Vamplew
40 9 Frederic Hebette

51 1 Griffin Benger
51 2 Charlotte Van Brabander
51 3 Marcin Jerzy Grzybowksi
51 4 Isaac Schachtel
51 5 Per Mattsson
51 6 Vladislav Varlashin
51 7 Markus Ristola
51 8 Daniel-Gai Pidun
51 9 Paulo Sarmento

52 1 Jason Wheeler
52 2 Rasmus Vogt
52 3 Michael Tureniec
52 4 Anthony Picault
52 5 Ivo Pester
52 6 Jimmy Östensson
52 7 Alfonso Amendola
52 8 Liv Boeree
52 9 Michael Landmann

53 1 Joao Nunes
53 2 Johan Van Til
53 3 Joris Fontaine
53 4 Mohamed Razab
53 5 Nicolas Gottner
53 6 Ion Pavel
53 7 Jan Collado
53 8 Nicolas Amaya Sanachez-Puga
53 9 Pierre Mothes

54 1 Simon Persson
54 2 Diogo Borges
54 3 Tobias Künzli
54 4 Per Linde 
54 5 Steven Van Zadelhoff
54 6 Alex Casals
54 7 Christian Togsverd 
54 8 Jamie Rosen
54 9 Nicolas Elias Bou Sader

55 1 Ilhan Sönmez
55 2 Saar Wilf
55 3 Ismail Yetis
55 4 Ramon Demon Cserei
55 5 Erik Van Den Berg
55 6 Andre Akkari
55 7 Aleh Plauski
55 8 Nuno Coelho
55 9 Nils Mallon

56 2 Farid Chatt
56 3 Calvin Anderson
56 4 Matthias De Meulder
56 5 Stephen David Leonard
56 6 Joao Ribeiro
56 8 Kevin MacPhee

57 2 Rupert Elder
57 3 Marvin Rettenmaier
57 4 Ville Wahlbeck
57 5 Jean Marie Vandeborne
57 6 Elio Fox
57 7 Senal Egziabher
57 9 Narendra Banwari

58 1 Nikolaus Teichert 
58 2 Kristian Lunardi
58 3 Yury Kerzhapkin 
58 5 Jason Tompkins
58 6 Christophe De Meulder
58 9 Julian Herold

Tags: elky | estrellas poker tour | eureka poker tour | european | harrah's | italian | micromillions | pca | world-series

Whether you celebrated today sipping mimosa with family over brunch, attended an Easter gathering, watched The Masters golf tournament, or planted plastic eggs around the yard for the kids to find and hid them so well you could not find the ones they missed afterwards, the second weekend of April brings an air of remembrance and fun. Last week Kevin “ImaLuckSac” MacPhee tried to match his grand EPT Berlin win with a victory in the $500,000 guarantee Sunday Warm-Up, but fell short in fourth place. Fellow final tablist from last week Supernova Elite wpr101 from Estonia was back again after chopping up last week for $75,478.97 looking for and getting back-to-back final tables as 3,297 plied themselves away from the festive Sunday with hopes of grinding for 11 hours and coming out the first prize of $103,526.70

A couple of Team PokerStars pros managed to shave a little off the $659,400.00 prize pool by finishing in the top 495 places. Vicky Coren would safely pass the bubble line and got a little return on her $215 buy-in finishing in 431st place ($316.51). But, it would be Russian Team Pro Alex Kravchenko that would last the longest, ending the night in 136th place ($758.31).

Down to 14 players at the ninth hourly break including wpr101 who was attempting a rare feat of back-to-back Sunday Majors final table. vmnielsen was back in the hunt for a second Sunday Warm-Up after making the final table of the Sunday Warm-Up that saw Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree claim victory but the sixth place finisher that night would by stopped in 20th place ($1,681.47) tonight.

Japan’s chata.iz and jordie1982 busted 12th and 13th place respectively in short order as the average three million chip average to the 50K/100K ante 10K blinds allowed the final 11 to dig in a bit despite the short-handed tables. The rail did their homework as well as many well wishers at wpr101′s table were rooting on the Estonian for back-to-back final tables in this tournament.

We would lose ashafiq in 11th place ($3,956.40) after the short stack’s [Ts][Ks] could not catch up to Xplogo’s [Ah][Qh] despite flopping a Royal Flush draw [Js] [As] [4d] [8h] [7h]. Only two hands later at the same table JoGa52 would shove 1.5 million chips over the top of BWFCLEE’s min raise. Holding [Jc][As] BWFCLEE made the call and dominated the suited [Ac][3c] of JoGa52. Exactly zero clubs would hit the [7h] [6s] [Jd] [5d] [Td] board and JoGa52 was gone on the bubble as wpr101′s run for a second straight Sunday Warm-Up final table was complete.

Seat 1: Kingoooo (2179297 in chips)
Seat 2: Xplogo (4664608 in chips)
Seat 3: Tomascibak (1586472 in chips)
Seat 4: jerry ping (2736696 in chips)
Seat 5: BWFCLEE (7050680 in chips)
Seat 6: wpr101 (1681754 in chips)
Seat 7: leopeluca (4863340 in chips)
Seat 8: eom2000 (3987214 in chips)
Seat 9: Palmero92 (4219939 in chips)

The players definitely took advantage of the blinds being low relative to the chip stacks as no player was knocked out for the first two rounds of blinds as they moved up to 80K/160K ante 16K with BWFCLEE and Xplogo fighting over the chip lead with just over six million chips apiece.

King meets the Queen

Just as the blinds moved up to 100K/200K ante 20K leopeluca would lead off with raise to 418,000 as Kingoooo shoved from middle position for 2.2 million holding jacks [Jh][Js]. Folded quickly back to leopeluca who snap called with queens [Qc][Qh]. Showing the king who is the real the boss of the final table leopeluca’s ladies would safely run the [4d] [As] [2h] [Th] [Td] board to show the royalty to the rail as Kingoooo finished in ninth place ($5,275.20).

wpr101 is not part of the chop for the second straight week

On the very next hand, wpr101 reeling a bit after doubling up Tomascibak on a coin flip tried to muscle Palmero92 away from his min-raise with a shove for 1.6 million from the big blind. Palmero92 was not letting go of the [Jh][Ah] and made the call. Pocket fives for the Supernova Elite [5h][5c] cleared the board as Palmero92 missed completely, but unfortunately the board did double pair giving Palmero92 the unlikely higher two pair [Qc] [7c] [7s] [Ks] [Kd] and the 3.5 million chip pot. wpr101 would have to settle tonight for the honor of making two straight Sunday Major final tables and eighth place cash ($8,242.50).

On to the break with seven… no six players

Huge 9.1 million chip three-way all-in would break out just before the hourly five minute rest period. Watch below as Tomascibak, Xplogo, and jerry ping all toss in their chips with Xplogo covering the table:

Seat 2: Xplogo [Qd][Qh]
Seat 3: Tomascibak [Ad] [Kh]
Seat 4: jerry ping [9c] [9s]

All sitting next to each other and 9.1 million in the middle as Xpolgo led the way preflop for a shot at a huge chip lead. But, the nine on the flop had other ideas [7s] [9d] [Jc] [5s] [Ts] as jerry ping would triple up while taking 6.2 million from the main pot and Xpolgo settled for the consolation prize of 2.9 million from the side pot. Tomascibak was the odd player out as big slick would only earn seventh place cash ($14,836.50).

Pressure applied, pressure received

In a extremely quick turn of events, after no eliminations for the first 20 minutes of the final table, we would have three in a matter of five minutes of play. With the blinds still at 100K/200K ante 20K and just three hands after Tomascibak got squeezed out between two pocket pairs, eom2000 would find an opening in the small blind and decided to shove 2.9 million holding [Ks][8s]. Palmero92 sitting on just under six million chips and pocket eights [8d][8c] would make the call. A king would fail to appear once again [3h] [Th] [6d] [5s] [Jh] as eom2000 would quickly exit in sixth place ($21,340.50).

Nano-chop

Team Online’s Randy “nanonoko” Lew may have had to shut down two or three tables out of the 24 he is used to playing to help our final five reach the agreement below (leaving $10,000.00 for the winner):

BWFCLEE: $66,600.14
Palmero92: $62,989.56
jerry ping: $56,110.31
leopeluca: $53,958.65
Xplogo: $51,358.34

NO NOT A NINE! Oh wait…

If you have played poker long enough there has been a time where the scare card hits the river and for whatever reason the dealer still pushes you the pot. Shortly after the five-way deal, Xplogo would shove 3.9 million from the button with the blinds at 125K/250K ante 25K as jerry ping in the small blind holding [Ah][Jh] would make the call. Dominated holding [9c][Ac] Xpolgo would be rooting for a nine and got there on the river [2h] [6s] [Ad] [8h] [9h]. Only to see the dealer briskly pushing the pot to the owner of the nut flush as the nine made jerry ping’s heart flush and Xpolgo had to go in fifth place ($51,358.34).

Leo the lion roars

Four-handed play had the blinds moving up to 150K/300K ante 30K as leopeluca led from the cutoff for 627,000. Folded to BWFCLEE in the big blind holding a decent ace [Ts][Ad] and shoving that ace for four million chips. Back to leopeluca who held a better ace [Ac][Qc] to make the call. Just like Xpolgo’s nine on the river, this time the long shot hit on the flop [Tc] [5c] [8d]. But, it would not stand just like that nine as a club peeled off on the turn [8c] and since the dealer did not put out a ten on the river [5h] leopeluca collected the remainder of BWFCLEE’s chips in fourth place ($66,600.14).

Leo the lion meows

Two hands later leopeluca would hand all of those gained chips to Palmero92 as the Argentinean got a little aggressive after Palmero92 re-raised his opener in the small blind after leopeluca raised from the button. Holding [Qc][Kc] leopeluca would shove 13.9 million into the middle as Palmero92 holding 10.6 million snap-called with pocket aces [Ac][Ah]. Clubs nor royalty would find the [Jh] [4s] [3s] [3d] [6h] board and leopeluca would get knocked down to two million chips. Despite making two more laps around the felt, leopeluca would finally succumb to Palmero92 as Palmero92′s [Kh][Th] trumped his [Qd][9d] taking away $53,958.65 in third place.

Tied for fastest Sunday Warm-Up heads-up match ever

No need to consult fellow PokerStarsBlog blogger and human poker encyclopedia Kevin Mathers on this one as the single hand heads-up play has happened before and it would again tonight. Watch the final hand in video below:

What started out as an innocent min-raise and call would end the night as the runner-up for jerry ping. [9d][Kd][6c] flop got jerry ping to check as Palmero92 made a modest 608,858 chip bet and jerry ping called. [7s] on the turn and again a check by jerry ping as Palmero92 put up 1.26 million and again jerry ping called. [6h] and jerry ping again checked and again Palmero92 bet. This time Palmero92 put in enough to force jerry ping all-in. Holding top pair [8h][Kc] and a missed straight draw, jerry ping made the call only to see Palmero92 slow-played the two other kings in the deck [Kh][Ks] to maximum value while claiming the Easter edition of the $500,000 guarantee Sunday Warm-Up!

$500,000 guarantee Sunday Warm-Up results (04-08-12):
(* denotes part of five-way deal)
1. Palmero92 (Germany) *$72,989.56
2. jerry ping (Netherlands) *$56,110.31
3. leopeluca (Argentina) *$53,958.65
4. BWFCLEE (United Kingdom) *$66,600.14
5. Xplogo (Australia) *$51,358.34
6. eom2000 (Finland) $21,430.50
7. Tomascibak (Czech Republic) $14,836.50
8. wpr101 (Estonia) $8,242.50
9. Kingoooo (Denmark) $5,275.20

Tags: alex kravchenko | france | italian | italian poker tour | kids | liv boeree | rio | wbcoop | wcoop

If Day 1 introduces the players, Day 2 introduces the likely winners. As the dust settled on another six levels (there really was dust, stoked up by the television people rigging up the set for later this week), a handful of players had separated from the pack to look independently for spoils. They will be the markers for the 99 players returning tomorrow, brightest of the lot being chip leader Balazs Botond, with 646,000.

The Hungarian was giving players at his table the jitters tonight as play reached a conclusion, and Ronny Kaiser was doing the same a table away.

Chip leader: Balazs Botund

It’s difficult to play against a big stack, against an enormous stack it can be impossible. For a period tonight Botond steamrollered his table, a look of indifference on his face and a veil of no-speak-English to hide behind.

While his table grew more and more frustrated Kaiser’s table was under the same pressure, albeit with less antagonism. Ronny ruled though, their table Kaiser, bagging up 505,900 tonight, good for second place.

Ronny Kaiser

“It was just a rollercoaster day,” said Kaiser. “I started with 90,000, went down to 30,000, up to 120,000, back down to 30,000 then won jacks against kings to get to 80,000. I then made some nice hands to get to 240,000, no big showdown. Then I had a three-way all-in with aces against ace-king and pocket eights for a 600,000 pot. That was it.”

And that was that.

Others returning include David Vamplew (solid), Liv Boeree (swingy), Andre Benelli (Italian), Dag Palovic (hooded) and Nick Yunis (hatted), as well as other former champions Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Nicolas Chouity, Martin Finger, Roberto Romanello and Rupert Elder. Day 2 will puncture the money bubble and create more drama from somewhere, it can only be a good thing that this list of players are still in the mix.

Liv Boeree and David Vamplew in action

Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier

Not in the mix are Patrik Antonius, Chris Moorman, Heath Herring, Victor Ramdin, Melanie Weisner, Alex Kravchenko, Luca Pagano, Fatima Moreira de Melo, Kevin MacPhee, Eugene Katchalov and Ondrej Vinklarek, all of whom busted today.

Eugene Katchalov

The stories of their day are plentiful, and can be found on our live coverage page, along with chip counts. Colour features, including those about Antonius and Boeree, can be found among the feature posts listed below.

Things hotting up and other Day 2 cliches
Day 2 seat draw, now it’s getting Italian
Hard working, tee-totalling, PoY chasing Romanello
Chip leader Chouity chasing recognition
Swingy Boeree chipping up in shadow of Vamplew
What’s that got to do with the price of tea?
Fighting the postprandial dip
What’s not to like as Antonius returns to the tour

Day 3 continues tomorrow with the traditional celebrations associated with the money bubble which will burst, we expect, within a level of the 2pm start.

Lake Lugano

For now it’s ship ahoy, as the EPT Party sets sail aboard a Lake Lugano pleasure cruiser. Provided we stowaways aren’t hurled overboard with the empties, we’ll bring you the details tomorrow.

For now, full steam ahead and goodnight from Campione.

All photography &copy Neil Stoddart

Tags: 2011 | australia | Baltic Poker Festival | campione | festival | harrah's | italian poker tour | videos | wbcoop | world-series

At the end of Day 1A we were struck by the calmness of proceedings. There was a quiet that we simply hadn’t attached to European Poker Tour events in Italy. Where was the arm waving and the Latin histrionics? Where were the over-enthusiastic members of the Italian press shoving their cameras directly into the face of a player in the tank? We were forced to readjust last night but thankfully for our fragile psyches normal service resumed last night as Italian rail birds swarmed the tournament floor. We expect more of the same today. Look below to see which players will be involved in the Day 2 carnage.

Whispers of seven 75-minute levels have been circulating the press room but we’re hoping that just six will be played given that the EPT party takes place tonight and we should be there, for journalistic reasons of course.

(Table, Seat, Name, Chips)
1 1 Balazs Botond 107,000
1 2 Craig McCorkell 5,400
1 3 Maurizio Musso 79,700
1 4 Ashkan Fayaz 24,900
1 5 Gaspare Triolo 23,500
1 6 Fabrizio Stramacci 41,800
1 7 Mihailis Morozovs 77,000
1 8 Piero Schiavulli 89,400
1 9 Wang Chaofei 58,600

2 1 Martin Finger 47,900
2 2 Simon Hanninger 56,600
2 3 Dag Palovic 7,600
2 4 Alessandro De Michele 29,200
2 5 Andreas Fluri 51,500
2 6 Dobromir Nikov 13,000
2 7 Attilio Donato 19,500
2 8 David Lombardi 34,200
2 9 Daniele Mazzia 36,200

3 1 Konstantin Puchkov 40,700
3 2 Luigi Agostini 108,800
3 3 Juri Pietroboni 28,600
3 4 Daniel Studer 51,000
3 5 Vito Lonigro 62,200
3 6 Carmelo Carlo Graziano 49,400
3 7 Aubin Cazals 90,700
3 8 Thomas Brauner 26,900
3 9 Alexander Dovzhenko 23,000

4 1 Berthold Winz 44,400
4 2 Alessandro Fasolis 13,400
4 3 Mario Gobbi 53,800
4 4 Cemil Doganyilmaz 13,100
4 5 Nicolas Chouity 165,800
4 6 Mauro Mantovani 38,000
4 7 Sinel Anton 90,300
4 8 Rupert Elder 39,900
4 9 Paola Cibelli 46,000

5 1 Alessandro Speranza 104,800
5 2 Luigi Rizzi 51,800
5 3 Mihai Manole 110,300
5 4 Franco Guastamacchia 51,400
5 5 Benjamin Spindler 7,900
5 6 Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier 90,200
5 7 Patrik Antonius 34,700
5 8 Mario Picheler 33,600
5 9 Giovanni Lissi 55,300

6 1 Maurizio Coppola 32,400
6 2 Massimo Giampieri 84,600
6 3 Jose Manuel Nadal Sordo 54,900
6 4 Goffredo Quattrocchi 67,100
6 5 Jannick Wrang 121,400
6 6 Mazium Acar 85,000
6 7 Aniello Delli Santi 19,800
6 8 Sorokin Stanislav Alekseevich 34,800
6 9 Jeffrey Rossiter 65,500

7 1 Jean Malherbe 37,600
7 2 Rytis Grunovas 27,000
7 3 Fabrizio Baldassari 58,500
7 4 Michele Tocci 57,500
7 5 Robin Vlitalo 109,700
7 6 Antonin Tesseire 55,100
7 7 Liv Boeree 43,600
7 8 David Vamplew 100,100
7 9 Marion Nedellec 51,200

8 1 Matthias De Meulder 73,200
8 2 Simon Persson 42,500
8 3 Alexander Nudin 76,800
8 4 Roberto Lolli 34,100
8 5 Yuri Kerzhapkin 66,400
8 6 Ivan Tikhov 72,100
8 7 Cristian Petrullo 26,300
8 8 Teresio Ciancanelli 26,200
8 9 Thomas Wolfer 32,600

9 1 Alessandro Montagna 76,800
9 2 Alessandro Sarro 33,100
9 3 Istavan Toth Bela 62,000
9 4 Heinz Kamutzki 30,100
9 5 Arnaud Mattern 21,000
9 6 Claudio Pollin 22,500
9 7 Alex Casals 66,600
9 8 Muhamet Perati 98,200
9 9 Bryn Kenney 19,600

10 1 Marco Pistilli 36,100
10 2 Patrick Renkers 87,300
10 3 Gabriele Lepore 32,200
10 4 Claudio Leonardo Pagano 130,700
10 5 Fatima Moreira de Melo 14,900
10 6 Filippo Voconi 28,400
10 7 Fernando Cimaglia 49,500
10 8 Vladimir Geshkenbein 44,700
10 9 Giorgio Bernasconi 15,500

11 1 Steven Van Zadelhoff 32,000
11 2 Sergio Castelluccio 69,800
11 3 Carlo Savinelli 61,600
11 4 Igor Panak 30,400
11 5 Jean Philippe Peyratoux 119,800
11 6 Olivier Busquet 44,300
11 7 Victor Ramdin 50,800
11 8 Erion Islamay 29,000
11 9 Christian Jeppsson 67,100

12 1 Matteo Colantoni 53,600
12 2 Marco Della Monica 71,900
12 3 Ivo Donev 100,100
12 4 Benas Molis 74,700
12 5 Gianni Mocchi 24,300
12 6 Maksim Semisoshenko 17,400
12 7 Pasquale Vinci 28,800
12 8 Alessio Isaia 74,200
12 9 Claudio Rinaldi 42,300

13 1 Cristiano Viali 23,000
13 2 Marco Leonzio 32,700
13 3 Carlos Lauro Mora Alvarez 30,100
13 4 Alex Kravchenko 23,600
13 5 Fabrice Soulier 115,700
13 6 Cristian Tardea 29,100
13 7 Denis Nailievich Shayhiev 63,400
13 8 Jean-Philippe Rohr 53,300
13 9 Giovanni Cantonati 38,300

14 1 Salvatore Pengue 14,300
14 2 Primoz Adamie 138,400
14 3 Ettore Ricci 28,600
14 4 Artem Metalidi 18,100
14 5 Kenny Hallaert 24,000
14 6 Pierre Milan 53,400
14 7 Valerio Parodo 35,900
14 8 Guido Presti 32,800
14 9 Andrea Benelli 163,400

15 1 Eddie Playter 64,000
15 2 Daniele Guidetti 61,100
15 3 Felix Bleiker 98,200
15 4 Marco Ruggeri 43,400
15 5 David Peters 56,500
15 6 Andrey Gulyy 138,000
15 7 Ramin Hajiyev 40,000
15 8 Antonio Buonanno 97,700
15 9 Massimiliano Bellon Bellucci 101,100

16 1 Vito Labarile 26,200
16 2 Alexander Debus 61,700
16 3 Calvin Anderson 126,500
16 4 Giovanni Salvatore 15,100
16 5 Francesco Nguyen 55,000
16 6 Max Martinez 31,800
16 7 Carla Solinas 52,900
16 8 Tillmann Raschke 29,500
16 9 Umberto Vitagliano 50,400

17 1 Simeon Kuberov Naydenov 89,000
17 2 Stefano Baroni 82,500
17 3 Ilario Patera 20,900
17 4 Alexander Andermatt 82,900
17 5 Dimitar Danchev 29,100
17 6 Andras Kovacs 131,900
17 7 Salvatore Donato 55,300
17 8 Ronald Lauzon 30,400
17 9 Luca Cavecchi 28,400

18 1 Antonio Valenti 39,200
18 2 Michele Ugolini 43,100
18 3 Marco Falanga 66,300
18 4 Oleksii Kovalchuk 53,800
18 5 Daniel Feldmann 40,900
18 6 Alexandrea Goulder 101,000
18 7 Friedrich Raz 66,900
18 8 Domenico Cordi 46,400
18 9 Giuseppe Biancoviso 92,300

19 1 Michael Gathy 51,300
19 2 Grigorij Orlov 154,200
19 3 Thomas Butzhammer 22,800
19 4 Sean Ruane 18,300
19 5 Massimiliano Forti 61,000
19 6 Denis Nojkin 49,700
19 7 Michael Ruane 31,100
19 8 Yves Boschetti 71,100
19 9 Fabrice Gouget 61,900

20 1 Alexander Khizhnyak 75,000
20 2 Luca Antinori 46,700
20 3 Cristiano Guerra 44,300
20 4 Gilbert Diaz 28,000
20 5 Stefano Demontis 154,700
20 6 Vadim Markushevski 66,700
20 7 Ermo Kosk 13,100
20 8 Patrick Sacrispeyre 15,600
20 9 Giuliano Bendinelli 41,900

21 1 Robert Haigh 16,000
21 2 Moritz Bleiker 33,700
21 3 Luca Fiorini 45,300
21 4 Tayfeh Shokor Mohsen Jalal 57,800
21 5 Jonas Garstick 77,000
21 6 Marco Fabbrini 59,200
21 7 Daniel Erlandsson 49,000
21 8 Walter Blattler 22,200
21 9 Patrick Stephen 13,700

22 1 Kevin MacPhee 24,400
22 2 Anestis Pantazidis 75,700
22 3 Andrey Baturin 27,100
22 4 Melanie Weisner 36,300
22 5 Jean-Charles Depoterre 61,900
22 6 Raffaele Avallone 25,800
22 7 Matt Kay 101,200
22 8 Dario Nittolo 107,600
22 9 Tobias Reinkemeier 62,500

23 1 Laurent Brach 10,300
23 2 Viliyan Petleshkov 53,000
23 3 Pier Paolo Fabretti 39,100
23 4 Antonino Venneri 43,600
23 5 Mario Giordano 16,900
23 6 Dmitry Vitkind 35,400
23 7 Davide Andreoni 175,100
23 8 Laurent Miola 36,500
23 9 Bernd Gleissner 31,400

24 1 Matteo Sbrana 15,700
24 2 Gianpaolo Eramo 14,700
24 3 Marco Von Dombrowski 26,500
24 4 Bryan Piccioli 112,900
24 5 Giovanni Manini 76,500
24 6 Anton Ionel 15,000
24 7 Massimo Rossi 88,000
24 8 Jacques Torbey 98,900
24 9 Ralph Kalman 58,800

25 1 Gabriele Travaglini 53,400
25 2 Jose Severino 121,200
25 3 Alessandro Minasi 101,900
25 4 Igor Malyshkov 24,300
25 5 Marius Pospiech 24,100
25 6 Remo Altorfer 42,500
25 7 Ignat Liviu 71,000
25 8 Ole Schemion 51,900
25 9 Iacopo Brandi 93,300

26 1 Giovanni Ravellini 23,900
26 2 Todd Terry 51,200
26 3 Chris Moorman 64,400
26 4 Panagiotis Gavriulidis 125,700
26 5 Roberto Sella 34,100
26 6 Atanas Gueorguiev 81,900
26 7 Michael Schurpf 68,600
26 8 Maurizio Saieva 70,500
26 9 Nicola Chiarinelli 25,000

27 1 Andrew Dean 55,500
27 2 German Simon Dansker 48,500
27 3 Giorgia Tabet 34,100
27 4 Riccardo D Errico 69,000
27 5 Massimo Di Cicco 52,200
27 6 Liviu Toderita 16,500
27 7 Stefano Puccilli 76,200
27 8 Emanuele Di Domenico 26,800
27 9 Konstantinos Nanos 63,400

28 1 Gert Zumkehr 27,200
28 2 Luca Amoruso 54,500
28 3 Salvatore Pugliese 23,100
28 4 Fabio Bianchi 16,400
28 5 Christian Togsverd 36,400
28 6 Jesper Hansen 43,800
28 7 Fabrizio Leonardi 103,900
28 8 Mikica Mitrovic 42,000
28 9 Piero Federici 28,500

29 1 Marco Bognanni 45,400
29 2 Andreas Griesser 65,600
29 3 Andras Tokaji 14,100
29 4 Agris Klaise 14,400
29 5 Fabrizio Gonzalez 6,600
29 6 Michael Polchlopek 36,000
29 7 Heath Herring 48,800
29 8 Nick Yunis 169,200
29 9 Tim Finne 28,500

30 1 Mikael Rotman 42,100
30 2 Julian Lange 45,300
30 4 Stefan Czischke 11,500
30 5 Joel Dodds 43,200
30 6 Jan Horni 61,800
30 7 Joris Springael 14,000
30 8 Dogan Gungor 67,700
30 9 Armin Zoike 84,000

31 1 Jiachen Gong 58,200
31 2 Kenny Hicks 26,400
31 3 Giuseppe Zarbo 39,300
31 4 Raoul Refos 53,200
31 5 Ivan Skobolov 114,700
31 7 Emiliano Conti 56,100
31 8 Irene Baroni 97,800
31 9 Raffaele Castro 36,000

32 1 Toby Lewis 26,800
32 2 Sebastian Veghinas 37,600
32 3 Roland Bachmann 39,600
32 4 Roberto Romanello 50,800
32 5 Andrey Demidov 125,500
32 6 Nicola Bordignon 30,300
32 8 Marco Zulli 28,100
32 9 Mario Nagel 107,400

33 1 Nicola Grieco 92,900
33 2 Leonardo Berti 35,100
33 3 Rasmus Nielsen 41,000
33 4 Domenico Iannone 55,500
33 5 Laurence Houghton 18,500
33 6 Per Linde 67,200
33 7 Vladimir Kochelaevskiy 19,600
33 8 Georgios Karakousis 95,900

34 1 Vadzim Kursevich 16,300
34 2 Faraz Jaka 54,300
34 3 Enrico Mosca 24,000
34 4 Kilian Kramer 25,900
34 5 Giuseppe Alessandro Pastura 60,500
34 6 Marco Della Tommasina 20,200
34 7 Istvan Kovacs 14,200
34 9 Ondrej Vinklarek 37,300

35 1 Arnold Schuler 8,600
35 2 Gianmarco Di Tota 9,400
35 3 Romano Favetta 10,200
35 4 Siyu Sha 53,500
35 5 Luca Pagano 16,200
35 7 Kevin Vandersmissen 14,800
35 8 Massimo Mosele 61,200
35 9 Andreas Vlaghos 24,200

36 2 Aurelin Chemli 23,400
36 3 Koen De Visscher 18,400
36 4 Luigi Abiusi 48,300
36 5 Ronny Kaiser 69,600
36 6 Davor Lanini 35,000
36 7 Adrian Veghinas 58,600
36 8 Vittorio Santaniello 26,300
36 9 Eugene Katchalov 59,800

37 1 Stefano Servalli 44,700
37 2 Nikolai Senniger 92,800
37 3 Danilo Donnini 109,200
37 5 Ignazio Calandrino 20,000
37 6 Manlio Iemina 53,800
37 7 Candido Goncalves 78,100
37 8 Marc Inizan 70,400
37 9 Michael Bonzon 32,300

Team PokerStars Pro Eugene Katchalov is in the hunt for his triple crown

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Madrid was one of the EPT stops I had already frequented, as The EPT Grand Final in Season 7 had been held there last May. When we explored the city, I wanted to do something a little different to what we had seen before, so I did my usual research into the capital city and decided we would explore Madrid from a completely different perspective. Of course, if you haven’t been to Madrid, then don’t let me entice you away from hitting the usual tourist spots. Plaza de Mayor is always lively and a great place to sit, eat some calamares and other tapas, drink some sangria and watch the world go by, just like the Spaniards do. However, beware not to go and have your lunch at a normal time like us British or other Europeans who would have a lunch, at say 1pm or 2pm, but switch yourself onto a later time zone and grab your tapas at around 4.30pm. This means when you’re getting ready to go out in the evenings too, you must not go out and start drinking in bars until around 11pm and even hit the club until about 1 or 2am! Yep, the Spaniards are a very relaxed bunch and it is imperative to get into the general swing of things! So, getting back to our different perspective. I decided to take our viewers on the teleferico. Check out our video of the city!

Seeing as we didn’t visit the home of Real Madrid on the last stop either, I thought it was a must this time to see The Santiago Bernabeu stadium and it really didn’t disappoint. In fact we loved it so much that we went on the stadium tour and then a few days later we went to watch a Champions League game where home side, Real Madrid thrashed CSKA Moscow 4-1 to make it into the quarterfinals. The football took place on Day 2 of the poker and because so many players wanted to go and watch the game, the EPT event staff shortened the day so we only played 5 75minute levels. It was an absolutely exhilarating experience, I cannot begin to explain the amount of fun we had watching the game and enjoying the evening afterwards, but I hope the picture helps!

And for those of you who want to see the stadium tour, which includes the trophy room, changing rooms and press room, then you should take a look at the video we made!

After a shorter day 2, it was inevitable that day 3 was going to be a long one. Especially after our jovial party spirits after Real Madrid won the football game as well. The total field of players had been 477 and day 3 saw us play down from 122 to just 3 tables of 8 players, ie 24 players. We had been inundated with Team PokerStars Pros on Day 1b, including the likes of Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier, Eugene Katchalov, Theo Jorgensen and many former EPT Champions such as Jake Cody, Mike McDonald and Kevin MacPhee. Yet as the days progressed the Team Pros seemed to diminish and it was left to Alex Kravchenko to fly the flag as he became the last Team Pro standing. It wasn’t to be flown for too long though unfortunately, as the Russian bust out 35th, taking home €11,000 for his 3 day’s work (72 places were paid and it was McLean Karr who bubbled the event.)

The play on Day 4 was fast and furious which saw no end of betting and bluffing. A few were sad to see Mike McDonald bubble the final table and the hopes of a double EPT crown were dashed, nonetheless our final 8 contenders seemed like a good mixed bunch with a good standard of play under most of their belts. Here is the video to check out the final table players.

The final table was indeed good fun to watch, most of it done via the EPT Live stream into our pressroom, with players from Spain, France, Israel, Denmark and Scotland – a very diverse and dynamic mix. The chiplead changed hands a fair amount of times until Frederik Jensen, the Dane eventually took the lead for the first time and never gave it back. We braced ourselves for a long evening of poker as we didn’t go heads-up until around 22.30. After last EPTs 6 hour marathon heads-up session between online team member Mickey Petersen and Team Pro Pierre Neuville, anything was possible. However we were greatly surprised by Jensen who got heads-up with Scottish dad of four, Fraser McIntyre for exactly 15 minutes and ended the whole event before midnight. A Dane wins EPT Copenhagen, a Dane now wins EPT Madrid. There was no mistake about it, the Danish standard of poker was a high one! Here’s the winner interview.

So from the land of flamenco and castanets, sangria and bullfighting, back to London town, a place called home for just 5 days and then its time for more pizza and pasta at EPT Campione next week. I can’t wait!

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