I have never been a big fan of leading off articles or speeches or other forms of public address with a dictionary definition. After all, what better way to put an audience to sleep than to read the dictionary to them, right? Yet for tonight’s recap of the “medium” $215 buy-in razz tournament, I found myself wanting to double-check that dictionary definition of what exactly “razz” meant.

razz (v.) — to deride; make fun of; tease

Appropriate, yes? The game so many like to deride, to make fun of. And in return, the game that can tease players back most viciously, smacking those beautiful A-2-3 starters with face cards and pairs as though the game itself was sticking out it’s tongue to deliver a… well… raspberry.

Aware of such risks or not, a total of 462 players decided they liked razz well enough to join Event #28-M, thus building a prize pool of $92,400 and beating the event’s $50K guarantee. The top 64 finishers got paid, with $17,556 due the player able to tease everyone else’s chips into his or her stack.

It would take about seven hours for the money bubble to burst, and with 64 left it was itsmeweer out in front as the only player to have more than 100,000 chips.

Of that remaining group Martin Staszko of the Czech Republic was the only Team PokerStars Pro left with chips, but not too many of them. Soon he’d be all in by fifth street in a hand versus GripDsNutz, and ultimately drew a [9][7][4][3][2] to fall to GripDsNutz’ [8][7][6][4][2] and end in 57th place for a $328.02 cash.

After a couple more hours the field had shrunk down to the last two eight-handed tables. It probably goes without saying that Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb was there among the final 16, although he was on the short stack and soon found himself free to terrorize other SCOOP events after being eliminated in 16th ($1,062.60).

James “Andy McLEOD” Obst soon followed Deeb in 15th, then asia11 (14th) and coinflipx (13th) hit the rail as well, all likewise earning $1,062.60 apiece. They were followed by Papartis88 (12th), Internett93o (11th), PacManOnAcid (10th), and Niklasdensej (9th), each of whom took away $1,386 for their efforts.

The final table was set.

Seat 1: brsariego (Spain) — 29.520
Seat 2: bestofiraq (United Kingdom) — 201.969
Seat 3: 1diego_35 (United Kingdom) — 437,809
Seat 4: üä-qaypö.wsx (Germany) — 198,264
Seat 5: redeste (Russia) — 339,758
Seat 6: RblBA (Russia) — 466.047
Seat 7: Jamie_KK (United Kingdom) — 295.584
Seat 8: itsmeweer (Netherlands) — 341.049

The best finish any of the eight final tablists had in prior SCOOP events this year was Jamie_KK’s seventh-place in Event #24-H ($1,050 PLO, 1R1A, Turbo), meaning all were seeking that first SCOOP win and watch.

With the stakes 10,000/20,000, it didn’t take long before the table’s short stack, brsariego, would be at risk of elimination. All in by fourth street against itsmeweer, brsariego would ultimately draw [2][A] / [5][8][K][T] / [4] to make an 8-5-4-2-A, but itsmeweer ended with [4][T] / [6][7][3][2] / [K] for a better 7-6-4-3-2 to knock brsariego out in eighth.

A while later the stakes were up to 16,000/32,000 while 1diego_35′s stack was down to just over 120,000. Then came a hand in which itsmeweer completed with an [A], 1diego_35 raised with a [2], and itsmeweer called. 1diego_35 raised itsmeweer’s leading bet on fourth, then led on fifth and sixth to go all in, getting calls all the way.

Their down cards turned over, 1diego_35 showed [4][A] / [2][7][Q][2] to itsmeweer’s [K][2] / [A][3][Q][6]. Seventh brought 1diego_35 a pairing ace to make a Q-low, while itsmeweer picked up a [7] to make 7-6-3-2-A and send 1diego_35 out in seventh.

RblBA would be the next player eliminated after sliding to fifth of six (just ahead of bestofiraq), then getting involved in a hand versus itsmeweer in which back-and-forthing between the pair resulted in RblBA all in on fifth with [8][3] / [2][5][2] against itsmeweer’s [2][3][4][6][7]. A nice 7-low already for itsmeweer, and when sixth and seventh brought an [8] and [5] to RblBA, that meant RblBA had drawn pairing cards on the last three streets to go out in sixth.

A little while after that, bestofiraq had the worst of the stacks, and would be all in by third against üä-qaypö.wsx. bestofiraq would ultimately draw [8][9] / [4][8][9][T] / [K], that K-low no good versus üä-qaypö.wsx’s [2][8] / [A][J][2][6] / [Q] — a J-low — sending bestofiraq railward in fifth.

The final four marched on, with itsmeweer leading with just over 937,000, redeste next with about 642,000, Jamie_KK third with about 473,000, and üä-qaypö.wsx last with a little more than 257,000. The stakes were 30,000/60,000 when üä-qaypö.wsx called a Jaime_KK raise on third, called again on fourth, led on fifth and sixth, then check-called all in on the end. The hands…

üä-qaypö.wsx: [2][6] / [7][A][9][Q] / [6] — 9-7-6-2-A
Jamie_KK: [7][A] / [4][3][Q][K] / [5] — 7-5-4-3-A

They were down to three.

itsmeweer would soon tumble from leader to short stack, then a hand arose in which all three players put in a series of bets on third and fourth street to put itsmeweer all in. A bet from Jamie_KK on fifth then got a fold from redeste, and the down cards were revealed:

itsmeweer: [6][2] / [4][4][T]
Jamie_KK: [3][8] / [4][A][J]

itsmeweer would ultimately pick up a couple of face cards — [K][J] — to end with a J-T-6-4-2. Meanwhile, Jamie_KK drew [3][8] to make J-8-4-3-A, good enough to oust itsmeweer in third.

Heads-up began with Jamie_KK well in front with 1,656,907 against redeste’s 653,093. The pair battled for 75 hands total, with Jamie_KK gradually chipping redeste down to less than 70,000 — not even one big bet. Then the final hand saw redeste all in on third street, eventually drawing [A][6] / [A][4][9][K] / [6] — a K-low — while Jamie_KK picked up [5][6] / [J][4][2][5] / [3] to make a nifty 6-5-4-3-2 and snag the win.

Congratulations to Jamie_KK for making a second SCOOP final table and this time finishing with the win! Nothing to deride, make fun of, or tease about that razz performance!

2012 SCOOP Event 25-Medium, $109 Fixed Limit 2-7 Triple Draw:
1st: Jamie_KK (United Kingdom) — $17,556
2nd: redeste (Russia) — $12,936
3rd: itsmeweer (Netherlands) — $9,480.24
4th: üä-qaypö.wsx (Germany) — $6,930
5th: bestofiraq (United Kingdom) — $4,620
6th: RblBA (Russia) — $3,234
7th: 1diego_35 (United Kingdom) — $2,310
8th: brsariego (Spain) — $1,848

Entrants: 462
Places paid: 64

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

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Sixteen players returned to each level of SCOOP-12 today, a bulging ROI already locked up but with the chance of a whole lot more cash just a couple of heads-up victories away. For some the $831.56 would be the largest tournament score they’d had online, for others it was business as usual with a number of the last sixteen holding PokerStars online tournament winnings of $50,000 moving through into six figures, including Cr@cker717, dan3l666 and mandrake67BR.

Among those final tables one player stood out: Kurt23x. Not only because he’s raked in over $1,000,000 in PokerStars tournaments but because his quarter-final technique appeared to involve sitting out. Was he playing mind games,a suck up the punishment and then unleash in a frenzy like Muhammed Ali? No. Kurt23x, aka Kurt Fitzgerald, is currently resident in Costa Rica and must have fallen foul of a Latin American internet outage at just the wrong time. He could barely get a raise in before disconnecting and because this plays pot-limit you’ve can’t simply shove your chips across to protect yourself. Terrible timing. It was not to be his day.

Not only was it frustrating for Fitzgeralnd, whose connection occasionally flashed up as 18% long enough that he could put in a raise or bet before blinding out for the next ten minutes, but it gave idkPsPro a bye through to the semi-final where he faced tammaister. The Hungarian finally putting tammaister to the sword with [8s] [7h][6h] [2d] against the Greek’s [kc][kd][jh][2s] on a [6c][5c][2h] flop. A [7d] hit the turn and a blank [3h] the river to send idkPsPro through to the final.

Kmoh20 was there to be face him having faced stiffer resistance to get to the final, not only having to beat opponents who were actually able to click buttons back at him but also coming up against Ahhh Is It?, who proved early on that he was willing to make tough calls if he thought he was ahead; he called a river bet with a pair of eights.

Unfortunately for the Brit things didn’t end up going in his favour when it mattered most after getting it in with [qs][js][jd][2d] on a [2h][8d][6c] flop against a loose [5d][4h][4c][2c]. A [6d] hit the turn and a [7c] binked the river for the straight. That was for three-quarters of the chips in play and sent Ahhh Is It? to the rail for $2,777.12, finally quieting his vocal rail.

The final as it took place was a relatively quick affair, just half an hour of back-and-forth, more than twice as quick as it had taken idkPsPro to raise-and-take the blinds of the disconnected Kurt23x. Having quickly agreed to a chop – bar the necessary $1,000 set aside for the winner – it took a little while for the action to get going. Small pots played but no real damage was done. In the second blind level, 15-30, kmoh20 trapped with a flopped jack-high flush to take a small lead which was lengthened the next hand when he gunned into a [7s][jd][7c] flop having three-bet pre-flop (see below).

idkPsPro managed to stay in, just about, but failed to get any real traction only raking in one pot of real significance with a backdoor top two-pair with [ad][kc][ts][8d] on a [3c][3s][6h][ks][as] board. That pulled the Hungarian back to 4,000 versus 6,000 but that was his last glimpse of a comeback sending the extra $1,000, the SCOOP watch and the title to kmoh20.

The quarter finals and beyond
Winner
kmoh20, $7,639.80

Runner-up
idkPsPro, $6,639.80

Semi-finalists
Ahhh Is It?, $2,777.12
tammaister, $ 2,777.12

Quarter-finalists
Kurt23x, $1,545.51
Bigtoer11, $1,545.51
superslide, $1,545.51
relayerr, $1,545.51

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When Day 2 of 2012 SCOOP Event 12-Medium, $215 Pot-Limit Omaha (Heads-Up) began, I knew it promised to be an entertaining series of matches. Day 1 had ended after 7 rounds of heads-up PLO action with just eight players remaining, four of them very well-known quantities, and one of them a walking carnival in his own right. At the end of the day it was the carnival against the player seeking redemption for 2011 SCOOP, and redemption held the day.

But that’s putting the turn before the flop, so to speak. Day 1 came first, with 939 players registering and creating a prize pool of almost $188,000. In order to get a piece of that money, an individual player would have to win his or her first three matches of the day. Among the players that did so were PokerStars Team Online players George “jorj95″ Lind (eliminated in Round 4, $488.28) and Anders “Donald” Berg (Round 5, $860.12) and Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier (Round 6, $1,417.89).

Nobody wearing the Red Spade made it to Day 2 – but that didn’t mean the quarterfinalists were stocked with talent. These are the eight players who returned at 11am today:

The players

Carter “devinr12″ Gill – an elite online tournament grinder, Carter’s PokerStars tournament profits are roughly $850,000 over the last five years. He recently turned up at APPT Cebu, where he finished in 13th place.

hartwith – a former Sunday Million runner-up.

JOKERrrr28 – one of two quarterfinalists without much in the way of previous major tournament success.

Thomas “Kallllle” Pedersen – the 2011 WCOOP Main Event winner, to the tune of $1.2 million.

Krumpir – a player who seems to excel in heads-up PLO. Krumpir made the semifinals in the high ($2,100) version of this event during the 2011 SCOOP.

Chris “Moorman1″ Moorman – another elite online tournament grinder. Chris has profited more than twice as much as Carter ($1.8 million) playing PokerStars tournaments over the last five years. He also added another $1 million by finishing as the runner-up in the 2011 WSOP Europe Main Event.

Christopher “NigDawG” Brammer – a regular face making deep runs in the Sunday majors, on the EPT and on the UKIPT.

rSMig – the second of the two wild cards to make the quarterfinals.

The quarterfinals

hartwith was the first player through to the semifinals. 3 minutes into their match, hartwith eliminated rSMig by turning a set of jacks against rSMig’s flopped set of 9s. All the money went in on the turn, with rSMig failing to improve on the river.

Gill soon followed hartwith, knocking off Brammer in nine minutes. First Gill picked off a bluff with a queen-high flush, then he flopped top pair and rivered trips, calling down every street to knock Brammer out.

The other two matches took a bit longer, but before the first hour of play was over, Moorman and Krumpir advanced from their matches against JOKERrrr28 and Pedersen.

The semifinals

As in the quarterfinals, Moorman seemed to slowly lean on his opponent Krumpir, gradually building a chip lead. 20 minutes in, moorman was up 2-1 in chips. But Krumpir stormed back, soon opening a 4-1 chip lead the other way. Despite scoring one double-up with a flopped full house, Moorman never recovered. Krumpir kept the pressure on, continuing to wear Moorman down until Moorman went with a draw on the turn that bricked out.

In the other match, hartwith got the early chip lead against Gill but surrendered it by calling Gill’s turn shove. Gill had flopped top two pair; hartwith turned over an overpair of kings that didn’t improve on the river. Twenty minutes into the match, Gill enjoyed a 3-1 chip advantage. Then, in a match in which all the play was post-flop, the two players got it in pre-flop for 3100 each. Carter opened to 120; hartwith three-bet to 360. Carter pushed it to 1,080 and then snap-called hartwith’s shove 3,135.

Gill: [ks][kd][jd][4h}
hartwith: [as][kc][jc][ts]

Gill was a slight EV favorite and destroyed the flop by finding the case king for top set, [7s][5h][kh]. hartwith was drawing dead after the turn blanked [6d] and hit the rail, eliminated in the semifinals.

The finals

Near the start of their match, Gill and Krumpir agreed to a “reduction in prize difference,” as Krumpir called it. They decided to split $41,600 basically in half (Gill had a small chip lead at the time) and play for the remainder, about $5,000.

Krumpir opened up the first significant lead by taking down this pot:

Eight hands later, with the stacks virtually unchanged, Krumpir opene pre-flop to 90. Gill re-raised to 240, then called a four-bet from Krumpir to 720. Gill was out of position and check-shoved a queen-high flop, [qd][3s][4h], after Krumpir bet 1440. The all in was only 1,030 more; Krumpir called.

Krumpir: [Kh][3h][5c][Ks], a pair of kings
Gill: [5s][4s][2c][kc], a pair of 4s and a straight draw

The turn and river came running 7s, no help for Gill. He was eliminated in 2nd place.

Krumpir, denied last year in the high version of this event with a semifinal elimination, made good in the medium version this year and can now boast $25,000, a SCOOP title, and a Movado watch.

2012 SCOOP Event 12-Medium, $215 PLO (Heads-Up) results:

1st: Krumpir ($25,573.18)
2nd: Carter “devinr12″ Gill ($20,900.00)

Semifinalists:
Chris “Moorman1″ Moorman ($9,035.05)
hartwith ($9,035.05)

Quarterfinalists:
Thomas “Kallllle” Pedersen ($5,033.04)
JOKERrrr28 ($5,033.04)
Christopher “NigDawG” Brammer ($5,033.04)
rSMig ($5,033.04)

Stay up to date with everything SCOOP-related at the SCOOP homepage.

Tags: archives | European Poker Tour | pca | portugal | portugal poker series | SCOOP | team pokerstars pro | World Series of Poker | world-series

A small but high-class field turned out for the first high non Hold’em event of this year’s SCOOP series, the $2,100 Badugi event. And it was third time lucky for Rodrigo “caprioli” Caprioli. The 31-year-old SuperNova elite from Sao Paolo who recently final tabled the EPT Grand Final had previously made two SCOOP final tables – one in 2009 and another in 2011 – without tasting victory. This time he put that right.

For a overview of how Badugi works please click here.

From one bubble to another

This is limit poker, so this was not about all-ins – “This badugi tourney is fast and furious. Only 3 hours and already TWO eliminations,” noted Phil Galfond on Twitter.
However the pace of eliminations did pick-up and the 57 players, who created a prize pool of $114,000, was reduced to eight after just under ten hours of play when caprioli knocked out FabSoul in ninth.

The counts at the start of the final table were as follows:

Seat 1: BrynKenney 7,585
Seat 2: Peshka1502 16,145
Seat 3: shaundeeb 6,170
Seat 4: paulgees81 49,715
Seat 5: Exclusive 76,060
Seat 6: TheHood 28,300
Seat 7: Zimmy86 43,575
Seat 8: caprioli 57,450

But the joy at making the final table was tempered by the fact that another more important bubble was now in effect – the money bubble. Yes, cruel as it may sound one of the eight finalists would be leaving with nothing apart from thoughts of what might have been.

With stakes at 1,000 – 2,000, both BrynKenney and shaundeeb had less than four big bets each and were looking the most likely to fall foul of the $5,130 bubble. They both survived all-ins and a blind increase, but would bust within two minutes of each other.

Highlighting the thin line between success and failure in poker it was BrynKenney who was on the wrong end of this ‘flip’ as he did indeed bubble, with Noah ‘Exclusive’ Boeken doing the damage.

Money Money Money

As mentioned above, it wouldn’t take long for the money places to begin to be filled. Just three hands later shaundeeb was sent to the rail. Again Exclusive played the role of executioner as Deeb’s king high badugi was no match for Exlcusive’s [5d][4c][3h] [As], the third best possible Badugi.

Down to half a dozen

The exits showed no sign of abating as just four minutes and three hands elapsed between shaundeeb’s elimination in sixth and Peshka1502′s exit in fifth. The damage had been done in the previous hand where he’d committed 75% of his stack before folding to a bet after the final draw. In his exit hand he was all-in for 3,845 pre-flop and got a call from paulgees81. Pehska1502 stood pat from the off whilst paulgees81 discarded one card on each of three draws. And it was third time the charm for the Canadian as he showed down [8s][5d][4c][2h] to just pip Pehska’s [9d][6c][5s][3h]. Still $6,270 was a fine reward for his efforts.

Gees that’s unlucky

When you get dealt queens or kings in hold’em and run them into a better pocket pair you pretty much suck it up and accept it’s not your day, that’s tantamount to what did for paulgees81 in fifth place.

He got dealt a nine-high badugi off the bat (odds of 88 to 1) but ran into an opponent – Exclusive – who had been dealt an eight high badugi (160 to 1). If it could’ve all gone in pre-flop it may well have done. But, as it was betting was capped pre-flop, the rest went in over the three draws before paulgees81 got the bad news that he’d been well and truly coolered out of the tournament winning $8,270.

Four play
Four handed play would last for over 30 minutes and see Zimmy86 open up a huge lead as he accumulated over half the chips in play. Much of this was at the expense of Exclusive and indeed the long time chip leader would exit in fourth place when he made a queen high Badugi, only for caprioli to make a seven high Badugi to bust him and end his hopes of a second SCOOP title.

Deal?
With the stacks looking like this:

TheHood 75,200
Zimmy86 152,590
caprioli 57,210

It was chip leader Zimmy86 who typed ‘deal’ into the chat box, no replies were forthcoming though and play continued without interruption. And during three-handed play both opponents would reel the leader in. In fact by the time the stakes had reached 2,000 – 4,000 the stacks were almost even:

TheHood 96,000
Zimmy86 94,790
caprioli 94,210

caprioli: LETS CHOP IT?
caprioli: EVEN?

Typed caprioli into the chatbox, again this was as far as discussions would get as caprioli got no takers.

Given that the stacks were deep in comparison to the blinds it was no surprise that three handed play would take some time. In fact it would take nearly two hours to reach heads-up play. During this portion of play it was caprioli who would take charge whilst it would not go so good for TheHood or Zimmy86.

It seemed like TheHood was destined to finish third, but he mounted more than one comeback from fewer than five big bets and instead it was Zimmy86 who would succumb first. Down to just three-big bets, Zimmy86 was all-in before the third and final draw, both he and caprioli discarded one card, but at showdown Zimmy86 would be one card short as he could only muster a three-card badugi with [7d][3c][2d][2h] whilst caprioli had a better three-card badugi with [9c][5h][3s][2c].

Heads-Up

Going into heads-up play caprioli had a commanding lead of 256,000 versus 29,000 and it wouldn’t take long for it to prove insurmountable. 24 hands were all he needed to grind down TheHood to claim the title and first prize of $39,900.

On the final hand TheHood was down to just 5,500 (less than one big bet). On the first draw he discarded one card, whilst caprioli took two. On the second the roles were reversed, caprioli changed one, whilst TheHood took two. And this pattern repeated itself on the final draw. Come showdown caprioli had a 3-card 5,3,2 as he showed [6c] [5s] [3d] [2c], whilst TheHood had a 3-card K,5,4 with [Ks] [6h] [5d] [4h] and he finished second for $25,650.

1st – caprioli, Brazil, $39,900
2nd -TheHood, Australia, $25,650
3rd – Zimmy86, United Kingdom, $17,100
4th – Exclusive, Netherlands, $11,400
5th – paulgees81, Canada, $8,550
6th – Peshka1502, Spain, $6,270
7th – shaundeeb, Mexico, $5,130
8th – BrynKenney, Spain

The Spring Championship of Online Poker home page contains all of the tournament results, schedule of upcoming events and their satellites, and a leaderboard for the 2012 Series.

Tags: 2011 | Baltic Poker Festival | delicious | gambling | latin-america | micromillions | news | pokerstars | russian poker series | wcoop | world cup of poker

The final table is set!

That concludes our live coverage of Day 3 of the ANZPT Perth Main Event. We have our final table of nine decided as they currently bag their chips, fill out some bios sheets and redraw for tomorrow’s final table.

Jon Curtis is likely to be in front but we’ll have confirmations of chip counts, redraw and profiles of our final tablists for you a little later this evening.

7:15pm: Alderson bubbles the final table

The final table bubble has burst as our official ANZPT Perth final table of nine has now been set in stone.

Daryl Alderson was the unlucky one to miss out after he couldn’t recover from losing a big race towards the end of the previous level. He shoved his short stack from late position with [js][td] but Jon Curtis woke up with a monstrous [qs][qh] in the small blind and made the call.

Alderson flopped a pair but couldn’t improve further as the board finished up [jh][2h][4s][7d][3s]. Alderson is out in 10th place as Curtis will now be the likely chip leader.

7:10pm: Labouchardiere departs, one more to go!

Immediately after the break, Tom Labouchardiere moved his short stack into the middle with [4c][4s]. It was around ten big blinds and David Lloyd didn’t hesitate in making the call with [ac][ks].

The board ran out [ad][js][7s][7d][5c] to pair the ace and send Labouchardiere to the cashier to collect $4,340 for a fine tournament.

7:05pm: Play resumes

The final eleven players are back in action with two more eliminations required until our ANZPT final table is set and we are done for the day.

Jon Curtis has snuck back in front, ahead of Didier Guerin and Matthew Carlsson, while Daryl Alderson, Paul Satzke and Tom Labouchardiere are the shorties to watch.

Tags: 2011 | anzpt | Asia Pacific Poker Tour | european | European Poker Tour | lapt | planets | SCOOP | tcoop | UKIPT | wbcoop

The one thing poker players like doing more than anything else is playing poker. The second thing they like doing is heading to a swanky cafe/restaurant overlooking Monte Carlo bay, drinking champagne out of delicate glass flutes and listening to the results of the EPT8 Awards, punctuated by the comedy stylings of TV’s Joe Stapleton. Who wouldn’t.

It turns out that this week those poker players have been in luck. After one of the most demanding and rewarding festivals of poker the world has ever seen, tonight everyone could cut loose at Cafe Llorca, in the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco, for the latest EPT party.

But this was not just any old EPT party. It was the last one of the tournament year, where those awards would also been handed out to some of the very best players of a scintillating season.

Stapleton took to the stage in inimitable style: beer in one hand, five o’clock shadow on his chin and a list of gags at hand. “What do Daniel Negreanu and an emergency room have in common?” he asked. “Neither of them ever closes.”

The biggest laugh was from Negreanu himself, fresh from losing heads up in the €25,000 High Roller event, and now finding needles stabbed into his wounds. But Negreanu seemed well equipped to cope with the disappointment, sitting in the VIP seats alongside fellow Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree and posing for pictures with anyone who just happened to be passing.

Stapleton pressed on, awarding the first two trophies of the night to the Welsh player Roberto Romanello. Romanello won both the EPT Achievement of the Year and the Player’s Choice award, popular among commentators and peers alike.

From there, we celebrated the success of Melanie Weisner (Heads Up Player of the Year), Salvatore Bonavena (Mixed Game Player of the Year) and Khiem Nguyen (Omaha Player of the Year) before Pierre Neuville swaggered onto stage in a white-shirt-white-shoes-white-suit combo not seen since Thomas Wolfe stopped playing on the EPT.

“What did I win?” asked Neuville, apparently unaware that the self-styled Serial PokerStars Qualifier was now PokerStars Qualifier of the Year. Expect the embroiderers of Belgium to be rubbing their needles together with glee, and putting up prices for bespoke garment decoration.

Lebanon won Country of the Year, before we made it to the big one: EPT Player of the Year. That meant an appearance on stage of the EPT Director Edgar Stuchly, who told the gathering masses that Ondrej Vinklarek had beaten the likes of Romanello, Martin Finger, Steve O’Dwyer and Jonathan Duhamel to the top prize.

Vinklarek came to accept his prize, pose for the camera, and just like that we were done.

A full list of nominees and winners is below. Many of them were cut down from much longer lists, the full details of which will be making its way to the EPT Facebook page.

As you read this, the majority of this year’s fine talents are still demonstrating their abilities at the free bar at Cafe Llorca. Soon after, they will be stumbling to their chauffeur-driven limos and yachts.

That’s the end of another wonderful EPT season. Sail away.

EPT ACHIEVEMENT OF THE YEAR
(Voted for by the media)

Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier
Pierre Neuville
Steve O’Dwyer
Mickey Petersen
Luca Pagano
Roberto Romanello
Benny Spindler
Jonathan Duhamel

PLAYER’S CHOICE

Nicolas Levi
Steve O’Dwyer
Mickey Petersen
Roberto Romanello
Benny Spindler

OMAHA PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Jose “Nacho” Barbero
Ori Miller
Tome Moreira
Khiem Nguyen
Roman Romanovsky
Ben Vinson

MIXED GAME PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Chris Brammer
Salvatore Bonavena
Martin Kabrhel
Ricky Tang
Dave Ulliot
David Williams

HEADS UP PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Martin Finger
David Kolmberger
Melanie Weisner
Nick Yunis

ONLINE QUALIFIER OF THE YEAR

Martin Finger
Mick Graydon
Kevin MacPhee
Pierre Neuville
Zimnan Ziyard

BEST COUNTRY

Bulgaria
Denmark
France
Ireland
Lebanon
Russia
Spain

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Jonathan Duhamel
Martin Finger
Eugene Katchalov
Steve O’Dwyer
Roberto Romanello
Andrej Vinklarek
Nick Yunis

Tags: Asia Pacific Poker Tour | ept | festival | liv boeree | season 8 | team pokerstars pro | TOC | World Series of Poker

Mohsin Charania was crowned The PokerStars Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final champion tonight after the type of final that went exactly the way it should have done. Sure, the romantics wanted the first woman to reach an EPT Grand Final, Lucille Cailly, to win in front of a French rail looking for a reason to celebrate. But throughout the week Charania had the edge not just on Cailly, but on the field, becoming the Season 8 Grand Final champion tonight, earning €1,350,000.

Charania took the title after a brief heads-up, and what was a brief final table, with the blinds hoisted high after two long days prior. With play down to two a deal was struck (not as simple as it sounds, it took 20 minutes) and play continued. Charania won one, Cailly won another and so on, until Cailly found ace-king and Charania found queens. There was only one outcome and an uninterested board delivered the title to Charania.

EPT Grand Final Winner Mohsin Charania

“When I’m winning every time I’m all-in it’s of awesome benefit to me. I get to sleep in longer,” said Charania. “I thought they (his final table opponents) were pretty tough but I felt really good. I thought I was the best player going in luckily the cards helped me prove that.”

Cailly’s was a distinctively impressive performance. While others around her struggled to find a rhythm, Cailly was sure of herself, not letting the few setbacks she suffered disturb her focus. Instead she ploughed on, powered by a Francophile rail and a few Marlboros. It is the breakthrough result for the Frenchwoman and we’ll see more of her when the tour restarts in August.

Play goes heads-up

For the others they would do well to follow the lead set by Charania and Cailly.

Frenchman Bernard Guigon finished third after an impressive display of laddering. Every once in a while a player turns up at a final who seems oblivious to the demands of being on television, of being at a final table or playing in front of an audience. Guigon simply played the game he’d loved for decades and earned €545,000 for it. Unconventional, a little slow perhaps and not on a par with the winner, Guigon deserves a hat tip for the performance nonetheless.

It was all over in just six-and-a-half hours, kicking off at 1.30pm this afternoon with a one hour televised delay on EPTLive.

Lucille Cailly

At the start it had all been about Cailly, thanks mainly to the rail she’d amassed who had sourced a dozen blond wigs at €10 apiece, to support their heroine. Cailly thrived on it and the others could only dream of such encouragement.

Wigs on the rail

Play almost got through a level without an elimination until Daniel Gomez went first. With the blinds already steep for the Spaniard, he found himself with ace-queen and did what he had to do, except he ran it into the jacks of Rodrigo Caprioli and more importantly the kings of Sergio Castelluccio. Gomez got a queen on the flop but nothing more.

The final table

Following in seventh was Clayton Mozdzen, whose desire to win this week was never in doubt. The Canadian set off a string of rapid eliminations. He went when his ace-ten was toppled not by Catelluccio’s ace-ten but by Cailly’s pocket nines.

Clayton Mozdzen

The other Canadian at the final, Michael Dietrich followed. Charania found ace-king which swept aside Dietrich’s ace-nine. The dust had hardly settled when Caprioli was also busted. He found pocket queens while Castelluccio took him on with ace-eight. Nothing up to the turn; an ace though on the river.

This left four players who settled into a steady tempo, Charania leading, with Guigon holding on by tightening up even further.

Ultimately Castelluccio would go in fourth. He felt confident when he four-bet shoved with jacks and Cailly paused for an agonising period of time before calling with ace-queen. The flop changed nothing but the queen on the turn sent the Italian to the rail, while arming Cailly with the chips she’d need to take on Charania.

Sergio Castelluccio

It would be wrong to say Guigon came to life, but he doubled up. But his burst of energy could not last for long, and with ace-four he got his chips in, which Charania saw off with king-queen, the flop making him trips.

Bernard Guigon

Both heads-up players put the work in, and like we said, the romantics favoured the Cailly win. But Charania, whose record live begins to rival his online accomplishments, had the edge and merits his EPT Grand Final title, bringing a fantastic season to an end.

The final result:

1st – Mohsin Charania, PokerStars Qualifier, €1,350,000
2nd – Lucille Cailly, PokerStars Qualifier, €1,050,000
3rd – Bernard Guigon, €545,000
4th – Sergio Castelluccio, €400,000
5th – Rodrigo Caprioli, PokerStars Player, €315,000
6th – Michael Dietrich, PokerStars Qualifier, €245,000
7th – Clayton Mozdzen, PokerStars Qualifier, €185,000
8th – Daniel Gomez, €130,000

That’s the quick version, you can read the long version on our live coverage page, which also details all the pay-outs from the main event. For everything else check out the links below:

That brings an end to the EPT Grand Final main event, and the season. Well kind of. You can still follow the goings on in the €25,000 High Roller event which is reaching a crucial stage as we speak (and that’s without an hour delay). They play to a winner tomorrow.

Also tomorrow is the Tournament of Champions which you can watch in its entirety on EPT Live, complete with hole cards, as well as following the action on the PokerStars Blog.

Charania celebrates

We’re now heading home to re-introduce ourselves to our wives and girlfriends, after a year of writing about people without wives or girlfriends. It was all rather excellent which suggests Season 9 should be too.

For that, we’ll see you in August. For now, it’s goodnight from Monaco.

All photography &copy Neil Stoddart

Tags: day 5 | delicious | estrellas poker tour | france poker series | monte-carlo | news | pca | photography | rio | SCOOP | twitter

Even in this world of shimmering stars, there is imbalance in the universe. Some tables seem even more stacked than others, a feat that might initially appear impossible.

But here’s proof. Table 45 began today looking like this:

1 – Liv Boeree, 2 – Mike McDonald, 3 – Faraz Jaka, 4 – Phil Ivey, 5 – David Sands, 6 – Joseph Elpayaa, 7 – Martin Finger, 8 – Andrew Badecker

and after McDonald and Jaka departed, they were replaced by Jason Somerville and Patrik Antonius.

Those latter two have also now busted, as did Sands recently, when he got it all in with a rag ace and lost to Ivey’s slightly bigger ace. It meant that when we went looking for today’s installment of “A Round With…”, the table line up was as follows:

Seat 1 – Liv Boeree – 330,000
Seat 2 – Nathan Schoo – 170,000
Seat 3 – empty
Seat 4 – Phil Ivey – 395,000
Seat 5 – William Reynolds – 105,000
Seat 6 – Joe Elpayaa – 210,000
Seat 7 – Andrew Badecker – 680,000

And here is how they were playing.

(The blinds were 2,000-4,000 (500 ante), with 25 players left.)

Hand one – Phil Ivey on the button
Liv Boeree raised to 10,000 and Reynolds shoved from the small blind for almost exactly 100,000. Boeree folded.

Hand two – William Reynolds on the button
Schoo opened from the hijack to 8,000 and everyone folded.

Hand three – Joe Elpayaa on the button
William Reynolds opened from the cut off to 8,500. It was good as everyone else passed.

Hand four – Andrew Badecker on the button
Folded to Badecker’s button, the table chip-leader (and also the leader of the whole tournament) raised to 9,000. He won.

Hand five – Liv Boeree on the button
Joe Elpayaa got his chips in first, sitting in the hijack seat. That was also UTG+1 so he was only the second person with the opportunity to open the pot. He made it 9,000 and Badecker, one seat to his left, three bet to 22,000. Everyone else folded quickly, as did Elpayaa.

Hand six – Nathan Schoo on the button
Andrew Badecker opened to 9,000. It won.

That was the end of the first round, which flew past in double quick time. None of these folk are stalling over their decisions, and there was no significant change in the stacks. So let’s try a few more hands…

Hand seven – Phil Ivey on the button
It was folded all the way round to William Reynolds in the small blind. He opened to 8,500 and everyone folded.

Hand eight – William Reynolds on the button
It was folded all the way to William Reynolds, who had shown a good deal of willingness to get involved. And he did again, raising to 8,500. But Andrew Badecker called from the big blind and that took the two of them to a flop of [kc][10c][3s].

Check, check.

The [kd] turned and Badecker bet 13,500, which Reynolds called. That took them to a [2s] river. Badecker didn’t slow down. He slid out a bet of what looked something like 30,000. Reynolds didn’t even want to know how much it was and folded.

Hand nine – Joe Elpayaa on the button
Phil Ivey opened from the hijack to 10,000 and Liv Boeree defended her big blind with a call. The flop came [jd][8d][qs] and Boeree check-folded to Ivey’s 13,000 bet.

Hand ten – Andrew Badecker on the button
William Reynolds opened from the hijack, making it 8,500. And that was good.

At this point, a player on one of the other tables busted, which meant only 24 were left in the tournament. The two spare seats on this table were quickly filled Haralabos Voulgaris and Zachary Clark.

I took that as my prompt to leave one of the least scintillating “A Round With…” posts of all time. But shortly after, word reached that Ivey had accounted for Boeree, vaulting him north of 700,000 and into the chip lead.

Perhaps we will be back…

Click here for live updates, chip counts and payout information from The PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final

Tags: belgian poker series | blonde | button | ept | European Poker Tour | italian poker tour | planets | SCOOP | season 8 | tcoop | tournaments | World Series of Poker

It’s happened again. There will be no Spanish winner of the The PokerStars Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final. Jesus, donde esta mis zapatos!*

That became fact with the departure of Daniel Gomez in eight place ending, for another season, the prospect of a first Spanish champion. But there was little Gomez could do with his ace-queen, when the chips went in against Ricardo Capriolo’s jacks and Sergio Castelluccio’s pocket kings.

After the question “when will we have a first double winner”, the question “when will we have a first Spanish winner” is most asked, or at least it is of the Spanish media, who are prime targets to be wound up, particularly as Spain tends to win everything else.

Daniel Gomez

It’s the sixth event in which a Spaniard has fallen short at the final table in Season 8.
Dragan Kostic missed out in Barcelona, finishing second, although that was better than Raul Mestre, Tomeu Gomila and Juan Perez at that same final. Juan Manuel Pastor finished fourth in London, a feat matched by Guillem Usero in Prague. Ricardo Rodriguez made it to fifth on home soil in Madrid; Cesar Garcia reached sixth in Berlin.

It leaves seven at the final table, and means the Spanish will have to wait for another season for their winner. Home soil in Barcelona perhaps?

*We don’t know any Spanish expletives.

Tags: 2011 | barcelona | day 5 | european | france | france poker series | london | poker

“Form” in poker can be a strange old thing. People talk about “run good” as if it’s the sudden equivalent of liquid gold pouring out of bathroom taps. On the other hand, the player “running bad” might feel as though they are trudging through an arid desert without a drop of water in sight. (And even when they do find a well, then winch up the bucket to find it full of sand, maybe with someone else’s bad beat story kindly printed out, rolled up and poking out.)

The kind of players who enter $25,000 High Roller events tend to be less susceptible to the whole superstition thing. They know that a bad run will be cancelled out if they stick with it long enough, and that it’s sensible not to get too carried away by an uptick in form. Even Jason Mercier and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier don’t win every flip they play.

However this event in Monaco affords us the opportunity to conduct a very small investigation into the nature of short-term run good, based on its slightly unusual entry policy.

If you cast your mind back to yesterday, you’ll remember us talking about players re-entering the tournament after losing all their chips. For the first four levels, busted players could cough up another $25,000 and get another 50,000 tournament points. Clearly people didn’t believe that much in run bad if they were encouraged to buy in again.

At the other end of the spectrum, there were also a handful of players in the tournament who had won their seats via a live satellite event on the eve of the big dance. Those players were, by definition, running good, having paid only one tenth of the entry fee to book their spot.

So what became of the re-loaders (ie, those running bad) and the satellite winners (ie, those running good)? Let’s find out shall we.

The players who bought back in yesterday were as follows, and what transpired after they bought a second stack is in brackets:

Re-entries:

Dan Shak (32,500 chips at end of day 1)
Govert Metaal (38,900)
Daniel Negreanu (102,700)
Faisal Alfalasi (Busted)
JC Alvarado (Busted)
Viktor Blom (67,500)
Imad Derwiche (40,100)
Martin Finger (203,700 – top 10 in chips)
Tony Gregg (Busted)
Eui Kim (Busted)
Mikhail Korotkikh (Busted)
Mike McDonald (213,500)
Scott Seiver (Busted)
Roger Tondeur (Busted)

Satellite winners:

David Deutsch (Busted day one)
Vincent van den Fluit (341,200 – second in chips)
Martin Schleich (Busted day one)
Peter Akery (73,600)
Sorel Mizzi (120,200)
Dori Yacoub (Busted day one)
Ivan Kudriavtcev (Busted day one)
Igor Kurganov (279,900 – top ten in chips)
Andries Swart (Busted day one)
Georgios Karakousis (Busted day one)
Ognjen Sekularac (Busted day one)
JC Alvarado (Busted day one)

So seven of the 14 players who re-entered went on to dust off their second stacks too, with only really Martin Finger and Mike McDonald putting their re-entries to really good use.

On the other hand eight of the 12 satellite winners were out before the end of yesterday, but of those whose survived – in particular Vincent van den Fluit and Igor Kurganov – prospered still. (You’ll notice that JC Alvarado won a satellite, busted, and bought back in. So he fits in both groups.)

I’m not at all sure that this really tells us anything. Indeed, probably all it really does is convince us once again that poker doesn’t really respect the rules of run good or run bad, at least not at this level.

Since all this tortuous calculation began, Viktor Blom has doubled up and then busted from the tournament. And Sorel Mizzi has also lost his 120,000 overnight stack. So any perceived run good that he was experiencing is also over.

And so, they play on. There are 37 players left, meaning eight have departed already. That’s a full table. Now to lose three more.

Click here for live updates, chip counts and payout information from The PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final

Tags: european | festival | france poker series | harrah's | latin-america | monte-carlo | portugal poker series | russian poker series | UKIPT | world cup of poker