With eight seasons of the European Poker Tour now passed, the circuit has amassed more than 80 champions. They come from all places, backgrounds, and bankrolls, but only a couple are the Champion of Champions. This week, Season 6 EPT Warsaw winner Christophe Benzimra became one of them.

For the past couple of seasons, the EPT has hosted the Champion of Champions event at the season-ending Grand Final. The €100,000 freeroll is open to anyone who has an EPT title. Last year, Jason Mercier cemented his place among the champs. This year, the honor went to Benzimra.

Benzimra got heads-up with EPT Loutraki champion Zimnan Ziyard heads-up and took down the win for €35,000 worth of buy-ins to EPT Season 9 tournaments. The 49-year-old Frenchman beat out 39 champs for the title.

“It feels fantastic! I’m very happy,” he said. “I haven’t been playing much this season but I will be next season.”

In 2009, Benzimra won EPT Warsaw for €400,000 just a few years after taking up poker. Though he’s been out of the game for most of the year, he and five other champs now have a lot of buy-ins to spend in Season 9.

Here are the final results to the Season 8 Champion of Champions tourney.

Congrats to Benzimra on his win.

EPT Season 8 Champion of Champions results

1st – Christophe Benzimra (EPT Warsaw champion) – €35,000
2nd – Zimnan Ziyard (EPT Loutraki champion)- €25,000
3rd – Jake Cody (EPT Deauville champion) – €17,500
4th – Arnaud Mattern (EPT Prague champion) – €10,000
5th – Frederik Jensen (EPT Madrid champion) – €7,500
6th – Mohsin Charania (EPT Grand Final champion) – €5,000
The bubble was EPT Dortmund champion Sandra Naujoks.

Tags: australia | Baltic Poker Festival | European Poker Tour | madrid | napt | russian poker series | SCOOP | tournaments

If it seems that we at the PokerStarsBlog are fixated on food at times, well, it’s because we are. Of course we enjoy the poker aspects of traveling the circuit with PokerStars. We love watching unheralded players make surprising runs, love studying the pros as they ply their trade in masterful ways, love donking it up with our friends and a few beers in the side games late at night.

But, if I may recycle a metaphor I’ve used at least once before, coming to a place like Cebu and spending all your time focused on poker is like ordering the swordfish at a steakhouse. You may get what you came for but you missed out on the real deal. And in the Philippines, the fantastic food is definitely something that you don’t want to miss.

Yesterday, it was roast suckling pig (lechon). We have another one today, with APPT President Danny McDonagh telling players that if they want a photo with the head, we’ll put it on the blog. But I want to talk about the mango.

I was ruined for mangoes forever the first time I came to Cebu in 2009. The mangoes here have a sweetness, and a ripeness, that has been unmatched in my extensive travels. That’s not to say I can’t get sweet, ripe mangoes elsewhere. Cebu certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on the world’s mango supply.

But Cebu mangoes are not the green-and-red eggs that you might find in the produce aisle of your local market. They are heart-shaped, with a yellow skin when properly ripened. And what they have, that I’ve never been able to find anywhere else, is a soft, buttery quality to the fruit itself. The fruit of the Cebu varieties doesn’t have any of the stringiness or wooden texture that is often the main complaint mango newbies level at the mango. Cebu mangoes are a soft mass of sugary deliciousness that almost dissolves in your mouth.

This is my third trip to Cebu. I was here in Season 3 and in Season 4 and I’d estimate that mangoes accounted for more than 50% of my diet for each of those trips. That’s not an indictment of the rest of the food here (as the suckling pig can attest). It’s just that Cebu mangoes are that good. They are world-famous, in fact, and one of the biggest exports from this part of the Philippines. The mango is so important to the local economy and the local population that the main street and main square in Cebu City are both named after it (Mango Avenue and Mango Square).

Here in Cebu, you can eat mangoes with breakfast. You can eat them as an after-dinner dessert. You can drink them in juice form throughout the day. You can cook with them, make ice cream out of them. If there’s a way to prepare a mango, trust me – the Cebuanos have already figured it out.

So yeah. The poker in Cebu is top-notch. Don’t get us wrong on that at all. But please forgive us if we spend the majority of our time here stuffing our faces with a buttery, orange fruit. We’d be remiss in our duties as food-fixated, cross-cultural ambassadors if we didn’t.

Tags: archives | belgian poker series | diet | estrellas poker tour | european | facebook | food | president | TOC | tournaments | UKIPT | wcoop

Nicolas Chouity. Think of that name. What does it mean to you? Does it leap out as a premier league player, one who has taken down one of the biggest tournaments around and has the online results to back it up? Do you put Chouity’s name alongside EPT winners such as Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier, Sebastian Ruthenberg and Kevin MacPhee? Unless you’re an avid blog reader and follower of online results then it’s likely that the answers may be: not much, no and no. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that is just an unfortunate case of poor PR. It is time to think again.

When Chouity won the EPT Grand Final in April 2010, getting his photo taken with a huge €1,700,000 pay check and an excitedly waved Lebanese flag, few players knew him. Chouity had made two previous EPT cashes; 50th at the previous year’s Grand Final (€31,000) and 124th at Berlin (€8,000). Would he big a one-hit wonder? It seemed distinctly possible. While Chouity dominated his final table, battering his laddering opponents with a dominating chip lead, the opposition was not the toughest the EPT had ever thrown up. But you can only beat what’s put in front of you and he did that convincingly.

Since then Chouity has put in some fine performance, including 4th in the €10,000 High Roller turbo at last year’s Grand Final for €43,000 and 6th in a $1,500 WSOP event for $115,477 (Team PokerStars Pro Andre Akkari went on to win that one), but has the broader recognition come with it? We’d have to say no.

“Honestly it’s nothing to win one tournament,” Chouity told us at the break, “you have to win twice just to prove yourself more to people. Many think that winning once is luck. Although I have many successes online and live I’m really hungry to win something big. Maybe an EPT. Nobody knows me because I have a different name but the online world does know me,” said Chouity evenly.

“Maybe it’s because I live in a different part of the world in the Middle East and Lebanon. It’s tough for people to know that there’s a good player there,” he added.

It’s true. It is easier to focus on the poker fraternities, the sponsored pros and their enclaves which travel the circuit and pop up in televised poker events. Notoriety does not dictate skill level or success, nor does the lack of it. Chouity started the day as chip leader with 165,900 and has since run that up to 240,000 in a player style that can described as relaxed. Chouity only seems to half follow the action, frequently gazing into the distance or over to another table, rather than adopting the stare-at-something-until-it-burns intensity of Benny Spindler. Chouity mucks his cards with a mite of contempt, particularly when he didn’t find a hand on the button, which is frustrating in anyone’s world, but other than that he looks like pressure is something that doesn’t exist in his reality.

“I think that my table is not that bad. There’s Rupert (Elder) to my left who is the only decent player that I know. The others are Italian and a couple of random players. I think that I had a good draw today. Rupert is short but he’s just picked up a couple of pots now but still he has about 50k and is dangerous,” said Chouity, proving that he is more than following the action, despite his laconic method of play.

Since then Elder, a couple of seats to Chouity’s left, has chipped up further to around 120,000 but it’s unlikely Chouity will show any concern, outwardly at least. He is not a one tournament wonder. You need only look towards his online results to see that.

Playing under the username niccc on PokerStars, Chouity has won close to $2,000,000 in online tournaments with his largest online score coming when he claimed a WCOOP title with a $150,947 victory in a $2,100 PLO event. That was his second six-figure pay day online. These kind of results are not easy to come by.

Chouity is one of two Lebanese EPT winners and perhaps his predecessor, the infrequently seen Joseph Mouawad, informed some of the ambivalence towards Chouity but it seems that Lebanon is another country cranking up the poker scale.

“There was no poker four or five years ago but now there is in the casino. There’s tournaments and cash games also as well as home games. Many people game in Lebanon and poker is going up every year. Because other types of poker have been played that’s what they’re used to so (many players) don’t have the basics of Hold’em. There are some good players but the majority are still learning,” explained Chouity

So it’s probably a good place to go on a working holiday then?

“Yes, the best place to be.”

Underestimate Chouity at your peril.

Tournament snapshot
Level 11: blinds 600-1,200, ante 100
Players: 239 of 570
Average stack: 71,500
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Tags: action | delicious | elky | european | middle-east | planets | pokerstars | russian | team pokerstars pro | the circuit | UKIPT

Is Erich Kollmann is the Barny Boatman* of Austrian poker? Despite never having made a single six-figure score, Kollmann has made $1,479,473 in live tournament cashes and sits second in the all-time money list for Austria behind Josef Klinger (who picked up €1,000,000 for his second place finish at the EPT6 Grand Final to Nicolas Chouity). His cashes go back to 1996 and his first six-figure year (in dollars) was in 2000. That’s quite some grind.

The Austrian player, who loves a bit of ostentatious flair, see the large crucifix and jewel encrusted earrings, had the chip lead at the break and is loving life. On the last hand of the break he received a walk in the big blind. Kollman smiled broadly and flashed his cards. I couldn’t see them. The hand before that he had opened under-the-gun for 3,300 and the action had passed to Alex Kravchenko on the button who opted to move his 50,000 stack across the line. Kollmann hadn’t insta-mucked. He sat and thought for some time before smiling again, folding and flashing his hand at the inscrutable Russian. This time I could see. It was [ac][qc]. Kravchenko forced a smile in return. Was it genuine? Unlikely. That still left Kollmann with 345,000.

“It was two big hands,” Kollmann told the PokerStars Blog. “I win kings and I beat kings. If that works, it’s okay,” he added with a smile.

He’s certainly been on the circuit long enough to understand that tournaments don’t always go as planned. Having worked for BMW for around 20 years and played poker professionally for the last six Kollmann scored his most successful year in 2011 by far picking up a hefty $457,481, so has his tournament strategy changed? Has something clicked in his game?

“No, it’s typical tournament poker. Sometimes it’s really easy, sometimes it’s a really hard job. You can win nothing for two years. Last year was really good and maybe this year is really good too,” said Kollmann.

Tournaments are not his only revenue, of course, with pot-limit Omaha his main choice of play.

“In cash games I play Omaha. We have a PLO poker lounge open in Vienna for high limit games starting 25-50 going up to 200-400. That’s a very big game,” said Kollmann casually.

Although he did not say that he was a winner in those games, his smile seemed to say as much.

*Boatman made his first six-figure score at EPT8 San Remo.

Tags: 2011 | alex kravchenko | australia | Baltic Poker Festival | Battle of the Planets | micromillions | SCOOP | the circuit

When it comes to tournament reporting, I try to maintain as neutral a stance as possible. I’ve certainly befriended players over my years on the circuit but I strive not to let my friendships with them affect the coverage that I provide, to favor those players in any way over any other players. That being said, when heads-up play at the 2012 APPT Seoul Main Event started and we were left with only two Americans, I permitted myself one little thing.

“U-S-A! U-S-A!” With a fist pump. (Call me a homer if you must.)

Yes, heads-up play left us with Vincent Rubianes and Andrew Kim. Kim started with a 3-to-2 chip lead and through an hour of heads-up play, the stacks didn’t change much. Rubianes shoved on Kim in one or two places but otherwise most of the pots were small, with few bets larger than 200,000 chips.

So of course the final hand was all in pre-flop for more than 40 big blinds each.

Rubianes started with the button and opened for the minimum 80,000. Kim three-bet to 230,000, a not uncommon tactic for him pre-flop. Rubianes frequently backed down from those three-bets but here he opted to four-bet to 505,000. Kim responded by moving all in, with Rubianes calling all in for 2.1 million. It was a flip, with Kim holding [as][kd] and Rubianes a pair of tens. An ace on the flop paired Kim up, a pair which held through the river to crown him champion of the tournament.

It was a long road to the championship for Kim. When play started on Day 3, there were 15 other players left in the tournament. We saw a rash of dominated aces in the first hour of play and lots of big draws in the second. We reached our final nine players in about two hours, an unexpectedly quick pace.

The final nine players included three North Americans, three Europeans, two Asians and a Panamanian. One of the two Asians, 2012 Aussie Millions Main Event runner-up Ken Wong, was the first player eliminated from the final table. The other Asian, Japanese player Daisuke Endo, started the day as chip leader but blew up at the final table to finish in 8th place.

The next three eliminations all came in rapid succession, as Mike Kwon, Jose Severino and Sasa Zorc all knuckled under. Zorc has to be especially disappointed. He started the final table 2nd in chips but never made very much noise.

The final four players agreed to modify the payouts, leaving KRW 35,000,000 to the champion but otherwise agreeing to take between 90,000,000 and 110,000,000 each. With that deal in place, Moritz Ortmann and Rafael Sans each took their chances all in and busted out.

That left Rubianes and Kim to duke it out heads-up. In his winner’s interview, Kim noted that the APPT Seoul Main Event was his first major live tournament and that he only played because some friends talked him into it. His goal from the beginning was just to take things one step at a time. By the time he got down to heads-up play, he claimed that he believed the skill component of the game didn’t mean much.

“It’s all luck at that point,” he said.

That’s some modesty right there. Kim displayed some masterful aggression and tactical skill to capture a deserving championship. For America, no less.

Photo credit: Ken and Long from Kenneth Lim Photography – http://www.kennethlimphotography.com

Tags: america | Asia Pacific Poker Tour | estrellas poker tour | france | greed | japanese | lapt | wcoop

The sun is shining in Seoul this morning as we prepare for Day 3 – the final day – of the 2012 PokerStars.net APPT Seoul Main Event. It’s winter so the temperatures are a little brisk, but all things considered it’s a fine day to mint a hundred millionaire.

That’s what we’re aiming to do. By the end of the night, one of the 16 players still standing in this Main Event is going to win KRW 194,000,000. The man in the pole position is Japanese national Daisuke Endo, whose pocket aces held up in a three-way all-in late in the day yesterday against ace-jack and pocket tens to bag the overnight chip lead with 650,000.

Fifteen other players are chasing Endo, including 2012 Aussie Million Main Event runner-up Kenneth Wong (527,000), American Vincent Rubianes (505,000), and Day 1 chip leader Jhana Hale (487,000). Lurking at the back of the pack are, among others, Michael Guzzardi (203,000) and Elton Tsang (192,000).

As we did the last time we were in Seoul four years ago, we’ll be playing from our final two tables all the way to the winner tonight. It has the makings of a long day – three to four hours just to get to a final table and then however long it takes from there for one player to accumulate all the chips.

The last couple of days have been a pleasant mix of poker and fun. We’ve had a few nights to get out on the town, a few nights to search for (and fail to find) Korean BBQ, and a few nights to re-connect with old friends made from years of traveling the circuit.

Today, however, it’s all business. We’re spending the long haul in the Paradise Walkerhill Casino until someone raises the winner’s trophy over his head. By that point, the sun is likely to long have set. But someone will be beaming on the tournament floor.

Tags: delicious | ept | european | italian | lapt | latin-america | micromillions | napt | pokerstars macau | tcoop

Thinking back to 2008 and our first venture to Seoul for the Asia Pacific Poker Tour and it was an exciting time to be a part of the tour. I have fond memories of crazy taxi drivers, delicious Korean BBQ, too much Soju and a wild final table that saw the enigmatic Yoshihiro Tasaka become Japan’s overnight poker legend.

How many tournaments have been won by the guy who called an all-in bet with [9h][2c] purely because it was his favourite hand? It was a great time for poker in Asia, as everyone who was part of that event headed home with some wonderful experiences and expectations of returning sometime soon.

However not many thought it would take over three long years for us to make our way back to the South Korean capital. For various reasons, the APPT Seoul event was unable to be a part of the tour until its long-awaited comeback this year in Season 5. That wait, is now over, as we write to you from the Sheraton Grande Walkerhill Hotel in Seoul with poker and the APPT making a welcome return to the Korean BBQ menu!

After a long flight and an early morning arrival, we were fortunate enough to get most of the day to explore this fascinating city today. Our free hotel shuttle bus scooted us downtown to the Myeongdong district where a tourist is overloaded with local and Western food options, plenty of retail shopping and several impressive temples and palaces all within walking distance. Just be careful when using the underground tunnels to try and cross the chaotic highways. It’s a city all of its own under the busy streets above. There are shops and cafes lining the multitude of tunnels that carry thousands of people every day. Signs point in every direction possible, but sometimes escaping this maze of tunnels seems an impossibility. Exits left. Exits right. Up stairs. Down stairs. Which way is North again? Argh! I don’t exaggerate when I say we walked the tunnels for an hour today only to end up at the same exit that we originally entered!

We don’t think we’ll be the only ones to feel confused and without an escape route this week as that very feeling is the burden that poker players have to endure almost every day. And with that thought in mind, we eventually resurfaced and made our way back to Walkerhill in preparation for a big four days ahead at the APPT Seoul Main Event. It carries a KRW 3,000,000 (approx US$2,650) buy-in and should attract a healthy prize pool and an interesting mix of players. There will be plenty of PokerStars qualifers from near and afar, while many pros travelling the circuit have loitered around South East Asia following the recent Macau Poker Cup to jump over to Seoul for this event. Then of course, there will be the Japanese contingent who will no doubt make up the majority of numbers, and will be determined to kept the title in their grasp.

It may be a little chilly outside, but it’s about to heat up inside the Walkerhill Casino as the Season 5 APPT Seoul Main Event kicks off at 12:15pm (GMT+9) on Thursday afternoon. My old sparring partner Dave “F-Train” Behr will be joining me to bring you plenty of great stories from the APPT Seoul right here on the PokerStars Blog.

Tags: Baltic Poker Festival | chinese | delicious | ept | food | online-poker | pca | planets | russian | wbcoop | wcoop

After five days of intense play and the shortest final table of the history of the Estrellas Poker Tour, the circuit now has its newest champion.

PokerStars qualifier Juan Miguel Tome defeated the almost invincible Luis Rufas to be crowned the first Estrellas Poker Tour winner of Season 3.

Tomé flew under the radar for most of the final table emerged at exactly the right time at the appropriate time to get heads up against Rufas. From there, it was all Tomé.

The first stop of Season 3 has been a great success. A total of 482 players showed up to build a prize pool worth €462,720. The tour now heads to Valencia March 28-April 1.

Congratulations once again to Juan Miguel Tome on a great performance in Madrid.

Tags: australia | delicious | harrah's | history | madrid | napt | news | online-poker | world-series

Faraz Jaka knows how to get at fish, no matter the obstacle or barrier. At around 5.30pm yesterday afternoon, on his day off from the main event, Jaka tweeted “Anyone have any ideas how I can open a can of Tuna without a can opener or a knife?”

It was a problem for the modern age or as many poker players might say, a ‘first world problem’. Most of us would look at the can, turn it over hoping to see a turnkey of sorts, find just a sell-by date, swear profusely, toss the can onto the bed and order room service. But not Jaka. First he fielded the problem to Twitter, a good use of available resources, but the responses were lacking. Then came the Eureka moment.

“haha thanks for the responses on opening my tuna can lol. Hotel doesnt have one, i may try jagged rock or sharp key.But first maybe the bar!” he tweeted.

Our kind of guy, we on the blog thought, he was going for liquid refreshment to mull over the problem. Then we heard no more. The twittering died out.

When Jaka arrived for play today with a top thirty stack of 130,000 he looked in fine form, like a man would after a good night’s sleep and fuelled by a tasty and nutritious tuna-based supper. He had done it. He had got into that can.

“I eventually figured that most of the bars would have tins of pineapple so found one and – clip, clip, clip – got into it,” explained Jaka, right arm wrenching as if he was still using one of those metal tin punchers that hides on the back shelf of a cocktail bar.

The same qualities of tenacity and lateral thinking have seen Jaka do well on the circuit, scoring $2,394,969 in live tournament winnings, and also here in the early stages of Day 2. The American is up to 350,000 and running roughshod over his table with around 2.5 times the rest of the table combined.

“Ari Engle got moved to the table and we played an interesting set of hands. He three-bet me the first hand, I raised two more times, then he raised, I three-bet, he four-bet and I called with jack-queen. He had ace-ten suited. The flop came queen-queen-three and he check-raised me huge. I just called and he shoved the turn. It was kind of a wild play on his part but at the same time I got really lucky to actually have that. Without a queen it’s a pretty hard spot for me to play,” said Jaka explaining the hand which propelled him into the chip lead.

“I haven’t played with him much but we know who each other are and have mutual friends so that was an interesting dynamic. You know each other’s image,” he added.

It would be best for all to remember that Jaka is a man who can get at fish without a can opener. As table images go it’s a pretty solid one.

Tags: 2011 | belgian poker series | delicious | eureka poker tour | European Poker Tour | harrah's | latin-america | portugal | UKIPT | wbcoop | world cup of poker

Marty ‘TheLipoFund’ Mathis is one of poker’s good guys. A slim, effervescent and happy go lucky grinder, Mathis is of those young 2+2′ers who, were it not for cruel fate, could be a lot better known than he is. At last year’s PCA Mathis missed out on a top three stack in the late stages when he got it all-in with ace-king to the ace-queen of Calvin Anderson. The pot was chopped before Mathis went on to lose a chunky flip against Philippe Plouffe and then failed to catch with a twenty big blind raggedy ace three-bet shove into the runaway train of PCA runner-up Chris Oliver (who actually had a hand). Mathis was eliminated in 17th for $87,500, a great payday which came with a large pocketful of ‘what ifs’. But he doesn’t seem the sort to have let it kept him down for long.

A standout illustration of Mathis’ demeanour comes to mind from the event where I first him, LAPT Lima. Mathis had bust in 42nd but he and Chris Conrad decided to hit up a Peruvian costume shop to dress up, somewhat inexplicably, in Winnie the Pooh and Tigger outfits to cheer their fellow American Ben Barrows on to his second place $144,000 finish. It was nice gesture of support, particularly from Conrad who had been brutally unlucky to bust with [a][q] to eventual winner Nacho Barbero’s [8][4] in a huge four-bet pot the evening before, just outside the big money.

Although Mathis has modest career winnings in the live arena ($99,060) his online resume shows that he’s scored over two million in online tourneys at PokerStars, so perhaps it’s not a huge surprise that he was one of the first waves of players to up sticks from the US and start a new grinding life on foreign soil.

“We settled down in Cabo, Mexico (on the bottom tip of the Baha peninsular). I moved in July right after busting the World Series Main Event and was the first one down there, then my roommates came down and then friends, then friends of friends. There was sixty of us at one point, a colony of poker players,” said Mathis.

“Everyone is super friendly and I felt safer walking round there at 3 in the morning than I do walking round Orlando where I lived before…. but it is tough to be away from everybody, friends and family,” said Mathis, who added that one thing he won’t miss about Mexico is the grocery stores.

“It’s like they haven’t restocked them in months. They wait until the run out of something before getting something new. Cabo is in a desert region so it can be tough getting fresh fruit and vegetables. It was really awesome but I’m done with Mexico for the time being,” he said.

Although he enjoyed his six months living in Cabo, where there was good internet connection and a smooth transition in re-opening his PokerStars account, Mathis has decided he’s going to spend the first half of 2012 travelling, playing the circuit along the way.

His first stop after the PCA is Australia (for some tournament or other) before heading direct from there to Sao Paulo, Brazil for the LAPT main event – a mere 31-hour flight.

Although we objective, stand-offish reporters don’t pull for anyone – that’s just unprofessional – we can admit there is a part of us that would be warmed by Mathis arriving in Melbourne with a PCA crown atop his head. He’s a likeable guy. And he’s more than shrugged off his beat of last year.

“That chop versus Calvin Anderson was the big key hand which would have set me up but, you know what, I’m trying to make another run this year,” he said.

Mathis has got off to a good start, more than doubling his initial 30,000 starting stack despite being at a table with the aggressive EPT London final tablist Martins Adeniya, Lars Bonding and EPT Tallinn High Roller champ Kristijonas Andruli. Good luck to TheLipoFund.

Tags: 10th anniversary | australia | Battle of the Planets | estrellas poker tour | facebook | pokerstars macau | TOC | wbcoop | World Series of Poker