Legal Notice: PokerStop.com (c) 2008. All Rights Reserved.http://www.pokerstop.com/rss/rss_news.xmlNews rss feed on PokerStop.comen-USMon, 15 Mar 2010 18:25:44 GMTPokerStop.com News13085http://www.pokerstop.comhttp://www.pokerstop.com/images/rss.jpghttp://www.pokerstop.com/News/PokerNewsFull.aspx?Id=774The online poker weekend saw plenty of high profile events taking place at various online poker rooms. No fewer than 8 players walked away with 6-figure prizes, the biggest haul weighing in at more than a quarter million.
As usual, PokerStars’ Sunday Million set the tone for the weekend poker tournament action. The $200+$15 buy-in event drew 9,687 participants. The starting field combined buy-ins for a $1,937,400 prize-pool, well over the $1.5 guarantee. No deals were made in this poker tournament, and nothing highlighted its importance better than the fact that even so, out of the 8 6-figure winners, 3 collected their prizes at the Sunday Million’s tables.
The winner, Highway51, took home $271,241 for his efforts. Second place man, popimaiorca won $197,614. Soltari84 finished 3rd, for $139,492. Rakeinfools, who finished 4th, almost made the mark too, his $96,870 prize falling just short of 6 figures.
Mike McDonald was the top “name” pro in this event. He finished 22nd and scored $4,068 for his efforts.

The Sunday Warm-up saw “only” 4,594 registrants belly up to PokerStars’ tournament tables. The 918,800 prize-pool was enough to put the two top finishers into 6-figures. After a deal between the two players, lu_tricolor won the event, taking home $130,591. CallMeIdiot finished second for $120,591, and after such an achievement, I doubt anyone would ever call him that again.
Albert Winchester finished 16th in this one, for a $2,756 reward.

The Sunday 500 saw 1,153 players register, combining for a prize-pool of $576,500. The three top finishers struck a deal, which left the eventual winner, Bryn Kenney, a $71,453 haul. Second place finisher, hellzito, won $77,523. Veronica Dabul finished 11th for a $4.957 prize.

Full Tilt Poker’s $750k Guarantee was responsible for two other 6-figure winners. Zoopreme and Chris Savage were the top two finishers. After a heads-up deal, zoopreme won, taking home $116,517. Chris Savage took down $109,017. Ara Melikian finished 13th, for $5,637.

The Sunday Brawl yielded another 6-figure winner. Chris Moorman bested a starting field of 2,700 players on his way to a top prize of $109,620. At Ultimate Bet, the $200k GTD generated a prize-pool of $213,200. Adam Katz took the lion’s share of it, winning the event and pocketing a $47,607 reward for his efforts. Eric Blair was the top “notable” finisher, taking home $1,321 for his 16th place.

]]>Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:00:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/wpt-bay-101-shooting-star-mclean-karr-wins-773With 6 players returning to do battle on Day 4 of the WPT’s Bay 101 Shooting Star event, all eyes were on the last surviving Shooting Star, Phil Hellmuth. Eventually, McLean Karr was the one who took the title and the $878,500 prize but Hellmuth didn’t disappoint either - if spectacular meltdowns can be considered achievements.
He started the day second in chips and made the right move locking horns with Andy Seth on a Q,Q vs Ac,Jc match-up. After a bit of a preflop give and take, both players shoved all-in. The flop fell Kd,6s,5s, and Hellmuth looked poised to double up. The 10 on the turn further improved his odds, but the A on the river left him speechless. Sent to the rail in 6th place, he collected $117,000. Following his elimination, he fell onto the floor and curled up in the fetal position, holding his head for several minutes. The curse which seems to follow the UltimateBet pro in WPT events, stuck with him this time too.

Matt Keikoan was the next victim. His A,7o went up against Andy Seth’s pocket 9s and failed to improve. He picked up $175,700 for his efforts. Hasan Habib got his chips in well holding Kc, 10c against McLean Karr’s 4s,2s. The flop fell Jc,2c,2h, giving Karr a set and Habib a K-high flush draw. The river brought a 4c, which filled Habib’s flush but gave Karr a boat for the win. Habib took home $234,300.
Dan O’Brien was the next victim, eliminated after a longer spell of three handed action. Eventually, he got all his chips in holding Jd, 2d. Seth got out of the way, but Karr made the move with pocket 7s, which held up and promptly sent O’Brian to the payout queue to collect his $292,800.

Karr, who had had a close brush with the rail on Day 3, learned how to be patient on Day 4. After a marathon heads-up match against Seth, he eventually prevailed, taking home the $878,500 top prize. The final hand of the poker tournament saw Karr’s pocket 8s go up against Seth’s pocket 4s. The board bricked out and the 11-hour long heads-up session finally came to an end.
Andy Seth picked up $521,200 for his second place finish.

]]>Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:09:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/online-poker-report-isildur1-loses-big-again-772Nobody knows who Isildur1 is, but everyone is certain of one thing: this guy doesn’t play around. He wins big and loses big too. On Tuesday, the Swede took on the Cardrunners duo of Cole South and Brian Hastings at Full Tilt Poker’s tables, two of the guys responsible for his demise in December 2009. Revenge sure is sweet and few things had probably ever been sweeter for Idilsur1 than the $830k he lifted off Brian Hastings at the $300/$600 and $500/$1,000 PLO tables. He won about $640k from South too, about half of which he gave back later.
The profit he made on the Cardrunners guys was not all that Isildur1 booked on Tuesday though. He hit NEKOTYAN and Justin Bonomo for six figure hauls too.

With the online poker gods firmly by his side following his Monday/Tuesday performances, Isildur1 was keen to continue milking his lucky streak for the third consecutive day. Things started out well for him on Wednesday, as he took $521k from Justin Bonomo and hit South again for $558k. As it’s often the case though with winning streaks, things turned south in an instant for the Swede. He must’ve gotten greedy as he decided to get some money off Tom Dwan too, the player who used to be such a reliable ATM for him in the past.
This time, the ATM would rebel though. In just 888 hands of $300/$600 PLO, Isildur1 ended up $1 million under the red line. The biggest pot of the session weighed in at $303,000 and it ended up in Dwan’s pockets, together with another monster for which Dwan’s straight beat Isildur1’s set.

Following the loss, Isildur1 was pretty much back on naught for the day. He decided to lock horns with Phil Galfond though, probably in an effort to squeeze a profit anyway. Things again backfired for him, as he ended up dropping a further $1.6 million to Galfond, at $300/$600 PLO.
No fewer than 8 pots of the Galfond/Isildur1 session were above $300k ones. The largest one was a $416k whooper, which landed on Isildur1’s side of the online poker table.
Most of the other comparably sized pots went to Galfond though. Despite the crippling blow, Isildur1 is still around $200k up for the week.

]]>Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:03:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/wpt-bay-101-shooting-star-day-3-report-771The 3rd day of the WPT’s Bay 101 Shooting Star event saw 27 survivors return to the tables, with the goal of setting the final table. Phil Hellmuth started the day with the largest stack, and the UltimateBet pro held on nicely to his advantage throughout day 3 of the poker tournament. He would probably have finished atop the provisional leader board again, had it not been for a late surge by Andy Seth who scored a few big pots and a couple of eliminations over the final stretch.
Seth’s late push started with Brian Rast’s elimination. Seth got his opponent all-in on a A,10o vs A7o match-up. Clearly dominated, Rast failed to catch a lucky break and all his chips ended up in Seth’s possession.

Seth put Rast’s chips to good use, as he continued building his stack at the expense of Shooting Star Scotty Nguyen.
The Prince of Poker shoved all-in (probably to pick up the blinds) holding Jh, 8h. Seth promptly called him holding K,Qo. It was a no-contest really. The board fell Q,4,3,6,A and Nguyen was eliminated from the poker tournament. Spurred on by his success against such a “name” player and no doubt by the $5k bounty he’d picked up as a reward for his dirty deed, Seth turned on the aggression. Through a perfect combination of skill and luck, he managed to pocket the majority of the pots that paved the way to the final table.
When it came to the final table bubble, the rest of the survivors could count on him to help burst it fast. Sure enough, He locked horns with Lon Diamond, and at the end of a preflop give and take, the two got all their chips into the middle. Seth tabled pocket Queens against Diamond’s A,Q and the race was on. The board doused the spirits though as it bricked out to leave Seth with his preflop advantage, and to set the official final table of the poker tournament.
Phil Hellmuth finished the day with over 1.4 million chips, to clinch second place. The other final table participants will be Hasan Habib, McClean Karr, Dan O’Brien, and Matt Keikoan.

John Cernuto and Chau Giang – two other bounty carrying Shooting Stars – were eliminated in 11th and 14th places respectively.

]]>Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:24:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/wpt-bay-101-shooting-star-day-2-report-769After another overnight chip leader (Eugene Katchalov) had collected a $10k extra reward on Day 1B of the WPT’s Bay 101 Shooting Star event, Day 2 saw 126 players return to the poker tournament action. At the end of 6 levels, only 27 were left in contention. The overnight chip lead was clinched by none other than the Poker Brat, Phil Hellmuth, who had been maneuvering around on a short-stack at the beginning of the day.
During the first level of play, Hellmuth was forced to commit his entire stack in one instance, trusting his tournament life (and $5k bounty) to an Ad, 2d he’d picked up, on a flop of 10d,9d,5s. JC Tran made the call and he had Kd,Qd for the perfect hand draw. The perfect hand would not materialize though as neither player hit his flush. An A which fell on the turn though gave Hellmuth a lease on his poker tournament life. Hellmuth then proceeded to eliminate Yevgeniy Timoshenko, who had a bounty on his head too. Besides picking up the $5k, Hellmuth took his stack to 300k chips and grew into a serious factor at the table.
His 10,8 hit a pair of 8s against Timonshenko’s A,K for the win.

Faraz Jaka had an excellent day too. He scored a huge pot against Eugene Katchalov during Day 2 to shoot to 7th overall by the end of the day. Katchalov had finished Day 1B in the chip lead, so he had plenty of chips to drop to Jaka. The two of them got it all-in on the turn of a board of: J,6,2,Q. Katchalov was the one who made the move and Jaka was more than happy to call him with his pocket Qs for the top set. Katchalov had pocket rockets, and as the river landed a 6, he sunk back into the field, his stack smaller than 10 BBs. Despite the flurry of Shooting Star eliminations, 4 players still carry a bounty on their heads, going into Day 3. Besides Hellmuth, Scotty Nguyen, Chau Giang and John Cernuto also made it past the Day 2 hurdle.
Daniel Negreanu failed to preserve his bounty, together with Howard Lederer, Greg Mueller, Freddy Deeb and Barry Greenstein. Eugene Katchalov was eventually bounced too, having gone from hero to zero within a day.

]]>Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:04:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/wpt-bay-101-shooting-star-day-1a-report-768Barely had the dust settled in the wake of the last WPT event, the Bay 101 shooting star took over the headlines almost immediately. The unique format of the poker tournament made it possible for participants to make serious money without ever reaching past the money bubble. 136 players showed up for the opening of the event, 17 “shooting stars” included. The Shooting Stars were well-known, so called “name” players who each carried a $5k bounty. In addition to the 17x5,000= $85,000 available in bounties, players could make money by finishing atop the provisional leader board. The overnight chip leaders of both Day 1 flights would get $10,000, which was pretty much the equivalent of getting their buy-ins back and playing on for free.

TJ Cloutier was among the early victims of Day 1A, and because he carried a $5k bounty too, he made one player extremely happy. In Cloutier’s final hand, the chips went all-in on a flop of A,J,4. Cloutier had pocket Qs but Wade Griffith turned over A,J for the two pair. The turn and the river bricked out and Cloutier was bounced.
Gus Hansen followed him to the rail after a few blinds-levels. He committed his last chips on a flush draw which failed to materialize. He too had a $5k bounty on his head. Jennifer Harman was the next bounty player to bite the dust. She had an A,K and took a flip for her poker tournament life against Masa Kagawa. Other players to have their bounties collected were Jason Mercier, Tom Dwan and Bertrand Grospellier. As the field thinned out and as players were moved to other tables to keep things together, sometimes rather unusual concentrations of bounty players occurred. Mike Matusow, Steve Brecher, Gavin Smith and Chris Ferguson sat at the same table, so it was inevitable that some of the Shooting Stars would end up collecting their fellow bounty-bearers’ rewards. Hoyt Corkins was the one who lost his bounty to a fellow Shooting Star first though. His Ac, Kc ran into Greg Mueller’s pocket rockets and he was bounced.
At the end of it all, Vanna Tea managed to secure the overnight chip lead, picking up the extra $10k.
Daniel Negreanu, Yevgeniy Timoshenko and Freddy Deeb all survived Day 1A of the poker tournament.

]]>Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:06:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/online-poker-weekend-dwan-sahamies-and-isildur1-in-action-767The weekend saw some pretty hectic online poker action at Full Tilt Poker, where the nosebleed tables came under fire by Tom Dwan, Ilari Sahamies and Isildur1. Building on his excellent form, Tom Dwan added $1.3 million in winnings to his tally on Saturday alone. That means the New Jersey Wonderkid is around $2.4 million up this year. Together with the profit he’d booked in December, that pretty much makes up for the losses he’d suffered at Isildur1’s hands last year.
Dwan hit several of Full Tilt’s nosebleed regulars last weekend. Apparently nobody who tangled with him got away unscathed: PixKim dropped around $1 million, Di Dang lost close to $300k as Sami Kelopuro, Sahamies and Brian Hastings lost around a quarter million each.
The biggest pot that Dwan raked in over the weekend came courtesy of his Durrrr Challenge rival, Patrik Antonius, though it didn’t come at one of Full Tilt’s special Challenge tables. Dwan was playing PixKim and Antonius at a $300/$600 PLO table, when a $423,419 pot developed after all three players pushed all their chips into the middle.

In the meantime, Sahamies locked horns with Isildur1 at the $300/$600 PLO tables. Over just 699 hands, Sahamies found himself a whooping $710,000 down, so they decided to raise the stakes to $500/$1,000. Chasing his losses, the Finn was unable to put in a better showing though and he finished a further $330k down at the end of it. The match-up saw 4 pots that were all bigger than $200k. The largest single haul of the session weighed in at $423k and it obviously ended up in Isildur1’s possession after his top set made short work of the Finn’s aces.

Riding an emotional high, Isildur1 then came to grips with none other than Brian Hastings, his nemesis, the player who’d wrecked his bankroll back in December, exiling him from the nosebleed tables for a while.
This session wasn’t meant to break the curse either. In the wake of about 1,300 hands of $300/$600 and $500/$1,000 PLO, Hastings found himself more than half a million in the black. Isildur1 had dropped around $82k to Cole South before his match with Hastings, so it became obvious the Cardrunners team members still treated the Swede as their personal ATM.

]]>Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:31:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/durrrr-challenge-dwan-widens-lead-again-766The much hyped Durrrr Challenge, now in its second year, looks like it’s finally approaching a quiet downhill roll to the end. The two players involved in the series, Tom Dwan and Patrik Antonius had another session the other day, which resulted in yet another loss for the Finn. This latest loss meant that Antonius had finished 10 of the last 11 Challenge sessions under the red line. This online poker clash between the two lasted for a little over an hour and 364 hands were logged.
It all resulted in a $342,157 profit for Dwan, which added to his already sturdy lead, takes the overall gap to $1,755,708, the widest one of the series so far. The truth is though that given the streaky nature of the business, Antonius can yet theoretically rebound, as there are 16,758 hands still left in the Challenge.

Only 3 6-figure pots developed at the specially set up Challenge tables at Full Tilt Poker during this latest trouncing session. Two of those ended up in Dwan’s possession. The first one of these monster pots started out with a preflop raising war that got $64,800 into the pot before the flop was dealt. The 9c, 3d, 2c which fell on the flop ignited the action. Antonius fired out a pot-size bet and when raised by Dwan, he shoved all-in in response. Dwan made the call and tabled Ac,9h,7h,4c for top pair top kicker and a nut flush draw. Antonius had Ad,Kh,Kc,6d for the overpair and the lead. The 7s on the turn gave Dwan a two pair and the Jh on the river sealed the deal. Dwan took $213,785 on that pot alone.

Antonius took down one of the three 6-figure pots that came about: a $185,000 whooper. This hand started out with a preflop raising war too. By the time the Qs,7c,6c fell on the flop, there were $64,800 in the pot again. Antonius fired out a pot-size bet yet again which had Dwan all-in. Antonius had a pair of Ks again facing Dwan’s wrap draw, but this time, the superior hand held up and the monster-pot ended up on Antonius’ side of the virtual table.
With a little over 16k hands to go in the Challenge, Antonius needs to win an average $104.77 per hand to catch up.

]]>Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:00:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/weekend-online-poker-action-765The online poker weekend saw plenty of action again. PokerStars’ Sunday Million attracted a starting field of over 10,000 players again and a monster prize-pool developed. No fewer than 4 players took home 6-figure hauls in this poker tournament. The largest share of the prize-pool went to player “MAE9690” who took home $260,000. Camillo30 got $176,959 off the 4-player deal that was struck at the top.
Reelhugefish walked away with $150,000 and so did asturiano, who finished 4th.
Josh Schlein finished 12th for a $10,123 share of the total prize-pool of $2,024,600. Cesar Fuentes ended up in 19th and Veronica Dabul finished 48th.

The Sunday Warm-up attracted 4,980 players, who combined for a prize-pool of $996,000. This poker tournament saw a deal at the top as well. 6 players agreed to divide the remaining prize-pool their own way. This meant that there would be only one six-figure winner in this one. Bolivar Palacios finished in 1st place, for a massive $139,163 haul. This event yielded only one notable finisher: Nick Davies, who finished 34th for $2,141.

The Sunday 500 drew only 1,098 players, probably on account of the higher buy-in. This way, the prize-pool was “only” a $549,000 one. With not that much to go around, the top finishers weren’t that eager to share either. M3tph finished 1st, scoring a $93,330 profit. 99NvrLoses finished runner-up for $68,625.
Robert Saltiel was the top “name” finisher. He collected $3,733 for his 13th place.

Meanwhile, the high buy-in MTT action roared on at Full Tilt Poker too. The 4,180 players who registered for the $750k Gtd, generated a prize-pool of $836,000. Shiftzerg won this one, and he took home $147,629, the full share of the winner, as no deals were struck in this poker tournament. Devon Biehn finished 18th for a little over $4k. The Sunday Brawl attracted a much smaller field. 2,911 players bellied up to the tables of this event, each one of them coughing up a $240+$16 buy-in, to combine for a prize-pool of $218,600. No deals were made in this one either. The winner, doublencs, was the only player to take down a 6-figure haul. He took home $118,186. Alex Santiago finished 10th for a little over $4k.

]]>Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:49:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/ept-berlin-things-return-to-normal-as-kevin-macphee-wins-764After 4 days of green felt battles, a robbery and several spectacular comebacks from the edge of extinction, Idaho’s own Kevin MacPhee took down the PokerStars EPT Berlin Main Event, pocketing the €1 million top prize and lifting the trophy above his head. The American battled his way through a 945 player starting field, a record for a live poker event held on German soil. The resulting prize-pool set a new record as did the brazen robbery which occurred on Day 3, sending players ducking for cover and upsetting the lives of the last 20 survivors of the poker tournament. MacPhee’s win is all the more interesting considering that on Day 3 he had to stave off elimination on the back of a 2-outer which he hit on the river. That hand proved to be the turning point for him though. He began dominating the proceedings, and he finished Day 3 in the chip lead. On Day 4, he continued right where he’d left off.

The start of the final table action saw two hours of non stop sizzling action. Nico Behling, the short-stack at this stage, wasted no time making his do or die move. He shoved all-in on his very first hand, only to end up chopping the pot. He moved all-in on his next hand as well, but his A,Q got called by Marcel Koller, who had pocket 10. The board bricked out and Behling was eliminated in 8th place.
Marko Neumann was the next victim, his A,K no match for MacPhee’s pocket 7s.
Marc Inizan proceeded to cripple Koller next. A few hands later, Koller was eliminated and gone, together with his vocal group of Swiss supporters.

Ketul Nathwani had started the final table second in chips, but he squandered most of his stack on useless bluffs. One such bluff left him crippled and a few hands later he too was eliminated, caught red-handed on yet another bluff by MacPhee. Artur Wasek followed him to the rail, and shortly after the dinner-break, Marc Inizan was bounced too.

MacPhee began the heads-up action against Finland’s Ilari Tahkokallio with a huge chip lead, but the going proved to be anything but easy for the American. He eventually gained the upper hand though and closed out the poker tournament.

]]>Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:31:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/pokerstars-ept-berlin-day-4-report-ept-berlin-marred-by-robbery-763The 4th day of the PokerStars sponsored EPT Berlin Main Event turned out to be something more sited for a cheesy western than for a real life scenario. 24 players returned to the tables and there were only 20 still in contention when all hell broke loose. A group of 6 masked men, apparently armed, entered the registration area and mayhem ensued. Security was there though and they apparently managed to take down some of the perpetrators. Exactly what the men were armed with is not currently know, guns and knives are suspected although rumors about AK-47s and hand grenades have taken off. It is not currently known how many of the robbers were caught, nor the amount of money they made off with. Anyway, despite the panic and the large scale chaos that ensued, losses seem to have been minimal as the organizers have made it known almost immediately that they intended to continue all the poker tournaments that were in progress when the vile interruption occurred.

After things got straightened out in the wake of the mass panic and after it became clear that no one was injured, the Main Event continued, with players being allotted the same approximate stacks they had had before. At the end of the day, the 8-handed final table was reached with Kevin McPhee having clinched the chip lead. Ketul Nathwani is second in chips, followed by Ilari Tahkokallio.

The interesting thing about Tahkokallio’s run was that he was all-in against Luca Cainelli at the time the chaos erupted. The flop and the turn of the hand had been dealt and Tahkolakio’s A,10o was in a bad shape against Cainelli’s A,Qo. The cards remained at the table and after the panic had settled, the two players decided to continue from where they were, despite the fact that both of them had been given the option to have the hand voided.
Tahkokallio lost that confrontation, but after that, he began to accumulate chips as if there had been no tomorrow.

Team PokerStars had a solid representation at the beginning of the day, but none of the pros made it to the final table. Johannes Strassman was eliminated in 23rd and Jude Ainsworth made it to 19th. They both picked up the same reward for their efforts.

]]>Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:29:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/la-poker-classic-andras-koroknai-wins-762After 6 days of grueling green-felt battles, the 745-player initial LA Poker Classic starting field finally yielded a winner. Hungary’s Andras Koroknai was the one who walked away with the title at the end of it all, topped off by a prize of $1,788,040. As if that weren’t enough though, Koroknai got rewarded in other ways too: he earned a seat in the WPT’s World Championship which will take place this April, offering Koroknai the chance to go for the double.

Michael Kamran, one of the shorter stacks was the first player to be bounced from the poker tournament’s final table. He picked up $246,740 for his efforts. Jean Claude Moussa was the next player to bite the dust. He scored $321,840, not a shabby haul for a 5th place finisher at all.
Gevork Kasabyan would be the first to follow him to the rail, as the televised final table quickly whittled down to 3. Kasabyan decided to pin all his hopes onto an A,7o he’d picked up, but as it turned out, he never stood a chance against Tri Huynh’s A,9o. The flop put Huynh firmly into the driver’s seat: it gave him a two pair. Kasabyan needed a runner-runner at that point to stay alive, and through the 7h which fell on the river, Lady Luck gave him a glimmer of hope. She then completely turned her back on him, slapping a 9s onto the river to give Huynh a boat and to send Kasabyan to the payout booth. Kasabyan picked up $450,580 for his 4th place.

Huynh couldn’t put Kasabyan’s chips to good use though. He picked up pocket Js and decided to take a shot at Koroknai, who was more than glad to tangle with him, holding A,K. Huynh picked up $665,140 for his 3rd place.

The heads-up stage found Koroknai holding a 13-1 chip lead over Raymond Dolan. The two played on for a while, but the match-up never amounted to anything more than a cat and mouse fight. On the final hand, Koroknai shoved all-in on a Qh, 8h against Dolan’s Q, 4o. The flop gave Dolan a pair of 4s but it also gave Koroknai a flush draw. The Kh on the river filled his flush and the poker tournament was over.

]]>Sun, 07 Mar 2010 11:51:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/online-poker-action-dwan-soars-again-761Rain or sunshine, the nosebleed online poker action never stops for anybody. This past week, the usual protagonists took their 6 and 7 figure bankrolls to the tables again, some of them logging profits, while others dropped money – more of it than regular mortals could ever even dream about. Tom Dwan continued to rebuild his bankroll (which Isildur1had ravaged back in 2009) by scoring a $1 million profit. In the meantime, Cole South, the most successful player of the year so far, dropped around $1 million, bringing his hot streak to a screeching halt. The Cardrunners gang as a whole saw a pretty tough week at Full Tilt Poker, as Brian Townsend, the head of all evil in Cardrunners’ county, dropped around $750,000 as well. The other big loser of the week was Marcello Marigliano, who lost $451,000 over the course of a single day.

South had booked more than $3.5 million in profits in 2010, but that number took a huge dive a few days ago, when Dwan and Sahamies relieved the Cardrunners pro of no less than $1 million. Each of these two guys got about $500k of South’s money, during about 3,678 hands of PLO. The biggest pot that South dropped, was a $290,997 one that ended up in Sahamies’ pockets.

On Monday night, Marcelo Marigliano decided to play a few hands of PLO too, a decision which he would come to regret bitterly. The nosebleed stakes community had gotten used to treating Gus Hansen like an ATM, but this time that approach would not work. The ATM got mad and it took around $225k off Marigliano before luckexpress10 realized what had hit him.
Patrik Antonius joined the frenzy too, but the biggest pot of the session, a $121,200 disappeared in the Great Dane’s long-starving pockets.

Tom Dwan $1million payday came on Thursday night, in a short 2,700-hand session against Cole South and Brian Townsend. Never the one to mess around with crumbs and droplets, Dwan took $486k from Townsend in only 126 hands of $200/$400 PLO. South gave him a tad more trouble though: it took Dwan around 3,000 hands to relieve him of $300k.
Despite the handsome profit he scored against South, Sahamies is still among the biggest online poker losers of the week with around $500k dropped.

]]>Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:07:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/la-poker-classic-final-table-set-760Day 5 of the WPT’s LA Poker Classic saw a lot of heartbreak at the Commerce Casino. Big name players bowed out of the poker tournament one by one, as the grueling 15 hours marathon of a day covered 9 blind levels. Some people chipped up at the end of some pretty spectacular stunts only to be bounced short of the lime light. This was Jim Casement’s case, who had a hand in Carlos Mortensen’s elimination. Casement made the final table, but busted out just short of the televised 6-handed final table, missing out on some otherwise well deserved TV time.

Carlos Mortensen was the player who came into day 5 of the poker tournament with the largest stack. His day turned sour almost from the get go though. He picked up a pair of Js in the pocket and proceeded to get his chips into the midle on it. He got looked up by Jamie Brown whose A,Q set up a perfect coin-flip. An A landed on the flop, and Mortensen found himself crippled right out of the gate. He still had some juice left though and battled on for a while but failed to gain any traction. Eventually, relegated to less then 10 BBs, he made his do or die move on an Ac,4c. Jim Casement was keen to make the call with pocket 10s. The board blanked out, and Mortensen’s final stretch run came to a screeching halt in 9th place.

The man of the day was obviously Andras Koroknai, who dominated the action and eventually finished with the chip lead. He was the man who disposed of Mortensen’s nemesis, Jim Casement, sending him home in 7th place, thus turning him in to the televised final table’s bubble boy. Having become the short-stack, Casement shoved all-in on Ac, 4c and Koroknai made the call holding A,9o. The board blanked out and Casement was done.
Koroknai disposed of some far more difficult to handle players as well, during day 5. He bounced Johnny Chan in 13th place, when his pocket 6s delivered the goods against Chan’s A,Qo. He then proceeded to eliminate Steve Sung too, on a K,K vs Q,Q match-up which saw the two players shove all-in on a flop of 8c,2c,2h.
Koroknai finished the day with 4,995,000 chips, followed by Raymond Dolan, with 3,300,000.

]]>Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:22:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/pokerstars-ept-berlin-day-1a-report-759With the German leg of the EPT moved from Dortmund to Berlin, expectations were high regarding the number of participants, the resulting prize-pool and the general feel of the Main Event. For once, these expectations were fully justified. A much more happening place than Dortmund, Berlin proved to be a real magnet for poker players, professionals and amateurs alike, who were hungry for a shot at the fabulous €1 million top prize. Though initially planned for another venue, the PokerStars EPT Main Event eventually got squeezed into the ballroom of the Hyatt, right next door to the casino. No fewer than 389 players showed up for Day 1A, following a monster of a hospitality party, PokerStars had organized the previous day.

Team PokerStars pro had a massive contingent present on Day 1A. Vicky Coren, Tom McEvoy, Sebastian Ruthenberg and Arnaud Mattern were all there, together with a bunch of other PokerStars pros. Interpoker’s Juha Helppi was there as well, together with Praz Bansi and Barny Boatman.
Martin Kabrhel, one of the EPTs regulars, known around the circuit as the king of side events, had an excellent start to his day. He had an early double up but then ran into problems later, and by the time the day the day wound down, he was not in contention anymore.

Due to the high concentration of name pros on Day 1A, there were many well known players who bite the dust: Anthony Lellouche, Jan Skampa and Ludovic Lacay all failed to make it to day 2. Kfir Yamin of Israel had an excellent day from start to finish though. He played well during the day and hung in there, but towards the end he exploded, amassing a 213,000 chip stack through the last levels, to clinch the provisional chip lead.
Carlos Oliveira and Albert Iversen finished near the top too. 196 players made it past the hurdle, Thomas Bichon, Jeff Sarwer and Nasr El Nasr among them. Juha Helppi survived day 1A too, albeit on a relatively small stack.

Because subsequent Day 1 flights always attract more players than the first ones, judging by the Day 1A starting field’s size, Day 1B will probably fulfill all the dreams the organizers had nurtured about making this the largest ever live poker event on German soil.

]]>Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:45:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/la-poker-classic-day-3-and-day-4-report-758Day 3 of the LA Poker Classic had an obvious goal: playing down to the money bubble. That goal was achieved, as out of the 186 players who’d bellied up to the tables of the Commerce Casino, only 72 were left alive by the day’s end. At least all these guys were guaranteed a reward for their money and efforts. Those eliminated towards the day’s end came tantalizingly close, but failed to get heir hands on any of the goods nonetheless.

Mark Newhouse was the player who found his way into the chip lead. A previous chip leader, Masa Kagawa managed to preserve his large-stack, and he too finished somewhere in the upper echelon of the provisional Day 3 leader board.
Daniel Negreanu and Vanessa Rousso both survived the day, and will continue to represent PokerStars on the 4th day of the poker tournament. Several other name pros made it through too, but Barry Greenstein, Paul Wasicka, Howard Lederer and Jennifer Tilly weren’t among them. Thomas Fuller was ejected in 73rd place, becoming the official bubble-boy of the poker tournament.

With nearly $1.8 million waiting for the winner, the battle wore on, on Day 4. The 72 Day 3 survivors logged 5 and a half levels of blinds to play down to the final 22. Day 3 chip leader, Mark Newhouse held on. Although he lost the chip lead, he will still be one of the large stacks heading into the final stretch of the event.
Carlos Mortensen is the new chip leader. He managed to land in the top spot after a nice couple of moves during the last level of play. First, he picked up pocket rockets and made the most of them, stripping Raymond Dolan of his last chips and shooting above the 1 million chip mark. A few hands later, he called Michael Woo’s all-in, holding J,J against Woo’s Q,Q. The flop brought another J though and Woo was done, as Mortensen shot right to the chip lead.

Newhouse got busy during the later levels of play too. He cracked Dan Martin’s pocket Ks, holding J,7 and hitting a two pair on the turn.
Neither Daniel Negreanu, nor Vanessa Rousso made it past Day 4. Annie Duke, Johnny Chan and Steve Sung are still in contention though.

]]>Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:27:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/la-poker-classic-day-2-report-757More than 400 survivors showed up for day 2 of the WPT’s LA Poker Classic. At the end of the day, only 186 players were left in contention. Team PokerStars Pro players were out in force, and they pretty much stole all the lime-light on Day 2 as Daniel Negreanu finished in 3rd place and Vanessa Rousso ended up in 6th. Salvatore Deluca amassed a stack of 431,000 chips to clinch the chip lead, but with all those name players in the top echelon, few people paid any sort of attention to him.

Negreanu scored a couple of big pots that became largely responsible for his advance through the ranks. On the first hand, the PokerStars pro made a raise from early position, holding 3c,4c. Two opponents tagged along for the ride, and the flop fell 2c, 3d, 5c giving Negreanu a Straight flush draw. The Canadian bet 3,500 chips into the pot and made one of the other players fold. The other guy fought back though. He raised it to 6,000, and Negreanu responded by further escalating the conflict to 15,000. That must’ve been too much for his opponent as he came over the top immediately, tabling 3,8o for the lead. Negreanu was in a bit of a squeeze there, but great players are great because they tend to be luckier than their opponents too. The turn brought about a 4, giving Negreanu a two pair and planting him firmly in the driver’s seat. The Ks on the river sealed the deal.

In another hand, there were about 50k chips in the pot on the river, and he had hit quad 8s. He shoved another 40k into the middle and Benjamin Zamani called him. Needless to say, Negrenu picked up another hefty pot to add to his stack. Howard Lederer, Mark Seif, Steve Sung, Vivek Rajkumar and Johnny Chan are still in contention. With the money bubble set to 72nd place, the milestone will probably be reached on Day 3, but many of the second day’s survivors will fall by the side before the bubble bursts. Chip leader Salvatore Deluca and Daniel Negreanu have sure positioned themselves favorably for a deep day 3 run though.

]]>Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:23:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/pokerstars-lapt-punta-del-este-nacho-barbero-wins-756The 4th and last day of the PokerStars LAPT’s Punta del Este stop saw the 8 remaining players return to the poker room of the Mantra Resort to sort out the fate of the top prize once and for all.
The final table battle lasted for a grueling 10 hours. At the end of it, it was PokerStars’ Nacho Barbero who held up the trophy and who pocketed the $273,370 top prize.
The early stages of poker tournament saw the short-stacks make their do or die moves one by one. First, Barbero’s A,7o locked horns with Roman Suarez’s A,5o. A seven on the flop and one on the turn gave Barbero a set with a top kicker and Suarez was done.
Bernardo Dias picked up A,6o next and decided to make his move on it. He got looked up by Andreas Korn though, who had pocket 7s. The board failed to change anything and Dias went to the payout booth too.
Marco Caicedo shoved all-in next, and Barbero was keen to make the call holding K,Q. The board again went completely Barbero’s way, giving him two Qs for a set. Caicedo picked up $41,690 for his 6th place.

Daniela Zapiello, the revelation of the poker tournament, ran head-first into Andreas Korn’s pocket rockets to cripple herself. On the very next hand, she shoved all-in holding Qs,5s. Norbert Ludger made the call with Ad, 8d. Despite the fact that she landed a Q on the flop, Zapiello was bounced when Korn made a Broadway straight on the river.
Ludger couldn’t enjoy the advantage offered by Zapiello’s chips for long though. He was the next to head to the rail after his pocket 5s fell short against Nicolas Cardyn’s Q,10o.
Korn was sent to the rail by Barbero on a K,10 vs K,J match-up, and the heads-up stage was set. Due to the lengthy nature of the final table hostilities, by the time the heads-up stage was reached, the blinds had grown way too high. The two players were left with few choices but to shove it all-in and flip for it. The final hand saw Cardyn’s A,K go up against Barbero’s A,10. A 10 on the river settled the issue for good.

]]>Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:21:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/la-poker-classic-day-1-report-755These days, we’re witnessing a genuine poker explosion all over: the online poker scene is bustling. Online poker tournaments are breaking attendance and prize-pool records and all this while the online nosebleed cash games are in full swing too. The live poker scene is busy as well. The WPT’s LA Poker Classic is only one of several high profile live events currently underway.
This poker tournament marked an extremely interesting prop-bet between Jeff Madsen, Joe Sebok and Gavin Smith. The first player of the three to bite the dust would have to get tattoos depicting the faces of the other two guys. The second to the rail would have to get a tattoo of the face of the guy left standing.
Sebok proved to be the unluckiest of the three as he got bounced during the 3rd level when his pocket rockets fell to a lesser hand.
Jeff Madsen, fresh of his Borgata win was the second of the three to go. Both losers would end up with Gavin Smith’s face tattooed on. Although there was a possibility for the losers to buy their way out of the tattoo deal, no word of either of them opting for that possibility has yet surfaced.

Gavin Smith was obviously the happiest of them all. Not only did he escape the permanent scarring of his skin, he made it through to day 2 too, albeit on a really short stack of 4,500 chips. According to his Twitter page, he went card-dead during the later stages of day 1.

Two players who did really good and who didn’t even have to worry about some poker player’s mug-shot being permanently etched into their Adam’s suits were Masa Kagawa and Mark Seif. They finished day 1 of the poker tournament in 1st and second respectively. They bested an initial field of 745 players whose combined buy-ins gave birth to a $1,778,001 first place prize and a $1,002,710 second place one. A total of 463 players survived day 1.

Other notable players to bite the dust were: last year’s champ, Cornel Andrei Cimpan, and PokerStars’ Peter Eastgate and Andy Bloch.

Paul Wasicka, Darus Sucharto and Vanessa Rousso survived to day two, so Team PokerStars pro will still enjoy a healthy representation.

]]>Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:13:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/pokerstars-lapt-punta-del-este-day-3-report-754The Mantra Resort in Punta del Este saw 24 players return to the green felt to battle it out for a final table seat, on day 3 of the PokerStars LAPT’s Punta Del Este Main Event. The goal set by the organizers was for the remaining players to play down to the final table. That goal was reached, though it was by no means easy to achieve: it took over 8 hours for the field to whittle down to the final 8. Norbert Ludger was the player who amassed the largest stack by the day’s end. He took down a huge pot (the biggest of the day), during 13-handed play, thus he’ll head into the final table with almost 1.6 million chips.

The early story of the day was the battle between Stephen Chidwick and Norbert Ludger. Chidwick got off to an excellent start, and took his stack from 255,000 chips to 450,000. He then ran into Ludger, and soon put the squeeze on him too. The two players got it all-in on a flop of 8,7,9 with Chidwick holding 9,8 for the two pair and Ludger having an 8,6o for the straight draw. The turn brought a 5 though, and Chidwick took a huge blow. A few hands later, the two tangled again, and this time Chidwick hit the rail after Ludger’s pocket 5s caught another 5 for the set.

The chips collected from Chidwick allowed Ludger to optimize his play and to cut risk-taking to a minimum. As a result of that, during the later stages of the day he was able to take down a huge pot which thrust his stack over the 1 million chip mark. The pot that turned out to be the biggest one of the day, developed between Ludger and Martin Sansour. Following a 2,4,8 flop and a little bit of back and forth, the 2 on the turn ignited the gunpowder keg. All the chips went into the middle and Ludger showed down pocket 4s for the flopped set. Sansour had nothing really, apparently he’d been bluffing all the way as his A,Q never even put a dent into Ludger’s odds.

PokerStars’ Humberto Brenes had had an excellent poker tournament up until day 3, but he fell short of the final table. Jose Barbero didn’t fare much better either.

]]>Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:09:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/dwan-drops-120k-to-isildur1-753Though his record breaking nosebleed stakes days are over at least for the time being, Isildur1 is back at the high level cash tables at Full Tilt Poker and he continues to frustrate his most bitter online poker rivals, particularly Tom Dwan.
For those of you who may not be in the know, Isildur1 is a Swedish mystery player who exploded onto the nosebleed scene last year. Tom Dwan was one of the players to jump on the opportunity to fleece the fish, but things didn’t quite turn out the way he’d planned and he dropped a massive $5.2 million to Isildur1 within a mere 3 sessions. Aching to get his money back, he tangled with Isildur1 several times after that meltdown, but every time, he got taken for more money. Isildur1 then proceeded to lose all of Dwan’s money to Antonius, Hastings and Ivey. Dwan was actually forced to move down the stakes to build up his bankroll again, before he could return full force to the highest levels of Full Tilt Poker cash play.

Isildur1 is currently doing his own stack-rebuilding. Having moved down the online poker stakes, the Swede is currently riding a roller-coaster. He wins some money off some players, he drops some to others. Last Friday, he hit the virtual felt once again, sitting into a game of $200/$400 PLO where Dwan was playing with Gus Hansen, Di Dang and skjervoy. Dwan had had a good session before that, as he took $229k off Cole South.
As soon as Isildur1 showed up though, his luck turned southward. In a mere 24 hands, the Swede amassed more than $59k in profits, then he agreed to move to a $100/$200 NL table where Dwan was hoping he could exact some revenge.
Once again though, the New Jersey Wonderkid found himself unable to break the Isildur1 curse. The Swede made a $59k profit over 980 hands of NL Holdem, then moved on to play Phil Galfond at $200/$400 PLO. True to his ways, he dropped $18k there before calling it the day.

In the meantime, in other high stakes action, Ilari Sahamies got taken for $256k by Brian Hastings. Patrik Antonius showed up too, and he too dropped around $56k to Hastings.

]]>Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:02:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/pokerstars-napt-high-rollers-event-ashton-griffin-wins-752The PokerStars sponsored NAPT’s Venetian stop came to a conclusion yesterday as the final table of the High Rollers Event wrapped up with Ashton Griffin taking down the title and the $560,000 first prize.
Concocted by PokerStars pros, the event featured a unique structure. 49 players started out at 7 different preliminary tables. Each table would yield one winner, one player who would make it to the final table of the poker tournament. Each player would carry a bounty and each preliminary table winner would take home an additional $75k prize. Scott Seiver was the player who put in the most dominating performance during the preliminaries, eliminating all those at his table, collecting all the bounties and the winner’s special reward. To top it all off, at the end of the poker tournament, PokerStars would offer the best bounty hunter a $100k prize, and needless to say, Seiver had positioned himself excellently to pocket that chunk of cash too.
Peter Eastgate was the sole representative of Team PokerStars pro at the final table. His final table run wasn’t an auspicious one either. Seiver doubled up at his expense holding a pocket rockets, then returned a few hands later and finished the dirty job, bouncing Eastgate in 7th place.

Griffin then hit a 3-outer to send Brett Richey packing in 6th. Faraz Jaka tangled with Seiver next, but it all ended badly for him: he picked up $95,000 for his 5th place. That elimination pretty much secured Seiver the best bounty hunter title and the special PokerStars prize, as the likelihood of another player overtaking him grew smaller by the hand.
Hoyt Corkins was one of two players who still had mathematical chances at tying Seiver, and it all seemed to come together nicely for the cowboy when he eliminated Seiver in 4th.
Griffin Sent Cassidy to the rail too after about 3 hours of grueling 3-handed play, that left him and Corkins heads-up for the top prize.
On only the second hand of hands-up action though, Griffin disposed of Corkins to win the event and to pocket the $560,000 prize, locking up the best Bounty Hunter title for Seiver in the process. The final hand of the tournament saw Griffin’s 9,8 prevail over Corkins’ 9,3, on account of the higher kicker.

]]>Sat, 27 Feb 2010 17:26:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/pokerstars-lapt-punta-del-este-day-2-report-751With half the initial starting field eliminated on Day 1, the PokerStars LAPT’s Punta del Este stop saw 145 players return to the green felt on Day 2. The goal for day two had been set for the final 24, and sure enough, it only took the survivors 9 levels and about 10 hours to play down to that number. When the chips were bagged, it was Cesar Mostafa who had the largest stack. The other story of the day was the emergence of Daniela de Lima Zapiello.
The day kicked off at an alert pace, but the flow of eliminations turned into a trickle as the poker tournament progressed. Alex Brenes was one of the victims of early attrition. Maria Mayrinck had managed to survive Day 1, but Day 2 wasn’t going to be her day. She was bounced early too. The team PokerStars pro didn’t spend much time on the rail alone through. Teammate Leo Fernandez followed her to the sidelines soon.

The money bubble represented a landmark for the day, and no fewer than 3 PokerStars pros managed to successfully navigate around it. Veronica Dabul was one of these pros, but her day was cut short soon after the bubble. She finished 38th, picking up $5,210 for her efforts.
Humberto Brenes once again provided proof of his greatness. He started the day on a short-stack, but instead of slowly bleeding to death, he fought his way back up and eventually finished 7th overall for the day.
The big hand that gave him the decisive thrust was a 6,6 vs 10,10 match-up in which he managed to hit a set on the flop and quad 6s on the river to blow his opponent’s hand to smithereens and to pull down the huge pot.

Daniela de Lima Zapiello had an excellent day as well. Plowing through tablefuls of opponents she kept adding to her stack, until at one point she took over the chip lead. She was the first player in the poker tournament to cross the 500k chip mark. She was also responsible for the elimination of bubble boy Pedro Komaromi, a deed for which the other survivors were probably particularly thankful.
Zapiello did have a few slip-ups later in the day, but she still managed to finish 2nd overall.

]]>Sat, 27 Feb 2010 07:14:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/online-poker-action-sahamies-steals-the-spotlight-750Despite the several high profile live events going on last week, the online poker scene stayed as hot as ever. Isildur1, everyone’s favorite Swedish mystery player was in the thick of the action again. This time though, things didn’t quite work out for him. He dropped around $300k, mostly to Phil Galfond. The highlight-reel material was shipped by Ilari Sahamies though. The Finn was on fire against Brian Hastings, taking some of the money that Isildur1 had dropped to him back in December.

With another record-breaking edition of the PokerStars Sunday Million under way, things got hot at Full Tilt Poker too, at the nosebleed cash tables. Sahamies took on Hastings in a 500 hand session, at the end of which he booked a $720k profit. The biggest pot of the session was a $400k one, which – needless to say – ended up in Sahamies’ possession. The hand started out with a preflop tug-of-war, which had both players post about $56k before the flop hit the board. The Js, 5c, 7s did little to douse the flames though. As a matter of fact it poured some gasoline onto the simmering coal as Hastings almost shoved his entire stack into the middle on it. His $113,400 raise failed to intimidate Sahamies though. The Finn raised him so he was forced to shove his last 40k in as well, and the showdown was on. Hastings had A,J,A,10 against Sahamies’ K,7,6,3. The 3 on the turn turned the situation around in Sahamies’ favor and Hastimgs never managed to catch up.

On Wednesday, Sahamies returned to the nosebleed action, squaring off against Cole South that time. His opponent selection proved to be an unfortunate one though. The less than 500 hand $200/$600 PLO session cost the Finn close to $800k, so it’s safe to say he gave all of Hastings’ money to his Cardrunners buddy.
The largest pot of that online poker session was a $234,000 one, which landed in South’s pocket. As a matter of fact, South took down two more 200K+ pots before the slaughter was over.
Sahamies’ rollercoaster week came full circle as after the South session, he essentially found himself right where he had stood before the Hastings bout.

]]>Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:56:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/pokerstars-napt-main-event-tom-marchese-wins-749The final day of the PokerStars North American Poker Tour saw an epic heads-up battle between eventual winner Tom Marchese and Sam Stein, the player who had dominated the previous day as well as the preceding final table hostilities.
Stein began the day with the largest stack, and he’d never relinquish his vantage-position. He plowed through the final table eliminating and crippling players left and right, even when the odds were stacked against him.
He got it all-in against John Cernuto, on a middle pair against Cernuto’s top pair. He then proceeded to hit a two pair to send Cernuto to the rail. Against Daniel Clemente, he had top pair, but the latter had an over-pair and Stein was in trouble again. He hit a runner-runner straight to get out of that tight spot.
Not much later, his pocket Js were up against David Parades’ pocket rockets. The flop gave him a third J to send Parades packing.

These were some of the events that lead up to the heads-up confrontation between Stein and Marchese. Having knocked out so many players, Stein Enjoyed an obvious chip advantage: he had 16.38 million chips against Marchese’s 9.6 million, and the battle looked like a lock from the get go. Stein wasted no time putting his large stack to work, and he soon had his opponent on the ropes. Just when it looked like the bell had tolled for Marchese, a crucial hand unfolded. The flop fell 6,K,5 rainbow and Marchese put in a bet. He got called on every street, right up to the river (10c – the turn was a 4), when he shoved all-in. Stein triumphantly made the call and tabled a Jd, 5d, against Marchese’s K,9o. That move gave Marchese the chip lead.
The final hand of the confrontation came only 10 minutes later. The money went all-in on a board of 9,5,4,3,10, following a few called bets on the flop and the turn. Marchese had 10,10 for the rivered set against Stein’s pair of 4s.
Marchese collected $827,949 for the win, and Stein picked up more than half a million dollars for his second place.
Daniel Celemente finished 3rd for $309,366.

]]>Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:46:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/lapt-punta-del-este-day-1-report-748The PokerStars sponsored LAPT’s second stop kicked off yesterday at Punta del Este in Uruguay. The event attracted a field of 307 participants, and given the $3,500+$200 buy-in, the first place prize was set to $279,330.
Day 1 saw the field wade through 8 levels of blinds. At the end of it all, half the initial starting field was gone. With 145 contenders remaining in the books, it was Martin Fuentes who clinched the top spot, with 118k chips to his name.
Fuentes began the day well. During the first few levels he inconspicuously built up an 80,000 chip stack. His final push came within the last few hands of the day, when he took his already impressive stack to the top of the provisional chip leader board. That big thrust came at the end of an A,A vs Q,Q match-up, which Fuentes’ rockets won by hitting another A on the flop.

Cesar F. Mostafa and Ernesto Panno played well too. They’d both built stacks within 10k of Furentes’ pack-leading one.
Like any PokerStars sponsored event, this poker tournament attracted a high number of “name” players too, and many of these guys survived the first day of action. Humberto Brenes brought half his family along for the trip. While he managed to survive Day1, his two sons, Roberto and Jose Humberto both fell by the side.
Jose Ignacio Barbero, Leo Fernandez and Veronica Dabul will continue to represent PokerStars on Day 2 of the event.
PokerStars pros who got bounced on Day 1 were: Angle Guillen, Pieter de Korver, Alexandre Gomes and Andre Akkari.

Maria Mayrinck, another Team PokerStars pro managed to survive the day despite an early trouncing that left her with 15k chips. The hand that drove her to the edge of extinction was a typical “perfect hand”. Maria made a straight against an opponent’s boat to drop a cartload of chips early on. Fortunately for the PokerStars pro, her 15,000 chips proved enough for her to build on, and soon she doubled back up. She hit top pair top kicker and got all-in on it against an opponents straight and flush draws. Soon after that, she chipped up again via a top pair-top kicker against another flush draw. She finished Day 1 with 41,300 chips.

]]>Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:01:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/pokerstars-napt-high-rollers-event-747With the main event of the North American Poker Tour slowly winding down, the limelight was taken by the NAPT High rollers event, a poker tournament featuring a unique shootout structure devised by PokerStars’ specialists. The $25k buy-in event featured 49 players, some of whom were specially invited for the High Rollers’ shootout. PokerStars’ Daniel Negreanu was there, together with Phil Hellmuth, JC Tran, PartyPoker’s Tony G, Vanessa Rousso and Jason Mercier.
To add a twist to the action, each of the players carried a $5k bounty, and each of the final table participants would have to win a table, a feat for which, a $75k extra reward was due. According to Daniel Negreanu, the shootout structure was introduced to add to the spectacle as that way, players couldn’t just fold their way to the final table, they would actually have to bring the goods from the get go.

The preliminary action was broken up into two heats. The first one was a 3 table one, the second a 4 table one.
Scott Seiver had the most dominant run of all table winners. He eliminated all six of his opponents, collecting all 6 bounties.
Faraz Jaka and Hoyt Corkins were the other two players who moved on from the fist heat. Corkins did well too: he collected 5 scalps, and added the $75k reward on top of the bounty money.
Jaka had to deal with Annie Duke heads-up but eventually managed to send her to the rail and he too moved on to the final table, having collected 4 bounties.

Joe Cassidy collected 4 bounties too, and he disposed of Justin Bonomo heads-up to get his hands on the $75k prize.
Peter Eastgate locked horns with Isaac Haxton heads-up at the other table. The Dane was the one who eventually triumphed and collected the winner’s spoils, on top of the 2 bounties he’d managed to collect.

Ashton Griffin showed up late, but he gathered momentum as the poker tournament progressed and he eventually bounced Chris Moneymaker to secure the final table seat. He collected 2 bounties too. The last final table spot went to Brett Richey, whose pocket Ks made short work of Lee Markholt’s pocket 8s in the last hand of the heads-up confrontation. Richey secured 3 bounties.

]]>Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:59:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/pokerstars-napt-day-4-report-74624 players returned to the tables of the Venetian for the 4th day of the PokerStars North American Poker Tour’s Main event. The goal was obviously to play down to the final 8 players, setting up the official final table.
Sam Stein came into the day second in chips, but he had a plan and he stuck to it. He played aggressively and the chances he took paid off: when the final table was set, he was the player holding the largest stack and thus he secured the best odds for day 5.
The 24 players returning for day 4 wasted no time. They were at each others’ throats right out of the gate and the first level claimed no fewer then 3 tournament lives: those of Michael de Gilio, Christina Lindley and Jonathan Aguiar.
Eric Blair, the previous day’s chip leader didn’t have an auspicious start at all. He began with 4 million chips and before he knew it, he was down to 1.68 million.

Stein on the other hand, had no such problems. The local NL Holdem player dominated the poker tournament. He got involved in many hands, and he kept up the pressure. At one point during the day, he was up to 9 million chips. It was then he began to take shots at the short-stacks to try to bully them out. All he achieved though was to chip up some of the guys and to bring them back from the edge of extinction. As a result of those moves, his stack soon whittled down to 6.1 million, but even that was well enough to give him the final table chip lead.

The final table bubble boy was Kyle Zartman, who busted in 9th place to set the official 8-handed day 5 field.
Tom Fuller will start the final table second in chips, followed closely by David Paredes. Yunus Jamal isn’t far behind either, and Tom Marchese has a relatively solid stack too. Eric Blair and Daniel Clemente are quite short stacked, but the official short-stack is John Cernuto with 1.3 million chips.

With the $827,000 first prize on the line, these 8 players shall convene on Day 5 to duke it out for all the marbles.

]]>Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:36:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/pokerstars-napt-day-3-report-745Day 3 of the PokerStars North American Poker Tour’s Venetian event saw a surviving field of 149 players return to the green felt. This day was a crucial one in the poker tournament because the money bubble would be reached at 129th place. At the end of the day, only 24 players remained in contention, with Eric Blair holding the largest stack of 3.7 million chips. Sam Stein finished with 3.4 million chips, trailing the leader by only about 300k.
While Blair had amassed the bulk of his stack early in the day, Stein made his move in the home stretch. Most of his chips came from none other than Andrew Lichtenberger, the chip leader of the previous day. The two players locked horns on a flop of 8,J,7 rainbow, after a little bit of a preflop tussle. Lichtenberger shoved about 80k into the middle, and got a call from Stein. The 10s on the turn prompted another bet by Lichtenberger and he was called yet again. The river fell a Kd and Lichtenberger pushed the envelope further, but it soon became obvious he’d walked into a trap: Stein shoved all-in. Pot-committed as he was, Lichtenberger made the call, then mucked his hand when he saw the Ah,Qh turned over by Stein.

Other notable players who are still in it for a share of the prize-pool (and possibly even for the $827,648 top haul) are Steve Bilirakis and PokerStars’ own Andrew Chen.
Michael Binger wasn’t among the lucky ones though. He played extremely well through the poker tournament, but Lady Luck didn’t side with him. Down to his last 150k chips, he decided to make a do or die move and got it all into the midle holding Ah, 3h. He got a call from Cossette, who had pocket 8s. Binger’s hand failed to improve with the board and bounced he was, his only mistake of the event promptly punished.

The last victim of Day 3 was none other than Vanessa Rousso. She fell in 25th place, after she got crippled when her pocket Qs were cracked by Tom Sinistaj’s As, 9s. Sinistaj proceeded to hit an A and a 9 on the board to add insult to injury and to eliminate Rousso.

]]>Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:14:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/online-poker-weekend-records-shattered-744PokerStars shatters every new record it sets in a few weeks’ time lately. It is now a definite trend. Just 3-4 weeks after it set a new attendance and prize-pool record with its Sunday Million, this past weekend it simply blew that record away, amassing a never before heard-of prize-pool and a never before seen starting field. The special 40 billionth hand edition of the PokerStars Sunday Million was supposed to offer a prize-pool of $4 million, but the 36,169 players who showed up for the poker tournament, combined for a massive $7,233,800 prize-pool, almost twice as much as the guarantee.
No deals were made in the $200+$15 buy-in event, thus the winner, RichieRichZH took home a record $1,141,510. Second place man, lankeshwar took down a prize bigger than what Sunday Million winners usually take home on regular weekends.
Petinvest7 finished 3rd, for a prize of $506,536. Dani Stern was one of the top notable players. He finished 20th for a $9,042 reward. Alex Smith finished 29th for $7,233.

The Sunday Warm-up generated a pretty big starting field too. 5,341 players bellied up to the tables of this poker tournament, generating a prize-pool of $1,068,200. This event saw a deal among the top 4 players. At the end of it, Chris Homan came away with the win, pocketing $111,006. His wasn’t the biggest haul though. 3rd place man cumicon won $128,006. Justin Schwartz who finished 2nd, took home $109,006.
Notable finishes were those of Dustin-Dorrance Bowman (who took $6,355 for his 10th place finish), Tyler Cornell (16th) and Mark Roland (31st).

Meanwhile, over at Full Tilt Poker, the FTOPS was in full swing.
Event #22, the $2,500+$120 NL Holdem 6-max one, generated a prize-pool of $2 million. Raj Vohra bested a starting field of 794 players, taking home a $430,000 prize.
Event #25, the NL Holdem Knockout 6-max one, featured a much smaller buy-in but a much larger starting field. The 5,098 players combined for a $1,019,000 prize-pool, the lion’s share of which went to BonMich08, who struck no deals and thus shared with no one.
The FTOP’s $500+$30 Main Event attracted 1,575 players who shared a prize-pool of $797,500. This tournament saw a 7-way deal at the top, as a result of which, the eventual winner, JackQKA only won $237,643.

]]>Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:40:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/ept-copenhagen-day-5-report-anton-wigg-wins-742The final day of the EPT Copenhagen Main Event saw 9 players return to the green felt, instead of the 8 that had been scheduled initially. Because the final table bubble just wouldn’t burst on day 4, organizers had decided to end the day anyway to get all 9 survivors back to the table on the final day.
The unofficial final table action kicked off at a swift pace, though that didn’t mean eliminations would come about just as fast. As a matter of fact, about two hours had passed before Magnus Borg Hansen became the unfortunate official final table bubble boy. His pocket 10s lost the coin-flip against Anton Wigg’s A,K and he was finally bounced from the poker tournament. This move gave Wigg the chip lead heading into the official final table.

It took the final table another hour to eject the next weak link: Jesper Petersen. Petersen had been playing awfully tight all through the final table and he gave up massive amounts of committed chips several times. There was no way this approach would take him anywhere other than the rail.
Confined to a short-stack, he was eventually forced to make his move on an A,Q. Wigg was keen to look him up with A,4o and he hit a pair of 4s on the flop to send the rock packing.

After a long dry spell, another elimination finally came about when Morten Guldhammer decided to take a coin-flip for his tournament life. Sure enough, Yorane Kerignard called him with his Q,Q and the coin-flip was on. The river brought another Q to give Kerignard a set and to send Guldhammer packing in 7th.

Wigg then proceeded to eliminate Roberto Romanello, his pocket rockets never even endangered by Romanello’s 8h, 9h. Richard Loth fell next, at the hands of Francesco de Vivo. Wigg’s pocket Ks made another victim in Kerignard, whose A,Q got blown away. Play once again slowed to a crawl, until Wigg made yet another victim. With Klein’s departure, the heads-up stage got underway, and the trend of careful, slow play continued. Wigg got hit at one point and his stack whittled down to around 1 million chips. He bounced right back though, and he was back in the saddle soon. The final hand of the poker tournament was an A,J vs K,10 match-up, on a board which bricked out.

]]>Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:16:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/ept-copenhagen-day-4-report-741The 4th day of the EPT’s Copenhagen Main Event saw three tablefuls of players return to the ballroom of the Radisson Hotel. The goal for the day was for these 3 tables to whittle down to one before the final whistle, but achieving that goal proved to be more than illusive.
9 handed play proved to be a stage impossible to leave behind for the remaining survivors, so the organizers decided to call it the day anyway, leaving 9 players to return on Day 5, instead of the 8 official final table participants.

Roberto Romanello began the day with the chip lead. Fully recovered from the digestive problems he’d struggled against for most of the previous day, he began to bleed chips away, right until he hit a timely double up. That move provided him with a thrust that carried him right into day 5 albeit only on an average stack.
Nicolo Calia a regular EPT participant was the first one to leave the poker tournament. Kristijonas Andrulis followed him to the rail shortly.
Peter Eastgate, the WSOP’s 2009 Main Event champion and the best hope of the local crowd, had played extremely well through the previous few days of the poker tournament. Day 4 though was not his day. He was bounced during the very first blinds level after Damien Fouquet crippled him on a perfect hand match-up, in which his straight got licked by Fouquet’s boat. Jesper Petersen then moved in for the kill.

Ricky Fohrenbach was eliminated by Andrew Teng at the end of a coin-flip. Steven Vollers, Chris Dombrowski and Andrei Vlasenko were eliminated next in this order. Fouquet got his chips into the middle on pocket Ks against Morten Guldhammer’s 10,J. Lady Luck would side with the underdog this time though and as his Ks went up in flames, Fouquet headed to the payout queue.
Magnus Hansen took care of Andrew Teng next, and as Mads Wissing and Paul Szyszko were eliminated too, the remainder of the field was moved to a single table.
Despite the fact that the day had started off with a whirlwind of eliminations, the end of it was about as serene as it could be. No player would be eliminated for 2 and a half hours, so the decision to call it the day anyway was made.

]]>Sun, 21 Feb 2010 21:10:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/ept-copenhagen-day-3-report-740The third day of the EPT Copenhagen Main Event was a crucial one, at least for those 20 players who would be eliminated without making the money. With the last paying position set for 56th place, the 76 players who’d survived the previous two days of action set off in a surprisingly alert manner. Roberto Romanello began the day 5th in chips, and despite the fact that he was pretty sick (food poisoning), he kept his teeth clenched and pushed forth. He got off to a flying start when he managed to send Simon Nybo to the rail, thus scoring the first elimination of the day. That thrust gave him plenty of momentum, and by the end of the day, he’d managed to amass the largest stack in the poker tournament, clinching the chip lead and offering himself a triumphant entry into day 4.

Despite the up-tempo start, play ground to a near halt right on the bubble. The dinner break postponed the elimination of the bubble-boy, and even after the dinner break, it took the remaining field close to a full level to eject Craig Hopkins, the last player to get zilch for his tournament efforts. Hopkins was bounced by Morten Guldhammer, when his pocket Qs got cracked by Guldhammer’s K,10 on the flop.

Just as soon as the money bubble burst, play switched gears and got into overdrive. Players began to hit the rail left and right, content that they’d at least have something to show for their toils.
Following a few post bubble eliminations, Bertrand Grospellier hit the rail too. Anton Wigg was the culprit, or rather his pocket 6s which hit a set on the flop of the decisive hand.
The PokerStars Pro’s elimination left home boy Peter Eastgate to represent the online poker room, and the 2008 WSOP Main Event champ acquitted himself of the task with flying colors. He finished day 3 in 7th place, which still left him with real chances for the title.

24 players survived the day, Jens Sunberg being the last victim. Sunberg shoved all in against Guldhammer’s pocket 8s, holding 10,10. Guldhammer landed an 8 on the flop though and another one on the turn. The river was a 10 – obviously an indication of Lady Luck thumbing her nose at Sunberg.

]]>Sat, 20 Feb 2010 22:31:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/ept-copenhagen-day-2-report-739The second day of the EPT Copenhagen Main Event hosted a massive field of 243 Day 1A and Day 1B survivors. Due to the large number of “name” pros registered for the poker tournament, and due to the fact that they survived their Day 1 flights in scores, Day 2 saw large numbers of professionals too.
Canada’s Andrew Pantling started the day with the chip lead, but Peter Eastgate and Sebastian Ruthenberg were both hot on his heels.
Interpoker’s Juha Helppi, Freddy Deeb and the SNG king, Bertrand Grospellier were all among the survivors too.

Day 2 was not an auspicious one for Pantling at all. He struggled from the very beginning and eventually he squandered all his chips, heading to the rail before the dinner break. Many of the “name” pros joined him there. Jens Kyllonen, Arnaud Mattern, Dario Minieri, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Sami Kelopuro and Johnny Lodden were all eliminated. Luca Pagano, the Italian whose presence at the top of the leader boards is something all railbirds take for granted, failed to make it past the Day 2 hurdle too.

Roberto Romanello was the player who made the biggest progress through the day. He started out as one of the short-stacks with 19,000 chips and he became the chip leader at one point. Though he failed to hold on to the top spot, he did finish with a massive 249,200, good enough for a top 5 spot.
Richard Grace was another climber. He doubled up against Lam Son Nguyen at the end of a typical perfect hand: he made quads to crack Nguyen’s straight. At the end of the day, he still had 206,900 of those chips. Kristoffer Thorson had the chip lead too at one point, but he got overtaken by Stig Rossen, the Dane who ended up in 3rd place. Second place went to Belgium’s Fabian Gentile.

Hungary’s Csaba Toth, an online poker qualifier, ended up with the chip lead at the end of day 2. He amassed a stack of 561,900, head and shoulder above the rest of the field.
76 players survived Day 2, and with the money bubble set to 57th place, Day 3 is likely to feature some pretty tight early action. Only 20 more players need to be bounced for the remaining survivors to strike gold.

]]>Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:10:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/ept-copenhagen-day-1b-report-738Day 1B of the EPT’s Copenhagen stop featured a starting field of 232 players. Though the size of the field may have been a little disappointing (the poker tournament failed to make its cap) its makeup was more than impressive. Day 1A had seen a pretty big concentration of “name” players hit the felt, but Day 1B surpassed even that.
Pokerstars’ Luca Pagano, Peter Eastgate, Freddy Deeb, Bertrand Grospellier and Interpoker’s Juha Helpi were only a few of the notables who took part in the Day 1B hostilities. The 423 participants gave birth to a total prize-pool of about $2.6 million.

Viktor Blom, the Swedish poker pro suspected of being Isildur1 was among the early victims of attrition. He failed to gain any sort of traction, slowly bled his chips away and eventually left. Those who were hoping for a statement from him, confirming or denying that he was the famous Isildur1, the scourge of Full Tilt Poker (who’s by the way on a spectacular upswing once again), had to leave disappointed. Blom is either quite clueless indeed or he knows how to keep the secret which has pretty much become a major part of Isildur1’s appeal.

Stuart Rutter did much better than that. He doubled up early at Pierre Neuville’s expense, at the end of a classic AA vs KK confrontation. Unfortunately for Neuville, there was no way he was getting away from that trap. He picked up the pocket Ks in the button, while Rutter woke up with his rockets in the small blind. Rutter did well for most of the day but ran out of steam a little, by the end of it.
Not everyone had as good a day as Rutter did though. Several of the “name” players dropped out of contention before the end of the day. Noah Boeken and William Thorson were among the victims. They were joined on the rail by Jesper Hougaard and Marc Naalden.

Luca Pagano – a perpetual EPT menace, Bertrand Grospellier – himself a final table regular and Freddy Deeb all survived to play on day 2. Sebastian Ruthenberg and Ilkka Koskinen finished atop the provisional chip standings, with nearly equal stacks. Peter Eastgate was not far behind them when the day was called.

]]>Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:37:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/ept-copenhagen-day-1a-report-736A snowy Copenhagen played host to Day 1A of the EPT’s Danish stop. A pretty impressive starting field of 191 players showed up for the first one of the Day 1 flights. 8 blinds levels were waded through on this day, at the end of which a clear front-runner emerged: Canada’s Andrew Pantling managed to amass a stack of 155,800 chips, by far the biggest castle of chips in the event so far. Nobody really managed to even approximate his performance, although a slew of very potent opponents did survive the action and secured a Day 2 pass.

Johnny Lodden was present at the green felt, together with PokerStars’ Arnaud Mattern and Dario Minieri. Annette Obrestad, Peter Hedlund, Jan Skampa and Jeff Server were other familiar faces in the poker tournament.
Obviously anxious to start chipping up, the field got off to a flying start, which meant that some of the participants would be quick to achieve the exact opposite of that goal. Alexandr Beresnev was one of those less fortunate, as he managed to double up Ian Skampa in the very beginning. It was a classic perfect hand situation as both players made a flush, and Skampa’s A-high one trumped Beresnev’s K-high.
Thomas Bichon, team PokerStars pro’s newest member, shared Beresnev’s fate. An online poker player who won PokerStars’ “Job 2 Stars” promotion and who had thus secured a €100k salary on top of a bunch of live event buy-ins, Bichon never got any traction on Day 1A. He began bleeding chips from the get go and he suffered through the tournament right up to his demise.

Annette Obrestad looked like she was going to chip down rather than chip up in the early going too, but she managed to get things going eventually, and after the dinner break she even climbed to 61k chips to secure a comfortable ride into Day 2. Thomas Kabrhel was one of the few “name” players who failed to survive to day 2. Jeff Sarwer was bounced as well. Eventually, 113 players made it past this first hurdle, and there are more than 200 contenders registered for Day 1B. This means that the starting field will surpass the 400 player mark.

]]>Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:08:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/partypoker-premier-league-4-heat-4-735Phil Laak has trounced the PartyPoker Premier League 4’s field thoroughly, sweeping the three heats in which he played and shooting to the top of the overall leader board in a more than dominant manner. The Unabomber accumulated 48 points in three heats, which is quite a performance, especially if one considers that second place man David Benyamine only has 35. If one factors in the level of competition too, the bottom line will be that we have to take out hats off to Laak who really pulled this one out with style.

JC Tran was the first victim of the 4th heat. He was followed to the rail shortly by Ian Frazer and Tony G. Vanessa Rousso was bounced next, and Luke Schwartz tangled with online poker qualifier Giovani Safina before the dinner break. Each of the two players doubled up through the other at one point, but the battle was vilely interrupted by David Benyamine after the dinner-break, who proceeded to eliminate Safina. The classic coin flip of A,K vs 4,4 gave the win to Benyamine’s A,K to end Safina’s Poker tournament. To clean up the mess for good, Benyamine then bounced Safina’s rival, Schwartz too, who ran his A,6 into Benyamine’s pocket rockets for the bust. The money went all-in before the flop, as the Frenchman’s raise got re-raised, in response to which he shoved all-in. Schwartz made the call, but as soon as he saw the rockets, he tossed his cards onto the table and walked away. The dealer turned them over to reveal the A,6.

That elimination left Benyamine and Phil Laak to battle it out heads-up for the win. Thanks to all the eliminations he’d pulled off, Benyamine had an overwhelming chip lead going into the heads-up stage. It didn’t take Laak long to even things out though. His K,Qo outflopped Benyamine’s A,9o to double him up. The final hand of the poker tournament saw Laak commit all his chips on K,10o, against Benyamine’s A,Ko. When a player is on fire though, nothing can stop him. Laak said after the event that he felt like Isildur1 during his winning days, and the way the final played out gave him plenty of reasons to feel that way. The flop fell A,10,10 and he took the lead. The Q and the 7 on the turn and the river failed to change anything.

]]>Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:58:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/durrrr-challenge-antonius-loses-again-734With the 50,000 hand Durrrr Challenge slowly winding down, it is more and more obvious that Tom Dwan has found some sort of lucky charm, or a key breach in his opponent’s approach that allows him to close each and every session out with a profit. Dwan’s lead in the series is therefore increasing with every session.

It must be pretty disheartening for Antonius to see his chances for the Challenge win slowly slip away, even after he’d managed to control the bleeding of his bankroll following a disastrous January run. Whatever he did at those other tables is clearly not working against Dwan. The two Durrrr Challenge protagonists convened for another online poker session on Saturday, at Full Tilt Poker’s specially set up Challenge tables. By all accounts, this latest outing in the series was a mini confrontation. Only 79 hands were logged over a span of about 16 minutes. That was well enough for Antonius to drop $21,790 to Dwan, who thus managed to extend his overall lead to $1,414,000. Although big leads had evaporated in the series before, none of them had been quite this big and none of the players had managed to put together a winning spree as impressive as Dwan’s current one.

Due to the shortness of the session, not many monster pots developed this time, at least not by Durrrr Challenge standards. The largest pot of the session was a $64,800 one, a pretty modest showing for a series that had gotten railbirds used to 6-figure pots. The way this mini-monster went down was rather uninteresting too. Dwan made a preflop move on the button and he got called by Antonius. The flop landed Jc, 10c, 4s and Antonius fired out a $2,400 bet. Dwan made the call and the two players saw the 2s hit the board on the turn. Antonius kept up the pressure hitting Dwan with a $7,200 bet. Dwan made the call once again and the 9d landed on the river. Antonius fired another $21,600 bet into the pot, in response to which Dwan shoved all-in. Antonius folded as he had obviously nothing in his pocket. Both players mocked their cards, so their starting hands remained unknown.

]]>Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:12:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/partypoker-premier-league-4-heat-3-733The third heat of the PartyPoker Premier League came to a conclusion on Sunday, with David Benyamine scoring a win to take his points total to 24, good enough for second place on the leader board, right behind Phil Laak who has 32 points. Benyamine defeated online poker qualifier Giovanni Safina heads-up this time. Safina currently sits in 5th place overall, with 15 points. Daniel Negreanu and Tony G bring up the rear with 4 and 2 points respectively.

Sunday’s heat got off to a much slower start than the previous two outings. Nobody was in a hurry to hit the rail, and everyone managed to avoid elimination until past the dinner break. The slow start was probably due to strategic maneuvering on the part of players with low point totals who were trying to secure a 4th place or better, to keep their chances for the final table alive.
Eventually, eliminations did start rolling. Roland De Wolfe was the first one to hit the rail. Vanessa Rousso and Phil Hellmuth followed him to the sidelines soon.
Daniel Negreanu was the one responsible for Phil Hellmuth’s elimination. The two players got all their chips into the middle, Negreanu holding a K,Qo against Hellmuth’s A,6o. The Canadian proceeded to out-flop the Brat and Hellmuth was done, a 6-point total written next to his name on the leader board.
At that point, Negreanu had built a pretty impressive stack, but he then lost 3 big pots in a row to be pushed to the brink of elimination. Safina moved in for the kill, His Ah, Qh more than a match for Negreanu’s A,6o.

As the blinds slowly grew out of control, the closing stages of the heat saw much faster action. Ian Frazer was bounced in 4th place, followed by Yevgeniy Timoshenko in 3rd. In the heads-up battle between online poker qualifier Safina and Full Tilt Poker pro David Benyamine, Lady Luck had more than a word to say. The final and decisive hand of the poker tournament saw David Benyamine’s K,10o go up against go up against Safina’s Kd,Jd on a flop of K,7,2 rainbow. The turn brought a 10 to put Benyamine into the lead, and the 2s on the river sealed the deal.

]]>Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:50:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/last-weeks-high-stakes-online-poker-movements-732Last week was one of the more eventful ones, at least as far as the nosebleed stakes online poker action was concerned. Several important things happened, among which Isildur1’s return to action stood out head and shoulder.
The mystery Swede is apparently back in the saddle and up to his old tricks again. His style hasn’t really changed much, but at least this time he seemed to stick to NL Holdem, the game that’d propelled him to fame last time around.
Last week saw him log a massive 17,674 hands at Full Tilt Poker, although he has not yet recovered enough money to hit his favorite roaming grounds, the nosebleed stakes again.
He played mostly in the $50/$100 and $100/$200 NL Holdem tables during January, though success decided to elude him. At this pace, his return to the nosebleed stakes is likely to be postponed for quite a while yet.
Altogether, he dropped about $151,293 so far in February, to a host of different players including to Di Dang, Sami Kelopuro, Isaac Haxton and Tom Dwan. Dwan only managed to get about $48k off the guy who had crippled him last year, sending him back to the lower stakes to forage for crumbs there. Given Isildur1’s latest run, one has to seriously wonder whether what we’re dealing with here is in fact the biggest fish in the history of online poker or not.

In the meantime, Tom Dwan continued his rebound and began playing for six-figure pots again. Patrik Antonius was the other big story of the week, as he finally managed to put an end to his downward swing.
The Finn had a great Super Bowl Sunday. He booked a $575,000 profit that day alone, including a $191,000 batch off John Hennigan.

Alexander Kostitsyn had a couple of heads-up matches against Di Dang in which he booked a massive $681,000 profit. This move definitely put Kostritsyn onto the nosebleed stakes map, making him a player to watch for railbirds in the weeks to come. The largest pot that Kostritsyn played for against Urindanger was a $163,558 monster, which was promptly shipped to Kostritsyn’s side of the table after he made a flush against Dang’s flush draw and pair of 6s.

]]>Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:02:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/partypoker-premier-league-4-playoffs-over-731The third day of the PartyPoker Premier League playoffs was the last one, as the final Main Event seat was taken. Ian Frazer defeated Remy Biechel heads-up in the pros’ playoff series, thus securing the last available Main Event spot.
Poker celebrities like Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth and JC Tran were all invited for the Premier League 4 main Event, an invitation-only poker tournament, except for two spots. One of those free sports was filled the other day when 16 online poker qualifiers played down to a winner for the $100K Main Event Package. The last Main Event seat went to Ian Frazer after a final table battle in which he bested Mike Sexton, Biechel, Dragan Galic, Felipe Ramos and Bodo Sbrzesny.

Ramos was the one who began the final table with the most chips. He had a stack of 400k chips. Galic was the short-stack with 200k. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t Galic who hit the rail first. Sexton, who started the final table on a 250k stack, got into a senseless game of chicken with Ramos. Eventually Sexton folded and left himself with only a few chips. He shoved them into the middle while holding a Q,J against Sexton’s pocket Js to bust out in 6th place.
The other short-stack, Dagan Galic was the next victim. Biechel was responsible for his elimination too. Forced to make a do or die move on his short-stack, Galic shoved all-in on a pair of 5s he picked up. Biechel made the call on A,J and hit a pair of Js on the board to bounce Galic in 5th.
Obviously on fire, Biechel proceeded to bounce Ramos too, in 4th place.

At one point in the poker tournament, Frazer was the short-stack. He bounced back though by eliminating Bodo Sbrzesny in 3rd place.
The heads-up stage was not a tightly disputed one. Almost as soon as it got underway, Biechel shoved all-in on a pair of 9s and Frazer made the call holding A,5. The coin-flip was decided when an A landed on the flop, and awarded the win and the Main Event seat to Frazer.

]]>Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:50:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/partypoker-premier-league-playoffs-day-2-730The second day of the PartyPoker Premier League playoffs kicked off at the M Resort with the first day participants back for the third heat of their playoff series.
Felipe Ramos began the day with the most points accumulated during the first two heats. Remy Biechel was second, followed by Ian Frazer in third.
Dragan Galic started the day last in points and he didn’t do a whole lot to better his situation on day 2 either. He was the first one to bust out on Day 2, picking up a mere 6 points and securing short-stack status at the final table. He ran his K,Q into Felipe Ramos’ pocket rockets for the bust.
He was followed to the rail by Mike Sexton, who got his chips in good against Jan Frazer’s pocket Js. Frazer then proceeded to hit a set of Js on the board, to eliminate the Party Poker professional. Remy Biechel was eliminated next, by Frazer, whose pocket 9s prevailed against his K,J.

Frazer was sitting on a nice stack when he got eliminated by Felipe Ramos, his K,10 no match for Ramos’ A,K.
Bodo Sbrzesny then disposed of Ramos for the heat win. Still, it’ll be Ramos who’ll go to the final table on the biggest stack. Remy Biechel will have the 2nd largest stack and Bodo Sbrzesny will start 3rd in chips.

The interesting part of the day was the battle of the 16 online poker qualifiers, who’d earned the right to battle it out for a $100,000 seat at PartyPoker. After some back and forth, 6 players made it through to the final table. Talal Shakerchi had the most chips going into the final stretch (320,000) but the fate of the PartyPoker Premier League seat was decided between Giovanni Safina and Miguel Proulx. The final hand of the online qualifiers playoff run proved to be a pretty interesting one. Proulx pushed all his chips into the middle holding A,2 and Safina made the call with A,9. The flop was great for Safina: the three hearts not only preserved his lead, but gave him a flush draw too. The 2 on the turn gave the lead to Proulx though, only for the 7h to turn the tables once more on the river and to award the seat to Giovanni Safina.

]]>Sun, 14 Feb 2010 10:42:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/durrrr-challenge-yet-another-bad-day-for-antonius-728With not much going on at the nosebleed stakes cash tables At Full Tilt Poker the other day, Tom Dwan and Patrik Antonius convened for yet another durrrr challenge session. The Finn was obviously hoping to shave a bit off of Dwan’s lead, and to generally overturn his bad luck-plagued 2010 online poker run. It soon became obvious though that Lady Luck had not yet considered the time right to give Antonius a break. The 833 hand session the two of them logged, saw Dwan dart to a $314,818 session profit, thus increasing his overall challenge lead to $1,392,760, by far the biggest lead any of the two players had managed to build during the 1 year history of the online poker Challenge.

Though he’s best known for his taste for huge pots, this time Dwan proved that he wasn’t a bad scrapper either when push came to shove. His impressive session profit came from small to medium pots, as there were only 6 pots that cracked the $100k mark in this outing.
The first of these monster pots took nearly 45 minutes to show up. Antonius brought the aggression preflop and Dwan was the caller. As the 10c, 8d, 3d landed on the table though, the roles were reversed: Dwan shot out a pot size bet and Antonius made the call. The 4c fell on the river and Dwan pushed everything into the middle.
Antonius made the call, holding a two pair and a flush draw. Dwan had a top pair, a flush draw and a gutshot straight draw. The Jd which landed on the river filled Dwan’s flush and the $117,984 pot disappeared in his virtual pockets.

The second over $100k pot came about a mere 8 hands later. This $146,399 monster landed in Dwan’s pocket too. The New Jersey Wonderkid made a boat this time to lay claim to what was then the biggest pot of the session.

The biggest monster though, a $150,777 whooper, went to Patrik Antonius. Dwan hit a top set on the flop, which made him more than willing to tangle. Things looked good for the American right up to the river card, which gave Antonius a 7-high straight.
With 17,000 hands remaining in the challenge, the noose appears to be tightening around Antonius’neck.

]]>Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:22:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/partypoker-premier-league-playoffs-kick-off-729The M-Resort, just off the famous Las Vegas Strip hosted the first flight of the long-awaited PartyPoker Premier League playoffs. 6 players bellied up to the tables to begin their 3-heat run to determine the final table qualifiers. Mike Sexton, Dragan Galic, Felipe Ramos, Remy Biechel, Bodo Sbrzesny and Ian Frazer took to the tables on Tuesday, looking to score as many points as possible in the first heat of the playoff series. In each of the three heats, points would be given to all players. First place would be worth 17 points, and the last one 5. The players with the most points at the end of the three heats would advance to the final table. The point totals would determine the amount of chips the qualifiers would take with them to the final table.

Team PartyPoker member Remy Biechel was obviously one of the favorites, but poker tournament specialist Dragan Galic was likely to have a strong word to say in the outcome as well. The biggest favorite though was Sexton, the hall of famer whose name has pretty much become synonymous with poker itself over the last few years.
As luck would have it though, Sexton was the first one to be bounced in the first heat, pocketing a measly 5 points for his 6th place finish, within 10 minutes of the start of the action.
Ramos was responsible for crippling Sexton. Galic then moved in to finish the dirty work. Sbrzesny followed Sexton to the rail, after he lost a race to Galic. Remy Biechel was the only surviving member of team PartyPoker at that point, and soon he followed his teammates to the sidelines in 4th place. Galic himself was eliminated in 3rd place by Ramos, whose stack became a deadly weapon following this move. Frazer didn’t stand a chance against the mountains of chips brought to bear against him, and the first heat was over in a flash.

In the second heat, it was Galic turn to pick up the unsightly 5 points for the last place. He was followed to the rail by Frazer, Sbrzesny and Ramos. Sexton and Biechel battled it out heads-up for first place, and Biechel managed to hammer his chip advantage home, picking up the 17 points.

]]>Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:11:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/the-online-poker-weekend-726Poker players are either not football fans or they’re adept at multi-tasking: despite the Super Bowl taking place last weekend, the online poker action remained as frantic as ever, as thousands upon thousands flocked to the big guaranteed prize-pools offered by PokerStars,  Full Tilt Poker and the other industry frontrunners.
No fewer than 8 players walked away with life-changing, 6-figure prizes, the biggest winner of all a player with the nickname “palurdo”, who took down a quarter million dollars in PokerStars’ Sunday Million.

The poker tournament attracted a starting field of 9,031 players, all of whom coughed up $215 to combine for a prize-pool of $1,806,200. Palurdo and golferen, the two top finishers, struck a deal which divided the remaining prize-pool between them, leaving $30,000 for the eventual winner. Notable finishes in the event were those of Dan White (11th) and Phidias Georghiou (26th).

The Sunday Warmup attracted a solid starting field too. 4,900 players bellied up to the tables of this event, generating a prize-pool of $980,000. In this poker tournament, the top three finishers reached an agreement, which meant that the eventual winner would walk away with an extra $10,000 at the end of it. That winner was Kyle Sauers, and he took down $133,620 for his win. Trippkirk finished second for $104,152.
Notable finishes were those of Alexander Kostritsyn (who ended up in 19th place) and Josh Prager who finished 26th.

The Sunday 500 saw only around 1,000 players register. The win went to Steve Barshak in this one.

Full Tilt Poker’s 750k Guaranteed was the other highlight of the weekend. The event saw 2,885 players belly up to the virtual tables, battling it out for a $577,000 prize-pool. The winner, pokerNIRVana5, took down $111,037 following a 2-way deal.
Second place man Matt Berkeley also finished in 6 figures, taking home $102,000 for his efforts. Poker pro Jesper Hougaard made it all the way to 16th place and picked up $3,750 for it.
The Sunday Brawl saw 2,885 entrants, and a prize-pool of $577,000. DedoDeGorila won this poker tournament, which saw a three way deal at the top too. DedoDeGorila picked up $83,252 for his efforts. Player losebigpots finished second for $88,009.
A notable finish was that of Patrik Renkers, who picked up $1,500 for his 29th place.

]]>Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:47:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/borgata-winter-poker-open-jeff-madsen-wins-725The last 10 players left alive in the Borgata Winter Poker Open bellied up to the final table of the poker tournament on Friday to decide who would take home the $625,000 first prize.
Sirous Jamshide went into the final table action with the chip lead, but the ride would definitely not be a smooth one for him. Jeff Madsen, Tom Marchese and Dave Fox would also have a word to say in the final outcome of the event.

Matt Matros became the first victim of the day. On a short-stack, he shoved all-in on a pair of 6s only a few minutes after the final table action kicked off. He got called by Nick Kamen who had A,Ko. The classical coin-flip was sorted out almost immediately as an A landed on the flop, bouncing Matros in 10th place.
Chan Pelton, the other short-stack did better initially as he survived an all-in, but he fell soon after, when his A,10o failed to get anything going against Jeff Madsen’s pocket 8s.

Ross Mallor fell to Al Grimes next, when his K,Q proved to be no match for Grimes’ A,10.
Grimes couldn’t really enjoy his newly earned chips for long though. He shoved all-in on pocket Ks against Madsen’s Ah, Kh a few hands later. Although he did manage to dodge an A on the board, Madsen hit a runner-runner flush to eliminate him and to climb to second in chips. Grimes got relegated to short-stack status.
Dave Fox was eliminated by Madsen next, after his A,7 all-in fell to Grimes’ K,Q. Jeff Madsen delivered the coup de grace to Grimes when his flopped trips made short work of Grimes’ uncompleted draw.

Barkley Hamilton picked up pocket Ks next and shoved all-in on them to eliminate Nick Kamen in 5th place.
Four-handed play saw the poker tournament slow a little, before Hamilton locked horns with Madsen. Hamilton’s flopped set of threes was outrun by Madsen’s rivered set of 4s to set up three-handed play.

Marchese was the next victim, sent to the rail courtesy of Jeff Madsen. That left Jamshidi and Madsen to duke it out and it took the two of them about an hour to settle the issue. The final hand of the event saw Madsen’s K,10o beat Jamshidi’s Qs, 2s for the win.

]]>Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:55:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/borgata-winter-open-final-table-set-724The 4th day of the 2010 Borgata Winter Open saw a surviving field of 27 players belly up to the tables, in pursuit of the top prize. Tom Marchese and Jeff Matros had excellent day 4 runs, and so did Jeff Madsen who finished 2nd in chips. The top spot for the day went to Sirous Jamshidi though, who amassed a stack of 4.75 million chips.

From the very beginning, it became obvious that there would be no playing around on Day 4. It was do or die time, and all those present at the tables were fully aware of it. The very first hand of the day made a victim: Bernard Collins’ day 4 was cut extremely short. He didn’t spend much time on the rail alone though: he was followed to the pay-out queue by three other players during the first blinds level alone.
It was then Jamshidi’s turn to take over. First, he disposed of David Williams. Williams was forced to shove his short stack into the middle with Kd, Jd. Jamshidi pounced on the opportunity to eliminate another rival and made the call with pocket 3s.
Anthony Campagna remained the short-stack after Williams’ elimination. He staked his poker tournament life on an Ah, 8h he picked up and got called by Jamshidi who had pocket 4s this time. An A landed on the flop but the 4 which fell on the turn, turned the tables once more and sent Campagna to the rail too.
Eric Blair was Jamshidi’s next victim. Blair shoved all-in on a flop of J,7,8, holding pocket 10s. Jamshidi tabled K,J for the lead though, and the turn and the river preserved the status quo to eliminate Blair.

Meanwhile, Lee Childs got busy at another table against Barkley Hamilton. Unfortunately for Childs though, his A,10o was outdrawn by Hamilton’s K,Q and he was relegated to short-stack status. A few hands later, he left the poker tournament for good.
Joseph Wertz bit the dust in 13th place, followed soon by Wade Woelfel in 12th. Chan Pelton appeared the best candidate for the final table bubble boy status, but he pulled off a couple of close calls to stave off elimination. That left Dave Fox and Donald Boivin battling it out for the last final table spot. Boivin got the shorter end of the stick and the final table was set.

]]>Sat, 06 Feb 2010 16:23:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/some-poker-trivia-from-here-and-there-723If you thought that depositing money to your favorite online poker room was tough, wait till you get a load of this: Credit Card giant MasterCard has once again figured out how to make life harder for US players. The company managed to decode credit card transactions aimed at transferring funds to online poker and gambling operations and promptly moved to block all such funds transfers. Given the fact though that the last time MasterCard pulled a similar stunt, it only took gambling sites 2 months to come up with a solution, there’s still hope that MasterCard transfers will not vanish from the payment methods sections of online poker sites forever. For now though you’d do better to start looking for an alternative.

In an extremely rare online poker incident, a player found himself in the right spot at the right time at Cake poker the other day when he pocketed a pot he did not in fact win. Fortunately for the real winner of the hand, the de-facto winner went ahead and posted the hand on the twoplustwo forums, where it drew an almost immediate reaction from Cake Poker’s Cardroom Manager. As a direct consequence of the incident, the Cake servers were shut down for 30 minutes to allow the technical team to investigate and to implement measures meant to stop such incidents from ever occurring again.
The problem is however that the same sort of mess-up might’ve happened to other players in the past. Lee Jones, the Cardroom manager offered a way to log a complaint for those who think they may have been cheated by Cake Poker’s software in the past too.

Loto Quebec, Quebec’s gambling monopoly, has received the Canadian government’s permission to start up an online gambling site this fall. Loto Quebec is aiming to set up a fully regulated operation as an alternative for Canadian players to unregulated sites on which the Canadian gambling public is currently spending around $600 million each year.
The new operation will feature fool-proof age verification methods and anti problem-gambling measures, like self exclusion options and limits on player deposits.

]]>Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:19:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/high-stakes-online-action-isildur1-is-back-722The nosebleed stakes online poker action has seen an unexpected resurgence this week. All the big names hit the tables at one point or another and monster pots went down left and right, once again dazzling railbirds and driving action hungry pros to put even more of their chips into the middle.
Ilari Sahamies, Patrik Antonius and Phil Ivey were once again in the center of the bustle at Full Tilt Poker, lighting up the $300/$600 and $500/$1,000 PLO tables. Nothing illustrates the intensity of the action better than the fact that over a 24 hour period last week, no fewer than 50 monster pots were played for. 6 of these pots were over $300k ones and 16 of them were over the $200k mark.

For Patrik Antonius – who’s had a pretty rough ride in January - all this action failed to bring about the end of the losing streak. The Finn dropped around $880k at the PLO tables, then went on to lose around $250k to Tom Dwan over at the Durrrr challenge tables. He topped all that off by dropping another $225k at PLO again, during a 1,259 hand session. Amazingly enough, despite the massive losses, Antonius was the one who took down the biggest pot of that session. Weighing in at $497,000, this pot came out of Ilari Sahamies’ pockets, at the end of an all-Finnish bout.
Sahamies recovered some of that money from Ivey later that evening. Antonius on the other hand couldn’t break the hex and lost some more money over the weekend. He lost another $572,000 chunk last Sunday, to sink $1.86 million under the red line for 2010.

Alexander Kostritsyn, the young Russian who’s a regular at the slightly lower stakes at Full Tilt Poker, ventured into $1,500/$3,000 7-game territory this week and walked away with almost $600k of Ilari Sahamies’ money.

Isildur1 reappeared on Full Tilt Poker, for a couple of short sessions at the lower stakes, and dropped $1,000 at the $25/$50 PLO tables, followed by another $2,548 loss over at the $25/$50 capped PLO tables.
Rumor has it that he’s grinding hard over at Betfair preparing for a possible Full Tilt comeback.

Gus Hansen was the other big winner last week, having pulled in $384k at the 7-game tables.

]]>Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:58:00 GMThttp://www.pokerstop.com/online-poker-weekend-records-are-shattered-720This past weekend was a truly memorable one for the online poker industry. Due to the end of the month promotions most online poker sites were running, high octane action had been anticipated, but the resulting player numbers took everyone by surprise nonetheless.
The Special Edition of PokerStars’ Sunday Million featured a prize-pool of $2 million, instead of the usual $1.5 million. Little did the organizers know though that the resulting influx of registrants would simply shatter that guarantee, combining for a prize-pool almost twice as big. 19,377 players coughed up the buy-in, combining for an unprecedented $3.8 million prize-pool. The winner of the poker tournament, OX45AL won a staggering $550k, another new Sunday Million record. No deals were made at the final table, and despite that, no fewer than 5 players finished with 6-figure profits, the 6th place finisher, Kostya 77777 coming in just short at $99,762. A notable finish was that of Damian Griffin, who took home $9,643 for his 15th place finish.

PokerStars’ Sunday Warm-up attracted a nice starting field as well. 5,268 players bellied up to the tables of this tournament, each of them paying out the $200+$15 buy-in, to give birth to a $1,053,000 prize-pool. Shogun1000 won the event, taking home $164,817. Rawhide0728 was the only other player to finish in 6 figures: he won $122,744.

Ultimate Bet’s Online Championship came to an end last weekend too, wrapping up with a true bang: the $1,000+$50 NL Holdem event.
This poker tournament attracted a massive starting field of 1,307 players, and generated a prize-pool of $1.3 million. DOUBLEDAVE22 won this event, taking down a $279k first prize.

Full Tilt Poker’s $1.5 Million Guarantee attracted a massive starting field too. 7,578 players bellied up to the virtual tables in this poker tournament. The prize-pool was a $1.51 million one, and the buy-in a $200+$16 one. Player BankOfSweden won this one, after a deal with second place man extassyman. Both top finishers took down more than $210k. Jared Ingles was one of the notables to finish high, taking home $10.760 for his 12th place finish.

Full Tilt’s Sunday Brawl generated a prize-pool of $817,600 and attracted 4,088 players. The event was won by “ozram” who took home the only 6-figure haul of the poker tournament, a $161,884 chunk of the prize-pool.

]]>Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:13:00 GMT