Pros Lose Out in Celebrity Invitational
In the middle of August, Holland's finest crossed the North Sea to participate in a televised poker tournament, the format of which is well-known; there were six heats of six players, and only the winner advanced to the final. To add some spice to the mix, every heat featured a Dutch celebrity to maybe make the episodes worth watching, and to give the spectators an underdog to root for.
Established players like Rolf Slotboom, Rob Hollink, Ed de Haas, Steven van Zadelhoff, Eric van der Burg, and Jorryt van
Hoof all figured there was some dead money in this, and gladly put up the €2,500 buy-in, hoping to take down the €50,000 first prize. None of them reached the final, however, as Tuncer Alper, Ad Schaap, Olvedo Heinze, Gezi Bason, and Milly Uylenbroek all featured in this surprising lineup. Special mention goes to Heinze, who came back from a 26-to-1 chip deficit to defeat Rob Hollink in one of the most spectacular heads-up matches we have ever seen.
To make the final table even more fun to watch, the sixth and final seat was won by celebrity player Maud Mulder, famous for finishing second in the Dutch star-seeking show Idols.
In the final, Maud showed some good play, but let the cards do most of her dirty work. In the end, she beat Tuncer Alper heads up for the win, leaving the pros baffled. And, as expected, the discussion immediately reopened as to whether or not poker is a game of skill. I mean, if female amateur players can win poker tournaments, there has to be a huge amount of luck involved, right?
Questions also arose if the tournament may have been rigged in her favor, because rumor had it that there was some big money laid on her at the bookies, where she stood at 101/1 before the tournament started. To those who think that I deliberately "took a dive" in the first-round match when we were heads up, I can only say that they've probably been watching too many movies.
Where only a couple of months ago we were happy when a Dutch TV channel showed only a tiny bit of poker, it became clear that poker has truly exploded in Holland, because there were actually two poker tournaments shown at the same time.
We would like to have seen the channels battle for the poker fan in another way, as the tournaments clashed on TV and the public had to choose which tournament they wanted to watch.
Healthy competition between TV channels is always good, but we'd rather not have it take place at the viewer's expense. Unfortunately, it was impossible for anyone to change this, because, understandably, neither of the two channels wanted to be the one to back down. So on Tuesday nights, the coverage of this tournament had to compete with that of the
European Poker Tour.
The
EPT won, by the way.
Dutch Players Still Looking for That Big Win
In recent live events, a pattern emerged that Dutch players always seem to make it far, but just not far enough. The main event of the
World Series of Poker Europe saw one Dutch player go deep. Former
Sunday Million winner Steven "SvZff" van Zadelhoff just missed out on the final table, finishing 11th for £41,630. Some coin flips really do feel like a bad beat when you lose them.
More than 1,000 players showed up at the
International Poker Open in Dublin, including 50 players from the Netherlands, all hoping to be the one to beat the largest field of participants a European land-based tournament ever had. It wasn't to be, though, as young David Pook was part of the final six players who agreed to chop the remaining prize money for €13,600 each, but he eventually had to settle for second place, just missing out on that coveted title.
With the fourth season of the
European Poker Tour under way, the growing number of Dutch participants still didn't result in that big win everyone is hoping for. Since Rob Hollink won the
EPT Grand Final back in 2005, all we've had were third-place finishes by Abel Meijberg in Baden and by Marc Naalden in Copenhagen, and a second place in Deauville by Mark Boudewijn. But these were all the way back in season two. In the third season, not one final table had a Dutch player, which was, of course, very disappointing for the home front, but for the players even more.
So, at the start of this season, the Dutch were even more determined to show the world that they are indeed a force to be reckoned with at the tables. Luckily, a couple of new faces did show up at the final stages of the first few tournaments, posting some promising results.
It started off well in Barcelona, with two Dutch players coming close. Daan Ruiter finished 25th for €16,700, and Kees Alblas finished 14th, collecting €33,450. In London, only one man with orange blood made the money: Freeroll qualifier Nicky Roeg came in 23rd, receiving £12,230 for his efforts. It may not look like a big win, but it still feels good when every pound of it is pure profit.
And then there was Baden. Online cash-game expert Victor "Nazgul18" Goossens came out from behind his computer and immediately made it deep in only his second live big buy-in tournament ever. His run ended, though, when his A-7 lost to the K-J of fellow Dutchman Thierry Van den Berg to knock him out in 19th place, earning him €12,860.
Van den Berg used those chips wisely, and succeeded in making the final table. So, for the first time in 20 months, the Dutch had a reason to watch the Internet broadcast again. But again, it wasn't to be, as "Bokpower" couldn't make it beyond the final five. His €132,900 payday was of course far from disappointing, and gave us the confidence that soon we will have a Dutch player lifting one of those beautiful glass trophies again.
Only time will tell.
Peter Dalhuijsen is a professional poker player who writes for PokerCollege.nl.
