Inside Straight -- News

German Crushes French in Deauville

Moritz Kranich took down the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Deauville in January topping the field of 645 players in the €5,000 buy-in main event to collect the top prize of €851,400. The young German qualified on PokerStars and his largest victory previously was a $77,000 third place in the $1,050 World Championship of Online Poker Second Chance.

When the dust settled the payouts were:

Eighth Thomas Delattre - €77,400
Seventh Bruno Launais - €108,300
Sixth Jorg Walthaus - €142,400
Fifth Jonathan Azoulay - €182,700
Fourth Andrea Benelli - €219,800
Third Tristan Clemencon - €284,800

The final hand of the evening saw Arnaud Esquevin move all-in, and Moritz Kranich call.

Esquevin: A 3
Kranich: A 7

Board:10 9 6 5 A

Arnaud Esquevin was the second place finisher in the PokerStars.com EPT Deauville and took home €495,400.

Tabatabai Wins at Aussie Millions

Former World Series of Poker Europe runner-up John Tabatabai defeated Alec Torelli in the finals of the $5,300 no-limit hold'em heads-up championship at the Aussie Millions in January to win $100,000 (€51,943) and a gold ring.

The final hand came down to a preflop showdown that pitted Tabatabai's A 7 against the K 10 of a short-stacked Torelli. The board fired out 9 7 7 Q 8 and Tabatabai was the champion.

Thirty-two players took part in the event. The semi-finals consisted of:

David Gent vs. John Tabatabai and Alec Torelli vs. Jarred Graham

Torelli received $60,000 for the runner up spot.

Litman Lights Up GUKPT Brighton

Fifty-three year old Bernard Litman won the £70,520 first prize at the £1,000 buy in BlueSqPoker.com Grosvenor UK Poker Tour, Brighton as well as scooping a seat to the £100,000 Champion of Champions event which will round off Season III of the Tour. He topped the field of 235 players at the end of the four-day tournament in January.

Litman beat 22-year-old James Sudworth heads up in a brief battle which saw him start with a 2:1 chip lead and ended with an all-in preflop scenario with Litman holding jacks and Sudworth holding sevens.

Sudworth took home £43,480 for his efforts which also saw him make the final table of the £300 event earlier in the festival. Model Nick Holbrook finished third for £28,790 and Andreas Hoivold took fourth for £18,860.

The final table results were:

First - Bernard Litman - £70,520 125
Second - James Sudworth - £43,480 100
Third - Nick Holbrook - £28,790 80
Fourth - Andreas Hoivold - £18,560 65
Fifth - Keir Ratcliff - £13,860 55
Sixth - Ramsey Ajram - £11,520 45
Seventh - Richard Lewidon - £9,160 35
Eighth - Matt Perrins - £6,820 25
Ninth - Nathan Lee - £4,700 20

Elsewhere at the festival Dave Colclough won the £100 pot-limit Omaha rebuy event, while Shana Casaletto won both the £100 no-limit hold'em freezeout and the £250 event making her the first player to win back-to-back events at the GUKPT.

BoylePoker.com Poker for the Homeless Festival

BoylePoker.com has teamed up with Dublin's Jackpot Club and Poker for the Homeless to host the March Madness weekend at Dublin's Jackpot Club from March 27 to 29, 2009 in aid of Europe's largest charity poker fundraiser Poker for the Homeless.

Launching the event on the Friday evening is former Miss World Rosanna Davidson and the organisers have recruited a host of former Irish Open winners to play while BoylePoker.com has chipped in a sizable donation to Poker for the Homeless and will provide scores of spot prizes and bounties throughout the weekend. The schedule of events is:

Friday, March 27 - €100 + €10 no-limit hold'em freezeout. 100 percent of registration fee and 20 percent of prize pool donated to homeless charities. Satellites from 6 p.m. Event starts 9 p.m. Capacity 120 players. Former Miss World Rosanna Davidson to start proceedings.

Saturday, March 28 - Jackpot Cash League Final, estimated prize pool €30,000. This freeroll event is open to players who play 50 hours of cash games or more at the club between Jan. 10 and Mar. 27. Top 18 places paid and €500 to player with most hours. Starts 8 p.m.

Sunday, March 29 - €100 + €10 no-limit hold'em team event. Limited to 27 teams of four. Entry €400 + €40 per team. 100 percent of registration fees donated to homeless charities. 60 percent of prize pool paid to the first three teams, 40 percent paid to the nine final table players. Starts 4 p.m.

Further events, prizes, and celebrities will be added to the festival over the coming weeks.

Devilfish Wins Big in Paris

Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott won the Euro Finals of Poker main event at the Aviation Club de Paris lifting €152,000 and a diamond bracelet for topping the 115 player field at the €5,000 buy-in event.

Devilfish, who only travelled to France at the last minute, said, "What a great start to the year. I was originally going to go to the Aussie Millions but changed my mind and I'm damned glad I did."

In the first week of January he also won €33,000 at an Irish Poker Championship side event.

The Parisian final table hosted players of the caliber of French veteran Paul Testud and World Series of Poker bracelet winner Theo Jorgensen but it was $1 million plus career winner Roger Hairabedian who got heads up with Ulliott.

The Englishman held a 2:1 chip lead going into the battle and ground the Frenchman down, ultimately calling his 5-5 all in with 7-7 and getting a trouble-free board.

Devilfish also went deep in the European Poker Tour Deauville main event collecting €15,500 to bring his total winnings for January 2009 to more than €200,000.

Betfred Launches Ladies Poker Tour

The Betfred.com Ladies Poker Tour returns in 2009 with seven stops taking in the UK and Spain between April and November this year. Betfred is adding £1,500 to each £110 buy in event and the winner of each stop qualifies for the grand final on November 21.

Remarkably, Lynne Beaumont has won the grand final in the last two seasons and has represented Betfred at poker events around the globe on a £20,000 sponsorship package which will again be the top prize for the winner.

The full line up of events for the tour is:

April 18 - Leeds - Alea Casino
May 9 - Scarborough - The Opera House
June 6 - Sheffield - Napoleons Owlerton
July 4 - Swansea - Aspers
August 8 - Stockport - Casino36
September 5 - Birmingham - The Broadway
October 3 - Calahonda, Spain - Caesars Lounge
November 7 - London - The Western Club

More details can be found at Betfredlpt.com and players can sign up at Betfred.com/Poker to qualify.

Irish Open Betting, Satellites, and Statistics

PaddyPowerPoker.com has launched the outright betting market for its Irish Open 2009 which is sure to get some players licking their lips at the opportunity to beat the bookie. In two of the last three years the winner of the event - Neil Channing in 2008 and Vincent Melinn in 2006 - backed themselves to the tune of £50,000 and €47,000 respectively.

Here's a selection of the odds on offer at the time of writing (with six players currently vying for favourite):

Sorel Mizzi - 125/1
Soren Konsgaard - 125/1
Roland de Wolfe - 125/1
Neil Channing - 150/1
Ciaran O'Leary - 150/1
Christer Johansson - 150/1
Padraig Parkinson - 200/1
John Duthie - 200/1
Stuart Rutter - 200/1
Arnaud Mattern - 200/1
Mickey Wernick - 250/1
Noel Furlong - 300/1
Teddy Sheringham - 300/1

Many more markets will be added over the coming weeks so be sure to click the 'poker' link at PaddyPower.com to check on them and see how the prices are moving.

As the Irish Open preparation ramps up, Paddy Power Poker is running weekly Irish Open ticket-only satellites every Thursday evening at 8:05 p.m. with a minimum of two tickets worth $4,700 each, offered each week. Players can qualify daily for the Thursday satellite for as little as $2.20.

The number of Irish Open packages, worth $6,500, awarded in the existing Sunday and Tuesday satellites is growing week-by-week as players scramble to get to into not only the tournament but also the Sole Survivor competition which will see the qualifier who lasts the longest in the Irish Open get a $100,000 sponsorship deal for a year.

Finally, while players are crunching the probability of their middle-pin draw hitting after the turn, PaddyPowerPoker.com has been busy calculating some of the more unusual statistics of the Irish Open.

These include:

Cups of coffee consumed - 7,834 cups
Rolls of toilet paper used - 803
Pints of beer / stout served per day - 3,272
Bottles of champagne ordered - 92
Number of French fries eaten per day - 14,175
Poker chips ordered - 44,000 plus
Decks of cards ordered - 865
Packs of cigarettes bought - 2,014
Litres of water consumed - 3,280
Number of times Andy Black fell off the mechanical bull - 1
Number of Irish World Series of Poker bracelet winners playing - 4

The €3,200 + €300 buy-in Irish Open 2009 takes place at Citywest Hotel, Dublin from April 9 to 13.

Centrebet Qualifying for Salzburg and Las Vegas

CentrebetPoker.com has started its satellite qualification for the Euro City Poker Tour taking place in Salzburg, Austria from April 2 to 6, 2009.

Players can win a $4,000 package - which includes four nights accommodation and food at the luxury Alpine Palace spa resort, buy-in to the €1,400 + €140 main event, and $635 for travel and expenses - in a variety of ways.

Wednesday evenings at 8:05 GMT sees a $40 + $4 rebuy/add-on tournament with one ticket for every 35 players, while on Sundays at 9:05 p.m. is the $200 + $15 freezeout with one ticket for every 20 players.

Players can also win a $15,000 package to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas by signing up to the site using the promotional code CardPlayer.

Full Tilt and Gioco Digitale Sign Players

In an effort to stretch their marketing efforts to Sweden, Full Tilt Poker has added up-and-coming poker star Michael Tureniec to its stable of Full Tilt pros. Tureniec is the first Swede to be signed with Full Tilt, joining other Europeans such as Jens Voertmann (Germany), Sigi Stockinger (Austria), Claudio Rinaldi (Switzerland), Soren Kongsgaard (Denmark), Nikolay Evdakov (Russia), Alessio Isaia (Italy), and Trond Erik Eidsvig (Norway), among others.

The 23-year-old from Solna, Sweden, has been playing poker since he was taught the game by friends in 2003, and he turned pro in 2006 when the ability to support himself by playing poker became a reality. Tureniec is a self-taught poker pro who ground out his chops online, where he has added over a $500,000 to his robust tournament earnings.

Italian poker giant Max Pescatori has also been snapped up in a sponsorship and developmental deal by Italy's largest online poker site Gioco Digitale.

Pescatori, who has two World Series of Poker bracelets to his name, will not only be ambassador for the site on the global poker circuit but will be heavily involved with the development of the site, working closely with the management team to expand and improve Gioco Digitale's poker offering.

Online poker has recently been legalised and regulated in Italy and a slew of companies have moved in on the market with Gioco Digitale leading the charge.

PKR.com Grows as Live Event Returns

PKR.com is defying the downturn with the news that on Jan. 4, it broke its own record when 15,000 players played online at the site simultaneously. Between Dec. 24 and Jan. 4, 40,000 new players registered, and the total membership number is now almost 2.4 million.

Simon Prodger, Marketing Director at the site, said, "We are going from strength to strength and it is encouraging to see us maintaining a healthy growth in this tough market. Our ultra-realistic software, innovative gaming offering, and vibrant community are proving to be a big draw to new and current players alike."

The innovative 3-D online poker room also announced the return of the popular PKR Live event to the Loose Cannon Club, London from April 17 to 19.

Players can qualify for the event at PKR.com via a $30 rebuy, $40 freezeout or $100 freezeout to win their $1,000 or $600 package to the offline event.

The centerpiece of the festival is the PRK Live II main event, a $500 buy in event expected to attract players from as far afield as Canada and Russia.

Simon Prodger, marketing director at the company, said, "We're delighted to announce our return to the live arena. PKR Live was great fun to be a part of and showed that PKR has the most vibrant poker community anywhere online. We look forward to providing another 150 of our players with a weekend to remember!"

Last year PKR.com's forum buzzed with comments from delighted players who attended the event which was won by journalist Phillip Conneller.

Final satellites will take place daily until every seat has been claimed and hopeful players should fully expect this event to be a sell out.