Inside Straight -- News

European Poker Tour Copenhagen


After five days of poker-fuelled madness in mid-February, the final of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Scandinavian Open wrapped up in a calm, cool, and collected fashion. The players were friendly with each other but their game was cold and fast. A record 462 turned out for the event including many of the most notable pros, all seeking the €878,057 top prize.

The main event was won by 19-year-old Finn Jens Kyllonen, while Swede Peter Hedlund was runner-up.

Check this issue of Card Player for our features on the Scandinavian Open, including how the event played out and the thoughts of the winner, as well as the events surrounding it including the Scandinavian Poker Awards and the big fight between Gus Hansen and our cover star Theo Jørgenson. ♠

FTOPS Pays Out Over $15 Million

The Full Tilt Online Poker Series XI kicked off on Feb. 4 and ran over 25 events with the first event hosted by Howard Lederer. With a buy-in of $216 the event attracted 6,275 entrants creating a hefty prize pool of over $1,000,000, and the lucky first place finisher “MuckDucks” got the best of it, winning $216,512.60.
The results for the rest of the series were:

Game First Prize Players Winner
$200 + $16 No-limit hold’em $216,512 6,275 muckducks
$240 + $16 Pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better knockout $61,404 1,428 ramagem
$200 + $16 Stud $27,503 593 AsMetzmagnyAs
$300 + $22 No-limit hold’em 3xshootout $45,927 729 Julian Verse
$200 + $16 Limit hold’em six-max $44,327 1,063 TOPTEN
$500 + $35 Pot-limit Omaha six-max $95,648 896 NoPasaran
$100 + $9 No-limit hold’em rebuy $140,358 2,235 The Universe112
$240 + $16 No-limit hold’em knockout six-max $168,517 4,411 Chancew
$500 + $35 No-limit hold’em heads up $115,884 1,132 Luie Sojo
$300 + $22 No-limit hold’em $275,600 5,325 gboro780
$200 + $16 Half pot-limit hold’em, half pot-limit Omaha $51,120 1,136 Ketse
$1,000 + $60 No-limit hold’em second chance $350,450 1,630 Zugwat
$200 + $16 No-limit hold’em rebuy/add-on $126,544 1,210 darrenelias
$500 + $35 H.O.R.S.E. $75,572 703 bigdogpckt5s
$200 + $16 No-limit hold’em turbo six-max $99,582 2,528 daCav04
$200 + $16 Omaha eight-or-better $37,628 818 jaxx23
$300 + $22 No-limit hold’em six-max rebuy $245,696 1,091 UFman2
$200 + $16 Pot-limit Omaha heads up $27,944 803 Str8Forward
$300 + $22 No-limit hold’em 4xshootout six-max $63,105 1,202 vadka
$200 + $16 No-limit hold’em six-max $92,984 2,360 wesh cousin
$300 + $22 Razz $39,724 571 gipsy1974
$5,000 + $200 No-limit hold’em two-day event $625,000 500 fyrtuk
$100 + $9 Pot-limit Omaha rebuy $90,877 1,066 FinnishNightmre
$120 + $9 No-limit hold’em knockout $144,885 9,061 girlyhurly
$500 + $35 No-limit hold’em $456,056 5,287 csimmsux

The Road to Las Vegas With DevilfishPoker

DevilfishPoker.com has launched its €175,000 Road to Las Vegas campaign offering online poker players at the site a chance to win one of 25 packages to play at the World Series of Poker 2009.

The packages include $5,000 in tournament buy-ins, €2,000 in expenses, and one week’s stay at a top hotel such as the Wynn.

The promotion runs until May 31 and is aimed at players of all bankroll levels with qualification through freerolls, VIP point freerolls, sit ‘n’ go leader boards, being a top VIP point earner, or a player with the most raked hands. Additional ways to win are added each month.

Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott, ambassador for DevilfishPoker.com said, “Me and Elvis had a thing or two in common including great voices and style and a love of Las Vegas and music. There won’t be any Heartbreak Hotels for DevilfishPoker players this summer though and it’s Viva Las Vegas for me and my friends. I hope you can join me in the quest for a good time and a big score!”

PKR.com Launches Saturday Big Shot

Innovative 3-D online poker room PKR.com has launched a new $500 tournament aimed at experienced players on Saturday nights.

The Saturday Big Shot event will take place at 8 p.m. GMT and is, the company says, the largest poker tournament of its kind on Saturday evenings on the Internet.

The tournament will feature a very playable structure with a 10,000 starting stack for each player and 20 minute levels. The final table of each tournament will be filmed and broadcast on PKR TV to over 100 million homes in Europe including Channel 166 on the SKY platform in the U.K.

Hopefuls can qualify for the event in daily satellites on PKR.com for as little as $5.06. The tournament will not take place on the last Saturday of each month when the $250 buy-in PKR Masters will run instead
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Card room manager at PRK, Neil Wright, said, “We’re delighted to be able to introduce the Saturday Big Shot. There’s been a growing demand from our players for a big buy-in event with an ultra-playable structure and we’re happy to oblige. It shows just how far we’ve come that Saturday night’s biggest buy-in tournament will be at PKR.”

European Poker Tour
Monte Carlo Expands

PokerStars.com has released information on its European Poker Tour Monte Carlo stop which expands to cover a week’s worth of events including a €25,000 buy in High Rollers event, as well as a €5,000 buy in pot-limit Omaha event.

The €10,000 buy in no-limit hold’em Grand Final takes place from April 28 to May 3 and the festival will also see, in addition to the two major new events, no-limit hold’em tournaments with buy ins at €5,000, €2,000, €1,000, and €500, as well as a €500 buy in pot-limit Omaha event.

PokerStars.com will host special satellites for many of these events at its site, and there will also be a wide variety of super satellites on offer for players wishing to head to Monte Carlo.

Additionally, a major change has been made to the structure of the Grand Final with players this year getting a 30,000 starting stack and blind levels of 60 minutes (increasing to 75 minutes from day two onwards) compared to the old structure which had 10,000 starting stacks and 60 minutes across all levels.

Last year the Grand Final was won by 22-year-old Canadian Glen Chorny who won over €2 million.

Finn Wins in Tallinn

The first leg of the inaugural European Masters of Poker series, held in Tallinn, Estonia, has been won by Johanna Pyysing from Finland who topped the field of 248 players ahead of former European Poker Tour Barcelona winner Bjorn-Erik Glenne from Norway.

The €1,000 + €100 buy-in event saw Pyysing lift €69,440 for his victory from the €248,000 prize pool which, in the current economic climate and with so much competition in the live poker arena, is a staggering achievement for a virgin event.

The final table payouts were:
First Johanna Pyysing (Finland) €69,440
Second Bjorn-Erik Glenne (Norway) €44,640
Third Jeff Sawrer (Canada) €29,760
Fourth Janne Rusanen (Finland) €17,360
Fifth David Hefner (Sweden) €13,392
Sixth Sami Ollila (Finland) €10,664
Seventh Daniel Destici (Sweden) €8,928
Eighth Matias Knappinen (Finland) €7,440
Ninth Janne Laaksonen (Finland) €5,925

The European Masters of Poker is a five-stop Tour which will move on to Varna, Bulgaria from April 15 to 18 before hitting Prague, Spain, and Malta. Each event has an estimated starting field of between 200 and 400 participants offering a top prize of up to €100,000.

Additionally, the series runs a leader board offering cash prizes, with the player who tops the league after the last stop receiving cash and a watch worth €10,000.

Betfred Ladies Poker Tour Returns


As this issue of Card Player hits the streets the fair ladies of Great Britain will be hitting the felt on the first stop on the Betfred.com Ladies Poker Tour. This year the Tour takes in six stops in the U.K. and one in Spain between April and November this year. Betfred, a long-time supporter of women’s poker, is adding £1,500 to each £110 buy-in event, and the winner of each stop qualifies for the grand final on November 21.

Lynne Beaumont, who has won the grand final in the last two seasons, has subsequently 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.

Chattha Boxes Clever at GUKPT Walsall

Twenty-three-year-old Sunny Chattha from south London took down the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour Walsall main event in early March crushing 300 opponents to lift the £88,150 first prize.

Chattha beat off stiff competition from a who’s who of British poker at the final table including Mickey Wernick who came sixth, James Akenhead who came seventh, and Joe Grech who lost the tight heads up battle.

For 90 minutes Chattha and Grech, who were level in chips initially, sparred and sized each other up but Chattha landed more punches and by the time the final hand rolled around had a 3-to-1 chip lead.

The denouement saw Grech raise to 225,000 preflop and Chattha move all in. Grech called with K-J and Chattha showed A-7 and as the board fell A-Q-9-8-2 Chattha was crowned GUKPT Walsall champion. Along with his trophy and £88,150 prize, he won a seat to the Champion of Champions event to be held at the end of the Tour in November.

“All the bad beats were worth it and I’m happy to have notched up another victory for the Hit Squad,” said Chattha who now moves back to his regular £100 rebuy event at London’s Victoria Casino.

Win a Trip to Monte Carlo With Ivobank

Ivobank, the online bank dedicated to the online gaming community, is offering customers the chance of winning a luxury break to the famous Hotel Ambassador in Monte Carlo for five nights, with €1,000 spending money and helicopter transfers included.

To win, players simply need to deposit at one of Ivobank’s partner sites listed at ivobankinfo.com/sites. Players can immediately transfer funds and play at any of these sites. The more deposits a player makes, the better their chances are of winning! The start date of the free prize draw is March 29, 2009 and runs until May 31, 2009.
Runner up in the competition will receive a state of the art 42” LCD TV.

Ivobank, which is regulated by the UK Financial Services Authority, was launched in 2008 and offers an easy to use bank account, competitive interest rates, free deposit options and instant transfers which have been a great success with discerning poker players all over Europe.