News, Reviews And Interviews From Around The Poker World

World Championship of Online Poker by the Numbers
The PokerStars.com World Series of Online Poker (WCOOP) played out at the end of September with a record $51.7 million in prize money on offer over 45 events. While U.S. wunderkid Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko topped the 2,144 strong field in the $5,200 buy-in main event scoring $1,715,200 in prize money, Europeans also had a strong festival with Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier (winning two events), Eugene Katchalov, George Danzer, and Matthew Ashton all taking down titles.

Out of 45 events, Europeans won 17 or just over one-third. These bracelets went to:
United Kingdom 4
Germany 3
Spain 2
Finland 2
Sweden 2
France 1
Greece 1
Netherlands 1
Slovakia 1

In total 140 countries were represented across WCOOP events and players from 104 countries cashed. For a full list of winners visit wcoop.com/stats.

‘Durrrr’ Makes TV Cash-Game History
The FullTilt Poker Million Dollar Cash Game was filmed over a 24-hour period across Sept. 16 and 17 and it saw the biggest cash pot in television history take place. Big name players included Andrew Feldman, Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, Gus Hansen, Patrik Antonius, and of course, online sensation Tom “Durrrr” Dwan.

Early session, online enemies Antonius and Dwan were all in, Dwan with pocket aces, and Antonius with pocket kings. Antonius didn’t have to wait long for his king to drop as it came down on the flop, scooping him a $500,000 pot.

After 20 hours of play it was just Dwan, Antonius, and Ivey left and there was more than $2.2 million on the table with everything to play for. In the key hand Dwan bet out, Ivey raised from the small blind, and Antonius mucked. Dwan made the call. There was just about $60,000 in the pot at this stage, and the flop came Q-5-3. Ivey bet 40,000 and Dwan called. The turn was a 4 and Ivey bet out again. Dwan raised it up to more than $240,000, and Ivey had to think about it. He then shoved and Dwan snap-called showing 7-6 for the straight, while Ivey painfully revealed A-2 for the lower straight. The river was no use to anyone, a jack, and Dwan took down a historic pot of more than $1.1 million – the biggest pot to ever have been won in a televised poker show.

The event will be aired on Sky Sports in January 2010.

The World Series Comes to Europe
Ahead of the_ World Series of Poker Europe_ in September, the Empire casino London was host to the Free Million Dollar Game, which saw 18 online qualifiers from Betfair compete for $1 million. Greek youngster Anestis Metsas made his way towards millionaire-dom via a couple of online freerolls and a live regional qualifier. The 23-year-old had to beat thousands to get to London, and then faced his toughest 18 competitors in a battle that lasted 10 hours before he clinched victory.

The Series saw four bracelet events:
Event Won by
£1,000 no-limit hold’em J.P. Kelly
£2,500 pot-limit hold’em/pot-limit Omaha Erik Cajelais
£5,000 pot-limit Omaha Jani Vilmunen
£10,000 no-limit hold’em main event Barry Shulman

The two-week festival also saw the inaugural Caesars Cup which pitted Team North America, captained by Daniel Negreanu, against Team Europe, captained by Annette Obrestad. The young Norwegian’s team triumphed easily defeating the visitors 4-1.

See the WSOPE feature in this issue for more details.

European Poker Tour London Winners
The 2009 PokerStars European Poker Tour London main event was won by Aaron “aguskb” Gustavson. The 23-year-old Las Vegas resident earned £850,000 for his victory over 729 other players in the largest live tournament ever held in the United Kingdom. He beat reigning World Series of Poker main event champion Peter Eastgate heads up.

The High Rollers event which kicked off the EPT festival was won by Matthew Glantz. Glantz topped the 75-strong field to take home $866,537.
See this issue for features on these events.

Pole Axes Competition in Malta
The European Masters of Poker Malta grand final which took place in Vittoriosa, Malta at the end of September was won by Polish player Krzystzof Grubka who lifted €95,000 for topping the 291 strong field.

Grubka faced Joakim Sörenson heads-up but the pair cut a deal with chip counts of 2.4 million and 1.9 million respectively and Grubka took the title and the lion’s share of the money while Sörenson settled for second place and €88,000.

The final table payouts were:
First Krzystzof Grubka (POL) €95,000
Second Joakim Sörenson (SWE) €88,000
Third Tero Aho €43,650
Fourth Lukas Bäumer (GER) €26,190
Fifth Tobias Knutås €21,800
Sixth Christer Larsson (SWE) €17,460
Seventh Martin Gudvangen (NOR) €14,481
Eighth Leo Nordin (SWE) €12,221

The event was the fifth and final leg of the first season of the European Masters of Poker and created the largest prize pool of the entire tour with €436,500 distributed to the top 26 players.

A number of big name players turned out for the event including David Steicke, Johnny Lodden, Mel Judah, Abel Mejberg, Jonas Kyllonen and three former champions of the tour also made an appearance — Johanna Pyysing, Anton Wigg, and Reuven Dayan.

An announcement is expected soon on next season’s European Masters of Poker.

World Heads-Up Championship for The Vic
The ninth World Heads-Up Championship sponsored by LittlewoodsPoker.com is moving from Barcelona to the Grosvenor Victoria Casino, London from October 27 to 31, 2009.

While the event will be over by the time this issue of Card Player hits news stands we will be covering it in full in the January issue.

The £3,000 buy in no-limit hold’em event which will have a maximum of 128 players and a first prize of £200,000 was first staged at the Concord Card Casino in Vienna from 2001 to 2003 before moving to Barcelona from 2004 to 2008.

The structure will see players start with 20,000 in chips and play 30 minutes levels. Blinds will be frozen at level six.

The previous winners of the event were:
2001 Bruno Fitoussi
2002 Kirill Gerasimov
2003 John Cernuto
2004 Angel Blanco Puras
2005 Peter Gunnarson
2006 Isaac Maoylas de Vega
2007 Jeff Kimber
2008 Mauro Stivoli

Russian Wins PKR Heads-Up Grand Slam
Vladimir Geshkenbein from Russia defeated Juha Helppi in the final heads-up battle of the PKR.com Heads-Up Grand Slam in London early in October, taking down $120,000 for his victory, while Helppi won $70,000.

Geshkenbein fought his way through a world class field including victories over Alex Keating, Brahim Hajji, David Steicke, James Sudworth to make the final. It took him around two hours to beat Helppi.

The Russian was confident going into his final match, saying after the event, “I always go into a heads-up match feeling like the favourite and that’s how I felt in the final.” He beat Johnny Chan to win the Asia Pacific Poker Tour High Rollers event earlier this year.

The event was filmed to be broadcast at a later date.

Belgium Open Poker Championships Announced
Casino de Namur is set to host the sixth annual Belgium Open Poker Championships from Nov. 21 to 29 with up to 1,000 players expected for the €1,500 + €200 buy-in main event.

This year also sees the introduction of a €10,000 + €500 heads up team event to the busy schedule.

Last year 843 players from the likes of the U.S., Venezuela, the Ukraine, Canada, and Great Britain took part in the main event which was won by Dutch player Sijbrand Maal who pocketed €315,875 for topping the field.

Players can register at CircusPoker.be or contact Kenny Halleart at [email protected] or call +32 (0) 476 80 65 3.

Paul Zimbler Sets New World Record
Paul Zimbler has succeeded in his quest to set a new heads-up poker world record, playing 78 hours 25 minutes 45 seconds straight against 183 of opponents and raising £35,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation in the process.

The marathon session, which started Monday September 21 ended on Thursday September 24 around 8 p.m. BST with World Series of Poker spokesman Nolan Dalla saying that it “took a clear physical toll on his [Zimbler’s] body and mind”.

Dalla said he was “visibly fatigued and barely able to walk away from the table, Zimbler was partially carried away from the game.”

The event took place at the Empire Casino and Zimbler played opponents for 20 minutes each, for a minimum donation of £10. He played his first game against Doyle Brunson and his last game against Mike Matusow.

Despite his deteriorating condition Zimbler won 102 of his 183 matches.

World Poker Tour Winners
The first-ever World Poker Tour Merit Cyprus Classic crowned a champion mid-September, and it was Frenchman Thomas Bichon. The $10,000 no-limit hold’em event attracted 181 players creating a top prize worth $579,165.

At the final table Bichon scored his second elimination when his J-5 dominated the 9-5 of Steven Fung preflop. The board cooperated for Bichon, and Fung busted out in third place ($216,275). This hand also made Bichon the overwhelming chip leader with 5.6 million against the 1.6 million of Uri Keidar heading into heads-up play.

That edge was insurmountable for Keidar, who fell on the second hand of heads-up play. Keidar raised to 350,000 preflop, from the button and Bichon reraised all in. Keidar thought for a moment and then made the call. Their cards: Bichon: 7-7 and Keidar: J-10. The board fell A-K-7-10-3 and Keidar was eliminated in second place ($380,645) while Bichon captured the WPT title.

The final table results and payouts were:
First Thomas Bichon $579,165
Second Uri Keidar $380,645
Third Steven Fung $216,275
Fourth Rep Porter $121,115
Fifth Janar Kiivramees $90,835
Sixth Rony Jazzar $73,535

Elsewhere, the final table at the $3,500 World Poker Tour no-limit hold’em championship came to a close at the Borgata Poker Open. American Olivier Busquet topped a field of 1,018 players to take home the top prize worth $925,514 and his first WPT title.

The final table results and payouts were:
First Olivier Busquet $925,514
Second Jeremy Brown $453,519
Third Ivan Mamuzic $251,955
Fourth Yanick Brodeur $216,681
Fifth Keith Crowder $188,126
Sixth Kenny Nguyen $156,212