The European Poker Tour (EPT) returned last week after owner PokerStars decided to scrap the new name of the series, PokerStars Championships, that was introduced in 2016.
Russian poker pro Aresniy Karmatskiy became the first champion of the new era of the EPT after having bested a field of 861 runners in the $3,300 buy-in EPT Sochi Main Event.
The second starting flight (Day 1B) of the EPT Sanremo Main Event saw 381 players going through the registration process. After eight 75-minute levels of play, David Yan bagged up the larges pile of chips (179,100) amongst the other 219 advancing players.
There will be some changes for the 10th season of PokerStars European Poker Tour, which begins on August 26th in Barcelona, Spain. According to a forum post by PokerStars' live events coordinator, Neil Johnson, it will now be possible to register for all high roller, super high rollers and Main Events until Day 2. Besides that, it will be possible to register for all side events until the end of levels five and all high roller events will be played over three days - two starting days (10 levels each day) and a final third day. Lastly, there will be a change in the payout structure...
"We will pay one person less than full tables so all payouts will be made AFTER a table breaks, instead of before. If we're paying out nine tables (eight handed still) instead of paying 72 places as in EPT9, we will pay 71 places so all tables will balance and be playing the bubble equal handed," Johnson said.
Daniel Pidun, of Germany, took an early lead on the main event final table last Saturday and eliminated player after player to increase his lead. After about 5 hours of final table action, Pidun was the last man standing and collected €880,000 and a Slyde watch worth €5,000.
Many big names were lost during the second day of the EPT Berlin main event: Max Lykov, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Eugene Katchalov, Jeff Hakim, Tobias Reinkemeier, Mattias De Meulder, Benny Spindler, Jake Cody, Vanessa Selbst, and a few others. Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi, the Day 1B chip leader, also failed to make it through the day. Mizrachi was sent packing during the fourth level with the nut flush against the turned full house of Khiem Nguyen, a young German player.
Boris Becker is the most familiar name among the 175 players who will return to play in a few hours. The former German tennis pro will bring 113,000 chips to the tables, which is about average. He will be joined by notables such as Theo Jorgensen (171,600), Olivier Busquet (170,000), Alex Kravchenko (135,000) and Liv Boeree (85,400). The money bubble will burst when 136 players remain (€8,000 minimum cash) and the winner will take home an incredible €880,000!
The second flight of the European Poker Tour Berlin main event saw a field of 565 players, which means that a total of 912 players entered the tournament, making it the second largest EPT Berlin in history. At the end of Day 1B there were 314 players left and Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi had the lead with 175,400 chips.
Mizrachi is ranked fourth when Day 2 kicks off in a few hours, and he will be joined at the table by famous poker pros such as Sorel Mizzi (119,500), Tobias Reinkeimer (81,100), Marvin Rettenmaier (47,500), Olivier Busquet (47,100) and Eugene Katchalov (38,600).
Here are the top five stacks heading to Day 2: 1 Ronny Voth 196,100 2 Mike Kunze 188,000 3 Thomas Richter 176,100 4 Michael Mizrachi 175,400 5 Sebastian Trisch 173,50
It was an action-packed weekend at the Victoria Casino in London given that both the Main Event final table and the High Roller final table were played. The latter saw 137 entries (players: 112 and 25 re-entries) and on Saturday the field had been narrowed down a final table with the following 9 players:
The schedule for the 2013 PokerStars European Poker tour Grand Final has now been released. The festival will feature 55 events including the €10,600 buy-in Main Event, a €100,000 Super High Roller, a €25,000 High Roller, €10,300 High Roller Turbo, and a special €500,000 guaranteed €1,000 buy-in event.
Last season's Grand Final attracted lots of well-known pros and Mohsin Charania, from USA, ended up taking home the Main Event and €1,350,000 in prize money. This season (season 9), will run May 6-16 at the Monte-Carlo Casino with a big schedule of side events and EPT-run cash games for the first time.
A total of 782 players entered the 2013 EPT Deauville (France) Main Event. The field has been reduced to 155 players over 2 days of play, and Andrei Stoenescu, a former third place finisher at EPT Madrid, holds lead with 485,600 chips. There are 3 PokerStars Pros left in the tournament: Matthias De Meulder (186k), Sandra Naujoks (73k), and Vanessa Rousso (34k). A part from those three, Fabrice Soulier (126k) and Freddy Deeb (114k) are 2 familiar names who are "alive and kicking".
Day 3 of the tournament will start in few hours and the money bubble will burst when 120 players remain (a minimum of €8,000 guaranteed). The winner will take home a sweet €770,000, while the runner-up gets €475,000 as a consolation.
In the past seasons of European Poker Tour winners have been awarded with exclusive bracelets from the jewlery designer Shamballa Jewels. But now that era has come to an end as PokerStars has announced a new partnership with luxury Swiss watch brand Slyde by HD3, who will be supplying a new range of trophy watches to the winners of Season 9.
A new season of PokerStars European Poker Tour is luring around the corner. The ninth season features eight stops on the calendar, including PokerStars Caribbean Adventure from January 6-15 and the EPT Grand final in Monaco in May. There will be more tournaments at each event, with a wider choice of games and buy-in levels than ever before.
It ended up being a Scot and Dane who battled it out for the EPT Madrid title. Frederik Jensen, from Denmark, started the heads-up with a 2-1 lead over Fraser MacIntyre. Jensen dominated the heads-up totally and a few hands into the match he had a 4-1 advantage. MacIntyre had basically given up at that point, and it didn't take long before Jensen had all the chips (to be precise, the heads-up only lasted for 15 minutes).
The first starting day of PokerStars EPT Deuville Main Event saw a field of 339 players. 221 of those players survived the day and will get one day's rest before it's time to get back into the action. The chip leader, Kristijonas Andrulis from Lithuania, will bring 162,600 chips to Day 2. Only 400 chips behind him is Philippe Ma, from France, followed by his fellow countrymen - Elie Payan (141k) and Julien Claudepierre (128k).
Unfortunately not many familiar poker players can be found in the top of the Day 1a field. Let's hope that Day 1b, which starts in a few hours, will take care of that "issue". We will return with an update as soon as Day 1b comes to an end. Stay tuned!
A few days ago the organizers of the European Poker Tour revealed that there will be 3 new stops on the tour during 2012. Two of these stops, Madrid and Berlin, were part of the previous season, while Campione in Italy makes it first appearance on the tour. In total, there are 6 stops left on season 8 of the European Poker Tour. Below you can find the complete schedule for season 8:
January 7-13 - PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, Bahamas Jan 31 - Feb 6 - EPT Deauville, France February 20-25 - EPT Copenhagen, Denmark March 12-17 - EPT Madrid, Spain March 26-31 - EPT Campione, Italy April 16-21 - EPT Berlin, Germany
The record field of 722 players has been narrowed down to 31 after 4 days of poker (Day 1a & 1b, Day 2, Day 3) The 3 first days ended with a Russian in the lead. But that tradition came to an end yesterday and now the chip leader is Partrik Renkers from Netherlands. Renkers had a fantastic winning streak during Day 3 and today a 2.4 million stack is waiting for him at the Hilton poker room. The player in second place, Martin Finger from Germany, has about half of that stack.
Day 3 of the EPT Prague main event is being played at the moment and there are 129 remaining players. The chip leader is Garri Tevosov, from Russia, with 764k, followed by Martin Finger, from Germany, with 612k and Mads Wissing, from Denmark, with a stack of 565k. There are a few big names with chips left, however, none of them can be found in the very top of the remaining field of players.
We will return with an update as soon as Day 3 comes to an end.
It ended up being Martin Jacobsen (second last in chips when the final table begun but was big chip leader during Day 4 - 441,000) from Sweden and Toby Lewis (chip leader when the final table started - 3,322,000) from UK who were the last 2 men standing on the EPT Vilamoura Final table. Even though Lewis had a big chip lead when they started playing the heads-up, Jabobsen still managed to fight back and brought things back to square after some time. However, when both players had quite equal stacks, it all came to an end after this hand...
Ladies and gents, we're only one and a half hour away from the EPT Vilamoura Main Event final table. 384 players who entered the tournament about 5 days ago have became 8. Now these 8 players are about to battle for the first place prize of €467,835.
The swede Martin Jacobson, who had a big chip lead yesterday, has lost most of his chips and is now short stacked compared to 6 of the other finalists. Toby Lewis and Sam Trickett played fantastic poker during Day 4 of the tournament and and they will bring monster stacks with them to the final table today.
Here are the 8 finalists: Seat 1. Teddy Sheringham - 1,783,000 Seat 2. Toby Lewis - 3,322,000 Seat 3. Martin Jacobson - 441,000 Seat 4. Jason Lee - 1,167,000 Seat 5. Sergio Coutinho - 872,000 Seat 6. Sam Trickett - 3,318,000 Seat 7. Rob Hollink - 259,000 Seat 8. Frederick Jensen - 375,000
296 players from 33 countries took part in the first ever EPT Kyiv (about 80 of them PokerStars players) and created a prize pool of €1,391,200. Maxim "Decay" Lykov, 21, from Moscow, was the chip leader after both day 2 and day 3. When he reached the final table there was no doubt that he would become the last man standing. After 6 hours the final table was down to heads-up. The two remaining players were Alexander Dovzhenko and Maxim Lykov. But there was not a long fight between these two as it only took the 21-year-old Russian 20 hands to take down the tournament. For the win Maxim "Decay" Lykov received €330,000 and also became the first ever Russian to win an EPT.
It's starting to get close to the final table in the EPT tournament that is being held in Dortmund. Before today's game is started there are 34 players left to battle for the win in this prestigious event. The chipleader at the moment is Holger Kanish from Germany with $526.500 in chips.Read more » EPT Dortmund: 34 players remaining at the start of day 3
A brand new season of the EPT (European Poker Tour) started yesterday. The first event is held in Barcelona and after day 1A we have already seen a few poker pros being sent to the rails. Here are some of the bigger names that busted out after day 1A:
Dave “DevilFish” Ulliot David Williams Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi Greg “Fossilman” Raymer Annette Obrestad Vicky Coren Vanessa Rousso
The European Poker Tour (EPT) returned last week after owner PokerStars decided to scrap the new name of the series, PokerStars Championships, that was introduced in 2016.
The second starting flight (Day 1B) of the EPT Sanremo Main Event saw 381 players going through the registration process. After eight 75-minute levels of play, David Yan bagged up the larges pile of chips (179,100) amongst the other 219 advancing players.
