Day 2 of the EPT Berlin Main Event ended up being a day with lots of action. In seven 75-minute levels, 360 of the 484 who started the day got knocked out. Thats almost three quarters of the field! Many notable players were sent packing this day - Thierry van den Berg, Jeff Sarwer, Noah Boeken, Florian Langmann, Barny Boatman (just to mention a few). However, many of the Team PokerStars Pros can be found in the top of the remaining field of 124 players - Johannes Strassmann (794,500 - 2nd place), Jude Ainsworth (720,500 - 4th place), William Thorson (496,000 - 5th place), Julian Thew (350,000 - 9th place) and Marcel Luske (270,000 - 12th place). Of these Team PokerStars Pros, my money is still on William Thorson to make it the furthest in the tournament.

Leading the field, thought, is young Swiss national Stefan Huber (picture) with 1,087,500 chips. He's for sure going to make it deep into the money if he continues playing this well. However, he will have to fight really hard in Day 3 of the tournament if he want to remain in the lead. Because all the Team PokerStars Pros in the top of the field will for sure switch to the next gear now and aim to build up even bigger stacks, so that they are ready for Day 4 and eventually the final table.

 

A field of 389 players signed up for the first starting day of the EPT Berlin Main Event. This field included poker pros from all around the globe and also some celebrities. After many hours of play, 196 out of 389 players had made it through to Day 2 of the tournament. Kfir Yumin from Israel accumulated 213,500 chips during Day 1a of the tournament. He's now in a lead with around 50k chips more than many of the other top finishers of Day 1a.

Day 1b is about to start now. And as usual when it comes to the second starting day of any major tournament - more players and more pros are expected to take part. This will hopefully make Day 1b of the EPT Berlin Main Event even more interesting to follow!

 

Its soon time for the European Poker Tour to make another stop. This time it will be in Berlin instead of Dortmund where it has been played in the previous seasons. Anyhow, PokerStars is expecting even more players this year than last year because of the new location and the €1 million first place prize guarantee (667 players took part last year - Sandra Naujoks won and took home the first prize of €917,000).

Team PokerStars Pros Sebastian Ruthenberg, Benjamin Kang, Johannes Steindl, Arnaud Mattern, Tom McEvoy, William Thorson are all scheduled to take part in Day 1a of the Main Event, which will give the tournament the best possible start!

 

Jose Ignacio Barbero from Argentina came to be the last man standing in PokerStars LAPT Punta del Este Main Event. For the win he received nothing less than $279,330. This is not the first time Barbero does well in a bigger tournament. He ended up in 89th place in the WSOP Main Event and has also won a side event in PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. However, the win of LAPT Punta del Este Main Event is his biggest achievement so far.

Final table results:

1. Jose Ignacio Barbero, $279 330

2. Nicolas Cardyn, $161 550

3. Andres Korn, $99 020 

4. Norbert Ludger, $ 72 960 

5. Daniela de Lima Zapiello $52 110
6. Marco A. Caicedo, $41 690
7. Bernardo da Silveira Dias, $31 270
8. Roman Suarez, $20 850

307 players signed up for the LAPT Punta del Este Main Event this time. So far, day 1 and 2 have been played. Now, 24 players are fighting for a seat at the final table. Among them we find Team PokerStars Pro's Jose Ignacio Barbero (Argentina) and Humberto Brenes (Costa Rica) in the top of the remaining field. Chip leader as Day 3 of the tournament is about to start is Cesar F. Mostafa with his 529,00 stack. Closets to him in chips is the last female in tournament, Daniela de Lima Zapiello with 485,000.

Next player to go out of the tournament (24th place) will receive $7,300, and the winner will get nothing less than $279,330. In other words, we can expect that even the short stacked players will give the big stacks a fight to remember since its a quite steep payout structure.

 

It came to be these 8 (2 PokerStars qualifiers) relatively unknown players who made it to the final table in the NAPT Venetian Main Event. Sam Stein, Thomas Fuller, David Paredes, Yunus Jamal, Tom Machese, Eric Blair, Daniel Clemente and John Cernuto.

Anyhow, the 2 players that dominated the final table and made it to heads-up were Sam Stein and Tom Marchese. Sam Stein took the command almost straight away, and because he had won almost every single pot in the 3 past days, no one thought that Tom Marchese stood a chance against him. However, Marchese managed to figure out Stein's game and sense his weaknesses - and exploit them. It didn't take long before Marchese had taken the command over the game and after some time he had also taken every single chip from his opponent. A big congratulations to Tom Marchese.

 

On Friday night, the 40,000,000,000 hand was dealt at PokerStars. A Swede with the alias Senecady ended up winning this historic hand at a $2/$4 Holdem table. Thanks to PokerStars 40 billion hand celebration campaign, he didn't only win the pot of $350 but also another $24,000 ($800 for each VPP earned in the previous 40 hands)! His opponents came to be big winners as well! All players at the table got $400 for each VPP accumulated in the previous 40 hands.

Let's hope for more great campaigns (like this one) from PokerStars in the near future!

 

76 out of 243 players who started Day 2 are now through to Day 3 of the EPT Copenhagen Main Event, which will start in a few hours. Notable players that have made it to Day 3 with decent stacks are Team PokerStars pro's Peter Eastgate (302,000 - 9th place) and Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier (243,800 - 16th place). 2 other big names can be found further down in the field, Juha Helppi & Anette Obrestad. In the lead is Csaba Toth with 561,900 chips. Almost 150k chips behind him are Fabian Gentile (413,300 - 2nd place) and Stig Rossen (411,200 - 3rd place).

56 of the remaining 76 players will get a piece of the total prize pool of 14,212 DKK (about €1,9 million dollars). The winner will get about €500,000.

 

The 40 billion hand is getting closer and closer at PokerStars. To celebrate this, PokerStars have created a "40 billion hands celebration"-promotion (F40) in order to give something back to its customers. Here is brief information about the promotion.

There will be cash prizes on all cash game tables where players dealt into every millionth hand will win a cash prize of $20 for every VPP they have earned in the previous 40 hands played on that table. The winner of the hand will also get their cash prize doubled. There will also be MTTs (multi-table tournaments) with extra big guarantees, more freerolls, special sit & go's running 24/7 where the winner get a slice of a $40,000 prize pool etc.

We offer a 100% up to $600 deposit bonus at PokerStars. Combine this with the F40-promotion and you'll get the best possible start at PokerStars.

When NAPT (North American Poker Tour) makes a stop at The Venetian, Las Vegas, PokerStars will try a new type of HighRoller Bounty shootout tournament. The buy-in for the new tournament will be $25,000 of which $5000 will go to the bounty prize pool. In other words, if you knockout a player - you will get $5000. Anyhow, one player from each table (10 players - sit & go tables) will make it to the next table and fight for a piece of the prize pool. PokerStars will give the one who takes home the most bounty's extra $100,000.

According to PokerStars, the pros they have been talking to so far are very positive to the new tournament. And who knows, maybe EPT and WPT will start arranging similar tournaments if the turnout is good at the Venetian?

 

Not less than 9031 players paid the buy-in of $200+$15 and took part in the world’s most popular online tournament yesterday, PokerStars Sunday Million. Thanks to the big starting field, not less than $1,806,200 was up for grabs.

The final table was very interesting and thrilling this time. When there were 6 players left, they all had about the same amount of chips left. This is quite unusual thing to see on a final table. Anyhow, it came to be the player "palurdo" who took home the tournament at the end. For the win he received $257,930.

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429 players signed up for Day 1b of the EPT Deauville Main Event. The field included some really big names, just to mention a few of them, Peter Eastgate, Greg Raymer, Betrand "Elky" Grospellier, Freedy Deeb, Luca Pagano and Ludovic Lacay. All of the players above, except Greg Raymer, made it to Day 2 of tournament. Luca Pagano (picture) had the best possible start in Day 1b and has accumulated a stack of 185,000 chips. Luca will bring the second most chips to Day 2.

The chip leader from Day 1a, Robert Cezarescu, is still in the lead with 216,900 chips. However, Robert Cezarescu, will have to face a much stronger field in Day 2 of the tournament, as the most pros played Day 1b of the tournament. 405 players will return to the tables at noon today to play Day 2 of EPT Deauville. A total prize pool of €3,686,400 is up for grabs, and the winner will get €847,000.

 

It's once again time for another World Blogger Championship of Online Poker at the world's largest poker site, PokerStars. This time, the preliminary tournaments of WBCOOP will run between January 25 - 30, 2010. The most interesting event, A.K.A. the Main Event, will be played on January 31.

What is WBCOOP?
World Blogger Championship of Online Poker (WBCOOP) started 5 years ago and it's a tournament where verified bloggers from all over the world can play against each other. It's totally free to take part in the preliminary tournaments for verified bloggers, and prizes such as tickets to Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP - $30,000,000 guaranteed by PokerStars) are up for grabs.

We offer a 100% up to $600 deposit bonus at PokerStars. Don't miss out on this great offer!

 

Yesterday the Main Event of EPT Deauville started. A remarkable field of 339 players took part in Day 1a of the tournament. The tournament organizers believe that Day 1b, which starts today, will see a bigger number of participants. In other words, it seems like there will be a huge prize pool this time.

Anyhow, even though Day 1a attracted a lot of players, there were not many familiar faces.
In the lead after Day 1a is Robert Cezarescu. He will bring 216,900 chips with him to Day 2 of the tournament. On 2nd and 3rd place are Vladimir Geschkenbein with 155,000 chips and Martin Kabrhel with 152,200 chips. 198 out of 339 players made it to Day 2 of the Main Event.

 

Lots of people all over the world have been very helpful the past week by giving money to the people in Haiti. And as always, when it comes to giving a helping hand to people that really needs it - lots of poker players around the globe have once again showed how big hearts they have. Take PokerStars for example. They started a Haiti fund almost straight away and promised to match the amount their players were willing to donate. So far, almost $480,000 has been donated (11 days to go before the fund is closed).

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It came to be a quite interesting final table in the high roller event this year. This thanks to Lisa Hamilton who impressed a lot, but also because of the action (from start to end) this final table delivered. All the players at this final table played very good and gave the crowd an entertaining final table to watch. Anyhow, the player that stood out among the rest of the players thanks to his fantastic timing, ability to shifting gears at the right time, and pushing all-in at the right time was William Reynolds. Williams never thought that he would take home the tournament as he was all in and shortstacked lots of times. However, he managed to double up time after time and used his aggressive style until he was the last man standing.

"I feel great! I can't count the amount of times I was all in. I was ready to be on the beach and up in my hotel room." Reynolds said after the win.

Lets hope that we get to see William Reynolds on more final tables in the future because he's quite an entertaining player to watch and learn from. 

 

Final table results:
1. William Reynolds, USA -- $576,240
2. Will Molson, Canada -- $322,075
3. Adolfo Vaeza, Uruguay -- $218,150
4. Michiel Brummelhuis, Netherlands -- $154,350
5. Lisa Hamilton, USA -- $133,770
6. Tobias Reinkemeier, Germany -- $108,045
7. Matt Marafioti, Canada -- $87,465
8. Dmitry Stelmak, Russia -- $66,885

It's time for the final table in the High Roller Event of PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. 8 players have survived the starting field of 84 players (84 players who could afford the buy-in of $25,000) and now they will fight for the first prize of $576,240. None of the 8 finalists are probably familiar names to many people. However, many of them have some great results in the past and are probably players that we will hear much more about in the future. 

The most interesting thing about the final table has to be that 1 of the 8 remaining players are girls, which is really impressive as only 9 women took part in the tournament (1 of them ended up in 9th place). The one that will bring the most chips (1,072,000) to the final table today is Tobias Reinkemeier from Germany (picture). Reinkemeier is playing his first ever final table and it's not hard to understand that he's very excited and happy about it.

"I feel really great. I've had so many deep cashes - 11th in London, 23rd in Barcelona, 46th here in the main event - but no final table," he said. "Now I've made it. It's an amazing feeling, especially as I am going in to the final as chip leader, with a big buy-in and a field so strong."

1.Tobias Reinkemeier, Germany - 1072000
2.Adolfo Vaeza, Uruguay - 790000
3.Will Molson Canada - 669000
4.William Reynolds, USA - 482000
5.Lisa Hamilton, USA - 440000
6.Michiel Brummelhuis, Netherlands - 394000
7.Matt Marafioti, Canada - 236000
8.Dmitry Stelmak, Russia - 150000

Vanessa Rousso, 27, has just won the Ladies Event of PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in Bahamas. She made it to the final table as chip leader and then nothing could stop her from taking down the tournament and the first prize of $24,725. Even though many of the players who took part in the ladies event had qualified online at PokerStars, Vanessa had to fight hard to reach the final table as pros like Annette Obrestad and J.J Lui were in the tournament as well.

"There were a couple of pros who played. J.J. Lui was in there, Annette Obrestad. There was a bunch of good players. Obviously you have to run well in any tournament you play in. But I didn't make any mistakes that I know of, I played well and I'm happy with the way I played. Starting the year off with a victory is really cool"; Vanessa said in an interview after the victory.

 

The Italian PokerStars pro Dario Minieri has taken the lead with 218,600 chips in the PCA High Roller event in Bahamas. Minieri is clossly followed by two players - Lex Veldhuis (214,500) from Holland and Dmitry Stelmak from Russia (203,400). 52 out of 85 players will return to play Day 2 of the tournament.

Elky, The Team PokerStars Pro who won last year's High Roller event only has 7200 chips left and is in last place of the remaining 52 players. Elky needs to double up a few times in the beginning of Day 2, because otherwise the blinds (400/800 blinds + 100 ante) will eat up his stack in no-time.

Play with Dario Minieri, Elky and other poker pros at PokerStars. We will give you a 100% up to $600 bonus on your first deposit.

2009's last Sunday Million tournament was played last Sunday at PokerStars. Even though the world record tournament was played the very same day, not less than 9344 players signed up for the Sunday Million Tournament, which created a total prize pool of $1,868,800.

The final table was very thrilling one this time as lots of cash was up for grabs. And when there were 5 remaining players on the final table - they all agreed on making a deal. However, the winner of the tournament came to be Coach6999 who received $143,444 and the second place finisher, BBOY received $213,000 thanks to the deal.

 

Check out the world's biggest and most popular poker site and we will give you a 100% up to $600 deposit bonus to make sure that your 2010 will start in the best possible way.

Not long ago, PokerStars announced that they will try to break the old record of the biggest online poker tournament. The old record was already held by themselves as they had 65,000 players in the same tournament last summer. Yesterday, it was time for a new world record attempt. To make sure that this tournament would be interesting to take part in, PokerStars guaranteed a prize pool of $300,000 where the top 30,000 players would get a piece of the cake.

So how did it go?
Thanks to the low buy-in and the big guarantee this tournament offered not less than 149,196 players took part and a new world record was a fact as the old record had been beaten with almost 85,000 players. The winner of the tournament, Oskar69, received $50,000 in first place prize.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes before another world record attempt takes place and if Full Tilt or some other site will try to break PokerStars record.

 

The TV show PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge became the most watched poker show through all time when the first episode was broadcasted earlier this year. In each show of the Million Dollar Challenge a non-pro got to play against some of PokerStars biggest names in heads-up poker for some serious cash. However, only one "lucky" player would get the chance to play against PokerStars biggest PRO Daniel Negreanu in the final for the first prize of $1 million dollars. The one that made it all the way to the final table and got to play against Daniel came to be the September 11 hero, Mike Kosowski. It was a very thrilling heads-up match between the two of them, but Mike Kosowski had a great day and won at last.

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The 2 poker giants PokerStars and Full Tilt poker just keep on growing and growing. This year both of them have increased their customer base with 68%, and last week both of them reached a new milestone as they stood for 60% of all the poker traffic online. Its seems like it has paid off very well for these 2 sites to spend lots and lots of money on marketing and by offering the biggest monthly/weekly guarantee tournaments online.

However, its not just PokerStars and Full Tilt that have increased their traffic, since the traffic at all other poker sites has increased with 12%. In other words, its seems like the financial crises that has been going on for quite some time now hasn't stopped people from gambling. Now the question is: Has the traffic online increased because of the financial crises, or is it just a normal growth we are seeing?

 

Lately a lot of rumors have been circulating on the web that PokerStars is about to sign a huge a sports star to its Team PokerStars. One of the hottest candidate's so far is the old heavy weight champion Mike Tyson. Whether or not Mike Tyson is a good poker player, we will have to wait and see (if he's the one that PokerStars will sign).

The rumors about Mike Tyson to become the new Team PokerStars member started when Johnny Lodden wrote in his blog that a huge sports star is about to join his team. However, Johnny Lodden couldn't give any further information about the new member until it was official news.

 

EPT Prague attracted a huge starting field this time. Not less than 584 (219 Day 1a and 365 Day 1b) players entered the tournament and created a total prize pool of €2,842,100. 12 poker tables are now waiting for the remaining 95 players who have made it to Day 3 of the tournament. The one that will bring the most chips with him from Day 2 to Day 3 is the Frenchmen Yann Brosolo with 574,000 chips, closely followed by Rui Cao on second place with 522,500 chips and Team PokerStars PRO Pieter de Korver with 465,800 chips on third place.

Luca Pagano, the Italian Team PokerStars PRO, keeps on impressing as he's once again in the top of the field in an EPT event. Luca has accumulated 280,400 chips and is on 16th place at the moment, but he's definitely one of the hottest candidates to reach the final table.

The Swedes are doing well
Many Swedish players have been doing very well in EPT Prague. Kristoffer Edberg, Gustav Ekerot, and Stefan Mattsson are the top 3 Swedes who all are in the top of the field with a good chance of reaching the final table. Most notable of these 3 players is Stefan "Matadoren" Mattsson who has had some fantastic results in EPT, WSOP, Aussie Millions and WPT.

 

Amer Sulaiman never knew that his relaxing holiday trip in Costa Rica would be his ticket to become the first LAPT Season 3 Champion! What started out as playing on a whim, this man born in Iraq had never realized that his vacation would turn out to be a blessing and actually win a poker championship.  After four extremely tough days on poker, Sulaiman had successfully beat all his opponents and emerged as the winner.  He will be taking home the $172,095 prize money which is the biggest win of his poker-playing career.

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Playing poker just for fun and winning in the end must be overwhelming for others, but not for a man named Antonio Matias, a 54-year-old Portuguese travel agency director.  He may be kind of disappointed when he missed to see his much awaited football game earlier, but that did not made him lose his concentration on playing poker.  In fact, he was seriously playing.  He has beaten other 322 adept poker players to achieve the Portuguese EPT title with the last opponent being Pierre Neuville.

Matias’ cards were 7[d] 8[c] while Neuville's were 10[s] J[h].

The 5 cards presented on the table were J[d] 7[h] 8[h] 7[c] 2[c], which obviously made Matias the winner of PokerStars EPT Vilamoura.

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177 out of 322 players made it to Day 2 of EPT Vilamoura. Notable players that made it this far with decent stacks were the PokerStars PRO's Luca Pagano, JP Kelly, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier and Henrique Pinho. Unfortunately neither of them came to be among the 69 players who made it to Day 3 of the tournament. Jeff Sarwer, the chip leader as Day 2 started, keept the lead all day 2 and will bring 549,800 chips to Day 3 of the tournament.

Team PokerStars PRO's that made it to Day 3 of the tournament are Jude Ainsworth (230,600), Jan Heitmann (173,800), Johannes Strassmann (120,700), Nuno Coelho (28,900), and Alexander Kravchenko (27,100). 48 of the remaining 69 players will receive a piece of the total prizepool of €1,561,700. The winner will however receive nothing less than €404,793.

 

40 players made it to Day 3 of APPT Cebu, and at the end of the day, 9 players were left and the tournament crew called it a day. These were the 9 players who were going to play the final table the next day.

Seat 1: Mark Pagsuyuin (497,000)
Seat 2: Sim Somyung (1,442,000)
Seat 3: David Hilton (995,000)
Seat 4: Terry Fan (610,000)
Seat 5: Alexandr Tikholiz (231,000)
Seat 6: Phillip Willcocks (791,000)
Seat 7: Dong-bin Han (862,000)
Seat 8: Nick Pronk (563,000)
Seat 9: Kevin Clark (191,000)

The final table started with some early eliminations. Alexandr Tikholiz went out first, followed by Phillip Willcocks and Nick Pronk. A bit later on it was time for Mark Pagsuyin, the last player from the Philippines, to leave the final table. Now it stood clear that the APPT trophy would be leaving the Philippines.

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A total of 319 players came to start in APPT Cebu, 105 players Day 1a and 214 players Day 1b. Of these 319 players, 108 made it to Day 2 of the tournament, which is being played at the moment. So far 45 players have been sent packing, and now there are 63 players left as the big money is getting closer and closer.

Since about 15 minutes ago the tournament has a new chip leader, Dong-bin Han. This is the hand that gave him the lead:

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Day 1a of PokerStars Asia Pacific Poker Tour kicked off yesterday. 105 players came to start, and after seven one-hour levels of poker, 50 of them had made it through to Day 2 of the tournament. In the lead of the tournament is Terry Fan with 140,000 chips. Terry doubled-up at the early stages of the tournament and used his big stack very well as he remained in the top throughout the day.

Day 2b of the tournament attracted a much more interesting starting field than Day 1a, but unfortunately the most of the bigger names fell early including Eric Assadourian, Dennis Huntly, and Aaron Benton. 58 players made it to Day 2 from Day 1b. Now a total of 108 players will fight for the prize pool of around $600,000.

 

Just a year ago, Mats Sundin joined PokerStars as its international celebrity ambassador. In the beginning he didn't have much time to play in many of the major tournaments because he was busy being the captain for the NHL team, Toronto Maple Leafs. One year later he decided to retire from hockey and instead focus more on his job as ambassador for PokerStars.

One of the first major tournaments Mats played for PokerStars was in 2009 WSOP Main Event. He was doing very well in the beginning of the tournament and everyone were really impressed that he wasn't only a good hockey player, but also a decent poker player. However, when the first break started, he made a mistake that could have sent him packing. 

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PokerStars Sunday Million tournament is just getting more and more popular. PokerStars now thinks that the current guarantee simply isn't enough, and therefore they have decided to add another $1,000,000 to the pot in the next tournament on Sunday.

PokerStars are expecting a huge starting field as $2,500,000 is up for grabs in the next Sunday Million. It will be very interesting to see what the first prize will land on. In last Sunday Million the winner got $236,000. Probably it will be double that amount on Sunday!

PokerStars are running lots of daily satellites for just a few dollars to the next Sunday Million tournament with $2,5000,000 in the pot. We give you a 100% bonus up to $600 at PokerStars to get started!

 

PokerStars Baltic Poker Festival in Tallinn, is a very popular event that most of the PokerStars PRO's usually takes part in together with lots of PokerStars qualifiers. This year was no different.

Day 1a and b have now been played, and 307 players made it till Day 2. Out of these 307 players, 120 are still in the tournament. In the chip lead we find Bo Kjaer Erichsen from Denmark with 76,600 chips. On second and third place are Ermo Kosk and Aleksandr Lozikin. Both of them are from Estonia and also have equal stacks of around 70,000 chips.

2 of the most notable players in the remaining field are JC Alvardo and Peter Eastgate (PokerStars PRO's). Even though both of them are running good at the moment, they still have a long way to go and many really good players to face.

Payout structure:

1 - €76,750
2 - €48,505
3 - €30 085
4 - €17,805
5 - €14,121
6 - €11,665
7 - €9,823
8 - €8,288
9 - €6,753

 

 

 

It came to be the French businessman Christophe Benzimra, 47, who took home EPT Warsaw's first prize of $358,644 and a seat to the Season 6 EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo. Christophe Benzimra started playing poker only 3 years ago, but still he has taken part at almost every EPT event in the last two sesasons. However, this is his first big cash in EPT.

"I think I was lucky today. I am not a professional, I play for fun. I'm not giving up work! I play poker just for the pleasure of it."; Christophe Benzimra said after the win.

Luca Pagana in the top of the EPT leaderboard
The Italian PokerStars PRO Luca Pagana was knocked out in fourth place and won €85,938. This was Luca Pagana's 12th cash finish, and fifth final table in European Poker Tour. He has now overtaken the lead from fellow PokerStars PRO Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier to top the EPT all-time Tournament Leader Board.

 

In the field of the 55 remaining players (who have made it from Day 2 to Day 3) we find many PokerStars qualifiers and pros. American PokerStars qualifier Carter Phillips, who won EPT Barcelona last month, was in the lead almost all Day 2 but then lost the lead to fellow qualifier Clayton Mozdzen from Canada.

The Main Event of EPT Warsaw attracted a total of 203 players from 33 countries this time. The total prize pool is €1,145,826, and 24 players will get a piece of it. The winner of the tournament will get €358,644, and the second place finisher will get €200,520.

 

A total of 203 players (Day 1a=88, Day 1b=115) entered the Main Event of EPT Warsaw this time. Of these 203 players, 148 made it to Day 2 of the tournament. In the lead is PokerStars qualifier Carter Phillips from North Carolina with 194,850 chips.

Phillips, seems to be on an EPT roll at the moment as he took home EPT Barcelona just a month ago. Luca Pagano, the Team PokerStars Pro from Italy, is still up among the leaders with 101,575 chips. It will very interesting to see if these 2 players will continue playing great poker and stay in the top till Day 3 of the tournament.

 

135 players came to start in Day 1a and 128 players in Day 1b of the APPT Auckland Main Event. Out of these 263 players, 130 made it to Day 2 of the tournament. In the lead we find the Australian PokerStars Pro Emad Tahtouh with 162,900 chips. On second place is the PokerStars qualifier Lance Climo with 134,400 chips.

Tony Hachem is still in the game with a 53,400 stack. Even though he has 3 times less chips than the chip leader Emad Tahtoch, his stack is still well above the average stack of 37,669. Last year's winner Daniel Craker has also made it to day 2 of the tournament. He has 37,000 chips left, but hopefully he will still make it to Day 3 of the tournament.

 

Vanessa Rousso, 26, is a French American law student who's sponsored by PokerStars, which means that she gets to travel all over the world and play in all the major poker tournaments for free. In live poker she's one of the most successful female poker players right now, and also through all time. She has won around $2,4 million dollars during her career as professional poker player, and with that she's on 5th place on the list over the female poker players who have won the most money through all time. Apart from being a good poker player, she's someone that very often get lots of comments for her good looks from poker players all over the world. Earlier this year she also got her good looks confirmed by others than poker players as she got to be on the front page of the Sports illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

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In a couple of hours the Main Event ($2,100 buy-in) of APPT Auckland, New Zealand, kicks off. Some of the notable players that already have signed up for the Main Event are Team Australia PokerStars pros Grant Levy, Eric Assadourian, Emad Tahtouh and Tony Hachem.

This is the second event of 2009 PokerStars Asia Pacific Tour, and the APPT crew believes that it will be a very successful tournament this year as well as last year when 306 players entered the main event and Daniel Craker won the first place prize $257,040.

 

The American, Aaron Gustavson, won his seat to EPT London through an online satellite at PokerStars. But well in the Main Event he showed that he's not only a great online poker player, but also great at playing poker live. He had twice as much chips as Peter Eastgate (2nd place) and Martin Gudvangen (3rd place) as the Main Event Final Table of EPT London started, and this big lead he had no plans to let go off.

It came to be Aaron Gustavson and Peter Eastgate who stayed in the lead all the way to heads-up. At this moment, Aaron, had twice as much chips as Eastgate. But as we all know, Peter Eastgate, has a lot of experience when it comes to televised final tables when the pressure is on top. However, Aaron, managed to remain calm, and it took him no time to knock out his final opponent (Peter Eastgate).

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111 players made it to Day 3 in the Main Event of EPT London. Among them were some of the hottest names in poker at the moment. For example: Annette Obrestad, Peter Eastgate, Kevin Schaffel, and many more. 

The tournament organizers had planned to play down to 24 players in Day 3 of the tournament, but for a long time it seemed like it wouldn't be that way. It was just thanks to some very late eliminations that everything went as planned. Among the 24 survivors we find some of the youngest and most successful players there are at the moment. 

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The main event of EPT London attracted a huge starting field this time. Not less than 730 players took part this year (about 100 more than last year). Of the 730 players who signed up for the main event - 111 of them will play Day 3 of the tournament. Among these 111 players we find some really hot names at the moment in the world of poker. However, the 2 most interesting players to follow in Day 3 have to be these 2.....

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2009 World Championship of Online Poker has now come to an end as its last and most prestige full event has been played - The Main Event with a $10,000,000 guarantee. The Main Event of WCOOP started last Sunday. 2144 players signed up for the tournament by paying the buy-in of $5200, or winning a seat through one of many Main Event satellites. Out of those 2144 players, 178 made it to Day 2 of the tournament that was played yesterday (Monday).

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Day 1 of PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker started yesterday. Even though the buy-in was as high as $5200 the tournament still attracted a big starting field. 2144 players signed up for the WCOOP Main Event, many of them won their seat through satellites starting from just a few dollars. Thanks to that so many people took part in the tournament the prize pool became greater than the $10,000,000 guaranteed by PokerStars.

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A new TV show called "The Poker Star" was introduced by PokerStars a while ago. The show will be quite similar to the very popular "POP IDOL" where talented and not so talented musicians get to perform in front of a jury with the chance of winning a contract with a big record label. However, PokerStars are not interested in Musicians, but instead in talented poker players. The winner of "The Poker Star" will get $100,000 in prize money and also a sponsorship contract with PokerStars which includes free buy-ins to a load of WPT events.

Around 18,000 people have applied to be in PokerStars new TV show. Among them you will find everything from old and experienced players to beginners with lots of self-confidence. The most of the people that get to be in the show will be handpicked by no one else than Joe Hachem (2005 WSOP Champ). Joe Hachem, will also be the one who trains the winner of the TV-show.

The show has premier next Saturday in Australian television.

 

Isabelle Mercier was part of Team PokerStars Pro for five years. The French-Canadian poker superstar is saying goodbye to one of the most lucrative deals in the poker industry, apparently to "take on new projects".

Mercier yesterday sent out a press release stating that she "currently has extensive projects, both nationally and internationally, in the world of poker" and "is not about to give up her life's passion."

PokerStars said it was Mercier's decision not to renew the sponsorship with them and they wish her all the best in the future, says a representative from PokerStars.

"I'm sad that Isabelle has left Team Pro, but I do understand it. The International tournament circuit is pretty relentless, but Isabelle has embraced the full-on romantic poker life, always on the road, living out of a suitcase for months at a time." said Vicky Coren from Team PokerStars Pro.

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PokerStars 'World Championship of Online Poker' is just getting bigger and bigger every year since it started 7 years ago. In this years WCOOP not less than $40,000,000 is guaranteed in 45 events. Not many poker sites in the world other than PokerStars could guarantee these enormous amounts of money within the short time that WCOOP has been running.

Neither the PGA Tour or the ATP-tours biggest tournament 'Wimbledon' comes even close those to these kinds of prize pools. Since the first WCOOP was played, the total prize pool has grown with around 6000%, and probably it will continue increase in future WCOOP tournaments.

Lately there has been a lot of thing going on in the poker scene. With that I refer to all the big live tournaments such as EPT, WPT, IPT etc that has been played. All the great high stakes action at Full Tilt poker and other poker sites. And when it comes to online poker tournaments, it can't get any better as PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker with a guarantee of $40,000,000 starts in a few hours!

2009 WCOOP kicks off tonight with the following events:

20:30 CET - Event 1: No Limit Holdem - $1,25 million guaranteed
22:30 CET - Event 2: Razz - $200,000 guaranteed

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The world’s premier online poker tournament series returns, and this year the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker will be bigger than ever. This is the event where the rewards are huge and the best players gather to play for millions of dollars. In this year’s series there’s a guaranteed combined prize pool of $40,000,000 and you can qualify for as little as $1. Legends of the game will be made, fortunes won, and you can be part of it.

WCOOP 2009 will run 45 events, including three High Roller events, and will conclude with the No Limit Hold’em Main Event which has a guaranteed prize pool of $10,000,000.

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