Poker news tagged with 'pokerstars'

It ended up being Julian Cohen and Andew Watson who were the last 2 men standing in ANZOT (Australia New Zeeland Poker Tour) Queenstown. Andrew Watson had a 3-1 chip lead and most people had already counted out Cohen for the win. But somehow Cohen managed to keep a cool head and play his very best game, even though the difference between first and second prize was quite big.

Cohen managed to fight his way back into the game and overtake the chip lead. When he had the lead he also had full control over the game and could basically do whatever he wanted to. It didn't take long before he knocked out Watson and grabbed the first place prize of 73,630 AUD. This is Cohen's biggest cash ever in his poker career but hopefully not the last as he's a very talented player whose just at the starting blocks of his poker career.

 

Even though the durrr challenge between Tom Dwan (picture) and Patrik Antonius is still going on and never seems to end, Tom "durrrr" Dwan still wants to get another one going. Rumors saying that Tom "durrrr" Dwan is trying to get another challenge going has been circulating on the web for some time now. Many of these rumors claims that Tom Dwan has challenged jungleman12 (successful high stakes player - true identity currently not known) numerous times but never got any positive feedback.

However, now it seems seems like jungleman12 will accepted the challenge. During a small $100/$200 NLH game, durrrr proposed the challenge to jungleman12 in the chat and it seems like jungleman12 is considering to accept. 

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A very interesting hand was played out the other day at PokerStars when the Swedish poker pro Joel "Odonkor1" Nordkvist flopped a royal flush in an all in situation against his opponent Ashton "theASHMAN103" Griffin and took down a pot of nearly $40,000! The chance of getting a royal flush in Texas Holdem is 1 in 649,740, so you can probably figure out how great the feeling must be to take down such a big pot with this kind of hand!

Here is how the hand was played out:

PokerStars Game #46879706754: Hold'em No Limit ($100/$200 USD) - 2010/07/17 5:59:54 ET
Table 'Agrius' 6-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: Odonkor1 ($72178 in chips)
Seat 4: theASHMAN103 ($19228 in chips)
Odonkor1: posts small blind $100
theASHMAN103: posts big blind $200

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Many of the poker world's best have retuned to the online high stakes tables in the past week. Even though the action isn't like what we were used to see a few months back, it still looks like we will have a quite interesting ending of the summer ahead of us.

Two players that haven't played much online lately are the poker giants Tom "durrrr" Dwan and Gus Hansen. Unfortunately none of them had a great comeback on Sunday and they both decided to call it a day as "losers". We are not talking about huge amounts though, at least not for Tom Dwan who has been running extremely well this year.

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Day 5 of the 2010 WSOP Main Event finished about an hour ago. It was a super thrilling day with huge swings, at least for some of the players. Chip leader of the tournament is the PokerStars sponsored player Evan Lamprea, 21, with about 3,5 million in chips. Not far behind him are notables such as the danish poker pro Theo Jorgensen and also the poker legend Johnny Chan. Unfortunately only 1 woman made it through Day 5. Her name is Breeze Zuckerman (picture) and she will bring about an average stack to Day 6 of the tournament. Best of luck to her!

Ladies and gentleman, the 2010 WSOP Main Event start getting very exciting now! Tonight, 205 players will return to the tables to play Day 6 of the tournament. It's almost impossible to predict which players that will be in the top after this day comes to an end. We don't have any big chip leader(s) yet and most of the remaining players have decent stacks to work with.

 

PokerStars has once again increased and strengthened its team with new players. This time they have signed David Williams and Vanessa Selbst. Williams and Selbst will now get to travel around the globe and play in lots of expensive tournaments for free together the rest of Team PokerStars - Daniel Negreanu, William Thorson etc

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On August 28 the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey kicks off. The world championship in basketball, like football, is one of the biggest happenings in the sport and usually millions of people around the globe are following the tournament. Maybe the worlds biggest poker site can take the world cup to a new level?

Yes, you heard right! Pokestars has just announced that they will sponsor the Spanish basketball association during 2010 FIBA World Championship. The sponsorship is not only good news for the Spanish poker association but also for PokerStars members.

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The finnish poker pro Ville Wahlbeck, 34, had a fantastic 2009 with over $1 million in winnings from different live tournaments. He ended up second (after Jeff Lisandro) in the WSOP ranking and he was voted the best live player of 2009 at Nordic Poker Awards. Ville Wahlbeck is one of the most successful poker players ever from Finland. Many compare him and his success with finnish poker giants such as Patrik Antonius and Juha Helppi.

Ville has now signed a sponsorship contract with PokerStars and will from now on represent them in different tournaments around the globe. Let's hope that Ville gets a warm welcome from the rest of the PokerStars Nordics (Peter Eastgate, Johnny Lodden, William Thorson, Mats Sundin and Sami Selio) and that his success at the poker tables will continue.

 

Gianluigi Buffon, 32, won the World Cup back in 2006 with his Italy. And right now he and the rest of the Italian team are preparing for 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Gianluigi is according to many one of the world's best and most successful goalkeepers ever. Even though Gianluigi probably is super busy with his football career, he still seems to have some spare time for other interests as well as he just signed with PokerStars and now will represent them (together with the rest of the team - Mats Sundin, Boris Becker, Orel Hershiser etc) in major poker tournaments around the globe. 

"I want to accomplish a lot in life. And even though this contract means that I will have a very busy schedule, I still want to do it because I love to play poker. And to get the chance to play for the world's biggest poker site is both an honor and a challenge. I'm looking forward to play against the rest of Team PokerStars." says Gianluigi in an interview.

 

Daniel Negreanu, the canadian PokerStars Pro, writes in his latest blog post that a ban of sunglasses in live tournaments should be introduced. There are probably many reasons why Daniel (and many others?) thinks that sunglasses shouldn't be allowed in live tournaments. However, these are the main reasons he is mentioning in his blog.

-Sunglasses make it easier to see marked cards

-Live poker is a human game that is different from online poker, and one of the skill sets is the ability to read your opponents.

-The absence of sunglasses makes for a much better television production. No TV poker producer will argue that. The fans and viewers want to see the emotion that is often covered up by shades.

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Last weekend, PokerStars (in the connection with the last EPT tournament of the season) dealt out the EPT awards for this year. William Thorson, the swedish PokerStars Pro, received the award for best Omaha player. William has been very successful in different PL Omaha events at EPT London and Bahamas.

Maxim Lykov received the EPT Player of the Year award. Lykov won EPT Kiev in the beginning of the season, then he won a side-event at PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in January. He also finished in 13th place in EPT Snowfest + a few other good results in other side-events.

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Liv Boeree is probably the "hottest" female poker player at the moment. Yesterday, she took down the Main Event of EPT San Remo (the biggest ever EPT in Europe) and became a euro millionaire. Even though this is her first major tournament win, she's definitely not a new face in the poker world. Liv has been around for quite some time and been interviewed many, many times.

So, Liv is a successful poker player, millionaire, model, TV presenter, guitar player and seems to a be a fun and interesting person to hangout with. The dream girlfriend, some would say. Well, if you're good at dancing you can try to impress her - just like Daniel Negreanu did at a PokerStars party 1 year ago. :)

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A big congratulations to Liv Boeree, a poker player, model, guitarist and TV presenter from UK, who took home the Main Event of EPT San Remo yesterday. I must say that I'm very, very impressed how good she played at the final table. She had been quite anonymous until the final table started (probably for a reason?), but then she showed the guys her poker skills! It came to be Jacob Carlsson, who had a big chip lead in the beginning of the day, and Boeree who were the last 2 "men" standing.

Even though Jacob had such a big lead in the beginning of the day, it was Liv Boeree who had the big chip lead when they started playing heads up. Liv continued playing fantastic poker throughout the heads up and she ended it all with a great read on the swede.

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Day 5 of the EPT San Remo Main Event is over. It was a big surprise to many (also disappointing) that EPT Snowfest winner Allan Bække, who had a big chip lead in the begin of the day, went out already in 12th place. Jakob Carlsson (picture), a young unknown swede who was in the lead after Day 3, had a fantastic flow in his game during Day 5 and he's now in a huge lead with a monster stack of 13,525,000 chips.

If he play his cards right at the final table today, then I think he will make it all the way. Well, anything can happen in poker and it will for sure be a very interesting final table to watch, even if Carlsson is first out! Lots of money is up for grabs! May the best man win!

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Many big names were sent packing during the first starting day of the EPT San Remo Main Event - Erick Lindgren, Chad Brown and many more. In the end of the day, 299 out of 585 players made it through to Day 2. Among these 299 players we, unfortunately, don't find many notable players at all in the top of the field. Far down in the field we can find a few notables however, Luca Pagano, Dario Minieri, as well as former winner Arnaud Mattern.

Day 1b of EPT San Remo kicks off in a few hours time. Lets hope that the second starting day will be more interesting to follow than Day 1a. In other words, we want to see more big names in the top of the field.

 

Today it's finally time for European Poker Tour in San Remo. San Remo is one of the most popular stops on the tour and it always attracts many big names in the poker world. The buy-in for the main event is 5000 euro and there are seats for 1100 players! Day 1 of the main event will be divided in 2 starting days, Day 1a (Thursday) and Day 1b (Friday). The final table will played next Wednesday, April 21, and it will be broadcasted by PokerStars, so you wont miss on the action when it starts getting really interesting!

Sign up at PokerStars today and get a 100% up to $600 bonus on your first deposit!

 

Jason Mercier took the chip lead at the final table after that he had eliminated both Shawn Buchanan and Matt Glantz. However, he was not the only one playing fantastic poker at the final table and soon he had to give way for another player. Sam Stein, an American poker pro who has won close to 1,4 million dollars through his career, was for sure the best player at the final table. He made very few mistakes and always seemed to have a good read on his opponents.

Anyhow, when he and Mercier were the 2 last men standing, they had quite even stacks. It nearly took 4 hours before it all came to an end. The key pot in this heads up, which gave Jason Mercier a big lead (and also the win a few hands later), was actually a coin flip. Jason went all in with pocket threes and Stein called with A[d]J[d]. Stein flopped a pair of jacks and was the big favorite to take home the pot and the tournament, but Jason Mercier got really lucky as he made a straight thanks to lucky turn and river cards.

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George Lind, one of PokerStars´ newest members, is really the king when it comes to accumulating VIP points at PokerStars. Just listen to this. In just one month's time he earned 500,000 vip points back in 2007. The next year (2008), he reached the Supernova Elite level in less than 3 months and also became the first player ever to accumulate more than 3 million points in a year. This year, he's the first person to reach the Supernova Elite level once again! According what he writes in his blog, he's aiming to accumulate 4 million vip points this year!

As you probably can imagine, it's not a walk in the park to accumulate as many points as George Lind. Just check out his stats for this year so far.

Hours played: 648 (about 50 hours per week)

Tournaments played: 70,997 (I play hyperturbo SNGs which last about 8 
minutes each so I can play as many as 200 or more in an hour)

Hands Played: 836,402

 

PokerStars NAPT (North American Poker Tour) Mohegan Sun Main Event was a huge success as not less than 716 players signed up for the tournament. One of these players was Vanessa Selbst, a student at Yale Law School and also a very successful poker player with some great results at the World Series. Vanessa got the the best possible start in the tournament as she won almost ever single pot in the first day. After that Day 1 was over, she had created a massive stack and also earned a lot of respect from her opponents. 

Anyhow, Vanessa never looked back after Day 1 as she remained in the top of the field all the tournament. And when she finally made it to the final table and was playing heads up against Mike Beasley, it only took her 7 hands to eliminate him as well and grab the first place prize of $750,000! A big congratulations to Vanessa Selbst!

Soon there will be a new cash game to watch on TV. The cash game is brought to you by PokerStars who also gives its players a unique chance to qualify online for just a few dollars and get staked in the cash game and play with pros from all over the globe. The minimum buy-in for PokerStars televised cash game will be $100,000 and the blinds will be $200/$400. The only PokerStars Pro who has confirmed that he's taking part so far is Daniel Negreanu.

PokerStars has still not announced any date when the show will be aired, but most probably we don't have to wait more than a few months. We will have to wait and see if the new cash game will become as popular as the Million Dollar Challenge was.

 

Allan Bække dominated the last few days of the EPT snowiest main event. He reached the final table as big chip leader and continued playing his very best poker. Everything was going his way and there was no doubt that he would make it far. Anyhow, when the table was down to 3 players, Allan Bække, Russell Carson and Johannes Strassmann (German PokerStars Pro), his poker skills were really put to the test.

It seemed like it would take forever before any player got knocked out. Well, it took 3 hours of play before Johannes Strassmann was sent packing and left Bække and Russell Carson to play heads-up poker. Even though Bække had dominated throughout the tournament and at the final table, Russell had no plans what so ever to give him an easy win. It was a quite even game at first, but then Bække switched to his second gear and finally managed to win the heads-up after nearly 2 hours. For the win he received nothing less than €445,000.

A few days ago, Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu wrote in his blog that he really would like to have access to the Internet during the flights with his favorite airline Lufthansa. However, he admits that it can get really expensive playing poker high up in the sky. Not from own experience, but from what he heard from a Swedish friend who hoped to win some money to pay for his ticket but instead ended up losing $250k!

"I hung out in LA yesterday since my flight overseas leaves out of LA. I love flying Luftansa but desperately wished they had internet access on the planes. They used to, and I know this because one of my Swedish friends took that flight overseas and played online poker on the way in the hopes of paying for his flight. Instead, he went off for 250k lol... now that's an expensive flight!"

 

Will Omaha become bigger than Texas Hold'em in the future? That is a question that many people have asked themselves in the past few years as the game just keep on getting more and more popular. So why is Omaha getting so popular? Well, there are probably many reasons for this. The number 1 reason is probably that the game is similar to Hold'em but still much more action filled! Another 2 reasons could be that many poker players are simply getting tired of playing the same old Texas Hold'em or/and because the competition is getting tougher and tougher every day.

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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.

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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.

 

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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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