At the start of the Main Event, 346 players, full of expectations, took their seats at the Empire Casino in London. After 3 days of poker, 22 players remained and the big favorites to win the tournament were Phil Ivey, Viktor Blom (Isildur1) and Roland de Wolfe. However, only Roland de Wolfe (WSOP bracelet winner, EPT and WPT titles) made it to the final table. At the final table, de Wolfe continued playing very well and stayed in the top of the field for quite some time, but after losing 2 all ins against Nicolas Levi, he was short stacked and about to go out of the tournament. But somehow he still managed to stay alive while Nicolas Levi, who took the most of his chips, got knocked out in 5th place. Roland de Wolfe was, however, eliminated shortly after in 4th place.
Day three of the 2010 WSOP Europe Main Event is in the books. Now there are 22 players left of 346 and the final table is getting closer and closer. In the top of the 22-player field are two of the biggest names in the poker world - Phil Ivey and "Isildur1", a.k.a. Viktor Blom (Sweden). Wouldn't it be amazing if both of them made it to the final table and then all the way to playing heads-up against each other?
What an amazing final of the High Roller Heads-up championship event in London! After a nearly 8 hour long battle on Thursday night, the tournament crew called it a day and the tournament went on a break for 2 days. Yesterday, Gus Hansen and Jim Collopy once again sat down at the poker table, this time in order to play the last of the 3 heads-up matches so a winner could be crowned. After about 3 hours of play, it was "The Great Dane" who had all the chips on his side of the table after winning all in with full house (deuces full of jacks) vs Collopy's three of a kind (ace kicker). For the win Gus Hansen received nothing less than $451,880 and his very first WSOP bracelet. A big congratulations to Gus Hansen!
Yesterday, the WSOPE London High Roller Event's semi-finals were played. Gus Hansen (Denmark) played against Andrew Feldman (UK), while Collopy (USA) battled Ram Vaswani (UK). It was 2 quite long (but kind of thrilling) heads-up matches the small crowd at Casino Empire in London got to watch. It ended up being Gus Hansen and Jim Collopy who won their matches and made it to the final heads-up. This meant that a native wouldn't win the tournament.
After a short break, Hansen and Collopy sat down at the poker table again to play the final (best of three matches) - a final that would last nearly 8 hours and still end up in a tie.
Gus Hansen, the danish poker pro, is very close of winning his first gold bracelet in the High Roller event at WSOPE London. So far, he has defeated 5 players (Phil Ivey, Neil Channing etc) and now he's just 2 heads-up matches away from winning the whole tournament. If Gus wins the semi-final vs Andrew Feldman (UK), he will either face Jim Collopy (USA) or Ram Vaswani (UK) in the final.
The four remaining players are guaranteed £96,212 each, but all of them will do everything they possibly can to lay hands on the first place prize of £228,409. At 3pm (local time) the semi-finals will start, and then it's best of three matches until the tournament has found its winner. Personally, I hope for Gus Hansen! He really needs the money to make up for some of the loses he had in the past few years.
582 players paid the buy-in of £1,075 and entered Event #3 (No Limit Hold´em) at WSOPE London a few days ago. The field is now down to only 9 players and it's time for the final table in a few hours time. Kaveh Payman is in the lead with 434,000 followed by Mehdi Senhaji (369,000).
All eyes, however, will be on the young Englishman JP Kelly (242,000) as he has the chance to break Phil Ivey's record of the youngest players to win three bracelets. He would also become the first player since Johnny Chan won the main event in back-to-back years to successfully defend his title.
