The Belgian PokerStars Pro Mattihias De Meulder posted a very intresting blog yesterday about his time on the TV show Expedition: Robinson - the European version of the American program Survivor. De Meulder, his brother Christophe and fellow PokerStars Team Pro Fatima de Melo were all on the show, which was filmed over the summer on a deserted island in Malaysia, and they ended up in the same team. Their common background as poker players came in handy when they had to make tough decisions...
Both starting days at EPT Prague are in the books now. A total of 864 entrants make it the richest poker tournament in Czech history! Iosif Beskrovny will lead the remaining 318-players into Day 2 with 239,000 chips! Todd Terry is the most well-known player among the top 10 players (162,400 chips). Terry has over $2 million in live tournament earnings, including some great results at the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour.
Official Payouts: 128 of the remaining 318 players will be guaranteed a min-cash of €8,000. A final table appearance is worth €75,000, and the winner will take home an impressive €835,000! We will be back with a Day 2 recap tomorrow morning. Stay tuned!
After a weekend of some great FTOPS action, the leaderboard has a new leader, OneUponAStar, who earned leaderboard points from at least events #14, #16 and #18. The total earnings from the three events are + $96K with most of the cash coming from the 3rd placement in event #18 NL Hold'em, Multi-Entry Tournament ($93,102.90).
This evening have three events, #19, #20 and #21. Will OneUponAStar remain the leader?
Event #19 Monday Dec 10 @ 11:00 ET Buy-in: $240 + $16 Game: PL Omaha Hi/Lo Knockout GTD: $75,000
Event #20 Monday Dec 10 @ 14:00 ET Buy-in: $1,000 + $60 Game: NL Hold'em 6-Max Double Chance GTD: $200,000
Event #21 Monday Dec 10 @ 17:00 ET Buy-in: $200 + $16 Game: NL Hold'em Turbo GTD: $50,000
Yesterday the long-awaited re-match between Viktor "Isildur1" Blom and Tom "durrrr" Dwan was played across four $100/$200 No Limit Hold'em tables on Full Tilt Poker. Both players were supposed to bring $100k each to the tables, but late negations were made and instead they sat down with $200,000 each.
Tom Dwan accumulated a small lead in the beginning of the match thanks to winning an all-in (pre-flop) with KK against Blom's 10's. Blom started playing more aggressive after this, but Tom Dwan handled it well and extended his lead by calling down a few river bluffs.
However, Dwan's lead was never very big and eventually Viktor Blom's super-aggressive style started working. Blom took down the 2 biggest pots of the match and was up about $100k after 1,5 hour of play. Blom didn't give Dwan a single chance to catch his breathe once he had the big lead. In fact, it didn't take long before Tom Dwan was forced down to one table - where he kept on losing...
After 2 hours and 45 minutes (1381 hands) Dwan lost his final $3.5k with pockets 10's against Blom's A3 in an all-in situation before the flop - the board ran out Q86A6. It was a well-deserved win by the young Swede, who made a name for himself in November 2009 by crushing Tom Dwan at Full Tilt Poker's nosebleed tables. Back then, the two were playing for millions of dollars on daily basis. Let's hope that history repeats itself!
Ravi Raghavan is the newest member of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Champions Club after besting a field of 503-players at the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic. Raghavan went from being the short-stack to the only stack on the final table, which included amazing players such as Antonio Esfandiari, who won this event in Season IX, Andrew Lichtenberger who made it to the final in this event in Season X and WPT Champions Club member Shawn Buchanan!
WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic final table results:
1. Ravi Raghavan - $1,268,571 2. Shawn Buchanan - $746,502 3. Thomas Winters - $483,031 4. Antonio Esfandiari - $329,339 5. Andrew Lichtenberger - $234,197 6. Jeremy Kottler - $187,845
The WPT Champions Club trophy now has a new country engraved on it, because Marcin Wydrowski took down PartyPoker WPT Prague yesterday bacame the first-ever champion from Poland. Wydrowski overcame a field of 567-players (one of the biggest ever WPT Europe fields) to win the title, $423,957 in prize money and, of course, a $25,000 seat in the WPT Championships at the Bellagio.
The first 11 events in FTOPS XXI has now been concluded. Events 12 through 18 will be played during this weekend which will mark the end of the first half of the 35 events. So far, the leaderboard rank 1 is held by player mrcall912, closely followed by fowirls and Garbally. mrcall912 took home the first place in event #6, played on 4th of December, which was a HORSE event with a total prize pool of $75,000 and the fourth place in event #10, hold'em Limit Rush Multi-Entry tournament .
This weekend's major events are #17 and #18: Event #17, Sunday Dec 09 @ 10:30 ET Buy-in: $120 + $9 Game: NL Hold'em Knockout Multi-Entry Tournament GTD: $600,000
Event #18, Sunday Dec 09 @ 13:30 ET Buy-in: $300 + $22 Game: NL Hold'em Multi-Entry Tournament GTD: $750,000
Please find the current leaderboard standings below:
Last Wednesday, Full Tilt Poker announced that its pro members (The Professionals) Tom "durrrr" Dwan and Viktor "Isildur1" Blom will once again face each other at the high-stakes heads-up tables!
The two played some epic heads-up matches in November 2009 and Viktor Blom, whose identity was unknown at that time, ended up winning over $5 million from Dwan. The rematch will be played on four No Limit Texas Hold'em tables on Sunday, December 9 at 15:00 ET onwards. Both players will bring $100,000 of their own money and play until one player has it all!
All of the action can be followed on FullTiltPoker.com’s innovative game software; once the software is downloaded and your account has been created, you can search for either “durrrr” or “Isildur1” and open the tables upon which they are competing.
PartyPoker World Poker Tour (WPT) Prague is now down to 78 players after Day 1 and 2 (4 days including the starting days). Just another six players need to be eliminated now before everyone is guaranteed at least $6,515 - with the chance of taking home the first place prize of $423,957!
The third day at the World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic came to a close with 60 players and Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari as the chip leader (918,500). Esfandiari won this tournament 2 years ago and finished 6th last year. Now he has about 300k chips more than his closest opponent, Freddy Deeb, and more than 3 times the average stack. In other words, he has a fantastic chance of winning a second title!
Day 1C of the PartyPoker World Poker Tour Prague Main Event saw a field of 273 players, which means that a total of 567-players entered the tournament. 141-players made it through Day 1C with Yannick Bonnet out in front with 197,200. This means that the Mikhail Mazunin (Day 1B chip leader - 203,600 chips) will bring the largest stack of chips to Day 2 of the remaining 287 players.
We will return with another update tomorrow (the prize pool should be announced by then).
The Danish poker pro Gus Hansen, 38, hasn't been doing so well at the poker tables as of late, but it's a completely different story when it comes to racket sports! During the World Racketlon Championship in Stockholm over the weekend, Gus made it all the way to the quarter finals where he was defeated by fellow countryman Kasper Jonsson.
Day 2 at the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic is in the books. A total of 503 players signed up for the tournament and 176 of them have advanced to Day 3. The overnight chip leader is no one else than Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi with 272,600 chips. He will be joined at the tables today by Champions Club member Chino Rheem (6th place with 209k), PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst (ranked 8 with 202k) and Noah Schwartz (13th place with 188,7k) - just to mention 3 big names with healthy stacks.
When play resumes today, blinds will be 600-1,200 with a 200 ante and there are five more levels of poker until a new WPT champion has been crowned. The top 54 places get paid so the money bubble should burst during Day 3.
With three days of FTOPS XXI over and seven events concluded so far, the events have already distributed prize-pools of more than $1,500,000 in total to the players!
The highest amount of 1st prize winnings as of now is still held by the winner from event #1, doneNdusted84, who won $187,484.40 for being the last man standing on Sunday evening. doneNdusted84 is closely followed by the winner of event #3, fowirls, who took the first prize of $149,950.00 on Monday's Multi-Entry Hold'em tournament. Below is a short sum up of the past events:
The first day of play at the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic ($10,000+$300 re-entry event at Bellagio, Las Vegas) attracted 374 players. After several hours of play, Day 1 concluded with 306 survivors and Jeremy Kottlet as the overnight chip leader with 134,975. Lots of well-known pros made it through the day with healthy stacks - just to mention a few of them: Joe Serock (77k), Tony Dunst (76,7k), Antonio Esfandiari (75k) and David Baker (75k).
Day 1B of WPT Prague was a very thrilling day of poker as lots of well-known players were among the 179 particiapants. Besides that, the atmosphere among the players was very good. Maybe it had something to do with some of the French players wearing bunny rabbit hats?
Yesterday the first starting day of World Poker Tour Prague (re-entry event - 3 starting days) kicked off and saw a field of 115 players. 54 of them made it through the day, and Pasi Jaakko Heinanen (picture) from Finland had the largest pile of chips (193,800) when the tournament director called it a day. Today it's time for Day 1B and famous players such as Liv Boeree and Kevin MacPhee will make sure that it will be a thrilling day of poker.
On Sunday, the Danish Team PokerStars Pro The Jorgensen was shot three times in the leg by robbers who forced their way into his house in Greve, Denmark and demanded money. Jorgensen's wife, who had to watch helplessly as her husband was shot multiple times, called the police, who searched the house and the neighbourhood with dogs, but no one has been arrested yet.
Yesterday kicked off the 21st FTOPS at the recently resurrected Full Tilt Poker. The series has 35 events and a total prize pool of over $7.5 million that will find new owners between the 2nd and 16th of December. There is a number of different tournament types available in the FTOPS XXI, including Rush Poker, Multi-Entry and Double Chance Tournaments. Event #35 is the Main Event so mark the calendar and set the alarm for 13:30 on Sunday the 16th - the guaranteed prize pool will be $1,500,000!
Event #1,a NL Hold'em Multi-Entry tournament, was concluded on the 2nd of December and attracted a total of 5,482 players. The guaranteed prize pool was $750,000 but it turned out to be over $1 million in the pot to be battled for. The winner was a player called doneNdusted84 and he surely logged off the cyber world with smile on his face due to the additional $187,484.40 on his Full Tilt Poker account balance.
Denmark's biggest poker star Theo Jorgensen was last night shot in the legs by three masked men who forced their way into his home in Greve. Ekstrabladet.dk reports that he's hospitalised but not in danger of his life after the bloody drama that occured in his family home in front of his wife.
Giacomo Fundaro, from Italy, became the champion of the 2012 World Poker Tour Mazagan last Saturday, outlasting a field of 146 players to win his first WPT title and $143,207 + a $25k seat in the WPT Championship at Bellagio in May, 2013.
Christmas has returned again this year and so has our Christmas Calendar promotion, with even more prizes during December 1st-24th than our calendar usually has in all the other months during the year. Click here to visit the Christmas Calendar now!
Below is an overview of our Christmas Calendar promotion this season:
Prizes
Prizes vary from day to day but on average there's about 50 prizes per day, ranging from MobPoints to tournament entries and stuff like that.
Day 3 of the World Poker Tour Mazagan (Morocco) main event is running at the moment and there are 20 players left out of 146. The average stack is 219,000 and the chip leader is Frederic Brunet with 360,500 chips.
Gaelle Baumann, who finished 10th in the 2012 WSOP main event, was eliminated a while ago, but there are still some familiar faces left with the chance of winning the first prize of $168,207! Just to mention 3 of them: Champions Club Members Davidi Kitai and Guillaume Darcourt, and the winner of the 2011 WSOP HORSE Championship ($609,130): Fabrice Soulier.
Former Full Tilt Poker board of director Rafe Furst, who had a minor role in the day-to-day operations of the site, has settled the claims against him. Furst and the U.S. Attorneys Office agreed to a Stipulation and Order of Settlement that allows Furst to admit no wrongdoing in the case, but the government has seized an unknown amount from his bank accounts in Switzerland.
Almost every hour in the past week players have been dealt into milestone hands on PokerStars and received cash prizes, but the big one, the 90 billionth hand, occurred yesterday. The hand was played at a $1/$2 no-limit hold'em table and 6 lucky players received a total of $229,630!
3
8
A
6
