Category: EPT

Mickey Petersen Pulls in Nice Win at EPT Copenhagen

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The name Mickey Petersen might not be the most well-known in the poker world right now, but he definitely showed up in a big way by winning the European Poker Tour’s Copenhagen Main Event.  This event also featured one of the most entertaining back and forth heads up matches that I can remember as well.  The match came down to Petersen, who is only 22 years old, and one of the older players in the event in well-known Pierre Neuville.  Neuville is really well-known in the European Poker Tour for the fact that he has qualified for an incredible 23 straight EPT events by playing satellites online.

The heads up match between these two started with almost even chip stacks, with Petersen holding a very small lead at 4.7 million to 4.27 million.  The option for a deal was offered by Neuville, but Petersen apparently didn’t even take it into consideration as the match then kicked off with some fire.  This match literally went on for hours as well, with Neuville getting a quick lead, but Petersen gaining it back before long.  For hours on end these two took their turn holding the chip lead, and at one point Neuville actually gained a 2 to 1 lead on his opponent, and looked to be in an excellent spot to finish off the deal.  It wasn’t meant to be though, as Petersen fought his way back, and then got his own 2 to 1 chip lead!  It wouldn’t be exciting if Neuville didn’t make another push though, and he did just that, and the two went into the dinner break with their heads spinning from the constant changing of power.

The dinner break was when it all changed though, as Petersen came out looking like a force and took a 7 million to 1.9 million chip lead,  and he would hold onto his lead from here on out.  Neuville did his best to make one more push, but the two were all-in and he was behind.  Neuville turned over A-4, while Petersen was holding A-5.  To make it even worse though, the two were looking like there would potentially be a chop pot, but Petersen nailed a five on the river to give himself the championship.  This was his first ever live tournament win, and did quite a bit to help his career winnings.

For taking down the event, Petersen got a first place pay day of $444,595, while his opponent, Neuville, took home a nice consolation prize of $282,843.

Poker Stars Kicks Off New Year With New Events: Live And Online

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Poker Stars is kicking off 2012 with the addition of several new events to its lineup, including three new stops on the European Poker Tour Season 8 schedule and a new online poker championship series, Turbo style.

Let’s start with the new live poker action sponsored by Poker Stars. Season 8 of the site’s European Poker Tour kicks off with the usual PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in early January. As Winter progresses, the EPT will head to Deauville, France and Copehagen, Denmark, always normal stops on the EPT schedule. But now is when things get new and interesting, as Poker Stars adds EPT stops in Madrid, Spain March 12-17; Campione in the Lugano-Como-Milan region of Italy March 26-31; and Berlin, Germany April 16-21, all of which will include a €5,000 + €300 main event.

As for new online excitement to start this year off right, just as players will be returning home from the PCA, they’ll be able to sit down at the TCOOP, or the Turbo Championship of Online Poker. Like the World Championship of Online Poker, WCOOP, and the Spring Championship of Online Poker, SCOOP, this is a multiday, multievent series. Specifically it’s a 50-event, 11-day turbo tournament extravaganza with events in all buy-in ranges, all poker types, all tournament types, all table structures and all betting structures. If there’s a way to play poker, there’s a turbo tournament for it in PokerStars’ new TCOOP, running January 19-29 with a $1.5 million guaranteed main event and a total $10 million guaranteed prize pool overall.

Final Table at EPT San Remo Is Set

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The European Poker Tour San Remo event has been an interesting one, and it is now down to it’s final eight players.  It started off with a solid field of 837 players, and created a prize pool of €3,734,694; with a first place prize of €800,000 going to the eventual winner.  The final table bubble boy was a popular player from Norway, Johnny Lodden; who took home a payday of €45,000.  There were many big names in the event, ranging from Joseph Cheong, 2011 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event champ Elio Fox, Vanessa Selbst, David Bach, Tyler Bonkowski, and many more.  Two of the most well-known players currently remaining are Kevin MacPhee and Barny Boatman.

As far as the remaining players go in terms of chip stacks, we see one player who is a bit ahead of the field, as Daniel Neilson is currently holding 6.7 million chips.  Currently in second place is Dimitar Danchev, who is from Bulgaria, and is sitting with 4.43 million chips.  Neilson has had some good results of his own in the past, as he finished in the top 100 of last year’s World Series of Poker Main Event, and has won a total of $700k in live tournaments in his career.

The players who are currently sitting behind Neilson are Danchev of course with 4.43 million chips, followed by Jan Bendick with 3.98 million, Andrey Pateychuk with 3.1 million, Boatman with 2.5 million, Yorane Kerignard with 2.15 million, Rocco Palumbo with 1.16 million, and MacPhee bringing up the rear with 1.11 million.  Each player who made the final table is guaranteed to take home at least €63,000, and the top six finishers will take home more than  €130,000.  One other player who might stand out from this group is Pateychuk, who is coming off of a 15th place finish at the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event.

Chris McClung was the chip leader heading into the day, but was unable to hold onto his chip lead, and ended up finishing in 14th place.  The final day of action will kick off tomorrow until the winner of the 2011 European Poker Tour San Remo event is decided later in the day.

Chris McClung Holds Lead at EPT San Remo

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Day 4 of the European Poker Tour’s San Remo event featured some crazy hands, and had some very good play overall.  One player stood out above the rest though, as Chris McClung ended with the chip lead with 3.14 million chips.  What’s even more impressive about McClung’s chip stack, is the fact that his closest opponent has 2.01 million chips, giving McClung a very favorable lead in terms of chips going into Day 5.  He got quite a few of these chips from a huge hand against Joseph Cheong, and one that probably changed the tournament.

The hand happened late in Day 4, and saw Mustapha Kanit open up to 41k, with McClung three betting to 104k.  The action didn’t stop there though as Cheong then went ahead and four bet, which led to a fold from Kanit, and McClung shoving over the top for right around a million additional chips.  But what’s mind blowing about this hand, is that Cheong called and turned over his pocket King’s, and was a huge favorite against the Queen-Seven of hearts that McClung held.  McClung was able to hit the flush on the turn, and take the massive chip stack.

This leaves the event with 24 players remaining out of the 837 who started the event, with many big names still remaining as well.  A few of the well-known remaining players feature the likes of Elio Fox with 377k, Kanit (mentioned above) with 1.76 million chips, Alessio Isaia with 1.52 million chips, Kevin MacPhee with 1.44 million chips, Barry Boatman with 1.25 million chips, and Johnny Lodden with 1.22 million chips.  Mike McDonald is also currently in the event with 292k, and the same goes for Lex Veldhuis with 877k.

As far as the players who were eliminated on Day 4, big time players like Vanessa Selbst, David Bach, Tyler Bonkowski, and John Duthie were all sent to the rail with Cheong.

The play tomorrow will feature these 24 players playing down until the final table of eight players is decided, and could potentially feature a star-studded final table by the end of the day.  We’ll keep you updated on the action once the final table is set.

Benny Spindler Wins EPT London Main Event

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The European Poker Tour London’s Main Event was a seven day grind for players, and it has finally wound down to a winner.  A total of 691 players bought into the event, which was played at the Hilton Metropole, and created a total prize pool of £3,351,350, and paid out first place an impressive £750,000.  The event was quite a grind, but one that finally came down to two of the more well-known players at the final table.

When all was said and done, the top six players were paid out six figure paydays, and Steve O’Dwyer was heads up against Benny Spindler.  Both players have had some big scores in their tournament history, but in the end Spindler was the one who prevailed as the EPT London champion.  O’Dwyer was sent home in second place, with a solid £465,000 payday for his strong run.  Spindler on the other hand took home the grand prize, and also one of his largest scores of his career.

Here’s a look at the final table results, as well as the payouts for the final eight players:

1st- Spindler, £750,000

2nd- O’Dwyer, £465,000

3rd- Andre Klebanov, £265,000

4th- Juan Manuel Pastor, £200,000

5th- Mattias Bergstrom, £155,000

6th- Kevin Iacofano, £120,000

7th- Martins Adeniya, £86,000

8th- Miroslav Benes, £64,000

Spindler’s largest career cash to this point was a $1.1 million third place finish at the 2009 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.  He also has a $469,000 cash at the £25,000 EPT High Rollever event last year; and has now totaled a win total of nearly $3 million in his live poker career.

Spindler entered heads up play with a massive chip lead of 10,000,000 chips to the second place player Klebanov, who had 3,775,000 chips.  O’Dwyer was actually sitting in fifth out of five at this point, but was able to make a comeback and outlast the other three players at the table.  In the end though, Spindlers’ chip lead held up and he took down the event.

Keep an eye out for Spindler’s name over the next few European Poker Tour events, as he is quickly and quietly becoming one of the more well-known names in the live poker circuit.

European Poker Tour London Day 2 in the Books

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Benny Spindler may not be the most well known name in poker, but he’s making some big time moves that will draw quite a bit of attention at the European Poker Tour’s London Event.  After Day 1, Spindler was the second largest chip stack with 160,800 chips.  After Day 2, Spindler ended with 469,800 chips, and is sitting at the top of the leaderboard heading into Day 3.

Spindler first made some noise on the live poker tournament scene back in 2009, when he pulled in a third place finish at the European Poker Tour PokerStars’ Caribbean Adventure, and took home an impressive payday of $1.1 million.  His strong play in 2009 continued on since then, as he has had some excellent finishes such as his $44k payday last year at this EPT London Event.  He has also made three final tables this year, cashing for $48k at the EPT Berlin, finishing second at the EPT Grand Final High Roller Event for a nice $469k payout, and taking down the $10k Single Reload event at the EPT Talinn for $71k.  All in all, Spindler has been able to top the $2 million mark in terms of his live tournament earnings in his career.

Day 2 saw some big name eliminations, as well as some big names who will move on; and there is a total of 160 players who will kick off Day 3.  The top 104 players will make it into the cash for the event, and the players who are able to make it into the final six of the event will bring home a six-figure payday.

Some of the names who have made it through to Day 3 include Doyle Brunson, John Gale, Humberto Brenes, Jake Cody, Brian Hastings, Jason Mercier, Sorel Mizzi, Andrew Feldman, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Toddy Terry, Freedy Deeb, and James Akenhead.

A few of the names who were unable to make it through Day 2 were players like Joe Cada, Ivan Demidov, Joe Hachem, Vicky Coren, Barry Greenstein, and Vanessa Rousso.

Day 3 has been ongoing throughout today (Monday) and will have the final players who make the cash by the end of the day today.  The final table is already scheduled to kick off on Thursday the 6th and will be a televised event.

Poker Stars Hosts EPT 8 Skrill Satellites

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The online payment processing company Moneybookers is changing its name, and presumably some of its services and technologies, to Skrill. Now the official payment processor of the European Poker Tour, Skrill is sponsoring special tournamnets with 10,000 Euro prize pools at all of the EPT Season 8 events. The creator and host of EPT 8, Poker Stars, is hosting freeroll tournaments to find the players to seed into those tournaments.

Each EPT Skrill Grand Final tournament is a single-table event with 10 seats, all of which will be filled by PokerStars qualifier winners. These freeroll qualifiers take place regularly, for each and every stop on the season 8 EPT itinerary, the next Skrill freeroll qualifier taking place October 2 at 14:05 ET or 20:05 CET for the Skrill Grand Final at this year’s EPT London.

To get a seat in these freeroll qualifiers just try out the new Skrill to make a deposit into your Poker Stars account. Using Skrill, the company says, is the same as using Moneybookers. Only the look has changed. To be credited for the deposit to receive a seat in an upcoming Skrill freeroll, be sure to use the bonus code: SKRILLEPT when making the deposit.

In addition to the seat at the exclusive €10,000 Grand Final at an upcoming European Poker Tour stop, players in Poker Stars Skrill Freerolls will also be competing for a €500 added prize pool. Buy-ins for each of these freerolls is only €1. The runner-up of each freeroll will also win 300,000 Skrill VIP Club Loyalty points, while the third place finisher will get 100,000.

Poker Pros to Battle for Expected £4 Million Prize Pool at PokerStars.com EPT London Poker Festival

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The PokerStars.com European Poker Tour (EPT), Europe’s richest and most popular poker tour is coming to London this month. In its’ eight year history, almost 40,000 players have hit the felt, and the EPT has paid out over £200 million in prize money. In August this year, the EPT Barcelona event broke all previous records and became the largest live poker event ever held in Spain with 811 players taking their seats to play for share of the £3.5 million prize pool. The EPT London is set to continue this record-breaking trend with the prize pool expected to exceed £4 million.

Celebrities such as ex-tennis star and professional poker player Boris Becker, model, presenter and previous EPT title winner Liv Boeree, and well known broadcaster, journalist and 2006 EPT London winner Vicky Coren will sit down alongside the biggest names in poker, all eager to pick up the title and first prize, which is set to hit the £1 million mark for the first time ever.

The 7-day long poker festival presented by PokerStars.com, will offer players some of the best quality tournament poker action in the world. There are 31 events on offer, including the European 8-Game Championship, the No Limit Hold’em Women’s Event, the two-day long £20,000 buy-in High Roller tournament and of course, the coveted EPT London Main Event.

This year also marks the first ever EPT London Quest, an exciting competition run through Twitter where one lucky player will win a seat in an EPT London side-event tournament. Poker fans will need to follow the account @PokerStars and hashtag #EPTQuest from 8.30am on Sunday 2nd October for clues for a password and details of a secret central London location. Once they crack the code and turn up to the location, they will need to correctly say the password then play and win a 5-minute heads-up tournament. Win the tournament, and they will receive one of nine golden chips to enter a live game against the other eight winners. The champion of this table will take their seat at the “No Limit Turbo – Win the Button!” tournament at 8.00pm the same day.

Last year the record-breaking PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Main Event was the biggest poker tournament ever held in the UK, attracting 848 players. It made David Vamplew the highest-earning Scottish poker player ever with an amazing £900,000 first prize.

The PokerStars.com EPT runs from September 30 – October 6, 2011 at the Hilton London Metropole Hotel in central London.

Poker Stars Adds $100K First Depositor Freeroll & Announces EPT 8 First-Half Schedule

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For a limited time only, Poker Stars is adding to the incentives for new players to join the site with its $100,000 First Depositor Freerolls. Now, in addition to getting the usual first deposit bonus of 100% up to $600 for joining Poker Stars, the site will give you access to all of the $100,000 First Depositor Freerolls running. But only for the 20-day period running June 14 – July 3, 2011.

Each freeroll has its own guaranteed prize pool of $1,000, with 5 of these freerolls scheduled for each day of the promotional period, making $100,000 guaranteed in all. And the top 20% of the player pool gets paid out, splitting the $1K prize pool, with,

You need only make your first deposit of any amount between June 8 and July 3 using the promo code “100K” and you’ll automatically gain entry to all 100 freerolls (or however many are remaining by the time you do it.)

The freerolls run daily at 6:00 am, 10:00 am, 2:00 pm, 6:00 pm and 10:00 pm ET.

In other Poker Stars news, the site just revealed the scheduled for the first 7 events of the European Tour season 8. It starts in Tallinn, Estonia on August 2 and runs through February 6 in Deauville, France. Included in these first 7 EPT season 8 events are two events deemed part of the famed Festivals of Poker: EPT London starting September 30 and the 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure starting January 5, 2012. Buy-ins range from the season opener’s €4,000 + 250 to the PCA’s $10,000 + 300. Poker Stars will be running satellite tournaments leading into each of these EPT season 8 events as they approach.

European Poker Tour Season 7

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The world’s richest live poker tour is back for another season, with a new schedule packed full of big-money events in Europe’s most amazing cities. There are satellite qualifiers running now, with prize packages up for grabs that give you everything you need for the poker trip of a lifetime!

The EPT is the tour that everyone wants to win. That’s why the biggest names in the game take part every year, including Team PokerStars Pro and thousands of PokerStars qualifiers, all looking to score a massive payday and the title of EPT Champion. It’s the place where fortunes are won, new stars are born, and where poker players come to prove themselves.

The new season includes stops in London, Barcelona, Prague, Copenhagen, San Remo and many more great locations, plus a brand-new stop in Tallinn, Estonia. There’ll also be another trip out to The Bahamas for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA), the return of Snowfest, and the prestigious Grand Final in mid-2011 (venue to be announced soon). This Is EPT Season 7. It’s going to be huge. And you can qualify now at Pokerstars.