Bluff Europe Weekend News Round-Up
Monday, 7 September 2009
The world of poker has been bustling recently, especially online – Tom Dwan is making money in his Million Dollar Challenge but losing it everywhere else, the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker is rolling on unstoppably and attracting record entrants, and you can qualify to all manner of live events via major sites such as Full Tilt and PKR. Yup, it’s good to be a geek.
Of course, let’s not forget the live arena – the GUKPT played out a rare Cardiff event that saw Hit Squad member Karl Mahrenholz win almost £40,000. Furthermore, the EPT has moved to sunny Barcelona and Brazil took down the PokerStars-sponsored Americas Cup of Poker.
Want to know more? Read on…
There’s Something About Tommy – Durrrr News for the Day:
A lot of speculation has been surrounding Tom Dwan, notably regarding a possible move to Full Tilt Poker as a member of Team Full Tilt. Forum members speculate that he might become a Red Pro, but personally I can’t see him taking any less than a share in the company and Team Full Tilt membership.
There are two fuels for this fire of rumour – Howard Lederer might as well have said “no comment” when pressed on the matter, since his vague answer only sparked more rumours. In addition, an unconfirmed Facebook account claiming to represent Phil Ivey has stated durrrr will be signing. The only way to find out is to watch the tables at Full Tilt Poker and see if he starts playing as Tom Dwan.
In other news, durrrr had a torrid time at the tables, dropping almost a million dollars to various players – Phil Galfond and Di Dang picked up most of the pieces on the Hold ‘em tables while Ziigmund almost single-handedly took over $400,000 from the 23-year-old American at PLO.
He did make up for it by closing the gap between him and Antonius in the Million Dollar Challenge, however nine months in and with only 23,197 hands played interest is fading fast. Pull your fingers out, boys!
Woop, Woop! It’s the WCoOP!
Personally, despite the constant success of Full Tilt Poker’s FTOPS tournament series, there’s something about the PokerStars WCoOP that’s a little special. Perhaps because it’s an annual event, whereas there seems to be a new FTOPS series every few days.
So far, it’s been a good one. Last night we saw the biggest-ever WCoOP event as over 15,000 players put up for the $109 NLHE event, smashing the $1m guarantee. Eventually, and in fact quicker than you would have thought, vakAAttack triumphed with quads over a full house after less than ten hours of play.
We also saw the first UK winner of a WCoOP event as MUSTAFABET spent 14 hours outlasting a field including ElkY and Barry Greenstein to take down the six-max Pot-Limit Omaha event for $86,000.
Live and Kicking
Live poker is still going strong, too, in case you hadn’t noticed. Despite the Sports Legends Challenge being set back until “some time” in 2010 at “a location in the US”, there are several live events still trundling along.
The PokerStars European Poker Tour has arrived in Barcelona and a very quick Day 2 saw the money bubble burst with 72 players remaining. Almost 250 started the day and in less than six levels we were done, despite a huge average stack at the end. Leading the pack are Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Roland de Wolfe, hoping to make his second EPT title.
The Grosvenor UK Poker Tour went to Cardiff this week also, and a small field of 120 turned up for the £1,050 Main Event. In the end, 27-year-old Hit Squad member Karl Mahrenholz triumphed over the field for a £38,700 victory at his third GUKPT final table.
The Hit Squad have had a damn fine year – not only has Sunny Chattha won his first GUKPT event and Mahrenholz his, but James Akenhead, as you may have heard, currently sits at the WSOP Main Event final table.
Well, not “currently” per se – he’d be in for a long wait if that were the case.
Join us later this week for another News Round-Up, courtesy of BluffEurope.com.