Bluff Europe Weekend News Round-Up
Monday, 28 September 2009
“Wow. Wow. Lot of action. Lot. Of. Action.”
Online, we’ve had the PokerStars WCoOP a roaring success. Off the web and several live tournaments have gone down swimmingly, with the World Poker Tour’s Borgata Open being the most successful WPT event in recent history and the 2009 Betfair-sponsored World Series of Poker Europe kicking off in Leicester Square.
So, without further ado let us shuffle up and deal out the week’s news for you.
What a WCoOP!
The PokerStars seventh annual World Championship of Online Poker was its most successful yet – looking at the $50m+ prize pool generated, eight figures more than the $40,000,000 guarantee; it’s hard to believe that the first 2002 WCoOP total prize pool was less than $1m.
Some notable highlights of this event include Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier’s absolutely stellar performance – he won two bracelets in WCoOP events this year. The Team PokerStars PRO took down both Event #38 ($530 NLHE 1r1a) but also Event #42 ($215 NLHE) for a total reward of over half a million dollars.
However, this performance was shockingly beaten! Daniel “djk123” Kelly not only took down two WCoOP events (Event #2, $215 Razz and $10,300 HORSE) for a total cash of over $300,000; but in addition managed to final table the $10,000,000 guaranteed $5,200 NLHE Main Event and make eight other cashes, earning the Player of the Year reward.
Who Needs Online Tournaments When We Have the WSOPE?
Of course, while all that was going on at PokerStars, the world of poker soldiered on with the arrival in Leicester Square of thousands of poker players, including a laughable-as-ever Phil Hellmuth in Roman garb confusing the hell out of London.
JP Kelly took down his second bracelet of the year with a victory in the opening event, £1,000 No-Limit Hold ‘em. Erik Cajelais, possibly the most terrifying looking man to ever grace the felt at The Empire, followed this with a win in the £2,500 PLHE/PLO event before Jani Vilmunen added one more notch to Finland’s poker bedpost with the £5,000 PLO event safely won.
World Poker Tour Successful Again?
Much has been made recently of the World Poker Tour’s flagging numbers. For example, the most recent Bellagio Cup was down 40% attendance wise on the last event. For this reason, the WPT decided to lower the buy-in for the Borgata Open and put a $2m guarantee on proceedings.
Well, it worked – over 1,000 players entered the event to generate a prize pool of over $3.5m; culminating in Oliver Busquet defeating a final table of six for a first-place prize of $925,000.
Chris Moorman Joins Doyle’s Room
We’re not all old fogies, they cry – and prove it with moorman1 as their latest star signing. Moorman is the fourth player to sign up, joining Amit Makhija, Zachary Clark and Alec Torelli in the Brunson 10; a group of players under 25 to join old-timers Brunson and Huck Seed at the online poker room.
The 24-year-old Brighton pro is considered one of the world’s foremost online tournament players, with career earnings of more than $1.8m. Commenting on the deal, 10-time WSOP bracelet-winner Doyle Brunson said: “Moorman reminds me a lot of me, except for the British accent. He’s a poker natural, a legend in the making, and that’s why I’ve handpicked him to be the next member of The Brunson 10.”
Antonius vs Vos – The Finnish Adonis Lets Rip!
Lastly, it seems that Mark Vos might have to start hitting the gym – Patrik Antonius has publically expressed his distaste for the high-stakes shortstacker, saying that: “I will fight Mark Vos and he could have three minutes where he could just punch me,” Antonius said in response to a possible prop bet with MMA, which he is keenly into. “He could have one round to try and win. I would love to break his nose. This guy has been putting his nose into my business and telling lies about me. Everyone knows he is a total piece of shit.”
Well, fair enough then.