Bluff Europe Weekend Round-Up
Monday, 18 January 2010
The first BluffEurope.com weekend round-up of 2010 brings news from the Bahamas as PokerStars turns the islands into the centre of the poker universe while on the other side of the globe Full Tilt hosted the largest ever tournament in Australia. Online, six-figure pots were played routinely. Here it all is:
Matthew Ephraums takes down Aussie Millions opening event
The first event of 20 in the 2010 Aussie Millions tournament series was a $1,100 NLHE affair. The field wasn’t particularly star-studded and the buy-in wasn’t huge (I think $1,100 AUD is about twenty quid) but the potential for a 1,000-player field had everyone geared up.
Eventually, with the aid of 229 re-entries on Day 1c – it’s a nice way to have a rebuy tournament without it being a rebuy tournament – the field swelled to over 1,100 and saw the largest poker tournament in the history of Australia play out to a $200,025 first prize.
The complete list of final table placings and payouts is as follows:
1. Matthew Ephraums - $200,025 AUD
2. Brendan Edmonds - $142,875 AUD
3. Brent Thomas - $97,155 AUD
4. Trung Tran - $74,295 AUD
5. Glenn Croft - $57,150 AUD
6. Brad Rawiller - $45,720 AUD
7. Anthony Kingston - $34,290 AUD
8. Jim Mastorakos - $22,860 AUD
9. Aaron Wilt - $13,716 AUD
William Reynolds takes ElkY’s title; wins $25,000 PCA event.
The field doubled this year compared to the 44-strong High Roller tournament that Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier took down in 2009. William Reynolds triumphed over 84 players to win over half a million dollars for his victory in the High Roller event.
However, one person did defend their title – unfortunately, it was the title of runner-up. Will Molson also finished second to Grospellier last year, so it must be a bitch for it to happen again. Of course, $322,000 probably takes the edge off nicely.
The full final table placings and payouts are thus:
1. William Reynolds (USA) -- $576,240
2. Will Molson (Canada) -- $322,075
3. Adolfo Vaeza (Uruguay) -- $218,150
4. Michiel Brummelhuis (Netherlands) -- $154,350
5. Lisa Hamilton (USA) -- $133,770
6. Tobias Reinkemeier (Germany) -- $108,045
7. Matt Marafioti (Canada) -- $87,465
8. Dmitry Stelmak (Russia) -- $66,885
Kara Scott signs with PartyPoker
She presents EPTs, podcasts and digital radio shows; plays Mr and Mrs Full Tilt Pro Brian “sbrugby” Townsend and has over $500,000 in tournament cashes to her name including a runner-up spot at last year’s Irish Open. So it’s surprising that a site took this long to sign Canadian lovely Kara Scott, but it’s done now.
PartyPoker snapped up the former Poker Night Live host for a sponsorship deal.
“When I first became involved with poker a few years ago, I managed to get quite lucky and win a Party Poker event called the Sport Stars Challenge. It was my first big result and so it feels very natural to be signing with them to play more live tournaments with them behind me,” Kara wrote on her first PartyPoker blog.
Help Haiti – PokerStars earthquake appeal
The devastating earthquake that has rocked Haiti has seen international aid pouring in to Port-au-Prince. PokerStars are doing their bit too, with two easy ways for any of their millions of players to donate to the appeal.
- In the PokerStars lobby, go to Tourney >> Special and enter one of the dummy 'Haiti Earthquake Relief' tournaments listed there. 'Buy-ins' range from $1,000 all the way down to $1. You will not need to play an actual tournament, instead all of the 'entry fees' go straight to the fund.
- Alternatively you can make a private player transfer for any amount to the account 'Haiti Fund'. Go to 'Requests' in the client top menu and select 'Transfer Funds'.