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EPT Kyiv Main Event Day 2

Lisa — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:26:03 +0000

EPT Kyiv Main Event Day 2:

It was full of action at the European poker tour Kyiv main event Day 2. Eliminations were rapid.

End of Day 2 at EPT Season 6 saw Russian Max Lykov a pro player leading the way with his nearly stack of 400,000 chips making him the chip leader heading into friday Day 3, followed by Russian Vitaly Tolokonnika with 371,000 chips.

Michael Meyburg an leading pokerstar qualifier and also a former backgammon champion from Germany, had 289,300 chips in his booty.

The bad news – The rest of the pokerstar pros got eliminated, alongside pokerstar passport winner Shaun Deeb from the tournament. However, 14 PokerStars players are still in the running for the €330,000 first prize.

296 players took part in the EPT Kyiv Main Event, making it the largest poker tournament ever held in the Commonwealth of Independent States with a enviable total prize pool of €1,391,200.

EPT live starts on 22nd of August with expert commentary in English, German, French, Italian and Russian.

EPT London: The biggest ever Poker Festival

Lisa — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 09:32:57 +0000

EPT London schedule has been released by Pokerstars. This time Pokerstars has added a variety of new tournaments including the first ever European 8-Game Championship. This makes it to be the biggest ever Poker Festival in the tour’s six season history.

The players will be more than happy with the new tournaments. The event will commence on Sept. 30 and end on Oct. 7. The new tournaments added are £2,000 European 8-Game Championship, a £1,000 pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better event, and a £1,000 six-handed no-limit hold’em event, among others.
Ofcourse Season 6 will surely see the the £5,000 main event and the £20,000 high-roller event.

EPT Founder John Duthie. said “The PokerStars.com EPT London Poker Festival will have a rich mix of games and buy-ins to cater to the most players possible in a compelling schedule — by poker players, for poker players.
This continues on the fundamental programming shift made for last season’s EPT Grand Final, where we tried to create the best opportunity for all of our players, not just higher rollers, to play a wide mix of poker games and formats at a variety of accessible buy-ins.”

Previously, the tournament was held t the Grosvenor Victoria Casino and almost 600 players participated. This year 800 players are expected . Also, Pokerstars expect the main-event prize pool is expected to grow up to £4 million this year.

The 16 events are scheduled as below:

Sep 30 12:00 Buy-in £20,000+£500 High Roller (3 days)
Sep 30 14:00 Buy-in £1,000+£100 6-Max No-Limit Hold’em (2 days)
Sep 30 20:00 Buy-in £1,000+£100 Pot-Limit Hold’em/Omaha (2 days)
Oct 1 14:00 Buy-in £1,000+£100 6-Max Pot-Limit
Omaha 2X Chance (2 days)
Oct 1 18:00 Buy-in £2,000+£150 8-Game Championship (2 days)
Oct 2 12:00 Buy-in £5,000+£250 Main Event Day 1A (5 days)
Oct 2 17:00 Buy-in £550+£50 (Rebuy) Super Satellite (1 day)
Oct 3 12:00 Buy-in £5,000+£250 Main Event Day 1B (5 days)
Oct 3 20:00 Buy-in £1,000+£100 Pot-Limit Omaha 8/ob (2 days)
Oct 4 16:00 Buy-in £2,500+£200 No-Limit Hold’em (2 days)
Oct 5 14:00 Buy-in £2,000+£150 Pot-Limit Omaha 2X Chance (3 days)
Oct 5 17:00 Buy-in £200+£30 Ladies Only (1 day)
Oct 5 20:00 Buy-in £1,000+£100 No-Limit Hold’em (2 days)
Oct 6 14:00 Buy-in £500+£50 8-Game (2 days)
Oct 6 18:00 Buy-in £1,500+£100 No-Limit Hold’em (2 days)
Oct 7 13:00 Buy-in £500+£50 Pot-Limit Omaha Shootout (1 day)
Oct 7 13:00 Buy-in £500+£50 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout (1 day)

Good Luck!!!

Matt Hawrilenko

Lisa — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:24:13 +0000

Matt Hawrilenko :

Name: Matthew Hawrilenko AKA “Hoss-TBF”
Location: Boston, MA, United States
Cashes: 14
Total Winnings: $1,289,243
First Place Finishes: 1
WSOP Bracelets: 1
ProRank 1 Position: 89

Matt Hawrilenko a notable poker pro, born in Boston,Hanover. He is one of the world’s leading Limit Hold ?em players, utilizing his math skills to specialize in heads-up ring games. He used to play online at Full Tilt Poker.

Matt first discovered his skill for poker in the summer of 2003 during his internship in Washington, DC. He understood the intricacies of the game very quickly and started playing poker full time with in two years.

He started his career playing poker online; then he slowly playing $.10/$.25 No-Limit Hold ?em ring games. After he was sure of his skill only then did he start playing for the Limit Hold ?em ? particularly heads up. He made his way up through the ranks and now he plays as high as $2K/$4K Limit on a regular basis. He is well known for bringing his math-based strategy to the table every time he plays.

His notable achievements in live poker is at the World Series of Poker. He cashed fourteen times till now, which includes getting a first place at WSOP No Limit Hold’em Six Handed in 2009.

Outside poker world, he also concentrates on athletic endeavors, he’s got a black belt in kung-fu.He is also a wrestling trainer for his old high school team.

You can see Matt in action at Full Tilt Poker.

Matthew Hawrilenko Poker Results

EVENT	PLACE	PRIZE	DATE
40th World Series of Poker 2009 Event #56 – WSOP No Limit Hold’em Six Handed	1st	$1,003,163	Jun 30, 2009
40th World Series of Poker 2009 Event #44 – WSOP Razz	20th	$6,086	Jun 22, 2009
40th World Series of Poker 2009 Event #33 – WSOP Limit Hold’em World Championship	5th	$100,688	Jun 15, 2009
40th World Series of Poker 2009 Event #21 – WSOP H.O.R.S.E	8th	$32,647	Jun 9, 2009
40th World Series of Poker 2009 Event #12 – WSOP World Championship Mixed Event	19th	$16,649	Jun 4, 2009
39th World Series of Poker 2008 Event #31 – WSOP No Limit Hold’em Six Handed	42nd	$8,379	Jun 16, 2008
38th Annual World Series of Poker Event #10 – WSOP No Limit Hold’em	86th	$4,876	Jun 6, 2007
38th Annual World Series of Poker Event #6 – WSOP Limit Hold’em	54th	$4,844	Jun 4, 2007
37th Annual World Series of Poker Event #10 – WSOP 7 Card Stud	8th	$16,312	Jul 5, 2006
ATLARGE 2006 No Limit Hold’em	8th	$349	Mar 4, 2006
36th Annual World Series of Poker Event #42 – WSOP World Championship – No Limit Hold’em	481st	$14,135	Jul 15, 2005
36th Annual World Series of Poker Event #36 – WSOP Limit Hold’em	5th	$67,235	Jul 3, 2005
36th Annual World Series of Poker Event #31 – WSOP No Limit Hold’em	20th	$9,905	Jun 29, 2005
36th Annual World Series of Poker Event #11 – WSOP Pot Limit Hold’em	35th	$3,975	Jun 12, 2005

EPT Kiev Replaces EPT Moscow

Lisa — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 07:08:08 +0000

Yes, you heard it right….the inaugural European Poker Tour (EPT) event in Moscow, Russia has been canceled. The EPT season 6 will now begin in Kiev, Ukraine for a €5,000 buy-in tournament on August 18^th, Sports Palace Kiev being the host venue.

Kiev

The qualified players of EPT Moscow travel package from PokerStars will be able to exchange their seat and hotel stay for the Kiev event. The Players can also get credit or collect cash for any other EPT event. Also, if you travel for less than 90 days to Ukraine, you do not require visa as required while visiting Russia.

This is the first time EPT event is being held in Ukraine and will be the biggest event ever held in Ukraine.The reason behind this change, as stated by Pokerstars, is the recent closure of all casinos in Russia.

Here is the revised schedule for EPT Season 6 reflecting the cancellation of the Moscow event:

EPT Kiev (Ukraine): August 18th to 23rd
Buy-In: €5,000
Capacity: 600
Venue: Sports Palace Kiev

EPT Barcelona (Spain): September 4th to 9th
Buy-In: €8,300
Capacity: 700
Venue: Casino Barcelona

EPT London (United Kingdom): October 2nd to 7th
Buy-In: ₤5,250
Capacity: 800
Venue: Hilton London Metropole

EPT Warsaw (Poland): October 20th to 25th
Buy-In: 25,000K PLN
Capacity: 400
Venue: Casinos Poland

EPT Vilamoura (Portugal): November 17th to 22nd
Buy-In: €5,300
Capacity: 600
Venue: Vilamoura Casino

EPT Prague (Czech Republic): December 1st to 6th
Buy-In: €5,250
Capacity: 600
Venue: Golden Prague Poker

PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (Bahamas): January 4th to 14th
Buy-In: $10,600
Capacity: 1,600
Venue: Atlantis Hotel and Casino

Do keep visiting this site for more EPT updates….

Jeffrey Lisandro

Lisa — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:21:08 +0000

Another poker pro who piqued my interest is the Perth born Jeffrey Lisandro.

Lisandro is known by many to be a high-limit cash game player. He has played few of the the highest-limits, rivaling some of the world’s top players.

At 2009 World Series of Poker, he became the first person to win a World Series title in all three seven-card stud disciplines, he won the Stud High, Stud High-Low, and Razz.

He has a pretty interesting poker history.
At the age of five, he used to watch his parents play poker every weekend, and when he was 9 years old he was confident that he could play better than his parents. When he attained the age of 18 (the legal limit for gambling in Australia) he was making more money playing poker than by his regular job. When he realized he was winning because of his skill and not because of his luck, he decided to do it for a living.

Lisandro made his first final table appearance in a World Series of Poker event in 1997, in the $3,000 pot limit hold’em event won by Phil Hellmuth Jr. He has made to eleven WSOP final tables since then, in Omaha, seven card stud and 2 to 7 lowball events and won has won four bracelets, two in Seven Card Stud, one in Seven Card Stud hi/low and one in Razz.

In December 2004, Lisandro won the $25,000 limit hold’em heads-up tournament, defeating Howard Lederer in the final to take home the $194,000 grand prize.

In May 2005, he won the $10,000 no limit hold’em World Series of Poker circuit event at Lake Tahoe, defeating Phil Ivey in the final heads-up confrontation to win the $542,360 prize. Lisandro has said that he considers this to be one of his greatest achievements, as he rates Ivey to be one of the best players in the world.

Lisandro finished 17th in the 2006 World Series of Poker main event, winning $659,730.

He won his first World Series of Poker bracelet in 2007 in the $2,000 Seven-Card Stud event beating a final table that included Daniel Negreanu and Nick Frangos.

Lisandro plays online at PokerStars and is a good friend of Jean-Robert Bellande. He is famous for chewing gums at the poker table to reduce tells.

He placed 2nd in the World Championship Pot Limit Hold’em (Event 13) in 2007. He won $294,620 as the runner-up to Allen Cunningham.

As of 2009, his total live tournament winnings exceed $4,000,000. His 31 cashes at the WSOP account for $2,578,137 of those winnings. In 2009, Lisandro won the World Series of Poker Player of the Year award.

Jeff Lisandro’s is nicknamed “The Iceman” as he has an extremely cool behavior at the table. But according to an interview with pokernews, he got that name from his “Ice chewing Gum”.

He resides in Salerno, he also owns a property in Santa Barbara, California.

Tournament Structure for EPT Season 6

Lisa — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 05:23:13 +0000

The count down for the world’s richest poker tour, EPT Season 6, has begun. You can also win your seat for just $2.22 or 111 FPP by playing EPT satellites on PokerStars and compete with world’s professional poker players.

Here is the tournament structure for this season 6 of EPT main event (Courtesy: europeanpokertour ) -

Players start with 30,000 in chips with levels at 60 minutes on Day 1 and 75 minutes thereafter.

LEVEL	ANTE	SMALL BLIND	BIG BLIND
1		50	100
2		75	150
3		100	200
4		150	300
5	25	150	300
6	50	200	400
7	50	300	600
8	75	400	800	CR25
9	100	500	1,000
10	100	600	1,200
11	200	800	1,600
12	200	1,000	2,000
13	200	1,200	2,400
14	300	1,500	3,000
15	400	2,000	4,000	CR100
16	500	2,500	5,000
17	500	3,000	6,000
18	500	4,000	8,000	CR500
19	1,000	5,000	10,000
20	1,000	6,000	12,000
21	2,000	8,000	16,000
22	2,000	10,000	20,000
23	2,000	12,000	24,000
24	3,000	15,000	30,000
25	4,000	20,000	40,000
26	5,000	25,000	50,000	CR1000
27	5,000	30,000	60,000
28	5,000	40,000	80,000
29	10,000	50,000	100,000
30	15,000	60,000	120,000
31	20,000	80,000	160,000
32	20,000	100,000	200,000

You can check back here as I would keep adding the latest updates. Or if you find any latest updates please mail me, I would be glad to add the same.

Luck vs Skill at a Poker Table :

Lisa — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 17:35:17 +0000

Luck vs Skill at a Poker Table :

There is an age – old battle of Luck vs. Skill; which is more important and which gives
better results…???

Well, when it comes to betting, usually, the player who earns the most is considered to be the luckiest. An amateur poker player will often lament the luck of a more experienced poker player instead of seeing the skill used behind the win. This could be due to our human nature to attribute someone else’s success to luck, lest we feel bad about ourselves.

Getting good cards could be lucky but that doesn’t mean you can win the game easily. It is the skill used in playing for the maximum value that helps the player to be a winner.

If you are a good and experienced player you can play better in every situation making use of skill you have developed; even if you are not getting good cards or if your opponent is getting lucky. Many a times inexperienced players fail to notice the luck and may not be able to take it to their stride. It is the experienced who can recoginize the luck and turn it to their favor.

A good experienced player will know the tendencies of his opponents and what the opponents think about him. He would constantly make adjustments and mix up his play to keep his opponents off balance. A poor poker player; inspite of getting a strong hand, doesn’t know how to extract as much as he can out of it just because he may not give much though on his opponents or situation.

When everyone at your table tightens up as you approach the bubble of a tournament, bad player will also tighten up. But the good players will accumulate chips. Poker is a game of patience and well timed aggression.

More often bad player get luckier more regularly than good players by outdrawing with the worst hand However, getting ‘lucky’ through outdrawing people without caring for pot odds isn’t really lucky at all because you will lose more money than you win.

By consistently putting yourself in more advantageous positions and getting the best of it, you would definitely look lucky to your opponents. Although in the truest sense, this may not be luck!!! Due to many imponderables and variables involved it is difficult to calculate the effect of luck in this game

Although, “luck” and “timing” play very important role in poker but in the long run patience and correct decision will help you in making money at a poker table….

Brazilian Alex Gomes won the WPT Bellagio Cup V

Lisa — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 07:20:30 +0000

Well, one more famous tournament WPT ended with great fanfare.. Its so not possible to predict the winner till the end, the game changes in a flick of a second…

The morn of 13th July, saw 79 players playing around the table.

Day one, ended with 60 players from 79, Alec Torelli had the highest chip stack of 308,675 followed by the famous and recent WPT champion Cornel Andrew Cimpan.

The remaining players combined to compete on Day 2, which resulted in Alec Torelli coming through strong to end with 590,200 and the chip lead.

Day 3, an interesting personality Faraz Jaka, who fetch up that day in dominating position with a round figure of 3 million chips, followed by Anthony Spinella who had 1,250,000.

Day 4, only 31 players were left at the tables, Erik Seidel expelled Tommy Hang in 28th place.

Day 5 was the day that the ten players would be reduced to the television table six.

It started with Alec Torelli eliminating Pavel Reshetov on the very first hand of the day, sending him out in tenth place with $46,485. Faraz Jaka then went on to take out two players in the same hand – Sam Stein took $61,980 for ninth place, and Ray Taylor grabbed $87,160 for eight.

It was exciting to see the play going around at the final table.
Following are the seating arrangements seen in the final table:

Seat 1: Faraz Jaka        5,041,000
Seat 2: Erik Seidel        2,170,000
Seat 3: Christoffer Sonesson    1,671,000
Seat 4: Alexandre Gomes    1,586,000
Seat 5: Justin Smith        2,992,000
Seat 6: Alec Torelli        2,623,000

End of the tournament, Brazilian Alex Gomes won the WPT Bellagio Cup V, the first event of the World Poker Tour’s eighth season, and took home $1,187,670 for the win, along with a WPT bracelet, a Bellagio bracelet, and a $25,500 entry into the April 2010 WPT World Championship at Bellagio.
Lucky Guy!!!

Ronald de wolfe

Lisa — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 07:36:36 +0000

Ronald De Wolfe :

Ronald de wolfe, is a professional poker player and a famous writer for poker magazine.

After winning the first prize in Gutshot Poker Festival, his confident doubled and so he took a trip for raking in more dough at the $1000 No limit event of the 2005 World Series Poker.

He won the first place in the Major Grand Prix de Paris event of the word poker tour fourth season, defeating the earlier champion Juha Helppi in the final heads up battle ( July 2005 ).

He won the 3rd place out of 605 runners in the WPT $25000 championship event at the Bellagio, winning over 1,00,000 in April 2006.

In Oct 2006, he won the Dublin event of European Poker Tour ( EPT ) getting the enviable booty of $554,300. He became the first person to win an event in the EPT and WPT.

But his record was broken in janauary 2008, when Gravin Friffin won WPT event followed by his WSOP and EPT wins, thus he became the first person to complete hat-trick in winning WPT, WSOP and EPT titles.

In June 2009, De Wolfe won his first World Series of Poker bracelet, winning the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Low Split 8 or Better tournament for $246,616 and in doing so became the second person to complete the hat-trick of WSOP, EPT and WPT titles.

His skills are so note-worthy that to see him in action is a pleasure…

Reminiscing EPT Season 5

Lisa — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 07:31:12 +0000

Reminiscing EPT Season 5

Just thought about refreshing the memories of EPT Season 5 before the upcoming EPT event.

The European Poker Tour Season 5 was held in Barcelona in September, 2008. This season was a biggest success with nearly 8,000 contestants participating for a total prize pool of €54 million. This season featured 11 scheduled events including a new event in Budapest, Hungary, a welcome return to Deauville, France, the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure “Festival of Poker” in the Bahamas and the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo in April/May.

The €10,000 EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo – attracted a record field of 935 players with a prize pool of €9.35 million, making it the richest tournament ever held outside of Las Vegas. Pieter de Korver, the winner of the finals of EPT held at Monte Carlo, was the lucky chap who took home the booty of €2,300,000.

Results of EPT Events – Season 5 (courtesy : europeanpokertour.com)

EPT SEASON 5 (2008-2009) TOTALS:

No of players: 7,901

No of PokerStars players: 3,077

Total prize pool: €54,940,712

Total won by champions: € 13,167,394

No. of nationalities: 97

TOURNAMENT	DATES	BUY-IN	NO. OF PLAYERS	PRIZE POOL	WINNER	No. of PS Players
BARCELONA OPEN	Sep 10-14 2008	€8,000	619	€4,952,000	Sebastian Ruthenberg €1,361,000	168
LONDON	October 1-5 2008	£5,200	596	£3,349,200 (€4,286,976)	Michael Martin £1,000,000	234
LONDON £1 MILLION SHOWDOWN	October 5-6 2008	£20,000	85	£1,700,000 (€1,914,588)	Jason Mercier £516,000 (€1,894,957)	24
HUNGARIAN OPEN	Oct 28 – Nov 1 2008	€4,350	532	€2,128,000	Will Fry €595,839	157
WARSAW	15 – 19 November 2008	21,000 PLN	217	€1,172,972	João Barbosa €367,141	77
PRAGUE	9 – 13 December 2008	€5,250	570	€2,764,500	Salvatore Bonavena €774,000	128
PCA	5-10 January 2009	$10,000	1,347	$12,674,000 (€9,667,911)	Poorya Nazari $3,000,000	1,059
PCA High Roller	7-8 January 2009	$25,000	48	$1,200,000 (€915,312)	Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier $433,500	6
EPT Deauville	20-24 January 2009	€5,300	645	€3,096,000	Moritz Kranich €851,400	155
EPT Copenhagen	17-21 February 2009	50,000 DKK	462	22,176,000 DKK (€2,976,465)	Jens Kyllönen 6,541,920 DKK (€878,057)	157
EPT Dortmund	10-14 March 2009	€5,300	667	€3,335,000	Sandra Naujoks €917,000	214
EPT San Remo	18 – 23 April 2009	€5,300	1,178	€5,713,300	Constant Rijkenberg €1,508,000	532
EPT MONTE CARLO	28 April – 3 May 2009	€10,600	935	€9,350,000	€2,300,000Pieter de Korver	356