With news of a 6-figure robbery stealing the headlines, many of us in the poker world seem to have forgotten there was still a tournament to be played in Berlin Germany. The Berlin stop on the EPT which shattered the record for the largest tournament ever in Germany, and came close to eclipsing the EPT record set in San Remo, unfortunately fell by the wayside amidst the absolute lunacy of the robbery  that took place.

For the tournament itself, with its massive €1 million first prize, it was the lone American Read the rest of this entry…

There have been conflicting reports regarding the daring heist that took place on Saturday at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Berlin. Anywhere from four to six masked gunmen are said to have stormed the hotel in search of the tournament’s prize-pool.

There has been no official word on the amount taken, but some reports have said the gunmen made off with a reported $800,000. Authorities stated that the robbers lost one of the bags of money they had taken, containing a sizeable portion of the haul, and then fled the scene. Read the rest of this entry…

When the European Poker Tour (EPT) announced they had added a stop in Berlin, Germany, many in the poker industry had a feeling the tournament would attract a large field of poker players, and the final tally in Berlin made this speculation reality.

The tournament is the largest poker tournament ever held in Germany, and came close to setting the EPT record –minus the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure which is technically an EPT event–set in San Remo during season 5 with 1,178 entrants.
In the end, 945 poker hopefuls anted-up the $5,000 entrant’s fee in hopes of taking home the €1,000,000 first-place prize-money. Very few of poker’s biggest names decided Read the rest of this entry…

Europe’s second most populated city is about to host its first European Poker Tour event. The EPT has made numerous stops in Germany, but this will be the tour’s first stop in Berlin: The previous stops in Germany were in Dortmund, during seasons 3, 4, and 5.

Season 5’s German stop ranked third in overall attendance, and was the largest tournament ever held in Germany. PokerStars is so confident in the turnout that the site has guaranteed a $1,000,000 prize-pool for the $5,300 buy-in tournament.

Historically, Berlin has never been a hotbed of poker activity, and until the worldwide poker explosion the game of choice in Berlin was 7-Card-Stud. However, all that changed post 2004, and the EPT Berlin event should draw big numbers. With a huge population base, a major metropolitan city, a large casino, and as one of the most visited cities in the world Read the rest of this entry…

EPT Copenhagen was won by 22-year old Swedish pro, Anton Wigg, who outlasted 423 other entrants to claim his first ever EPT cash, the winner’s trophy and 3,675,000 Danish Kroner.

In contrast to the usual EPT final tables, play started nine handed instead of with eight players as the previous day ran on late into the night. Whilst this minor change was not expected to make much difference, it did see the final table last a staggering 265 hands including a 3.5 hour heads-up battle!

The first elimination saw Magnus Borg Hansen get into a raising war preflop with Anton Wigg with both players ending up all-in. Hansen held a pair of tens whilst Wigg was slightly behind Read the rest of this entry…

2008 World Series of Poker Main Event Champion Peter Eastgate has had his struggles since his monster win, but the young poker superstar has found his way to the EPT Deauville final table. Unfortunately, Eastgate is the short-stack with 695k chips.

Eastgate has some stiff competition at the final table, with former EPT champion Mike McDonald –who is even younger than Eastgate at 20 years-old– and a bevy of young poker professionals from all over the globe. Eastgate, at 24, is one of the elder statesmen at the table with four of the remaining players younger than him!

The current chip-leader is a 21 year-old from Romania, Teodor Caraba, Read the rest of this entry…

When the final eight players return to the poker tables today all eyes will be on the Italian poker pro, Luca Pagano. Pagano made his 6th EPT final table in Prague, and the team PokerStars pro will be seeking his first major win.

Pagano has followed up his 6th place finish in the 2008 EPT championship –which is his largest payday to date at $532k—with an incredible 2009 campaign. Including the Prague event, Pagano has made 4 final tables, along with cashing in the EPT championship tournament for the second straight year.

Pagano has a very strong chip stack at the table; in fact the entire table is very close in chips sans short-stack Sven Eichelbaum. The final table chip counts and seat assignments are as follows:

* Seat 1: Anthony Roux — 2,839,000
* Seat 2: Stefan Mattsson — 3,553,000
* Seat 3: Laurence Ryan — 1,338,000
* Seat 4: Gustav Ekerot — 502,000
* Seat 5: Sven Eichelbaum — 658,000
* Seat 6: Jan Skampa — 3,985,000
* Seat 7: Eyal Avitan — 2,627,000
* Seat 8: Luca Pagano — 2,119,000

Giving the hometown Portuguese crowd something to cheer for Antonio Matias was able to capture his first major tournament victory by outlasting the 322 would-be hopefuls, including some of the top poker pros in the world.

Matias bucked the current trend of young online poker stars winning the championship events around the globe: The 54 year-old travel agent walks away with the over 400,000 euro first place prize-money, and the prestigious honor of being a European Poker Tour champion.

Entering the final table as a monstrous chip-leader Matias relinquished the chip-lead on multiple occasions, but was able to weather the up and down storm that is tournament poker, and found himself ahead in chips when the following hand came up during heads-up play:

On a flop of J78 both players, Matias and Pierre Neuville, got their money into the middle, but Matias had the big edge when he turned over 78 to Pierre’s JT: Matias filled up on the turn, so Neuville needed one of the two Jacks remaining in the deck to take the hand: When the river proved to be am innocuous 2, Matias and the entire Portuguese contingent broke into cheer.

Amidst a final table full of European Poker’s young-guns sat 47 year-old Cristophe Benzimra. Benzimra, who is quick to state he is not a professional player, was able to outlast some of Europe’s top poker pros including two ItalianTeam PokerStars Pros: Luca Pagano 4th place and Alfio Battisti 2nd place.

The win –which may change Benzimra’s amateur title—was worth a cool 358,000 Euro.

The top US finisher was PokerStars Pro Shaun Deeb, who finished in 22nd place. The hometown Polish fans lost their last player when Wojciech Polak went out in 23rd place –So the “Polska, Polska, Polska” chants came to an abrupt halt before the final table!

The EPT’s next stop will be in Vilamoura Portugal from November 17-22. Vilamoura is a big time vacation destination that will likely draw many of poker’s biggest names for the 5,000 Euro championship event.

With the numerous major poker tournaments taking place around the globe the top poker players have their choice of which destination to head to –Be it Europe for the EPT, The US and a few foreign destinations for the WPT and WSOPE, or Australasia for the APPT. It turns out that Warsaw Poland is the poker tournament hot-spot in late October.

The Pokerstars EPT Warsaw event has attracted top poker pros from around the world: 2008 WSOP Champion Peter Eastgate, Scotty Nguyen, Gus Hansen, Shaun Deeb, Dario Minieri, Alex Kravchenko, Bertrand “ElkY” Grosspieller, and Katja Thater to name a few.

After three days of action online qualifier Clayton Mozdzen is the current chip-leader, with roughly 330,000 in chips. 56 players will take to the felt later today where they will play down to 24 players.