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Posts Tagged ‘Championship’

Over the last few weeks Mike Sexton has been providng us with tips about how to become better at poker, he’s given 5 Poker Tips for Newbies and 8 Tips To Win At Poker so far. Now we’re hoping he follows his own advice as he’ll be playing at the upcoming World Poker Tour Canadian Spring Championship. I caught up with to get this thoughts on the event.

I’m going – and playing!

Our last WPT Canada event at the Playground Poker Club in Montreal was a whopping success with well over 1000 entries. I was unable to attend that event but I’m very excited about the upcoming WPT Canadian Spring Championship (May 3-9) at Playground because I’m going – and playing! The Canadians love their poker so another large turnout is expected. (For those who can’t make it, the final table is being live streamed.). Hope to see you in Montreal!

The Gangs All Here

From what we’ve heard ‘confirmed players include Jeff Gross, Kara Scott, Bruce Buffer, past WPT Player of the Year winners Gavin Smith, Andy Frankenberger, Joe Serock, Faraz Jaka, and Jonathan Little, and WPT Champions Club members Anthony Gregg, Jonathan Roy, Ravi Raghavan, and Steve Brecher’

Mike Matusow

Mike Matusow defeated Phil Hellmuth in one-on-one competition to capture the 2013 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship, staged this weekend at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Matusow won $ 750,000 while Hellmuth’s runner-up position awarded him $ 300,000.

The National Heads-Up Poker Championship (NHPC) is an annual, invitation only, poker tournament with a $ 20,000 buy-in, and it is produced and televised by the NBC television network. The championship, which sees 64 of the best poker players compete in a single elimination tournament modeled after college basketball championships, launched in 2005 and took place every year, with the exception of 2012.

“You gotta go for it, baby! I told you it was my time!” exclaimed Matusow, after hitting a flush to defeat Hellmuth in the final hand.

Matusow, an American professional poker player with the nickname of “The Mouth” due to his reputation for trash talking while playing, has won three World Series of Poker bracelets in his career. Hellmuth has a record 13 World Series of Poker bracelets, two of which he won in 2012 including the Main Event of the 2012 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE).

Scott Seiver finished in 3rd place in the 2013 NHPC, winning $ 100,000, as did 4th place finisher Joe Serock. The field included some of the best known names in the poker world, including Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein, Antonio Esfandiari, Vanessa Rousso, Jonathan Duhamel, Greg Raymer, Michael Mizrachi, Phil Laak, Mario Ho, Elky Grospellier, Chris Moneymaker, Erik Seidel, Tom Dwan, Doyle Brunson, Huck Seed, Liv Boeree, and Jason Mercier.

Last week Daniel Negreanu announced that he was withdrawing from the Heads-Up event due to prior commitments to his friends.

Previous winners of the National Heads-Up Poker Championship have been:

2011 = Erik Seidel

2010 = Annie Duke

2009 = Huck Seed

2008 = Chris Ferguson

2007 = Paul Wasicka

2006 = Ted Forrest

2005 = Phil Hellmuth

Mad Marvin Rettenmaier leads WPT Championship Final Table on debut as Team PartyPoker.com pro. Marvin is huge chip leader on a final table at the elite event that also includes Michael ‘The Grinder’ Mizrachi, the in-form Steve O’Dwyer, Nick Schulman, Trevor Pope and Philippe Ktorza. All are vying for a first-place prize of nearly $ 1.2 million.

Only this week, Marvin joined the likes of Tony G, Kara Scott, Mike Sexton, Bodo Sbrzesny and Tomeu ‘Amatos’ Gomila in the Team PartyPoker.com ranks. “This is amazing, I couldn’t have asked for a better start to my new deal,” said Marvin. “I am just focused on Saturday now and using the great position I am in. Thanks for the support!”

The final table gets underway at 4pm PT on Saturday. Live streaming of the event, complete with hole cards and commentary from Tony Dunst and Dan O’Brien begins at 4:30pm PT. (Sunday 1.30am CET, 12.30am BST). Before that there will also be streamed coverage of the superstar packed $ 100,000 buy-in WPT Super High Roller at Bellagio on Friday at 4.30pm PT (Saturday 1.30am CET, 12.30am BST). Both live streams will feature exclusive PartyPoker.com offers and you can watch at PartyPoker.com Blog.

WPT Super High Roller:

• Seat 1: Bill Klein – 620,000
• Seat 2: John Juanda – 1,875,000
• Seat 3: Tom Marchese – 2,235,000
• Seat 4: Daniel Perper – 3,415,000
• Seat 5: Justin Bonomo – 2,105,000
• Seat 6: Andrew Robl – 3,355,000

WPT Championship:

• Seat 1: Michael Mizrachi – 2,560,000
• Seat 2: Marvin Rettenmaier – 6,715,000
• Seat 3: Steve O’Dwyer – 2,035,000
• Seat 4: Nick Schulman – 1,555,000
• Seat 5: Trevor Pope – 1,480,000
• Seat 6: Philippe Ktorza – 895,000

Yann Brosolo

French player Yann Brosolo, sponsored by Titan.fr, yesterday won the Euro Finals of Poker (EFOP) Gold Championship for a first prize of €70,000. After three days of poker action at the Aviation Club de France in Paris, Brosolo defeated Samir Choubani in heads-up play when his pair of sixes bettered Choubani’s K 8 on an unmatched board.

Choubani had been chipleader going into the final day of play but had to settle for second place, worth €62,500. Brosolo’s win was the biggest cashout of his career.

In December, Brosolo finished in 5^th place at the EPT Prague €5,000 No Limit Hold’em Main Event for a €35,000 prize.

Every year the Aviation Club hosts the EFOP tournaments, a series of events that in addition to the €2,000 buy-in Gold Championship also stages a flagship €5,000 buy-in Diamond Championship tournament and a €10,000 high roller event.

The winners of the European Poker Awards will be announced at the Aviation Club as part of the festivities. Team Titan’s Sam Trickett is nominated for two awards, both Player of the Year and Best Tournament Performance.

The image is from the Poker 52 magazine website.

PartyPoker Premier League Poker Mixed Game Championship takes place from November 13-17 2011 at the Playboy Club London.

The championship will test 12 of the world’s best players in three disciplines of the game – No-Limit Hold’em, Pot Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha.

Tony G, Mike Sexton, Sam Trickett and Luke Schwartz are the first four players to sign up for the $ 25,000 buy-in event. “I cannot wait – I am going to take everything they have,” said Tony G. “I am going to mix the mixed game up and put on a show!”

“I think it’s fantastic that games other than No Limit Hold’em are going to get TV exposure,” said Mike Sexton. “Poker is more than one game. This is a bold move, but a good one!”

12 players are split into 2 groups of 6. Each player will play 3 times. Top three progress through to the final. This is the prize money breakdown:

1. $ 100,000
2. $ 65,000
3. $ 45,000
4. $ 35,000
5. $ 30,000
6. $ 25,000

Every time we walk into the PokerStars Macau Poker Room there’s something special in the air. Maybe it’s the luxurious surrounds of the Grand Lisboa Casino which set the scene, full of thousands of wealthy locals who love nothing more than to splash some cash and get their gamble on.

As you make your way past the sea of Baccarat tables and enter the poker room you can’t help but become consumed by the enthusiasm of the players. They just love poker over here, and over the past few years we’ve seen consistent growth in player numbers – something that hasn’t happened anywhere else in the world.

There were big hopes that the Macau Poker Cup Championship would again set a new high as the finale for a season full of record setting events. While we won’t have confirmation until tomorrow, today’s starting field of 121 represents substantial growth on last year’s Day 1a field of 104, and we are well on track to better last year’s total of 254 players.

Among today’s starters were the likes of Team PokerStars Pro Raymond Wu, Victor Chen, Lee Nelson, Michael Mariakis, Juicy Li, David Steicke, Will Jones, Brice Renaud, Neil Arce, Percy Yung, Justin Chan, Curly Seal, previous MPC Red Dragon winner Kwan “Spiderman” Mah, the number one ranked Asia POTY player Hung-sheng Lin and the defending champion Julian Hasse.

Many of those notables had solid days on the felt with Lee Nelson the highest profile casualty in the early levels of play. Nelson took an early crippling blow before losing a race with pocket eights against ace-queen to make an early exit.

However the day undoubtedly belonged to the man known as “Sunny” as Hyungsun Jung was an early chip leader before ending the day with a bang. Jung caught most of his chips early in the day when he made two pair to fade his opponent’s flush draw before a final surge in the dying minutes with a flopped set left his opponent’s top pair drawing dead.

Jung bagged up a mammoth 159,125 at the end of the day for a clear chip lead with Richard Hu (110,750) and Johan Hirvonen (85,575) the next best.

PokerStars sponsored player Neil Arce (62,100) had a solid day to finish just outside the top ten, while International poker star David Steicke (48,475) and Team PokerStars Pro Raymond Wu (46,975) are also in good shape.

With a commanding lead in the Asia Player of the Year race, Hung-sheng Lin added to his points this week with two final tables in preliminary events, however it was a rare tough day on the felt for Lin today. He had his tournament life on the line with [ac][4c] against an opponent’s pocket jacks, but managed to spike an ace to survive and bag up a below-average stack of 30,550 in chips.

Another to scrape through was the defending champion Julian Hasse. It’s great to see the German back in Macau to defend his crown, and despite picking up some chips early, Hasse could only nurse his way to a stack of 13,225 by the end of the day.

“I started well and after level 3 I had 35k. Since then I couldn’t win a pot.” said Hasse. Optimistic, the German poker pro added, “There’s always a chance to win. I still feel confident.

Click here for the complete end of day chip counts

With the official MPCC Player’s Party rocking Macau this evening, expect a few blurry eyes tomorrow as Day 1b kicks off in the PokerStars Macau Poker Room at 2:10pm (GMT+8). We look forward to your company once again!

After months of anticipation, the Latin American Poker Tour has just announced its next event. For the first time in its four-season history, the LAPT is headed to Medellin, Colombia to host the Colombia National Poker Championship.

Though it was long assumed the LAPT would find its way to Colombia, the reality of the stop could not have come at a better time. After four events in Season 4, Colombians Pablo Gonzalez and Daniel Ospina are the top two players on the LAPT Player of the Year leaderboard.

With that in mind, the LAPT its packing its bags for Medellin. October 12-16, Medellin’s Allegre Casino will host a 1.8 million Colombian Peso buy-in tournament (approximately $ 1,000) to crown the Colombia national poker champion.

It’s just been a few weeks since the LAPT stopped in Punta del Este Uruguay for the fourth consecutive season. In the first three years, no player from Uruguay managed to snag the top spot. That changed in Season 4 when Alex Komaromi steamrolled the final two days of play and raised the Uruguayan flag over his quarter-million dollar first prize.

Now, it’s time for the fifth event of the season. In what is already an historic year, a Colombian champion on Colombian soil would be the stuff of storybooks.