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What’s New in the WSOP 2009?

Saturday, May 30th, 2009 | Tournaments | No Comments

Among the online poker rooms it’s business as usual, meaning that myriad WSOP-related promotions are popping up months ahead of the actual events, and there are literally hundreds of ways to qualify online.  Actually at least one poker site has offered WSOP packages since September last year, which is interesting considering that the official schedule was released little over a month ago.

Harrah’s has announced a handful of new additions and changes to the 2009 iteration of the World Series of Poker. The much debated delay of the Main Event final table that was introduced last year returns again, however.

New Events

There are 57 bracelet events in 2009 – two more than last year. One notable addition is a $1,000 No-limit Holdem “Stimulus Package” tournament, which is expected to entice a huge playing field and be the biggest event ever besides the Main Event. Another addition for 2009 only is a $40,000 No-Limit Holdem tournament to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the World Series of Poker.

Other than that the usual “World Championship” events in all different poker variations return. The No-Limit Holdem Main Event comes with several day 1’s and 2’s again, and will run between July 3 and 15.

No Re-Buys

Another highly noteworthy change this year is that there will be no re-buy events. The reason for this was that many participants felt that re-buy events provided too much of an advantage to professional players who have little to no limitation on the number of times they can re-enter the tournaments by re-buying.

Registration and Satellites

The buy-in to the Main Event is the usual $10,000, but there are plenty of other events for those on a tighter budget. 35 out of the 57 tournaments have a buy-in of $2,500 or less, so combined with the removal of re-buy tournaments this should be one of the most amateur-friendly WSOPs to date.

As usual there are also lots and lots of online satellites to all of the different events. Read more about the WSOP 2009 and specific online satellite offerings at learn-texas-hodem.com.

Tags: wsop

EPEC III in Sardinia – Poker at its best

Sunday, May 17th, 2009 | Tournaments | 1 Comment

As I mentioned in a previous post, I won a trip to Sardinia to play the Everest Poker European Cup (EPEC) final tournament.

After a two hour flight and a subsequent fifty minute bus ride, I arrived at the Chia Laguna Resort with fantastic weather (about 24° C), where all players were awaited by the Everest Team.

After the check-in, I was relaxing at the pool and awaiting the EPEC welcome party. Besides the other German and European players, I also met Silke Burghardt again, who, like myself, won the EPEC-qualification in Munich.

The next day stood under the sign of poker. The famous and probably best poker tournament director Thomas Kremser welcomed the players and said the holy words “dealer, shuffle up and deal” and the EPEC tournament began. First all went right, I could win a few pots but then I had a little downswing and after two hours. I was all-in with A10 unsuited against AQ unsuited. Fortunately, I got a ten on the river to double up with this two-outer.

After that, the poker god was not really well-minded to me and so after about four hours of playing time, I was busted with AJ suited against AK unsuited. My opponent flopped a full house and I was nearly drawing dead. Only the last ace would have helped me to split the pot. But turn and river was a blank card so the tournament ended for me. After that I had a lot of time to cheer for the other players and to explore the environment of the beautiful resort and the beach.

Here are a few pictures of the tournament and the beach:

The first day of the tournament was played down to 36 players, which were all in the money. The 36th still got € 400, which was, looking at the drink prices in the disco (4 Euros for a Coke, 8 Euros for a Cuba Libre), not bad.

After about four and a half hours of playing time on the second day, the nine finalists were found. The final table contained three Swiss players, two Swedish players, an Italian player, a French and two Dutch players.

Chip counts of the last nine players

The nine finalists played about five hours before the two last players were found:
Pablo Finini and Gael Seydoux, both from Switzerland, played the heads-up, which lasted only a few hands. Pablo Finini defeats his opponent and won the third EPEC tournament. He took a prize of € 21.000 and Gael Seydoux, as the runner-up, received still € 16.000.

Here are a few pictures and videos of the final table:

Payouts of the EPEC III

I wish to thank Everest Poker for this great and well organized event. I hope that I can participate again in such a poker event in the near future.

Finally, many greetings to Stephi, Silke and Thomas, Robert and Nicole, Joffrey, Mareike and Klaus, Albert and Era and Robert “Susi” Werthan of Pokerfirma.de. Perhaps we can see us again in another tournament.

You can find more pictures of the EPEC III tournament on Flickr.

Tags: EPEC, everest poker