Tuesday 23 August 2011

PPT3 lifts off in Vienna

The ParadisePoker Tour will be jetting off to Europe once again in 2011/12 – and now you can expect bigger stacks, brand new venues and a guaranteed party!

The popular €550 buy-in and slow structure remains, but poker players will now start every Main Event with 20,000 chips in Prague, Barcelona and beyond.

First up will be a return to the Concord Card Casino, Vienna, after the Austrian leg attracted record numbers during Season Two, while the season finale is a new addition, as the PPT heads to Greece in spring 2012.

Even Lady Luck won’t be able to hold back the good times, as ParadisePoker lays on a VIP party night at every stop, while the Tour League and Fantasy Poker give you even more chances to win your way to the next event.

ParadisePoker Tour satellites are running every day from as little as €0.30c, with seven €1,100 packages guaranteed every week at ParadisePoker. Start qualifying now!

Monday 15 August 2011

Marcel takes a side event view

Marcel Hurni pulled up a chair for the €200+20 side event in Barcelona and though the Swiss player couldn't claim victory over his 134 opponents, he did offer a player's-eye view of the NL Hold'em event.

Here is his tournament diary:


Day 1
135 players played the €200+20 NLHE side event at the ParadisePoker Tour Barcelona and among them were a number of poker pros who didn't make Day 2 of the Main Event, as well as some Gran Casino regulars.

Play on day one lasted eight hours, with the bubble bursting around midnight, and nine players would return for the final table the following day.

A ninth-place finish guaranteed at least €400 and there were a range of nationalities, professionals/amateurs and sexes too, with one poker lady (Pia Schmid) ready to take on eight poker lads!

Day 2
The action got started immediately as on the second hand, Finnish pro Jari Hurri went all-in with A10 and was called by KJo. A Jack came on the board to eliminate the first player. Seconds later Nikolaos Domestinis was all-in with the same hand, A10, and was called by 88. The board came 5-6-9-7-10 to give the 8s a straight. Dawid Mysiewcz soon followed to leave us with six players remaining.

After one and half levels with very little action, Viacheslav Poskonin went all in with 44 and got a call from chip leader Alejandro Perez, who held AJ, and the bigger stack made a straight. Perez then made another big call with a pair of tens, picking off a bluff from Alexandre Coussy to eliminate him and move up to 600,000 chips.

Robert Cazali was next out, first raising 3/4 of his stack - only to fold to a pre-flop re-raise. The rest of his short stack soon followed and he finished 4th. The big stack of Perez continued to bully the table and knocked out Kai Groth after a series of smaller hands and some strategic trash talk.

Heads-Up
The heads-up battle saw the best poker lady in Schmid take on Perez (both pictured), the best of the poker lads, but she faced a mountain as his chip stack was 10 times bigger than hers. Heads-up lasted half an hour, with the chip leader showing his opponent plenty of respect and folding more often than expected. In the end however, he picked up AJ against her A3 and claimed the €7,000 top prize.

Congratualations to Alejandro Perez on winning the side event!

PPT Barcelona - €200+20 NLHE Side Event Results
1 - ALEJANDRO PEREZ TORRES - Spain - €7,000
2 - PIA HURNI SCHMID - Switzerland - €5,000
3 - KAI MAGNUS GROTH - Norway - €3,500
4 - ROBERT ANDRE CAZALI - France - €2,700
5 - ALEXANDRE STEPHANE COUSSY - France - €2,000
6 - POSKONIN VIACHESLAU - Russia - €1,600
7 - DAWID MYSIEWCZ - Poland - €1,200
8 - DOMESTINIS NIKOLAOS ELEFTMERIOS - Greece - €800
9 - HURRI JARI PECA - Finland - €400
10 - MANUEL SÁNCHEZ CIFUENTES - Spain - €400
11 - JOSE LUIS LOPEZ ROCHA - Spain - €400
12 - SRINIVASAN THAUARAJAH - Germany - €400
13 - FRANCISCO JAVIER MARIN GREU - Spain - €400
14 - CASTOR MARIEN TAVAREZ - Dominican Republic - €400
15 - MARCEL PASCAL HURNI - Switzerland - €400
16 - GEORGIOS ROGRAKIS - Greece - €400

Tuesday 9 August 2011

A word with the champ...

After winning the ParadisePoker Tour League for Season 2, we simply had to have a word with Danish star Ronnie Espensen.

Here's what he had to say about winning €10,000 plus entry into all Season 3 events:

How does it feel to have won the ParadisePoker Tour League for Season 2?
I'm very happy to have won the ParadisePoker Tour League. It's a very nice prize considering the size of the Main Event buy-in. The money and the packages are great and it's a big boost to my poker confidence.

Where did you finish in each event? Did you have a favourite tournament?
I made the points in 4 out of 6 tournaments. I finished 17th in Vilamoura, 14th in London, in Prague I came 34th and Barcelona 39th. My favourite must have been the London event, mostly because I was so close to making the final table. I started the final day 4th in chips and when we were 14 left I was still about an average stack, but a bad beat ended my chances (read about the hand below! - PP blog)

How did it feel going into the final event in Barcelona knowing you had to make the points?
I was actually glad that I came to the final stop in second-place. It removed a lot of pressure from me, knowing that I had everything to win instead of everything to lose.

Did you speak to (league leader at the time) Robert Haigh?
Robert and I were quickly aware of where we were sitting and we talked at the first break. We spoke about some of the previous events and wished each other good luck, even though it was easy to tell that we didn't mean it! :) I give Robert a lot of credit for his performance during this season, as making two final tables is impressive!

Describe what it was like throughout PPT Barca, from hearing news of Robert’s exit to knowing how close Tibor Boros was to overtaking you?
Robert's exit on Day 1 gave me a lot to consider and I knew I had to make some conservative changes to my play without getting too exploitable.

I came into Day 2 with a decent stack, a little above average and my plan was to maintain that stack by keeping the pots small and staying out of trouble. After about an hour of play I pick up KK on the button. It was folded to me, so I make a standard raise and the big blind shoves his relatively short stack. He showed AK and spikes an Ace.

Suddenly I was the short stack and I had to make some tough decisions. I re-shoved my stack a few times to maintain about 20 big blinds, but as we approached the top 50 players I knew needed to finish in at least 47th-place to take the lead from Robert.

That was my first priority so I had to make some lay-downs that normally, with my stack, I should have shoved. After we got into the top 47 I was left with around 5BBs, though I did triple up with AQ against 45s. My new problem now was that Tibor Boros had a healthy stack and he could win the league by getting deep. So every player who got knocked out before me was very important. I actually ended up busting with AT against 99 at the exact same time as two other players and the floor ruled that I was assigned the 39th-place because of my stack size.

At that point Boros needed to make the top 11 to win or finish 12th to chop. It was too intense so I headed to my hotel and went to sleep. At 2am I woke up and HAD to check the blog - and saw that I had won by only 1 point! What a relief...

Bearing in mind you won the league by just a point, was there a key moment/hand in Season Two that you could pinpoint as the most important?
My last hand in London hand led to some sleepless nights and things might have been a little more comfortable if it hadn't happened!

The blinds were 3000/6000 and I'm sitting UTG+1. I look down at KK and make a raise to 15,000. An active player calls me from UTG+2 and this German player re-raises to 60,000. I re-raise all-in for around 160,000 (German guy and I had about the same stack).

UTG+2 folds. German guy snap-calls and shows AQ. UTG+2 says that he folded AQ so I was in good shape to take down a huge pot and the chip lead. Unfortunately the flop comes QQx. It was a standard bad beat but it just felt tougher when being so close to the final table. I couldn't help but think about what I possibly could have achieved at that stage with that stack.

Despite your fantastic consistency in making the points, you didn’t make a final table in Season 2 – does that affect how you feel about this achievement?
In a way it feels a little unfair. As mentioned, Robert Haigh made two final tables and that is a way better performance than mine if I'm honest. However, due to the non-progressive point system I had to make some changes to my play after I took the lead at the second stop of the Tour, so I might have missed some value by keeping in mind that adding a few points at each stop could be enough to win the league.

Would you have swapped it for a final table appearance and a chance of winning the top prize?
Not at all. I am very happy achieving this and it means a lot to me. Plus the prize gives me another six shots for a final table in Season 3!

Monday 8 August 2011

Season 2 Tour League: Kongron is king

Ronnie Espensen was named ParadisePoker Tour League champion for Season 2 in Barcelona, after coming up with the big performance he needed to overhaul Robert Haigh's pre-tournament advantage.

The Danish player arrived in Catalonia knowing he needed to score at least four points to beat his German counterpart, and the duo looked set for a head-to-head duel for the €10,000 plus entry into all Season 3 events.

A cluster of players still stood a chance, however, and with the exit of Haigh on Day 1, the likes of Tibor Boros and Peter Csecsetka sensed their chance to steal in with victory.

Espensen did all he could by keeping his short stack alive long into Day 2, collecting 12 points for a 39th-place finish and taking him out of reach for Csecsetka.

Boros came closest to causing an upset, only to exit in 13th-place and finish Season 2 on 99 points - one painful point shy of Ronnie's 100-point tally!

Congratulations to Ronnie (@KongRon9 on Twitter) for the fantastic achievement, especially given he didn't make a single final table across the Tour.

It was a show of true consistency that overcame the big performances of Haigh and Boros, who can both hold their head high after strong showings this year.

FINAL STANDINGS
1st - Ronnie Espensen - 100 points
2nd - Tibor Boros - 99 points
3rd - Robert Haigh - 91 points

Make sure you join us from the very start of Season 3 to give yourself the best chance of winning the ParadisePoker Tour League, 2011/12!

Thursday 4 August 2011

Fantasy Poker results

Fantasy Poker entrants, your patience is to be admired, but you need wait no longer as we announce the official results for PPT Barcelona!

There were some outstanding performances, with much of the final table represented in our entrants' teams including Pawel Jaskolski, Piotr Gadjdecki, David Montoro and Dimitar Dimitrov.

It was the latter pair that proved the key to victory for David M, after he named both Montoro and Dimitrov in his team to amass an outstanding 92 points. Tip of the cap to you sir!

The only other entrants who took two players into the points were Mariusz23 and Ludanek, who both finished on 50 points courtesy of their double acts.

Congratulations then to our winner, who is officially our first qualifier for ParadisePoker Tour Season 3 having secured a €1,100 package for the victory.

See you soon!

Official Fantasy Poker Results - Barcelona

David M - 92 points
David Montoro - 47
Dimitar Dimitrov - 45
Arno Fresemann - 0

Ludanek - 50 points
Ronnie Espensen - 12
Tibor Boros - 38
Robert Haigh - 0

Mariusz23 - 50 points
Mariusz Niski - 35
Jose Luis Cestao Lopez - 15
Stefan Karlsson - 0

Monday 1 August 2011

Congratulations to Aleksandar Abutovic - PPT Barcelona Champion (€27,000)

Aleksandar Abutovic is the PPT Barcelona champion after a long final table battle that spanned eight levels of play. In the final hand he found pockets jacks and saw them hold up against Jose Maria Felices' three-four to claim the title and the biggest cash of his poker life.

Abutovic came into today's final 6th in chips but played a very patient game throughout. That patience payed as his opponents fell around him. He laddered his way to the final four before he started making big moves and progress to match. By the time three handed play began he was the clear chip leader and was able to negotiate a deal that matched his position.

He allowed his two opponents to knock each other out before he came back from another deficit heads-up, defeating the very talented Felices and claiming the trophy for himself.