Speedyfold Poker Blog

Pokerstars Pro Eugene Katchalov continued a fine year with a 3rd place in the EPT Barcelona. 2011 started with a bang for Katchalov, with him winning the PCA Super-Highroller for $1.5 million, and finishing 2nd in the regular PCA highroller (winning $131K). He then went on to win a WSOP bracelet in the summer along with a 4th place finish in another WSOP event. Any maybe he’s not done yet, with still a few months remaining in 2011.

1 Martin Schleich 850,000 Euros
2 Dragan Kostic 532,000 Euros
3 Eugene Katchalov 315,000 Euros
4 Raul Mestre 244,000 Euros
5 Tomeu Gomila 185,000 Euros
6 Saar Wilf 145,000 Euros
7 Juan Manuel Perez 105,000 Euros
8 Isabel Baltazar 73,000 Euros

There you go. I managed to write the whole thing without saying catch-a-lot. Oh wait, doh

Daniel Negreanu has reached the final table of the EPT Vienna, as the chipleader no less. He could become only the third player in history to win a WSOP Bracelet, a WPT title, and an EPT title. The other two are Gavin Griffin and Roland de Wolfe

If he wins it will also catapult him to the top of the All Time Money Winners list.

Griffin did the triple first:

WSOP Bracelet in 2004 - Winning $270,420
EPT Monte Carlo in 2007 - Winning $2,434,061
WPT Borgata Open in 2008 - Winning $1,401,109

De Wolfe was next to complete it:

WPT Paris in 2005 - Winning $574,419
EPT Irish Masters 2006 - Winning $696,970
WSOP Bracelet in 2009 - Winning $246,616

Can Negreanu become the thrid, in 2010. We will find out soon.

Update: He finished 4th for 175,000 Euros. He will need to wait a little longer for the triple. Michael Eiler was the winner of the 700,000 Euros first prize.

Has Pokerstars got too much of a stranglehold of the poker tour world? It is certainly open to debate. Pokerstars owns and operates numerous live poker tours such as:

EPT - European Poker Tour
NAPT - North American Poker Tour (including the PCA)
LAPT - Latin America Poker Tour
APPT - Asia Pacific Poker Tour
ANZPT - Australia and New Zealand Poker Tour
IPT - Italian Poker Tour
UKIPT - UK and Ireland Poker Tour
RPT - Russian Poker Tour
CSPT - Czech-Slovak Poker Tour

It is an impressive portfolio for sure. But is it too much? We have seen recently the Full Tilt pros not being allowed to play in the NAPT because it is basically heavily promoting the Pokerstars brand.

I would tend to disagree though. It isnt like they’ve been buying up existing poker tours and taking them over. They are new tours, providing some great tournaments for poker players. Their immediate success is a product of the power and pockets of the Pokerstars brand. They have generated field sizes that any fledging tour could only dream of. If some of the major competing brands stop their players playing it is both unfortunate but also fully understandable. On the flip side I doubt Pokerstars will be allowing their main guys to play in any Full Tilt live tours either.

The saving grace to all this is that more well run and reliable live tournaments is a good thing for the average well-rolled poker player, and that the ultimate of all poker tours the WSOP remains unaffected, largely independant and the utlimate unifying tour for every player. In many sports and skill games such as Boxing, Darts, Chess etc there have been major splits at the top basically creating more than 1 world title. Thankfully with Poker this situation doesnt exist and long may that continue

If you are interested in qualifying for any of the above poker tours then signup with a $600 deposit bonus to Pokerstars who have plenty of online satellites available for all the tours

European Poker Tour - German leg reaches its conclusion

EPT Germany 2008 - Main Event Result

1 € 933,600 Michael “Timex” McDonald
2 € 528,500 Andreas Gülünay
3 € 307,000 Torsten Haase
4 € 234,200 Diego Perez
5 € 193,000 Claudio Rinaldi
6 € 152,000 Johannes Strassmann
7 € 120,200 Thibaut Durand
8 € 85,500 Christian Harder
9 € 52,200 Alexander Milanov
10 € 52,200 Danny Ryan
11 € 41,100 Tyler Friederich
12 € 41,100 Daniel Carter
13 € 31,700 Manfred Hammer
14 € 31,700 Jiri Kulhanek
15 € 22,150 Aniol Alcaraz
16 € 22,150 Marco Liesy
17 € 17,400 Raul Paez
18 € 17,400 Peyman Mohammadzadeh
19 € 17,400 Jan Heitmann
20 € 17,400 Christopher Rossiter
21 € 17,400 Marcel Cesarz
22 € 17,400 Marcel Luske
23 € 17,400 Hugo Felix
24 € 17,400 Syikrai Istafan

Annette Obrestad had a great shot at adding to her major tournament victory tally in the EPT Dublin. In the end Reuben Peters came out on top, with Annette having to be content with second.

The Result of the Dublin EPT Main Event

1. Reuben Peters €532,620
2. Annette “Annette_15″ Obrestad €297,800
3. Reijo Manninen €178,680
4. Trond Eidsvig €127,630
5. Daan Ruiter €105,510
6. Anders Pettersson €83,380
7. Michael Durrer €66,370
8. Thierry van den Berg €47,650
9. Casper Hansen €30,630

All prize amounts are in Euros, which currently exchanges broadly at the same value as the US$

The EPT Dublin prize payouts have been confirmed. Over half a million Euros for the winner

Prizes

1 € 532,620
2 € 297,800
3 € 178,680
4 € 127,630
5 € 105,510
6 € 83,380
7 € 66,370
8 € 47,650
9 € 30,630
10 € 30,630
11 € 23,820
12 € 23,820
13 € 20,420
14 € 20,420
15 € 15,320
16 € 15,320
17-24 € 10,210