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Poker News Round-up: Week #39

By Adam Noone, 26/09/2008

There’s been plenty of live action recently and seeing as there was no news round up last week we’ll begin with a brief recap of the events from the EPT Barcelona main event held from 10th to 14th September. The Spanish leg is always a popular starter to the EPT season and so it proved this year with a big turn out of 619 entrants for the €8,000 tournament.

EPT Barcelona winner
Sebastian Ruthenberg

German Sebastian Ruthenberg was the early pacesetter as chip leader after day one and he was to be found towards the top of the leaderboard all the way through to the last day. The final table was headed by Dane Martin Nielsen, but just like compatriot Phillip Hilm at last year’s WSOP main event Nielsen was first to bust following some questionably aggressive play. There was no such spewing of chips from Ruthenberg though and he steadily built his stack until he had over 80% of the chips in play when he faced off against Irishman Fintan Gavin heads up. Gavin could not afford to hang around folding for long but he might well have been able to find a better hand to get it all in pre-flop with than the 4 7 he decided to go with. It didn’t suck out against Ruthenberg’s superior K 9 and the German became the first champion of EPT season five with a score for €1,361,000.

With so many large tournaments running close to one another it was perhaps an unwise move for the WPT event at Borgata in New Jersey to offer a $5 million prize pool, which would need 521 runners to cover the guarantee. In the end they got close, managing 516 players for a small overlay but had to keep the satellites running a full five hours after the cards were in the air to try and minimize the damage.

WPT winner Vivek Rajkumar

Despite a generous structure with 800 big blinds in the starting stack, as is often the case with WPT events the final table became something of a turbo affair with the average stack sitting on just 29 big blinds. Even bearing this in mind though the final day was concluded incredibly quickly after just 48 action packed hands. After Vivek Rajkumar cracked Mark Seif’s pocket aces with his tens he had half the chips on the table and proceeded to knock out all the remaining players to wrap up a very quick final. $1,424,500 was his reward for getting it in with the wrong hand at the right time on more than one occasion, but then tournament wins are rarely achieved without a generous slice of luck somewhere along the line.

Meanwhile in London Full Tilt was hosting the first Million Pound Challenge to be held in this country at the Hellenic Centre (and yes – this part of the article is liable to descend into shameless brag.) Eighty players, all of whom had already needed to win an online tournament in order to qualify, settled down in front of the tv cameras hoping for a shot at the big money on offer for whoever could go all the way. A fast paced tournament structure saw plenty of action on the first day which whittled the field down to the six who would return for day two and get paid.

A cagey start to the final table eventually gave way to inevitable all ins as the blinds increased and the chips started moving around. The smallest stack at the start of the final table belonged to Jay Darbar but he patiently waited for the right moments to get his chips in and eventually found himself holding the lead as he went heads up against former big stack Adam Noone. Darbar soon went about extending his lead but things can change very suddenly in heads up play and after holding a better than four to one lead, Darbar lost a couple of big pots and in just a few hands Noone all of a sudden had all the chips in front of him. The payout structure was crazily top heavy with £5,000 for second and £50,000 for first plus the chance to parlay that up into a much bigger sum via three heads up games against Full Tilt pros Phil Ivey, Roland de Wolfe and Chris Ferguson. Victory in all three games would result in a million pound payday, whereas two victories would be worth £200,000 and one win £100,000.

Adam Noone and Jay Darbar go heads up
for the Million Pound Challenge

Every match swung one way then the other and whilst Noone got it all in holding the best hand and having the pro covered in all three matches, sadly it was only two victories chalked up in the end and the million remained but a pipe dream. £200,000 is not to be sniffed at however and the talented youngster (cough) has more reason to celebrate having been made the latest red pro after being signed up by Full Tilt. He can currently be seen chasing ill advised draws during the stud section of HORSE cash games on the excellent poker site Full Tilt where you can learn, chat and play with the pros.

Jesper Hougaard wins event 1
at the WSOPE

More recently the big show has been in town as the World Series of Poker Europe is underway at the Empire Casino in Leicester Square. The first event was an addition to last year’s itinerary – a no limit hold’em tournament with a much more affordable buy in of £1,500 compared to the only hold’em offering in 2007 which was the £10,000 event. American Adam Junglen led a quality field after day one and converted that position into a commanding chip lead for the final table at which were sat four Englishmen, two Americans, a Russian, an Irishman and a Dane. Junglen lost some big pots early on and finished in sixth, whilst Denmark’s Jesper Hougaard built up a lot of chips via his willingness to gamble in marginal situations. Neil Channing suffered at the hands of Hougaard after his pocket eights were counterfeited by tens and jacks on the board and Hougaard’s all in pre flop with a raggy ace won the pot. It seemed like Hougaard could do no wrong and when he got all his chips in for the final time heads up versus Fuad Serhan his A J needed help against Serhan’s A K. That help came straight away for him when 10 6 5 popped up on the flop and Serhan was already drawing dead. There is clearly more to Hougaard than just getting lucky though as he also won a 2447 runner bracelet event in Vegas this summer and he now becomes the only player ever to win WSOP events on both sides of the Atlantic.

Sherkhan Farnood wins event 2
at the WSOPE

In the £2,500 HORSE event first Phil Ivey then Howard Lederer looked to be taking control but then Sherkhan Farnood started winning big pots at the business end of the tournament. He eventually overcame Ivo Donev to win event number two for £76,999 and became the second player ever from Afghanistan to win a WSOP bracelet.

And finally, it has been a few weeks since we had a cheating scandal break out so we were probably due one. Several accounts at Pokerstars have been banned for their association with Josh Field aka JJProdigy, who himself was banned from Pokerstars long ago for multi-accounting. It has come to the attention of Pokerstars’ security that Field has still been active on the site recently and now a number of accounts, the most notable of which is gbmantis or Nick Niergarth, have been closed down for either transferring money to Field’s various accounts or for being staked by him.
Field himself has released a public apology in which he claims he will play by the rules in future, although many are skeptical especially seeing as it wasn’t that long ago that we last heard a similar apology from Field. That time it was an attempt to smooth things over with other players before taking part in his first major live tournament in Australia. Given his repeated contemptuous disregard for fair play in the past it’s not surprising that his most recent apology is generally viewed as having some sort of agenda behind it for his own benefit. Is he trying to mollify the situation in preparation for another live appearance? Could he be about to turn up at the WSOPE main event in London? We will see soon enough as it starts on Saturday 27th September so keep your eyes peeled if you’re in the area.

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