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Poker News Round-up: Week #49The much anticipated Premier League III drew to a conclusion this week after some fierce competition from an extremely tough line up of twelve players including new world champion Peter Eastgate. Each player sat in six heats of six handed play with league points up for grabs to decide the final which would again be six handed. Having recently signed a sponsorship deal with PKR, new addition to this event JC Tran proved his backers have an eye for a good player as he claimed top spot in heat one, with Peter Eastgate picking up some good points for second. Tran’s good run continued as he picked up first and second in his next two heats to hold a commanding lead at the top of the table at the half way stage. Things were not going so well for Dave Ulliott though who was cut adrift at the bottom of the table after busting first in two out of his three heats. Whilst Ulliott remained glued to the bottom for the rest of the competition, Tran remained firmly at the top to secure a place in the final with the chip lead. There he was joined by Peter Eastgate, Tom Dwan and Juha Helppi who qualified automatically via their league positions, plus Roland de Wolfe and Tony G who won heads up play-offs to join the other four.  Tournament shark JC Tran Tran’s great form in the heats made him favourite for the final, having earned the most chips to carry forward but Tony G took control of the table to sit with the biggest stack as he and Tran faced off as the final two. The skills of the Australian proved to be not quite good enough though and after Tran had stamped his authority on the heads up battle, Tony G’s shove with an open ended straight draw failed to hit and Tran’s top pair was good enough to take the title. JC Tran has been perhaps the hottest tournament player in the world for the past couple of years with WSOP and WPT titles earning him in excess of $5 million in tournament cashes since 2006. Another $300,000 for victory here gives Tran a remarkable eleventh separate score of a quarter of a million dollars or more, and he seemed genuinely delighted at his week’s work saying “This is brilliant and I am so happy…..Until this week I had never played in Europe before - I really couldn’t ask for more! Perhaps I should move here!”  GUKPT grand final winner Paul Foltyn As the end of the year approaches it’s time for grand finals and the Vic in London saw 184 players take part in the £3,000 GUKPT grand final. Norwegian player Eirik Svanes held a formidable chip lead at the final table, which saw former footballer Tony Cascarino posting another very good result, but with four left he lost a huge chunk of his stack to Paul Foltyn. Foltyn is a very successful online tournament player and knew what was required of him to convert his big stack into victory. A lengthy heads up battle with the experienced Jeff Duvall saw the lead change hands several times over the course of over three hours, but a straight finally settled it in favour of Foltyn. £167,050 is the reward for his good work and he will now feature at the champion of champions tournament being held in Luton. Sam Trickett starts that tournament as chip leader having accumulated the most points from his victories in one main event and two side events on the tour this year. On the international tournament scene the next big ones to look forward to are the EPT Prague and Aussie Millions, for which the schedule has now been released. The two week festival features a AUD $10,000 main event as with previous years, and the high roller $100,000 event also makes a return for those with deep pockets. An extra HORSE event has been added for a smaller buy in of $1,000 and there are also a couple of tournaments that we don’t normally see in our festivals in this part of the world - baccarat and two card Manila both feature in Melbourne. A note of caution to anybody thinking of venturing over to play: late night cheeseburgers should be always be obtained from room service rather than venturing to urban burger bars with thousands of dollars in your pockets.  Cliff Josephy aka JohnnyBax Earlier in the year Ultimatebet were making efforts to restore their battered reputation by signing up some of the most popular internet players as sponsored pros for the site. Eric “Rizen” Lynch lasted no longer than a month before he decided that he wanted no part of an association with Ub, and now Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy has also split with them. This time though it’s not the pro leaving out of principle, as Ub simply decided they didn’t want to pay him any more according to Josephy’s account of events. Unsurprisingly there is little sympathy for Bax from much of the poker playing public who won’t forgive him for signing up with the site after the superuser scandal came out. Next week’s report will feature the GCBPT grand final in Bristol where Joe Beevers will be defending the title he won last year. In the meantime you can check out the action as it happens in the live coverage section of the site as our reporters are on the tournament floor to keep you fully up to date.
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