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Poker News Round-up: Week #03Escaping these bleak wintry conditions to get some January sun in the Bahamas is an attractive enough proposition on its own, but for 1347 poker players this week there was the added attraction of millions of dollars to play for at the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure. The largest ever field for an EPT event at 1347 runners combined with an increased buy in of $10,000 meant that first prize was up 50% on last year’s equivalent at a whopping $3 million. With such inviting beaches and golf courses waiting outside the card room, the huge field was trimmed down to the 199 paid spots inside just ten levels of 75 minutes apiece. Whilst players continued to bust out at a frantic rate Kevin “BeLOWaBOVe” Saul seemed to be the main beneficiary for a long time, but he pushed his luck once too often when he tangled with Brazil’s Alexandre Gomes. Having fired at the pot on the flop and turn, Saul finally connected when he made top pair on the river but Gomes managed to get three streets of value from his pocket aces to double up and take the chip lead to the final table. The bullets would be the undoing of Gomes the following day though when a flop of three jacks seemed a reasonable enough board to continue betting at but Benny Spindler held the fourth jack which won him a monster pot and saw off Gomes in fourth place. The chips were moving round the table swiftly though and Spindler’s big lead was chased down as Poorya Nazari and Anthony Gregg reigned him in. After Spindler exited in third it took Nazari only another four hands to also see off Gregg when the two got it all in pre flop. Gregg’s Q  European player of the year Bertrand Grospellier Grospellier’s achievements in 2008 also included a victory at the WPT Festa Al Largo event in Las Vegas plus a final table appearance at the Grand Prix De Paris – formerly part of the European Poker Tour. His repeated success was enough to see him voted European player of the year at the European Poker Awards in Paris this week, although he was up against some tough opposition such as WSOP Omaha world championship and Poker Million winner Marty Smyth. Victory in the WSOP main event unsurprisingly earned Peter Eastgate the best tournament performance award, whilst runner up that day and third place finisher at the WSOPE main event Ivan Demidov had easily done enough to deserve his rookie of the year title. Sandra Naujoks of Germany had a fine year which included first place at the Baden Open and a sponsorship deal from Full Tilt, and she was recognized at the awards with the title of Europe’s leading lady. In the three other categories GUKPT tour manager Jonathan Raab was named casino staff person of the year, Dusk Till Dawn’s Rob Yong received the Rob Gardner memorial award for innovation and Marcel Luske of Holland was honoured with the lifetime achievement award.  World champion Peter Eastgate On the other side of the world another tournament festival is in progress in Melbourne and so far it has been a very good start for the English in the preliminaries of the Aussie Millions. There were wins for Stuart Barclay and Dave Morton in the first two A$500 events with Morton also following that up with a final table appearance at the A$1,000 HORSE game. Daniel Neilson finished second in the A$1,000 event using computerised PokerPro tables, whilst in the only Omaha hi/lo tournament of the series Mel Judah edged out Jeff Duvall who finished a respectable third. At the time of writing Full Tilt pro Richard Ashby is also in contention at the final table of the A$1,000 rebuy event, where an average of nearly four buy ins per player means that there is a decent prize pool for him to claim part of. Hats off to all those mentioned for their achievements so far. Back in England the Dusk Till Dawn club is providing players with further opportunity to gain some experience playing in tournaments with structures like those used in big events such as the EPT and Aussie Millions. In May the Nottingham club will be hosting another £1,000 tournament using the same structure as the WSOP main event which is due to run for five days. That is followed up in September and December with tournaments called The Monte Carlo and The Bellagio using structures which mirror the EPT and WPT grand finals with buy ins of £1,000 and £2,000. Prize pools are guaranteed to be at least 250 buy ins for all three events, and much credit is due to Simon Trumper and the rest of the gang at Dusk Till Dawn for leading the way in offering more deep stacked tournaments in this country.
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was no match for Nazari’s A
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