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Poker News Round-up: Week #12It’s over to Germany first of all this week for a quick round up of the action in EPT Dortmund at Casino Hohensyburg. In terms of attendance the event was a massive success with 664 players entering the €5,000 main event, but the feedback from many of those who made the trip was not so positive. Amongst other organisational difficulties, many players found that the poker branding on their clothing was not allowed meaning they had to apply electrical tape before they could play. “I feel a bit ashamed that it is representing Germany” said Katja Thater, “I guess it will be the last EPT in Dortmund.” In fairness to John Duthie it was the influence of the German government which caused many of the problems but he agreed that it had not gone as he would have liked – “all I can say is that if we do come back next year, a lot of things will have to change" he said. Day one was a good one for many of the home contingent but defending champion Michael McDonald of Canada also caught the eye with well over double the average chips by the end of the day. McDonald aka Timex continued his good run through day two and by the time the massive field had been reduced to just 34 players at the end of play he was very well placed in fifth. By the following day a successful defence of his title was looking a very real prospect as he earned a place at the final table, although it was one of the tougher line ups in recent memory featuring William Thorson, Luca Pagano, and Johan Storakers. Having become chip leader and at one point looking as though he was running the table, McDonald then ran into a few hands and ended up busting to Sandra Naujoks to finish in fifth place. The dream of a repeat win was over but it was a very impressive performance from the young Canadian who at the age of 19 already has a stable of players he puts into many big buy in events. With Timex out of the equation, Storakers then busted in fourth to ensure that the top three spots would all be taken by Germans. It was Sandra Naujoks and Holger Kanisch who locked horns as the last two left in the tournament, and after an hour of passing chips back and forth they got it all in with A Whilst business continues to be slow in Nevada, the so called Vegas of the East at least seems to be showing signs of further development. Over in Macau a new poker room going by the name of Pokerstars Macau At The Grand Lisboa opened this week, which will be the largest poker room in continental Asia. The developing Asian market seems like it could be important to the future of both live and online poker, so it is no surprise that one of the major sites has put its name to a live venue over there. There will be numerous tournaments to cater for all budgets but also freerolls every week to encourage new players to take up the game. The opening week sees the Macau Poker Cup come to the Grand Lisboa featuring the Red Dragon main event with a buy in of 10,000 Hong Kong dollars (about £900.) On Full Tilt the durrrr challenge seemed to be developing into something of an anti-climax with little action to report in recent weeks. Some had suggested that a downswing of several million dollars for Tom Dwan in 2009 was the reason for his absence from the challenge tables, but he was back in the thick of it this week. Dwan sat down against Patrik Antonius to play 914 hands as part of their heads up challenge, during which time Antonius won $87,611. One of the reasons Dwan felt able to offer the three to one odds on their side bet was his experience of multi-tabling, but it surely can’t have helped that whilst playing Antonius he also had up to five other tables on the go at the same time. Whilst losing over $300,000 to Gus Hansen et al, Dwan allowed Antonius to reduce the deficit in their challenge to $53,640 with around 10% of their allotted 50,000 hands now played. With the WSOP approaching it would seem likely that the end of this challenge will not come until much later in the year, but given durrrr’s form of late that might not be such a bad thing for him. The GUKPT London is now underway and whilst the main event does not start until next week there is a little news to bring you from the first event. The first round of the heads up event has seen some of the more notable names eliminated, as Roland de Wolfe, Surinder Sunar and Neil Channing all made early exits. There are no big favourites in heads up games but those left in the draw for round two will be feeling a little more comfortable to see those three out already. The £2,500 event continues through until next week so we’ll have further coverage of that and other preliminary tournaments in next week’s news report.
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for Naujoks versus A
for Kanisch. Just as Kanisch looked to be set for a big double up 9