Poker Blog & Poker Forum

Old timers will remember that once the only non-American stop for the World Poker Tour (WPT) was the Aviation Club in Paris. Situated on the Champs Elysees this is one of the most glamorous locations in the world. Something went wrong and the event was taken off the WPT calendar. Now WPT seems to have realized that the only way to survive is to reactivate the “world” part of its name and therefore the return to Paris. Earlier WPT has announced its first London stop.

Bruno Fitoussi the poker consultant for the club said, “The countdown is on and the Aviation Club de France is delighted to welcome back the WPT to Paris. The WPT Grand Prix de Paris is a high-class tournament, coverage of which will be televised, and it is an undoubted highlight on the international poker circuit.” The Grand Prix de Paris begins today. There will be two high profile events. One is the €10,000 buy-in main event and the other is the €20,000 high roller event.

French players like David Benyamine, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Antoine Saout, Fabrice Soulier, Ludovic Lacay and Arnaud Mattern are expected to participate. Of these perhaps only Benyamine has played in a WPT Paris. The others entered the scene after the WPT left Paris. However all eyes will be on Pokerbabe Isabelle Mercier. While doing her masters in Paris she worked as poker manager at the Aviation Club. She was twice nominated for the Staff Person of the Year award at the European Poker Awards. I certainly would be rooting for her to win.

World Series of Poker (WSOP) in the United States is legendary. It is almost synonymous with the history of modern poker. Online poker has made poker a global phenomenon and WSOP first went overseas in 2008 with WSOP Europe in London. Now Harrah’s, the owners of the WSOP brand, have announced the WSOP Africa tournament to take place at their own Emerald Resort and Casino in Vanderbijlpark in South Africa. Both the WSOP overseas tournaments will take place between the Vegas WSOP and the November Nine final table. WSOP Europe will take place in September and WSOP Africa will take place in October. WSOP Africa will begin with two events. The first is a three-day, $1,100 Pot Limit Omaha event and the second is a four-day, $5,000 Main Event. The field will be limited to 500 players in the Main Event.

The introduction of WSOP Africa is hardly surprising. South Africa has been one of the fastest growing poker regions of recent times. Emerald Resort and Casino CEO Martin Rice reacted positively to this announcement. He said, “This is the biggest news in poker. Poker has, over the past half-decade, accelerated in popularity. Our Emerald Poker Series, and its growing fields, is testament to the unlimited success of the sport. It was only natural to follow-on its popularity with the greatest tournament on the planet.” Poker in South Africa got a fillip when Raymond Rahme finished third in the 2007 WSOP Main Event. Having won more than $3 million on that occasion Rahme is the leading South African player in the country’s all time tournament earnings. He is far ahead of the next two in the list, Ryan Dreyer and Darren Kramer, who are well below the million dollar mark.

In a similar news item the World Poker Tour (WPT) announced that it will be holding it first event in London. The WPT London Poker Classic has been scheduled from August 30 to September 5 at the Palm Beach Casino in the May Fair Hotel. The European Poker Tour (EPT) was the first to enter London in 2004, followed by WSOP in 2007.

The European Poker Tour (EPT) Season 6, which kicked off with the event at Kyiv in August 2009, ended fittingly at Monte Carlo.

The last event was the ETP Grand Final High Roller Event with a top prize of almost a million euros. This was won by the 22 year old German pro Tobias Reinkemeier who beat luminaries like Jason Mercier, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Barry Greenstein, Vanessa Rousso and Daniel Negreanu. Boris Becker provided the non poker celebrity value. This win was all the sweeter for Reinkemeier because it was the only Season 6 event to be won by a German. He said, “It’s an overwhelming feeling. The field was definitely tough but what do you expect for a €25,000 event?” Reinkemeier will be donating 2% of his winnings to the All4Kids charity.
Earlier Nicolas “niccc” Chouity of Lebanon won the EPT Grand Final with the €1.7 million top prize. Chouity had won his seat for this event in a $22 rebuy tournament on PokerStars. After winning the prize, Chouity said, “It’s a dream come true. I feel great. I had confidence coming into the final and I had the chip lead but you never know with poker and I was going for first, only first.” However those who were hoping for a repeat performance by a female poker player after Liv’s win at San Remo must have been disappointed.
There was the customary end of the season ETP awards announced. 22 year old Max Lykov from Russia won the Player of the Year. At the other end of the spectrum 68 year old Pierre Neuville won Online Qualifier of the Year. Neuville qualified for 10 of the 13 Season 6 events with the best performance of being runner-up at EPT Vilamoura. Exhibiting the exuberance of a teenager he said, “I’m simply the happiest poker player in the world. It couldn’t be better. It’s my best poker day in my life. With this award, I don’t mind if I have a bad beat forever.”

This year the Tournament of Champions will be held during the WSOP events. 27 players will be competing for a $1 million prize pool with the winner getting half of it. 25 of these players will be the world’s top poker professionals and two will be nominated by the sponsors. The WSOP announcement reads, “Poker has never seen an All-Star Event such as this, as 25 of the players are among the exclusive club of WSOP bracelet-holders and some of the most notable and decorated players in the game.”

Five of the players have been given direct entry. Annie Duke, Mike Matusow and Mike Sexton are past winners of this event. Joe Cada is the reigning WSOP champion and Barry Shulman is the reigning WSPOE champion. The remaining twenty will be selected on the basis of a vote of poker players from around the world. One month of voting has been completed on the basis of which WSOP has released the names of those currently in the top twenty spots.

Some of the big names in that list are Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Chris Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu and Scotty Nguyen. The lone representative of womankind is Jennifer Harman. The list contains enough explosive ingredients to make sure that the Tournament of Champions will have its moments of drama.

There are still two months of voting to go and beyond doubt some of the names from the current list will disappear. Some from the current top 50 will break into the top 20. The most likely candidates are Chris Moneymaker, Annette Obrestad, Peter Eastgate and Jamie Gold. There is one man in the present top 50 who has had a torrid time in the recent past and deserves a break in life. He is Amarillo Slim Preston. If you think so as well you can vote for him here.

The Canadian Poker Tour (CPT) has struggled the last few years, but with the recent aquisition by Headsup Entertainment, it appears the tour is returning to its former glory, and with any luck at all, even set new goals for itself in the future.

Not only is the CPT starting to regain ground in the western provinces, where it truly has gained in popularity, but its now looking at expanding into the online world with its very own online TV network, set to begin broadcasting in the last quarter of 2009 (meaning VERY soon hopefully).  The network will primarily cover the major Canadian poker events from across the country, as well as provide behind the scenes peak at life on the Canadian poker tour circuit in documentary format.  Headsup Entertainment president Kelly Kellner stated “Players and fans alike will have an innovative and effective means to pursue their interest in the sport and we couldn’t be more excited.”

And neither can the ambitious players who have come to play these events.  Albeit currently smaller than other national leagues, the attendance at various events across the country continues to grow, and the prize pools and p0int structure of the events make them very popular.  There are now more events available in Ontario, a market that hasn’t been saturated nearly enough, and prospects look good to include more eastern province events as well.  The biggest tournament on the CPT – the Canadian Open Championship – continues to build a solid reputation with a number of elite poker players attending.  Past events have included such big names as Phil Hellmuth, Jeff Madsen, Brad Booth, and Huck Seed, who won the event in 2008.

Kellner also mentioned that the launching of the new video site will be a key step  in their plans to expand to international markes and build on an exisiting partnership with the World Poker Showdown.  This along with the relauching of Canadian Poker Player magazine are just the first key steps in an aggressive strategy for Headsup Entertainment to capture the very soul of the Canadian poker player and bring it into the international spotlight again.

Its an exciting time to be a Canadian poker player again.  With the expansion plans of Headsup Entertainment, and the availability of a truely national tour such as this, the oppurtunities for Canadian players continues to grow rapidly.  Its a well known fact that the best players in the game are Canadians, but up until now, its only been a national secret.  With this new format for the CPT, and the partnership with the World Poker Showdown, the tour is ready is prove to the world that we are the number one players on the globe.