Poker in the News — Weekly Round-up for September 29, 2017

By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated Feb 3, 2021

World Series Of Poker Europe Schedule Published

2017 edition all set for Kings Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic

The 2017 European version of the World Series of Poker will have Euro 18 million in guaranteed prize pools and be hosted by Kings Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic, according to a statement this week by WSOPE Director Gregory Chochon.

The statement details a diverse series of events and buy-ins, which Chochon says should attract more players and break previous European records.

“With Euro 18 million in guarantees, we expect to see the largest fields and prize pools for our European offshoot,” he said this week, adding that attractions include 14 days of free live streamed coverage, real-time media reportage, over 160 poker tables and 11 WSOP gold winner’s bracelets up for grabs.

WSOPE kicks off on October 19 with a Euro 1,100 buy-in Monster Stack NLHE event and runs through to November 10.

The full schedule is available on the WSOPE website.

Partypoker Launches New Monster Series

11 days of action next month

Online poker provider PartyPoker has launched its new Monster series of tournaments, scheduled to kick off on October 21 and run through to the end of that month.

The tournaments, which have guaranteed prize pools totalling $5 million, will be organised on two levels, dubbed Micro and Mid, with each offering a diversity of competitions ranging from progressive knockouts and heads up shootouts to hyper-turbos and mix-max games.

PartyPoker is betting on a big turnout by recreational players looking for low to mid-stake Sit and Go’s or MTT’s in the series, with both Micro and Mid having their own schedules and Main Events.

The guaranteed prize pools range from $1,000 all the way up to $1 million for the Mid-Level Main Event.

The Micro schedule features 70 tournaments with buy-ins from $1.10 to $22, with the Micro-Level Main Event starting on October 22 as a $22 buy-in single re-entry with a $300,000 guarantee.

Tne Mid-level schedule similarly features 70 Mid-Level events with buy-ins from $11 to $215, and a Main Event starting October 29 that has a $215 buy-in and $1 million guarantee.

Petrangelo Scores Big At WCOOP

Some of the game’s top names around final table

US poker pro Nick Petrangelo is $624,676 wealthier this weekend after crushing a field of 149 players in the $3 million guaranteed, $25,000 buy-in NLHE [8-Max, High Roller at the World Championship of Online Poker currently in its third week of non-stop action and big money prizes.

The field generated a prize pool well over the guarantee at $3,654,225, allowing 17 players to cash.

The final table of the event found Petrangelo facing tough and respected players like Charlie Carrel, Viktor Blom and Bryn Kenney, and it was the latter who would ultimately face Petrangelo in the heads up.

Mikita “fish2013” Badziakouski held the chip lead on the final day as 18 survivors of the starting field took their seats for the last time. Among them was Spanish ace Adrian Mateos, Patrick Leonard and Don Peters, who was the first to be eliminated as the bubble boy, clearing the way for the remaining players to take some money home.

By the time the final table of nine players was reached it was Bartlomeij “bartek901” Machon in charge with a stack in excess of 2 million chips – twice that of his nearest rival.

Machon retained his commanding position right through to three-handed play, when survivors Kenney, Machon and Petrangelo paused to negotiate a chop that gave Machon $636,113, Kenney $559,694, and Petrangelo $551,591, with $73,085 and the title on the table for the winner.

Soon after, Machon’s lead melted away and he was finally eliminated at third for $636,113 by Petrangelo. That enabled Petrangelo to enter the heads up stage against Kenney with a slight chip lead, which he managed to build to a 6 to 1 advantage before busting Kenney at second for $559,694 and claiming the WCOOP Champion title and $624,676 first prize.

The rest of the final table cashed as follows:

Viktor “Isildur1” Blom $355,846
Patrick “pads1161” Lenard $275,473
Henrik “hhecklen” Hecklen $213,253
Linus “LLinusLLove” Loeliger $165,087
Charlie “Epiphany77” Carrel $127,799
Mikita “fish2013” Badziakouski $105,205

Dutch Online Ace Scores At WCOOP

Hyper Turbo and heads up S&G specialist wins $210,813

Rachid “SkaiWalkurr” Ben Cherif (27), a Dutch-based hyper turbo and heads up S&G specialist who has been quietly racking up big wins on the internet since 2006, has scored a victory worth $210,813 at the World Championship of Online Poker this week, besting a field of 1,522 in the $1,050 buy-in NLHE 6-Max, Turbo, Progressive KO event.

The young Dutchman’s prize money included $116,008 for the game win and $94,805 in bounties

Ben Cherif cut a swathe through the seven-man final table, eliminating five opponents, one of them the redoubtable Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom, whom he dispatched at 5th for $36,382.

Russian player Andrey “drupa-lucker” Chernokoz faced Ben Cherif in the heads up at a massive disadvantage, with Ben Cherif holding almost 70 million in chips against the Russian’s 6.3 million, making the finale almost a foregone conclusion.

And so it turned out….over just two more hands Ben Cherif saw off his last challenger, sending Chernokoz home with $80,831 in game prize money and $10,154 in bounties.

Other final table cashed included:

99Palanke
$56,320 + $14,983 in bounties

Mark “scrubbyz” Zajdner
$39,242 + $20,884 in bounties

Viktor “Isildur1” Blom
$27,343 + $9,039 in bounties

Anton “antesvante” Wigg
19,052 + $5,453 in bounties

Anthony “holdplz” Spinella
$13,302 + $6,578 in bounties

Dutch Player Wins World Championship Of Online Poker Main Event

$1.6 million prize goes to Steven “SvZff” van Zadelhoff

Steven “SvZff” van Zadelhoff, a Dutch pro based in Malta, capped a 15-year online and live tournament playing career this week with a $1.6 million win in the main event of the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker.

The win augments an already impressive career earnings record achieved by van Zadelhoff that includes $3.8 million playing online, and $1.5 million playing live.

The $5,200 buy-in main event carried a guaranteed prize pool of $10 million and attracted a total of 2,183 entrants (1,804 unique and 379 re-entries), resulting in an actual prize pool of $10,915,000, with $1,64,502.27 reserved for the winner and enough left over for 278 other players to cash.

Van Zadelhoff reached the final table as the chip leader holding just over a third of the chips in play and managed to hold that position for much of the action, at one point holding over half the chips in play.

His only real threat was Canadian player joshuah333, who managed to take the lead on at least two occasions and faced van Zadelhoff in the heads up, with van Zadelhoff on 75,936,059 vs. joshuah333’s 33,213,941.

With such a disparity it didn’t take long – seven hands, in fact – for van Zadelhoff to claim the win after a total three-and-a-half hours of final table action, sending his Canadian opponent to the exit and an impressive $1.17 million runner up reward.

Other final table cashes included:

Bernardo “Machadada RS” Rocha (Brazil) $848,015.82
Alexandre “Cavalito” Mantovani (Brazil) $612,697.15
JeremiieLand (Austria) $442,677.47
Geokarak (United Kingdom) $319,837.87
Kekkhou (Finland) $231,084.73
romanooo64 (Thailand) $166,961.29
imluckbox (Thailand) $120,630.39

Online Poker Aces Clash In Powerfest Heads Up

What could be more intense than a heads up featuring Isildur1 and CowEyed?

PartyPoker’s currently running Powerfest tournament was the scene of an exciting heads up between two of the game’s foremost and audacious online high stakes players this week when
Ben “CowEyed” Tollerene clashed with Viktor “Isildur1” Blom in the $25,000 buy-in Super High Roller competition.

The $3 million guarantee on the prize pool was easily overtaken when 127 players registered for the contest, many of them respected international poker professionals.

Sam Greenwood led the chip counts when the final table formed on the second day of action, with the other seats filled by talent that included Fedor Holz, Tollarene and Blom.

When the heads up stage was reached Tollarene had a small edge on Blom, and he continued to build on his advantage by taking several big pots, establishing a 5 to 1 superiority. Then Blom staged a comeback that saw him reduce Tollarene’s l;ead to 2 to 1, and then even the stacks after winning a massive pot.

Shortly afterwards the duo wrestled over a 4 million chip pot that Tollarene ultimately won, ending the contest to claim the main prize of $846,722, and sending Blom away with the runner up prize of $529,272.

Brian Cullingworth

Infopowa news was a staple of Casinomeister’s news from 2000 until 2019. Brian Cullingworth was the main writer, contributor, and was one of the most knowledgeable persons I have ever known involved in the online casino industry.

We first met in January 2001 at the ICE in London where I observed him going booth to booth interviewing online casino, software, and licensing jurisdiction representatives. Brian was also heavily involved with our forum as “Jetset“, he was involved as an informal consultant to eCOGRA, the OPA, and was a player advocate who assisted countless aggrieved players with his connections to industry folks. He also published “Casino Cautions” via Infopowa news for quite a number of years. These can be found in our news archives.

His passing in February 2019 was a dark day for us. He will be forever missed.


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