Poker Tournaments — Weekly Round-up for April 22, 2017

By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated May 18, 2017

World Poker Tour And Pokerstars Partner Up In New Super-Tourneys

PokerStars Championship WPT MonteDam Swing will see guaranteed prize pools totalling Euro 32.5 million

In a first of its kind agreement for Europe, World Poker Tour and Pokerstars are partnering up to present super-tournaments with a total investment in guaranteed prize pools of Euro 32.5 million.

Announcing the deal, WPT chief executive Adam Pliska revealed that the schedule starts with the PokerStars Championship presented by Monte-Carlo Casino between April 25 and May 5, and concludes with WPT Amsterdam May 5-13.

“For many years, PokerStars and the World Poker Tour have collaborated behind the scenes to ensure the scheduling of our major events is done in the best interest of the players,” said Pliska. “We are proud to take that collaboration a step further with the creation of the PokerStars Championship WPT MonteDam Swing.”

The announcement details four qualifying events:

* April 26-30 Euro 1,100 buy-in PokerStars National Championship Monte Carlo

* April 29-May 5 Euro 5,300 buy-in PokerStars Championship Monte Carlo Main Event

* May 5-8 Euro 1,500 buy-in WPT DeepStacks Amsterdam

* May 9-13 Euro 3,300 buy-in WPT Amsterdam Main Event

These will reward top-five finishers with a variety of valuable tournament packages, but a range of other smaller rewards is also available, tying in with online competitions and satellites.

Ed Stuchly, the director of live events at Pokerstars, echoed Pliska in emphasising that the joint project has been designed to benefit players competing at both PokerStars Championship Monte Carlo and WPT Amsterdam.

He added that the tournaments offer a total of 80 different events with a wide range of buy-ins and formats.

“This exciting partnership allows players a natural transition from one world-class festival to another, and we encourage our players to head to WPT Amsterdam following their time in Monte Carlo,” Stuchly said.

The project is expected to attract thousands of players to the various events or the satellites surrounding them, including some of the world’s leading professional players.

Pokerstars Expands Megastack Across Europe

New tournament series coming to Ireland, Belgium and France

PokerStars’ popular new live poker series Megastack is to be made available in Ireland, Belgium and France after a successful debut in the UK, the company announced Thursday.

The new live tournament series, which launched in the UK in The Hippodrome Casino London in April, attracting over 520 entries (see previous InfoPowa report), will now become a live poker staple in some of Europe’s favourite destinations, with over Euro 500,000 guaranteed across all events combined.

Megastack events are largely aimed at recreational players, offering a space for players to get comfortable at the tables and hone their skills without breaking the bank. The series is designed to bring live poker to players’ doorsteps at a low buy-in level, to create a good live poker experience, and to offer players a platform to build their poker careers towards competing in PokerStars Championship and

The new Megastack schedule will include increased guarantees, low buy-ins, and tournaments with deep stacks. Players can qualify online at home through dozens of satellites then play live from Friday-Sunday, filling a weekend with top-notch poker action.

The Pokerstars’ blog has the detail: http://psta.rs/2lm1ecD.

Pokerstars Launches Spin & Go Omaha Tournaments

New hyper-turbo Pot Limit Omaha format now available

The popular Pokerstars Spin & Go format now accommodates Omaha games with the launch of Spin & Go Omaha, the company announced Wednesday.

“Omaha is a highly enjoyable poker variant and was quite high up on our players’ request list to deliver it as a Spin & Go,” said Severin Rasset, Director of Poker Operations and Innovation. “The icing on the cake for players is that these Spin & Go’s will be an exclusive qualifier into our SCOOP Event 5: Pot Limit Omaha [6 max] on May 7, so there really is no better time to get involved and give it a try.”

Spin & Go tournaments are fast-paced, three-max Hyper Turbo Sit & Go tournaments, featuring 500 chip starting stacks, where each tournament has a randomly drawn prize pool that will award between two and 10,000 times the player’s buy-in.

Spin & Go Omaha will be available to play at $1, $3, $7 and $15 stakes. Players will receive four hold cards and must use two of these in combination with three of the cards from the board to make their poker hand. Spin & Go Omaha tournaments will be played as Pot Limit.

Team PokerStars Pro Lex Veldhuis tried out the new format on Twitch here: https://clips.twitch.tv/BigScaryMinkDancingBanana

World Series Of Poker November Niner Wins U.K. High Roller Event

Czech high roller Vojtech Ruzicka takes home GBP 284,210 after a two-way chop with Poland’s Bartlomiej Machon

One of the World Series of Poker main event final tablers last year, Czech pro Vojtech Ruzicka has claimed the honours and a GBP 284,210 first prize in the GBP 10,300 buy-in Dusk Til Dawn High Roller in Nottingham, England.

110 entries were recorded for the contest, which culminated in an epic heads up in the extra day’s play necessary to bring the competition to a conclusion.

With fifteen hours of stressful play already behind him, Ruzicka faced Polish ace Bartlomiej Machon in the final passage of the game and the duo paused to negotiate a chop which left GBP 50,000 on the table and the trophy.

It turned out to be a torrid two-and-a-half hours of heads up action between two spirited players with the lead changing several times before Rusicka was finally able to put a very talented opponent away with the runner-up consolation prize of GBP 220,790.

Other final table cashes were:
Tom Hall GBP 142,000
Chris Backhouse GBP 110,000
Joao Simao GBP 85,000
Jason Wheeler GBP 65,000
Laszlo Bujtas GBP 50,000
Stefan Schillhabel GBP 40,000
Daniel Merrilees GBP 30,000

Chen Takes Inaugural Wpt Beijing Main Event Title

Battle of the Chens in heads up play

Pete Yanhan Chen has won the first WPT Season XVI main event title in Beijing where the tournament played out for the first time.

Despite an aggressive, experienced style of play, Chen attributes his win to luck.

Heads up play with Chen Ke was described as a David vs. Goliath battle of the Chen’s with Chen holding a roughly 5-1 chip lead over Ke.

Chen ultimately emerged victorious, winning the title and CNY 2,063,454 (US $299,485).

Final table results were:
1  Pete Yanhan Chen – CNY 2,063,454 (US $299,485)
2  Chen Ke – CNY 1,373,026 (US $199,278)
3  Lu Yingqi – CNY 882,619 (US $128,101)
4  Zhang Wenben – CNY 585,468 (US $84,974)
5  Tan Yancheng – CNY 450,616 (US $65,401)
6  Bryan Huang – CNY 373,218 (US $54,168)

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