Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

In 2006, WSOP decided to put a stop to their annual Tournament of Champions and discontinued the $1,000,000 free roll tournament indefinitely.  

Thankfully, this year Harrah’s Entertainment (WSOP Owners) have decided to “reinvent” and revive it starting this year.  The tournament will take place this June 27, at The Rio.  They will play down to a final table of 9, and then reconvene July 4th to play out the final table.  It will be broadcast on ESPN.  This year, first place will pay $500,000, the runner-up gets $250,000, third place earns $100,000 and the fourth through ninth place finishers will earn $25,000 each.

“The Tournament of Champions brand has heritage in delivering the big moments,” said Harrah’s VP Ty Stewart.  “We’re thrilled to reinvent it around a model that should elevate the game by engaging millions of poker fans.” 

Entry into the event is a little different than it has been in the past, focusing more on popularity than on win rate, however usually the most popular poker players are guys with a personality and a good win rate! All living WSOP bracelet holders are eligible for votes on WSOP.com, and voting happens between March 15 – June 15.  The top 20 vote getter’s will have free entry into the tournament.  Five players will not need to get any votes, however.  Annie Duke, Mike Matusow, Mike Sexton, Joe Cada and Barry Shulman.  All have either won a TOC, a World Series of Poker Main event, or a European Main event.  2 Other seats are up for grabs, but full details on how to get those seats are still being released (it looks like they will go tosponsors, who will likely give them out in contests…) 

“Tournaments like the Tournament of Champions help elevate poker to the level it deserves and I am honored to participate,” said winner Annie Duke. “Winning the Tournament of Champions marks one of the most memorable events in my poker career and I’m ecstatic that the WSOP is hosting this prestigious event.”

With every poker player having the same aim, regardless of if they are a live player or online player, Betfair have opened a promotion that is going wet the mouth of any poker player.

Betfair have announced that they are going to offer a freeroll for a huge $1 million tournament as the first event within the World Series of Poker Europe tournament schedule.

The tournament will be broken down into 15 regions, with 15 tournaments leading into one main event, with the winner of the tournament a guaranteed millionaire.

The tournaments begin Monday 13th April and will be played out over an 18 week period, with daily tournaments taking place.

The top 18 for each region will then contest against the other region finalists from the other regional qualifiers in a bid to be the winner of their region, meaning that they will then represent their region in the live main event.

The tournament boasts about its ease of entry to the tournament that will be life changing for one lucky winner, taking home a huge $1 million in prize money.

Ok so you know about the tournament but how do you get your shot at making your money?

Up to the 16th of May 2009, players have unlimited attempts to try to win their way through the tournaments to progresses but Betfair has warned players that from the 18th of May 2009 players will have to start to use their Betfair points in order to gain entry, meaning that if players don’t have the points to buy into the tournament they simply miss out on this huge opportunity.

For more information about Betfair, read our Betfair Poker Review and use our special Betfair Promotion Code to get a nice $600 FREE on your first deposit!

Twenty two hours was the duration of the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event final table. Well over 400 hands of poker were played before our friend the ex-bible salesman John Juanda took down the crown or house if you prefer. Since John’s last name is pronounced “Ja-wan-da” (ya-wanna) we couldn’t resist the humor with the title of this post. All kidding aside, the fact that he was able to go from last place in chips at one point to the ultimate winner is astounding. The focus to go for twenty two hours straight playing cards is nuts, to come out the winner is off the charts crazy.

Juanda faced two tough opponents once it was three handed, with two Russians playing the role of potential spoilers. One of them was Ivan Demidov who ironically enough, is also going to play the live final table of the WSOP Main Event in the US come November. We don’t know where this guy came from but he’s definitely no joke when it comes to poker and expect to see much more out of the young poker player.

After taking home the roughly $1.5 million US money for first place along with the Betfair Sponsored WSOPE bracelet, we have to assume that John slept a good bit before heading down the street to play in the EPT London event sponsored by Poker Stars. Time will tell if he’s able to repeat this epic performance in the EPT.

Paris hosted what became a big night for Annette Obrestad, aka Annette_15. Nominated for 3 awards at the European Poker Player awards. She won the award for Best Performance of the year! What an applicable award for this poker phenomenon who now holds another place in poker history.

The World Series of Poker Europe held 3 events for the inaugural year. Of those three, the field was world-class poker competition. Each event was won by a European Poker Professional, instead of the multiple WSOP titled Americans who went to London to defend the hold on the WSOP brand. The greatest surprise came in the main event. With a 1 million GBP guarantee, the event maxed out the number of players around 300. After battling her way through names such as Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth, this incredible young woman proved her focus and talent to the world, by winning the first WSOP Europe Main Event.

Because of her historical win, she now holds 3 titles associated with the WSOP that may be many years, and in one case, laws, to come before they are broken. The first is being the third woman to win a World Series of Poker Open Event. She won the first Main Event Bracelet awarded outside of the United States. The title that will take more than skill to change, it will need laws to change, is that she is now the youngest person to ever win a WSOP bracelet.

Congratulations Annette!

Annette has her own special $212 freezeout tournaments on Betfair Poker at 19:30 UK time on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Annette Obrestad (or “Annette_15″ as she goes by online) won the World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) yesterday making her both the first female to win a WSOP Main Event, as well as the youngest player to win a WSOP Main Event.

Annette_15 is a well known name in the online poker world.  She became popular after becoming one of the winningest and best online poker multi-table tournament players.

She has had several major cashes for over $100,000 and is currently ranked as the 3rd best online poker player by pocket 5s.

Annette played an amazing tournament knocking out several players.  On the last hand she put John Tabatabai when she spiked a set of 7s on the flop, against Tabatabai’s two pair (6s and 5s).  It was a tense moment, but her set held up making her the champ and as many sites reported, the “Queen of Europe”.

There’s a rumor that Annette started playing online poker at the age of 15, hence the screen name Annette_15. She got her first exposure to poker from her father who taught her how to play five-card stud and seven-card stud as a young girl. She eventually signed up for an online poker account and as the legend goes, her mother refused to let her fund an account with a credit card so Annette_15 ended up winning $9 in a freeroll and has not looked back since.

WSOPE Main Event Final Table Money Winners:
1 – Annette Obrestad – £1,000,000
2 – John Tabatabai – £570,150
3 – Matthew McCullough – £381,910
4 – Oyvind Riisem – £257,020
5 – Johannes Korsar – £191,860
6 – Dominic Kay – £152,040
7 – Magnus Persson – £114,030
8 – Theo Jorgensen – £85,070
9 – James Keys – £61,540

Annette Obrestad picture above from Pokernews.com

Betfair Poker is preparing for one of their biggest days ever.  There will be over $370K in prizes given away on Sunday September 2nd.  Here is the list of events:

$370,000 of packages and cash must be won

Two massive tournaments in one very special day on Betfair Poker will see a staggering FIFTEEN players win their $23,000 package to September’s WSOPE in London – Take your seat now!

Sunday 2nd September, the last weekend before the magnificent 10 day WSOPE series kicks off, has been declared “WSOPE Super Sunday” by the big-wigs at Betfair Poker, and you’re all invited.

2pm – Grand Final of the $250k Freeroll Giveaway

The day’s proceedings will kick off at 2pm with the Grand Final of the $250k Freeroll Giveaway where qualifiers will fight it out for an incredible TEN available WSOPE packages. We’ll also be throwing in a further $20,000 of prize money for those who just miss out meaning that the prize pool will swell to a wallet-busting $250,000!

Don’t worry if you didn’t make it in to the Grand Final, the fun doesn’t stop there

6:30pm – Last chance showdown – FIVE PACKAGES GTD

The finale of our 2007 WSOPE Qualification period will be a monster five packages guaranteed super satellite at 6:30pm on Super Sunday (Sep 2nd if you missed it). This fantastic tournament will be available for a $500+$25 buy in and there’ll be plenty of room for play as we’re giving everyone a starting stack of 5000 chips with a 15 minute clock.

Satellite qualification into this tourney is all week from as little as $5.25.

For the icing on the cake, we’re adding FIVE $1,000 bounties on selected Betfair pros and celebs, details are to be confirmed in the tournament lobby. This takes the total prize pool for this $500 buyin event to a staggering $120,000 GUARANTEED.

On hearing the news of WSOPE Super Sunday, poker boss, Ben Fried said “I nearly fell off my chair! This is the biggest and best opportunity to qualify for the WSOPE both online or offline. The WSOP show really is in full swing now.”

Don’t miss out on these amazing events… visit Betfair Poker now and get up to $600 FREE through our special landing page!