Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

Andrew Hinrichsen is an Australian poker player, who has made the news after he recently won the No Limit Hold’em Event at the WSOPE 2011.

Hinrichsen battled a strong playing field of US poker players and went against strong odds and won the WSOPE €1,090 No Limit Hold’em Championship. He collected the first prize of €148,030 and won the World Series of Poker bracelet.

Andrew Hinrichsen is a young poker player and hails from Melbourne. After his recent win, he is the 25^th ranking poker player in Australia. Hinrichsen took many risks that were required to give him the title for this championship and he also snatched the title back from Gianluca Speranza.

Although, Gianluca Speranza – the ex-champion brought a bulk of chips to the table and did not waste any time in throwing them away, he ended up losing the title. Gianluca Speranza did enjoy an advantage over all other players present there but came in second.

At the WSOPE €1,090 No Limit Hold’em Championship the winner was Andrew Hinrichsen, Australia who raked € 148,030.

Gianluca Speranza from Italy came in second and took in € 91,262, and third was Tarcisco Bruno also from Italy with € 67,281. Bernard Guigon, from France came in fourth and took out €50,146, Roberto Romanello from the UK was fifth and took in € 37,874; Eric Baudry from the USA took out € 28,977 and came in sixth. They were followed by John Eames from France with €13,982.

This might have been a close call but it was a great win for Andrew Hinrichsen and he will definitely be celebrating the victory for a long time. The WSOPE is a well known and coveted Championship title, and with what has been happening with online poker, it is good news for the Australian poker community.

The British are coming! The British are coming!
Indeed, it would seem that the Brits are having all the luck this poker season, as they are not only hosting most of the top poker tournaments like the WSOPE but are also winning them – and on home soil too! The latest Brit winner is James Bord, who took down the championship title for the World Series of Poker Europe. This win will make Bord the first Brit to win a WSOPE title and will put him amongst an elite section of world class poker players like Barry Shulman, Juanda and Annette Obrestad.

The 2010 WSOPE took place at the Empire Casino in London and went on from the 14th of September to the 28th of the month. Bord won the £10,000 No Limit Hold’em Championship which was attended by 346 players, thereby accumulating a pot of £3,460,000. James Bord defeated several other reputed poker players like Dan Fleyshman, Ronald Lee and Roland de Wolfe and took home prize money worth £830,401. Bord well realized the importance of his win and the significance of it for the region and stated that it “means everything.”

James Bord also proved that poker skills can be acquired with timer as long as you do not give up. “I am a mixed games cash player. For the past four years, I have been playing high-low games. No-limit hold ‘em has moved on a lot [the players have gotten much better]. I was a pretty awful tournament player,” he added.

James Bord was over the moon when he won the title for the World Series of Poker Europe. “I never thought I would win a bracelet. Being so close, you just never know when it’s going to come again. And it’s even more special to win it in my hometown. It’s just something very special,” he said.

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.