The WSOP Europe kicked off with arguably the toughest tournament of them all, the £2,500 H.O.R.S.E. event. More than a hundred (104) players bought into the mixed-game tournament and it was estimated that close to 100 WSOP bracelets were represented. It was a star-studded field to be sure and demanded a star-studded final table.

    The advantage was clearly with the Americans here. Not only are mixed games rarely played in Europe, stud and razz are unpopular and limit games are virtually unheard of (most dealer’s choice in Europe is pot-limit). Not only this, but none of the croupiers at the Empire Casino had ever dealt mixed games or limit games, so it was a very demanding opening event at the WSOP Europe.

    Yet to the surprise of everyone, the event went almost flawlessly. The dealers and tournament directors did a brilliant job and although there were disputes, there were no controversial decisions and it ran as smoothly as any mixed poker tournament possibly could. The dynamics were slightly different from the WSOP sister events – here eight hands of each game were played before the switch was made to the next, which meant that at any one time adjoining tables could be playing completely  different games.

    You had to really know poker to compete in this event, as five difficult games were played in rotation: hold’em, Omaha eight-or-better, razz, seven-card stud and stud eight-or-better. (For those who have never played razz, it’s seven-stud lowball.)     Although limit events are traditionally long affairs, this didn’t stop Marcel Luske from being eliminated in the first 30 minutes. Luske was very unhappy as he exited, complaining about the playing conditions in the Empire cardroom. Andy Black and Tony G were not too far behind him. Two players who outlasted the above despite not being there were Barry Greenstein and son Joe Sebok, who registered but never attended the event and slowly were blinded away.

    Fifty-one players remained at the end of Day 1 and plenty of familiar names were sitting near the top spot. Alexander Kravchenko, Scott Fischman, Annie Duke, John Juanda and Chris Ferguson were all near the leaders, just behind two well-respected U.S. players, Kirk Morrison and Jennifer Harman, who were top of the tree. Big names like Lee Watkinson, Gus Hansen, Allen Cunningham, Eli Elezra and Max Pescatori were still in the mix.

    They played down to a final table on Day 2 and Morrison and high-stakes Vegas “Big Game” player Harman picked up where they left off, finishing first and third in chips respectively. Little-known American Yuval Bronshtein had a good Day 1 also and was able to  consolidate his strong play by finishing second in chips. 2000 WSOP champ Chris Ferguson survived being a short stack for most of the day to come on strong and make the final table. He was joined by German Thomas Bihl, Hendon Mobster Joe Beevers, WSOP Main Event final tablist Alex Kravchenko of Russia and Gary Jones, a London pro with 35 cashes who lost a very big stack late in the day to Bronshtein.

      The final table looked like this: 

Seat 1: Jennifer Harman    204,000

Seat 2: Gary Jones    30,000

Seat 3: Joe Beevers    74,500

Seat 4: Kirk Morrison    172,500

Seat 5: Thomas Bihl    130,500

Seat 6: Yuval Bronshtein    185,500

Seat 7: Alex Kravchenko    114,500

Seat 8: Chris Ferguson    142,500

      When final table play began, Jones was quickly eliminated (by Ferguson) due to his very short stack. He went straight into the PLO event, which started the same day. His countryman Joe Beevers followed soon after during a round of Omaha when Morrision hit an ace-high flush to take him out. Bronshtein was the next player shown the door when during razz Bihl made a better low hand, and suddenly the very quiet Bihl had built himself a respectable stack.

    Omaha was clearly Morrison’s game and he was dishing out the bust-outs when that game came around. He flopped both a winning flush and a nut low to take out Kravchenko. This took him comfortably into the lead and  left a bracelet-loaded Morrison (limit stud), Ferguson (limit hold’em/stud, Omaha/8, no-limit hold’em, limit stud) and Harman (limit hold’em, no-limit deuce-to-seven lowball) to take on relative unknown Bihl.

    Ferguson never really got going at the final table and was eliminated in fourth place during stud when he failed to improve against Bihl’s rolled-up kings. What followed was quite frankly an epic battle between Bihl, Morrison and Harman, which saw all three players take and lose the chip lead until they were all even with around 300,000 each. Something had to give, and that something was Morrison. During a stud/8 hand with Harman he was unable to make a pair or a low to overcome Harman’s pair of jacks and left Bihl and Jennifer to contest the bracelet.

    Harman now had lots of chips and it looked like the Big Game specialist was a shoo-in to lift another bracelet against the little-known Internet player and blogger from Frankfurt, Germany, whose previous best cash was $24,000 for eighth at the MasterClassics in 2004.

      It was not to be a walk in the park, however, and the heads-up battle lasted more than three hours, with both players taking and squandering the chip lead.

    Finally, in the early hours of the morning, after relentlessly taking pot after pot from Harman, Thomas “Buzzer” Bihl captured the bracelet  during a hold’em hand when he made a 10-high straight to Harman’s two pair.

    Bihl became the first person to win a bracelet outside of America and the latest in a group of rising German stars to capture WSOP gold.                              

– Barry Carter



Italy Takes Pot-Limit Omaha Event – Tony G Is Second

Dario Alioto Made It Look Easy

If the H.O.R.S.E. event was expected to favour the Americans, the £5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha was surely weighted towards a European winner. PLO has always been tremendously popular in Europe, especially in places like Ireland, Holland and Italy. Not only did almost the entire field from the H.O.R.S.E. come back for the PLO, but a whole host of European circuit players joined the mix and a total of 156 players competed in the two-day event.

    Like the $10,000 PLO Championship in Vegas, players were allowed one rebuy or add-on each and it wasn’t long before players were reaching for their second bullet, especially after Jamie Gold trebled up on two players at his table, before he told them that this was the first time he has ever played a PLO tournament. True to his word, it wouldn’t be long before Gold was one of the early casualties of the event.

    The action was fast and by the end of the day we had a very juicy looking leader board. The overall chip leader was Tony G, just behind him were PLO specialist Dario Alioto, Eli Elezra, John Duthie, Rafi Amit, Andy Bloch and Roland De Wolfe. Four tables returned for the final day.

      When the action had played down to two tables the money bubble had broken and stars like De Wolfe, Ted Forrest, Amit and Tony G were looking certain to make the final table. Also making plenty of waves was Irish high-stakes PLO player David Callaghan and Italian Dario Alioto.

      The action was hectic and the survivors at the final table looked like this: 

Seat 1: Sampo Lopponen - 247,000

Seat 2: Tony G - 281,000

Seat 3: Sherkhan Farnood - 651,000

Seat 4: Istvan Novak - 480,000

Seat 5: Dario Alioto - 397,000

Seat 6: M H Razaghi - 153,000

Seat 7: Andy Bloch - 376,000

Seat 8: Dave Callaghan - 271,000

Seat 9: Antoine Arnault - 391,000

      Bloch, the only American at the table, was first to exit when he failed to outdraw Farnood’s pair of kings on a draw-heavy board. Farnood looked to be totally in control with his big stack but got involved in a big pot with Alioto – on a raggedy jack-high board, Alioto made an amazing call on the river holding only a pair of aces against Farnood’s flopped pair of jacks, and Farnood was out in sixth place.

    Alioto had his own way at the table from start to finish. Whenever he raised he got respect and whenever he made a call, it was the right one. Nobody seemed to want to stand up to him, and when they did, they got punished. Tony G was the other dominant entity at the table, mainly for his relentless and entertaining table talk. Tony was actually well-behaved throughout, and was at WSOPE as an ambassador for his Pokernews team, which provided live updates during the WSOPE.

    David O’Callaghan put on a great display for Ireland and was tremendously unlucky when he got all his money in the middle with A-K-K-5 against Alioto’s A-J-K-5, only for Alioto to river a broadway straight and add to his impressive chip stack.

    This left Tony G and Alioto to battle with Istan Novak of Hungary. It was looking like a Tony G vs. Alioto final was brewing, but Tony decided to take on the Italian holding Q-9-8-3« and got all his money in on a flop of Q-7-4. Alioto called with K-7-6«-5. Tony G remarked that it was virtually impossible for Alioto to lose, holding a pair, a straight and a flush draw. An eight on the river made the straight and G was sent to join his Pokernews staff on the rail.

    This hand gave Alioto a 7-1 chip lead over the relatively inactive Novak. Both men soon got the money in preflop: Alioto held A-K«-7-5 and Novak had A-Q-3-9. By the turn Alioto had made two pair with his seven and five and the bracelet was going to Italy. Alioto was congratulated on the rail by fellow Italian stars Max Pescatori and Dario Minieri.

    What was potentially a tough assignment actually looked like a piece of cake for Alioto. He never seemed to put a foot wrong at any time in the tournament. Tony G came onto the microphone at the presentation of the bracelet and told everyone that Alioto may just be the best in the world at this game.      It’s too early to say if that is the case but based on this final table, it’s hard to disagree with.                                          

– Barry Carter


Online Phenom Wins First WSOP Europe Main Event

18-Year-Old Beats the Best in Historic Event

by Barry Carter

Despite an ironic name (World Series of Poker Europe) there is no doubt that London was the only place serious poker players wanting to prove themselves on the world stage would be in September. The WSOPE was a veritable who’s who of poker and unlike its Vegas counterpart, there was very little value in this tournament for the up-and-coming player, such was the quality of the field.

      The £10,000 buy-in was essentially double the $10,000 Main Event at the WSOP and ensured that only the best in the world need apply. £10k is a burden on most poker players’ bankrolls and a considerable lack of satellites into the WSOPE left everyone wondering just how many players would buy in. Although prepared for nearly 1,000, all the smart money was placed between 300 and 400 and when the second hour of Day 1B had passed, it was announced that 362 players had entered the event with a cool £1 million (helped by an additional £62k from Betfair) going to the eventual winner.

    Two “first days” took place over three venues – The Empire, The Sportsman and Fifty London. The action played out as if they were three separate tournaments to begin with and with two-hour blind levels, one didn’t need to worry about one casino emptying early before they all rejoined for Day 2 at the Empire. The three concurrent events were all arranged superbly; in fact, the entire Series went with little hitch or controversy.

    It’s very hard to name-drop specific players from the 362 because there was literally not a table without at least one recognisable face on it. Every venue had bracelet winners, EPT and WPT champions amongst them. It would actually be quicker to mention those players who didn’t make it over – Phil Ivey, Mike Matusow, Sam Farha, Joe Hachem and Chris Moneymaker are probably the only ones we expected that were not there – other than that you can assume every other star of poker was at one of those three casinos.   

No More Magic for Bihl

The very first player to bust on Day 1A was actually WSOPE H.O.R.S.E. champion Thomas Bihl, who went bust when his pocket queens ran into Sarah Taylor’s quad sixes. Coincidently, it was another recent bracelet winner, Alan Smurfit, who was the first to go out on Day 1B. This was an equally sick hand where his pocket aces ran into the pocket aces of Dan Shak. Shak held the ace of diamonds, which completed a flush on the river to send Smurfit home.

    The Day 1 chip counts were mouth-watering for the poker enthusiast. An even balance of old–school pros and Internet stars were in the Top 10 at day’s end, with Ram Vaswani, Daniel Negreanu, Patrik Antonius, Annette Obrestad, Jon Turner and Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo all in the top spots. The chip leader overall was none other than 11-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, and it looked like history and destiny were working in conjunction to give fans a final table to die for.

    It was not to be, however, as the always vocal Hellmuth was unable to capitalise on his lead when he returned for Day 2A. (The players from Day 1A rejoined at the Empire for Day 2A and the players from 1B did likewise on Day 2B.) After losing a few big pots to Farzad Bonyadi, Hellmuth’s pocket sevens ran into Mark McClusky’s pocket jacks. Both men made a set on the flop and Hellmuth was crippled. He managed to survive the rest of the day on a short stack, but busted early on Day 3.  

Gus on a Bust-out Binge

The real story of Day 2 was the absolute dominance of Gus Hansen. He was at the featured table with Greg Raymer, Ram Vaswani and Jennifer Harman and went on a one-man busting spree. In one hand he took two players out holding just pocket sixes and went on to eliminate seven players from the featured table. “Do you realise you have busted everyone today?” Harman asked, the only person he didn’t felt from the table he started at.

      Another man often closely linked with Gus was putting on a clinic himself. Fellow Scandinavian heartthrob Patrik Antonius was to finish the day right behind Gus as second in the overall chip counts, impressing everyone with a similarly dominant performance.

      Maybe it was fate, but Gus, Patrik and a short-stacked Daniel Negreanu were to be seated together on Day 3 at the TV table. Most expected the eventual winner of this table to be the odds-on favourite to win the bracelet, what with the number of chips and the talent situated on it. As it played out, Negreanu busted shortly before the pay bubble but what was most surprising was the stalemate between Antonius and Hansen. It seemed inevitable that one would bust the other, but instead they fought each other to a standoff, both ending the day pretty much the same as they started it.

    Thirty–six places paid at the WSOPE main event and it was a bubble like no other, with 36th place paying nearly £30,000. In most tournaments, the bottom pay spots get a very small return on investment, not triple the buy-in, and the payouts didn’t change very much from the bubble until the final table.

      The bubble was surprisingly tight, and there was a very cruel 38th-place bust-out when young Internet qualifier Joe Le was eliminated set over set. The eventual bubble boy was the very unlucky and exceptionally nice Jeff Buffenbarger. Buffenbarger also went out on the bubble this year in the $1,500 Limit Hold’em event at the Rio and took it with surprisingly good grace when he exited holding pocket aces.   

Scandinavians Make a Move

When the smoke cleared on Day 3, Theo Jorgensen was amongst a pack of dominating Scandinavians leading the pack, a group which also included online phenom Annette “Annette_15” Obrestad, Gus Hansen, Oyvin Riisen and Aleksander Vanthe. The hopes of a hometown champion were lifted by online qualifier and overall chip leader Dominic Kay, as well as UK circuit favourite Karl Mahenholz and poker trader John Tabatabai.

    Patrik Antonius was the first player to bust on the penultimate day when he fell at the hands of Magnus Persson. The biggest mover of the day was undoubtedly John Tabatabai, who went from short stack to one of the leaders at the end of the day. Londoner Tabatabai impressed everyone with his loose “any two will do” style, which was the eventual downfall of Gus Hansen.

    Tabatabai was moved to the right of Hansen towards the end of the day and was literally fighting to get into pots with him. He was reraising Hansen, flipping over bluffs and showing no fear at all. By the time we were down to the final table of ten, Tabatabai had amassed a huge stack and a weakened Hansen went out in tenth when his pocket queens ran into Matthew McCullough’s kings.

    So the final table was set with three Brits, one American and five Scandinavians:  

Seat 1: Johannes Korsar (Uppsala, Sweden)    1,134,000

Seat 2: Oyvind Riisem (Bergen, Norway)    664,000

Seat 3: John Tabatabai (London, UK)    982,000

Seat 4: Annette Obrestad (Sandnes, Norway)    697,000 

Seat 5: Dominic Kay (London, UK)    490,000

Seat 6: Matthew McCullough (Cherry Hill, NJ)    1,278,000

Seat 7: Theo Jorgensen (Copenhagen, Denmark)    605,000

Seat 8: Magnus Persson (Gothenburg, Sweden)    1,231,000

Seat 9: James Keys (Bury St. Edmunds, UK)    172,000

       The only two household names at the table were Norway’s Annette “Annette_15” Obrestad and Sweden’s Theo Jorgenson, who at 35 was actually the oldest player at the table by about five years. Little was known about online qualifiers James Keys and Dominic Kay, but Tabatabai is a well-known online poker trader in these parts.

    Unsurprisingly, the very short-stacked James Keys was out almost as soon as he sat down, but the shock exit of Theo Jorgensen came soon after when he reraised Tabatabai holding pocket tens against John’s pocket kings. Tabatabai was suddenly a massive chip leader and had an army of fans cheering him on from the rails.

    Just behind him was Matthew McCullough, an unknown American player. By sharp contrast with Tabatabai, McCullough was a very solid player and made his way to the final table by doing little more than playing his strong hands aggressively. Between them, loose-aggressive Tabatabai and tight-aggressive McCullough took out all the players at the final table until the action became three-handed. Obrestad was the third wheel and had survived by taking down a series of uncontested pots after the action got short-handed.

    The battle of TAG vs. LAG  finally came to a head when McCullough and Tabatabai went to a flop of J-6-3. Raise from McCullough, reraise from Tabatabai, all-in from McCullough followed by a call. Matthew held J-8 for top pair and a flush draw while Tabatabai, who had him very much covered, held A-6 for middle pair. An ace peeled on the turn and with no help on the river McCullough went out in third place.  

Three Hours of Heads-Up

This created what was expected to be a “blink and you’ll miss it” finale – two young, fearless, hyper-aggressive players both vying for World Series gold. What actually took place was a tentative chess match that lasted nearly three hours. It was small-pot poker, where both players played each other to a stalemate, with Annette, if anything, taking more control.

    It would take a big hand to finish this heads-up match and that is what happened. Tabatabai limped on the button, Obrestad reraised him, he called and they saw a flop of 7-6-5. All the money got in the middle and Tabatabai showed 5-6« for bottom two pair, while Obrestad showed pocket sevens for top set. Tabatabai needed a miracle to beat Annette, who had him covered by the slightest of margins, but even so she could not look as the cards were dealt and victory was hers.

    Annette “Annette_15” Obrestad broke down in tears as she was proclaimed the first WSOP Europe main event champion and was literally speechless when anyone tried to interview her. Despite being one of the most prolific online tournament players in the world, this was only her fourth live cash, having only turned 18 last year. Ironically,  she will not be able to defend her title  in Vegas for another two years. Meanwhile, she is £1 million richer.

    The fact that a talented 18-year-old girl has won a testosterone-fuelled tournament occupied only by the world elite could have a monumental impact on the landscape of poker – perhaps the biggest one since Chris Moneymaker won the Big One in 2003. Only if a legend such as Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan or Phil Hellmuth took this one down could it have been bigger news.

      One onlooker congratulated her for being the first female to win a WSOP main event – which is something of a controversial compliment. Obrestad is one of the best Internet multi-table tourney players in the world right now and is already a legend online. Now to suddenly take down an event of this magnitude at age 18 is almost beyond belief.

    She has proved her ability on the world stage – her gender is irrelevant, her talent undeniable. The only thing uncertain is her future, but it will be interesting to watch.