It has been a fantastic festive of poker in London in the past week or so and while it may seem that the focus now falls on the Irish and Guinness drinkers to celebrate St Patrick’s Day, there will be plenty of big poker players celebrating a brilliant time in London. There was an awful lot of money up for grabs over the course of the different events and tournaments and of course, there was an awful lot of praise and adulation being bestowed upon the big tournament winners.
The player who walks with the highest praise is Ruben Visser. Visser held his nerve and clinched the 2013 PokerStars EPT London Main Event. In doing so, he becomes the 5th Dutch nationalist to taste success in an EPT event and the student may find that paying for the rest of his tuition becomes slightly easier from here on in. This is down to fact that not only does Visser get a great trophy and a lot of praise; he manages to walk away with a prize of £595,000. It had been a tough number of days and there were 7 hard opponents to get beyond at the final table but the 24 year old poker player can look back on his time in London with a great degree of pride and satisfaction.
Big poker event goes Dutch
Two UK poker players managed to make it through to the final 8 but unfortunately for the home crowd, these were the first two players eliminated from the final showdown. Chris Moorman was a surprise early departure but his showing still managed to earn him £57,000. Next to go was Tamer Kamel, whose 7th placed finish earned him £79,950.
Other finishers include the German Christopher Frank who earned £112,000 for his sixth placed finish. In fifth place was Steve O’Dwyer and the American earned £146,000. In fourth place was the Dane Theo Jorgensen who received £183,000 and in third was Sweden’s Olof Haglund, who picked up £427,564. The unlucky runner up was Mantas Visockis from Lithuania who received £377,463 for his valiant efforts.
The EPT will take a brief rest now but it won’t be long until it is back in the swing of things and the next stop is scheduled for Berlin. The festival of poker in Berlin begins on the 17th of April but the main EPT tournament dates take place between April the 21st and April the 27th. There will be plenty of other poker games and opportunities taking place between now and then but as the EPT holds a special place in the hearts of many players, you can bet that there will be plenty of poker players counting down the days to this upcoming event.
One of the big draws about online poker is that it can help you to be someone that you are really not. There is no doubt that a lot of people love the fact that they can put on a persona or use an avatar when playing online poker to give them a certain edge or change their feelings about themselves when they player. Playing online poker can require people to be more aggressive or confident than they usually are in their everyday life and there is no doubt that the anonymous element of playing poker online helps people to become the poker player that they want to be.
There are some poker players that focus purely on one poker discipline and this is a very sensible strategy. After all, if you have been blessed with a special talent and then you work hard to improve and maintain your talents, why shouldn’t you make the most of it. However, with so many different poker games and disciplines, some players aer keen to develop their skills across the board. This can be for fun, it can be done to get one over on your friends or if you are Ville Wahlbeck, you can improve your varied poker skills to give you a better chance of winning big money.
As the almighty Pulp sang back in the early to mid-1990s, “Do you remember the first time?” and this is certainly a question that people love to answer. There is often nothing like the exhilarating rush of adrenaline and happiness when you do something for the first time and you can bet that Griffin Benger will be feeling very happy with himself this week. This is down to the fact that the triumph during Event Number 13 at the EPT9 London was the first time that Griffin Benger ever managed to win a major live poker tournament.
Women have to stick together these days, especially when they are taking part in a male dominated environment. There are still plenty of men that stick to an old school belief that women have no business playing poker in the major tournaments but thankfully these opinions are dying down. They are still around but the outspoken and outdated opinions are becoming quieter as the weeks, months and years pass. The only thing that a poker player should be judged on is their talent but that is not quite the world we live in!
When it comes to delivering a perfect poker finish, you should be able to rely on a Finnish person and that was definitely the case for Event #11 at the EPT9 London event. There was a buy-in of £2,100 for the event but given that there was as total prize pool of £114,460, there was certainly a lot for the 59 players to get excited about. The top 8 players all got a fine return for the involvement in the event but it was Lauri Pesonen that triumphed.
The other finishes in the top with went to Marc-Andrew Ladouceur from Canada, who took home a prize of just over £8,000. In sixth place was Sam Greenwood from Canada who claimed £5,720. In seventh place was the Kuwaiti poker player Salman Behbehani who received just over £5,000 for his efforts. There was UK representation in 8th place as Roberto Romanello claimed £4,580.
No matter the activity, any competition that pits the best against the best is well worth watching. Football fans have the Champions League and the World Cup, X has Y and when it comes to poker, a great battle of the champions took place on Monday evening in London. The UKIPT Champion of Champions event took place and the grand winner was the Welsh wizard Richard Evans. Evans booked his place amongst the best players due to succeeding in the UKIPT Dublin event back in May of last year. That seems like such a long time ago but Evans proved that he has consistency in his poker play by triumphing once again when the chips were down… on the table.
While the 
We all live busy lives these days and that is why it is great to have so many options available around the clock. Some people work shifts that sees them having leisure time when most of the country is fast asleep, some people have responsibilities that limit their free time and let’s face it, some people much prefer the night time to the day time. Online casinos and 
When it comes to names like Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor and Raymond van Barneveld, darts is obviously the activity that springs to mind. These two heavyweights have been at the top of the darts game for decades and when they face off against each other, there is always something worth looking out for. The two have had their disagreements in their time with both making complaints to each other about their attitude and behaviour but they always seem to fall back into friendship. When it comes to their sporting rivalry, they will have a lot to fight over but at the moment, it seems as though the two are on a good level with respect to respect!
Also on the bill alongside two current darts legends is major darts legend and reality TV star Eric Bristow. For those who grew up with the golden era of darts in the 1970s and 80s, Eric Bristow remains one of the biggest heroes you can find in the world of darts. This means that there should be an excited and noisy crowd at the event with the poker event being a huge attraction on a night which should be filled with fun and excitement.