The Dublin-born States star – who now lives in San Francisco – somehow managed to last all two days of the event as many of the world’s best players came and went, leaving the 39-year-old as the one constant throughout.

Laak – a one-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) champion – showed incredible stamina to perform so impressively in Austria as the likes of Sorel Mizzi (-€30,000), Team PokerStars Pros Jonathan Duhamel (-€30,000) and Eugene Katchalov (-€8,175), Team PartyPoker Pros Mike Sexton (-€40,425) and Tony G (-€8,000), Scott Seiver (€16,200), Roberto Romanello (€25,100), Alec Torelli (-€28,400), JP Kelly (€43,050), Sam Trickett (€19,925), Samuel Chartier (-€29,950) and Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates (-€83,250) appeared then left the marathon game.

‘The Unabomber’ Celebrates With a Cheeseburger!

However, while delighted to have enjoyed such an incredible 48 hours, Laak did appear ready to hit the hay when speaking to the PartyPoker blog team, saying: “Now it’s time for a cheeseburger. I haven’t eaten in five hours so I’m a little hungry – and I haven’t slept in 50 so I’m a lot tired.”

Laak was left a little disappointed, though, that he was unable to best Tony G’s biggest profit record from London last year, when the Lithuanian-Australian secured £150,400.

The California-based pro said: “Last year Tony G won £150,400, so this year I won €162,100. But the equivalent amount of euros today from what he won in pounds is €183,000. So, in some senses, he won more money.”

Still, Laak isn’t once for slumping into a depression over missing out on the record, adding: “But you can maybe argue that I won more big blinds – because I did! I won more big blinds, but he won more money just because it so happened that their (Britain’s) currency was more powerful than this currency.”

Laak Happy With His ‘Guesses’

In fact, while saying: “So I guess it’s a bad beat that I didn’t get to play in London, huh”, Laak was also quick to point out that “the truth is I ran way above EV (expected value) and a lot of my guesses were right, so that worked out”.

The likeable pro also provided viewers – who were able to see players’ hole cards via the live web stream broadcast, as well as vote competitors off the table – with numerous highlights throughout the two days, including an error when he mucked the winning hand against Englishman Andy Moseley (who was the second biggest winner with €96,050 profit).

That mistake, which saw Laak muck A♣ 6♥ on a 2♣ 10♠ 2♦ 6♦ J♠ board, cost Laak €60,000 as his hand beat out Moseley’s A♥ K♥ – which he showed, much to the frustration of the American.

Daniel Cates is Biggest Loser

The biggest loser was Maryland’s Cates, who finished his time at the table down by €83,250, although the 22-year-old’s losses won’t bother him too much as he picked up $300,000 for finishing as runner-up to Las Vegas-based Seiver in the $125,000 buy-in PartyPoker Premier League V a few days earlier.

Romanian Ignat ‘0human0’ Liviu – who has been making a name for himself online these past few years with winnings of almost $2.5 million from high-stakes cash games – managed to leave the event with €33,075 profit, displaying an aggressive style of play while also showing his ability to make well-timed laydowns.

Meanwhile, Woking’s Moseley took home €96,050 before having to catch a flight back to England, but not before he took a huge pot against fellow Englishman Trickett.

Andy Moseley Takes Down Huge Pot

While 25-year-old Titan Poker Pro Trickett managed to do well against Moseley in smaller pots, the latter picked up €63,000 in their biggest clash when his K♠ 5♠ overcame his opponent’s Q♠ 2♠.

Moseley check-raised on the 3♣ A♠ 8♠ flop, for Trickett to make the call before the Q♦ arrived on the turn. Moseley checked, only for Trickett to bet €4,200. The former made the call and the 4♠ came on the river – ensuring that there was action with both having secured a spade flush.

Moseley casually checked the nut flush, suckering Trickett into betting €12,100 before the former raised that to €23,300. Trickett was straight out of his seat, stating that he was regretting not checking back with his queen-high flush.

He then talked himself through the hand, notably realising that Moseley would only check-raise if he had a king-high flush or better. However, despite being correct, Trickett could not fold his hand and instead called to see Moseley take the massive pot.

Profits or Losses Made By Players in the PartyPoker Big Game

• Scott Baumstein (USA) – €6,450
• Todirita Catalina (Austria) – -€30,000
• Daniel ‘Jungleman’ Cates (USA) – -€83,250
• Samuel Chartier (Canada) – -€29,950
• Jozef Cibicek (Slovakia) – €6,450
• Sasa Dobrijevic (Serbia) – -€5,000
• Jonathan Duhamel (Canada) – -€30,000
• Damik G – -€20,000
• Tony G (Lithuania) – -€8,000
• Vladimir Geshkenbein (Russia) –  -€15,000
• Marc Gork (Germany) – -€15,000
• Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier (France) – €8,925
• John Kabbaj (UK) – €4,300
• Iliodoros Kamatakis (Greece) – -€7,500
• Dominykas Karmazinas (Lithuania) – €12,775
• Eugene Katchalov (Ukraine) – -€8,175
• JP Kelly (UK) – €43,050
• Yusuf Kurt (Turkey) – -€10,000
• Phil ‘The Unabomber’ Laak (USA) – €160,100
• Ignat Liviu (Romania) – €33,075
• Sorel Mizzi (Canada) – -€30,000
• Andy Moseley (UK) – €96,050
• Daniel Neilson (Australia) – -€20,000
• Roberto Romanello (UK) – €25,100
• Bodo Sbrzesny (Germany) – -€5,000
• Scott Seiver (USA) – €16,200
• Mike Sexton (USA) – -€40,425
• Chris Sly (UK) – -€6,000
• Alec Torelli (USA) – -€28,400
• Sam Trickett (UK) – €19,925
• Saar Wilf (Israel) – -€10,000
• Basil Yaiche (France) – -€30,000

Incredibly Baguley won his seat to the £700.00 + £70.00 buy-in Main Event by entering a £100.00 live satellite at the Dusk till Dawn last week – the only venue at which he has ever recorded a live poker tournament cash – and his victory in the UKIPT Main Event eclipses his previous biggest cash of £370.00 in last April´s Monte Carlo.

The Wheels Fall Off the Ahmed Train

Long time tournament leader, Iqbal Ahmed, had started the day with a commanding advantage over Baguley and the remaining six players from a total field of 1,626 entrants. However, he started leaking chips very quickly from the off – allowing Baguley to double up with a turned set of 9♠ and then doubling up Hasmukh Khodiyara (A♥ K♦) when putting Khodiyara all-in while holding 8♣ 10♥.

Barry McMahon was then next player to benefit from Ahmed´s generosity, when his A♣ Q♣ hit trips on the flop to master Ahmed´s 9♥ 9♣ and within 90 minutes Iqbal Ahmed had gone from chip leader to short-stack. His climb back up the leaderboard was slow and laboured, with only a double up against Khodiyara taking him off the bottom of the pack.

Senior, Cummings and Woodward First to Depart

Ian Senior – much to the disappointment of his “Senior Citizens” fan club – was the first player to depart when his Q♥ Q♣ was coolered by Grant Pirie´s K♣ K♠. Pocket Kings was also the winning hand that saw the demise of James Cummings (K♠ J♥) in seventh at the hands of Nick Woodward, but Woodward was the next player to leave the table – again against pocket Kings.

Before departing, Nick Woodward had doubled up Iqbal Ahmed when his J♥ J♦ failed to hold against Ahmed´s A♣ Q♥ and, with only a handful of big blinds in front of him, he called Grant Pirie´s pre-flop raise with Kings while holding 10♠ 5♠. The board was completely devoid of spades and Woodward was out in sixth.

Ahmed Takes Out Three Players in the Space of Ten Hands

With his resurgent chip stack, the game rolled back in favour of Iqbal Ahmed. First he came from behind with Q♥ 7♣ to knock out both Barry McMahon (A♠ 6♠) and Hasmukh Khodiyara (K♣ 9♣) in the same hand, and then called Grant Pirie´s (A♠ 7♣) shove with his own A♦ J♥ to take a 2:1 chip advantage over Robert Baguley into the heads-up.

Baguley had his own ideas about how the game was going to conclude and within two hands he had assumed the chip lead – first forcing a fold from Ahmed with a post-turn shove and then catching trip 7s to take Ahmed for 5 million chips. Another post-turn shove forced a further expensive Ahmed fold and, when the heads-up had been in progress for exactly one hour, it was all over.

With blinds of 100,000/200,000, Robert Baguley opened to 450,000 and Ahmed shoved all-in. Baguley made the call and was ahead pre-flop.

Baguley              A♥ 10♦

Ahmed                J♥ 7♠

The flop of 10♥ 4♠ 6♦ only cemented Baguley´s lead and the 6♠ on the turn and K♣ on the river provided no help to Ahmed at all. Robert Baguley was the King of Nottingham and winner of £210,400.

UKIPT Nottingham Season Three Final Places and Prizes

Of the 1,626 players who took part in the UKIPT Nottingham Main Event, 207 paid a visit to the cashier´s desk. A total of £1,137,500 was paid out in prize money with the biggest earners being –

Saturday – Ahmed´s Roll Starts Early of Day 2 and keeps on Rolling

Okay, so the table did not collapse, but at one point the young Ahmed had so many chips in front of him that he had to eliminate the two players either side of him to give some himself some elbow room. His incredible Day 2 on Saturday saw him climb from mid-leaderboard respectability to complete the day with 1,580,000 chips – twice that of his nearest competitor and five times the average chip count.

Ahmed started by busting out Milorad Dobrijevic in a A♦ Q♥ -v- A♠ 9♣ race, and then took full advantage of a rash of short-stacked shoves after the bubble burst to chip up, before eliminating Day 1A chip leader Marcin Milde with his 10♣ 10♦ holding against Milde´s A♥ Q♠.

Just prior to eliminating Ingimar Einarsson with pocket Kings against Big Slick, Ahmed knocked out the players to his left and right in a Jack´s versus sixes (Martin Rottem Dahle) versus eights (Surindar Sunar) race and, in the very next hand Ahmed´s pocket Aces held against Arrash Zafari´s pocket Tens for yet another elimination.

Sunday – More of the Same from Ahmed

Day 3 of the UKIPT Nottingham Main Event started in a similar fashion to Day 2. While 75 of the 76 remaining players considered breaching the 1 million chip mark, Ahmed was already coasting towards a 3 million chip stack after eliminating Nathan Kiely with a backdoor straight against Kiely´s K♣ K♦ and tripping over Jack´s against Michael Howard.

Tripped Queens against Przemek Piotrowski took Ahmed over the four million chip barrier, two sizeable pots against Chris Brammer helped him get over five million chips and the elimination of Scott Van Der Vliet with A♣ Q♣ against Van Der Vliet´s A♠ 8♦ saw Ahmed´s chip stack increase to more than six million – more than a quarter of the chips in play.

Despite taking a knock when James Cummings´ pocket 6´s held against Ahmed´s A♠ K♠, the Londoner recovered his lost chips with interest when busting out Chris Brammer in eleventh with A♥ Q♣ -v- K♠ Q♥ to finish the day with 6,680,000 chips – a lead of 48 big blinds over his nearest competitor, Ian Senior, and nearly a third of the chips in play.

Monday – Will the Wheels Fall Off The Ahmed Train?

Play in the final day of the UKIPT Nottingham starts at 2.00pm at the Dusk till Dawn Club, with each of the eight players remaining still in with a chance of capturing the £210,400 record breaking first prize. Undoubtedly Iqbal Ahmed holds a commanding position at the top of the leaderboard, but the destination of the winner´s cheque may be determined by who can play the most patient game after five days of action which have seen the elimination of 1618 UKIPT hopefuls.

Chip Counts for UKIPT Nottingham Final Table

Did Somebody Mention Records?

Yesterday we suggested that the £1 million guaranteed prize pool would be sufficient to break a few records and indeed one has already gone. The combined total of players that have qualified for the event or paid the £700.00 + £70.00 buy-in directly is currently 1090 – surpassing the record for a UKIPT Main Event of 1058 with one day of entries still to go. With an anticipated entry of 500+ for Friday, it would also be fair to guess that the guarantee is going to be smashed and a record prize pool announced for a UKIPT event.

Top Players Join the Fray

As with Day 1A, plenty of top live and online poker players joined the action – some with more success than others. UKIPT Brighton Season 1 winner Jamie Burland successfully negotiated a tricky day, as did UKIPT Brighton Season 2 champion Chris O’Donnell. David Rudling-Smith, who finished sixth in Brighton in Season 2, was riding high when the final hands were dealt (there must be something in the sea air on the South Coast) and Team PokerStars online player Mickey “mement_mori” Petersen will also be returning on Saturday.

It was not such a successful day for Dusk till Dawn´s Simon “Aces” Deadman, PokerStars Team pro Victor Ramdin or EPT Vienna winner John Eames who all hit the rail before the end of the day. Warren Wooldridge was kicking himself after getting into a good position with two calls against flopped quad 7s and his disappointed was compounded by Mrs Wooldridge commenting on his return home “so you couldn´t even make Day 2!” (courtesy of Twitter @warrenw26).

Looking Ahead to UKIPT Nottingham Day 1C

Effectively, expect more of the same. More than 500 players will take their seats, the leader at 1.00am on Saturday morning will have somewhere between 225,000 and 275,000 chips and plenty of well-known poker celebrities will be having a go at taking down what will be a record first prize for a UKIPT Main Event. Among those scheduled to take part in Day 1C are Liv Boeree and Vicki Coren, and you can read how they both performed on UK Poker Player.

No Overlay Expected!

The first of the three Day 1s saw 500 registered players and 32 “alternatives” (players who are allowed to enter once others have been eliminated during the early rounds) take their seats – each having qualified through PokerStars online UKIPT satellites or paid the £700.00 + £70.00 to get a seat.

If these numbers are repeated on Thursday and Friday (and the word from the club is that the two days are already sold out), the total prize pool could reach £1.2 million – generating a first prize of over £200,000 which would eclipse the £109,000 won by Gareth Walker at last year´s UKIPT Nottingham Main Event.

Incidentally, the current record number of entrants for any UKIPT event (including the EPT London Finals) is also held by the UKIPT Nottingham. 1058 players qualified or paid for their seats in 2011, and guessimates suggest that this year´s total will be closer to 1,600!

News from UKIPT Nottingham Day 1A

Whereas many Day 1A´s are dour events, relatively poorly attended and the leaders end the day with half the chip stacks of the top performers from other opening days, the UKIPT Nottingham Day 1A was a packed event, with tons of action and plenty of well-known faces among the players.

In addition to Gareth Walker, the UKIPT Nottingham champion from 2010 – Andrew Couldridge – took his seat, and they were joined by UKIPT regulars Sinem Melin (5th UKIPT Brighton), Jamie Dale (3rd UKIPT Edinburgh) and Raj Verma (2nd UKIPT Newcastle).

Pieter de Korver – the former EPT Grand Final champion – Keith Johnson, who won Eureka Prague and Kevin Iacofano who final tabled both the EPT Copenhagen (4th, February 2011) and EPT London (6th, September 2011) were also among notable names taking their chance at the massive prizepool.

Chip Counts from UKIPT Nottingham Day 1A

Unfortunately neither Gareth Watson nor Andrew Couldridge will be showing up on Saturday for Day 2 of the UKIPT Nottingham as both were eliminated before the close of the day. However, 100 players survived the eleven levels of play, with UK poker player Marcin Milde holding a substantial advantage and creating a target for the players taking their seats for Days 1B and 1C.

The Dublin stop of the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT) has been cancelled because of “unforeseen circumstances”, according to a message on the tour’s official website.

The May 6 to 13 fifth leg of the GUKPT – which was to be held at the Irish capital city’s Regency Airport Hotel – has left organisers “very disappointed”, although there is still a chance that a new date might be found for a stop on the Emerald Isle later this season.

Grosvenor Casinos head of poker Russell Tamplin said: “We are very disappointed that this new leg of the popular GUKPT has been called off. We have been trying to resolve the issues, but now know that they cannot be settled in time for the May dates.”

However, as some players will have already qualified online for the Dublin leg, the GUKPT have decided that they “will have the opportunity to play in a different leg” of the tour.

Dublin Qualifiers Offered Refund

These disappointed players should also note that they can exchange their GUKPT Dublin package for an event of equivalent value or take the opportunity to accept a cash refund that will be placed in their account.

With the Dublin event cancelled, the fifth stop on this year’s tour will now pull into Belgian town Blankenberge from June 3 to 11. This stop will include a €1,000+€70 No-Limit Hold’em main event that starts on June 7 for the first of two Day 1 streams.

Before then, however, the GUKPT arrives in Stockton-on-Tees – up in north-east England – on Sunday for an eight-day tournament until the 15th. This third leg of the tour is to include a £500+£50 Deep Stack main event from the 13th to the 15th.

Thereafter, the fourth leg arrives in Thanet – in the south-east of England – just a week later for another eight days from April 22 to 29, and is set to include a £500+£50 Six-Max main event that will run from the 27th to the 29th.

Englishman Albert Sapiano has picked up £48,560 – as well as a £1,600 Grand Final seat – for taking down the £400+£30 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em main event during leg 2 of the Genting Poker Series (GPS) at London’s Fox Poker Club.

An incredible 580 players signed up for the £100,000 guaranteed tournament, making a prize pool of £232,000 – or $368,658 – to easily surpass the expectations of organisers at the Shaftesbury Avenue venue.

But it was Sapiano – a Palm Beach regular – who collected the top prize of £50,160 after he outlasted the field to eventually see of fellow Englishman Callum Smith in the heads-up clash that left the runner-up with £32,940 as a consolation prize.

Sapiano certainly didn’t have it easy as he also had to overcome the likes of Kirit Patel, Robin Dhinsa and Ghassan Chehbi to set up his head-to-head with Smith.

Champion Gets Lucky Early in Heads-Up Clash

Once Patel had been eliminated in third for £23,200, Sapiano found himself with a 2 to 1 chip deficit to Smith, but got very lucky when his A-7 overcame his opponent’s Big Slick to take the lead.

In fact, Sapiano was champion after just 10 hands of heads-up play when he called Smith’s all-in shove from the small blind.

Smith initially made it an additional 475,000 to see the flop, which Sapiano called ford the dealer to reveal K♣ Q♥ J♥. Sapiano then bet 400,000 and Smith called to see the 8s on the turn.

Sapiano then moved all-in with Smith making the call for the former to place K-10 on the table to hold top pair and the latter to show A-Q for second pair. The 6♠ river was no good to Smith – who had done amazingly well to battle back from two big blinds midway through the nine-handed final table – and Sapiano was declared the champion.

English Players Dominate Top 10

Places four to 10 were filled by Englishman Dhinsa (fourth for £18,560), Scotsman Neil McCulloch (fifth for £14,500), another home player in Stephen Hollinshead (sixth for £11,600), Polish player Elzbieta Biesse-Piechota (seventh for £9,280) and English trio James Thomson (eighth for £6,960), Chehbi (ninth for £4,640) and Simon Randall (10th for £3,480).

Other notable in-the-money finishers included Surinder Sunar (53rd for £770), GPS leg one champion from Birmingham, Russian Ruslan Vlasov, in 34th for £970, and recent UK Omaha Series £500 buy-in Pot-Limit main event champion David Lloyd (12th for £2,320).

A total of 60 places were paid out, with Scotsman Stewart Barrie filling the final spot for £770.

Edinburgh is Next Stop on GPS

The third leg of the GPS arrives in Scotland for a five-day stop in Edinburgh’s Genting Club Fountain Park from Wednesday, May 30, until Sunday, June 3, before moving on to Stoke, Sheffield – all with £400+£30 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em main events – and London’s Palm Beach Casino for the Grand Final in early December. This final leg of the tour will offer a £1,500+£100 buy-in main event.

There is also an online event planned from Thursday, September 27, to Sunday the 30th, which will also have a £400+£30 buy-in main event.

Meanwhile, the next major event to be staged at the Fox Poker Club will be the London Calling festival, which will reach a climax with a £500+£40 buy-in main event that kicks off at 14:00 BST (British Summer Time) on Saturday.

Genting Poker Series Leg 2 Fox Poker Club Main Event Results

1. Albert Sapiano (England) – £48,560 plus £1,600 Grand Final Seat ($79,706)

2 Callum Smith (England) – £32,940 ($52,343)

3. Kirit Patel (England) – £23,200 ($36,866)

4. Robin Dhinsa (England) – £18,560 ($29,493)

5. Neil McCulloch (Scotland) – £14,500 ($23,041)

6. Stephen Hollinshead (England) – £11,600 ($18,433)

7. Elzbieta Biesse-Piechota (Poland) – £9,280 ($14,746)

8. James Thomson (England) – £6,960 ($11,060)

9. Ghassan Chehbi (England) – £4,640 ($7,373)

10. Simon Randall (England) – £3,480 ($5,530)

Gtech G2 – owners of the International Poker Network – have announced that they are launching a revised poker client that will be network´s first full-feature poker client for Mac.

The latest software release – Poker 8.0 – will enable Mac poker players to gain access to all game types, tournaments and cash tables, and introduces keyboard shortcuts which will be compatible with Mac hardware.

Another major change in the software update allows players who make the final table in selected MTTs to accept a deal automatically proposed to them as them final table is seated. This “Tournament Deal” feature will be available at all buy-ins, and tournaments in which this feature will be active will be marked in the tournament lobby by a special icon. A new player rating system and hand replay option are also included in the software release.

Good News for Boss Site Players

The release of the new poker software for Mac will be good news for players who have been competing on Dusk Till Dawn Poker, Virgin Poker and Yahoo (UK) Poker, and who have had to play through a Windows emulator or settle for the “Instant Play” version of the software. It may even attract more players to a network which has fighting against a significant decline in its cash player database over the last twelve months.

Announcing the software upgrade, Dominic Mansour – Gtech G2´s Vice president of Product Management – said “We are absolutely delighted to be launching Poker 8.0, the market’s first full-feature poker client for both PC and Mac. The developments on the latest version of our poker product have all been designed with a core aim of improving the player experience and we are very satisfied with the results.”

Poker 8.0 for Windows and Mac is now live on the International Poker Network.

Bookmark us, to stay informed of the latest UK poker news.

Rumours are rife that Laurent Tapie is ready to relaunch Full Tilt Poker in Europe within the next few weeks after it was claimed the Groupe Bernard Tapie (GBT) managing director had relocated to Dublin.

Many might wonder what the significance is of such a move for the GBT exec. Well, PocketKings – Full Tilt Poker’s parent company – are based in the Irish capital city, as stressed in a PocketFives article detailing the claims from an unnamed source, so appearing to give credence to the assertions.

While the initial deadline for GBT to complete the deal to purchase Full Tilt has passed, an extension from the US Department of Justice (DoJ) has been put in place – and it appears Tapie is spending several days every week making moves for the relaunch of the beleaguered poker room that once held second position among the world’s biggest sites, behind PokerStars.

If GBT do manage to buy Full Tilt, they will be responsible for paying back all the poker room’s non-American customers, while the DoJ will reimburse US players.

Groupe Bernard Tapie ‘Finalising The Deal’

In the article on the online poker forum and rankings site, it is claimed that the deal is almost completed and that GBT’s focus is now on reviving the poker room as the one-year anniversary of Black Friday approaches.

Of course, April 15 of last year was a momentous occasion as the DoJ took down  a lot of poker sites, including Full Tilt, PokerStars and Absolute Poker.

However, it now looks likely that Full Tilt will once again be open for custom in the near future as a source stated that GBT “are finalising the deal” with the DoJ, while stressing that “it’s a done deal” and that the French investment company are preparing to “re-open Full Tilt Poker in Europe”.

Source Claims ‘Deal Should Be Signed Next Week’

In fact, the source was so confident of the transaction being completed that he added “the deal should be signed next week”. Now, that doesn’t give Tapie much time to have the site ready for its relaunch – and it will be interesting to see what the poker room will be named after the Full Tilt brand has been so seriously damaged.

However, another insider who, it is claimed, is close to negotiations later spoke to PocketFives and seemed to counter those original assertions by pointing out that no purchase was imminent when saying “it is anybody’s guess” when the deal will be completed.

We will, of course besides from the usual UK Poker, bring you latest news on GBT’s potential purchase of Full Tilt Poker. So maybe it’s best to bookmark our site for an easy return.

The line-up for the forthcoming PartyPoker.com Premier League Poker V has just become even more impressive after Ukrainian duo Yevgeniy Timoshenko and Eugene Katchalov were announced as the latest additions to the $125,000 buy-in event in Vienna.

The USA-based Europeans will face up to the likes of Patrik Antonius, Erik Seidel, Andy Frankenberger, Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst, Team Party Poker Pro Tony G, Sam Trickett, Luke ‘FullFlush’ Schwartz, Daniel ‘Jungleman’ Cates, Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan and Phil ‘The Unabomber’ Laak during the April 4 to 10 event in the Austrian capital city’s Montesino Casino. That really is an exciting list of names for the 16-player event – and will surely provide poker fans with many thrills and spills as the tournament progresses, although it was disappointing to hear that poker superstar Phil Hellmuth has chosen not to make the journey to Europe for the competition.

Katchalov ‘Excited’ to Make Line-Up

Certainly, one-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Katchalov – who is now living in New York – can’t wait to get playing against some of the world’s best poker pros, telling the PartyPoker Blog: “I’m very happy and excited to be able to play the PartyPoker Premier League Event this year.
“From what I’ve heard and read, it’s a unique and fun structured event that will have some tough competition but I’m sure will be a great experience overall.”

The 31-year-old Team PokerStars Pro – who picked up $122,909 for winning event #5, a $1,500 buy-in Seven-Card Stud tournament, at last summer’s WSOP in Las Vegas – has accumulated over $7 million in live event earnings.

Katchalov had a good 2011 as he also pocketed $1.5 million for taking down the $100,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em Super High Roller event at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) on Paradise Island last January. However, his biggest ever cash victory – for $2,482,605 – came back in December of 2007 when he lifted the World Poker Tour (WPT) $15,000 buy-in Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic No-Limit Hold’em event.

Timoshenko Has Impressive Resume

Seattle-based Timoshenko, meanwhile, also sports an outstanding list of successes – online and live – having notched up more than $9 million in winnings from his short career as a pro. The 23-year-old pocketed $2,149,960 for winning the $25,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em Championship event at the WPT’s Seventh Annual Five Star World Poker Classic in Vegas back in April of 2009, while he also earned $1,715,200 for taking down the 2009 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) main event – under the nickname ‘Jovial Gent’ – after outlasting a field of 2,144 players.

With experienced English pro Ian Frazer having already secured a $13,000 package to the Premier League of Poker qualifiers via PartyPoker’s online satellites, the line-up for this fifth staging of the event just keeps, amazingly, getting better and better. The Premier League, which will be recorded for broadcast by Sky Sports, also boasts a huge $200,000 added for the final table, while the winner will pick up a $25,500 seat at this year’s WPT World Championship that runs from May 19 to 26 at The Bellagio in Sin City as part of the $2 million prize pool.

Vienna will definitely be the place to be come next month as the 16-player Premier League is not the only show in town, following on from the PartyPoker.com-sponsored WPT Vienna €3,500 buy-in main event from April 10 to 15 and preceding the Party Poker Big Game VI from April 11 for that 48-hour tournament.

Party Poker Qualifiers End Soon!

Now, if like Frazer, you have an eye on making the Premier League, Party Poker are running weekly satellites, daily qualifiers and freerolls, although there is a midnight, March 18, deadline, so I wouldn’t delay if I were you. The winners, as with the Englishman, will be rewarded with $13,000 packages for the qualifiers that include a $10,450 seat at the televised play-off, four nights’ stay at an extravagant hotel and $1,350 to spend.

For now, why not take a peek at this PartyPoker Bonus code site which supplies all the details on how easy it is to enjoy their brilliant bonus. Particularly if you are considering opening an account at a new poker room, you might want to check out their Party Poker review also.

If, however, you have decided already that Party Poker is going to be your next stop, then take a trip to Party Poker, type in bonus code ‘UKPOKER’ and enjoy a fabulous first-deposit bonus of up to $500.