Hi All,

EPT Awards Update going into Prague and PCA -

http://www.europeanpokertour.com/awards/

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FERNANDO BRITO GAINS MASSIVE LEAD FOR EPT PLAYER OF THE YEAR AWARD

Fernando Brito, the 51-year-old businessman from Portugal who made the final of the EPT London Main Event, has secured a massive lead in the EPT Player of the Year Award race after winning the €10,000 event at EPT Barcelona.

Brito is now a staggering 660 points ahead of his nearest rivals after a series of great results at all four of the EPTs he’s attended since Season 7 began. Here’s how Brito has been clocking up his points:

Vilamoura – 2nd in €1,000 Turbo Randomized Bounty tournament – 360 points.
London – 6th in Main Event – 600 points
London – 1st in €1,000 Turbo Randomized Bounty tournament – 500 points
Vienna – 1st in €10,000 event but no points because the event fell short of 16-player minimum needed to be eligible.
Barcelona – 1st in €10,000 event - 400 points

Given this performance, it’s probably just as well for other players that Brito didn’t make it to the first event of Season 7 in Tallinn – and it’s not just points that Brito has been accumulating. So far this season, the married father-of-four has already won €466,000 on the EPT plus he also somehow found time to nip over to Los Angeles for the PokerStars.net North American Poker Tour event a few weeks ago where he won a satellite into the Main Event and came second in a €1,000 side event. All pretty impressive for someone that only took up poker 18 months ago.

EPT Vilamoura winner Toby Lewis retains his second place on the POY board but is now having to share with EPT Barcelona winner Kent Lundmark. Lundmark’s victory has given him an extra 1,000 points to add to the 300 he already had for coming sixth in the Tallinn €1,000 Turbo Bounty event. All players in the Top Ten now have at least 1,000 points and include the new name of Konstantin Puchkov from Russia. He came third in the EPT Barcelona main event for 750 points, and sixth in a €1,000 event in Vienna for 325 points.

Here’s how the EPT Player of the Year Top Ten looks right now.

POS. PLAYER COUNTRY PTS
1 Fernando Brito Portugal 1860
2 Toby Lewis UK 1300
2 Kent Lundmark Sweden 1300
4 Dario Alioto Italy 1250
5 John O'Shea Ireland 1195
6 Tomer Berda Israel 1180
7 Kristijonas Andrulis Lithuania 1160
8 Konstantin Puchkov Russia 1075
9 Yotam Bar Yosef Israel 1050
10 Michael Eiler Germany 1000
10 David Vamplew UK 1000


Omaha Player of the Year
Spanish player Bartolome Gomila Romero won the Barcelona €1,000 PLO event and has joined a large pack chasing Dario Alioto. Alioto, who won the 2008 WSOP $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event and is is currently tenth in the WSOP’s All Time Omaha winners list, is still 200 points ahead of all his nearest rivals.

EPT Mixed Games Player of the Year
In the Mixed Games, John O'Shea is the biggest mover. Despite only min-
cashing the NLH/PLO event in Barcelona, the points he gained were enough to push the Irishman up to fourth place, well within grasp of Matthew Ashton who is still in the lead.

Best Country Award
And we have new Best Country leaders! The Netherlands and Finland both came
out of the cold to snatch the top spots. They had previously been ineligible
having earned fewer than 16 Main Event cashes but that was all sorted out in Barcelona and they are now both contenders for the title, with the Netherlands narrowly ahead. Former leaders UK are down to third place and France has dropped six slots and is down from 16% to 13%.

EPT Heads-Up Player of the Year
Portuguese player Diogo Veiga came second in the €3,200 EPT Barcelona Heads-Up tourney which means he is now the clear Heads-Up leader - 360 points ahead of nearest rival Annette Obrestad

EPT Qualifier of the Year
No changes in Barcelona so it’s still EPT Vienna winner Michael Eiler in the lead.

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Cheers,

Neil
PokerStars Live Events Specialist

P.S. Fatal, you don't really expect me to answer that do you?

When are announcements coming for sides events for rest of season schedule that already has dates and locations confirmed? Any news on Grand Final location and dates?

Hi Highland,

The Deauville Schedule is complete and will be posted very soon to the web. Copenhagen is almost done, there is still some fine tuning being done between the casino and myself.

Sno, Berlin, San Remo and Grand Final should hopefully all be ready to announce during the PCA. That includes the Grand Final destination which I think everyone is going to be excited about

Cheers,

Neil
PokerStars Live Events Specialist

barcelona again?
(cannes is cool too though)

Cannes would be good choice. Or maybe Venice or Ibiza?

Hi All,

Just a couple of notes.

The NLH/PLO tourneys on the EPT are now being played orbit of each, rather than half level. It was felt this was a more fair way of playing the tourney.

Also, Deauville Schedule going up in my next post later today.

Cheers,

Neil
PokerStars Live Events Specialist

Neil Im pretty sure you´ve said somewhere that all the EPTs are smoke free. Well obv that isnt the case when they allow inside smoking in rooms you have to pass in order to get to the pokerroom. I´ve heard so many people complain about this, prob everyone that isnt a smoker themselves. Just the 30 sec pass every time you need to go to the bathroom makes your clothes smell like you´ve been smoking for the last 50 years and I think its pretty bad especially when some people have allergies etc./dont wanna die in cancer.

Hi 9's,

It is something we are working hard with the venue to clear up. The problem is that most of the Central / Eastern European countries are still very smoker friendly. While we can keep the Poker Room itself smoke free, we can't impose that stipulation on the hotel itself. The Prague Hilton allows smoking in the hotel and they are not going to change that policy and how it affects all their other patrons for us.

We have tried to cut the lobby in half and have the back half be smoking so the trip to the bathrooms is not through a cloud, but our efforts haven't been as successful as we would like. I agree with you 100% and this is something we will address with the casino and the hotel in our post event reports again.

3 years ago, the casino was letting them smoke in the cash games, but not the tournemant area and we successfully chaged that. You're playing here, can you imagine all the cash games tables allowing players to smoke?! And how that would affect the tournament area?

We are working on it, I promise.

Cheers,

Neil
pokerStars Live Events Specialist

Hi Neil, was wondering since stars is currently running qualifiers to 2 different EPT events why are ther no step Gs offered ? Thanks Brad

Hi Brad,

I'll see what I can find out!

Cheers,

Neil
PokerStars Live Events Specialist

neil, u gotta get those awesome smoker cone of silence contraptions from deauville for all the venues

I havnt been to deauville but this sounds like the move

smokers obv love smoke so why not trap them in a smaller space so they can inhale their own + others blowouts more effectively

Deauville is now up. In the future it would be nice if they start them as soon as they start the normal sats as there always seems to be a lag time. Thanks

Neil, is the Deauville tournament schedule set yet?

Neil, I bought in through Poker Stars (direct buyin + hotel) and I was in the process of filling all the info out when I came across these three lines in the terms and conditions:

If you have qualified, won your seat or bought for the Event on PokerStars and reach the final table of the tournament, you are required by PokerStars to wear PokerStars logo clothing at the final table, in accordance with PCA rules. You hereby agree to do so.

While obviously I think your word is good, in this case, the terms and conditions are way more formal and legal and I still should abide by them. There is no mention of if you are a sponsored pro from another site in it. So what should I do?

Yeah good question. We are almost one month away from it and there is no schedule so far for the side events? My friend wants to go with me to play some side events but there is no info about it. It doesn't look good.

sorry to be a pain neil, but we really need deauville schedule. 1 month away need to book stuff

Every event pretty much has followed the exact same schedule dude.

well i may or may not be staying for the entire series... dude... more specifically need to know the dates of the high roller cause i need to know if i will be able to play the borgota main on the 30/31...

thanks for the answer DUUUUUUUUUDE

Couldn't resist, sorry.

I'll bet $100 the €10300 NLHE is on the 29th January.

Hi All,

Apologies for being away, I had a family emergency that had to be attended to.

Updates on second half of Season 7 -

Deauville schedule was up right around Christmas on the EPT site, but I wasn't around to post it to the forums. We are anticipating 1000 for the Main Event with so many new players qualifying through PokerStars.FR. The 2K Side last year had 200+ and this year is on a Friday so it is easy for Parisians to make their way out to Deauville for the weekend (1K on Sat) Posted in ful below, link here...

http://www.europeanpokertour.com/tournaments/deauville/

Copenhagen is being sorted between myself and the casino, should be finalized within the week.

Berlin - Almost done.

Snowfest - Almost done, but will essentially be the same as last year due to space considerations.

San Remo - 1st draft done.

Grand Final - 1st draft done.

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Starts on EPT.com with Event 7. Events 1-6 are Supers being run in Deauville prior to the PS package start...

January 24 - Monday
18:00 7 NL - One Rebuy Super Satellite to Main Event €500 + €50
21:00 8 NL - Turbo €300 + €30
22:00 9 NL - Unlimited Rebuy Super Satellite to €500 Super (Event #12) €60 + €15

January 25 - Tuesday
12:00 10 Main Event Day 1A €5,000 + €300
16:00 11 NL - Turbo - Random Bounty €800 + €200 + €100
19:00 12 NL - One Rebuy Super Satellite to Main Event €500 + €50
21:00 13 NL - Turbo €300 + €30

January 26 - Wednesday
12:00 10 Main Event Day 1B €5,000 + €300
18:00 14 NL - Turbo - Random Bounty €800 + €200 + €100
21:00 15 NL - Turbo - Bounty €400 + €40
22:00 16 NL - Double Rebuy + Addon Super Satellite to €1.5K (Event #17) €150 + 25

January 27 - Thursday
12:00 10 Main Event Day 2 €5,000 + €300
16:00 17 NL - Holdem - Day 1 €1,500 + €150
18:00 18 PLO - Day 1 €1,000 + €100
21:00 19 NL - Turbo - Bounty €400 + €40
22:00 20 NL - Double Rebuy + Addon Super Satellite to €2K (Event #20) €200 + €25

January 28 - Friday
12:00 10 Main Event Day 3 €5,000 + €300
12:00 21 NL - Heads Up - 64 Player Cap - Day 1 €3,000 + €250
13:00 17 NL - Holdem - Final Day €1,500 + €150
14:00 18 PLO - Final Day €1,000 + €100
16:00 22 NL - Holdem - Day 1 €2,000 + €200
18:00 23 NL - Turbo - MEN ONLY €300 + €30
21:00 24 NL - Double Rebuy + Addon Super Satellite to €10K (Event #29) €500 + €50

January 29 - Saturday
12:00 10 Main Event Day 4 - play down to 24 players €5,000 + €300
12:00 21 NL - Heads Up - 64 Player Cap - Final Day €3,000 + €250
13:00 25 NL - Holdem - Women Only €300 + €30
13:00 22 NL - Holdem - Final Day (3rd Day if necessary) €2,000 + €200
14:00 26 NL - Holdem - Day 1 €1,000 + €100
18:00 27 NL - Turbo - Bounty €400 + €40
21:00 28 NL - Super Satellite to €10K (Event 29) €1500 + €150

January 30 - Sunday
12:00 10 Main Event Day 5 - play down to 8 players €5,000 + €300
12:00 29 NL - Holdem - Day 1 €10,000 + €300
13:00 26 NL - Holdem - Final Day €1,000 + €100
14:00 30 NL - Holdem - Day 1 €1,000 + €100
15:00 31 NL - Heads Up Challenge - Womens Winner vs. Mens Winner Invitation
18:00 32 PLO - Day 1 €500 + €50
21:00 33 NL - Double Rebuy + Addon Super Sat to EPT Grand Final (Event #35) €100 + €20

January 31 - Monday
12:00 10 Main Event Day 6 - Final Table €5,000 + €300
12:00 29 NL - Holdem - Final Day €10,000 + €300
12:00 32 PLO - Final Day €500 + €50
13:00 30 NL - Holdem - Final Day €1,000 + €100
14:00 34 NL - High Roller - Turbo - "6 Max" €5,000 + €250
15:00 35 NL - Super Satellite to EPT Grand Final €800 + €80
18:00 36 NL - Turbo €300 + €30

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Cheers,

Neil
PokerStars Live Events Specialist

holy f 1000 french fish are you serious?

hadn't even considered going, now I dont see how I can not go

We had 768 last year before PokerStars.FR was huge. And PS.FR is a huge site in France...

I am going to be really surprised if we don't push 1000. Plus, we are in a convention center across the street from Casino Barriere for the first few days, so we have 80 tables in Deauville! The 2K and 1K will be massive events. The 2K has turned into a monster on the EPT. Getting high 100's and breaking 200 players so far this year. The last 4 (Prague, Barcelona, Vienna and London) have each had €100K 1st prizes.

Cheers,

Neil
PokerStars Live Events Specialist

BOOKED!