Online Poker Press

The African leg of the World Poker Tour has reached a final table.

The WPT Marrakech main event presented by Chilipoker drew 222 to the Casino De Marrakech at the Es Saadi Gardens & Resort in Morocco this week.

Tuesday, the battle for the €254,745 first place prize will begin with nine relatively unknown players.

Sebastian Homann has the chip lead, but fellow German Dominik Nitsche is hot on his heels in what appears to be his breakthrough event after deep runs at EPT Barcelona (23rd) and WPT Amneville (26th) earlier this month.

Winamax sponsored pro Guillaume de la Gorce is perhaps the most recognizable player in the rest of the group.

Last year, Frenchman Christophe Savary won the title and €377,262 beating a much larger 416-player field in the WPT’s first trip to Africa.

Here’s how they’ll stack up coming into Tuesday’s final:

1 Sebastian Homann 1,539,000

2 Dominik Nitsche 1,479,000

3 Guilliame Cescut 956,000

4 Johan Williamson 693,000

5 Sebastian Compte 529,000

6 Guillaume de la Gorce 516,000

7 Julien Labuissiere 430,000

8 Felix Oberauer 270,000

9 Patrick Muleta 244,000

And the Poker Endurance World Record Goes to . . . New Zealand!

As the kicker states, New Zealand has broken the poker endurance world record, ending Phil Laak’s near six-month reign at the top.

As the 2010 World Series of Poker was in full swing, the “Unabomber” endured 115-straight hours of poker to set a new Guinness World Record. Compacted into just-under five days, Laak endured the challenge on the $10-$20 No Limit Holdem tables at the Bellagio in Las Vegas in the first week of June.

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Two of European poker’s most popular ladies dominated the Spanish Poker Tour Grand Finale at the Gran Casino Costa Brava in Lloret del Mar this week.

It was Germany’s Marvin Rettenmaier who took down the SPT Grand Finale outlasting a field of 120.

But he first had to get past 888Poker player and French model and poker media personality Claire Renaut heads-up to collect the €111,000 first-place prize.

Renaut added €60,000 to the more than $170,000 she’s won in 2010 through three wins and 15 different cashes.

The €3,200 Grand Finale’s €360,000 prize pool marked the biggest in tour history.

A total of 52 players qualified for the event on Everest Poker and the tour sponsor had two of it’s players in the final, including Live the Dream winner Koen de Bakker (3rd) and defending 2009 SPT Champion Steven van Zadelhoff (4th).

In addition to the Grande Finale, Everest Poker invited the tour’s top 45 players into a €48,000 SPT MVP Freeroll.

Spain’s

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Londoner overcomes tough 28-man field

The World Heads Up Poker Championship welcomed a tough field to London’s Victoria Casino this week, and it was a regular face on the British scene who bagged the £30,000 prize.

Nik Persuad has been on the unfortunate end of some final table bust-outs over the past few years, including three GUKPT Main Events, but he vanquished some of the game’s biggest British names on route to his title, including poker personality and former EPT winner Victoria Coren and up-and-coming star Leon Louis.

‘There were some great players in there, so it feels good to have won, especially in a format which I’ve been playing a lot of,’ said Nik.

And with a Heads Up trophy now under his belt, Persuad will be looking to break his GUKPT duck when the £2,500 Grand Final kicks off this week, promising a hefty payday for the eventual winnner.

Don’t forget to check back with PokerPlayer this week for all the latest GUKPT and British poker news.

Here’s how the rest of the field fared in the World Heads Up Poker Championship:

1 Nik Persuad £30,000
2 Leon Louis £15,000
3 Toby Lewis £5,500
4 Jeff Kimber £5,500

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Bodog has signed an advertising deal with Major League Soccer’s LA Galaxy.

Bodog.net will now be seen advertising on all the LED field boards, corner section banners, stadium scoreboards and in-stadium TVs as a result.

“Both the LA Galaxy and Bodog brands are recognized around the globe, making this partnership not only mutually beneficial, but a perfect synergy between brands across the United States and beyond,” said Bodog PR director Ed Pownall.

Article Source: Pokerlistings.com

It took awhile but Dan “jungleman12” Cates finally recorded a losing session on Full Tilt over the weekend.

Cates played 2,775 hands over the last three days including a less than successful heads-up session against David “Raptor” Benefield.

Add in several losses against Arbianight and, for a change, Cates was the one victimized, losing a total of $284,000.

With the loss Cates falls down to a $4.6 million profit in 2010 but is still the biggest winner of the year, easily surpassing Dwan’s $3.9 million.

There was plenty of action on Full Tilt this weekend with online upstart DrugsOrMe the biggest winner with an impressive $385k in profit.

Gus Hansen was close behind with $235k. Hansen, w

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The Mediterranean Poker Cup will run in Cyprus from Nov. 22 to Nov. 28. The poker game will include a three-day $2,500 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event. The main event will have a guaranteed prize pool of $400,000. The event will be welcome excitement for poker players after the conclusion of the 2010 WSOP. The World Series of Poker event wrapped up just days ago after a three month delay. The organizers of the Mediterranean Poker Cup will follow this event with the Red Sea Poker Cup 2010, which will run from Dec. 11 to 16 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

Gus Hansen was the biggest winner on Full Tilt Poker by a huge margin over the last seven days.

Hansen plowed through 4,124 hands on the site and recorded huge heads-up wins against Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies, DrugsOrMe and Arbianight.

By Friday Hansen had won a total of $606,497 in a seven-day span and is up over $2 million in the last four weeks.

It’s been a swingy 2010 for the Great Dane as he charged to a $2 million profit, then donated it all back and more, to hit rock bottom in mid-October at -$3.6 million.

Since then he’s managed to reduce his deficit to -$1.6 million and if the wins keep coming he might be even within the next few weeks.

The next biggest winner this week was David “Raptor” Benefield who won $206k. Always a co

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Poker history is made each time a player takes down a World Poker Tour (WPT) event.  Very few of the poker playing population of the world ever have the opportunity to play in a WPT main event due to availability of funds and travel ease.  But each of us that play with a competitive spirit, and have watched the WPT on television, holds the dream to one day be there sitting in front of the bright lights with five other players and make poker history part of our game.  Toss the idea of no extra fun money out the window and get ready to fire up the daily freerolls at Absolute Poker for your shot at the WPT Five Diamond at Bellagio in Las Vegas in December.

The WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic prize package is worth $12,000 and from Monday through Saturday you will find six daily freerolls to help you lay claim to that prize package until November 28th.  The top 100 players in each daily freeroll will have a seat reserved in the Weekly Final tournament on Sunday.  The Weekly Final will send the top 100 players to the Main Event – get ready to play it on November 28th at 8pm ET.  Think winner, be the winner, win, win, win and if you take out all the other runners in the Main Event on November 28th, you just won your opportunity to jet off to Las Vegas and shoot for poker history at Bellagio's Five Diamond World Poker classic.

Daniel Alaei took down the title in 2009 and walked away with his first WPT bracelet, the Rolex watch from Bellagio, and $1,428,430 in prize money. Alaei Read full