€5,300 Main Event Dia 4 | 2015 PokerStars.com EPT Season 11 Malta

2015-03-26 22:45 UTC+2

Duda Leads Final 23; Fedor Holz & Dominik Panka Still in Contention

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Nível 24 : 12,000/24,000, 3,000 ante

At the start of Day 4, just 56 players remained in the European Poker Tour Malta Main Event, but after five 90-minute levels of play, the field was culled down to the final 23. The man best positioned to make a run at the €810,400 first-place prize is Antonin Duda, who bagged up the chip leader with 3,476,000.

The 28-year-old poker pro hails from the Czech town Jablonec nad Nisou. To date, his biggest cash was €125,950 for a seventh-place finish in the EPT9 Barcelona. Duda, who qualified for the EPT Malta on PokerStars, has a decent March so far having won two major tournaments on Full Tilt Poker for over a combined $62,000.

Others who've navigated the 895-player field to make it through to the penultimate day are 2014 WCOOP Main Event champ Fedor "CrownUpGuy" Holz (3,146,000), EPT10 London champ Robin Ylitalo (972,000), and 2014 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure winner and PokerStars-Sponsored Player Dominik Panka (391,000).

The plan for the day was to play down to the final 16 players, but action didn't allow for it. Still, plenty of players saw their hopes of becoming the first-ever EPT Malta champion come to an end including Steven Watts (€14,750), Mortiz Dietrich (46th - €14,750), Yann Dion (43rd - €14,750), JC Alvarado (38th - €17,100), and Liviu "0Human0" Ignat, who was the center of a great name debate at the beginning of the day.

Another player to fall was Sam Chartier, who fell in the last level of the night when Mateusz Moolhuizen, who qualified via the very last EPT Malta Main Event satellite, opened for 55,000 under the gun and was met by a three-bet to 120,000 from Valentin Messina, who was to his direct left. Chartier then four-bet jammed for 358,000 from the hijack. Moolhuizen looked him up and Messina got out of the way.

Moolhuizen:
Chartier:

It was a cooler of a hand, but Chartier was on the good end. The tables were turned when the flop delivered Moolhuizen a set, though Chartier at least picked up a flush draw. The turn was no help to Chartier, and neither was the river. With that, Chartier bowed out in 26th place while Moolhuizen chipped up to 1.2 million.

George Danzer won Poker Ambassador of the Year at the 14th Annual European Poker Awards. Check out what he had to say about it by clicking here.

Others joining Moolhuizen on Day 5 are Hossein Ensan (2,639,000), Sergio Aido (1,187,000), and Jorma Nuutinen (870,000), just to name a few. Here's a look at the remaining players:

Table	Seat	Player	Chips
Feature	1	Carlo Citrone	525,000
Feature	2	Glib Kovtunov	372,000
Feature	3	Bjorn Lundgren	237,000
Feature	4	Hossein Ensan	2,639,000
Feature	5	Bart Kuiper	361,000
Feature	6	Remigiusz Wyrzykiewicz	2,104,000
Feature	7	Dominik Panka	391,000
Feature	8	Robin Ylitalo	972,000

1	1	Antonin Duda	3,476,000
1	2	Valentin Messina	909,000
1	3	Javier Gomez Zapatero	1,877,000
1	4	-empty-	N/A
1	5	Jacek Ladny	445,000
1	6	Sergio Aido	1,187,000
1	7	Jorma Nuutinen	817,000
1	8	Julien Duveau	737,000

2	1	Mateusz Moolhuizen	1,249,000
2	2	Rudolf Wilhelm Zintel	780,000
2	3	Koray Aldemir	1,667,000
2	4	Bruno Volkmann	248,000
2	5	Stefan Schillhabel	900,000
2	6	Jean Montury	1,363,000
2	7	Fedor Holz	3,146,000
2	8	Dennis Kaj Smit	342,000

Action will recommence at Noon local time on Friday, and the plan is to play down to the final six players. Of course the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be there every step of the way. While you wait, check out this comprehensive video of the 14th Annual European Poker Awards:

Tags: Antonin Duda

2015-03-26 21:07 UTC+2

Cooler Hand Doesn't Result in Expected Outcome

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Nível 24 : 12,000/24,000, 3,000 ante

Mateusz Moolhuizen, who won his seat into this tournament in the very last satellite, opened for 55,000 under the gun and was met by a three-bet to 120,000 from Valentin Messina, who was to his direct left. Sam Chartier then four-bet jammed for 358,000 from the hijack. Moolhuizen looked him up and Messina got out of the way.

Moolhuizen:
Chartier:

It was a cooler of a hand, but Chartier was on the good end. The tables were turned though as the flop delivered Moolhuizen a set, though Chartier at least picked up a flush draw.

The turn was no help to Chartier, and neither was the river. With that, Chartier bowed out in 26th place while Moolhuizen chipped up to 1.2 million.

Jogador	Fichas	Progresso
Mateusz Moolhuizen	1,200,000	528,000
Sam Chartier	Eliminado

Tags: Mateusz Moolhuizen Sam Chartier

2015-03-26 20:31 UTC+2

CONVersation: Team PokerStars Pro George Danzer is Poker's Newest Ambassador

Nível 23 : 10,000/20,000, 3,000 ante

The GPI European Poker Awards were a roaring success last night, and one of the standout winners was Team PokerStars Pro Gorge Danzer.

The very popular German has been a positive force on the European Poker Tour for a number of years now, and despite being nominated for Breakout Player of the Year, it was actually the Best Poker Ambassador award that he walked away with – an award without any nominees- decided wholly by fan votes.

Danzer is currently playing in theEPT Malta High Roller event (down to 35K from a 50K starting stack) and was kind enough to spare PokerNews some time for a chat during a break.

PokerNews: You were nominated for the Breakout Player of the Year Award but have been around a long time. Did you find that strange, or do you feel 2014 was your breakout year, especially in tournaments?

Danzer: For me it really felt like a breakout year. I don’t know exactly how they come up with the nominees – what the rules were; if you weren’t allowed to be nominated if you’ve won a tournament before; if you’ve been around for a couple of years you couldn’t be included, but after they nominated me, I thought, yeah, maybe they just take it as it is. I was doing okay and then had an exceptional, breakout, year. After I was nominated I thought I had a good chance of winning it.

Amazingly you won the Best Poker Ambassador award. Were you shocked?

I didn’t expect that at all because there are a lot of poker players who have a huge following on Twitter, Facebook and are big stars around the scene. I was sure they were going to get a lot of votes because of the fans that they have. I have a smaller fan base in Germany but then I was really surprised when that was enough to win that category. It was great!

As an ambassador, how do you feel you’ve helped progress the game in Germany?

I think we, Jan Heitmann and myself, since 2005 were the first ones to bring it to the mainstream. We started a poker blog called “Poker Amigos” where we talked about what we were doing around the world; playing tournaments and making a lot of appearances on German TV shows.

Since 2007 I’ve been part of Team Pro, or Shooting Stars as it was back then. I’ve also been around the media for a long time and I think that it’s not just the way I explain the game to other people, it’s how I play the game – to always be at the table in a way I wish everyone would be at the table. It’s really hard as we get a lot of bad beats in poker but it’s just the way I approach it, and I wish most people would do it like that.

The German Team Pro Team has been massively shrunk in the past few years. How do you keep earning your contract?

Now a lot has shifted to social media, which I’m not an expert in, so I’m just trying to do what I can there. There are new channels now, for example, Twitch that I have created a channel on where I stream a couple of times a week. I explain some strategy and how I play the game, all for free. Giving out content too and not just keeping all the secrets for you and trying to beat players but trying to give something back to the community. I like talking to people and most of them know I’m going to answer them.

During the WSOP last summer, were you keeping in touch with your fans?

Yes, I was mostly doing German video blogs. They are on the PokerStars Blog and the usual outlets. I also did a Google Hangout and the Remko Report which we’re going to do again this year from Las Vegas. We’re going to make a live chat and stuff like that.

Take us back to when you first played poker, fell in love with game and realized you were good at it?

I first discovered poker at chess tournaments. We used to play other cards games like Magic and a German game called Schafkopf and Skat, when one day some guy said we should try this Texas hold'em they play in the US. We played no-limit Texas hold'em in the evening and I lost a little but I bought a couple of books, like The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky, and I tried to get better so the next time I beat them.

Then one day I started playing a little bit online and I liked it. It grew very slowly and then just when the poker boom came it was exactly at the point that I had learned a little strategy. Then I thought, let's try some live tournaments so came on to the live circuit and since then, I’m here!

You’ve achieved so much in the past year to 18 months. How so you keep yourself motivated and what goals, if any, do you have for the next year or so?

I’ve always wanted to win a SCOOP or WCOOP leaderboard and I was so close but didn’t win it. Each year I play a complete SCOOP and a complete WCOOP in an attempt to win the leaderboard. Now that I’m the WSOP Player of the Year of course I’m going to try and defend it as no one has ever done that before. I’ve always wanted to win an EPT too, so there’s enough stuff left after winning the bracelets to keep me motivated for the next couple of years, at least.

Tags: PokerNews Live Blog Feature George Danzer

2015-03-26 18:50 UTC+2

PokerNews Podcast Episode #274: RAWA Reaction feat. Giuliano Bendinelli and Anatoly Filatov

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Nível 23 : 10,000/20,000, 3,000 ante

Rich and Donnie break down Wednesday's RAWA hearing on Capitol Hill, and Remko talks to Global Poker Masters champion and MVP Giuliano Bendinelli, along with Russia's Anatoly Filatov.

You can subscribe to the entire iBus Media Network on iTunes here, or you can access the RSS feed here. The PokerNews family of podcasts is now available on Stitcher.

Tags: Anatoly Filatov Giuliano Bendinelli PokerNews Podcast

2015-03-26 17:09 UTC+2

Moolhuizen's Ladies Escort Alvarado Out of the Building

[user153638]

Nível 22 : 8,000/16,000, 2,000 ante

We missed how the action unfolded, but we do know JC Alvarado got his last 230,000 all in from the big blind and was at risk against Mateusz Moolhuizen, who was on the button.

Moolhuizen:
Alvarado:

Alvarado was in a bad spot, and his best chance at surviving was to find an ace. The flop left him wanting, as did the turn. Alvarado needed an ace from space, but it didn't come as the blanked on the river. Alvarado officially bowed out in 38th place for €17,100.

Jogador	Fichas	Progresso
Mateusz Moolhuizen	519,000	203,000
JC Alvarado	Eliminado

Tags: JC Alvarado Mateusz Moolhuizen

2015-03-26 15:09 UTC+2

Excelling at No-Limit Hold'em High Rollers: Taking a Little Shot

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Nível 21 : 6,000/12,000, 2,000 ante

World Poker Tour champ. Online poker player. Noted poker author. Jonathan Little wears many hats, but European Poker Tour champ is not one of them. He hopes to change that today in the EPT Malta €10,000 High Roller, which you can follow by clicking here.

"I ended up skipping the WPT California Swing as they call it because I wanted to come here and be somewhat fresh," Little told PokerNews before the start of play. "I knew if I went there for three weeks and then came straight here I would not do too well. It was pretty much one of the two. It's the first time I ever skipped that WPT stop though, and I hated to do it, but the EPT schedule guarantees a lot of volume, whereas in WPTs you have to go for three weeks and play five tournaments. It's just not as great a schedule."

Little, who won the WPT Season VII Foxwoods World Poker Finals for $1,120,310, has become a circuit regular on the EPT, and he's notched some solid results recently. Back in February, he took 23rd in the EPT Deauville High Roller for $29,447, and he had three cashes at the 2015 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure a month before that, including third in Event #9 No-Limit Hold'em Turbo 8-Handed for $52,624.

Little played and busted the EPT Malta Main Event, but skipped the €25,000 before that, though he admits the only reason being that he didn't have enough "Stars money."

"I'm pretty used to playing high rollers," said Little. "You'll find that in general that whatever the biggest tournament is, be it €25K or €50K, that it is very different than the €10K. I feel the €10K is generally more affordable to guys who are not professionals, whereas the others attract very few amateurs."

Speaking of amateurs, Little is known to cater to them via numerous book titles, including the critically acclaimed Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker. Most of his books focus on tournaments with much more affordable buy-ins, so has Little ever thought of complimenting it with a text devoted to high rollers?

"If I win I might write something about it," Little said with a laugh. "I feel the audience for that is much smaller. I have done training videos and products on high roller type tournaments that are very tough fields, but I have never produced a book on them."

While a high roller book isn't on the horizon – barring a win in this event – Little does have a new book slated to come out this summer, one that features contributions from a slew of pros including Team PokerStars Pros Chris Moneymaker and Liv Boeree, 13-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, and Poker Hall of Famer Mike Sexton.

"It's called Excelling at No-Limit Hold'em," Little offered. "A lot of other great poker players involved, Liv Boeree is involved, she was the Female Player of the Year out here in Europe. That was fun to see her awarded with that last night. There are a lot of great poker players and authors involved. They all speak about whatever they’re most passionate about."

PokerNews Managing Editor Chad Holloway also contributed a chapter to Little's new book. He recently talked about the experience in his weekly strategy column Hold'em with Holloway.

Little's new book will release on June 13, and while he's excited about it, today it's all about focus, especially after coming off a big night where he "drank too much" and "partied all night."

"Usually I try to be somewhat sane. Last night I was partying a little bit harder than normal, but it's fine, it was a very rare occasion," said Little. "Today I woke up and feel great. Wake up, have some food, and go play some poker, though I do not suggest going out and partying the day before a big tournament."

Little's partying came during the European Poker Awards, which saw last year's EPT Vienna Main Event earn an award for "Best Tournament with a Buy-in Over €2,000." Before that, he attended the accompanying European Poker Conference, which offered numerous panels with industry experts from throughout Europe.

"It's good for me as a player to recognize where a lot of the casino industry people are coming from, realizing they're trying to make money at the end of the day while at the same time trying to build poker into something you can sustain in the long run," Little said when asked what he took away from the conference.

Little seemed in good spirits and successfully recovered from last night's festivities. We'll have to wait and see if he can find success on Day 1 of the €10,000 High Roller.

Tags: PokerNews Live Blog Feature Jonathan Little

2015-03-26 13:47 UTC+2

The Great Name Debate: Ignat Liviu or Liviu Ignat

[user153638]

Nível 20 : 5,000/10,000, 1,000 ante

There are some truly great online players out there better known by their screen names than their given names. Take "Isildur1" for example. For years he was online poker's most notorious player, but no one knew who he was. Eventually PokerStars rolled back the curtain and revealed him to be none other than Sweden's Viktor Blom.

Another moniker famous in the virtual realm is that of "0Human0," a Romanian player who cut his chops playing no-limit hold'em and pot-limit Omaha on PokerStars. Like "Isildur1," the man behind the screen name remained a mystery for a good long while, but eventually it was revealed to be former engineering student Ignat Liviu. So it remained until today.

You see, in Romania it's traditional for one to give their family name first. So when you first meet the man behind "0Human0 " — who doesn't speak much English — he'll more than likely introduced himself as Ignat Liviu. As it happens, Ignat is among the 56 players returning to action today, and he's actually been seated at the feature table. That means he'll get some airtime, and so the TV crew needed to be 100% on his name, which was listed as "Liviu Ignat" on his PokerStars ID.

A similar situation happened with Ionel Anton, who was reported the other way around for many years before making the final table of the 2011 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, where he eventually finished fourth for $675,000. He too was from Romania, so that was the first clue.

Still, when it came to Ignat, HendonMob and past reports had him as "Ignat Liviu," and he never corrected those who wrote it that way – we even did it in an interview with him back in 2012. Well, just because everyone is doing it doesn't make it right. It's been confirmed that Ignat is indeed his family name, meaning when it comes to spelling it out, it should be Liviu Ignat.

Now that his name has been sorted out, let us tell you a little more about "0Human0." Rather, we'll let Ignat tell you.

"I started playing poker about four years ago," Ignat previously told PokerNews. "At the end of 2007, I deposited $250 at Full Tilt and lost it. Then I deposited $250 at PokerStars and began playing $0.10/$0.25 no-limit hold’em and moved up in stakes using standard bankroll management.

"In January 2008, I was playing $0.50/$1.00, then in the summer $2/$4, and by the end of the year $5/$10. In 2009, I started playing $10/$20 NLH and then $25/$50, and in 2010 and 2011 I played any stake at NLH I could. I even started $25/$50 pot-limit Omaha too."

According to highstakesdb.com, Ignat’s biggest outright win came in $100/$200 PLO on February 23, 2012. In the hand, action was five-handed when “MaiseE” ($50,291.26) opened for $400 under the gun, Ilari “Ilari FIN” Sahamies ($99,135) three-bet to $1,700 from the cutoff and Ville Wahlbeck ($19,120) four-bet $6,000 from the button. Ignat ($37,925) made the call from the small blind, both “MaiseE” and Sahamies came along for the ride, and it was four-way action to the flop.

Ignat was first to act and checked, opening the door for “MaiseE” to fire out $13,300. Sahamies got out of the way, Wahlbeck called off his remaining $13,120 and Ignat woke up with a check-raise all in for $31,925. “MaiseE” made the call and the board completed and on the turn and river respectively. Ignat rolled over for Broadway, and it was good enough to pull in the $101,245 pot.

In addition to playing online, Ignat has padded his résumé with $220,545, with his biggest cash being $80,335 for a 14th-place finish in the EPT Prague Main Event back in December 2011.

Liviu “0Human0” Ignat’s Notable Live Tournament Results

Date	Event	Place	Prize
December 5, 2011	EPT Prague €5,000 Main Event	14th	$80,335
January 31, 2012	EPT Deauville €5,000 Main Event	12th	$65,757
May 6, 2013	EPT Grand Final Main Event	78th	$32,334
October 21, 2011	EPT San Remo €4,600 Main Event	67th	$20,681

"I really like playing the EPT's. I try to play most of them, it’s like a nice holiday, and something else different from the daily routine," said Liviu, who began today 37th in chips with 312,000. Ignat has shown he knows how to go deep in EPT Main Events, but he's still looking for his first final table. Will it happen here in Malta? We'll definitely be keeping an eye on Ignat Liviu, errrrr we mean Liviu Ignat, here on Day 4.

Tags: "0Human0"Ignat Liviu PokerNews Live Blog Feature

2015-03-26 12:01 UTC+2

Three Former EPT Champions Remain for Day 4 of the EPT11 Malta

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Javier Gomez Zapatero and Sergio Aido in contention

With three tournament days and 19 levels in the bag, the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Malta Main Event has seen its 895-player strong field whittled down to just 56 hopefuls and Javier Gomez Zapatero is in the lead with 1.698 million in chips. The 24 year old Spaniard, who hails from Salamanca and now lives in London, won his seat in a €215 NL re-entry qualifier on March 1st.

Three former EPT champions are still in to become the first male player to win a second EPT Main Event: Robin Ylitalo (487,000) and Jannick Wrang (433,000) are in the middle of the pack whereas PokerStars Sponsored player Dominik Panka (176,000) is among the short stacks when play resumes in one hour from now at 12 p.m. CET with level 20 at blinds 5,000-10,000 and a running ante of 1,000.

All remaining participants are guaranteed at least €12,800 but only one elimination already provides a pay jump, though all eyes are set on the first-place payout of €810,400 and becoming crowned the first-ever EPT champion on the island of Malta. Big stacks include the likes of Valentin Messina (1,362,000), Jorma Nuutinen (1,121,000), Alexander Ivarsson (1,119,000) and Manuel Zapf (1,086,000).

Other notables to look out for are Sergio Aido (833,000), Antonin Duda (681,000), Noah Vaillancourt (629,000), Day 2 chip leader Sam Chartier (536,000), Mateusz Moolhuizen (515,000), EPT11 Prague finalists Miltiadis Kyriakides (434,000) and Bjorn Wiesler (205,000), WCOOP winner Fedor Holz (422,000), Liviu "0Human0" Ignat (312,000), JC Alvarado (274,000) as well as Yann Dion (266,000).

Day 4 of the Main Event will see either five 90-minute levels or until the last 16 players have been reached, whichever of the two comes first. The third-last day of the festival will also provide Day 1 of the €10,300 High Roller Event as of 1 p.m. local time and you can follow the progress of both in the PokerNews live reporting, so make sure to tune back in often!

Tags: Alexander Ivarsson Antonin Duda Bjorn Wiesler Dominik Panka EPT Malta Fedor Holz Jannick Wrang Javier Gomez Zapatero JC Alvarado Jorma Nuutinen Liviu Ignat Manuel Zapf Mateusz Moolhuizen Noah Vaillancourt Robin Ylitalo Sam Chartier Samuel Chartier Sergio Aido Valentin Messina Yann Dion