There was a 30% decline for ESPN, with their two hour special aired on the Tuesday after the final table was concluded on the Sunday with Jonathan Duhamel taking the title. Some drop off always seemed likely with the absence of Phil Ivey from the final table. The biggest name this year was Michael “The Grinder ” Mizrachi, a fine player but not quite with Ivey’s stellar status.

ESPN have admitted publically they will look into the decline and decide if they need to make any changes to their poker programming.

However, they were very content with the live broadcast of the final table online via ESPN3, with around 60,000 viewers. ESPN have made a long term commitment to the WSOP, they are tied into a contract with Harrahs until 2018.

The Canadian beat Florida’s John Racener in the heads up contest for the title having gone into the match up with Racener with a huge 5:1 chip lead. Duhamel shoved consistently and used his chip stack to eventually batter Racener into submission. Duhamel doubled up Racener once, but the end came after yet another shove and Duhamel’s AJ held against Racener’s K8.

Racener could console himself with a pile of money measuring $5,545,955.

The pair were the two survivors from the original November nine. At one point it looked as if Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi would strike a blow for the big name pros, as he had the chip lead on the final table, only to bust out in 5th place in the field of 7,319 runners, who each had coughed up $10,000 for a shot at poker’s biggest prize.

23-year-old Duhamel, from Boucherville in Quebec, dropped out of University to pursue a full time poker career as mainly an online pro. With his riches and now inevitable sponsorship offers, he can just buy a degree instead. Runner-up Racener is also a full time player.

Selbst, an instructor for leading poker training site Deuces Cracked, used her loose-aggressive style to blast her way through the final table to take the first prize of €1,300,000 in what was a delayed “November Nine” style final table to conclude the €8,500 buy in event.

She’d gone into what turned out to be the nine person final table with the chip lead as the event was dogged by scandal. German Ali Tekintamgac was disqualified following an investigation by tournament organisers. It’s been claimed that he was using spotters who would indicate his opponents cards to him. He’d already been asked to leave the EPT in Tallinn in the past. Tekintamgac’s chips were removed from the game and his activites are now being investigated by the French police.

Two French players took second and third, with Raphael Kroll second and experienced tournament grinder Fabrice Soulier third.

Selbst, known, as fslexcduck on line, has already bagged the Pokerstars.net NAPT Mohegan Sun title this year despite mixing top flight tournament poker with studying at law school and she remains one of the most difficult players in the game to deal with when she gets chips. We also hope she forgave the Eurosport commentator who referred to Selbst as “he” during the TV coverage of the tournament.

You can now play 5 Card Draw, enjoy the anarchy of 2-7 Triple Draw and Single Draw, where the idea is to make the “worst” possible hand. There is also the wildly popular Badugi, plus a game that isn’t often seen online in A-5 Triple Draw.

The Ace is always low here and the idea is to make an A-2-3-4-5 straight as the best hand.

Draw is going to be offered in both ring games and tournament formats, with a new ten game mix tourneys being introduced to test the limits of a player’s sanity.

Gamblingnewsbase.com has teamed up with Full Tilt to offer a first deposit bonus of up to $600 to draw poker fans – just click on Chris Ferguson below to find out more.

20-year old Eiler, known  as “MAE9690″ on PokerStars produced a solid display at the final table to pocket a €700,000 first prize. He’s already been a big online winner, taking down the PokerStars Sunday Million in March for more than $250,000.

Eiler played a solid game, outlasting most notably Daniel Negreau, who crashed out in 4th as he looked for the Triple Crown of WPT, WSOP and EPT titles. Eiler beat bearded, hat-wearing Czech player Martin Hruby in the heads up. Hruby is part of the PokerStars online team pros.

The key hand on the final table saw Negranu, who turned two pair with K9, lose to Hruby who picked up a straight at the same time. There was no way back for the Canadian after that.

The next stop for the EPT is one of its favourite haunts, Barcelona, with qualifiers running already.

Final table result:

1st – Michael Eiler, Germany, €700,000
2nd – Martin Hruby, Czech Republic, €470,000
3rd – Konstantinos Nanos, Greece, €265,000
4th – Daniel Negreanu, Canada, €175,000
5th – Luca Cainelli, Italy, €140,000
6th – Andreas Wiese, Germany, €105,000
7th – Matthias Lotze, Germany, €76,000
8th – Bruno Launais, France, €60,000

]]> http://www.gamblingnewsbase.com/ept-vienna-michael-eiler-wins-for-germany-5411.html/feed 0 http://www.gamblingnewsbase.com/x-factor-betting-weekend-preview-5321.html http://www.gamblingnewsbase.com/x-factor-betting-weekend-preview-5321.html#comments Wed, 27 Oct 2010 11:32:01 +0000 http://www.gamblingnewsbase.com/?p=532
Continue Reading »]]> Betfred has up to the minute markets on X-Factor betting – click on the link for more.

WEEKEND PREVIEW by Karl Brown

They called the theme Guilty Pleasures on Week 3 of the X Factor which was a little unfair on great artists like Led Zeppelin and Ben E King whose songs were used during the show by Treyc Cohen and Mary Byrne respectively, yet it was oh so apt for the final two acts of the night, the once again thoroughly entertaining Wagner who sang a melody of the Spice Girls `Spice Up Your Life` and Ricky Martin’s `Livin La Vida Loca` and the ever improving Katie Waissel who performed a fantastic version of The Jungle Book song `I Wanna Be Like You`.

Rebecca Ferguson, quite possibly the best performer on the night despite resembling a real life Jessica Rabbit, sang `Why Don’t You Do Right` which prompted Simon Cowell to hit back at Elton John after he had said the show was `boring and paralyzingly brain crippling.’ He got that spot on.

Hot favourite Matt Cardle performed a slowed down version of Britney Spears debut single `Hit Me Baby One More Time` and absolutely blew the audience away whilst part time singer cum bit part rapper Cher Lloyd earned rave reviews for her melody of `No Diggity` and `Shout` It wasn’t such a good weekend however for John Adelaye who became the 5th act voted off the show.

With Louis Walsh losing another of his acts and now only left with two Betfred has him as odds on favourite to be the first manager to lose ALL four of his performers. He has however said he will try to change things up for Mary Byrne .

Looking ahead to Week 4 and for the first time in the series the wonderful Wagner is not the favourite to be given the chop. That dubious honour goes to girl group Belle Amie and with the theme being Halloween it could be a ghastly weekend for the girls. As of yet there are no rumours of chosen songs but you can bet, well you can’t actually bet on it, that Thriller, Monster Mash and probably Time Warp will be used throughout the night. On a personal level I’d like to see someone perform The Specials track `Ghost Town`.

Many players, especially cash game regulars, will be using software like Poker Tracker, which gathers data on opponents like how many hands they play and some of ther tendencies when it comes to betting and folding in certain situations.

But Cool Hand Poker has managed to work round this by having anonymous tables – marked by an A in their lobby. It means that none of your opponents on the table with have their alias displayed, so your name won’t be known to them, you will just be listed as anonymous. To gather their data, the tracking software needs a name, so it means you can sit down in an equal fight and figure out your colleagues at the table from just their play.

There’s also a €200 bonus for new players that can be gained by depositing a little as €20.

The Spinroom

The Spinroom is dedicated to slot machines and with Victor Chandler not tied to one manufacturer, they have come up with an impressive selection of more than 100 slots to chose from, organised by categories like TV and film right down to numbers of reels and lines.

The games vary widely from TV themed slots including the X-Factor and Blankety Blank. It also includes the chance to play scratch cards, keno and an extensive video poker selection.

The Spinroom is being launched with a welcome bonus of £175 for new customers which is released in three stages – the first of which is £25 for wagering just £500 on the different games on offer.

The rise of online slots as a popular form of gambling, especially with new players arriving from bingo means The Spinroom stands a great chance of success as a stand alone product away from Victor Chandler’s more traditional offerings. If you want to check it out you can click on the banner to do so.

There’s around €500,000 for being played for at the event, with our streamed coverage beginning at 2pm this Saturday, so just bookmark this page to make sure you dont miss a flop turn or river. There are also exclusive freeroll passwords being given away before play starts, so make sure you take advantage.

If you haven’t got a Paddy Power Account and want to take advantage of their freeroll offers, just use the banner below to sign up for a free poker account.

Each regional event, known as the RCOOP, will feature 11 events and be confined to players from certain areas.

The first set of events are the Russian championship, for Russian players (Oct 31-Nov 7) and those also in former Soviet republics, with the Nordic Championship for Scandinavian players and the Baltic Championship for those from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania following shortly after (Nov 4-14).

The American series is running from Nov 21-28

The Great Britain and Ireland series is scheduled for Dec 5-12 with more than $500,000 in guarantees.

Judging by how the Russian series lines up the likely events are: $33 6 max NLHE rebuy, $109 and $320 NLHE full ring events, a $109 NLHE 6 max event, and a $55 Heads Up. There will also be Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, HORSE and even a draw event in the 11 tournament schedule. There will also be a comprehensive series of satellites. These details are subject to official confirmation.

The series will be exclusive to PokerStars – if you don’t have an account with them then click on the banner below to join and get your hands on some of the RCOOP guarantees wherever you are!