LONDON 09 SUMMARY

The inaugural Unibet Open London took place at the home of UK poker, The Grosvenor Victoria Casino. The event attracted a field of 266 players made up of celebrities, pros and most importantly Unibet qualifiers from all around Europe.

Day 1A

113 players turned out for Day 1a and attracted some well-known faces, including Miss Belgium Alizee Poulicek, Finnish Radio presenter Jussi Heikela, Dutch TV celebrity Hugo Borst and Polish Pop Star Michal Wisniewski. They would have to battle through poker pros like Michael Abecassis, Nik Persaud, Willie Tann, Dave Colcough, John Duthie, Mikael Norinder, Mike “Timex” McDonald, Albert Iversen and WSOP player of the year runner-up Ville Wahlbeck.

Everybody except Eero Laivonen was sad to see the beautiful Alizee Poulicek hit the rail. His flopped set was enough to oust her holding top pair. Not long after, Ville Wahlbeck and Kim Herold were both eliminated in one huge pot by Tommy Pavlicek. The latter flopped the nut flush to his opponent’s smaller flush and top two-pair. This was to set the tone for the rest of the day as big stacks started to rise in big confrontations with the side effect being multiple eliminations.

Those on the wrong side of these confrontations and not making it through the day included Albert Iversen, Jussi Heikelä and Miguel Moreno. Dave Colcough also fell in the latter part of the day after failing to spin up his short stack and he was joined by Wille Tann and Robin Keston who failed to avoid a flush draw with his over pair to the flop. Just 27 players made it through the nine levels of play.

Day 1B

Day 1B attracted a larger field of 153. Pros and celebrities turned out once more in force. Recent Bracelet winner Maarc Naalden, Christer Bjorin, Olympic wrestler from Sweden Ara Abrahamian, Jan Olav Sjavik, Roberto Romanello, Mats Rahmn, Norwegian football international Kjetil Rekdal, Finnish rally driver Kristian Sohlberg, Swedish musician Rodrigo “Rigo” Pencheff, and EPT Grand Final winner Pieter de Korver were those hoping to make a mark. If that wasn’t enough Tony G, Marcin Horecki, Michael Greco, Unibet ambassador Anders Henriksson, Dutch actor Frank Lammers and Anna Wisniewska were all sat at one table!

Generally though play on day 1B was less dramatic. It may just have been the way the cards were falling or a more cautious group of players. Marc Naalden was not one of the cautious ones but it didn’t do him much good as he was one of the early big name casualties. Frank Lammers and Jan Olav Sjavik had more luck with their short stacks and managed to stay alive with double-ups.

James Sudoworth topped the leader board at dinner break with 41,300, closely followed by Mikka Tammi with 40,550. The chasing pack included Chris Bjorin, Mats Rahm and Lucy Rokach. In the period after dinner we lost the ever colourful Tony G, Damien Porebski, Tony Phillips, Ricardo Sousa, Jan Sjavik, and Erik Dahl.

Day 2

A combined field of 70 players returned on day 2 with a two simple goals. Firstly to make it into the top 27 to ensure a pay day and secondly to make in to the end of the day and therefore be returning as one of the final table of 9 the next day. These simple targets proved to be a lot more difficult in practice and most of the field would fail in one or both.

Players continued to tumble slowly as we edged closer and closer to the money. As you would expect the eliminations fell thick and fast once we were in the money and by the time we were down to 18 players Rafal Arendt led the way on 329,000 with Arkady Keilman bringing up the rear with 24,200. Arendt moved to the feature table and continued his assault by coming from behind to eliminate John Dwyer just as Dan Murariu did to eliminate Jeppe Nielsen at the same table.

Final Day

Thanh Doan came to the final table as a big chip leader on 706,500 with the short stack belonging to Mohamed Muse. Muse managed to earn an extra ₤5,000 by not being the first one out though as he left that honour to Marek Sokol who ran king-queen in to the pocket aces of Rafal Arendt and took home ₤13,500 for his troubles. Muse then followed soon after with ₤18,500 after making a move with five-three but couldn’t get Konstantine Can to lay down nine-eight despite a big reraise.

Thanh Doan was starting to use his stack to bully the table and was soaking up all available chips when his opponent’s showed any weakness. Dan Murariu then eliminated Thierry Bolleret in 7^th place for ₤25,500 after his ace-queen stayed ahead of the Frenchman’s king-jack all the way. The period after this, leading up to the dinner break saw a series of short stacks doubling up through each other with Doan still picking up free chips to see his stack rise to over the million mark.

After dinner, two quick eliminations saw Rafal Arendt bust in 6^th place for ₤32,000 and Dan Murariu leave us in 5^th place for ₤38,500. This is where the serious money and the bigger jumps came in to play for our four remaining players.

Doan took an even bigger hold on the tournament though after eliminating Konstantine Can in 4^th place for ₤52,000. Can hit top pair on the flop but Doan turned two-pair before all the chips went in and Can was unable to save his tournament on the river. Sam Phomveha left us with ₤79,000 for his 3^rd place finish after making a stand with ace-two but ran in to the unstoppable Than Doan with pocket jacks.

It then took only two hands for Than Doan to finish off Arkady Keilman, who made a great comeback after being the short stack with 18 remaining, Keilman got his chips in good with top pair but the Finn turned trips to win the Unibet Open London title and ₤187,000. Keilman would’ve felt disappointed but the small matter of ₤122, 500 will surely heal any wounds.

It took until 11 pm of the fourth day of play to get from 266 to our worthy Finnish winner, Than Doan. The Victoria Casino, London was the fine host of the first ever Unibet Open London tournament, and by all accounts it was a roaring success, played with a typical Unibet Open atmosphere.

TOP WINNERS FROM
UNIBET OPEN LONDON ‘09

1.				Thanh Doan	₤ 187,000
2.				Arkady Kielman	122,500
3.				Sam Phomveha	79,000
4.				Konstantin Can	52,000
5.				Dan Murariu	38,500
6.				Rafal Arendt	32,000
7.				Thierry Bolleret	25,500
8.				Mohamed Muse	18,500
9.				Marek Sokol	13,500