And they are both recognizable faces, we have our pro Stephan Kjerstad that has been doing very well in the live tournaments, and if it wasn’t for a couple of unlucky hands (getting flashbacks from when Stephans AA can’t beat Liz Lieus 22 in day 3 of WSOPE) Stephan would probably have had a few in the money positions.

As we are soon kicking off the first ever RedKings Poker Tour in Austria, we also have to have German here in Prague, and it is again David Wintersberger that will be joining Stephan in the red shirt. We know David already from EPT London where he couldn’t reach the money but now after running tremendously well online at RedKings he told me that “this is it”.

They both start on day 1b which is on Wednesday, so come back here then to get updates both through the blog and through their twitters!

It’s a happy day for RedKings, especially for the RedKings Qualifier Ville Salmi who has managed to take something more than money with him home to Finland from Estoril and Portugal, a trophy! He has received this tropy for winning this years edition of Estoril Live and beating 271 other players. In this case I actually think the €100.000 is even more important for Ville, and the trophy will only be another glass to use at the celebration party!

It has never been a question about that Ville would take a top position in this tournament, as he has almost never been below top 10 in chips. Coming in to the final table he was 5th in chips, and had to beat the Swedish pokericon Ola Brandborn and some fellow Finns to bring home the title.

After being three players left for a long time, they finally managed to get out the last Portuguese player and going in to a Finnish war in the heads up between Ville Salmi and Teemu Kangasvieri. It only took one hand until it was over in this heads up. Ville moved all-in with 9♥ 9♣ and got called by Q♥ 9♦. A board showing 5♠ J♥ 2♠ 7♦ 4♥ gave Ville the win!

Soon we will have a few words with the winner, but let’s let him have his party first..

Congratulations to Ville Salmi!

That the Team RedKings pros where extremely good, we already knew, that the qualifiers usually do good results, we also knew, but we didn’t know that Ville Salmi could be in the top of the chips almost throughout the Estoril Live. Now there is only 8 players left, and Ville Salmi has a nice stack going in to the final table!

Here is the final 8 that will battle out later on today:
1. Ville Salmi, Finland - 548.000
2. Alexander Lang, Österrike 285,000
3. Ola Brandborn, Sverige - 610,000
4. Paul Jansen, Holland - 304,500
5. Ville Mattila, Finland - 579,500
6. Daniel Ferreira, Portugal - 615,000
7. Teemu Kangasvieri, Finland - 575,000
8. Pedro Demevre, Portugal - 597,000

We wish Ville good Luck, and give you a few words he gave us before going in to the tournament: “I’ve played 3 EPT tournaments and about 10 2k-3k€ live tournaments. I haven’t really played any internet poker last year and half. Before that I played quite a lot for 3 years. I mostly like to play live and especially cash games and almost exclusively omaha. This Estoril tournament trip is mostly holiday for me, but obviously I also hope to do well in the tournament.”

It for sure was a great holiday, and so far he has done very well in the tournament!

Good Luck Ville!

And also a side note, we will be reporting from Amsterdam today where Per Linde and Ivo Donev is going in to the Amsterdam Master Classics of Poker Main Event today!