The last thing we want to announce in 2009 at RedKings is that on the 6th of January a new Points Per Day race will start, this time it’s bigger, better and easier!

In the blog we will count down the days until it start, with a presentation of a prize, previous winners or just a explanation of a new rule in the PPD III. To start with, here is the general presentation of it.

Time for a new points Per Day race at RedKings. This time to a value of $150,000!

It’s time for the Points Per Day III, after the two previous successes, has RedKings now announced another unique race, that again is for players at ALL levels. This time you have the chance to win 5 prizes, and you only compete against yourself and the level you’ve chosen.

There is 3 levels, 4 weekly races and the big monthly race. You choose between the levels 50 points per day, 200 points per day or 500 points per day. To win a weekly prize you just need to meet the requirement in 5 out of 7 days. In the monthly prize you have a chance to win a package to a big live event, a new TV, or why not just $3500 in cash.

RedKings wants to reward every player, there is no limit on how many prizes they pay out, last month 1600 players got a prize! One managed to get a ticket to the EPT Snowfest, and now get to join Team RedKings in the Alps.

This is just an extra value to play at RedKings, it goes on top of all your bonuses and valueback, so there is nothing to lose, just to win in what they call it themselves “Probably the easiest Points Race in the world!”

The race starts on the 6th of January and goes on until the 2nd of February. To see the full info about prize categories, race points, levels and of course how to register, click here

Happy New Year!

To start off the new year we are offering an exclusive tournament at RedKings on New Years Day, with $2010 guaranteed! We give you some time to recover from the last night party, and start the tournament at 17:00 CET.

Name: New Years Day Hangover $2010 Gtd
Date & Time: 1/1-2010 at 17:00 CET
Buy-in: $5+$0.50
Prizepool: $2010 Guaranteed!
Venue: RedKings Tournament Lobby

With this we want to wish all readers and customers a happy new poker year!

Good Luck!

And hopefully there will in the short future be more of them! This was the first of it’s kind, and with 338 players, it is counted as a success! The buy-in was free, or everybody that played had either qualified online at RedKings.com, or through their local poker club, everybody could do 1 re-buy and 1 add-on, it ended up with 139 re-buys and 241 add-ons. What happened during day 1a and day 1b you can read about here, the following will be about the exciting final day!

Exactly 100 players started on the Sunday, after going through from day 1a and day 1b. One of them was the Team RedKings pro Ivo “The Chessmaster” Donev who was top 5 in chips when the day started. A name that would needed to be remembered was also Kenan Erdogan who started the day with 2nd most chips.

Ivo started of the day with losing a chunk of chips on a very loose/aggressive table, but then pretty early got to change table where he straight away went back to being the table captain. He continued like this all the way down until they were only 10 left, and this is what the official final table looked like:
Kenan Erdogan
Ivo Donev
Thomas Szammer
Thomas Thang
Berd Nickel
Michael Krieg
Andreas Szabados
Nina Weihs
Bernhard Wladkowski
Mag. Manfred Löffler

On this final table there was two players who showed their poker skills more than anyone else, the earlier mentioned Kenan Erdogan, and of course the Team RedKings pro Ivo Donev. When starting the final table, Kenan had 800.000, while Ivo had 400.000. The final table was a battle between these two gentlemen, when Ivo didn’t raise, usually Kenan did. Quickly 6 of the players were gone, and we had the following four left:
Ivo Donev
Kenan Erdogan
Thomas Thang (Chip leader after day 1)
Thomas Szammer

Thomas thang who had been out of position on both Ivo and Kenan all day was the player that had to leave in 4th place, to bring home to brag with among his Danish friends, remember he is the boss in the Danish Poker Federation!

Then we were down to 3, everybody wanted that BMW so badly, so this took time, but Thomas Szammer couldn’t do much when Ivo had a pair of 8♣ 8♥ vs his 5♥ 5♦.

IVO “The Chessmaster” DONEV did it again! He made it to the heads-up, and no RedKings Poker Tour is not rigged in favor for Team RedKings players, it’s pure skill. In the heads-up Ivo had to give up, and Kenan Erdogan is the first ever winner of the RedKings Poker Tour, congratulations to the win and a completely new BMW! There was rumors about that a deal was made, but maybe that is something you will hear about in a later blog post. Here is the Final Standings in the RKPT:
1. Kenan Erdogan BMW + €1 000
2. Ivo Donev €4 305
3. Thomas Szammer €2 420
4. Thomas Thang €1 906
5. Berd Nickel €1 394
6. Michael Krieg €1 046
7. Andreas Szabados €889
8. Nina Weihs €750
9. Bernhard Wladkowski €610
10. Mag. Manfred Löffler €505

Congratulations to all the 36 players that made it to the money, and thanks to everybody that played!

This is in my opinion one of the best destinations within the EPT circuit, both when it comes to the value in the tournament and the cashgames and the city itself. The tournament is played out in the Hilton hotel where most of the players stay during the week. Unfortunately the tournament didnt last to long on my part this time and I can give you guys a brief of the reason for that.

We start with 30k and blinds 50/100 one hour levels, as usual this season. One of the very first hands i pick up a pair of eights, this elder guy raises to 275 in early position I make the call and so does the player in the big blind. Flop comes down J♦ 9♣ 8♣, the preflop-raiser bets 800, and I make the call and the BB folds. Turn is Q♥, and he quickly checks, I think about it for a while and check behind. River is the J♣, giving me a full house and puts a possible flush out there. A little surprising the preflop-raiser makes a relatively big bet of 2300, I thougt for a while and came to the conclusion raising had little merit to it, so I made the call. He showed me 9♥ 9♦ and higher full house. Not to much happened on this table before i moved to a new table, which was filled with a bunch of French guys playing literally every hand. This is pretty awesome as long as you catch some cards and that the hands you get into turns out well.

There was a old guy on the table which liked to limp a lot from all positions and he was frequently isolated by several players. Once again he limps in from mid position on blinds 150/300, one of the young French guys makes it 750 and I make the call for 450 more from my bb with 7♥ 8♥, so does the limper.
The flop comes down 2♣ 5♠ 7♦, and we check to the pre-raiser, which bets 1600 , I make the call, and the limper folds. Turn is a K♥ and I check again, he bets 4200, I’m like 90% sure he’s bluffing, my reasoning beeing he seemed like the kind of guy just firing on what he thought was a scarecard which in this case I dont think a king is at all vs a guy like him. I didn’t think he would valuebet turn with less than a king to often and then he have more bluffs then honest hands in his range combined with his timing etc, so I call. The river is a 9♣ I check and he checks rather quickly and we turn over and he obviously has J♣ 9♠ FTW.

Even though it’s a good structure this pot was quite important and brought me down to under 20k.
I folded for a few orbits, before this hand occurs: it’s opened to 800 from early mp, the limping guy calls, so does one more player before it’s me on the button and I pick up A♥ K♦, and I raise it to 3800. Originalraiser folds, before the limping machine decides to call, and the other guy folds.
Flop comes 4♥ 5♦ and he checks, I think a bit and decide to continue bet 4500, my reasoning is that he was the kind of guy who could have everything from 22 to 89suited to the same hand as me etc. So even though a check might be better since he’s never folding much better hands and seemed so ultrarecreational, I still could not help myself since checking most of the time loses me the pot.
He obviously check-raises me all-in and I have to fold.

Then I move table again, this time it seemed like a more skillfull table with Luca Pagano and a few others i recognized. I am down to like 14k, and I raise A♦ 9♦ to 800 from middle position and get a caller on cutoff and the bb. The flop comes down 982 with two hearts, and I bet out 2100, getting called from the cutoff and the bb folds. The turn brings a good card for me the A♠, i think for a while and since i was quite sure the player i was up against was a thinking player I tried to represent a bluff (and obv protect my hand is one of the upsides) by moving all-in with a slight overbet of 10k into the 7500 pot. He thinks for a while and makes the call with 6♥ 7♥ for a flushdraw and an open-ender.
The river is dealt and its a 3♥ and the tournament is over for me.

The cash games in Prague is always quite amazing, and I managed to take down a nice profit in a couple of sessions.

The rest of the week was spent partying with my Norwegian and Swedish friends.

Have a nice christmas!

RedKings own tournament in Austria, called the RedKings Poker Tour started off on Friday the 4th. The rules were simple, all the players had qualified either thorugh online satellites at RedKings.com or through live satellites in pokerclubs all over the German speaking countries, and they all got a chance to make a re-buy for only €50. The winner of the tournament will go home with a BMW 116i worth about €30.000!

Day 1a got got 138 participants, a bit lower than day 1b, but that was probably for the obvious reason that everybody wanted to get the chance to meet the RedKings pro Ivo “The Chessmaster” Donev who had his seat on day 1b. The first day went on smoothly, and 30 of the 138 could find themselves registered for the final day on Sunday!

Day 1b was the day when the star went into the action, Ivo Donev, and in what way he did it, it wasn’t easy to be on his table if you were there to win. Ivo has showed his skills again and ended the day as the top 5 in chips with 81.650. In total the player amount almost doubled against day 1a, and 220 players was there to try their luck. 70 of these went on to the final day to battle with the other 30 that did the same effort the day before.

Now we have 100 players left of the total 358 that started in the RedKings Poker Tour 2009, 30 of these will get a nice payday, and one of them will be driving home in a RedKings branded BMW 116i! Starting the final day, we have the President of the Danish Poker Federation, Thomas Thang in the lead, but he better watch out for Ivo Donev who is just behind.

Tomorrow you will get all the information about what went down on the final table, and if Ivo Donev could keep it up and maybe win the car?

David Wintersberger started this hand with a big stack of 160.000, and he started with the premium hand K♠ K♦. The table chip leader (David was 2nd) ended up with 4-betting David pre-flop and of course David called. The flop came out 4♦ 4♠ Q♥. His opponent, Yann Brosolo, bet out 40.000 and David called, turn was J♦, and Mr. Bronsolo decides for some reason to go all-in and David thinks for a long while and realizes that he can’t fold, so he calls. Bronsolo goes “Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!” and turns over 5♠ 5♥ and only has two cards that can save him for the river, ladies and gentlemen I repeat, 2 cards!

River…..5♦ and the pot of well above 300.000 and a chip lead in EPT Prague is shipped away from David who instead is out of the tournament.

Writing this makes me sick, so I can’t imagine how David felt, if pig flue is bad, this is worse. Impressively well played by David all tournament!!

Team RedKings is getting over it, and is now looking forward for the RKPT that starts this weekend in Austria!

The 328 players that went on to day 2 has started playing and included in those 328 we have the Team RedKings player David Wintersberger that started the day with 66.600, and he has already almost doubles that stack.

David is sitting down with the runner up from EPT Villamoura Pierre Neuville and Florian Langmann. Davids first big pot came when he re-raised with A♥ Q♠ on a flop containing of Q♥ J♠ 4♦ taking him up to 90.000.

Now recently he took down a big pot from Pierre Neuville and is now up to 120.000!

David Wintersberger, 120.000

Go David!

David Wintersberger is the only RedKing left in the field, but that is not so “only” as he has showed today how brilliant poker he can play also live. At one point he was up to almost 100.000, but then lost a pot on a big flip with J♥ J♠ vs A♥ Q♠.

He ends the day with 60.600, which is about the average stack, there is now 328 players that will continue tomorrow at 12:00 CET.

Good Luck David!

Stephan Kjerstad was down to about 15.000, when he was all-in with A♠ 9♠ on the board 4♥ 8♠ 9♣ A♥, his opponent had 6♥ 7♥ for a straight draw and a flush draw. The river showed 3♥ giving Stephans opponent the flush and sending Stephan out from the tournament.

Luckily that was the only bad news, David Wintersberger is doing really good after this pot he was up to almost 70.000. David had A♥ A♣ on the flop of K♦ K♥ 2♦, and got all the chips in against A♦ 9♦, bothe turn and river were blank and David won the pot. He has now gone down a little but is way above average with 57.000.

We have a total of 586 players here in Prague after a day 1b with a huge field of 367 players.

Stephan Kjerstad, out
David Wintersberger, 57.000

Stephan Kjerstad and David Wintersberger has entered the tournament in Prague today on day 1b. Yesterday we had 219 players paying the buy-in of €5000+€250, and 117 of them will continue tomorrow for day 2.

David Wintersberger has started off with a aggressive style today, being the table captain and playing more pots than anyone on the table. If you are able to control this, it can give you some great advantages, for example in hands where you have something and the opponent doesn’t think you have something, a very clear example is when David had A♠ A♥ on a table of 5♣ 6♠ K♥ J♣ 2♦ and got paid off on every street against a player who had Q♥ 5♠.

Stephan Kjerstad got unlucky when he had a set of 8s, but his opponent had a set of 9s.

David Wintersberger, 35.000
Stephan Kjerstad, 24.000