Don’t think I have lost it just because of the title, it actually does have with poker to do. Things were looking down for Team RedKings here in Deauville, when both Benjamin and Sampsa went out. So we have our only hope in Toni Ojala.

So, to the Anna Kournikova part, Toni had about 12k behind him when he picked up the hand AK (also called Anna Kournikova), he called a raise pre flop, and the the flop comes out Axx, his opponent raises, Toni re-raises and gets the call, turn is low card, and his opponent bets out again around 2000, Toni re raises to 4500, opponent calls. On the river Toni gets all his chips into the pot and gets the call. His opponent shows AQ and Toni wins on the kicker, and Toni doubles up to 25.000!

But Anna Kournikova is beautiful, don’t you think?

Benjamin Schaub. Benjamin played stable all day without any big swings in his stack, he was hoping for a big swing when he got dealt the beautiful hand of two aces. He tried to slowplay them a bit pre-flop, and got three callers. The flop comes out J high, with three clubs. Benjamin bets out, and gets a re raise from one of his opponents, Benjamin puts him on a AJ with the Ace of clubs, so he moves all in. His opponent doesn’t think about it and snapcalls with QJ, with Q of clubs. So Benjamin is ahead with his two aces, but the pokergods wasn’t with him and the river shows another club that gives his opponent the flush.

We will definitely see more from Benjamin in the RedKings shirt in the future, and this was just a warm up on what to come.

Benjamin goes to the bar, and I am going to root for Toni as much as I can. He is now our only hope in the EPT Deauville by Pokerstars.net!

I am sad to say that Sampsa Hytönen, our finnish qualifier has been beaten out from the tournament. He never really got the chance to build a big stack, and 3 hours in to the tournament he had to leave his place and walk out from the tournament area, of course very dissappointed.

Now he has made his first appearance on the EPT tour, but I am sure it is not his last. We wish him luck in the future, and soon we maybe will see him in a RedKings shirt again!

We have now played for two hours, and all of our three players are still in.

Toni Ojala - 12.000
Benjamin Schaub - 9.000
Sampsa Hyvönen - 6.000

The players has just got to an 15 minutes break, and I had a quick chat with Toni about his table. He is really loving it, some french local fishes and nervous qualifiers. It fits Toni good, and now he just needs some hands to get the chips from his opponents. I also asked him if he knows the mountain Kebnekaise, and he didn’t so I guess i have to explain, it is a “huge” mountain in Sweden, actually the highest one, so now you know. You don’t only learn about poker in this blog.

Benjamin just was in a big pot against the pro Dario Minieri. I was able to get that on tape, and you will soon be able to see some live from the tournament here in the blog.

And I really want to find it! That is the total prizepool here in Deauville, after 302 players yesterday, we today got an extra 40 players, which means we have 342 player today on day 1b.

So, if I don’t find it I really hope some of our RedKings players can win it. We now have shuffled and

dealt the cards and been playing for about 30 minutes. Benjamin Schaub is already on the featured table on the stage, together with guys as Dario Minieri, so his tactics he told me yesterday about being aggresive already from the start has been a little bit crushed and he has now changed it to a bit more passive style, wise as he is.

More about Toni, Sampsa and Benjamin coming up soon..

We will today have three players in a RedKings shirt, two of them making their first appearance on the EPT tour. They are both qualifiers and one of them is only 18 years old!

Sampsa Hytönen, was here early today to warm up his best part of the genius and young pokerbrain he

has. He also tells me that he has had a good night sleep, and everything feels perfect for hopefully a very long day of poker. Of course we also have our German qualifier Benjamin Schaub playing today. I got the privilege to share a Heineken with him yesterday, and it was hard to understand that this is his first EPT appearance , he was very relaxed, of course a little bit nervous but they all say that is a good thing. He has driven his car here from Germany, so we know he has the right patience

Then we have Toni, of course, who always have the same confident style, which only a real poker pro can have. The players are now starting to get into the tournament area, and in a couple of minutes we will hear chips scrambling everywhere, you got to love that!

Stay tuned for more updates!

Day 1a has just come to an end, of the 302 starting players, 132 made it for the 2nd day. Among these we have superstars as Juha Helppi, the unbeatable Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Isabelle Mercier. Tomorrow there will be more action on this blog, when Toni Ojala (FIN), Sampsa Hytönen (FIN) and Benjamin Schaub (GER) goes in to the action.

I would also like to report from the other part of the world, in the Aussie Millions Main Event, Christian Heich went through to the second day that will be played during the night. Veli-Pekka Penttinen will also continue his adventure in the Main Event with the RedKings shirt on.

So, if there is somewhere you want to be tomorrow, it is for sure on this blog or in the Barriere Casino.

Follow the EPT Deauville by Pokerstars.net here tomorrow!

So then it was time for the next EPT stop, this time in France, in the little lovely town Deauville. It has already started and everything has been running smooth for four hours already. We will have three RedKings players starting in this tournament, our pro player Toni Ojala who right now is at the cash game tables warming up for tomorrow. More about that later.

We have also to this tournament got two qualifiers through the online qualifiers at RedKings.com, winning the package with the ticket with an value of €5000. Benjamin Schaub from Germany and Sampsa Hytönen from Finland. Benjamin is making his first EPT appearance ever, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any experience in playing live. He has already been in the town of poker, Las Vegas, where he tried his luck in some smaller WSOP events. Sampsa is here to play his very first really big live tournament, he has been in Helsinki playing some in the local casino, but never something in the region of this EPT tournament. I am sure we will see more of him after this tournament.

Toni, Benjamin and Sampsa are all starting tomorrow, and that is why you haven’t got any up to minute reporting yet.