The Main Event in the Finnish Championship was last year won by our Team RedKings member Toni Ojala. He was of course in Helsinki to defend his title this year, which would had been one of the most extraordinary things you could accomplish in the world of poker.

The Finnish Championship 2009 wasn’t really what people expected it to be, usually they fill up the 220 seats that they put the cap on. This year there were only around 80 players trying to steal Tonis title.

Toni managed to go through from the first day and on the second day he had a stack of 70.000, when the average was around 49.000 and 31 players left. Maybe he would do a back to back final table?

Toni was going for the title, and not for a high position and sometimes you have to live with the risks of playing that sort of game. Toni went out in 22nd position, of course very disappointed, but we still know that he is one of the best tournament players in Finland.

Toni is now going to Barcelona to play in EPT Barcelona on the 5th of September!

Toni hasn’t been playing much Omaha in his career as a professional poker player, but when the finnish championship was in town he decided to sit down in the €1000 Omaha event. He has plans to start playing more and more Omaha the coming year.

He did very good in the tournament, but there is not much to do when you get this hand:
One player raises pre-flop, Toni calls with KT98, player in the blind also makes the call. The flop comes out 567 with a flush draw. Both Tonis opponent check, and Toni bets 4,000, the player in the blind put Toni all-in and Toni calls with his nut straight. Now, here is the bad beat, the player that put Toni all-in thought that he has a flush draw, but he didn’t. He only had a pair of 6s, on the turn there is a Q giving his opponent a two pair and on the river there is another 6 giving his opponent a full house beating Tonis straight.

The day after this Toni played in a €300 NLHE event, and again he shows that he is one of the top players in the world by finishing in 5th position out of 100.

Today the main event of the Finnish Championship starts, and Toni will try to defend his title from last year.

It is not only Toni that has started this season, Ramzi has flown over to Cannes, and today he is playing in day 1b in IPT San Remo. As we speak he is on his balcony in Cannes having a big breakfast..

Good luck to both of them!

Toni Ojala - Last years champion!

The buyin is €1000+€50 and the tournament is expected to have over 100 players thus making the prizepool over €100.000. The tournament starts at 17.00 local time and Team RedKings will have 1 member among the 100.

It is our online qualifier Juha Voutilainen from Rauma, Finland who battled through 2 stages of qualifiers to meet the Finlands finest Omaha players.

For the championships, here is the time table if you are interested in going to the Grand Casino Helsinki:
Wed 26th 17.00- SM Omaha PL 1000+ 50 €, Freezeout, Seats 135, 2-day event (Team RK: Juha Voutilainen)
Thu 27th 16.00 - Texas No Limit 300+ 20 €, Freezeout, Seats 100
Fri 28th 17.00 - SM Texas No Limit 2850+ 150 €, Freezeout, Seats 220, 3-day event (Team RK: Toni Ojala + qualifier)
Sat 28th 16.00 - Texas No Limit 600+ 30 €, Freezeout, Seats 100 Sun 29th 16.00 - Omaha 5 Pot Limit 600+ 30 €, Freezeout, Seats 96

Will Toni defend his title?

Stay tuned for more updates..