Half of the field has just been on a dinner break, and now the rest of the field is going. It has been going a bit down for all our players the latest hour, I haven’t seen much of the action, but Shandon said he had got some great cards, for example three pocket aces, but if you get bad beats as losing with QQ vs JJ it is still not easy to keep your stack in the high regions. He is now down to 7.000 in chips, and will struggle a bit but as he said himself it is not such a big hurry as the blinds still are low (100/200).

Ramzi has also gone down a bit to about 13.000, and as you know he is on the same table as Jesper and also he has lost some of his stack, seems like it’s a hard table to be at.

Per Linde is the one who continues building his stack and now has the double start stack, which means 30.000.

Chip counts:
Per Linde - 30.000
Ramzi Jelassi - 13.000
Toni Ojala - 9.000
Jesper Höög - 10.500
Shandon Clarke - 7.000

Per got dealt the best hand in poker, AA and got all-in vs AK, pretty much the best position you can get pre flop in poker, if nothing bad would happen on the flop, turn or river we would have a double sized Per. This time the best hand held up, and Per did double up to 25.000!

Toni was also involved in a big pot, I came to the table when the board was 4d9dQh, with 3 players in the pot. Both Jussi Nevalinna and Toni checked to the button who bet out 1.000, Nevalinna called, Toni re-raised to 2.300, both player called. Turn was Ad, both Finns check and the button bets out 3.000, Nevalinna folds but Toni calls. Again Toni checks and his opponent bets out 2.000, a bet that looks very much like a valuebet (valuebet=a small bet when you have the best hand to get as much chips from your opponent as possible without him folding), and Toni decided to fold. Toni is down to 9.000.

Everybody except Toni is in the flow at the moment, almost all the chip stacks has grown, check it out:
Ramzi Jelassi, 18.000
Jesper Höög, 16.500
Shandon Clarke, 21.000
Per Linde, 25.000
Toni Ojala, 9.000

Only 40 minutes until the blogs freeroll start! Password: ramzi

Ramzi played two hands in a row and won them both and here is what happened in one of them:
First pot there was a raise to 400 pre flop and Ramzi called together with 3 other players among those we had our other RedKings player Jesper Höög. Flop came out A93, player checks, Ramzi bets 1.100 and gets one caller (not Jesper). Turn is 7h, Ramzi bets 2.000, his opponent calls again. Now Ramzi only has 7.000 left in his stack. The river is another 7, his opponent checks again and Ramzi bets 4.500 with only 2.500 behind, after a while his opponent folds. Ramzi is now up to about 22.000.

Per Linde has started climbing from being down to 11.000 he is now back to 14.500 and the future looks bright. Toni Ojala haven’t been involved in that many hands today, and has about 13.000.

Chip Counts:
Ramzi Jelassi, 22.000
Jesper Höög, 20.000
Toni Ojala, 13.000
Per Linde, 14.500
Shandon Clarke, 18.000

Only an hour left to the freeroll! Find in the RedKings tournament lobby, and use the password: ramzi to join!

My guess was that there would be more players on day 1b, but that is not the case, we had 187 players who either qualified or bought in for the €4000+€400. This makes the total prize pool to €1.540.360, with a total of 397 players.

Ramzi and Jesper is having a small fight about who is crowned the King at their table, there has been some action between them but at the moment I would say no one can be crowned to the king, we will see if we will be able to later today, hopefully they can share it and make the other players their slaves. Maybe I went a bit to far with that, but what happens in Venice stays in Venice..

Chip Counts:
Ramzi Jelassi, 17.000
Jesper Höög, 20.000
Per Linde, 14.000
Toni Ojala, 11.500
Shandon Clarke, 14.000

Soon time for the freeroll! Only a few hours left, you find it in the RedKings tournament lobby called “RedKings Blog FR”, the password you need to join is “ramzi”

Ramzi was in a pot against a random Italian player, which I know Ramzi like, not for any special reason, he just likes it. The Italian raised to 300 pre-flop with the blinds 50-100, Ramzi who had position on the Italian player re-raised to 800, Italian player called. Flop Came out 10×4d7d, Italian player bets out 1200, Ramzi raise to 3200 and gets the call, turn is 5h, both player checks, river shows 5c, Italian player checks again and Ramzi bets out 3000, and the Italian player folds. This takes Ramzi up to 18.000.

Shandon has been very active the first hour and been involved in many pots, he was up to 19.000 for a while but have now dropped down to about 14.000, I think our Canadian will give us some serious action during the day!

Chip Counts: (Starting stack 15.000)
Ramzi Jelassi, 18.000
Toni Ojala, 13.500
Jesper Höög, 15.000
Per Linde, 15.000
Shandon Clarke, 14.000

Don’t miss tonights freeroll! Starts at 20:00 CEST and the password is: ramzi

Yesterday was a day without many big names, seems like the pros all decided to play on day 1b as today we can find a bunch of them on the tables. We have the dream trio of pokergirls, Vanessa Rousso, Sandra Naujoks and Anette Obrestad. We of course have the two italians Luca Pagano and Dario Minieri, and other interesting names are Michael Tureniec, Jens Kyllönen and Chris Brown.

Our players hasn’t got the easiest tables either, Jesper and Ramzi actually managed to get the same table so that could be interesting. We have Per Linde who is on the same table as the 4th place finisher in EPT Monte Carlo, the Norweigan Dag Martin Mikkelsen. Toni Ojala is on the same table as his fellow Finn who finished fourth in EPT Copenhagen, Jussi Nevanlinna. Shandon Clarke is sitting just next to the pro Sorel Missi, but he is handling it good and has already boosted his stack up to 18.000.

Tonight there is going to be a $250 blog freeroll, at 20:00 CEST! The password you need to enter is: ramzi

In only a few minutes we will hear the tournament director announcing “shuffle up and deal!”, then we will have 5 RedKings players at the tables waiting to get dealt their first hand, all are here but all with their own preparations.

Ramzi Jelassi who flew over tonight after watching the incredible game between Chelsea and Barcelona, and the night before that he also watched the game Manchester United vs Arsenal, he said that this will make his poker even better! Don’t know how, but it is Ramzi we are talking about..

Toni Ojala has been doing what he does best, playing online poker in bed, for me that sounds like a good preparation.

Per Linde brought his girlfriend here to Venice, and if playing online poker is a good preparation, this one is just magic.

Jesper Höög who is back in the red shirt for this tournament has just had a few calm days with his friends in Venice, together with some high stakes bets on the football last night.

Shandon Clarke also brought a guest, his wife. So far they have had a great time and now the real adventure begins, so lets hope that could be even better!

In 5 minutes they start! Look out for a new quiz and a freeroll password. Here we go…

Ohh, and I must put up the first chip count, just because it’s so easy:
Ramzi Jelassi, 15.000
Toni Ojala, 15.000
Jesper Höög, 15.000
Per Linde, 15.000
Shandon Clarke, 15.000

We had 210 players starting in WPT Venice powered by bwin.com at day 1a, this field has been sliced down to 128 players after 7 hour of poker, and we have another two hours to go of the day. The field hasn’t had that many big stars, I guess most of them lost their bankroll in the town of high rollers, Monte Carlo. Today the most famous names were Bertrand ‘Elky’ Grospellier and Johan Storåkers, Elky has already left the building, maybe because that his opponents didn’t recognize him in his new outfit..

Tomorrow we have more stars, just from our own team we are bringing top players like Ramzi Jelassi and Toni Ojala tightly followed by Per Linde and Jesper Höög, we also have hope for our Canadian Qualifier Shandon Clarke.

Ramzi Jelassi who has had a week full of action, first to Monte Carlo to play in the EPT Main Event, and during that he lived in a luxury apartment in Cannes until he flew over to watch the champions league game Arsenal vs Manchester Utd in London, and the rumors is that he also was on the game that was played just an hour ago, Chelsea-Barcelona. Tonight he is flying over to Venice, to give us his VIP appearance also here! Who doesn’t want to be Ramzi?

Tomorrow this blog is going to be very active, you will find chip counts updated as soon as they are slightly changed, info about all the interesting hands our Team RedKings members are involved in and all othe gossip going around! This plus a new freeroll and a new quiz!

It’s a smorgasbord!

We have a huge $500 Freeroll tonight to celebrate that we have arrived in Venice, and to get you blog readers an appetizer of what to come. The password is: wpt09, you can find the tournament in the RedKings tournament lobby.

Venice, the town called the most romantic of them all is now where our stars will have their romantic dreams tonight charging their batteries to go in to the tournament on day 1b. We will have a total of 5 players, you know most of them already, Toni Ojala, Ramzi Jelassi, Per Linde, Jesper Höög and the new comer from Canada Shandon Clarke. The hosting casino is just like the town, beautiful. To come here you have to take a boat taxi, just that you have to do that makes this tournament special, now lets hope that we can get some good action inside as well!

Today there will be happening stuff in the blog even though our players is not playing, you will get a freeroll password for a $500 freeroll! All the winners from the quizzes in EPT Monte Carlo will be presented, and maybe a new quiz will be born!

Updates will come!