Name: Anton Astapov

Age: 21

Nationality: Belarusian

Player Presentation:

I got into poker about 2 years ago. I saw one of my friends playing online and also decided to give it a try. I had absolutely no experience and lost some money. I didn’t give up though, made another $100 deposit and started from micro stake tournaments and Sit&Go’s. Meanwhile, I was trying to improve my game. From that point, I managed to slowly build up my bankroll. Finally, I found out that I probably can make enough money playing poker online. After that I never looked back

Now I play mainly MTTs, but also try to improve my skills in cash games (NL Holdem and PLO).

GSOP Malta will be my first major live tournament. I hope it will be exciting and I’ll try to do my best. Good luck to everyone and see you at the tables!

Name: Juha Varis

Age: 32

Nationality: Finnish

Player Presentation:

I started playing poker about four years ago inspired by the WPT-broadcasts and my friends. I got in to the action playing with a $10 dollar No Deposit bonus and never looked back. I have never had to deposit my own money. In the beginning I was experimenting with Fixed Limit Hold´Em but quickly moved to Sit&Go´s and then to No Limit cash games.
Nowadays I mostly play cash games with the focus in NLHE, but I sometimes give Omaha a chance or two. Just for a change I still occasionally play some tournaments too. I have always liked playing live, and this summer I made my first poker trip to Las Vegas. So far I haven´t played bigger Live Tournaments, but I have high expectations for GSOP Live Malta. Whenever I play, I play to win!

Good luck to everyone and enjoy!

Name: Sami Turunen

Age: 42

Nationality: Finnish

Our next RedKings Qualifier, Sami Turunen, is a man of experience. He was playing poker before most of our Qualifiers were even born. In his own words:

“Hi Kids, I started playing poker 30 years ago.

Alright then.. that was 5-card Stud (if I remember) when I was 10-years old or something, and I forgot the game and all its variations completely for the next 25+ years.. so that much for the experience.

Nice to be back though: I found poker (online) just about 5 years ago when WSOP events started to showing on TV -and I was right into it again; been playing cash games and MTTs “50/50″ ever since.

About Live tournaments.. I don’t often get a chance to play them and this GSOP Malta is actually my first MTT outside the casino in Helsinki where I live (I occasionally play there for fun, both cash and MTTs). So I’m really looking forward to this - I really like the athmosphere in live games and I get to see people I know, but rarely meet “offline” =)

See you at (Final?) Tables!”

Name: Vitalii Evdokimov
Nationality: Russian
Age: 24
Player presentation in English:

The first time I learned about poker few years ago. The game intrigued me immediately but I wasn’t crazy about it. It was fun for me to gather together with my friends and play with them. But since they created official special areas for poker in Russia it made many people stop playing offline inside the country. However, recently I have realized that online poker gives an excellent opportunity to participate in the international live tournaments. To qualify to such Live tournaments is quite easy even for an average player without having big experience. That’s what I did at RedKings and now I am looking forward to go to GSOP Live Malta. I am not a very experienced offline poker player but I am so sure I am going to have great time!

Player Presentation in Russian:
Первый раз я познакомился с покером несколько лет назад, и игра меня сразу заинтриговала, однако большого увлечения не вызвала. Покер был развлечением, которое позволяло весело провести время с друзьями за приятным занятием.  А с тех пор, как покер в России официально вывели в специальные игровые зоны наравне с азартными играми, от данного вида развлечения пришлось практически отказаться. Однако недавно я понял, что Online покер-румы предоставляют прекрасную возможность поучаствовать в международных турнирах. При этом пройти отборочные турниры на такой турнир вполне реально даже для игрока-любителя среднего уровня. Предложение RedKings отобраться через отборочные турниры на серию GSOP Live на Мальте мне показалось очень интересным, и я не ошибся. Так как опыта игры в больших offline турнирах у меня нет, я рассчитываю просто хорошо провести время.

Name: Pavlo Melnychenko

Nationality: Ukrainian

Age: 23

Player presentation in English:

I was introduced to poker by one of my friends who told me the game is very interesting. I gave it a shot and liked it a lot! This was around 2 years ago and I started with $1 Sit’n’Go tournaments. Playing different kinds of poker (cash, MTT) I went up the limits and now I am playing $5.5 - $22 tournaments. I like to play offline as well and I have experience in winning some smaller scale live events, but nothing as big one as the coming GSOP Live Malta. But I am young and I am ready to learn =)

Player Presentation in Russian:

Мне про покер рассказал знакомый, он тоже только начал играть 2 месяца всего и говорил , что очень интересная игра, я попробовал -  мне понравилось! Начал играть я где-то 2 года назад, играл в начале турниры СНГ за $1, потом потихоньку начал вырастать по лимитам, играл много всего разного: и кеш и МТТ… Сейчас играю СНГ турниры от $5.5 до $22. Играю и в офлайне - выигрывал пару турниров. Но особого опыта в больших офлаqн турнирах нет, но я молодой и готов учиться=)

We are slowly recovering from celebrating Toni´s and Janne´s success, and can announce the final results:

1. Martin Emanuelsson 63000€

2. Morten Mortenssen 42000€

3. Tomi-Ville Hytti 29000€

We will post more pictures from the week and some player comments later.

See you in Malta!

Technical problems, here´s the latest chipcounts:

Tomi-Ville Hytti – 3,000,000
Morten Mortensen – 1,350,000
Martin Emanuelsson – 1,350,000

Tomi-Ville Hytti opened 100k, Janne went all in for ~600k and Tomi-Ville quickly made the call. Janne was in bad shape with Ah7h against Hytti´s pair of sevens and got no help from the deck.

Congratulations to Janne for his great performance in his second big Live tournament! Janne earned approximately 20000€!

Augskalns opened, Toni thought for a while and went all in 750ish. Tomi-Ville moved instantly all in behind Toni and the Latvian folded.

Toni As9s

Tomi-Ville AcKc

Flop 888s

Turn 7s giving Toni flush and split outs

River Tc

Congratulations for Toni on his great performance in the first ever GSOP Live Event! He earned 9418 lats (approximately 13185€)

Edgars Augstkalnst was also just eliminated AJ<AK, so we are down to 4 players.

VAMOOOS JANNE!

Martin doubled up thru Hytti Tomi-Ville so the stacks are getting shallower, so we are expecting to see some heavy action soon.

Edgars Augstkalns – 1,000,000
Toni Ojala – 950,000
Tomi-Ville Hytti – 1,485,000
Janne Salonen – 900,000
Morten Mortensen – 500,0000
Martin Emanuelsson – 705,000