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!

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?

RedKings is happy to present the RedKings Poker Tour 2009 to all our German Speaking players. It will be a Live Poker Event with an estimated prize pool of €100,000, including a BMW 116i for the Winner.
The Event will be held on the 4th of December in Vienna, at the biggest Casino in Europe – Poker Royale Card Club Casino!

There is no direct buy in. The only way to participate is to qualify either live or online at RedKings.com.
All Live Satellites to this magnificent Poker Event are going to start soon in all Austrian, most of the German and Swiss Live Poker Clubs. Our Online Satellites start from the 12th of October and will be running up to the 27th of November.

If you manage to qualify for a seat you will not only get to play in a great structured tournament you will also get a big live poker adventure. You will be able to meet and beat our German Team RedKings pros and not to forget become the owner of a BMW 116i!

You could stay at our Partner Hotel “Orange Wings Wiener Neustadt”, from there our RedKings shuttle Bus and partner taxi company will drive you to the Casino or you could have a 10 minutes relaxing walk.

All information about the tournament such as prizes, satellites and all other extras that will be arranged during the tournament, you can find detailed in German here

Good Luck, and I hope I will see you in Vienna!