It’s a happy day for RedKings, especially for the RedKings Qualifier Ville Salmi who has managed to take something more than money with him home to Finland from Estoril and Portugal, a trophy! He has received this tropy for winning this years edition of Estoril Live and beating 271 other players. In this case I actually think the €100.000 is even more important for Ville, and the trophy will only be another glass to use at the celebration party!

It has never been a question about that Ville would take a top position in this tournament, as he has almost never been below top 10 in chips. Coming in to the final table he was 5th in chips, and had to beat the Swedish pokericon Ola Brandborn and some fellow Finns to bring home the title.

After being three players left for a long time, they finally managed to get out the last Portuguese player and going in to a Finnish war in the heads up between Ville Salmi and Teemu Kangasvieri. It only took one hand until it was over in this heads up. Ville moved all-in with 9♥ 9♣ and got called by Q♥ 9♦. A board showing 5♠ J♥ 2♠ 7♦ 4♥ gave Ville the win!

Soon we will have a few words with the winner, but let’s let him have his party first..

Congratulations to Ville Salmi!

That the Team RedKings pros where extremely good, we already knew, that the qualifiers usually do good results, we also knew, but we didn’t know that Ville Salmi could be in the top of the chips almost throughout the Estoril Live. Now there is only 8 players left, and Ville Salmi has a nice stack going in to the final table!

Here is the final 8 that will battle out later on today:
1. Ville Salmi, Finland - 548.000
2. Alexander Lang, Österrike 285,000
3. Ola Brandborn, Sverige - 610,000
4. Paul Jansen, Holland - 304,500
5. Ville Mattila, Finland - 579,500
6. Daniel Ferreira, Portugal - 615,000
7. Teemu Kangasvieri, Finland - 575,000
8. Pedro Demevre, Portugal - 597,000

We wish Ville good Luck, and give you a few words he gave us before going in to the tournament: “I’ve played 3 EPT tournaments and about 10 2k-3k€ live tournaments. I haven’t really played any internet poker last year and half. Before that I played quite a lot for 3 years. I mostly like to play live and especially cash games and almost exclusively omaha. This Estoril tournament trip is mostly holiday for me, but obviously I also hope to do well in the tournament.”

It for sure was a great holiday, and so far he has done very well in the tournament!

Good Luck Ville!

And also a side note, we will be reporting from Amsterdam today where Per Linde and Ivo Donev is going in to the Amsterdam Master Classics of Poker Main Event today!

After that Jeffery Tan finished outside the money in the APT Macau, we thought that Team RedKings would go empty handed away from Macau. That is not the case, Jason Samsonov wanted to play more poker so he sat down in the 6 handed event, and he did not only sit down, he won it! Congratulations Jason, for winning $6,000!

On Sundays we offer a big $100+$8 tournament with one rebuy and one add-on. Per Linde came home from the vacation yesterday and decided to play a few tournaments, it ended up with him winning the $100+$8 tournament for $30,000.

Congratulations Per and Jason!

EPT Barcelona is just getting closer and closer, and you will soon be able to meet our team players in a bounty tournament! Also the finnish championship where Toni Ojala last year was the champion and this year he will try to defend it. The tournament starts on the 28th of August, so come back and see how he is doing!

And from RedKings HQ today comes the news of a new pro signing. Jason ‘the hotshot’ Samsonov, despite his russian sounding name Jason is from singapore and is one of the best known online players in Asia joins Team RedKings to represent RedKings at the Asian Poker Tour in Macau as we focus our attention on Asia and all the fantastic poker players in Singapore, The Philippines and Malaysia. RedKings is one of the official Online partners of the Asian Poker Tour Macau.

The Asian Poker Tour is the biggest tournament in Asia. Playing there you will be surrounded by the world’s top players and in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Macau is the self-styled Las Vegas of the East, play in one of the many major casinos or take a few steps in the other direction and experience the fortresses, churches and food inspired by it’s former colonial master Portugal.

Win an $8000 prize package to play in the APT Macau 2009 tournament. Your prize package consists of your tournament buy-in ($4300), $2700 for flights and spending and a luxurious 7 night stay at the Rio Hotel and Casino!

You can fly away to Macau for as little as $2+$0.20 by playing in one of our daily qualifiers where you can win a ticket into our online finals. The online finals are played every Thursday and Sunday for a buy-in of just $300+$20 - there is one prize package guaranteed in each final.

Maybe you can Live the Dream and join Team RedKings at the Rio in Macau