Name: Tobias Revenäs

Age: 35

Nationality: Swedish

The GSOP Live Series has been an instant hit in Scandinavia, so it should not be huge surprise, that our next introduced qualifier comes Sweden. Tobias has known poker since his childhood days and started playing more Hold´Em about three years ago; “Since then my skills have gradually improved and I play a lot online. I have qualified to few Live Events thru satellites but so far without big success in the events. No I look forward to playing GSOP Live Bucharest and will give my best performance there”

Follow our blogs in February and see if Tobias hits his first big live score!

Name: Vyacheslav Stoyanov

Age: 23

Nationality: Moldavian

Player presentation in English:
I have been playing poker for three and a half years; originally my friend introduced me to this game. I started form the very lowest limits in SNG tournaments for 0.1$. Since March I have been playing at RedKings Poker, which became my main poker-room. Now I am playing 22$-108$ SNG 5 max turbos and studying HU SNGs and MTTs.

My first offline poker experience I got last summer taking part in several RPT Odessa events. I got into the money in the 6max tournament which is my favorite one. I am going to get seriously prepared for the coming GSOP Live event in Bucharest and hope to show a decent game there.

Player presentation in Russian:
В покер я играю три с половиной года, мой друг познакомил меня с этой игрой. Начинал играть снг турниры на самых низких лимитах 0.1$. С марта месяца прошлого года играю на RedKings Poker, он стал моим основным покер-румом. Сейчас играю sng 5 max turbo 22$-108$ и изучаю HU sng и MTT. В оффлайне первый раз познакомился с покером прошедшим летом, сыграв серию турниров RPT Odessa. В призы попал в турнире 6 max, который мне ближе всего. Буду очень серьезно готовиться к турниру GSOP Live в Бухаресте и надеюсь, что покажу достойную игру.

Name: Koen V

Age: 34

Nationality: Dutch

Koen is already a familiar face to those of you who were following our Live Reporting from GSOP Live Riga in October, but here´s a quick recap on his poker career to the ones who have just recently joined us:

“My name is Koen, from The Netherlands. I started playing poker 5 years ago and my main game started at 50 nl full ring. After that I played a full year online tournaments only. Currently I play mostly heads up 200 nl and occasionally higher, up to 1k nl. Live tournaments I play a few times a year with a few in the money finishes like in GSOP Live Riga 12th place. Of course I aim to do better in Bucharest and improve my best live score finishing 4th in a deep stack tournament.”

Name: Balan Vasilica
Nationality: Romanian
Age: 27

Major Live Events in Romania are few and far between, so it´s only natural that a lot of local players will take part in this event. The first Romanian Team RedKings player we introduce is Vasilica Balan -  In his own words:

“My name is Balan Vasilica. I am from Romania and I am 27 years old.  I started playing poker around 4 years ago, at first it was some kind of a distraction for me but later I discovered that poker is more than just a passion. I play daily to improve my game and to reach the highest level.”

Everyone has approximately 20,000 chips

To be more specific:

Pekka Ikonen 16k - “lost AK Janos Hajdu ~20k “no big pots”
Miikka Anttonen “47000-37000 chips”
Redmond Toth ~20k - “some crazy scandis in my table”
Toni Ojala 22k “no hands really, AK and TT once, decent table with 1 or 2 soft spots”
William Sjöberg “a bit up from the starting stack, doubled once but lost some pots”
Tapio Koivisto 19k “no significant hands”
Attila Urban “everything ok”
Sami Turunen ~20k “tight table”
Viktor Katzenberger - “down to 13k”
Janos Katzenberger 20k - “nothing happening”

The slow structure leaves a lot of room to play, but most players seem to be still feeling out their opponents and we haven´t witnessed any huge action.

With no big stories, here´s some pictures:

Tamas Lencses

Narcis Nedelcu

Viktors Vorobjovs

Don´t forget our Blogs freerolls tonight - Comment in the blogs and join our Facebook group for password!

After a difficult day 1 in EPT Barcelona Ramzi Jelassi has made it thru to Day 2. The short stacked Ramzi will be one of the 380 players who continue the quest for the 825,000€ first prize tomorrow, let´s hope he catches some good cards early and will build a stack that would allow him a bit more room to play!

Name: Victor Vorobjov

Age: 22

Country: Latvia

Nationality: Belarusian

Player Presentation in English:

Before becoming a poker player I did fencing professionally for over 5 years. My live poker experience is around 4 years old; the start was in one of the local casinos in Riga (Latvia). I participated in many tournaments in different European countries – I had ups and downs as everyone does. I learned about
online poker after getting a job in one of the poker-rooms where I stayed for approximately a year. Currently I play both online and live poker. The GSOP Live event in Malta will be the 2nd event for me in this great series of poker events.

Player Presentation in Russian:

До покера, более 5 лет, я профессионально занимался фехтованием. В живой покер играю 4 года, начинал с местного казино г. Риги (Латвия). Участвовал в турнирах в разных странах Европы - складывалось по-разному: были и взлёты и падения. С онлайн-покером познакомился, попав на работу в один из покер-румов крупной сети, где проработал около года. Теперь всё время играю паралельно онлайн и в живую. Турнир GSOP Live на Мальте станет для меня вторым турниром из этой отличной серии живых покерных турниров.

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: Nedelcu Narcis Gabriel

Age: 20

Nationality: Romanian

The third stop of GSOP Live tour, GSOP Live Bucharest RedKings Open will be played in Bucharest, Romania in February 2011 so the country will become more familiar to our readers in the coming months, but first let us introduce our first Romanian Qualifier in a while. Ladies and Gentlemen, Nedelcu Narcis Gabriel:

“My name is Nedelcu Narcis Gabriel, alias Narcisus 90. I started playing poker when I was in primary school, where I used to skip classes with my friends and go to  bars etc. to play 5 Card Draw poker, that was the most popular game at the time. When I started high-school some older friends taught me NL Holdem and I started liking it more and more. After a few years of  playing micro limits online, at school, in bars, the high-school ended and I moved to Bucharest. Here I discovered a new face of poker, poker clubs, casinos with dealers…etc. And I started playing in higher stakes both live and online.  Through a lot of passion and hard work, I eventually started winning. GSOP Live Malta is the first big live tournament I will be attending, though last year I was a hand away from winning a package to EPT Barcelona. But I promise I will not stop here Poker is the game, Narcisus is the name “