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The Elite Series from the Road

It will be like stepping back in time - in a good way.

On Saturday, April 9, I will touch ground in Hamburg, my birth town. The city-state was also the place where I started working for IntelliPoker, PokerStars' poker school.

Back then "playing for play money" meant to practice and learn the basics of the game. Things have changed. Nowadays you can play for millions and even be part of the Billionaire's Club. Exciting tournament series now exist to build similar challenges for prestige like they do the real money universe.

As it happens, one of these will also be touching down on Saturday: The Elite Series!

The online event will run April 9-17, the exact time frame that I will be traveling in Germany and visiting family. My parents haven't seen me in a year, but they will have to live with me playing poker some of these days. They know how much I love the game and that I wouldn't pass on the opportunity to play on PokerStars again.

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The poker action won't start before Sunday evening for me, though. Saturday will be dedicated to enjoying Hamburg and meeting friends. Sunday evening at my dad's, after my baby half-brother has gone to bed, I will set up a Twitch stream and play the Progressive Super Knockout at 15:00 ET. Knockouts are the most fun, right?

After this I will be back for Women's Tuesday on April 12 and play at least one of the events on that day. Wednesday my journey will bring me back to Hamburg where I will enjoy some culture that the city has to offer (as opposed to the nightlife on Saturday) and head to the hotel early for Event #17, a No-Limit Omaha8 tournament. Omaha8 is my second favourite game. Playing it No-Limit is crazy, though.

On Thursday I will hop on a train to the Harz mountains where my mum lives and spend some time with her before playing as many of the Hourly Hypers on Saturday as time (and my mum) allows.

I am already registered for the tourneys I will play (except the hypers), so search for "Davina Darr" in the client and join me in those events.

There will be a review article after the tournament series in which I will hopefully be able to report about taking down multiple events, and maybe you will find your name in an epic hand we played together.

Let's do this!


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Christin Maschmann is the PokerStars Innovation Coordinator & Ideation Manager




UKIPT6 London Day 1B: Live updates

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10:45pm: Day 1B to start shortly
Welcome back to PokerStars Live at the Hippodrome Casino for the second of three UKIPT6 London starting flights. Day 1B is due to start at 11am where another twelve 45-minute levels are scheduled for play. That's what the Day 1A players did yesterday and a target has been set for today's players.

Xizhe Yuan just beat Jack Salter to the top spot after ending the day with 286,400. The challenge for today's players is not to just beat it, but to try and pass the 300k mark. Those registered for today and maybe up for the challenge are: Team PokerStars Jake Cody and Mickey Petersen; Robert Haigh, Neil Raine, David Docherty, Rainer Kempe and Jerome Bradpiece.

The High Roller event was concluded in the early hours of this morning and was taken down by Linus Loeliger. He defeated long-time chip leader Luis Rodriquez heads-up to claim the trophy and £55,650 top prize.


Key UKIPT6 London Facts:

- 25,000 starting stack
- Blinds starting at 50/100 for 250 big blinds
- Levels are 45 minutes on Day 1 and they'll be 12 of them. From Day 2 onwards levels increase to 60 minutes.
- Day 1B is today, Day 1C takes place tomorrow, and the field will then combine for the first time on Saturday for Day 2. We'll reach the money during the 10 levels of play on Day 2 and then play down to a final table, which will take place on Sunday.
- Full UKIPT6 London schedule here.
- Other tournaments today include a £110 NL Holdem Freezeout Satellite to the UKIPT Main Event.
PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT6 London: Marc Convey and Jack Stanton. Photos by Mickey May. Follow the PokerStars Blog on Twitter: @PokerStarsBlog



UKIPT6 London Day 1A: Xizhe Yuan leads first of three starting flights

London has been part of the UKIPT since the very beginning - be it as a normal stop or as a Grand Final wrapped up as an EPT (Season 1) - so it seems a right a place as any to kick off the sixth season of one of the most successful and respected tours around. A total of 54 trophies have been given out over the first five seasons, and today, the journey towards the 55th ceremony started.

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Yuan the man to catch


The trophy will be given out this coming Sunday after five long days of poker. Luckily for the survivors of Day 1A, they have two days off now, and will be back for Day 2 on Saturday. A total of 146 players turned up to PokerStars Live at the Hippodrome Casino today with the hope of contesting twelve 45-minute levels. When the dust settled on the last of those levels, 39 remained and were led by Xizhe Yuan who amassed 286,400.

Jack Salter almost pipped him to the post in the last level of the day after a massive hand against Jamie O'Connor. The PokerStars Blog caught up with O'Connor after the hand, and despite it being "a massive blow" he was more than happy to kindly walk us through the action.
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Salter in second place (where have we heard that before?)

He'd opened to 4,000 before facing a 3-bet to 10,800 from Salter. O'Connor said he flatted with [ts][8s], and the flop came king-jack-four rainbow with one spade. He check-called another bet of 10,800, leading to a non-spade seven on the turn. O'Connor checked again, and Salter made it 25,000. O'Connor then made a big shove with his gutshot - clearly thinking he could get Salter off his hand - but that turned out to be ace-king, and Salter went nowhere except up the leader board.

Other big stacks included: Nicholas Hennessey (219,600), Alfie Adam (207,500), Richard Kellett (187,200), Steven Herron (176,500) and Matas Cimbolas (147,300). Kellett had a very eventful day. He came back for Day 2 of the High Roller, busted 13th for £3,980, build a big stack in the Main Event, lost most of it with kings versus ace-king, laughed it off, and rebuilt to a big stack again by close of play.
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Kellet got value of the game of poker today

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Sidhu had a rare off day today


Kully Sidhu was one of the most in-form players in the field today, coming here on the back of his third-place finish at EPT12 Dublin for €250k, but every dog has his off day, and today was Sidhu's. He was one of the first players out when he ran pocket aces in to the set of Fabian Deimann. He was joined on the rail by such notables as: reigning EPT Grand Final champion Adrian Mateos; UK legend Albert Sapiano; the only current UKIPT champion (Dublin) Vladas Tamasauskas; Team PokerStars Live at the Hippodrome's Chris Gordon and "Mad Turk" Yucel Eminoglu.

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Mateos was defeated today


Today also saw Day 2 of the High Roller play out. The final 28 players returned hoping to (at least) make the final 17 (min cash) and beyond. Simon Appleby was the unfortunate bubble boy after his full house was beaten by Luis Rodriguez and his bigger full house. That pot put Rodriquez in a commanding position and he road the wave all the way to the final table and beyond. He was still in with three players remaining - the situation the tournament had reached by the end of play in the Main Event (check tomorrow's blog for the final results).
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The High Roller final eight


Day 1A started at 2pm today but the start times are going to jump forward for the next three days. To make sure enough space is freed up for the evening side events on the festival schedule, the powers that be have moved the Day 1B,C and Day 2 start time to 11am. So join us back here in the morning where another twelve 45-minute levels await, and a whole new bunch of faces will appear.

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PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT6 London: Marc Convey and Jack Stanton. Photos by Mickey May, who will permanently watermark you if you steal her photos! Follow the PokerStars Blog on Twitter: @PokerStarsBlog



UKIPT6 London Day 1A: Live updates

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* CLICK TO REFRESH FOR LATEST UPDATES
* Day 1A consists of twelve 45-minute levels - currently playing level 1
* Registration is still open

2:45pm: Blinds are up
Level 2 - Blinds 75-150

Well that went fast! It was a pretty timid first level here, but then they so often are. The blinds have moved up to 75-150, so hopefully we'll start to see some big pots brewing. --JS

2:35pm: Can we get to four figures?
Level 1 - Blinds 50-100

Most UKIPTs have two starting flights but, seeing as the Hippodrome Casino is a little snug, three starting flights have been scheduled to make sure everyone can find a day to play. Saying that though, 30 poker tables are operational and Tournament Director Toby Stone indicated that up to 350 players can be accommodated each day.

Some of those being accommodated today include: four-time UKIPT casher Mike Pantelli; EPT11 Prague third-place finisher Jon Wong; EPT12 Dublin third-place finisher Kully Sidhu; along with UKIPT regulars Albert Sapiano, James Morris and Marco Vasconcelos. -- MC

2:12pm: So, who's here?
Level 1 - Blinds 50-100

We're starting to scope out our Day 1A field, but one table caught our eye from across the room. It features the UK's Jack Salter (best known for finishing 2nd at the EPT Grand Final in 2014 for €765,000), as well as Jamie O'Connor - known as 'Ship It 2010' on PokerStars (who has an impressive $1.6 million in total online winnings). We look forward to seeing how these guys clash throughout the day. --JS

2:03pm: Cards in the air!
Level 1 - Blinds 50-100

The players have taken their seats here on Day 1A and our dealers have shuffled up. Let the first hand commence! --JS


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1:40pm: Welcome to the big smoke!

Afternoon all! We're here at the beautiful Hippodrome Casino right in the heart of Leicester Square to kick off the Main Event of UKIPT6 London - the first stop of the Season 6 tour. It's a late kick-off time today, with play starting at 2pm; but we're sure you won't find any of the players complaining about their lie-in!

It's not the first event of the festival though - the £2,200 High Roller kicked off at 6pm last night (Tuesday 5th), and drew a massive, star-studded field of 140 players. It's the biggest ever standalone UKIPT High Roller, and here's a run down of just some of the names playing here in the capital:

Team PokerStars Pros Liv Boeree, Jake Cody; German (and Russian) wizards Tobias Reinkemeier, Igor Kurganov and Fabian Quoss; not to mention Victoria Coren, Pierre Neuville, Oliver Price, Jack Salter, JP Kelly, and Dara O'Kearney.

That's one stacked line-up. Only 28 players remain in that event and they'll play down to a winner today, so stay tuned for more info. You can be sure they'll all be in the Main Event at some point, whether it's here on Day 1A, or in Thursday's Day 1B or Friday's Day 1C.

Back to the Main Event, though. It was the UK's own Rapinder Cheema who took down the Season 5 UKIPT London Main Event for a first place prize of £78,825, after a deal was made heads-up with Spain's Fernando Marin (who qualified for the tournament online at PokerStars). They shared the final table run with tour regulars including Lawrence Bayley (4th) and Brett Angell (7th) - the latter of which won this very event in Season 4 for £115,083. We'd be shocked not to see them all returning to the Hippodrome felt this week.


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Rapinder Cheema - Season 5 London champ

So sit back, relax, and get ready for all the great action from UKIPT6 London. --JS

Key UKIPT6 London Facts:

- 25,000 starting stack
- Blinds starting at 50/100 for 250 big blinds
- Levels are 45 minutes on Day 1 and they'll be 12 of them. From Day 2 onwards levels increase to 60 minutes.
- Day 1A is today, Day 1B takes place tomorrow, and Day 1C takes place on Friday. The field will then combine for the first time on Saturday for Day 2. We'll reach the money during the 10 levels of play on Day 2 and then play down to a final table, which will take place on Sunday.
- Full UKIPT6 London schedule here.
- Other tournaments today include a £110 NL Holdem Freezeout Satellite to the UKIPT Main Event, and a £110 NL Holdem Turbo Deepstack.

PokerStars Blog Reporting Team at UKIPT5 Dublin: Marc Convey and Jack Stanton. Photos by Mickey May. Follow the PokerStars Blog on Twitter: @PokerStarsBlog



NEWFlat can afford a new flat after winning 4/5/16 Super Tuesday, $102K

This week's Super Tuesday -- the weekly $1,050 no-limit hold'em tournament on PokerStars -- drew a big field as usual with 539 players taking part. But even with the big turnout it played out a bit more quickly than usual, with Russia's NEWFlat needing just 10 hours and 11 minutes to outlast everyone to earn the victory and a big $102,410 first prize.


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The big field meant a prize pool of $539,000, well above the event's $425K guarantee. It took about five hours and 20 minutes for the starting field to be whittled down to 63 players, at which point former Sunday Million winner gringenkov held the chip lead with ceremore and bossamtisch not too far behind.

Just about two hours later they were down to 18, with gringenkov and ceremore still above the average while bossamtisch had slipped down in the counts to fall in 30th ($2,964.50). Meanwhile baeks22 had risen to take over the chip lead as the only player then with more than 350,000.

Bonglim (18th), Iliodoros "ILIOS72" Kamatakis (17th), and Emil "Emilohlsson" Ohlsson (16th) were the next players eliminated, each earning $4,312. Benjamin "SPEKTAH" Leblond (15th), elhilario (14th), and lulDocuments (13th) followed them to the virtual rail, picking up $5,390 apiece. Then NEED100KFAST (12th), OverTheTop43 (11th), and Sebastian "Bassysaffari" Saffari (10th) went out, taking away $6,468 each from the prize pool.

With gringenkov back in the chip lead with a little over 600,000, the final table was underway.


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Seat 1: Geokarak (United Kingdom) -- 296,806
Seat 2: Larry "BBOY3110" Sharp (Costa Rica) -- 153,747
Seat 3: baeks22 (Germany) -- 526,622
Seat 4: ceremore (Switzerland) -- 315,382
Seat 5: HYZENBURG (Canada) -- 62,822
Seat 6: NEWFlat (Russia) -- 364,292
Seat 7: Aaralynn (Mexico) -- 123,939
Seat 8: Daniel "Oxota" Dvoress (Canada) -- 242,580
Seat 9: gringenkov (Brazil) -- 608,810

It was an excited final nine, as evidenced by the chat box as the final table began.

NEWFlat: gl guys!
Oxota: You too
gringenkov: gl all
baeks22: glgl
ceremore: gl !

On the third hand of the final table, the blinds were 2,800/5,600 when NEWFlat opened for 12,600 from the button, then Aaralynn shoved for 116,239 from the small blind. It folded back to NEWFlat who called, turning over [Kc][Js] while Aaralynn had [Ad][Qs]. The board then came [Jh][4h][5d][Td][8s], the jack in the window hitting NEWFlat's hand and knocking Aaralynn out in ninth.

A short-stacked HYZENBURG managed to hang on another 25 minutes after that, but finally open-shoved from the cutoff for 40,022 (about 5.5 big blinds) with [Kd][Th] and got looked up by NEWFlat on the button with [As][8s]. The [Qh][4d][Jd][6d][7h] board hit neither player, and HYZENBERG was done in eighth.

About a half-hour after that it was Geokarak open-shoving from under the gun for 103,026 (about 11.5 big blinds) and getting one caller in gringenkov from the big blind. Geokarak had [As][2s] while gringenkov had woken up with [Qc][Qs], and five cards later -- [Th][5c][Kc][Qh][6h] -- gringenkov had a set of queens and Geokarak was on the rail in seventh.

Not longer after that it was NEWflat opening for just over 2x with a raise to 21,200 from the button, then Daniel "Oxota" Dvoress reraised all-in for 107,938 from the small blind and NEWflat called the push. Dvoress had [Kd][Ts] and a couple of live cards versus NEWflat's [Ah][Qd], but the board came low -- [3s][3d][7h][8s][4c] -- and Dvoress' run ended in sixth.


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Daniel "Oxota" Dvoress

"u guys wanna see numbers?" asked NEWflat following Dvoress' knockout, but ceremore responded "bit early for me" while gringenkov added "let's play for 102k :) gl" and the final five continued on through the tournament's 10th hour.

A few minutes later NEWFlat made another just-over-the-minimum raise to 25,440 from early position and baeks22 defended from the big blind with a call. The flop came [5d][Jh][6c], and after baeks22 checked NEWFlat continued for 19,314. At that baeks22 check-raised all-in for 98,832 and NEWFlat called.

baeks22 turned over [9d][8s] for a gutshot draw while NEWFlat had a pair of jacks with [Js][8c]. The turn was the [Ad] and river the [9h], and baeks22 was eliminated in fifth.

A little later in the last hand before the 10-hour break, Larry "BBOY3110" Sharp opened for 26,400 from early position, then NEWFlat three-bet to 66,000 from the big blind. Sharp reraised all-in for 264,768 and NEWFlat called, turning over [As][Qd] while Sharp had [Ac][2d]. The [9d][Qh][Tc][Th][4h] runout gave NEWFlat two pair and sent Sharp out to collect fourth-place money.

The remaining trio took their break, with NEWFlat way out in front with more than 1.8 million while gringenkov was in a distant second with just over 671,000 and ceremore was third with about 216,000.

Soon gringenkov raised 3x from the small blind to 42,000, ceremore three-bet to 116,889 from the big, gringenkov pushed all-in for 459,879 total, and ceremore called.

gringenkov had [Kd][Qs] but needed lots of help versus ceremore's [Ad][As]. The [2c][Qh][Td] flop did bring one pair for gringenkov, but neither the [6c] turn nor [4s] river helped any further and gringenkov was cut down in third.

With that pot ceremore was up to 993,284 to start heads-up play versus NEWFlat who still led with 1,701,716. NEWFlat would then win the first hand between the pair to grab almost 130,000 off ceremore's stack, then suddenly the tournament came to an abrupt conclusion after heads-up hand number two.

It began with NEWFlat making a 2.5x raise to 35,000 from the button and ceremore calling, and the two of them saw a flop come [3s][Th][Ks]. ceremore checked, NEWFlat bet 35,000, then ceremore raised to 99,778. NEWFlat responded with a reraise to 236,306, ceremore pushed all-in for 828,462 total, and NEWFlat called.

ceremore: [Kd][6s]
NEWFlat: [Ah][Ad]

ceremore had flopped top pair of kings but this time NEWFlat had the aces in the hole. The turn was the [Jh] and river the [Jd], giving NEWFlat the better two pair and the win.

Congratulations to NEWFlat for racing through this week's Super Tuesday in just over 10 hours to win all the chips and a nice six-figure score.

4/5/16 Super Tuesday ($1,050 No-Limit Hold'em) results
Entrants: 539
Prize pool: $539,000.00
Places paid: 63

1. NEWFlat (Russia) $102,410.00
2. ceremore (Switzerland) $75,460.00
3. gringenkov (Brazil) $55,247.50
4. Larry "BBOY3110" Sharp (Costa Rica) $42,042.00
5. baeks22 (Germany) $29,645.00
6. Daniel "Oxota" Dvoress (Canada) $22,907.50
7. Geokarak (United Kingdom) $17,517.50
8. HYZENBURG (Canada) $12,127.50
9. Aaralynn (Mexico) $8,947.40


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Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.