PokerBrothers - Suited Family Values

EPT Snowfest: Philip Meulyzer leidt aan het einde van dag 2

2011-03-23T10:00:00.000+01:00

Philip Meulyzer, Kevin Vandersmissen, Koen De Visscher en Pierre Neuville beschikken nog over prima stacks op het einde van dag 2 van de EPT Snowfest. Meulyzer is met zijn chiplead zelfs de grote favoriet momenteel. Omdat er nog 81 spelers over zijn moeten er nog 9 uitgeschakeld worden vooraleer onze landgenoten officieel in het geld zitten.

Philip Meulyzer

Pokernews sprak met Philip tijdens het toernooi. Klik hier voor het interview.

Tabledraw voor dag 3

Tafel 1
1 Pieter Druif 73.600
2 Rolands Norietis 94.400
3 Pierre Neuville 175.900
4 Alex Kravchenko 299.200
5 Bastien Casanova 66.200
6 Russell Carson 305.400
7 Pim Van Der Aa 188.900
8 Domantas Klimciauskas 192.100

Tafel 5
1 Bastian Fischer 58.700
2 Philip Meulyzer 623.500
3 Peter Sturzel 79.700
4 Constantin Georgescu 72.300
5 Tome Moreira 180.200
6 Bruno Martin 221.800
7 Daniel Hager 131.100

Tafel 9
1 Koen De Visscher 352.500
2 Berhard Perner 123.300
3 David Misha Van Der Weele 143.500
4 Janar Kiivramees 189.500
5 Rafal Arendt 53.800
6 Claudiu Secara 98.000
7 Michael Csango 119.400

Tafel 11
1 Cynthia Foresti 137.000
2 Kevin Vandersmissen 260.100
3 Mads Benjamin Oldvig Nielsen 158.400
4 Rudolf Koster 260.800
5 Manilo Iemina 255.300
6 Jan Wilken 100.000
7 Luca Pagano 351.400

Koen De Visscher

Matthias De Meulder en Ruben Visser overleven dag 1A van EPT Barcelona

2010-11-23T11:14:00.000+01:00

Op woensdag treden zij opnieuw aan in dag 2. Vandaag kijken we vol spanning uit naar de prestaties van onder andere Kevin "Civell" Van der Smissen.

MCOP: Stand aan de break

2010-11-12T17:01:00.002+01:00

De spelers zijn zonet begonnen aan een pauze van 15 minuten. Bjerkmann staat nog steeds aan de leiding, terwijl Civell net een redelijk grote pot van 95.0000 verloor.

Marcel Bjerkmann 1,220,000 170,000 pos
Ivane Khazaradze 512,000 -38,000 neg
Khiem Nguyen 363,000 11,000 pos
Ville Haavisto 318,000 -72,000 neg
Patrick Renkers 304,000 -16,000 neg
Kevin Vandersmissen 285,000 -95,000 neg
Peter Nordin 250,000 70,000 pos
John Cash 230,000 50,000 pos
Kristoffer Edberg 140,000 35,000 pos

Willem Eilert werd als tiende uitgeschakeld en neemt hiervoor iets meer dan 25.000 euro mee naar huis.

Civell en Marcel Bjerkmann aan de MCOP Final Table

2010-11-12T16:58:00.001+01:00

Na zijn winst in het BOPC te Namen kon Marcel Bjerkmann vandaag opnieuw aan een final table als chipleader aanschuiven, namelijk in het Main Event van de Master Classics of Poker in Amsterdam. Aan diezelfde final table ook niemand minder dan onze landgenoot Kevin "Civell" Vandersmissen.

1 Ville Haavisto 507.000 42
2 Ivane Khazaradze 330.000 27
3 Peter Nordin 135.000 11
4 Patrick Renkers 320.000 26
5 Khiem Nguyen 290.000 24
6 John van Rietschoten 106.000 8
7 Kristoffer Edberg 363.000 30
8 Marcel Bjerkmann 1.078.000 89
9 Kevin Vandersmissen 291.000 24
10 Willem Eilert 335.000 27

WSOP Day 2

2010-05-30T10:25:00.003+02:00

Kenny "SpaceyFCB" Hallaert just finished his day 1 in event #3 $1000 NLH.

Aprrox 2600 runners started this first of 2 day ones and at the end of the day (past 1 am local time) no more then 290 remained, including kenny with 23.700 in chips (average around 28.000). He will continue his tournament on monday evening/night when day 2 starts.

Pierre Neuville also started but no further news on him ( he was at 12.000 at one point)

Marc "Needleking" Naalden busted early on in the tournament

Tomorrow will see another day 1 for this event , with over 3000 seats available, there might be as much as 6000 players in this tournament !

Day 2 of the $50k Players' Championship is still going on, with 69 of the original 116 still remain, including Noah Boeken, with a healthy stack of 430.000.

Live Noobing

2010-05-28T20:14:00.011+02:00

Apparently Annie Duke never plays on the internet, because a standard perfect runner runner makes her do things she normally wouldn’t do (like getting down on Paul Wasicka , wtf ?)

Anyway, onwards to the 2010 World Series of Poker !

It kicks off this night with the 50k buy in “Player’s Championship” , the new version of the 50k HORSE event, now an 8 Game monster

VTK Poker Champ 3 Video

2010-03-12T01:20:00.001+01:00

Poker Rail Radio - Changes & Improvements

2010-03-07T18:16:00.002+01:00

The podcast from last week can be found here.

Rail Radio podcast 21st of February

2010-02-21T23:30:00.003+01:00

Click here to download the one hour podcast from tonight (in dutch).

Also see these new handy links:

http://facebook.pokerbrothers.be -> direct link to the rail radio facebook group
http://chat.pokerbrothers.be -> Link to our rail radio chat channel
http://quiz.pokerbrothers.be -> Link to our rail radio quiz channel (only at 10pm on sunday night)

Rail Radio podcast last week

2010-02-07T18:53:00.002+01:00

If you really can't wait for the next show (in half an hour, at 7.30pm), you can always listen to the highlights from last week here:

Podcast download link

Poker Rail Radio - Losing a Pokerbrother - New Project

2010-01-26T07:59:00.004+01:00

The last post before this one dated from the 30th of november, almost 2 months ago now. Although we cover a lot of news in the Poker Rail Radio show, I thought the time is right again to write a few things down.

Poker Rail Radio

It's been over a year since me and Lars started out, first purely for our own amusement, covering sunday night tournament action on our online radio broadcast. From january to september, we slowly pushed our peak number of listeners from 0 to about 60. After an investment in some recording material that I almost regretted at a one point, we were very happy when Pokerstars stepped up to support the radio show.

From september on, the weekly freeroll tournament that they offered, really boosted our numbers. With 250 listeners at peak times now, we reach about 500 people every sunday night. And we got what we wanted: the flemish and dutch players that we follow every week, start to get the respect and the fans they earn. It's like every sport professional: they make it look easy. But make no mistake, also these guys are only able to get a 10-15% in the money finishes, but they make their profits through rakeback, endurance and careful bankroll management. Props to all of them, they are the reason Poker Rail Radio is alive and kicking.

Spending time with the community of listeners is great. I really believe we're creating a solid dutch-flemish poker brotherhood (well ... we have a number of sisters, but it's still limited). Their number is now over 500 on Facebook. Join up, and see what I mean.

Losing a Pokerbrother

Luckily, he's not actually dead, but PopKoRn more or less drew a cross over his poker career. After introducing him to poker in 2005, we actually closed that year with the same amounts in our bankrolls, about $300. It didn't take long into 2006 before he was miles ahead of me in endurance and understanding of the game. He's got that gamer-mentality that enabled him to win at least 3 rake-races, playing over 30.000 hands of poker in one weekend.

In the summer of 2009, he sold everything he had in Belgium, and relocated back to Japan, where he spent most of the 2007-2008 academic year. As of january, he's on an epic quest to walk from the most southern point in Japan, all the way up to the north.

Hopefully, we'll see him again in Belgium and at the virtual poker tables. He posted his full story, and a goodbye on pokerclub.be.

New Project

I'm working hard on a new, poker related project that is aimed to launch early March. By writing it down here, I will really commit to this deadline. Although I can't reveal too much yet, it will be a useful, free service for Belgian poker players.

Latest version of the Belgian Gaming Law

2009-11-30T12:48:00.005+01:00

**Note that we're not lawyers, or had any legal degree, and just try to give you our view on matters. Please make your own conclusions and judgements**

Here you can download the latest version (dutch & french) of the new belgian gaming law proposal, as amended and approved by the senate commission for justice, and now sent back the the chamber of representants for approval.

At this point, it's safe to say that there won't be any more amendements, and that it's just a matter of when this change to the law will be passed. To know exactly what changed, you will have to read the old text as well.

Here's a summary:

* the first 7 pages is basically about how the gaming commission is composed, what it can and can't do.
* Page 8 mentions that it will be the commission, who will be able to fine people. This will end the current practice that the commission only establishes a "PV", and depends on other bodies to prosecute and fine the criminals.
* After 5 years, the crime expires and they can't fine you anymore.
* Page 11 indicates that you can take the case to court, if you refuse to pay the fine.
* The existing classification of class A, B, C and E are replaced by A, A+, B, B+, C, E, F1, F1+, G1 and G2.

It doesn't make any sense that the text doesn't contain anything about the permits, internet gambling, ... compared to the original new proposal. It seems that only the stuff from pages 148-150 really made it through.

After some more research, it became evident that the original new proposal proposed to amend everything to law 77. On June 18th, it was decided to split it into two proposals, one for 77 (that contains all the stuff from above, with the changes on how the commission operates), and one for law 78, the law that also contains stuff about the national lottery.

Here is the link to this proposal page, to change law 78 in the constitution. The actual documents are on the website of the senate, but the final text is not available yet. Here is the temporary version.

In this temporary version you'll read that it will be forbidden to participate in games that aren't licensed by the commission, that credit card payments will not be allowed, and that social//non-profit events (like poker tournaments) will be allowed up to 4x per year, per organization.

Day 3 Tabledraw

2009-11-27T09:42:00.002+01:00

Table 38 will be funny to watch, with Civell, Peleken and Christophe De Meulder playing.

Stanowksi Stephane 27000 Table 26 seat 9
Lauvais Bruno 71800 Table 26 seat 8
D'ugo Giovanni 260400 Table 26 seat 7
Gauter Laurent 93000 Table 26 seat 6
Charlier Xavier 68500 Table 26 seat 5
Wilms Elroy 14900 Table 26 seat 4
Wets Nicolas 44500 Table 26 seat 3
Tach Faruckh 84400 Table 26 seat 2
Okhotskyy Oleh 43100 Table 26 seat 1

Beeckx Alexander 157100 Table 27 seat 9
Valkenburg Paul 48500 Table 27 seat 8
Nguyen Viet Tri 44000 Table 27 seat 7
Bartoli Sergis 80800 Table 27 seat 6
Bodart Pascal 14500 Table 27 seat 5
Elkaim Prosper 11200 Table 27 seat 4
Ramirez Benjamin 21100 Table 27 seat 3
Buss Walter 63900 Table 27 seat 2
Errahmani Nabil 28400 Table 27 seat 1

Alomar Antonia 71800 Table 28 seat 9
Prinz Markus 73900 Table 28 seat 8
Debus Alexander 25600 Table 28 seat 7
Emo Wim 36100 Table 28 seat 6
Springael Joris 97900 Table 28 seat 5
Dieu David 79900 Table 28 seat 4
Jacquelinet Philippe 32500 Table 28 seat 3
Baldisseri Jeremy 46600 Table 28 seat 2
Aerts Stefan 50000 Table 28 seat 1

Monfort Ronan 33600 Table 31 seat 8
Palermo Christophero 24800 Table 31 seat 7
Brian Philippe 32400 Table 31 seat 6
Taneire Michael 31300 Table 31 seat 5
Rozenburg Daniel 21000 Table 31 seat 4
Sterken Rob 75900 Table 31 seat 3
Kubesch Sebastian 38400 Table 31 seat 2
Bodeux Pierre-Yves 43900 Table 31 seat 1

Marsin Clement 47300 Table 32 seat 8
Andre Thibaut 38200 Table 32 seat 7
Krischner Daniel 34400 Table 32 seat 6
Pollet Christophe 71100 Table 32 seat 5
De Korver Pieter 25400 Table 32 seat 4
Becquart Julien 103400 Table 32 seat 3
Macaluso Giovanni 54200 Table 32 seat 2
Sittinierre Giuseppe 54200 Table 32 seat 1

Lavenir Franca 50800 Table 33 seat 8
Deno Ivan 47200 Table 33 seat 7
Ribaud Paul 30600 Table 33 seat 6
Murgia Manu 24500 Table 33 seat 5
De Visscher Koen 26100 Table 33 seat 4
Wuyts Philippe 142600 Table 33 seat 3
Heinze Olvedo 65500 Table 33 seat 2
Putzeys Laurent 80900 Table 33 seat 1

Jackson Paul 139200 Table 34 seat 8
Buzzo Christopher 96400 Table 34 seat 7
Horst Koch 55000 Table 34 seat 6
Oosterlinck David 18500 Table 34 seat 5
Beraup Thomas 157000 Table 34 seat 4
Naamani Ammar 210800 Table 34 seat 3
Bordaut Francois 17000 Table 34 seat 2
Bauwens Tim 48200 Table 34 seat 1

Homann Sébastian 47800 Table 35 seat 9
Vanhex Raf 145800 Table 35 seat 8
Berende Paul 81400 Table 35 seat 7
Alouane Mohamed 20700 Table 35 seat 6
Nauder Coralie 55500 Table 35 seat 5
Coppée Brice 106600 Table 35 seat 4
Colos Patrice 66000 Table 35 seat 3
Lions Arnaud 175800 Table 35 seat 2
Yildiz Diren 30000 Table 35 seat 1

Jadoulle Olivier 31100 Table 36 seat 9
Dambruch Philippe 57000 Table 36 seat 8
Leclercq Jacques 49700 Table 36 seat 7
Hanssen Marc 24000 Table 36 seat 6
De Maso Christopher 116200 Table 36 seat 5
Van Bragt Frank 118100 Table 36 seat 4
Guida Antonio 60800 Table 36 seat 3
Blangenwitsch Martial 70500 Table 36 seat 2

Vanhaesendonck Luc 29400 Table 36 seat 1
Gallce Edouard 124500 Table 37 seat 9
Martinez Barbara 150700 Table 37 seat 8
Bonkowski Tyler 67800 Table 37 seat 7
Le Compte Malik 51300 Table 37 seat 6
Banusz Eddy 73500 Table 37 seat 5
Pignot Valerie 43800 Table 37 seat 4
Sadarnac Frederic 141800 Table 37 seat 3
Lambinet Patrick 78900 Table 37 seat 2
Vandenbergh Pieter 43900 Table 37 seat 1

Vandersmissen Kevin 119600 Table 38 seat 9
Inizan Marc 205100 Table 38 seat 8
Peelman Jurgen 39000 Table 38 seat 7
Chinek Nourredine 181100 Table 38 seat 6
Pïso Leon 41100 Table 38 seat 5
Bolognini Gregory 35700 Table 38 seat 4
De Meulder Christophe 16100 Table 38 seat 3
Gibson Nick 71600 Table 38 seat 2
Badrami Agron 108100 Table 38 seat 1

Gentille Fabian 111700 Table 39 seat 9
Melka Jean-Claude 17600 Table 39 seat 8
Beurms Alfred 50200 Table 39 seat 7
Vandenbroeck Samuel 113800 Table 39 seat 6
Nowak Stéphane 25800 Table 39 seat 5
Marchal Philippe 74900 Table 39 seat 4
Camardese Rolando 61300 Table 39 seat 3
Ciarrochi Sylvio 94300 Table 39 seat 2
Ben Slama Naoufel 40300 Table 39 seat 1

Muller Andreas 80600 Table 40 seat 9
Zian Mohammed 120570 Table 40 seat 8
Lorent Jean-Yves 62000 Table 40 seat 7
Stumbo Anthony 88100 Table 40 seat 6
Aldenhoff Patrick 73200 Table 40 seat 5
De Rosa Thomas 72100 Table 40 seat 4
Rotstein Paul 124100 Table 40 seat 3
Belleflamme Gwennael 25900 Table 40 seat 2
De Sanctis Guiliano 42400 Table 40 seat 1

Blom Maurits 66700 Table 41 seat 9
De Smet Laurens 61000 Table 41 seat 8
Schraeyen Bjorn 82600 Table 41 seat 7
Camus Antonio 45800 Table 41 seat 6
Hoogendoorn Robert Jan 170500 Table 41 seat 5
Khouri Matthew 90500 Table 41 seat 4
Joly Guillaume 41200 Table 41 seat 3
Cabero Miguel 49600 Table 41 seat 2
Masaus Dalik 104900 Table 41 seat 1

Day 2B survivors

2009-11-27T09:37:00.002+01:00

As we had most of the flemish players in day 2A, this summary is very short. David "Davitsche" Vanderheyden unfortunately got eliminted, but Christophe De Meulder is still alive. However, with his stack of 16100, he will need to double up fast on day 3.

Also entering day 3 short stacked is Pieter De Korver. With 25400, he's just a few places ahead of Christophe. Noah Boeken and Pierre Neuville also failed to push through to day 3.

We'll bring you the day 3 tabledraw as soon as possible.

Day 2B Tabledraw

2009-11-26T09:45:00.005+01:00

Although we had most flemish survivors yesterday, today is definitely day 2 of the stars, with Noah Boeken big in chips, Pieter De Korver, Christophe De Meulder, Pierre Neuville and several dutch sharks. Let's not forget Daniel Camus, who we recently had on the Poker Rail Radio. With 28000 chips and blinds starting at 250-500, he has some ammo left.

Check out the tabledraw:

Mura Antonino 15650Table 18 seat 1
Popalzei Magid 10050Table 18 seat 2
Brinkmann Torsten 16100Table 18 seat 3
Halleux Fabrice 28450Table 18 seat 4
Hoffmann Albert 25000Table 18 seat 5
De smidt Mattias 16500Table 18 seat 6
Langezaal Sander 16700Table 18 seat 7
Ciarricchi silvio 45100Table 18 seat 8
Pellitevi Salvatore 15350Table 18 seat 9

Perrault Pascal 27000Table 19 seat 1
Mattern Arnaud 8300Table 19 seat 2
Muller Andreas 62250Table 19 seat 3
Slot Wendy 5000Table 19 seat 4
Magnus Kris 11050Table 19 seat 5
Van Kalkeren Daniel 19850Table 19 seat 6
De Korver Pieter 40300Table 19 seat 7
Gibson Nicolas 46100Table 19 seat 8
Huttmacher Jean 16250Table 19 seat 9
Mazza Eric 12150Table 19 seat 10

Crocherie Axel 35900Table 21 seat 1
Marchal Philippe 32300Table 21 seat 2
Blom Maurits 80550Table 21 seat 3
Legrand Francois 31750Table 21 seat 4
Swillens Stefan 42600Table 21 seat 5
Misonne Jacques 19300Table 21 seat 6
Camardese Rolando 38550Table 21 seat 7
Biatco Marco 35000Table 21 seat 8
Raymackers Gunther 10650Table 21 seat 9
Ziaw Mohommad 31570Table 21 seat 10

Mierent Robert 23400Table 22 seat 1
Murray Derek 32200Table 22 seat 2
Laschen Jonas 11650Table 22 seat 3
Pollet Christophe 32000Table 22 seat 4
Vanderheyden David 15800Table 22 seat 5
Van de Moer Steven 18500Table 22 seat 6
Delabre Jean 8700Table 22 seat 7
De Roover Thomas 15050Table 22 seat 8
Molin Yves 12350Table 22 seat 9
Nistor Daniel 7200Table 22 seat 10

Hidalgo Rogelino 20400Table 23 seat 1
Melka Jean-Claude 19000Table 23 seat 2
Wilms Elroy 20850Table 23 seat 3
Lorent Jean-Yves 22000Table 23 seat 4
Razab-sekh Stieven 29500Table 23 seat 5
Putzeys Laurent 25800Table 23 seat 6
Van den Bergh Pieter 33900Table 23 seat 7
Gauyacq Gilles 17100Table 23 seat 8
Belleflamme Gwenaelle 30300Table 23 seat 9
Joly Guillaume 32600Table 23 seat 10

Prinz Markus 42950Table 24 seat 1
Faucher Dominique 8350Table 24 seat 2
Gierse Thomas 9100Table 24 seat 3
Oostburg Valentijn 12320Table 24 seat 4
Gentille Fabian 65100Table 24 seat 5
Jadoulle Olivier 18300Table 24 seat 6
Valkenburg Paul 38750Table 24 seat 7
Remy Sebastien 23700Table 24 seat 8
Reyskens Vincent 14250Table 24 seat 9
Lauwereys Koen 20050Table 24 seat 10

Van de Velde Jean 22000Table 25 seat 1
Mettevieri Antonia 6750Table 25 seat 2
Kuhlmann Tim 8350Table 25 seat 3
Wetemans Jasper 13800Table 25 seat 4
Coppee Brice 32000Table 25 seat 5
Kapitzke Laszlo 9950Table 25 seat 6
Stacquet Christophe 9700Table 25 seat 7
Demeyere Pedro 16300Table 25 seat 8
Boeken Noah 73050Table 25 seat 9
Rosenberg Olivier 10300Table 25 seat 10

Polarski Sven 15750Table 26 seat 1
Nowak Stefan 14300Table 26 seat 2
Da Silva Olivier 4850Table 26 seat 3
Sittiniere Giuseppe 47500Table 26 seat 4
De Meulder Christophe 21050Table 26 seat 5
Sterken Rob 16200Table 26 seat 6
Speer Haward 19850Table 26 seat 7
Pertuisot Philippe 21850Table 26 seat 8
Liboy Olivier 4950Table 26 seat 9
Piso Leon 19450Table 26 seat 10

Rachard Gregory 14400Table 27 seat 1
Said Ahbiti 20000Table 27 seat 2
Alomar Antonia 38770Table 27 seat 3
Ciammorcard Joseph 29900Table 27 seat 4
De Cleen Nivo 13750Table 27 seat 5
Zemski Hugues 30000Table 27 seat 6
Vandenkbroeck Samual 28550Table 27 seat 7
Adams Marco 26070Table 27 seat 8
Sita Catherine 18050Table 27 seat 9
Hoedemaker Micha 7800Table 27 seat 10

Stanowski Stephane 17250Table 28 seat 1
Nauder Coralie 8050Table 28 seat 2
Rozakis Elefterios 10200Table 28 seat 3
Pignot Valerie 17700Table 28 seat 4
Oleh Okhotsky 31450Table 28 seat 5
Amrane Kemel 10900Table 28 seat 6
Malherbe Cedric 9200Table 28 seat 7
Jodin Yvan 4900Table 28 seat 8
Jeandal Romain 14150Table 28 seat 9
Surinder Sunar 14700Table 28 seat 10

Buss Walter 13900Table 31 seat 1
Audre Thibaut 13400Table 31 seat 2
Baldisseri Jeremy 26000Table 31 seat 3
Hofman Guy 22900Table 31 seat 4
Danzel Markus 16100Table 31 seat 5
Martinez Barbara 41700Table 31 seat 6
Arcidiaco Mickael 46750Table 31 seat 7
Gilson Michael 9700Table 31 seat 9
Hong Catherine 32650Table 31 seat 8 (ElkY's girlfriend)

Verslegers Jeremie 57200Table 32 seat 1
Kreulen Marco 6550Table 32 seat 2
Berende Paul 44100Table 32 seat 3
Poortinga Yven 17600Table 32 seat 4
Inizan Marco 75900Table 32 seat 5
Van der Hoff Robin 13700Table 32 seat 6
Marsin Clement 52300Table 32 seat 7
Gouget Fabrice 68550Table 32 seat 8
Demoulin Vincent 19210Table 32 seat 9
Merckx Philippe 15350Table 32 seat 10

Chikar Kamal 34400Table 33 seat 1
De Smidt Maarten 14200Table 33 seat 2
D'ugo Giovanni 70050Table 33 seat 3
El Asyard Omar 19400Table 33 seat 4
Wafflart Renaud 9500Table 33 seat 5
Van Rompu Jerome 17800Table 33 seat 6
Tardieu Frnacois 13900Table 33 seat 7
Beckers Joel 20550Table 33 seat 8
Laurette Jerome 6800Table 33 seat 9
Di Salvo Gaetano 22150Table 33 seat 10

Stallone Vito 12900Table 34 seat 1
Gustin Thierry 11850Table 34 seat 2
Allard Stephane 16600Table 34 seat 3
Jackson Paul 12550Table 34 seat 4
Pirlot Daniel 31500Table 34 seat 5
Debus Alexander 6400Table 34 seat 6
Bodart Pascal 22500Table 34 seat 7
Smolak Christian 28500Table 34 seat 8
Radermecker Olivier 7500Table 34 seat 9
Blokhof Ruud 21000Table 34 seat 10

Demans Alain 11000Table 35 seat 1
Senteerre Yves 5150Table 35 seat 2
Neuville Pierre 7650Table 35 seat 3 (we love you Pierre, take it down !)
Gross Christophe 30650Table 35 seat 4
Vanhaeren Fabrice 16450Table 35 seat 5
Hanusse Christian 26250Table 35 seat 6
Heinze Olviedo 21550Table 35 seat 7
McCool Nick 12900Table 35 seat 8
Mangano Xavier 8850Table 35 seat 9
Rotstein Paul 59100Table 35 seat 10

Mebus Tijna 10700Table 36 seat 1
Van den Hole Jean-Louis 10800Table 36 seat 2
Francois Alain 11150Table 36 seat 3
Van Hese Raf 21100Table 36 seat 4
Khouri Matthew 20250Table 36 seat 5
Charlier Xavier 20650Table 36 seat 6
Launais Bruno 24500Table 36 seat 7
Brecard Julien 14050Table 36 seat 8
Nowak Patrick 23150Table 36 seat 9
Genova Roberto 13800Table 36 seat 10

Blangennitsch Martial 15400Table 37 seat 1
Mordaut Francois 11470Table 37 seat 2
Lambert Alain 29100Table 37 seat 3
Slotboom Rolf 6500Table 37 seat 4
Coomans Peter 14550Table 37 seat 5
Nigrot Yoann 9050Table 37 seat 6
Bonkowski Tyer 43400Table 37 seat 7
Kubesch Sebastian 9850Table 37 seat 8
Van Wieringen Pim 17700Table 37 seat 9
Zwickel Andreas 23000Table 37 seat 10

Tavella Mickael 16950Table 38 seat 1
Gautier Laurent 48420Table 38 seat 2
Van Trigt Merrill 11650Table 38 seat 3
Horst Koch 33050Table 38 seat 4
O'mara Jon 38050Table 38 seat 5
Van Overvelt Wim 23500Table 38 seat 6
Jeanesson Michel 28450Table 38 seat 7
Tonneau Juan 32900Table 38 seat 8
Lust Thomas 16550Table 38 seat 9
Brian Philippe 34900Table 38 seat 10

Yildiz Diren 19100Table 39 seat 1
Vanderhofstadt Nicolas 13600Table 39 seat 2
Monfort Ronan 12500Table 39 seat 3
Becquart Julien 43050Table 39 seat 4
Camus Daniel 28500Table 39 seat 5
Guignard Gilles 17400Table 39 seat 6
Ariaans Jos 7700Table 39 seat 7
Sermeus Frederic 24300Table 39 seat 8
Passe Jean Baptiste 15200Table 39 seat 9
Barrere Jean-Alexander 7850Table 39 seat 10

De Zeeuw Olaf 21200Table 40 seat 1
Wakeman Matthew 16900Table 40 seat 2
Homann Sebastian 21700Table 40 seat 3
Van Campenhout Wim 33500Table 40 seat 4
Wertz Marcel 8600Table 40 seat 5
Antonino Guida 14900Table 40 seat 6
Pellegrino Bryan 42950Table 40 seat 7
Vanhaesendonck Luc 23100Table 40 seat 8
De Vylder Marco 19350Table 40 seat 9
Weu Matthias 13650Table 40 seat 10

Dany Parlafes 22000Table 41 seat 8
Thewissen Jean-Philippe 35000Table 41 seat 1
Lion Arnaud 47250Table 41 seat 2
Ben Slama Naoufel 47000Table 41 seat 3
Massaud Dali 53650Table 41 seat 4
Colas Patrice 18300Table 41 seat 5
Laval Philippe 5150Table 41 seat 6
Salme Pierre 12300Table 41 seat 7
Pollak Benjamin 3550Table 41 seat 9
Genachte Daniel 12400Table 41 seat 10

Day 2A & 10k heads up event results

2009-11-26T09:39:00.005+01:00

It was a pity to lose Johan Bastiaens and Rob Indesteege in day 2A. Other players, including the starting shortstack Joris Springael, managed to survive and will come back on friday for day 3.

Alexander Beeckx - 157100 (currently 4th)
Vandersmissen Kevin - 119600
Springael Joris - 97900
De Smet Laurens - 61000
Le Compte Malik - 51300
Bauwens Tim - 48200
Peelman Jurgen - 39000
De Visscher Koen - 26100 (apperently, he lost about half his stack in the last level)

The 10k heads up event was won by Team Pokerstars Pro, featuring frenchies ElkY, Arnaud Mattern, Julien Brecard and nordic assistant Johnny Lodden. In the final, they faced team Netherlands (featuring Marc Naalden), and the match was decided in a tie break win by Johnny Lodden, after it was 2-2.

BOPC Day 2A Seating

2009-11-24T22:03:00.006+01:00

Van Uden Francis 34300 Table 23 seat 1 1
Lairing Ludovic 19650 Table 23 seat 2
De Maso Christopher 35800 Table 23 seat 3
Banusz Eddy 47800 Table 23 seat 4
Moens Hughes 19700 Table 23 seat 5
Bauwens Tim 17100 Table 23 seat 6
Benats Raphael 17050 Table 23 seat 7
Vreux Fabrice 34100 Table 23 seat 8
Jaron Gaëtan 31000 Table 23 seat 9
Belga Paul 8750 Table 23 seat 10

Sante Didier 9050 Table 24 seat 1
Indesteege Rob 11900 Table 24 seat 2
Palermo Christopheros 23000 Table 24 seat 3
Dierick Patrice 18900 Table 24 seat 4
Yvel Marciano 10800 Table 24 seat 5
Wolf Stanislav 20250 Table 24 seat 6
Bolgnini Gregory 23950 Table 24 seat 7
Kelly JP 34100 Table 24 seat 8
Macaluso Giovani 30400 Table 24 seat 9
Garrel Nicolas 13650 Table 24 seat 10

Elkam Prosper 23050 Table 25 seat 1
Krischner Daniel 21400 Table 25 seat 2
Zamora Mena Remigio 16600 Table 25 seat 3
Caspar Pinto Frerderico 5650 Table 25 seat 4
Baeten Christophe 25250 Table 25 seat 5
Schiepers Koen 56000 Table 25 seat 6
Halot Laurent 11900 Table 25 seat 7
Schobben Vincent 9000 Table 25 seat 8
Meurisse Patrick 22300 Table 25 seat 9
Bernard Donat 21150 Table 25 seat 10

Vanhollebeke David 3150 Table 26 seat 1
El Osta Eric 16650 Table 26 seat 2
Nicoli Lorenzo 33650 Table 26 seat 3
Murgia Manu 15750 Table 26 seat 4
Collin Nicolas 17400 Table 26 seat 5
Martin Bruno 17750 Table 26 seat 6
Christaens Joeri 18800 Table 26 seat 7
Leclercq Jacques 9100 Table 26 seat 8
Ribaud Paul 33650 Table 26 seat 9
Giovanni Carlo 16600 Table 26 seat 10

Le Compte Malik (demalik) 31800 Table 27 seat 1
Hologne Jean-Pierre 19400 Table 27 seat 2
Buzzo Christopher 25250 Table 27 seat 3
Bodeux Pierre-Yves 23800 Table 27 seat 4
Van Vlimnenes René 8200 Table 27 seat 5
Van Wynsberghe Thiebaut 26550 Table 27 seat 6
Debue David 33900 Table 27 seat 7
Dewinne Grégory 10600 Table 27 seat 8
Bastiaens Johan (Bear) 11500 Table 27 seat 9
Cerci Cenk 38400 Table 27 seat 10

Chinek Nouredine 34400 Table 28 seat 1
Libermenjl Serge 14650 Table 28 seat 2
De Smet Laurens 19850 Table 28 seat 3
Ayabi Nourdin 10650 Table 28 seat 4
Harrouschy Mohamed 17980 Table 28 seat 5
Bijnons Jan 9800 Table 28 seat 6
Alves Filip 7850 Table 28 seat 7
Van Bargt Franck 23000 Table 28 seat 8
Verboven Philip 32750 Table 28 seat 9
Amato Fabrizio 9400 Table 28 seat 10

Dambruch Philippe 21500 Table 31 seat 1
De'cat Rutger 7200 Table 31 seat 2
Gossens Guy 30450 Table 31 seat 3
Beraud Thomas 53750 Table 31 seat 4
Beeckx Alexander 57250 Table 31 seat 5
Valenziano Guiseppe 15100 Table 31 seat 6
Van Londersele Jeroen 28650 Table 31 seat 7
Zoufri Hakim 21900 Table 31 seat 8
Tombeur Benoit 12850 Table 31 seat 9
Janssen David Joseph 26150 Table 31 seat 10

Mahoux Benoit 20500 Table 32 seat 1
Bailly Jacques 15900 Table 32 seat 2
Joly Ismaël 1900 Table 32 seat 3
Stumbo Anthony 17500 Table 32 seat 4
Demayer Valerie 5400 Table 32 seat 5
Carosella Olivier 14400 Table 32 seat 6
Dalija Armend 6650 Table 32 seat 7
Bartol Sergio 13600 Table 32 seat 8
Melard Nicolas 9400 Table 32 seat 9
Van der Eecken Marc 27700 Table 32 seat 10

Mettivieri Giovanni 28600 Table 33 seat 1
Verhoeft Denis 15000 Table 33 seat 2
Hnatow Jean-Michel 20650 Table 33 seat 3
Badrami Agrone 16000 Table 33 seat 4
Fajga Michel 24550 Table 33 seat 5
Orlando David 40150 Table 33 seat 6
Vermeulen Lorent 12700 Table 33 seat 7
Lenders Bart 21150 Table 33 seat 8
Lambinet Patrick 25400 Table 33 seat 9
Ahzaaz Younes 9450 Table 33 seat 10

Van Oosterhout Peter 21900 Table 34 seat 1
Diz Villanueva Jean-Philippe 14050 Table 34 seat 2
Gallee Edouard 60950 Table 34 seat 3
Maghe Philippe 8000 Table 34 seat 4
Soltani Shariar 28150 Table 34 seat 5
Dieu David 41450 Table 34 seat 6
Desrevmaux Julien 13950 Table 34 seat 7
Errahmani Nabil 16600 Table 34 seat 8
Deckers Gerard 24350 Table 34 seat 9
N'Guyen Viet tri 7200 Table 34 seat 10

Refos Raoul 59100 Table 35 seat 1
Peelman Jurgen 28000 Table 35 seat 2
Manshoven Stéphane 15100 Table 35 seat 3
Nyst Benjamin 15200 Table 35 seat 4
Weiler Stéphane 15500 Table 35 seat 5
Vassallo Guiseppe 17500 Table 35 seat 6
Sequaris Michel 18550 Table 35 seat 7
Wuyts Philippe 41850 Table 35 seat 8
Aldenhoff Patrick 44500 Table 35 seat 9
Junkar Raul 9350 Table 35 seat 10

Springael Joris 7500 Table 36 seat 1
Desanctis guiliano 33350 Table 36 seat 2
Collotta Joseph 29650 Table 36 seat 3
Vandersmissen Kevin 43850 Table 36 seat 4
Rozenberg Daniel 34650 Table 36 seat 5
Ukela Dren 17150 Table 36 seat 6
Van Mol Rudy 11650 Table 36 seat 7
Gullekin Besim 24650 Table 36 seat 8
Ben Abda Mourad 4100 Table 36 seat 9
Somers Fabrice 70200 Table 36 seat 10

Wolkowicz Eric 27150 Table 37 seat 1
Lutri Stéphano 8550 Table 37 seat 2
Cabero Miguel 15350 Table 37 seat 3
Lavenir Franca 28900 Table 37 seat 4
Desterck Sonia 27300 Table 37 seat 5
Djerroud Slimanne 12500 Table 37 seat 6
Hawro Philippe 30400 Table 37 seat 7
Decae Audry 26750 Table 37 seat 8
Gilles Gilles 2800 Table 37 seat 9
Deno Ivan 22500 Table 37 seat 10

Beurms Alfred 19250 Table 38 seat 1
Leonard Arnaud 12100 Table 38 seat 2
Farahnick Philippe 47500 Table 38 seat 3
Oosterlinck David 10650 Table 38 seat 4
Janssen Tommie 47000 Table 38 seat 5
Wets Nicolas 60100 Table 38 seat 6
Hansens Marc 18900 Table 38 seat 7
Minet Danny 27650 Table 38 seat 8
Sadarnac Frédéric 46500 Table 38 seat 9
szymanski Marc 9300 Table 38 seat 10

Alouane Mohammed 26100 Table 39 seat 1
Flas Rony 22650 Table 39 seat 2
Tach Farukh 19000 Table 39 seat 3
Finn Mickey 13000 Table 39 seat 4
Lienard Jhonn 48050 Table 39 seat 5
Pomiez Benjamin 14850 Table 39 seat 6
Pietrapertaso Canio 11650 Table 39 seat 7
Hoogendoorn Robert-Jan 11350 Table 39 seat 8
Honhon Benjamin 13950 Table 39 seat 9
Leveque Fabrice 9700 Table 39 seat 10

Chaummond Yann 16850 Table 40 seat 1
De Visscher Koen 22450 Table 40 seat 2
Seymanski Mikael 32900 Table 40 seat 3
Aertz Stéphan 33150 Table 40 seat 4
Schraeyers Bjorm 39950 Table 40 seat 5
Keovilay Nang hop 8000 Table 40 seat 6
Debrouwer Jean-Pol 29450 Table 40 seat 7
Moernans Johnny 10350 Table 40 seat 8
Carrera Serge 15600 Table 40 seat 9
Fiandaca Salvator 18450 Table 40 seat 10

Rawoe Fabrice 24500 Table 41 seat 1
Gillard Luc 16500 Table 41 seat 2
Pezzuto Pierre 44150 Table 41 seat 3
Jacobs Dennis 13800 Table 41 seat 4
Caballero Benardo 7750 Table 41 seat 5
Naamani Ammar 20750 Table 41 seat 6
Cabanas Antonio 18950 Table 41 seat 7
Jacquelinet Philippe 22150 Table 41 seat 8
Gilles Ronny 9800 Table 41 seat 9
Emo Wim 31700 Table 41 seat 10

Noah Boeken ends day 1C of the BOPC second in chips

2009-11-24T09:57:00.002+01:00

With an astonishing stack of 73050, Noah Boeken is just behind Maurits Blom, the day 1C chipleader (with 80550).

Christophe De Meulder - 21050
David Vanderheyden - 15800
Sven Polarski - 15750

Unfortunately, Matthias De Meulder, Vincent Gabel, ScanX and Don Stijn were eliminated from the tournament. Furthermore, there were not too many PCB member or other flemish players participating today.

Day 1D will probably be a full sell-out. According to the last rumours, even Johnny Lodden would be in Namur to participate, together with Betrand "ElkY" Grospellier.

Day 1B Survivors

2009-11-23T09:09:00.005+01:00

These guys from day 1B are coming back on wednesday, for day 2A.

Beeckx Alexander 57250 - he's 3rd in chips from the day 1B survivors.
Vandersmissen Kevin 43850
Verboven Philip 32750
Van Londersele Jeroen 28650
Peelman Jurgen 28000
De Visscher Koen 22450
De Smet Laurens 19850
Bauwens Tim 17100
Indesteege Rob 11900
Springael Joris 7500

Kevin Spiessens and Evilduke11 got eliminated from the tournament. All in all, it was a great day, with most of the Flemish players actually surviving !

Today, former Belgian Champ ScanX and godfather of belgian poker Vingabel are playing. Hopefully Noah Boeken is feeling better now, as he was scheduled to play yesterday, but postponed his participation due to illness.

The passwords for tonight are out there !

2009-11-22T18:22:00.003+01:00

If you want to know the passwords to the Poker Rail Radio and other freerolls, join us in the chat.

At 7.30pm, we'll also announce the pass on the radio show.

Day 1B Updates

2009-11-22T14:46:00.009+01:00

I'll post some updates of day 1B here. The tournament started with a delay, but Kevin Derwael already managed to double up, when his set of kings proved to be better on the river than the set of fives of his opponent.

Go Kevin !

14u55 - Joep van den bijgaart is playing today as well.

16u21 - Rob "fees" Indesteege's stack has shrinked to 8300

16u30 - Kevin Derwael is down to 5000, Joep van den bijgaart to 7000

16u43 - Joep van den bijgaart is eliminated.

17u48 - A few stack updates: Laurens De Smet (10.5k), Marcel Luske (8.5k), Tim Bauwens (7.5k), Kevin "Civell" Vandersmissen (14.5K)

18u03 - Jurgen Peelman soars to 19.500 chips with KK vs AA, and his third K fell on the flop.

18u54 - Kevin Derwael is also eliminated. Just heard that Unibet highroller Flipius is also playing today.

BOPC Day 1A Roundup and Day 1B lineup

2009-11-22T12:11:00.008+01:00

Yesterday was not an extremely successful day, judging by the number of flemish players who already bit the dust.

Jurgen Janssens faced KK when holding 33 in the last hand he played, while Jimmy "Knot_be" Praet really got coolered, getting his 16k stack all-in preflop with Aces, against a guy with AK. Queen high flop, turn jack, river ten ... exit Jimmy. Also Dislexik and Big Rounder 99 were elminated from the tournament, after never really getting good action with their good hands.

This leaves us with ... Johan "Bear" Bastiaens. With about 11k in chips, he's at the bottom of the 85 guys who make it to day 2. At least he's still in. However, he's not exactly "short" as the last level was 200/400, so the next one, on day 2, will probably be 300/600, still leaving him with almost 20 big blinds. I've seen him comeback from worse. Malik "demalik" Lecompte, also a pokerclub.be regular, finished day one, with a healthier stack of 31k.

It's interesting to note that 19 players from pokerclub.be are playing the tournament. Probably there are more participants from some of the Walloon communities, but PCB is definitely still the biggest flemish poker community.

Today, I'm on the lookout for these guys, and hoping to bring you some good news about them on the rail radio show.

Jeankenissan
Bauwes (a regular among the warmup & Sunday million players)
Alexander Beeckx
Laurens De Smet
Kevin Spiessens (Flemish poker challenge winner)
Civel (from Pokerinfo.be)
Complexion
evilduke (probably the guy who plays most tourneys online, from everyone in Belgium)
fees (the man who's been able to satellite // Luckbox to at least 5 major live events)
Jurgen Peelman (from pokerteam.be)

Don't forget: if you still want to play day 1C or 1D, there's a huge qualifier tonight where 7 seats are up for grabs on pokerstars.

BOPC day 1 updates

2009-11-21T17:24:00.003+01:00

Today we have Johan "Bear" Bastiaens, Big Rounder99, Dislexik, Don Stijn and Jimmy "Knot" Praet.

Also Jurgen Jansens, the Belgian winnner of Late Night stars of Poker is playing today. Unfortunately, he's only got about half of his stack left after three hours of play.

Jimmy Praet is inmiddels bijna gedubbeld naar 18.000 punten.

Poker Rail Radio 15/11 recap

2009-11-15T23:24:00.002+01:00

It's been a great night with a record number of Belgian people finishing ITM in the sunday warmup:

timdmd
poppiekimmie
Peleken
SpaceyFCB
breaker1987
Evilduke11
Pukemonster
clerky

Listen here to the interview with Jurgen Jansens (in dutch), the belgian poker enthusiast who managed to win the Late Night Stars of Poker show.

Kathleen Verwaest interview

2009-11-13T22:27:00.003+01:00

Last sunday, we interviewed Kathleen Verwaest. Among other things, she talked about her first tournament at the WSOP this summer.

Click here to hear the interview

Tonight's Quiz Challenge

2009-11-08T19:10:00.001+01:00

This is the challenge for tonight's quiz (you might need to click it).

Enter the answer in our chatbox (on the right) and win a Pokerstars copag deck

1st of November Rail Radio Interviews: Pieter De Korver & Daniel Camus

2009-11-02T00:10:00.003+01:00

Not every day we get the chance to speak to an EPT Grand Final Winner. Today was one of these rare days. Dutchman Pieter De Korver was able to pull it off earlier this year in Monaco, netting € 2.1 Million after a deal was made at the final table.

Pieter was actually talking to us from Indonesia, where he was spending a holiday. During the interview, he was disconnected due to a power glitch, but we managed to get him back on.

Pieter De Korver - Part One
Pieter De Korver - Part Two

As a former 1st division soccer player, Daniel Camus was invited to play the weekly freeroll final for the Belgian Open Championship of Poker (BOPC), and he managed to win this final.

Click here to listen to his interview, about poker and soccer (in dutch).

Joep Van den Bijgaart Interview

2009-10-25T23:24:00.003+01:00

This night, we had the privilege to interview dutch poker pro Joep Van den Bijgaart.
Click here to listen to the interview.

Poker Rail Radio 25/10 at 19.30 (dutch)

2009-10-25T15:25:00.006+01:00

Due to a daylight-savings time error at pokerstars, the tournament is scheduled for 19u15 instead of 20u15 (Tourney > Private > Freeroll Poker Rail Radio). Registration starts at 17.15 and you can find the wachtwoord on our rail radio chat.

Again, the top 15 players will be awarded a prize. A step 2 ticket valued at $27 for the top 5 players, and a step 1 ticket valued at $7,5 for places 6 to 15).

On the menu tonight:

* 2 quizzes where we give away copag decks (plastic playing cards ... THE rolls royce of the plactic playing cards actually).
* Discussion on poker magazines
* (Hopefully) interview with Joep Van den Bijgaart - http://nl.pokernews.com/poker-strategy/joep-bijgaart-pappe-ruk/
* Railing YOU in the Sunday Warmup at pokerstars.

Listen to the Marcel Luske interview from yesterday

2009-10-19T18:03:00.004+02:00

We were fortunate enough to have no one less than Marcel Luske on our show yesterday. He talked to us for about 20 minutes, about the growth of poker in Belgium and the Netherlands, importance of international rules, his new music album (coming out in December) and his best tournament moment ever.

At the moment of the interview, he was still in the Sunday Warmup, going for the money. You'll find out what happened during the interview.

Click here to listen

Poker Rail Radio tonight at 19.30 (dutch)

2009-10-04T18:28:00.003+02:00

Another 3-hour episode of poker rail radio kicks off at 19.30. Be sure to tune in before 20.15, if you want to get the password to our special Rail Radio Freeroll.

To find the freeroll in pokerstars, choose "Tourney" > "Private".
Then, scroll down until you find the tournament Freeroll Poker Rail Radio. You'll be asked to fill in a password when you register. The password will be repeatedly mentioned on the show, between 19.30 and 20.15.

What can you win ?

You can't win real money, but Pokerstars Steps tickets that you can use for other tournaments.
1-5th position: step 2 ticket valued at $27
6-15th position: step 1 ticket valued at $7,5

To tune in on the radio, click one of the links on the right side of this site, once the show goes live at 19.30.

Rail Radio Tonight + PopKoRn ends 26th for €4.1k

2009-09-20T14:05:00.001+02:00

Tonight's radio show kicks off at 7.30pm, when we will tell you the password for the special freeroll, that will start at 8.15pm.

The WCOOP is coming to an end, with the last three events. Event 43 is basically a replacement for the Sunday Warmup, with a $215 buyin, but with 1 million guaranteed.

Event 44 is a $10k highroller HORSE event, and Event 45 is the $5.2 "Main event" with 10 million guaranteed. We're bound to see some big guns there.

Furthermore, we'll have the poker player quiz, where Lars will give hints to find the player we're looking for. Try to guess it faster than me.

In Prague, PopKoRn finished 26th in the Unibet Open, for €4.1k in prizemoney. During the last hours, he didn't get a lot of action with his good hands, and basically got killed by the blinds.

See (or hear) you tonight at the pokerstars tables !

PopKoRn is 7th of 92 remaining players in the UO Prague

2009-09-19T10:26:00.005+02:00

Starting the last hour of day 1 yesterday, PopKoRn wasn't exactly cruising in the tournament. Facing a lot of ups and downs, he was sitting at about 15BB. He had been rather aggressive so he didn't get much respect anymore at his table.

A key hand came up when he re-raised in the cutoff with KQ suited. He goes into the tank after getting re-raised all in by the button player. In his current range, KQ is rather high, so in the end, he decides to call. He's relieved when his opponent shows K8, and he doubles to about 40k in chips.

Short after this, PopKoRn gets Kings in the big blind. Another player, who was a big stack before but lost almost half of his stack earlier, goes all in. Easy call for PopKoRn, and he's a major favorite against his opponent's pocket tens. He's around 80k at this point, and ends day 1 with 92k, 7th in chips overall.

We're rooting for him, and for the 6 other belgians who are remaining in the tournament, on day 2 !

Rail Radio next sunday

2009-09-18T15:58:00.003+02:00

On sunday, we'll have our third radio show with an exclusive freeroll for our listeners. Make sure to tune in between 7.30pm and 8.15pm (start our of the freeroll). We'll disclose the password during these first 45 minutes.

If you wonder about the activity on this blog, check out the "Poker Rail Radio" group on facebook, where the action is going on.

Last but not least, we're rooting for Pokerbrother PopKoRn, who's playing in the Unibet Open (Prague) today.

EPT Season 6 kicked off today in Kyiv

2009-08-18T22:18:00.003+02:00

Today the 6th season of the EPT started off in Kyiv Ukraine. At this point, already seven stops of one of the world's most glamourous poker tours are known. Before the end of this year, the tour will have stops in Kyiv, Barcelona (Spain), London (UK), Warsaw (Poland), Vilamoura (Portugal) and Prague (Czech Republic). After christmas, poker players craving for sun are treated to the Poker Stars Carribean Adventure on the Bahamas.

Click here for the full schedule

We look forward to the belgians participating in these tournaments.

Today, at day 1a in Kyiv, there were 129 participants who payed the € 5000 entry fee or qualified online. Team PokerStars Pro was represented here by Luca Pagano and Alexander Kravchenko. Only the latter lives to fight another day after Pagano ran his two pair into a flopped set of eights.

We'll bring you some final table news on the sunday radio show.

Join Rail Radio on Facebook

2009-08-17T17:12:00.002+02:00

With a new season (yeah .. season) of Rail Radio kicking off next sunday, make sure to join the Rail Radio group on Facebook.

More content mixed into the thrill of following Belgium's finest players through the Pokerstars sunday majors. I can't wait.

Summer break

2009-07-31T09:50:00.004+02:00

Rail Radio is taking a summer break and will be back on the 23rd of August. The last two episodes (12th and 19th of July) are being uploaded right now and will be available later today.

The WSOP has been an interesting ride, but the fall will be exciting as well ... The november 9, the Belgian Championship, ... 2009 isn't finished yet.

Upcoming shows:
23rd of August - 7.30pm - 10.30pm
30th of August - 7.30pm - 10.30pm

Rail Radio Tonight - WSOP roundup

2009-07-19T18:29:00.001+02:00

As we're still right in the middle of the summer, I expect a fairly low number of Belgian runners in the Warmup, starting in about 20 minutes.

Who's playing ? Please let me know, and I'll start to rail you guys from around 9pm.
I'll also keep an eye on the Belgian//Netherlands $1000 freeroll, and the $1.10 $1000 added for belgians and dutchies, starting at 7.30pm and 8pm.

Main topic for tonight is the WSOP wrap up. Players, results, funny facts, ...

As always, your input is welcome and greatly appreciated (Ares@pokerbrothers.be or directly on skype 'pokerbrothers').

Should be live at latest around 9pm.

Main Event Newsflash - Less than 75 players remaining

2009-07-14T09:04:00.002+02:00

Phil Ivey has been on a gigantic roller coaster. On Day five, he was down to a mere 245k, while he now has a stack around 6 million. This puts Ivey currently in fifth place, followed by Antonio Esfandiari, who's around 5.6 million. The chipleader, Darvin Moon has over 9 million.

Dennis Philips (from the november nine from last year), astonished his opponents with a few four and five bets, taking down huge pots preflop.

A few notable eliminations: Noah Boeken, Peter Eastgate, Julien Brecard (he used to organizes walloon events for Everest in Belgium). No news about Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, but I'm afraid he's been eliminated as well.

Rail Radio - Last week & Preview tonight

2009-07-12T17:52:00.005+02:00

I just uploaded last week's broadcast, you can find the link on the menu (right).

Because of the summer period, and the fact that many belgians are still in Vegas to witness the last days of this years World Series of Poker, we haven't seen too many tournament players last week.

If you're playing a Sunday Major on Pokerstars (the Warmup, the Million or the $109R), please let me know at Ares@pokerbrothers.be.

Tonight's show will start around 9pm, if there are enough Belgian participants to ensure the necessary online poker fireworks.

Belgians at the Main Event - Day 3

2009-07-10T11:36:00.002+02:00

Grindintr00:

291 Zelin, Michael Plainsboro NJ 73.800 B4 1
292 Lorensen, Randy Austin TX 50.900 B4 2
293 Persaud, Nikhil London United Kingdom 26.700 B4 3
294 DeMeulder, Mathias Burcht Belgium 26.700 B4 4
295 Agahi, Bobby Scottsdale AZ 52.800 B4 5
296 Bisutti, Mike Los Angeles CA 274.000 B4 6
297 Cabrera, Marcello Bakersfield CA 44.500 B4 7
298 Serock, Joseph Albuquerque NM 69.000 B4 8
299 Cooper, Bob Plantation FL 25.200 B4 9

Riverlex:

605 Leibgorin, Michelle Sete France 79.400 BR178 1
606 Lederer, Rob New York NY 134.400 BR178 2
607 Beeckx, Alexander Antwerp Belgium 157.900 BR178 4
608 Hachem, Tony Victoria Australia 46.900 BR178 5
609 Banks, Kirk Naples FL 184.600 BR178 6
610 Hong, David Las Vegas NV 144.200 BR178 7
611 Pastor, Juan Manuel Madrid Spain 61.300 BR178 8
612 Lee, Brandon Atlanta GA 118.200 BR178 9

Neophrak:

1213 Villaluz, Salvador Oakville ON, Canada 37.800 BR246 1
1214 Vinsant, Jeremiah Murfresboro TN 95.900 BR246 2
1215 McCoy, Chris MD 73.800 BR246 4
1216 Gabel, John Weehawken NJ 162.000 BR246 5
1217 Bowerman, Christian Brentwood CA 40.000 BR246 6
1218 Ciarrocchi, Vincent Stoney Creek NC 47.400 BR246 7
1219 Desmoort, Jean Hennuyeres Belgium 66.500 BR246 8
1220 Pham, Kido Dallas TX 47.000 BR246 9
1221 Giandomenico, Italiano Switzerland 43.200 BR246 9

Xavier Charlier:

1451 Chase, Jay Irving TX 186.200 O71 1
1452 Xavier, Charlier Waremme Belgium 139.100 O71 2
1453 Brooks, Gregory Wyckoff NJ 103.200 O71 3
1454 Hearns, Liam Tokyo Japan 55.900 O71 4
1455 King, Carter Columbia SC 104.100 O71 5
1456 Anderson, Justin Milwaukee WI 56.000 O71 6
1457 Gazes, Bill Brooklyn NY 68.500 O71 7
1458 Giannell, Christopher Red Banks NJ 78.500 O71 8
1459 Kapovich, John Downers Grove IL 15.800 O71 9

Marc Naalden, at the table with Chris Ferguson and Erik Van Den Berg:

874 Van Den Berg, Erik Eindhoven Netherlands 107.100 BR208 1
875 Ferguson, Chris Pacific Palisades CA 76.000 BR208 2
876 Blenkarn, Jeff Rockford MI 29.600 BR208 3
877 Gregorich, Mark Las Vegas NV 51.000 BR208 4
878 Estelle, Denis Paris France 245.100 BR208 5
879 Pickell, Lisa Bricktown NJ 18.800 BR208 6
880 Naalden, Marc Antwerpen Netherlands 61.600 BR208 7
881 Gee, Steve Sacramento CA 82.500 BR208 8
882 Malzanini, Julius Saarbuecken Germany 27.300 BR208 9

Celebrities at the WSOP main event (update)

2009-07-09T15:31:00.003+02:00

Celebrities that are still alive in the Main Event

Jason Alexander (actor) - (below average stack)
Shane Warne (world famous cricket player) – (above average stack)
Patrick Bruel (French actor and singer) – (below average stack)
Lou Diamond Phillips (actor and singer) – (above average stack)
Jordan Farmar (NBA basketball player) – (above average stack)
Sam Simon (Hollywood writer and producer) – (below average stack)

Eliminated on Day 2

Marlon Wayans (actor) – eliminated on Day 2

Celebrities that were eliminated on day 1

Torrie Wilson (female wrestler)
John Salley (former NBA basketball player)
Joseph Kahn (music video producer)
Ray Romano (actor)
Sully Erna (musician)
Shannon Elizabeth (actor)
Brad Garrett (actor)

Main Event - Day 2B Ends

2009-07-09T12:35:00.001+02:00

By my knowledge, no real belgians played day 2B. But there was Marc Naalden, the dutch player living in Antwerp. He managed to survive day 2B, but his stack is below average, around 60k.

Among the big guns who survived day 2B are Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Justin Bonomo and Jennifer Harman.

Today, there's a break in the main event. The largest poker tournament in the WORLD continues on Friday.

MUST READ for poker beginners & microstakes players

2009-07-09T12:34:00.002+02:00

If you want to get your game to the next level, make sure to check the archive of memorable strategy threads, from the 2+2 microstakes section.

Rooting for all Belgians in Main Event Day 2

2009-07-07T10:37:00.002+02:00

Today is the day that will separate the boys from the men. True, these guys already survived day one, but so did 75% of the field (on average).

Laurensds (Laurens De Smet), Riverlex (Alexander Beeckx), Grindintroo (Mathias De Meulder), SpaceyFCB (Kenny Hallaert), Yves Desmoort (neophrak) are the names to watch out for.

There's a whole dutch/belgian crew of pokernews present, so they're sure to serve us with updates in due time.

Adding the Rail Radio status to your own website

2009-07-05T14:49:00.002+02:00

It's now possible to add the status of the rail radio to your own website. In this way, you don't need to check this site every time you want to know what's going on with the radio.

Basically, you need to integrate the page:

http://atmire.com/radiostats/radio_stats.php

With an iframe in your own website.

Download example code here. (right-click, save as)

If you integrate the status in your own website, let us know, we'll make sure to mention your website in the next broadcasts.

Main Event - Belgian Day 1A Survivors

2009-07-04T12:52:00.002+02:00

The Belgian Main event participants did particularly well in day 1A of the main event.

Riverlex, Smetje and Mathias De Meulder managed to get to day 2, with decent chipstacks. No exact news on their hands.

Kenny Hallaert was on a roller coaster, getting high as 50k chips, and falling back to 35k when his set was crushed by a straight on the river.

Less fortunate was Davidi Kitai, who didn't manage to survive day 1.

We're rooting for all belgians in the largest poker tournament worldwide.

Yesterday's broadcast + Marc Naalden Finishes Second

2009-06-29T11:14:00.002+02:00

Click here to listen to yesterday's broadcast, starting with the Kim van der Velde interview.

Congrats to Marc Naalden for his second final table. He managed to get 2nd place in event 50 (LIMIT shootout).

Rail Radio Tonight - Special Guest Kim van der Velde

2009-06-28T16:28:00.005+02:00

Another dosis of the same medicine tonight: cheering our belgian online tournament players all the way to victory in the major events. We'll be live short before 9pm. New on pokerbrothers.be is a handy link in the menu bar right, where you can see the status of the radio, and the number of listeners. If the radio is online, you can just click the link to tune in.

So who is Kim van der Velde ?

Maybe less known in Belgium, Kim is an upcoming pokerplayer on the rise in the Netherlands. After playing intensively online and in Holland Casino, she found herself as one of the fortunate attendants of the WSOP camp in Monte Carlo. A sound investement it seems, because more recently, she managed to get through the live qualifications for the dutch TV show "Lords of Poker".

We'll be talking with her about the different steps in learning the basics in poker, tournaments vs cash games, and last but not least: advantages & disadvantages for women in poker. Realistic theories, or just clichés & rumours. We'll find out around 9pm.

Read Kim's profile on Lords of Poker Profile

Last week, we did a first experiment to run a rail radio show in English. Due to the positive feedback, we will definitely do some more shows in English in the future.

If you're planning on playing yourself tonight, and have a very low poker budget, we can definitely recommend the special freerolls for dutch and flemish players. Check them in the pokerstars client under "Tourney" and "Regional".

Belgian Highrollers on Unibet

2009-06-26T10:37:00.002+02:00

Some of the Belgian high rollers on Unibet are having a great month. Following information comes straight from the Unibet Leaderboard. As this leaderboard gets updated regularly, the information might already change minutes after this post and not be accurate anymore.

Yesterday's games

flipius88 was yesterday's second biggest winner, with over €7.2k in winnings.

Last 7 days

Over the last seven days, PJ005 is in second place, with over €16k in profit. jespoker888 is in 12th place with € 8317, followed directly by flipius88 with € 8295 for the month. One last belgian in the top 20 ranking is Signor, with € 6236.

Whole of June

Last but not least, belgians are taking both first and second spot for this month. flipius88 is leading with € 58965, while Powerflush is in second place with € 53045. PJ005 is in 11th spot with € 15876.

There's no information on how these guys are doing for the year, and obviously, swings at their levels can be mean as well.

A painful bubble for PopKoRn

2009-06-24T22:30:00.003+02:00

As one of the 16 players who qualified during an European Rake Race, PopKoRn got to play an exclusive qualifier for the UPO in London (mid-July).

With the Rail Radio, we were following the action. It was also the first attempt to do a show in English.

You can listen to the broadcast again here.

Clash of the Unibet Grinders - Tonight at 9pm

2009-06-24T15:53:00.003+02:00

Over the last weekend, Unibet ran a rakerace for the upcoming UPO tournament in London. The top two grinders from 8 different countries won a seat in an exclusive satellite tournament, taking place tonight at 9pm.

From these 16 very skilled grinders, 2 of them will win a package to the UPO tournament in London. Unlike the other UPO events, the London edition is a smaller, but more exclusive tournament.

As PopKoRn is one of the two qualified players from Belgium, I'll be railing from the sideline ... probably in English for a change.

Tune into the Rail Radio around 9pm !

Yesterday's show is now online

2009-06-15T17:47:00.003+02:00

The link for listing to yesterdays broadcast is now online. For once, I actually participated in a tournament during the show.

We were happy to have Diamond8 on the show again, talking more tournament strategy (in English). Four Flemish guys made the money in the warmup: Civell, SpaceyFCB, mattidm, shiherlis35. Hail to them.

Also hail Phil Ivey, as he managed to win a second bracelet this world series.

Tonight's Rail Radio Show

2009-06-08T00:08:00.003+02:00

My apologies for not announcing the show properly. To make this up to you, I already uploaded the show so you can listen to it (see sidebar at the right).

In short, we had a show full of WSOP facts, and a nice 20 minute talk from vingabel on tournament variance, assessing whether you're better than average, tournament sample sizes and the optimal tournament strategy for a $200 bankroll.

Next week: more WSOP stuff, and great rail radio.

Congrats on Civell, Zoutechamp, lazo and Peejter for ending ITM in the Sunday Warmup !

Trip Report: Everest Poker 12 Hour Poker Sports Challenge

2009-05-31T02:08:00.004+02:00

After getting elected as Coach, I was fortunate enough to join the Pokerclub.be team in their quest for glory at the Everest Poker 12 Hour Poker Sports Challenge.

Que ?

A team based poker tournament, including sports challenges, with a WSOP main event package & Side event package at stake.
During the sports challenges, you could win additional chips for the poker tournament. Even if you were already eliminated, these challenges could put you back in the game.

The team consisted of 18 players: 12 people qualified through special restricted freerolls on everestpoker, 3 people were elected (best sportsman, best coach and most valued pokerplayer), and 3 community moderators.

I took off from Leuven in the morning, together with Fees and Jeanke Nissan. When arriving in sunny Aachen, we immediately received a free club-tshirt (including the PCB logo on the back), virtually unlimited free beer and a lunch buffet.

After this buffet, we started off with the first sports challenge: the Gladiator fight. We had to elect one team member, who had to face off against a member from one of the other communities (pokerinfo.be, pokerinfo.nl, pokernews.nl, pokercollege.nl and Everest).

After this, everyone was really warmed up for the first poker action. Everyone got 2000 chips, but the teams who did well in the challenges, already got a bonus up to 750 extra chips. But with blinds at 25-25, 50-50 and 50-100 as the first levels, it started out "gemütlich". I had some bad luck with my table draw: jeanke nissan at my left, and left from him was Armijn, co-founder of pokerinfo.nl.

***getting too tired to continue writing in full sentences ... you'd get bored anyway.***

Other interesting events:
* We played 0-0 in soccer against pokerinfo.be, but we crushed the Everest team with 4-2.
* Sam really impressed friends & foes with his basketball skills. We ended first in the second Sports challenge !
* We totally rocked in the "skippyball" challenge, due to the excellent coordination of Fees.
* Rope-pulling is rigged: the team with most weight almost always wins.
* The most beautiful girl present there, was a member of OUR team. (and YES, there were plenty of other women).
* 4 Pokerclub.be members made the final 15 players.
* 2 Pokerclub.be members (Sam & Hans) made the final table.
* 2 Pokerclub.be members were eliminated 9th and 8th at the final table :(

Stuff we got for free from Everest today:
* beautiful, sunny location
* excellent tournament directors & materials (rockets.nl)
* lunch buffet, dinner buffet, dessert buffet, all you can drink beer, 4x soda
* tshirt
* cap
* 1 Main Event + 1 Side Event Package
* Entertaining sports activities: soccer, basketball, gladiator, rope pulling, skippyball.

THANK YOU EVEREST !

Rail Radio Tonight - WSOP Special

2009-05-24T18:40:00.002+02:00

Rail radio starts around 8.30pm. Tonight's broadcast will include a WSOP special, aside the regular excitement of following Flemish online poker players, in the big sunday tournaments.

You'll have chance to win a Copag deck of playing cards of your choice (regular or jumbo indexes) with following contest:

Send us the name of your favorite Main Event winner, together with the list of the 3 different poker chips available in the Pokerbrothers Store and your guess of how many people will vote for your favorite Main Event winner.

So, to sum it up, send:
* The name of your all time favorite Main Event winner (click here for the full list)
* The names of the 3 kinds of poker chips, available in the Pokerbrothers Store.
* The number of people (you think) will choose the same Main Event winner as you.

From the people who voted for the most popular Main Event winner, we'll send a copag deck to the player who's closest to the number of people voted for the guy.

Send this to: Ares@pokerbrothers.be

If you have a decent Mic and a HEADSET (for your own audio) and skype you're also welcome live on the show. We'll also have different WSOP topics about which you can send us your opinion (either through email, or through the skype account "pokerbrothers").

* WSOP tournament structure
* No more rebuy tournaments this year
* Full of fish, or star-studded champion tournaments ? Playing in the WSOP or do you prefer the side events
* Online qualifiers: which sites offer the best value for money
* Travel tips: hotels, airlines, casino's ... you name it.

Click here if you don't know how to tune in on the radio, or if you want further information about "Rail Radio".

Rail Radio Wrap up

2009-05-11T08:58:00.002+02:00

We had a lively show yesterday night, including two live appearances through Skype.

Diamond8 talked about the Rijkenberg case, backing of players in (international) tournaments and the tax issues.

Curve, the victim of the 9lives hacking attempt gave his views on the whole situation and explained why he decided not to prosecute his hacker.

LOLBehindYou (fees) managed to finish just in the money during the sunday warmup. At the break, both he and SpaceyFCB were around 13.000 chips. SpaceyFCB was feeling confident and challenged anyone to a "last longer bet" of 1k€. Good for him no one took the action, because 15 minutes later his jacks were looking good against AK on the turn, but the river brought a deadly ace.

Also congratulations to ScanX, who managed to qualify for the WSOP through a Unibet Qualifier.

You can listen to yesterdays show, by clicking the link 10th of may, in the righthand menu.

No rail radio next sunday, but we'll keep you updated this week about the Unibet Open, taking place in portugal. PopKoRn will be there to defend the Pokerbrothers honour.

Rail Radio - Short Recap

2009-05-03T22:14:00.003+02:00

We had a few text reactions to the topics, as well as one player discussing live his point of view on the skills you need as a poker player, vs the skills you need to get a degree & a daytime job.

Furthermore, there were a few anonymous testimonials about how different players handle their winnings, and their views on taxes.

Click here to replay tonight's broadcast

All feedback is welcome ! Should we attempt a live discussion again ? Should we stick to the tournament reporting ? We're also open to other suggestions.

Rail Radio Tonight - Q&A session (Semi-) professional poker in Belgium

2009-05-03T18:12:00.005+02:00

Tonight a different rail radio show than the usual, although I might keep an eye on people playing the sunday million.

Tonight, I'll broadcast a Q&A session on skype, about all the stuff related to playing poker seriously in Belgium//Flanders. You can send all your questions to Ares@pokerbrothers.be, or ask them LIVE through the skype account "pokerbrothers".

Note: if you want to be live on the air, you're welcome, but you need headphones (the sound of the radio can NOT go through your speakers). If you have headphones and a mic, feel free to dial in.

All the questions that arrive, and topics that will be discussed, will be answered with help from a few known and anonymous poker players.

Some of the topics:
* Staying in Belgium, or moving to another country ?
* What does it take to gain an income from poker ? How can you assess if you would be able to pull it off.
* What are the positive and negative consequences ?
* Playing poker full time for a few years - Will the hole in your CV be a problem ?
* (incoming question through email) Evolution of poker: will the fishpond ever dry up ? Is there a chance (online) poker will evolve in ways that are negative for (semi-) professional players. Are there any backup plans ?

Show should go live around 8pm.

Info about how to tune in and listen

Pokerbrothers defeated - EPT Update

2009-05-01T16:28:00.002+02:00

Unfortunately, me and PopKoRn were the two first players to get eliminated in the Late Night Stars of Poker show yesterday.

If you saw the show, a first comment is that they only showed a very limited number of hands. At the start of my last hand, I was down to about 10.000 chips (from the original 20.000), and blinds were 1000-2000. I was on the small blind and the button (Mathias, who was playing aggressively) raised, and I went all-in with AQ suited. He quickly called with AK, making me a huge underdog. No miracle queen, and I was sent to the bar.

PopKoRn raised from the button, and the player on the big blind (again Mathias) asked him how much he got left. Blinds were 1500-3000 if I'm not mistaking, and PopKorn had about 12.000 left. Mathias went all-in, and PopKoRn said "I might be behind here, but given the blinds I need to call", and flipped over KQ. He was a favorite against Mathias J5.

All in all, it was a great experience to be on the show, and we look forward to see the finals.

In the meanwhile, the EPT Grand Final is taking place in Monte Carlo. Although Kenny Hallaert got eliminated early on, he managed to win a triple shooutout event, for about €20k. Yesterday Marc Naalden and Annette Obrestad ended the day as chip leaders. Because the dutchman lives in antwerp (and uses the antwerp logo as his avatar on pokerstars), we're rooting for him !

Pokerbrothers on TV tonight

2009-04-30T09:26:00.002+02:00

Tonight, at 23.40, me and PopKoRn face off against 2 celebrity players and two internet qualifiers on the "Late Night Stars of Poker" show on the 2BE tv channel.

If you can't catch it, rumors say the episodes will be up pretty soon on www.poker.be and JimTV is already airing re-runs.

Media Frenzy about Poker in Flanders

2009-04-29T12:37:00.004+02:00

Yesterday there was a general media frenzy about (online) poker in flanders, ignited by one of the first objective articles about poker in Belgian Media.

De Standaard published an article where three anonymous young poker players talk about the size of their winnings, and how they approach poker.

Following to that article, all major papers and news channels wanted to include something about poker in their shows yesterday.

Another nice, and objective one, was Kenny Hallaert's interview on radio one (live from Monte Carlo, where he was playing the EPT Grand Final)

Listen to the interview on pokerbrothers radio

It will be interesting to see how the belgian tax authorities and gaming commission will respond.

Make sure to check out Late Night Stars of Poker (on 2BE) featuring both myself and PopKorN in a friendly poker game against 2 celebrity players and 2 internet qualifiers.

Rail Radio 26th of April - SPECIAL Interforum Challenge

2009-04-26T16:13:00.003+02:00

Over the past week, players from the four biggest flemish poker communities have played qualifiers for an interforum-final tournament tonight.

What's at stake ? One seat to the Unibet Open (Algarve Portugal) and two luxurious poker tables (place 2 and 3).

Some of these qualification tournaments earlier this week were complete freerolls, so there was a lot of attendance from each of the different fora.

Click here for information about the radio, and instructions to tune in.

These fora are:

Pokerclub.be
Pokerinfo.be
Pokerteam.be
9lives

Which community will take down the first prize, tough to say ... Established even before I started playing poker (so that's before 2005), pokerclub.be is the oldest online poker community in Belgium. With a lively message board and high roller members, it's still the number one spot to be.

However, with a very loyal base of friendly players, Pokerinfo.be is probably the most friendly poker community, who organizes live events about every 3 months. The site is being run by Stijn, Philip and Kenny Hallaert (one of flanders finest tournament players), who are very motivated in building the community and providing nice things for their members.

Pokerteam.be is still a fairly new kid on the block. As one of the only flemish communities they are staking a team of players to play in certain live tournaments. In cooperation with casino's and pokersites, they have a few rare offers and prizes for their players. Rogier and Jürgen, pokerteam's captains are committed to make sure the site is here to stay.

Opposed to all the other communities, 9lives is not a community 100% dedicated to poker. 9lives, owned by telecom provider Telenet, is actually a community of gamers, with a long and rich legacy. Since a few years, they've had a special poker section in their forums, that spun off from a messageboard for board games. With already a few live events in the past, it's clear that this specific poker forum, has become an important community of gamers. The 9lives qualifiers last week were the biggest ones, with some over 100 participants !

We'll be tuning in from the sideline, from around 8pm, to witness who'll be travelling to Portugal.

Comparison of international gambling policies by the Belgian Gaming Commission (dutch)

2009-04-19T14:49:00.002+02:00

In march, the belgian gaming commission published a report in which different international legislations regarding gambling were compared. Because this arrives after the initial approval of the new gaming law, it's clear that the commission is doing it's homework to ensure that the new legislation complies with European legislation, and to learn from other countries.

Full Report (dutch)

In the report, following themes have been compared in different legislations:

1. Which games are considered legal and illegal
2. The possibility for (self) exclusion from gambling
3. Technical standards for protection of the players
4. Advertising
5. Loans & credits for players
6. Informing the players
7. Youth

And in the end there are some general conclusions. The report always looks at both the offline and internet situation. Here are some interesting facts:

1. Illegal games
The research calls it "hypocritical" that pachinko, a game in Japan with a market revenue worth of €24 billion isn't considered a game of chance.

Most monopolies, mainly lotteries and gambling companies, offer certain games online (this is the case in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, France, Latvia, Slowakya, Hungary and Austria). In the Netherlands, a trial experiment of Holland Casino with online gaming was refused by the First Chamber in april 2008. Sweden and Austria opened their own pokersites. In Malta, Gibraltar, Jersey, Alderney, the Isle of Man, in the UK and Italy, private companies are being licensed to exploit online gambling. In Germany, internet gambling is being strictly forbidden to fight addiction. EU legislation could have an important effect on the protectionist and monopolistic positions of some of the states (France, Finland, Hungary, Sweden and Czech republic).

In many countries, the responsibility arrives at the payment providers, who are responsible for blocking transactions to illegal gambling providers. However, these payment providers claim that they can't do this, without a decent "black list" of illegal operators.

2. Exclusion

Online gaming sites, licensed in the UK, have a common system for excluding players. If you request exclusion at one of the sites, you get excluded from the other ones as well.

3. Technical standards

Gambling systems are regulated, in the sense that the maximum loss per hour and the precentage of bets returned to the players are regulated.

4. Advertising

Finland considers a revision of the terms "marketing" and "advertising", to properly canalize the wildgrotwh of advertising for gambling.

The UK has made a "white list" of countries, where advertising is admitted, for its licensed online operators. Including on that list are countries from the European economic space.

7. Youth

In austria, the gambling site is connected to a national register. You need to be 18, and have a bank account in Austria (only bank transfer payments are being accepted).

Originally, the Khanawake reservate had an age limit of 21, but this was lowered to 18.

Pokerbrothers conclusions

Although the document contains some new info, it's too bad that it lacks full reference to all of the sources to find out more information. It's becoming clear that the Belgian gaming commission is well informed about the international situation. The recent new proposal for the gambling legislation made clear that Belgium will move in a direction of licensed operators, and will feature a black list ... but it will be very interesting to see how these ideas will be implemented in the end.

Rail Radio 12th of April Wrap-up

2009-04-13T15:53:00.004+02:00

Huge loads of action yesterday night, with the sunday warmup and the start of the last "Spring Championships of Online Poker" tournaments.

Sunday Warmup

When starting off, we were railing Peleken (from pokerteam.be), Bariban, LOLBehindYou(fees) and Evilduke11 in the Sunday Warmup. Unfortunately, Civel was already eliminated by then.

Pele got eliminated in a brutal way when his AA got cracked by 84.

Bariban was working on the nerves of the opponent at his left side, when constantly stealing the blinds. Although he had to fold a few times against re raises, this hand shows you how he benefited from his image.

But that was only the start for Bariban. Look at following double up beauties:
Again against Sumpas
I'd choose luck over skill any time of the day.

Bariban managed to make the money, but luck turned down on him when his AA got cracked by JJ. He managed to win $1,100.

LOLBehindYou got eliminated when he ran his QJs into AJ.

PopKoRn in the $109 Rebuy + Addon (300k Guaranteed)

In the meanwhile, our one and only Pokerbrother PopKoRn was playing the $109 rebuy + add-on (300k Guaranteed), and struggling a bit, until this double up came along.

After that, he was on the gravy train for a while:
KK vs AQ
Flopping a set
A very cool (semi ?) bluf
Winning a 67k pot with Ten-high at the showdown.
TT vs A8

However, he lost 3 quarters of his stack with AQ vs 88 (no hand history available).
He was already in the money, but struggling to get into the higher payouts.

In the final exciting moments, he came back from 48k (6 big blinds) to 200K
Running into a straight after a misclick (unintentional miniraise)

He was dangling at the end of the charts, but managed to get 18th in the end, good for $2,300.

SCOOP 21 Heads up

Bariban was on a roll in the SCOOP 21-L (heads up), winning 3 matches, including his match against WSOP final tabler Chino Reem. But got eliminated in his 4th match.

There were no Belgians in the SCOOP 21-H (heads up) event. Strange, would it really be that the $25,000 buyin is too high for our high rollers ? We were railing Peter Eastgate and ElkY for a while. On another table, following sick call from zangbezan24 came by, truly amazing.

SCOOP 22 Main Event

In the SCOOP-22 events, the main event from these series, we followed Apegod, Big Rounder9, Bariban, Needleking, Timor83, nardo11, CabrioPoker, ...

Apegod took an early lead. A few entertaining examples:
Top Pair baby
Villain folding after 90% of his stack went in
Trapping his opponents

Marc "NeedleKing" Naalden, was the only belgian playing the $10,000 buyin scoop main event.
Full house doubleup

UPO Final

Aside from the action on pokerstars, the exciting UPO weekfinal took place on Unibet. Many members of pokerclub.be including breaker1987, egi and Cokeman were playing this tournament in order to win one of the packages for the Algarve in Portugal.
Cokeman (under the nickname Chickenlal) was doing very well all the tournament long, and finally won one of the packages, after bubbling last week, and after an attempt of 40k hands in 4 days (rake race). Needless to say: very well deserved.

Namur Poker Classics

Not only online, but also in the casino of Namur, at the namur poker classics, flemish players were involved in the late hours. Knot pulled the astonishing achievement of 2 final tables in 2 days, but ended in 8th position (or 7th ?). The members of pokerinfo.be are playing very well in these poker classics.

Namur Poker Classics: Fantastic flemish results day 1

2009-04-12T13:59:00.006+02:00

From the 11th until the 19th of April, the Namur Poker Classics are being held at the Casino of Namur.

With all the tournaments sold out yesterday, the tournaments took a great start. Shiherlis from pokerclub.be finished in 8th place, and Knot ended second in the 110 buyin tournament.

In the 210 tournament, Philip from Pokerinfo.be was among the last 3, who made a deal for the prize money and continued to play for 500. Philip managed to win this !

Knot during the heads up of the 110 tournament.

Big thank to the guys from Pokerinfo.be for the great reporting !

PokerNet.be is DEAD ... long live Poker.be

2009-04-10T16:14:00.003+02:00

The crew of pokernet has dropped the curtain on the website, that was launched with much expectations but never really got off the ground.

But no worries, with a brand new, state of the art website, they got it back together at www.poker.be. Especially because the site gets namedropped in every episode of Late Night Stars of Poker, I believe it's going to be a big hit.

Stay tuned for more information on this new and upcoming website !

Sick action at Full Tilt & Late Night Stars of Poker

2009-04-10T12:38:00.002+02:00

(crosspost from highstakesdb.com)

It was a sick day yesterday with probably the best action since authumn 2008. durrrr was involved in amlost everything. He played three different opponents HU PLO at the same time, and along to that he also played in all the Mixed HA games that were running.

A pretty sick threeway action pot with durrrr, trex313 and Juggle This, where most of the money goes in the pot preflop. $283k pot

durrrr had some great sessions against Gus Hansen in the HU PLO and managed to win more than $1 Million against him. Offcorse durrrr had some great help from the cards in those sessions, which he affirmed to Gus in the chatbox.

durrrr and Gus Hansen gets it in on the flop, where both has some big hands. $228k pot

Phil Ivey was the one who actually managed to win decently from durrrr. Phil ended up $187k in total winnings yesterday. Although his winnings from durrrr exceeded that, but he lost some to other players in the mixed HA.

The turn gives both Phil Ivey and durrrr a stright but Ivey has two pair to go with the straight and hits a full house on the river. $285k pot

At the end of the session durrrr had a total profit of "only" $670k. It may perceived as small as he had almost $2 Million spread out across the tables but he lost quite a bit to Phil Ivey, and some other players had some minor profits against him aswell.

Gus Hansen got stuck big time with his 900k loss. Hopefully he can make a comeback and forget about yesterdays sessions as fast as he can

One of the sickest 24 hours of so far in Full Tilt Poker´s history.

Another episode of Late Night Stars of Poker yesterday evening, with some famous faces. The celebrities were Guy Swinnen (from The Scabs), Nicolas van der Veken (Lead singer Janez Dedt). Poker pro's were Kevin "spiegels" Spiessens and Stijn "Don Stijn" Verrest. Also the qualifiers were notorious: Evi van Herreweghen (from my hometown Dendermonde !) and Berry (Ripzor from the pokerclub.be forum).

It was again very friendly and fun. A few strange hands, but those tend to come along in this show. In the end, it was Nicolas van der Veken who entered the heads up with a huge chiplead, and won against qualifier Berry.

Mark your calendars on the 30th of april, were me and PopKoRn will take on 2 celebrities and 2 online qualifiers.

Poker Professionals on Twitter

2009-04-09T13:24:00.003+02:00

You've been able to follow small poker brother updates on twitter.com for a few weeks now.

It seems to become very popular in the poker world, with many big names posting updates on Twitter.

Quite amusing !

See a list here:
http://poker-2-0.blogspot.com/2009/02/all-poker-pros-in-twitter.html

(including Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow, Jeff Madsen, ...)

Poker Copilot - Poker Analysis tool for Mac

2009-04-07T10:34:00.002+02:00

Although the big poker rooms have nice clients for Mac (Apple), poker analysis tools are still rather scarce for Mac.

What I did up until now, is run Windows in a virtualized mode on my Mac, and import all my hands in pokertracker afterwards.

Apperently, Poker Copilot is the best alternative for Poker Tracker 3 or Hold'em Manager for Mac.

Due to a special offer on MacZOT.com, you can buy it today for half the price. Normally its $49.95 but now it's $24.95

Let me know if you tried it, and what your experience with the tool is.

GG Spacey

2009-04-06T23:32:00.001+02:00

Spacey came in 16th in the SCOOP 8 $33 tournament.

SpaceyFCB in the final of SCOOP 8

2009-04-06T21:46:00.002+02:00

In 45 minutes, SpaceyFCB will continue in Day 2 of the Spring Championship of Online Poker 8. This $33 NL Hold'em tournament started yesterday with more than 20.000 participants, and halted this morning at 10.30.

After a day sleep, SpaceyFCB is one of the 25 remaining players, who are already sure of $982, but all have a chance to take down the $50k first prize. In total, there was over $610,000 in the prizepool.

GL Spacey, take it down !

Congratulations Evilduke11 and pasop007 (AApjAA)

2009-04-06T12:20:00.003+02:00

After the end of the rail radio show yesterday evening, where Evilduke and pasop007 were just in the money, both players went on to ... the final table !

With 4th place for Evilduke11 and 7th place for pasop007, they established a great result in this Daily 80 Grand Sunday Special tournament.

Rail Radio now Live

2009-04-05T21:12:00.003+02:00

Tune in Now !

http://radio.pokerbrothers.be

following bibii1 in the warmup - almost ITM.

Mollerke eliminated ... in the Money.

Full Tilt Poker Academy

2009-04-04T17:14:00.005+02:00

If you would be running a poker site, how would you increase your revenues coming from rake in the games ?

Generating more players would be one way, but ensuring your existing player base doesn't go broke is a valid alternative.

In this second area, Full Tilt Poker recently launched the Poker Academy.

If you login with your full-tilt account on Poker Academy, there are a few things you can do there, to improve your game. Reading and watching videos (the rather passive stuff) is a start, but the interactive features are impressive.

Each Full Tilt Pro proposes challenges, that you can complete while playing on the Full Tilt tables. For example, one of my current tasks (part of a challenge) is to avoid "open limping" (this means, either raise or fold, when it's raised to you). I need to do this 100 times in a row, for five times, to complete the challenge.

Rewards

Here's the beauty of the system: Full Tilt actually analyzes the hands you play, and verifies whether you are really completing the challenge. If you manage to complete it, you get rewarded in "academy credits" that you can spend in the academy store (soon becoming live).

I need to look into this a bit further, but this looks SO good that the games at Full Tilt might get a lot tougher to beat in the future.

*EDIT* Apperently the folks from the 2p2 poker forums have some serious questions regarding the quality of the advice in the video. There's also a debate going on whether the academy is intended to make players better or worse.
Read the thread here.

Belgian Players getting Hacked

2009-04-02T09:36:00.002+02:00

For the past week now, several belgian poker players have found their online poker accounts hacked. In most cases, not only a certain pokeraccount was hacked but also their neteller or moneybookers online wallet.

Although it's not clear at the moment what happened, most of these players seemed to use Hotmail as email address to register with the poker sites. Their hotmail accounts have been hacked as well.

Some of the following pointers could save you from such a disaster:
* Avoid using the same passwords as much as possible. If you are active on messageboards, or forums, at least make sure you use a different password there.
* Keep the level of your bankroll online to the strict minimum you need, to play the stakes you want to play. Keeping lots of cash on moneybookers or neteller doesn't give you intrest ... so that's another reason to ship your savings away from there.
* Your email box might very well be the weakest link. If someone gains access to your email account, they can retrieve poker sites passwords, etc. NEVER check your webmail over an HTTP connection (always make sure you're on HTTPS), and be VERY CAREFUL with checking your email on computers other than your own.
* For people using wireless, this poses an additional risk as well, if you're on an un-encrypted network, or if you're on a public wireless lan.

If you think you're in a risky situation at the moment, verify all your accounts and online wallets NOW. These service providers are quite good in resolving fraud and even if your money got stolen, there's a good chance you'll get at least some of it back.

Sneak Preview WSOP 2009 : Ares will be playing 4 events !

2009-04-01T12:42:00.007+02:00

Details are still a little bit scetchy;
but our very own Ares will be playing at least 4 events at this year's WSOP in Las Vegas.

Included will be events

# 12 - World Championship Mixed Event $10,000
# 47 - No Limit / Limit Hold'em $2,500
and the Main Event.

We will also be in Las Vegas from the very beginning of the WSOP untill the end of the main event for full coverage on Pokerbrothers thanks to are generous sponsors.

More details will follow as we get them, so stay tuned !

Now on Radio 1 - SpaceyFCB talking about poker

2009-03-30T10:17:00.005+02:00

In a few minutes, Kenny Hallaert will give an interview about poker in the morning show Peeters & Pichal.

Here are links to online livestreams:

http://mp3.streampower.be/radio1-low.mp3
http://mp3.streampower.be/radio1-mid.mp3
http://mp3.streampower.be/radio1-high.mp3

Here's a recording of the full interview (thanks Lemon)

Click here for the webpage of the radio show, where you can post a reaction.

Political questions about gambling (januari)

2009-03-30T10:12:00.003+02:00

This document gives a bit of background for the new belgian gambling legislation.

It contains a few questions from Rob van de Velde (Lijst De Decker) to Carl Devlies, concerning live poker tournaments, and funny enough, card tournaments for old people.

The document contains the number of interventions the gaming commission has made in live poker tournaments between 2006 and 2009.

Very interesting read !

Pokerbrothers Rail Radio

2009-03-29T10:45:00.008+02:00

What is Pokerbrothers Rail Radio ?

The rail radio is a live online broadcast, in dutch, typically on sunday nights, where the pokerbrothers follow multiple players through the excitement of online poker tournaments.

Why should you listen ?

If you want to catch all of the action, you either need to open tens of pokertables, and observe everything yourself. With the Rail Radio, you can just kickback and relax, and let us do the observing for you.

Furthermore, the shows are filled with pokerfacts and gossip and is often described by listeners as "jolly good fun".

How do I login ?

Click http://radio.pokerbrothers.be and if all goes well, your audioplayer should open the stream and you're connected. If you experience problems with windows media player, or other software, you can always use the free software VLC.

Poker tip of the week

Feel free to send all your poker advice to Ares@pokerbrothers.be. Every week, we look for the best poker advice in "pokertip of the week".

Listen to Older Shows

22nd of March
24th of March (Unibet Open Special)
29th of March
5th of April

Outplayed !

2009-03-28T10:53:00.003+01:00

Did you ever play a live poker game, where you felt you were utterly being outskilled by another player at the table ? Up until yesterday, I never really felt like that before. Sure there have been games with big winners on lucky streaks, or guys getting respect for a few nice bluffs here and there.

This guy was simply unbelievable.

I believe someone can be good at reading other people's behaviour and put them on a range of possible hands. But he called the EXACT hands of players at the table, more than ten times. And the times he was wrong, a player held K6 for example when he guessed K8.

In one hand he really steamed when putting me all-in on a J high the flop, after advising me "go ahead and call with your KJ". So I called with my KJ and he turned over aces. K would still make two higher pairs for him, as the board paired ... but I caught my two outer on the river.

He always managed to get the chips in the middle with the best hand, but caught some very unlucky turns and river. At 2am, both he and him were the losers in the game when we called it a night.

He really inspired me to work on my own body language, betting patterns and general behaviour at the table, and at the same time, trying to get more into peoples heads.

Apparently you can not only put people on a range ... but even get their exact hands in some specific spots, with enough practice and talent.

Another super cooler in this same poker game: I flop quad jacks, keep a low profile, and Larske turns a full house. I'm just calling his bets, but as he started betting preflop, I never thought he was THAT strong. So on the river, I lead out, and he suddenly suspects terror: "I've been f*cking coolered again ... how is that possible". He does call my raise and quits the game with the profit he had left.

Rail Radio now Live

2009-03-22T21:10:00.003+01:00

With 1500 players of 4700 still active in the Sunday Warmup, were' now live following SpaceyFCB, Shiherlis35, Ilan17, pasop007 and Diamond8

http://radio.pokerbrothers.be

Twitter:

http://twitter.com/pokerbrothers

PopKoRn at the Unibet Open

2009-03-20T15:54:00.001+01:00

Although he didn't last long in the tournament, here's a very cool picture of popkorn at the unibet open. Thanks Hung for the picture.

I taught Roel how to play poker (dutch)

2009-03-11T10:23:00.003+01:00

To find out what happened, check the video here:

"Roel wordt poker kampioen"

Timor83 finished 37th in the sunday warmup

2009-03-09T09:30:00.003+01:00

Congratulations to Timor83, who managed to end 37th in yesterdays sunday warmup, winning over $1500.

Go Timor83 !

2009-03-09T00:08:00.004+01:00

He's deep in the money at the moment in the Sunday Warmup tournament. At one point, he was third in chips !

In the million, nardo11 and Bauwes have very decent stacks of twice average.
We're calling it a day, and thank you for listening.

Rail Radio 8th of March - Another set of Sunday Majors

2009-03-08T10:47:00.007+01:00

Another interesting night of sunday's major tournaments is coming up ! Me and Lars should be broadcasting from around 8pm powered by these new toys.

If you're playing one of the bigger tournaments tonight (sunday warmup, millions, ...) send us your nickname & we'll be looking over your shoulder during the tournament.

You can tune in by clicking this link.

All Belgians out before the money in Budapest

2009-03-08T10:36:00.003+01:00

With frickos01 busting out yesterday, all participating belgians were eliminated before the money. PopKoRn got eliminated the first day when he went all-in with top pair and K-high flush draw, to be called by the A-high flush draw ... and the flush fell on the river.

I guess Belgium can't dominate every Unibet tournament.

Judging by the posts on the pokerclub.be forum, there's some epic partying going on.

PopKoRn doubles up !

2009-03-06T17:33:00.000+01:00

With KK, PopKoRn managed to double up. However, his chipstack is still below the 10k starting stack.

Rough start for PopKoRn !

2009-03-06T16:43:00.001+01:00

After losing two standard hands, PopKoRn is now around 5000 chips (starting stack: 10.000) at the end of the second blind level.

PopKoRn off to Budapest for the UO

2009-03-05T14:21:00.003+01:00

Today, PopKoRn sets sail for Budapest, to participate in the Unibet Open tournament, for which he qualified through an exciting rake race.

With 360 players participating, and the buyin at 1500 euro, there's a total prizepool of € 540.000. Last Unibet Open, in Warsaw, PopKoRn managed to end 12th, but this was a pity as he had already accumulated 20% of all the chips at some point earlier in the tournament.

We'll be railing him, and other belgians tomorrow, as they play in day 1C. Live updates and streaming video are available here.

Go Hallodio !

2009-03-01T23:56:00.002+01:00

With still 7 promising players in game, the rail radio stopped for today. We still wish the best of luck to following players:

Sunday warmup (already in the money):
Hallodio (477k)
Urlings (133k)

Sunday Million
SpaceyFCB
Bauwes
JensDePens
Apegod (great run of cards :) )
Timor83 (strong comeback !)

Some Server Trouble

2009-03-01T21:18:00.000+01:00

I'm already railing, but the shoutcast server is not working at the moment. As soon as it comes online, there will be a kickass radio show because there is a LOT of flemish action in the big sunday major tournaments tonight.

Hallodio, SpaceyFCB and Evilduke are still in the sunday warmup. Spacey just doubled with A4 against A9. With a 29k stack, he's again healthy now with blinds at 600-1200

Rail Radio Sunday 1st of March

2009-02-27T12:22:00.002+01:00

This sunday, we'll have another session of online rail radio, where we follow poker players through the biggest and most exciting online poker tournaments.

If you want to be railed, please let us know your nickname, site and starting hours of your tournament.

We will start around 9pm, with the Sunday Warmup (on Stars) which will already be running for 3 hours then. At 10.30pm, we'll follow the Sunday Million.

If you have something interesting to say, you can even be ON the show ! All you need is a good microphone (& headset) and Skype. We can call you, and you can be live on the air for the hundreds of flemish rail radio listeners.

Feel also free to mail any comments, suggestions, ... to Ares@pokerbrothers.be

On Sunday, you can tune in at http://radio.pokerbrothers.be/listen.pls

2 big freerolls and one TV show ...

2009-02-24T23:33:00.005+01:00

Last weekend, the 11.0 edition of Frag-o-Matic took place at the Oktoberhallen (Wieze, Belgium). For over 5 years now, I am part of the non-profit organization who puts together these lan parties, where gamers play against eachother non stop for a whole weekend.

Poker has become very popular at FoM. This time, we treated our participants to two freeroll tournaments, each with a capacity of 110 players. On Friday night, the two tournaments were already fully booked. Because these tournaments were kindly sponsored by Circuspoker.be and Pokerteam.be, we had some nice prizes for the top 9 players from each tournament.

1st place - 22" Samsung TFT screen sponsored by Pokerteam.be
2nd place - Weekend at the Beauregard hotel + meals
3rd - 7th place - Resto cheque for the Namur Casino restaurant
8th - 9th place - Circuspoker Case
sponsored by Circuspoker.be

The FoM crew consists out of somewhat 30 volunteers who run this 800 participant event. Because we provide 24h/day catering service at the bar, each volunteer needs to work 4 shifts of 3 hours (not counting the event setup and cleanup afterwards). Needless to say that with this type of workload, there weren't many crewmembers available to help out with the poker tournament.

Luckily, Lars came by to help out with the first tournament. Also Cindy from Playseat.be, Luxy and Kenny Hallaert from Circuspoker.be really helped out a lot. Without them it would have been really hard to manage these 100 player freerolls.

The first tournament was a classic freezout, while the second one was a shooutout tournament. They were both a lot of fun for the participants, although some complained that the structure was too fast (although I thought this would have been obvious, as they knew the tournament had to be finished in 5 hours).

As the first tournament started at 4pm and the second one only ended at 4am, I got so tired I don't remember much of the actual poker action (although I dealed both final tables).

After the heavy FoM cleanup (where I "gave up" at 10pm on sunday and went home), where I lost the remainder of my voice and energy, me and PopKoRn had to play in the "Late Night Stars of Poker" TV show on monday.

Late Night Stars of Poker Opname 23/02/09

In this TV show (that will be broadcasted on 2BE from the mid of march), 2 poker "pro's" play against 2 famous flemish personalities and 2 internet qualifiers. Each episode is such a 6 player Sit 'n Go. After twelve episodes, the twelve winners will play some kind of finals.

We can't disclose much of the poker action yet, but I think it will be nice to watch and that you won't see a lot of bad poker.

Nieuw Leuvens Poker Initiatief

2009-01-23T00:05:00.002+01:00

Enkele poker minded studenten zijn sinds kort een nieuw poker initiatief gestart. Ze omschrijven hun website, yourfullhouse.com als de facebook van het poker, waarmee je op een gebruiksvriendelijke manier contact kan houden met al je poker buddies.

2009 moet het jaar worden voor yourfullhouse.com: ze plannen onder meer enkele spectaculaire acties !

Finished - the new poker show

2009-01-23T00:01:00.002+01:00

This week I recorded 8 more hours of poker television for Belgacom TV. This time, it was a show of one of the major poker tournaments.

More information will follow, as soon as the show is live on the Belgacom TV on demand platform.

SpaceyFCB takes down the Sunday Warmup

2009-01-19T20:57:00.003+01:00

After witnessing two belgian players qualify for the EPT Copenhagen the 10th and 11th of January, the RailRadio listeners were in for a real treat yesterday night.

After a marathon rail session of over 7 hours, me and Lars, and more than 15 RailRadio listeners witnessed how SpaceyFCB ended a steamrollin' streak of poker as the winner of the Sunday Warmup.

Over 4000 people participated, and he was the one to take home the first prize, over $100.000.
Afterwards, he went on air and told the players that he got the feeling he was playing for the big prizes, after doubling up with 56s vs KK (preflop all-in), when he flopped a straight.

This event, on itself, is remarkable and unique in Belgium. But combined with the fact that this was Spacey's 5th tournament win IN ONE WEEK, simply makes one wonder about simple and basic rules of statistics and variance.

Congrats Spacey, you earn every bit of it !

Here's some additional coverage of the final table.

Make sure to tune in to the Rail Radio next sunday night ... and witness the real thrill of online tournament poker.

Rail Radio is LIVE NOW

2009-01-18T21:17:00.001+01:00

Join Ares & larske next sunday 18th of January for another Rail Radio broadcast !

RAIL RADIO

Don't forget to let us know if you're playing one of the big tournaments (or qualifiers to big events).

Trip Report : 100 freezeout HC Valkenburg

2009-01-16T20:49:00.003+01:00

Last Tuesday I went to the Holland Casino in Valkenburg to play the €100 freezeout MTT. It turned out to be a lot of fun, although the structure isn't optimal.

The tournament started at 20.00 with 42 runners on 5 tables, since the 5th table was installed in the poker room, the tournament can have 50 runners, so it wasn't sold out. I had played the same tournament one time before, finishing 18th (or 19th) loosing out to a 3-outer after the flop for healthy stack.

The blind structure starts relatively slow, with 2.500 starting chips and blinds of 10/20. Each level lasted 20 minutes, but the blinds stayed low for a while.

I drew table 4, 2 friends of mine who also played drew other tables, leaving me with nobody I knew on my table... The very first hand of the tournament I get dealt JJ under the gun and decide to just limp in, I didn’t feel like playing a big pot in the very first hand... We see a flop, turn and river with 4 or 5 players an I turn over the winning hand. However once I showed my strong starting hand it caused some fuzz with my tablemates... "Great for my image" I thought , now they must think I'm a tight player who doesn't really know what he's doing...

Second hand I get KJ suited and decide to raise from middle early position, the blinds complete and we see a flop K J x all diamonds. I make a pot sized bet and get 1 caller. Turn is a blank and we both check, river is another blank and I make a blockbet, villain folds straight away and I muck. Again the other players start questioning me about my play, and I just let them guess for information.

After that hand I'm settled in nicely, both hands I was involved in I won, and I had already a nice stack. Our table was the first one to be broken up, and I get moved to a new table, drawing the seat on the right of one of my friends, unfortunately it was my "Crazy loose aggressive" friend, and he had position on me...

We were seated on the corner of the table, so once we folded we had time to talk a bit, and apparently he was dealt AK 4 times in the first orbit, and still managed to be below his starting stack, having missed each and every flop. After a while I get dealt 22 UTG, and while I am deciding to raise or try to limp in, I see my friend reaching for raising chips, so I decide to fold, knowing if I call his raise I had to hit my set to be able to play any further.

So he raises (with what turned out to be 99) and gets 1 caller, they take a raggedy flop, 2 x K...

I'm not liking this flop, I would have hit my set and at least have doubled up...

My friend goes crazy with his 99 and shoves on the river with 2 over cards, villain calls after tanking for a long time with KJ (top pair only) and my friend is busted.

By now the blinds are catching up with the starting stacks real quickly, and since it is live play , you don’t play that many hands per level. So by then I decided to only play hands I was willing to put my tournament life on.

This strategy worked pretty well for me. I picked off some short stacks with decent starting hands, winning with KJ < AQ when a J hit the flop. I lost a decent amount with A8 < 10 10, but won it back with A2 > QQ. The biggest suck out came when I pushed with K10 from the button , and the lady who beat me with her 1010 called after long thinking from the big blind with KQ... The board saved me when a 10 fell on the flop. That hand boosted my stack and then I got my aces and busted a shorter stack with them to reach the final table as a middle stack.

The final table played out 9 handed, and only the top 4 places got paid. Unfortunately for me , I got dealt zero hands for a long period, becoming the shortest stack and playing way to tight. When we got down to 6 players i was left with 14k but by now the blinds were 1000/2000 + antes , so every pot was huge for my stack.

There were some bad players left so I was hoping to find a premium hand and win a pot or double up and then I would be able to cruise to the money. I found AK in middle position and prayed nobody would raise before me. Sadly, that was exactly what happened, as the other shorter stack committed himself by raising 5000. I didn't hesitate and shoved it in with AK, I taught I had zero Fold Equity, but the villain tanked for quite a while, eventually calling with... JJ. My very first hand would also be the hand that murdered me, as the dealer ran a nice flop of J J ...

I didn't even see the 3rd board card, let alone the turn or river. The first 2 cards had me drawing stone dead.

I busted out 6th, and effectively bubbled, since they decided to pay the bubble boy € 50 each, giving him € 200.

All in all I could not complain , I made a few lucky plays and eventually lost a coin flip for a place in the money ( I think the remaining 4 made a deal for € 1000 each).

The level of play was mixed but still very soft.

If you decide to play one of these tournaments I would suggest to play basic Tight Aggressive, pick the hands you want to commit with and play them aggressive.

The blinds and antes get big pretty fast, so soon they become significant to steal and gain a stack from them without having to go to a lot of showdowns.

Better luck next time !