Some Sunday Majors, the whole Saturday Line-Up and the Daily Bigs are among these tournaments with better guarantees. Among the Sunday Majors, Kickoff, Rebuy, Storm, 500, Second Chance, 6-Max and Supersonic will seek their prices increased. The Sunday Storm will receive the biggest injection as keeps the 109 $ buy-in but multiplies its guaranteed prize-pool per 1.5. In other words, from $200k guaranteed moves to $300k.

We see another interesting increase in the Sunday Supersonic, that adds an extra of $85k to it’s initial guaranteed of $40k. The Supersonic is a extremely fast paced tournament that has been growing and growing since its launch.

The $215 Sunday Million and Saturday Warm-up guaranteed prize pools remain unchanged at $1 million, and half million respectively.

The Saturday Line-Up upgrades aren’t that attractive, nor the Daily Bigs ones. Although an increase on the guaranteeds usually means an increase of the action. We will keep a close look to these tournaments to see how they evolve.

Pokerstars Daily Bigs

The Team PokerStars Pro member Daniel Negreanu was the biggest name on the final table, although the Canadian could only achieve a 6th place position worth R$48,730, Carlos Ibarra, the third-place finisher, was the sole responsible of Negreanu’s bust-out.

Nestola and Nicolas arranged a deal after the elimination of Ibarra. Nestola had around 4,4 million in chips to Nicolas’ 2,78 million. Suprisingly they decided to take equal parts of R$250,000 and play for an extra of R$39,300, the title and the proud of being crowed king of the LAPT.

On the last hand, Nestola put his rival all-in on the turn with the nut straight. Nicolas called with top-pair and was drawing dead. Nestola saw it inmediately and started knew it and began celebrating with his friends. Nestola claimed this way the after-deal extra for a total prize of R$289,300. Congratulations!

Final Table Results

1st Daniele Nestola R$289,300
2nd Gasperino Nicolas R$250,000
3rd Carlos Ibarra R$148,840
4th Felipe Morbiducci R$89,570
5th Jonathan Markovits R$64,540
6th Daniel Negreanu R$48,730
7th Vitor Torres R$35,560
8th Juan Gonzalez R$26,340

The LAPT Grand Final has now ended, as well as the 4th season of the Latin American Poker Tour. Tomorrow the action will continue in Brazil with the final of the Brazil Poker Cup.

Congratulations, Daniele for your victory.

Daniele Nestola, LAPT Sao Paulo champion

One of the countries that was forgotten, where poker is very popular, was Spain. But Spaniards can’t complain anymore as PokerStars has announced a brand new poker tour that will be hosted this April and will be called Estrellas Poker Tour (Stars Poker Tour in English, or you would prefer to call it Spanish Poker Tour).

The first season of this brand new Estrellas Poker Tour is formed by 4 events that will be hosted in Malaga, Alicante, Madrid, celebrating the Grand Final in Barcelona during the the celebration of the EPT Barcelona of the 7th season of the European Poker Tour.

The poker events will have a buy-in of 1.000 EURO and you already have satellites going on in PokerStars for as low as $11 and you have freerolls as well.

One of the points of this brand new tour is that it will be broadcasted by one of the most popular televisions in Spain, Antena 3 TV. So, poker is prepared to experience another boom in the touristic country. Remember, the first event starts on the April 11th, so qualify now and enjoy a vacational-poker trip to the Mediterranean!

Rush Poker?, maybe you are wondering. Yes, this is the name that the Full Tilt Poker crew decided for the new poker game they invented. As we can read on their website, this sort of poker is designed to avoid the delays between hands and keep you in a frenetic action all the time.

Read what Full Tilt claims on their website:

Warning: Rush Poker* is extremely fast paced – prepare yourself for the most intense poker action in the world!

In this new poker format, you won’t join a pre made table and play all the time with the same players. Instead of that, you will face a different table of opponents every hand. When you fold, you’ll be moved (or rushed) to another table and a new hand will start within seconds.

And there’s more. You can play even faster. There is a Quick Fold that you can use before the action is on you. Clicking that button, you will be able move to next hand (and table) inmediately while the rest of players won’t see you have folded until it’s your turn.

We have already tried it and it’s really awesome. Another super great idea of Full Tilt Poker, that keeps innovating day after day. But is also for sure we will need to adapt our game to this new poker format if we don’t want to lose money in the try.

Anyway, we recommend you to give it a try. It’s fun, frenetic and you will play more hands than you have done before.

¿Are you ready for the action? Be prepared for Rush Poker.

If you want to try Rush Poker we recommend you to visit Full Tilt Poker from this link and you’ll receive a 100% up to 600$ for free.

Gimbel, 19 years old, is now the youngest champion of the PCA since it started seven years ago with that cruise-based tournament won by Gus Hansen.

“I feel like a young rock star,” Gimbel said.

And it’s not for less. The youngster claimed the Main Event of the biggest poker festival ever held outside Las Vegas and he is now 2,2 million dollar richer and owns one of the most coveted trophies in the poker world.

Harrison Gimbel, 2010 PCA Winner

After busting Barry Shulman (the owner of Card Player magazine) on third, Gimbel reached the heads-up against Ty Reiman, who owned the most part of the chips. But not for long. Gimbel would overcome his deficit and then bluff out Reiman in another spot where Reiman had flopped the nut straight (although the river completed a possible flush) to claim the lead. He never let it go.

Barry Shulman

On the final hand, both players ended all-in with a pocket pair. Tens for Gimbel, eights for Reiman. A ten on the flop left Ty with the only option of runner-runner quads. But, hey!, another eight fell on the turn, opening the miracle for the American. A jack on the river ended the whole thing.

Reiman will be content tomorrow with his 1.750.000 $ second place prize. Harrison Gimbel claimed the trophy, the 2.2 million, and his place in poker history books for being the youngest champion of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

2010 PCA Main Event Results:

1 — Harrison Gimbel, USA, $2,200,000
2 — Tyler Reiman — USA — $1,750,000
3 — Barry Shulman — USA — $1,350,000
4 — Benjamin Zamani — USA — $1,000,000
5 — Ryan D’Angelo — USA — $700,000
6 — Aage Ravn — Norway — $450,000
7 — Zachary Goldberg — USA — $300,000
8 — Thomas Koral — USA — $201,300

Foto del ganador cedida por PokerStars

The countdown for the PCA main event has ended. The countdown for the 50 side events scheduled for this year’s PokerStars Caribbean Advendure is history. The PCA is around the corner and will start tomorrow January 5th at noon (ET). The main event already has more than 1,100 people signed up and in-person registration has just started.

The story of the PCA started back in 2004 and It happened in a cruise. Since then, the biggest poker tournament in the Caribbean has only growed. On 2009, it seemed there was no end to the growth. Last year, 1.347 entrants created a prize pool of $12,674,000 and a first prize of $3 million. Poorya Nazari claimed the trophy the event was over.

The first cards go in the air tonight in the annual live super sat to the Main Event. After that, it’s another 49 events over 12 days. For sure it will be fun, and we will bring you full coverage beginning Tuesday at noon ET.

Happy new year to all and good luck if you play on the PCA this year!

Skampa, who came fourth only two weeks ago at EPT Vilamoura, beat Israeli Eyal Avitan in three-hour heads-up duell. He had already broken records by making two great EPT finals in a row after finishing fourth in Vilamoura two weeks ago.

Skampa, 23, who is studying economics at St Charles University in Prague is now the first Czech champion in EPT history.

A total of 584 players took part in the €5,250 Main Event creating a prize pool of €2,842,100. Jan Skampa, talked after his victory and said: “It feels great to win. It’s my fourth EPT and I won it in my home town – that must be one of the greatest accomplishments you can have in poker. It was tough when we were three-handed but once Stefan Mattsson was out, I felt confident I could win.”

So, it’s over in Prague. Congrats, Jan.

For the third year in a row, the APPT Grand Final championship trophy is staying in Australia! Having worked his stack back to as much as 2.3 million in the final heads-up, Ernst Hermans called a pre-flop button raise from Aaron Benton of 325,000 to see a flop of 7d-9c-7s.

2009 PokerStars.net APPT new grand final champion Aaron Benton
Hermans checked, Benton fired out 375,000 and Hermans called. The dealer discovered the Qc on the turn and Benton checked; Hermans shoved and Benton just called, good with Kd-Kc against Hermans 9d-8d.

Benton’s supporters were excited; the dealer burned and the last Star City snap echoed through the Sports Theatre, bringing the river 6c and eliminating the Dutch in second place. Having satellited into every season three APPT event on PokerStars, it’s fitting that Aaron Benton has found gold here at Star City!

Congratulations, Aaron!

When the lights were switched off at the tournament room. Veteran Leo Boxell, 2000 Australasian Poker champion, was at the top of the hill with 147.700 on chips. Tom Grigg is on the pursuit with 141.500. Near enough we find a couple of local players: Joel Cohen (137,700) and Stewart Davidson (121,700).

Leo Boxell, the current leader

Some other names that will come back on Day 2 are: Brendon Rubie (101,700), Phillip Willcocks (95,000), David Steicke (88,200), Jackie Glazier (45,900), Michael Guzzardi (45,900), Japan’s Wooka Kim (39,000), Amanda De Cesare (38,900), Kristian Lunardi (38,800), Aaron Benton (34,700), Letitia Rowlands (29,300) and Tino Lechich (28,900). Also the winner of APPT Auckland Simon Watt (27,500) will return, and two players that are willing to repat an APPT Grand Final final table: the champion, Martin Rowe (22,000) and the 6th, Frank Saffioti (42,900).

The cards are now on the air on Day 1c at the PokerStars.net APPT Grand Final. Many good names are in the field, included Joe Hachem, WSOP 2005 champion and Grand Final, APPT winner back on 2007.

So, we expect a new dosis of extreme poker on the felt at the third day three of the event. Tomorrow is going to start the real thing.

Until then… have fun.

At this moment two players are leading the pack with almost the same chip stack. First is Marc Gork, Dortmund based, with 169.200, while only with one chip less, with 169.100 we find the Frenchman Rui Coa.

Marc Gork leads at the end of Day 1a

Other known faces that have survived this first assault to EPT Prague fortress are Florian Langmann (108,700), Arnaud Mattern (86,000), JP Kelly (77,000), Sandra Naujoks (71,700), Marcel Luske (54,200), Marcin Horecki (49,000) and Katja Thater (38,000).

All them will return on thursday for day 2, but the scene will be very different by then, since there’s a day 1b waiting to be played. And we all expect a massive field for the second day one of the event.

Play resumes today at noon with 8 levels more of impressive poker. After those, our report. Come back by then.