Event #1: £2,650 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold'em
Day 3 Started
World Series of Poker Europe 2010
Event #1: £2,650 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold'em
Day: 3
Event Info
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
World Series of Poker Europe 2010
Buy-in
£2,500
Prize Pool
£610,000
Entries
244
Level
21
Blinds
8,000 / 16,000
Ante
2,000
Welcome to the Final Table!
The first event of the 2010 WSOP Europe is about to kick off its final table. It's going to be an exciting one and is packed full of talent. Young superstar David Peters, Phil Laak, Chris Bjorin and chip leader Andrew Pantling headline the final table. Both Bjorin and short stack Willie Tann have WSOP bracelet, while Peters holds a WSOP Circuit gold ring.
With this final table, Bjorin now ties Howard Lederer for the most final tables in WSOP Europe events and also has taken the lead for most WSOP Europe cashes, surpassing his tie with Daniel Negreanu.
Play kicks off shortly and we'll have bios on each player posted in just a minute so you can get more familiar with each player.
Seat 1: Willie Tann (72,000)
The short stack of the final table is none other than WSOP gold bracelet winner Willie “The Dice Man” Tann. He’ll enter the final table as the only player not with a stack over 200,000 chips. Heck, his stack isn’t even over 100,000, sitting at just 72,000 in chips, but that’s not going to prevent Tann from going deeper in this event. Tann’s been riding the short stack for most of the tournament and we’re beginning to wonder how in the world he does it.
Tann was born in Singapore, but now resides in England. He’s got a laundry list full of cashes that amount to nearly $1.5 million in career tournament winnings. The one result that stands out the most is Tann’s largest and most prestigious. He won a WSOP gold bracelet in 2005 after he defeated a field of 758 entrnts in the $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em event. That win was worth $188,335. Two years later, Tann cashed in the WSOP Main Event for $106,382. He holds three other WSOP cashes to his name, but only one of thoe came from the WSOP Europe. This marks his second and he’s surely making the most of it.
With so many good, solid European players out there in the poker world today, it’s hard to break into the top 100 on the European All-Time Money List. Tann sits in 91st on that list. He is also ranked 26th on the England All-Time Money List. Depending on how he does at this final table, he could see his name jump up a few spots on those lists. Moving up the lists will be the least of his worries tomorrow, as Tann will need to find some spots to get some chips and do it early. Six-handed events don’t favor the patient ones.
Seat 2: Chris Bjorin (368,500)
Ladies and gentlemen, meet your all-time leading WSOPE casher. Chris Bjorin is a Swedish transplant who now makes his home here in London, and this performance is his fifth cash finish over the four seasons. That puts him in the lead now, one ahead of Daniel Negreanu.
Oh yeah, and did we mention Bjorin has more than $4.5 million in career cashes? He is, in fact, the all-time leading Swedish money winner, and he's seventh among all Europeans. Scouring his stat sheet is a time-consuming task as his record spans more than 20 years. This summer in Las Vegas, Bjorin notched an impressive six WSOP cashes, including a final table in a Stud event. He's already tallied two gold bracelets as well, and a third one here would put him in some elite company in the poker world.
Bjorin is in good shape to capture that title, beginning the final table in second place overall.
Seat 3: Phil Laak (317,000)
Born in Dublin, Ireland, Phil Laak learned to play cards while growing up, but the game wouldn’t become his profession until later on in his life. Before professional poker, Laak came to the United States and attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where he obtained a degree in mechanical engineering. After college, Laak tried out various career paths including an engineer, a day trader, and investing.
After those forays, Laak became immersed in poker with both high stakes cash games and tournaments. Laak took sixth in the Legends of Poker in 2003 and made himself over $50,000. Later that year, he also made a deep run at the Five Diamond World Poker Classic. In February of 2004, he won the WPT Invitational event. In other WPT success, Laak has final tabled two other events. One of those was the Five Diamond World Poker Classic in 2005 where he placed sixth for over $160,000.
In 2005, Laak made a final table at the WSOP. The event was a $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em event and the only thing that stood between Laak and his first bracelet after hours of play was seasoned champion Johnny Chan. Chan defeated Laak and went on to win his tenth bracelet, leaving Laak with second place and nearly $160,000. That same year he also made the money in a second WSOP event.
At the William Hill Poker Grand Prix, Laak would get another chance at a big win when he got heads up with Ram Vaswani for the £150,000 first-place prize. Laak proved better than Vaswani and took down the event. He also won Poker After Dark for $120,000 once, defeating a table stacked with Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Erik Seidel, Jennifer Harman and good friend Antonio Esfandiari.
Outside of tournament poker, Laak regularly plays cash games and is considered one of the best players around, participating in the highest limits around. He’s also appeared on High Stakes Poker multiple times. Just recently, Laak set the world record for longest cash game session, playing for 115 hours straight at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
Laak earned the nickname “Unabomber” because he usually can be found wearing a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses at the table. The look makes him look like the police sketch of Theodore Kaczynski. He also acts out a lot at the table. Running around to get a better look at the deal of the cards, pushups, and tightly wrapping himself up in his sweatshirt are all antics put on by Laak. At the WSOP in 2008, Laak went one step further and disguised himself as an older man, complete with a latex mask, wig, and make up.
Also recently, Laak found himself mangled up quite a bit thanks for an ATV accident. He spent a good amount of time wearing an eye patch and still sports a hard cast on his arm with a colorful drawing of the British flag.
The show “I Bet You” also starred Laak alongside Esfandiari. The show is a reality show where Laak and Esfandiari expose their degenerate side with bets on anything and everything. Laak also actively contributes to various poker publications.
Laak comes into the day third in chips out of the final six with 317,000.
Seat 4: Andrew Pantling (627,500)
![[user66118]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
If you're still unfamiliar with the name Andrew Pantling, it's probably a good time to start paying attention. You WSOP followers don't really know him because he has just one cash out of something like 40 events. Don't be fooled, though, Pantling is a force at the table.
Originally from Canada, Pantling now resides in Malta where he runs his own gaming business by day. By night, though, he travels the world, abusing tournament players on the continent of his choosing. His first big result was a runner-up finish in a $1,000 tournament in Las Vegas. He bounced over to the APPT circuit thereafter and racked up two cashes, including a 12th-place showing in Auckland. Immediately thereafter, he finished 4th in the High Rollers event in Sydney, then followed that up with a third-place at the Irish Open in April 2009. Pantling's most recent trophy is from the EPT Grand Final where he took down the €5,000 Heads-Up event for a cool €120,000.
Pantling is looking for his first bracelet today, and he's put himself well on the way to achieving that. He comes into the day with a commanding chip lead and holding more than one third of the total chips in play.
Seat 5: Ilan Rouah (200,000)
Ilan Rouah will be the sole player representing the French at this final table. Rouah did well to build his stack up towards the top of the leader board on Day 2, but when it was time to bag and tag for the day with the final table set, Rouah sat in fifth place out of the six players left with 200,000 in chips.
Checking Rouah’s live poker resume, we find two results. He first result came in May of 2008 and it was a nice score worth €101,000, or about $156,000 at the time. He pocketed that prize for taking down the €1,300 No-Limit Hold’em event at the Planet 50 Cercle Gaillon Tournament in Paris. His other result didn’t come until just recently, more than two years later. He cashed in the €2,700 No Limit Hold'em Heads-Up event at the Partouche Poker Tour, taking fourth place for €9,944.
With some recent heads-up success under his belt, it’ll be interesting to see how Rouah navigates this final table. Short-handed play requires players to be a lot more aggressive and take the initiative. Not so much as heads-up play does, but Rouah may just have what it takes to walk away with the bracelet.
Seat 6: David Peters (251,500)
David Peters may not be that well known of a face in the live poker realm, but he has plenty of accolades on his resume to prove that he’s one of the game’s brightest young stars.
Hailing from Toledo, Ohio, Peters holds some big live titles. In April of 2008, he won a WSOP Circuit gold ring after he took down the $1,060 No-Limit Hold’em event at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. That win was worth $86,908. Later that same year, Peters won a Heartland Poker Tour event in Michigan for $130,178 and a Festa al Lago event for $63,295. In 2009, he went back to the Festa al Lago series and won another event for $104,760.
In other live results, Peters cashed three times at the 2010 WSOP to put his total WSOP cashes at seven. One of those in-the-money finishes this year was a second place in a $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em event for a cool $350,803. His final cash came in the Main Event, where he took 136th place for nearly $60,000 to cap off a very solid summer.
Peters is also known very well for his play online, where he plays under the names “dpeters17” and “Davidp18” mainly. Peters has well over $2 million in online winnings and has become one of the most respected players on the virtual felt. A lot of the young players know his face when they see it, but to much of these older, live veterans of the game he’s just another young, aggressive online kid with a dream.
Although Peters couldn’t get pass the one last person he needed to in order to claim a bracelet this year, he has a great shot at wrapping some gold around his wrist here in London. He comes into the final table of the first event with 251,500 chips and sits in fourth position of the remaining six.
Level: 16
Blinds: 2,000/4,000
Ante: 500
Going for Gold
The announcements and introductions are all out of the way, and it's down to business. David Peters has the button to begin play, and the cards are in the air here at the final table.
The bracelet looms...