September 27 2012, Donnie Peters, Remko Rinkema

Another event wrapped up on Thursday at the 2012 World Series of Poker Europe as Giovanni Rosadoni found himself in the winner’s circle of Event #4: “3,250 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout. On top of that, Day 2 of Event #5: “10,450 Mixed Max – No-Limit Hold’em concluded and Event #6: “1,650 Six-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha kicked off. Check out recaps from all of those events thanks to PokerNews’ coverage sponsored by PartyPoker.

Giovanni Rosadoni Wins Event #4: “3,250 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout

After three days of exciting poker action, Giovanni Rosadoni emerged victorious over the 141-player field to take home his first WSOP gold bracelet and “107,614. Rosadoni defeated Dan O’Brien heads up to earn the victory.

Event #4 Final Table Results

On Wednesday’s Day 2, the 20 first-round winners of Event #4 returned for action. The plan was to play down to a winner. The 20 players who returned were in the money and included Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Matt Stout, Faraz Jaka and Mohsin Charania, among others. Unfortunately for those five players, and a handful of others, they fell short of the final table.

When the field was cut to 10, the field redrew for the official final table. Valentin Messina was the first player eliminated, and was followed out the door by John Duthie. Trond Aanensen, Roman Romanovskyi, Paul Guichard and Adrien Allain fell in eighth, seventh, sixth and fifth place, respectively, before leaving the final four players.

Among the final group were two WSOP bracelet winners, Oleksii Kovalchuk and John Monnette, as well as Dan O’Brien and Giovanni Rosadoni.

Kovalchuk was first to fall in fourth place, taking home “35,560 after his lost to O’Brien’s . Then, Monnette went out in third place, also at the hands of O’Brien. His didn’t out race O’Brien’s . That left O’Brien and Rosadoni heads up, and, when the match began, O’Brien had the lead with 776,000 in chips to Rosadoni’s 501,000.

After approximately two hours of heads-up play, the two were forced to halt the match for the night because the casino was closing at 5:00 a.m. At the end of the day, Rosadoni was in front with a stack of 787,000 to O’Brien’s 490,000.

At 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, the two returned to continue the duel and to find a winner. Rosadoni seemed to pick up right where he left off. He had O’Brien down low, but then a comeback was in order. After a couple of double-ups, O’Brien snatched the lead back and put his foot on the gas. He ground Rosadoni down once again, but could never finish.

Rosadoni stayed strong and then found a big double with pocket kings when they held against O’Brien’s . From there, it was all Rosadoni as he closed the door more and more with every hand.

On the final hand, O’Brien was all in preflop with . Rosadoni seemed to always have it and did again this time with . Despite flopping a pair of jacks and turning a flush draw, O’Brien was eliminated as the board ran out . He earned “66,503.

Prior to this result, Rosadoni’s largest and only score on record was for “9,000. He has topped that by a lot more after winning this event for “107,614.

Video: http://www.pokernews.com/video/wsope-2012-event-4-winner-giovanni-rosadoni-7214.htm

Day 2 of Event #5: “10,450 Mixed Max – No-Limit Hold’em Concludes; Welcome to the Brandon Cantu Show

The six-handed portion of the “10,450 Mixed Max – No-Limit Hold’em event came to an end on Friday. The 52 remaining players from a starting field of 96 returned for action and played down to the final 16, which means that winning four heads up matches will secure a World Series of Poker Europe bracelet for one of them. Brandon Cantu emerged as the clear chip leader by holding over 25 percent of the total chips in play.

Cantu ran incredibly hot all day and began his streak during a massive preflop three-way all in where two players were coolered. Cantu held pocket aces and managed to eliminate Ognjen Sekularac who held pocket kings and Andy Frankenberger who held pocket queens. Cantu continued his domination throughout the day, even after Phil Hellmuth was moved next to him. Hellmuth and Cantu went to war throughout the evening and were seemingly constantly bickering as play went on. Hellmuth vowed revenge on Cantu and he will get that chance as the two will play heads up together in Round 1. Hellmuth will have his work cut out for him as he is sporting a stack of 127,400 to Cantu’s 738,100

Players were finding the rail at a rapid pace up until the bubble hit. Hand-for-hand play lasted for several hours and everyone was anxiously awaiting the last person to be eliminated. Finally, Mori Eskandani fell by the hands of Marvin Rettenmaier, and each of the 16 remaining players were guaranteed a payday of at least “20,443.

After a random seeding, here is the heads-up bracket:

Two rounds will be played on Friday at 1400 CET (0800 EDT) which will result in the emergence of the top four players, who will then return on Saturday to play to a winner.

Benyamine, Negreanu and Lichtenberger Primed to Cash in Event #6: “1,650 Six-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha

Event #6: “1,650 Six-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha attracted 206 players on Thursday, and after eight levels of play, 26 remained with Jacob Dahl leading the way. Like in any pot-limit Omaha tournament, the action was fast paced in the Majestic Barriere poker room. Andrew Lichtenberger got off to a great start, but that can’t be said for all players including defending champ Philippe Boucher, Fabrice Soulier and Antonio Esfandiari. The aforementioned players were eliminated in the first level, and many followed suit.

John Monnette took care off Vanessa Selbst in the early levels as he took the chip lead going into the first break. Justin Bonomo trended in the same direction, but later in the day he couldn’t get anything going and was eliminated. Monnette on the other hand managed to survive and will return on Friday with 32,300 for his chance of cashing a third event at this year’s World Series of Poker Europe.

One of the most entertaining hands of the day took place between four players. The winner and runner-up of the 2005 WSOP Main Event, Joe Hachem and Steve Dannenmann, were both involved, as were Scott Seiver and Micah Smith. The latter took out all three players when he managed to hit a runner-runner full house. Smith survived Day 1 with 38,500.

Toward the end of the day, pots grew bigger, and Daniel Negreanu got caught up in a very serious one. He could not beat John Eames’ set, and eventually survived the day with a mediocre 22,200. Eames bagged 43,100. Other notable survivors are David Benyamine (67,700), Ana Marquez (58,200), Lichtenberger (63,900) and Dan Shak (24,800). The remaining 26 players will return on Friday to play through the money bubble to the final table of six.

Event #6 Top 10 Chips Counts

Be sure to check out our Live Reporting Section to follow our updates sponsored by PartyPoker. Get all the latest PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook today!

Follow Donnie Peters on

Follow Remko Rinkema on

No comments yet. Be the first to post one!

April 03 2012, Rich Ryan

Phil Hellmuth, who was ranked 64th in the Global Poker Index when we created the PokerNews Fan Bracket, was the last player to make it into the field. Now, after defeating Daniel Negreanu in the championship matchup, he is also the last player standing. There was a little controversy in the Round of 4 and the Championship, however, and we’d like to address some issues for next year’s bracket.

1. Bracket Recap

The 2012 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament is over, and after last night’s shenanigans in Lexington, Kentucky, so is the madness. The echoes of “One Shining Moment” can still be heard – though there weren’t many shining moments this year – and we will soon forget about what John Calipari and the University of Kentucky Wildcats accomplished – until next year’s brackets are released.

The same can be said about the PokerNews Fan Bracket, which was won handily by Hellmuth. More than 7,000 “people” voted in the championship matchup, and at tip off last night, Hellmuth had received over 70 percent of the votes. If you watched the pool as actively as I did, though, you would’ve noticed that on Sunday, thousands of consecutive votes poured in for Hellmuth over a short time. The same thing happened in the Round of 4 when Hellmuth squared off against Jason Mercier. Mercier was really sweating the vote – just read his tweets – but with just over two hours to go, Hellmuth started receiving votes at an unnatural, rapid rate. By midnight, Hellmuth had gone from down 2 percent, to winning by 20 percent.

Strange.

The polls on our site aren’t too technical because they’re there for fun. This, too, was supposed to be a fun experience for the fans, and, unfortunately, one or more individuals took advantage of it. Congratulations to them. They wasted a few hours clicking buttons to sabotage a contest with no prize. Cool story, bro.

Hellmuth does deserve some credit, though, because he legitimately reached the Round of 4, despite being a No. 16 seed. I thought he could go somewhat deep, but I didn’t think that he could beat Vanessa Selbst in the Round of 8, which he did, and before the skullduggery kicked in, he was neck-and-neck with Mercier. All in all, it was really fun to run the bracket, but some changes will be made next year.

First, there needs to be a selection committee. The GPI was a great because everybody was easily seeded, but it should be used as a barometer like the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) in college. Some very popular players like Phil Galfond, Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey didn’t have great tournament success over the last few years, so they were excluded. This needs to be addressed. Second, we need to ensure that the voting is more fair. We could make you have an account to vote (you should already have one!), but then when players post the link on their Facebook or Twitter accounts, their friends and family members who don’t play poker will be less likely to vote.

For now, I’d like to thank everyone who voted, and all the players who participated in the bracket. Again, this was done purely for entertainment purposes, so I hope you enjoyed it.

2. Viktory!

A few weeks ago, after Viktor Blom defeated Alex “Kanu7” Millar in the PokerStars SuperStar Showdown, I noted that the only player the Swede had failed to defeat in a single match was Isaac “philivey2694” Haxton. Well, after this week’s special SuperStar Showdown, that’s no longer the case.

Blom and Haxton decided to up the ante this weekend, and instead of setting a certain stop-loss amount and playing 2,500 hands, they decided to play a $1 million match. Starting on Saturday, the two played a four-hour session every day until someone won $500,000. In just three days, Blom succeeded, taking half a million from Haxton and winning the match.

Blom finished the first day with a $200,000 lead, despite Haxton’s taking a big lead early on in the match. Haxton won a massive, $96,000 pot with two red jacks against Blom’s two black queens when the flop, turn, and river procured four diamonds collectively, but Blom quickly surged and snatched the lead away. Despite winning a six-figure coin flip with pocket fives against Blom’s ace-queen, Haxton headed into the second day looking for a comeback.

Haxton successfully cut into Blom’s lead on day two, reducing it to five figures at one point, but Blom was not to be denied. He extended his lead to nearly $300,000 and never looked back. The third and final day was more of the same – Blom won $40,000 on the very first hand – and just minutes before the session was scheduled to end, the Swede put the final nail in the coffin, flopping trip aces and extracting three streets of value (and the win) from Haxton.

After 5,030 hands, Blom walked away victorious, but Haxton is still 2-1 against Blom in the standings. The rivalry between these two players has piqued the interest of many poker fans – especially the Blom lovers on TwoPlusTwo – and I’d like to see more from the two in the future, especially in the live arena. Both Haxton and Blom are clearly online players, but sweating a match between the two would be much more entertaining if they were face-to-face, and it would also be more accessible to those of us in the United States.

EPT Grand Final? One time?

3. Terrence Chan kicks ass

Canadian Terrence Chan proudly wore his Vancouver Canucks jersey as he walked down the aisle before his fight against Alex Lee in the Legend Fighting Championship in Hong Kong last Friday. Before the fight, Chan admitted that Lee was “bigger, stronger, and taller,” but that didn’t stop him from winning the match just two minutes into the second round. Chan put Lee in an armbar at that point of the match, and rather than let Chan break his arm, Lee tapped out.

Chan received tons of love from the poker community – which is already obsessed with MMA – and he’s really enjoying his time training in Hong Kong. When asked by a fan on his blog if he would ever take on Lex Veldhuis (who recently defeated fellow Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier), Chan responded, “I’d be happy to do a kickboxing match with Lex for charity. It’d have to be soon though because man, I’m giving up a lot of size so it wouldn’t be long before he could kick my ass.”

Chan understands that there is life outside of poker, and that’s great. There are too many grinders who spend too much time in grungy poker rooms or inside their room playing online. It’s paramount that, every so often, you run around a little bit and get the juices flowing. You’ll feel much better afterward, and you’ll thank yourself in the future.

Check out Chan’s fight.

4. Mega disappointment

If you’re not a big tweeter, or you were removed from your computer or mobile device on Friday, then perhaps you’re unaware that Josh Arieh, Ben Lamb, Christian Harder, Jason Mercier, and others pooled together and bought 30,000 Mega Millions tickets. The jackpot had soared to over $640 million, and the entire United States was going crazy, but nothing was as insane as this picture that Arieh tweeted out just hours before the drawing. The Arieh Corporation’s investment even caught CNBC sports business reporter Darren Rovell’s eyes, as he tweeted the information out his nearly 200,000 followers.

Unsurprisingly, the Arieh Corporation didn’t win the giant jackpot, but three random people from Maryland, Kansas, and Illinois did. It just goes to show how much these guys love a sweat, though, because some of the investors were really convinced that they had an edge. The #whynotus hashtag was also very amusing, because these are guys who make their money playing cards, not doing physical grunt work. You guys have already won a lottery of sorts because you’ve chosen exactly what path you want to be on, and are living happily and comfortably.

In fact, the next time you want to light three stacks of high society on fire, why don’t you put three players into the Main Event? It’s a much better investment, and if it’s three random people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford it, you could help their poker dreams come true.

5. Grospellier vs. Antonius

Our own Sarah Grant had a little fun with these two at EPT Campione. You decide who’s the winner.

Stay up to date on all the latest news by following us on Twitter and liking us on Facebook.

Follow Rich Ryan on