691 players entered the EPT London Main Event.   With a few ups and downs on route the Day 1B chipleader, Benny Spinder, managed to navigate a total of 6 days of play to emerge as the victor.

1 Benny Spindler £750,000
2 Steve O’Dwyer £465,000
3 Andre Klebanov £265,000
4 Juan Manuel Pastor £200,000
5 Mattias Bergstrom £155,000
6 Kevin Iacofano £120,000
7 Martins Adeniya £86,350
8 Miroslav Benes £64,000

Season 4 of the LAPT arrived at Punte del Este in Uruguay, and a very respectable 422 players entered the main event

56 places got paid in total.  Here are the biggest winners:

1 Alex Komaromi   $244,720
2 Claudio Piedrabuena   $141,220
3 Engelberth Varela   $88,970
4 Carlos Watanabe   $65,430
5 Felipe Pasini   $46,600
6 Nelson Trad Neto   $37,190
7 Fernando Araujo   $27,770
8 Rafael Monteiro   $18,360
9 Oded Minond   $12,700
10 Andrey Tsitovich   $12,700
11 Luis Alberto Bonnet   $10,830
12 Erik von Buxhoeveden   $10,830
13 Il Suh   $8,940
14 Christian Diego Pereira   $8,940
15 Cassio Kiles   $7,060
16 Olaru Narcis Cristian   $7,060
17 Alejandro Federico de Arruabarrena   $6,120
18 Mariano Balaguer   $6,120
19 Nicasio Toranzo   $6,120
20 Martin Fuentes   $6,120
21 Max Stern   $6,120
22 Juan Jose Perez   $6,120
23 Gabriel Gomes  $6,120
24 Jose Munoz   $6,120

You can qualify for future LAPT events (Latin American Poker Tour) at Pokerstars

A very interesting Sunday Warm-up just took place on Pokerstars with mig.com (WSOP Bracelet winner James Mackey) getting down to heads-up with Pokerstars Pro Liv Boeree (EPT Winner).  Liv emerged the winner after a real battle heads-up lasting over an hour.

1st Liv Boeree $147,780.96
2nd mig.com $109,743.00
3rd Aduobe4 $77,715.00

There were 4710 entrants, each paying a buy-in of $215.   A total of 675 places got paid.  The tournament took around 10 hours to complete.  Another well known pro Daniel Negreanu finished in 22nd.

Here is the winning hand:

 PokerStars Game #57250953564: Tournament #405020016, $200+$15 USD Hold’em No Limit - Level XXXIX (400000/800000) - 2011/02/06 23:49:53 ET
Table ‘405020016 300′ 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: Liv Boeree (28655078 in chips)
Seat 6: mig.com (18444922 in chips)
Liv Boeree: posts the ante 80000
mig.com: posts the ante 80000
mig.com: posts small blind 400000
Liv Boeree: posts big blind 800000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
mig.com: raises 800000 to 1600000
Liv Boeree: raises 26975078 to 28575078 and is all-in
mig.com: calls 16764922 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (10210156) returned to Liv Boeree
*** FLOP *** [5s Qh 9s]
*** TURN *** [5s Qh 9s] [5c]
*** RIVER *** [5s Qh 9s 5c] [Qc]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Liv Boeree: shows [7c 7s] (two pair, Queens and Sevens)
mig.com: shows [Ad 6c] (two pair, Queens and Fives)
Liv Boeree collected 36889844 from pot
mig.com finished the tournament in 2nd place and received $109743.00.
Liv Boeree wins the tournament and receives $147780.96 - congratulations!
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 36889844 | Rake 0
Board [5s Qh 9s 5c Qc]
Seat 1: Liv Boeree (big blind) showed [7c 7s] and won (36889844) with two pair, Queens and Sevens
Seat 6: mig.com (button) (small blind) showed [Ad 6c] and lost with two pair, Queens and Fives

If you fancy competing in online tournaments like these then sign-up to Pokerstars and get a $600 sign-up bonus

In the 2nd of the Superstar Showdown games at Pokerstars Isildur1 took on Tony G in 2500 hands of Poker (half PLO, and half NLHE).  It was a close game throughout, until the very end with Isildur1 eventually winning with $44,820 profit.  The game took a good 8 hours or so, with only very short breaks.  Tony G put on a good performance, but towards the end tried to gamble it up a little more to pull back the deficit towards a victory, only to end up increasing the deficit.   As Tony himself said, he had to go for it for the sake of people who had prop bets on him.

 Here are the final details of Isildur’s win:

After 625 hands at table Showdown1 (NLHE), both players were even.
After 625 hands at table Showdown2 (NLHE), Isildur1 earned $500.00 profit.
After 625 hands at table Showdown3 (PLO), Isildur1 earned $158,470.00 profit.
After 625 hands at table Showdown4 (PLO), Tony G earned $114,150.00 profit.

You can watch the Superstar Showdown challenges at Pokerstars. Join Pokerstars and receive a $600 sign-up bonus

Following the recent signing of Isildur1 to Pokerstars a challenge series of heads-up showdowns has been created where anyone can challenge Isildur1 to a heads-up match of 2500 consequtive hands with each player bringing $150,000 to the tables.

Isaac Haxton was the first to take up the challenge and after 625 hands at each of 4 tables (2500 hands in total) Haxton emerged as the victor, being up by $41,701. Haxton had adopted a min-raise strategy which appeared to frustrate Isildur1 a little. Following many tos-and-fros Haxton just edged it but there is already talk of a rematch at some point after a few more contestants have taken a shot.

You can watch the challenges (or even take part!) at Pokerstars. Join Pokerstars and receive a $600 sign-up bonus

Roberto Romanello, previous winner of the Party Poker European Open back in 2009, has picked up the EPT Main Event title in Prague.

1 Roberto Romanello €640,000
2 Emilliano Bono €435,000
3 Marcin Horecki €247,000
4 Peter Skripka €163,000
5 Marco Leonzio €130,000
6 Jan Bendik €100,000
7 Manuel Bevand €71,000
8 Roberto Nulli €54,550
9 Kevin MacPhee €40,000
10 Nikolay Losev  €40,000

You can qualify for all of the EPT events around Europe at Pokerstars.  Join Pokerstars and receive a $600 sign-up bonus

tbvle recently won over $50,000 as the prize for being dealt the winning hand in the 50 Billionth hand on Pokerstars. He was playing at a 2c/5c table at the time, a level which was his normal stakes. He had never previously played any higher than 0.1/0.25.

As well as this prize money he also got a free ticket into the WCOOP $5200 Buy-in Main Event. Prior to that tournament he had only played 19 tournaments at Stars with an Average Buy-in of close to just $5. Quite a step up.

But that didnt phase him in the 2-day deep structured event and he went on to place 83rd out of 2443 in the $5200 event, winning $19,544. He largely did it by waiting for aces and kings and then launching. The cards seemed to keep arriving at appropriate moments and his stack would again recover from getting short. Sadly that luck did eventually run out, but not before 19.5K was secured. Here was his final hand:

 If you fancy trying your luck out at Pokerstars then signup and get a $600 bonus

PokerStars Game #50274474620: Tournament #2010090062, $5000+$200 USD Hold’em No Limit - Level XXVIII (6000/12000) - 2010/09/27 20:05:17 ET
Table ‘2010090062 34′ 9-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 1: MVPAT (313975 in chips)
Seat 2: FIREintheSUN (493464 in chips)
Seat 3: JabaTheFlop (531835 in chips)
Seat 4: MarkusG91 (1414841 in chips)
Seat 5: deoxyribo (593012 in chips)
Seat 6: Antoshka (407711 in chips)
Seat 7: pedmend (260705 in chips)
Seat 8: plumber922 (409055 in chips)
Seat 9: tbvle (126400 in chips)
MVPAT: posts the ante 1500
FIREintheSUN: posts the ante 1500
JabaTheFlop: posts the ante 1500
MarkusG91: posts the ante 1500
deoxyribo: posts the ante 1500
Antoshka: posts the ante 1500
pedmend: posts the ante 1500
plumber922: posts the ante 1500
tbvle: posts the ante 1500
MVPAT: posts small blind 6000
FIREintheSUN: posts big blind 12000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
JabaTheFlop: folds
MarkusG91: raises 18444 to 30444
deoxyribo: folds
Antoshka: folds
pedmend: calls 30444
plumber922: calls 30444
tbvle: raises 94456 to 124900 and is all-in
MVPAT: folds
FIREintheSUN: folds
MarkusG91: raises 379100 to 504000
pedmend: folds
plumber922: folds
Uncalled bet (379100) returned to MarkusG91
*** FLOP *** [6h As Qs]
*** TURN *** [6h As Qs] [2s]
*** RIVER *** [6h As Qs 2s] [5h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
MarkusG91: shows [Ad Qc] (two pair, Aces and Queens)
tbvle: shows [Kc Kd] (a pair of Kings)
MarkusG91 collected 342188 from pot
tbvle finished the tournament in 83rd place and received $19544.00.
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 342188 | Rake 0
Board [6h As Qs 2s 5h]
Seat 1: MVPAT (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: FIREintheSUN (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: JabaTheFlop folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 4: MarkusG91 showed [Ad Qc] and won (342188) with two pair, Aces and Queens
Seat 5: deoxyribo folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 6: Antoshka folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 7: pedmend folded before Flop
Seat 8: plumber922 folded before Flop
Seat 9: tbvle (button) showed [Kc Kd] and lost with a pair of Kings

The subsequent rounds played out as follows, with Skammes emerging as the eventual victor, taking home $360,000

Round 2

Joviant Gent v SWEGIN
molswi47 v Myrabbifoo
raszi v wheresmyroll
Skammes v Sussie Smith
gcnmoo v goatboy1
buck21 v good2cu
BiggestFish v Mosheh
gunning4you v philivey2694

Round 3

molswi47 v SWEGIN
Skammes vs WheresMyRoll
buck21 vs goatboy1
gunning4you vs Mosheh

Semi Finals

Skammes vs SWEGIN
goatboy1 vs gunning4you

Final

Skammes vs gunning4you

Winner: Skammes

There are 32 entrants in the high-rollers $25K Heads-up on Pokerstars.

1st Prize: $360,000
2nd Prize: $200,000
3rd and 4th Prize: $120,000

Here are the first round match ups:

SWEGIN vs Tim0thee
Jovial Gent vs steamraise
MyRabbiFoo Vs ZeeJustin
bad_beat_bud vs molswi47
trader0811 vs WheresMyRoll
evanski vs RaSzi
mistakooll vs Skammes
Sussie Smith vs w00ki3z.
gcnmoo vs RunThisTable
goatgoy1 vs KidPoker
aejones vs buck21
good2cu vs Iftarii
BiggestFish vs PeteEastgate
LadyMaverick vs Mosheh
lb6121 vs philivey2694
gunnig4you vs PokerNoob999

Pokerstars have introduced bounty tournaments.  Knockout a player and instantly receive some cash each time.  Collect as many bounties as you can.

They have started off with 9-seater knockouts and 90-seater knockouts both at a wide range of buy-in levels.  There are also Heads-up MTTs with knockout bounties

As an example there are $13.50 90-seaters with first prize of $247.95 and second prize of $166.50, etc, down to 12th prize of $22.50.   For every person you knock out you will collect a $2.50 bounty

As a 2nd example there are $27 90-seaters with first prize of $495.90 and second prize of $333.00 down to 12th prize of $44.10.   Each knockout bounty is worth $5 in this case.

If you are interested in checking them out then play bounty tournaments at Pokerstars with a bonus up to $600