Team Ireland landed in the finals of the World Cup of Poker IV, England did it the year before, and Scotland did it the year before that. 2009, however will see these nations gathered together under the banner of Team United Kingdom as they go for the gold in the Bahamas.

Under World Cup of Poker regulations, Team U.K. received an automatic berth in the finals and will be represented by Team PokerStars Pro Vicky Coren, two freeroll qualifiers, one TLB leader, and one magical mystery player whom as of press time, is still to be determined.

To those of you who follow the tournament scene on PokerStars, the name “allinstevie” should be extremely familiar. Hailing from Omagh, Northern Ireland, 26-year old Stephen Devlin is one of the U.K.’s top online players, having notched victories in the $109 NLHE freezeout, the $55 NLHE deep stacks, and the $25k guaranteed in 2008. His largest online score this year, however came when he final tabled the Sunday Warm-Up on August 31st, finishing 7th for $21,000. A huge Manchester United fan, Devlin brings a good deal of live tournament experience to the table for Team U.K., having played in a slew of EPT and WSOP events in addition to playing the PCA Main Event last year.

The thing Devlin (seen left in photo below) is most excited about in the Bahamas, though? The weather, obviously. “It’s frickin’ freezing here at the moment” he reports of the Irish winter.

Freeroll qualifier Sean “N!GHTMAR3″ Flaherty loves nothing more than to go out with his mates, have a laugh and play some online poker. Flaherty caught the poker bug after watching a televised tournament and made his way to PokerStars, where he taught himself the game. The World Cup finals will mark Flaherty’s first live tournament experience.

Also earning his way in on a freeroll is Derek “Purr of Aces” Morris. A veteran online player, Morris has twice represented Great Britain at the World Cup of Poker. The 39-year old lives in Lancashire, England and works as a bookmaker’s assistant when he’s not making final tables on PokerStars (he claims over 400 of them). Like his teammate Stephen Devlin, Morris brings a significant amount of live tournament experience with him, having competed in two EPT events, a WPT event, and countless tournaments on the Grosvenor U.K. Poker Tour.

Morris with a Bahamian local he met at his last PCA

When asked about the prospect of spending a week on Atlantis, Morris said “I’m looking forward to the weather, trying the new dolphin cay, and sipping a few cocktails to be honest. My daughter is pretty devastated that the Jonas Brothers are playing in Atlantis two weeks before we arrive. Shame on you Stars!” he teased.

Every team needs a captain and why should Team PokerStars Pro be any different? The details are still under wraps about the PokerStars All-Star Weekend, a new online team competition debuting next year, but to settle the captain’s job, Team PokerStars Pro decided to do it as only poker players know how–they played for it. All 29 members of the team were on hand Sunday afternoon to go for the title, with the added bonus of a $30,000 prize pool that would be divvied up among the top three finishers’ favorite charities. This being a true pro’s match, the 8-game format was used, the rotation encompassing 2-7 triple draw, limit hold’em, Omaha hi/lo, razz, stud, stud hi/lo, no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha.

The first hour saw five players exit including Greg Raymer, Tom McEvoy, Andre Akkari, Humberto Brenes and EPT creator John Duthie, who confessed to drinking “a bit too much mulled wine” as he railed the action. The table talk between the pros was lighthearted and often hilarious throughout the tournament, notably when Isabelle Mercier and Bill Chen attempted to recruit Victor Ramdin to the practice of Bikram yoga.

“What is bikram is that all u can eat buffet?” quipped Ramdin.

The field shrunk to 14 after the second hour and only thirty minutes later we arrived at our six-handed final table after Daniel Negreanu eliminated Alex Kravchenko in 7th place on a pot-limit Omaha hand. Here’s how the chip counts looked as the final table got under way:

Seat 1: ChadBrownPRO (6,820 in chips)
Seat 2: RaiNKhAN (4,092 in chips)
Seat 3: Bill Chen (2,984 in chips)
Seat 4: Money800 (17,739 in chips)
Seat 5: VictorRamdin (19,500 in chips)
Seat 6: KidPoker (6,865 in chips)

Bill Chen was eliminated from the tournament on the first hand of final table play. In a hand of 2-7 triple draw vs. Chad Brown, Chen bricked on the third draw, ending up with A-8-7-5-2 against Brown’s 8-7-6-3-2 to send him to the rail in 6th place. Next to fall was Brown himself, also on a triple draw hand. Brown was all in before the third draw against Victor Ramdin, who stood pat while Brown drew one. Ramdin’s 7-6-5-4-2 crushed Brown’s 9-8-7-4-2 and he was out in 5th place.

Triple draw would also spell the end of Hevad “Rain” Khan, who got in all in on the second draw against Victor Ramdin. Once again, Ramdin made a monster 7-6 low, besting Khan’s T-9 and the “Bulldozer” drove off in 4th place. With Khan’s elimination, Moneymaker, Ramdin and Negreanu were all in the money, guaranteed a payday for their charities.

Continuing on his rampage, Victor Ramdin also took out 3rd-place finisher Chris Moneymaker. Playing limit hold’em, Moneymaker called Ramdin’s button raise from the big blind and they saw a flop of Kc-8s-5s. Both players checked to the turn, which fell the 6h. Moneymaker led out, Ramdin raised, Moneymaker moved in the last of his chips and Ramdin called, turning up As-Ks for top pair top kicker to Moneymaker’s Kh-7d. The river was the 5h, not the four, seven or nine Moneymaker was hoping for and Ramdin took down the pot as Moneymaker hit the rail. The 2003 WSOP Champion’s efforts today earned $5,000 for the charity of his choice.

Moneymaker’s elimination left Victor Ramdin and Daniel Negreanu to duke it out to see who would become team captain. Here’s what their chip counts looked like as they began heads-up play:

Seat 5: VictorRamdin (32,972 in chips)
Seat 6: KidPoker (25,028 in chips)

Negreanu put Ramdin on the ropes early, whittling his stack all the way down to 2,772 in chips at one point before Ramdin stormed back, winning or splitting 11 out of the next 12 pots and evening back out their chip counts. Their final hand came in stud hi, where Ramdin started off with buried eights and improved to queens up by the river after a raising war with Negreanu. Though Negreanu had made a pair of sevens on fifth street with running flush and straight possibilities as well, he couldn’t improve and Ramdin’s two pair held up to win him the Team PokerStars Pro Championship and $15,000 to his charity. For his stellar play, Negreanu earned $10,000 for his charity.

Congratulations to a very worthy champion and Team PokerStars Pro’s new team captain, Victor Ramdin! And don’t forget — later this week, you will be able to watch the whole match on replay with all the players’ hole cards exposed…stay tuned.

Team PokerStars Pro Greg Raymer is preparing to help Team USA defend its title in the PokerStars World Cup of Poker. In just a couple of weeks, Raymer and the team will be in the Bahamas for the World Cup live finals. Greg was part of Team USA when it won the championship in 2007. We asked him to give us his thoughts on what it takes to get ready for such a big event.

by Greg Raymer

The PokerStars.com World Cup of Poker is a great event. I was only able to read about the earliest editions of this event, but was very fortunate to be asked to be a member of Team USA at Barcelona in 2007. I was already coming to Barcelona for the popular EPT tournament that takes place there, and was asked to stick around after the EPT to play in the World Cup as the celebrity member of Team USA.

The World Cup is a unique tournament, with four of the members winning their way onto their countries team via freeroll satellites on PokerStars.com or by being one of the top two point leaders in the annual TLB competition on PokerStars.com. In 2007 Tyler Netter was the TLB leader and captain of our team, with Shaun Deeb also getting onto the team via the TLB. Satellite winners were Randy Principe and John Kenlan. Now these four guys did some of the hardest work, by beating out a slew of countries in the online tournament.

You see, once you get onto your countries team, you still have to beat out other teams to advance to the live finals, and they did that in 2007. Only afterwards was I asked to play alongside them in Barcelona.

Once in Barcelona, we all got together to discuss strategy. This is the key to winning a team competition. In a regular tournament, you can follow one of two viable strategies, play for first, or play for money. In team competition, it is important that you balance your strategy with the team’s overall strategy, to best maximize the team’s chances of advancement.

Playing for a team is so different than playing for yourself. If I make a correct but marginal decision in a tournament and get eliminated, I am disappointed, but happy that I made a correct decision. In team play, you feel like you let everybody else down, and the disappointment takes a lot longer to fade. The key is to determine the strategy together, so then you know that the decision you made is the same decision the rest of the team would have made.

Also, a lot of poker players can get emotional. It is essential that as a team you support one another, call time-outs to settle down a player who is getting emotional, and lend them your support. Once the emotional player remembers they are representing all of you, they usually have no problem regaining control and playing their A-game.

The most important thing that we did as a team to win in 2007 was exactly this, we supported one another. I was clearly the member of the team with the most live tournament experience, and I did not hesitate to share all of my advice with the other members of my team. In addition, captain Tyler and Shaun both have played thousands of online tournaments, and know the basic strategies of tournament poker by heart. They also pitched in to help our other team members, both of whom were good players, but much less experienced. As a team we developed our overall strategy, given the structure of the World Cup. That, plus a few key cards, guided us to victory.

It was a great feeling to represent my country, something I had never done before. The prize money for this event, while not chump-change by any means, was a lot smaller than the $5 million I won for the WSOP. Yet, winning this event carried with it just as much emotion. This was so mostly because I was representing not just myself, but my country and my team.

We will have full coverage of the World Cup of Poker January 6, 2009 live on the PokerStars Blog.

When you think of poker in Italy - and on the boisterous EPT these days you rarely have the opportunity not to - you probably think of the Team PokerStars Pro duo Dario Minieri and Luca Pagano, with notable mentions to Max Pescatori and Dario Alioto. But as from this evening, and the second-longest final table in the tour’s history, there’s another contender proudly draped in Il Tricolore and drowning in chips. His name is Salvatore Bonavena and he is the latest EPT Prague champion, €774,000 richer.

Our champion: Salvatore Bonavena

The 44-year-old Bonavena emerged victorious after 264 hands of play over 12 hours in the Czech capital, beating an Italian-heavy final table from which Massimo Di Cicco finished second and Francesco Cirianni fifth. All three were vociferously supported from a now fully-expected packed rail of supporters, and their success can only further inflate the extraordinary bubble of interest in Italy.

They already have the best food, some pretty spectacular scenery and a habitually world-beating football team. Can they seize the upper hand in poker too? Or is it already too late?

Certainly Bonavena played a terrific game today, riding waves of fortune, ill-fortune, and then fortune again to go from chip leader overnight, to short stack, and then chip leader once more. By the time he emerged as our winner, he had overcome all the inherent variance attendant on this game and turned in a thoroughly skilled performance. Congratulations to him, and well played.

The final hand came at 1am local time, when Bonavena’s 7-8 beat Di Cicco’s A-4 on an eight-high flop. By that point, the final two Italians had outlasted Raul Mestre, of Spain, who busted on the second hand of the day, then Nasr El Nasr, of Germany, whose K-J couldn’t beat Andrew Chen’s 10-10.

Nasr El Nasr

The lone Nordic representative at the final table, Fredrik Nygard from Finland, then busted in sixth, running a two pair (kings and sixes) into the flopped quads of Konstantinos Alexiou and then perishing when his A-8 was outdrawn by Chen’s Q-2.

Fredrik Nygard

Chen had the stack by then to make the move with such a meagre holding and for a good while both before and after that, this arena indisputedly belonged to the young Canadian. At only 20 years old, Chen was giving away decades in worldly wisdom to the majority of his adversaries, but was arguably the most experienced poker player of the bunch.

Andrew Chen

Chen recently made the final table on an LAPT event in Costa Rica, and was the class act for long periods here. One call in particular, against the aggressive and inpenetrable Alexiou, was inspired. Chen took a near million-chip pot with ace-high when he correctly put Alexiou on a busted draw. It looked like the kind of moment to encourage engravers to etch Chen’s name on the trophy. But there was still much, much more action to follow.


Francesco Cirianni

Cirianni had allowed himself to get short-stacked, but continually showed a fighting spirit by repeatedly moving his short stack all in during level 26. However by the time he did so for the third time in quick succession, Chen had found a genuine hand. The Canadian’s A-Q was unthreatened by Cirianni’s A-8 and one Italian fell; two to go.

Alexiou was the next out, but it would be profoundly unfair to dismiss his contribution to this tournament in a few flippant words. The Greek player had been one of the railbirds’ favourites throughout the final couple of days, always having chips, always having a smile, always having a manner around the table that fascinated, confounded, entertained and baffled players and spectators alike.


Konstantinos Alexiou

Alexiou’s duel with Minieri yesterday kept everyone engaged, and his glasses schtick today - switching spectacles whenever he was about to announce all in - belied the tension of a tournament boasting a million-euro prize pool.

Perhaps his big mistake was not to alternate the specs when he shoved for his final 600,000-odd holding pocket threes. Bonavena, who was by then wielding a sizeable stack of his own, made the call with K-Q and spiked a king on the river. Alexiou took his leave.

Three handed, we might as well have been in a Roman coliseum. The plucky Canadian Chen was surrounded by hordes of rambunctious Italians and they threw everything they had at him, baying for blood. They had already wounded him - Bonavena’s A-5 had outdrawn Chen’s kings all in pre-flop, which would have given the Canadian the chip lead. And in the end, he simply could not overcome the numerical advantage, or Bonavena’s A-6 armed only with K-Q.

Chen departed and we were left with a guaranteed Italian winner, the first ever on the EPT. Bonavena had three-to-one chip lead as they entered heads up play, and definitely had the momentum after his fluctuations throughout the day belatedly took a steep upward slant. But Di Cicco, the lone PokerStars qualifier on the final table, who qualified in an $8 re-buy satellite on PokerStars, undoubtedly had the game to rescue the situation, and take play past midnight and into the early hours.


Massimo Di Cicco

He doubled up once, emulating Doyle Brunson when his T-2 bettered Bonavena’s Q-T on a board of Tc-4c-2h-7d-5c, and the stacks were level for an extended period of heads-up play. But then Bonavera found pocket eights and swung it back into his favour, and then as the 12th hour ticked around the players got to a flop of 8h-3h-2h, which was ripe with bluffing potential. Di Cicco seized the initiative and stabbed at it hard, but Bonavena was going nowhere and made what turned out to be a championship winning call.

Di Cicco had A-4, no heart. Bonavena had 7-8d and top pair. And as soon as the turn and river bricked, that 7-8d was being waved around Bonavena’s head as the winning hand of the first Italian EPT champion.

Bonavena got there ahead of Messrs Minieri, Pagano, Pescatori, Alioto, Ferrari, Bugatti, Dante, Garibaldi, Marco Polo, Antonioni, Botticelli, Canaletto, da Vinci, Pavarotti, Maldini, Pasta, Pizza, Linguini, Spaghetti, and Caesar. “I’m really happy; I feel like up going to cry,” Bonavena said. “I’ve done something no Italian has ever done. I feel very proud.”

And rightly so.

Take a look back at how things panned out in Prague with any of the following links.

The final table contenders
All set for new Czech champion
Level 21, final table updates
Level 22, final table updates
Level 23, final table updates
Level 24, final table updates
Level 25, final table updates
Level 26, final table updates
Level 27, final table updates
Level 28, final table updates
Level 29, final table updates

And here’s the same thing in a number of languages, including the all-conquering Italian; the unusually under-represented Swedish; the seventh-placed German, and the must-try-harder, much harder, Hungarian.

Plenty of video blogs, plus a full archive of previous action, can be found at PokerStars.tv. As ever, the wonderful photography at EPT Prague has come from the camera of Neil Stoddart. Next up, it’s the Bahamas. Join us then. Goodnight from Prague until next year.

Play on the final table has entered level 29, with blinds at 40,000-80,000 (8,000 ante). The chip counts page will be updated regularly during each level. Prizewinners to date are on the prizewinners page. Remember all the action from the final is available on EPT Live.

Latest update: 12.55am
12.55am: Cicco bets 180,000 pre-flop and Bonavera raises 800,000 more. Cicco wants none of it and folds.

12.52am: On a board of Jh-2c-Qs-Qh Bonavera made it 200,000 which Cicco called. The river brought a 6c which both players checked. Ten high for Cicco, pocket eights for Bonavera who picked up a pot worth 560,000.

12.50am: Massimo takes the chip lead - slightly - betting 210,000 and then moving all in for 2.2 million after Bonavena re-raised 600,000 more.

12.45am: With blinds so big the chip stacks change each hand by hefty amounts. Cicco helps himself a bit by moving all in to win the blinds but still trails Bonavena.

12.42am: Latest chip counts
Salvatore Bonavena - 3,349,000
Massimo Di Cicco - 2,348,000

12.38am: On a board of Tc-4c-2h-7d Cicco bet 120,000 which Bonavena re-raised to 300,000. Cicco moved all-in with Ts-2c and was called by Bonavena with Qc-Th. The river, a 5c, doubled up Cicco.

12.33am: Current chip counts
Salvatore Bonavena - 4,293,000
Massimo Di Cicco - 1,404,000

12.30am: Bonavena wins a 660,000 pot in a cautios pot on a board of 7s-6s-2h-Qc-7h. Cicco bet on the end with Jh-5d and Bonavera called showing 9h-2s. That was enough.

12.25am: Play starts and it’s first blood to Cicco who raises pre-flop before Bonavena folds.

12.20am: While players are still preparing to return, it’s worth remembering what’s at stake. First place pays €774,000 whilst the runner up will receive €445,000.

12.06am: Heads up situation
There’s a pause in play as the final two players prepare to go head to head. The chip counts look like this…
Salvatore Bonavera - 4,123,000
Massimo Di Cicco - 1,574,000

12am: Chen eliminated in third place.
We’re guaranteed an Italian winner after 20-year-old Andrew Chen moved all-in with K-Q and was called by Bonavena with A-6. The 3-7-5 wasn’t good for Chen and the turn ended all hope, a four, giving Bonavera a straight. Chen’s last hope was a chop on the river but an eight ended that hope - the Canadian was out.

11.55pm: Basically, the three remaining players are passing blinds around.

11.50pm: Latest chip counts.
Salvatore Bonavena - 2,896,000
Andrew Chen - 1,494,000
Massimo Di Cicco - 1,307,000

11.40pm: Play resumes with blinds at 40,000-80,000 with an 8,000. That’s big.