Year in Review: Transatlantic Tourney Action Continues In October

Jason Kirk | January 5, 2010

Tournament poker fans had plenty to cheer about all throughout October, starting with the EPT London festival. Fresh off a win at WSOP Europe, Erik Cajelais entered the High Roller final table with the chip lead but was overcome by Matt Glantz, who won the event and the £542,000 first prize. The Main Event, meanwhile, broke records and became the biggest poker tournament ever held in the United Kingdom; 23-year-old American Aaron Gustavson defeated the then-reigning WSOP Main Event champion, Peter Eastgate, in a quick heads-up battle to win the title and £850,000. Next up was one of the most popular tournaments of the year among players, the Aruba Poker Classic. A crowd of 469 players turned up for the main event, and Brandon Hall went from being the short stack with seven players left to chopping heads-up with Robert Mizrachi for an official prize of $753,330, eclipsing his previous biggest result by more than $700K.

Christophe Benzimra may be an amateur, but he won professional money at EPT Warsaw

With Aruba complete, the tournament circuit turned to Las Vegas and Warsaw for two big events. The EPT Warsaw main event saw French businessman and amateur poker player Christophe Benzimra outlast a tough group that included Supernova Elite Alfio Battisti and serial EPT final tablist Luca Pagano to walk away with the win and PLN 1,493,170 (US $537,972). Then Tommy Vedes made good on the promise he showed during his run to a 19th-place finish at the 2009 WSOP Main Event by winning his first major tournament, the WPT Festa al Lago at Bellagio. Vedes overcame incoming chip leader Freddy Deeb to prevent him from becoming the tour’s second three-time winner and took home $1,218,225 in the process.

Online, Phil Ivey crushed at the tables with a $1.16 million single-day win; Full Tilt red pro Vivek Rajkumar took down the monthly $1,000,000 Guarantee on his home site; and after eight full months, the Durrrr Challenge finally reached its halfway point before logging another 2,000-hand night later in the month.

Annette_21: American tournament fields are now on high alert for Miss Obrestad

In news away from the tables, Luke “FullFlush” Schwartz was banned from the EPT for refusing to buy his own sandwich; GSN announced it was replacing long-time High Stakes Poker co-host A.J. Benza with an unnamed female, who later turned out to be former EPT hostess Kara Scott; WPT announcer Mike Sexton was named as the lone member of the Poker Hall of Fame’s Class of 2009; the World Poker Tour considered a last-minute offer to buy the company for a higher price than PartyGaming offered in August; and online legend Annette “Annette_15″ Obrestad finally played her first legal, live poker in the United States.