PKR Poker News

APPT High Roller Event and PKR Heads Up Grand Slam Champion Vladimir ‘beyne’ Geshkenbein has put pen to paper to become the latest member of Team PKR Pro.

Having honed his skills on PKR.com’s cash tables, the super-aggressive Russian earned an impressive win in the APPT High Rollers event earlier this year, pocketing $266,690 for the top prize. The 21 year-old from Moscow continued his amazing run with a victory in the inaugural PKR Heads Up Grand Slam, beating veteran Juha Helppi and boosting his bankroll by a further $120,000. Both wins have gained Geshkenbein the respect of fellow pros and more than justified his selection as the next choice to represent PKR.com.

‘beyne’ spent two years playing low and middle limits until January 2009, when he decided to take the game seriously and moved to Malta to play professionally. His meteoric rise has been phenomenal and he now plays regularly on the major tournament circuit.

PKR Marketing Director Simon Prodger said, “We have been following Vladimir’s progress for some time – he is an excellent poker player, charismatic, and fantastic to watch at the tables. He is a very active member in our community and consistently contributes content to our growing poker strategy repository, Raise Your Game.”

Matchroom Sport Managing Director Eddie Hearn, who produced the PKR Heads Up Grand Slam said, “Poker viewers are in for a real treat when they see Vladimir in action in the upcoming PKR Heads Up Grand Slam on Sky Sports in January. The game is all about personalities and ‘beyne’ has it in abundance… He is some player too!”

PKR serves up a memorable weekend for its players

London, November 18, 2008 – Poker magazine editor Philip Conneller (PKR username: escalope) bested a field of 150 players to take down the first ever PKR Live main event and the $20,000 first prize this weekend.

After twenty hours of play over two days, Conneller’s 7-2os hit runner-runner to make an unlikely straight and take down the title. As he made the call, the monster chip leader said “I’ve always wanted to win a tournament with seven-deuce”. It appears the poker gods were listening.

The first event of its kind, PKR Live saw players make their way from all over the world to London’s Loose Cannon Club to play for a share in over $90,000 in prizes while soaking up the uniquely friendly atmosphere. The event was a phenomenal success, with player comments including “Better than sex”, “a success of mammoth proportions” and “an awesome weekend” (full player comments can be viewed online at http://snipurl.com/5qx5l).

PKR Live kicked off with a friendly $60 welcome tournament. With 138 runners, the prize pool grew to over $8,000 with the top prize being scooped by popular forum poster Gareth ‘ChivalrousGent’ Rees.

The $500 Main Event started on day two, and with every seat filled it meant a juicy prize pool of $75,000.

The third day provided the conclusion of the main event plus another shot at glory in a special $10,000 bounty freeroll that offered extra prizes for players eliminating one of the twelve PKR staff enrolled in the tournament. After a fun filled eight hours, Demetris ‘magicmoves’ Theophanous prevailed to take the final title of the weekend.

The first foray into the live realm saw members from all tiers of PKR.com staffing including Malcolm Graham, CEO and PKR creator, Jez San, mixing it up with the players. The three-day festival was captured by a professional TV crew and highlights will be available to watch exclusively on PKR.tv. Photos can already be viewed online at http://tinyurl.com/5sgum6.

PKR Live 2008 Main Event Final Standings

1.    Philip ‘escalope’ Conneller (London, UK)            $20,000
2.    Henrik ‘Pokey85’ Eklund (Stockholm, Sweden)        $12,000
3.    Daniel ‘Dappadan777’ Moosah (London, UK)        $8,500
4.    Raymond ‘callmebabe’ O’Mahoney (Dublin, Ireland)        $6,500
5.    Thomas ‘OleEinar’ Gunia (Weimar, Germany)        $5,250
6.    Pieter ‘EurootJE’ Salet (Tilburg, Netherlands)        $4,250
7.    Andrew ‘Alfiemyster’ Miles (Southampton, UK)        $3,250
8.    Barry ‘Bazultra’ Cole (Southampton, UK)            $2,500
9.    Kent-Ivan ‘GreenFaith’ Danielsen (Arendal, Norway)        $1,850
10.    Michael ‘TheSqueeze’ Panayiotou (London, UK)        $1,400

The main event proved an extremely entertaining affair with the final table attracting a remarkable rail of observers soaking in the action as it drew to a close. Here’s a closer look at the final tablists:

The PKR Live November Ten

1st place in seat 2: escalope (Final table starting stack 219K)
A veteran of the poker industry and seasoned live poker player, the very first PKR Live champion took down the main event in outrageous fashion – hitting a straight on the river after calling his opponent’s all-in pre-flop. His hole cards – 7-2 off-suit (obviously) improved on the final card to beat off pokey85’s J-8 and top two pair.

Having gone into the final table in fine shape with a 219,000 stack, escalope showed solid play to become chip leader by some margin, gaining a formidable presence behind the wall of chips he built over three and a half hours of final table action.

Prior to the start of the final table he revealed his slightly sinister side claiming that his favourite hand had to be pocket sixes looking to improve to trips. The ultimate victory with Texas Hold’em’s worst starting hand suggests some kind of ‘divine intervention’ may have indeed been involved! But escalope truly deserves his $20,000 for first place and a massive congratulations for emerging triumphant after more than twenty hours of intense tournament poker.

2nd place in seat 4: pokey85 (232K)
Beaten at the last by home-grown escalope, pokey85 was gracious in defeat making him a true champion in his own right. Always the underdog in the heads-up battle against the eventual winner -  who enjoyed a 5-1 chip lead - his defeat whilst ahead until the river adds a degree of weight to ‘chip gravity’ theories.

A native to Sweden’s capital city, pokey85 plays both online and live games back home and recently enjoyed a trip to Macau after winning his way to an APT qualifying package on PKR.com. He claims to be a firm follower of Phil Ivey and judging by his current form it might not be long until he’s giving his pro-idol a run for his money.

PKR.com is offering the chance to book a flight to Manila for the next leg of Asia’s richest ever poker tour, the APT. Satellites are rolling right now up until the event takes place in January 2009.

3rd place in seat 5: dappadan777 (188K)
Another player on home soil, dappadan777 started the final table with a healthy stack of 188,000 in chips. He held firm to walk away with $8,500 and a commendable third place finish.

Although the ‘Dapper Dan’ likes to play in big tournaments, he is well-known on PKR.com as a cash game king with a super tight-aggressive style.

The only exception to his strict starting hands rule, he claims, stem from his love-affair with J-10 of clubs – apparently “heads up you can get a lot of pocket pairs into trouble with the draw options…”

Besides being a hugely successful online player, you can also find dappadan777 hitting the real-life baizes. An avid attendee of The Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London (The Vic) and sometimes The Empire, Leicester Square, he adorns the £2 / £5 tables twice a week, looking for shark-feed in the “juicy action” on offer.

4th place in seat 8: callmebabe (340K)
Rolling in late on the first day, callmebabe used his hyper aggressive style to maximum effect, recovering well and building his stack into the chip lead by the start of the final table. Unfortunately the overnight favourite lost some big pots early on and slid down the rankings as the game progressed.

A considerable payday still came his way with $6,500 for a fourth place finish – a result he says has inspired him to move more into the live poker realm and away from the £3 / £6 cash tables he frequents online.

A big fan of Andy Black and of 10-7 suited in the hole (for the disguise value of course), his experience at PKR Live has shown callmebabe the value of the live tournament because of the interaction you get over a long period of time. Finishing fourth, he was battling wits for over 14 hours of tournament poker – a priceless addition to his experience library.

5th place in seat 9: OleEinar (86K)
A very colourful character from Weimar in Germany, OleEinar started the final table as one of the shorter stacks and in complete fear of callmebabe.

After a manic first day in the main event he admitted that fatigue was affecting him but the thought of jetting off to Vegas with the grand prize in his pocket kept spurring him on.

OleEinar is no stranger to the live game but plays the majority of his poker online – both cash and tournaments. Notably, he recently registered a respectable fifth place in the Oktoberfest 2008 ‘TV Sunday’ and is looking forward to his moment of fame on PKR Tournament Television.

All TV tournaments, including the TV specials from Oktoberfest can be viewed 24/7 on PKR.tv. PKR Live footage will also soon be available to watch exclusively on the web channel.

6th place in seat 3: Eurootje (84K)
Eurootje finds a place somewhere in the PKR.com record books having raked enough to make Platinum member level of Club PKR within ten months. Club PKR is unprecedented in the industry with its ‘always up, never down’ policy and Platinum status made sure Eurootje received VIP treatment at PKR Live as well as entitlement to a host of other exclusive benefits for life.

A live game aficionado, Eurootje finds the selection on offer not quite up to scratch in his home town of Tilburg, Holland. Nonetheless, he frequents live card rooms up to four times a month and was all too happy to make the trip over to London for PKR Live.

Rewarded handsomely with a cool $4,250 for his sixth place finish, the ‘push-fold’ strategy he has based around calculated players, like Chris Ferguson and Howard Lederer, proved to be a worthwhile investment.

7th place in seat 6: Alfiemyster (87K)
Alfiemyster considers himself a cash game titan and only signed up to PKR.com after seeing PKR Live featured in a respected poker magazine. A week later he made the final table of the very event he signed up for, successfully transferring his tight-aggressive ring game strategy from the UK circuit to the tournament scene.

Playing across a range of casinos and card rooms nationwide, including Grosvenors and Stanleys, Alfiemyster enjoys the offerings on PKR.com because,
“PKR brings the fun factor back into poker. When I saw the preview for the live event I thought it was amazing value, so here I am!”

Adopting a ‘raise-fold’ strategy into the second day of the main event, his short stack didn’t go too far but cashing over $3,000 for his efforts should take his bankroll up a rung or two.

8th place in seat 1: Bazultra (120K)
Also hailing from Southampton, Bazultra took the trip northbound to PKR Live with mixed expectations. After running bad for weeks he made three final tables in the week prior and then took down the coveted ‘TV Showdown’.

A frequent player across brick and mortar card rooms, ‘Baz’ as he is known in the PKR forums, is looking to raise his stakes in live play – PKR Live giving him a decent bit of practice on his way up.

His game in the run up to the final table proved him to be a hard rock to crack and, inevitably, he admitted that his favourite hand was indeed bullets. Eighth place and $2,500 of winnings left him happy to return to the south coast after what he described as a “top notch weekend.”

9th place in seat 7: Greenfaith (50K)
“When I win I’ll buy a new car and travel a bit, probably to Vegas, but I have to make a move soon!” Unfortunately at the final table the ‘faith’ only went so far for a rock solid player who likes to use the ‘bluffer’ stereotype commonly associated with Scandinavian players to his advantage.

Greenfaith is a massive live tournament player, getting involved in live Sit & Go action three or four times a week when at home in Norway. Favourite hands include low pairs, especially 3-3 and 4-4 which he moves with ultra-aggression pre and post flop.

10th place in seat 10: TheSqueeze (45K)
The earliest exit on the final table, TheSqueeze went from nothing to something and back to nothing again – trebling up early on with a pair of threes which held, blind, against two over cards – the insurrection of the shortest stack was, however, short lived.

Forum favourite and ever the entertainer, TheSqueeze graced the table with character reminiscent of his avatar (he often dons a clown suit on PKR.com) and took home $1,100 – a sum just a fraction of his epic win in the PKR.com Sunday Classic a week earlier.

The Sunday Classic is one of PKR.com’s most popular and exciting tournaments and offers a guaranteed $25,000 every week.

–>

Online poker room reveal new site devoted to PKR Television

London, October 08, 2008 – Next-gen site PKR.com has unveiled PKR.tv  – a stand-alone internet channel dedicated to broadcasting episodes of the popular PKR TV series. Representing the next phase in poker television, PKR.tv provides on-demand access to the PKR TV library with a huge selection available to stream in superb quality, high resolution format.

The PKR TV programmes have enjoyed a great deal of success and are currently broadcast to millions of homes across Europe via cable and satellite channels, including The Poker Channel and CNBC Europe. Since launching in late September, PKR.tv has already attracted more than 7000 views with the average time spent on the site clocked in at over 30 minutes.

Marketing Director, Simon Prodger said, “The new site allows anyone to view any episode of PKR TV at their leisure. Our ultimate aim is to build the largest ever library of poker TV material and we shall soon be adding new formats to the current crop to offer more variety.”

In-game footage for each episode is captured weekly from three of PKR.com’s most exciting tournaments and feature expert commentary and analysis from the PKRcast team. Players can get a shot at TV stardom by battling through to the final table of the $10,000 Guaranteed tournament which takes place on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or Saturday’s ‘$20,000 Guaranteed TV Showdown’.

Online poker room nominated in four categories

London, September 12, 2008 – PKR.com has capped off a highly successful second year in style after receiving four nominations in the prestigious eGaming Review Awards.

After only two years of operations, the groundbreaking poker room is in the running for one of the top industry awards, Poker Operator of the Year.  The award recognises the operator that has made the most headway in the poker sector, taking into account a range of criteria including originality, growth, scale, usability, payment processing and marketing. Special consideration will be given to operators looking to innovate in this highly competitive sector.

The next-gen site is also up for both Offline Marketing Campaign of the Year and Online Marketing Campaign of the Year, following a wide range of pioneering communications across a variety of media.  The final category that PKR.com is shortlisted for is Hotshot Operator of the Year, designed to spotlight the operator that has made the greatest global impact in 2007/2008 and has shown the most promise for the future.

PKR.com CEO Malcolm Graham commented, “We are delighted with the nominations which reflect our growing status in the extremely competitive online gaming sector. To be in contention for Poker Operator of the Year is testament to our fantastic achievement in a relatively short timeframe.”

PKR.com also recently signed up its 2 millionth member and has built this impressive player base without accepting deposits from US players.

For more details and a complete shortlist of candidates for the eGaming Review Awards visit www.egrmagazine.com

–>

Online poker room sets its sights on Asia’s capital of gaming

London, June 19, 2008 – PKR.com is sending even more players to one of the richest poker events in the world - the Asian Poker Tour. Qualifiers are running on the next gen site right now for the second leg of the APT in Macau. Hosted in the exclusive StarWorld Hotel and Casino, the event guarantees the biggest prize pool in Asian poker history - a massive $1,500,000!

Macau - dubbed the ‘Monte Carlo of the Orient’ - is the gambling capital of Asia. Now the APT is bringing the biggest ever poker festival to the region along with over 400 of the most seasoned pros in the game. The event promises to deliver another fantastic opportunity for PKR.com players to compete with the best in one of the world’s most lavish locations. The APT Macau kicks off Tuesday August 26th and rolls until Sunday August 31st.

PKR.com is offering at least eight packages to this prestigious event. Each is worth a total of $7,700 and includes the buy-in for the main event - with $1,500,000 guaranteed in prizes, as well as luxury accommodation and $2,400 spending money. Players get their hands on one of these fantastic packages by winning the APT Macau Weekly Final - running every Friday at 20:00 GMT on PKR.com until Friday 8th August.

There are numerous ways to qualify for the APT Macau Weekly Final. Players can buy in direct for $150 or win their way in through a huge range of satellite qualifiers rolling daily and starting at just $4.25. Lottery tourneys and ‘Last chance’ speed qualifiers will also be on offer. Players with PKR Points to spend can also qualify for free in special Premium Freerolls.

Card Room Manager Neil Wright added, “The APT is a great series of events set in the most exotic and luxurious locations in Asia. There are huge sums of prize money on offer and the Macau leg looks set to continue the prestige of the tour.”

–>

Beginning at 12pm EST on June 22nd, 2008, Holdem Poker Chat will be running a 8 hour Mini Poker Marathon!

This will consist of both freerolls and money-added buyins. Tournaments will occur every hour, on the hour.

We will begin on the #1 online poker site, PokerStars, beginning with a $100 freeroll and ending with a $10 buyin on Cake Poker, with $100 added to the prize pool. Along the way, we will stop at FullTilt, and Reefer Poker! All and all, it will be a wonderful journey, with $800 added to the prize pools!

The Top 20 in each freeroll and the Top 30 in each buyin will receive points.

The leaderboard will consist of $250 up for grabs over the top 5 places.

More details

–>

London, February 29, 2008 – PKR.com, the world’s most advanced poker room, has solidified its place in the online gaming hierarchy by jumping both Betfair and Ladbrokes to become the 17th biggest poker website.

Pokerscout.com, the respected industry source for online traffic rankings, has been tracking PKR.com’s climb since their inclusion in December, 2007. With a highly successful marketing campaign, including both terrestrial and digital television channels, PKR.com’s real money player base has expanded to a level that has seen off its well known competition.

Marketing Director Simon Prodger said, “PKR.com has experienced incredible growth since our launch in August, 2006.  In just 18 months, we’ve become a very competitive site, with 10,000 concurrent players on at peak time.  To have more traffic then sites like Betfair and Ladbrokes is a tremendous achievement, and we are thankful for the players for taking us to this level.”

PKR, a stand alone site, has also stayed completely out of the US, meaning the company has never accepted cash bets from American players.  It is currently ranked 5th amongst other stand alone, non-US poker sites.

–>

The PKR Triathlon is guaranteed to get your pulse racing - but don’t worry, you won’t have to swim past sharks, cycle ’til your legs turn to jelly or run through the blazing heat to feel the excitement of this event. In fact, you can win this triathlon just by playing PKR!

Take part in a weekend of fantastic poker fun and you can win a spot in a $2K freeroll - it’s that easy.

All you have to do to qualify is:

1. Play one real money multi table tournament with a buy-in of $10 or more.

2. Play two real money Sit & Go’s with a buy-in of $5 or more.

3. Earn 1,000 PKR Points at real money cash tables (sorry, tournaments and MTTs don’t count). Remember, you can earn as many as 150 points in a single hand so you’ll be crossing the finish line before you know it.

All finishers will qualify for the $2K freeroll on Wednesday, 16 May - full contest Terms & Conditions are below.

***The PKR Triathlon Terms and Conditions
(1) This promotion is open to all new and existing PKR customers. (2) The PKR Triathlon promotion will run from 15:00:01 (GMT) Friday 11th May to 23:59:59 (GMT) Sunday 13th May 2007. (3) To qualify players must fulfil all three qualifying criteria: play in at least one real money multi table tournament with a buy in of $10 or more; play at least two real money Sit & Go’s with a buy in of $5 or more; earn at least 1,000 PKR points in cash games during the promotional period. (4) Qualifying players will be notified via email on Wednesday 16th May 18:00 GMT. Only qualifying players will be able to participate in this event. (5) To find out more about PKR Points and how to earn them, please refer to the PKR.com website. (6) In the event of any dispute, the decision of PKR poker room management is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

–>

PKR has just unveiled it’s 2007 WSOP qualifying schedule – and it’s loaded with excitement. We always try to be a little different here and so it should come as no surprise that our WSOP qualifier is pretty unique. There are a bunch of different ways you can qualify (check out full details here) but the most exciting thing is that there are also loads of different events you can qualify for.

You can even win a WSOP Ultimate Experience Package and decide which events you want to enter. So, if you’re best game is Omaha, heads up or pot limit you can buy into those events and even go for bracelets in more than one event.

–>