Rob Hollink brought an impressive list of poker accomplishments with him into last nights final table, including 18 prior WSOP cashes, a WPT victory, an EPT Grand Finale Championship and numerous other tournament cashes all totaling over 2.5 million in career winnings. When the final table was complete not only was he a half a million dollars richer, but he’s sure to find himself now approaching super star status, why? Because, he’s the first from the Netherlands to win WSOP gold, in the past others such as Marcel Luske have only been able to come close. Hollink’s victory last night came in the $10K buy-in World Championship of Fixed Limit Holdem.

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The year of the pro continued last night with another well known player winning his first bracelet, this time it was John Phan. He took down event #29 – $3,000 NLHE, in unique fashion. After six hours of heads up play Phan convinced his opponent Johnny Neckar to agree to a flipament. The tournament staff then agreed to allow the players to wait until the river card was dealt to turn up their cards. For dramatic effect the players alternated peeling and revealing one card at a time. After four flipament hands play returned to normal and shortly later Phan was a bracelet holder.

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Bodog Poker has been making great strides to compete with the big six. Over the past six months they’ve expanded their bonuses and promotions and now offer a 110% bonus up to $550, a monthly reload program, tournament promotions, a points for cash program and much more. Now on Bodog’s list is getting their software up to par with the needs of their serious online poker pros. The first step is already available, resizeable tables. The next step increases the number of tables that can be played simultaneous – we’ll see that part in the coming weeks.

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Here is the PokerStars EPT Season 5 Schedule:
EPT Barcelona Open: September 10 – 14, 2008, €8,000 + 250
EPT London: October 1 – 5, 2008, £5,200 + 200
EPT Polish Open (in Warsaw): November 15 – 19, 2008. ZI (Zloty) 20,000 + 1000
EPT Prague: December 9 – 13, 2008, €5,000 + 300
EPT Deauville: January 20-24, 2009, €5,000 + 300
EPT Scandinavian Open (Copenhagen): February 17 – 21, 2009, 50,000 + 2,250 DKR
EPT German Open (Dortmund): March 10 – 14, 2009, €5,000 + 250
EPT San Remo: April 18 – 23, 2009, €5,000 + 250
EPT Grand Final, Monte Carlo: April 28 – May 3, 2009, €10,000 + €600

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June 16 marked the eighteenth consecutive day of WSOP action at the Rio, and we saw two more first time bracelet winners. The first was Vitaly Lunkin who had moderate success on the Russian Poker circuit the past five years, so decided to head out to Vegas to try his WSOP luck, this proved to be a great decision as he pocketed a bracelet and $628,417 top place prize money. The next bracelet came was awarded in Event #28 – $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha w/ rebuys – the chatter on online poker forums has suggested this will go down in history as one of the greatest final table match ups of all time. The participants included Phil Hellmuth, Jonny Chan, Daniel Negreanu, John Juanda, David Benyamine, Kirill Gerasimov and Phil ‘OMGClayAiken’ Galfond. The only two relative unknown players at the table were Brian Rast and Adam Hourani. Today we also saw two more final tables determined and another event get its start. To catch up on all the days action visit www.poker-prop.net/news/

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Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond won his first career bracelet last night by outlasting a final table that looked more like a WPT Legends of Poker Invitational type tournament then it did a real WSOP final table. If someone was to hand pick the best tournament players in history four of the final table players would have been likely candidates in Phil Hellmuth, Jonny Chan, Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey. Also included in the field was a top ranked Russian poker pro Kirill Gerasimov and rising poker star David Benyamine.

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The 2008 WSOP Event #27 is in the books, and when it was said and done it was Vitaly Lunkin from Moscow who was on top. He had almost skipped this event as his itinerary for his Vegas trip was to play Omaha cash games and then perhaps play the Main Event. This was until Alex Kravchenko, who Lunkin called “the top ranked player in Russia” told him “The $1500 buy-in event is for you”. Lunkin took the advice and now has $628,417 cash to show for it, as well as a Russia’s first 2008 WSOP bracelet.

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The Rio was packed today where we once again had six WSOP tournaments running simultaneously. The big stories of today were Event #26 where Barry Greenstein earned his third career bracelet (details), event #25 where Kenny Tran took down the $10K World Championship of Heads-up Holdem (details), and Event #28 where tomorrows final table will include Phil Hellmuth, Jonny Chan, Daniel Negreanu, John Juanda, David Benyamine, Kirill Gerasimov and Phil ‘OMGClayAiken’ Galfond. On top of these stories we also saw day two of event #27 played and two additional tournaments get their starts. To get caught up on all the days actions, gossip and results visit www.poker-prop.net/news

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Barry Greenstein got off to a fast start at the 2008 World Series of Poker having been in the mix in a half dozen events, including an impressive 3rd place finish In the $5K w/ rebuy No Limit Deuce to Seven Lowball Draw event. Tonight his WSOP just go all that much better as he just took down the $1500 Razz event earning the third WSOP bracelet of his career.

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Kenny Tran had an impressive WSOP run in 2007, where he finished 5th in the $50K World Championship of H.O.R.S.E worth $440,000 and sixteenth in both the WSOP and WSOP-Europe Main Events worth $381,302 and $64,471 respectively. In 2008 he picked up where he left off by cashing for $158,290 in the WPT championship. Well last night Mr. Tran scored the biggest victory of his career picking up a WSOP bracelet and $539,056 top place prize as he won nine consecutive heads up matches to become the 2008 World Champion of heads-up poker.

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