Pokerstars.com EPT Copenhagen - Final Day

[danafish]

Good morning, good morning! We feel only slightly terrible after an assortment of awesome party-type entertainments last night, and are back at the Casino Copenhagen to watch our Final Octet or something battle it out for lots and lots of money in euros and absolutely LOADS if you put it in Danish kroner, as they will be doing.

Anyway, here's a recap of who's going to be involved:

Seat    Name                       Country       Chips
1    Rasmus Hede Nielsen    Denmark       789,000
2    Timothy Vance    USA    PokerStars qualifier    1,408,000
3    Daniel Ryan    USA    PokerStars qualifier    557,000
4    Patrik Andersson      Sweden       283,000
5    Simon Dørslund              Denmark       267,000
6    Nicolas Dervaux       France       336,000
8    Søren Jensen               Denmark       500,000
9    Magnus Hansen             Denmark       458,000

And a recap of what they're playing for:

   Kroner (DKK)   Euros (approx)
1   6,220,488         834,590
2   3,521,429         472,463
3   2,045,381         274,425
4   1,560,394         209,355
5   1,286,270         172,576
6   1,012,147         135,798
7   801,283            107,507
8   569,333            76,386

[danafish]

As you can see, Tim Vance has about half the chips in play currently, but our Pick For The Day is his fellow American and Shaggy-from-Scooby-Doo-a-like Danny Ryan. Take yours now!

[Djinn]

Danny Ryan.

Oh, you already said that.

[danafish]

And they are totally off!

Jen's acquiring photographic evidence that we're not just watching it on the web from our hotel beds, and the lovely Mad Harper has compiled some nice player profiles for us, coming right up...

[danafish]

Seat 1: Rasmus Hede Nielsen, 26, Copenhagen, Denmark  – 789,000 chips

Local boy Rasmus has been a poker professional since last August and was playing part-time for the year before that. His biggest result to date was 31st place in the Danish Championship and $23k in an online tourney. He is already known as one of the best tournament players in Denmark and is very active in the Danish poker community Pokernet.dk where he’s known as “Jungleras”.  He’s soon to be giving others a helping hand at the game teaching in an upcoming poker boot camp in Denmark. He played both EPT London and Prague but this is his first EPT cash.

Click to see full-size image.

[danafish]

Seat 2: Tim Vance, 46, PokerStars FPP qualifier from near St Louis, Illinois – 1,408,000

Chip leader Tim Vance is a friendly guy who came to Copenhagen hoping to catch up with EPT3 Barcelona winner Bjorn-Erik Glenne who he met at EPT London – “one of the best trips of his life”. There’s no Glenne here in Denmark, but there is the now super-strong prospect of a €834,000 first prize for the construction company boss from Millstott. Tim, who’s been playing poker all his life, qualified on PokerStars in a 10,000 Frequent Player Point tournament which he entered on a whim. The devoted dad has played the whole EPT with pictures of his daughter – three-year-old Nanzi - tucked inside his baseball cap. “She’s my world”, he said. Nanzi will be watching Dad from home on eptlive.com. Tim’s previous best result was $ 33k in Tunica in 2005. How does he feel about today? “It’s done”, he said. “It’s just a formality now.”

Click to see full-size image.

[amyt]

My moneys on Danny

Go The_D_ry!

[danafish]

Seat 3: Danny Ryan, 24, Grand Forks, North Dakota + Alicante, Spain – 557,000 chips

Danny “THE__D__RY” Ryan is ranked as one of the best online players in the world but only really came to notice in live tourneys when he cashed in two WSOP side events last summer.  He learned to play poker as a kid with his cousins and then started playing online in college. He studied abroad and is now based in Alicante, Spain, after falling in love with the Spanish way of life. His incredible run of success in recent months has gone ballistic in the last few weeks. After cashing at EPT Dortmund two weeks ago for €52,200 – and coming 4th in the £2k side event – Danny then won £170,000 for 2nd place in an online $300 re-buy event and €75,000 for winning a PokerStars €5,000 event. He has lost count (quite literally) of the number of EPTs he has qualified for. “I don’t know – like maybe 15 or 20 times for the PCA?” he said. Danny believes his strength at poker comes from his ability to stay emotion-free. He said: “I don’t leak away my chips or get tilted. My mind stays clear.”

Click to see full-size image.

[danafish]

Seat 4: Patrik Andersson, 38, from Stockholm, Sweden – 283,000 chips

Patrik works as a sales manager for a food company in Stockholm. His biggest win so far was $75k in an online tournament and he also came 14th in Swedish Championship in 2006. He only plays Texas No Limit and likes online games for the speed of play, and live events because they’re “fun”. He started poker with five card draw as kid and he started to play online 4-5 years ago. He qualified to the tournament through a live satellite. It’s his first EPT.

Click to see full-size image.

[danafish]

Seat 5: Simon Dorslund, 24, from Skjern, Denmark – 267,000 chips

Simon is in the last few months of college where he’s studying dairy production. He’s not sure of his plans once he graduates but, guaranteed at least €76k today, certainly now feels tempted by poker. He’s been playing for around four years but this is his biggest result to date - with the best before that being the satellite he won to get into the event. Online he won $15k in an $170 tourney. He said: “I’ve really enjoyed myself. It’s been a lot of fun and I didn’t really expect to get this far. My goal at the beginning was just to get through to Day 2 so I’ve gone way beyond that.” Simon is being supported in Copenhagen by girlfriend Jannie.

Click to see full-size image.

[danafish]

Seat 6: Nicolas Dervaux, 33, Paris, France – 336,000 chips

Nicolas Dervaux - He used to be a professional pool player and is currently ranked 18th in France. He also owns a pool hall but plays less now that he's into poker. He is very proud of his pool achievements and slightly baffled by what he considers "all the fuss" about poker. He said: "It's easy. I just do it." He started playing online after a friend downloaded the software and explained the rules. He mainly plays cash games and always in turbo games where you have to move within five seconds - he gets bored if he has to wait more than a minute. Father-of-one Nicolas has been a pro for two years. Best result so far was €15k in an online tourney. This is his first major live tournament. Most of his experience has been in online cash games.

[danafish]

Seat 7: Søren "Crazy Man" (Dana and Jen's nickname, no-one actually calls him that) Jensen, 37, Arhus, Denmark - 500,000 chips

Søren Jensen caught people’s attention early on in Copenhagen with an amazing emotional outburst after taking down a huge pot on Day 2. Shouting “Come on Jutland” and “Come on the Whites” after his local football team, Søren headed out into the corridor, striding up and down and punching the air with his fist.  He said: “If I win a big pot, I have to walk away from the table and calm down. I’m very emotional. It’s my personality”. Today Soren, who manages a car painting business in Arhus, says he’s focused and “100% sure” he’ll win. He’s been playing poker for seven years after switching from whist, and now plays high-stakes 10/20 and 20/40 NLHE cash games. He bought in to Copenhagen just one minute before registration closed. Søren cashed at the 2006 WSOP but today’s guaranteed win of at least €76,000 is his best result to date. He said: “I work, so I don’t really have much time for tournaments and this my first EPT. But I’m very competitive. I’m one of four brothers and we grew up always competing against each other. I’m born to be a winner.”  Søren is supported today by younger brother Lars and girlfriend Bettina.

Click to see full-size image.

[danafish]

Seat 8: Magnus Hansen, 20, Asnaes, Denmark – 458,000 chips

IT student Magnus currently earns around 4,000 Danish kroner a month (about €500) so whatever he wins today is going to make a difference to his life. He’s certainly planning to buy a car but if he wins, he’s also considering turning pro at the end of his studies. His biggest result to date was qualifying for Copenhagen and he normally plays $100 NLHE cash games.  As well poker, Magnus is a keen Counterstrike player (someone was actually trying to tell us he is a professional Counterstrike player but none of us could quite believe that people make money that way somehow) and is a member of one of the top 20 teams in the world.

[danafish]

By the way Jen's laptop seems to be doing some extraordinary things currently, like freezing up and then not turning on at all, hmm, so for the time being I can merely tell you in a not-as-dramatic-as-it-would-have-been-had-Jen-done-it way that Simon Dorslund has doubled up through Patrik Andersson with a set of Queens against a pair of Aces. He suspiciously flat-called the check-raise...

[Djinn]

Yeah I have had a bit of a technical crisis (genuine, not just napping under table) but it looks to be fixed now...

The double up hand saw Andersson with going for it on an flop, but raiser Dorslund had the and was happy to just let him bet...

Apart from that, it's been raise-pre-pass-pass-pass-etc.  Looming over the table (a bit) is Tim Vance, who seems to have gone from jumping up and down out of his seat to standing braced against the edge of the table all the way through the final.  He looks like he might get some craps dice out of his pocket and roll them down the table at any moment...