PartyPoker European Open crowns champion

For the 5th time the Party Poker European Open was held in London and this tournament is becoming more and more a mainstay in European poker.

Not only because the tournament brings together some of the best poker players from Europe and America, but also because the format of the tournament lends itself extremely well to television.
It is no wonder then that this Poker tournament is one of the best watched in Europe.

The 72 players all coughed up the $7000 buy in for the tournament after which the fought in 12 heats of 6 players to decide who would make it to the semi-finals. The 12 winners of the heats ( the Sit n Go stage) would all progress to the semi-final, but even for the losers it was not over yet. They would decide in Turbo Sit n Go tournaments who would join the 12 players in 2 7-seat semi-final tables.

The real fun started here as the first 3 players progress to the final, but they will take the chips they acquire here at this stage with them to the final table. This meant that "just hanging around" to make the final table, might put you on it, but would also almost certainly mean immediate elimination.

This brought about some fearless action when there were 4 players left in both semi finals.

One of the most consistent players in this kind of tournament is Neil Channing and he proved that again this time by reaching the final table and finishing in 5th for $25.000
The battle for the $200.000 first prize was competitive and will provide some excellent television shows later in the year as Roberto Romanello and Marc Goodwin fought it out with Roberto prevailing.

If you look at the viewer statistics for this tournament and the appetite players have for it it seems realistic to think that there will be more tournaments like this in America soon as well even though field sizes are limited due to structure.

News Added: 18 February, 2009

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