Joao Barbosa wins EPT Warsaw, Chase the Chair at Ladbrokes, Hellmuth Confirmed for Premier League and more

Joao Barbosa wins EPT Warsaw
Birthday boy Joao Barbosa bested a star studded field and a tough final table to win the Pokerstars.net EPT Warsaw. He became the 2nd player in a month to make an EPT final table on his birthday (As Gino Alacqua did last month), but 26 year old Barbosa took all the cheese this time round when he won the €367,141 first prize.

Portugese Barbosa went into the final table one of the shorter stacks at a table that included EPT Prague winner Arnaud Mattern and WSOP bracelet winner Dario Minieri with big stacks. Barbosa won some big pots early and made a big stack which he used to bully the table. When the play

got three handed he had an almost unassailable lead when he busted Minieri when his pocket nines went up against the pocket sevens of Minieri. Despite a monster chip lead, his heads up match with Nico Behling was a lengthy one, but eventually he saw off his rival when his ace-ten made flopped a pair of aces against the pair of sevens with a jack kicker of Behling.

EPT Deauville announced
More EPT news as Pokerstars.net have announced the return of EPT Deauville after a 2 year break. The French Open will return at Casino Barriere de Deauville on January 20-24th next year. The main event is €5,300 and there is a cap on 700 players with a prize pool predicted over €3 million. As usual, the only place to win a package worth $9000 is Pokerstars.net.

Last chance to Chase the Chair at Ladbrokes
If you are watching the Poker Million series on Sky Sports at the moment and would love to get in on the action, don't forget you still can. For the first time ever, Ladbrokes Poker are fast tracking players into the semi final of the Poker Million with the Chase the Chair promotion. You would win a $120,000 seat, 5 nights' accommodation, $5000 in expenses and would be playing in the second semi final seat against Ladbrokes Poker's own Roy Brindley, Devilfish, Asian Poker tour winner Tony G, 2008 WSOP Bracelet winner Marty Smyth and World Open Champion Anthony Hardy.

Edward Ihre MD of Ladbrokes Poker commented: "This is huge! It's the first time that we have enabled players to qualify directly into the semi-finals. Poker Million is renowned for mixing it up and to be honest, I think the ever changing elements of the format is one of the reasons why it's still one of the most watched poker shows on TV!"

"In 2003 Snooker champion, Jimmy White won the title, 2005 saw Freeroll winner Tony Jones and Helen Chamberlain of Soccer AM fame upset the apple cart. Chamberlain beat Crazy Horse himself Ram Vaswani in her heat to make it to the final table. The rest is history, Tony clinched first and a cool $1,000,000 and Helen came second winning $500,000. Poker Million V in 2006, saw $9 qualifier Raj Modha take down the tournament against a top notch field, so who knows what will happen this time around."

The final freeroll satellites are going on at 7pm every night until 28th of November at Ladbrokes Poker.

Hellmuth completes Premier League Line Up
We said they were saving the best till last, so it could only really be on person, as Poker Brat Phil Hellmuth has been confirmed for the next Party Poker Premier League. The 11 time bracelet winner will recommence his ongoing rivalry with Thomas 'Durrrr' Dwan and maybe start a new one with the man that beat his 'youngest main event champ' accolade, Peter Eastgate. He will also be joined by JC Tran, Nenad Medic, Devilfish, Tony G, Vicky Coren, Annette Obrestad, Roland de Wolfe, Andy Black, Juha Helppi.

Boomakers are making the new champ Eastgate the odds on favourite to win the event:
6/1 Peter Eastgate
13/2 JC Tran
7/1 Nenad Medic
15/2 Annette Obrestad
8/1 Tom Dwan
9/1 Phil Hellmuth
9/1 Roland de Wolfe
9/1 Devilfish
10/1 Tony G
15/1 Andy Black
15/1 Juha Helppi
20/1 Vicky Coren

A spokesman for partypoker said: "The odds say everything about the added strength of the players in PartyPoker.com Premier League III. The five young gun newcomers all head the betting. We didn't just fill in spots - we brought in players who are more than capable of giving those who thought they were the best a whipping."

Eddie Hearn, Director of Online Gaming at Matchroom Sport said: ""The whole reason Matchroom Sport became involved with poker is because we love the game. We wanted to deliver a dream dozen for the fans and this is without doubt the most exciting line up in poker history. The Premier League is an arena where greatness is on display and genius happens - twelve of the game's biggest ever talents will face off for over a million dollars in what will be the greatest poker spectacle of all time."

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