2008 European Poker Awards, Pokerheaven European Cash Game on TV tonight and more

2008 European Poker Awards
On the 15th of January the 2008 European Poker Awards will take place at the Aviation Club in Paris. Once again the UK is very well represented once again and Poker Million Champion Marty Smyth is up for two awards following his impressive 2008 as is Irish Open winner Neil Channing. The full list of nominees looks like this:

Rookie of the Year:
Stephen Chidwick
Ivan Demidov
Davidi Kitai
Jesper Hougard
Stefan Ruthenberg
Alexander Kostritsyn
Peter Eastgate

Best Tournament Performance:
Neil Channing ( England)
Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier
David Benyamine
Marty

Smyth
Jesper Hougard
Sebastian Ruthenberg
Peter Eastgate

Player of the Year
Bertrand "Elky" Grospelier
David Benyamine
Andreas Krause
Marty Smyth
Neil Channing

Europe's Leading Lady
Sandra Naujoks
Isabel Mercier
Kara Scott
Annette Obrestad
Svetlana Gromenkova

Casino Staff Person of the Year
Thomas Kremser
Sylvie Berlanger
Jonathan Raab
Simon Trumper
Madeleine Harper

Rob Gardner Award for Innovation:
Rob Yong
Poker Stars Team: Francine Watson/Conrad Brunner/Mad Harper
Gene Gioia
Jonathan Raab

Lifetime Achievement Award:
TO BE ANNOUNCED:

It's all a very exciting list indeed with some very difficult to call categories, the toughest one being maybe the rookie of the year. Obviously Peter Eastgate had a great rookie year winning the WSOP main event, but his friend and countryman Jesper Hougaard is two bracelets better off this year as well and Sebasthian Ruthenberg took down both a bracelet and an EPT title this year. Ivan Demidov is also a dark horse, he didn't win an event this year but came 2nd and 3rd in arguably the toughest two.

The Best Tournament Performance is maybe even harder to call, featuring most of those men plus Neil Channing and Marty Smyth to boot. Player of the Year will be a race between WPT/EPT winner Bertrand Grospellier and WSOP/World Open/WSOP PLO champion Marty Smyth. David Benyamine is also a dark horse, having had a good tournament year as well as dominating the biggest cash games online.

It's very nice to see GUKPT tour manager Jon Raab and DTD card room manager both nominated for the Cardroom Staff Person of the year, and we hope that Mr Raab can snag this for his part in turning the GUKPT into the best midstakes poker tour in Europe because he has taken up a different job within the Grosvenor familyand it would be a shame for those efforts not to go unrewarded (And we know that Simon Trumper will win this award eventually anyway). We also hope very much that Rob Yong wins the innovation award for turning his vision of a perfect poker club into a reality.

PokerHeaven European Cash Game to air Tonight
Cash game poker is the future of TV poker in this writers opinion and you can see for yourself online or on channel 166 tonight from 11pm. This October, PokerHeaven filmed a high stakes cash game in London with a huge line up including Main Event winner Peter Eastgate before he took down the big one. It also included Eric Liu, Neil Channing and Andy Black. The channel will also air for the first time instructional shows on how to master the art of cash games.
Check it out tonight on Sky or at the PokerChannelEurope website.

Citiwest Hotel confirmed again for Irish Open, Online Registration Open
Next year's Irish Open appears to be revealing more about itself in drip feed form, and the latest being that the Dublin Citiwest Hotel will be the venue for the flagship tournament for the second year running. This world-class venue was widely praised by players following the success of last year's festival.

In other news, players can now log on to the Paddy Power Poker website and register online for the main event. The gateway allows registration to the festival with credit card, wire transfer and cheque.

"We are delighted to launch the online registration facility for the Irish Open 2009 so that players eager to secure their seat at Europe's longest running poker tournament can gain some peace of mind before Christmas" said Eric Booth, Head of Poker for paddypowerpoker.com. "We're equally happy to return to Citywest; the facilities and atmosphere there really impressed the players at the Irish Open 2008 and we expect the 2009 event to exceed the achievements of last year in both respects!"

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