Features/Reports

While many cynics have for the last few years been predicting the end of the poker boom, the explosion continues to erupt in the UK, the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour in particular proving that poker remains one of the country's favourite pastimes.

Before we knew him as the spanish «Matador» in the poker world, now he can be renamed to anything resembling giant, champion or number one. Carlos Mortensen has made poker history and the poker world is impressed. He recently won the World Poker Tour Championships at the Bellagio in Las Vegas and 4 million dollars, this just to add to his WSOP Main Event Bracelet and over 6 million dollars in previous tournament prizes. Carlos Mortensen is the first and perhaps the only player for a long time that will hold the titles of both WPT and WSOP Main Event winner. We met up with «The Giant», formerly known as «The Matador».

Europe's biggest poker tour, the European Poker Tour, continued to expand this spring with a stop in the Polish capital Warsaw. Even with the record turnout in Dortmund the week before, the expectations weren't that high. The tournament would not be televised, and with a lower buy-in than usual, most players expected nothing more than a regular tournament without any of the big stars. But the players in Warsaw were not disappointed. The casino did a great job looking after the some 300 players that had paid €3900 to enter.

This third season of the European Poker Tour brought us two new stops for the tour, first of these two was the tournament in Dortmund. This also became the biggest field so far in this season with its 493 entrants, this player group was a mix of the usual Scandinavians, British, American online qualifiers and a of course a lot of new German faces. In the end it was a charming Norwegian taking it all down. Here is the EPT Dortmund for those of you that missed out on the action.

The Oldest and Biggest Poker Tournament in Europe.

The final installment of the European Poker Tour's third season was a spectacle in how European poker has grown in the last couple of years. 706 players were €10.000 poorer when sitting down around the felt in lovely Monte Carlo. This ensured the biggest prize pool in a poker tournament outside the US. With this extraordinary tournament, EPT Monte Carlo will be sure to attract even more big stars next year. The EPT started in 2004 with the Barcelona tournament. The total prize pool in that tournament couldn't even cover the 7th place prize money in this record-breaking tournament in Monte Carlo. Here is the recap of what happened on the French Riviera.