Charlotte Van Brabander Wins Third Unibet Battle Royale Title

Matthew Pitt Senior Editor

Feb 23, 2017 2 min read

The 2017 Unibet Open London festival kicked off in style Feb. 22 with the £10,000 invitational Battle Royale, which featured Unibet Poker ambassadors Charlotte Van Brabander, David Lappin, Dara O’Kearney, Ian Simpson and Viktor Blom among others.

Streamed on Unibet Poker’s Twitch channel, viewers watched as the ambassadors battled with commentator David Vanderheyden, cash game specialist Espens Jorsad, two-time Unibet Open champion Dan Murariu and the United Kingdom’s Dave Shallow.

The top three places awarded cash prizes and Lappin secured the first payout: a free £2,000. Lappin’s exit left Blom and Brabander to lock horns heads up, and despite Blom being something of a one-on-one specialist, it was Brabander who emerged victorious to net £5,000, leaving Blom to collect the £3,000 consolation prize.

Amazingly, this was Brabander’s third consecutive win in Unibet Poker’s invitational Battle Royale. The Belgian ambassador may not play as much poker as she once did as she is eyeing a career in politics, but she showed she still has what it takes to be successful at the poker table.

“Poker is a game of confidence," Brabander said said after her win. "I didn’t want to know who I was up against and their past achievements in case it got intimidating. Saying that, I really wanted to go heads up against Viktor and beat him!”

Alan “Hotted89” Widmann Wins the eSports Battle Royale

In addition to the invitational Battle Royale, Unibet Poker ran an eSports Battle Royale where several prominent eSports specialists swapped their computer mice for playing cards.

German Twitch star Alan “Hotted89” Widmann, who regularly has 200,000 followers watching him play Counter Strike Global Offensive, walked away with the £5,000 top prize after staging an epic comeback in the heads-up battle with “onscreenlol,” who won £3,000. Third place and £2,000 went to Sweden’s “forsen.”