World Series of Poker Europe 2010

Event #5: £10,350 WSOPE Championship No-Limit Hold'em
Day: 5
Event Info

World Series of Poker Europe 2010

Final Results
Winner
Winning Hand
1010
Prize
£830,401
Event Info
Buy-in
£10,000
Entries
346
Level Info
Level
27
Blinds
30,000 / 60,000
Ante
10,000

Seta 8: Ronald Lee (1,899,000)

Ronald Lee
Ronald Lee

Before becoming a professional poker player, Ronald Lee did what most young 20-somethings do; he went to school. The student-turned-poker-pro is from Brooklyn, New York and has three cashes on his record, with two of those coming from WSOP events.

In April of 2009, Lee placed 40th at the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo for €40,000. That same year, he went on to cash in the WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas. His finish there in 499th place netted him $25,027. This year, Lee could only manage to cash once in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event.

Lee comes into the final table second in chips behind Dan Fleyshman with 1,899,000.

Tags: Ronald Lee

Seat 7: James Bord (1,331,000)

James Bord
James Bord

James Bord is 29 years old and plays poker for a living. Prior to playing a card game for a living, Bord worked in banking. He has since turned his funds into poker chips on the felt and so far it’s proven to be a solid decision, which will be further solidified if he can win here today.

This event marks Bord’s sixth cash in a WSOP event. It’s not his first final table though, he placed sixth this year in the $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball event for just under $13,000. His largest cash on record came from a second-place finish in a Venetian Deep Stack event for $29,269.

Although Bord doesn’t normally play tournaments, he’s done very well to grind his way to the final table here. He regularly plays high-limit cash games around the world, but this final table could have him catching the tournament fever. Bord will enter the day right in the middle of the pack, fifth in chips with 1,331,000.

Tags: James Bord

Seat 6: Danny Steinberg (1,520,000)

Daniel Steinberg
Daniel Steinberg

The young 22 year old from Fairfield, Iowa in the United States is a professional poker player who is making his first-ever WSOP final table. Danny Steinberg has a twin brother who can be seen along the rail rooting him on today and according to Steinberg his brother is, “just as successful as me.”

Steinberg cashed in this year’s WSOP twice after playing seven events over the summer. He finished in the money in the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em event for a small cash and then also finished in the money in the Main Event. Steinberg’s Main Event finish in 395th place earned him $31,647, a score that he’s already topped in this event.

Coming into the day third in chips with 1,520,000, Steinberg has a great shot at really distancing himself from his twin brother. “Hey bro, check out this gold bracelet I just picked up,” might be the line of some fun ribbing that goes on if Steinberg happens to win this title. Win or not, Steinberg’s brother has been on the rail just about everyday to support his brother and cheer him on.

Tags: Danny Steinberg

Seat 5: Brian Powell (842,000)

Brian Powell
Brian Powell

Brian Powell hails from Louisville, Kentucky and is 29 years old. Powell is a professional poker player.

Back in 2006, Powell recorded his first cash when he finished 17th in the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em event at the Five Diamond World Poker Classic. That score was only worth about $7,000, but the following year he would earn a much larger one. Powell placed 11th at the Legends of Poker in 2007 for $57,155. It wasn’t the big win he was looking for, but after going zero for ten in WSOP events that year, the money helps to ease the pain.

When it comes to the WSOP, Powell has four cashes on record and three of those are in bigger buy-in $10,000 events. In 2008, Powell cashed in the World Championship Heads-Up event at the Series for over $14,000. That was his only cash that, but he recorded two more the following year, including his largest to date. First, Powell took 13th in the World Championship Mixed event for $27,718 before going on to finish 66th in the Main Event for over $90,000 and his largest-ever live cash. This year, Powell only hit the money once in a WSOP event, taking home about $8,000 for a 29th-place finish in the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event.

Powell has over $200,000 in live tournament earnings, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to settle for anything but first place in this one. He comes into the WSOP Europe final table sixth in chips with 842,000.

Tags: Brian Powell

Seat 4: Fabrizio Baldassari (697,000)

Fabrizio Baldassari
Fabrizio Baldassari

What do we know about Italian Fabrizio Baldassari? Well, not a whole lot, but maybe we should start getting in the know.

Baldassari has over $100,000 in career winnings and has cashed in two EPT events and one IPT event. His two EPT cashes both came in 2009; at EPT London, he finished 39th and then at EPT Prague, he took 43rd. At IPT Venice in July of this year, Baldassari fnished in 49th place.

In order to find Baldassari’s best result on the felt, one has to look back to February of 2008. At the 7 Tappa Campionato Italiano in San Remo, Baldassari took fourth in the Main Event for €25,000, making up just about a quarter of his lifetime tournament winnings.

This final table is Baldassari’s first-ever WSOP cash and he’s really making the most of it by reaching the final table. Baldassari enters the day with 697,000 chips and that’s good enough for seventh place on the leader board.

Tags: Fabrizio Baldassari

Seat 3: Nicolas Levi (428,000)

Nicolas Levi
Nicolas Levi

The Frenchman has been a professional poker for a few years now and is currently based in London. With seven WSOP cashes to his name and over $765,000 in lifetime earnings, Nicolas Levi is still looking for his breakout victory after many deep runs in events around the world. This one could be it here in the WSOP Europe Main Event and what a dandy it would be.

Checking in on Levi’s WSOP history, he has one Main Event cash in London that came back in 2007, the first year the event was held in Europe. He placed 27th that year. He also has one final table in a WSOP event, placing ninth in 2008 out in Las Vegas in the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em event. Earlier this year, Levi scored his best WSOP finish. He placed fifth in the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout event for over $92,000, his second largest score to date.

Besides doing well in WSOP events, Levi does a lot of damage on the European felt, especially in EPT events. He final table EPT Dortmund back in 2007, cahsed at EPT Prague in 2009, made it to the final four tables at EPT Deauville in 2010 and then also cashed at the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo in 2010.

Despite all of his success though, Levi has still yet to score a win. After looking over all of his live scores, not one of them is a victory. It’d be one hell of a thing to win your first event in the WSOP Europe Main Event and that’s what Levi will be looking to do today. He may have to get lucky and do it early with only 428,000 chips, but this is poker and anything can happen.

Tags: Nicolas Levi

Seat 2: Marc Inizan (349,000)

Marc Inizan
Marc Inizan

When we first really found out about Marc Inizan was at EPT Berlin. He was one of the chip leaders throughout the last few days of the event and went on to make the final table and finish in third place for €350,000. That was by far Inizan’s largest cash and still is, but he’ll be looking to change all of that today.

Inizan started playing poker in 2005 after seeing a WSOP broadcast on late-night French TV. Seeing those he could relate to winning millions of dollars playing a card game inspired him to start an online account. Through trial and error, Inizan built up a bankroll, playing sit-n-gos and multi-table tournaments. It wasn’t hard for his bankroll to begin to swell up as Inizan has a solid background in math.

In 2007, Inizan notched his first live score. At the C$10,000 WPT Championship Event at the North American Poker Championships in Ontario, Inizan ran well enough to make it down to the final 24 players. He was eliminated in 24th for C$51,065.

Inizan only cashed in a small $500 Venetian Deep Stack event in 2008, but in 2009 he finished in the money in the WPT Venice and then final tabled the Belgium Open Poker Championships Main Event. This all see up for the big year he was to have in 2010.

Already with $543,801 in live tournament earnings this year alone, that number is only going to rise from here. Inizan has landed himself five cashes this year, including his best as the aforementioned EPT Berlin finish. He also finished in the money in the $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em Championship event at the WSOP this year in Las Vegas. He finished 13th and just missed the final table by a few spots so this one will be his first.

No one said poker was easy and for Inizan it won’t be at this WSOP Europe Main Event final table. He will enter the day as the shortest stack with just 349,000. Knowing Inizan’s style, he’s not going to sit around and get blinded out which means the fireworks could go off early.

Tags: Marc Inizan

Seat 1: Roland de Wolfe (1,377,000)

Roland de Wolfe
Roland de Wolfe

Roland de Wolfe began in the poker industry as a writer for the English magazine Inside Edge. After spending a short career pushing the pen around, de Wolfe decided it was time to take his own shot at pushing chips around.,

De Wolfe began playing some smaller buy-in tournaments in 2004 and had some pretty reasonable success. The following year though, he had a big breakout after he won the WPT’s Grand Prix de Paris for just under $575,000. With that big win and a swollen bankroll, de Wolfe began playing more and more events worldwide. The more events he played, the more results he posted.

In 2006, he entered the WPT World Championship where he took third for over $1 million. During the summer of that year, he would go on to cash in two WSOP events, making the final table of one of them. Also in 2006, de Wolfe won an event at the Poker Meltdown Festival in London and took home nearly $700,000 for a win at the Irish Masters in Dublin. Two more six-figure paydays rolled in during November and December when he placed second in a pair of events.

Back in Dublin the following year in 2007, de Wolfe took second to Marty Smyth in an event at the Irish Open for over $400,000. That year was also a pretty big year for de Wolfe on the WSOP felt. He cashed in five WSOP events in the U.S. and once here in London at the WSOP Europe.

The following year in 2008, de Wolfe final tabled the $5,000 Limit/No-Limit Hold’em event at the WSOP, coming in fourth for over $117,000. In 2009, he recorded five more WSOP cashes and was able to land his first gold bracelet. De Wolfe won the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi/Lo event for nearly $250,000 to claim his first piece of WSOP jewelry and he’ll be looking to add another here today. That same year, de Wolfe also placed fifth in a $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event at the Series for $112,957.

De Wolfe can often be found playing online when there's no live action to satisfy his craving. He’s frequently found on the Omaha tables at the higher limits, grinding out a tournament bankroll. Over his career, Roland has earned more than $4 million in tournament winnings, and he's well on his way to another nice score here this week.

Although this has been one of de Wolfe’s more down years on the felt with only $241,193 in winnings so far, he has managed to make it to the final table of this elite event. Earlier this year in February, de Wolfe won the £2,000 No-Limit Hold'em Mansion Poker Les A London Open for £77,000 and will surely be looking to make this his second title of the year, and a massive one at that.

De Wolfe is the only Full Tilt Red Pro left in the field and comes into the final table fourth in chips with 1,377,000.

Tags: Roland de Wolfe

Welcome to the WSOP-E Main Event Final Table!

The hardware
The hardware

Welcome to the 2010 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event final table! It seems like forever ago when this event kicked off with Day 1a's field of 137 taking to action. Day 1b saw 209 players pony up the £10,350 needed to enter this event and that brought the total number of entrants to 346 -- a proud increase over last year's field!

Right from the get go, the field was packed with the biggest names in poker. Unfortunately for most of them, only 36 got paid meaning a lot went home empty handed. Even when the money bubble burst, there was still plenty of big names remaining. Many of them also hit the rail throughout the past two days of play to set the stage for the final nine -- and no, we don't have to wait until November to play this one out.

Here's the line-up for the final table:

Seat 1: Roland de Wolfe (1,377,000)
Seat 2: Marc Inizan (349,000)
Seat 3: Nicolas Levi (428,000)
Seat 4: Fabrizio Baldassari (697,000)
Seat 5: Brian Powell (842,000)
Seat 6: Danny Steinberg (1,520,000)
Seat 7: James Bord (1,331,000)
Seat 8: Ronald Lee (1,899,000)
Seat 9: Dan Fleyshman (1,946,000)

A lot of those names are pretty unknown to the common poker fan, but don't let fool you because they're all amazing players. They had to be in order to get through this stacked of a field, which can be argued as the toughest tournament to conquer all year round.

Roland de Wolfe is really the only big name professional still left and he'll be looking for his second WSOP gold bracelet. We've also got a Frenchman in Nicolas Levi looking to really put himself on the map with a massive win. Don't forget about the poker company CEO Dan Fleyshman who was also the youngest owner of a publicly traded company in his young twenties or the young man from Kentucky Brian Powell. Sure, Phil Ivey or Viktor Blom would have been nice, but it's still going to be a great day of poker!

If history means anything, we're probably going to be here for a very, very long time. The past previous final tables in this event have gone deep into the morning hours of the next day. Get the coffee ready and buckle up, it's time for the 2010 WSOP Europe Main Event final table!

Event #5: £10,350 WSOPE Championship No-Limit Hold'em

Day 5 Started