EPT BERLIN: KITAI LOOKING TO MATCH COUNTRYMAN VANDERSMISSEN

PHOTO: POKERSTARS

Belgian poker pro Davidi Kitai will be the man to beat when the final eight players assemble at EPT Berlin on Saturday, where the winner will collect an incredible €825,000 paycheque.

Kitai is no stranger to EPT Final Tables, he final tabled EPT Barcelona back in Season 5.

Kitai will certainly be looking at matching what fellow Belgian Kevin Vandersmissen did a few weeks ago at the Irish Poker Championship - and that's winning a major poker title!

Canadian Andrew Chen is no stranger to the big stage. The former PCA Bounty event winner could be on his way back onto the 2012 QuadJacks Poker Player of the Year Leaderboard as well. Chen had two PTPR Scores at the PCA earlier in the season, he is assured of at least 17 PTPR Points in the event.

FINAL TABLE SEAT ASSIGNMENTS/CHIP COUNTS
Seat 1. Cesar Garcia Domínguez, 1,485,000 chips
Seat 2. Pratyush Buddiga, 1,280,000
Seat 3, Mario Puccini, 2,065,000
Seat 4. André Morath, 1,940,000
Seat 5. Andrew Chen, 3,600,000
Seat 6. Davidi Kitai, 5,695,000
Seat 7. Bahadir Kilickeser, 4,640,000
Seat 8. Marc Wright, 1,540,000

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FT PAYOUTS (EURO) 1 € 825,000 2 € 500,000 3 € 290,000 4 € 220,000 5 € 172,000 6 € 133,000 7 € 97,000 8 € 72,000 DEFENDING CHAMPION Ben Wilinofsky (Eliminated) LIVE FINAL TABLE COVERAGE POKERSTARS TV

PTPR PREMIER EVENT European Poker Tour Berlin EPT Berlin NLH Main Event April 16-21, 2012 Grand Hyatt Berlin | Berlin, Germany Buy-in: $6,955 | Prizepool: $4,889,435 Entries: 745 PTPR POINTS DISTRIBUTION 1st place 132 2nd place 82 3rd place 52 4th place 42 5th place 37 6-7th place 32 8th place 17 JORDI RIBA CORRONS 17 VLADIMIR GESHKENBEIN 17 ERIC VUISSOZ 17 TOMAS CIBAK 15 HEINZ KAMUTZKI 15 ANTON WIGG 15 FLORIAN DOHNERT 15 DMITRY GRINENKO 12 DANIEL PIDUN 12 JASPER WETERMANS 12 NEXT TOUR STOP EPT Grand Final Casino Monte Carlo, Monaco April 25-May 1, 2012

WPT HARD ROCK: OFF AND RUNNING AS HINTON LEADS DAY 2 AT HARD ROCK

We're through Day 2 at the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Main Event in Hollywood, Florida. Clyde Hinton has grabbed the chip and will enter Friday's play as the man to beat. Hinton has a little over 260K in chips.

Former WPT Festa al Lago Champ Tommy Vedes is right behind Hinton, he will need to make up about 30K in chips in order to take the lead away from Hinton.

Former WSOP November Niner John Dolan is fourth after Day 2 play.

The field is overflowing with big names, we should see many of the top pros rise to the top on Friday at the Hard Rock.

NOTABLE CHIP COUNTS (50+K COUNTS)
Clyde Hinton 262,900
Tommy Vedes 235,300
John Dolan 224,300
Andrew Lichtenberger 149,000
Alex Outhred 140,000
Matt Waxman 122,400
Jonathan Little 120,000
Micah Raskin 115,000
David Paredes 108,900
Tuan Le 91,000
Joe Serock 90,000
Jason Koon 78,000
Matt Marafioti 77,000
Abbey Daniels 72,000
William Reynolds 72,000
Matt Juttelstad 72,000
Ashton Griffin 68,000
Joseph Elpayaa 67,000
Lee Markholt 65,000
Allie Prescott 55,000
Steve Brecher 53,000

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TOP 10 PAYOUTS (USD) 1st 779,520 2nd 459,360 3rd 306,240 4th 212,976 5th 158,688 6th 122,496 7th 94,956 8th 69,600 9th 50,112 10th 38,976 DEFENDING CHAMPION Taylor von Kriegenbergh

PTPR PREMIER EVENT World Poker Tour Seminole Hard Rock Showdown WPT Seminole NLH Main Event April 18-23, 2012 Seminole Hard Rock Hotel | Florida Buy-in: $10,000 | Prizepool: $2,784,000 Entries: 290 PTPR POINTS DISTRIBUTION 1st place 127 2nd place 77 3rd place 47 4th place 37 5th place 32 6-7th place 27 8-11th place 12 12-15th place 10 16-18th place 7 NEXT TOUR STOP WPT Jacksonville BestBet Open Jacksonville, Florida April 27-May 2, 2012

BORGATA SPRING: LIU WINS AS STARS FIZZLE EARLY AT BORGATA CHAMPIONSHIP

PICTURE: BORGATA

Jia Liu lost his big chip on a few different occasions but managed to pick himself up, dust himself off ... and was crowned Champion of the Borgata Spring Open, defeating a solid final table.

It looked as if Liu had played his way out of the tournament a few times on Thursday, but he survived and ultimately picked up the 312K paycheque.

It was a disappointing day for those wishing that well-known pros Cliff "JohnnyBax" Josephy or Chad Batista would take the title down ... unfortunately, both JohnnyBax and Batista were eliminated fairly early during final table play ... bowing out in 7th and 6th place respectfully.

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FT PAYOUTS (USD) 1st Jia Liu $312,483 2nd Larry Abrams $175,700 3rd Russ Dykshteyn $112,950 4th Robert Pardo $89,733 5th Cameron Cornell $70,280 6th Chad Batista $57,730 7th Cliff Josephy $45,808 8th Matt Woodward $35,768 9th Michael Borovetz $25,100 10th Mike Meskin $16,315

PTPR TIER 3 EVENT Borgata Spring Open NLH Championship April 15-19, 2012 Borgata Hotel Casino | Atlantic City Buy-in: $2,700 | Prizepool: $1,300,000 Entries: 520 PTPR POINTS DISTRIBUTION JIA LIU 105 LARRY ABRAMS 65 RUSS DYKSTEYN 40 ROBERT PARDO 30 CAMERON CORNELL 23 CHAD BATISTA 15 CLIFF JOSEPHY 13 MATT WOODWARD 10 MICHAEL BOROVETZ 10

BORGATA SPRING: BATISTA, JOHNNYBAX IN CONTENTION AT BORGATA CHAMPIONSHIP

We are set for what should be an exciting final table at the Borgata Spring Open Championship in Atlantic City!

Will someone be able to follow in the footsteps of Andrew Badecker? Badecker won the Borgata Fall Open Championship in November and has been red-hot on the poker circuit ever since, picking up cashes from around the world.

One person certainly looking to grab that type of momentum is Florida's Chad Batista. Batista enters final table play third in chips, and Batista has been playing some good poker for the past few days.

A man that is no stranger to these situations, especially in the Northeastern US, is Cliff Josephy. Josephy would be the pick of many people at any final table, but, the fact that his chip stack is a 4:1 underdog to chip leader's Jia Liu means that things won't come easy for the man they call JohnnyBax.

Matt Woodward, who entered Wednesday play as the chip leader, is still alive and kicking; Woodward's stack sits just below the average chip stack line.

FINAL TABLE CHIP COUNTS
Jia Liu 4,219,000
Russ Dykshteyn 2,400,000
Chad Batista 1,600,000
Larry Abrams 1,543,000
Matt Woodward 1,420,000
Mike Borovetz 1,261,000
Cliff Josephy 1,033,000
Robert Pardo 770,400
Mike Meskin 429,000

The players will return to The Signature Room at Noon ET today.

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FT PAYOUTS (USD) 1st $312,483 2nd $175,700 3rd $112,950 4th $89,733 5th $70,280 6th $57,730 7th $45,808 8th $35,768 9th $25,100 10th $16,315 EVENT COVERAGE BORGATA SPRING OPEN

PTPR TIER 3 EVENT Borgata Spring Open NLH Championship April 15-19, 2012 Borgata Hotel Casino | Atlantic City Buy-in: $2,700 | Prizepool: $1,300,000 Entries: 520 PTPR POINTS DISTRIBUTION 1st Place 105 2nd Place 65 3rd Place 40 4th Place 30 5th Place 23 6th Place 15 7th Place 13 8th Place 10 9th Place 10