Pokerstars Release: Weekly Round Up – October 18

Sunday Majors – Double Vision weekend

The latest Sunday Majors weekend saw TWO Sunday Millions AND Sunday Warm-Ups take place on the same day, and all four tournaments easily surpassed the $1 million and $500,000 guarantees.

The first $215 Sunday Warm-Up got under way at 11.00 ET and attracted 4,063 players to create a prize pool of $812,600. A deal was done heads-up, but knecht_poker from Mexico emerged the victor, to pocket the first prize of $115,500. Meanwhile, in the second Warm-Up, which started just 30 minutes after the first, Method999 from Germany took the first prize of $119,823.75 after topping a field of 3,816.

The Sunday Million tourneys kicked off at 14.30 ET and 15.00 ET respectively, and saw fields of 7,046 and 5,462 players battle it out for big money and the prestigious titles. Sunday Million I was won by acozubi from United Kingdom, who won an adjusted first prize of $145,000 after doing a five-way chop. Sunday Million II was taken down by 2010 WCOOP bracelet winner Kroko-dill from Russia. He took the first prize of $159,455.92 as his share of a three-way chop.

For full reports of Sunday Major tourneys, please visit www.pokerstarsblog.com.

EPT San Remo

The fourth stop of European Poker Tour Season 8 is set to hit San Remo later this week, with the eight-day festival scheduled to take place from October 20-27 at Casino San Remo. The headline event is the €4,900 Main Event, which was won last season by UK player Rupert Elder for €930,000, but there are a total of 23 events at this year’s stop, including a €10,300 Single Reload tourney, which is expected to attract some of the world’s best players.

For fans of poker who can’t be at the event, the San Remo final table will be available to watch live at PokerStars.tv on October 27 from 14.00 CET. English commentary will come from James Hartigan, Marc Convey and Team PokerStars Pros Eugene Katchalov, Liv Boeree, Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier and Jonathan Duhamel.

Check out www.ept.com for more information.

LAPT Colombia

Season 4 of the Latin America Poker Tour continued over the weekend, with the penultimate stop in Medellin for the inaugural Colombia National Poker Championship. The Centro Commercial Casino played host to the Main Event, which saw Argentinean Julian Menendez become the latest LAPT champion, winning a first prize of COP 123,540,000. Menendez defeated Jonathan Monsalves heads-up.

The first big buy-in poker tournament ever to visit Colombia proved to be a great success. The sell-out tournament attracted 681 players and generated a prize pool of COP 1,225,800,000 (approx. USD $650,000). A full report of the Medellin event can be found on the PokerStars Blog.

The next stop on the LAPT will be the Grand Final with full details yet to be confirmed. Please visit www.lapt.com for announcement updates.

Macau Poker Cup Championship

The Macau Poker Cup Championship 2011 reached its conclusion on Sunday, October 16, with new records being set during the 10-day festival, which was held at PokerStars Macau at Casino Grand Lisboa.

The Main Event set new MPCC records for both field size and prize money, as 308 players competed for a share of the HKD $5,553,856 prize pool. The eventual winner was PokerStars player Raiden Kan, who took home the first prize of HKD $1,250,000 (USD $160,000), with the 27-year-old becoming the first Malaysian player to win a major tournament on the Asian poker circuit. The result also saw him move up from fourth to second on the Asia Player of the Year leaderboard.

In total the 10-day poker schedule awarded HKD $12,358,408 (USD $1,584,400) in prizes, across 12 different events. It’s the first time any MPC series has surpassed the HKD $10 million mark.

Meanwhile, the High Roller tourney was won by Teemu Autio from Finland. The 19-year-old student beat 42 players to scoop the HKD $792,000 first prize.

For a full report from the MPCC, check out the PokerStars Blog.  In the meantime, the next special event at PokerStars Macau is the Asia Pacific Poker Tour Macau, which will take place from November 17-27, is set to feature a HKD $30,000 buy-in Main Event, and will boast a HKD $6,000,000 guarantee. The festival will also bring to a close the 2011 Asia Player of the Year race, which is currently being led by Hung-Sheng ‘Shaq’ Lin from Taipei.

PCA Women

This Saturday, October 22, sees the start of the PokerStars Women Live Caribbean Adventure Weekend 2012 satellites, which give ladies the chance to win a $3,250 prize package that includes $1,100 tourney buy-in, three nights’ accommodation at the Atlantis Resort and $1,000 travel expenses.

The Weekly Finals (starting October 29) feature a $215 buy-in (with one package guaranteed), but daily cash qualifiers into them start from as little as $1.10, with daily freerolls as well.

Players can find the range of satellite qualifiers in the PokerStars lobby under Events > PCA. For more information please go to www.pokerstars.com/poker/promotions/women-live.

Women’s Sunday

The latest $55 Women’s Sunday was a special edition, with the guaranteed prize pool being increased to $15,000 – more than double the usual amount. In addition, each player received an $11 PokerStars Women PCA satellite ticket.

By the time registration closed the guarantee had been smashed, as 463 players entered to build a $23,150 prize pool. The eventual winner was luzzzy from Germany, who won her second Women’s Sunday title (having taken the tournament down in March). This time she pocketed $4,375.51 in the largest Women’s Sunday to date. She beat regular EPT circuit pro Melanie ‘Callisto 5’ Weisner heads-up.

A full report of the tournament can be found on the PokerStars Blog.