With the European Poker Tour (EPT) stop in Copenhagen in play and the crème of Scandinavian poker in the house, PokerStars announced the Nordic Poker Awards prior to the start of the Championship Event on Tuesday. On Monday night, four awards for performance in the poker world in 2009 were up for grabs for players from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. By the end of the festivities in the Park Café Nightclub in Copenhagen, Finland would be the big winner.
Of the four awards – Best Live Tournament Player, Best Online Player, Rookie of the Year, and Best Performance of 2009 – three went to Finnish players. 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) $10,000 Mixed Event champion Ville Wahlbeck captured two of the awards (Best Live Tournament Player and Best Performance).
For the two awards, Wahlbeck had to face down threats from 2008 WSOP Main Event winner Peter Eastgate and Norwegian Dag Martin Mikkelsen. Despite the achievements of both players and other competitors such as Sweden’s Kristoffer “Sumpas” Thorsson and Erik Sagström, Wahlbeck’s WSOP performance – where he cashed six times, including four final tables and a bracelet win – pushed him over the top with the voters. Wahlbeck, who said during the proceedings that the grind of the WSOP had kept him out of much of the other action during the 2009 calendar year, added that he will be back in the tournament scene later in 2010.
The two awards taken by Wahlbeck weren’t the last ones that Finland would take home. Due to his outstanding online play, Full Tilt Poker’s Patrik Antonius was named the Outstanding Online Player of the Year. Antonius wasn’t present to claim his award, which was accepted by Wahlbeck in his absence. He defeated Jesper “Kipster” Hougaard of Denmark, Stephan “stephank” Kjerstad of Norway, and Thorsson to capture the prize.
Finland was looking to sweep the awards, but Thorsson put an end to the Finnish domination of the Nordic Poker Awards. “Sumpas” had achievements in 2009 that included a win in the High Roller event during the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) and a victory at the Master Classics of Poker in Amsterdam. With those accomplishments in both the live and online poker worlds, Thorsson was able to defeat Denmark’s Mickey ‘Mement_Mori’ Petersen, Finland’s Jens Kyllönen, and Norway’s Martin Gudvangen for the prestigious Rookie of the Year award.
With the completion of the Nordic Poker Awards on Monday night, the EPT Copenhagen Main Event kicked off action on Tuesday with the first of two Day One starts. Four Team PokerStars members – Arnaud Mattern, Dario Minieri, Johnny Lodden, and Ruben Visser – were part of the 191-player field that started the day. By the end of action on Tuesday night, only 113 players remained, with Canada’s Andrew Pantling leading the Day One starters with 155,800 in chips.
Day 1B of the EPT Copenhagen Main Event is currently underway with one of last year’s most outstanding players making quite a bit of noise. Team PokerStars pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier is a part of the action and currently seems to be making a move at Pantling on the leaderboard. Other PokerStars pros who are on the felt during Day 1B include Eastgate, Thorson, Luca Pagano, Noah Boeken, and Sebastian Ruthenberg. The final numbers are not in yet, but the field looks to be over 400 players, but slightly down from last year’s 462 combatants.
