Premier League Poker Thinks Happy Schwartz

The PartyPoker Premier League tournament has completed in Las Vegas with David Benyamine being crowned the overall winner. The payouts for the final table were a combination of the final position attained by the players and the amount of league points gained during the competition. British online poker star Luke “Fullflush” Schwartz came second overall in a very credible performance for him on the big stage.

Pick any three poker players who have heard of Luke and two will probably dislike him and the third will probably dislike but respect him. He evokes emotions but he is definitely a great poker player. The $258,000 and the prestige that this will give him in the poker world may go some way to repairing an image tarnished by clashes with airport crew, being barred from casinos and making personal remarks when playing poker online that have caused the poker world to dislike him so much.

The big story of the tournament was Giovanni Safina who won his seat into the tournament via a 100 Euro ticket. The $158,000 will be an amazing amount of money for him. We all love seeing players have a great run like this, one day we hope it is us getting the big win! Safina was determined to enjoy his run to the final table and gave as good as he got in various verbal exchanges with the ever loud Schwartz. His third place is very credible in such a quality field.

Benyamine and Schwartz entered the heads up battle with Luke holding a large chip lead. After losing an all-in confrontation it appeared that Schwartz, according to pokernews live updates, went up to Benyamine and offered him a deal. This was quickly declined by Benyamine who rightly sensed the tide had turned in his favour and he had a good chance to win. Given the high stakes games David frequents it is unlikely he would ever want a chop in any situation.

Holding Q2 Schwartz raised it pre-flop and was called by David Benyamine holding Q8. Schwartz made a continuation bet and was raised by Benyamine. Luke shoved for about $280,000 more with about 500,000 in the pot and after some thought David called. Luke complained about a slow roll, but his hopes of a reprieve by the poker gods were in vain when the board blanked and the title belonged to the popular Frenchman. David said he was not used to picking up titles, but it felt good. Luke said he felt he had played the best throughout the week and next time he would take down a big title. He just might too.

Congratulations to British player Roland De Wolfe who enjoyed another good week picking up $114,000 for a fifth place finish in this event, which is promoted by Matchroom Sports.

Here are the final payouts and league positions.

Final Table result and total prize money (one league point equals $2,000 in prize money)

1 David Benyamine $476,000 (38 points)
2 Luke Schwartz $258,000 (29 points)
3 Giovanni Safina $158,000 (29 points)
4 Daniel Negreanu $132,000 (26 points)
5 Roland De Wolfe $114,000 (22 points)
6 Phil Laak $146,000 (48 points)
Beaten heads-up players:
Ian Frazer $52,000 (fifth spot with 26 points)
JC Tran $40,000 (eight spot with 20 points)

The following players failed to qualify for the final table:

9 Phil Hellmuth $38,000 (19 points)
10 Yevgeniy Timoshenko $32,000 (16 points)
11 Vanessa Rousso $32,000 (16 points)
12 Tony G $22,000 (11 points)

By Malcolm Clarke

Popularity: 1% [?]

Related posts:

1. World Poker Tour World Championship 2010 Results The 2010 WPT World Champion of Poker is David Williams....
2. James Akenhead wins Poker Million VIII When will this young poker player realise that he does...
3. 48 Hour Big Poker Game Live in Review Matchroom sports recently gathered together a collection of high stakes...
4. Poker News Snippets February 2010 There is always plenty of poker news flying around the...
5. Isildur1 to Unmask Himself……Possibly! The online poker phenomenon Isildur1 has agreed to be unmasked...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Tags: david benyamine, giovanni safina, luke schwartz, matchroom sports, online poker, poker tournament, premier league, roland de wolfe