James Mitchell Wins PaddyPowerPoker.com Irish Open

James Mitchell of London has brought the PaddyPowerPoker.com Irish Open 2010 title back to England, along with €600,000 for first prize.

The 20 year old defeated a field of 707 opponents that included Dan Harrington, Brian Townsend, Kara Scott, Christer Johansson and 2008 Champion Neil Channing, defeating Paul Carr in the heads up.

In the final hand, Mitchell min-raised with A-8 in the small blind and Carr called. Carr checked the J-J-8 board and Mitchell bet 205,000. Carr pushed all-in. Within seconds Mitchell called…

Kara Scott confirmed as new presenter on High Stakes Poker

We recently reported that Kara Scott was rumoured to be joining High Stakes Poker as Gabe Kaplan’s new co-host. The UK/Canadian poker player and TV presenter has now been confirmed as AJ Benza’s replacement on the show.

Scott, who hosted the EPT in 2007 and 2008, will be acting as an on-screen hostess conducting interviews about strategy and table dynamics leaving Gabe Kaplan to commentate on his own. The sixth season of High Stakes Poker will follow the same format as Poker After Dark, which is produced by the same company.

GSN’s High Stakes Poker will feature a minimum cash buy-in of $200,000. It will showcase some of the best poker players in the world including Patrik Antonius, David Benyamine, Doyle Brunson, Tom Dwan, Eli Elezra, Antonio Esfandiari, Sammy George, Barry Greenstein, Phil Hellmuth, Andreas Hoivold, Phil Ivey, Mike Matusow, Allan Meltzer, Daniel Negreanu, Dennis Phillips, Lex Veldhuis and Yevgeniy Timoshenko.

The show is due to air in February 2010.

Andrew Feldman to play Season Six of High Stakes Poker

Full Tilt Poker Pro, Andrew Feldman, has confirmed that he will be playing on season six of GSN’s poker cash game, High Stakes Poker. The show, which is considered to be the best televised poker show ever, will be filmed in November and aired on GSN in February next year. Gabe Kaplan will be joined by a mystery co-host rumoured to be Kara Scott. Previous co-host AJ Benza worked on the show for the first five seasons before being axed.

Feldman, the first UK player to ever appear on the show said, “Apparently I was recommended to the producer by none other than Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan. Maybe he thinks I’m good value, maybe he thinks I’ll give action…I hope it’s the latter. Last month I played the Full Tilt Million Dollar cash game, but this is going to be just as tough if not tougher!”

Phil Hellmuth, Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan and Dennis Phillips have also confirmed that they will be playing on High Stakes Poker.

During season five of High Stakes Poker, Tom Dwan and Barry Greenstein played out the biggest ever televised pot worth a staggering $919,000. No doubt Andrew Feldman is looking forward to getting involved in the action this season!

Kara Scott to replace AJ Benza on High Stakes Poker?

Despite Kara Scott’s work with Matchroom Poker, there are rumours that she is going to replace AJ Benza for season six of the highly popular cash game program, High Stakes Poker. PokerStars have confirmed that they will be sponsoring the show. GSN announced that Benza, who hosted the show for the first five seasons, would not be returning to co-host the show alongside Gabe Kaplan.

The new presenter of the show should have been announced by now but GSN are a couple of weeks away from confirming a replacement host. We know that the replacement will be female after Benza revealed that he was being replaced by a ‘chick’ on his blog.

Big Names to attend Poker in the Park III

This year’s Poker in the Park event, which has been organised by Bluff Europe, is due to take place on August 13th from 5pm in Leicester Square, London. A variety of big names have already confirmed their arrival for the third year of the unique two-day event.

Editor-In-Chief for Bluff Europe, Michael Caselli said, “Bluff Europe has continued to have great relationships with many of the top poker pros in Europe. We’re really pleased to welcome a few new stars to Poker in the Park as well as welcome back the pros that joined us last year. Combined, the breath of their poker knowledge is priceless.”

WSOP Day 2A: Jamie Brown tops UK Chip Count

Yesterday we reported that 172 players from the UK had made it through to Day 2 of the World Series of Poker Main Event. Out of the 630 runners that have completed Day 2A of the event, 34 of those are Brits.

Jamie Brown is leading the way for the UK with 360,400 chips followed by Daniel Carter with 239,900 and Joey Lovelady with 226,800. Kara Scott, Michael Greco, Julian Gardner, Steve Jelinek and Roland De Wolfe are some of the notables left in the tournament.

Jason Brennan wins Party Poker Sports Star Challenge IV

Jason Brennan, an unemployed road builder, has won a much needed £27,000 by becoming the fourth PartyPoker.com Sports Star Challenge champion. The 34 year old Londoner qualified for the Darts heat of the competition after overcoming 140,000 other players in various online freerolls.

Brennan was joined on the final table by Jean Van de Velde, Paresh Patel, Thomas Helmer, Henry Paul, Scott O’Reilly and Irish boxing legend Dave “Boy” McAuley.

Christer Johansson wins €600,000 first prize at the paddypowerpoker.com Irish Open.

Christer Johansson today won the paddypowerpoker.com Irish Open, winning a first prize of €600,000. The 39-year old Swede is a well-known online cash game specialist who plays under the handle ‘sendmemore’. Johansson triumphed over a professional-heavy field of 700 players, including such stars as Dan Harrington, Jamie Gold, Phil Laak, Marty Smyth, Ciaran O’Leary and Neil Channing.

TV presenter and former model Kara Scott finished in second place, taking home €312,600, with Andrew Pantling receiving €205,200 for third place and Antanas Gueorguiev winning €163,300 for finishing fourth. Lee Brooke-Pearce (€130,600), William Kassouf (€100,800), Bradley Verburg (€74,600), Andy Bradley (€56,000) and Irishman Philip Baker (€37,400) finished in fifth through ninth places respectively.

Sixteenth place finisher Marcel Koch became paddypowerpoker.com’s €100,000 Sole Survivor by outlasting more than one hundred other paddypower.com online qualifiers, winning a prize package worth €100,000.

The tournament began on Friday, April 10th and featured a total prizepool of €2,240,000. The buy-in for the tournament was €3,500 and 72 players made the money. A live webcast and comprehensive updates were available throughout the weekend on the official Irish Open blog, with the tournament scheduled for broadcast on TG4 (Ireland) and ITV4 (UK) during May and June.

Final Table in the Irish Open

We are down to the final 8 players in the Irish open, play stopped at 23.00 last night with the  remaining 8 due to return at 14.00 today. Sky Poker presenter Kara Scott is still well in with a shout, and has been the only lady left in the tournament for some time.

( seats and chips )

Seat 1. Lee Brooke-Pearce 998,000

Seat 2. Andrew Pantling 2,286,000

Seat 3. Andrew Bradshaw 351,000

Seat 4. Kara Scott  701,000

Seat 5. William Kassouf  569,000

Seat 6. Bradley Verberg 217,000

Seat 7. Christer Johansson 906,000

Seat 8. Atanas Gueorguiv 990,000.

Although the main event had concluded for the day, the €1,500 side event was well under way with the top prize of €98,000, the likes of  (Mad ) Marty Wilson, Julian Thew, Dave Colclough and Neil Channing were all there trying to get 1 of the top 24 places being paid.