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ESPN to Broadcast the 2009 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event

ESPN announced their plans on February 4th, 2010 to air eight hours of coverage of the 2009 WSOP (world series of poker) Europe Main Event. ESPN will broadcast the show every Sunday, with the first three hour-long episodes scheduled to be shown on February 7th, 2010 at 10:00 p.m. EST and the rest on February 14th, 2010 and February 28th, 2010.

Lon MacEachern and Norman Chad will call the poker action whule HSP's (High Stakes Poker) Kara Scott handles the sideline reporting duties. Considered one of the elite no-limit hold'em poker tournament fields of the year, the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event unfolded last October 2009 at the Empire Casino in London.

During the first night of TV coverage, the featured poker table is filled with the finest poker players including Andy Bloch, Mike Matusow, Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius and features a face-off between legendary poker pro Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth. ESPN's World Series of Poker Europe coverage kicked off on January 31st, 2010 with the broadcast premier of the first ever Caeasar's Cup, a structured team competition that pitted Team Europe against Team Americas.

Poker pro Daniel Negreanu captained the Team Americas which are composed of poker players like Doyle Brunson, Barry Greenstein, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Huck Seed, Jennifer Harman and Phil Hellmuth.

2007 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event champion Annette Obrestad lead Team Europe that are composed of Gus Hansen, Peter Eastgate, Patrik Antonius, Dario Minieri, Ilari "Ziigmund" Sahamies, Betrand "ElkY" Grospellier and online poker qualifier John Harvey. The Caesar's Cup featured a best-of-seven format, leading off with four "doubles" rounds.

Each team pick a pair of players to compete in a heads-up showdown. They shared a chip stack but alternately played one each street-one poker player would take the pre-flop action, the partner would manage the betting on the flop, the first poker player would check or wager the turn, and the action returned to the second poker player on the river.

If necessary, game play would then shift on to a series of three standard heads-up matches. Team Europe took a 2-0 lead in the doubles matches. Patrik Antonius and Ilari Sahamies outwitted Phil Ivey and Huck Seed and Betrand Grospellier and John Harvey defeated Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu.

Although Team Americas came back when Jennifer Harman and Doyle Brunson defeated Annette Obrestad and Dario Minieri, John Juanda and Barry Greenstein fell to Peter Eastgate and Gus Hansen to make it a 3-1 lead for Team Europe.

02/24/2010, Wednesday
Matthew Dorst

ESPN to Broadcast the 2009 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event

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