Welcome to Los Angeles for the World Poker Tour

Update - 18:40

That's it for Team Everest at the LA Poker Classic.

Kim went out short stacked 88 vs KQ. Her opponent caught a straight that knocked Kim out of the tournament in level 5.

Update - 19:80

Fabrice is out.

With a short stack he went all in 66 against AK. An Ace came on the board and there was no saving him from there. There are still over 500 players left in the tournament.

Update - 17:25

We're at level 4, blinds are at 100/200 and the average chip stack is 22000.

Everest Poker's Fabrice Soulier has seen some action this level.

Fabrice, with 4,5 suited, called his opponent's raise of 550. The flop comes J45. His opponent continuation bets 550 and Fabrice minimum raises 1100. The other player calls. The turn is a 10, his opponent checks and Fabrice bets 1200. The opponent raises to 3000 and Fabrice calls. The river shows a 4, the other player bets 4000, Fabrice with 5500 left, calls. His opponent shows a pair of jacks and Fabrice loses the pot.

A few hands later Fabrice, with only 1500, pushes with KQ and is called by Erica Schoneberg with AQ. There is a King on the flop and with no help for Erica, Fabrice wins the pot bringing himself back up to 4,000

Kim is doing slightly better with 10000.

We've got some work to do. Go go go Team Everest!

Update - 15:45

An interesting bet...off the table

The buzz around the tournament today is about a bet between well known players Joe Sebok, Gavin Smith and Jeff Madsen. The guys have agreed the first to bust out of the tournament today will get a tattoo of each of the other guys' faces somewhere on his body. The second guy to bust out will get a tattoo of the guy still in. The last guy in will get nothing but the pleasure of knowing his face will be permanently tattooed on the body of not one but two of his friends.

Level 2: 50-100,

Update - 14:30

We're up to level 2 and have seen more familiar faces!

The field has grown since level 1, we're up to 703 players. You'll find many pros scattered throughout the 70+ tables such as Daniel Negreanu, Jennifer Tilly and Peter Eastgate. Everest Poker's own Kim Wooka has found herself up against Eric Seidel.

Right now, Fabrice and Kim are still in the running to get a piece of 6.75 million dollar prize pool. Fabrice is right around average with 22,000 and Kim is still with her starting stack of 20,000.

Start of day - 12:00

We're here in sunny Los Angeles, California for the World Poker Tour's LA Poker Classic.

We've traveled across the pond to play at the Commerce Casino, home to the world's largest poker room. The field of over 660 hopeful players is full of many familiar faces including Eric Seidel, Scotty Nguyen and Team Everest's very own Fabrice Soulier from France and Kim Wooka from Japan.

Players are starting level 1 today with 20,000 chips, 90 minute levels and blinds of 25/50.

Stay tuned for the action!

EPT Copenhagen, Francesco Heads Up!!!

It's been a great run. The Live the Dream Team's newest member, Francesco De Vivo, finished 2nd the EPT Copenhagen, taking home €303,000 ($411,000). After a three and a half hours of heads-up play, where Francesco reaches a chip lead of almost 9 to 1, he lost an incredible series of showdowns while his opponent caught many big starting hands and flops, and managed to get back into the game and finally seal the victory.

Francesco says he is not a heads-up specialist. "I won a lucky showdown, that's true, but my opponent got an incredible rush of good hands, so I think we were equal on the luck factor. Pity i did not win that showdown when he was so short-stacked! But this second place is a dream for any poker player and I don't want to recriminate anything."

"On top of that, it encourages me to do even better in the future. For me that's just the beginning. It was my first tournament as an Everest Poker sponsored player: I was very proud to wear the Everest Poker logo and I'm sure Everest Poker is now proud of me."

__________________________

EPT Copenhagen, we're heads up!! Francesco 6,6 million in chips, his opponent the Swede Anton Wigg 6,4 million in chips.
The winner will get the trophy and 3,675,000 DKK which are around 667,000 USD.

Go Francesco, stick that Everest Poker logo on the trophyyyyyyy!!!!
Update 23.00 Francesco slides to 4,5k
FINAL UPDATE 1.15 FRANCESCO DE VIVO IS THE RUNNER-UP AT THE EPT COPENHAGEN

EPT Copenhagen, Francesco aims for the victory

Francesco De Vivo, our Live The Dream Team player, has the chance to win EPT Copenhagen today. He is playing the final table with 8 players remaining.
He just lost a pot against Roberto Romanello and he's down to 1.5 million.
But he's there. And we root for him
Update 18.00 Five players left, Francesco 1.7M and suffering
Update 19.00 FRANCESCO DOUBLES UP AND KNOCKS ONE PLAYER OUT. 4 left, Francesco 2,9M
Update 19.30 3 PLAYERS LEFT! Francesco 2,5M
Update 20.00 FRANCESCO DOUBLES UP AGAIN TO 6,1M, CHIPLEADER AGAIN!!!!!

EPT Copenagen. Francesco, it's Final Table!

This is how 2,3 Million chips look like! Francesco is going to the Final Table of this Ept Copenhagen with the second position in chips.
Nine players left. One more elimination and we'll be back tomorrow.

All Italy and all Everest Poker root for Francesco. Look for Francesco's profile on Facebook and check his brand new blog at www.francescodevivo.it (in Italian).

Update 22.30 Day4 is over. Francesco chipleader at the Final Table

Still 9 players but Thomas Kremser called the day off. Francesco is chipleader. Glorious day.
Nothing else to add.

Copenhagen Day4: Road to the Final Table

18 players left! Francesco is still in!!! 279k.
Let's go!
Update 17.00 14 players left, Francesco 610k!!!

Francesco climbs! First he doubles up with a lucky hand. He pushes with Eights, gets called by Aces and he spikes an Eight on the flop.
On the very next hand and against the same player, he calls an All-in bet with Kings. The opponent has A4. Nice smooth board for Francesco.
Then he pushed all in again against the raise of the chipleader Roberto Romanello, who eventually folded.
So now he's back on track with a decent stack. The final table looks close!
Update 17.15 DOUBLE UP!!!! 1,2 MILLION!!!!

Update 19.00 FRANCESCO LIVES THE DREAM.... 2nd CHIPLEADER WITH 2 MILLION

Copenhagen Day3 with Thomas and Francesco: let's get into the money!

Tables redrawn. Francesco, despite his extremely short stack, is not the shortest at his table. He has a good opportunity to double up! Thomas, on the other side, is the chipleader at his table and he's in the 8th position on the overall chipcount.

1 Christian Jorgensen Denmark 41800
2 Francesco De Vivo Italy 46300
3 Mads Wissing Denmark 217400
4 Nicolo Calia Italy 247600
5 James Bowey UK 176900
6 Morten Klein Norway 40300
7 Yngve Hella Steen Norway 76400

1 Thomas Quaade Denmark 66200
2 Luca Cainelli Italy 35900
3 Tommy Dender Denmark 24700
4 Damien Fouquet France 181000
5 Gijsbert Pieter Netherlands 160000
6 Magnus Borg Hansen Denmark 205100
7 Thomas Froslev Denmark 306400
8 Yorane Kerignard France 200700

Update 15.00 Francesco triples up

Francesco just tripled up! A short UTG player pushed all-in, Francesco called and the player next to him repushed. We had a three-way showdown, with the first player showing AJ, Francesco a pair of sevens and the third guy AQ. The board came 5 rags and Francesco now is back to 97k.

Thomas is steadily over 300k.

Update 18.30 We're in the money! And Francesco triples up again!!

Thomas and Francesco are in the money here in Copenhagen! After a 2-hour long bubble, with Francesco extremely short stacked, we finally have a bubble boy and our players can cheer!

Half an hour later Francesco triples up again: two short stack players push ahead of him while he's on the big blind and he spikes Queens. He makes the call. The showdown is A8 A3 for the two short stacks. No ace on the board and Francesco climbs to 190k. What a ride!!

On the other side, Thomas is apparently cruising through Day3 effortlessly. He's sitting with over 460k when the average is 264k.

Good job guys!

Update 21.30 Bad news: Thomas is out

Thomas is out in 29th position. Our danish Live the Dream Team member played excellent poker and climbed to over 500k, busting notable players such as Juha Hellpi. He lost most of his stack with a very unlucky hand: KK vs AJs. The french guy with AJ hit a straight on the river.

Francesco is still in. He was back on the ropes again, with less than 90k, that is 8 big blinds and he was the shortest stack in the tournament. Then he won three hands uncontested in a row and finally doubled up against the two chipleaders, Roberto Romanello and Andrew Tang.
Roberto raised to 40k, Andrew called and Francesco pushed his remaining 120k. Roberto folded, Andrew called showing QT. Francesco had a good pair of Queens. Now Francesco is up to 280k.

Update 22.15 Day 3 is over, 24 left, Francesco is in!!
Francesco finishes Day3 with 269k. He's still below average but tomorrow he has the chance to play at the TV table of this EPT Copenhagen. Great achievement for his first tournament as a sponsored player!
"It was a very strange day indeed"- says Francesco. "I had to play the waiting game because I've been card dead for most of the day and I started very short stacked. When the cards came my way I won two 3-way showdowns. But I have to say I was ahead pre-flop both times. And then I won the last double up with QQ against QT, so way ahead again.
Now the next goal is the final table!".

Day2 in Copenhagen with 3 players above average

All our Everest Poker players are doing well here in Copenhagen and will start Day2 with above average stacks.
Cristiano Blanco leads the team with 88k, followed by Thomas with 67k and Francesco with 55k.

Tables has been redrawn. This is Cristiano's table. Notable names are Csaba Toth, runner up at the Budapest Open 2009 and Richard Larsen, runner up at the Olympic Open Championships 2009 in Riga.

Jeffrey Sharpe UK 23.500
Richard Larsen Norway  25.300
Csaba Toth Hungary  87.200
Erik Tamm Sweden 75.900
Marcus Moberg Sweden  27.500
Simon Nybo Denmark 65.500

Update 19.00 Cris out, Thomas 190k, Francesco 75k

No luck for Cris today. He just busted after an all-in preflop showdown holding Queens against opponent's Kings.
Thomas is doing great and he has a big stack of over 180k.
Francesco went down to 26k before winning 4hands in a row uncontested and on the 5th doubling up with Kings. now is back in business with 75k.

Update 23.00 Two players on Day3, Thomas with a big stack, Francesco with big hopes
It's the end of Day3 here in Copenhagen. We lost Cristiano along the way, Francesco -card dead- managed to finish the day, although with a very short stack, and Thomas climbed into thin air and closed with over 300k.
The key hand for Thomas happened when he had pocket Aces, he bet on a somewhat dry flop of low cards and his opponent pushed all in for over 120k. Thomas called and his opponent flipped a KQ, drawing almost dead. No miracle cards on turn and river and Thomas doubled up.
We have 79 players left, 56 places are paid.
Let's see tomorrow if Francesco will manage to win a couple of showdowns and get his first EPT check as a sponsored player!
Play will resume at 2pm CET.

EPT Copenhagen, Francesco in action

Day 1B of the EPT Nordic Open here in Copenhagen. It's debut day for Francesco De Vivo, our new Italian Live The Dream Team member. Level 4 has just begun and Francesco is sitting with a 23k stack. He lost a big pot holding flush against full house. But he's very determined to win back some chips and join Cristiano and Thomas tomorrow on Day 2.

Update 21.00 Francesco climbs to 70k
Francesco played solid poker for the first five levels of the day. Then he found himself in a perfect spot to double up with TT on a T54 flop against Tristan Clemencon. The turn card is another 5. On the river, an influential 9, the french bets 7.000, Francesco pushes and Clemencon calls with his remaining 17k showing 53 for trip fives. Not enough against Francesco's full house.
Now Francesco sits with a nice 70k stack with 2 levels to go.
Update 1.00 See you tomorrow, Francesco!
Francesco De Vivo finishes the day with 55,2k, slightly over average. Well done!

Follow Cristiano, Thomas and Francesco battling in Copenhagen! It's Day1a of the European Poker Tour by Poker stars

Day1A of EPT Copenhagen has just begun. Cristiano Blanco, with the new Live The Dream Team members, the "local" Thomas Froslev from Denmark and fellow Italian Francesco De Vivo, will do their best to top the legendary aggressive Nordic competition.

Cristiano and Thomas are playing today. Francesco opted for an extra day of rest and he's going to play tomorrow on Day1B. We will see a lot of poker going on in the next few days here in the snowy Danish capital. We'll keep you updated!
Best of luck to Cristiano, Thomas and Francesco!

Update 17.00. Cristiano takes a hit, Thomas slides

Cristiano was playing solid and he had a 33k stack until this hand happened:
Cris raised 500 from UTG+1, SB re-raises to 2000, Cris calls. Flop comes Ad 7h 7c.
SB bets 2550, Cris calls.
Turn is 9s. Both players check.
River is Qs. SB bets 8000 and Cris calls.
Blanco shows a pair of 9s for a boat. But SB shows Queens for a very luckily rivered higher flush. Kudos to Cris: he cut the losses to the absolutely minimum. He's down to 23k.

Thomas told us that he lost 5 pots at the river. "I got very good starting hands but I never improved while my opponents did along the way". He's also down to 20k.

Update 20.30 Cris, nice quads!

Cris is back to 35k. Holding A9, he catches a nice flop that reads AAA! It's usually very hard to extract some money in this situation, but an opponent was holding poker Jacks and he could not believe that Cris had the case Ace. After some action the pot soared to 15k and it was shipped to Cris.

Final Update 01.00 Cris and Thomas sail safely to Day2

Cris and Thomas will be back on Thursday to play the Day2 of this EPT Nordic Open. The "Italian Stallion" leads the Italian chipcount with a wealthy 88k, while our local hero Thomas Froslev finishes with a very respectable 67k.
Cristiano managed to double up with AA when his stack was about 37k against a player who tried to squeeze pre-flop with 44 and an all-in bet. Cris obviously called and climbed among the chipleaders of the day.

European Poker Awards - Antoine Saout voted rookie of the year

After his double rewards last month at The France Poker Awards, Antoine Saout was again nominated three times for the European Poker Awards which were presented last Friday at the Aviation Club de France, outside of the prestigious EFOP tournament.

The player of Team Everest Poker Pro, Antoine Saout, was nominated in the following categories: Player of the Year, Best Performance and Rookie of the year.

After a memorable evening with the cream of the poker world, here are the results:

- BEST PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Vitaly LUNKIN – Russia - (Winner of the tournament anniversary of WSOP $ 40 000 and 4 other cashes at the WSOP.)

- EUROPE’S LEADING LADY: Sandra Naujoks – Germany - (Winner of the EPT Dortmund.)

- ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: For the most promising newcomer. Antoine SAOUT – French - (Despite his short experience, he finished 3rd in the WSOP championship.)

- OUTSTANDING TOURNAMENT PERFORMANCE: Jeff LISANDRO - Italy/Australia – He won 3 WSOP bracelets.

- CASINO STAFF PERSON OF THE YEAR: Edgar Stuchly – Austria - (he is the man behind the popular "Casinos Austria Poker Tour.")

- ROB GARDNER AWARD FOR INNOVATION: Eddie Hearn – England - (For their innovative TV poker programmes.)

- BEST INTERNET PLAYER: Patrick Antonius – Finland - High stakes superstar, the first man to take on the durrrr challenge, one of the biggest cash game winners online year in year out and won the biggest online pot of all time this year ($1.35 million).

- LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: Bruno Fitoussi – French -

Breaking News: Francesco De Vivo joins the Live the Dream Team!

In an unexpected twist, 2008 Italian Championship winner Francesco De Vivo (raffa.de) has been awarded a $100,000 sponsorship with the Everest Poker Live the Dream Team. Francesco was one of the Top 21 finalists in the Live the Dream casting last month in Vienna, where Everest Poker awarded 10 year-long contracts worth $100,000 each. German player Ronny Pickard pulled out of the final selection for personal reasons and Francesco was selected by the jury to be the tenth member.

"Being a poker player, I have learned to accept defeat. But the elimination from Live The Dream was still burning," Francesco says. "Everything was so well organized and the ceremony was so emotional that all I wanted was a place in the Team. With this unexpected change, I’m back on cloud nine and I want to pay off the trust that Everest Poker is showing to me with my results and my work."

Marco Trucco, Everest Poker's Italian PR & Events Coordinator, was thrilled to give Francesco the good news. "Francesco has an outstanding poker career. On top of that, he’s the kind of easy-going and articulated guy to perfectly represent Everest Poker in Italy and abroad."

Two years ago, the 39-year-old Turin resident left his career in real estate to pursue poker full time. He has since become one of the most well-respected and recognized players on the Italian circuit. In 2008, Francesco both won the title of Italian Champion and the overall Italian Championship leaderboard, as well as cashing in his very first WSOP Main Event. As a member of the 2010 Live the Dream Team, Francesco's will compete in even more of the world's biggest tournaments while representing the online poker room he has been a loyal player of since 2006.

Fabien Perrot — Three Weeks Later

France's Fabien Perrot (Schumyfab) has been enjoying every single moment since making the 2010 Live the Dream Team. "The dream started that Sunday and I have not left it yet!"

"I have been congratulated by most of my friends and keep answering their questions. It's such a great feeling to have to talk about poker all day long!"

As one of the 10 Everest Poker players to receive a year-long sponsorship worth $100,000, Fabien will definitely be talking more about poker for many days yet to come. Along with fellow French teammates Julien Claudepierre and Leo Truche, Fabien has already been featured on the French PokerNews.

Fabien rejoined his fellow Live the Dream Teammates Viktoria Szilasi, Koen de Bakker, Javier Martinez, and Sigurd Eskeland in Deauville for his first international live tournament as an sponsored player. Although he did not finish in the money in Deauville, Fabien still played deep into Day 2 amongst a very competitive field.

Not bad for a guy in one of his first major live events.