Top News – Habernig Wins LAPT Brazil, Boeree Leaves UB

Last week in poker was full of action – the first major live poker event after the end of the World Series took place in Florianopolis, Brazil and it was Matthias Habernig from Austria who snatched the chip lead at the start of the tournament and held on to it until the end to swoop his first LAPT title and the $250K cash prize.

The panel of online poker experts have released a new edition of “The Nuts” – the list of this month's top 10 poker players and guess who's leading? The “Iron Maiden” Liv Boeree is rumored to split ways with UB.com and the world's largest online poker site PokerStars have introduced some new software updates that should enhance your online poker gaming experience. Check out all of this and more in this week's Top News edition here at OnlinePoker10.

Olivia Parts Ways with UB

She's definitely one of the hottest and one of the best female poker players around, she's won the EPT Main Event in San Remo earlier this year and now she's rumored to leave her long time sponsors Ultimate Bet. Liv “The Iron Maiden” Boeree from London, UK has been recently spotted not wearing any of the UB gear and if that's not enough, she's been removed from the Team Ultimate Bet page at UB.com.

You don't have to be a genius to realize that it won't take long for Liv – one of the top female poker players – to find a new sponsor. Her stocks after her EPT win and appearance on Channel 4 for are as high as never before and it's expected that Liv will very soon sign a new contract with one of the major online poker rooms. Which one? We'll just have to wait and see.

Better PokerStars

And talking about online poker rooms – PokerSatars have recently updated their poker client and added some new features. Stars' players have already noticed the PokerStars Update window that welcomes everyone who launches the room for the first time.

The first nice new thing on Stars is the focus management feature. It allows you to manage your tournament notifications like the new window popping out in front of you with the start of a new tournament. Now, it won't turn up until it's your turn to act. Another update that will help you not to be disturbed is the message telling that “You have been moved to another table” which will now only appear on the table.

Another news is the game of Triple Stud – a rotation of Stud Hi, Razz, and Stud Hi/Lo, incremental time bank, updated Player Notes feature, the VPIP Column and a bunch of other stuff. To learn more about all the latest PokerStars updates visit the PokerStars web page.

If you're not sure what we're talking about because you have never played online poker on Stars before you should not hesitate and download PokerStars now, because you will not only have the chance to try out all the new features, but will also get to play OnlinePoker10's very own $10,000 WCOOP freeroll!

Top 10 Best

Because here at OnlinePoker10 we just love everything that's best in poker and especially the things that come in Top 10 packages, ESPN Poker's The Nuts is our favorite list of Top 10 poker players. And last week they've released a new post-WSOP listing of the best players in the field at the moment with the most notable change, of course, being The Grinder's jump from the #10 spot to #2.

The group of poker experts, writers and editors of some major poker magazines and online poker resources including PokerNews' Editor-in-Chief Matthew Parvis, PokerNews' Tournament Reporting Manager Don Peters, ESPN's Andrew Feldman, Gary Wise, and Bernard Lee, Bluff Magazine's Editor-in-Chief Lance Bradley and Bluff Magazine's senior writer Jessica Welman, PokerRoad's Court Harrington, and ESPN Deportes poker editor Nahuel Ponce have once again come up with the list of best 10 poker players.

The Nuts' top spot is threatened by one or another player each time, but the long-time 1st place holder Phil Ivey seems to have occupied it for good. Jason Mercier and Tom Dwan are permanent contenders for the top spot, but this time both of them were left behind not only by Ivey, but also by this summer's WSOP star – Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi. The winner of $50,000 Players' Championship and the Main Event final tableist has made a major jump in the top 10 by going from the bottom (10) to the second-best and if he continues the run in the upcoming months and especially in November, Ivey will have to do his best to keep the 1st place.

The other changes in The Nuts includes two newcomers – John Juanda and Alexander Kostritsyn occupying 7th and 10th places respectively and “Kid Poker” Daniel Negreanu along with Scott Seiver leaving the top 10.

And here are the full rankings of The Nuts for August:

Player (#1 votes)                 Rank (last month)

Phil Ivey (9)                         1 (1)
Michael Mizrachi                   2 (10)
Tom Dwan                           3 (3)
Jason Mercier                      4 (2)
Daniel Alaei                         5 (9)
Eric Baldwin                         6 (4)
John Juanda                        7 (NR)
Patric Antonious                  8 (6)
Sorel Mizzi                           9 (5)
Alexander Kostritsyn           10 (NR)

You can also find the listings at the ESPN Poker page along with Andrew Feldman's comments.

LAPT Brazil – Habernig Victorious

And last but not least is the news from the first major live poker event after the end of the WSOP – the Latin American Poker Tour event in Florianopolis, Brazil. Last week 364 players have joined the LAPT action, but after 4 day of play there was only one man standing – Matthias Habernig. A young Austrian who won his seat online was the unquestionable chip leader all the way through the tournament and took the title with almost no competition.

At the start of the final table Habernig had nearly half of the chips in play and almost four times more than his closest opponent. 6 of the 8 final table players were locals, but none of them were able to beat the European youngster who after four and a half hours of final table play won $247,441 in cash by beating his last opponent – Dayan Vardanega.

The first hour of play saw three players hit the rail – Rudy Blondeau went first and was followed by Rodrigo Scartezini and Andre Luiz Scaff. Although after some time things got a little slower, it wasn't long before another two – Miguel Velasco and Robson Vinicious Kozan went out. As it came down to just three players, one man to be left out of the heads-up battle was Alexandre Richard Martins who was sent out by Habernig himself.

As the one-on-one play began Habernig had a 4 to 1 chip lead against Dayan Vandanega. However, the Brazilian was not ready to give up just yet and even managed to take the lead half way through the game. But despite Vandanega's efforts it was all Habernig's game. After the break he came back and took back the chip lead and eventually finished his opponent to win his first trophy in his career-first live poker tournament.

Here are the final LAPT Brazil standings:

1. Matthias Habernig – $247,441
2. Dayan Vardanega – $143,174
3. Alexandre Richard Martins – $87,600
4. Miguel velasco – $64,676
5. Robson Vinicious Kozan – $46,246
6. Andre Luiz Scaff – $36,974
7. Rodrigo Scartezini – $27,702
8. Rudy Blondeau – $18,476

The PokerNews live reporting team was there and made you a very nice tournament wrap-up video, check it out:



So that's about all we wanted to share with you this week, join us next time for more news from the world of poker.

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