Athanasios Ntalakas

Athanasios Ntalakas   (aka Thanasis1982) has taken first place at the first event of ECOOP V, winning $52,500. Titan Poker dominated the start of the Fifth European Championship of Online Poker by taking both first and second places. Athanasios hails from Greece and he has been working as a financial consultant for an accounting firm for the past year. He sees poker as something between a hobby and a part-time job, in light of the fact that he does spend a couple of hours a day playing S&G’s.

“I have been playing poker for 2 years now, starting when I was completing my Master of Science degree and one of my best friends introduced me to the game. I loved it from the start, but it took me a while to become a winning player as I had to concentrate on my studies. After I finished my Masters, I started playing regularly turbo S&Gs mainly because I was too lazy to play long hours for a Multi Table Tournament (MTT)” Athanasios told us.

When we asked Athanasios about his game play in the ECOOP V #1 $250,000, he relayed his thoughts to us. “I played pretty straightforward at the beginning of the tournament, but at the later stages I was being more aggressive pre-flop. I have to admit that I was lucky that my opponents tried to make a stand against me, when I had a better hand.” His key moment had to have been when there were 2 tables left, and as his table’s chip leader, he was dealt pocket aces against the second biggest stack at the table, who had pocket kings. After that hand it was clear to Athanasios that he could succeed. “From there on I knew that I could actually win the tourney using my stack to apply pressure to players who wanted to climb up the pay ladder.”

To sum it up, Athanasios Ntalakas has brought a lot of pride to the Greek poker establishment. Athanasios’s advice to the other players: “I think many beginners should consider starting with multi-table S&Gs, since it helps to improve your game as well as build your poker bankroll.”

ECOOP V

25 October 2009 – Dublin, Ireland

From the diary of Titan Team member Slobodan Savic:

Today I had a choice:  I could play in the 500 Euro freezout side event at the City West Hotel in Dublin or play online on the Titan Poker site. As much as I like live events, I decided that today I would be playing online.  Titan Poker is my favorite site where I play almost every day. One great feature that I like about this site is the great online live chat help – you can ask for all the information you wish to receive via live chat. An additional quality feature is that they offer Euro accounts. If you are a European player, you will have no more problems with the falling Dollar. You  can now read morning newspapers in peace without the fear of having a heart attack when you read that the Dollar plummeted yet again).

Another reason that leads me to play at the moment is the  ECOOP series which starts at the end of November. Titan Poker offers many satellites for the tournaments throughout  the entire day. I think  ECOOP tournaments are spectacular and I can’t wait to participate in them. My love for playing in satellites give me further drive to play in ECOOP V -  you can find a satellite for every bankroll.

Today I played a $100 rebuy satellite for the Main Event ($1500) of ECOOP V. It is quite big buyin, but I think it is worth the price. If you are careful player and put yourself on the lookout for nice playing opportunities, you can find many satellites on Titan with a big overlay (meaning that guranteed prizes can be much bigger then buyins).  I had luck today.  On this $100 rebuy, there were only 10 players – I took the  immediate rebuy. After one hour, there was only one addon (mine of course), and I was very pleased when I saw that there was  $1,500 from buyins and addons, and that the  guaranteed value was $3,100.  So now you can see what I am talking about – at the  start without playing a hand, I had made 100% ROI. I have never seen such a big overlay in any tournament that I have played.

I have noticed a couple of other ECOOP satellites which offer smaller overlays  and I am looking forward to playing them as well.  If you want to utilize these “overlay opportunities”, you must hurry up. Usually satellites become more popular and more crowded closer to the time of  the main event, and so it is always a good idea to play as early as possible.

Vladimir Vorobiev

At this year’s European Championship of Online Poker (ECOOP IV), Titan Poker player Vladimir Vorobiev took 2nd place and a massive $180,000 in prize money from the $1,500,000 main event.
Vladimir Vorobiev a.k.a. “VLs85s” has been playing poker for almost 3 years. The Russian studied economics in his local city university and he puts his studies to good use by excelling at his number one hobby – poker. His game play initially started with freerolls and small buy-in tournaments.
The buy-in for the ECOOP IV Main event was significantly high for Vladimir and so he put in a lot of effort and he concentrated on acquiring good notes on all of the players at his table. This would pay off as can be described in Vladimir’s upcoming anecdote.
“There were 3 tables remaining in the tournament. I was big blind and raised A10 only to be called by the guy with the huge stack of chips. I knew the guy as we have played a lot of cash games, and I know him as a tricky player. The flop was K94 with two spades in it. I raised about half of my chips and he re-raised 3X. What cards could he have? If it were a King in his hand, he would not be re-raising with it, unless it was AK – but he definitely re-raised it pre-flop. He could have also had a pair or a set but the chances were too low. I had 45% chance to win against a flush, and so I decided to go after the large pot. I went all in against him. His hand was 67 spades, and with the turn and river producing blanks… the huge pot was all mine to his dismay.”
Vladimir plans to purchase a new Alfa Romeo GT with part of his winnings. His advice to the rest of the Titan Poker players: “It is far better to concentrate on one or two tournaments and to focus on the opposition’s game play.”