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With eight seasons of the European Poker Tour now passed, the circuit has amassed more than 80 champions. They come from all places, backgrounds, and bankrolls, but only a couple are the Champion of Champions. This week, Season 6 EPT Warsaw winner Christophe Benzimra became one of them.

For the past couple of seasons, the EPT has hosted the Champion of Champions event at the season-ending Grand Final. The €100,000 freeroll is open to anyone who has an EPT title. Last year, Jason Mercier cemented his place among the champs. This year, the honor went to Benzimra.

Benzimra got heads-up with EPT Loutraki champion Zimnan Ziyard heads-up and took down the win for €35,000 worth of buy-ins to EPT Season 9 tournaments. The 49-year-old Frenchman beat out 39 champs for the title.

“It feels fantastic! I’m very happy,” he said. “I haven’t been playing much this season but I will be next season.”

In 2009, Benzimra won EPT Warsaw for €400,000 just a few years after taking up poker. Though he’s been out of the game for most of the year, he and five other champs now have a lot of buy-ins to spend in Season 9.

Here are the final results to the Season 8 Champion of Champions tourney.

Congrats to Benzimra on his win.

EPT Season 8 Champion of Champions results

1st – Christophe Benzimra (EPT Warsaw champion) – €35,000
2nd – Zimnan Ziyard (EPT Loutraki champion)- €25,000
3rd – Jake Cody (EPT Deauville champion) – €17,500
4th – Arnaud Mattern (EPT Prague champion) – €10,000
5th – Frederik Jensen (EPT Madrid champion) – €7,500
6th – Mohsin Charania (EPT Grand Final champion) – €5,000
The bubble was EPT Dortmund champion Sandra Naujoks.

A recap of Day 4 of World Poker Tour Jacksonville BestBet Open where the final table is set and Shawn Cunix leads.

We are pretty excited to be back in Western Australia this week as the ANZPT Perth Main Event kicked off today. Perth is such a cool city, and the people are some of the friendliest I’ve met in the industry. The WA players who we see on tour are a great bunch of guys, and they enjoy playing hosts for the week, as evident by a local basketball game held this afternoon between some players and staff.

Stev Lackovic crushing fools as Aaron Benton and Jesse McKenzie watch on helplessly

The Burswood poker room staff led by Deb Wyatt are also extremely welcoming. From the issuing of security passes this morning, all the way through to providing a little background information about our chip leader as the last hands were dealt today, the Burswood poker room staff are friendly, professional and knowledgeable.

So what could they tell us about Peter Zaknic? Apparently he’s a local who is deceptively consistent in the Burswood weekly tournaments, often finding his way onto the final tables. He seemed an unlikely chip leader after we caught him earlier in the day doubling up with a rather marginal king-deuce. But later in the day he won a healthy pot with pocket kings to eliminate Vanda Williams and ended the day with 91,100 for the heaviest bag in the room.

On a day that was dominated by locals, 42 of the 89 starters survived with Luch Monte, Mark Marson and last year’s runner up John Corr all progressing well. Corr will be eyeing a repeat final table after falling at the final hurdle against Grant Levy last year.
Others to survive the day include Leo Boxell, Ali Ghezelbash, Sabastian Pagana and Tony Tartaglia who will need to double his short stack early on Day 2 to give himself a chance at reaching the cash after qualifying for this event over ten times through online satellites on PokerStars.

This evening the players are letting their hair down at the welcome party at Eve nightclub. The promise of free drinks, nibbles and live entertainment is too much to resist. We’re going to mosey off and join them, but we promise to be back same time, same place tomorrow for the final flight of the ANZPT Perth Main Event. It will no doubt be a much larger field tomorrow, with the total number expected to be in excess of 250 runners.

Join us for exclusive live updates on the PokerStars Blog from 12:30pm (GMT+8).

Start stacking your bets in easy-to grab piles, because PokerStars has just announced a brand new big show for the weekend: the PokerStars Limit Hold’em Challenge.

You read it right. Limit Hold’em.

“People still play Limit Hold’em?” you say.

Indeed they do, and for big stakes. How big? Daniel Negreanu-Big.

This weekend, May 5 at 2pm ET, worldwide poker superstar and Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu will face off against limit legend rUaBot in a high-stakes limit heads-up battle. Negreanu and rUaBot will play 1,250 hands across two tables of $200/$400 heads-up limit hold’em. Both players will start with $75,000 bankrolls.

You know Negreanu. He’s been killing it in the no-limit tournament world recently. Just yesterday he finished runner-up in the €25,000 EPT Grand Final High Roller for €600,000 (an amount he shruggingly said would “pay some bills”). He’s got the cash to play.

Negreanu in Monaco this week

As for rUaBot, he’s keeping his identity a secret for now. He started his poker life in the limit hold’em world and has become a bit of a specialist.

“In my opinion, fixed limit is more strategic than no limit,” he said. “In no-limit, you always have some guessing games like ‘would he bluff here or wouldn’t he?.’ Of course, such situations often happen in fixed-limit, too, but there is much more space for general strategic adaptions than in no-limit. I think, setting up your standard game is pure math, but exploiting your opponents patterns is an art…and will always be!”

If you’d like to watch, just log on to PokerStars at 2pm Et Saturday. If you can’t make it, the PokerStars Blog will have a full wrap-up of the action.

For more information, visit the PokerStars Limit Hold’em Challenge information page.

7:00pm: Ten-minute break

6:50pm: Raj on the river

Raj Ramakrishnan has landed a handy double up but he had to do it the hard way, spiking a lucky river to overcome a dominated position against Errolyn Strang.

Ramakrishnan held [kd][jd] and was all in against the [ac][jh] of Strang but found a straight when the board arrived [tc][9h][4c][jc][qd]. Ramakrishnan doubles to 17,000 with Strang still pretty healthy on 63,000.

6:45pm: Internet gremlins

And here we were thinking Perth was perfect! We’re having some internet problems at the moment, so our apologies for lack of recent updates. Hopefully we can get it sorted shortly.

6:30pm: McGrath sets up a triple

There have been several big multi-way pots this afternoon, and we’ve just seen another one with Mark McGrath landing a triple up.

On the losing end was Luch Monte and Farid Bogani after the chips went flying on the [8d][4d][5s] flop. Monte held [qd][qc] for the overpair but McGrath had flopped a set with his [4h][4s], while Bogani was drawing with [kd][6d].

The turn was the [jc] but the river fell the [jd]. It was a diamond but it filled up McGrath for a full house. McGrath gets up to 38,000, Monte slips to 40,000 with Bogani sent to the rail.

6:15pm: Monte with the leaders

Luch Monte has jumped up the chip count leaderboard to be among the leaders. The hand was recalled to us that his ace-king spiked an ace on the turn to better an opponent’s jack-nine when all the chips were in the middle on a jack-high flop.
Monte has a little over 70,000.

6:00pm: Level up, blinds 300-600, ante 75

5:55pm: Marson rakes huge multi-way pot

Mark Marson has just landed a huge pot to more than double up his stack. The action was multi-way and things got heavy on the flop of [th][7d][6d]. Goce Simonoski tossed out 5,000 before Mario Zulj popped it up to 15,000. Marson then moved all in over the top to send Simonoski deep into the tank. He eventually folded (what he later flashed as [ad][as]) as Zulj insta-called with [td][9d] for top pair with straight and flush draws. Marson showed [6h][6s] and faded a bazillion outs on the [ah] turn and [2h] river.

Simonoski would’ve won with his aces but it was Marson who takes the 65,000-chip pot as Zulj spirals further south.

Winner are grinners as Mark Marson rakes in a nice pot

5:45pm: Frunks races ahead

Daren Frunks has won a preflop race to send Simon Davidson to the rail. The chips were in preflop with Frunks making the call with [jc][js] after Davidson moved all in with his [ac][kd].

The board missed both players as it ran out [qs][2c][9h][2d][6s] to leave Frunks in front to rake in the chips and move up to 55,000.

5:40pm: Aces for Dalmas

Mario Zulj opened with a raise from the cutoff before Bernard Dalmas moved all in for 14,150 from the button. The blinds folded and Zulj made the call with [kh][kc] but couldn’t believe it when Dalmas showed [ah][as].

The board delivered [qh][9s][6s][2c][7d] to double up Dalmas to 30,000 and drop Zulj to 40,000.

5:30pm: Zilch for Williams, Chips for Zulj

Nigel Williams was all in for his last 8,000 chips with [5d][5h] but unfortunately his timing was astray as Mario Zulj tabled a monster [ks][kc].

The board ran out [ts][ad][qc][kd][4h] to see Williams knocked out of the Main Event. Zulj is up to 55,000 and in good shape.

5:15pm: Strang outkicked

Seven limpers (yes seven!) tossed out the minimum to see a flop of [4h][2c][tc]. When the blinds checked, Errolyn Strang tossed out 1,325. She picked up two callers as the others got out of the way.

The turn was the [3h] and Strang fired another 2,525. This reduced her opponents by one before both players checked the [9s] river. Strang tabled [th][kc] but was outkicked by her opponent’s [ts][ad]. Strang is still well in front with a stack of 73,000.

5:00pm: Play resumes

58 players have returned to their seats to play another three levels before play concludes for the day. Leo Boxell, Raj Ramakrishnan and Tony Tartaglia have chipped up, but its Errolyn Strang who has soared into the chip lead late in the previous level, currently sitting with a stack of around 75,000 chips.