After the win, Ugo was asked a series of questions – lets hear what he had to say.

What do you do?
I am a Public Relations Contractor.

How long have you been playing poker for and how did you start?
I started 3 years ago, a friend of mine had told me about it but at first I wasn’t convinced. After a while I decided to give it a chance and I opened an account on Titan.

Did you use any special strategy to win the tournament?
I used my experience, waiting for the right hand to come, never letting go.

Are there any key moments that you remember from the tournament?
Not any in particular. I do recall that once, at the beginning of the fifth level, I had 9 and 10 of the same form, I went “all in” and won the game despite the risk.

What do you plan to do with your prize money?
First of all to celebrate with a bottle of champagne.  Then I plan on giving 10% of my winnings to benefits and then I want to invest in my family – such as buying a new car for my daughter.

Advice for other players?
Never give up and always wait for the right moment.

Athanasios Ntalakas wins Monthly Million

Athanasios Ntalakas is on fire!! Our Greek Titan has done it again, this time by winning the Monthly Million. He takes home his $200,000 share of the Million,  not so long after his additional $52,500  ECOOP V #1 victory in November ‘09.  As he himself put it on his Winners Page quote which appears on the Titan Poker website: “I am still thrilled after my win and I feel 2010 will be a great year for me.”

After almost 13 hours of play Athanasios Ntalakas finally finished off the opposition. “I was really excited to be at the final table, just a month after my ECOOP win. Even though it was very late, I was pumped up and ready to play for the win”, he told us.  “The opponents were good and everyone was going for the win. It was by far the toughest final table I have been to.  Players were not afraid to put their chips in the middle and put you to the test constantly by 3-betting and shoving. I was fortunate to win my big flips and even when I was low in chips my friends were there to encourage me”, he added. The final Heads up was against Neil Channing who was leading with by 2:1 in stack size.  Steadily Athanasios managed to acquire the same amount of chips and on the final hand he was lucky to outdraw Channing.

Athanasios has also given the Sunday $250K GTD. a couple of shots with mixed results.   “I think these tourneys are of great value because they start at a reasonable time and the field is not so tough until the late stages”, he commented. His successful run should not be taken for granted and he knows it. ” My experience so far at Titan Poker is amazing and I will continue playing for a long time and also give some satellites a try to enter live events”. This man is definitely a character to follow and he is great for both Titan Poker and Greek national pride.

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.”

Last hand of TitanPoker ECPT Malta Main Event

Bo Sehlstedt decided that his day had been long enough, so the last hand was a 3-way pot: no heads-up.

Michael Schuchardt was all-in for the third time in a row, and John van de Bruggen re-raised the all-in.

Bo Sehlstedt, the massive chip leader by far, asked for a chip-count of John’s stack.

The dealer took a few minutes to do so, and announced 362,000 chips. Bo decided to call, provoking a resounding “oooOOOOoooOOOh” from the viewing public.

Show Down:

Bo had Ace-Queen

John showed 6-6

Michael showed 10-10

The flop was A-4-4 to which Bo said a little “yes!”

Turn was a 10, which gave a full-house to Michael

River was an incredible Ace, and gave a higher full-house to Bo Sehlstedt, who eliminated his two opponents in one hand.

Jose Manuel Gomez Rabenaque

Our Spanish Titan, Jose Manuel Gomez Rabenaque, finished 83rd in the world’s most exclusive poker tournament. The experience and the emotional rollercoaster ride did not only leave him with stories to pass on for generations to come, but also a modest $57,991 in cash. The engineer from Cuenca in Spain, gave a remarkable performance in his first Las Vegas WSOP.

Our Titan Blog reporter Samantha managed to catch up with Jose over the phone following his return to his busy life in Spain. “I am very happy to have finished 83rd, but one always has a feeling that you could have done better” Jose began. “I never imagined that I would get so far, knowing that there would be 6,500 other players. On the first day, I started well… I had 30,000 chips, and after only 2 hours, I doubled my stack. Then I plummeted to 20,000 and things stayed that way for a long time. That was until I decided to go for all or nothing. It was fortunate that I won and managed to pass the day.” When asked by Samantha about the mounting pressure in the tournament, Jose answered as follows: “There was a moment where I lost 0.5 million chips in 20 minutes. I had 700,000, but the blinds were increasing and so it was becoming more difficult over time.”

Jose was more than pleased with the Titan Poker staff in Las Vegas. “They were good, very nice people, and they treated me well. The thing I like best about Titan Poker is the support. They always help me right away and they solve my problems.”

The EPT in Barcelona in 2007 was Jose’s first offline event. He has been with Titan Poker since 2006 and he can be found on the site usually 3-4 hours per day after work. In the past he won the $250,000 Guaranteed tournament and he also took first place in $400,000 Guaranteed.

Folks, all we can say is that you had better watch out for this Spanish shark.

Olivier Harguindeguy

It is difficult enough for a player to succeed in taking home a  prize package from a satellite tournament, which  provides the winner with the opportunity of playing poker in an exotic destination. This feat demands a certain degree of skill. There are men who are champions, and then there are Titans. This Titan managed to win both the Irish Winter Festival satellite prize package as well as the APT Macau Satellite prize package, all within a 2 week period.

Olivier Harguindeguy a.k.a. Axeria2 hails from France. Besides for his love for hiking in the mountains, his main hobby is poker. Olivier started to play poker 2 years ago and he has been playing on Titan Poker for 4 months. “I was playing on another poker room, but I was encountering some problems. When I met the Titan Poker staff and other Titan Poker players at the Asian Poker Tour (APT) in Manila, I decided that I need to join them and register at Titan” Olivier told us.According to Olivier the most memorable moment at the final table of the Irish Winter Festival Satellite went as follows: “I had a pair of Jacks, another player had a pair of Aces… and then it happened. A Jack came to help me on the River, even though I had more chips than any other player at the table.”

“My advice to other players: Be patient and always observe what is happening at the table and never be afraid of spending your chips. Never lose the confidence in your game, even after several bad beats” he concludes.

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.”