European Challenge

PartyPoker.net is pleased to announce that it is four days until the PartyPoker.net European Challenge in Vienna, Austria, the heart of the 2007 Spring Poker Festival.

First, the cards are in the air for the television cameras on Sunday, as a team of online qualifiers from Eastern Europe take on a team of Western European online qualifiers in the PartyPoker.net East versus West Cup, a €100,000 freeroll at the Concord Card Casino.

In last year’s PartyPoker.net Intercontinental Poker Championship at the Palms Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, CBS commentator Gabe Kaplan said that “Tony G is single handedly trying to reignite the cold war,” after he verbally battered Russian representative Ralph Perry in a clip from an episode of the show that has spawned hundreds of thousands views on the internet.

Now, the Australian, with Lithuanian descent, has to bite his lip and lead Russian players in his role as captain of the Eastern European team and turn his attention on Dave “The Devilfish” Ulliott and the Western European team.

PartyBets.com have priced up the contest and, despite the expected inclusion of Russian star Kiril Gerasimov on the Eastern European side, can’t split them and price both teams at 5/6.

The Russian players should not worry too much though as Tony G and Devilfish quite simply don’t get on at the table, and, to make matters worse, in preparation for their match-up at the Concord they have spent almost a week and a half with each other filming Premier League Poker and a special series of the Poker Den in East London, UK. Both of them failed to make a significant cash in the Premier League show and both of them spent a lot of time in the commentary box where producers had to tell both of them to “cool it” because of the constant criticism of each other.

To make matters worse, they commentated together alongside Jesse May for over seven hours for the Premier League Poker final table and showed no signs of calling a truce.

At the Poker Den, Tony G, in particular, was very aggressive towards his rival as both played for more than ten hours in a marathon televised cash game. To put the cherry on top, they had Phil Hellmuth on their table too.

A PartyPoker.net spokesman said: “Something has got to give here. They’ve been in each others faces so much in the last week or so and it wasn’t all smiles when they failed to say goodbye to each other at the Poker Den. Phil Hellmuth really stirred the pot too."

"We’ll definitely need to draw an iron curtain between them now. I think we’ve done a good job in making them both insane! It was deliberate, of course!”

On the Concord Cold War clash Tony G said “Devilfish lost it at Premier League Poker – it should be easy because he is not on his game.”

Devilfish said: “Tony G is like a puppy dog, lots of bark but no bite.”

The final table of 10 for the PartyPoker.net East versus West Cup will share €50,000, while the winning team will get €50,000 split between them.

Monday sees the start of the PartyPoker.net European Challenge at the Concord, the highlight of the 13th annual Austrian Spring Poker Festival, which will also be filmed for international television distribution.

It goes on until the 17 March 2007, with an estimated prize pool of around $1.1 million. Last year’s winner, Vienna-based pro Siegfried Stockinger, has confirmed his participation in the event and the home favourite again looks the man to beat, after he systematically took apart the competition last year.

The Spring Poker Festival promises to be every card playing enthusiasts dream. Around 1,000 people are expected to flock to the Austrian capital for the week long extravaganza, meaning side action will not be hard to find.