bwin was host to yet another amazing promotion that got underway on Saturday, December 20th, with the first running of the PokerNews Alpine Cup online finals. The Alpine Cup is a new live poker event that will be held in March 2009 at the luxurious Alpine Palace ski resort in the Austrian alps. bwin players lucky and skillful enough to win one of the $8,000 trip packages up for grabs in the online finals will be in for the time of their lives, with a perfect mix of skiing, poker, and living the high life awaiting the winners in the Austrian alps.
The first of many Alpine Cup qualifiers ran at bwin on Saturday, with 63 runners turning out trying to nab one of the 3 trip packages up for grabs. Early leaders included RygarBwin, trut1, and claretbluejr. When the final table was set, there were still two former bwin Team members in the hunt (wild_c4ll and Speedzebre) as well as plenty of fresh faces:
Seat 1: liverpool170 ($32,545 in chips)
Seat 2: wild_c4ll ($12,746 in chips)
Seat 3: TOULOUSE3100 ($58,227 in chips)
Seat 4: trut1 ($18,279 in chips)
Seat 5: mr.Schne ($15,274 in chips)
Seat 6: claretbluejr ($38,454 in chips)
Seat 7: DonGuga ($27,698 in chips)
Seat 8: Speedzebre ($27,720 in chips)
Seat 9: mazlumb2 ($72,747 in chips)
Seat 10: skjul4ik ($11,310 in chips)
With the field further trimmed down to just 5 players left, action began to get tense, as 3 would finish the day with $8,000 trip packages while the other two would have to console themselves with some extra cash:
Seat 1: liverpool170 ($155,557 in chips)
Seat 5: mr.Schne ($61,988 in chips)
Seat 7: DonGuga ($24,416 in chips)
Seat 8: Speedzebre ($22,630 in chips)
Seat 9: mazlumb2 ($50,409 in chips)
Speedzebre would come up short in his attempt to book another spot on the bwin Team roster, finishing 5th ($468 plus a finals ticket) when his open-ended straight draw couldn't get there versus mazlumb2 's two pair.
At that point DonGuga seemed to decide to play for the 4th place cash of $624 plus a ticket instead of trying to win one of the $8,000 trip packages, as he proceeded to shove all-in with any two cards until he was finally busted by mazlumb2, who was calling liberally as well.
With DonGuga's elimination in 4th ($624 plus a finals ticket), that meant that mazlumb2, liverpool170, and mr.Schne would all take down $8,000 trip packages to the PokerNews Alpine Cup, where they'll hit the slopes and the poker tables in March 2009.
