Assassinato goes deep in Kyiv

Congratulations to Alex "Assassinato" Fitzgerald for another deep run in an EPT event on the weekend. Alex had a roller coaster ride through the first few days of the tournament surviving until day 4 when he was eliminated in 14th place (out of 296 starters).

He was no doubt disappointed to make the final table and take down the big money but its good to see him make another late finish in a live event. Below is Alex's final hand and I believe he's off to Macau next where hopefully he can go one (or two) step further.

Live Reporting | 2009 PokerStars.net EPT Kyiv | €5,000 EPT Kyiv Main Event | PokerNews.com

Posted by Shamus

Alex Fitzgerald Eliminated in 14th Place (€15,000)

Andrew Malott opened with a raise to 31,000 from the button, Bernard Boutboul folded in the small blind, then Alex Fitzgerald pushed all in for just over 260,000 from the big blind. Malott thought for just a few moments, then made the call.

Fitzgerald
Malott

The last two Americans in the field had been sharing a lot of table talk since being joined on the secondary table, and each wished the other luck as they awaited the community cards. They came , and Fitgerald is out in 14th place. Malott now has a nice-sized stack of 955,000.

Assassinato looking very clean-cut in Kyiv

Pro updates

Just a quick post to give you some updates from a few of my stories last week.

Firstly, Alex Fitzgerald (AKA Assassinato) finished 7th in the EPT San Remo. The PokerStars blog had a live feed of the final table but I was at home on a wireless plug-in modem so it wasn't practical to watch much of it. I kept up to date on the blog and the key hand that ended it for Alex was when he re-raised all-in on someone with ace king. The original raiser called turning over pocket jacks and Alex's hand didn't improve. His stack was crippled and he was out shortly after. While disappointed he didn't last longer on the final table, he did walk away with 171,000 euros.

I hoped Alex might give more of a breakdown of the tournament on his blog but I think he's happy to just be home catching up on everyday life. Here is the main post he wrote about the final table achievement and the payday and here's an article that mentions him in the top 10 online players to watch at the World Series of Poker (if he actually goes).

Elsewhere, I had hoped Joe Hachem might get deep at the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo but unfortunately he was out in day 3. Annette Obrestad however made it to the final two tables finishing in 13th place and picking up 77,000 euros for her efforts.

Pieter de Korver took out the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo, not Joe or Annette as I had hoped

2009 PokerStars.com EPT Grand Final

I was checking out Poker News today to see what was going on around the place and saw that they have already finished day 2 of the Pokerstars EPT Grand Final.

I have been reading Daniel Negreanu's blog and his twitters so I knew his tournament was over but I'm glad to see that Aussie and one of the faces of PokerStars, Joe Hachem is doing well. Check out the front page of Poker News for a quick interview with Joe. After my last post, I see that Annette Obrestad is smashing up the field in 2nd place.

There are just 149 players left out of the 935 starters. From an Aussie point of view it would be great to see Joe continue on and finish deep.

Assassinato sets sights on EPT San Remo - Poker News

As you can see from my poker blogs links on the left hand side, there are only a couple that I really follow. I've mentioned before about Assassinato and how much I enjoy reading his blog.

At the moment he's in San Remo playing in the EPT event. He's well known as an online player and has done well in a couple of live event but is yet to make a final table ... until now that is. I've followed his progress through the live tournament reporting on PokerNews as well as updates on the PokerStars blog.

Going in to today they were down to 32 players left in the field and it was actually quite tense reading through the updates (I can't follow them live due to the time difference) this morning to see how Alex got on. He had a bit of luck in coinflip situations and was fairly aggressive down the stretch. Despite being short-stacked for much of the last 2 days, he finds himself in 5th place.

Click on the title below to read the full story. Good luck tonight Alex!!

Assassinato sets sights on EPT San Remo - Poker News

By Owen Laukkanen

It's final table time in San Remo on the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour and on Thursday afternoon eight lucky finalists will face off for more than €1.5 million.

At first glance, it's a final table devoid of star power, but there's no shortage of exciting finalists here on the Italian Riviera.

Among the final eight is 21-year-old Alex Fitzgerald, a Seattle-based online pro who has become a staple on PokerStars-run tournaments around the world.

Fitzgerald, who goes by 'Assassinato' on most online sites, has qualified into tournaments on the European, Asia Pacific and Latin American Poker Tours but hasn't managed any major scores as of yet.

He comes into play on Thursday fifth in chips with 721,000.

'I feel great,' he told PokerListings.com. 'I really didn't feel like I played that well today.

'I've bubbled a lot of final tables where I felt like I was playing my best, but today I felt like I got pretty lucky.'