The first event of the Caribbean Poker Party came to a conclusion today with Rainer Kempe emerging as the champion. Relatively early in the event it might have seemed like a foregone conclusion that Kempe would win, he had such a big chip lead after winning a huge hand against fellow German pro Steffen Sontheimer – but a tournament is a long affair with many twists and turns, and by the time the final day was too deep, Italian Claudio Di Giacomo had most of the chips in play.

Rainer Kempe is a consummate pro, however, and clearly a keen competitor – and by the time the dust settled, the championship – and $200,000 – was his.

Montreal-based William Blais – a frequent visitor near the top of results lists at Playground – finished in 7th place for $22,500.

As always, the PokerNews coverage of the event was exemplary – read their coverage on the tournament’s PokerNews Live Event page.

The first event of the Caribbean Poker Party is down to just 8 players. They have moved to the streaming feature table, and action will continue on a delayed stream until a winner is crowned. You can tune in to the stream via the PokerNews Event page.

Here’s a photo of final tableist William Blais as the stream was being prepared (before the lights had been lit).

Check out this amazing hand as described by our friends at PokerNews in this original post: a four-way all-in that saw Claude take a massive chip lead – he’s now playing 244K!

The CPP MILLIONS Open has just reached the final table. Philippe D’Auteuil was eliminated during the loss level and they’ve just now dropped to 9 players – including William Blais!

Good luck too all!

Philippe D’Auteuil is known to many by his primary online name, takechip, and he has just taken a whole bunch of chips from Florian-Dimitrie Duta – enough to send Duta to the rail for his payout in 19th place.

Duta opened to 1.6M from the hijack only to find a shove from Philippe, who covered him. Action folded back to Duta who reluctantly but without much delay made the call.

Duta:
D’Auteuil:

The flop put Philippe in front: and the turn and river only made it worse (if that were possible) for Duta – .

Eliminations have been coming quickly and the tournament has just now dropped to 16 players and will reduce to 2 tables.

26 players returned for Day 4 in the CPP MILLIONS Open tournament, and through just over 20 minutes of play, 4 players have already been eliminated from the tournament. Play now continues on 3 tables and will play down to a winner – who will earn $200,000 – today!

Here are some photos from the beginning of Day 4.

Day 3 of The MILLIONS Open has come to a close with 26 players left in the tournament. Play is set to resume tomorrow, which is slated to be the final day in the event.

The full list of chip counts on the day is available on PokerNews. Some of the highlights:

• The remaining field is incredibly international in character – there are still 12 different countries represented among the final 26 players, including Canada, Belgium, Latvia, UK, Germany, and the chip leader from Greece. Interestingly, however, there are no players left in the field from the US.
• Rainer Kempe is arguably the biggest name left in the event, and he’s playing a huge 66.5M stack, good for 3rd place overall.
• Montreal’s Philippe “takechip” D’Auteuil is the top Canadian in the field. Philippe is a charter member of “Team Quebec” on the felts and most definitely has the experience and skill to make the deepest of deep runs.
• A “regular” Playground Poker Club player is making yet another deep run in a big event – William Blais sits in 10th place.
• The “dean” of the remaining field is none other than Barny Boatman. The UK legend of early televised poker has successfully navigated the day and will start Day 4 with 19M in chips.

Day 4 is sure to be an exciting affair! The final stretch is scheduled to begin at 12:00pm tomorrow.