Fifteen players from across Europe came to London to take part in BlackjackHeaven.com’s inaugural European Blackjack Open. They were to compete against each other in a fast paced Blackjack tournament, held at the Empire Casino in London’s Leicester Square, in a bid to take home the €5,000 winner takes all prize money.
There were 3 heats of 5 players and just 10 hands of blackjack per heat. The aim during the heat? To accumulate as high a chip count as possible from an initial €1,000 casino chips. The minimum bet in the first 5 hands was €50 and the minimum bet in the second 5 hands was €100. There was no maximum bet meaning that player’s had the opportunity to bet big or even go all-in if they really wanted to gamble.
The winners of the 3 heats automatically got a place at the final table, the last 2 seats at the final table were filled by the 2 highest runner ups.
The lucky finalists aiming for the €5K prize were Ajit Chudasama, Gary Abbott, Laura Cornelius, Ross Jarvis and Anthony Martin. By the final hand only Anthony and Laura remained, but it was Anthony who dug deep and was crowned the European Blackjack Open champion, winning €5,000 and a bottle of Veuve Cliquot to celebrate.
Head of Casino Hannah Clarke spoke to The Poker Channel about the occasion explaining that “Blackjack Heaven is adding value to the player experience by creating opportunities and events offline as well as online, it was a pleasure to spend the day with our 15 competitors and we very much hope to follow up with more casino live events for our players in the near future.”
Catch this tournament exclusively on The Poker Channel this Friday in Europe and on Sky 166 on Saturday.
Continental Europe (times in CET)
Friday 19th August 2200
UK & Eire (times in GMT)
Saturday 20th Midnight
