Thursday, April 24, 2008

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PartyPoker World Open IV starts Friday

The Ambassador of Poker takes his seat in the PartyPoker World Open IV on Friday.

By Sarah Polson

With Mike Sexton leading the charge, the PartyPoker World Open IV is scheduled to get under way in London on Friday and play until Friday, May 2.

The event will feature a field of top poker players from around the world, and Mike Sexton has been chosen to headline the event.

"Mike Sexton is a great addition to the World Open line-up and will be keen to make his trip to London a success," said a PartyPoker spokesman. "However, he faces a very strong field with many U.K. players such as Robin Keston and Neil Channing in great form at the moment."

Other pros joining Sexton for the event include Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott, Juha Helppi, Marc Goodwin, Barny Boatman and his brother Ross Boatman, Ian Frazer, Thomas Bihl, Roy Brindley, Surinder Sunar, John Tabatabai, Pippa Flanders and more.

Nick Slade, the winner of the recent PartyPoker European Open IV, will also take his spot at the tables for the televised event.

The World Open is a 72-runner event with an $8,000 buy-in. It features 12 heats, with the winner of each heat moving on to the semifinal stage. The runners-up in each heat will also battle again in last-chance turbo heats to earn the last two spots in the semifinal as well.

In the semifinals, players will be whittled down to the final table where they'll be vying for a $250,000 first-place prize out of a $575,000 prize pool.

Anthony Hardy, a 45-year-old former Sidcup betting shop owner, won the event last year. He climbed to the top over a final table that also included Ian Cox, Ram Vaswani, David Rudling, Ian Frazer and Ian Woodley.

Lee Nelson was the winner of the inaugural World Open in 2005, and Pippa Flanders took down the tournament in its second year in 2006.

Related Article: Mike Sexton to Headline World Open IV

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