Finnkampen - Suomiruotsi

Finnkampen 2007

Vegas Group

Finland won a decisive victory in Tallinn 1-2 December 2007

There were 67 players who came to Tallinn to play the final of Poker Tour Finnkampen, the poker battle between Sweden and Finland. There were 46 Finns and 21 Swedes who battled it out for 500 671 EEK, and then additional money for the winner of the terminator prize and the ranking prize.

The last event was won by the Swede Mikael Bredenberg, which put him in the first position in the ranking before this the final event. Dino Dinler was in second place with the same amount of points, 420 points. So it was an exciting final!

After approximately 12h of play the first day, it was time to break, for day 2, as the 7 players on the final table were all in the money. For day 2 there were 5 Finns and 2 Swedes. Dino Dinler who came second in the last event was a strong chip leader with 237 300 chips, ahead of Teemu Tapio in second place with nearly half the amount of chips; 120 500. Jonas Uebel from Sweden, was the short stack with only 36 600 at the final table, but it was Jyri Linna from Finland who was first out on Sunday.

Dino took himself out 4 of the finalists and it took less than 1 h before it was time for heads up between Dino and Teemu Tapio. Dino had approximately 400 000 and Teemu had 280 000.

Teemo och Dino have played against each other before, as Teemu was on the final table in the last event and ended 4th at that time.

It was power poker from the start as Teemu called an all in from Dino with Q-5 against K-J where, Teemu hit the 5 on the river and put Dino back a lot, and Dino had only 17 000 left. It has happened before and it happened again. With good timing and Dino played A-A correctly and it gave Dino a chance to turn it around and win the game with the same hand that almost took him out. Teemu had Kd-Jd, this time against Dino’s Ac-4c. The final hand started with that Teemu raised the blind, Dino re-raised, while Teemu went all in and Dino called, the flop A-8-3 gave Dino the lead, while a K on the turn gave Teemu a lot of outs, the river was a 4, which gave Dino a two pair and the title champion of the Pokerfinnkampen.

Dino also won the terminator award of €1 500 as well as the total ranking, which gives him a buy-in and trip to the Baltic Open Championship in Tallinn during the spring, a total value of €2 000.

The results of the final:
1st Dino Dinler, Finland, 210 285 EEK
2nd Teemu Tapio, Finland, 110 147 EEK
3rd Sami Paananen, Finland, 70 093 EEK
4th Matti Hamarila, Finland, 45 060 EEK
5th Daniel Gillan, Sweden, 30 040 EEK
6th Jonas Uebel, Sweden, 20 026 EEK
7th Jyri Linna, Finland, 15 020 EEK

Sweden won in Tallinn the 1-2 September 2007!

For the 3rd battle of nations 39 Swedes battled it out against 36 Finns. Finland had as you know won the previous two events, so it was definately the Swedes turn to win.

The Swedish team had some poker celebrities, Swedish Champion Carl-Johan Geijer and poker pro Micke Norinder and Helena ”Hefo” Forsell and the Finnish team had poker pro Pasi Heinänen, Dino Dinler who has played Scandinavian Poker Masters, Jaajo Linnonmaa och Toumas Kytömäki to mention a few.

After 5 hours of playing, the 75 players had been reduced to 21 Finns against 17 Swedes, and the Finns had a dominating chip lead, which after the dinner break showed that 3 Finns were in the chip lead, Harri Pigg, Janne Raevaara and Jussi Nevanlina.

The Finnish poker pro Pasi Heinänen ended in 38th place and after that the turn around started for the Swedes. After another 3 hours of play there was a Swede who took the chip lead for the first time when Christian Melander knocked Pasi out and then there was 7 players from each country, When the evening ended at 11pm the situation was still even with 4 players from each country.

First one out from the final table was Niclas Danielsson from Sweden, after that 2 Finns got knocked out, Antti Roponen and Panu Hörkku and Sweden takes the lead for the first time in the tournament. Dino Dinler then knocks out Johan Lendenius from Sweden who entered the final table short stacked, but was first to double up. Dino also knocks out his last countryman, Teemu Tapio, who won the Fiday warm-up. Now Dino is alone against two Swedes, Helena Forsell and Mikael Bredenberg. Helena becomes the best woman when she is knocked out, leaving the tournament to become a heads-up between Mikael and Dino.

After a real exciting final table and almost one hour of heads-up, we have a winner - Sweden. Dino won the terminator award after taking out most players from the competing country, so Finland didn’t leave empty handed. Now it is 2-1 to Finland, what will happen in the next and last event of 2007?

Finland won a decisive victory in Tallinn 12-13 May 2007

On the weekend 12-13 May, the second event of Poker Tour Finnkampen 2007 was concluded. This time, the Finns once again proved to be the stronger nation by ending up as a clear winner by achieving a victory in two of three competition categories; individual ranking and country total player points. The BIG difference this time was that Sweden through Christer Hemphälä secured the nations first terminator achievement.

As always when the two nations compete the atmosphere was on top, and people seem to value a national victory as much as possible personal prize money. Like last event, quite a few poker profiles attended the event, among others the stand-up comedian Marcus Palm and the Swedish Online Poker Champion, Henrik Josefsson (NordicBet Pro). The individual winner was the finnish player Janne Raevaara whom after a quite short Heads-Up battle against the swede Jahn "Gusten" Gustavsson secured a national victory for Finland.

Results (ITM):
1. Janne Raevaara (FIN) 101,849 EEK
2. Jahn Gustavsson (SWE) 57,975 EEK
3. Christer Hemphälä (SWE) 34,472 EEK
4. Minna Ritakorpi (FIN) 23,504 EEK
5. Matti Hamasila (FIN) 17,236 EEK
6. Tuukka Haapiainen (FIN) 14,102 EEK
7. Peter Ferm (SWE) 10,968 EEK

Finland won a decisive victory in Tallinn 3-4 March 2007

This weekend, the first event of Poker Tour Finnkampen 2007 was concluded. This time, the Finns once again proved to be the stronger nation by ending up as a clear winner by achieving a victory in all three competition categories; individual ranking, terminator achievement and country total player points.

The Poker Tour Finnkampen Event I took place during Saturday and Sunday 3-4 March at Reval Park Hotel & Casino. 126 players participated with a buy-in of 350 € and the form was a No Limit Texas Hold’em Freezout. The tournament is played as an individual competition but there are several elements in the ranking structure that makes it a unique competition also on a national level.

As always when the two nations compete the atmosphere was on top, and in the poker room you could almost touch the feeling of rivalry. During day one of the event it could early be concluded that Finland mastered the event by securing 6 of the 9 seats for the second day final table. It was clear at this point that Niko Lehmonen would be the tournaments “Terminator”.

Among the competitors for Finland you could see; Ilari Sahamies, Jasper Pääkönen, Jussi Heikelä, Janne Raevaara, Pasi Heinänen, Jukka Hilden, Jussi Ahde and Jari "Jaajo" Linnonmaa still it was a relatively un-known poker player who showed the best skills through out the two days; Panu Palomäki. To understand the level of Panu’s excellent play, he placed not less that 112 positions ahead of last years Online Swedish Champion: Henrik Josefsson. The best-placed Swede was Peter Ferm who even though he started with shortest stack for day two, succeeded to end up in third position.