… Ola Brandborn!

The blinds were 12,000 / 24,000. Ola limped in the small blind, and Loc went all-in for about 600,000. Ola instacalled and flipped up two red queens - Q♥Q♦. Loc showed K♦8♦.

For some extra excitement, the board came A♣5♦3♦ which gave Loc a flush draw as well as the king overcard. But the turn and the river brought no help, and Ola was crowned the Swedish Champion of No-Limit Hold’em. Our heartiest congratulations to Ola, and to second place finisher Loc Ly.

Ola rakes in the winning pot… Then he gave his winner’s speech, and expressed his happiness of finally having reached the status of an average player. (He was the first player to bust out of last year’s Swedish Championship).

Download some high-res pictures of the Swedish Champion of No-Limit Texas Hold’em here…

The players are now on a food break. An hour and a half into the heads-up, Ola’s chip lead has shrunk significantly - he now has about 1,500,000 chips against Loc’s 1,300,000.

This happened when Loc managed to double up against a bluffing Ola, who moved all in against Loc Ly’s raise board of JT2. Loc called and showed QJ.

Jonas “Nebuchad” Danielsson is our third place finisher. He got the money in preflop with AQ against Loc Ly’s KQ. However, a king fell on the flop and neither the turn nor the river brought any help for Jonas.

Jonas receives a trophy and 409,000 SEK for his place finish.

The tournament is now heads-up between the final table’s most loose aggressive player Ola Brandborn and Loc Ly, who has been playing rather tight on the final table. The heads up begins with Loc Ly holding 700,000 chips and Ola has about 2,100,000.

Michael Johansson has been eliminated by Ola Brandborn. It was raised to 40,000 preflop with two players. The flop came with an Ace, a deuce and a five.

Both players checked the flop.

The ace of clubs fell on the turn. Michael leads out for 65,000. Ola raises approximately 170,000 and Michael moves all in. Ola calls quickly and Michael shows A♠Q♠. However it is not enough as Ola holds A♦K♦.

Ghena moved all-in from the small blind for 240,000. Ola instacalls and flips up A♣9♥. Ghena shows A♦4♥. With a flop of T♥5♦5♣ it looks like it will be a split, but a deuce and a seven falls on the river and Ghena is out.

Ghena receives 364 100 EEK (218,000 SEK) for his fifth place finish.

Mattias Ressner has been eliminated by Jonas “Nebuchad” Danielsson. Mattias didn’t even have enough chips to cover the small blind after losing a big pot to Michael Johansson. Mattias had 77, Mikael 88 and the flop fell 789.

Mattias receives 273 100 EEK (159,000 SEK) for his effort.

The final table started off in a frenetic tempo - three players have been knocked out in the first 30 minutes!

First out, in the very first hand of the day, was Andreas Johansson when his K♠J♠ failed to draw out against Loc Ly’s A♥K♣.

Minutes later, Jens Ogsäter is sent packing by Jonas Danielsson.

About fifteen minutes later, it is time for Ola “Terminator” Brandborn to take his first scalp of the evening. Ola gets all-in with K♠T♣ against Jörgen Petterson (aka Joggystyle) holding A♥T♠. A king falls on the flop and Jörgen is out.

Only minutes are left until the start of the final table. Nine players remain to compete for the first prize of nearly one million SEK. The remaining field looks like this:

As you can see, Betsson player Ola Brandborn has the second chip position, and he is also considered the favorite to win according to behind-the-scenes gossip. Eighteen players have cashed a total of 715,000 SEK so far. It will be an exciting event, and we will do our best to keep you posted.

The sponsors’ invitational tournament, featuring 30 top names in the Gaming Industry, has been played out. After a fierce heads-up battle against a competing company’s Poker Manager that involved a very lucky drawout, Ongame’s tournament manager, Markus Svennerstål, stood victorious!

Good news, almost as good as the fact that we have now surpassed one of our competitors, that we refer to as “PP”, in size.

The tournament is now on a break with 17 players left. The following players have cashed in the tournament:

Bestpoker’s Kristoffer Wilstedt is out in 22nd place, busted by Betsson’s Ola Brandborn. Kristoffer moved all in holding Q♥J♦, with a small chip stack and was called by Ola who unknowingly (he didn’t look at his cards) held 6♥5♣. A 665 flop sealed Kristoffer’s fate.

Ola Brandborn, now holding about 280,000 in chips. He is dominating the table with his aggressive play. Or, as another fellow player so eloquently put it: “Damn, he’s bombing the table!”

Kristoffer Wilstedt, who finished in 22nd place and got almost 30,000 SEK for his effort. The payout structure for the tournament is as follows:

1 967 335 SEK
2 594 738 SEK
3 408 905 SEK
4 297 369 SEK
5 223 011 SEK
6 167 274 SEK
7 139 344 SEK
8 111 475 SEK
9 92 916 SEK
10 63 149 SEK
11 59 474 SEK
12 55 738 SEK
13 48 326 SEK
14 48 326 SEK
15 44 590 SEK
16 44 590 SEK
17 40 854 SEK
18 40 854 SEK
19 31 544 SEK
20 31 544 SEK
21 31 544 SEK
22 29 706 SEK
23 29 706 SEK
24 29 706 SEK
25 29 706 SEK
26 27 869 SEK
27 27 869 SEK

Day 2 has commenced! The starting field looks as follows:

Eight into the tournament, we have 72 players left out of the 149 entrants (there were supposed to be 150, but one person never showed up.) The average chip stack is 20,690.

Artist / Poker player Dilba Demirbag has managed to accumulate a stack of nearly 50,000 chips, which puts her in 2nd position right now.

Poker Pro / Businessman Bo Sehlsedt looks like he is about to pull a sneaky move…

Betsson’s star play William Thorson looks at his cards for a hand…

… and at his opponent for signs of weakness. He apparently found one out of the two, and managed to drag a small pot which put his chip stack at just above 4,000 chips. Unfortunately, it was not enough and William was eliminated just before the dinner break when his AhAs got outdrawn by his opponent’s KhKd.

Meanwhile, at another table, Betsson player Niclas Lundqvist is also quite shortstacked with 7,000 chips. (Hidden by his hand)

We now have the final results from day 1a. Leading the chip count is Simon Johansson, representing Mansion.com. In second place we have Ola Brandborn of Betsson. Further down we find Bestpoker Kristoffer Wihlstedt with a solid stack of 59,800 going into day two while Eurobet player Christoffer Andler is through with just under 40,000.