Apparently, a couple of players were talking in a pub last year outside the World Series of Poker Europe.  They were watching the Ryder Cup on TV and said that’s what Poker needs. One of those players may have been Daniel Negreanu and whether poker needed it or not, poker got it.

This year the World Series of Poker Europe hosted the first edition of the Caesars Cup.  North Americans battled Europe’s finest and the two teams used a very small sample of matches to decide continental bragging rights.  First off was the paired matches were players alternated “streets” with a player from their home country.  Then it went to single’s matches.  However, for all the pomp and circumstance accorded to the event, it was a best out of seven series, which might work in baseball but hardly proves anything in poker. 

The teams were small and picked by youngish Captains.  Daniel Negreanu has a youngish look and selected the Nort Americans, which was all Americans and him a Canadians.  Mexicans mourned their exclusion.  Anette Obrestad selected the Europeans and as much as Negreanu went old school she went new school.  To online players everywhere the results were hardly suprising.

Team Europe won the cup in a landslide winning the first 4 out of 5 matches and ended the competition before it barely began.  It was a hard pill to swallow because as ESPN and NBC have shown Americans, and the old school players have bought into, the measure of a player is the nubmer of bracelets he’s won.  It matters little that winning bracelets these days is a far different proposition than 5 years ago.  And often ignored is the progression of poker strategy from the smoked fill tight is right approach to the looser internet style of play. 

ESPN would have you believe, even in a short seven match format the Europeans were decisive underdogs.  Afterall teh Americans 45 bracelets, and the Euros had but three.  Despite that fact, the Europeans outplayed the Americans early on and never looked back.

The doubles format itself was unique as the matches were “heads-up” but each team had two players who could see the hole-cards.  Phil Ivey, himself an internet whizz partnered with Huck Seed, himself an NBC Heads Up validated champion, only to fall to online nose bleed players Patrik Antonius and Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies.    The Euros started off one nil.

Daniel Negreanu spends a ton of time poking fun at Phil Hellmuth on his blog, yet it when it came time to pick a partner he selected the Poker Brat.   Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier and an online poker qualifier shocked the tournament and themselves when they hit a four outer to beat Danny Boy and Philly. 

Negreanu wasn’t the only captain burdened with a loss.  His counterpart Anette Obrestad faced off in mix doubles competition against Doyle Brunson and Jennifer Harman.  Doyle did his continent proud winning the final hand with quad aces.  Dario Minieri partnered with Anette but tasted defeat and opened the door a little bit for the U.S.-Canadian team.

18 minutes later, Gus Hansen and Peter Eastgate dusted off Barry Greenstein and John Juanda.  All Europe needed to do to win the Cup was take one match out of three.  The uphill battle was going to be a slog.  Annette then did something Negreanu couldn’t do, she won a match.  She faced Huck Seed in singles action and in nine minutes of play captured the Cup.

That left Dario Minieri as the only Euro without a win but he had plenty of North Americans to commiserate with as Brunson and Harman were the only non-Euros in the win category.   Anette and the Euros hoisted the cup and only time and more importantly TV ratings, will determine if there will be a second.