It's been a good August for Perica Bukara, who beat the high rollers in Cyprus.

Serbian-born poker player Perica Bukara had the chance to grab his biggest live tournament cash a week ago when he was one of the early chip leaders at EPT Tallinn in Estonia. Bukara’s dreams of riches came to a halt when he busted from that tournament in 14th place, but he made another early run count by winning the $25,000 Merit Cyprus Classic High Roller event last night.

Bukara entered the final table of the 36-player high roller tournament with the chip lead against a table full of formidable opponents, including Carter Phillips, Jon Turner and November Niner John Dolan. He extended that lead by taking out former pro soccer player Sam Trickett on the money bubble with a higher straight than Trickett’s and then knocking out David Benyamine with Q-Q against J-J. Bukara was behind Ori Miller when heads-up play began, but he managed to overtake him and then finish him off with K-5 against A-J on the final hand.

The $373,207 first-place prize is easily the biggest score of Bukara's career, and it’s also his third live tournament cash in August. He finished sixth in the Unibet Open in Prague at the beginning of the month before booking his 14th-place finish at EPT Tallinn. All told, the Germany-based poker pro now has $459,447 in career earnings.

While the 2009 tournament may have just ended, the World Series of Poker already has plans to improve the event in 2010. Continuing a tradition set in place by the recently resigned commissioner Jeffrey Pollack WSOP officials have been quick to identify some of the issues with this year's event, and just as quickly figure out ways to fix those problems.

One of the big issues was that the main event in 2009 sold out on the last day of entry. That's not supposed to happen. Historically, it's been open to anyone who can pony up the $10,000 entry fee. The problem this last year was that one of the starting days fell on July 4th. Not a lot of players entered that day, leaving a glut of people wanting to get in on the action on the last day. But with limited numbers of seats and tables, hundreds of would-be entrants were turned away.

That issue has provoked two changes to next year's event. For one, action won't take place on July 4th next year. And they'll also be expanding the number of tables. The hope is that both those changes, combined with the increasing press coverage of the event, will result in even more entrants to the main event.

Even though main event entries were down in 2009 compared to 2008, the total number of players for the entire WSOP was up. 2009 saw 60,875 people register for the various events. That's 2,000 more than in 2008. And, amazingly, it's 57,000 more than competed in 2000.

That rise was sparked mainly by increased interest in the lower buy-in events, not surprising given the state of the world's economy. The $1,000 No-limit Hold 'Em event, for example, drew 6,000 players. WSOP officials say they'll reflect that trend when they schedule for 2010.

And if you're not planning on attending next year's event, you'll be able to take in the action on ESPN again. The sports network recently signed a contract that will have them covering the event through 2017, at least.

Ahhhhhh, the life of a WSOP Main Event champion. Just a few months ago, he was a mild-mannered, relatively obscure online poker player. And now, Joe Cada spends his days trying to decide what to do with his millions of dollars in winnings, and his nights making appearances on WWE Monday Night Raw and David Letterman.

Joe Cada showed up at Madison Square Gardens in New York City for last nights' episode of Raw, along with a fledgling entourage consisting of agent Dan Frank, and fellow pro Dennis Phillips. Unfortunately for those who bet on someone other than him to win the WSOP, he didn't actually get pummeled in the ring by any pro wrestlers. He stayed ringside, making only a brief appearance at the announcer's table with his posse.

Tonight, he'll be continuing his NYC tour of TV appearances with a slot on The Late Show With David Letterman. He's the first poker pro to get an invite from Dave, since Annie Duke sat on his couch way back in 2004. The fact that he's the only WSOP champ invited to appear on The Late Show seems like a clear sign of the growing popularity of the event, and the good job Cada has done promoting himself and the game.

JP Kelly takes down his second bracelet of the year by winning the WSOP Europe Event 1.

JP Kelly took down the WSOP Europe Event 1 Final Table after heads-up play that began with him holding 1/3 of the chips of Fabian Dunlop.

Dunlop entered the final table with a sizable chip lead with 538,000 while Kelly began with the third most chips with 317,500.

This makes for the second piece of 2009 World Series of Poker hardware for Kelly who took down the $1,500 Pot Limit Holdem WSOP tourney in Vegas earlier this year. Additionally, Kelly snags the added honor of being the first Brit to win a WSOPE event. But beyond the honor, there is also the cash: £136,803 to be specific.

In the meantime, the £2,500 + £150 Pot Limit Holdem / Omaha Event 2 has begun. Stay tuned for more WSOP Europe updates.

The 2009 WSOP Europe Event 1 Final Table and gets underway today.

The WSOP Europe came out swinging this year by setting a record for the biggest poker tournament to ever be held in London. The 608 person field also blew last year’s attendance for the same event out of the water by almost 200 players. The size of the field necessitated the addition of a second Day 1 so it was broken into Day 1A and Day 1B.

Fat fields make for fat prize pools and so it is that the final nine players facing off today will be battling for a lion’s share of almost $1 million USD.

Fabian Dunlop leads the WSOP Europe Event 1 Final Table with 538,000 in chips.

Coming in with a massive chip lead is Fabian Dunlop with 538,000 in chips with Richard Allen, also from London, in second with 322,000. All of the final tablers are actually Londoners with a few exceptions: James Tomlin (49,000) from Southampton, UK, John-Paul Kelly (317,500) from Aylesbury, UK and Adnan Alshamah (121,000) makes it an international table as he hails from Damascus, Syria.

Here are the complete seat numbers and chip counts:

Stay tuned to the Cake Poker Blog for WSOP Europe results and news.

Who will join Annette Obrestad and John Juanda as a WSOP Europe Champion?

With four more WSOP bracelets being awarded in London this week, the WSOP Europe is already seeing a good turn out with all the biggest names in poker descending on the English capital like a chip hungry school of piranhas.

The four-day £1,000 + £75 NL Holdem tourney Event 1 got underway today with a field of 329 players 

Monday sees the £2,500 + £150 three-day Pot Limit Holdem/Pot Limit Omaha Event 2 begin.  This seems to have replaced the WSOPE HORSE event from previous years.

Wednesday Sept, 23 will see the £5,000 + £250 Pot Limit Omaha Event 3 begin.

The Main Event starts in a week from this Saturday. A tradtition of top poker players winning the WSOP Main Event has been established in the two years that it’s been running. In 2007, Annette Obrestad took down the Main Event and then in 2008 it would be John Juanda who took down a stacked final table that included Ivan Demidov, Scott Fischman and Daniel Negreanu.

Stay tuned for WSOP Europe updates here on the Cake Poker Blog.

The final table is about to get underway here at the English Poker Open in Nottingham. The last nine guys who have chips, by seat:

One of these guys is going to take home a bit over £200,000. In fact, here are the exact numbers:

1. £208,367
2. £121,814
3. £73,088
4. £51,290
5. £38,467
6. £28,850
7. £22,439
8. £16,028
9. £12,822

If you're keeping score on the other side of the pond, the British Pound is running at about $1.65.

We've had a blast here, and want to thank the folks at Dusk Till Dawn and RakeTheRake for being wonderful hosts. The people were nice, the espresso delicious, the camraderie top-notch. Be sure to watch the live webcast right here at the Cake Poker Blog to see who takes home over $300,000 this evening.

We're less than an hour away from the start of the English Poker Open here in Nottingham and the Dusk Till Dawn club is filling up rapidly with poker players milling about. We do that well, we poker players. We'll mill about at the drop of a dealer button. For instance, notice the people below.

But have no fear - the staff at Dusk Till Dawn will herd these cats shortly and we'll have bums in seats, chips in stacks, and cards in the air. Stand by for more.

The annual Aces & Angels Celebrity Poker tournament at the Playboy Mansion sponsored by Cake Poker was a huge success once again. Cake Poker was the exclusive sponsor and fielded 24 players out of a total field of 250 through online satellites.

Luckily for everyone involved, the Playboy Bunnies were "dressed" up for the occasion with poker themed body paint.

Here we have a few Cake Poker players enjoying themselves before the tournament. From left to right: “MckenaMarley," "ClaytonComic," Yours Truly, our hostess Ali, “36chambers” and “TeUnit."

Aside from Team Cake other notables playing in the Aces and Angels Tournament included Gavin Smith, Jeff Madsen, Vince Van Patten, Bruce and Brody Jenner, Dancing with the Stars winner Derek Hough and Dane Cook.

Cake Poker hosted our friends and players with a VIP cabana directly across from the playing area. Gavin Smith (pictured above second from left) and Jeff Madsen (pictured above third from left) decided to join Team Cake players like "davodman" (pictured above on the right) in the cabana for some pre-game drinks & appetizers.

Tournament director extraordinaire, Matt Savage did an excellent job of moving the poker tournament's pace along despite ALL the distractions. In the above picture Savage stands watching over the final table. MckenaMarley is on the left, Calytoncomic (funnier than Dane Cook and obviously a better poker player) is in the blue shirt in the middle with Jeff Madsen sitting on his left.

Claytoncomic really held his own, but ultimately busted out in 5th place taking this beautiful autographed electric guitar.

Plus he got to sit on Shannon Elizabeth's left for a while which can't be a bad thing, can it?

When Jeff Madsen busted out in 3rd it was only McKenaMarley (pictured above on the right next to Derek Hough) left playing heads up against some kid in a bathrobe. McKenaMarley made a great shove but was outlucked on the river. Matt came away with an autographed Rolling Stones collage that includes an original Emotional Rescue LP. Matt you represented Cake Poker extremely well and we are all proud of you.

The Playbot Mansion charity poker tournament might be over but we're already looking ahead to the future. Check out Cake Poker's English Poker Open online qualifiers and join Team Cake in the UK!

There is a fundamental contradiction in a large multi-event poker tournament such as the WSOP. At the beginning, the crowds are huge, the money is relatively evenly distributed among the players, and the pressure on any one player is relatively low. Everything is fresh, anything is possible.

As time passes, money flows through the tournaments into the hands of a small number of players - the final table often takes home about 50% of the total prize pool. It gets harder and harder for some of the players to find a buy-in for the tournament, particularly if they're hanging onto that crucial last $10,000 for the Big Dance. The cash games, which seemed to bubble with an endless supply of $100 bills, dry up like the Serengheti before the rains.

And now, we find ourselves at the intermission of the Main Event. Of almost 6500 entrants, just 1724 remain. About a third of those will take home some cash - the smallest payout being $21,000 and change.

In the meantime, thousands of people who were here have no reason to stay any more. They busted out of the main event, couldn't find the buy-in, or alas, neglected to register until it was too late and were shut out. So they have returned to their home states and home countries, back into the poker diaspora until May of next year. Leaving us with this:

And that guy is already thinking about next year. Or perhaps what could have been this year.

Even my friend of over a decade, Nolan Dalla, the head of media for the WSOP, gets to sit down for a little while:

And yet, of the 1724 players who will return to this room tomorrow, one will take home over $8.5 million in November. Nine people in this room will be millionaires come Christmas. So while many retreat to think of next year, a relative few try to relax and prepare for the grueling march to the final nine over the next four days.

We're delighted to say that five members of Team Cake are in that hunt, and we'll keep you informed of their progress. Needless to say, no matter what happens from here on out, we're wildly proud of them.