AUTHOR: Jerry "Jet" Whittaker
TITLE: Eastern Europeans are Major Force at Spring Poker Festival 
DATE: 10:23 AM
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BODY:
32-year-old Branimir Brunovic, a trainee lawyer from Zagreb in Croatia won<br>the 2007 PartyPoker.net European Challenge, the climax of the Spring Poker<br>Festival at the Concord Card Casino in Vienna. Croatian Uses his Poker<br>Skills to Finance his Legal Skills Brunovic, an online qualifier, took the<br>title winning EUR190,160 after a heads-up battle with Andreas Krause, a<br>respected professional player from Stuttgart, Germany. After a marathon<br>final table, Brunovic&#39;s Ace-Eight off suit held-up against Krause&#39;s<br>King-Jack off suit to give him first prize and the trophy. Brunovic is not a<br>professional on the circuit but is part of a small group of players who are<br>making a name for themselves in Croatia. He has one year to go before he is<br>fully qualified in civil law and is currently working an internship at a<br>court house in Zagreb after studying the core subjects at University in the<br>city. &quot;I play in as many tournaments as I can but this was the greatest<br>experience and by far the biggest win I have had. With the legal training it<br>is going to be very useful to have all the extra money. I am going to play a<br>few more big live games now but am going to sleep for a few nights and have<br>a good think about what I am going to do with the money. What a nice problem<br>to have!&quot; said Brunovic. &quot;Poker has a big future in Croatia and is growing<br>bigger everyday. We have a good set of players who are playing regularly. It<br>started with just a few of us but the group is getting larger all the time.<br>We&#39;ve been particularly successful in the biggest tournaments in Slovenia. I<br>was runner-up in the biggest tournament there two years ago,&quot; he added. The<br>Croatian legal eagle has played poker for 10 years and was one of three<br>Eastern Europeans on the final table. At the start, he was the third biggest<br>chip stack but things didn&#39;t go that well for him until the closing hours.<br>Many expected Peter Gelencser from Hungary to win after he accumulated the<br>majority of chips on the table when it was three-handed but it was Brunovic<br>and Krause who hammered away at the big stack to ruin the talented<br>Hungarian&#39;s dreams. The key turning point was when Brunovic held pocket aces<br>with Gelencser on Queen-Jack off suit. Gelencser raised pre-flop and<br>Brunovic trapped him by just calling. A Queen came on the first card of the<br>flop and Peter lost a huge proportion of his stack. Other players made an<br>impression on the final table. Katharine Hartree, a 31 year-old pro from<br>Bridgnorth, England is currently one of the top European ladies on the<br>circuit and finished fifth, hardly surprising considering she cashed<br>impressively at the WSOP Main Event and Aussie Millions. Out 7th but also<br>showing good consistency recently is Lithuanian Kondratas Aruydas, who is a<br>pupil of Tony G and recently took part in the Asian Poker Tour in Singapore.<br>A PartyPoker.net spokesman said. &quot;Western Europe may have won the skirmishes<br>earlier in the week but it was the Eastern European players who set the<br>standard to follow. A lot of these players are relatively unknown and older<br>but they showed their skill and experience in abundance to dominate<br>proceedings. There were big name casualties in the first couple of days.<br>Devilfish, Tony G, Roland De Wolfe and Michael Keiner all busted out before<br>the action got hot. Three online qualifiers made the final table.&quot;
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