Football Agent\’s Dramatic Exit from WPT-Bucharest

A little excitement at WPT Bucharest this weekend, when controversial soccer agent Giovani Becali got kicked out of the tournament … Hmm, throwing chips and threats of blows … seems like a little Phil Hellmuth + (old) Hevad Khan + Bobby Knight with maybe a dash of European football violence thrown in.

Kinda funny to see the new-and-improved, PartyPokerfied Tony G becoming an etiquette ambassador instructing poker bad-boys on how to behave at the tables.

Meanwhile, as WPT-Bucharest continues … the WPT is hyping a pretty competitive field for a relatively small (161 players, €3,000+300) new WPT event:

Amongst the players taking part include recent WPT Hollywood Poker Open champion Carlos Mortensen, Sorel Mizzi, Pascal Perrault, Praz Bansi, Team http://www.partypoker.com/ pro Dragan Galic, Casey Kastle, EPT Snowfest final tablists Russell Carson and Alain Medesan, 2009 WPT Championship runner-up Ran Azor and France‘s Nicolas Levi. The local charge is led by Cristian Dragomir, Cristian Dumitrescu and Mihai Manole.

Interesting crop of pros making the trek to the other side of the Iron Curtain. With a decent (but different) WPT Player of the Year race taking shape … I wonder if this suggests more competition amongst tours trying to get players to chase their big prize and any stature that may go with it.