Team Greece will join 7 other national teams in competition at the May 19, 2010 WTP Inaugural event in Las Vegas. Co-captained by the “voice” of Greek poker George Theofanopoulos and Greek Player of the year for 2009 George Kapalas, Team Greece travel to Vegas as underdogs but have no doubt that they are ready to spring some surprises- especially if their opponents make the mistake to underestimate them.

With their mix of 4 professional players (Theofanopoulos, Kapalas, Zervos, Kalfas) and 2 players who made their way to the team after topping the national qualifiers, Greece will try to show the world at the Golden Nugget in May that they should think of more than just Nick the Greek and the past when they talk about Greek poker.

TEAM GREECE CO-CAPTAINS

George Theofanopoulos: Well known in Greece as the TV commentator of the oldest and most popular poker show in Greece (Mega TV), as well as being the chief editor of pokercity.gr and a regular columnist in the Greek Card Player magazine, George “vladan” Theofanopoulos has a strong grasp of the game.

George studied Journalism and Tourism Management but it was Journalism and Poker (not Tourism) that actually won him over. He won his seat at the WSOP main event twice and his highest finish in a live tournament was 5th place in a European Poker Tour event in Prague in 2007. His strength is his experience in Fixed Limit Hold’em, as this was the game he mainly played as a professional online player from 2001 until 2004. He is now 35 years old and his total cashes from poker tournaments are more than $350,000.

Georgios Kapalas: While George “gkapalas” started playing poker in 2006, it took him just two years to become perhaps the best tournament player in Greece. Before that he was an internationally acknowledged player of Magic the Gathering.

George is the only Greek player who has reached the final table at both a World Series of Poker Event and at a European Poker Tour Main Event. In June 2009 he finished 7th at WSOP #59 NL Hold’em winning $97,000 and three months later he finished 8th at the EPT Barcelona main event earning more than $100,000. George has total cashes of more than $600,000 in both online and live tournaments and is perhaps the brightest hope of Greek poker in this decade, so “mind the gkap” everybody!

TEAM GREECE PRO MEMBERS

Alex “J0hnnyDr@ma” Zervos: This 25 years old and has cashed more than $400,000 in poker tournaments. He studied Economics at LSE and Finance at UCL in London, but his love for the game led him to choose online poker instead of a career in Finance after he finished his studies.

He first played poker at the early age of 10 and started to play online in 2005. He currently spends half his time in Athens, Greece and the rest of the year in New York. Lately he succeeded in bringing his skills to the live “arena” (started playing live tournaments in 2009) and cashed in three events at the PCA in Bahamas in January 2010. His best finishes are 3rd place at event #19, PL Omaha and 4th place at event #22, 8-game.

Alex loves to play multi-game tournaments and is really looking forward to prove that in World Team Poker’s Inaugural Event.

Stavros “IDOLLS” Kalfas: A well known and accomplished Greek poker player, Kalfas started playing poker in 2004, learning on sit & go’s, but soon emerged as one of the best MTT players in Greece. His net profit from online tournaments, is more than $200.000 adding more than 140.000 euros from live tournaments. His most recent success came in April 2010 when he finished 3rd at the 2.000 euros event, in San Remo earning himself 117.000 euros. He has studied Economics and Finance in London and has an Master degree at Business Administration (MBA). He worked as a bank employee for two years after he finished his studies, but soon left to start his own business. He is now crushing heads-up sit & go tournaments online, when at the same time he is planning his next business steps.

TEAM GREECE QUALIFIERS

Dimitris Lyritsis: Lyritsis is a 24 years old student of Economics at the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki, Greece. He now lives in Volos, one of the biggest and most beautifull Greek cities by the sea. He started playing poker 3 years ago, both online and live. He is now a winning player at cash games playing mostly online. He managed to finish 1st in the 8-day online League organized by Poker.gr, thus winning a seat at the World Team Poker with Team Greece.

Dimitris “lentis” Chatziriotis: Chatziriotis is 27 years old and has been playing poker for the last 4 years. He is a civil employee at the Ministry of National Defence and a poker enthusiast. He prefers home games with friends, but he will not say ‘no’ to a big challenge like the WTP League for Team Greece. After a thrilling final day, “lentis” was in 2nd place winning the last seat available in Team Greece. His favorite game is NL Hold’em.

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