Last year’s EPT Dortmund final table was nothing if not German. For the only the second time in the tour’s six-year history, the home country (Germany) finished in first, second and third position, with the Team PokerStars Pro (Germany) Sandra Naujoks at the very top of the tree.
One of the (German) sub-plots of that particular (German) event was the will-they, won’t-they* burgeoning relationship between Naujoks and the (German) Marc Gork. Most people will remember Gork as the player who spent long periods of the event reading a book of (German) romantic poetry, else uttering sweet nothings in Naujoks’ ear. In German.
It was all conducted in a very tongue-in-cheek fashion, and since then both Naujoks and Gork have been regular fixtures on the EPT. I don’t recall if they’ve been sat next to one another at any subsequent event, but it doesn’t seem to matter to Gork.
In Prague today, he’s found himself another pair of German ears to chatter to. They belong to the Team PokerStars Pro Katja Thater, and the two of them have been chewing the fat all day long; even hamming it up for the camera early on when Thater took down a pot with pocket queens.
Naujoks is also in the field, and for the first four levels she sat with her countryman and Team PokerStars Pro colleague Benjamin Kang. The giant Kang couldn’t get much traction today, however, and recently departed, leaving Naujoks to do battle with the likes of John Kabbaj alone. I’m sure she will cope.
It also seems safe to assume that Florian Langmann isn’t too perturbed by his German-less position on table 18. He has the early leader Konstantinos Alexiou to his immediate right, his noise-reducing headphones clamped over his ears, and a stack of golden chips in front of him.
Langmann also has quite a game. He was already German champion when he went to EPT London on season four and finished second for close to $700,000. He racked up countless five- and six-figure results since then, and is among the last people you’d ever want to see sitting on your table.
Alongside the Dutch, the Germans are also to be feared in Prague.
*They didn’t.
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