After a full week of tournament play that saw four day one flights, two day 2 flights, and a marathon session to make ti down to the final table, Belgium's Michael Gathy has won the Belgian Poker Series Grand Final.

Gathy was one of nearly 600 players who signed up for the BPS's biggest event. He took a massive chip lead to the fintal table and managed to turn it into a BPS championship.

It took nine days to finish, but Gathy earned €175,000 for his victory.

If you'd like to see how Gathy did it (and you happen to know how to read in Dutch or use Google translate pretty well) check out the Dutch PokerStars Blog's full final table report.

Congratulations once again to Gathy for his Grand Final victory.

Earlier in 2011, a few Greek men decided to challenge each other to a year-long contest to determine who was the king of the Greeks. The Greece Poker Challenge pitted Stavros 'IDOLLS' Kalfas, George 'gkap13' Kapalas and Alexis 'J0hnny_Dr@m@' Zervos against each other. Now it appears the Belgian Poker Series could end up determining who wins the entire thing.

At first the contest involved a bunch of different categories.

Unless one of the men has a big finish in this weekend's 10th Anniversay celebrations, it could well be that the on-going Belgian Poker Series event determines who comes out on top.

In the live cashes category, Zervos recently moved into the lead after a cash for €25,800 in an EPT Prague side event. He's tied with Kalfas with four cashes, but Zervos has earned more money and hence has the points lead.

As the live event category is highly likely to decide the winner of the Challenge, what's going on at the BPS Grand Final is of ever-growing importance. Day 2a is going on right now.

Keep your eyes on the Dutch PokerStars Blog for live action updates.

The Belgian Poker Series has finished the third of its Day 1 flights. The tournament has seen big crowds, familiar faces, and lots of action in its first three days in play.

Day 1C saw many familiar names, including 2009 winner Antonio Guida, Tobias Peters, Bart Verbanck, Pierre Neuville, Jorg Peisert, and onetime EPT Monte Carlo champion Pieter de Korver. Other friendly faces included Frederic Van der Mersch and Raijmond Slabbekoorn.

Among the people lost on Day 1c were De Korver, Tobia Peters, and Antonio Guida.

Here were some of the top chip counts from Day 1c.

DANG Tuan - 154800 (Belgium)
BEKKOUCHE Karim - 145800 (France)
ISMAIL Demir - 122600 (Belgium) (Ukash)
DAOU Youssef - 119900 (Belgium)
DAVID Steven - 112700 (Belgium)
VERSLEGERS Jeremie - 106600 (Belgium)
VANHAEREN Fabrice - 106000 (Belgium)
DEMANY Alain - 96800 (Belgium)
PEPE Franck - 94800 (France) (Ukash)
URUS Metin - 92600 (Belgium)
NOUNA Ahmed - 92300 (Morroco)

For live coverage of the event, visit the Dutch-language PokerStars Blog.

The first day of the Belgian Poker Series Grand Final is over with Christopher Buzzo in the lead.

Day 1a began with a lot of familiar faces in hw crowd, including Kevin Thomas, Fried Meulders, Filip Verboven, Laurens De Smet, and more. Many of them made it tot he end of the day. One thing Day 1a was not, however, was one for the women, Not one managed to have chips after the last river of the night. In any case, Buzzo will take the chip lead into Day 2 on Monday.

Live reporting will continue on Day 1b on the Dutch-language PokerStars Blog. Look below for some selected chip counts from Day 1a.

Christopher Buzzo 256.000
Philippe Laval 166.500
Felipe Alves 111.100
Bart Mannheims 95.000
Ward De Bruyn 79.800
Jens Vandemaele 78.000
Michiel Jonkers 92.800
Fabrice Somers 85.800
Vincent Gabel 71.000
Danny Latten 47.400
Shahriar Soltani 43.400
Lorenzo Van den Hove 29.800
Michael Gathy 27.800
Filip Verboven 22.300
Daniel Dodet 14.500
Brian Rausens 11.100
Bjorn Geleyn 11.100

There is something about the Belgian people that until recently didn't scream, "Poker!" They are friendly but reserved folks from a small country. It's only been in recent months that the nation has started making serious headway in the world poker community.

At this moment, the country sits atop the European Poker Tour leaderboard in the race for best performing country, The country's best ambassador, Friend of PokerStars Pierre Neuville, is also known as the Serial PokerStars Qualifier, a man who won the EPT Awards Best Online Qualifier category last year. With all that in mind, it's no surprise the country is about to get its own poker tour.

PokerStars has recently unveiled the Belgian Poker Series. The BPS kicks off this month in Namur inside the country's biggest poker room.

The first event begins April 14 and runs through April 17. The main event is a €800 buy-in, four-day no-limit-hold'em tourney.

Although the buy-in to the first BPS main event is affordable, PokerStars is doing its best to make it as cheap as possible. You can find satellites for the Belgian Poker Series running right now.

After leaving Namur, the BPS will head to Casino Blankenberge in September for its next stop.

For more information about the BPS, its leaderboard prizes, and schedule, check out the Belgian Poker Series website.