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.

Then it took two Day 2 flights. Finally, the Belgian Poker Series has reached Day 3, and more importantly to the players involved, the money.

When the tournament got underway a week ago, it started building a field 538-people strong. The top 80 players in the field stood to earn at least some money on the way to determining who would win €175,000 and the BPS Grand Final championship.

Now, there are 62 players remaining and play continues with Michael Gathy as the chip leader. The action should go on tonight until the tourney gets down to three tables.

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

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.

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.

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

Victory came on a flop of [js][10h][3h], when Latten moved all-in and Christiaan Vanzieleghem, with few chips behind, made the call. Vanzielghem had [4c][3s] for a pair, but Latten had [kh][9h] for the flush draw and gutshot straight draw. The turn was [8c], changing nothing, but the river was [9c] giving Latten the higher pair.

Vanzieleghem received €45,500 for being runner-up.

The €630 + €70 event on the Belgian coast was a great success, with 404 runners, including Team PokerStars Pro and former WSOP main event winner Chris Moneymaker, generating a €294,920 prize pool.

The next event is the Grand Final in Namur, running December 10 through 18. See the Belgian Poker Series website for more info.

Final table results:
1 Danny Latten, Holland, €70,000
2 Christiaan Vanzieleghem, Belgium, €45,500
3 Dimitri Juchtmans, Belgium, €31,000
4 Peter de Troyer, Belgium, €21,000
5 Samiyel Duzgun, Switzerland, €16,000
6 Mark Coppes , Holland, €11,300
7 Michiel Jonker, Holland, €8,800
8 Vincent de Rhoter, Holland, €5,872
9 Kamal Vercauteren, Belgium, €4,200

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.