Poker Guru's blog

The rumor is now true, Victory Poker leaves the Everleaf Poker Network for Cake Poker Network. The rumor started when Dan Fleysheman, CEO of Victory Poker promised a big announcement scheduled for his birthday, September 1st, though, PokerNewsDaily.com independently confirmed it a few days ago.

Victory Poker came to the online poker scene last year, signing pro player Antonio Esfandiari, and joining the Malta-based Everleaf Poker Network, whose traffic hugely increased when Victory joined in. As Victory became more and more popular, it reached the limitations of the small network, and began to plan the move to a more populated network such as the Cake.

The four robbers of the EPT 6 Berlin having been convicted, the trial of the masterminds behind the crime, Mohammed Abou-Charka and Ibrahim al Moussa, is now begun, as PokerRoomReview.com reported.

Crime scene: EPT 6 Berlin, March 2010

In a procedure in the Berlin state court expected to last until November, the two men are charged with organising the robbery in which four armed men managed to take around €242,000 ($330,000) from the Grand Hyatt Hotel. One of them actually participated in the tournament and he allegedly played while observing the execution of his plan. The other one drove the black Mercedes the robbers used to flee.

The election of 2010’s Poker Hall of Fame class member is near, we only have to wait until mid-September to get to know him. As in 2009, nominations are still open to public until Aug. 31st. As of last Wednesday, 181 people received nominations out of which the top 10 nominees will be revealed on September 1st. On September 13th, the list becomes final and it will be sent to the 16 existing Poker Hall of Fame members and the blue ribbon media panel to determine who gets the glorious title.

In PokerTube’s long video interview with Kara Scott, she is asked about her life before and now, her background in poker, the role as hostess for the EPT, the WPT and the WPO as well as her experience with poker pros like Brian Townsend. 

Two days ago I have written about the China-based players that were caught cheating at PokerStars’ Double or Nothing Sit & Go tables, but not much was sure for the time being. A few new details were revealed recently, as according to PokerNewsDaily.com, a member of PokerStars’ Game Security team by the name of 'Jackson' replied to 6 of the numerous questions PokerNewsDaily.com has asked.

When it finally comes to HR 2267 being signed into law, leading online rooms Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars will not be granted licences in the regulated US market, says Bwin co-CEO Norbert Teufelberger. If they are, then it was Bwin’s greatest mistake ever to withdraw after the UIGEA in 2006, he admits.

Bwin co-CEO Norbert Teufelberger

Since the two companies continued to provide services for US citizens after 2006, many consider them to be currently operating illegally and thus they will be “frozen out, should the market regulate.” Teufelberger shares this view and also states that they are the only ones stronger than Bwin, due to the “hundreds of millions of dollars” they have from their illegal operations.

Considering one of the amendments to the bill enables the refusal of licensing rooms that are known to have violated US law beforehand, he might well be right. About the possible outcomes, he is uncertain, though: “I cannot imagine that a company which in the view of the Department of Justice and several state licensing authorities in the US, that acts illegally, will be able or qualify to get a licence. In my view this will be absolutely impossible. What does that mean in the end? I don’t know. They may be prosecuted, they may not be prosecuted.”

The Greenbrier Resort (Greenbrier County, West Virginia), originally founded in 1858 as White Sulphur Springs, received important political figures throughout its history, including Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi as well as US presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The Greenbrier Resort

Before you read further: this doesn’t have the faintest thing to do with poker. It just so happens that I’m a huge Star Wars fan and I couldn’t possibly pass it by.

On the LA Weekly blog, Gendy Alimurung published a post on Pixar technical director Greg Peltz’ Victorian-style Star Wars paintings created using Photoshop.

I have written before on the collusion scandal at PokerStars: China-based players worked together at the online rooms’ Double or Nothing Sit & Go tables with buy-ins from $52 to $108. PokerNewsDaily.com dug up the story but they don’t seem to be able to uncover much more details.

The scandal started with poster ‘Jane0123’ complaining on 2+2 about their account frozen and eventually closed earlier this year. PokerStars informed them that “In reviewing hands it is clear that you routinely made team plays to create situations where you were supposed to benefit. You and your friends routinely played four and five players deep, and squeezed the blinds between two or more cooperating players. After reviewing several hands, for several players, it became obvious that this was part of some kind of agreed-upon strategy.” PS suspects that about 46 other Hangzhou-based players are involved. Formerly about $500,000, the pool for the compensation of the victim players now exceed $2 million, but they still remain unsatisfied and matters are even worse as the investigation is taking all too long.

The tension between the two honourable pros is well known in the poker community. You could even read their battle of blog posts on the issue of the WSOP Ladies Event (see Duke’s and Negreanu’s comments). Now, however, Negreanu probably went too far, calling Duke some less-than-flattering names.

Daniel Negreanu and Annie Duke

Although Ilari ‘Ziigmund’ Sahamies stated earlier this year that he is going to take a break in poker and spend the summer partying, he nevertheless played on FTP both in June and July. He only played 6870 hands, though, and earned $289,328 doing that, so it wasn’t a bad decision after all.

Ziigmund doing his thing

After one month break, the FOX TV show PokerStars’ The Big Game returned to the screen with David ’Viffer’ Peat, Barry Greenstein, Antonio Esfandiari, Chau Giang and Rick Rahim. This week’s Loose Cannon was Troy Howard from NYC. How did he fare? Check it out. 

One of the most renowned naturist resorts, Cap d'Agde (Hérault, France), is to celebrate its 40th anniversary – by organising a poker tournament, as a result of the cooperation between the local casino and the Union of Professionals of Naturist Tourism.

The Paddy Power World Strip Poker Championship in 2006. This is what
you're probably NOT going to see in Cap d'Agde.

Although no exact date, event structure or buy-in information is yet available, the entrance fee is announced to be €150 (and, of course, you’ve got to lose your pants). The main purposes, according to poker777.com, are to popularise nudism and “reach a wider audience” with the association. Cap d'Agde, hosting about 40,000 people summertime according to The Cake Blog, provides visitors with everything a usual resort does, except here all these can be enjoyed naked.

Unfortunately, I must agree with most of my sources: on poker games like this, you can expect 0.5-1% of the participants to be women, at best.

Joe Lacob, together with Peter Guber, has recently purchased NBA’s Golden State Warriors for $450 million, which is a record sum of its kind. Lacob has interests in Boston Celtics and venture capital company Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as well and is admittedly a fan of poker.

Joe Lacob

In an interview with Tim Kawakami, published in the Talking Points column of the San Jose Mercury-News blog, Lacob finds a number of similarities between the skills needed in venture capital (including the way he plans to make a winner of his newly acquired franchise) and in poker. He says that you have to come to terms with a calculated risk that is always present as there are always unknown factors, no matter how well you “do your homework.”

As I have already written, the Main Event of the 2010 WPT Legends of Poker kicks off tomorrow, on 20th August. LA’s Bicycle Casino hosts the $4,800 + $200 NLHE tournament which takes place between 20th and 25th August with two Day 1 events.

2009 was the last year with a buy-in of $10,000 for the Main Event; 279 players participated, 25% less than in 2008, according to PokerNewsDaily.com. After 127 hands, the finale was eventually won by Prahlad Friedman, beating 2009 WSOP November Niner Kevin Schaffel heads-up. Friedman sat down to the final table with the third biggest stack (1,476,000), topped by Todd Terry (2,219,000) and Schaffel (2,234,000). In addition to his greatest achievement, Friedman also placed 2nd to Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson in 2005 in the WSOP Circuit Championship and went ITM two times at WSOP Main Events in 2006 and in 2009. See his WPT profile here.

With 22 satellites already played, there remains three more after the Main Event until 29th August, the end of the championship. You can check the schedule and the buy-ins for the events here.