Poker News

Norwegian Elisabeth Hille has already played the WSOP in Betfair colours and now she is officially a sponsored team pro member.

Elisabeth Hille

Prior to the World Series of Poker 2012 Main Event, Elisabeth Hille worked as a waitress. Then, she finished the tournament in 11th place out of the 6,598 contestants for $590,442. Hille arrived to Las Vegas together with his boyfriend, Harald Olsen, who finished 5th in one of last year’s $1,000 NLHE events. He sponsored 50% of her Main Event buy-in this year.

PKR Poker has always been famous for creating a poker atmosphere unlike anything you can encounter in any other online room. Now they topped even that, integrating the all popular social features in their real money game environment.

With their latest update, version 2.08, PKR Poker has raised the stakes as far as recreational poker and social gaming are concerned: with the ability to stack one another, send a virtual drink, read players’ expressions and boast hands via YouTube, players of the room can now feel the further enhanced excitement of a real casino, and even more.

PokerStars have released the official schedule of their World Championship of Online Poker 2012 (WCOOP), starting 2 September.

Running 2 – 23 September, 2012, this year’s WCOOP will feature 62 events. On most event days, three tournaments kick off, with buy-ins ranging from $109 to $10,300.

The $5,200 Main Event takes place on 23 September with a guaranteed first prize of $1,000,000. Last year’s champion Thomas ‘Kallllle’ Pedersen earned $1,260,018. In 2011, the total prize pool of the Championship was a whopping $47,120,800.

Effective 19 July, 2012, poker players from Germany are migrated to the PokerStars.eu client, maintaining full access to the .com player pool.

PokerStars migrated its German users to the .eu domain of the room, which is promised to affect them in a positive way only. Sharing the player pool of the .com client, the sole purpose of the move is to have German player under a more beneficial tax system.

We are presenting you the October Nine, the finalists of the World Series of Poker Main Event, with their past successes and results.

Even though there are no real big names in this year’s WSOP finale, the Final Table is relatively balanced and basically each one of the nine players has a real chance of winning the $8,527,982 first prize and the coveted golden bracelet. They are not going to make it easy for each other, either, so let us take a look at the people in contest for the championship title.

Jesse Sylvia – Stack: 43,875,000
Age: 26
Total live tournament winnings: $23,777
Nationality: US

Final Table chipleader Jesse Sylvia was born in the state of Massachusetts. A cash game player under the screen name ‘4JesseJames4’, he has been observed at the PokerStars high stakes tables. He was introduced to poker as a teenager and he lost several $50 deposits before he decided to study the theories behind poker instead of playing it for a while.

Collecting every possible book on poker, he managed to improve his game quickly and today he is an 888Poker sponsored pro.

He moved to Las Vegas, where he is considered a live regular today. Sylvia claims he usually plays 40-60 hours a week. No major MTT performance of his has been recorded yet, his best result being a 2nd finish in the 2008 Mega Stack Series $200 NLHE event for $15,078.

Jesse Sylvia

PartyPoker decided to remove their cash game tables higher than $5/10 No Limit and 30/60 in case of Fixed Limit games. They reason that the decision was made in order to make improvements to their poker ecology. PartyPoker released the following statement to the poker news site Pokerfuse:

"We have removed some of our super high stake games, this decision has been taken to make improvements to our poker ecology and in our players best interests. We believe this change will improve the action at our tables and is in the best interest of the poker room as a whole."

Following Event Days 5, 6 and 7, the World Series of Poker 2012 Final Table is now set. Nine players return in October to decide the fate of the $8,527,982 first prize and the ultimate golden bracelet.

Gaelle Baumann

282 players returned on Day 5 of the WSOP $10,000 NLHE Main Event to play it down to 97. One of the highlights of the day was a hand that is bound to be in the focus of heated debate for long throughout the industry, especially considering the events of Day 7 (see below).

Electronic Arts division EA Mobile TM and Caesars Interactive Entertainment, Inc. teamed up to launch a WSOP-themed poker application for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices, which they promise to be “the most authentic poker game on the planet.”

“The new, true-to-life, play-for-fun poker app brings one of the most trusted names in poker to iPad, iPhone and iPod touch devices worldwide” – reports WSOP.com. The new application by EA Mobile and Caesars Interactive Entertainment, Inc. (CIE) features virtual bracelets and rings, VIP statuses and Pro levels to go after, like in the real World Series.

It is time to review what happened in the past days of the 43rd World Series of Poker. Among others, the bubble has burst and only 282 players are returning to Day 5.

Vanessa Selbst

Players from Day 1A and 1B were united on Day 2A/B for a total player pool of 2,054, of which 842 players made it to Day 3. Two ladies were in the Top 10: Vanessa Selbst (350,400) and chipleader Gaelle Baumann (505,800), while favourites who were eliminated included Kevin MacPhee, Mike Sexton, Tony Dunst, Justin Bonomo, Scott Seiver, Brian Rast, Erik Seidel, Martin Staszko, Mike Matusow, Barry Shulman, Galen Hall and Isaac Haxton.

British Barry Denson has broken Phil Laak’s poker endurance record, playing 120 hours and 20 minutes in a row and earning £850 in profits, which he will give to charity.

Barry Denson

On 2 June, 2010, during the annual World Series of Poker, WSOP and WPT champion Phil Laak started his poker session to break the Guinness World Record of poker endurance, set by Paul ‘The Marbella Kid’ Zimbler at 74 hours, playing heads-up during the 2009 WSOPE. ‘The Unabomber’ aimed at 80 hours to play in the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

Yung ‘Andy’ Hwang started in the chiplead at the 8-handed final table of the WSOP National Championship. The WSOP Circuit (WSOPC) National Championship was organised in 2011 for the first time as an invitational-only event for a golden bracelet, despite not being an integral part of the World Series.

In 2012, WSOP organised the event with a different structure: in addition to the best 100 players of the WSOPC Season 2011/2012, the best 100 WSOP and WSOPE players of the past two years could also register for $10,000. The entire sum from the buy-ins went to the prize pool.

The most renowned players of the world were among the total of 6,598 to enter the first event days of the Main Event of the 43rd World Series of Poker. Event #61 $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em resumes now with 4,344 grinders in play for Event Days 2A-C.

Phil Hellmuth

With a „Shuffle up and deal!” shout from Ellen ’Gram’ Deeb, Shaun Deeb’s grandmother, play started in the $10,000 NLHE Main Event of WSOP 2012 in the weekend. 1,066 players registered for Day 1A but only 657 made it through to Day 2. Among those who were eliminated was 12-times bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, railed by Michael Tureniec’s three of a kind.

Ray Bitar paid the $2.4 million bail and will be transferred to house arrest within 48 hours. Meanwhile, Howard Lederer asks for drop of charges.

Full Tilt Poker CEO Ray Bitar was arrested on 2 July at John F. Kennedy International, New York, where he arrived from Dublin with the intention to turn himself over to the authorities. It did not go as he planned, however; contrary to his previous deal with the FBI, he was faced with additional charges in the new indictment.

PokerStars has released the schedule for their micro stakes online series, the MicroMillions II. The event kicks off on 12 July and features 100 micro stakes tournaments until 22 July. MicroMillions was designed specifically for micro stakes players, who have a small bankroll, but always dreamt big. In this series, players can win amazing prizes with very low buy-ins. Last year's Micro Millions attracted 1,294,883 registrations.

Bobby Crosby, the renowned writer of the +EV comic strip now aims to raise funds to publish 150 of the best strips in printing. To achieve this, he calls for the help of the international poker community.

In order to be able to publish the softcover and hardcover copies, he needs to raise $5,000 until 15 July, 2012.

Using the KickStarter fundraising engine, Crosby offers various features in return for your support. For $10 or more, you receive a digital copy of +EV Volume 1 both in PDF and in an e-Reader format of your choice. For $25 or more, you get a softcover copy of the book (in addition to the digital one, which goes with all packages); $30 or more grants you a signed copy and $45 rewards you with a signed and numbered hardcover edition. Do not forget to add $5 if you want your reward shipped outside the US.