Poker News

Tom Dwan Takes Down $11,5 Million Pot in Macau

Tom 'durrrr' Dwan only logged 2,000 hands during last month, and considering that the guy usually plays much more online than that, it's quite obvious that he's back in Macau, making much more money at the live cash game tables than he possibly could online, most recently he won an insane $11,5 million pot.

tom dwan
Tom 'durrrr' Dwan

It is becoming common knowledge that high rollers such as Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Tom Dwan and Johnny Chan pass the time in Macau's StarWorld Casino playing with local businessmen; I wrote about them a few times already, but I need to tell you this, because this is sick: according to recent information, Tom 'durrrr' Dwan took down a $11,5 million pot.

Superstar Showdown: Isildur1 vs. Dodgyfish27

In PokerStars' newest promotion, a small-limit version of the Superstar Showdown is available to which players can get admittance via online satellites. This version of the Superstar Showdown is the same as its bigger brother, except that PokerStars stakes the person winning the online qualifiers with $15,000 to play with.

Whatever amount the player has at the end of the 2,500 hand session, he is allowed to keep it. In addition, if one of the heads-up fighters manages to take all his opponent's money, he receives an extra $10,000.

Isildur1
Viktor 'Isildur1' Blom

Hungarian recreational poker player Attila 'Dodgyfish27' Gulcsik was lucky and clever enough to try himself out against the world-famous Team PokerStars Pro Viktor Blom, and took part in a very fierce battle. The match was not one of which you could judge the outcome, and in the end Isildur won the game by only one big blind. Although there was a point where Isildur1 was leading by more than $10,000, the Hungarian managed to pull himself together and come to almost even in the end, pocketing a very nice $14,990. 

Cates Loses $343K Against Isildur1 at PokerStars

Railbirds definitely had something to entertain them today, as Viktor 'Isildur1' Blom and Daniel 'w00ki3z' Cates sat down for some serious $25/$50 PLO action at PokerStars.

Cates (known as Jungleman12 at other sites) started the session pretty unluckily, and Blom was alredy up around $300K after only 700 hands. Although Daniel did manage to come close to even three times, this didn't change the final results: Isildur1 closed with an astonishing $343K profit. 

Viktor 'Isildur1' Blom
Viktor 'Isildur1' Blom

Gameplay was very-very aggressive, which was one of the factors that made one of the largest $25/$50 PLO sessions in history. 3-bets were the most common occurrence preflop, but we could also see the two daredevils shoving all-in several times, before seeing the flop. 

Blom and Cates played a total of 2085 hands, and the battle ended with Isildur1 winning $343,000, which, added to his previous winnings, makes his 2011 profit $454,000.

I am eagerly waiting for a rematch, and I will make sure to have you guys informed the moment this happens. 

David Williams Becomes Dad

David Williams, the funny and also highly successful PokerStars pro has become a dad a few days ago. According to his Twitter, he and his girlfriend had the baby on February 19. "Nameless Baby Williams was born at 8:01pm weighing 7lbs 11oz and 21inches long!!!!!!!! AMAZING! Yvette and the baby are doing great! - Williams wrote. As he told his followers, he thought way too much about what the baby girl's name should be like, so they only agreed on the name a bit later.

Liliana Acea Williams

"We have a name for our baby girl...The reason it took so long was because I'm weird. Every time we liked something I would freak out...and change my mind. I felt naming someone is so important because it's with them FOREVER and I would hate to stick my girl with a bad name..So after 9 months of thinking and discussing it all comes down to this. Liliana Acea Williams. Born Feb 19, 2011 at 8:01pm. 7lbs11oz."

Sorel Mizzi Unbanned from Full Tilt Poker

sorel mizzi
Sorel Mizzi

Sorel Mizzi, Canadian poker pro, BLUFF Magazine's Player of the Year is now again allowed to play at Full Tilt Poker, from which he was banned back in 2007, when he was caught multi-accounting on Full Tilt Poker. As you might or might not know, the guy bought his friend's, Chris Vaughan's account 'BluffMagCV', when Vaughan was running deep (near 26th place) in a $1million guaranteed FTP tournament. Mizzi finished first at the tournament, winning the $200,000 first prize. Full Tilt discovered the arrangement quite fast and confiscated the prize, also banning Mizzi and Vaughn from the site for good. Or this is what they thought then. The second place finisher Soren 'Kongsgaard' Kongsgaard was quite happy with this decision, he was awarded the first prize not much later.

Jared Huggins Will Be on the Big Game

It seems that after Jared Huggins, the homeless poker player who lost everything, made money by giving out free hugs and then, with the support of many poker pros like Daniel Negreanu and the whole 2+2 community, auditioning for The Big Game, has now finally made it: he will be playing on PokerStars' TV show. On 2+2, PokerStars representative 'PokerStars Steve' psoted the names of the 7 Loose Cannons who will be on The Big Game, shot in February.

pokerstars big game

European Poker Awards: Jake Cody Wins Po Y Title

On Sunday, February 13, 2011 the 10th European Poker Awards ceremony was held in Paris, hosted by the Aviation Club de France. Jake Cody is awarded Player of the Year and Internet Player of the Year is Andreas ’skjervoy’ Torbergsen.

Jake Cody

Players were awarded in eight categories at the greatest European ceremony of this type and nomination was dominated by the British: they delegated 15 applicants in all for the various titles. Eventually, they did actually do good, winning, amongst others, the Player of the Year title, going to Jake Cody, champion of EPT Deauville and WPT London in 2010. Not only that, but he was also chosen Rookie of the Year. Cody is joined by fellow countrypersons EPT San Remo champion Liv Boeree (Europe’s Leading Lady) and WSOPE Main Event winner James Bord (Outstanding Tournament Performance).

Peter Eastgate Returns to Poker

2008 WSOP Main Event winner Peter Eastgate has been quite a hot topic last year. The Dane officially retired from poker in 2010 summer, when he cancelled his participation at the 2010 WSOP, and instead went to the South African Soccer World Cup. Not sure if was worth it financially, but it might have been much more fun for him. Now he decided it's time to return to poker, and make some more money.

Peter Eastgate
Peter Eastgate

"When I started playing poker for a living, it was never my goal to spend the rest of my life as a professional poker player. My goal was to become financially independent. I achieved that by winning the WSOP Main Event in 2008. The period following has taken me on a worldwide tour, where I have seen some amazing places and met many new people; it has been a great experience. In the 20 months following my WSOP win, I feel that I have lost my motivation for playing high level poker along the way and I have decided that now is the time to find out what I want to do with the rest of my life. What this will be, I do not yet know. I have decided to take a break from live tournament poker, and try to focus on Peter Eastgate, the person." - stated Eastgate last summer.

November Niners Beaten by Amateur Player at Foxwoods

Foxwoods Resort Casino organized a pretty interesting tournament recently with the active participation of 2010 WSOP November Niners, who agreed to play some good old poker against some random amateurs. You figure the Niners nailed them, right? Not really.

ben hopkins
Ben Hopkins

The invitational tournament at the Foxwoods Resort Casino wasn't interesting because of the weak $15,000 prize pool, but instead of the fact that last year's November Niners did play the event. Against 18 randomly selected amateur players and some VIPs (including Bernard Lee, for Foxwoods casino, ESPN commentator Lon McEachern and poker book publisher Kasey Thompson) the 9 guys had to play no limit hold'em.

Gabe Kaplan Departs from High Stakes Poker

According to an official announcement made by GSN yesterday, Gabe Kaplan has left the popular poker show High Stakes Poker (HSP). His place will be taken by Norm MacDonald, also known from Saturday Night Live.

Full Tilt Poker pros will not take part in the 7th season of HSP either, because the sponsor of the show became their biggest rival PokerStars. This decision means, that players like Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius and Tom 'durrrr' Dwan will be absent from the series.

Gabe Kaplan, well-known for his funny style and very professional commentating, has also left the show. This was announced by GSN yesterday, on the 7th February, but reasons were not mentioned in the notice. Kaplan will be replaced by Norm MacDonald from Saturday Night Live.


Norm MacDonald at the Laugh Factory

Young Pro Ashton Griffin Wins $300k with Insane Prop Bet

Justin 'BoostedJ' Smith's posted an awesome story on his Twitter recently stating that Ashton 'theASHMAN103' Griffin, one of the best young players in the World won a crazy prop bet he made with his friend Haseeb Qureshi. He had to run 70 miles in 24 hours. He did.

ashton griffin
Ashton Griffin

The terms (to which he agreed highly intoxicated at a party as far as rumors go) of the bet were quite simple: if Griffin could run 70 miles (which is a little less than 3 marathons' length) on a treadmill in 24 hours, he would win $300,000, however, if he couldn't make it, he would have to pay $900,000. Walking did not count towards the 70 miles. This seems crazy at first, but not for the college level wrestler Griffin, who jumped into the contest right the next day, despite having very little sleep the night before, and being massively hung over. He managed to finish the challenge with only 45 minutes left, which is an huge performance on its own, considering that regular marathon runners usually run 1 marathon per day, while Griffin managed to run almost 3 of them.

Vegas Judge's Son is The Bellagio Robber

As it was suspected, the Bellagio robber couldn't avoid the police for long, late Wednesday 2 undercover officers of the Las Vegas Police arrested Anthony Michael Carleo (also known as Anthony Assad) after he tried to sell them high-value chips stolen during the Bellagio robbery in December. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Carleo is the son of George Assad, Municipal Court Judge of Las Vegas.

Anthony Assad
Anthony Assad

I wrote about the robbery that took place in the Las Vegas Bellagio Resort and Casino on December 14 last year, so some of you must be familiar with the case already. The armed robber took high denomination chips from the craps tables waving his gun and fleeing with his motorcycle to the west on Flamingo Road.

Because of the large denomination ($25,000) of the chips, police suggested the robber will have a hard time cashing them without getting too much attention. This, of course happened, as we now know. He was booked at the Clark County Detention Center on Thursday on the charges of burglary, robbery and drug trafficking. The son of George Assad is currently in custody without bail.

RIP Jack Ury

Jack Ury, the oldest man ever to play in the WSOP, passed away on 1st February, 2011 at the age of 97. His slowroll in the 2009 WSOP Main Event remains one of the most memorable moments of televised poker history.

Jack Ury
Jack Ury

Jack Julian Ury was born on 22nd March, 1913 in Terre Haute, Indiana. For the better part of his life, he had worked for the United States Postal Service, retiring in 1978. He was also a US Navy veteran of WWII. He married his wife Elizabeth on 12th January, 1942. 4 daughters, 11 grandchildren, 14 great grandchildren, 3 step great grandchildren and 3 great great grandchildren survive him.

British Hacker Steals 400BN Play Chips from Zynga

A British hacker going by the name Ashley Mitchell confessed in court that he had stolen 400 billion in Zynga chips, worth $12 million. Judge Philip Wassall told Herald Express Mitchell could face jail time for his offense.

ashley mitchell
Ashley Mitchell

The man from Paignton, England transferred 400 billion virtual play chips to his account and decided to sell them on the black market at a rate of £430 per billion. Selling all the play money would earn him £184,000 profit at a rate like that. He even managed to make £53,000 until he was arrested. However, it would worth $12 million if Zynga sold it through Facebook. 

Greg 'Fossilman' Raymer Leaves PokerStars?

Greg 'Fossilman' Raymer, 2004 WSOP Main Event champion, PokerStars pro is rumored to have left its sponsor due to compensation problems. According to unofficial information, he no longer represents the company.

greg raymer
Greg Raymer

Though it has not yet been announced or even commented by PokerStars, it's quite easy to see that Greg Raymer is about to leave them. His profile has been deleted on the Team PokerStars Pro page on the website, which must mean something. According to 2+2 forum users he also chatted with Pat Pezzin at online tables, noticing Raymer had no red star by his name.

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