Poker News

Remember the auction of Peter Eastgate, who put his 2008 WSOP Main Event bracelet on eBay, and not needing the money specifically, offered the profits for charity? Well, the auction has ended, the highest bid was $147,500. This identity of the buyer is yet unknown.

The starting price was $16,000, which soon reached and passed $100,000. The auction ended today. During the 10 days, a total of 42 bidders placed 116 bids, out of which an unknown person offered the highest price: $147,500. It's still not sure whether it was Tony G, who was very positive about him buying the bracelet for his German Shepherd Zasko, or somebody else.

World Poker Tour announced the dates of two new, televised events for WPT Season IX. PartyPoker presents the stops in Venice and Vienna, taking place 3rd through 8th February and 25th through 29th March 2011, respectively. Also, the first WPT National Series event is confirmed to take place in Paris.

The PartyPoker WPT Venice Main Event (buy-in: €3,000+€300) starts on 3rd February 2011 at the Casino de Venezia and lasts until 8th February. Globally broadcast, a €10,000 High Rollers event is added, played from 7th to 9th February at the same venue.

Moneybookers, one of the best online payment systems gets an overhaul soon, or so they say. The service will be rebranded as Skrill, and will get some new features and payment facilities in the near future, which are not yet public unfortunately.

CEOs of Skrill, Martin Ott and Nikolai Riesenkampff

The name 'Skrill'  originates from slang, and roughly means dollars, or money in general.  Of course it means much more for the company as they state it on their website: "For us it means a safe and innovative way for consumers to pay for their online goods. Skrill means flexibility. Skrill means choice. Skrill means reliability and peace of mind. Skrill makes you online safe". The company states the new name is necessary to better represent what they are and what they are to become, as well as differentiate them in the crowded marketplace. They also want to facilitate the use of the word as a verb, just like Google (to google something) managed to do. In a year, we might skrill our money to the poker rooms for example. As for me, I don't really understand how can "Skrill" describe what the company does better than "Moneybookers" did, or how "Skrill" is supposed to convey a "peace of mind", but they are the professionals.

As I already reported, Tom 'durrrr' Dwan and other poker pros like Phil Ivey and John Juanda were playing against Chinese businessmen at Macau cash game tables. The game ended last night, and the pros headed back home, supposedly with lots of cash on them.

Tom 'durrrr' Dwan

 Dwan started high stakes ($4000/8000) on November 18th at the StarWorld Casino in Macau. The game went bad for Dwan at first, his Chinese oppenent being a constant loser, managed to win the first heads-up againt Dwan, who handed him over $2,5 million.

PokerStars’ EPT7 Barcelona main event starts today. Held until 27th November, the buy-in for the event is €5,300.

Casino de Barcelona (annexe at The Arts Hotel)

Besides London and Copenhagen (and also Monte Carlo, in case the Grand Finale is held there), Barcelona is the only venue that hosted an event in every EPT Season. In 2004, the buy-in was €1,000 and Swedish Alexander Stevic took down the main event, winning €80,000. In Season 6, the 478 players had to pay €8,000 each, amassing a prize pool of €3,382,000; the winner was American Carter Phillips, earning €850.000.

PokerTableRatings.com launched a new page that compares various poker coaches from different training sites. You can compare and filter them according to several statistics: their BB/100, earnings, number of hands played and the training site they are coaches at.

The page also includes short sample videos that showcase their performance so you can decide whose style and skills you like the most.

After a series of collusion scandals traced to China-based players, PokerStars introduced restrictions on the number of Chinese players allowed at the same time at their DoN SNG and, more recently, cash game tables.

PokerStars first discovered the ring of China-based players in spring 2010, when players mainly from Hangzhou were caught cheating at the DoN SNG tables. The room closed 38 accounts and compensated the affected players, paying around $2.1 million in all. In August, Stars decided to prevent players from “certain countries” from playing at the same DoN tables together.

"I have decided that I am going to buy Peter Eastgate’s WSOP Main Event winner’s bracelet." - as Tony G writes on his blog. The Aussie/Lithuanian PartyPoker pro wants to make a collar out of it for his German Shepherd, Zasko.

Tony G and Zasko

Tony loves to create confusion with his trash talks and sometimes his actions. Many were outraged that Peter Eastgate sells his WSOP bracelet, the most precious prize a poker player can win. Now those people are very happy what Tony G is about to do: buy the bracelet and use it as a collar for his dog. He already does have some plans for it:

"I have a few ideas about how to modify the bracelet into a dog collar. I may well call upon Robert Williamson III’s wife Cate (not from the House of Windsor) who is a top jewellery designer to help me and am exploring other options. Zasko has a neck like Mike Tyson so it is going to take some work." - he writes.

I already wrote about how Ali Tekintamgac and Perica Bukara and their associates cheated at the PPT Cannes, and how they might have done it, but there are some interesting developments in the case already. As I have reported, WTP winner Ali Tekintamgac has been disqualified from PPT Cannes Main Event because of cheating.Now there are more details available: it turned out recently that there are more cheaters, dealers and a floorman at Full Tilt Poker events involved in the conspiracy,

Individuals involved in the scandal:

Deniz Yavuz

The Turkish Deniz Yavuz used to be the owner of the Nuremberg Card Club that lies on the border of the Czech Repuclic and Germany. He also owns pokertravels.de, checkraiser.de, and the pokerevents.de website, and also is a director of Pokerevents GmbH, which organized many Full Tilt Poker events such as the 2009 Million Euro Challenge and the 2010 Merit Cyprus Classic. Yavuz started playing poker at live cash game tables and began participating in live tournaments since 2008, though his main interest were organizing tournaments.

Ali Tekintamgac, disqualified from the finale of PPT Cannes, may have used a code system well known to cheaters, in cooperation with Perica Bukara and Pokerb00m.eu bloggers.

Tekintamgac, a blogger and Bukara

On how WPT winner Ali Tekintamgac was disqualified from the final table of the PPT Cannes main event, you can read in more details in my earlier post. Even then it was already assumed that the involved bloggers were of the Pokerb00m.eu site that has been down ever since. They are likely to have helped him and his friend, Merit Cyprus Classic $25,000 High Roller winner Perica Bukara, on several occasions before.

Peter Eastgate, the Danish pro player who resigned from poker earlier, winner of the 2008 WSOP Main Event has put his bracelet up for auction at eBay, claiming it didn't make much sense to be "just lying around collecting dust".

Peter Eastgate with his bracelet

Of course it might sound ignorant and infuriating to just sell the biggest relic existing in the poker universe, it's not that selfish as it seems at first. Eastgate announced he will donate 100% of the profits to UNICEF.

Poker pros like Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, Chau Giang and John Juanda are having a great time after the APT Macau playing against Chinese businessmen at some really high stakes cash game tables. Phil Ivey won a $2 million pot there according to some rumors.

Zhang Dan Peng

APT (Asian Poker Tour) came to its end yesterday when the 18-year-old Chinese amateur player Zhang Dan Peng won the Main event for $251,000 worth in HK$. The young player has only been playing poker for 6 months, this was his first live tournament ever. He is the first Chinese player to win the APT Macau.

Europe-based online poker operator ChiliGaming is to enter the US market in early 2011. Meanwhile, Full Tilt Poker withdraws from the State of Washington, in accordance with a recent State Supreme Court decision.

ChiliGaming Network, established in 2006, is now about to expand to the United States and, more notably, does it lawfully. Their concept is something that has already been tried with varied success at best: a subscription-based system in which there is no actual money transfer at the tables. Players pay a (usually low) monthly fee that makes up the prize pool of the otherwise play money games. This is, it seems, a way to bypass US regulations.

Professional female poker player Maria Ho has recently signed a sponsorship contract with UB.com. In their press release, UB praises Ho as a someone who “has established an impressive reputation as a successful high stakes cash game player in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, making her one of the few and youngest female players competing with poker’s elite in the biggest games.”

UB.com's Maria Ho

Her personality, skill and popularity are bound to benefit UB, who still seem to have a hard time washing away the shades of their super-user scandal. Ho has been very successful lately, making it to the final table of WSOP-C South Africa, finishing in 10th place at the WPT Bellagio CUP VI and in 11th in the WSOP $10,000 LHE World Championship earlier this year.

Have you ever felt clumsy or not experienced enough to view your pocket cards in style? Well fear no more, because thanks to PokerHPC, now you can put your hole cards into a 80's looking machine that helps you view them without anyone else seeing. It also features a picture holder, so you keep a picture of your kitty cat or of your mom with you all the time.

The wonderful invention is called "The Cube", which is a telling name, really. PokerHPC, the creators of this little work of art thought there are many players not that good with card handling, and opponents can easily see their cards and have an advantage over them. The Cube however, will change it all. Poor fellas will not be exploited again, never! They will be only handled as suckers who can't even look at their cards properly.