Poker News

Viktor Blom (also known as Isildur1 and grolongo) was always known as a shy, reserved player who doesn't talk much at the tables, but plays so aggressively he doesn't need any words to be intimidating. He finished 16th at the WSOPE Main Event, and after leaving the table, he caused some unpleasant moments to ESPN reporters by refusing to give an interview to them.

The PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker was held between 5th and 26th September with over 50,000 participants playing for the prize pool worth $62 million in total. Most of the events had around $100-$300 buy-in and were diverse in gametypes, including NLHE, Omaha, 7 Card Stud, etc.

The $5200 Main Event (26th-27th September) was guaranteed a $10 million prize pool and $2 million for the winner but it grew even bigger with 2,443 players entering: a total of $12.2 million was distributed to the best 306 and the winner, ‘PotterPoker’, took $2.3 million. Not only did he manage to beat the best of the online poker community but also won the biggest WCOOP prize ever. Moreover, except for some WSOP, WPT and EPT events, it is far bigger than most of the live tournament prizes as well.

Here is a video of the final table from PokerStars.tv. 

Although it had seemed that some kind of dreamteam was going to sit at the WSOPE 2010 Main Event final table, it eventually turned out to be a set of relatively unknown players, but it was no less anticipated. After the remaining 22 players played it down to the best 9 of the £10,000+£350 event on Day 4, the final table setup was as follows:

Play began on the 22nd level (3,000/10,000/20,000) and, although the players showed aggressive game, it was no sooner than late in the 23rd level (3,000/12,000/24,000) when the first two of the field got eliminated (Inizan, Powell) by Lee. He was also involved in the showdowns with Fleyshman, Steinberg and Levi and was eventually eliminated himself by Bord.

James Bord's first live event victory

After suspending the play two times, the 4th event of the 2010 World Series of Poker Europe in London has finally come to an end. The winner of the £10,000 + £350 NLHE High Roller Heads-Up Championship is Gus ’The Great Dane’ Hansen, collecting his first WSOP golden bracelet ever.

Gus Hansen won his first WSOP bracelet ever

The event was delayed first because the early stages took longer than expected and later because Hansen as well as his adversary Jim Collopy won 1-1 matches each and they agreed upon suspension. For Collopy, this was the first live final table appearance, while Hansen had been expected for quite a while to finally win a bracelet he long deserved. As soon as both were eliminated in the Main Event, the third match of the HU finale took place and it even received an unexpected publicity from ESPN.

Talented both in poker and in providing his opponents with a couple of lines less than welcome, Dwyte Pilgrim earned his first major event winning yesterday night at the WPT Borgata, the largest World Poker Tour event ever with a field of 1,042. Those regarding him a “minor league grinder” are thus finally proved wrong.

Dwyte Pilgrim wins his first WPT title

Doyle Brunson is back in Las Vegas after his 3-week holiday he spent in his summer home in Montana because of the vampire bats that invaded his Vegas home about a month ago. He posted it on his Twitter: "There is a large colony of bats that live in the trees around my house. Not a bad thing, one bat eats 2-6 thousand insects every night."

It turned out to be a bad thing however, he had to take a 3-week holiday in the beautiful Montana because the situation soon became hot. In his article at his own blog, he tells the whole story of the vacation, and his feelings about the place and much more. If you are interested, read the whole blog post at his personal blog, you just might get to know Doyle Brunson better.

PokerStars have finally dealt its 50 Billionth Hand. It happened yesterday morning at the Micro-Stakes ($0,02/$0,05) No Limit Hold'em cash game table called Ornamenta (fast). The hand was won by the German 'tbvle' earning $56,140 plus a $5,200 WCOOP Main Event buy-in.

Nearly 220,000 players were online at PokerStars' 33,000 tables hoping they might be the one at the milestone 50 billionth hand which would earn them a $5,200 WCOOP Main Event buy-in, $500 as many times as many VPP they earned in the last 50 hands, plus the winner of the pot would also win a prize of $50,000.

Following Scott Montgomery's Facebook status update (“Getting ready to celebrate my gf’s birthday. hope she likes my gift!”) there were heated discussions at TwoPlusTwo forums about the identity of the girlfriend, many of the users were surprised (because lots of folks there thought Montgomery was openly gay), but they soon came to the conclusion that his girlfriend can only be Annette Obrestad.

Interestingly enough, Sega, one of the biggest gaming companies in the World closed down its relatively new site, Sega Casino. The site was launched this March and was powered by Playtech. On the site the company offered 125 games including slots, blackjack, poker, and themed Sega games such as Virtua Fighter and House of the Dead.
There is only a note to existing customers at segacasino.com:

One of the biggest online sportsbetting and gambling operators, Sportingbet has settled with the US authorities to pay $33 million for violating US gambling laws.
Preet Bharara, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has announced that they have reached a non-prosecution agreement with Sportingbet, according to which Sportingbet will pay $33 million because of having provided illegal Internet gambling services to US customers.

Sportingbet has been offering real-money sports betting, poker and casino games to US players between 1998 and 2006. In 2001, Sportingbet decided to start using certain methods to confuse the issuers of credit cards that were disallowing Internet gambling for their cards. Sportingbet displayed gambling transactions in a way that could be misinterpreted and also disguised payments of winnings to US customers.

Sportingbet has now agreed to cooperate in the federal investigation by providing all the documents required and making employees available for interviews with investigators.

It seems the players who missed out WSOPE for some reason are attending  WPT Borgata Poker Open, which boasts of the largest player pool ever in WPT history, a total of 1,042 players. FYI, last year’s record was 1,018 players attending.

The World Series of Poker continues, the second event has already ended, which was all about Pot Limit Omaha, in which Jeffrey Lisandro finished first. I wrote about Event #1 not so long ago, which was won by the 'Unabomber' Phil Laak, scoring his first WSOP victory.

Jeff Lisandro at WSOPE

At the Ł5,000 Pot Limit Omaha tournament, huge sums of money were won by the finalists, but a total of 18 players finished in the money. Lisandro, known to be one of the best Seven Card Stud players have won his first non-Stud title, and earned a total of £159,000 with his victory.

A new variation of Texas Hold’em is now available only on PartyPoker’s tables, the Double Hold’em. For the most part, it is played the same way as normal Hold’em, except you are dealt three hole cards, not two.

The Double Hold'em in action

This is how it works: upon receiving your cards, you have to choose one of the three to be your point (or common) card after the flop but before the betting round. Once you picked yours, it moves to the centre and it cannot be altered. There is only a limited time to choose your point card, however; in case you fail to do so, the system automatically picks the one with the greatest value. If you have two high cards that are of the same face value, the one that has a suited match with the third card will be chosen. Should there be no suited match at all, both face and suit values are considered.

Michael Mizrachi is a very lucky man. Or he just might be very good with the small letters in contracts. Last time I reported that he was sued by his previous sponsor, Deliverance Poker because of contract breach. The poker firm demanded a Temporary Restraining Order on Mizrachi by the Jurors.

The Judge (by the name of James Nowlin) denied their request however, because at first they did not include a "relevant contract" and when they did, the judge was still not convinced: “Even with the additional support attached to the Plaintiff’s amended pleadings, this Court is still not convinced there is ‘substantial likelihood’ that Plaintiff will prevail on the merits.”

There was also a problem with the Deliverance Poker contract's 'Effective Date'. Judge ruled that "There is no indication anywhere in Plaintiff’s pleadings that the ‘Effective Date’ has taken place.” Hence, Mizrachi’s contract also has a clause stating that the contract automatically terminates if the Effective Date has not occurred by August 24th, 2009, nearly one year before he progressed to the later stages of the WSOP Main Event dressed in Full Tilt Poker gear.

The first event came to its end at the WSOPE at the third day, where Phil Laak (the one that recently broke a few bones at a horrific ATV accident I informed you about) have won his first WSOP bracelet.

Laak is one of the poker players who are talked about as the most talented, who do not yet possess a bracelet. He is now out of the league, Phil Laak now has his first WSOP bracelet, which he won on his girlfriend's, Jennifer Tilly's birthday, which, as he comments "just makes it that much more sweet! Holla!”

Phil  Laak enjoying WSOPE finals

He went heads-up against Andrew Pantling a few times during the game, and they also met at the final table, where they fought the final heads-up. It took Laak 3 hours to finish him, winning Ł170,802 and the gold WSOPE bracelet.