Poker News

The North Gauteng High Court in South Africa has decided to make all forms of online gambling illegal, and whoever fails to oblige to the law will have to face a million-dollar fine or up to ten years in prison, says RakeRace.com.

On the 20th August, North Gauteng High Court banned all forms of online gambling in South Africa. The initator of the decision was a lobby by the Gauteng Gambling Board (GGB). The South African gambling industry has been fighting for years to protect its US$2.2 billion (!) gambling monopoly from international gambling service providers.

GGB managed to win judge N. B. Tuchten, who, with this decision, has put an end to all online gambling services, and also forecasts severe sanctions to be expected in the case of breaking the law. Whoever fails to abide the new laws will face a US$1.36 million fine or even ten years in prison.

Dan Fleyshman, Victory Poker CEO confirmed that Victory Poker will leave the Everlef Network and move to Cake, which will be officially announced on 1st September.

In an interview with CoinFlip.com, Dan admits that he is excitedly looking forward to the collaboration with Cake and plans to organize a party on his birthday, 1st September, where, besides the announcement, lucky attendants will 2007 Playmate and Victory Poker hottie Sara Jean Underwood locked up in a cage (hopefully with not too many clothes on).

In the interview, Dan Fleyshman seems truly motivated and determined to make Victory the next big boom in the poker world:

Ben Grundy is one of the most profitable cash game players online in the past 2-3 years, states Poker-King.com. According to a graph he posted on his blog (which many of his followers and fans think is inaccurate, or downright fake) his winnings already reached $7,805,169. Though, it seems he might have spent huge part of his money on houses, and now needs stakes as he posted the following on his blog:

“I'm at a weird stage with poker really. I can't be bothered to play small, as grinding doesn't really change my financial position at all. With all my money i've tied up in a couple of houses, i can't afford to play big and lose. Bleh... so if someone out there wants to bankroll me for $100/$200+ action on Full Tilt i'm open to offers . I'm up $2 million ish in the last 2 years with my current backer at 25/50 - 50/100.”

Michael Jordan has always been known not to despise gambling, and it seems that his sons follow suit.

Marcus Jordan, 20 years old, spent last weekend in Vegas with his borther Jeff, 21, and felt like sharing their adventures with the public.
Marcus ranted about his casino losses on Twitter, saying the following:

"Last night was stupid… 35k at Haze… Totals 50k something the whole day.. Damn!! Going to the pool again today.. Gotta relax!"

For those who are not aware, Haze is a nightclub in the Aria Hotel and Casino City Center. This leaves only one question: how did the 20-year-old celebrity get admission? Well, nobody speaks about that.

21 Indian tribes, led by the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, joined forces to create the California Intertribal Intrastate Poker Consortium, a limited liability company to be a member of the California Online Poker Association.

As of yet, online gambling is still prohibited in California, however, as the last attempt for legalisation was a bill from Senator Roderick Wright, but he cancelled the hearing of it earlier this year. Ever since, the movement of the tribes is the first and only initiative to press for the establishment of the regulation: “While we have some disagreements with the bill, we’re hopeful that all sides can come together and do what’s best for the state,” Morongo Band spokesman Patrick Dorinson told the Capitol Weekly. He added that they were negotiating with Wright as they wished to be one of the three groups to operate a hub of online gambling in the state.

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.

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.

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

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.

Patrik Antonius’ performance, so to say, has not been even during the first half of 2010, with huge wins and losses that even tossed his 2010 profit under zero. Recently, however, the former underwear model seems to have found himself again, and is on a winning streak.

Patrik Antonius

This last Staurday, for example, he managed to win $332,000 from Phil Galfond and Ziigmund in only 600 hands.
This means that Patrik has made $819,269 this year on Full Tilt, despite the fact that he is about $2 million behind in the ’durrrr challenge’.

Speaking of durrrr, things are not going so smooth for the Full Tilt Pro, who managed to lose a nice $758,000 last week, spending most of his recent $1 million winnings.

Tom 'durrrr' Dwan

Durrrr’s 2010 balance is still incredible, though, with his winnings from this year almost reaching $4 million (exactly the amount that he lost last year ).
Dwan will soon have the chance to make up for his recent losses by doing his best in his upcoming challenge against jungleman12, set to start sometime soon.

Four timer PokerStars Supernova Elite Dusty ‘Leatherass’ Schmidt has recently been made PS Online Pro member, an honour even for him, as he admits. PokerNews.com asked him how to become an SNE.

Dusty ‘Leatherass’ Schmidt

Schmidt first tried to earn the VPPs necessary to make Supernova Elite in 2007, a time competition wasn’t as tough as today, he says. Although he admits he was “only skilled enough to 8-table” back then, it seems it was just enough and now it is even easier for him as he is able to play at 15-20 tables at the same time. He doesn’t even have to do it full time. Nice.

The 50,000 hands game between Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan and Daniel ‘jungleman12’ Cates is now settled, the participants agreed to get the challenge underway in a couple of days. The news spread based on an FTP chat first appearing in the related 2+2 thread:

durrrr: did u send ivey $$ yet?
jungleman12: not yet
jungleman12: ill send now
jungleman12: how soon is soon?
durrrr: read ur phone...
jungleman12: ah i see
durrrr: few days at most
durrrr: did u send yet?
jungleman12: yeah
jungleman12: sent
durrrr: then i can start talking &&%%
durrrr: since we're booked
jungleman12: ?
durrrr: and say that its cute u think u'll ever have an edge =)
jungleman12: lol
jungleman12: you never seemed like the type
durrrr: never wanna scare off the fish =)
durrrr: but if they escrow....
durrrr: haha ok
durrrr: lmk if u wanna play if not we'll start in a few days
durrrr: gl n stuff
jungleman12: u2