Poker News

With satellite events available from as early as 2 August, The PokerStars Macau Millions takes place at Casino Grand Lisboa between 4-8 August. Its ‘main event’, the Macau Millions HKD $1,000,000 Guarantee is set to break a number of Asian records.

The HKD $2,200 event with a HKD $1,000,000 prize pool is “expected to be the biggest poker field ever in Asia,” according to PokerStars News. It has five Day1s with 7% of the players each day qualifying for the Day2 final and a guaranteed cash prize. In case you were eliminated during Day1, you were allowed to enter another, if there are any left.

Boxing legend Evander Holyfield, former heavyweight pro world champion, is taking part in the London Poker Festival, more specifically, in the ’Poker in the Park’ event on 2-3 September.

Evander Holyfield

One of the leading news in the poker world is the debate on HR 2267. As noted before, Congress also heard poker pro and WSOP bracelet winner Annie Duke on the matter, representing Poker Players Alliance.

Annie Duke

Duke stated before the House Financial Services Committee: "At its most basic level, the issue before this committee is personal freedom, the right of individual Americans to do what they want in the privacy of their homes without the intrusion of the government."

Considering the results of the hearings on the matter, a subcommittee will propose changes to the bill on 27 July, before it is referred to the House of Representatives. The bill must pass before the end of 2010 or it needs to be reintroduced. “This mark up demonstrates that Congress is serious about moving Chairman Frank’s bill forward and establishing a strict regulatory framework for Internet gambling activity,” Michael Waxman from Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative remarked.

PokerStars announced the PS Lamborghini Freeroll where anyone can win their own Lamborghini Gallardo, not to mention the total prize pool of over $1,000,000.

PokerStars organises 24 freeroll qualifiers and $1,10 and $11 cash satellites daily with $100,000 pool weekly finals to qualify for. The Gallardo and $250,000 cash waits for the winners of the Grand Finale in October.

PokerStars welcomes newcomers and hardliner sharks as well in the tournament. The freeroll and cash qualifiers are just starting this Sunday; check the schedule below.

In a radio interview for TapouT, Ultimate Fighting Championship speaker Bruce Buffer said Phil Ivey had more than $100 million and Tom ’durrrr’ Dwan had over $50 million net. As he is a close friend to several poker pros, I believe we can safely rely on his intel. Here is the 2+2 discussion on the topic, if you want to join in.

Bruce Buffer

Buffer, in addition to his career as a renowned speaker, is a big fan of poker and even has two WSOP and another two WPT ITM finishes, worth $147,023 in total. Since Ivey won $17,673,260 online and $13,545,959 in live tournaments in the past three years only, excluding any possible contracts, cash game winnings and investments, the figures can easily be valid. Durrrr, in the same period, earned $4,626,417 in FTP cash games and $1,583,502 live.

Barney Frank’s resolution on legalising online poker, HR2267, is now being discussed in the US Congress. The first debate was on 21 July, decision is expected in late August.

The resolution aims to eliminate the status of poker as banned online gambling and establish it a legalised, taxed game. A controversial matter on its own, the debate was further heated by the remarks of the republican Spencer Bachus.

Spencer Bachus

Online poker pro 'Doc' Sands is the latest addition to the DoylesRoom pro team Brunson 10. Just before the WSOP, Doyle Brunson announced a competition between four aspirants from whom Daniel 'djk123' Kelly proved to be the most successful, earning him the 7th seat in the team.

David 'Doc' Sands

Second to djk123 in the race, Doc Sands’ achievements were nevertheless worth a membership, it seems. Sands got ITM four times on the WSOP: he finished 8th in the $1,500 NLHE, 46th in the $1,500 NLHE 6-handed, 69th in the $1,000 NLHE and 18th in another $1,500 NLHE event, earning a total of $88,000 in the championship. Even more impressive, however, is the approx. $2,3 million he won online.

The Brunson 10 member list is now as follows: Zachary 'CrazyZach' Clark, Amit 'Amak316' Makhija, Dani 'Ansky' Stern, Chris 'Moorman1' Moorman, Alex 'AJKHoosier1' Kamberis, Steve 'gboro780' Gross, Daniel 'djk123' Kelly and David 'Doc' Sands.

Former poker player Dutch Joran van der Sloot may have something to do with a sex slave gang and the disappearance of Thai girls. He was reportedly masquerading as production consultant under the name of Murphy Jenkins to recruit models for European agencies.

Joran van der Sloot

You may have read it here when he was arrested in Chile earlier this year for murdering Stephany Flores in Lima, Peru, while attending the Latin American Poker Tour as an observer, as well as that he is being held in a notorious Peruvian jail. Now it seems he “can add Thailand to the list of countries that might like to see him behind bars indefinitely”, according to the CBS, as he is accused of cheating Thai girls into the grasp of sex traders.

Lack of motivation and showing no remorse leave a wide room for speculations. As far as his poker past is concerned, however, we can be a little more certain: though not an outstanding player, he seems to have accumulated sums enough to travel from The Netherlands to Thailand and later to South America, to the misfortune of many.

Betting companies have released the odds of the WSOP Main Event November Nine. Little surprise there, chip leader Jonathan Duhamel is the favourite.

Duhamel enters the finale with a handsome stack of 65,975,000, which means he has the lowest multipliers. You can expect just a little more money if betting on John Dolan (46,250,000), who went ITM five times on the WSOP before the Main Event. Even though currently only 7th, Michael Mizrachi (14,450,000), the most recognisable name at the table, is also worth a humble x4,70-6,50 if winning. Bearing in mind what was the case last year with Phil Ivey, he might be rewarding to bet on early as more and more will favour him, for his reputation if nothing else.

The biggest money, of course, goes for the less likely triumph of Jason Senti (7,625,000), with somewhat greater odds than the amateur Soi Nguyen (9,650,000).

Former official WSOP energy drink All In, produced by a company co-owned by Johnny Chan, decided to sponsor a couple of poker pros, wittedly named as 'Team All In'.

Though the official website is not updated as of yet and it depicts a number of former ‘All In Energy Drink Pros,’ including David 'Devilfish' Ulliott and Patrik Antonius, the players currently participating are as follows: Billy Baxter, Freddy Deeb, Eli Elezra, Maria Ho, John Phan, Tim Phan, Lee Watkinson and, of course, Johnny Chan.

As Chan himself commented: "This is a positive step for poker as there are not a lot of endorsement deals for players beyond the poker playing websites. This relationship is extremely beneficial for both groups and it is an honor to be in the company of such a prestigious group of poker players."

PokerGuruBlog joined forces with PokerStars to organize an exclusive poker freeroll.

Tournament name: PokerGuruBlog Facebook Freeroll
Date: July 25th, 2010
Time: 21:00 CET
Prize pool: $100
Tournament ID: 291289493

The tournament is password protected. The password will be sent out to PokerGuruBlog's Facebook fans, so do not miss to join my fan page.

The PokerGuruBlog Facebook Freeroll couldn’t be easier to find in the PokerStars lobby. Simply select ‘Tourney’ then the ‘Private’ tab to find it. The tourney is already listed in the client.

EGR Magazine has recently revealed that Gabi Campos is appointed the new chief executive officer to PokerStars, the biggest online poker room.

Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan is once again in action on Full Tilt Poker. During one of his sessions (which ended with ‘jungleman12’ making ‘durrrr’ $154K shorter), durrrr invited jungleman12 to take the Durrrr Challenge.

As I have mentioned before, Phil Ivey has acquired his eighth WSOP bracelet this year by winning the $3,000 H.O.R.S.E event, getting one more closer to Phil Hellmuth’s eleven.

Of course, many people started pondering about when Ivey would toss Hellmuth off his throne, but Phil Hellmuth cuts these short by saying that he finds it impossible for Ivey to overtake him in the next five years.

Already the most important database for SNG players, SharkScope has recently also made a number of live event stats available, including results of the WSOP 2010.

There are several details you can search by, e.g. the number of games played, average stakes and the profit your favourite player made, etc. Conducting a search can yield surprising results: you can see high stakes pro Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan among the more successful players with an average profit of $3,633 in 50 games, while Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson lost a total of $221,473 in 45 events.

You can only access a maximum of five searches daily for free, so here are some interesting stats for your amusement.