Poker News

Having got far on the Main Event, Patrik Antonius was eliminated from the WSOP before the bubble burst after all. Unfortunately, he was also struggling at the Full Tilt tables, losing $224,641 the other day.

Patrik Antonius

Playing 705 hands at 7-game tables, he did well in the limit games but had bad luck in the NLHE and PLO, his ‘native’ game type, losing $103,614 to the Russian NEKOTYAN alone. As few high stakes pros have been active recently, he lost probably the most in July.

Besides being dealt a few bad hands, Antonius also made sure to lose big; he called several times when he definitely shouldn’t have, resulting in a loss of a total of $224,641. The greatest winner of the day thus became NEKOTYAN with his earnings from the Finnish.

RealDealPoker.com is surely a poker site that offers something outstanding: they deal real cards in an online environment. 

This is how RealDealPoker founder Gene Gioia describes their poker site:

"There are no random number generators here.Our revolutionary technology uses real cards, can be audited, and leaves no question about the fairness of games. We have accomplished what no one thought was possible: to deal real cards in an online environment." 

Over the past year or so, many-many poker sites decided to change their rake calculation method from ‘dealt’ to ‘contributed’.

Contributed rake calculation means, that only those players will receive rakeback, for example, that actually put their money in the pot, whereas with the dealt method, all players would receive points, with no regard to the fact that they fold their hand or decide to play.

Starting from Thursday, the 15th July, the Ongame Network has joined the sites using the contributed rake calculation. Their new system is called ‘Essence’.
Here is a brief overview on how exactly the new method will differ from the former version.

Running from 11th – 15th July, The $10,000 buy-in WPT Bellagio Cup had 353 entrants this year, with most of the poker pros that got busted in the WSOP Main Event moving their headquarters to the Bellagio for this grand tournament.

The organizers of the tournament took into consideration the many players at the WSOP, and extended late registration to two days into the tourney. Among the very late entries were Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan, Daniel Negreanu, Chris Ferguson, Phil Ivey and the 'Poker Brat', Phil Hellmuth.

Hellmuth had once again organized himself a grand entrance (he was escorted by the gorgeus Royal Flush Girls), which, just like at the WSOP, did not improve his gameplay, as he got busted after about half an hour of action.

The 'Poker Brat' with the Royal Flush Girls

The Danish Theo Jorgensen is leading the WSOP Main Event after the end of Day 6, followed by Michael Mizrachi, William Thorson and Alexander Kostritsyn.
205 players started Day 6 of the Main Event. Canadian poker player Evan Lamprea started the day as chipleader, with a stack of 3,564,000.

At the 22nd blind level,  John May said goodbye to the tournament. He was the only player who could have beaten Joe Cada’s record from last year, being the youngest player to win the Main Event. Cada won the 2009 ME just one week before his 22nd birthday. May celebrated his 21st birthday on Day 1D, he thus would have been able to set an unbeatable record, 21 being the minimum age to be able to enter a casino.

Although he did not succeed, John May managed to take 164th place, taking home $52,102.

The race has also ended for Johnny Chan, who went all-in with a pair of Jacks, and got called by Jonathan Driscolli, holding Aces. No help came for Johnny.

Johnny Chan

Following the dramatic economic downswing of the past few years, the storm finally seems to have settled, and new opportunities in the field of Egaming start arising once again.

According to EGR Magazine Online and Chris Denny, director of Hyperion i-Gaming Recruitment, the job market started responding to the economic changes quite quickly and positively.

Although many-many big names already had to say goodbye to this year’s WSOP Main Event, there is a quite strong selection of poker players steadily moving towards the November final.

574 players returned to the Rio on Day 5 of the Main Event. Tony ‘Bond18’ Dunst started as chipleader with a stack of 1,546,000, and was closely followed by Phil Galfond Theo Jorgensen, Johnny Chan and JP Kelly, just to mention the most well-known poker players.

International favorites followed each other getting busted on Day 5. Jason Mercier, Sammy Farha, Brandon Cantu and Evelyn Ng got eliminated.
Later on, Cole South, Steven Burkholder, Hoyt Corkins, Vitaly Lunkin, Andre Coimbra, Praz Bansi and Scotty Nguyen also said goodbye to the tournament.

Evelyn Ng

Lauren Kling, my favorite female player this year, also dropped out on the fifth day.

After the elimination of many poker stars, there is still a very strong player base competing for the bracelet, including Johnny Chan and high stakes pros Johnny Lodden, Phil Galfond, David Benyamine and Michael Mizrachi.

Evan Lamprea will start Day 6 as chipleader, and 205 players are still in battle for the glory.

The waves of poker licence donations in France go on, as the French Gaming Authority, ARJEL, has given permission to the 888 network (joined together with Microgaming) to operate their online poker sites in France.

The first operator that will launch on this network will probably be ‘La Société Française des Jeux sur Internet (SFJI)’, most likely under the brand ’200pourcentpoker’.

With this, 888 becomes part of the group of sites that are allowed to provide online poker in France, including PartyGaming, PokerStars, Bwin, Everest Poker, Betclic and Chiligaming so far.

Amongst the most amazing phenomena of the WSOP 2010 are the Mizrachi brothers, all of whom having made it to Day 4. Although only three of them entered Day 5, their achievement is already more than remarkable.

Michael Mizrachi

On 13th July, the fourth day of the World Series of Poker Main Event, 747 players could let out a huge sigh, being the ones profiting from this year’s Main Event.
Having started with 7,319 entrants, the Main Event will run for four more days in July, and continue with the 9 remaining players in November.

This year’s bubble boy was Tim McDonald, who, at the moment of his elimination, was applauded by 747 poker players, most of whom madly started shaking hands as soon as they realized they were finally ITM.

Tim McDonald was not left without compensation: he has secured himself a free entry for the 2011 Main Event.

Tournament Director Jack Effel was the one to congratulate Tim

"Let's give a nice warm round of applause to Tim McDonald. Because of you Tim, 747 players are now all in the money. You, my friend, have an automatic $10,000 entry into the 2011 WSOP Main Event on behalf of the World Series of Poker” said Effel.

A group of Asian players chiefly from Hangzhou were caught cheating at PokerStars’ Double or Nothing Sit & Go tables. Between November 2009 and January 2010 they profited around $750,000.

Despite endless criticism on behalf of his younger fellow players regarding his age and ’obsolete’ game style, Johnny Chan is once again among the top dogs after Day 4 of the WSOP Main Event.

Johnny Chan

On the 11th July, the WSOP came to a one-day break, and PokerStars made sure no one would get bored by organizing a Red Carpet Party.

Undoubtedly, the biggest attraction of the event was a 45 minute long performance by the legendary rapper Snoop Dogg.

Snoop Dogg

Several high stakes cash game players bought themselves into the WSOP Main Event and some of them are definitely here to stay for a while.

Patrik Antonius

Even though big names like Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey had bad luck, other cash game pros, including Patrik Antonius and Cole South still survive, in spite of their own assessment of feeling less confortable at the race poker tables.

After Day 3 South is 27th and Antonius is 118th of about 1240 remaining players. Nevertheless, the Finnish player stated that he is still not very keen on championships, for the mundane reason of despising sitting in one place for too long. Fast-paced cash games are more of his style; yet, he has already collected a respectable sum of about $3 million in different poker tournaments.

I can’t wait to see how they will fare against the ’real’ pros of tournaments on their own ground this time.

According to a press release just published, Betfair Poker merges with the global network of Ongame by the end of July 2010.

Betfair stated that the union comes with several advantages for the loyal players of the room, including the organisation of even more cash games, as well as software development. Everyone is supposed to find their calculations at Betfair, fish and sharks alike.

“From now on Betfair Poker players will have a greater supply of games at all times of the day. Both companies have also really committed to developing their functions,” Daniel Svard, head of Betfair Poker stated.

Ongame Network, 6th largest online poker network owned by Bwin, is also optimistic on the future of the cooperation: “In the long run Betfair is an ideal partner for us. Betfair is a respected, technically mature brand. We are very delighted to welcome Betfair’s players and know-how in this highly competitive market.”