Poker Guru Blog

Jonathan Bredin suffers from Little’s Disease, a form of cerebral palsy. This, however, did not keep him from winning the Australia New Zealand Poker Tour Queenstown 2013 Main Event. The tournament happened to feature one of the longest hands in poker history as well.

The Australia New Zealand Poker Tour (ANZPT) Queenstown 2013 NZ$3,000 Main Event kicked off on 30 July at the SkyCity casino. A total of 126 players registered and built a prize pool of NZ$340,200. The nine-handed Final Table took place on Sunday with Jonathan Bredin in the chiplead; Bredin suffers from Little’s Disease, a form of cerebral palsy, and was assisted by a modified iPad and a specialist to be able to communicate with the rest of the players.

Jamie Gold’s world championship golden bracelet was sold for $65,725. It was not the US producer and poker player, who auctioned the relic.

American movie producer Jamie Gold bested 8,773 players to win the World Series of Poker 2006 Main Event, scooping in the highest first prize ever, $12 million.

For most poker players, there are few most valuable objects than a WSOP bracelet, therefore it normally draws a lot of attention if someone, who has won it, sells the relic. Gold’s bracelet was announced for auction by the Heritage Auctions house on 13 July, 2013 and it has recently been sold for $65,725.

Gus Hansen entered the UK versus Ireland heads-up championship in the United Kingdom and Ireland Poker Tour Galway stop as an honorary Englishman but won the event in the green colours.

The Galway stop of the United Kingdom and Ireland Poker Tour (UKIPT) runs from 27 July through 12 August. Among the many events of the Full Tilt Poker-sponsored tourney, a prestige game is also organised: a heads-up gala featuring the UK versus Ireland. FTP pro Gus Hansen also participated in the €1,100 tournament, starting as an honorary Englishman. Still, as the game progressed, he switched sides and finished in the Irish colours.

According to the Financial Times, the bwin.party gaming group is to divide its business operations, having different branches in the regulated white and the so called gray markets.

In order to “attract a broader investor base” and to position the company as a “target for casino operators keen to take advantage of US legislation”, bwin.party is reportedly considering splitting its business operations. Different branches would operate within the regulated markets and in the grey areas, where no final regulations has yet been introduced.

Daniel ‘jungleman12’ Cates and Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan have agreed on playing at least 4,000 hands in August and 8,000 hands in every two months afterwards.

Daniel ‘jungleman12’ Cates and Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan kicked off the second Durrrr Challenge in August, 2010. Their clash lasted 19,335 hands, in which ‘jungleman’ made $1,251,059 in profits. Apparently unable to handle the NLHE heads-up specialist in his prime, ‘durrrr’ started to postpone additional sessions in the last phase of the Challenge and chose the profitable games in Macau instead.

The World Poker Tour (WPT) has announced the launch of a brand new, exclusive super high roller series: Alpha8. The international high stakes tournaments would be broadcast on the FOX Sports 1 channel, kicking off in March 2014.

A new, international, televised high stakes series has been introduced by WPT. The exclusive super high roller tournaments will feature buy-ins of at least $100,000 and events will take place at the most prestigious venues around the world. The structures are designed by WPT Executive Tour Director Matt Savage and the broadcast will be able to boast four hours of action from each stop with the most renowned players participating.

One of the most controversial announcements this week was the Global Poker Index acquiring legendary UK online poker database, The Hendon Mob. The site is undoubtedly a market leader in providing live tournament poker information, not to mention its role as the number one online poker community in the UK.

Earlier this week, the Global Poker Index (GPI) announced the acquisition of The Hendon Mob, Ltd. UK, the company behind the renowned live poker tournament database TheHendonMob.com. The site is also home to the largest online poker community of the United Kingdom. Providing essential and up-to-date information to poker news websites worldwide, the significance of the role The Hendon Mob plays in the industry is hard to overestimate.

In related news to last day’s report on Zynga withdrawing its plans to enter the regulated real money gaming market of the United States, the largest social media site takes steps in quite the opposite direction.

According to European news sources, social media site Facebook is to expand its real money gaming interests in the regulated markets of the continent, more specifically in Spain and Italy. With the experimental launch of the offering in the United Kingdom proving to be successful, the company is now apparently planning on entering the segregated markets with its own gambling operations.

Together with its second quarter revenue report, showing an ever shrinking income, Zynga has announced they would not seek opportunities in the to-be-regulated real money gambling market of the United States.

Zynga presented its financial report for the second quarter of 2013 on Thursday. While he company’s revenues keep shrinking in general, incomes from poker, the majority of which being generated by the Texas Hold’em play money social poker application, also show a relative drop, in comparison with other sources. The market for free to play gaming is tightening up, with competitors like PokerStars also appearing on Facebook.

Australian professional poker player Jackie Glazier was the last lady to be eliminated in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event. She is now leaving Ivey Poker, while you can track her progress in the ME at ESPN from this week.

Jackie Glazier

Jackie Glazier from Wantirna, Australia is a poker professional and she also happened to be the last lady standing in the WSOP 2013 Main Event. She made it all the way through to the top 68 participants of Day 6 of the tournament, where she eventually got all-in against IPT San Remo champion and EPT 2012 Grand Final 4th finisher Sergio Castelluccio. Glazier held A Q but Castelluccio had T T and the board gave him a full house, nines over tens.

Even as a mass of poker players have agreed to avoid playing at the Venetian in Las Vegas between 22 and 26 July, the poker room of the renowned casino is almost full.

Sheldon Adelson

79 years old Las Vegas Sands Corporation CEO Sheldon Adelson had been quoted condemning online poker in an interview for the Forbes, considering it toxic to society and saying “The plague (that online gaming) could bring to our society is even more far-reaching. The possibility of underage children finding ways to place online wagers and the potential of people betting under the influence of drugs or being coerced are all scenarios that can happen. When gambling is available in every bedroom, every dorm room, and every office space, there will be no way to fully determine that each wager has been placed in a rational and consensual manner.”

The first legal online poker room was launched in the US in Nevada on 30 April. Ultimate Poker is the first of its kind. The room will soon roll out its VIP program, and they outright shocked the poker community with a brand new concept. Most poker rooms apply the Weighted Contributed rake calculation method, where rake is calculated according to the player's contribution to the pot, but Ultimate Poker will utilize the Winner Takes All system.

‘Tight-Man1’ won $610,000 in a $400/$800 NLHE 6-max action in the weekend. The unknown player has $1.4 million in profits in July, which puts him slightly ahead of Isilfur1 on the monthly money list.

With the World Series of Poker coming to an end for the summer, players start to return to the online tables. Even as the high stakes field has seen great action during the WSOP, things are really speeding up in July. In the first week of the month, Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom dominated the game, winning over $2 million. He has been very active ever since but his results show the usual swings with his monthly total remaining around $1.4 million.

Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom is in a huge upswing again: in the first two weeks of July, he has won a total of $2 million at the online high stakes tables. His annual profit is now over $5 million.

Viktor 'Isildur1' Blom, Photo courtesy of Neil Stoddart

Last Thursday, Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom scooped in a total of $696,310 in winnings and he has been very active since: on Friday and Saturday, he came about breakeven but, on Sunday, he added another $525,291 to his bankroll. Playing at $250/$500 NLHE and $500/$1,000 CAP PLO tables, he took down the largest pot of the day as well.

United States Congressman Joe Barton is to file within weeks his own draft to regulate the US online poker market on a federal level.

Congressman Joe Barton

Republican Representative Peter King filed in his draft early June to regulate not only online poker, but the entire online gambling market of the United States of America on a federal level. His bill bears the title “Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act of 2013” and it aims at elevating the issue of online gambling to the federal level in its entirety, including issuing licences and enforcing gambling laws.