Poker Guru Blog

The brand new version of the most popular poker software suite, Hold'em Manager is out today, you can now purchase it online. If you already have Hold'em Manager 1, you are eligible for an upgrade at a discount price. As we already reported, the team behind the highly successful poker software, Hold'em Manager was working hard on the next version of their software, Hold'em Manager 2. We've shown you the beta version, but since earlier today, you can actually buy it at www.holdemmanager.com.

The new version is more responsive, more stable since September thanks to the beta-testing. According to the developers many bugs have been fixed, new features added, and although there are still more updates and new features to come, it was finally ready to be rolled out. Of course it still contains the new design, the dark theme, the light theme and all the goodness the programmers worked into this major overhaul.

The HM2/OM2 will be priced as follows:

HM2 Pro: $89,99
HM2 Small Stakes: $59,99

OM2 Pro: $89,99
OM2 Small Stakes: $59,99
  
HM2+OM2 (Pro version): $149,99

After a long and tirening wait, finally here's some good news for the FTP players out there. Groupe Bernard Tapie and the US Department of Justice reported that they struck a deal, allowing FTP's acquisition to continue.

Subject:Poker reported today that they received the news from multiple sources, that the United States Department of Justice and Groupe Bernard Tapie came to the end of their negotiations with a quite positive result. Ray Bitar, CEO of Full Tilt Poker sent out an email to shareholders informing them about the details of the agreement:

"Dear members,

-Ray"

Bwin.Party has come to an agreement with MGM Resorts International and Boyd Gaming. It is only a regulation that is missing for them to be able to hit the US market.

Online poker market money list runner-up Bwin.Party has recently announced that they had made a deal with US land-based casino giant MGM Resorts International as well as with another casino- and hotel market player, Boyd Gaming. The agreement basically paves the company’s way to the to-be-legalized online poker market in the USA, which is to come soon, hopefully.

ChicagoJoey wants to reach the SuperNova Elite level at PokerStars this year, although at the beginning of October he only had 347K VPPs. 12-16 hour PLO sessions until the end of this year is the plan.

Joe 'JoeIngram1' Ingram, alias ChicagoJoey is not known in the poker world for his exceptional knowledge, but for his exceptional endurance and the fact that he can play a large number of tables simultaneously. Joey has already broken several records in online poker, like playing the most hands in one month (600,000) or playing the most hands in one day (51,312 hands). In both cases, he finished with minimal profit, but the prop bets probably made the whole thing worth it.

In the middle of October, ChicagoJoey set out another incredible goal for himself: he made a 3:1 prop bet with his flatmate BallCup that he would reach SuperNova Elite at PokerStars until the end of this year.

Maintaining his lead throughout the finale, Elio Fox won the World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) Main Event for €1.4 million. Chris Moorman barely missed the bracelet.

Moritz Kranich, Chris Moorman and Brian Roberts

The Final Table of the €10,400 WSOPE Main Event featured a line-up that showed off many of the most prominent online and live players of today. In the chiplead started the US online pro Elio ’smokrokflock’ Fox.

Patrik Antonius, former Full Tilt Poker Pro claimed in a recent interview that he has nearly $5 million at stake at Full Tilt Poker. If the company goes bankrupt, and players won't be paid, he is bound to lose all his money. The Finnish poker pro Patrik Antonius might be in serious trouble in many ways. As one of Full Tilt Poker's pro, he must have lost access to his bankroll on the Black Friday, when the DoJ shut Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars down, which must have been a huge problem for him. He explained his situation in the interview below:

It turned out later that he only had $100 on his poker account, which is highly suspicious for a nosebleed player like Antonius. Noah 'NoahSD' Stephens-Davidowitz, who is regarded nowadays as poker's number one private (and also interviewer, who made interviews with Daniel 'Jungleman12' Cates concerning the Macedo scandal) detective found out that Antonius only had $100 on his account when Full Tilt Poker was closed. He posted on 2+2:

"Eh.. I'll post this because that interview pissed me off: Antonius has less than $100 in his FTP account, and he owes FTP a smallish amount." - wrote NoahSD. He added later: "PA's not a US resident, so he had 2.5 months to get his money off the site. I don't know if that's what happened, but it seems reasonable to assume. He stopped playing in May. FTP shut down June 29th. He has less than $100 in his account right now. People were talking about how it was surprising that PA and Dwan both have very little money in their accounts right now. I pointed out that there was a 2.5 month gap between when Tom was no longer able to cash out and when PA was no longer able to cash out. I didn't say that he cashed out all of his money on April 16th."

The United States/Canada team revenged their defeat in 2009 by Europe in the World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) invitational event Caesars Cup. Phil Hellmuth’s team won 3 – 1.

On Wednesday in the morning, Casears Cup launched, an unofficial event of the WSOPE organised for the second time. Teams USA/Canada and Europe clashed with 5 renowned pros on each side. Team Captain Phil Hellmuth lined up Jason Mercier, Ben Lamb, Johnny Chan and Daniel Negreanu against Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier’s platoon of Jake Cody, Gus Hansen, Maxim Lykov and Tony G.

Yesterday, the Australian-Lithuanian poker pro, Antanas 'Tony G' Guoga announced that he is willing to take legal action against the AGCC, because they were negligent in the handling of FTP's case and are responsible for the delay of the payments.
Tony G, the 13th most influential man in poker (according to BLUFF Magazine's most recent Power 20 list) proposed that he intends to sue the Alderney Gambling Control Commission. He claims that the AGCC was "negligent in the handling of the Full Tilt Poker situation". He goes on to say that Alderney knew that FTP players' money was not held on a separated account, therefore, they are responsible for the current situation:

Tony G getting ready for the fight

"We believe they knew about it a long time ago, that security for the players’ money was not there, they hid this fact together with their auditors for years, benefiting in return. We raised it with them and they knew then and there," said Tony G.

The World Series of Poker Europe 2011 is finally here, the first event already ended with the partipation of 11-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth. The hot-dog-riding Poker Brat finished 7th, missing a final table appearance at the €2,500 Six-Max NLHE event. Guillaume Humbert took down the main prize in the end.

The first event of this year's WSOPE attracted 360 players and amongst them there was our beloved drug-using hot-dog-riding Phil Hellmuth. The prize pool was huge, the winner would take €215,999 and a coveted WSOPE bracelet. The vast field narrowed down to just 12 in 2 days. The chipleader came to be Roy Finlay, who eliminated most of his table including David Benyamine, Anton Wigg and Bruno Benveniste. Then came Casey Kastle and Alexander Salabaschew, who didn't make it to the final 6. The bubble boy came to be our Phil Hellmuth, who could make it either, he finished 7th. He wasn't quite happy with his result, standing up from the table he said:

"I don’t play these things to finish seventh, I feel horrible. If I had won I would have called it my masterpiece but I guess I missed a few brush strokes along the way" - said Hellmuth bitterly. "When Picasso drew a masterpiece he didn’t have to deal with luck" - he added.

This, however is not nearly as big a tragedy as Hellmuth thinks; the poker community comes to accept him as one of the best poker tournament players ever, as after his scandals and bad plays he managed to recover, scoring 3 second place finishes at the 2011 WSOP.

The community at poker forum 2p2 has once again showed what they can do. This time, they dug up images of poker celebrities they are probably less then proud of. A collection of the Top 10 follows below.

No. 10. Annie Duke

On 4th October, Monday in the morning, representatives of Full Tilt Poker and the United States Department of Justice sat down in New York to start the negotiations that would pave the way for the acquisition of the room. FTP attorney Jeff Ifrah says players will be paid soon after the deal is made.

As reported, Full Tilt Poker announced on 30th September that they signed an acquisition agreement with the Bernard Tapie Group. This includes the BTG’s commitment to cover all the debts FTP has to its players, although in order for it to come into effect there are still some obstacles to be overcome. Of top priority among these is an agreement with the United States Department of Justice.

Will the players all get their money back after all?

Full Tilt Poker has recently announced in a press release sent to pokerstrategy.com that it has signed an acquisition agreement with the Bernard Tapie Group. The French group has thus acquired Full Tilt Poker and all its assets. This is the best possible news for players, as the agreement contains the full repayment of all Full Tilt Poker accounts world-wide. The Department of Justice still has to find everything in order, this being one of the more conditions of the agreement. The resolution, however, has never really been closer.

Read the press release below:

"Dublin, Ireland (September 30, 2011) Laurent Tapie, Managing Director of ‘Groupe Bernard Tapie’ announced today that the group has signed an exclusive agreement with the Board of Directors of FullTilt Poker to acquire the company and all of its associated assets.

‘Groupe Bernard Tapie’ has over 30 years of experience in the salvation of financially distressed businesses, with over 40 companies acquired and managed to profitability, the most well-known being the sport equipment giant, Adidas."

If all goes well, the FTP misery might just be over.

 As reported earlier, it was likely that the AGCC would suspend Full Tilt Poker's license after the poker room was not able to meet the requirements set out by ther Gambling Control Commission.

Last week, Full Tilt Poker lawyers were still denying the company working as a Ponzi-scheme, while Rafe Furst issued an open letter on the accusations received from the DoJ.

The DoJ accused Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Rafe Furst and Ray Bitar of having paid themselves and their co-leaders of the company over $443 million from the players’ money. At the time, FTP spokespeople were denying the charges. Today, the AGCC released a statement, in which they declare that they have revoked Full Tilt Poker's license.

You can read the exact reasons of the Alderney Gambling Commission in this 26-page report.

As it can be read in the statement, "the revocation of FTP's licences does not, as has been suggested, prevent a reactivation of the business under new ownership and management".

We are curiously waiting what the French investors have to say about this. Stay tuned for more up-to-date news concerning the FTP scandal!

Phil Hellmuth is back. He really is. The Poker Brat had a very tough WSOP this year; he managed to finish 2nd three times. Now he's returned, and with his drugs, he's making some very good moves. Just watch.

The 11-time WSOP champion Phil Hellmuth was playing at the WPT Malta recently, where he played rather well. The American pro sat in a signed baseball cap, shades and headphones, winning. In a recorded hand, he made a good call, taking down the pot, after which he showcased his brand new medications, which must help him stay focused, or calm. Or both. It also explains his jolly boat ride on the huge hot dog on water:

Anyway, enjoy the video!

The mysterious group of French investors is currently in negotiations with the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) as they wish to prevent revoking the licence of Full Tilt Poker (FTP). If they do not succeed, they may back out of the deal.

As reported, the AGCC hearing of FTP ended on 22nd September and an official announcement has been long overdue since. According to the first, unofficial news, the AGCC has been most likely to maintain the suspension of the room’s licence as FTP failed to meet any of the requirements until the deadline.