Poker Guru Blog

According to Sunday Times, Sportingbet and Unibet were reportedly working on a merger deal. It is a more and more common practice, so it doesn't suprise me much, it's almost industry standard in the times of such economic problems. Sadly, the negatiations fell short as Unibet announced its withdrawal.

Sportingbet had to pay a $30 million fine for violating US gambling laws, however, they now seem to be ready for the acquisition/merging of newer companies. They seemed to be very active at that as in September they signed a sponsorhip deal with English Premier League soccer team Tottenham Hotspur. The sports betting firm (based in the Channel Islands near Britain) was trying to reach a fusion with its Swedish competition, however, just a few hours ago, Unibet has withdrawn from the merger talks according to Sportingbet's announcement:

"The board of Sportingbet notes continuing press speculation following an article which specifically referred to merger discussions with Unibet Group, a company listed on the OMX Nordic Exchange Stockholm. Unibet informed the company today that it has withdrawn from those talks".

Peter Eastgate, the Danish pro player who resigned from poker earlier, winner of the 2008 WSOP Main Event has put his bracelet up for auction at eBay, claiming it didn't make much sense to be "just lying around collecting dust".

Peter Eastgate with his bracelet

Of course it might sound ignorant and infuriating to just sell the biggest relic existing in the poker universe, it's not that selfish as it seems at first. Eastgate announced he will donate 100% of the profits to UNICEF.

Poker pros like Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, Chau Giang and John Juanda are having a great time after the APT Macau playing against Chinese businessmen at some really high stakes cash game tables. Phil Ivey won a $2 million pot there according to some rumors.

Zhang Dan Peng

APT (Asian Poker Tour) came to its end yesterday when the 18-year-old Chinese amateur player Zhang Dan Peng won the Main event for $251,000 worth in HK$. The young player has only been playing poker for 6 months, this was his first live tournament ever. He is the first Chinese player to win the APT Macau.

Europe-based online poker operator ChiliGaming is to enter the US market in early 2011. Meanwhile, Full Tilt Poker withdraws from the State of Washington, in accordance with a recent State Supreme Court decision.

ChiliGaming Network, established in 2006, is now about to expand to the United States and, more notably, does it lawfully. Their concept is something that has already been tried with varied success at best: a subscription-based system in which there is no actual money transfer at the tables. Players pay a (usually low) monthly fee that makes up the prize pool of the otherwise play money games. This is, it seems, a way to bypass US regulations.

Phil Hellmuth, everyone's favourite bad beat bad boy released a new series of books entitled "Phil Hellmuth’s Legendary Poker Hands". The series consists of 5 separate eBooks released only at Apple's iBookstore for $2.99 each.

The series contains 5 chapters sold as 5 distinctive books each with 22+ pages of hand histories and analyses by Phil. The volumes are entitled the following: Phil on Pocket Pairs, Phil Bluffs and Gets Bluffed, Hellmuth vs. Chan, Phil’s Great WSOP Hands and Phil Loses 5 Hands…And Lives and Learns.

Professional female poker player Maria Ho has recently signed a sponsorship contract with UB.com. In their press release, UB praises Ho as a someone who “has established an impressive reputation as a successful high stakes cash game player in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, making her one of the few and youngest female players competing with poker’s elite in the biggest games.”

UB.com's Maria Ho

Her personality, skill and popularity are bound to benefit UB, who still seem to have a hard time washing away the shades of their super-user scandal. Ho has been very successful lately, making it to the final table of WSOP-C South Africa, finishing in 10th place at the WPT Bellagio CUP VI and in 11th in the WSOP $10,000 LHE World Championship earlier this year.

Have you ever felt clumsy or not experienced enough to view your pocket cards in style? Well fear no more, because thanks to PokerHPC, now you can put your hole cards into a 80's looking machine that helps you view them without anyone else seeing. It also features a picture holder, so you keep a picture of your kitty cat or of your mom with you all the time.

The wonderful invention is called "The Cube", which is a telling name, really. PokerHPC, the creators of this little work of art thought there are many players not that good with card handling, and opponents can easily see their cards and have an advantage over them. The Cube however, will change it all. Poor fellas will not be exploited again, never! They will be only handled as suckers who can't even look at their cards properly.

British poker bad boy, Dave 'Devilfish' Ulliott seems to have some major issues with his poker room, Devilfish Poker. The unofficial announcement at the Devilfish Gaming website says the virtual poker room has been sold to a buyer yet to remain unknown.

The company that bought the room pays Devilfish Gaming a total of Ł300,000, Ł40,000 in cash and the rest in shares of the new parent company. Though, the sale is not completed yet, and is "subject to satisfactory completion of due diligence and legal process" according to the Devilfish Gaming website.

If you somehow haven't seen the WSOP Main Event final table yet, missed out the live stream, the videos and all, here's your chance to finally do it. PokerTube.com released the 100-minute show for all enthusiasts who doesn't have access to ESPN. I say, if you only watch 1 final table this year, this should be it.

My fellow grinders, Tony G is all over the place. Literally. PartyPoker's sponsored pro is now available as an online table decoration for PartyPoker's players. If you'd like some "G" spirit on your virtual tables, now is your time.

There are 3 versions available to download:

A classic black

French people hate Raymond Domenech, France's former national soccer team coach with passion. After the man made many bad decisions and had his team eliminated in the group stages of the South African World Cup, he got fired and is a target for many people. Well, now he's teamed up with Bwin, offering the haters the chance to beat him up at poker.

Truly brilliant move from Bwin this is, being advertised at Bwin.fr, they will surely have many challangers who want to beat Domenech badly. Here's the promotion's "trailer", what I find a bit cheesy and makes me uncomfortable in a way, but hey, we're talking about French...

Part VII of Eponymous’ Photoshop comic strip ‘The Godfather of Online Poker’ has arrived: a peace treaty is made between the poker rooms and Patrik assumes control of the Corleones. 

As I posted, Jonathan Duhamel won the 2010 WSOP Main Event, earning just around $9 million after defeating John Racener HU. Immediately, the social media was crammed with congratulations and various reactions from poker pros and the community; here is but a few of these.

Jonathan Duhamel

His fellow countryman Daniel Negreanu, although probably a bit disappointed, remarked on his Twitter that Duhamel was both the sixth PokerStars pro and the first Canadian to win the WSOP: “Just woke up and saw that PokerStars has now produced 6 of the last 8 WSOP champs and Canada its 1st. Congrats kid!"

Have you seen HBO's hit show, the "Boardwalk Empire"? I personally love the era it is set in, the 1920s. If you also do, you will love this news. Atlantic City Resorts will adopt a Boardwalk Empire-like theme for their casino by December this year.

The Atlantic City Resorts  in front

The venue is located in the exact same spot, which was once the boardwalk. Previous owners couldn't catch up with the competition, they were failing to pay the mortgage and had to sell the venue, which was quickly bought by Morris Bailey and Dennis Gomes, who had great plans in mind for the casino, which is currently under construction.

Jeremy Menard is a multi-table tournament coach at DragTheBar. He does that very successfully, since he's one of the best multi-table tournament players in the world right now. With many smaller and some huge tournament wins he's really experienced, he recently won FTP's $1,000,000 Guarantee tournament, scoring $180,123. 

The guy usually plays at PokerStars as EndlessJ and at FTP as EndlessJ83. In the following video which he shared with the readers of the PartyPoker blog, he shows how he performs and thinks at a $500 PartyPoker online tournament. Enjoy!