Poker Guru Blog

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.

Negreanu, divorced in 2008, tweeted that he felt blue on being once again alone after the end of the WSOP. In addition, he has been being treated harsh recently at the poker tables both online and live.

Daniel Negreanu

The Canadian-Rumanian poker pro shared his feelings on his house being emptied yet again, as his fellow players residing there during the WSOP are now left. He said he was just hanging around half naked and couldn’t wait for the next shooting for the TV to return among people.

Rakerace.com released an article summarising the events of the past couple of months in France on the newly introduced regulation of online gambling. The subject has been discussed here as well, see the related posts below.

National level regulation for online poker and betting had been ’under construction’ for years in France when sports betting licences were finally released short before the football World Cup and online poker licences were also issued by 1 July 2010.

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).

Everest Poker signed a sponsorship contract with French professional football (i.e. soccer) league (Ligue de Football Professionnel – LFP) team Olympique Lyonnais. Lyon has been by far the most successful team of the league in the past 10 years.

Olympique Lyonnais 10/11 away jersey

Mangas Gaming, owner of BetClic, Bet-At-Home and Expekt as well, purchased Everest Poker in 2009 and is in for advertising on sport club jerseys; BetClic, for example, already sponsors Lyon, Marseille and Juventus, as well as 13 Portuguese teams.

OL is the first football team for Everest Poker to sponsor, but can easily be the most successful ever too: they won the LFP Ligue 1 championship seven times in a row and also keep doing well in the Champions League.

While BetClic remains to appear on the home jersey of the club, the away one now carries the name of the new sponsor. “Our aim with this agreement is to relate the most important values of sport with poker: play responsibly and respect your opponents,” Everest Poker representative Sandrine Mangia-Park said.

Browsing through the TwoPlusTwo Forum I came across this really funny video featuring a poker game that has the theme of Star Wars. The video made by JimmyLegs and titled Felt Wars is a secret bonus video featured at the end of 'Brain Fail Episode 5: Information Binge', a series produced for CardRunners. I was quite impressed by the video. It is definitely worth a look.

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."

Matt Damon, a constant participant of the WSOP, was interviewed by RawVegas.tv on a possible sequel to the 1998 hit poker movie ‘Rounders’.

The original movie involved everything to popularise the game: great actors, casinos, Johnny Chan, Eric Seidel and a memorable plot on Mike Dermott (Damon), who finances his studies by his winnings on poker, losing everything to Teddy KGB (Malkovich) but being convinced by his old friend Worm (Norton), fresh out of jail, to return to the tables. 

After experiencing a series of bad luck in poker and getting deeper and deeper in debt, Michael Mizrachi is once again close to the top of the poker world by gaining a seat at the WSOP Main Event final table. Should Mizrachi finish 1st or 2nd, he can grab the first position of the world rankings from Phil Ivey. In addition, in the former case he can also beat Frank Kassela to the WSOP 2010 Player of the Year title.

Michael Mizrachi

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.

Following a 2+2 post, PokerTableRatings.com (PTR) discovered 10 PokerStars accounts being bots. These have been frozen by the online poker room upon evidence provided by PTR.

PTR announced that, according to their investigation, the programs played around 8,320,000 hands in $0.25/$0.50, $0.5/$1 and $1/$2 no-limit games, generated a rake of $186,572 and a profit of $57,839 in total. The site based its assumptions on their own analysis of the statistics of the 10 accounts (7emenov, bakabar, crazier, mvra, nakseon, kozzin, demidou, koldan, Daergy, feidmanis) which showed more than suspicious similarities in the changing of stakes as well as “a unique and easily identifiable betting pattern from the big blind in unraised pots.” To see their full analysis, visit PokerTableRatings.com.

Stats of the 10 bots on PokerStars (source: PokerTableRatings.com)

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.

David ’Devilfish’ Ulliott’s long anticipated autobiography, ’Devilfish: The Life & Times of a Poker Legend’, is available from 9 September and can now be pre-ordered through Amazon.co.uk for £9,09.

Probably one of the most interesting is the life of Ulliott among the poker legends, as it spans from crime years with the petty lowlifes of the dark alleys of Kingston upon Hull to the rise to his single-to-date WSOP bracelet and winnings of approximately $6 million in total.

Dave 'Devilfish' Ulliott