Poker Guru Blog

We have reported plenty of times about Dan Bilzerian's adventures, but this time he might have gotten himself into trouble. Apparently he wanted to spar with UFC's Rashad Evans, and Jean-Robert Bellande has given the fighter a little extra incentive in case he is up for a fight. Let's just say that if the showdown were ever to happen, it would probably end in a blitz.

French poker room Winamax has joined the "fight" to protect it's recreational players. They have recently introduced their anonymous tables, which players can find under the "Incognito" name. 

As expected, Daniel Negreanu has been inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. The other inductee is tournament director Jack McClelland, the induction ceremony is going to be held on November 9, at the start of the WSOP Main Event final table.

Antanas Guoga, better known as Tony G, is one of the most recognizable faces in poker. Lately, he has pretty much retired from the game, he is far too busy spending time with his new wife and with his new duties as a member of the European Parliament. His Open-Face Chinese Poker site, Tonybet has been thriving however, and will organize the first ever OFC Championship during the Prague Poker Festival.

To commemorate Viktor "Isildur1" Blom's departure from Full Tilt Poker, we decided to publish a screenshot from 2009, when he burst on the scene. He played heads on on 6-8 tables against the best players in the world and won 5 million before losing it all back and disappearing as quickly as he emerged. In this particular session, he was playing against Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius and had close to $2 million on the tables. The Swedish wunderkind has since returned to the high stakes scene but has not been able to replicate his results, and many believe that the game has progressed so much that he will never have the edge on the field that he once held. (Click on image to enlarge)

Just mere hours after we published our article speculating that Gus Hansen and Viktor "Isildur1" Blom are no longer part, the rumors were confirmed by Full Tilt. Full Tilt stated that the sponsorship deals have "expired" and that the site is looking to move in a new direction with their marketing.

Partypoker's online tournament series, Pokerfest, kicked off on Sunday with $2.24 million in guarantees and a total of 76 events, including the $300,000 guaranteed Main Event. The series runs until November 2, and the events are split into low, medium and high buy-in levels, ranging from $1 to $1,000.

When Phil Ivey started off playing poker, he wasn't old enough yet to legally enter casinos. That small problem was not going to stop Ivey, who got hold of a fake ID with the name "Jerome Graham", and started visiting Atlantic City casinos, and thus, a legend was born. A couple of times, Ivey missed the last bus home and was forced to sleep on the beach, which earned him the name "No Home Jerome". 

Full Tilt has recently updated their website, with new logos and more, which are all part of their plan to market themselves as more than just a poker site (they even changed their URL to FullTilt.com a while ago). Players noticed another change however - Full Tilt Professionals Viktor "Isildur1" Blom and Gus Hansen are no longer on the start screen of the client, and rumor is that this is because they have severed ties with the site.

PokerStars is running a Team Pro Online Week, that includes promotions to win free PCA packages worth $15,000, the opportunity to become a Team Online pro, and an exclusive Micro-Stakes Zoom Poker Challenge, as well as the Red Spade Open, a $55 tournament with $1 million guaranteed and juicy bounties on Team PokerStars players.

Sebastian Pauli  scored a start to finish victory in the EPT London Main Event, in the heads-up he defeated Kevin MacPhee, who was aiming to win his second EPT. Meanwhile, Andrew Chen won the £10,300 High Roller.

Scott Davies had a great run at this year's World Series of Poker, he cashed six times and came close to a bracelet in the $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em tournament, finishing in 4th place for $112,000. This time around he managed to go all the way and beat a strong final table on his way of capturing his first WSOP bracelet as well as the 2014 WSOP Asia-Pacific Main Event title.

Day 5 of the EPT London Main Event started on Friday with 16 players, and play would continue until only the 8 participants of the final table remained. Sebastian Pauli started the day as the chipleader, and he leads the final table with a significant chiplead aswell, but he has fierce competition that includes EPT champions Jake Cody and Kevin MacPhee, aswell as Pablo ''gordiju'' Gordillo, who gained fame when he won three tournaments in one night on PokerStars for more than $100,000. You can watch the live stream with revealed hole cards at the bottom of this article from 14:00 BST.

We have reported before about George Danzer and Brandon Shack-Harris' epic race to win the prestigious Player of the Year award, but the final few events brought even more excitement. In the end, it was the German PokerStars Team Pro who claimed the victory and the $10,000 seat into the 2015 WSOP Main Event.

Mike "GoLeafsGoEh" Leah has had a very impressive year so far, and he continues to to rack up results, this time, he defeated an extremely strong final table consisting of players like Jonathan Duhamel, Jesse Sylvia and Brian Roberts on his way to winning the A$25,000 High Roller tournament for A$600,000.