Poker Guru Blog

According to the latest news, a fight erupted between five times WSOP title holder Jeff Lisandro and WPT winner Brandon Cantu in a hotel hallway at the WSOP over some unpaid debts.

After the rooms of a number of players had been broken into at the very beginning of this year’s WSOP, yet another scandal is here: five times WSOP champion Jeff Lisandro engaged two times bracelet holder and WPT champion Brandon Cantu in a hallway.

A whole range of WSOP 2014 events have been wrapped up during the weekend. Here are the highlights of the finales of Event #4 $1,000 NLHE and Event #5 $10,000 2-7 Triple Draw Championship.

WSOP Event #4 $1,000 NLHE saw 2,224 entrants accumulating $2,001,600 in prize money. By Day 3, only 12 players remained and five times WSOPC title holder Kyle Cartwright was in the lead. He was accompanied by WSOP 2008 Main Event 4th finisher Ylon Schwartz, among others.

A whole range of WSOP 2014 events have been wrapped up during the weekend. Here are the highlights of the finales of Event #2 $25,000 Mixed Max and Event #3 $1,000 PLO.

Only the final heads-up remained for Day 4 of WSOP Event #2 $25,000 Mixed Max NLHE tournament with Vanessa Selbst and Jason Mo returning to the table. What made the clash even more interesting was a previous tweet from Mo, calling Selbst “so bad” after she eliminated Mo’s close friend Ryan Fee.

On the 4th day of this year’s WSOP, Event #1 got concluded, Vanessa Selbst made it to the final heads-up in Event #2 and Steve ‘MrSmokey1’ Billirakis leads the Final Table in Event #3.

An unplanned Day 3 for WSOP 2014 Event #1 $500 Casino Employees NLHE had to be introduced after the heads-up could not be concluded within the 10 blind levels time frame per day established for the series. As such, Roland Reparejo and Corey Emery returned and resumed playing on Level 23 (5,000/20,000/40,000). In only six hands, the fate of the first bracelet of this year’s festival was decided: Reparejo limped from the Button, Emery shoved and Reparejo insta-called.

The field of WSOP 2014 Event #2 $25,000 Mixed Max NLHE reached on Day 2 the 16 ITM finishes, with top pros getting eliminated along the way. Meanwhile, Event #3 $1,000 PLO kicked off with a similarly strong pool.

60 players returned on Day 2 of WSOP 2014 Event #2 $25,000 Mixed Max NLHE, including the very best of the game around, like chipleader Vanessa Slebst or Brian Rast, Michael Mizrachi, Daniel ‘jungleman12’ Cates, Ravi Raghavan, John Juanda, Stephen Chidwick and Aaron Jones, just to list some of the Top 10. The field aimed at reaching the 16 ITM finishes, playing at 6-max tables. First out was PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu, whose jacks got cracked by Kevin Song’s A-Ks hand. The Canadian did not take it hard, commenting “First flip of the series, yo.”

The European Poker Tour was born in Barcelona, Spain and it returns to the city to celebrate the 100th stop of the series between 16 and 27 August this year. A total of 43 events await players.

The single most important poker series of the Old Continent, the European Poker Tour (EPT) celebrates a major jubilee with the start of the 11th season. In august, Barcelona hosts the kick-off festival of EPT XI, which is also the 100th stop in the history of the Tour. That the occasion would be an excuse for a larger-than-life poker festival was announced in January; now, all the details have been published with the release of the EPT Barcelona 2014 schedule.

On 27 May, the first two events of the 45th WSOP launched: players of the $500 Casino Employees NLHE are already in the money, while Vanessa Selbst leads the remaining 60 in the $25,000 Mixed Max NLHE, featuring some of the biggest stars.

WSOP Event #1 $500 Casino Employees NLHE saw 876 entrants and a prize pool of $394,200. The tournament was kicked off WSOP director Ty Stewart, whose speech culminated in a money cannon being fired, covering the floor with $10,000 cash in $1 notes.

American multi-table tournament specialist Calvin ‘cal42688’ Anderson has been hunting for the SCOOP Player of the Series title since the start of the series in 2009. Finally, he has succeeded.

Calvin ‘cal42688’ Anderson has won the Player of the Series title of the 2014 Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP). Since 2009, the introduction of the festival, the US pro playing from Mexico has been determined to grab the title. It has eluded him for years, but not anymore.

On 27 May, the single most important poker festival of the year, the 45th World Series of Poker launches.

They shuffle up and deal in two events: as usual, the $500 Casino Employees NLHE kick off the schedule, yet the other event is a novelty: the $25,000 Mixed Max NLHE. A total of 65 bracelet events are offered, three tournaments more than last year. The venue of the festival is the Rio All Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, as usual. With daily satellites, complementary deep stack events and cash games, the non-stop action is guaranteed for about 50 days.

Antanas Guoga, better known in the poker community as Tony G, has been elected a Member of the European Parliament from the list of the Liberals Movement of the Republic of Lithuania.

In October 2013, Tony G announced on his Facebook page that he would participate in the European elections this year as a candidate, representing the Liberals Movement of the Republic of Lithuania. As he wrote, his country needed a change and his party was the most capable of delivering it. Tony G brings in his experience as a businessman and successful poker player (his total live tournament winnings exceed $5 million), which he believes can assist him in his political career.

Ongame network parent company Amaya Gaming is rumoured to be preparing to gain control over PokerStars, enabling the latter to finally grab a share of the US market.

According to CalvinAyre, the market leader online poker room PokerStars and Ongame network owner Amaya Gaming may fuse in the near future. Stock exchange movements seem to support the rumours, as Amaya shares have increased significantly in recent days: from $7.71 per share on Monday, on Friday they closed at $10.25.

PokerTracker 4 has extended its partnership deal with the European Poker Tour, remaining one of the sponsors of the festival in the next series. This is the second year the renowned developer teams up with the European series.

Due to the renewed contract between EPT and PokerTracker, the utility software company remains to be designated as “the official poker tracking software of The European Poker Tour.” Representatives of the developer, the product of which is in its fourth generation and ever popular among players, will be present at the EPT Season 11 venues to promote PT4 and to demonstrate how it works to players.

WSOP has just announced that all non-US players seeking to play the WSOP or play online at WSOP.com will be asked to present a second form of identification besides their passport, as proof of their residency.

In fact, the new regulation is based on federal law and affects all companies involved in major money transactions, to help prevent money laundering. WSOP Media Director Seth Palansky has issued the following statement on the matter:

WSOP has introduced a range of modifications in its rules, including allowing playing online during the World Series in Las Vegas.

On 27 May, the 2014 World Series of Poker launches and the usual press conference to prepare the festival has taken place just recently. Organisers have used the opportunity to make a number of announcements, the most interesting of which arguably being that playing online will be allowed to players during the live events.

Full Tilt Poker has recently updated its poker client and introduced casino slot games to a wider audience, including titles developed by Leander Games. The mobile offer will be delivered by NetEnt.

In January, Full Tilt Poker started to introduce its casino games on certain markets. First, it experimentally launched its blackjack and roulette offerings, before contracting a more experienced developer, Leander Games, to provide titles for the Rational Group skin. Following the agreement, the Full Tilt Casino portfolio expanded further with popular games like Megadeth, Ali Baba or Queen of Thrones. The introduction of casino games in the poker client has first been tested on selected markets, including the United Kingdom.