Good story in some non-poker media on Matt Savage, tournament director at the Commerce Casino in California … specifically about what it takes to keep players happy (and business churning) at the largest poker room in the world (160 tables) when your job is to entice customers into events — bad economy and all — where 90 percent of them are guaranteed to go home losers.
More challenging than a lotta people think …
A mistake in our latest installment — our fault, not the EPT’s, for taking what they have on the front page of their official, regularly updated website at face value — slighted the significance of Luca Pagano’s 4th place finish at EPT Warsaw.
We think he was one of the Big Winners of the last two weeks of October 2009, too:
Luca Pagano
EPT Warsaw (Casinos Poland)
PolandItalian pro Luca Pagano suffered a bad beat to finish 4th. And though Pagano has found full-on wins elusive on the EPT, his $128k run in Warsaw was enough to push him past Bertrand Grospellier (“Elky”) as the top player (in terms of Tournament Leaderboard Points) on the EPT in history, with 12 cashes and five final tables.
See the real EPT’s all-time Tournament Leaderboard
Pokerati loves charity poker and, of course, healthy breasts … which is why it’s our pleasure to contribute to the grab-bag of prizes for the upcoming Bad Beat on Cancer Poker Challenge, to be held Nov. 12 on PokerStars.
It’s a simple concept — a $10 tourney with rebuys where all the money minus shipping and handling goes to Bad Beat on Cancer … all on behalf of Nicole Rowe and her own fight against the disease. The donated prizes range from a lifetime subscription to DeucesCracked (the 2 Months 2 Million guys’ poker school) to all sorts of other coaching, boot camp, and lifestyle experiences (like drinking with Gavin Smith and Joe Sebok) to signed books to Skullcandy headphones to … for those oh-so-lucky 44th-49th place finishers … Pokerati T-shirts. The top 50 all get something, and that’s what should make this low-stakes fundraiser pretty fun.
Rowe, if you don’t remember, is the player who finished 2nd in a Borgata Ladies event in September, losing to Abraham Korotki, not a lady, who also turned down a chop offer when the two were heads-up and virtually even in chips. “You bastard!” screamed the poker masses, though Rowe herself insists she holds no animosity for her worthy, breastless opponent.
Rowe says she plays poker to escape from her daily battle with cancer, but is also using her winnings to help pay for uncovered expenses related to multiple surgeries and treatments.
Mark your calendars, and click here for a complete list of prizes and other tournament details.
A few fledgling careers getting a bankroll boost, a couple accomplished players cementing their stati as big-time pros, and one not-so-old legend proving (to himself?) he’s still got something … all in the last two weeks of October:
Tommy Vedes
Festa al Lago (Bellagio)
Las VegasNew Yorker Tommy Vedes has been on a cross-continental tear — with 9 cashes, 6 final tables, and 2 wins in the past four months for more than $1.7 million in tournament winnings — at events in Las Vegas, London, Cyprus, Tunica, and Thackerville, Okla. His run may or may not have culminated this month with a made-for-TV WPT victory against a pro-heavy 275-player field in the $15k Festa main event.
Check out Vedes’ lifetime stats
Howard Lederer
Festa al Lago (Bellagio)
Las VegasNew York émigré @howardhlederer may have been starting to doubt himself upon realizing he had only two wins in 25 WSOP final tables, and no victories anywhere in nearly two years. Fortunes changed with the latest $10k HORSE event in Las Vegas, kinda an “old school” tourney (19 entries, $92k top prize) that Lederer self-covered on Twitter.
Read why the Professor should always be your official “pick to win it”
Isaac Baron (“westmenloAA”)
Caesar’s Palace Classic
Las VegasConfirmed online tournament bad-ass showed he could close it out live in LV by winning the $5k main event at Caesar’s for a $250k payday. The 22-year-old beat a tough final table, too, bettering Theo Tran, Jimmy Tran, Kathy Liebert, and 2008 EPT Grand Final Champ Glen Chorny — a rematch of sorts, as Baron finished 4th at that final table.
More on Isaac Baron’s continuing climb
Here’s a storyline that ESPN somehow missed/didn’t feed us on the media-prep conference call … It’s a very Jewish WSOP main event final table.
The Jewish Daily Forward points out what may or may not be a statistical anomaly: Four of the November Nine — Jeff Shulman, Steve Begleiter, Eric Buchman, and Kevin Schaffel — happen to speak Hebrew, at least during family holidays.
From a stack perspective, these Jewish players control 49.6 percent of all the chips in play. How stereotypical …
The J-article also offers a rich history of Jews in the game … from Jack Strauss to Jamie Gold … and most recently Barry Shulman’s Yom Kippur victory at WSOP-E. Back in the day, of course, the World Series was all about Jews vs. Texans, but Texans have been sucking it up in recent years now the game has a more widespread international appeal that has prevented any one region from owning pwning it.
Full Disclosure: I used to make an annual pilgrimage to a Dallas synagogue in an effort to bring people with money to the Lodge convert non-gentiles to the poker way. So yeah …
ALT HED: × ×•×‘×ž×‘×¨ תשע עצה: בית על היהודי×
While we’ll happily take credit for being the first to recognize the amazing gayness cultural importance of Lady Gaga’s Poker Face … props to WCP for tipping us off to this major sociopolitical statement wrapped around a poker-themed song:
UPDATE: And so long as we’re pilfering Wicked Chops content today … they’ve got the latest episode of PTV Cribs up, with Evelyn Ng showing her new pad in Panorama Towers (I’m pretty sure) after being foreclose-booted out of her previous rental at the property. She talks a little DJ Hero, too … so hey, we’re still on theme:
More talk in the non-poker world about the $41 or $52 billion available via regulated online gambling. From the National Journal:
Gambling Regs Could Fill Gov’t Coffers
Maybe it is time to press the issue … not just for poker, but for the sake of US America?
The new World Series site just went live, just in time for the November Nine … check it out at either WSOP.com or WorldSeriesofPoker.com.
For the past couple years, Bluff has been running the WSOP website — they actually paid them for the privilege. But now Harrah’s has said we don’t want your stinkin’ money! what, you can’t keep paying us? Fine then, we’ll run it ourselves … and the keys to the WSOP internet machinery (now a division of Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment) have since been handed over.
I’m not sure how much we’re supposed to be sayin’ about this … it seems like a major change in online-gambling law could still be in play in 2009 … but if so, our peeps in DC may be trying to keep it all on the downlow. At least that’s what a staunchly anti-gambling Republican in Utah is trying to suggest.
“I’m raising the red flag,” Chaffetz told the Deseret News on Wednesday. “I feel the imperative to get this organized before it is too late.”
Rep. Jason Chaffetz is speaking to his constituents sounding the warning bells that the billions and billions from online gambling that government just may not be able to say no to could dramatically alter everyone’s way of life. And he doesn’t just mean the positive stuff that we see from being able to play in safe and secure US-based games …
Chaffetz says a chance meeting he had with Frank makes him worry that unlike similar past efforts that went nowhere, Frank is deadly serious about legalizing online gambling this year, and it could come up quickly without much time to organize opposition.
“I saw him in the airport in Salt Lake a number of weeks ago,” Chaffetz said. “I said, ‘Barney, what are you doing here in Salt Lake?’ He was traveling back from Las Vegas, which led to our discussion about his Internet gambling bills.”
Chaffetz said, “He assured me that come this fall, he would be getting these bills through his committee, and I believe him … He may be bluffing, but we can’t afford to take that chance.”
[...]
“This has an unfortunate and real potential of happening,” he said. “This is a big deal. I can’t impress upon you how big of a deal this is.”
Wow. Cool. Awesome. We know we have public support for “our issue” and in general our facts fall on the right side of the law … so I gotta think we only stand to benefit if a guy like Chaffetz is using Frank’s efforts to rally his own base in preparation for 2010 … because really, isn’t that his game here?
Link props: @TheEngineer2008.
UPDATE: Chaffetz is on Twitter, too, as @JasonintheHouse. And he’s also star of a new reality series on CNN called “Freshman Year”.
It is TV ratings season … and mainstream media folks tend to figure a few times a year that gambling stories are “sexy”.
The usual crew talked a little (new era) poker on TV this week — 2M2MM + PokerStars Million-Dollar Challenge — and then BJ number-geeked out on Daniel Negreanu’s breakdown of WPT performance stats … and a Calling the Clock segment on coaching at the WSOP main event.
on PokerRoadThe Poker Beat
Huff, Caldwell, Wise, Michalski, Nemeth, Stapleton
10/22/09Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
With a scheduled vote for tomorrow from Peerless Media from their offer for the World Poker tour, comes word of a proposal from Mandalay Media on Tuesday, offering $35 million or $1.69 per share for the company. Mandalay Media is requesting a postponement of the shareholder vote to meet with the board of WPTE to further discuss the offer. More details from this article over at Reuters.
(Hat tip goes to Wicked Chops Poker for the story)
UPDATE: Mandalay’s offer increased to $36.5m Friday morning.
ESPN had a little tele-press conference about the upcoming coverage of the WSOP November Nine. ESPN’s chief Flack George McNeilly moderated the call, and on it taking questions were Norman Chad, Lon McEachorn and Doug White, ESPN’s Senior Director of Programming and Acquisitions.
(Jeffrey Pollack bowed out with regrets, apparently claiming “tummy-ache”/swine flu.)
For a little preview of what’s in store — from the perspective of storylines, production, and a wee-bit of Darvin Moon sponsorship business …
ESPN 2009 WSOP Main Event Final Table Media
CattleConference Call
Oct 29 2009
McNeilly, McEachern, Chad, White, et al.Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
SPOILER ALERT: More heads-up coverage, table/stage a bit closer to the crowd, welcome to the show ESPN Inside Deal, and play along online at ESPN.com. Go Phil Ivey or Darvin Moon, and really any of the other guys, too! Akenhead is kinda a funny last name. Presented by Jack’s Links Beef Jerky, yum. Let’s dance.
I kinda thought interest in pushing through the Barney Frank bill (in 2009 at least) had waned … but the Wall Street Journal has an article on the tens of billions available to US coffers by lifting the perceived (if not ill-conceived) online gambling ban, theoretically keeping “our issue” on the table:
Bill Lifting US Online Gambling Ban Seen Raising $42B In Rev
Sally Anne Boyer, 2007 WSOP Ladies’ World Champion, filed a suit Monday against Harrah’s and the WSOP Academy, claiming they’ve used her name and likeness without authorization, and falsely claiming she’s a graduate of the Academy.
Boyer contends that she only attended the first day of the two-day Ladies Academy event, never completing the course, so was not a graduate. Post Oak Productions, the company that produces the WSOP Academy produced an email from August 2007 from Boyer asking to mail a picture of her in ‘poker tournament attire’ to use for further promotions.
More details available from the Las Vegas Sun.
FYI “@ArtisanVegas: Ready for that free birthday bottle? Hit us up at bday@artisanhotel.com for a bottle for you and at least 6 friends.”
Had a great session with Deus Ex. Then got to another boss. Contemplating giving up and moving on to something fun. Wish there were cheats.
