It’s been a busy couple of weeks in poker with notable tournaments running in locations as diverse as London, Aruba and… Blackhawk, Colorado? To keep you up with who’s winning around the world, our crack staff is everywhere. We think.

Barry Shulman
WSOPE Main Event
London, England

With more than $1.3 million in first-place money and a WSOP bracelet on the line, the match had Academy Award potential as Shulman, father of November Niner and up-and-coming poker bad boy Jeff “Happy” Shulman, bettered perennial fan favorite and all-time tournament money winner Daniel Negreanu.

For full play-by-play of the epic 17-hour, big-name final table, click here

Aaron Gustavson
EPT London Main Event
London, England

Across town at the Grosvenor Casino, it took just seven hands of heads-up play for 23-year-old online pro Aaron Gustavson to knock off defending WSOP main event champ Peter Eastgate and claim the £850,000 first-place prize at the EPT London Main Event.

More details at EuropeanPokerTour.com

Brandon Hall
Aruba Poker Classic
Aruba

A little rain couldn’t dampen Hall’s spirits as the 20-year-old online qualifier from Littlestown, Pa., beat out 474 other players to claim more than $753,000 and the title of Aruba Poker Classic Champion after defeating Robert Mizrachi in heads-up play. He plays online as “AreTheseUtz”.

Read more about him at the UltimateBet Blog

William Givens
HPT Mile High Poker Open
Black Hawk, CO

24-year old William Givens won nearly $145,000 and his mother’s respect after taking down the Heartland Poker Tour’s Mile High Poker Open at the Golden Gates Casino earlier this month. Givens, who has been playing professionally for just over a year, won his way into the $1,650 main event through a $360 satellite. Using cash game winnings from the weekend, he actually won two satellites and sold the other seat for additional profit.

Read more about his biggest win to date on the Heartland Poker Tour here

Howard Stutz over at the Las Vegas Review Journal’s Inside Gaming blog reports that Mike Sexton will be the only person to be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in November. An official announcement will come from the World Series of Poker and Harrah’s Entertainment on Thursday.

Hat tip to “riverdance” on 2+2 for the link.

That’s not really the point of this video, but hey, when Lacey Jones talks for 15 seconds about the business of getting naked, people listen.*

The Absolute Poker/Zizzazz girl’s latest spokesmodel gig is with Ksino.com (a gambling-themed clothing line by the people who helped set standards for douchebag- club-culture fashion with Caffeine).

The vid gives a little behind-the-scenes peek at her signing the deal, and then follows her as she hits the streets of Manhattan, where she runs across at least one New York City underground player who offers a glimpse of how the games work there. She also explains how above-ground casinos handle the shark-whale relationship, and eventually starts dressing dudes she meets on the streets … which is kinda like undressing them, but not quite. Special appearance by Spongebob Squarepants.

* listening props: @AlCantHang

On Dennis Phillips’ radio show on Tuesday, he broke the news that he was one of the first players invited to play on season 6 of High Stakes Poker. It was also revealed that PokerStars will be sponsoring the show, which could escalate the Vanessa Rousso co-hosting High Stakes Poker rumors At Fullcontactpoker.com, Daniel Negreanu mentions that Gabe Kaplan will handle the analysis/commentary solo, and the new addition to the crew will be someone that everyone knows and likes.

Audio of the announcement with Dennis, host Paul Harris and poker coach Joe McGowan:

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Suze Orman had another poker player call in to her “Can I Afford It?” segment seeking her approval to buy into a $1,200 tourney in Las Vegas. Young guy. Spoiler Alert: Quickest denial ever!

LOL, apparently Suze doesn’t understand that players like Brian are “good for the game.”

Episode #11 features Hevad Khan and news from around the poker world.

Buzzerblog, which covers the game show industry, reported last week about a pilot for a poker game show where players can win up to $1,000,000. Shuffle Up and Deal, which states that it’s the first “family-friendly” poker-themed game show, will have five contestants attempt to create the best poker hand from an oversized electronic poker board. Whomever makes the most money will have an opportunity to win $1,000,000 at the end of each show. Interested participants should fire off an email to ontheshow@shuffleuptv.com for taping in November.

We all know how poker offers many rewards to the smarties. (Well, some of us do. Don’t tell the others, please.) So no surprise, really, to see poker featured over on the Chronicle of Higher Education website this morning.

In an article titled “What Poker Can Teach Us,” James McManus (Positively Fifth Street) shares a number of arguments on poker’s behalf, suggesting how poker helps us in various areas such as politics, business, and even in the struggle to come to a better understanding of the human condition.

The article adapts material from McManus’ long-awaited, forthcoming history of poker, Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker, which finally hits the shelves later this month.

An update on a story from last month, but AJ Benza confirmed earlier this morning on 2+2 that he has been replaced on High Stakes Poker (taping for season 6 starts in November) by a woman cohost.

Unconfirmed reports name Vanessa Rousso as his replacement.

AJ has more on the decision at his blog.

We’re goin’ the stand-up comedy route this week … rising humorist Daniel Tosh apparently knows a thing or two about poker, and he’s made it part of his routines. The poker bit here starts at 6:20 (and ends well before 7:00) … frankly it’s one of his weakest jokes in the show, but hey, poker poker poker!

This Daniel Tosh poker joke is funnier, but no video to go with it:

The concept of Poker Patience is simple enough … arrange 25 cards to make the best poker hands vertically, horizontally, and diagonally. About 14 25 40 plays later, you start to think you’re starting to understand proper strategy:

http://www.thecodezone.com/games/pokerpatience.php

Facebookers can play (repeatedly, and compare scores with friends) here.

[via DealerZach]

Topics this week include the emergence of Darvin Moon and Phil Ivey in the press, tournament spotlights (Shulman def. Negreanu @WSOPE, Gustafson def. Eastgate @EPT-London, UB’s Aruba-fest), and the demise of PokerPages (feat. former PP EIC Amy Calistri) …

on PokerRoad

The Poker Beat
Huff, Caldwell, Michalski, Wise, Nemeth, Calistri, Stapleton
10/8/09

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In and of herself … yeah, bring it! But sitting next to the also-at-least-partially naked Scotty Nguyen, Phil Hellmuth, and Daniel Negreanu (who’s covering his left breast with a PokerStars patch) … eww, uh, yee …

Incontrovertible living proof that poker is definitely not a sport:

From a feature in the new issue of ESPN the Magazine.

(The poker nakedness occurs for half-a-blip at about 3:15, perverts.)

via PokerNews

“Anything to help poker out is fine with me.”

As discussed on this week’s The Poker Beat … Phil Ivey is making friendly with the cameras these days. He sits down for nine minutes with PokerTube.com to talk about what he’s doing in Europe, his plans leading up to Nov. 9, his main event prep strategy (“get a good night’s sleep, have a good breakfast”), and even addresses the mini-controversy from the summertime WSOP when he balked at being on ESPN’s feature table. (Oh, right, totally forgot about that.)

The specific hand he recalls almost effortlessly (from four years ago) and breaks down in the interview can be found here:

(It really is pretty impressive, and a reminder of why people have been so into Phil Ivey even before he started talking.)

http://www.pokertube.com/Hands.aspx?hand=2029

The Hardcore Poker Show makes news again with its interview on Wednesday with Daniel Negreanu. Among the variety of topics covered, Chris Tessaro and Rob Pizzo brought up Phil Hellmuth’s comments he made on the show two weeks ago, and adds comments about Ultimate Bet, a site he has been a critic of going back to their first WPT event back in 2002.

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The rest of their interview with Daniel can be found here.

Speaking of UB, Joe Sebok has an update on his blog regarding another delay in releasing hand histories from superusers on UB.