When the mainstream media attempts to interview poker players, it’s more likely than not there will be a moment where the poker enthusiast cringes. This interview with Fox Business’ Neil Cavuto and Tiffany Michelle is nearly 5 minutes of those moments:

This could turn out to be quite the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa thing, with less Creatine. Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey could be going back-and-forth at the very top of the Hendon Mob leaderboard for all-time tournament winnings.

Ivey just re-passed Negs by finishing 2nd in the Aussie Millions $100k event.

Here’s the all-time leaderboard (not yet updated).

[via WCP]

BTW, I’m pretty sure the winner, Dan Shak, was not the same guy who helped send Beth Shak on her renegade red-carpet/no-carpet milf path. If so, he sure has aged since the divorce:

UPDATE: I could be wrong. I was confusing Dan Shak with Bill Gazes, one of the other milfly departeds in poker:

It turned out to be an exciting finish to Event #1 at the LAPC — one of the largest live-tournament fields in history, with 5,847 players entries ponying up the $335 buy-in for a $1 million guarantee (which the Commerce exceeded by more than $600k). It was a funky event that saw some players cash twice. As they got down to the final table. Darrel Cain from Sacramento became a fan favorite after a series of botched chops left him with 8 chips and what seemed like just an $88k payday. But he came back to take it down and claim the biggest piece of a $364k first prize.

Tourney director Matt Savage and his team are chronicling the action and results on the official LAPC blog.

Click here for the rest of the LAPC schedule.

… and other table games. If they move fast enough, they’ll be able to get cards in the air before Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile the state of Iowa thinks poker is booming, and though they already have legal poker there, they think it would be neato to have really big tournaments. And thus there is a new bill pending — and being pushed by the House Majority Leader — that would make room for more tables to accommodate big special poker events.

Their numbers and expectations however, may be a bit off:

“We have the people already playing poker in Iowa. We have a zillion poker players. Apparently, they’re just going someplace else to do it,” Hudson said.

It’s just my guess that the online poker/gambling lobby is gonna need some doctors who are experts on addiction in their pockets to counter medical opinions like these, who are warning about the extreme dangers of chasing straights and flush draws. I pity the kid whose parents actually take this advice.

From the New York Daily News:

I would treat finding gambling Web pages on your teen’s Internet history with the same concern as if you found a baggie with crystal meth in their drawer. I sure wouldn’t need a checklist to tell me the trouble has already begun and I have a crisis on my hands. I would have my kid face-to-face with a youth counselor with experience in dealing with this problem for at least four sessions, to find out how to turn this around

I’m just guessing the authors of this column weren’t following the 2010 PCA nor have they tried the new Rush Poker yet.

Tons os news stories to blow through … John Caldwell can now say definitively that it takes the work of three men to replace him. But the poker news keeps beating. On this week’s docket :

– everyone’s abuzz about Rush Poker. Full Tilt seems to have come up with a catch-on concept that makes no bones about feeding the addiction in a way that seemingly takes multitabling to a whole new dimension. But will Hevad Khan ever be able to play?

– the new WSOP hygeine rule. Yuck. But does it affect strategy?

– and the Heartland Poker Tour flies in to town to pit Vegas locals against “heartland” tourists, bringing more action to Red Rock than Station Casinos coulda anticipated. My personal poker dreams re-crushed.

The Poker Beat
1/21/10

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NOTE: I plea the 5th against allegations that I may have been podcasting while intoxicated.

Bill Rini has some screenshots (that America-based interneters can’t see.) And some good analysis of what this means for the online poker landscape in coming years.

The thread-weavers at Ksino.com have taken on the monumentalt ask of transforming dumpy online poker players into stylin’ success stories who can hit the Vegas clubs without getting punched in the face. Meet Andrew Robl, Antonio Esfandiari, Brian Rast … and the heavily armed Dan Blizarian.Then join Lacey Jones at Ari’s Engel’s training center (“home of The Maven VT”) — essentially a dormitory for poker students who some day hope to live in Panorama Towers:

We don’t necessarily talk much strategy here at Pokerati, but I’m gonna make an effort to occasionally chronicle my own errors at the table with the goal of not repeating them (often). I had a pretty good session of Pokerati 1/2 (no-limit hold’em/PLO round of each) at the Hard Rock. In for $400, I had made a nice come back from about $80, rebuilding my stack to about $800+change — thanks to Katikin-on-tilt — when I got 6d 8c 9c Jd in the small blind. With about four limpers I threw in the buck.

The flop: 6-7-10 rainbow.

I tossed in $6 … had to build something. The cut-off, a solid player and the other big stack at the table with about $700, also mostly from @JaKatkin, called.

I know better than to bet the non-nuts in Omaha … and my instincts were screaming, “That Ace is not a bad card for him!” But I convinced myself it might also have given him something like A-10, which he likely wouldn’t bet, but might call with.

The turn came another 7, to put two hearts on the now-paired board. He bets $20. I pot it for $82. Alarm bells go off for my opponent but he calls. I start thinking about the boats he might have. Not pocket 10s. 6-7 was a possibility, but I think he woulda raised me on the flop. Pocket 6s was a threat, but not a big one, because I had one. 7-10 was scarier, but same thing … I think he woulda popped me on the flop with either of those hands.

More…

photo: Alan Barry

Check it out … Rising poker diva Liv Boeree is in the December issue of British Maxim, which just recently went up online. While some in poker may scoff at her mere $200k in lifetime tournament winnings, hey, there’s not an online poker site in sight on this photo shoot, and yet Maxim is still interested enough to show sexually suggestive pictures of her ask about her life on a farm rolling around in mud? That’s pretty cool.

(Big score for her agents at No-Limit Management?)

We also learn she’s a total metal chick. Like she can actually rock out to Pantera on guitar. Dude. Go Liv Boeree … Win stuff!

ALT HED: Liv Boeree has never masturbated a pig.

It’s true. She says so herself. Read it.

Sonic the Hedge-bettor.

More new players trying to get in on the online poker game … SEGA, the what-happened-to-them video gaming pioneer just opened its interactive online gaming/gambling sites … SegaCasino and SegaPoker … with more TK in 2010 they say.

At least we think the sites are live. With players from the US and Japan forbidden to play, I get a 403-Forbidden error when trying to access SegaPoker.com.

A sign of how things change … back in 2005 the already legendary TJ Cloutier was still tearing it up. But in 2010, the WSOP bracelet he won in the 2005 $5k NLHE is now for sale on eBay. I guess he didn’t cash big enough via the sale of PokerPages to buy it back Bummer, dude. We feel ya. Not sure where the big fields are coming from in LA, AC, Australia, and France … everybody seems broke. But either way, you get the sense that those who are playing are doing so with far more seriousness than the fields were back in the day when TJ won this:

The seller is Plano Pawn Shop (“specializing in fine jewelry and firearms”), who has a 100 percent positive feedback rating after 314 eBay sales. Plano, of course, is the suburb next door to TJ’s home in Richardson … and on the way to the Choctaw Casino in Oklahoma, not to mention some of the bigger private games in the Dallas area.

UPDATE: His bracelet from the Scotty Nguyen Poker Challenge IV is also up for sale.

Via Bluff Magazine.

UPDATE: Tony G is now blogging for PartyPoker, too.

Oops, I can’t believe I forgot Tony G in my Power 20 rankings … the man who directly controls the paycheck of so many of my cronies and the bankroll of at least a handful of international tournament players is now officially on board with the crew Mike Sexton built/is building. Further evidence that PartyPoker/WPT is making serious moves (to challenge PokerStars and Harrah’s?) … and re-enforcing Sexton’s original vision that anybody is welcome to play at Party. Also makes Party’s upcoming Premier League Poker in Las Vegas a lot more interesting …

Click below for the full press release. We’ll see if we can’t figure out any more details about what went into bringing The G on board.

Meanwhile, speaking of G’s, Kesan, the Napoleonic thug on Season 2 of From G’s to Gents, is going to prison for beating a baby.

[Link thanks California Jen!]

More…

Players are flocking to Poker’s Second City for that other, LA version of the WSOP, aka the LAPC. Early numbers look strong. Much more to come from this festival of poker tourneys to be sure:

Elsewhere around the world, the big action is going at the Borgata Winter Poker Open in Atlantic City, at EPT-Deauville in France, and the Aussie Millions in, er, Australia … where our favourite under-25 Betfair-blogging scrapper fought FTW in the $1k PLO event. @Annette_15′s inspirational tweet-story:

Dinner break in plo, avg 32k, got 20k. Lost half my stack with KxJxTs9s on KJs8sAx5x board lol. 30 something left, 16 paid. Start in 1h.

22 left. At avg

Got 50k. Avg 56. On the bubble now. 17 left. Good table

Itm yay

Final table . 9 left. Cont. tomorrow at 4. Avg 100k. I got 150k. 40k for first. 1x?

One hour break. Got 550k i think. Didnt count. 4 left. Got over half the chips in play. Go me

yayyyyy i won!!!!

A nice little roadmap on how to move from the middle of the pack to the final table with the momentum it takes to go all the way, no? 40k AUD ($36.7 USk).

REMINDER: Today is Omaha day at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas. Playing 1/2, half no-limit hold’em, half PLO … w Run-it-2x. I like to think of this game as PLO with training wheels. Did you know sets aren’t necessarily all that good in Omaha?

For those who missed it, on last week’s episode we bid farewell to co-host John Caldwell … then got to business discussing the PCA and the new breed of Tiger Beat PokerStars. And then we get into the first annual Poker Beat Awards … where the crew waxes gay about Phil Ivey and all his accomplishments or lack thereof in 2009. I woulda voted for him (maybe I did?) but he wasn’t even at the ceremony to accept his awards. What a jerk!

We also talk a little Clonie vs. Full Tilt lawsuit and say our goodbyes to those who left us in 2009.

on PokerRoad

The Poker Beat
1/14/10

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