Day 1a of the £10,000 + 350 Main Event drew a field of 137 players and an appearance by Phil Hellmuth (video below). The day 1a chip leader is Nicolas Levi with 153,850 in chips. Some notables returning Saturday afternoon: Bruno Fitoussi – 120,250, Leo Margets – 109,000, Allen Cunningham – 84,725, Barny Boatman – 73,200, Chris Ferguson – 52,950 and Jeff Lisandro 43,500. A full list of chip counts available at WSOP.com.

The £10,000 + 350 High Roller No-Limit Heads-Up event reached the best-of-three final, with Gus Hansen winning the first match, and Jim Collopy making a comeback from an over 2-1 deficit to even up the match. The third and deciding match is currently scheduled for Friday afternoon, but with both players planning to play in the Main Event, the exact time has not been announced. Be sure to check PokerNews or WSOP.com

Elsewhere …

WPT Borgata Poker Open, Atlantic City :: Play is currently heads-up between Dwyte Pilgrim and Kia Mohajeri. WPT Live Updates

UPDATE: Dwyte Pilgrim finishes first, winning $733,802, moves into first place in the CardPlayer Player of the Year standings.

LAPT Grande Finale – Rosario, Argentina :: $5,000 Main Event draws a field of 254 players, with 131 returning Friday afternoon. Winner takes down over $300,000. According to Terrence Chan, the Argentinian government will tax 31.5% of net winnings to all players outside Argentinia, which has some people upset. Updates at PokerNews and PokerStars Blog

A busy Thursday for those hoping for some “good for poker” news in a pair of ongoing battles in state courts. First, the Kentucky Supreme Court has ruled that iMEGA and the Internet Gaming Council can not argue for the 141 online gambling domain names that Kentucky has tried to seize since 2008, and that the domain name owners must appear in court. The KY Supreme Court decision can be found here.

Meanwhile, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the state’s ban on online gambling does not violate the dormant commerce clause, deciding against Lee Rousso in his case against the state. That opinion can be read here.

Mickey Petersen: could be the Lebron James of Poker.

Quick lesson today — from another 20-year-old kid who seems decidedly anti-baller despite going on a hella baller tear since he began his “career” two-and-a-half years ago. Now a CardRunners instructor after turning pro fresh outta high school, Mickey Petersen, known among avid onliners as Mement_mori, is in the running for CardPlayer’s Online Player of the Year at #13 … and ranks 2nd in the world over at 5+5, with qualifying results spread across 18 pages.

Though CardPlayer’s OPOY counts only $1.05 million earned with 18 final tables and two wins in the past year, Pocket Fives totals his wins at $2.7 million. But the stat I find most mind-blowing with this Gen-Z Magic player (inspired by the likes of David Williams, Eric Froehlich, and Dario Minieri to make the crossover into poker, he tells CardPlayer) … Petersen’s average cash is $1,527 … in 1,778 money finishes! Gotta think Phil Hellmuth couldn’t claim more than double that (live and online) over his entire life even if he included cash games … which says a lot because Hellmuth had already won the main event before Peterson was even born.

With Peter Eastgate retired and Gus Hansen one of the losingest players of the year (even if he takes down a WSOPE bracelet today ), seems like Mement_mori (Latin for “Remember you will die”) has easy claim as the best player in Denmark even though he has yet to cash in a live event. It doesn’t cost online players a thing to get their Cardrunners schooling with financial aid from Truly Free Poker Training. (Sign up here – promise you’ll qualify.)

With the £10,000 + 350 Main Event scheduled to start at 12pm London time Thursday, the final prelim event, £10,000 + 350 High Roller No-Limit Holdem Heads-Up will come to its conclusion at 3pm. Four players remain with the two winners playing a best-of-three final shortly after both matches are completed.

Gus Hansen v Andrew Feldman
Jim Collopy v Ram Vaswani

For results from day 2, check out PokerNews or WSOP.com.

Elsewhere …

WPT Borgata Poker Open – 10 players, including Dwyte Pilgrim and Lee Childs, remain as they play down to the TV final table. Defending champion Olivier Busquet finishes 25th, Mike Sexton finishes 20th. WPT Live Updates

UPDATE: Here’s the final table, starting at 4pm ET Thursday:

Seat 1. Kia Mohajeri – 4,225,000
Seat 2. Benjamin Klier – 6,125,000
Seat 3. Ofir Mor – 7,300,000
Seat 4. Brandon Novena – 5,125,000
Seat 5. Dwyte Pilgrim – 4,800,000
Seat 6. Daniel Makowsky – 3,300,000

PokerStars LAPT Grande Final – Rosario, Argentina :: Final stop of season 3 features a $5,000 Main Event. Can Jose “Nacho” Barbero win his 3rd LAPT event this season? PokerNews and the PokerStars Blog provide updates throughout the tournament.

November Niner Matt Jarvis tweeted over the weekend that Sorel Mizzi would coach him in preparation for the WSOP ME final table.

In this third part of the series, its time we go through the last four pros that are up for the Poker Hall of Fame. There haven’t really been any misses in this group thus far, sure, a couple people that have no chance given the current roster of nominees, but no complete misses. That said, we haven’t completed the list yet, and parts one and two are available if you need a refresher of what has been said so far. Here are the top three thus far:

• Dan Harrington: 9
• Barry Greenstein: 7
• Phil Ivey: 6

But with 4 more people to go, none of these players are safe (well, three people need to get 10s in order to knock our Harrington, but you get the idea.) The last four are Tom McEvoy, Daniel Negreanu, Scotty Nguyen, and Erik Siedel.

More…

JP Kelly fell ohsoclose of winning his 3rd WSOP bracelet in Event #3 – £1,000 + 75 NL Holdem, finishing 2nd to Scott Shelley, an employee at online poker site PKR, who won his seat in an office freeroll*. Shelley earned £133,857 for the win, while Kelly pocketed £82,854 for the runner-up finish. Full results available at WSOP.com.

* Credit to Chris Hall of PokerNews.

Day 1 of the £10,350 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller Heads-Up drew a field of 103 players, with the winner earning a coveted WSOPE gold bracelet along with £288,409. Round 2 action has concluded with 32 players returning with three more rounds of play starting Wednesday afternoon at 3pm. Among the players who made it to Wednesday action: Phil Ivey, Scott Fischman, Mori Eskandani, Andrew Feldman, Andrew Robl and Shawn Buchanan. The draw for round 3 is available at WSOP.com.

Elsewhere …

WPT Borgata Poker Open - Atlantic City :: Day 3 playing down to 27, defending champion Oliver Busquet leads the field. WPT Live Updates and Borgata Poker Blog

SportingBet, former home of Sportsbook.com and Paradise Poker, settles with US Department of Justice for $33,000,000. – EGR Magazine

This has little to do with poker, but kinda fun to see one of “our guys” — Al D’Amato standing up to his grand old party, which as we know, hasn’t exactly flocked in support of online gambling legislation, despite its compatibility with Tea Party principles on personal freedom, sensible government, and fiscal responsibility.

Check out former Senator Al D’Amato (R-NY) on Fox News … sitting around a table that would actually make a pretty cool set for a poker show … with Republican strategist Jack Burkman the online qualifier, joining the live action via the internet and Full Tilt Poker. It doesn’t take long for Burkman to become BurkVillain when he gets tied up in a hand with our hero, D’Amato …

With host Eric Bolling is in the little blind, Burkman opens the betting with a 3x rant about federal waste at the post office, placed in the pot with curiously racist undertones in the chat box about Ethiopian and Nigerian immigrants being “bottom of the barrel” in unskilled labor and therefore better suited for driving cabs than holding government employ …

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The final table has been set at the WSOP Europe Event #3 – £1,000 + 75 NL Holdem as the defending champion, JP Kelly, is in contention to defend his bracelet triumph at last year’s WSOPE. If Kelly won, he would also become the first player to defend a NL holdem bracelet since Johnny Chan back in 1987-88, and the youngest player to win three bracelets. That distinction belongs to Phil Ivey.* Here’s how that final table will be seated when play resumes at 2pm:

Seat 1: Karim Jomeen 109,000
Seat 2: Scott Shelley 148,000
Seat 3: Nicholas Katz 150,000
Seat 4: Paul Ian Pitchford 77,000
Seat 5: Jeppe Bisgaard 171,000
Seat 6: Mehdi Senhaji 369,000
Seat 7: Kaveh Payman 434,000
Seat 8: JP Kelly 242,000
Seat 9: Jack Lyman 55,000

* Credit to Donnie Peters at PokerNews.
Follow along in the updates at PokerNews or WSOP.com

Event #4 will take place at 5pm London time Tuesday, the £10,000 + 350 NL Holdem High Roller Heads-Up event. The field will contain a maximum of 128 players with registration closing when the tournament starts. In case of an unevenly sized field (more than 32, 64, or 128) there will be byes for round 1.

Elsewhere…

WPT Borgata Poker Open – Atlantic City :: Day 2 underway, just over 200 players remaining with the top 100 making the money. A brawl almost takes place just before dinner as described by BJ Nemeth here. Other updates and goings-on here.

Heartland Poker Tour – Black Hawk, Colorado :: The poker tour that people forget keeps chugging along with Mark Dunbar taking down over $180,000 in defeating a field of over 400 players. HeartlandPokerTour.com has the recap.

T.J. Cloutier Choctaw Classic – Durant, OK :: Week-long series of tournaments w/ $1,650 Main Event Sept. 25-26 – Schedule

PokerStars WCOOP :: Jason Mercier and Chad Brown in the top 30 of 1k NL event, winner takes down nearly $500,000. RaiseOnce, allegedly Phil Ivey, takes down $25,000 HU title. PokerStars Blog

The Poker Hall of Fame voting is upon us, and with only two weeks until voting closes, its time to look at three more nominees for induction. Last time Chris Ferguson, Barry Greenstein, and Jennifer Harman were analyzed and picked apart, ultimately resulting in a single number signifying my personal feeling toward that player’s admission to the hall. Overall, the three players received the following scores:

• Chris Ferguson: 4
• Barry Greenstein: 7
• Jennifer Harman-Traniello: 2

This time around we look at Dan Harrington, Phil Ivey, and Linda Johnson, and you can see how they stack up after the jump.

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Day 1c of the £1,000 + 75 NL Holdem event drew a field of 185 players, with the 25 survivors joining the 55 day 1a and 1b players with chips Monday at 2pm to play down to the final table. 54 players will make the money with the winner pocketing £133,857. The day 1c chip leader is Frenchman Leonard Truche with 42,400 in chips. Other notables returning: WPT winner Tommy Vedes – 27,200, and Allen Kessler 12,700. Day 1c players with chips and payouts available at wsop.com.

Elsewhere …

WPT Borgata Poker Open – Atlantic City :: 729 players turned up for day 1b of the $3,300 Main Event, creating the largest field for a WPT event (1,040), beating the record set at last year’s Borgata Poker Open. WPT Live Updates and the Borgata Poker Open blog are both handling updates.

PokerStars APPT Auckland :: New Zealand’s “Godfather of hip-hop” Danny ‘Brotha D’ Leaosavaii defeats Tom Grigg to take down the title for over $123,000. – PokerStarsBlog.com has the final report.

This is a little confusing … because didn’t Barney Frank succumb to the NFL and make sure sports betting wasn’t included in any bill that codifies American freedom to gamble online?

I thought so, too … and maybe that’s why few seem to be recognizing the historic happenings right here, right now, with sports betting in Nevada. Check out the new TV commercials — seen on the local ABC affiliate before the UT-Tech game — for the first ever legal wagering app in the United States, moral opposition be damned:

We knew the release of “Leroy’s App” might be kinda a big deal … and the CEO of Leroy’s parent company, American Wagering, Inc., spells out pretty clearly their intent to have their finger on every “online” sports bet in the country with “interstate sports betting networks, phone betting, and real-time handheld devices”:

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Event #2 of the WSOPE, £5,250 Pot-Limit Omaha, has concluded with 2009 WSOP Player of the Year Jeff Lisandro earning his 5th career bracelet, defeating Joe Serock heads-up, earning £159,154 in the win. Serock collects £98,262 for the runner-up finish. Willie Tann and Chris Bjorin, final tablists in event #1, finished 3rd and 9th respectively. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report, will be available shortly at www.wsop.com.

Day 1b of the £1,075 NL Holdem event drew a field of 195 players, with 27 returning Monday afternoon after 9 levels of play. The day 1b chip leader is Wesley Pantling, brother of Andrew Pantling, who finished 2nd to Phil Laak in Event #1 earlier this week. Other notables returning: Andrew Licthenberger – 42,400, EPT Vilamoura winner Toby Lewis – 35,300 and Scott Fischman – 23,200. Full chip counts at WSOP.com.

Elsewhere …

WPT Borgata Poker Open – Atlantic City :: 311 players registered for day 1a of the $3,300 + 200, $2,000,000 Guaranteed event, check out the updates over at WorldPokerTour.com.

PokerStars APPT Auckland – Final table action has just begun, PokerNews and the PokerStars blog are covering that action. The “godfather of New Zealand hip-hop”, Danny ‘Brotha D’ Leaoasavaii holds the chip lead.

Commerce Holdem Series – Final table of 2,085 NL Main Event – live streaming available here.

The WPT-Borgata Poker Open is underway … big action of the season for East Coast grinders and top pros willing to travel to New Jersey. New Jersey happens to be one of the most fascinating states on the online gambling legal fronts for many reasons — sports gambling, poker, and casino games all included — as their state lawmakers attack severe budget deficits at a time when Atlantic City took some of the biggest recessionary gambling hits.

But arguably the biggest and most immediate threats they’re facing are from neighboring states that have expanded gambling — with new tables, poker and otherwise, rapidly opening. Though it’s just a single anecdote and hardly statistical evidence of anything, I got this text message from a Pokerati player about new games in his home state of Delaware:

I’m back in DE. Playing @ DE Park right now. Casinos 15 mins from my house. 20 tables, separate tourney room, pretty nice. haven’t gone to AC since I’ve been here.

Yikes, if not indicative of likely continued economic woes for New Jersey, it seems to at least suggest something about the redistribution of gambling wealth currently going on in the Northeast corner of the United States.

Day 1a of the £1,075 NL Holdem event drew a field of 202 entrants Friday afternoon. After nine levels of play, 28 players return Monday afternoon to join the day 1b and 1c survivors. The day 1a chip leader is Denmark’s Jeppe Bisgaard with 49,000 in chips. Other day 1a notables: Keith “The Camel” Hawkins – 27,800, defending champion JP Kelly – 23,800 and November Niner Matthew Jarvis – 14,700. Chip counts available here as Day 1b gets underway at 12pm London time Saturday.

Day 3 of the £5,250 Pot-Limit Omaha event will resume at 3pm Saturday afternoon with 15 players remaining. November Niner John Racener will hold the chip lead, while Chris Bjorin and Willie Tann, final tablists in the £2,500 NL Holdem 6-max event, have also made the money. Here’s how the remaining players will be seated, with blinds at 1,500/3,000:

Table One:

Seat 1. Steve Jelinek – 56,500
Seat 2. Andrew Miles – 80,500
Seat 4. Sean Dempsey – 36,500
Seat 5. Jeff Kimber – 86,500
Seat 6. Chris Bjorin – 122,000
Seat 7. Samuel Stein – 119,500
Seat 8. Karl Mahrenholz – 211,000
Seat 9. Jeff Madsen – 126,500

Table Two:

Seat 1. Willie Tann – 154,000
Seat 2. John Racener – 276,000
Seat 3. Erik Friberg – 97,000
Seat 4. Joe Serock – 72,000
Seat 5. Filipe Ramos – 141,000
Seat 6. Jeff Lisandro – 131,000
Seat 9. Michael Schwartz – 66,000

Follow the updates at PokerNews and WSOP.com

Sen. Rod Wright: Give me PartyPoker.cali or give me death!

California state Sen. Roderick Wright (D-Inglewood) — the legislator behind California’s aggressive efforts for intrastate online gambling and opponent to Barney Frank’s federal online gambling bills — is in some hot water. I couldn’t tell on quickest glance if he’s being hassled over some jurisdictional technicalities or if its indicative of some major shenanigans involving one of the biggest proponents for California’s French-like vision for online poker. But either way, somebody seems pretty pissed off at Wright, as a Los Angeles County grand Jury unsealed an 8-count felony indictment against him yesterday.

Wright is the sponsor of California’s SB 1485, a bill that would immediately kick off licensed and regulated online gambling for Californians in California. The bill has seemed on its last legs since this summer, but just won’t die as California desperately digs into its couch cushions looking for any way possible to to make up for extreme budget deficits supposedly driving the state toward insta-bankruptcy.

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