I think we all understand the nature of the WSOP’s push for their play-money online poker game on Facebook, which is being heavily advertised on commercials during ESPNs broadcast of the WSOP main event. People seeking more information, however, could be mistakenly led to the Facebook page promoting action with the WPT, arguably one of their biggest competitors for this market.

Check out the potentially confusing appropriation of the WSOP logo in an ad currently being served up to hundreds of thousands of fans of “poker” on Facebook:

Sure enough, it takes clickers to the official WPT Texas Hold’em Poker page.

Careless mistake by a WPT social media intern … or conscious effort on days the WSOP is airing on ESPN such that they get the “likes” before Big Casino corporate lawyers make someone say “oops, sorry” and change the ad to something that doesn’t use tactics usually reserved for fly-by-night operations looking to make a quick buck?

UPDATE: On 9/21, the WPT issued an official statement on the matter:

“We would like to confirm that the Facebook ad mentioned in your September 17, 2010 post was indeed a mistake on the part of a 3rd party advertising agency used by our “WPT Texas Hold’em on Facebook” licensee. The ad was placed by the advertising agency without the knowledge of WPT or our Facebook game licensee.

Please be assured that we acted immediately to rectify the situation and that the advertising agency has pulled the unapproved ad. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.”

Click to download. Image 1: Serzhenko, Image 2: Cheong, Image 3: Game logo. Hi-res images available on request.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 17, 2010

Pokerati Game Releases Minor Rules Update for Version 2.0 Upgrade
without Revealing Real Facts Behind Brief Hiatus, Rumors of Discord
A 1/2 no-limit hold’em/pot-limit Omaha (round of each) game that has become known as “the Pokerati game” is preparing for its return to the Las Vegas felts with minor tweaks to its rules. The game has been called “high stakes action for low-stakes players”, “real poker for advanced beginners”, “festive high-stakes action for ‘advanced’ low-stakes players”, and “good times!” on Facebook and Twitter.

Key components include alternating rounds of the world’s two most popular games, running-it-twice, limited buy-ins, and small pre-flop betting in unstraddled Omaha hands — none of which were offered for low-stakes at licensed Nevada casinos until packaged as such by Pokerati, the most awesome and influential award-winning independent poker media outlet in the world.

“We are confident these changes that we’re not really pointing out will vastly improve the game and make it even more attractive to pros, PLO beginners, and players with plans to play in the November Nine,” said a spokesman for Pokerati. “Or they will be completely inconsequential.”

More…

With the 2010 Hall of Fame voting underway amongst readers of Pokerati, it makes sense to try and take an objective look at the players to see what their contributions have been and whether they merit entry into the Hall come November. Now, there are standards that all voters are expected to consider during the process, and I hope to reflect that throughout this series. With that said, it does make sense to put up some stats on each player before delving into the reasons for why I would/wouldn’t vote for them, so here are the categories I will look into:

• Age (because I am a proponent of the Chip Resse Rule)
• Time active in poker as a professional
• Recognized Tournament/Cash Stakes played at both peak of performance and now
• Tournament Accolades (WSOP/WPT/EPT Titles/Cashes, relevant important other tournament wins)
• Contributions off the felt

At the end of each candidate I will add my own personal thoughts as well as how many points I would give a particular person (out of 10) if I felt like I just had to vote for the candidate on the ballot. Just for reference, I think I need to at least explain the “final score” a little bit. If a 1 is “Not Deserving” and a 10 is “Should have already been inducted”, and the other numbers are varying degrees between the two extremes. A 5 would be that they are deserving of entry in the hall, but not necessarily this year. So you can do the math to figure out where things far. At the end of this series, I will take the three highest point totals and use that to determine who I would vote for on my ballot for this year’s HoF class. I may not have a vote, but I might be able to help persuade others that may.

Because of the obvious length this would inevitably be if I did all 10 players in one go; I’ll be going in alphabetical order in a four part series. The first three, which you can see by clicking below, are Chris Ferguson, Barry Greenstein, and Jennifer Harman(-Traniello).

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Love a good Twitter fight … but sometimes social media can hurt!

Was gettin’ all geared up for an exciting #FollowFriday when I got this reminder of how much things have changed. Alas …

But hey, I’ll always have this bit of inspiration — recorded during the 2006 WPBT Winter Classic, shortly after passage of the UIGEA … a time when Twitter hardly existed and I believed, along with Phil Hellmuth, that poker’s future was in ringtones:

Oliver Tse poker future

ALT HED: Oliver Tweetse

In another “good for poker” moment, Phil “The Unabomber” Laak took down his first WSOP bracelet, defeating Andrew Pantling heads-up to win the £2500 + 150 NL Holdem 6-max event, earning £170,802 and the coveted gold bracelet. Laak now has three top-18 finishes in Europe since his August ATV accident. Pantling collects £105,506 for the runner-up finish with Chris Bjorin picking up £70,473 for third place. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report forthcoming at wsop.com.

Event #2, £5,000 + 250 Pot-Limit Omaha, drew a field of 120 entrants with the top 18 making the money and a first place prize of £159,154 by Friday evening. Updates available over at PokerNews and WSOP.com Friday at 12pm, day 1a of the £1,000 + 75 NL Holdem kicks off, the first of three opening days. Last year’s winner was JP Kelly, the second player to win a WSOP and WSOPE bracelet in the same year, besting a field of 608 players to earn over £136,000.

Elsewhere …

Day 2 of PokerStars APPT Auckland gets underway with 96 of the original 218 players returning for a $123,000+ first place prize. PokerNews and the PokerStars blog are handling the update duties.

WPT Borgata Poker Open – Atlantic City :: $1,500 NL event event draws over 303 entries, Tiffany Michelle “ices” Maria Ho, $3,300 NL WPT event starts Saturday. – Borgata Poker Open blog

CardPlayer’s subscription-based poker site, Spade Club ceases operations – 2+2 thread

Shaun Deeb’s “unretirement” continues, winning his 2nd WCOOP bracelet.- PokerStars blog

More CardRunners training … this time from Jimmy Ackerman, known as JBaller88, one of CR’s low-stakes 6-max NLH coaches. I think he’s like a poor man’s Jungleman. Watching his lessons, I hear things pulled from a poker glossary I musta missed in the back of Super/System.

In this little snippet alone you’ve got advanced progressive poker thinking that can include 3-barrel bluffs, value-bluffs, wet boards, dry boards, and how to counter the “3-bet” you hear so much about these days … not to mention situations for optimal 3-draws. It’s the kinda stuff that frustrates the hell outta old-dog poker traditionalists (I think) and yet for a generational poker tweener like yours truly, JBaller’s explanations all somehow make sense.

If you’re a super-cheap bastard without a bankroll because you haven’t yet learned how to 3-bet in a 4-barrel world JBaller’s got another free vid up at CardRunners … and of course you can get full access to CardRunners’ poker training for free here.

The final table of the £2,500 + £150 NL Holdem 6-max final table for the first event of the WSOP Europe has now been set. Two WSOP bracelet winners (Bjorin and Tann) will be trying to add a bracelet to their collection. However, the main attraction will be Phil Laak, with his third cash in Europe this month – 15th at the Partouche Poker Tour, 18th at the English Poker Open:

Seat 1: Willie Tann 72,000
Seat 2: Chris Bjorin 368,500
Seat 3: Phil Laak 317,000
Seat 4: Andrew Pantling 627,500
Seat 5: Ilan Rouah 200,000
Seat 6: David Peters 251,500

Final table payouts:

1. £170,802
2. £105,506
3. £70,473
4. £48,202
5. £33,617
6. £23,900

The final table starts at 2pm London time, (6am Vegas time) with updates available at PokerNews and WSOP.com. At 5pm Thursday, the second WSOPE bracelet event gets underway, £5,000 + £250 Pot-Limit Omaha event, won last year by Jani Vilmunen, who bested a field of 154 players to earn over £200,000.

The 2010 WSOP Europe at the Casino at the Empire in London held their first bracelet event this afternoon, the £2500 + £150 NL Holdem 6-max event. The field had a cap of 204 players, selling out the tournament, however alternates were accepted, eventually creating a field of 244 entrants, with the final 24 making the money. 31 players will return at 2pm London time Wednesday (updates at PokerNews and WSOP.com), playing down to the final 6 players. Andrew Pantling leads the field with 106,100 in chips. Other notables returning: Chris Bjorin (103,800), Chris Moorman (94,200), 2007 WSOPE runner-up John Tabatabai (69,900), Phil Laak (63,600), Jeff Lisandro (55,500), Praz Bansi (49,300), Liv Boeree (27,700) and Andrew Lichtenberger (19,900). Full seat assignments available here.

Not that it means anything, nor that we’re gonna horserace this … but just a little indication how Pokerati’s early adopters see things. Results from the first batch of votes we’ve gotten in Pokerati’s Mock Hall of Fame selection process:

Harrington – 81
Seidel – 56
Ivey – 54
Johnson – 33
Greenstein – 30
McEvoy – 20
Nguyen – 15
Negreanu – 9
Ferguson – 12
Harman – 0

Click here to cast your mock ballot if you haven’t already.
Note: We’ve added a spot for write-ins and for you to leave your Twitter ID!

Of the 33 ballots tabulated, two had to be thrown out, which should be a bummer for Scotty Nguyen, since he had the most among the illegitimate points, and I don’t mean that in any sorta racist way.

You know, when Scotty does get in, you can imagine much will be made of his whole “Baby” shtick. That right there tells me something, as it would be much more “adorable” coming from a withering inductee in his 70s than an active player apparently getting paid in product for his sponsorship deal with Jheri curl.

With age always relevant in the Hall of Fame selection process, naturally, @BJNemeth and I couldn’t resist a Socratic dialogue competitively pissing in the wind about the meaning of the emphasized phrase this year:

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With Congress back in session and many members thinking yikes, I really don’t wanna lose my job in November … various special interests throughout America will be putting out ratings on all the candidates — particularly incumbents tagged with a voting record — to let voters know where they stand on a whole range of single issues from guns to abortion to pure Obama-hate to poker.

The PPA has theirs out now … at another website, CongressionalPoker.org … to let you know if, as an online poker player, you’d be best voting to keep your rep or kick him or her to the curb. Overall the PPA is touting better grades across the board, suggesting more members are coming around to online pokery ideals.

Click the banner to jump right to it, or read below for some more PPA details on what you can look for from the new site this election season.

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(WASHINGTON DC) Both the House and Senate reconvened yesterday on a crisp bright fallish day in the Beltway.  After a summertime recess spent allowing members to return to their home districts, it’s time for Reps and Senators to get back to doing all the things they do in the *public eye* — and that doesn’t mean just appearing on Jay Leno.  

This will be the first opportunity for HR 2267 to take those *many* next steps on the legislative grind  to Obama’s ”final table” since it passed through House Financial Services committee over six (!) weeks ago. It is also the last window for anything to happen before the November election; however, this window will close on October 8. That’s about 20 days from now, folks.

So what’s going to be happening, if anything?

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The Tournament Trail

WSOP Europe – London :: – Event #1 – £2,500 NL Six-Max, starts Tuesday – Live updates available at PokerNews and WSOP.com.

Borgata Poker Open – Atlantic City :: – Tournament series culminates with $3,500 WPT, $2,000,000 guaranteed Sept. 17. – Results and updates at the Borgata Poker Open Blog

World Poker Open – London :: Sam Trickett defeats Yevgeniy Timoshenko heads-up, wins $200k, tournament airs in UK later this year. – PartyPoker Blog

English Poker Open – London :: Day 2 starts with 93 players, playing down to final table, over £220,000 for first. – Live streaming at EnglishPokerOpen.com

PokerStars UKIPT – Dublin :: Max Silver defeats Ronan Gilligan heads-up, wins 72,000 Euros. – PokerStars Blog

Commerce Holdem Series – Rudy Fulson wins $120 NL, $300k guarantee in 10-way deal for $44k, guarantee bested by 30 players.. $1,100 Ironman tournament (no breaks) starts Wednesday – Commerce Tournaments

Also…

BBC Radio 5 program investigating cheating in online poker, centered on PokerStars Double or Nothing scandal by chain of Chinese colluders. Podcast link

Week 2 of PokerStars WCOOP underway – WCOOP.com

Jess, Huff, and I had a small-group Poker Beat pow-wow on Sunday, where one of the topics was who we like for the Hall of Fame in 2010. I probably shoulda looked at the actual ballot before the show. Knew there were some changes but didn’t understand exactly what was different …

The revised 2010 scoring system gives each of the 33 voters 10 points … to be designated however seems fitting among up to 3 nominees. The two highest point totals get inducted. Definitely like the improvements, but have sent an email seeking clarification on how the mysterious “governing council” Seth and Alan taking the interns out for beers might handle ties. Also curious how someone like Henry Orenstein would ever get considered in the future.

Rules Are Official, Mock Ballot Is Not

Below are rules from the official ballots, which went out Friday to the 16 living PHOF members and 17 on the “Blue Ribbon Media Voting Panel”. Take a look … (interesting to me the stress put on “this year”) … then cast your own Pokerati Mock Hall of Fame ballot to see how you like the new system, and where we line up with final results.

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OK, some really quick poker links, random, some from not-so-typical places, that have caught me by the finger recently:

John K’s blog, interesting, well-analyzed poker-tinted life stuff from an accomplished Vegas grinder still trying to get there: [JK's Blog]

Pauly, on a site not about poker, on a documentary about Mad Men culture, and why it’s better to be a creative person than a suit. [Tao of Pauly]

Wonk out with your Donk out … our friends at CardRunners have set up a site monitoring legal developments in poker. [Poker Law Bulletin]

Corny T-shirts, designed by women poker players for women poker players at family picnics and in ladies events. [PMS Pokerwear]

A rap album all about poker — Portland, Maine, represent! (PokerRapper]

Yo, turns out Jeff Madsen was right about 9/11 all along, obv. [The Onion]

On this day nine years ago — September 11, 2001 — cards got in the air for a new online poker site called PokerStars.

The best multitable tournaments, player loyalty rewards, stats, and seeing your own picture at the table were the vision unleashed on the world on September 11th. Click to look back at the site as it was then.

It was just for play money at first, but the timing would prove fortuitous. People seemed to enjoy the software and were telling their friends … as online poker seemed to provide a much-needed escape from the ever-more-difficult to swallow news of the day.

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