NAPT :: 256 players will not be coming back as Day 2 saw more people eliminated from play than on either day 1 day. They played about 6 levels today (down from 10 levels on day 1) and the blinds are now 3000/6000 with a 750 ante. Jimmie Guinther is the new chipleader, with 894,000 chips, but Travis Pearson (835,000) is not very far behind. A familar face from the Day 1B chip counts, Anh Van Nguyen, is also sitting pretty with 614,000, good enough for 3rd on the chip counts. With 81 players left going into day 3 and 22 of those players teetering in the dreaded ~20BB and below range, the action is sure to come fast and furious tomorrow.
Here’s a look at the top 10 chip counts as well as some notables:
Jimmie Guinther: 894,000
Travis Pearson: 835,000
Anh Van Nguyen: 614,000
Bryn Kenney: 586,000
Thomas Middleton: 519,000
Micah Raskin: 515,500
Tom Lee: 509,000
Nicholas Verkaik 495,500
James Sowers: 481,000
Michael Binger: 474,000
Phil Laak (whom Pokerstars has listed as from Ireland because birthplace is all that matters): 377,000
Jason Mercier: 158,000
Gavin Griffin 143,500
If anyone was missed from the notables, well, we can only fit so many in one go. Play resumes at 1PM PST.
No charges have been filed, despite yellow tape identifying this site of a deadly poker game as a crime scene.
This time it was player-on-player violence … leaving one man dead and another injured after a gunfight broke out early morning at a warehouse poker game in Anderson County, SC.
Jermaine LeCorey Scott, 34, supposedly was losing in the wee hours of a game last week, and at some point pulled a gun on five other players. Though not clear whether or not the triggering incident had anything to do with a bad beat or involved accusations of cheating, police contend Scott was attempting to rob his opponents … even though he was not wearing a mask like most (99 percent?) armed poker robbers.
Players supposedly called flagged down police at a nearby intersection around 7 am on Tuesday to report the shooting, and deputies arrived to find two men shot, lying on the ground in the empty warehouse, which may or may not have been cleared of poker supplies before their arrival. Scott died at the hospital from multiple gunshot wounds a few hours later. The other player, unnamed, had bullet wounds to his hand and a concealed weapon permit. Police investigators have ruled the deadly shooting a matter of self-defense — justifiable homicide — and say they have no plans to press any charges.
NAPT :: Day 1B saw another large field of 373 players get chopped down to 175 by the end of the day. This means out of the 701 total players that signed up for the event, we have 337 going into day two: a little more than half the field cut down after the two day ones. Kim Frederiksen not only came out on top of the day with 237,000 chips, but also is the overall chipleader, edging out Day 1A leader Nicholas Crippo by 2k. While players like Hafiz Khan, Michael Binger, and Joe Cada survived the day with relatively large stacks, many more pros fell on Day 1B, including Elky, Victor Ramdin, David Williams, and November Niner Jason Senti. Michael Binger’s stack in particular had an interesting trek to the top end of the chip count, winning a 4 way all in with the nut straight on the flop (Pokerstars Blog).
@Kevmath laid down the gauntlet on Twitter this evening on the ever-popular “Words With Friends” app. Soon @RealKidPoker and @Mark_Gahagan were in on the action, offering up their WWF user names publicly on twitfeed. Now I’m three-tabling them all headups.
Negreanu just countered back after I triple-word scored on “SIZED”. Seems he’s playing from his new iPad from NAPT at the Bike.
@RealKidPoker: “34,575 end lvl 4. Nice little comeback reminiscent of my start in EPT Vienna. A bit tired, and playing words with friends to pass time.”
Gahagan may have just pulled ahead with his 57-pointer “VIEW” off my “QUIDS”, but I’m not drawing dead yet. As for Kevmath, I’m on the warpath after he used a questionable “ER” to position off a triple word score.
If HR2267 had already passed, I’d be looking to lay some cash on this tonight.
Disclaimer: I will not be able to do this column justice, hence I have changed the title somewhat to reflect that. Well…that and I’m probably much closer to 90% of the tournaments than Kevmath was.
NAPT :: Day 1a is in the books of the NAPT Los Angeles Main Event, taking place at the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens, CA, which is a stones throw from Compton beautiful place to put a Casino. 330 players entered the first of two day 1s, and 162 players emerged after 10 levels of play with a day off and, in most cases, more chips. Nick Grippo leads the way so far with 235k, but there are plenty of notables still in the field:
Scott Fischman – 224, 600
John Phan – 101,400
Jason Mercier – 95,000
William Reynolds (or, that blond guy that was on The Big Game recently) – 93,000
Issac Haxton – 75,000
Justin Bonomo – 65,000
For every big stacked pro, there seemed to be a busted pro, and a lot of them were from the LA area: Adam Levy, Antonio Esfandiari, Soi Nguyen (yea he’s an amateur but he was in the November Nine so he’s a familiar name), and even Barry Greenstein found themselves felted by the end of the day. There is another day 1 to play though, so we’ll see who shows up and either scores big or goes home early.
It’s easy to see why Nikachu won CardRunners’ Video Challenge. Seriously, not bullshitting … call me under-educated in the new math of online poker, but this may be the best poker schooling vid I’ve seen. It’s certainly different, as a matter of both style and substance, and this player I was pretty sure was something out of Pokemon got me thinking about poker in new ways … yet ways that seem to make simple sense. (We’ll see how it all applies next time I sit down.)
Sometimes funny, too!
Am I right? Don’t he rabbits make it so much easier?!?And who knew it could be so easy to fold such monsters early in a hand. You can get more from Nikachu’s poker training at CardRunners for free via Truly Free Poker Training, which takes your standard online play to accumulate access to CR’s library of more than 2,000 training videos by the only players who consistently seem to be winning these days.
Talk of PLO on Poker After Dark comes as I personally have been jonesin’ for mo-bigger low-stakes PLO … and based on emails, tweets, and Facebook, a stream of Vegas visitors and locals seem to be, too. Interest in PLO may be growing, but players in Las Vegas looking for starter stakes can’t always be sure where to find reliable action.
Word from the Strip is that a rather strong 1/2 PLO game has been running lately at the Venetian, apparently fueled by the November Deep Stacks. But one-bullet buyers beware, a $5 bring-in at the V makes the game kinda steep … especially for those with a strategy of pushing with weak two-pairs, calling with non-nut draws, and relying on run-it-twice to stick around long enough for a meal comp. (Don’t ask me how I know.)
And Aria Poker spreads a vibrant 1/2 NLH/PLO that occasionally makes. Their game plays most similarly to the Pokerati Game of old — and though it runs only sporadically, Aria often has the game posted on the board with a list of mostly 1/3 and 2/5 no-limit regulars ready to take a seat against any and all PLO tourists.
Poker After Dark is trying its hand at pot-limit Omaha, according to Brian Hastings’s blog on CardRunners (via PokerJunkie). From the sound of it, imho, could be another great step in the evolution of poker on TV …
We’ve previously contended that just because mixed games don’t play well on TV, there should be an exception for PLO. It’s easy-enough for any Texas Hold’em player to follow … same winning hands (essentially) … with enough crazy beats, dramatic suck-and resuck, and occasional nut-folding to make things exciting … while opening a new realm of poker thinking that should keep viewers coming back, especially if they play the game, too.
Supposedly this rare televised high-stakes PLO cash game, played a couple days ago in Ivey’s Room @AriaPoker and airing some time next year, was 300/600 with a $100k minimum buy-in. Pretty sexy line-up, too:
Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Brian Hastings, Phil Galfond,
Patrik Antonius, Sam Farha, Brandon Adams
While at least five of those names have inherent high-stakes appeal, and one of them is Durrrr, I particularly wanna tune in to see Farha. We always hear how Omaha is his game … but I dunno that I’ve ever seen him play PLO before with hole-card cams — and should be interesting to watch his old-school style match-up with the online generation in a game that isn’t Texas Hold’em.
Could be wrong, but If this episode plays well — which I think it will, relatively — don’t be surprised to see a little more PLO factor into other poker franchises’ TV decisions.
Matt Jarvis, Fillipo Candio, and John Racener were CR’s table reps — though Racener did switch to Full Tilt-branded gear for heads-up play. No surprise that his original primary patch sponsor would want back in as rules permitted, but it is somewhat unusual (perhaps even unprecedented?) to see ESPN production crews relent to online poker patch-interests over matters of television continuity in a single episode.
But sure enough, with Racener surviving to be the last CardRunner standing, something looked different to TV viewers once they got down to heads-up. Maybe just big money on the table?
Also interesting to note: Full Tilt has produced and/or patched up only one WSOP main event champion — Jerry Yang.
I know that these past few days everyone’s been talking about Jonathan Duhamel’s triumph in the November Nine. Sadly, I wasn’t in Las Vegas for it and it has been covered much better than I ever could elsewhere. In lieu of that, here are my thoughts on some of the interesting legal developments in gaming over the past week:
American Midterms (Part I) - Top story last week & top 2 stories this week. As expected, the Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives, Representative Boehner will be the next Speaker, and Senator Reid kept his seat and his job as Senate Majority Leader. (Aside: great article here on how Reid pulled it off.) What does it all mean? It’s too soon to say. I continue to think that the general trend towards legalization in the US will continue and that, if nothing passes during the lame duck session of Congress, there may be more going on in intra-state gaming in the coming year than in Congress. However, it may be that a new bill (sponsored by Senator Reid) could be passed during the lame duck and legalize poker. Keep watching. [Examiner; Poker News Daily]
Tzvetkoff Squirrel Funds - This is a story that’s been followed by those in online poker for months. Daniel Tzvetkoff created a payment processor in Australia called Intabill. He is alleged to have defrauded several Internet poker operators and was arrested in Las Vegas earlier this year on money laundering charges, among others. Most seem to think that he’s co-operating with federal authorities. Now come allegations that funds from the payment processing business were squirreled away in a payday lending company in Las Vegas called Hugo Services. Apparently some $50 million are at stake. If true and if the federal government hasn’t already seized it, Daniel’s and Intabill’s creditors can be expected to make a move against it to try to recoup some of their losses. [Courier and Mail]
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Increase in Polish Internet Gambling - In case any more evidence were needed that banning Internet gambling doesn’t reduce its incidence, apparently Poles will have gambled away 20% more by the end of this year than they did in the year in which Internet gambling and advertising was outlawed in Poland. [Warsaw Business Journal]
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Zynga on the Go - These guys have been in the press a lot lately, and especially in the past week. First came news that Zynga Game Network’s estimated worth exceeded video gaming giant Electronic Arts’s market value. (Apparently, Zynga is worth $5.5 billion.) Now Zynga is being touted as a player in mobile gaming. It already has a Texas Hold’em game available on Facebook that supports 6 million users daily. More proof that the next wave of gaming is already underway and will involve social media and mobile gaming. Watch these guys and other players in this developing market. [Online-Casinos.com]
While we get all caught up with life here at Pokerati, you may want to begin getting to know your latest 20something super-champion, which has me wondering … when will be the next time we see a WSOP main event winner who is old enough to rent a car?
Well that’s all she wrote. It took about an hour and a half, far less than last year, but we have our 2010 WSOP ME champion, Jonathan Duhamel. After picking away at Racener’s stack for the better part of an hour, Racener was finally forced to go all in with Kd8d. That, however, couldn’t beat Duhamel’s AJo. We know who the winners and losers are from this heads up match, but a special edition of winners, losers, and coinflips for you to look at the others:
Winners
Joesph Cheong – He flamed out hardcore on Saturday, but was seen in the ESPN3 studio giving commentary in the tail-end of heads up. For the way he went out, I’d have no problem with him just sitting in the stands, so major props to him for coming back to help out.
Erik Seidel and Dan Harrington – Both gave great speeches in their own ways. Their Hall of Fame inductions are well deserved.
Jonathan Duhamel’s Fans – It makes very little sense for the Les Habs fans to chant “Ole!” but they are the most electric fans and had been for most of the final table matchup.
Coinflips
Jack Effel – He was a little less insane today (and yes I acknowledge his job is to keep the crowd interested), but he was still insane. (Maybe that was in the job description)
The media – There was a lot of “I don’t want to be here” attitude going around, myself included at times. If you can’t do 2 days, how do you do 6 weeks?
Losers
Twitter – For imposing a twitter cap that took effect at the exact same time as the last hand of the main event. Guess all those hand updates I was doing screwed me where it counted.
The interest added to the prize pool – Blame the economy all you want, but why even bother putting the prize pool into T-bills when you make a whopping $450 in the process. Hell, I’m pretty sure no one would care if Harrah’s pocketed that.
There is some pomp and circumstance before the cards get back in the air.
Ty Stewart gave an overdue introduction to the 2006 Player of the Year, Jeff Madsen. He couldn’t help but point out Madsen’s rap albums and…interesting thoughts on September 11th.
Stewart then introduced 2010 Player of the Year Frank Kasella, something thankfully they didn’t try doing on Saturday. Kasella received a check for $30,000.
Nolan Dalla was then called up to induct Dan Harrington into the Hall of Fame. He had a few jokes that fell flat, but whatever.
Dan Harrington says his greatest accomplishments were the Harrington on Hold’em books, thanking Bill Robertie and 2+2 for the opportunity. I don’t think we could argue about that.
Doyle Brunson is called up to induct Erik Seidel into the Hall of Fame. He has mentioned Seidel is more recognized for his part in Rounders than his abilities as a player.
Erik Seidel is actually being quite funny in his speech. One of the better ones was when he said “one great perk of the Hall of Fame is that Harrah’s pays for all the Hall of Famer’s WSOP buy-ins.” Ty Stewart nearly had a stroke.
We are over a half hour late, but things are finally getting underway. Check @Mark_Gahagan for updates.
There’s a reason we media folk love us some Nolan Dalla … not only does he understand what’s really at stake every step of the poker way, but also he knows how to bring out the best in the game … and here at the Penn & Teller Theater, introducing tonight’s heads-up match, he seems to recognize, hey, I’m on a stage, we’ve got flashing lights, and there’s a poker-loving hairy manbeast behind me — might as well have some fun!
So that’s the fight …
Racener vs. Duhamel
John vs. Jon
Full Tilt vs. PokerStars
Florida vs. Canada
RCNR T-shirts vs. Montreal Sweaters
30.7 million vs. 189 million
(blinds at 600k/1.2m)
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One difference, however … Racener has the Sam Chauhan rubber band, while Duhamel … is from Canada, eh?
TAMA, IOWA–I was dressed in TV-crew ninja wear (head-to-toe-black) in the “peek room” of the Heartland Poker Tour as the final table of the Main Event was being filmed last night. This area is where the pre-production of the popular poker show happens, behind the TV set/final table. The producer, Fred Bevill, communicates with the floor director, who controls the action at the table, and several computer monitors are set up to show the hole cams, and a birds-eye view of the board.
But (really) all I wanted to do to get a look at a live hole cam feed.
And just so you know…there is absolutely no mocking of play going on here, but wtf was he thinking shoving with a K-3 off ?! One of the views shown is a not often used used “rabbit hunt” camera, where the dealer can opt to flash the remaining board cards in big hands that don’t go to the river.
The players remain miked up throughout the entire final table taping, and the feed’s broadcast in the peek room — even on breaks in the bathroom, where it’s sometimes impossible for the guys in the peek room not to mock the action they’re listening in on.
randompoker: RT @MeanPokerDealer: I think it's SO cool how you guys loop the earbuds around your ears so they're hanging there all not in your ears and stuff. I hate you. 52 minutes ago
