The now two time fan voted “Favorite Web-based Poker Show” award winning Poker Beat is going out on top with their 95th episode being their last one.

The Poker Beat: February 9, 2011

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• Ashton Griffin Runs 70 Miles.
• The Federated Poker League.
• Multi-Entry Tournament on Full Tilt Poker
• High Stake Poker’s New Host.
• All-Time Money List.
• BLUFF’s Player of Year Points Restructure.

Greetings, Pokerati faithful. I’m coming to you live from Foxwoods somewhere deep in the Connecticut wilderness. Today’s reunion of all nine members of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event final table is the first of its kind in modern times. For the first time since the inception of the November Nine, the entire group has gotten together to play in the same event, along with 18 very lucky Foxwoods winners.

They’re playing a $15,000 freeroll, and its been rumored that there might be quite a bit more on the line for the November Niners. In order to keep things interesting and competitive, there are last longer bets and a few other interesting props that I’ll try to keep track of.

The tournament just got underway, and with 30 minute levels and a 10k starting stack, this freeroll looks like it will take quite some time.

Stay tuned for a couple of updates throughout the day here, as well as a comprehensive post of the Tuesday’s events coming up. To keep up to date with the action, as well as watch a live stream featuring Joseph Cheong, Michael Mizrachi, Matt Jarvis and Lon McEachern, head on over to Foxwoods Live.

Many of the intellectual property issues I address as a gaming attorney are in poker representation agreements. These are agreements for poker pros to play for, endorse, and advertise for various poker brands, both Internet and land-based. Substantially all of the premier Internet poker sites with which I’m familiar employ pros. Some operators ask their pros to travel the world and represent their brands in high-profile land-based games and tournaments and on television. Other pros are incentivized to play more online and have less of a profile at bricks and mortar events.

I’ve acted for both poker pros and for poker operators in drafting and negotiating these types of agreements. The back-and-forth between the parties over who gets what specific rights to certain property (e.g., to the use of a personal branded website) and for how long is fascinating. It’s also critical to building poker brands and preserving one’s rights and value in poker properties. A pro negotiating one of these agreements will often want to ensure that her post-termination copyrights and rights of use are protected. An operator or a marketing rep will also want to be clear about what’s being purchased or licensed and the rights that are available to it post-termination.

The central question for the parties will be: what kind of commercial relationship are they after? In essence, what do they want from each other? The critical question for me as a lawyer is this: based on the commercial objectives, what are the rights of the parties that are in play based on the commercial objectives? Here are some of the things that I look out for in these kinds of contracts:

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I didn’t think I cared too much about the forthcoming Season 7 of High Stakes Poker, kicking off later this month on GSN. I dunno, the show’s still gonna be good, I’m sure, technically, but it certainly hasn’t been the must-see-TV it was in the early days when people stayed home on Tuesday nights to see new episodes first-run. But now I’m thinking the latest from HSP might be more than something I may or may not catch part of on YouTube every so often by accident or read about on Twitter.

Saturday Night Live alum Norm MacDonald is replacing venerable sometimes-funnyman Gabe Kaplan as the show’s host. Gotta think it’s a good move because I’m kinda-sorta re-interested, suggesting others are too … Might even go outta my way to set the DVR.

Also changing things up this year … the show is being “presented by PokerStars” — meaning no usual cast of Full Tilt Pros. No Lederer, Matusow, Cunningham, or Harman? Please, they were like so 2006-2010. Supposedly the show’s gonna be airing in 3D, too (on GSN). Awesome. Can’t wait to see Doyle Brunson-HD in my living room … close enough to see his hole cards and imagine I’m bringing him a glass of water and some ointment.

(Go technology advances, but at the same time, keep thinking of the not-so-awe-inspiring Jaws 3-D and Honey, I Shrunk the Audience… not to mention PKR!)

Kevmath’s got the 411 over at Bluff, including the complete lineup and a breakdown of where the amateurs got their bankrolls. Also, if you want to know more about Norm and his path to poker and degenerate sports betting, check out Michael Kaplan’s profile on him from 2007.

Likewise, a reminder that Norm didn’t just come to Las Vegas outta nowhere … check out one of my early attempts at podcasting, from the 2006 WSOP: Norm Macdonald gives me personally very practical advice on how to take down single-table satellites — but not without an admission of recruiting minors to ghost on his PartyPoker account:

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Norm Macdonald WSOP Satellite Tip

It’s time to take a breath after all of last week’s crazy poker action, but there was still quite a bit of poker to be played this week.

The Borgata Winter Poker Open and the Caesers Classic each held their Main Event,  and the year of the media continued to roll on strong.

Borgata Winter Poker Classic (Atlantic City, New Jersey)

After almost a full month’s worth of tournaments, the Borgata Winter Poker Open culminated in a $3,500 Main Event that drew 718 players and generated a prize pool of over $2.6 million. The top six players each locked down a six-figure score, but Ukranian Vadim Shlez was the last man standing, claiming a first place prize of $533,210. [Borgata Blog]

Caesars Winter Poker Classic (Las Vegas, Nevada)

This $550 Main Event drew over 450 players, which made for a first place prize of over $44,000. The biggest name to make this final table was Bryan Micon, who would have to settle for eight place and $6,500. The big winner on this day was Christopher Johnson, no relation to the Tennessee Titans Pro Bowl running back, but he undoubtedly got paid, straight cash homey. [CardPlayer]

Elsewhere…

Remko Rinkema became just the latest member of the poker media to score big on the other side of the tournament ropes. Remko finished 4th in an Estrellas Poker Tour event in Madrid to the tune of over €26,000… Liv Boeree made her first big splash since joining Team PokerStars by defeating James “mig.com” Mackey to win the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up and $75,000.

Don’t think anyone’s quite ready to put out an Amber Alert … but the guy seen here, name unknown, went missing in post-bubble action during the Heartland Poker Tour’s recent Red Rock Vegas stop. Anyone recognize him? Darvin Moon owes him money.

It’s not that Darvin’s trying to welch — in fact I’m pretty sure he’s already handed over chips to HPT executives — but this man won half of Darvin’s action in a charity raffle and apparently skedaddled off before filling out his contact info form. Moon finished in 37th place, for a $1,487 score.

It was an $1,100 event, so not sure if the 50 percent of Darvin’s payday that mystery dude’s got coming is gross or net. Also not sure who gets the extra dollar. But regardless, if anyone recognizes or knows this guy and/or his lady friend … there’s either $194 or $744 somewhere with no name on it waiting for them.

BTW, it seems those friendly Fargoans (Fargoers? Fargocites?) might be getting sick of 20-foot snow tsunamis and temperatures in the negative digits. They’re coming back to Vegas in a couple weeks … for a charity event with Minnesota Viking Adrian Peterson and Phil Hellmuth. Raise Your Hand for Africa looks to be a celeb-packed event … and not necessarily your usual poker-playing Hollywooders.

Then they’re headed to Reno in May for Jen Harman’s annual SPCA charity event, which is moving from the Venetian to Peppermill — for an event HPT’s production crew will be televising.

Check it out, of the many nifty-neato things I saw at the (brand-spankin’) new Aviator Casino in California’s Central Valley … their tables have a new embedded computer that seems to take swiping player cards to a new level. According to Team Pokeratier-turned-floor supervisor Harris, these are the first in play in a US poker room — what they are calling “the Julian System” by IT Casino Solutions:

Tao of Pokerati: February 3, 2011

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We recorded a special Super Bowl-themed episode of Tao of Pokerati. Before you bet on the Big Game, make sure you listen to the fastest podcast on the internet! 2011 Super Bowl: Exotic Betting on the Super Bowl with Change100 (4:19) – Pauly and Change100 chat about “exotic” proposition wagering for this year’s Super Bowl. And if you’re looking for some easy money, then you’re in luck because Change100 also shares a tip on how long it will take Christina Aguilera to sing the national anthem. For more episodes, visit the Tao of Pokerati archives.

Subscribe to the Tao of Pokerati podcast in iTunes so that you don’t miss an episode.

For all of you who are sick of the average, run-of-the-mill poker hip-hop (I’m looking at you Prahlad and Madsen), you should definitely check out the song below:

It appears to be by a rapper who calls himself Emcee White Noise, who first posted it about a week ago here. The beat sounds like something straight out of GarageBand, but the simple backing tends to complement a pretty serious flow that’s seriously funny. Emcee White Noise drops names like crazy, but the line that got me was “all my skinny girls are astounding with brain, but I date fat chicks just to balance my range.”

Thanks go out to the entities over at WickedChops for the heads-up.

Ante Up Poker Magazine Podcast:

After returning from their trip to Jacksonville for the Chad Brown NLHE Championship host Christopher Cosenza & Scott Long come on to discuss a horribly played limit hold’em hand. Once they recap the hand they move on to discuss the pro heavy field that was found in the Chad Brown tournament. If you are looking for a show that contains some poker news along with some strategy talk then this might be a good choice for you. Check out the show on the Ante Up site or download it directly from iTunes.

CardRunners – Pro Chat:

Ever wondered how the top players make the transition to adding a new game into their skill base? This weeks Pro Chat guest is Brian Townsend who discusses his thought process when learning and mastering a brand new game. This podcast is a good one to have in your playlist if only to gain an insight into how some of the top players think. You can either listen to the show on the CardRunners site or download it from iTunes.

Perspectives Weekly:

Although this is not technically a podcast it is a part of my weekly, or whenever a new show gets published, must listen to list. This week host J. Todd catches up with Joe Brennan, iMEGA Chairman, to discuss the current intrastate gaming regulations that various states are proposing. Although this is a short show, that at times has other shenanigans that could be removed and replaced with more content I recommend subscribing via YouTube so that you are able to keep up to date with the episodes. You can watch this weeks show on the APCW site or just watch it below.

I was fascinated by an article I saw on Tuesday in Wired (Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code by Jonah Lehrer – ‘Easy Money’ in the print edition) addressing the lack of randomness in scratch lottery games, and especially in extended-play games. It’s an old story but a well-written article. The piece centres on a geological statistician named Mohan Srivastava in Toronto. A few years ago, Srivastava started noticing patterns in the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation’s (OLG’s) Tic-Tac-Toe scratch tickets. By focusing only on the non-recurring numbers – the “singles” - from the unscratched cards, Srivastava was able to accurately identify winners approximatley 90% of the time. This wasn’t the only game that he was able to crack, either in Ontario or in other jurisdictions in North America.

At first, OLG wouldn’t even return Srivastava’s calls. They just assumed he was some crazy crank who thought he could beat the lottery. In what I thought was the funniest part of the article, he hit on a way to get their attention:

He bought 20 tic-tac-toe tickets and sorted them, unscratched, into piles of winners and losers. Then, he couriered the package to [Rob] Zufelt [a member of OLG's security team] along with the following note:

In the enclosed envelopes, I have sent you two groups of 10 TicTacToe tickets that I purchased from various outlets around Toronto in the past week… You go ahead and scratch off the cards. Maybe you can give one batch to your lottery ticket specialist. After you’ve scratched them off, you should have a pretty solid sense for whether or not there’s something fishy here.

The package was sent at 10 am. Two hours later, he received a call from Zufelt. Srivastava had correctly predicted 19 out of the 20 tickets. The next day, the tic-tac-toe game was pulled from stores.

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A sign seen in the new Aviator Casino, in Delano, California, reminding me of a difference between casinos regulated in lands we know well and virtual establishments based out of places that may or may not exist beyond our poker imaginations:

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With the biggest gambling holiday of the year just days away, it seems appropriate that the world has gone poker crazy. We have reached a crescendo to the post-PCA madness, as big events wrapped up in Australia, France, and down in Mississippi. We also have a report from India, as well as some action in Los Angeles, Atlantic City and Hollywood (Florida, that is).

Aussie Millions (Melbourne, Australia)

What was originally planned as an 8-man, winner-take-all $250,000 sit-n-go ballooned into a 20-player turbo with a $5 million prize pool. The top three players would get paid, with $AUD 2.5 million for the biggest degenerate winner. Tom Dwan, Roland de Wolfe, John Juanda, Annette “annette_15″ Obrestad, Chris Ferguson and some guy named Phil Ivey were amongst those to lose a quarter of a million dollars in one day. While Dwan and Ivey are probably used to that on any given Tuesday, it was probably enough to ruin a few peoples’ weeks.

It seems like a wealth of riches was reserved to quite an exclusive group. David Benyamine cashed for $AUD 1 million for his third place finish, leaving a heads-up battle between two players who had very good January’s. Erik Seidel finished fourth in the $10K High Roller at PCA, while Sam Trickett won the “regular” $AUD 100K Super High Roller event less than a week before this tournament. Trickett entered the heads-up match with the chip lead, but failed to finish the impressive back-to-back performance, as Erik Seidel was victorious, taking home $AUD 2.5 million for his efforts.[PokerNews]

Then there’s the matter of the Aussie Millions Main Event, which somehow managed to take a back seat to this event, despite the $AUD 7 million prize pool. Among the final eight, the biggest name by far was Patrik Antonius. His stay at the final table was not a long one, as he had his pocket kings cracked early on in the day to go out in eighth. The last man standing was local tournament pro David Gorr, who took home $AUD 2 million for the win. This was Gorr’s biggest score, having toured the greater-Australia tournament scene since 1998. [Poker News]

WPT Southern Poker Championship (Biloxi, Mississippi)

An interesting collection of six made up this WPT final table at the Beau Rivage. Former champion Allen Carter was trying to become the first person in the history of the World Poker Tour to win the same event twice. Also among the six was Alabama native Shannon Shorr, with over $3.4 million in lifetime cashes, and Leif Force, whose deep run in the 2006 WSOP Main Event was one of the more memorable stories of that year.

Shorr would end up in fourth, while Carter’s run at history would fall short in third place. Alexander Kuzmin, who made a final table at this past WSOP, went head-to-head with Force, and it was the pesky Russian Kuzmin taking the crown, along with the $601,469 prize and a seat in the WPT Championship later on this year. [WPT]

EPT Deauville (Deauville, France)

The EPT got back underway with its first post-PCA event in Deauville. 891 players ponied up €5,000, with the winner taking home €880,000. The final table saw players from six different countries, but the biggest story was about a local Frenchman by the name of Lucien Cohen. The Paris native runs a pest control company and used a small rubber rat as a card protector. Lucien Cohen was “The Exterminator” on this evening, taking home the EPT Deauville Main Event and nearly €900K. [PokerStars Blog]

Making some noise for the first time since his WSOP win in November, Jonathan Duhamel won the €10,000 High Roller event in Deauville. [PokerStars Blog]

India Poker Series (Goa, India

A few weeks ago, the fourth in a series of poker tournaments was held at Casino Royale Goa in India. Three events were held; a 5,000 rupee rebuy event, a 10,000 rupee freezeout and a 5,000 rupee freeeout. Players from around the world, including the USA, UK and Sweden, participated in the tournaments, which each got at least 90 players. Congratulations to Anand Patil, Lawrence Sanjay and Pulkit Kalia for their victories at IPS Chapter 4. [India Poker Series]

LA Poker Classic (Commerce, California)

Action continued this week with more than a dozen tournaments. The biggest news of the week, however, might have been an appearance from a wild and crazy guy. No, not Matt Savage, but the OG wild and crazy guy, Steve Martin! For updates on everything going on at LAPC, head elsewhere on that blog and check out the amazing work that veeRob is doing over there. That guy never sleeps.

Borgata Winter Poker Open (Atlantic City, New Jersey)

At last check, there were just over 100 players left in the $3k main event. First place in this tournament is over $500,000, and you can check out updates as they happen here.

Photos courtesy of PokerStarsBlog.com & WPT.com

Chad Harberts

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OP-ED

I recently set off a minor controversy when I mentioned to @Pokerati that a Red Rock Casino poker dealer complained that new Heartland Poker champion Rob Perelman (@veerob) didn’t leave a dealer tip at the conclusion of the tournament.

First, I do not know Rob at all and was not making an accusation against him. I merely passed along the information because I knew @Pokerati had been covering the tournament. Second, as with any tournament cash of any size, Rob is free to spend or not spend his money any way he pleases. (He later tweeted that he tipped $2,000 on his $158,755 cash. The confusion being that he left the tip the next day after most of the dealers were gone and not directly after the tournament.)

Still, I believe the practice of tipping is an aspect of poker that merits discussion. Certainly, there is no standard for tipping in cash games or tournaments, and a lot is left to chance when the casino and other players alike rely on winners to pick up the check.

You may not agree with me to tip 10% of winnings of more than $10,000 in a poker tournament, but you can certainly agree that .00025% is extremely low!

Mike Caro makes a number of salient points when it comes to tipping in both cash games and tournaments in his article from 2006 here. How one player tips in poker is probably no different than how the same player tips at a restaurant or when getting a haircut.

Some players think that the part of a poker tournament buy-in withheld from the prize pool should cover everything. I have heard that of the house cut for the HPT main event (a $1000+100 tournament), $50 went to Red Rock Casino and $50 to the Heartland Poker Tour. I find it a little incredulous that a Las Vegas casino would split the house cut 50/50, but it’s possible.

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