Rabbit Hunt comes back from a slow news week hiatus and has plenty to talk about this time. From discussing the new WSOP rematches concept, to debating whether Erik Seidel should be number 1 on The Nuts and whether the WPT should be considered a major tour, it's a packed episode of the Rabbit Hunt!
With so many high profile events on the verge of wrapping up (see WPT Hollywood, NAPT Mohegan Sun ME & Bounty Shootout, WSPOC St. Louis), you might think there isn’t much action to recap for this week. Nonsense! A major stop on the EPT, one of the biggest prizes in HPT history, and a lot of catching up to do with some impressive performances in WSOPC prelims.
Canuck’s First Live Tournament Cash is a Measly €825,000
EPT Berlin, Germany
Photo C/O PokerStars
Thanks in large part to an early collision between the two chip leaders early in final table action, Ben Wilnofsky had one of the easiest roads to victory that you’ll ever see (or not) in his victory in Berlin. One of the largest stops on the European tour, the EPT Berlin drew an astounding 773 players for their €5,000 Main Event to generate a prize pool just shy of €4 million. Wilnofsky and Maximilian Heinzelmann were well ahead of the pack when the final eight began play, but a flopped set generated a pot that was larger than any of the other six remaining players and propelled Wilnofsky the rest of the way.
The other notable accomplishment at this final table has to be the performance of Martin Jacobsen. The young Swede (and member of Team PokerStars Pro) made this his third final table of the EPT season, following a pair of second place finishes. He could not end his streak of falling just short, but held on for quite some time on a short stack before ultimately falling in fourth place.
In the end, the news was all about young Ben Wilnofsky. The 22-year-old Canadian has had some online success, but leading into this €5,000 event had not so much as recorded a single lifetime live cash. That also means that his average cash stands somewhere around €825,000, the champion’s share of this massive prize pool. Not bad for a few days work.
Spencer Uniss Nets Even Less For First Cash, a Paltry $221K
HPT @ Golden Gates Casino, Black Hawk, Colorado
Photo C/O HPT
Clearly there was some sort of first-timer strategy guide released this week online that I simply could not find. In addition to the first-time cash/winning combination in Berlin, another player cashed in his “one time” in a big way.
The HPT event at Golden Gates Casino in Colorado saw the biggest field in it’s history with 491 players showing up to generate a prize pool of almost $740,000. The first place prize was set to exceed $220,000.
Spencer Uniss made the newby mistake of promising big things if he was fortunate enough to win, telling his friends he would charter a flight to Las Vegas if he was lucky enough to win. In on an investment of just $370 after a satellite win, he felt as if he had nothing to lose, but now he has to pay up after banking the win in his first ever tournament cash for $221,594. After a bit of research, the cheapest hourly rate for a private plane is about $1,000 an hour, without factoring fuel surcharges, taxes, and other fees. At least it’s from Colorado and not the east coast.
Two Rings are Twice as Nice For Three Lucky Players
St. Louis, Missouri & Rincon, California
In the business of bigger events in the last several weeks, a few impressive feats in preliminary events have slipped through the cracks, which I’ll rectify momentarily. Two players won their second WSOPC ring of the year this week in St. Louis, and one lucky player became only the second player ever to record two wins at one stop a few weeks ago in Rincon.
Photo C/O WSOP
Kurt Jewell has the distinction of winning in the largest field in WSOPC history last October, when he won the Main Event in Hammond for a cool $242,909. He added a second piece of hardware this past week by winning an Omaha 8/b event in St. Louis, the same event that Team Pokerati member La Sengphet made in her pursuit of an at-large spot to the WSOP National Championship. In addition to the second ring, Jewell banked another $13,206 and has already locked up a seat in the $1 million freeroll by virtue of his previous win.
The appropriately named Huy (pronounced “We”) Nguyen hasn’t done so badly for himself this year on the circuit. Nguyen won another of the monsterous $1,600 Main Events, his being Choctaw where he made $232,706 for his efforts. His win in St. Louis came in a Six-Handed No Limit Hold’em event with over 200 players. A $25,241 payday for the accountant from Norman, Oklahoma is another impressive score, but he too has his eyes on the National Championship, where he too has already locked up his seat.
Photo C/O WSOP
Finally we take a look back at the WSOPC stop in Rincon, where a man with quite an interesting name won a pair of events. Mstr Lynch won a grand total of over $45,000 for his two wins in Rincon, which propelled him to the most overall points of the Rincon series and a National Championship of his own. He’s just the second player (after Kyle Cartwright did so in Tunica) to win two events at the same series of the WSOPC.
EDIT: Right after the publishing of this article, La followed up with her third cash of the series in St. Louis in the best way possible: by winning her own 2nd ring of the year, according to Dan. At the very least it almost assures her of an at-large spot, if not player of the series in St. Louis. Congrats La!
It’s PLO week on Poker after Dark, and thus the first new televised poker I’ve been excited to watch (on first run) in forever. Though I’m sure someone had to play a 4-card hand on ESPN in 2004, I can’t remember any PLO on TV since learning the definition of a “wrap” … and certainly not since the Pokerati game began introducing low-stakes players in Vegas to PLO (with run-it-twice!) a year-an-a-half ago.
Hard to believe televising a short-handed cash game session of the second most popular poker game in the world — the one that has produced the biggest online pots in history — would prove “revolutionary” … but really, it is kinda historic; and that says something about the limits of creative innovation in the online poker infomercial biz.
But kudos to PAD for at least taking a peak outside the ’06-’09 box to embrace variance. Though I wouldn’t contend pot-limit Omaha and four-color decks are what will reinvigorate poker on TV … for a semi-regular PLO player who doesn’t necessarily dream of playing the game for $100k buy-ins but just wants to beat my friends once a week at 1/2, hearing about a different sector of hand possibilities almost feels fresh … and it’s always good-fun to see extra cards on the table:
Today I’m blogging about a Notice of Civil Claim against Cake Poker. You can see it here. The claim was filed last week with the Supreme Court of British Columbia in New Westminster (a suburb of Vancouver). I found out about this claim on www.calvinayre.com.
I’ll make full disclosure up front: I have acted for a party that, in the past, had interests adverse to Cake. I have not acted for anyone involved with, and I have nothing to do with, this lawsuit.
Who’s suing whom and why? Two individuals, Ryan Bennett and Francois Piette, and their partnership and a corporation controlled by them are seeking damages from a number of parties apparently associated with Cake. These parties include Cake Poker (Canada) Inc. and certain of its alleged affiliates (including Cake Gaming N.V. and Yummy Interactive (Canada) Inc.). Also named as individual defendants are Nicholaos Mellios, Christopher Ruck, and Ian Winter, who purportedly own a “substantial interest” in the Cake Gaming network and are collectively alleged to be “responsible for all major decisions regarding” the network. Finally, some other individuals said to be direct or indirect shareholders in the network were added as defendants.
The basic claim is that, in 2001, Bennett and Piette formulated ”an advanced business [and] marketing model” unlike any other model then being used by an Internet poker site. This initiative by Bennett and Piette is called the “Legacy Project” in the statement of claim. Apparently, “[t]he Legacy Project included a network marketing component whereby customers/players are compensated for referring other customers/players to the Legacy Project and who then receive a portion of the referred customers’/players’ winnings. It also proposed using photo real images on the website. These were then unique ways to obtain and retain customers/players.” So: the plaintiffs claim that they invented what is essentially an affiliate model for Internet poker.
CORRECTION: Turns out we overlooked two cashes for David in St. Louis and one in Florida. Pokerati regrets the error(s) … and, of course, basing the entire premise of a post around them. WSOP.com still working to rectify their contribution to the misinformation.
When resident Team Pokerati lovebirds La Sengphet and David Clark started off their 2011s with matching WSOP circuit rings, we thought we might see another Sosa/McGwire sitch … a back-and-forth poker slugfest propelling the Dallas couple to seats in the new WSOP Circuit National Championship million-dollar freeroll that’ll kick off the 2011 WSOP in late May. It seems we were at least half-right.
Most recently, La made a final table in a $345 Omaha Hi Lo event in St. Louis and followed that with a 13th place finish in a $345 NLH — enough for her to surpass her boyfriend’s total winnings for the year. But perhaps more important — and a more exciting reason for me to be paying attention to relatively minor events at Harrah’s Mid-America — she played her way to 30 more WSOP circuit points!
Of those who don’t automatically qualify, there’ll be some 34 seats won … and La is currently tied for 16th. Click here to understand how WSOP circuit points work. (I just learned myself.) And click here to see the current national leaderboard.
At this point, with just three more circuit stops left — Caesars Palace, Chester, PA, and a regional championship in New Orleans — there’s an extra level of intensity to these otherwise smaller events. Not sure if the national championship, which should prove to be one of the more skill-packed tourney fields of the year, is helping create a new generation of rounder pros, or just answering their call. But either way, with so much on the line for these minor leaguers hoping to build a career … how awesome is La’s hat?
See below, the 2011 family scorecard for Pokerati’s favorite poker couple currently on tour:
Kids, you gotta get one of these! don’t try this at home …
This guy, seen at various WSOP circuit events in 2011, presumably likes to overcall out of position:
Final Table Poker Radio Show:
The Final Table Poker Radio Show crew got kicked out of the poker room this week due to the start of the WSOP Circuit events in St. Louis. After discussing the recent happenings at the circuit event Dennis and Paul are joined by Pat Walsh who discusses his recent win at the Big Event Shootout. Mori Eskandami closes out the show discussing production of TV poker shows along with the host change for High Stakes Poker. You listen to the entire show or catch up on previous show by either visiting The Final Table site or on iTunes.
The Hardcore Poker Show:
This week’s show starts off with the guys talking about what they think Phil Ivey’s new site will be about and wether Ivey can teach the average Joe how to be like him. The show then moves on to a discussion about chopping tournaments before Jess Welman, who most will know from the two time award winning Poker Beat, joins the show. Welman discusses her recent second place finish at the Hollywood Poker Open and how she was one of the lone players that did not want to do a chop when the players were down to 18 players. After telling the stories of the names she was called because she did not want to chop Welman moves on to discuss recent poker news to close out the show. If you would like to listen to the show you can either download it via iTunes along with catching future shows every Monday from 8-9pm EST on Sirius Satellite Radio channel 98.
A Perspectives Weekly:
Coming out with a April Fools Day show this week the APCW crew come together discusses some new happenings at eCOGRA before moving on to discuss the deal between PokerStars and Wynn.
Forbes associate editor Nathan Vardi published an article this morning entitled “How Casino Mogul Steve Wynn Went All In On Online Poker and PokerStars”, which despite the lame-o “All In!” header, is a compelling high-seas tale of how PokerStars founder Isai Scheinberg wooed and won the reticent Steve Wynn based on Vardi’s interview with the casino titan.
Because where else could billionaires come to grips with their future together but on a fabulous yacht in exotic locations and make the deal (surprisingly) even-steven 50-50?
I couldn’t help but think of Vardi’s post as if told in a novella….
When Scheinberg Met Steve
Chapter 1: The First Meeting
Nearly two years ago billionaire Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn met Isai Scheinberg, the founder of PokerStars, the world’s biggest online gaming firm, for the first time. Scheinberg generally avoids traveling to the U.S., but the meeting took place on Wynn’s boat while it was anchored in the Mediterranean Sea. Over a three-hour lunch, Scheinberg tried to convince Wynn that the two of them should work together to regulate online poker in the U.S. with an eye toward setting up a joint venture.
Eslami Proves ‘If You Can Beat a Robot, You Can Beat a Man’ at Rincon
WSOPC Western Regional Championship, Rincon, California
Photo C/O WSOP
Before this week, Ali Eslami’s most notable accomplishment was defeating Polaris, the poker playing computer, in tandem with Phil Laak. The LA-based cash game player proved his versatility this week by beating 8 real live human opponents on the road to the WSOPC Rincon crown. The third of four $10,000 events on the WSOP Circuit, Rincon drew an anemic 98 players, surprising mostly due to the nine WSOP Circuit National Championship seats awaiting those who made the final table.
Among those who made the final table were Circuit superstar Dwyte Pilgrim, Steve Brecher, and fresh off his win last week at the Wynn $5K, Tim West. West fell just short of the impressive back-to-back feat, finishing as the runner-up to Eslami. For his win, Eslami took home just under $175,000, the ring, and a chance at a nice chunk of change in seven weeks at the National Championship.
Mclean Carr Takes WPT Vienna High Roller; Seidel Unavailable for Comment
Vienna, Austria
Photo C/O PartyPoker
Stop the presses! There was a High Roller poker tournament held on this planet this week that Erik Seidel not only didn’t win, he didn’t even play. This worked very much to the benefit of Mclean Carr, who took great advantage of the absence of the king of the monster buy-in to dominate the WPT Vienna High Roller, by all accounts. Carr took home €185,120 by overcoming the field of 50 and taking the chip lead from the beginning of the final table to the end.
No Place Like Home for Del Prado in Winning APT Philippines
Pasay City, Philippines
On the Asia-based poker tours, specifically the APT and APPT, the field sizes and buy-ins can sometimes make the achievement of winning a Main Event look a little less impressive than it should. But the APT Philippines stop this week had the buy-in ($2,500, American) and the field size (231) to allow it to contend as one of the largest prizes awarded of the week.
Six of the ten players who made the final table were Filipino locals, along with a Canadian, an Australian, a South Korean and a player from Hong Kong. A local champion could not be denied, though, as Enrique Del Prado defeated Elton Tsang heads-up to keep the title local, and won a hair under $180,000 for his accomplishment.
Romanello 2/3rds of Way to Triple Crown Inside of 1 Year with Win
WPT Bratislava, Slovakia
Photo C/O PartyPoker
In the age of the internet, people coming out of nowhere are becoming harder and harder to find. Gone are the days where a Dirk Nowitzki, Tony Parker or Manu Ginobili could enter the NBA without great fanfare and shock the world. In the world of poker, the hype for international players is sometimes a bit slow in getting to American shores, but a smart bet for some serious WSOP success this year would be Roberto Romanello.
The former owner of a chip shop in South Wales, Romanello rubbed some of his opponents the wrong way with his final table antics, but there’s no denying his talents. Following a win at EPT Prague a few months ago, Romanello’s win at WPT Bratislava netted him another €140,685. He heads to the WSOP with a goal of being the first person in the history of poker to capture a Triple Crown (WPT, EPT, WSOP bracelet) in a single calendar year.
Foxwoods Provides Appropriate Environment for Chops
Mashantucket, Connecticut
Photo C/O WJMedia
With the amount of tournament series’ that are run at Foxwoods, I’m surprised that Jay “WhoJedi” Newnum, master scribe of Foxwoods Live, doesn’t own a second home on the reservation. No matter how many tournaments they run, though, Foxwoods consistently brings in some of the best field sizes on the East Coast every time.
The $2,500 Foxwoods Poker Classic Main Event drew 284 players, creating a prize pool of over $630,000 and a first place prize of over $150,000. All of which made it easier to chop it up once play got down to three-handed, giving each of the remaining players a hefty ROI over their initial $2,500 investment. At a final table that featured tournament regular Todd Terry, the shortest stack of the three, Michael Lavoie, guaranteed himself almost second place money, settling for $79,987. Similarly chipped Ronnie Pease ($108,295) and Phil Reed ($114,050) each cashed in big time, with Reed’s slight advantage also giving him the official win, the trophy and a snappy leather jacket.
HPT Win Allows Father To Buy the Greatest Swing Set Ever Created
Meskwaki Bingo Casino Hotel, Tama, Iowa
Photo C/O HPT
When Tom Hujda left his Illinois home for his trip to last week’s HPT stop in Iowa, his only goal was to leave with enough money to buy a swing set for his kids. Even this seemed like an ambitious goal, having never recorded so much as a cash on the Heartland Poker Tour. By the time the tournament was over, however, Hujda’s kids are probably getting a whole playground, as he won the whole thing for $77,897. He can afford to install this behemoth and still have $67,000+ to spare. Those are some lucky kids.
In Modern Day Kiev, Poker Plays You!
RPS Kiev, Ukraine
The Russian Poker Series is like the red-headed stepchild of the PokerStars tournament circuits, not even netting a mention on the PokerStars blog for the RPS’ most recent stop in Kiev. The $1,000 Grand Special built a prize pool of almost $300,000, however, with Yurij Predybajlo winning the tournament, $65,590, and the award for the least pronounceable name.
BLUFF Managing Editor Refuses to Share in the Run-Good, Strikes Again in Indiana
Hollywood Poker Open, Lawrenceburg, Indiana
File pic: Jess Welman
It’s been a little while since we had an entry in the “Year of the Media”, but we got a repeat offender this week. Jess Welman traveled to the Hollywood Poker Open in Indiana for their Ladies’ event, and in familiar fashion made her way through the field to the final table. She’s had an impressive run over the last year, cashing in the WSOP Ladies’ event, freerolling her way into an event at the Detox Series last year and final tabling, chopping another Ladies’ Event eight ways, and now this most recent performance. Welman fell just short, earning $3,770 for her second place finish. She will be back in town as part of the live updates team for the televised WPT Main event in the coming week, so if you’re headed there, be sure to congratulate her on another impressive performance.
Just to be clear, Pokerati does not currently work for Zynga (though we’re wondering if maybe we should) …
Continuing its rollout as serious new kid on the online poker block that is simply too big to be ignored … Zynga has acquired Poker Table Ratings, a Texas-based web-op that challenges current online poker Terms of Service with what technology and a legally enforceable free flow of information allow them to do.
PTR has also proved a key player in issues of online poker security for what their database can reveal not just about individual players, but site trends overall. According to Zynga:
The team’s experience and deep knowledge of the online poker industry will be invaluable as we work together to build out cutting-edge features and further enhance Zynga Poker.
However, Zynga goes on to specify that this acquisition of PTR parent company, MarketZero, a 16-person company in Austin, is not about taking over PTR, but rather about hiring their talent, who apparently will still own and operate MarketZero’s main website, PokerTableRatings.com.
Zynga has been on a hiring and acquisition spree of late — 11 acquisitions in the past 11 months — having obtained massive financing for expansion in the social media and gaming sectors, with estimates ranging from $180 million to $500 million.
Meanwhile, in presumably unrelated political news that may well someday be very related … a California state senator unveiled a “Do Not Track” bill yesterday — which would require all internet companies doing business in that state to allow users to opt out of any tracking or datamining capabilities.
The problem with the WSOP creeping up on us is that sometimes we tend to ignore the run up to the biggest tournament series of the year. March is a big month for poker tournaments, and it shows in the people that came out on top in this month’s winners. From Erik Seidel proving he needs to be in a $20k+ buy-in to win anything to a couple pros making back-to-back final tables, this was a big month for the tournament pro. And its not even June yet. As for the losers, well, I’ll admit I had to nit-pick this month for a couple of them, but others were just too easy. Lets see who was noteworthy this month.
Winners
Losers
Coinflips
The “Eff You, Sir/Madam” Award
Entity of the Month
I don’t think anyone should be surprised by this but…
Time for a blog post about taxes. How are gambling winnings in Canada generally taxed? What if you play in a poker tournament in Canada? Are those winnings taxable? Does it matter if you’re a professional poker player or not?
In each case it will depend on a factual determination of whether you are carrying on the business of being a poker player or a gambler.
Source Income
Very generally, the “income” in respect of which one is taxed in Canada is one’s “income from source” as set out in the Income Tax Act[1] (the Canadian equivalent of the Internal Revenue Code). What is income from source? It is a productive source of revenue from an office, an employment, a property, a business, or (without limiting the generality of the foregoing) an “other source.” Income from betting or wagering isn’t from an office or employment, and it’s not conceptually like the rents, interest, royalties, or dividends that come from property. The courts in Canada have demonstrated a reluctance to extend tax liabilities to cover unenumerated sources (the “other source” referred to above) of income; it’s unlikely that any gambling activities would be included in unenumerated sources.
That leaves income from business. When one carries on business in Canada, whether as a resident or a non-resident, one is generally taxable on the profit associated with that business. So, can a gambler be carrying on the business of gambling? The answer is that it’s conceptually possible, but it’s not easy.
In order to carry on business as a gambler based on the decided cases, one has to carry on a business with a fairly high level of skill. The two most prominent cases where a person was found to be taxable on gambling winnings involved a professional golfer who made money wagering on his own performance in matches[2] and a snooker player who hustled drunks in money games.[3]
There is an old paragraph of the Act called “right to a prize” that provides as follows: “a taxpayer’s gain or loss from the disposition of (i) a chance to win a prize or bet, or (ii) a right to receive an amount as a prize or as winnings on a bet, in connection with a lottery scheme or a pool system of betting referred to in section 205 of the Criminal Code, is nil.”[4] While this language appears straightforward, this paragraph is of limited assistance and raises more questions than it answers; section 205 of the Criminal Code was repealed in 1985.
Lotteries, Games of Chance & Sports Betting
On the advice of the Prime Minister of Canada, the Governor General (the Queen’s representative in Canada) dissolved the 40th Parliament on Saturday May 26th of this year. We are now in a general election campaign. Election Day is May 2nd.
Dissolution brings to an end all business before both houses of Parliament. All government bills and private members’ bills are terminated and, to be resurrected, will need to be re-introduced in the next Parliament.
The upshot is that Joe Comartin’s bill to liberalize sports betting laws in Canada, discussed here and here, is now dead. We will have to wait and see what the membership of the House of Commons looks like after the election and whether Mr. Comartin (if re-elected) will re-introduce the measure.
The Poker Edge:
Andrew Feldman and Phil Gordon are joined this week by Chad Brown. Before getting to Brown the two discuss recent poker news and lay out some details for Feldman Challenge will Feldman will take on someone in 25 to 250 hands at $0.01/$0.02. After finishing up the news Brown comes on to discuss his recent battle with cancer, including how it was found and the surgery to remove the tumor. He also breaks down what the future looks like and equates giving himself the best chance to stay cancer free to poker. You can listen to the entire podcast on ESPN.com, or download it directly via iTunes.
Two Plus Two Pokercast:
It’s been a while since these guys made it on the roundup but this week they were joined by Pokerati’s own Scarlet “scarlet_lv ” Robinson. Robinson follows Daniel Negreanu and Alan Boston this week to discuss online regulation (at the 1 hour 52 minute mark) breaking down the recent state bills that have been in the news. Robinson also gives her thoughts on where things go from here and what happens if these bills do not pass along with her thoughts on the recent alliances that some online sites are doing with some Las Vegas brick and mortar casinos. Listen to the show at the Two Plus Two Pokercast site or download it on iTunes.
DonkDown Radio:
Continuing on the legal front our very own Dan Michalski has been on a podcast tour since the cancelation of The Poker Beat. This week he returns to DonkDown for a new segment called the Poker Power Hour. Michalski comes on around the 32 minute mark to bring some of the recent legal news to the show. After he leaves the show the guys attempt to make some calls to those involved in the UB scandal before being joined by Shane “Shaniac” Schleger. You can listen to the show at the DonkDown site or subscribe and download it via iTunes.
This week we cover another step toward online gambling regulation in the United States, as the announcement came that Poker Stars and Wynn Resorts have reached an agreement to work together! Also, updates on the upcoming iGaming Super Show and the latest from eCOGRA.
Backroom Hold’em - Poker has long fought association with cross words http://t.co/1ApiZY97
RT @compncards: Iowa Online Poker Bill Passes Committee - Moves On to House http://t.co/9j87SAZF #poker
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.
@KhanNoaman I only tweeted links to PokerNews & @CalvinAyre articles re: #Montreal lawsuit & the YouTube video of the 2011 Mtl Open kickoff.
