Valentine’s Day was the debut of season 6 of GSN’s most popular show, High Stakes Poker. AJ Benza is no longer on the show, replaced by Kara Scott to provide some player interviews, leaving Gabe Kaplan to provide commentary solo. This would have been up earlier if GSN decided to put the full episode on Youtube, but they decided to only put it up on their own site.
Boycotting may be too strong a word … “avoiding” could work, as could “snubbing”, as could “pissing off its own players by telling them they can’t go.”
Supposedly, highly reliable sources are saying, Full Tilt brass in Ireland are telling Full Tilt-branded American (and non-American) pros that they are not allowed to play in the Venetian Deep Stacks main event … as it is part of the newly launched NAPT, presented by PokerStars.net. What, are you guys not buying their claim that Stars-dot-net is different than Stars-dot-com? Interesting …
We hinted that something was coming on The Poker Beat a couple weeks ago. Kudos to ESPN’s @GaryWise1 for digging up the confirmation on the above. Listen below to a 5-minute excerpt of the bubbling under.
TPB2510-excerpt
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Apparently, Howard Lederer really has stepped away from calling the operational shots at Tilt, and it’s totally news to Bitar & Co. that Full Tilt pros were ever stepping foot in non-Tilt branded events, such as the PCA (PokerStars) and Aruba (UB). Sure enough, the Hollywood snub at the Sharon Osborne Trash Talk Championship of the World (at the Hard Rock) charity tournament was a sign of more serious fissures in the poker world to come.
Kinda funny … because these sites have been so worried how a new Harrah’s-branded online gaming presence would negatively affect other online sites branding opportunities at the World Series of Poker, and now their reaction to the threat seems on track to becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy.
UPDATE: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=4921898&name=poker
I left out all the political stuff you should be reading — trust me, lots of casino-y biz and law going on — and instead am emptying out my frivolous notebook (some of it) and giving you a good-ole-fashioned link dump … full of random timely poker buzz that, imo, is def click-worthy.
The LAPC and NAPT/Venetian Deep Stacks may be on-hype right now … but some of the most fearsome high-stakes competition going on in Vegas is shaking down at the M Resort. You can follow the quirky, made-for-TV Premier League on PokerNews.
The PokerNews hand reporters have been allowed to see the hole cards and whisper them in Tony G’s ear write about them. (Usually, if reporters are so privileged to see inside the security truck, they usually do so with a promise not to divulge hole-card info.) It didn’t take long for the players — who are stripped of their cell phones and PDAs upon entering the set — to check laptops for the revealing live updates while on breaks or out of a hand/scene.
PartyPoker is clearly trying to pump up Luke Schwartz’s badboy image — taunting him for his ineffectual come-ons of Kara Scott. Here he is on the tricycle Tony G brought for him to ride out on:
Also, btw, check out the PartyPoker blog … where Warren from Party is shedding some of his corporate stick-ness to share some real life-on-the-PartyPoker-trail shtick. AKA Warren “the” Lush and “Fun Warren“.
Pokerati Restaurant Review
M Resort Buffet
It’s not quite Wynn or Bellagio-level … but it’s pretty close. And for a $14.95 lunch/$22.95 dinner, the extra touches — beer and wine available buffet-style, too, and a cappuccino bar — make the pig-it-up-dude! offerings worth wading through the hordes of senior-citizen locals who show up en force to let clever packs of bikers know, hey, this is our joint!” They also do the Tina Martini live cooking show there, which makes the M Resort’s Studio B like the Steel Panther of Buffets.
Price: Freeroll
Food: A-Q
Atmosphere: set of 4s
Service: 9-9
Another new-to-me blog I’ve been enjoying of late: crAAKKer
I am become Death, destroyer of Aces, slayer of Kings, tilter of D-bags
PokerListings has a solid (and controversial amongst people who think they know such things) list of Top 10 Players to Watch in 2010. I don’t think the haters get it … That is who Matt Showell and his people will be watching — whether you like it or not, bitch.
Spoiler Alert:
1. Phil Ivey
2. Cole South
3. Yvgeniy Timoshenko
4. Annette Obrestad
5. Jason Mercier
6. Matt “ADZ124″ Marafioti
7. Isildur
8. Nanonoko
9. Jeff Madsen
10. Lex Veldhuis
Start listening to Lost Vegas: The Podcast, with Pauly and Change100, around the premise of pimping his forthcoming Lost Vegas book. It’s about a blogger living with his blogger girlfriend while he endeavors to spread his poker genius worldwide. She has a way of laughing at him like no one else can, as if she’s seen his junk or something.
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ALT HED: The Sonny and Cher of Poker?
Rumorati
From our secret sources on the ground at the LAPC: “Amanda leatherman out at wpt. will be the new hosetess for napt on espn2. Wpt will have a temporary hostess at celeb invitational and is looking for a full time hostess”
If you want to follow the real, non-poker Premier League, you should be getting into Soccerati.com. Especially if you want to bet on soccer. UEFA Champions League getting underway.
We wouldn’t mind more followers @Soccerati on twitter, too. Might even start to send out some tweets as important games kick into high gear.
The Soccerati roster currently includes AlCantHang and JoeSpeaker … with The Rooster headed to South Africa for World Cup 2010 and thus still in negotiations over starting minutes with SangyFarha and DA Hasselbaink.
And, poker blogger creative success story …Chris Hanel — aka Pokergeek and one of some 30something bloggers who over the years have graced these not-so-hallowed Pokerati pages, btw, albeit briefly — is getting big internet kudos for his Hitler video of all Hitler videos, as featured on the ever-viral boing-boing:
via Mean Gene
TMZ is reporting that Jayde Nicole, 2008 Playmate of the Year (and hostess celerity opponent of PokerStars Million-Dollar Challenge to the rest of us) is taking on the Las Vegas porn slappers. Apparently, at least one of them is using her image to sell ass. She and her lawyers are not amused.
Rodrigo, our go-to source for Strip porn slapping, was unavailable for comment, and likewise PokerStars has not released a statement yet about whether or not they were negotiating a deal with the escort agency to cover her wares with a PokerStars.net logo in preparation for the NAPT. Insert “deposit bonus” joke here.
Woke up this morning talking a little Full Tilt with The Poker Beat crew … and looking back through some old archives …
I remember hearing about this “new site” from Clonie way back before they even existed (and the UIGEA was about as unimaginable as Barack Obama). Was looking to see if I happened to write anything that woulda implied a belief in ownership even before Pokerati’s traffic was borne from Google searches for “Clonie Gowan naked”.
I did not find anything resembling contractual evidence, but I did come across this site’s first-ever post … which seems a bit ironic in hindsight. For those wanting to join me in this self-indulgent quest for perspective:
APRIL 21, 2004
ON TILT?
It seems like everyone and their grandmother is opening up an online poker room these days. And why not? Each imaginary table that pops open in the cyberether forms a little vortex of constant pecuniary intake (no matter what’s happening in the game itself). But is the market at a saturation point?Probably so, but that didn’t stop Full Tilt Poker from going online this week. Despite the competition, I suspect this site — a venture put together by a bunch of top pros (Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Phil Gordon, et al.) — will fare well. Haven’t played it yet, but at first glance they’ve upped the graphical interface significantly. And the ability to give your avatar facial expressions … very cool. Could change the online game when you think about it.
Posted by Dan Michalski on April 21, 2004 09:20 AM
Click the links, which are archived.org … bias or not, honestly surprising that the judge wouldn’t give these sorts of old records a look, let alone her attorneys a chance to depose the other defendants about them.
LOL: Is the market at a saturation point?
ALT HED: Kicking myself for not using an affiliate code
The Cake Poker blog has an interesting post recounting the role of poker in the lives of those who’ve ascended to the American presidency.
It includes this interview with Richard Nixon, who supposedly funded his entrée into politics with poker winnings. (Starting at about 2 minutes.) He also talks about skipping a get-together with Charles Lindbergh because it was poker night, evaluates how the American love of poker lines up with the Russian predilection for chess, and recounts with detail about the time he got a royal flush in a game of 5/10 5-card Stud (at which point the interviewer seems to zone out):
Speaking of Oklahoma .. Clonie officially lost her lawsuit against Full Tilt last week. Though attorneys tell me it’s very strange that this case couldn’t get at least to the discovery phase — I mean it was all out there very publicly … she clearly had some relationship with Full Tilt, so in most cases being able to dispute the contractual nature of said relationship would be perfunctory.
Anyhow, bummer for Clonie and selfish-bummer for those of us who were curious to hear what the likes of Chris Ferguson, Ray Bitar, and Howard Lederer had to say about the early formation of Full Tilt under oath in the heat of deposition.
But here’s the judge’s three-strikes and you’re out ruling, with some explanation of why she will not get her day in Federal court. Seems more a matter of legal strategy than the merits of the case to me … but maybe some others with more-than-none law-schooling will weigh in on that.
Her attorneys, Howard & Howard, btw, will have another go in Nevada state court moving forward representing Jason Newitt and that other guy, Hilton Warmback in their similar contract disputes with Full Tilt.
Mostly unrelated, but hey, there’s a video … the day before this ruling came down, Newitt won the PLO/8 tourney and about $17k at the LAPC. Not bad for a guy who may or may not own a piece of Full Tilt:
The US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling earlier this month that American plaintiffs are not entitled to get their day in American courts for discrepancies with offshore online poker sites.
This case specifically addressed two players in Ohio who sued PartyPoker claiming collusion. However, the court ruled, and the Appeals court upheld: Sorry, take your beefs against Party to Gibraltar. When they signed on and agreed to play, they did so accepting Terms and Conditions agreeing to handle all disputes in Gib, nowhere else, the court said.
Here’s the tale from poker-law expert I. Nelson Rose:
Trial in Gibraltar or Jail in Ohio
In it …
But the concurring opinion of Judge Merritt, quoted above, should give all Internet poker operators and players some nightmares. He ruled that the case had to be heard in Gibraltar, because to allow Ohio state law to apply would mean Wong, Gibson and everyone working for Party Poker would have to go to jail!
No one had raised the issue of whether Internet poker was illegal. “But sometimes courts have to raise embarrassing questions that both parties to litigation had rather we overlooked.”
Not so sure I agree that this decision “should give all Internet poker operators some nightmares.” I think it’s kinda the opposite. With Full Tilt juggling cases of varying frivolity out the ying-yang, I gotta think they’d be pretty happy with what could be precedent to force plaintiffs to take up matters outside (the US).
Party Gaming’s stock, btw, has been doing quite nicely of late:
PRTY.L
Even though I’ve gotten hooked on two-minute video interviews and have kinda taken a personal change-of-interest-pace and started paying attention to actual tournaments … big names are starting to win at the LAPC, WSOP-Circuit Tunica is kicking it old school, everyone wants to know how the Venetian Deep Stacks is gonna shape up with PokerStars heading to town, and I really gotta make it over to the M Resort to check out this whole PartyPoker Premier League thing … I still tune in almost-weekly to APCW Perspectives Weekly for a little catch-up on the international poker and online-gambling-related political scene for 10 minutes at a pop:
This week J Todd keeps us abreast of California and New Jersey’ desires to get in on the online gambling game from a state-size perspective, updates us on the online gambling fund-transfer cat-and-mouse game with MasterCard and Visa getting more serious (just three months before they are legally required to do exactly what they are trying to do), fingers the Eldorado Casino as a potentially shady site to avoid, and tease me with some affiliate business stuff that I don’t really care about but am interested to watch because of the hidden-camera + foreign-accent nature of the upcoming interview.
Here are a few other semi-related newsy links about how things are going elsewhere in the poker world:
The Mayor of Baltimore is pushing for poker+table games despite the governor of Maryland having less of an interest in making expanded gambling a priority.
Michael Barnier, the newly appointed EU Internal Markets Commissioner, promises to straighten out inconsistencies in European online gambling laws.
Police in suburban Alabama are cracking down on / raiding the real-money tournament scene there.
This — a live cam from above the floor of the Commerce — is pretty cool. Would be extra-awesome if a fight were to breakout or some girl decided to go streaking. But whatever, anyhow, check it out, if you want to watch — at present — three or four tables of a super-satellite at the Commerce. (They just got back from break.)
I think the plan is to stream the final table of the $1k w rebuys event later tonight …
They don’t quite have play-by-play to make it a real show (yet), but there is a chat moderator to answer questions about what you’re looking at. This UStream thing … so much potential to be either really good or really bad. Jury still out … but interesting they have it … and the audio now in my background (have heard a few screams and stomps, calls for somebody named Sam, and lots of chip-clicking) is more compelling than the NBC analysts for pairs figure skating.
I don’t quite get what’s possible when they say, “You can send video here by putting the show’s hashtag, #veerob, in the title when you record! Enjoy!” Are they implying someone at the table could run video, too, and put it in the same thread?
I can see World Series coverage really changing in coming years if people can self-cover themselves on video similarly to reporting their chip counts via twitter.
Follow the goings-on at the Commerce a little less pathetically with @LAPokerClassic.
The LAPC recently featured 2 $230 mega satellites into their $1 million guaranteed $1000 re-buy tournament to give some lower stakes players a shot at a big payday in event that can get real expensive real fast. If you won a seat you also received a voucher that could be used for a re-buy or or an add-on.
The first of these mega satellites ended in a unique way with a player exhibiting some less than critical thinking. When they got down to the bubble of 18 players (17 seats were to be given away) play was on two tables of 9 players each and they were playing hand for hand to prevent either table from stalling. The first table finished their hand with one player being eliminated. While this was going on, a player at the other table was faced with an all in raise and was pondering his decision and called the floor-person over to ask the following question: “If I call and lose will I split 17th with the player at the other table who was just eliminated on this hand?” to which the floor-person accurately responded “yes.” He called the all in raise, lost the pot and split 17th place getting half a seat.
To some poker is all about winning pots…
Another good video from the LAPC … in this one Matt talks with Eric Baldwin (aka “Basebaldy), the 2009 CardPlayer Player of the Year. We, of course, got to know him as he was tearing through a Venetian Deep Stacks field prior to showing what he really was in town to do at the WSOP.
Anyhow, hate to make this all about the LAPC when tourneys are going on around the world — from Copenhagen to Tunica … but this gives a good glimpse at someone who is now a “big name” in poker though few have gotten to know him yet:
In the above video they talk about Baldwin’s efforts to snap his 0-fer history at the LAPC and where “taking it easy” fits in to the upcoming Ironman competition.
Since the last time we wrote about him he was keeling over at the table, it’s our pleasure to show a better, more-capacitated view of Miami John Cernuto — talking to Matt Savage after being the technical winner (he chopped) of the LAPC’s Event #28, $545 Limit Hold’em.
It was one of the few disappointing field sizes at the LAPC: 71 players, 9 paid.
In this winner’s video, Cernuto and 2nd place finisher Edwin Smith discuss not the $18,000 they split up, but limit vs. no-limit and whether or not you’ll see a resurgence (or the continued decline) of tournaments with far fewer all-ins:
Also: kudos to Tom Schneider for taking 6th and an $1,870 prize. That’s almost enough for a rebuy in a real 21st century poker event, lol.
I’ll Bet: This field probably provided fewer tweets from the felt than any other event at the LAPC.
Beyond Johnny Weir’s loving him some Lady Gaga, the following Olympic athletes on Team USA like to play poker at charity fundraiser events and/or recreational home games while on the road doing the practice-travel-competition grind:
Ben Agosto (Ice Dancing)
on twitter
TanithandBen.com
Evan Lysacek (Figure Skating)
on twitter
EvanLysacek.com
JR Celski (Speed Skating)
on twitter
JRCelski.com
Hannah Teter (Snowboarding)
in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue
Nate Holland (Snowboarding)
on twitter
For more information on these athletes, including photos, videos and the full schedule for the 2010 Olympic Games, visit www.NBCOlympics.com or www.TeamUSA.org.
A cover story in the latest issue of Forbes magazine (the main story asking if Al Qaeda is bankrupt) features an article discussing the US government’s possible crackdown on online poker with the impending June 1 deadline for the UIGEA to be enforced. The article can be found on their website here and includes a slide show of the big names behind online poker.
I’m kinda glad I didn’t respond to that spammish email trying to sell me pokerati.cn … the Commie reds are about to embark on a six-month, eight-agency crackdown on online gambling. Chinese officials did not respond to inquiries on whether or not running the campaign between now and August had anything to do with timing of the World Series of Poker.
Not sure how deep any in our industry have dug into the possibilities in China yet, but hey, that “Bodies” exhibit could probably use some new prisoners to pose playing poker.
More on the China crackdown, where you may notice vague similarities to what’s gone down in the US of A:
Online gambling “has caused large cash outflows from the country and seriously disturbed social and economic order,” said a statement posted on the public security ministry’s Web site Monday.
The campaign aims to “bust a number of syndicates from home and abroad that collude to organise gambling activities on the Internet and severely punish the illegal rings,” it said.
Authorities will also clamp down on underground banks and third party payment platforms that provide cash transfer services for gambling sites, as well as Internet operators that provide Web access services, it said.
“(We) will clean up gambling information and Web sites across the board,” the statement said.
As more and more casinos proliferate across the United States, some of the old stalwarts are looking for ways to keep themselves at the top of their region when it comes to poker prestige and casino profits … and the famed Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut has hired semi-accomplished poker pro and ESPN analyst Bernard Lee as their new representative.
Beyond being a landmark deal for himself personally, Lee’s partnership with Foxwoods opens up what may or may not become a trend in US brick-and-mortar poker rooms — hiring poker players with brand-worthy recognition to represent them on the tables, in the media, and possibly even at casino business meetings. Who needs an online site when there are fully legal, long-regulated American corporations trying to compete for gambling revenue share?
Pretty nice score for a guy who had one of his worst poker years ever in 2009, going 0-fer in the last WSOP and booking just a single five-figure cash ($13k for a 23rd-place finish in Misssissippi) since the election of Barack Obama.
Click below for the press release Foxwoods has put out announcing their new marriage:
The award-winning cast of The Poker Beat breaks down last week who did and did not make the cut of the Bluff Power 20, and we analyze the launch of Victory Poker. Is there space (six years after Chris Moneymaker) for a new online poker site in the sector — one that does not include Full Tilt pros, PokerStars-size tournament fields, and AP/UB’s Kahnawake-ness?
The Poker Beat
2/05/10
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We know little because we’re thousands of miles away, but why am I not shocked that what coulda been the greatest thing ever — poker that helps a bunch of kids on Super Bowl Sunday — has left at least a few people with a sour taste in their mouths?
I sent an email trying to find out how many people played, how much money was raised, and what celebs if any may have gone deep in the biggest freeroll in Texas history … but instead learned from Dallas CAN!, the charity who helped make it happen:
Went ok the poker company we partnered with did some things that were not right to help our charity and although we packed the place and paid up front for everything, we never saw a dime last night.
The Hard Rock Poker Lounge is getting its weekend poker orgy underway — this is the “relaunch” of the poker room there … under new management, with new ideas, and more action than usual …
They’ve got a full slate this weekend — beyond just the free food, splashed pots, a 20k guarantee Friday tourney and stuff like that … they’ve got a whole slate of events, including a Sharon Osborne celebrity charity event (Trash Talk Championship of the World they are calling it), a party for the launch of Victory poker. Currently filming (for ESPN 360, I believe, is a $100/$200 NLH cash game. $50k buy-in … with Antonio Esfandiari, Andrew Robl and others on the table … we’ll have some more names for you. And I think that’s The Maven waiting in the wings for a seat.
Click here for a rundown of all they’ve got going on.
Of course the game next table over is what really interests me — $1/$2 NLH/PLO … just an option to run-it-2x today, not automatic. But in my jaded opinion, that’s where the real poker is going on. The plan is to keep this game running throughout the weekend — as Super Bowl raffle is currently my 2010 bankroll plan.
More TK throughout the weekend … but here’s a glimpse of surprisingly early Friday night action taking off at the Hard Rock’s big poker weekend:
Wicked Chops has the intro and the detailed breakdown … and they provided the actual list:
1. PokerStars
2. Full Tilt Poker
3. Mitch Garber
4. Howard Lederer
5. Ty Stewart
6. Doyle Brunson
7. Joe Cada
8. Barney Frank
9. Tony G
10. Daniel Negreanu
11. Phil Ivey
12. John Pappas
13. Mike Sexton
14. Mori Eskandani
15. Brian Balsbaugh
16. Lance Bradley
17. Joe Sebok
18. Barry Shulman
19. Matt Savage
20. Per Hagen
There could be 1,000 players or more gathered in South Dallas this Sunday, just a few blocks from Dallas Police Headquarters btw, competing for a WSOP main event seat in what’s being advertised as the biggest “True Freeroll Texas Hold’em Poker Tournament” in history
The event is technically a charity fundraiser for the much-respected DallasCAN! Academies around a Super Bowl viewing party. Tons of non-poker stuff and prize giveaways going on — and the freeroll poker tournement just happens to be part of it.
It took them like 6 years to figure out how to pull this off in a fully legal way, Big ups to all things Texas poker for this. Though like a McDonald’s Monopoly game, no purchase is necessary, they do offer a VIP upgrade that includes, among many things, extra chips for players in the tournament.
It all goes down at Gilley’s, which has much experience pulling off large poker events, though possibly never one this size before, featuring current Dallas Cowboy stars and tea legends:
Join celebrity athlete hosts and Dallas Can! Academy the 2010 DFW Big Game Watching Party!
Door prizes, spirits, food and legendary athletes all come together for the kids at the Can! Academies.
Hosted by:
Jason Witten,
Randy White,
Drew Pearson,
Stephen McGee and
Jay Novacek.Sunday – February 7, 2010
Gilley’s – 1135 S Lamar St
Dallas, TX 75215Fan Fest: Noon – 4PM
Game Watching Party: 3 – 10PM
Doors open to VIP at 3PM
Click here for the official website:DFWBigGame.com
Click below for details on the poker tournament itself — going around my old hometown stomping grounds via email. Should be a pretty fascinating mix of amateur poker types and major players in the Dallas area trying to win their way (via an arguably soft field in a challenging blind structure) into the other Big Game this summer:
A report from CTV in Canada is reporting that Loto Quebec has received approval from the province’s Cabinet to allow online gambling, including poker. The Quebec site, expected to launch in fall 2010, would be restricted to residents of Quebec, but they would be able to play with players from the BC lottery and the Atlantic Lottery Corporation, which handles the lotteries of the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island in offering a common platform for the players in the six provinces, similar to what the government of Sweden offers with the Svenka Spel site, which offers legalized online gambling to its residents.
In light of what happened over a year ago at Ultimate Bet, where Phil Hellmuth won a pot he wasn’t entitled to, a similar issue popped up on Cake Poker earlier this afternoon. Per usual, a post came to the 2+2 poker forum with all the details, along with a confirmation in the thread from Lee Jones, card room manager of Cake Poker:
Hi folks -
Unfortunately, at the moment, this appears to be real. What’s bizarre is how it happened this one time out of the tens of millions of hands we’ve dealt. Needless to say, our software people have dropped everything else to track this down. I’ll update you as soon as we understand what happened.
A later post from Jones mentioned they would shut down the servers for a brief period of time to see if the issue reappears, more details and information as they become available.
Though Isildur1 player names have popped up on the microstakes tables at PokerStars, Absolute, and PartyPoker … there’s one new player over at Betfair — Omlphalotus — that looks possibly to be the real Isildur attempting to work on his game / shore up his bankroll.
From our friends at the Betfair blog:
Firstly, the player in question is Swedish – the same nationality as Isildur1 – and is certainly playing the type of nosebleeds stakes expected from the most talked about online player for years.. A railbird told me he was seen recently with just under 400k at the tables waiting for action at some 250/500 and 100/200 NL HU tables.
[...]
Other factors that have stoked this rumour include railbirds noticing Omlphalotus playing a similar style to Isildur1 as well as enjoying long sessions multi-tabling.
More details here from a site with an arguably less-compromised interest in pimping high-stakes games on Betfair.
Also: a $27k Omlphalotus suckout.
NOTE: Omphalotus (without the extra 1/l) is a funky-looking but poisonous mushroom.
Here’s a quick rundown of what’s going on in one of the hungriest industries out there, and, game of skill or not, the parent biz of our beloved little poker world:
ALABAMA — A small little gambling fight is going down in the land Spencer Bachus represents, over a matter of semantics, technology, and the millions of dollars bingo machines represent. Bingo is legal in ‘bama … but should video bingo be? The fight is a dirty — complete with one agency repeatedly trying to raid a well-monied operation that believes it’s on the right side of the law.
CHINA — After a slow start, gambling revenues in Macau are reaching record levels.
IOWA — The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission’s computer system got hacked, and they’re blaming China:
Chinese foreign ministry officials strongly disputed the report, issuing a statement calling it “full of bias and ulterior motives.”
Personal information in the breach included names, Social Security numbers, home addresses and dates of birth. Most of the people in the licensing database are Iowa residents, but it also includes residents of Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin and other states, Ketterer said.
The list includes workers such as card dealers, slot machine technicians, jockeys, trainers and owners of horses and greyhounds.
LOUISIANA — The New Orleans-to-Shreveport casino-biz is in a definite recession, one not planned for when the state planned on becoming the central-coast alternative to Las Vegas and Atlantic City. They blame Texans for not gambling enough Oklahoma and Mississippi for cutting in on their action.
NEW JERSEY — Big fight going on over laws related to the building of Revel — the east coast’s $2.5 billion version of CityCenter. Should be an interesting development to watch go up (or down) as New Jersey fights to stay competitive with the smaller casino operations set to open shop in Delaware and Pennsylvania, but not Maryland.
MARYLAND — Gov. Martin O’Malley is saying Maryland’s not gonna jump into the gambling expansion fray, despite assertions that his state is gonna lose out as neighboring locales up their casino offerings to include table games + poker.
OHIO — As we know, Lyle Berman has effectively bought himself a piece of all the newly legalized action to come in Cincinatti, Cleveland, and Toledo. But he’s run into some blowback over the location of a new casino in Columbus. The constitutional amendment voters approved in November called for a full-blown casino-resort downtown, but now a referendum on a May ballot will decide if the Penn Gaming development should be moved to a blighted part of the city.
Related: “It’s Lyle’s Ohio Now”
UNITED KINGDOM — Once upon a time, Great Britain was leading the world in all things online gambling. But regulations and tax issues are messing that up — and it’s turning into a battle of Labour vs. the Tories for the UK’s gambling future. Good rundown on some British gambling-law history and where the different parties stand on gambling in the UK … as the rest of Europe catches up.
So little gets me excited about poker these days … unless, of course, it includes Pot-Limit Omaha or somebody getting sued/arrested. (C’mon HSP, can we just get one episode of PLO? Just to hear Gabe Kaplan talking about it. Promise not to sue you if you use this idea.)
But I stumbled across this last night — a game I read about on the internet back when it was being recorded (I believe in September). It’s just a regular-ole episode (Season 4 Ep. 3). But still much more exciting on video than anything I read about online, and way better than the Poker Stars Million-Dollar Challenge, not to mention Face the Ace:
Starring:
Patrik Antonius
Tom Dwan
Mike Matusow
Chris Ferguson
Gus Hansen
Allen Cunningham
Andrew Feldman
Isildur1
[via LV Poker Source]
It really is amazing, when you think about it, that 10s of millions of people worldwide are competing in games (whether they be sports or shoot-em-ups) on XBox Live, and they’re doing it for no money!
But with Sega opening up a real-money poker room (and casino), you gotta wonder if the likes of Microsoft wouldn’t try to get in on the real-money gaming/gambling action if the UIGEA were suddenly to go away. ** (You also gotta wonder how the guy in the picture even saw the flop. Can you imagine how soft these Xbox games must be?!)
I don’t mean to overstate anything here — because poker is just a game, after all, that we know plenty of people enjoy playing for free.net — but the new Hoyle Texas Hold’em for Xbox Live leaves you wondering if they aren’t preparing themselves for a future where they stand to make more than $10 per download.
And looking at the key features of this new release …
Gamers can play as their Microsoft Avatar.
* Single player games against up to 9 AI players.
* Mixed Multiplayer games with any combination of up to 9 AI and/or human players.
* Fully customizable games let the player decide game type, table minimums, mix of AI vs. human players and much more.
* Ability to reserve seats for private custom games.
* Deep statistic tracking covers over 50 key stats categories found to be the most important to professional poker players.
You gotta wonder if any new players stepping onto the online poker landscape might not have a different outlook on things like bots and datamining than current industry leaders.
** The makers of Hoyle Texas Hold’em have slot machine games, and handheld iPhone versions, too.
ALT HED: Hoyle Sounds a Lot like Doyle
Here’s some interesting perspective on where poker stands on the pop-culture radar … the season finale of Jersey Shore (on MTV) drew 4.8 million viewers.
That’s more than double than the 2.1 million who tuned in to ESPN’s coverage of the November Nine, and way way way more than tuned in for the finale of 2 Months 2 Million.
Legendary chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov is in the New York Review of Books saying (via the NY Times ideasblog) it’s time for computer programmers who make chess-related AI to learn a thing or two from the people (bots?) playing programmable poker.
Consider it a backhanded compliment:
Perhaps chess is the wrong game for the times. Poker is now everywhere, as amateurs dream of winning millions and being on television for playing a card game whose complexities can be detailed on a single piece of paper. But while chess is a 100 percent information game—both players are aware of all the data all the time—and therefore directly susceptible to computing power, poker has hidden cards and variable stakes, creating critical roles for chance, bluffing, and risk management.
I swear we’re not going gay(er than usual) here at Pokerati … but that song we told you about a long time ago, Poker Face by Lady Gaga, has now been turned into a male figure skating routine:
In preparation for the upcoming Vancouver Olympics, US figure skating champ Johnny Weir skated to the song about bluffin’ with muffins for an exhibition performance at US Nationals last week. Glad to see that the word about poker/lesbianism is still spreading.
And to prove we’re not homo just because we’re paying attention to figure skating, here’s Rush Limbaugh tarding rockin’ out to Lady Gaga during the talent portion of the 2010 Miss America contest:
(Oh, wait, Miss America, right …)
That’s the word we’re hearing … but no confirmation other than that the World Poker Association’s website — wpapoker.com — has disappeared. A good idea with lots of support that never quite found its way before getting entangled in all sorts of internal political struggles that left a true grassroots coalition of players a dream that never quite came to fruition.
We love high culture here at Pokerati, but I gotta say, I never thought I’d spend 12 minutes of 2010 listening to/watching ballet. Though my tastes lean more towards watching heavy metal videos with semi-pokery themes on Youtube, I couldn’t help but click this one when I saw a ballet about the difficulties of playing pocket Jacks.
I’m no dance critic, but I think they capture the inherent conundrums with the hand pretty well:
ALT HED: Jacks Are Gay
OK, my apologies for making you watch that. Here’s a better dance about potentially troublesome pocket Kings:
The Venetian Deep Stacks, with the first ever NAPT tag attached to their main event, is underway. Click here to see the schedule.
One other new not necessarily that new thing this go-round is the Best Overall Player Award. Details from The V:
BEST OVERALL PLAYER AWARD
The four players that accumulate the most player points throughout the entire event will be awarded Best Overall Player cash awards. One-half of one percent will be withheld from the prize pool of each daily tournament and added to the Best Overall Player total prize pool. The standings will be updated daily and posted in The Venetian Poker Room. Super Satellites, 7 pm second chance tournament and the $5,000 NAPT are not part of the overall point’s race.
Damn, that was quick. a few weeks ago Delaware considered the idea of legalizing table games at its casinos (which includes poker), the Senate voted on it yesterday, and the governor signed it into law. They expect to be playing by summer time.
ALT HED: Politics Is Easy
In other casino industry news:
Harrah’s is offering the state of Iowa $70 million to scrap greyhound racing.
And MGM/Mirage is looking to sell its 50 percent stake in the Borgata in an effort to avoid regulatory trouble over their association with Pansy Ho in China. Apparently they see more value in Macau than Atlantic City.
The Rivers Casino in Pennsylvania got fined for allowing underage players on their slot machines.
In my mind this is all part of some master plan for Harrah’s to some day hold the final table of the WSOP main event smack-dab in the middle of Las Vegas Blvd.:
Harrah’s is moving forward on a plan to acquire Planet Hollywood. Harrah’s took over management of Planet Hollywood’s hotel operations and some of its restaurants and bars in January. Planet Hollywood continues to run its own casino, though Harrah’s has made it clear it wants eventually to own the entire operation. If successful, it would give the company control of all 126 acres on the east side of the Strip between Flamingo Road and Harmon Avenue. Adding PH’s 2,496 hotel rooms to Harrah’s inventory would give it nearly 23,000 rooms on or near the Strip.
I couldn’t help but find this convo between Kathy Liebert and Daniel Negreanu incredibly interesting. Not just because they kinda-sorta call Annie Duke a “Hooo-ore”, but also because Pokeratizens have long dealt with @donkeybomber’s bitchings about why he doesn’t get the accolades and patch deals offered less accomplished players. With him, my usual answer is, “What have you done for me lately?” But that doesn’t necessarily apply for Kathy Liebert — who is pretty much always winning something. Instead, there’s another game out there, Negreanu suggests, that Liebert chooses not to play.
NOTE: Kathy Liebert still has a standing offer to play for Team Pokerati. We don’t pay your buy-ins, but we will put a patch on your chest and clap extra loud for you.
We sometimes forget that a lot of poker players out there — particularly mid-tier pros — rely on big tournaments to help them make their living. So when they see something potentially asinine, they get a little upset. Unlike we analysts, who simply laugh, scoff, and position ourselves to “cover” what could well be a gloriously entertaining collapse.
So it goes for the upcoming Bellagio 5-Diamond event in April — which features a ridiculous 17 rebuy tournaments as its preliminary events. Seriously, someone has lost it here, right? We’ll see if we can’t get a comment from Tourney Director Jack McClelland on what’s the thought process behind this. Because right now, the best we can deduce arbitrarily surmise is that maybe it would be contractually better for him to get fired as opposed to resigning?
Some players were so incensed by this rebuy-crazy sked, supposedly, that they began circulating a petition to change the schedule back to its original set-up — a scheduling revolt supposedly led by Scott Clements. And in it, they proposed an alternative that seemed to make more sense. However, according to 2+2, the Bellagio has said thanks-but-no-thanks to the suggestion — leaving some players already talking about skipping this series, and a few media types excited about the pending collapse.
Check it out … I suspect someone was playing at a casino and watching how the table-embedded auto-shufflers work when they thought: How awesome would it be if you could press a button, and instead of getting a new deck, you got snacks and cocktails? The new GameBar, from the not-quite-sueably named Playerati, features a hidden, refrigerated snack bar that serves up refreshments at the table. A much better way to get everyone a round of chilled Tuaca shots than waiting for cocktail service. Press the button again for the electronic poker dumbwaiter to retract until the next round.
Theoretically can also be used to serve up weapons and drugs. Load the thing with semi-automatic handguns, and never fear home-game robbery again, knowing that you can arm your table from your game’s hidden (refrigerated) weapons cache at a moment’s notice. Good place to hide the bank, too … not to mention little sandwiches.
Ask yourself why all tables don’t have secret refrigerated compartments at Playerati.com.
[h/t @alcanthang]
That’s about all we know, but who knew, and glad to know … the US Men’s National Team striker has been recovering from injuries suffered in a major car accident. To help his healing, he’s been playing some $5/$10 no-limit hold’em at Bellagio.
It’s starting to occur to us that a lot of poker players out there might have a keen interest to bet some international football gamesin the coming months. Bear with us, and we’ll see if we don’t know anyone who can help that cause.
ALT HED: Phil Ivey, the Ronaldinho of Poker?
Meanwhile, Nick Geber, formerly the multimedia guru at Bluff and a Sirius Radio soccer analyst, is back in public action … just in time for the World Cup — over at The Ref’s a Wanker.
Who says tournament poker is dying/hurting? It’s hard to go anywhere on the planet these days without finding a major soccer poker tournament. Lots of kids with disposable bankrolls, it seems … and lots of older folks trying to grab it.
At the EPT Deauville, which just wrapped up, all eyes were on Elky and Peter Eastgate to take down the biggest tournament ever in France. But out of 768 runners, they went out in 9th and 8th, respectively, with 21-year-old Brit Jake Cody winning the €847,000 top prize and presumably earning himself a spot on the PokerStars Kids Team.
Elky, meanwhile went pimptastic/not-gay in his homeland, sponsoring Team ElkyLady:
The LAPC is just getting into the thick of its WSOP-duration run. Click here to follow the winners as the events unfold. Of all these events going on worldwide, this one is still probably the biggest.
Across the continent, in Atlantic City. the World Poker Open at the Borgata is rolling along, with their $3,500 main event starting Sunday. They’re still drawing fields in the multi-hundreds, making Borgata the East Coast place to be.
But let’s not forget Mississippi — which used to be the preferred place for poker players to kick off the new year. They only got 208 entries into the $10k WPT main event at Beau Rivage. The final table for the Southern Poker Championship is set:
Name Chips
Hoyt Corkins 2,069,000
Tyler Smith 1,169,000
Jerry Vanstrydonck 1,044,000
Jonathan Kantor 894,000
Jared Jaffee 762,000
James Reed 377,000
Follow the good-ole-boy action here.
Halfway around the world, the Aussie Millions is into Day 2 of their main event. After a festive Australia Day celebration, things got underway for the big-daddy of this Southern Hemisphere main event:
Some other cool tourneys at the Crown Casino still going … It’s very 2 Months $2 Milliony In the Australian heads-up championship, they’re duking it out to see which four will advance to the money matches against Andrew Lichtenberger, Barry Woods, Vanessa Selbst, and Martin Gudvangen.
And action is just getting underway for the Team Event. Here’s how they play team poker down under:
How Does Team Poker Work
The game is No Limit Hold’em. Teams of two, only one member from each team is on the felt at a time.The partner’s rotate whose turn it is to play the team’s stack each level. The first players in the game get half of the team’s start bank, if they bust in the first level the team mate comes in immediately and plays with the other half of the team’s starting bank.
That person will play the remainder of the first level, and the second, before the original partner resumes play in the third level.
From the second level onwards team will have their full stacks in play, and once it’s gone the team is eliminated.
And our new-good friends at the Heartland Poker Tour are in Quapah, Oklahoma — at the Downstream Casino in the far northeast end of the state, running qualifiers for their next televised main event, which gets underway this weekend. This one is good clean All-American fun for the kids, too, as you only need to be 18 to play.
The Venetian Deep Stacks is also getting ready to start — with Event #1 kicking off Friday, so it’s not like nothing’s going on here in Las Vegas these days. .
The Inside Deal makes its to its second season on ESPN.com with Joe Cada and John Pappas appearing on the show.
When the mainstream media attempts to interview poker players, it’s more likely than not there will be a moment where the poker enthusiast cringes. This interview with Fox Business’ Neil Cavuto and Tiffany Michelle is nearly 5 minutes of those moments:
This could turn out to be quite the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa thing, with less Creatine. Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey could be going back-and-forth at the very top of the Hendon Mob leaderboard for all-time tournament winnings.
Ivey just re-passed Negs by finishing 2nd in the Aussie Millions $100k event.
Here’s the all-time leaderboard (not yet updated).
[via WCP]
BTW, I’m pretty sure the winner, Dan Shak, was not the same guy who helped send Beth Shak on her renegade red-carpet/no-carpet milf path. If so, he sure has aged since the divorce:
UPDATE: I could be wrong. I was confusing Dan Shak with Bill Gazes, one of the other milfly departeds in poker:
It turned out to be an exciting finish to Event #1 at the LAPC — one of the largest live-tournament fields in history, with 5,847 players entries ponying up the $335 buy-in for a $1 million guarantee (which the Commerce exceeded by more than $600k). It was a funky event that saw some players cash twice. As they got down to the final table. Darrel Cain from Sacramento became a fan favorite after a series of botched chops left him with 8 chips and what seemed like just an $88k payday. But he came back to take it down and claim the biggest piece of a $364k first prize.
Tourney director Matt Savage and his team are chronicling the action and results on the official LAPC blog.
… and other table games. If they move fast enough, they’ll be able to get cards in the air before Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile the state of Iowa thinks poker is booming, and though they already have legal poker there, they think it would be neato to have really big tournaments. And thus there is a new bill pending — and being pushed by the House Majority Leader — that would make room for more tables to accommodate big special poker events.
Their numbers and expectations however, may be a bit off:
“We have the people already playing poker in Iowa. We have a zillion poker players. Apparently, they’re just going someplace else to do it,” Hudson said.
It’s just my guess that the online poker/gambling lobby is gonna need some doctors who are experts on addiction in their pockets to counter medical opinions like these, who are warning about the extreme dangers of chasing straights and flush draws. I pity the kid whose parents actually take this advice.
I would treat finding gambling Web pages on your teen’s Internet history with the same concern as if you found a baggie with crystal meth in their drawer. I sure wouldn’t need a checklist to tell me the trouble has already begun and I have a crisis on my hands. I would have my kid face-to-face with a youth counselor with experience in dealing with this problem for at least four sessions, to find out how to turn this around
I’m just guessing the authors of this column weren’t following the 2010 PCA nor have they tried the new Rush Poker yet.
Tons os news stories to blow through … John Caldwell can now say definitively that it takes the work of three men to replace him. But the poker news keeps beating. On this week’s docket :
– everyone’s abuzz about Rush Poker. Full Tilt seems to have come up with a catch-on concept that makes no bones about feeding the addiction in a way that seemingly takes multitabling to a whole new dimension. But will Hevad Khan ever be able to play?
– the new WSOP hygeine rule. Yuck. But does it affect strategy?
– and the Heartland Poker Tour flies in to town to pit Vegas locals against “heartland” tourists, bringing more action to Red Rock than Station Casinos coulda anticipated. My personal poker dreams re-crushed.
The Poker Beat
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NOTE: I plea the 5th against allegations that I may have been podcasting while intoxicated.
Bill Rini has some screenshots (that America-based interneters can’t see.) And some good analysis of what this means for the online poker landscape in coming years.
The thread-weavers at Ksino.com have taken on the monumentalt ask of transforming dumpy online poker players into stylin’ success stories who can hit the Vegas clubs without getting punched in the face. Meet Andrew Robl, Antonio Esfandiari, Brian Rast … and the heavily armed Dan Blizarian.Then join Lacey Jones at Ari’s Engel’s training center (”home of The Maven VT”) — essentially a dormitory for poker students who some day hope to live in Panorama Towers:
Dude up like a rich computer geek
who lives next door to strippers at Ksino.com
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