Not many details at the moment, but Mark Seif noted on his blog tonight on the passing of veteran pro Amir Vahedi. Most people may recognize him for his 6th place finish at the 2003 WSOP final table, he earned over $3,000,000 in tournament action. More details as they become available.
Tuesday night’s WSOP Main Event episode featured Norman Chad stating one sentence about the Ultimate Bet scandals as Phil Hellmuth and Todd “Dan Druff” Witteles were at the same feature table. Michalski noted in the comments, Mark originally “broke his silence” regarding the Absolute Poker scandal over at Raw Vegas back in 2007.
Watch The Toke – Absolute Poker’s Mark Seif on RawVegas.tv
In response to some of Seif’s comments, Todd “Dan Druff” Witteles offered a response on RawVegas.tv a few days later.
Mark breaks his silence to briefly discuss the Absolute Poker/UB Scandals (about 13:00 into the show):
Mark also discusses the scandal on ESPN.com’s Poker Edge podcast (starting at around 11:00), also available on Itunes.
Here’s tonight’s action in brief:
Four left in $2k NL on ESPN360: 4 left, currently on dinner break until 9:40pm Anthony Harb and Peter Rho chip leaders.
Nine left in $10k Mixed Event: Doyle out 13th, Scott Dorin leader, Huck Seed 2nd, Todd Brunson 9th
81 left in $2.5k NL holdem, Alex Keating chip leader.
39 left in $2.5k Limit holdem 6-max, 36 get paid. Shawn Buchanan chip leader.
366 return from dinner break in $5k NL, starting field was 655, down about 80 from last year.
359 entries in 1.5k 7 Card Stud, Mark Seif and Tom Schneider among very early chip leaders.
More updates at www.worldseriesofpoker.com and Pokerati (maybe) during the evening.
Much to say about the WSOP Academy I attended last weekend at Caesar’s … about things I learned, how I performed, and, frankly, what kinda people are shelling out close to $2,000 for anything these days. For some of the 50-or-so poker players in attendance it was just a matter of a buy-in or two for the level they play at. And for others, it was more than half their annual poker budget in a way that doesn’t even account for flights to Las Vegas from Australia or Buffalo.
All in all it was a great class taught by Mark Seif, Mark Gregorich, Alex Outhred, and Michael Gracz — very engaging, informative, and often irreverent — didn’t feel like Saturday/Sunday detention at all. I lost pretty big in the one session of $1/$2 NL I’ve played since WSOP-Acad graduation … I guess they shoulda reminded us to take a nap after class, or they can only do so much with a guy who insists on misplaying KQ generally 8 out of 10 times. (Ah, the painful, humiliating schoolchild memories …) If I could just misplay the hand 4 out of 10 times, that would be some serious positive EV, saving me the theoretical cost of tuition in just a few orbits!
BTW, the next WSOP Academy is at WinStar, February 21-22 — a poker room near and dear to so many Texas player and longtime Pokeratizens. Outhred and Gracz will be part of the Thackerville faculty, along with Greg Raymer and Master Mindset (?) coach Sam Chauhan.
Click here for more info … and really, you should totally think about signing up. Your Pokerati-friendly friends will feed you and everything.
As we can tell from a flurry of new comments on an old post, apparently the creator of the Poker Bowl, John Nightingale, is up to his old plausibly criminal heretofore legally uncontested shenanigans … as some fantasy sports players are feeling a little ripped off, kinda like cash-finishers in the Poker Bowl did until the Nevada Gaming Commission held the Palms’ feet to the fire and made the host venue pay up.
Supposedly all was going to be rectified and the event resurrected under new management … and then we didn’t hear from them for a while — televised poker is hard. But as Mathers points out, there’s a new video from October showing what a fun, different, crazy-but-still-true-pokery tournament the Poker Bowl really was, or could have been. You get to see Lacey Jones doing her thing, Mark Seif (and a happily drinky Scotty Nguyen) wearing an Absolute Poker uniform, and lots of moaning and dancing. Fun video. No audio though … gee, televised poker is hard … (or at least good televised poker apparently is).
Supposedly we’ll be seeing the PB (again) in 2009. But that was posted in October, right around the time financial realities were becoming uber-clear to potential backers, so … we’ll have to see if the Poker Bowl can live up to its promise. Meanwhile, the original creator of the event seems to have nothing to do with it — he’s busy taking in a few months worth of upper-middle-class living expenses while fantasy sports players screams “rip-off!”
Good times.
Reminded via a Tiffany Michelle MySpace status update — “Excited about the Cereus launch this week!”:
The player pools, tables, tourneys, etc. from Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet magically merge today.
Trying to keep an open mind … because theoretically it is possible that the combination of two sites caught in the biggest cheating scandals in the nascent history of the online poker industry — having learned painful lessons firsthand — could become a paragon of integrity and security, a model for fully legal American online poker in the future.
But I just can’t help to think back to the Dallas underground … when a saturated market had rooms and games beginning to merge, two shady operators joining forces seldom led to anything good (save for some pretty juicy opening-weekend tourneys).
That’s my bias, I suppose … but with that in the back of my mind, I can’t help but think of how one of these sites seemed rotten at the core (with the exception of Mark Seif, I’ve yet to hear any former employee say anything good about Absolute), and the other … well, sure, they’ve changed management and have plenty of good peeps working for them (Annie Duke, Phil Hellmuth, Mean Gene, et al.) … but the top of the pyramid hasn’t really changed as far as we can tell. And with all due respect to those who are just trying to throw good poker times … the mysterious, closely-guarded nature of Tokwiro+Kahnawake+UB+Chief Joe operating on the protected lands of the Mohawk Nation (with offices in Costa Rica) … that’s the definition of shady! Sorry, it just is.
Still, with $22 million in refunds, the action’s gotta be good.
Compared to some of the marathon WPT final tables, it probably seemed like it took only ten minutes to complete the final table of the WPT Borgata Poker Open. Vivek Rajkumar did, however, win the title in only 48 hands, beating the previous record of 53 hands set by Eugene Katchalov at the December 2007 Bellagio Five Diamond.
Vivek was surrounded by his group of internet young-gunnish friends like Gobboboy and Devo, and the support probably didn’t hurt as he came to the table as the chip leader and went into heads-up play with a massive 16.8 million to 3.9 million lead over Sang Kim. That HU part of the event took only one hand, and Vivek was the latest to win a WPT title. Oh, and he won $1,424,500 to get a good haircut go along with the bracelet and the victory.
The final table results were as follows:
6th place: Andrew Knee ($237,500)
5th place: Mark Seif ($287,500)
4th place: Jason Strochak ($337,500)
3rd place: Dan Heimiller ($387,500)
2nd place: Sang Kim ($750,000)
1st place: Vivek Rajkumar ($1,424,500)
Photo courtesy of World Poker Tour, where WPT Live Updates detailed all of the final table action.
Yeah, it’s about as exciting as the title of this post.
Some kidding aside, maybe a tournament with only 373 players is a bit of a downer from the massive tournaments at the WSOP this summer. And it should be noted that last year’s attendance at the WPT Legends main event was 485, which makes for a pretty significant drop-off in just one year. Sure, there were a few players who are on their way to Macau for the APT and APPT but not enough to make up the difference. Maybe people are just flat-ass broke from the WSOP.
The vibe at the Bicycle Casino was a positive one, though, as the big names rolled in and seemed genuinely happy to see each other. As Bryan Devonshire said, “It’s like a class reunion!” Most players seemed in good spirits, but more due to the juicy cash games going on at Commerce and possibly Hustler casinos. Freddy Deeb told me that the games were so good at Commerce that he’s been in L.A. for three weeks playing them and hesitated to even come over to the Bike for Legends. (He busted on Day 2 and was excited to get back to his deuce-to-seven single draw game.)
Going into Day 3 today, Adam Weinraub leads the pack of 79 players, after also leading after Day 1A. The name might sound familiar, as he took down the WPT Invitational two years ago at Commerce. He owns a company here in Orange County so doesn’t play on the circuit regularly, but he does like to get in a tournament in L.A. or Vegas when he can. And, I must say, that he is a fantastically friendly and humble guy. Go Adam!
Other big names in the top ten today include Matt Keikoan, Max Pescatori, Mark Seif, and Marco Johnson. Players will hit the money today – top 36 players get paid – and they should be down to 27 by the end of the night.
What’s doing tonight at the WSOP while I welcome Tuscaloosa Johnny to the Pokerati fold:
The $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha Eight or Better event is down to it’s last 3 with Casey Kastle, Martin Klaser, and Michael Fetter remaining. Kastle currently holds the chip lead, Erik Seidel was eliminated in 4th in his attempt at winning his 9th bracelet.
The $5,000 NL Holdem 6-handed event have returned from their dinner break with 280 out of a starting field of 805 to return. Notable names near the top include Alex Jacob, Mark Vos, Gavin Griffin, and Hevad Khan.
Other tournament action is available by clicking on the more thingy:
They’re into the money in the $25k WPT World Championship Event. Every remaining player is guaranteed $39,570 (a $14.5k payday) while they compete for the $3.4 million first prize.
As of this moment, there are 85 players left — Anna Wroblewski just went out … she was looking strong all tourney long. Our best friend Tom Schneider is still alive with a slightly above average stack. (Notice he’s our best friend as opposed to just a friend or Pokerati contributor now that he’s secured the money. If he can make the final table, he’ll be our super-best-very-best friend … and I’m sure that’s what’s motivating him.)
Other names of note (to me) that are still live include Carlos Mortenson (defending champ), Rhynie Campbell (met him last night, he seems funny and cool), Mark Seif (who’s been keeping people posted about the condition of his wife’s cervix), Isabelle Mercier and Kristy Gazes (attractive women), Jared Hamby (Go Texas!), Tommy Le (one of my MySpace friends with a really cool name), Steve and Danny Wong (Go 2007 Fantasy Team!), and TJ Cloutier (Go same Dallas flight!)
In one corner, we have Mark Seif. He is an attorney and poker pro sponsored by Absolute Poker. His silence at the beginning of the recent AP scandal was viewed as suspicious by many online players, though he did speak with Pokerati nearly two weeks ago to express his concern over the situation. He then sat down with the Raw Vegas crew and made a statement, including some harsh words about Dan Druff, one of the players who has been investigating the cheating allegations.
In the other corner, we have Dan Druff, who is really Todd Witteles, an online poker pro who is part of the NeverWin Poker team. He met with Raw Vegas to record his rebuttal, saying that he has never accused Seif of anything, only presented the facts and asked that Seif come clean about his involvement or lack thereof.
So, who is the winner in this round? Could it be that this is only the beginning and the gloves haven’t come off yet?
As feces continue to fly about the fan, Absolute Poker has agreed to a third-party investigation by a supposedly independent agency, Gaming Associates.
Mark Seif, a former attorney with a stake in AP has taken on the role as spokesperson on his “blog” at Bluff, and a few days ago announced that Absolute was conducting its own audit in an attempt to reassure players that there was nothing to fear:
Specifically, Absolute Poker’s internal investigation determined that it is impossible for any person, device, program, script or other means to see hole cards.
See, right there, we know that’s not true. Because obviously the computer randomizing/dealing the cards knows … which is how they can send hand histories to each individual player. C’mon, AP … try again. While personally I may be reserving judgment until at least a little more evidence comes out, it ain’t looking pretty. The phrases being uttered (and not) by Absolute Poker remind me of the Catholic Church denying child sex abuse in the mid-’90s. Not to put online poker on par with priestly pedophilia, but as is often the case in “damage control” amid scandal, attempts to cover-up, redirect, and deny may work for a little bit, but can prove costly in the long run. As to corporate CYA, the general public has become quite adept at seeing through that sorta doublespeak, and poker players will eventually take their addiction dollars elsewhere! [/soapbox]
I wonder if anyone playing (or observing) on Absolute has had their chat privileges suspended or blocked for providing warnings to players. That would be really interesting to know.
While the WPT has been lounging working to host a tournament in Turks & Caicos this past week, they’ve also been documenting some prop bets through the live updates and video updates.
Side note: Kimberly Lansing has been in better form during this tournament – no rapping or other embarrassing less-than-professional antics. And so far, Layla Kayleigh has stayed away from the video camera and Kimberly while she’s schmoozing flirting working.
The prop bets, while common amongst poker players, are normally silly but not life-threatening… until now. Sean McCabe willing to pal around with sharks, even entice them with “chum” to increase the danger level, is swimming in the danger zone. I think they’ve gone too far.
The first big bet recorded (thanks to BJ Nemeth) in Turks took place yesterday, during a day off before the WPT final table. Matt Gianetti, a player from Austin, TX, took a $15k bet that was based on being able to stand in the deep end of the pool for 12 straight hours. He came out severely pruned but alive and well. No harm, no foul.
The second bet didn’t take place… yet. But the details of it are a bit disturbing. Mark Seif challenged Sean McCabe to stand shoulder-deep in the ocean for 24 hours. The bet was supposed to be for $100,000, but after discussing the risk of sharks and other dangerous ocean creatures, Mark was willing to place odds at 2-1 if he could toss blood and fish guts in the water surrounding Sean. Sean claimed to have the upper hand as a certified rescue diver, but they were arranging for a local doctor to be on call during the bet because of the dangers of the situation.
The bet actually fell apart because Mark finally became concerned about the safety issues involved, though Sean claims he is willing to take the bet if someone will put up the money.
Boys, boys, boys. Putting lives in danger? I understand the appeal of the money, but are these guys so hungry for action that they’ll step over that line? I may sound like their mother telling them not to run with those scissors, but someone is going to come close to death (or actually die) in one of these prop bets, and then they’ll be sorry.
