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.

After crowning a new World Champion last week, it would be a bit difficult to generate as much excitement for this week. But once you’ve embraced young Mr. Duhamel and memorized the Canadian National Anthem, buck up because the tournament circuit never sleeps.

Some of the best players in the world converged on Southeast Asia and Los Angeles, with multiple events in each locale, but that wasn’t all that happened this week.

APPT Macau (Macau)

18-year-old Zhang Dan Peng, playing in his first ever live tournament, defeated a field of 161 that included the likes of Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan and John Juanda, amongst others. Peng took home HK$1.67 million, about $215,000, for his victory. He is the first Chinese player to win the APT Macau. [PokerListings]

The biggest story to come out of Macau was what Ivey and Dwan were doing after they exited the tournament. They sat down at the cash tables with some wealthy Chinese businessmen, and according to Matt Savage there was at least $5 million on the table at the game’s peak. [BetFair]

WSOP Circuit Biloxi (Biloxi, Mississippi)

The newly reimagined WSOP Circuit continues to bounce around the country at a blistering pace. The latest stop saw the Circuit head to Biloxi, with the $1,500 Main Event pulling in an impressive 270 runners. Travis Lutes was the last man standing, taking home $95,000 and a coveted seat in the upcoming WSOPC $1 million freeroll at Caesers. [PokerNews]

Isle Open Poker Championship (Pompano Beach, Florida)

The latest poker gold rush in the United States has to be going down in Florida, where recent changes to the law have allowed games to explode at dog tracks and casinos throughout the state. They didn’t even need the name power of a major tour to draw 198 players to their $2,000 main event. Ayaz Mahmood, who won a bracelet at this year’s WSOP, made the final table and finished 7th, and Matt Ezrol found himself $100,000 richer following his win. [Cardplayer]

APPT Cebu (Cebu, Philippines)

232 players who started action less than a week ago are now down to just nine. Kim Gap Young of Korea is the chip leader heading into this final table, where they’ll be vying for PHP 5,810,000 for first place money. Action should be resuming shortly, so follow all of the action via the link just to the right of this sentence. [PokerStars Blog]

LA Poker Open (Los Angeles, California)

It’s often said that you can’t get something for nothing, but in this case you can come pretty close. The Commerce Casino has developed a tournament system with small buy-ins and several opportunities to re-enter that have generated massive prize pools. The LA Poker Open is no exception, as a $220 and a $125 event each crowned $100,00 winners, Vinh Duong and Peter Hengsakul respectively. The two tournaments had a combined prize pool of over $825,000. [Commerce Casino]

NAPT Los Angeles (Los Angeles, California)

81 players are still standing in this one. Check out Mark Gahagan’s update for chip counts and notables that are still in contention.

There was some big news from the side events at this event, as early this morning Jess Welman chopped the Ladies’ event for $3,000. This continues an incredible run in live events this year, including a cash in the WSOP Women’s event and a final table appearance in Event #1 of the Detox Poker Series, which was a freeroll following a win in a media freeroll. She also finished second in the recent Foxwoods media freeroll.

Perhaps spending all of her time covering the poker circuit has rubbed off on her, and it is clearly time for her to consider going pro. In fact, just working for her at the WSOP this summer seems to have rubbed off on yours truly, as this past Friday night I won $3,700 in a $2 Rush rebuy tournament on FullTilt.

In Other News…

Recent Hall of Fame inductee Dan Harrington finished fifth in the appropriately named $1,000 Poker Hall of Fame event at the Caesers Classic… Check out this fantastic piece by Short-Stacked Shamus following up on the Cannes cheating scandal that gives some insight into the presence of poker media at live events.

In the Online World…

The biggest news in the online world is centered around FullTilt, as they finally followed the lead of PokerStars and headed out of Washington. It’s not all bad though as the latest round of FTOPS is well underway, with over $19 million in prize guarantees.

World Team Poker is the next “big event” in Las Vegas … gets underway at the Golden Nugget with a party tonight (of course) and cards in the air on Wednesday. The WTP will be the third big-dollar, made-for-TV attempt to bring team poker to Las Vegas (fourth if you include one that was canceled the weekend of) … and like all the rest, as the WTP teams came together, the usual on-camera stars lined up to get their airtime register. We can tell there is a definitive desire for team poker somewhere — why else would the pros keep showing up? — and everyone who ever plays in these events reports having an absolute blast. But for some reason or another, they often tend to falter.

Will the WTP be a matter of someone finally getting it right, or is there something inherent to the game itself that makes team tournament poker a concept that just can’t stick?

More…

They’re in the money (and just waking up for Day 3 right now) at the APPT Main Event in Macau, and sure enough, Season 3 saw a record number of entrants and prize pool. 429 players, $2.1mm prize pool, $540k first prize. Click here to follow the action.

This comes on the heels of the APT Main Event in Macau earlier this month, which saw 326 players and $1.4mm prize pool, up from 257 last year.

(All figures in US$, though buy-ins and payouts were in HK$.)

Business Week has taken note:
In Macao, Betting on a Poker Boom

Despite a slow start for Macao casinos as a whole, the article points out that new poker rooms are opening almost monthly in the Phillipines, and:

The poker industry seems to recognize the potential for further growth, both for land-based as well as online poker operators. But significant entry barriers remain. One of the biggest: Online gaming is illegal in most Asian countries, making it difficult to show poker tournaments on TV to popularize the game. The Philippines, for instance, has become the fastest-growing poker nation in Asia with about 18 poker rooms around the country, thanks in part to TV broadcasts.

BTW, for those wondering … the APPT (Asia-Pacific Poker Tour) is the PokerStars-sponsored series, modeled after the EPT. The APT (Asian Poker Tour) is an independent operation, hosted by Matt Savage and assisted by a consortium of online sites, including bwin, PartyPoker, PKR, Titan, JBet, Winamax, Chilipoker, and a new-to-me Chinese site called Dafapoker (which I have since learned is an 888 operation).