Ryan Stevenson
Photo: WSOP.com

Today’s Boxscore

Ryan Stevenson $204,795 – WSOP-C Tunica Main Event
Mervin Chan AU$1,600,000 – Aussie Millions Main Event

The poker world is done for now on one continent and immediately hops over to another one. Mervin Chan was the big winner in the 2013 Aussie Millions Main Event for a nice AU$1.6 million payout after knocking out popular (and fan girl favorite) Patrik Antonius in 3rd place. The field was down a bit from last year but that might have been due to the NHUPC and the smaller buy-in, much closer WSOP-C in Tunica.

While the Aussie Million Main Event attendance was down, the Tunica WSOP-C event drew a devilish 666 players for an uptick from last year. Ryan Stevenson dominated the final table by taking out every player from 6th place on down to win the title, collect over $200,000, and a seat in the National Championship.

The WSOP Circuit isn’t taking any time off as their next series is already underway in South Africa. It will be interesting to see what big names make the trip after spending a few weeks Down Under. The African circuit event will also have to compete with the popular EPT Deauville Main Event which drew 782 players.

Link Dump

Tweet of the Day – Poor poor Matty, always the victim. Except for win he’s set his phasers to blast and off his meds.

People talk about me, make songs about me, + form false opinions about me, b/c I actually matter to them, and you don’t. The truth hurts!

— Matthew Marafioti (@Adzizzy) February 5, 2013

I love people. I am extremely affected by how much hate + negativity I have received for things that aren’t even true about me. #IWorkSoHard

— Matthew Marafioti (@Adzizzy) February 5, 2013

Nuts: Hot start to ’13 for Selbst, Seiver – ESPN’s Andrew Feldman back with his monthly look at the top players in the game with some of your favorite poker beat writers. I’m a little surprised to see Hellmuth down in the #2 spot but Selbst is also worthy.

The WTO Loads Antigua’s Slingshot – Who knew this little battle was still going on between the U.S. and Antigua. The WTO ruled in Antigua’s favor and now the little Caribbean island is looking to make big noise.

State suspends licenses at several poker rooms – Michigan’s biggest poker room was among those closed after problems with them following charity regulations.

3 young Oklahoma City children left in car while dad played poker, police say – Meanwhile in Oklahoma, a moronic video poker player. No word on WhoJedi and his Caveman Keno addiction.

EPT9 Deauville: Here’s your f***in’ tour! – God bless Kristy Arnett’s little heart.

Sam Trickett
Photo: PokerNews.com

Today’s Boxscore

Sam Trickett AU$2,000,000 – Aussie Million $250k Challenge
Andy Hwang $730,053 – Borgata Winter Poker Open Main Event

Sam Trickett is the next champion in Melbourne when he won the Aussie Millions $250,000 Challenge. One of the biggest buy-in tournaments around drew a tough two table sit-n-go with 18 players and a long $500k bubble. Trickett defeated Tobias Reinkemeier heads up for the title and $2,000,000 in Australian cash. This adds to his already impressive career totals but his first tournament cash since the end of end of August. The Aussie Millions Main Event final table will play down to a winner on Saturday with Dan Shak coming in as chipleader.

Andy Hwang is the latest WPT championship after winning the Borgata Winter Poker Open, which well surpassed the $2,000,000 guarantee with 1,042 entrants. Hwang began final table play with a decent chip lead but pulled away as play extended through the afternoon. Fan favorite Matt Salsberg was unable to capture his second WPT title of the season when he was eliminated in 6th place. Next stops for the World Poker Tour are the Seminole Hard Rock in Florida, WPT Vienna, and the massive LA Poker Classic.

Link Dump

Tweet of the Day – A lot of well deserved barbs as Team Phil Ivey keeps naming new pro for Ivey Poker with little in the way of information about what Ivey Poker really will be, Calvin Ayre with my new favorite. For the record, I like Christina Lindley (especially since she thought I was Kevmath for 2 years) and she’s the next addition to the team.

Is #IveyPoker just #PhilIvey‘s way of getting 37 pros to attend his 37th birthday party? bit.ly/UKAo8u

— Calvin Ayre (@CalvinAyre) February 1, 2013

Poker Players Alliance Pessimistic About New Jersey Internet Gambling Bill – One week to go before a decision will be made and John Pappas is skeptical about the Jersey Bill getting signed.

Online Gaming Bill To Be Introduced In Pennsylvania – Yet another state trying their hand at an online gaming bill. As a resident of the Keystone State, I’m surprised if those chuckleheads in the state government can find their way to the capital without getting lost a dozen times. No chance.

Nate Silver and his five life lessons learnt from poker – Nate Silver is back in the news but this time for a little question and answer down in Australia, not for picking the next leader of the free world.

Williamsburg Douchebag Places Craiglist Ad Seeking, Ahem, Entertainment During Poker Game – The title of the article caught my attention, I stayed for the outrage.

Calling the Clock: Patrik Antonius – Fun Patrik Antonius interview with Lynn Gilmartin from PokerNews.

Pokerati Special: Save 35%!
Book by February 3rd for travel between now and Aug. 31, 2013

Mike Matusow
Photo: CardPlayer.com

Today’s Boxscore

Mike Matusow $750,000 – National Heads-Up Poker Championship
Andrew Robl $1,000,000 – Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge

The National Heads-Up Poker Championship final was like a flashback to the olden days* with a practically made-for-TV final match between Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow. The two of them advanced to the final after defeating Scott Seiver and Joe “Don’t call me Sebok” Serock. Many questioned the Matusow invitation but he showed some of his old form when he earned his victory. He hit a nice little naked flush draw to defeat the 13-time WSOP champion Hellmuth. This is the 3rd biggest cash of Matusow’s career after his $1,000,000 hits for the 2005 WSOP Main Event final table and Tournament of Champions victory.

On the other side of the planet, the Aussie Millions Main Event is underway but not before Andrew Robl beat a small but extremely talented field in the $100,000 Challenge to earn a cool million. The tournament was of the re-entry variety but of the 21 players, Robl was the only one to take advantage of the option and it worked out successfully. Igor Kurganov (2nd), Masa Kagawa (3rd), and Dan Shak (4th) were the other three who cashed in the even.

* – Not really that long ago, but it feels like a generation ago

Link Dump

Tweet of the Day – Two up this time, both from Matusow after his NHUPC win.

Im laying here in bed overcome with emotion truly wondering if me and hellmuth have changed the game of poker for Americans on tv once again

— Mike Matusow (@themouthmatusow) January 27, 2013

I cant stop laughing when I see a cardplayer quote that says hellmuth having trouble sleeping after loss to me! #lolololweeeee

— Mike Matusow (@themouthmatusow) January 29, 2013

Poker Players Alliance chief meets with NJ Governor Christie aide in Trenton – John Pappas met with Christie on Tuesday afternoon to make a push for the online gaming bill currently awaiting his decision or indecision.

Investor urges IGT to rethink online gaming move – Not everybody with stock in International Gaming Technology is into their direction with online gaming. Someone is getting twitchy.

Addiction soars as online gambling hits £2bn mark – Oh no, the sky is falling and there is another article out about the vast sea of gambling addicts. This one over in the U.K. where apparently every dollar spent gambling is by an addict.

Mississippi Online Gambling Effort Resurrected – Another giving it another shot to get into the online gaming business, but things don’t look too peachy for the prospect of it happening in Mississippi.

2013 Aussie Millions: Welcome Party – The crack video team at PokerNews caught up with a few stars at the Aussie Millions Welcome Party.

There’s a muffin waiting for me at the end of this article. Yes, I have stooped so low as to require sugary bribes for motivation. Not an English muffin, either. Those are no good for inducement. Only the sickly American variety has the requisite density of glucose and cocoa.

There we go. Not one paragraph in and I’m already enjoying a new vitality. The chocolate macguffin remains wrapped in its brown paper bag and yet I’ve remembered what it is I love about writing. Sometimes we just need a little encouragement. Well, now that I’ve dealt with that personal crisis, pull yourselves together and lets get on with the news.

The Aussie and the Ivey

Yes, that’s a Christmas pun. So what? I’m recycling. Besides, I’m sure plenty of us media types put a resurgent Phil Ivey in our letters to Santa. After finally emerging from a cash game in Macau hiding, Ivey arrived at the Aussie Millions to play in one of his first major events since Black Friday. As if to make everyone else look like rank amateurs, Ivey waltzed into his most profitable month of tournament poker. After tumbling out of the $100k event, Ivey won his buy-in back by finishing 12th in the Main Event and then grabbed another $2,000,000 for winning the 16-player $250k tournament. Some guy called Oliver Speidel won $1.6m in the Main Event, but his name does not rhyme with ‘cor blimey’ so nobody cared. [Wicked Chops]

The French Channel

The Frenchy bit of Canada and the part of the British Isles closest to France have enshrined a new era of cooperation. The duo have agreed to routinely share information and expertise relating to online gambling regulation. Ontarians don’t have anything to actually regulate yet, but plans are afoot for a province-wide service later this year.

A little to the Southwest of Alderney sits another British Crown Dependency. Back in 2008, Jersey announced that it was providing egaming licenses, just like its little brother Alderney. Their overtures had not attracted any big names until Playtech took the plunge earlier this week. It’s not exactly clear what Playtech will do with their new license, but my guess is that it has something to do with wagering money over the internet. [Gambling Kingz] & [iGaming Business]

Gaming Gongs

“Oh my god! Are you the Galaxy Macau Integrated Resort?! Winner of the 2012 International Gaming Award for Casino/Integrated Resort of the Year? Can I get your autograph?”

That’s the sort of attention the Galaxy Casino is going to have to put up with from now on. Crazy people asking buildings for autographs. Signature hunters will have better luck with Sam Trickett, who was announced as Player of the Year at the European Poker Awards. Other prizes went to Ilari Sahamies, Natalia Nikitina, and Bertrand Grospellier. [European Poker Awards] & [International Gaming Awards]

Poker’s Impending Loss

Finally, something very very sad. Thor Hansen, the doyen of Norwegian poker, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. A veteran of Vegas casinos, the 64-year-old has two WSOP bracelets to his name and more than a few friends in the poker community. Hansen will long be remembered as pivotal figure in the growth of the European game and an inspiration to the Norway’s new poker generation. [Card Player]

Nothing funny to say after that. See you next week.

Oh, hello. Fancy meeting you here. Have you been sitting patiently, waiting for this wandering reporter to return from his new year sabbatical? What’s that? You’ve been reading all the other posts on Pokerati. This site has other writers!? Well, while I’m recovering from that bombshell, why not take a good long look at this selection of worldwide poker news and see what you can make of it.

Millions of Aussies

Stereotyping Alert! I’m sorry about this. As an Englishman, I am legally required to bring up barbies, funny accents, and convicts any time anything Australian comes with 4 feet of me. It’s a bother, but what can you do. Those British pros down at the Aussie Millions must be having a torrid time, the place is crawling with them. Even the Canadian Daniel Negreanu is obsessed with their the eccentricities.

Thankfully the Aussie Millions Main Event is currently providing an excellent distraction. For example, despite the fact than an antipodean gentleman currently sits atop the Day 2 standings, the world’s loudest nation has been characteristically hogging the limelight. First up, American Dan Smith won the 22-man $100k High Roller event for $1,000,000. Then Phil Ivey, who can make headlines by just turning up, went and put himself second in the chip count at the end of Day 2. [Poker News Report]

Bwin Bust-Up in Porto

Enough of that Southern Hemisphere nonsense, time to head back to Europe. More specifically to Portugal, the land of cocks. Their government has bowed to pressure from local casino operators and decreed that Bwin’s sponsorship of Portuguese football is illegal. The ruling stems from the fact that, as an external operator, bwin.party are subject to no regulations and pay no taxes in Portugal.

Bwin claim that the ruling contravenes EU free-trade laws, but have agreed to acquiesce to the command for now. As lucrative as Portuguese sports sponsorship is, panic may break out if the same idea occurs across the border in Spain. Bwin are the shirt-sponsors of Real Madrid, arguably the most popular soccer team in the world. [Card Player]

Bet Fairly at London 2012

If I leave my flat, wander out on to the street, and look to the North East, I can see the Olympic Stadium glowering above the rooftops. I’ve spent the last two years watching it progress through various stages of construction and with the big event just a few months away, other spheres of Olympic influence are making their final preparations. In the online gambling world, Betfair have teamed up with the International Olympic Committee to monitor suspicious betting activity which might indicate a rigged event. [USA Today]

South Korean Supercasino

The unfurling success story that is Macau is bound to inspire many imitators. First in line are South Korea, who plan to build a $3 billion dollar casino resort right next to their busiest airport. The Incheon International Airport Corp. hopes to shamelessly pray upon frazzled businessmen staggering out of long haul flights, by ushering them into land of flashing lights, comfy beds, and empty wallets. Hey, if it worked for China, it can work for you! [Yahoo]

Team Poker at the Pleasure Beach

And finally, a British city most famous for its tower is hosting a cool team poker event. With backing from lovely poker gent Neil Channing, the Team Poker Tour UK allows Brits to compete in small teams, with the top 3 aggregate squads taking the biggest chunk of the prize pool. It’s worth noting that Dan emailed me to specifically to flag this up and I really can’t figure out why he’s so interested. [Team Poker Tour UK]

I’m going to do my best to stay put from now on, so look forward to your regular dose of Wider World next week. Until then, do whatever the nurse tells you to and everything will be just fine.

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

Aussie Millions (Melbourne, Australia)

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

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

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

WPT Southern Poker Championship (Biloxi, Mississippi)

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

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

EPT Deauville (Deauville, France)

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

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

India Poker Series (Goa, India

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

LA Poker Classic (Commerce, California)

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

Borgata Winter Poker Open (Atlantic City, New Jersey)

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

Photos courtesy of PokerStarsBlog.com & WPT.com

Sorry for the delay folks, but, to put it simply, the amount of alcohol I had to intake to overcome the New York Jets’ loss on Sunday was probably enough to give even AlCantHang a hangover. But back to business, as Katkin pointed out below, there’s quite a bit of poker going on in the world right now.

Robert Frost once wrote about two roads diverging in a wood, but poker players had a much tougher choice, as the paths from the PCA branched out all over the world. Los Angeles, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and even Australia are the hosts to this week’s tournament schedule.

Aussie Millions (Melbourne, Australia)

It’s become an annual tradition for all of the Full Tilt sponsored players (and a few other big names as well) to head down under following the PCA. There’s another $100,000 event, the $10K Aussie Millions, and, new to this year’s event, a $250,000 single table tournament, with a winner-take-all first prize of $2 million.

The Main Event is just getting underway, but there’s already been plenty of action at the Aussie Millions. Their $100K event drew 38 players, and likely would have drawn a bigger crowd had members of Team PokerStars participated, but they made it a point to boycott this event in retaliation after no FullTilt players participated in the PCA $100k. This isn’t really the space for this discussion, but between the $100K boycotting and the head-to-head late night poker shows, it will be interesting to see how far this issue may go.

Getting back to the event at hand, the final table of six featured David Benyamine and Erik Seidel, amongst others. When the dust had settled, Sam Trickett had captured the title and the $AUD 1.525 million first place prize, beating out Englishman (and Brighton & Hove Albion football club chairman) Tony Bloom heads-up. [PokerNews]

WSOP Circuit – Choctaw (Durant, Oklahoma)

One of the stops that was added to the initial WSOP Circuit schedule was this one, in Durant, Oklahoma. It’s about an hour outside of the greater-Dallas area, so it was going to be very interesting to see just how many players would make the trip up for their $1,600 Main Event, and they certainly did not disappoint. 808 players generated a prize pool of almost $1.2 million, with a first place prize of $232,706.

Among the 81 players who cashed in this event were a Main Event winner (Berry Johnston), a runner-up (TJ Cloutier), and perhaps in the most interesting story, one other former Main Event final tablist in Richard Lee. Lee, who is from San Antonio, Texas, largely dropped out of the public eye after his Main Event finish in 2006, but had a very public incident in which he was charged with running an illegal gambling ring back in 2007. He did not spend any time in jail but gave up $2.2 million in a plea deal.

With a spot in the National Championship Freeroll on the line for just the winner in this event, there was even more value to be had for the winner. That lucky man was Huy (pronounced Wee) Nguyen, who defeated Traci Brown heads-up for the ring and the freeroll entry (and the cash, of course). In an interesting twist, the heads-up match was a real live Red River shootout, as Brown (who finished 12th in this year’s WSOP Ladies’ event) is from Austin, Texas while Nguyen hails from Norman, Oklahoma. No word on whether the crowd had more red or burnt orange. [WSOP]

LA Poker Classic (Commerce, California)

Likely the longest continuous poker series outside of the World Series of Poker, the month-and-a-half spectacle that is the LAPC is one of the most popular stops of the year. Because of its proximity to Los Angeles and Las Vegas, two of the most poker player populated places in the world, they draw quite a crowd for most of their events. As someone who has spent some time playing these events, you’ll inevitably find yourself at a table with JC Tran or Thor Hansen if you’re there long enough.

The initial event this year, the brainchild of Matt Savage, was a $300 tournament with $1 million guaranteed in the prize pool and $250,000 guaranteed to the winner. This was accomplished in large part to the 4 starting days and the opportunity to re-enter each day if you did not survive through the previous one.

California native Cory Nistler was the last man standing, taking home the quarter of a million dollar first prize as well as one of the craziest looking trophies you’ll ever see. [LAPC]

Elsewhere…

Action is underway at the WPT’s latest stop, the Southern Poker Championship in Biloxi, Mississippi, while the Borgata in Atlantic City is hosting the Winter Poker Open… After the performance of the brothers’ Mizrachi in this past year’s WSOP Main Event, we knew poker talent had to run in the family. Now we know which side, as Susan “MommaGrinder” Mizrachi Laufer took down over $4,000 for winning a tournament on Full Tilt Poker this past week.

Episode 34
Rabbit Hunt is back and its an all-news podcast this week. Spartanfox and Tyresias discuss Russ Hamilton’s blowup in Florida, the $100k Challenge at the Aussie Million, Annie Duke and Jeffrey Pollack’s new poker tour, and more!
[audio:http://cardrunner.securehttp.internapcdn.net/secure_cardrunner_vitalstream_com/rabbithunt012411.mp3?token=SPGpmqK206vQwyOH]

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. .

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:

Players are flocking to Poker’s Second City for that other, LA version of the WSOP, aka the LAPC. Early numbers look strong. Much more to come from this festival of poker tourneys to be sure:

Elsewhere around the world, the big action is going at the Borgata Winter Poker Open in Atlantic City, at EPT-Deauville in France, and the Aussie Millions in, er, Australia … where our favourite under-25 Betfair-blogging scrapper fought FTW in the $1k PLO event. @Annette_15’s inspirational tweet-story:

Dinner break in plo, avg 32k, got 20k. Lost half my stack with KxJxTs9s on KJs8sAx5x board lol. 30 something left, 16 paid. Start in 1h.

22 left. At avg

Got 50k. Avg 56. On the bubble now. 17 left. Good table

Itm yay

Final table :). 9 left. Cont. tomorrow at 4. Avg 100k. I got 150k. 40k for first. 1x?

One hour break. Got 550k i think. Didnt count. 4 left. Got over half the chips in play. Go me 🙂

yayyyyy i won!!!!

A nice little roadmap on how to move from the middle of the pack to the final table with the momentum it takes to go all the way, no? 40k AUD ($36.7 USk).

REMINDER: Today is Omaha day at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas. Playing 1/2, half no-limit hold’em, half PLO … w Run-it-2x. I like to think of this game as PLO with training wheels. Did you know sets aren’t necessarily all that good in Omaha?

Another fine tribute — from Pauly … with links to other fine tributes, and a video of Shronk taking on a Vegemite prop-bet at the Aussie Millions:

Pauly, btw, has been in Argentina for the LAPT, where he’s been huffing paint and engaging in bar fights. True story — at least half of it.

Hope so. January is packed with tournaments spanning the globe. But if you’re not traveling, you can still keep up with the main events via various websites and blogs.

• January 5, Bahamas: Where better for a tournament than a place called Paradise Island? The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) starts and ends with the main event, the final table of which will take place on the 10th. This is an 18-and-over tournament, so look out for the kiddies young, skilled online pros to turn out in force. Otis will be blogging from the event.

• January 5, Australia: A quick 14-hour flight or so away will be the Aussie Millions Poker Championship in Melbourne. This is a series that starts on the 5th with a $1,100 buy-in no-limit hold’em event, continues with a wide range of games and buy-ins (including the $100,000 no-limit event), and wraps up with the main event that begins on the 14th and runs for seven days. A plethora of reporters, including Dr. Pauly and Change100, will be covering it all for PokerNews.

• January 3, Tunica: The World Poker Open has already begun with its preliminary events at the Gold Strike Casino in Tunica, Mississippi. By the 20th, the main event will be underway and hosted by the World Poker Tour. Aaron Hendrix is there and will be providing daily coverage of all of the events for PokerWorks, and the WPT will be live blogging for the main event with BJ Nemeth at the helm.

• January 15, Atlantic City: The Borgata Winter Poker Open starts its preliminary events on the 15th, and the WPT main event (Borgata Poker Classic) begins on the 27th with a final table on the 31st. It doesn’t seem that any media outlet is covering the prelim events, but surely PokerListings will be there for the main event along with the WPT live bloggers.

While Todd is in Tunica, Clonie may or may not be hiding from him at the Aussie Millions. She must be really scared, too … because she has dyed her hair black. Apparently Goth is the new blonde bombshell Maxim cover trend something.

She appears about two thirds of the way through the video.

via Change100 via the Hendon Mob