Paul Klann, WPT LAPC Champion
Photo: LAPCNews.com/WhoJedi

Today’s Boxscore

Paul Klann $1,004,090 – 2013 WPT LA Poker Classic
Jonathan Tamayo $206,020 – WSOPC Palm Beach Kennel Club
Rodger Johnson $182,315 – 2013 LAPC High Roller
Jon Turner $27,750 – 2013 LAPC 6-Handed PLO with rebuys

The 2013 LA Poker Classic wrapped up it’s Main Event last night with Paul Klann overcoming a big chip deficit against Paul Vople. The WPT LAPC drew 517 entrants this year which is another annual drop, from 549 a year ago, at one of the biggest stops on the tour. Klann collected over $1,000,000 for the win which includes the WPT Championship buyin, but 7-digits is much prettier than 6.

Next big tournaments on the schedule include the popular WTP Bay101 Shooting Stars event, the WSOP-C series at Caesars in Atlantic City, and the always huge Heartland Poker Tour in Blackhawk, Colorado.

Link Dump

Tweet(s) of the Day – Not everybody is in love with the Commerce Casino, David Bach is isn’t the first or last player to comment on some of the shadier aspects of playing there. I still standby the breakfast burritos at the Cafe.

I say this with reservation: because of course there are plenty of honorable people in poker. But…. This Commerce Casino is the:

— david bach (@gunslingerbach) February 28, 2013

Scumbag capital of Poker. I cannot count how many angles and examples of dishonesty I have seen here in my 3 week stay. Just Disgusted.

— david bach (@gunslingerbach) February 28, 2013

Epic Anniversary – One year ago FS+G filed for bankruptcy killing Epic Poker along the way with a bunch of unpaid invoices (yours truly included). It’s still a touchy subject with some of us but Short-stacked Shamus has a nice recap. Check back to his site later for some of his article I published on the Epic website

A Look at Poker’s Falling Fortune in Las Vegas – The sky is falling, the sky is falling! It’s either that or the Vegas poker rooms are feeling the crunch of the online poker crackdown. We’ll see what happens when new players can be pulled in via online poker when it returns.

Team PokerStars v Team Full Tilt: Don’t Believe the Hype – Daniel Negreanu “called out” Gus Hansen, now there will be a HU battle in London. Not nearly the big brouhaha as it would have been prior to Black Friday and the PS/FTP buyout.

Pretty Broad Podcast – Three favorites from PokerNews (Kristy Arnett, Lynn Gilmartin, and Sarah Grant) started their own website PrettyBroad.com. It’s a fun concept from a fun group who get to travel to great places around the globe. Give them a look and listen to their first full podcast.

Have I just missed this timing connection for all these years? The LAPC and the WPT Celebrity Invitational coinciding with the Oscars? Hmm, it seems like good timing, especially when a few big names going deep are Tilly, DeNiro, and Salomon.

After a presumably successful near-WSOP-length run, the LAPC is coming to close … you know you’re finally at the “main event” whenever Jess & BJ arrive — even if we’re only talking about a $100k first prize. Regardless that’s when I start paying attention in just about all things WPT. Their show gives me about as much as I need, too, for coverage of this whole Oscars thing that seems to go down every year. (Couldn’t even tell you who won … but I think Charlie Sheen has been big buzz maybe?)

I don’t really consider myself as a critic of film criticism … but I do think we all can tell that BJ would really play to his strengths if he were doing red-carpet fashion critique and Jess stuck to sports.

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.

EPT London :: A UK record field of 848 players took part in the £5,000 Main Event, with 128 players making the money, as the winner earns £900,000. The leader after the two day 1’s have been played is Claudio Cecchi with 237,500 in chips. Other notables returning for day 2 at 12pm London time Friday: Barry Shulman – 129,200, Daniel Negreanu – 122,000, Phil Ivey 117,900, Joe Hachem 108,400, Greg Raymer – 105,200, Boris Becker – 94,700, John Juanda – 71,400 and Ivan Demidov – 65,000. Full chip counts for both days are available at PokerNews and the PokerStars blog as well as live updates.

LA Poker Open, Commerce Casino :: The latest tournament series at the Commerce Casino runs Nov. 3-21, running against the NAPT at the Bike. The LAPO’s main event is a $2,085 NL event, w/ re-entry and a $500,000 guarantee LA Poker Open schedule

The Tournament Trail

Partouche Poker Tour – Cannes – Vanessa Selbst, Fabrice Soulier, Soren Kongsgaard and Tobias Reinkemier among final tablists return November 6, first place prize €1,300,000 – Winamax.fr

Beau Rivage Gulf Coast Poker Championship, Biloxi, MS:: – Mark Rose wins $5,000 main event for $177,386, Chad Brown finishes 4th. – Results from the Hendon Mob

Commerce Holdem Series :: $120 NL w/ $100k to first, $300k prize pool starts today. More from Matt Savage:

PartyPoker World Poker Open – London :: Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Andrew Robl, and John Duthie among heat winners, final table on Friday. Party Poker Blog for updates

English Poker Open – London :: $1,000,000 guaranteed tournament starts Saturday at Palm Beach Casino, live streaming all weekend. English Poker Open

PokerStars UKIPT – Dublin :: Action gets underway Thursday afternoon – http://www.ukipt.com“PokerStars Blog

PokerStars WCOOP – First week of most successful online poker tournament series continues – WCOOP.com

Also …

Deliverance Poker sues Michael Mizrachi and Full Tilt for breach of contract – Cake Poker Blog

Intrastate online poker in California legislation reappears, passage by end of year? – EGR Magazine

Online poker coming to Indian casinos? – ATIG press release

Schedule finally announced for NAPT at the Bike in Los Angeles, will no TV coverage affect the field? – PokerStars Blog

WSOP Europe makes it’s appearance on crowded London poker calendar starting Tuesday – WSOPE Schedule

Finally, This Week in Poker w/ Scott Huff and Jess Welman:

While the PPA’s petition has already received more than 7000 signatures, including most of poker’s top professionals, the PPA is not letting up on the Commerce Casino for its vocal opposition to HR 2267. Responding to the Commerce’s response (to a response to a response?), the PPA points to the law as written and shows how most of the Commerce’s supposed concerns were addressed in amendments. The PPA wants players to see how California casinos are really making a protectionist money grab but trying to disguise it as a bold stand to protect poker players worldwide.

PPA Excutive Director John Pappas told PokerNews’ Matthew Kredell he will stop supporting Commerce events, but stopped short of calling for an all-out boycott:

“We didn’t think that was appropriate. Players will make that decision on their own. But you see the number of professional players who signed the letter. I know Commerce will be holding a lot of high-profile events in the future. Some pros might question whether to attend.”

Follow coverage of the PPA’s crusade to get Commerce officials to change their minds here. Meanwhile, the Commerce Hold’em Series gets underway today,

After a quiet period in the poker community, the tournament circuit has come back to life with a variety of tournaments spanning the world. Some highlights:

WPT Legends of Poker

Andrew Frankenberger defeated Kyle Wilson to take down the title at the Bike in LA, collecting $750,000 for the win. Notables who finished in the money: Former WPT Player of the Year Jonathan Little (12th), Allen Kessler (20th), Erica Schoenberg (30th), Joe Sebok (32nd), November Niner Soi Nguyen (34th) and Joe Hachem (43rd). Click here for results.

WPT London Poker Classic

Monday is day 1a of the first WPT event in the UK, with the £5,000 + £300 buy-in London Poker Classic at the Palm Beach Casino. Jack McLelland from the Bellagio is helping run the tournament, with registration remaining open until 1:30pm on Wednesday. Live updates available over at PartyPoker’s blog here.

EPT Villamoura

Day 2 of the PokerStars.net European Poker Tour stop in Portugal starting with 384 players, creating a prize pool of €1,862,400, with the winner collecting €467,835. Currently, less than 130 players remain, with the current chip leader is Grzegorz Cichocki of Poland with 312,000 in chips. Other notables still in the field: 2008 EPT Grand Final winner Pieter de Korver, Brandon Cantu, Liv Boeree, Sorel Mizzi, Lex Veldhuis, David Williams among many others. Follow the live updates and pictures of players enjoying the sun (as photography is banned inside the casino) at PokerStarsblog.com

WSOP Circuit – Council Bluffs

The first $1,500 Main Event of the WSOP Circuit started on Sunday with a field of 251 entries, creating a prize pool of $361,440, with the winner cashing in for $88,555 and entry into the $1,000,000 National Championship in May. Day 2 resumes today with 75 players playing down to the final table. Another way to earn a seat is to be the “Casino Champion” at each tour stop, to the player who earns the most points in the 10 WSOP-C ring events. To view the “unofficial” leaderboard after 8 events, check it out here. WSOP Circuit legend Dwyte Pilgrim won one of the many non-ring events that support the WSOP-C for a mid-four figure sum. For results so far check out the WSOP site and PokerPages for the non-ring results.

The River @ Winstar Casino

As noted in an earlier post, the Winstar Casino in Thackerville, OK is in the midst of their River $3,000,000 Guaranteed tournament series. What passes as results for Winstar is to show the points earned for those that make the final table, without stating how much each player received.

Gulf Coast Poker Championship – Beau Rivage

Another major series that got underway over the weekend is the Gulf Coast Poker Championship at Beau Rivage in Biloxi, Mississippi. Their main event takes place Sept. 4th with a $5,000 NL Holdem Main Event. Their schedule can be found on the beaurivage.com website here.

Commerce Holdem Series

Matt Savage returns Sept. 1st to the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles for the Commerce Holdem Series, featuring several guaranteed prize pools events as well as the $1,100 Ironman tournament. More details available here.

Partouche Poker Tour – Cannes

One major tournament that starts later in the week when the French Partouche Group of casinos have their Main Event in Cannes Sept. 2nd. The 8,500 Euro buy-in event has a 3,000,000 Euro guaranteed prize pool with 1,000,000 Euros guaranteed for first. Like the WSOP Main Event, their final table will be delayed, taking place in late October and aired live across Europe on the EuroSport network. I believe there’s also live streaming available (in French) during the tournament. Further details available on the PPT site.

Drama was out in full force this past week, with allegations of hypocrisy, cheating, and extortion exploding through the poker world, which was still feeling aftershocks from an Annie Duke/Daniel Negreanu feud that had reached new levels of nastiness after Negreanu’s aggressive C-bet. But the poker fight that really blew up late last week was between the Commerce Casino and PPA, and shows how heated political matters can get in a very short period of time.

Open letter from pros, PPA website target Commerce
Though Barney Frank’s online gambling bill made it out of committee last month relatively unscathed, one troublesome opponent came from the Commerce Casino in California. In an effort to squelch the impact of their dissent, the PPA sends its million-plus members word of an open letter to the Commerce (signed by a few dozen top-level pros) and launches PlayersBeforeProfits.com, making it easy for poker players to bombard the Commerce with tweets, emails, and phone calls voicing displeasure.

Commerce says PPA misguided, Frank bill will cost jobs and hurt poker
Commerce board member Tom Malkasian, who testified against HR 2267 last month, turned up his rhetoric against the PPA, saying they are ignoring key issues. The Commerce has a right to fight against unfair competition from offshore operations, he tells PokerNewsDaily, and its something they must do to protect California revenue, American jobs, and poker player interests, he says. At least Duke and Negreanu seem back on the same team, having both signed the initial letter and both tweeting to help get thousands of signatures for the PPA in just a couple days. Duke hints at plans for a boycott.

Bike, other California casinos lock step with Commerce
In what’s becoming an increasingly hostile back and forth, the PPA appears to be winning the PR battle, now with more than 6,000 signatures and countless tweets to Congress. The Commerce counters with even bigger numbers and a sign their side is growing, too. They mass-email a press release late Friday, announcing a unified front with other major California card rooms, including the Bicycle, Hawaiian Gardens, and Hollywood Park. These card rooms claim they collectively represent more than 20,000 California employees and handle $13.4 billion in wagers, all of which would be severely threatened by the Frank bill.

Industry Leaders Join Together with Commerce Casino in Opposing Frank Bill; “California Will Lose If Frank Bill Is Passed”

The letter suggests HR 2267 is too broad, and would be more acceptable if it tried to legalize poker-only, not all online gambling. It also says the Commerce welcomes the emails, but asks concerned players to use their new email address supportonlinepoker@commercecasino.net.

Boycott Commerce?
Twitter suggested lots of support for the idea, but few if any have thus far declared intent to cancel plans or skip the upcoming Commerce Hold’em Series, which kicks off Wednesday with a $500k Guarantee.

The final day of the $335 Commerce Guaranteed Million Dollar Tournament concluded with a 6-way deal as Richard Bakovic earned the win for a reported $173,500, according to a Tweet from TD Matt Savage.

Notables:
Young Phan – 22nd – $4,770
James Pittman – 23rd – $4,770
Sara Chau – 30th – $4,340
Nam Le – 33rd – $4,340
Archie Karas – 41st – $3,900
Joe Tehan – 46th – $3,470
Tony Ma – 86th – $2,170
“Miami” John Cernuto – 102nd – $1,730
David “the Dragon” Pham – 217th – $750
“Hollywood” Dave Stann – 234th – $750
Eric Mizrachi – 239th – $750
Al “Sugar Bear” Barbieri – 259th – $500
Barry Shulman – 300th – $500

Full results can be found at www.commercecasino.com.

The final opening day of the $335 Commerce Guaranteed Million Dollar Tournament drew a field of 896 players, making the total number of entries 3300 on Saturday. This means the tournament finished with a $59,500 overlay in the tournament led by TD extraordinaire Matt Savage and his staff. The day 1e leader was Jesus Delgadillo with 247,500 in chips. The most notable name from day 1e returning Sunday at 2pm is former Team Pokerati member (?) Sara Chau of Dallas with 150,000 in chips.

Players who cashed for a 2nd time in the tournament Saturday: Arguan Roye, Binh Nguyen, Leopoldo Araneta, Tom West, and Wlodzimierz Panasiuk. The full list of players who cashed in the tournament and the payouts for those who’ve made it to the final day are available here. To see the table draw for the 2pm conclusion of the tournament as the winner is expected to earn $173,500, click here. Play resumes with 22 minutes left in level 15, as the blinds will be 1,500/3,000 with a 500 ante.

Friday afternoon of the $335 Commerce Guaranteed Million Dollar Tournament drew the largest field with 716 players entering the tournament, with the final 72 making the money. To avoid an overlay, Saturday’s field will need to top 1,100 players. Saturday is expected to be the largest field, with registration available until 4:15pm like the other days of the tournament.

Joe Tehan led the field on Friday with 376,000 in chips, with Don Zewin (72,000) the other name player returning Sunday at 2pm. Among the name players to make the money: David “The Dragon” Pham, Hon Le and “Hollywood Dave” Stann. Friday’s tournament had three players — Abraham Barbarian, Sarjiv Karnataki, and Frank Schram — take advantage of the opportunity to re-enter the tournament and cash for a second time. Barbarian (108,000) and Schram (30,500) did well enough to return on Sunday afternoon.

Full results can be found here and for more details, click on the banner at the top of the page.

Thursday afternoon brought a field of 596 players for the Commerce Casino’s $335 Million Dollar Guarantee Tournament. So far there has been a total of 1,688 entries into the tournament, with 3,509 entries needed to meet the $1,000,000 guarantee. The day 1c leader is Linh Le with 224,500 in chips. Notables among the final 27 moving on to Sunday include WPT winners Danny Nguyen (140,000), and Nam Le (109,000). Those who picked up some cash, along with another chance to play on Sunday include Eric Hershler and Minh Nguyen. You can find the full results for day 1c here.

Day 1b of the $335 Commerce Guaranteed Million Dollar Tournament drew a field of 563 players Tuesday afternoon, with James Pittman (victim of one of Phil Hellmuth’s classic rants, shown below) led the field with 311,500 in chips. Other notables returning Sunday include Michael Woo (101,500) and Mike Souza (89,500). Notables who earned money but who can try again for a top 27 finish include Internet entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, 2010 WSOP bracelet winner Hoai Pham. Play on Sunday for the 135 players remaining will resume at the earliest level that play ended on the opening days. At this time, day 1b has ended the soonest, on level 16 (1500/3000 with a 500 ante). The full results for day 1b can be found here.

The first of five opening days of the Matt Savage-run $335 Commerce Casino Million Dollar Guarantee tournament drew a field of 529 entries Tuesday afternoon, with the final 54 players making the money. Each day 1 will play down to the final 27, with the day 1 survivors returning Sunday afternoon to play down to a winner. If you bust out early, you’re allowed to enter the tournament on another day 1, meaning one could cash in the me tournament up to five times. Notables already playing Sunday include “Miami John” Cernuto, Tony Ma, Young Phan and Shan Jing. The full list of results can be found here. More information, including structure and payout information, can be found at the banner at the top of the page.

Swear I’m not mocking. Less than 12 hours ago, after all, I re-potted with two-pair in some 1/2 PLO at the Hard Rock, and then when the original pre-flop raiser check-shoved all-in, I felt I had to call …

But just a couple months ago I was watching Jean-Robert Bellande seemingly tear it up in the high-stakes room at the Commerce, sitting with easily 40 or 50k in front of him. But now, by his own admission on twitter, @BrokeLivingJRB is busto. Super-busto it seems. Terrible timing as we approach the WSOP.

Be sure to check out his twitter feed.

Name Jean-Robert Bellande
Location Las Vegas
Web http://WorldSerie…
Bio Poker Pro. Track my crazy swings as I take my bankroll from zero to a million.

Hmm, didn’t quite work out that way — or at least hasn’t yet. It’s so hard not to root for this guy. He knows himself, and just can’t control himself (?) … but still insists on being a “survivor” … and is willing to share his glorious collapse with all. Reading his tweets in reverse chronological order provides quite the revealing story about a poker unraveling … something all of us who aren’t consistent winners and don’t have real regular jobs may or may not wanna think about.