Remi Castaignon
Photo: PokerStarsBlog.com

Today’s Boxscore

Remi Castaignon €770,000 – EPT Deauville
Michael Mizrachi $101,267 – WSOP Circuit South Africa
Tyler Patterson $19,080 – 2013 LAPC NLHE Escalator

Big tournaments finished this weekend all over the planet, from Europe to South Africa and across the US. Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi was already having pretty nice results over the last 12 months including a nearly $1.5 million victory in the 2012 WSOP Poker Players Championship. Now he can add WSOP Circuit ring winner to his resume after winning the 116-player Main Event at the Emerald Casino in South Africa.

Remi Castaignon is the latest EPT Champion for what is apparently his first tournament cash ever with a victory in the EPT Deauville Main Event. €770,000 is a fine way to get his first entry on HendonMob and it looks like he cruised to the win after entering the final table with 40% of the chips in play.

The 2013 LAPC continues to chug along with their preliminary events pulling in good numbers for the Savage structured grind. Plenty of big names are making their way to final tables including McLean Karr, Bryan Devonshire, Matt Affleck, and Tyler Patterson who managed a win along with the traditional ugly, 500 pound trophy. Elsewhere in the world, the WPT Seminole Hard Rock will play down to their champion in a few days with Matt Salsberg once again in the running with 36 players remaining.

Link Dump

Tweet of the Day – Mizrachi wins and Andrew Felman reminded to remind himself that everyone forgets The Grinder. Perhaps people could start giving the man his props now?

I won the Main Event @emeraldpoker@wsoptd @wsopLove you South Africa.Ty every 1.Every 1 Here is Great.Thanks again !!

— Michael Mizrachi (@TheGrinder44) February 10, 2013

In the latest NUTS, I wrote: “@thegrinder44‘s pattern continues. Win huge event, get forgotten in these rankings, win another huge event.”

— Andrew Feldman (@AFeldmanESPN) February 11, 2013

Bally Technologies and Amaya Gaming sign poker content agreement – More reports of Vegas iGaming additions. The race is on and will be interesting to see who comes out ahead.

MGM Resorts Looks To Re-Enter New Jersey In Possible Internet Gaming Move – Gov. Christie takes positive steps towards online poker in NJ and all of a sudden MGM is again interested in Atlantic City.

Poker / By Alex Outhred – Hey, look who has a poker strategy article in the world renown Buffalo News! Good friend, and one of the good guys, Alex Outhred. (Part congrats, part needle, all complimentary)

Zynga’s Shares Rise As Legal US Online Gambling Is Mooted – Any time Forbes or a legitimate publication talks about online gambling, it’s noteworthy. This one is chock full of snark.

$100k in 7 Days! Let’s do this! – Daniel Negreanu is using his platform for a very worthy cause. A refreshing change for him.

Ivaylo Damyanov Peevski
Photo: PokerStarsBlog.com

Ivaylo Peevski €141,800 – EPT Barcelona €2,150 NLH
Peter Dragar €44,800 – EPT Barcelona €2,100 NLH Turbo
Lars Garp €31,700 – EPT Barcelona €1,100 NLH Turbo
Liya Gerasimova €10,700 – €550 Women’s event NLH

Pretty slow week as far as results are concerned with the EPT Barcelona Main Event still playing down at the time of publishing and the WPT Legends Main Event just about to get underway. But that doesn’t mean things have been completely quiet around the tournament poker world and the forums are all abuzz.

There’s a little festival down in Hollywood, FL causing a disturbance in the normally sound and sane world of 2+2. A little tropical storm, most likely a hurricane in the future, named Isaac has Florida squarely in it’s cross hairs for this weekend right in the middle of the WPT Summer Splash Main Event. The decision-makers at the Seminole Hard Rock casino, already having big overlays in prelim events, removed the $500,000 guarantee just hours before the Main Event was to kick off.

Dear Seminole Hard Rock Guests,

We are very sorry to announce that, due to the uncertainty regarding the path and impact of Tropical Storm Isaac, the guaranteed prize pool has been removed from the Seminole Hard Rock & Casino WPT® Summer Splash Regional Championship Main Event running from Friday, August 24 – Monday, August 27.

The forums took this news with all the grace and dignity for which they are known.

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Tweet of the Day – I love the Dutchies, and anything that goofs on Negreanu is a bonus. So I present this beauty created by Frank Op de Woerd (@webjoker).

This gif that @webjoker made of Zigmund is amazing: bit.ly/Rf7RWC

— Chris Hall (@ChrisKPHall) August 22, 2012

Poker is game of skill, not chance, New York judge rules – Just one in the long stream of articles written about the NY ruling on poker but this one gets my link. Plus there’s a nifty, non-scientific, poll halfway through about online poker legalization.

Revel’s rocky launch – I made my first trek to the new Revel Casino in Atlantic City last weekend and was only impressed by the immensity of the place and nice poker room staff, the rest was a fine example of casino planners trying to get you lost. And now they are damn near broke. Suzette Parmley at Philly.com documents the casinos troubles from the start.

Casino Fails To Shuffle Cards, Sues Gamblers Who Won $1.5 Million – While I’m bagging a bit on AC, how about the Golden Nugget suing mini baccarat players who correctly figured out they were playing with an unshuffled deck and took the casino for a cool milly (and change)?

Introducing Hungarian Model Krisztina Polgar – So the PokerNews crew had a little video help from Hungarian model Krisztina Polgár (Google image search, you are welcome). So here’s a little introduction with a bonus of having Kristy Arnett doing the interview.

A friendly reminder from our friends at http://poker.paddypower.com to consider the best options when signing up for real money poker tournaments.

There was poker being played all over the world as the EPT, WPT, WSOPC and ANZPT were in action across four continents this week.

EPT Vienna (Vienna, Austria) Daniel Negreanu was chasing history Sunday, attempting to complete the third stage of the poker “triple crown” by adding an European Poker Tour title to his WSOP bracelets and WPT title. He was also in line to regain the top spot on the All-Time money list. He fell short of both of these goals, settling for 4th place and €175,000. Michael Eiler of Germany was your winner, banking €700,000 for his efforts. [PokerStars Blog]

WPT World Poker Finals (Foxwoods, Mashantucket, Connecticut) Just 12 players remain from the 242 who started. Play reached the money after more than three hours of hand-for-hand play Sunday. The slow start eliminated any possibility for a day off Monday for sleeping in … err, players recuperating before the final six get down to business Tuesday. Tom Marchese is the chip leader with over 1.8 million, almost twice that of second place. Jason Mercier, Sorel Mizzi and Hoyt Corkins are among those still in contention. You can find full chip counts and a recap here. [Foxwoods Live]

WSOP Circuit Midwest Regional Championship (Hammond, Indiana) The revamped World Series of Poker Circuit had its first big test as the first of four televised $10K Regional Championships was held this week. 226 players showed up to the Chicago-area Horseshoe Hammond, and the final table featured quite a few familiar names, including Shannon Shorr, Brandon Adams, David “Doc” Sands and Bernard Lee. Jim Anderson parlayed a seat he had won, which was added to the prize pool of a $200 event that he had won earlier in the series and turned it into $525,449. All nine players who made the final table have qualified for the million dollar freeroll that will award a bracelet to the winner at the end of the season. [WSOP]

WSOP-Circuit South Africa (Emerald Casino, South Africa) One of the quirks of the new WSOP Circuit schedule was a brand new stop in South Africa. Well an unofficial official stop that doesn’t count towards the $1 million dollar freeroll or award a ring, but a stop with quite a bit of money on the line nonetheless. Maria Ho finished sixth in this event, while the title was captured by Warren Zackey, who won $223,155 for his efforts. [Bluff South Africa]

ANZPT Darwin (Darwin, New Zealand) The biggest story of this Main Event had to be rapper cum poker player known simply as “Brotha D”. Danny Leaoasavaii, who captured the APPT Main Event in September, is the first to own a title on both the APPT and the ANZPT, as well as the first New Zealander to win on the ANZPT. The true test will come in the summer of 2011 as he looks to challenge Jeff Madsen and Prahlad Friedman as the best poker rapper in the game, which should be pretty anticlimactic. [PokerStars Blog]

Caeser’s Classic & Venetian Deep Stacks (Las Vegas, Nevada) Two tournament series’ with smaller buy-ins are now going strong in Las Vegas as the final Venetian Deep Stacks of the year has gotten underway. Action at Caeser’s is still going strong and attracting some interesting names. Among those who have made final tables in the last week are Barry Shulman (Event 13, 9th) and Kenna James (Event 16, 3rd).

In the Online World… There was some lack of name recognition in the Sunday Majors action, but don’t take that to mean that there wasn’t a whole boatload of money to be won. Amongst those who pocketed six figures were “Zareta” (PokerStars Sunday Million, $230,513), “chickface” (FullTilt $750K Guaranteed, $140,967), “Levan1971” (PokerStars Sunday Warmup, $188,860) and my personal favorite, “monkeybudgie” (FullTilt Sunday Brawl, $106,737)

In an interview Sunday on Mediocre Poker Radio from WJFK in Washington DC, AJ Benza said Kara Scott will be his replacement when taping resumes in November. Kara is best known in the US from her cashes in the past two World Series of Poker Main Events, gaining the affection of Norman Chad in the process. She was also the presenter of the European Poker Tour for the first five seasons, before moving over to Matchroom Sport to present in their made-for-TV tournaments in the UK. An article at Pokernewsdaily.com, which mentions the Benza interview, only confirms that Shana Hiatt will not take part in the show and that no contract has been signed in regards to AJ’s replacement.

More details to come…

In keeping with my newly-formed collection of the hottest boys of poker, I couldn’t resist adding this one to my list.

Hello, Carter Phillips! The well-armed winner of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour’s Barcelona stop just collected 850,000 Euros for his victory in the tournament there. Is it just a coincidence that I’m open to dating well-to-do men? I think not!

Uh-oh. Just read that Mr. Phillips is only 20-years old. I have a rule, and he doesn’t fit in my age range. Oh well, a woman can admire…since he’s legal and all.