Jonathan Roy
Photo: World Poker Tour

Today’s Boxscore

Jonathan Roy $779,710 – World Poker Tour Montreal
Brock Parker $372,568 – Borgata Fall Open
Geoff Smith NZ$80,502 – ANZPT Auckland

The World Poker Tour Montreal stop may not have been a televised event, but that didn’t stop it from drawing all kinds of interest over the weekend. Things started off well when it was obvious attendance was going to be great well before the first card was dealt. Nearly 1,200 players traveled to the Great White North and Playground Poker venue received plenty of kudos from the players.

That was until Allen “King of the Endless Needle” Kessler decided to have one of his first-class hissy fits, even going so far as post his complaints on Facebook, the home of cat videos and high school bullies. Kessler took issue with the 60-minute levels and voiced his complaints publicly on Twitter and once again made a joke out of a real issue.

This final table would have made for some great TV as Canada’s drunkest son Gavin Smith was there on the last day along with Jeff Gross and Pascal Lefrancois. Gross had easily the most famous rail birds in the room as his best friend, and most decorated Olympian ever, Michael Phelps make a surprise visit for support. Eventual winner Jonathan Roy’s rail wasn’t too shabby either with 2010 WSOP Main Event Champion Jonathan Duhamel among his supporters.

Link Dump

Tweet(s) of the Day – That’s what hell of a cheering section, beats Gavin Smith’s section which probably consisted of bartenders, drunkards, and off duty strippers.

Pumped for the kid today!! Just surprised him for the final 6 of the #wptmontreal @playgroundpoker !!!! #weeeeneedit

— Michael Phelps (@MichaelPhelps) November 27, 2012

Man the kid!!! Can’t be more happy for what @jgross5 did!! Proud of u man!!!!

— Michael Phelps (@MichaelPhelps) November 28, 2012

Could Online Poker Help Avert the Fiscal Cliff? – I find all kinds of interesting articles throughout the week in terms of poker, gambling, and people who should be nominated for the Darwin awards. This is good read questioning whether online poker, instead of raising taxes, is a valid way to avoid the “fiscal cliff”. It’s also an SEO bonanza. (Warning, they make you enter an email address to read the entire article.)

Will online poker fall off the fiscal cliff? – On the other side, a horseracing blogger asks if the “fiscal cliff” will kill the chances of online poker in the near future. I’ve officially hit my quota of using the term “fiscal cliff”.

Pro Poker Player Embraces #GivingTuesday – Faraz Jaka, one of the good guys in poker, has a nice bio piece on the Huffington Post about his charitable side. Nice to see poker players being in the news for something positive.

WPT Montreal: Olympic Swimmer Michael Phelps – Jeanine (Freddy not Shaun) Deeb was the lucky one to grab an interview with the 18-time Olympic medalist while he was on the rail for his best friend.

This is the bleakest time of year. When festivities have faded, but the bitter cold maintains its grip. A time when you are forced to chain yourself to the grindstone for another 12 months, as fresh-faced resolutions are crushed under the weight of your own inescapable weakness. Sorry about that. Maybe I can cheer you up with some news from poker’s farthest shores. This week we’ve got tales of resignation, government crackdowns, robbery, and assault. Feeling better yet?

France Announces Online Poker Crackdown

It’s a good time to be in European online poker, so long as you’re on the list. France have been running a strictly regulated market since May 2010, but have this month enacted laws which require ISPs to proactively prevent French players from accessing unlicensed sites. This follows similar action taken by the Belgian government. Meanwhile, Spain – one of the big EU countries without a regulated market – has elected to delay its online gambling plans until June 30th. [Poker News]

Duthie Says Cheerio

John Duthie has left PokerStars. You might be thinking, “Who cares about John Duthie! So long as they still have Liv Boeree, it’s all good. She’s so hot, ship it holla check-raise.” Oh you and your staggering ignorance. The wiser heads in the audience will know that Duthie is lauded among the poker community thanks to his founding of the European Poker Tour. John spearheaded the tour to great success, but as part of his resignation, has also decided to step down as EPT CEO. Although he may not be as high profile as some of his former team mates, John is a highly respected member of the industry and you can be sure that the game’s movers and shakers have taken note of his departure. [Poker News Report]

Regal Reward for Betting Queen

The founder of Bet365, Denise Coates, has been named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the UK’s New Year’s Honours list. Now that our empire has shrunk to size of a tiny thimble, this title has become a purely symbolic ‘well done’ from the monarchy. For your reference, a CBE is one rank below Knight and Dame-hood in Britain’s chivalric hierarchy. As part of the ceremony, Denise gets to meet the Queen and listen to her say things like, “What do you do?” “Oh that’s nice,” and “I have this special badge for you.” [BBC]

WSOP Bracelet Theives are All In Jail

In Canada, which is mostly empty, four men and one woman will have to locate the Longueuil courthouse. They are summoned to hear charges that include aggravated assault and armed robbery, all accrued while breaking into the home of former World Champion, Jonathan Duhamel. Although their cases are yet to be heard, it seems that the nexus of the robbery may have been Duhamel’s former girlfriend, Bianca Rojas-Latraverse. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. [CTV]

Cheer up mate! Things are looking good for poker after all. I mean, barring some sort of Even Blacker Friday, 2012 has got to be an improvement over last year. If that much-analysed DoJ opinion bears the fruit we’re all desperately hoping it does, perhaps this will prove to be one of the industry’s finest hours. Hope springs eternal.

Greetings, Pokerati faithful. I’m coming to you live from Foxwoods somewhere deep in the Connecticut wilderness. Today’s reunion of all nine members of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event final table is the first of its kind in modern times. For the first time since the inception of the November Nine, the entire group has gotten together to play in the same event, along with 18 very lucky Foxwoods winners.

They’re playing a $15,000 freeroll, and its been rumored that there might be quite a bit more on the line for the November Niners. In order to keep things interesting and competitive, there are last longer bets and a few other interesting props that I’ll try to keep track of.

The tournament just got underway, and with 30 minute levels and a 10k starting stack, this freeroll looks like it will take quite some time.

Stay tuned for a couple of updates throughout the day here, as well as a comprehensive post of the Tuesday’s events coming up. To keep up to date with the action, as well as watch a live stream featuring Joseph Cheong, Michael Mizrachi, Matt Jarvis and Lon McEachern, head on over to Foxwoods Live.

BJ and Dan go heads up on the implications of the proposed Reid Bill + Who is the Best Canadian Athlete in the World?

The Poker Beat: December 6, 2010

[audio:http://www.pokerroad.com/download/the-poker-beat:90]

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• Jonathan Duhamel the best athlete in Canada?
• The WPT’s Season 9 preview + Royal Flush girls
• Harry Reid online poker bill WTF?
• More Harry Reid bill and industry implosion
• Even more Harry Reid bill brick-a-brack
• Affiliate remodeling

Vote vigorously and/or repeatedly for The Poker Beat
for Favorite Web-based Show in Bluff magazine’s 2010 Reader’s Choice Awards.

While we get all caught up with life here at Pokerati, you may want to begin getting to know your latest 20something super-champion, which has me wondering … when will be the next time we see a WSOP main event winner who is old enough to rent a car?

Eastgate (22), Cada (21), Duhamel (23) …

There’s a reason we media folk love us some Nolan Dalla … not only does he understand what’s really at stake every step of the poker way, but also he knows how to bring out the best in the game … and here at the Penn & Teller Theater, introducing tonight’s heads-up match, he seems to recognize, hey, I’m on a stage, we’ve got flashing lights, and there’s a poker-loving hairy manbeast behind me — might as well have some fun!

One difference, however … Racener has the Sam Chauhan rubber band, while Duhamel … is from Canada, eh?

Looking at the players, the table positions, the chip stacks, the personalities … got together with David Chicotsky from Maven Training and @AgentMarco from QuadJacks to assess the nitty-dirty of the November Nine:

(In a nutshell … gogogo Joe Cheong?)

Your 2010 WSOP final table players and chip counts:

Jonathan Duhamel — 65,975,000 — Boucherville QC

John Dolan – 46,250,000 – Bonita Springs FL

Joseph Cheong – 23,525,000 — La Mirada CA

John Racener – 19,050,000 – Port Richey FL

Matthew Jarvis – 16,700,000 – Surrey BC

Filippo Candio – 16,400,000 – Cagliari  IT

Michael Mizrachi — 14,450,000 – Miami FL

Soi Nguyen –9,650,000 – Santa Ana  CA

Jason Senti – 7,625,000 – St. Louis Park MN

I’d say see ya’ll in November, but I think we all know we’ll be talking about lotsa things before then. Click below for the Nolan’s early write-up from WSOP.com:

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