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Today’s Boxscore

Kevin Eyster $660,395 – WPT Seminole Hard Rock Shootout
Joseph Cheong $1,343,370 – HK$1,000,000 Manila Millions
Pieter De-Korver $190,594 – EPT Berlin Cup

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Joseph “subiime” Cheong had one heck of a time this last week with a couple big pops to his bankroll. He started off finishing second to Philipp Gruissem in the A$50,000 WSOP APAC High Roller rebuy event for $534,776 and followed up with by winning the Manila Millions for HK$10,428,000 ($1.3million and change, thank you exchange rate). Not a bad way to make his way through Asia.

Kevin Eyster is the latest WPT champion after winning the Seminole Hard Rock Shootout in Hollywood, FLA. Several big names made the Sunshine State trip including Jeff Madsen making his 2nd WPT final table with Faraz Jaka, Matt Giannetti, Doug Lee, and Dan Suied just missing the TV action. The top two in the race for WPT Player of the Year made the money but Matt Salsberg outlasted Paul Volpe to take over the lead with just a few events remaining. Next stop for the WPT is the bestbet Open in scenic, never boring Jacksonville, FLA.

Link Dump

Tweet of the Day – It has nothing to do with poker, instead it’s the rather quick TV career of sports reporter AJ Clemente. Plus I will take every chance to show Kevmath cursing.

In the words of @clementeaj, I start off my today with – “Fucking shit!”

— Kevin Mathers (@Kevmath) April 22, 2013

QuadJacks to Relaunch Under New Management – Marco leaves QuadJacks for GPI, QuadJacks goes in the crapper, Marco jumps ship back to run QuadJacks to assemble the Avengers of Poker (or that’s what I’m going to call it until he comes up with a proper name).

Online Poker Choking in the Grey Fog of Legislative Uncertainty in Europe – The UK version of the Huffington Post takes a look at the world of online poker in Europe. I’m mostly adding the link dump for the awesome headline.

N.J. Treasurer Estimates $1.2 Billion in First Year Internet Gambling Revenue, Legislators Divided – Not too shabby of a forecast from the state treasurer, I think that would make some people happy.

Foxwoods owner signs online gambling partnership – Everybody is gearing up for online gambling in the US. Opponents would be better off just stepping aside and sticking their hand out. Foxwoods sign a partnership agreement with London-based GameAccount Network.

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Today’s Boxscore

Phil Hellmuth €1,022,376 – WSOP Europe Main Event
Mike Watson €1,000,000 – Majestic Super High Roller
Greg Raymer $121,973 – HPT River City Casino

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Phil Hellmuth is the best poker player in the world, just ask him. He now has one more reason to brag after picking up his 13th WSOP bracelet at the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event. Hellmuth outlasted a green-friendly field of 420 players with a combination of skill and ridiculous luck to become the first player history to hold a WSOP Main Event bracelet in Europe and the United States.

The Main Event final table included Jason Mercier and former November Niner Joseph Cheong with top players Scott Seiver, Timothy Adams, and 2005 WSOP runner-up Steve Dannenmann just missing the final table. Play ran for almost 9 hours from start to finish which included a strange 4 hour break in the middle for TV business reasons. Hellmuth had plenty of his classic blowups at the final table providing amusement for those in attendance and watching on TV/internet as well Lon McEachern and Antonio Esfandiari in the commentator booth.

Hellmuth’s 13th bracelet comes on the heels of him picking up number 12 during this summer’s WSOP in Razz, the first non-hold’em bracelet of his career. It also puts him 3 bracelets clear at the top of the leaderboard ahead of the 10 held by Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan. Hellmuth now holds a commanding lead Greg Merson in the 2012 WSOP Player of the Year race, Merson must win the 2012 November (will never call it October) Nine in a few weeks to prevent the world from viewing a POY banner of Hellmuth in the Rio halls.

Hellmuth also picked up €1,022,376 for the win but is among just a few people in the world who can say the bracelet is more important than the cash.

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Link Dump

Tweet of the Day – Kevmath sums it up nicely. Hellmuth is on a roll.

Fire up the “14” and “15” gear. RT @j_stoffel:I wonder how much “12” gear PH will have to give to charity lol

— Kevin Mathers (@Kevmath) October 5, 2012

Tweet of the Day 2 – Greg Merson tells Hellmuth, not so fast.

@phil_hellmuth well done phil, enjoy the next 26 days until i wither away your dreams one by one

— Greg Merson (@Gregy20723) October 5, 2012

What eSports Can Tell Us About the Future of Online Gambling – Interesting article on Forbes.com this week taking a different look at the future of online gaming. “The only thing certain is the culture of playing competitive games online is evolving at warp speed. eSports tells us that the likely winners in the online gambling market will be not only the obvious casino players, but also others that embrace the full spectrum of entertainment and social media around it.”

Online Poker Payment Processor Gets Five Months in Prison – The list of the free range indicted from Black Friday continues to shorten after Chad Elie was sentenced to 5 months following his guilty plea in March.

Gus Hansen First to Rep New Full Tilt Poker – It was only a matter of time before the new look, getting ready to launch Full Tilt Poker started bringing player reps on board and Gus Hansen seems to be a good choice. He’s respected and not one of those heroes who still owe money to their Irish overlords.

Tony G Joins GPI Betting Ring – Dan wrote earlier about Negreanu making a bet about his GPI ranking come the 2013 WSOP, well now Quiet Tony G is in the mix offering odds on his website of not only “Kid” Poker but also Phil Hellmuth, Vanessa Selbst, and Marvin Rettenmaier. More on this one later.

WSOPE 2012: Tom Dwan Talks Full Tilt – Tom Dwan (and his creepy mustache) took time out of his busy High Roller schedule to speak with PokerNews about FTP, Lederer, and Hansen.

It was Moving Day at the WSOP Main Event, where players are already in the money so they work to build a competitive stack or get out of Dodge. While this should have been the top story, a lot of time was spent discussing a player named Jarrett Nash. He had only $3k in tournament winnings on his résumé but was already in the money for the Main Event. He drew all the attention because he never returned to play his Day 5 stack and word quickly spread (thanks to a barely accurate forum post) he was not playing for religious reasons.

Turns out he left his stack around the dinner break on Day 4 after telling the WSOP staff he would not be returning until after 8pm on Day 5, even providing his Total Rewards cards for when he was blinded out. His stack never made it to 8pm so he officially finished in 171st for $44,655. Of course it just took the mere whiff of this for the forum trolls and Twitter jockeys to latch on like pitbulls. Because, according to those “smart folks”, any decision made without looking strictly at your Expected Value is clearly insane.

More information on Mr. Nash below in the Link Dump

The Day 5 stories that should have made the most splash included three former November Niners returning, five female players finishing the day with major chips, actor Kevin Pollak getting knocked out dirty with QQ vs QQ, and Joseph Cheong’s incredible Main Event streak.

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Fun Fact: Joseph Cheong’s last 3 WSOP Main Event results are 3rd place in 2010 ($4,130,049), 114th place in 2011 ($54,851), and 116th place in 2012 ($52,718).

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Some big names/big stacks in the list of 97 players returning to play on Day 6 include chipleader Kyle Keranen, Gaelle Baumann, Amnon Filippi, Elisabeth Hille, Yuvee Bronshtein, Eric Buchman, Amit Makhija, and Jason Somerville. Play on Day 6 will go five levels or 27 players, which ever takes longer.

Link Dump

Tweet of the Day

I’m also in awe of the hubris and myopia of players who are using Nash’s choice to laugh at religion and people who think it trumps poker.

— ebhizzle (@ebhizzle) July 15, 2012

Player Skips WSOP Main Event Day 5 – The gang at CardPlayer caught up with the mysteriously absent Jarrett Nash about his decision to not play Day 5.

Harry Reid and Jon Kyl Agree on Internet Poker Bill – Senators Harry Reid and Jon Kyle reportedly agreed on terms for an online poker bill. Of course that means absolutely nothing until they get off their tails and do something more than talk.

Year of the Woman Continues at the WSOP – BJ Nemeth takes a look at the Year of the Woman for 2012 and lists the Last Woman Standing in the Main Event during the Moneymaker era.

2012 WSOP: Brokedown Palace – I have been remiss in my linking up the great work Brad “Otis” Willis and Stephen Bartley have been doing over on the PokerStarsBlog. The latest gem takes a look at how the Rio Convention Center becomes a ghost town as the Main Event moves along.

Explain This: Amanda Leatherman – Everybody loves Amanda, and now Lynn Gilmartin of PokerNews gets the inside scoop on some of her interesting Twitter/Facebook pictures. Not remotely WSOP related.

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The bubble didn’t burst on Day 4, it blew apart. What is generally a long process of going hand-for-hand nearing the money, yesterday saw a dramatic one hand of crazy to get the field into the money from 669 players. After preaching from the WSOP bible about the how thing would go, Jack Effel sent the dealers off to deal one hand. And one hand only.

It took a few minutes for them to get rolling, but there were soon five all-in and calls across the 75 remaining tables. All were huge hands involving either Aces or Kings, produced two suckouts (AK over AA, 55 over KK), and the Main Event had four eliminations on the first hand. Once in the money, players kicked off a steady stream of shortstacks getting them in and walking out. But things continued to get interesting after the first break.

After the players returned, there was a little delay to restart the action which turned into a longer pause until finally Effel sent the players off for an early dinner break. There were murmurs and rumors and speculation about what happened, most of it surrounding a possible mixup in the payouts and open seats.

In the end we were told it was nothing and they just wanted to double check, better to be sure than to find out later they paid out wrong. Crazy bubble action, extended break, and possible payout issues. All the crazy you could think of until someone accidentally fired off pepper spray in the Amazon Room. Was not a boring day.

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Day 4 ended with Paul Volpe (from scenic and mostly drunken West Chester, PA) finished with 2,750,000 and the chip lead. An impressive number considering he lost a 1,000,000 coin flip near the end of the day. Other big names near the top of the leaderboard include Kyle Bowker, Leo Wolpert, Vanessa Selbst, Erik Cajelais, plus former November Niners Eric Buchman and Joseph Cheong.

Full WSOP Day 5 Chip Counts

Link Dump

Tweet of the Day – Great picture by WhoJedi on the WSOP twitter feed and he managed to come up with the funny part all on his own.

“I made the money!” – @KevinPollak“Yeah, but I made a final table.” – @NormanChad. Photo by @WhoJedi. instagr.am/p/NCZUmlhh30/

— WSOP(@WSOP) July 13, 2012

Half Man Half Superman – PokerPlayer.co.uk sat down with Patrik Antonius who opened up about the nosebleed cash games, Full Tilt fallout, and something about Buddha.

Rampaging Chimpanzees Escape Lee Watkinson’s House – Sad and bizarre story about two chimps rescued by WSOP bracelet winner Lee Watkinson, escaped and went tearing through Vegas with one being shot by police.

Vancouver Canuck Eliminated – Professional hockey goalie Roberto Luongo, reportedly tough to hit with a puck, played in his first WSOP Main Event and finished 634th out of 6,598. That leaves actor Kevin Pollak as the last celebrity standing, unless one of the three DID NOT REPORT players on the leaderboard are running in stealth mode.

BLUFF Challenge Sorel Mizzi Vs. Gavin Smith – BLUFF put two Canadians together for a little ball hockey in the Rio halls. Unsure if alcohol was involved.

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.

Was talking about the Pokerati game @AriaPoker with David Chicotsky the other day. “I know,” he said, referring to my re-pop with top set and royal-flush redraw. “I folded a set of 6s. I really don’t understand how you don’t go broke in that game.”

Pshaw! The Maven left early and down about $80. Of course he didn’t yet know that I did go bust that night x3. And I did know he knew I knew he had aggressive tendencies, too. So hrrmmm, maybe I really shoulda just called …

Chicotsky explains the key to a good table image is spikey hair.

One of these days I will get around to getting serious about my actual on-the-table play. I did get a gift certificate for some PLO books for Christmas, but I guess reading excerpts on Amazon doesn’t count?

The Maven and Bodog Ari are having another one of their 3-day boot camps, Jan 28-30. I’ve seen them in action as teachers before … at the only actual live poker school in Las Vegas (like they have their own permanent address and everything, even a kitchen) … and it really is an impressive course … no wonder all those mavenites laughed (at me?) when I asked if we needed to take notes.

Online "kids" may be changing poker, but it seems to be an older, balder set learning their ways as they move up in limits.

Maven training graduates have gone on to win millions — though the exact number is currently under dispute as their private community of alumni debate whether or not Joe Cheong’s main event finish should count as a $4 million win or $4 million loss.

Drop this website’s name (Pokerati if you’re slow) and get 25 percent off on tuition to the upcoming sessions. Or just sign up here. Proven Positive EV.

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?)

Click to download. Image 1: Serzhenko, Image 2: Cheong, Image 3: Game logo. Hi-res images available on request.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 17, 2010

Pokerati Game Releases Minor Rules Update for Version 2.0 Upgrade
without Revealing Real Facts Behind Brief Hiatus, Rumors of Discord
A 1/2 no-limit hold’em/pot-limit Omaha (round of each) game that has become known as “the Pokerati game” is preparing for its return to the Las Vegas felts with minor tweaks to its rules. The game has been called “high stakes action for low-stakes players”, “real poker for advanced beginners”, “festive high-stakes action for ‘advanced’ low-stakes players”, and “good times!” on Facebook and Twitter.

Key components include alternating rounds of the world’s two most popular games, running-it-twice, limited buy-ins, and small pre-flop betting in unstraddled Omaha hands — none of which were offered for low-stakes at licensed Nevada casinos until packaged as such by Pokerati, the most awesome and influential award-winning independent poker media outlet in the world.

“We are confident these changes that we’re not really pointing out will vastly improve the game and make it even more attractive to pros, PLO beginners, and players with plans to play in the November Nine,” said a spokesman for Pokerati. “Or they will be completely inconsequential.”

More…

Wednesday’s tournament action at the Detox Poker Series at the Hard Rock Hotel was good for those who like overlays in guaranteed tournaments, while the founder of the Pokerati Game almost won his own tournament.

$230 NL Holdem w/ 1 rebuy $50,000 Guarantee

Event #10, $230 NL Holdem w/ 1 $200 rebuy drew a field of 122 players with 106 rebuys, falling short of the $50,000 guarantee by about $5,000. The final 18 players made the money, with the final table of nine returning this afternoon. Among the notables making the money included Event #1 winner Joe Tehan and 2010 November Niner Joseph “subiime” Cheong, each earning $650. Here’s how the final table looks when play resumes at 3:30pm with 45:45 left in level 14: 1,000/2,000 blinds and a 500 ante:

Seat 1: Steve Frederick 38,700
Seat 2: Amir Sandy 180,800
Seat 3: Jason Eldridge 81,400
Seat 4: Sam “Homeless” Bensinger 129,700
Seat 5: Warren Fraleigh 26,400
Seat 6: Bona Sar 85,500
Seat 7: Ari Engel 172,100
Seat 8: David Tuthill 47,500
Seat 9: Chris Lindh 43,000

Full results and pictures can be found at the Detox Poker site here.

$230 Pokerati Game w/ 1 rebuy

Event #11, the $230 Pokerati Game w/ 1 $200 rebuy, consisting of 9 hands of NL Holdem followed by 9 hands of PLO, drew a field of 31 entrants, with the final five making the money. In what surely was a surprise to all involved, Pokerati.com founder Dan Michalski nearly won his own tournament, finishing 2nd to Lev Serzhenko in heads-up play. Serzhenko collects $5,184, along with sash for the win. Michalski earned $2,880 for the runner up finish with Darryl Dauenhauer (3rd $1,728), Aria poker room manager Adam Altwies (4th for $1,152) and Carol Kline ($576) completing the list of players making the money. More pictures of the winner and Michalski here.

Thursday’s tournament

One tournament takes place at 1pm this afternoon with another $350 NL Holdem event, with two $140 Mega Satellites scheduled for 5 and 9pm, each with 5 seats added for Friday and Saturday’s $550 NL Holdem – $200,000 Guarantee tournament. To watch the final table of the $50,000 guarantee, find more pictures from the Pokerati game and more stuff, be sure to hit www.detoxpoker.com.

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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