Robbie Renehan
Photo: PokerStarsBlog.com

Today’s Boxscore

Robbie Renehan $147,877 – LAPT Colombia
Blake Barousse $15,757 – $365 NLH WSOP Circuit Biloxi
Elisa Burkett $15,449 – $580 NLH WSOP Circuit Biloxi
Travis Johnston $7,956 – $365 NLH WSOP Circuit Biloxi
Caufman Talley $29,743 – $365 NLH WSOP Circuit Biloxi

There’s something pretty cool about a guy winning a poker tournament wearing a Big Lebowski t-shirt. If you’re going to dress down for a final table, at least be interesting. Also cool is a guy in Ireland winning an LAPT package on the cheap, travelling to the safest city in the world (Medellin Columbia is a walk in the park, correct?), and boosting his career tournament earnings from $5,000 to $150,000.

The Dude abides.

Also starting is the next round of WSOP Circuit events with a series of tournaments at the IP in Biloxi, MS. Not to be confused with the IP in Las Vegas where you’re more likely to get stuck to the floor before you lose your bankroll. On top of the great food and music, Biloxi will offer 12 tournament including the $1,675 Main Event.

Link Dump

Exclusive: Michele Clayborne, Former Consulting Head of PR for Full Tilt Poker, Releases Statement – Part of her statement concerning FTPDoug: “Until this announcement, I too was not aware of this person’s identity”. Booshit. I knew she wasn’t FTPDoug but I would be damned shocked if she didn’t know who it was. There are plenty of stories about what a pain it was to deal with Clayborne and I have quite a few myself. Doubly painful since we were both collecting a paycheck from the same company.

Department Of Justice Looks For Aid With About 1.3 Million ‘Potential U.S. Victims’ Of Full Tilt Poker – CardPlayer reports the DOJ is looking for a third party processor to take care of the ~$139,000,000 of payments due former US players at Full Tilt Poker. They are saying potentially 1.3million possible “victims”.

Claims Administrator—Full Tilt Poker – Unemployed, the Department of Justice might have a spot for you. Double checking Michele Clayborne’s LinkedIn profile to see if she’s qualified.

If sports betting is so obviously beneficial to the sports leagues, why do they still oppose it? Insiders weigh in – Everybody from New Jersey to Washington state has taking their bats to the gaming industry and the boys at QuadJacks decided to take a look at why sports leagues oppose betting.

The Micros – The gang wants to take advantage of the PokerStars Full Tilt Poker buyout. For real, can someone please sponsor these guys again so we can get back to the episodes?

Be sure to check out our new sponsors at Face Up Gaming. Legal, subscription-based online poker with plenty of great prizes including cash, WSOP seats, and poker trips. Sign up with Bonus Code pokerati.

You are reading the column of a fashionable man. I shouldn’t really be seen with rabble like you. What with your baseball caps and un-ironic beards. Such sartorial ignorance. When you’ve been to a fashion show, like me, you’ll understand what it means to dress in a higher strata.

I give up. Trying to be cool is hard work. I really did attend the London Fashion Week, but didn’t emerge any better dressed. My main concern was what face you are supposed to pull while watching models strut. I was very much the interloper, so you’ll appreciate that I’m very happy to be back in the warm embrace of poker news. Here, I’ll lay out my news-blanket.

Some People Win Some Tournaments

The UKIPT completed the first event of its third season in Gallway, Ireland. A local lad by the name of Emmett Mullin picked up the €100,000 first place prize. Meanwhile across the sea in Sao Paulo, the LAPT was reaching a conclusion. All eyes were on Daniel Negreanu, as the Canadian rant-monger made his assault on the final table. The bat and ball enthusiast eventually fell in sixth place, allowing German person, Daniele Nestola, to pick up the title. [Poker News Report]

Six Times More Stars

Can you really believe it’s been six years since the first Sunday Million? The weekly mega-tournament seems as ancient as bad beats. Or something even older, like Doyle Brunson. Pokerstars plan to pony up a $6 million guarantee as a birthday present to us all. [Poker News]

Danes Play Fair

One of PokerStars’ old flames, Peter Eastgate, has signed up as a sponsored pro with Betfair. Eastgate famously “retired” from poker in 2010, only to return to the game a year later. He now becomes one of the few WSOP champs with a sponsorship deal that wasn’t penned by PokerStars. Betfair have also bagged fellow Dane, Stefan Raffay, who is most famous for having joined Betfair alongside Peter Eastgate. [Card Player]

Ladies Love to Gamble

Research by clever people in the U.K. has revealed that half the nation’s gamblers are female. On reflection, it doesn’t seem like a very surprising figure. In the pre-digital era, dingy casinos, pub fruit machines, and bookies were the main sources of gambling entertainment in Britain. In such a world, a male bias seems natural, but nowadays ladies can log on from home without having to worry about that creepy guy dribbling onto his betting slip. [Online Casinos]

It would be interesting to see if the number of female poker players has increased in line with overall gambling figures. I’m inclined to think that the game remains predominantly a man’s world, but perhaps that preconception is a little outdated? I’ll cogitate on that and get back to you with some more news next week.

The United States Government. Check back next week to see if anything changes.

In all seriousness, the last week and a half has been a dark one for the industry, and last week didn’t necessarily feel like the appropriate time to recognize the few people who were fortunate enough to make a few dollars in poker. We must, however, realize that no matter how bleak the situation is with online poker, the live game will continue to go on. The numbers will change, how yet we don’t know, but as long as there are people playing cards, there will be winners and losers. And some version of this column.

Mercier and Selbst Succesfully Defend Titles at Final NAPT Stop
Mohegan Sun, Uncasville, Connecticut

It was big news for all of about 14 hours, but there’s no disputing the incredibly impressive accomplishments of Vanessa Selbst and Jason Mercier at NAPT Mohegan Sun.

C/O PokerStars Blog

Selbst won the inaugural NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event in 2010 in a dominant performance. She lead the tournament from wire-to-wire and earned $750,000, putting her on the path that would lead to her becoming a member of Team PokerStars Pro. The logo on her shirt was different, the final seven standing in her way were different, but the ending was the same. Instead of huge chip advantage, she entered heads-up play with Dan Shak in an unusual spot for her, a three-to-one deficit. Shak was no match for fate, as Selbst quickly closed the gap and captured the title for a second straight year, this time for $450,000

C/O PokerStars Blog

The next day was Jason Mercier’s opportunity to repeat history. His 2010 effort was a $25,000 event that drew 35 players, and paid him a juicy $475,000. This year’s high roller lowered the buy-in to $10,000 but drew more than twice as many players (78 to be exact), and again Mercier won his first table to put himself in contention. He reached heads-up play against fellow Team PokerStars Pro member Eugene Katchalov at a slight disadvantage, but quickly erased it. When the final river hit the felt, Mercier had completed the highly unlikely exacta with Selbst and accumulated $246,600 between bounties and his first place prize. For their sake, lets just hope they didn’t get paid out via their PokerStars accounts.

Erik Seidel is Proven to be Human, Finishes 2nd at WPT Hollywood
Hollywood Casino, Lawrenceburg, Indiana

Erik Seidel’s accomplishments thus far in 2011 can be put up against any individual year by any player in the history of the game, and the year’s less than 1/3rd of the way done. To put things in perspective, 4 of the top 5 top money accumulators are the top four finishers in the 2010 WSOP Main Event, the only anomaly on the list being Seidel. So when the final table was set at WPT Hollywood, Seidel was a prohibitive favorite, and by the time he got down to heads-up play with a part time player from Cincinnati, most of the media already had their reports typed up with their finger hovering over their mouse, ready to click send.

Perhaps we should have taken the events that took place in Indiana in to account when trying to make sense of the pokerpocalypse. Just 97 players showed up for a WPT event, the most famous ginger in poker quite literally abandoned her roots, and in the end, the stranglehold that Erik Seidel has held on poker was loosened, if only slightly. Mike Scarborough played an impressive tournament, and succeeded in overcoming a tough final table on his way to a $273,664 payday.

Everyone I Mentioned At WSOPC St. Louis Won a Lot of Money
WSOP Circuit, Harrah’s St. Louis, Missouri

In my last tournament recap, I mentioned La Sengphet had made her second final table at WSOPC St. Louis, and right after I posted she won the tournament for over $17,000, giving her her second ring of the season. I added a bit at the end to recognize it, and Dan put up a post congratulating her. In it, I mentioned Kyle Cartwright as one of only two players to win two rings at the same stop this season, both of his coming in Tunica. He won a final table that was going on concurrently to La’s, which just happened to be the Main Event in St. Louis.

449 players showed up for the $1,600 tournament, generating a sizable prize pool that would award over $142,000 to the eventual champion. On this day, Cartwright was indeed that man, adding a third ring and an automatic seat in the $1 million championship to what is likely the most impressive resume on this year’s WSOP Circuit.

Local Man Makes Good at LAPT Peru for Over $200K
Atlantic City Casino, Lima, Peru

C/O PokerStars Blog

Amidst the chaos that enveloped the poker world on Friday, a couple of the best that the American poker media has to offer (Shamus and Pauly) soldiered on with their reporting duties. As usual, their updates were top notch and captured the compelling action well, and it was some exciting play to be sure. Local Peruvian player Kemal Ferri went on a rampage when play got down to four-handed, eliminating all three of his opponents on the way to his first LAPT title and $207,400.

Michael Kanaan Makes Dozens of Media Friends After Quick Win in Sydney
ANZPT Sydney, Australia

C/O PokerStars Blog

The unofficial rule amongst the poker media is not to openly root for any one player at a final table. That rule is usurped by the fact that all media subconsciously roots for the big stacks to win during the big confrontations in order to facilitate an early exit from the casino. It is by this that we can judge Michael Kanaan the most popular player of every member of the media present for his win at ANZPT Sydney. The prohibitive chip leader entering play, Kanaan triumphed over his final eight opponents in less than four-and-a-half hours of play, sending people home at just after 5 pm after collecting his $195,714 first place prize, of course.

Luckily For the Pokerati Game, 2-Time WSOPC Omaha Ring Winner Plays Tournaments… For Now
WSOP Circuit, Caesers Las Vegas, Nevada

C/O WSOP

So much for sharing the wealth. Yet another player added his second WSOP Circuit ring of the season this past week as action moved to Caesers in Las Vegas. Army veteran Jessie Bryant’s job while he was enlisted was similar to the soldiers who were featured in “The Hurt Locker”, but these days his focus has been directed more towards the game of Omaha. Bryant won an Omaha-8/b event a few months ago in Tunica, and to show off the versatility in his skills he decided to change it up a bit in Las Vegas, adding a PLO championship to his poker resume. He is the early leader in the player of the series race in Las Vegas thanks to his score of just under $10,000.

Online Poker? Chip Jett Doesn’t Need No Stinkin’ Online Poker
Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza, Las Vegas, Nevada

Also well underway in Las Vegas over the past couple of weeks has been the latest incarnation of the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza. Well-known pros have been scattered amongst the lists of those who have cashed in the events held so far, but have began to pop up more and more since the madness of Friday. The most well-known of those players is Chip Jett, who for a long time has been one of the red-named players on Full Tilt. Not content to sit and stare at a blank computer screen, Jett decided to enter Event 20, a $340 No Limit Hold’em event, and promptly won the whole thing for just under $14,000.

Mike Sexton Gives Up Announcing Career in Pursuit of Long-shot Poker Dream
WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star, San Jose, California

Photo c/o WPT/Bay 101

There were a ton of storylines on display at the final table of the WPT’s Bay 101 Shooting Star event this week. It was the second consecutive final table for Vivek Rajkumar, who finished second at the LAPC and put on quite a display during this California swing of the World Poker Tour. Mike Matusow made his way to his fifth WPT final table, still seeking a win that has thus far eluded him in his career. But the biggest story of them all was that, for the first time in the history of the WPT, Mike Sexton would not fill the seat in the broadcast booth next to Vince Van Patten. It wasn’t a coup by Tony Dunst, though it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibilities for Dunst to try something like that, but rather for the first time ever, Sexton made the final table of a WPT event and was unable to fulfill his broadcasting duties.

The story would not have a happy ending, however, as Matusow took cards that were not quite live and turned them into monsters, eliminating Sexton by catching a jack as a 3-1 dog and knocking him out in 6th, collecting his $5k Shooting Star bounty and leaving himself as the only player with that target on his back. Rajkumar would bow out in fourth place to conclude his impressive run, while Matusow would find himself short-stacked before going out in 3rd place. Allen Sternberg would claim the final $5,000 bounty for knocking Matusow out, and that win would propel him to the chip lead. Sternberg outlasted Steven Kelly with a timely two-outer on the river, winning the Bay 101 Shooting Star and the $1 million first place prize.

Photo c/o PokerStars

Kanit Be? Moustapha Wins at IPT Nova Gorica

Nova Gorica, Slovenia

The second biggest prize of the week comes from a somewhat unlikely source. The Italian Poker Tour is one of PokerStars’ regional poker tours, but it’s latest stop, technically not in Italy but on their border with Slovenia, generated a prize pool of almost €800,000. 395 players put up €2,000, and the first place purse ballooned to over €200,000. It remains to be seen whether Mustapha Kanit can be considered a “local” champion, considering the event didn’t happen on Italian soil, but the Italian player bested Marco Mancini to claim the IPT Nova Gorica title.

Photo c/o HPT

Jeremy Dresch Is First to 3 HPT Titles, Sore Loser Makes it Best Out of 7
Shooting Star Casino, Mahnomen, Minnesota

2009 Heartland Poker Tour Player of the Year Jeremy Dresch made history by being the first player to capture two HPT titles. It was made all the more impressive by the fact that he captured those titles in consecutive weeks. Dresch now holds the distinction of being the first to three titles, winning the HPT stop at the Shooting Star Casino in Minnesota. He takes home almost $50,000 after besting the field of 170.

Photo c/o PokerStars

First Brazilian LAPT Champ Crowned in Chile, Hopes for Less Messy Crown Next Time
Viña del Mar, Chile

Last month on the LAPT, the hearts of thousands of Brazilians were broken when they failed to crown their first Brazilian LAPT title in Sao Paolo, Brazil, despite the volume of Brazilian players in the field. The champion was, in fact, a Chilean, and the Brazilians returned the favor this week when Murilo Figueiredo took home the win in Viña del Mar, Chile. Figueiredo defeated 620 other players in the largest LAPT field ever to win $146,000.

Aaron Alanen PWNS 1st Zynga IRL MTT for $15K
Zynga PokerCon, The Palms, Las Vegas, Nevada

There’s not much to be said about this tournament that wasn’t said by Dan. So I’ll just let this tournament recap, as well as these other articles he wrote explain what happened this past weekend at ZyngaCon.

Pros Living Locally in Las Vegas Were “Wynning” This Week
Wynn Poker Classic, The Wynn, Las Vegas, Nevada

The Wynn has pretty quietly been running a successful poker series the last couple of weeks, and more recently with buy-ins in the $2k-$5k range they’ve drawn in quite a few poker pros living locally. The best story has to be the victory of Chad Brown; after undergoing surgery recently to remove a large tumor, Brown showed up at their most recent $2,000 event and won the whole thing, banking almost $75,000. Also winning this week was Bryan Micon, who took down the $500 HORSE event.

Computer crashes, flight delays and internet inconsistencies successfully delayed this column once again, but even those pitfalls couldn’t keep this column down for more than a day. I may have failed to put myself in position to appear in this column again, but others won big at the WSOPC’s inaugural trip to Florida, which got underway this week. There was also some serious action in Brazil and a crescendo in the action at the LAPC.

Largest Field in Florida History Fails To Prolong “Year of the Media”
Palm Beach Kennel Club – West Palm Beach, Florida

It’s become increasingly clear that all of the media’s run-good has been usued up for the foreseeable future, as my own personal attempts to cash in on the year of the media have once again failed. I was one of 877 entries over two starting days at the inaugural event of the World Series of Poker event at the Palm Beach Kennel club this week. The $345 event brought together the largest field for a poker tournament in the history of the state of Florida, generating a prize pool of over $250,000 and awarding almost $50,000 to the winner. The biggest names to go deep in this event were former WSOP ME final tablist John Spadavecchia, and Ronnie Bardah, who bubbled the final table in 10th place.

24-year-old Reed Zhao was crowned the champion, the first winner of a circuit ring in the state of Florida. The Lexington, Kentucky native is a high-stakes online cash game grinder, but he’ll likely be playing some more tournaments in the coming weeks to challenge for player of the series and a spot in the Million Dollar Freeroll. Zhao is currently joined atop this list by James Giraldo, who won a $545 event for $43,000 in his first major live tournament, and “Tampa Bay” Ray Del Cueto, who won $28,800 in Ring Event #3.

A Pair of Ladies Hold WPT Invitational in Check
Los Angeles, California
As the longest tournament series outside of the World Series of Poker inches toward its ending, two of the more unique events that the LA Poker Classic has to offer took place. The WPT Celebrity Invitational tournament got underway this week, with boatloads of LA celebrities and poker players rubbing shoulders and doing their thing the red carpet. After playing down to the final six, the two biggest pros remaining are Dan Heimiller and David Kitai, but the story of this table is a pair of chess masters that also happen to be women. Almira Skripchenko and Dinara Khaziyeva are each vying for a top prize of $100,000, which includes a seat to the $25,500 WPT Championship. The final table will be played out on March 2nd, so it can be filmed back-to-back with the $10,000 WPT event.

The other unique event at the LAPC this week was the annual Ironman event, where no breaks are given and the tournament is played straight from beginning to end. 68 players signed up for this twisted idea from the mind of Matt Savage, and pro Nikolay Evdakov emerged victorious (and tired). He won $60,630 and a seat in the main event for his victory, which was his second LAPC victory of the week after winning the six-handed Pot Limit Omaha following a three-way chop for almost $35,000. Evdakov is one of four people to own two or more titles at this year’s LAPC and he has thrust himself into the player of the series race there.

Another notable player found victory this week as Owen “owcrowe” Crowe, who won a $1,065 event for over $37,000 in an event that saw Matt Savage’s personal punching bag for the LAPC, Matt Affleck, cash. On several occasions during this series Savage, who is an infamous needler and may or may not have sent yours truly a text message during the AFC Championship game when the Jets were down three touchdowns, has brought up the monster pot that Affleck lost at this year’s WSOP Main Event, once playing it on a giant projector screen for the entire tournament field.

Power Outages Can’t Stop First Chilean LAPT Champion
LAPT Brazil – Sao Paolo, Brazil
Brazilians comprised 60% of the 536 players in this record-breaking LAPT event, and the hometown crowd was hungry to crown the first Brazilian champion in the history of the Latin American Poker Tour on their own turf. They had quite an edge heading into the final table as well, with 5 of the 8 players at the final table coming from Brazil. In fact, all 8 players were from Latin America, and a Latin American nation crowned their first champion, but it was Chilean Alex Manzano emerging as the champion. Manzano satellited in online and turned that small investment into R$ 615,840, roughly $370,000.

Day 3 of the £10,000 + 350 Main Event concluded with 22 players remaining, playing down to the final table starting at 12pm London time Monday afternoon. A reminder, a stream with hole cards (plus 5 hour delay) will be available at ESPN3.com in the US, Latin America, Brazil, New Sealand and Australia. The same stream will be available at WSOP.com for European viewers. The chip leader is Ronald Lee with 922,000 in chips. Other notables returning: Andrew Pantling (Event #1 runner-up to Phil Laak) – 821,000, Viktor Blom – 705,000, Phil Ivey – 657,000, Hoyt Corkins – 566,000, Barny Boatman – 379,000, Victory Poker CEO Dan Fleyshman – 336,000 and Roland de Wolfe – 113,000. Table draw available at WSOP.com .

The £10,000 + 350 High Roller NL Heads-Up event finally has a winner, as Gus Hansen defeated Jim Collopy in the 3rd and deciding match to earn his first WSOP bracelet along with £288,409. Here’s how the final hand played out:

Elsewhere …

PokerStars LAPT Grand Final – Rosario, Argentina :: Martin Sansour defeats Bolivar Palacios, earning $322,280. Matthias Habernig’s bid for back-to-back LAPT wins fell short, finishing 6th. PokerStars Blog has the final table report.

TJ Cloutier Choctaw Poker Classic – Durant, OK :: Cloutier finishes 17th for $3,673, play down to 4-handed. www.roundersradio.com covering the FT action.

PokerStars WCOOP $5,000 Main Event :: 2,443 entries, first pays over $2m, 2nd and 3rd $1m+

Day 2 of the 10,000 + 350 WSOPE Main Event came to a close with 66 players remaining, and Viktor Blom, rumored to be online legend Isildur1 the leader with 443,200 in chips. Other notables returning: Phil Ivey – 289,300, Victory Poker CEO Day Fleyshman – 269,000, Yevgeniy Timoshenko – 222,900, Barry Greenstein – 175,300, Roland de Wolfe – 166,200 and Daniel Negreanu – 142,800. The day 3 table draw is now available at WSOP.com . Play resumes at 12pm Sunday afternoon/7am ET with the field playing down to the final 27. Follow the updates at PokerNews and WSOP.com.

The third and deciding match of the 10,000 + 350 NL Holdem Heads-Up bracelet will take place at 6pm Sunday evening between Gus Hansen and Jim Collopy. There was discussion of holding the final match in Las Vegas November Nine weekend, but eventually it was worked out to finish it out in London.

Elsewhere …

LAPT Grande Finale – Rosario, Argentina :: The final table of 8 has been reached, with Matthias Habernig, winner of LAPT Florianopolis, is looking to win back-to-back titles. Here’s how the final table will be seated:

Seat 1: Roberto Bianchi (Argentina) 1,242,000
Seat 2: William Ross (USA) 352,000
Seat 3: Ivan Saul (Argentina) 179,000
Seat 4: Nico Fierro (Chile) 406,000
Seat 5: Matthias Habernig (Austria) 463,000
Seat 6: Martin Sansour (Peru) 952,000
Seat 7: Bolivar Palacios (Panama) 1,000,000
Seat 8: Daniel Ades (Argentina) 514,000

Action resumes Sunday at noon local time, follow the action at PokerNews and the PokerStars blog.

TJ Cloutier Choctaw Poker Classic – Durant, Oklahoma :: Day 1 of their $1,500 + 100 Main Event drew a field of 191 players, with first place taking down $73,126. Streaming at Roundersradio.com

Day 1a of the £10,000 + 350 Main Event drew a field of 137 players and an appearance by Phil Hellmuth (video below). The day 1a chip leader is Nicolas Levi with 153,850 in chips. Some notables returning Saturday afternoon: Bruno Fitoussi – 120,250, Leo Margets – 109,000, Allen Cunningham – 84,725, Barny Boatman – 73,200, Chris Ferguson – 52,950 and Jeff Lisandro 43,500. A full list of chip counts available at WSOP.com.

The £10,000 + 350 High Roller No-Limit Heads-Up event reached the best-of-three final, with Gus Hansen winning the first match, and Jim Collopy making a comeback from an over 2-1 deficit to even up the match. The third and deciding match is currently scheduled for Friday afternoon, but with both players planning to play in the Main Event, the exact time has not been announced. Be sure to check PokerNews or WSOP.com

Elsewhere …

WPT Borgata Poker Open, Atlantic City :: Play is currently heads-up between Dwyte Pilgrim and Kia Mohajeri. WPT Live Updates

UPDATE: Dwyte Pilgrim finishes first, winning $733,802, moves into first place in the CardPlayer Player of the Year standings.

LAPT Grande Finale – Rosario, Argentina :: $5,000 Main Event draws a field of 254 players, with 131 returning Friday afternoon. Winner takes down over $300,000. According to Terrence Chan, the Argentinian government will tax 31.5% of net winnings to all players outside Argentinia, which has some people upset. Updates at PokerNews and PokerStars Blog

With the £10,000 + 350 Main Event scheduled to start at 12pm London time Thursday, the final prelim event, £10,000 + 350 High Roller No-Limit Holdem Heads-Up will come to its conclusion at 3pm. Four players remain with the two winners playing a best-of-three final shortly after both matches are completed.

Gus Hansen v Andrew Feldman
Jim Collopy v Ram Vaswani

For results from day 2, check out PokerNews or WSOP.com.

Elsewhere …

WPT Borgata Poker Open – 10 players, including Dwyte Pilgrim and Lee Childs, remain as they play down to the TV final table. Defending champion Olivier Busquet finishes 25th, Mike Sexton finishes 20th. WPT Live Updates

UPDATE: Here’s the final table, starting at 4pm ET Thursday:

Seat 1. Kia Mohajeri – 4,225,000
Seat 2. Benjamin Klier – 6,125,000
Seat 3. Ofir Mor – 7,300,000
Seat 4. Brandon Novena – 5,125,000
Seat 5. Dwyte Pilgrim – 4,800,000
Seat 6. Daniel Makowsky – 3,300,000

PokerStars LAPT Grande Final – Rosario, Argentina :: Final stop of season 3 features a $5,000 Main Event. Can Jose “Nacho” Barbero win his 3rd LAPT event this season? PokerNews and the PokerStars Blog provide updates throughout the tournament.

November Niner Matt Jarvis tweeted over the weekend that Sorel Mizzi would coach him in preparation for the WSOP ME final table.

This seemed obvious once the pictures started coming in that showed us while no Haiti, the destruction caused by the 8th largest earthquake in recorded history made organizing a poker tournament an afterthought:

The official word, via @PokerStarsBlog:

The PokerStars.net Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) regrets to announce that the 2010 LAPT Viña del Mar, Chile poker festival has been cancelled. The festival was scheduled to be held at the Enjoy Viña del Mar Casino and Resort from March 19-23, 2010.

All players who have qualified or bought-in to the event will be fully refunded their buy-ins and any out-of-pocket expenses*.

This cancellation follows a devastating 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile approximately 175 miles south of Viña del Mar on February 27, 2010. The cancellation of the festival has been forced by the effects of the earthquake and in light of the rescue and recovery efforts now taking place throughout Chile.

Everyone at PokerStars.net and the LAPT offers their thoughts and condolences to all of those affected by this tragic natural disaster.

The LAPT sincerely apologizes for this cancellation to the players that had planned to attend the festival.

*Players should contact [email protected] with any queries

You gotta chalk natural disaster up to a bad beat, but man, the LAPT seems to really be having troubles getting off the ground (even with all the soccer stars they’ve got pimping). I could see LAPT dropping down from a projected #2 spot to a #4 in terms of prestige amongst the PokerStars tours … behind EPT (obv), NAPT, and APPT.

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.

That’s the unconfirmed word we’re hearing around Vegas this weekend: Apparently 441 Productions — the same TV crew that shoots the WSOP for ESPN — is still in Mexico, as their equipment has been confiscated(?) and they’re not gonna leave El Sur without it. Not sure if 441 honcho Matt Maranz is with his camerapeeps in Nuevo Vallarta or is back home stateside talking with Ross Perot about what it will take to send in an armed helicopter to liberate any gear being held hostage.

That’s the word just in … remaining runners will pick up where they left off chip-wise and play the tournament online (at PokerStars, natch) down to a final table, which will be held live in Chile. $50k new overlay, too. According to Jessie in Pokerstarzistan:

Hi Dan,

We just wanted to provide you with an official update from PokerStars on LAPT Mexico.

The Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) confirms that it is cancelling the poker tournament in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico, due to an indefinite suspension served on one of its local partners.

The LAPT states it has cooperated fully and in good faith with the requirements outlined by the Mexican government. The LAPT respects and abides by local regulations in each market.

LAPT’s partner in Mexico obtained a formal ruling from the Mexican Ministry of the Interior (SEGOB) allowing the event to take place. As the LAPT complied with every rule stipulated by the Code of the Mexican Federal Law of Games and Raffles, the reasons for suspension are beingreviewed by lawyers of all parties.

All the best,
Jessie

POKERSTARS.NET LAPT MEXICO SUSPENDED

Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico – December 9, 2009 — PokerStars.net today announced that they will be offering a free roll on their site to all remaining players in the suspended LAPT Mexico event. The players will start with the same number of chips they had when the tournament was suspended and they will play down to the final table. The final nine will then be flown to the LAPT Vina del Mar in Chile, where they will finish the tournament live on a televised table.

More…

This tournament just will not go away, but that’s probably a good thing for the 89 players who felt a little left out in the cold warmth. No shot at a televised final table or a piece of Latin American fame or more money than $5500.

So, PokerStars is offering a freeroll tournament online – time and date to be determined by the availability of the players – for the 89 finalists, who will start with the number of chips they had at the time of the suspension. The nine who reach the final table will be flown down to Vina del Mar, Chile, the site of the next LAPT stop in January, to play for the win…and for television.

“We know that many of our remaining players really wanted the opportunity to finish this tournament and earn their shot at an LAPT title” says Sarne Lightman, Director of Marketing for PokerStars Latin America. “Although the tournament was suspended and the prize money distributed, PokerStars still wants to offer their players this extra opportunity. PokerStars will also be adding $50,000 in prize money to the final table. “

Inspiring shit over at Tao of Poker — with reports from the LAPT’s ill-fated venture into Nuevo Vallarta. Shame on me for not considering the imminent dangers … as I forgot whom we’re dealing with here:

Someone suggested that we remove our badges. For a couple of moments, I was on edge and extremely concerned at the safety of Change100 and myself and my fellow media reps like Owen, Otis, Joe, Alex, and everyone else. I never thought that I’d get tossed into prison in Mexico for a non-drug charge. Then I got really freaked out. The federalies wouldn’t throw me in jail. They’d whack me. Journalists are the enemy in third world countries and forty-five journalists were killed in Mexico since 2000. According to Reporters without Borders, Mexico is considered the most dangerous country for journalists with the exception of Iraq.

In the end there would be no gunfire, but a tense standoff between an international poker company and a shady second-world gov creates a pretty dramatic look at the sociopoliticonomic world we live in — with nearly a million dollars in play, one side walks into a trap, while the other shoots itself in the foot … everyone else scrambles in the crossfire.

Click here to get the full story of Otis’ Amazing 35th Birthday Party.