Excuse me while I shed my Union Jack trousers and put this flag back into its pouch. The Olympics are over and the unseasonal wave of athletic patriotism that has washed over the UK is finally abating. It’s a relief, let me tell you. Now we can get back to moaning about the transport network and being rained on. If only the sun would stop shining.

Worldwide Tournament Update

We start this week with some glorious victories. First up there was Robbie Renehan proving true the maxim that ‘Wherever you go, you will always find the Irish’. He somehow managed to outlast a horde of locals to win the Colombian National Poker Championship, which forms part of the Latin American Poker Tour. [OnlinePoker.net]

Doing even more winning is Marvin Rettenmaier, who has garnered praise for becoming the first person ever to win back-to-back WPT events. PokerNews have even penned this paean to his glory, detailing his recent results and tournament strategy. [PokerNews]

Fresh Scandal on 2+2

A slew of worrying, but frankly engrossing, cheating accusations are unravelling on 2+2. It all begins with an anonymously posted chat log which alleges that poker pro Matt Marafioti and reported hacker Samer Rahman had been colluding to steal money from other online pros by installing a program on their computers that revealed their hole cards. The discussion has now evolved into claims by several Swedish pros that they have been scammed and threatened by a notorious biker gang with ties to Rahman. [2+2]

Euro Council Enshrined

PokerStars has set up a European Players Council to look out for the needs of its EPT competitors. It follows the example laid down by the WSOP equivalent, whose founding members included such trusted names as Chris Ferguson and Howard Lederer. [Card Player]

Facebook Gets Real Money Bingo

The online gambling world has been going all social lately, so it was only a matter of time before the social media sphere went all gambley. Facebook has allowed the first ever real money gambling app onto its platform. The horrifically named Bingo Friendzy has only launched in the UK so far. [The Telegraph]

London Poker Festival on the Horizon

The London Poker Festival is on the horizon, featuring a cavalcade of card-slinging endeavours, including the (sort-of) prestigious British Poker Awards. London’s various casinos and poker clubs are running a huge number of tournaments, including the English Poker Open and various GUKPT events. [British Poker Festival]

Bye-Bye Blom

Despite completing their Full Tilt takeover, it’s not all been roses for PokerStars, as they this week bid farewell to volatile high-stakes phenom Viktor Blom. After rocketing into the spotlight with his insane swings as the anonymous Isildur1, Blom has gone on to become one of the online game’s most captivating players. [PokerNews]

Ah! I forgot that we still had the Paralympics to come. It’ll take me a full week to reaffix all my British paraphernalia. Which is conveniently just about the right amount of time for the wider world of poker to generate enough news for another post. Serendipity at its finest.

Marvin Rettenmaier
Photo: World Poker Tour

Today’s Boxscore

Marvin Rettenmaier $287,784 – WPT Merit Cyprus Classic

It looks like Marvin Rettenmaier might have a pretty decent handle on this poker thing. On Thursday he became the first player to ever win back-to-back World Poker Tour events when he captured the WPT Merit Cyprus Classic title. This was the first tournament of the WPT Season XI but he picked up where he left off after winning the WPT World Championship to wrap up Season X. In between his two titles, he only cashed seven times during the WSOP including a final table in the Mix-Max tournament.

Rettenmaier grabbed $287,784 for his win and perhaps can now afford to dress like a grown man.

This story was a little too much to be pushed down into the link dump and also an example why I continue to believe legalized online poker is a long ways off. Mister and Missus Smith still equate poker with those evil negative EV games sitting in the casino pits where the house has a huge edge.

Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk on NBCSports.com played the puppet for locked out NFL officials when he wrote a piece called Locked-out officials plan to point out replacement official’s poker past.

Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the locked-out officials will soon be making it known that Shannon Eastin, who will become the first female official to work an NFL game, has played in the World Series of Poker.

Multiple links containing reports from the 2007 event mention Eastin.

Holy crap, stop the presses! A person of legal age participated in a legal poker tournament so she must be willing to fix an NFL game for a Binion’s Daily buy-in and a corn dog. In 2007, East finished 17th in a $1,500 NLH event and also cashed in the 2006 Ladies Championship.

Link Dump

FTPDoug returns to TwoPlusTwo – The infamous FTPDoug made his triumphant 2+2 return after taking his leave following the Full Tilt disaster. He is back and answering questions about the FTP relaunch after the PokerStars buyout. He also settles the question of whether it was actually Michele Clayborne posting as FTPDoug (told ya so).

Matt Marafioti Online Hacking Allegations – Marafioti is clearly off his rocker, that’s no big secret. But if these allegations of account hacking turn out to be true then he’s a blatant, delusional thief who is off his rocker.

Cantor Gaming launches Wi-Fi sports wagering in Nevada – And just like that, you can legally place a sports bet online in Nevada as long as you have a Cantor Gaming account and the ability to turn on your Wi-Fi adapter.

The British Poker Awards – Branded “the UK’s official poker awards” so it must be true. Award ceremonies for poker still seem a little odd because the ultimate award is cash in the hand and maybe a bracelet on the wrist. Now get off my lawn.

Best Poker Player Party ever? – I don’t know about the best party ever, I barely remember a PokerStars party at the WSOP with Mr. Snoop Dogg. But it still looks like a blast and Savage managed to once again find himself on camera.

There’s nothing left to do except start handing out bracelets. Attention now turns to the Rio as the WPT finished up at the Bellagio and today kicks off the first WSOP event. There will be plenty of people hitting up the Venetian DeepStack Event as well as the other smaller series trying to pick up some overflow but most player are ready to descend upon the (for now) pristine hallways of the Rio convention center.

There was still a little business to handle before the caravan moved west off the strip. Marvin Rettenmaier, fresh off his new signing at Party Poker, won the $25,000 WPT Championship against a tough final table which included Philippe Ktorza, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, Nick Schulman, Steve O’Dwyer, and Trevor Pope. Rettenmaier now has an extra $1.2m to play with at the WSOP.

That wasn’t the toughest final table of the weekend, that honor belonged to the $100,000 WPT Super High Roller. The tournament drew 27 players with 7 of them choosing to re-enter after busting for another $100k. With only 5 spots paying, Justin Bonomo busted on the $263,160 money bubble. Tom Marchese won the nosebleed tournament for $1,308,405 after beating Andrew Robl heads up for the title.

Next stop, the WSOP $500 Casino Employees event.

Photo: PartyPoker.com

Today’s Boxscore

Marvin Rettenmaier $1,196,858 WPT Championship
Tom Marchese $1,308,405 WPT Super High Roller

Link Dump

Live WSOP Chip Counts (Google Doc via Kevmath) – The World Series of Poker will attempt to have regularly updated (aka damn near live) chip counts and player tracking for every bracelet event this summer. The document was sent to WSOP dealers from Seth Palansky detailing the added steps they need to perform for the new system to work. My initial reaction was bull$#!$t but quickly changed my mind. This has the potential to be a huge development and I’m cautiously optimistic. If nothing else, it will stop Negreanu from whining every 15 minutes about his count being 100 chips off.

Bellagio Attempted Robbery – Another week, another Bellagio robbery. This time it was two members of Mensa grabbing a bunch of $5k chips from a blackjack table. They were quickly caught and no truth to the rumor it was a high-stakes poker player pissed off at playing a $25,000 tournament in the middle of noisy slot machines while Ma and Pa Kettle smoked it up.

ESPN Fantasy Poker Draft – Andrew Feldman has pulled a few people together each year, a good combination of players and media-type folks, for a WSOP Fantasy Poker draft. It usually a pretty good barometer of those running hot coming into the WSOP and who people think will have a great summer. As an unapologetic stats geek, I looked at the teams from every angle. Even with his laughable pick of Erick Lindgren, I think Chops has the best all around collection (Doc Sands, Buchanan, Bonomo, Haxton, JP Kelly, Dempsey) with Bluff’s Lance Bradley not far behind. I’d almost be willing to put down a wager.

The Micros – Thank god this wasn’t one of their webisodes or I would have Richard Marx stuck in my head. Speaking of their webisodes, I think it’s about time someone with deep pockets stepped up to fund these guys getting back to what they do best. Imagine the goodwill you would generate by returning the animated Tatjana Pasalic to the world.

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