Hi, my name is Al. You may know me on twitter as @AlCantHang, or not. Doesn’t much matter. I recently found myself with a lot of time on my hands when the latest job to support my nomadic lifestyle ended up in the bankruptcy courts. I suppose that is a little better than my other former employer who is currently under indictment by the Department of Justice. so when Dan asked if I was available to help him row the Pokerati boat, I said sure, criminal background check pending.

Nowhere better to start than what happened over the last few days in the poker world. It’s been pretty slow on the live poker scene as players get ready for the move to Vegas for the WPT World Championship and the 2012 WSOP. That didn’t stop us from seeing big things online, especially during the PokerStars SCOOP series.

Shaun Deeb is a sicko. First he crushes the major online games back in the olden days when we could still play in the States then “retires” at the ripe age of 24 then comes back like nothing changed. Now he’s just making a mockery of the latest PokerStars SCOOP Player of the Year race by winning three tournaments for over $120,000. All three titles were in some variant of Stud but I will leave the jokes for the comments below.

This Week’s Boxscore

Shaun Deeb $41,600 PokerStars SCOOP $2,100 STUD
Shaun Deeb $44,200 PokerStars SCOOP $2,100 Triple Stud
Shaun Deeb $40,330 PokerStars SCOOP $2,100 Stud Hi/Lo

Link Dump

Dear Shaun Deeb – Deebs exploits prompted this great post from our friend Brad over on the PokerStarsBlog. Instead of spending time with his family on Mother’s Day, he was “forced” to watch Deeb go for glory. And this was written before he won his third SCOOP title of the year.

World Poker Tour Season XI Schedule Announced – The first part of the new WPT schedule was released including all dates through the end of the year with plenty of National and Regional action. For the first time since the start of the World Poker Tour, Foxwoods World Poker Finals does not appear on the schedule.

Poker World Record Attempt 2012 – I only found out this news thanks to my twitter account catching a random follower. It looks like Barry Denson will be the next player to attempt to break the streak of 155 hours set by Phil Laak in 2010. Denson will be using his powers for good as he will use the event for charitable means, benefiting Hope for Heroes. To date they have raised £30.

Women in Poker Hall of Fame Nominations – Nominations are now open for the 2012 Women in Poker Hall of Fame class to join past inductees who include Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher, Jennifer Harman, and Kathy Liebert. The Induction Ceremony will take place on August 31st at the Golden Nugget.

That’s it for a pretty slow week but things will pick up during the weekend with WSOP-C and Cal State Poker Championship Main Events along with plenty of online action to finish up the SCOOP action. We’re also just a few weeks away from hearing stories about degenerate poker players dropping water balloons from Panorama Towers, so we’ll keep an eye on the police reports and emergency home owners association meetings.

Tim Chilcote

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OP-ED

Machines have always been the enemy of man, at least in movies and on television, yet somehow we never see our A.I. overlords coming until it’s too late.

Case in point, in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Doctor Miles Bennett Dyson spends a lifetime developing artificial intelligence as part of the Skynet project, only to discover that his work is more suitable for evil than for good – the price? His life. You remember the scene: Dyson detonates his own lab, and in doing so blows himself up, sacrificing himself to save us from an army of Schwarzeneggers.

With the computer Watson now a winning contestant on Jeopardy!, the man v. machine debate has been rekindled, and it would seem that we’re in danger again, if not for our lives (yet), then for pride. In a recent Slate article, “Jeopardy, Schmeopardy: Why IBM’s next target should be a machine that plays poker“, author Chris Wilson asks whether the next logical progression from Jeopardy!’s Watson is a poker playing robot, and suggests that robots have a lot to teach us about poker, and might even be — gasp! — better.

Bots sound dangerous, and it would be easy to infer that their skill is only going to grow and that their dominance of the poker world is a forgone conclusion.

Poker bots have been hot topic in online poker for years. The fervor usually stems from a fear of the unknown. Gambling robots reached a fever pitch in 2007 when Phil Laak and Ali Eslami played against the Polaris poker bot. At the time I asked myself the obvious question – is Polaris the next terminator, and if not, then what’s the point of this experiment and why should I care? I sat down that summer with computer-poker researcher Darse Billings of the University of Alberta Computer Poker Research Group to have him explain how Polaris actually worked and to see what he thought was the point of his poker robot experiment, just to put my mind at ease.

More…

In another “good for poker” moment, Phil “The Unabomber” Laak took down his first WSOP bracelet, defeating Andrew Pantling heads-up to win the £2500 + 150 NL Holdem 6-max event, earning £170,802 and the coveted gold bracelet. Laak now has three top-18 finishes in Europe since his August ATV accident. Pantling collects £105,506 for the runner-up finish with Chris Bjorin picking up £70,473 for third place. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report forthcoming at wsop.com.

Event #2, £5,000 + 250 Pot-Limit Omaha, drew a field of 120 entrants with the top 18 making the money and a first place prize of £159,154 by Friday evening. Updates available over at PokerNews and WSOP.com Friday at 12pm, day 1a of the £1,000 + 75 NL Holdem kicks off, the first of three opening days. Last year’s winner was JP Kelly, the second player to win a WSOP and WSOPE bracelet in the same year, besting a field of 608 players to earn over £136,000.

Elsewhere …

Day 2 of PokerStars APPT Auckland gets underway with 96 of the original 218 players returning for a $123,000+ first place prize. PokerNews and the PokerStars blog are handling the update duties.

WPT Borgata Poker Open – Atlantic City :: $1,500 NL event event draws over 303 entries, Tiffany Michelle “ices” Maria Ho, $3,300 NL WPT event starts Saturday. – Borgata Poker Open blog

CardPlayer’s subscription-based poker site, Spade Club ceases operations – 2+2 thread

Shaun Deeb’s “unretirement” continues, winning his 2nd WCOOP bracelet.- PokerStars blog

The final table of the £2,500 + £150 NL Holdem 6-max final table for the first event of the WSOP Europe has now been set. Two WSOP bracelet winners (Bjorin and Tann) will be trying to add a bracelet to their collection. However, the main attraction will be Phil Laak, with his third cash in Europe this month – 15th at the Partouche Poker Tour, 18th at the English Poker Open:

Seat 1: Willie Tann 72,000
Seat 2: Chris Bjorin 368,500
Seat 3: Phil Laak 317,000
Seat 4: Andrew Pantling 627,500
Seat 5: Ilan Rouah 200,000
Seat 6: David Peters 251,500

Final table payouts:

1. £170,802
2. £105,506
3. £70,473
4. £48,202
5. £33,617
6. £23,900

The final table starts at 2pm London time, (6am Vegas time) with updates available at PokerNews and WSOP.com. At 5pm Thursday, the second WSOPE bracelet event gets underway, £5,000 + £250 Pot-Limit Omaha event, won last year by Jani Vilmunen, who bested a field of 154 players to earn over £200,000.

Sorry, meant to get this out to y’all earlier … occurred to me tunes might work better than video for the holiday weekend, and poker podcasts better than that … so here’s some stuff that caught my ear for an extended period of time in recent days/weeks … I’m gonna presume you already listen to, and probably subscribe to The Poker Beat, the definitively #1 podcast in poker, you know, according to the readers of Bluff Magazine and WPT-Poker, which is the official magazine of the World Poker Tour in Europe. But if you can handle more than that, you might wanna perma-connect with these shows, too — via iTunes, RSS, or muscle memory:

Donkdown vs. Coolio

Donkdown Radio :: The always-NSFW working-class Vegas grinders at Donkdown went to war with Coolio last month before moving on to better things (like hunting down @asianspa). This feud started a few weeks back with an on-air story about how the aging rap star, a recent relo to Vegas, showed up at Binion’s during BARGE … allegedly to buy drugs from a player attending Barry Tanenbaum’s keynote address … only to end up with pictures of himself passed out butt-naked (literally) on the Donkdown forum. Coolio even came on their show and sang a few bars of Gangsta’s Paradise before getting hip to Brandon and Micon’s game a few days later, at which point they allege he began threatening to retaliate … right after the next season of Ultimate Big Brother. [Link]

Laak Extra-Whack

The Strip Podcast :: A worthy leftover from the summertime WSOP … Vegas culture blogger and New York Times stringer Steve Freiss’ talking to Phil Laak 114 hours into his record 115-hour poker-endurance run. If you thought Laak ever said weird shit before, listen to the twisted gems Freiss pulls out of him (or stumbles into) tableside during his final hands. [Link]

More…

Obviously at Pokerati if it bleeds it ledes! we would never publish anything so exploitive if both the victim @RealPhilLaak and his best friend @MagicAntonio weren’t cool with it on twitter. #inTheory

More…

There’re lots of WSOP-videos out there … enjoyed the Degen Report on RawVegas, you know … we’ll continue to show you the best ones we stumble across. (And feel free to tip us off if you see something you particularly like.)

One that seems totally click-worthy for those looking to digest a full WSOP-day before the boss peaks over the cube wall is PokerListings’ WSOP Live! — a daily video wrap-up of hedlines and surrounding personalities covering the annual poker period where all of Las Vegas, not just the Rio, caters to our ilk:

In totally absolutely not-not-related news, the dudes at Listings have an awesome house not too far from Pokerati headquarters (and the Rio) with a pool, a huge yard for a dog to run/roll/sniff around in, a solid wi-fi connection, and an unlocked back gate. (Thanks guys! Sorry about the poop.)

The mystery of who Isildur1 is may finally be revealed in a televised cash game in London next month. PokerNews, Tony G (who will stake Isildur1) and Matchroom Sport have each announced that the high-stakes online phenom will appear at the Les Ambassadeurs club in London for PartyPoker’s “Big Game IV”, a 48-hour cash game taped April 11-13th. Negotiations are still underway as to whether Isildur1 will wear a mask to continue hiding his identity or if he’ll choose to finally reveal himself to the public.

Names already announced for the cash game include Phil Laak, Jennifer Tilly, Isaac Haxton, Luke “Full Flush” Schwartz, Neil Channing with several other players to be announced over the next few days. Previous “Big Game” broadcasts filmed by Matchroom Sport have been 25-50 NL holdem, with the possibility of the blinds increasing during the session. The final product will first air on Channel Five in the UK, and eventually appear on networks around the world.

Here’s a promo previewing last year’s “Big Game” broadcast, picture this action in a much nicer location:

Remember the good old days, when poker was in its boom period and the poker community was treated to shows such as Celebrity Poker Showdown, Hollywood Hold ‘Em, Hip-Hop Holdem, WPT’s Hollywood Home Game, etc. etc.? Celebrities playing poker makes its “comeback” with Sam’s Game — a new show on the digital channel that is also home to The Boy Nexxt Door, e-Rotic, and Show Us Your Wits.

The show features Simpson’s co-creator Sam Simon, along with comedians Artie Lange, Dave Attell, Norm McDonald and Jeffrey Ross. Also featured are Playboy personalities Brande Roderick, Deanna Brooks, Andrea Lowell, and Stacy Fuson; along with poker personalities as Phil Laak, Sam’s ex-wife Jennifer Tilly, and Jennifer “Jennicide” Leigh. The “action” takes place in Hugh Hefner’s villa at the Palms in Las Vegas, and Playboy TV has put up a few clips on Youtube as a preview for the shows debut June 11th. Above is the longest clip, featuring Artie and Norm in a big hand. The one thing that stands out right away is that I believe this is the first poker program to ever use a 4-color deck in the graphics.

I’m sure many people missed last night’s High Stakes Poker episode on GSN to watch Annie Duke get slowrolled by Donald Trump. The show featured the debut of the day 1 lineup with a few new faces so check it out below:

Sorry for the slacking off on posting these GSN episodes from Youtube, but I’ve been busy with stuff. This week’s episode is the last of the day 2 lineup, as some new faces will join the established players seen on the first 10 episodes finish the season 5 run.

For a brief time, next week’s episode of HSP was available on GSN’s Youtube channel. However, that’s been taken down to recirculate elsewhere on the darker corners of the Internet until it actually airs on GSN. Now that’s been rectified, here’s Sunday’s episode:

This week it’s a new lineup of players on High Stakes Poker, as the Day 2 taping series of shows begins with Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Laak, Sam Simon, Nick Cassavettes, Daniel Negreanu, Patrik Antonius, Howard Lederer and Joe Hachem trying to take each other’s money. Again, this week’s show was put up on Youtube by GSN in 3 parts, and appears to be missing a segment as it’s shorter than previous weeks.

When poker and non-poker entities collide, it can produce interesting results. Case and point, Jennifer Tilly and Phil Laak – an odd but somehow perfect match.

Doyle Brunson proved he (or his people) had connections when he first recruited Pamela Anderson to rep for Doyles Room. That was before Doyles Room left the U.S. market and came back complete with Doyles Casino. Since the return, there have been numerous C-list and B-list celebrities lined up for his celebrity bounty tournaments, like Nicky Hilton and Jamie-Lynn Sigler. But this week, the Godfather of Poker has outdone himself. Not only does he have Eve (rapper, sometime-actress, and big deal for hip-hop fans like me) set up as one of his bounties, but he has Mickey Rourke. That Mickey Rourke who just won a Golden Globe for best actor in The Wrestler and was nominated for the Oscar. They will all be participating in this Thursday’s $25K Celebrity Bounty Tournament at Doyles Room.

Doyle wrote about his friendship with Rourke in his blog:

Twelve years ago, through a mutual friend, I met the talented actor Mickey Rourke. His life story should be made into a film because nobody has ever had more ups and downs than Mickey over the past 20 years.

Mickey was one of the hot new movie stars after his hit 9 1/2 weeks with Kim Basinger. Then, because of some personal problems, he walked away from acting to pursue a boxing career.

He boxed from 1991-1995, proving he was indeed a rebel who marched to the beat of his own drummer. Mickey then returned to his first love, acting, and with the completion of his new 2008 film, The Wrestler, he got rave reviews and won every award except the Academy Award. Mickey, who is genuinely a nice guy, decided to try poker. He remembered me, gave me a call and agreed to be one of the bounties in DoylesRoom’s weekly bounty tournament. So come play with Mickey this Thursday at 9:30 eastern in Doyle’s Bounty tournament.

On the other hand, poker doesn’t always mix well with “celebrity,” as Jose Canseco’s accountant can attest to. According to the Los Angeles Times, he dissed the Golden League in 2006 and the subsequent marketing contract he had with them in order to play poker in Reno and attend a party at the Playboy Mansion. Whoops. And for reneging on that contract, he now has to pay $258,750 for his addictions ego choices.

With a cold coming on, I juiced up on cold medicine and headed down to Commerce Casino last night for the pre-tournament WPT Invitational cocktail party. In more of a stuffy-headed fog now, I give you a few observations from the festivities:

photo: pokergossip

William Hung was the first “celebrity” I noticed, as he arrived as soon as the red carpet was ready for action. And the poor guy was the only one from the red carpet featured by Perez Hilton today, and not featured in a particularly good way.

Food was excellent as usual, with a random assortment of Asian and Greek set-ups, along with the yum-yum appetizers floating around the room on waiters’ trays.

No DJ in the outdoor area like last year’s event, but it actually made for a more conversation-friendly atmosphere on the patio.

Wicked Chops scored seats in the tournament. I spent way too much time trying to figure out how that happened.

photo: pokergossip

Reports of the demise of the Phil Laak/Jennifer Tilly relationship were evidently untrue, as the two looked typically couple-y as usual – Jennifer in a beautiful outfit, Phil in saggy jeans and a hoodie.

Some celebrities on the “confirmed” list were no-shows, such as Camryn Manheim, Montel Williams, and Nelly. (Yes, I was more than disappointed about one of those absences!)

CORRECTION: Manheim was there, and Jen was still disappointed. -DM

Shannon Elizabeth and Derek Hough are still a couple and just as adorable as ever, with Shannon checking on Derek and his amateur poker experiences throughout the evening.

Contrary to all reports from the tournament, Antonio Esfandiari was not the first person eliminated from the tournament, as Mike “SirWatts” Watson (former WPT champion) was out of the tournament and standing with us at the bar when that announcement was made. Ouch.

New to my social radar were Mike Watson and Shane Schleger, both of whom were introduced to me by Gavin Griffin and Kristin Roberts and very nice to chat with.

Also met Jamie Gold for the first time, who was extremely friendly and psyched about his Aced Poker affiliation, though my question about his possible ownership in the company was met with the standard “details of the contract cannot be disclosed” line. Good brief chat anyway. (His calling card gives him the title “Poker Philanthropist.”)

Mekhi Phifer took the reigns during the rebuy period, grabbing the mic and encouraging players to rebuy (or even just donate) to his charity, The Vine Group, to help educational efforts in Africa. He was a great spokesperson for the organization and raised $78,270 for it, while managing to maintain his usual humble but outrageously sexy demeanor.