Photo: PokerStarsBlog.com

Today’s Boxscore

Vanessa Selbst $1,424,420 – 2013 PCA High Roller
Dimitar Danchev $1,859,000 – 2013 PCA Main Event
Travis Williams $49,581 – Delaware Park Winter Classic

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure knows how to end things with a bang. After an entire festival of big results, it was the final tournament to supply the biggest story. Vanessa Selbst entered the $25,000 High Roller final table needing a 5th place finish or better to pass Kathy Liebert as the highest earning female poker player. Selbst did much better than 5th as she rolled to the title for another impressive victory putting her over $6,000,000 in lifetime earnings. The stacked final table included Shaun Deeb, Mike Watson, Chris Klodnicki, Brynn Kenney, Micah Raskin, and Tobias Reinkemeier.

Selbst adds the PCA High Roller victory to her two WSOP bracelets, two NAPT Mohegan Sun (back-to-back) wins, a Partouche Poker Tour win in 2010, and a boatload of other titles.

Interesting results during the 2013 PCA included wins by Scott Seiver, Peter Jetten, John Dibella, and Alexis Gilbard plus two trophies presented to Marcel Luske. With the wrap-up of the popular event, players will now take off for various parts of the world including the Borgata Winter Open, the LAPC, and getting ready for the Aussie Millions.

Link Dump

Tweet of the Day

RT @vanessaselbst: Ran hotter than the sun. Won the tournament.<~Congratulations Vanessa, Welcome to the women’s all time money lead.

— Matt Savage (@SavagePoker) January 15, 2013

PCA 2013: Vanessa Selbst makes history to win PCA High Roller – Might as well go to the experts on the Selbst victory, this time it’s Master Stephen Bartley at the keyboard with the tournament recap.

National Heads Up Poker Championship confirmed list – (Seriously, the list was released as a Google doc?) The popular NHUPC is back after a year off and we now know the first 32 confirmed players for the event including one Mr. Phil Ivey. No big surprises so far but it’s good to see Will “The Thrill” Failla and Maria Ho in the first release. A few other names have already stated they received an invite including Weeds producer Matt Salsberg.

WSOP Asia-Pacific Announces 2013 Schedule – Another big festival is now officially scheduled for Melbourne, Australia following the popular Aussie Millions. There will be 5 events including the Main plus a $50,000 High Roller (with rebuys) plus another go at the Caeasars Cup Invitational.

PCA 2013: High Roller Champion Vanessa Selbst – Kristy Arnett from PokerNews caught up with the winningest (is that really a word?) female poker player in history.

Marcel Luske
Photo: PokerStarsBlog.com

Today’s Boxscore

Marcel Luske $18,500 – 2013 PCA H.O.R.S.E.
John Dibella $69,780 – 2013 PCA NLHE Turbo
Vladimir Zakharau $68,200 – 2013 PCA PLO Turbo
Christopher Frank $55,720 – 2013 PCA NLHE Bounty

The 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is well underway with the Main Event down to 30-ish some players depending on when/if you read this. Owen Crowe is the big name up on top of the leaderboard with Joe (don’t you dare call me Sebok) Serock and Eddy Sabat among the names on his tail. The Main drew 987 entrants this year, down a bit from last year which drew over a thousand, and the winner will have to figure out how to get $1,859,000 out of the Bahamas.

The next big tournament stops include the WSOP Circuit events at Choctaw, a WPT Regional event somewhere in Florida called Coconut Creek, and the return of the WPT big production to the Borgata Winter Open. Things are definitely back in full swing with the new year.

Link Dump

Tweet of the Day – The Heartland Poker Tour made the big announcement today, their structure for the upcoming season has been updated by none other than Daniel Negreanu. The new structure is a great tweak to an already fantastic tour, but no word from top shelf nit Allen Kessler.

HPT Unveils New Structure Designed by Daniel Negreanu fb.me/2yYTZewG5

— HPT-Heartland Poker(@HPTPoker) January 11, 2013

Lottomatica, Golden Gaming recommended for interactive gaming licenses – Two more companies, Lottomatica and Golden Gaming, received recommendations for online gaming licenses by the Nevada Gaming Commission. The players are starting to take the field, will be interesting to see how this all turns out.

What It’s Like to Be a Woman Who Plays Professional Poker – The Atlantic published a fairly comprehensive piece on uber-grinder Vanessa Selbst and her place in poker.

Michael Phelps is playing poker, looking interesting – God bless the USA Today for completely missing the point that a top class athlete was in the Bahamas competing the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, instead focusing on how he was dressed.

International Stadiums Poker Tour Changes Format – The ever changing ISPT is back at it again, this time announcing that “Day 1” will be played online between Feb 3rd to May 19th. Innovative or nuts? I guess we’ll find out.

PCA 2013: Michael Phelps & Jeff “PBF” Gross – Kristy Arnett from PokerNews caught up with 18-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps and Jeff Gross.

Scott Seiver
Photo: PokerStarsBlog.com

Today’s Boxscore

Scott Seiver $2,003,480 – 2013 PCA Super High Roller
Peter Jetten $52,380 – 2013 PCA Open-Face Chinese
Mike Telker $96,750 – 2013 $5,000 Turbo 8-handed
Simon Deadman €67,500 – WPT National Dublin

The poker tournament circuit is back underway with the launch of the 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and a lot of noise coming from the Bahamas already. Big money, first run tournaments, and a few tweets about the silly amount of money it costs to stay at the Atlantis.

PokerStars changed their PCA schedule a few years ago, to the better, by putting the Main Event near the beginning of the festival. This leaves plenty of side events for those who bust out of the Main and still want to hang around the Bahamas instead of heading somewhere much colder. Scott Seiver was the big winner right out of the gate when he defeated the understandably talented Super High Roller final table which included David “Doc” Sands, Nick Schulman, and Philipp Gruissem. A nice payday for Seiver as he added a mere $2,000,000 to his bankroll.

The PCA also introduced the first Open-Face Chinese Poker tournament ever. This game is the latest big buzz among the young, high-rolling, twitter-happy professionals and PokerStars decided to feature the game with a unique tournament (check the link for some of the rules). They drew an impressive 59 players with 18 reentries and Peter Jetten can now call himself the first ever Open-Face Chinese Poker champion.

# Everything you always wanted to know about online gambling but were afraid to ask! #

Link Dump

Tweet of the Day – Dane Cook played this off later as a joke. The only problem with Dane Cook, it’s impossible to tell the difference between when he’s being serious and when he’s joking. I’m sure online poker players responded with their well known restraint.

If you really believe you’re playing online poker for real money against other people & not genius super computers you deserve your future.

— Dane Cook (@DaneCook) January 6, 2013

Kindt: Internet Gambling Will Cripple World’s Economic, Financial Systems – Well here’s an op.ed piece that doesn’t beat around the bush at all. Online gambling would cripple (cripple I tell you!) the economy of the entire world. I don’t suppose he could be overstating his case in the least.

Broken: The Erick Lindgren Story – The Lindgren saga has been playing out over the last year and Lance Bradley at Bluff was able to get a sitdown with the man as he sits in rehab for his gambling addiction. Interesting that it’s only recognized as an addiction after defaulting on a boat load of bets. The article is worth the read if you haven’t already.

There’s little TLC for ‘Sin City Rules’ – There was a little buzz around the poker world when it Jennifer Harman announced she would be involved in a “reality” show on TLC. That buzz died quickly once people realized the show was unwatchable and now it looks to be buried in the Nevada desert. A show that bad deserved a heavy handed Las Vegas cliche.

Zynga’s Online Gambling Ambitions Bolstered by its Patent Portfolio – You have to give them credit, Zynga hasn’t given up on their ambition to enter the online gambling market in force.

PCA 2013: Maria Ho Comes to Bahamas After Party in Vegas – Maria Ho, Kristy Arnett, the Bahamas, and talk of parties in Las Vegas.

Tao of Pokerati: December 9, 2010

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Pauly chats with Change100, the newly crowned Ladies Champion at the 2011 PCA. She explained how she threw out her back and while nursing herself back to health, she parlayed a tiny investment into a satellite seat into the Ladies Event. Upon her arrival in the Bahamas, she advanced to Day 2 and the final table before she eventually secured a victory.

Subscribe to the Tao of Pokerati podcast in iTunes so that you don’t miss an episode.

The second installment of the Islidur SuperStar Showdown took place yesterday evening on PokerStars. After getting beat by Isaac Haxton in the first match Islidur1 took on Tony G in the 2,500 hand heads-up match. By the time the 9 hour match was concluded Islidur1 came out victorious with a final winning margin of $44,820.

At different points of the match each player held a lead of at least $70,000 before the biggest hands of the match even happened. The largest hand of the match came on one of the PLO tables when both players were sitting with over 60k each. Tony G was the aggressor for the entire hand and was the one who got the players all-in after the river when the board read . Tony G held the lead throughout the hand with his but the river was enough for Islidur1 to steal the $124,300 pot with his .

As the matched closed Tony G went into desperation mode and tried to make a move with but ran into the of Islidur1. After this hand Islidur held a $45,000 lead and that was where the match ended.

Post match comments by Tony G can be found on his blog where has laid down the challenge for Islidur1 to come over to Party Poker.

Who is next in line for the SuperStar Showdown? Some think it will be Phil Galfond while others think that a Islidur/Haxton rematch is possible. PokerStars Pro David Williams hinted in the chat box last night that David “Viffer” Peat has sent in a proposal for a challenge between him and Islidur1 take place live at PCA this month. Keep an eye on the official SuperStar Showdown page for the announcement of the next opponent.

For those who missed it, on last week’s episode we bid farewell to co-host John Caldwell … then got to business discussing the PCA and the new breed of Tiger Beat PokerStars. And then we get into the first annual Poker Beat Awards … where the crew waxes gay about Phil Ivey and all his accomplishments or lack thereof in 2009. I woulda voted for him (maybe I did?) but he wasn’t even at the ceremony to accept his awards. What a jerk!

We also talk a little Clonie vs. Full Tilt lawsuit and say our goodbyes to those who left us in 2009.

on PokerRoad

The Poker Beat
1/14/10

[audio:http://www.pokerroad.com/upload/radio/23/audio/TPB11410.mp3]

Here’s a couple of hands from this year’s PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas.

The most recent hand came from the final table of the World Cup of Poker VI yesterday, as 2008 November Niner Darus Suharto is the victim of one of the worst slowrolls ever. Note: As this is a team competition, players are allowed to call a time-out in the middle of the hand.

The slowrolling came back to bite the Germans, as they were eventually eliminated by Canada, but it was the team from Taiwan Chinese Taipei who took down the title.

More…

Whoever woulda thunk it … that the first big winner of 2010 would’ve graduated high school with the Class of 2009?

But Harrison Gimbel, 19, now a freshman at the University of Alabama, became the youngest PCA champion ever, winning $2.2 million by besting a record field of 1,529 in the $10k main event.

Gimbel-Gamble: I went to the Bahamas and all I got was this lousy PokerStars-dot-net T-shirt.

But Gimbel — now arguably the Doyle Brunson of Generation Z — didn’t come out of nowhere. He began playing poker at age 13 … and hit the Florida poker rooms at 18 (the legal age there) while still a student at a tony Palm Beach prep school. In June of last year, during the 21-and-up World Series, he won the Florida State Championship — a $900 main event that paid $65k. He followed that up during the November Nine, final tabling a PokerStars Sunday Million for $47k, and then the next week taking down a $125 tourney on Stars for $25k.

He won his way into the PCA via a $1,000 live satellite. On Day 1, he got it all-in pre-flop with 4-6 offsuit to crack Barry Greenstein’s Aces.

* He plays online as Gibler321.
* He’s been a member of Daniel Negreanu’s Full Contact Poker community since 2006.
* The NAPT-PCA champ will be too young to compete in the NAPT-Venetian event.

Barry Shulman, the only actual grandpa at the final table, btw, finished 3rd, booking his second million-dollar tournament win in the past four months.

CORRECTION: Turns out Gimbel dropped out of Alabama three weeks into school. Way to go, kiddo! You have chosen the right career path, as nowhere but in poker is dropping out of school more celebrated.

The Poker Beat is back … (attempting) to make sense of all that is going on in the poker world. In this episode, BJ, Huff, and I discuss (at length) PokerStars’ record-setting 149,000 player $1 tourney; the opening of the Aria poker room (and what this may or may not mean over at the Bellagio); the ridiculousness of 17 $1k rebuy tourneys at Bellagio’s upcoming 5-star Classic; everything that is the PCA; PokerStars getting in bed with the Venetian for the new NAPT; and over at Full Tilt, all things Isildur … and, of course, the second red-pro suspension of Brian Townsend.

on PokerRoad

The Poker Beat
Huff, Nemeth, Michalski
1/07/10

[audio:http://www.pokerroad.com/upload/radio/23/audio/TPB1710.mp3]

BTW, a little breaking-ish news on this episode — and perhaps an indication of the perceived threat of the NAPT-Venetian, which just so happens to coincide with the LAPC, the usual early-year destination for the LA-LV poker masses … anyone who buys into the $10k WPT-LAPC main event at the Commerce before February 19 now will receive a seat in the televised $200k WPT Invitational. Neato!

As you probably know, the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure is going on in the Bahamas, on the edge of Nassau. (I’m not yet following hand action on PokerStarsBlog or PokerNews for live reporting … just getting daily recaps from Tao of Poker.) In the two years since PokerStars has taken over this 7-year-old event at Atlantis, it clearly has become one of the big-big events in poker. Back in 2004, January poker was all about Tunica. Now, it’s kinda a joke around Vegas as to who’s not in the Bahamas. (Even Full Tilt and UB pros go.)

Anyhow, for a glimpse at how this non-European-EPT-event-turned-flagship-tourney of the new NAPT is catching on worldwide … here’s the breakdown of nationalities for the main event field (which currently has 405 of 1529 remaining):

Country Players
USA 739
Canada 164
Germany 100
Netherlands 60
UK 56
France 44
Brazil 37
Spain 27
Sweden 27
Argentina 21
Italy 21
Norway 18
Russia 17
Denmark 17
Hungary 15
Belgium 12
Finland 11
Mexico 9
Portugal 9
Romania 9
Australia 8
Austria 8
Switzerland 8
Ireland 6
Poland 5
Slovakia 5
Costa Rica 4
Estonia 4
Greece 4
New Zealand 4
Panama 4
Peru 4
Uruguay 4
Venezuela 4
Czech Republic 3
Israel 3
Lebanon 3
Bulgaria 2
Iceland 2
Malta 1
Ukraine 2
Virgin Islands (U.S.) 2
Belarus 1
Belize 1
Bermuda 1
Chile 1
Croatia 1
Egypt 1
India 1
Korea 1
Latvia 1
Lithuania 3
Monaco 2
Puerto Rico 2
Slovenia 2
Turkey 1
Turks and Caicos Islands 1
unknown 6
1529

Pauly and Benjo escape from the bitter gray snow of NYC to report from the high-70s breezes and clear ocean skies of Paradise Island at the Atlantis Resort, where what looks to be the biggest poker tournament outside of the United States in all of history — the 2009 PCA — is getting underway. If poker is dying, that word clearly hasn’t made it yet to the Bahamas.

Follow the on-table action at PokerStarsBlog, and the off-table adventures at Tao of Poker and LV-OTR. Or just listen to Pauly’s report for a conchilicious taste of all the pokery gayness goodness going down right now in the Bermuda Triangle as the ever-French Benjo threatens to disappear sans a contract for podcast big-bucks:

Book 8: The Islanders
Episode 8.1: International Hotspot 3:25

[audio:tao/TOP-8-1.mp3]

GSN has issued a press release to pimp their Father’s Day programming. There will be an eight-hour marathon consisting of three two-hour World Poker Tour episodes and ending with the world premiere of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

Isn’t this the network that has declined to renew High Stakes Poker and the World Poker Tour? Hypocrital is the word that immediately comes to mind. Watch our great poker shows on Father’s Day, and watch the current season of the WPT on our network, but when it’s over, good luck with that poker fad.

I guess GSN has to get the viewers before all of us downgrade our cable packages after the WPT season is over. I know I’ll save about $20 a month by getting rid of that tier of channels, and though I do love me some nostalgic episodes of Match Game, I’ll gladly say goodbye to GSN for their refusal to consider their loyal poker viewers or give an honest answer about why they’re dropping poker from their line-up.

Love is not often found in the poker community. Players are looking for money, tournament titles, and maybe a little fame. But sometimes a connection is made that just works. Enter Vanessa Rousso and Chad Brown.

They’ve been dating for awhile, and Chad proposed to Vanessa at Christmas. They made the engagement announcement for the first time yesterday on PokerRoad Radio during the EPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas.

Do I hear an “Awww” somewhere in Pokerati land?

Congratulations to Vanessa and Chad!

Hope so. January is packed with tournaments spanning the globe. But if you’re not traveling, you can still keep up with the main events via various websites and blogs.

• January 5, Bahamas: Where better for a tournament than a place called Paradise Island? The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) starts and ends with the main event, the final table of which will take place on the 10th. This is an 18-and-over tournament, so look out for the kiddies young, skilled online pros to turn out in force. Otis will be blogging from the event.

• January 5, Australia: A quick 14-hour flight or so away will be the Aussie Millions Poker Championship in Melbourne. This is a series that starts on the 5th with a $1,100 buy-in no-limit hold’em event, continues with a wide range of games and buy-ins (including the $100,000 no-limit event), and wraps up with the main event that begins on the 14th and runs for seven days. A plethora of reporters, including Dr. Pauly and Change100, will be covering it all for PokerNews.

• January 3, Tunica: The World Poker Open has already begun with its preliminary events at the Gold Strike Casino in Tunica, Mississippi. By the 20th, the main event will be underway and hosted by the World Poker Tour. Aaron Hendrix is there and will be providing daily coverage of all of the events for PokerWorks, and the WPT will be live blogging for the main event with BJ Nemeth at the helm.

• January 15, Atlantic City: The Borgata Winter Poker Open starts its preliminary events on the 15th, and the WPT main event (Borgata Poker Classic) begins on the 27th with a final table on the 31st. It doesn’t seem that any media outlet is covering the prelim events, but surely PokerListings will be there for the main event along with the WPT live bloggers.