Jonathan Taylor
Photo: WSOP.com

Today’s Boxscore

Jonathan Taylor $138,938 – WSOP-C Lodge Casino Main Event
Allen Kessler $20,859 – WSOP-C Lodge Casino $580 NLHE
Dan Shak $450,000 – PartyPoker Premier League VI
Michael Harris $95,663 – HPT Belterra Casin Main Event

There were plenty of results posted around the world over the weekend with the PartyPoker Premier League VI wrapping up, the Heartland Poker Tour crowning another champion, and the WSOP-C handing out a few more rings.

Dan Shak seems to love the big action, big attention games. He defeated Sam Trickett to capture the PartyPoker Premier League VI title after a few days of play for $450,000. As expected, it was a stacked final table with Antonio Esfandiari, Jonathan Duhamel, Daniel Cates, and actress/poker player Jennifer Tilly. Negreanu made a big splash as he just missed the final table (video can be viewed below).

Jonathan Taylor is the latest World Series of Poker Circuit event winner, his 3rd ring ring of the 2012/2013 series. He topped the other 420 entrees in the tournament for over $138,000. Perhaps only interesting to me, the small buy-in WSOP-C event in Blackhawk, CO drew exactly 150 less entrants than a similar Heartland Poker Tour event held in the same town just a few weeks. Also notable during this WSOP-C stop was the stunning non-min-cash of Allen “Complainsaw” Kessler who won the $580 No Limit Hold’em side event for his 2nd career ring.

Next up for the WSOP-C is a trip to the great Northeast and 12 tournaments at the mammoth Foxwoods Casino.

Link Dump

Tweet(s) of the Day – Allen Kessler’s humble brag with the Matt Salsberg follow up needle. Good stuff, now where is my Entourage movie?

@allenkessler @wsop You put the ring on Craig’s list yet?

— matt salsberg (@msalsberg) March 26, 2013

Atlantic City’s Revel casino files for bankruptcy – This news isn’t very shocking. The latest, greatest, fresh casino in Atlantic City hasn’t been doing well since it opened. My one and only experience there left me wondering how quickly I could catch a cab to the Borgata. The Chapter 11 filing will help them try to cut debt and stay alive, but we’ve all heard those stories before.

Kane ‘Nascar_1949’ Kalas – Risks and Riches – As a Philly boy, I grew up listening to Harry Kalas call Phillies games but most sports fans probably know him as the “voice” of NFL Films. I had no idea his son has been a professional poker player/degenerate for years. “Friend of Pokerati” Remko Rinkema has a very in depth interview talking about all things gambling and sports.

UK’s online gambling sector worth £2bn in 2012 – An article detailing the size of online gambling in the UK, complete with a numbers for the stats junkies and pretty graphs for those less inclined towards words.

Louisiana To Study Possibility of Online Gaming – Louisiana adds it’s name to the list of states looking to follow in the footsteps of Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware to pass online poker legislation. The more the merrier.

Emotions run high as poker pro Daniel Negreanu throws all his chips – WATCH THIS VIDEO is how Jesse May would extort you to view the following (I just see the words coming out of his mouth in all caps). Negreanu, the self appointed judge of all things poker etiquette, lost his mind a little when he caught a bad beat during PartyPoker Premier League VI action.

Sam Trickett
Photo: PokerNews.com

Today’s Boxscore

Sam Trickett AU$2,000,000 – Aussie Million $250k Challenge
Andy Hwang $730,053 – Borgata Winter Poker Open Main Event

Sam Trickett is the next champion in Melbourne when he won the Aussie Millions $250,000 Challenge. One of the biggest buy-in tournaments around drew a tough two table sit-n-go with 18 players and a long $500k bubble. Trickett defeated Tobias Reinkemeier heads up for the title and $2,000,000 in Australian cash. This adds to his already impressive career totals but his first tournament cash since the end of end of August. The Aussie Millions Main Event final table will play down to a winner on Saturday with Dan Shak coming in as chipleader.

Andy Hwang is the latest WPT championship after winning the Borgata Winter Poker Open, which well surpassed the $2,000,000 guarantee with 1,042 entrants. Hwang began final table play with a decent chip lead but pulled away as play extended through the afternoon. Fan favorite Matt Salsberg was unable to capture his second WPT title of the season when he was eliminated in 6th place. Next stops for the World Poker Tour are the Seminole Hard Rock in Florida, WPT Vienna, and the massive LA Poker Classic.

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Tweet of the Day – A lot of well deserved barbs as Team Phil Ivey keeps naming new pro for Ivey Poker with little in the way of information about what Ivey Poker really will be, Calvin Ayre with my new favorite. For the record, I like Christina Lindley (especially since she thought I was Kevmath for 2 years) and she’s the next addition to the team.

Is #IveyPoker just #PhilIvey‘s way of getting 37 pros to attend his 37th birthday party? bit.ly/UKAo8u

— Calvin Ayre (@CalvinAyre) February 1, 2013

Poker Players Alliance Pessimistic About New Jersey Internet Gambling Bill – One week to go before a decision will be made and John Pappas is skeptical about the Jersey Bill getting signed.

Online Gaming Bill To Be Introduced In Pennsylvania – Yet another state trying their hand at an online gaming bill. As a resident of the Keystone State, I’m surprised if those chuckleheads in the state government can find their way to the capital without getting lost a dozen times. No chance.

Nate Silver and his five life lessons learnt from poker – Nate Silver is back in the news but this time for a little question and answer down in Australia, not for picking the next leader of the free world.

Williamsburg Douchebag Places Craiglist Ad Seeking, Ahem, Entertainment During Poker Game – The title of the article caught my attention, I stayed for the outrage.

Calling the Clock: Patrik Antonius – Fun Patrik Antonius interview with Lynn Gilmartin from PokerNews.

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Manlio Iemina
Photo: PokerStarsBlog.com

Today’s Boxscore

Stanley Choi $6,465,560 – Macau High Stakes Challenge
Samad Razavi AUD$326,125 – APPT Melbourne Main Event
Manlio Iemina $161,234 – IPT Campione

It seems Macau might not be on the death watch just quite yet, at least as far as big ticket poker tournaments. An impressive 73 players put up HK$2,000,000 (US$260,000) to play in the Macau High Stakes Challenge at the StarWorld Hotel & Casino. 21 of those players event decided to take advantage of the re-entry option after busting out.

The field was full of rockstars like Erik Seidel, Joe Hachem, Tom Dwan, and Gus Hansen with a final table featuring Phil Ivey, John Juanda, and Sam Trickett. From all reports, the structure for this huge buy-in event played out much like a micro-grinding tournament. Plenty of action and it didn’t take long to find a winner. Not much is published about the victor, Stanley Choi, but we do know he picked up HK$50,149,000 (US$6,465,746) and has his first entry in The Hendon Mob database.

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Tweet of the Day – Is Matt Glantz skirting the policies of PokerStars and the ol’ United States of America by sneaking in the WCOOP via internet trickery? According to my double-blind, super-secret contacts within the Stars world, this was just a badly played Twitter joke. Perhaps the poker world should convene a Standards & Conduct Meeting to investigate.

So excited to kick off WCOOP today. Got my VPN Ip/Config straight out of Philly.#2wkgrind #clcknbttns #stlthvpn #grymktpkr #strspwned

— Matt Glantz (@MattGlantz) September 2, 2012

Judge rules that poker is a game of skill. Poker pro says: Duh – Another article about the recent ruling about poker as a game of skill, this time it’s a fine op/ed piece in the Washington Post by Matt Matros. One of the smartest guys in the game.

Viktor Blom: The Man, The Myth, The Legend – It’s rare that you will see one top player write/comment in depth about another top player, but that’s exactly what Phil Galfond did on his site when talking about the mythical “Isildur1”.

Filing As a Professional Poker Player/Gambler – If you want some top tips for filling your taxes, why not get the information from a poker playing tax attorney. That’s exactly what Jamie Kerstetter supplied for the folks at CardsChat.

MICHAEL PHELPS CRUSHES Vegas Wins $100K in Poker – There’s nothing I love more than senseless capitalization or crazy punctuation, this article comes from Mensa minds of TMZ. But it’s Michael Phelps, poker, and Las Vegas so worth noting.

WinStar River Poker Series: Oklahoma Pop Quiz – Maria Ho, enough said.

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We are in the midst of the World Series of Poker, which makes it silly season for gambling news from the rest of the world. Expect next week’s column to feature a giraffe that won a razz tournament and Epic Poker’s zeppelin-based relaunch. Right now you’ll have to settle for stories about trains, Italians, and reality TV.

Run on Time

Let’s start with the trains. Australian website Sportsbet.au.com have been politely asked by Melbourne locomotion provider, Metro Trains, to stop taking bets on whether their services will run on time. There were fears that enterprising degenerates might take it upon themselves to sabotage the lines in order to guarantee a payout. [The Age]

Italian Stallion

This story, while fairly ludicrous, raises some interesting moral questions. Bruno Venturi, an everyday Italian man who works in a pet shop, is fighting to claim a £650,000 jackpot he won from Eurobet. They are refusing to cough up the cash on the grounds that a software error caused Venturi to pay for only one in every six bets. The dispute began in 2009 and has now made it all the way up the chain to Britain’s High Court. [Telegraph]

Reality TV Sparks British Dust-Up

This could have been a nice story about a young poker player raising his profile in the media by doing a good deed, but Andrew Feldman’s upcoming appearance on the UK reality show Secret Millionaire has devolved into scandal. Last month British pro Sam Trickett claimed he would out a fellow player who had “stolen” a large amount of his cash. Since then he’s remained silent, but it seems that Feldman’s pending TV fame has sparked Trickett and co. to more or less publicly accuse Andrew of borrowing €25,000 from Trickett, then refusing to pay him back on the grounds that he is quitting poker. [Poker News]

Tapie’s Wembley Tourney

He might have lost the race to buy Full Tilt Poker, but Frenchman Bernard Tapie has not lost his ambition. This week he announced the first venue for the International Stadiums Poker Tour, a series of events which will cram 30,000 poker players into the world’s largest sporting arenas. The series kicks off at Wembley Stadium – the more or less sacred home of English football – during May 2013. For the first two days 30,000 players will sit in the stands and compete online, from which 3,000 will win their way onto the turf to play in a €4,500 buy-in tournament with a guarantee of €2 million. [ISPT]

Social Gaming Under Scrutiny

Over the past couple of years Zynga have slowly edged their way onto the poker radar thanks to their immensely popular Facebook version of Texas Hold’em. They also managed to avoided any kind of legislation by pointing at the tables and shouting, “look, no money!” The UK Gambling Commission aren’t so sure, however. Zynga make their (not inconsiderable) profits from users who purchase extra stacks of worthless chips with real cash. The Commission are now working on a investigation into social gambling in an attempt to discover if the industry needs to be licensed and regulated. [Online Casino Archives]

Playtech’s Unsettling Dealings

Playtech have long been the kings of third party gambling software, but their financial antics are making people with briefcases and stock portfolios very nervous. The company have purchased a large bundle of stuff from their largest shareholder, Teddy Sagi – the company’s founder and owner of 48pc of Playtech stock. His new venture, Skywind, have sealed a €6 million deal with Playtech, who are also renting a London office from their former chief at £750,000 per year. [Telegraph]

Nadal Joins PokerStars

Stop the presses! While nobody was looking, some real news has snuck in at the back door. Tennis superstar Rafael Nadal has joined Team PokerStars. Undoubtedly one of the greatest players ever to hit a furry ball over a net, Nadal will represent Stars in the freshly minted Spanish market. I can’t recall a bigger sports star than Nadal being paid to represent poker in any capacity. Certainly not one with such worldwide pull. [PokerStars]

Well that was quite a shock. What’s more we’re only three days away from the start of Wimbledon. The centre-piece of professional tennis and the pride of upper-middle class British people who like things that happen on lawns. What with Rafa, some positive news out of Nevada, and Ivey’s return at the WSOP, I dare say that things are looking quite positive for poker. I think I need to lie down.

It’s been a busy old time here in England. Last weekend, a lot of people crowded into London to shout at an old lady on a boat, as part of a big ‘thank you’ party for giving us two days of extra holiday, or something like that.

Meanwhile the rest of the world sent their poker ambassadors to Las Vegas for the WSOP, so you might think this would be a quiet week for non-American poker news. You’d be right of course, but it hasn’t been a totally barren period so stop looking so smug.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

There’s a lot of talk among poker players about the nobility of their business. Such as a man only being as good as his word. The flipside of this is that when something goes awry all that dirty laundry gets a very public airing. The latest whistle blower is Douglas “WCGrider” Polk, who is claiming missing payments from Brad Booth. The player known as “Yukon” lost over $1,000,000 in the Ultimate Bet cheating scandal and has reportedly been borrowing money left right and centre. That includes $30,000 from WCGrinder, of which only $2,000 has been paid back. Booth has now changed his phone number and left the country. [TwoPlusTwo]

British pro Sam Trickett is threatening to reveal the identity of his own bad debtor, unless the unnamed (but apparently well-known) player pays up. [Tight Poker]

Spanish Freedoms

After a couple of minor bumps in the road, Spain has finally put its new regulatory plan into action. Companies hoping to operate in the country are required to apply for a license, which the Spanish seem only too happy to grant. PokerStars are already up and running, alongside familiar names like bwin.party, 888, and Bet365. The latest company to be granted an Iberian permit is British betting exchange, Betfair. [Reuters]

Dutch Poker Plots

Online Casino Reports suggest that the Netherlands are looking to “adopt the Danish model”. Presumably this news concerns online gambling regulations and not foster parentage of a pastry statue. The Dutch currently have laws in place to prevent their citizens playing online, but much like UIGEA-era U.S.A everyone just ignores them. Unlike America, the government’s response has been to draw up plans for an open, regulated market. It parallels the system in Denmark, in that online casinos will be charged a lower rate of tax than their bricks-and-mortar counterparts. [Online Casino Reports]

PokerStars Tournament Hubbub

The huge jumble of tournaments over at PokerStars is undergoing some reconstruction. First up, the Macau Poker Cup has been cancelled. No reason has been given other than, “events beyond our reasonable control,” which could be pretty much anything. Maybe they got wind that the high stakes cash game players aren’t planning to trek back to Asia after the WSOP finishes. [Card Player]

It’s OK, dry your eyes, there’s a new online jem to take your mind off Macau. The MicroMillions festival is like the World Series for people who pay for things with loose change. There are one hundred events of all different shapes and sizes, with buy-ins ranging from $0.11 to $22. [PokerNews]

There’s a lot of Jubilee detritus littering the streets right now. I’ll do my best to avoid it and so long as I’m not swallowed up in a storm of bunting and miniature flags, I shall see you next week for more news from the Wider World of Poker.