Poker Player Blog

Epic Poker First Tournament a Success—-Last Friday Annie Duke, the commissioner of the newly formed Epic Poker League, presented David Rheem with the first ever championship ring after his flush led him to victory against Erik Seidel. 80 hands of play had brought the final six to this point and all the players took home a nice amount of cash for making poker history. The hope is that this first main event will be followed by many more and Rheem’s triumph the first of many more poker dreams come true in the future. Here’s the final results:

1. Chino Rheem-$1,000,000
2. Erik Seidel-$604, 330
3. Jason Mercier-$360,970
4. Hasan Habib-$237,560
5. Gavin Smith-$154,260
6. Huck Seed-$107,98

Daniel Negreanu Put Damper on EPL—in a blog that came out the day before Annie Duke placed a ring on the finger of tournament winner David Reem, Daniel Negreanu decided to publicly announce his refusal to support the new league. He believes it will fail, is setting up a base for a new poker site and is going to find it hard to find sponsorship or even fans. There seems little reason for this negative attitude and in his blog Negreanu states his decision is based on the EPL’s business plan that he read. Well. Add to that his disparaging remarks about new young players living the poker dream and its pretty obvious that this multi bracelet winner is just not going for it. We’ll see what happens.

Full Tilt Investors Come Into the Public Eye—The news came out of Canad this week that the often mentioned “potential unknown investors” of Full Tilt Poker may be getting closer to actually becoming investors. Candian-poker.ca suggested the mysterious investors may actually be known poker sites 888, Bwin and Playtech. It seems 888 was one of the many lesser known poker sites that lost a lot of business to the Big Three, especially Full Tilt. It seems the rationale is pay off the debt to win back the players, at least in Canada. You have to wonder though if Full Tilt can sully its own reputation with excuses and backtracking how will that affect play, even with new investors.

Its fun to look back at old blogs and do the whole ‘what happened on this day four years ago’ thing. This time I had a look at last year and struggled to conceive just how much things have changed since last summer. I guess we will start calling it the pre-black Friday poker world. Here are a few interesting things happening in poker last year.

Aaaah the Michael Mizrachi blow. WSOP had just ended and all anyone could talk about was the stellar performance of Mizrachi throughout the professional season. He enjoyed his victory with new endorsements, getting his debts paid and starting his own poker tip blog.

The WSOP Women’s Dilemma. Last year’s women’s event at the WSOP became quite a controversial affair overshadowing much of the Main Event’s air time. Annie Duke stood up for her rights to be treated as an equal with specialty minority status in the world of poker. Pretty sure she remains one of the best players in the world.

Speaking of Annie Duke, the queen of poker went before congress last summer to plead the case of an online gaming bill that would offer consumer protection to players. Well, don’t we all wish that bill had passed a little sooner huh? Oh we’re still waiting? Sheesh.

The London Poker festival took place in late summer attracting players from all over the world. Back then it wasn’t the virtual dilemma players faced it was the cost of parking in downtown London.

Poker’s Social Network. New poker apps and being able to play online poker at your social networking sites was all the rage this time last year. It was all about bigger, better and more ways to connect with the virtual casino. Weird. Many folks these days are actively avoiding it.

And my absolute favorite news worthy event from last summer was the announcement of Pokerstars new CEO. Talk about sitting at the captain’s table of the sinking ship right? These days all we hear from Pokerstars is “the check’s in the mail.”

Funny how quickly the worm turns huh?

Well its been an exciting few weeks with lots to review and new players to talk about but right now its all about the November Nine. Yes the final players in event 58 of the 2011 WSOP main event has been decided. Here’s the line up for your review.

1. Matt Giannetti, Las Vegas, NV. Chip count: 24,750,000—Another 26 year old Giannetti is making a mark for himself in live poker events.

2. Badih Bounahra, Belize City. Chip count: 19,700,000—a businessman and amateur poker player, Bounahra is 49 years old and from the exotic central American vacation spot.

3. Eoghan O’Dea, Ireland. Chip count: 33,925,000—continuing the family poker legacy O’Dea hopes to follow his father into the European Poker Hall of Fame. At 26 O’Dea is a bright spark learning his poker moves from the television rather than his dad. Think there may be a larger story here.

4. Phil Collins, Las Vegas, NV. Chip count: 23, 875,000—26 year old professional Collins is making the leap from the world of online poker to live poker. Will be interesting to see how he manages the transition.

5. Anton Makiievskyi, Ukraine. Chip count: 13,825,000—the 21 year old is the youngest player at the table. This year is his first attempt at the WSOP Main Event. What a way to debut in the world of American poker.

6. Sam Holden, England. Chip count: 12, 375,000—22 year old Holden is new to the world of American poker. With a few wins in England this new up and comer hopes to make his mark turning the final table short stack into a win.

7. Pius Heinz, Germany. Chip count: 16,425,000— one of the youngest players at the table is the 22 year old German playing the WSOP main event for the first time this year.

8. Ben Lamb, Tulsa, OK. Chip count: 20,875,000—the big name at the table this year, Lamb has enjoyed a successful poker year so far. He is in the running for player of the year and already made over a million in winnings since the year began. Lamb is my favorite for the win.

9. Martin Staszko, Czech Republic. Chip count: 40,175,000—already four times lucky in this year’s WSOP, Staszko is 35 and a professional poker player.

Well that’s the line up for this year’s table. My money is on Ben Lamb being the most comfortable in the WSOP tournament set up than the other players. It would be nice to see a 21 year old win but then again a relative unknown rising to the top could be great to watch too. We’ll keep you posted.

The end is drawing closer by the day and with only one event still in player we will soon know the lineup for November’s final table.  Here’s where things stand Tuesday evening.

Event 56: No Limit Hold’em—a $1,500 buy in brought over 3,000 players to the table and resulted in a prize pool of just under $5million. Alexander Anter of Sweden took the big money earning $777K for his first place win. Nemer Haddad and Andy Philachack both of the united states came in second and third. That’s over $1.4 million for the last three finishes. Anter’s win marks the first Scandinavian (and probably the only one at this point) first place title holder for this year’s tournament.

Event 57: Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Low Split 8 or Better—Nick Binger of Vegas took home the bracelet for this one. There was a modest 352 entrants and a $5,000 buy-in. David Bach of Georgia came in second and Bryce Yockey of California came in third. It was a lucky break that Binger that he lost at event 56 as it allowed him to join in on event 57 and win a nice $397K for his trouble.

Event 58: No Limit Hold’em Championship—Just a third of the original entrants remain in the final event. As I write he players are at Level 7 with blinds set at 300/600. Despite being down 16,000 chips Arnaud Esquevin holds the top place with Ryan D’Angelo coming in second and getting closer and closer to equaling Esquevin’s chip count.

The WSOP seems to have come and almost gone too fast again this year. Recording breaking prize pools and attendance records will ensure the tournament will go down in history. Even in this fractured economy poker continues to grow in popularity. Hmmm….wonder when the politicians will see this and legalize online gaming? We’ll keep you posted.

Yes ladies and gentlemen the final event has begun in this year’s WSOP.  As I write there are still 700 players left out of an original pool of 897. Still time to predict this year’s final table. Here’s where things stand right now.

Event 46: No Limit Hold’em/Six Handed Championship—Joe Ebanks of Stow, Ohio brought home the six handed event as well as over $1.1 million in prize money. Brit Chris Moormon took second place and Bertrand Grospellier of France came in third. There were 474 original entries with a $10,000 buy in.

Event 47: Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi-Low-8 or Better—From the 450 entries Owais Ahmed of California took home a respectable quarter million for coming in first place. Michael Mizrachi almost last year’s winner almost won again. In this event he came in second but got $158K to take home so hey…

Event 48: No Limit Hold’em—Everyone’s favorite game. This event had a $1,500 buy in and attracted a whopping 2,713 players to the tables. Athanasios Polychronopoulos of New York state got a bracelet and $650K for his trouble. Heads up opponent Simon Charette of Canada took home $400K. Not bad for two days work.

Event 49: 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball—Just over 300 players took their chance at this specialty game and Leo Martin of Las Vegas was certainly glad he did. He won the title after heads up play with a fellow Las Vegas resident Justin Bonomo. David Bach of Georgia came in third.

Event 50: Triple Chance No Limit Hold’em—France took home the gold bracelet in this event. Antonin Teisseire triumphed in heads up play against Darryl Ronconi of Illinois. Between the two of them they earned a nice $1.3 million. There were 817 entries and Adam Geyer of Texas came in third.

Event 51: Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better—David Singontiko of Chatsworth, California took home $268K for his first place win in the event that had 946 entrants and a $1,500 buy-in. Canadian Michael Yee of Ontario, Canada took second place with Jeffrey Gibralter of Texas bringing up the rear.

Event 52: Mixed Hold’em (Limit/No Limit)—Americans took all five of the top ranks in this game that had 580 original entrants. It was Matt Matros, 34, of Brooklyn who came out on top after heads up play with Jonathan Lane. This was Matros’ second bracelet win and took home $300K as well.

Event 53: Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship—A popular event here, not to mention a political one. With almost a million in prize money, there were 1,055 original entrants. Marsha Wolak of Florida won the bracelet. Karina Jett came in second and Carol Tomlinson came in third. Wolak was dubbed the “Poker Queen” after her performance.

Event 54: No-Limit Hold’em—a nice mix of nationalities fill the first five places in this results table but with 4,576 original players its no wonder. Maxim Lykov of Russia came in first, Dror Michaelo of California came in second, Warren Wooldridge of London took home third, Ren Ho Zang of Canada took fourth place and Harold Olsen of Norway came in fifth.

Event 55: The Poker Player’s Championship—What a great line up for this game that had only 128 entries. That could be because of the 50K buy-in; just a guess. Phil Hellmuth of bracelet and big mouth fame lost first place to Brian Rast of Las Vegas. But its all okay as Rast took home $1.7 million and Hellmuth took home $1 million. Can’t really complain about second place right?

But I’m sure he will.

Here’s where we left off last week and here’s where we’re heading this coming week.

Event #35: Pot-Limit Omaha / Six Handed—There were 507 entrants for this event with a $5,000 buy in. It was Jason Mercier of Davie, Florida that took home the bracelet along with $619, 575 in prize money. Hans Winzeler of Miami took second and Steven Merrifield of Las Vegas took home a third place. This was Mercier’s second bracelet. His first was back in 2009 for the same event.

Event #36: No-Limit Hold’em—it was Mikhail Lahitov of Moscow in heads up lay with Hassan Babjane of Massachusetts for this hold’em match. The Russian took home the bracelet and nearly three quarters of a million in prize money. Babjane took home just under a half million so it can’t be all that bad to come in second. There were over 1,700 original entrants into this three day event.

Event #37: H.O.R.S.E. Championship —Fabrice Soulier made France proud after he took home first in this event of 240 players. There was a $10k buy in as well as a number of entries from around the world. France came first, Canada second, Russia third and Colombia fourth. The infamous Tom Dwan took home fifth place for the Americans.

Event #38: No-Limit Hold’em—its the final day of the no limit event and we’re down to the last three players. Its Degoede of France, Nash of the UK and Lin of New Jersey in contention for the win. Just over 2,000 players tried their luck at this one so the biggest pay out will be $168,334. This late in the day I’m guessing this will end up being the final result.

Event #39: Pot-Limit Hold’em/Omaha—Its down to heads up play in event 39 with Jan Cullado of Germany and Carter Gill of the United States battling for the bracelet. There were just over 600 entries with a $2,500 buy-in making for the highest payout of $135,921.

Event #40: No-Limit Hold’em / Six Handed—40 players left out of the original 732 in the six handed event. Currently Raphael Kroll of France has the lead with several folks almost neck and neck. Its far too close to tell.

Event #41: Limit Hold’em Shootout—Friday was day one of the shoot-out event and they are already down to 60 players from an original 538. No clear lead for anyone yet.

Event #42: Pot-Limit Omaha Championship—Things are just getting started in event 42. There are 270 of an original 361 players still in the running for a bracelet. With a $10k buy in there is a prize pool over three million so you know everyone is playing their hearts out.

No extra room for gabbing so here goes…

Event #18: No Limit Hold’em—3,157 original players came down to Foster Hays of Dallas and Casey Kelton of Alaska with Hays taking home the bracelet and a lovely $735,400 for his hard work. There was a buy in of $1,500.

Event #19: Two personal favorites took home first and second place in this six handed event that has 354 original players and a buy in of $2,500. It was Darren Woods of England that took home the bracelet after heads up play with Stephanie Nguyen of California.

Event #20: No-Limit Hold’em—Oh we just love our hold’em don’t we? This time it was Jason Somerville of New York that loved it the most winning heads up lay against Yashar Darian of New Jersey. Somerville took home $493,091 for his trouble. Almost half a million for two days work; must be nice. There were 3,175 original entries.

Event #21: Seven Card Stud Championship—Bertrand Grospellier of Paris, France took home $331,639 and a bracelet after heads up play with Steve Landfish of Vermont. There were a 126 players and a buy in of $10,000. Not for the faint hearted.

Event #22: Pot Limit Omaha—a $1,500 buy in did not deter 1,071 players for a two day Omaha extravaganza. France took home the bracelet and almost $300K after Elie Payan triumphed in heads up play against Rafeal Kibrit of Illinois. David Sands of Las Vegas came in third.

Event#23: Eight Game Mix—489 original players boiled down to heads up play between John Monette of California and Eric Buchman of New York. Monette grabbed the bracelet and an extra 100 grand for first place. Buchman enjoyed $171,855 for his trouble. There was a $2,500 buy in and a prize pool of $1,112,475.

Event#24: No-Limit Hold’em Shootout—$1.8 million in prize money didn’t really match the scant 387 entries but Mark Radoja of Ontario really doesn’t care because he took home $436,568 of it not to mention a bracelet. A buy in of $5,000 probably kept the numbers down. Jeffrey Gross of Ann Arbor enjoyed the heads up play and Nicolas Fierrogottner of Chile took home third place.

Event#25: Seven Card Stud Hi-Low or Better—a relatively small (and I do mean relative) prize pool of $818,100 marked this annual event which had 606 original entries and a $1,500 buy in. Chris Viox enjoyed heads up play with already bracelet winner Mike Sexton. This time it was Viox who took home the bling as well as a nice $200,459 to put in the bank.

Event #26: No Limit Hold’em Six Handed—1,378 original entries came down to Oleskii Kovalchuk of the Ukraine and Ionel Anton of Bucharest. Kovalchuk came away with the bracelet and a cool $689,739 for his trouble. Second place earnings of $428,140 weren’t too bad either. I mean I’d take it.

Event #27: Limit Hold’em Championship—152 original entries for this $10,000 buy in event has been reduced to a single winner Daniel Idema of Vancouver who took home a delicious $378,642.00. WSOP official reports say this was a tough event and Idema played the toughest. Matthew Gallin of Las Vegas lost in heads up play and Barry Greenstein of California came in third.

Event #28: No Limit Holdem—there were 2,500 original entries for this one with a buy in of $1,500. It was Andy Frankenberger of New York who took home the first place prize of $599,153 after heads up play with Joshua Evans of Plano, Texas.

Event #28: No Limit Holdem—there were 2,500 original entries for this one with a buy in of $1,500. It was Andy Frankenberger of New York who took home the first place prize of $599,153 after heads up play with Joshua Evans of Plano, Texas.

Event #29: $2,500 10-Game Mix / Six Handed—we are at heads up play on Day four of this event that had 431 entries. Left are Brian Haveson and Chris Lee with Haveson’s chip stack diminishing by the minute. I’m calling this one early for Chris Lee.

Event #30: $1,000 Seniors No-Limit Hold’em Championship—the $3.3 million prize pool reflects the 3,752 entries for the Seniors No Limit. Walter Shawne has a comfortable chip lead but just a few hands could change it to Stephen Kreig of California or third place chip count Andrew Bradshaw of England.

Event #31: $3,000 Pot-Limit Omaha—Its day three of the Omaha event and there’s just 22 players left in the game. Brock Parker and Ben Lamb are fighting their way up to Sam Stein’s chip lead. What will the morning bring? A $3,000 buy in and 685 entries make this an interesting game. 22 left and almost two million to give away.

Event #32: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em—225 players left out of the original 2,828. This popular event has a prize pool of nearly four million dollars. So remember more players means longer play but also much much more money. Talk about motivation. Carter Gill of Oregon holds the chip lead.

Event #33: $10,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split-8 or Better Championship—105 of the 168 original entries left with Gary Benson holding the chip count Sunday night. A nice little prize pool of $1,579,200.00 awaits the finishers.

Event #34: $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em— this is the first day of play for the latest game of hold em. At this point there’s no official numbers on the WSOP website but Dwyte Pilgrim holds the top of the chip count board.

Poker fans everywhere are glued to the action during the second week of the 2011 WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas, Nevada. 13 bracelets have already been distributed. Here’s a look at the results so far this week.

Event 6: Limit Hold’em—Harrison Wilder took home to Oregon a tidy $205,065. The first 22 places of the contest were won by American natives. Quite a feat for this globally anticipated event. There were 675 entrants.

Event 7: Pot Limit Hold’em Championship—A $10,000 buy in and 249 contestants boiled down to a bracelet for Florida native Amir Lehavot. He took home over a half million for his trouble. Jarred Solomon of South Africa came in second and Sam Stein of Nevada took home third place.

Event 8: No Limit Hold’em—Sean Getzwiller of California took home over $600,000 after heads up action against Sadan Tuker of England. There were 4,178 original entrants with a $1,000 buy in.

Event 9: 2-7 Draw Lowball No Limit—It was a British win for this $1,500 buy-in game with 275 entrants. Matthew Perrins of Manchester took home a humble but perfectly acceptable $102,105 for his work.

Event 10: No Limit Hold’em Six Hand—Jeffrey Papola of New York with heads up play with David Vamplew of Scotland. There were 1,920 original entrants.

Event 11: Omaha Hi-Low Split 8 or Better Championship—Viacheslav Zhukov of Russia dominated in heads play against George Lind of Arizona Steve Billirakis of Las Vegas came in third. There 202 entrants.

Event 12: Triple Chance No-Limit Hold’em—David Diaz of Memphis, Tennessee took home the bracelet and a cool 350K for his trouble in this event that had a total of 1,340 entries. Anders Meli of Norway played heads up against Diaz and Andrea Dato of Italy came in third.

Event 13: No Limit Hold’em Shootout—The U.S. gained another victory when Andrew Badecker of Connecticut took first place in the Shootout competition. Over 1400 original entries and a nice mix of nationalities in the top eight. Robbie Verspui of Gibraltar took second with Daniel Makowsky of New York clinching third place.

Event 14: Limit Hold’em—The Canadians took first place with Tyler Bonkowski earning a cool $220K. Brandon Demes and Shawn Keller took second and fourth place both hailing from Chandler, Arizona. Andrew Brongo of New York came in third. There were 337 players.

Event 15: Pot Limit Hold’em—With 765 original entries it was nice to see a Las Vegas native take first place. Brian Rast went home with the bracelet and 200K. Second place went to Allen Kessler of Pennsylvania and Dajuan Whorley of Maryland came in third. Fourth and fifth place went to Japan and Norway.

Event 16: 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship—A small pool of 126 entries in the 2-7 Draw Lowball tournament. That just meant more for the winners with first place victor John Juanda of Vegas taking home $367,170. It was infamous Phil Hellmuth in second place and recent winner Richard Ashby of Watford, England in third.

Source:WSOP.com

Play is taking place as I write but some of the results for the 42^nd WSOP have already come in. As announced on the WSOP official website here’s how things look at the beginning of the second week of play.

Event One: Casino Employees No-Limit Hold’em—Sean Drake of Sacramento, California earning $82,292. Not bad for a few day’s work. There were 850 entries.

Event Two: Heads Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship—Jake Cody of Rochdale, England. Cody took home $851,192 beating out 128 other players.

Event Three: Omaha Hi-Low Split 8 or Better—Another win for the U.S. with Francesco Barbaro of Illinois grabbing first place and just over a quarter million for his trouble.

Event Four: No Limit Hold’em—865 entrants for this one but it was New Jersey native Allen Bari that got the bracelet.

Event Five: Seven Card Stud—First time bracelet winner Eugene Katchalov of New York took home first place after heads up play with Alessio Isaia of Roccabruna, Italy. There were 357 entrants and Katchalov won $122, 909 in prize money.

There were a number of rematches early in the WSOP main event. These rematches don’t earn any money just let players one more time to beat their heads up opponent. It was poker legend Johnny Chan and Sammy Farha who tried their luck a second time. Chan played Phil Hellmuth and Farha played Chris Money Maker. Chan won his first but Farha did not. There is one more rematch for Chan with Erik Seidel still to come.

Results for the next few events should be coming up soon. Check out updates at www.fullofpoker.com.

Full Tilt Not Paying Players? — According to Pokernewsdaily and the folks over at EGR magazine, Full Tilt has had enough of their assets unfrozen by the Department of Justice to pay out one third of the U.S. players. The amount available is somewhere in the 60 million dollar range. But Full Tilt says its not that easy. Claiming that some banks voluntarily froze assets before the feds did it and some issue with back credit for some players, Full Tilt has made it clear there will be no pay out in the near future. In total the owners of Full Tilt Poker owe American players somewhere between 100 and 150 million dollars.

Quiet Protest in DC— A poker legislation rally took place in Washington last week. Members of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) showed up to speak with senators about the state of online poker and online gaming regulation. Politicians were quoted as saying that it was the players themselves that needed to get behind the legislation in order to pressure the committee into passing it. Poker newsdaily.com reported a total of 130 meetings between PPA representatives and senators. They discussed the importance of passing the legislation and the desire for an early as possible approach. Some of the meetings took place during the rally in DC whereas others were held back in the PPA members’ home states.

More Indictments—The folks over at Homeland Security and the Department of Justice handed down another ten indictments for online gambling rooms this week. Illegal gambling has a five year sentence but money laundering is a 20 year sentence. Its hard for many poker fans to believe that some of their most beloved sites and poker companies are facing 25 years in jail. Those facing stiff sentences this week are, according to pokernewsdaily:

Bookmaker.com

2Betsdi.com

Funtimebingo.com

Goldenarchcasino.com

Betmaker.com

Betgrandesports.com

Betehorse.com

Doylesroom

TruePoker.com

These new indictments were the last phase in a sting operation by the folks at Homeland Security set up over two years ago and providing documented evidence of fraud.

WSOP Main Event Underway—-Last memorial Day weekend signaled the start of the 2011 WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas, Nevada. Action is available live at the WSOP website with a five second delay.