POKER NEWS

05.09.11

HARRAHS NEW ORLEANS WORLD SERIES OF POKER CIRCUIT EVENT SLAMMED:  Early reports of long lines and  computer issues on day 1.  The first event looks to have between 500 and 600 players maybe even more.  OKAY, so it was 473.  Bodes well for the rest of the event.  

WPT ON FSN BROADCASTS WPT SOUTHERN POKER CHAMPIONSHIP AT BEAU RIVAGE LAST NIGHT:  This was an entertaining final table without knowing what their hole cards were even more so seeing the action.  Lots of local pros including:  Shannon Shorr and Leif Force (final tablists), BJ McBrayer (final table bubble boy), Jonathan Little, and David "Lefty" Diaz (money bubble boy).  FSN runs plenty of repeats and there will be more action next week, so check your local listings

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POKERSTARS OFFICES AND UB/ABSOLUTE OFFICES RAIDED:  Tao of Poker calls the Pokerstars raid an accident.  Meanwhile, sounds like Scott Tom, who was sighted in a local animal shelter trying to start a fire, is on the run from the Costa Ricans too.  It's also been reported stateside that homes of Full Tilt owner Ray Bitar and others that have been indicted have been seized.  That includes former playboy bunny Destiny Davis' husband, Chad Elie.  Must suck for your future sugar daddy to get indicted the before your wedding.  Curiously, she still went through with it AND paid his bail. 

JOE SEBOK WRAP-UP:  Poker twitter king Joe Sebok is getting attacked on his own platform.  Poker-King has all the tweets in one spot.  Apparently all US AP and UB pros have been laid off today.  That means Sebok, Trishelle Canatella (local girl), Tiffany Michelle,  Hollywood Dave Stann, Scott Ian, and Brandon Cantu (amongst others) are on their own for buy-ins.   Sebok has not been available for comment.  Perhaps, he might break his Black Friday silence and tweet about that Lakers fiasco last night.

MIKE THE MOUTH OFFERS CASH FOR FULL TILT CASH:  Per Mike Matasow's twitter feed:  @FullTiltPoker is doing fine and everyone out there that don't think they will get paid ill buy all they want 50cent on dollar!  I be so rich.  2 + 2 analyzes here.

POKER NEWS

05.04.11

SAME DAY COVERAGE OF THE WORLD SERIES OF POKER:  34 hours of "live" play to be broadcast on ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN3.com.  There will be 30 minute delay but essentially live coverage.  ESPN's Andrew Feldman expands on the telecasts here.

ONLINE POKER BROUGHT DOWN OSAMA:  Okay, this sounds fishy, and doesn't pass the smell test but people are talking about it.  Go here or here for more.

LITTLE, SHORR, KASELLA, KARR, CORKINS, GRAHAM, AND MERCIER GET INVITES:  Yes, it's a big party at the Federated Sports + Gaming Poker League.  For more details about the league and the invites go here.  Harder to find an omission in this list then say the National Heads-Up Championship.

POKERATI AND TAO OF POKER TALK ABOUT MORE FALLOUT FROM BLACK FRIDAY:  PokerStars stiffing affiliates?  Tao of Poker details Dr. Pauly's rejection letter.  Tony G calling out Full Tilt's pros?  Pokerati has a snippet of the podcast and a link to more.

WEEKEND WRAP-UP

05.01.11

ERIK SEIDEL IS A SEIBORG:  Watch the video, SrslySirius with the help of The Micros and Full Tilt is getting almost Lonely Island good.

BLAIR HINKLE LEADS WPT SEMINOLE HARD ROCK SHOWDOWN:  Hinkle has over 1.7 million in chips with 17 players remaining.  Noah Schwartz just busted in 18th for 35k.  Yesterday, we were tracking TK Miles who after having a big stack did not survive until today.   TK finished 31st good for 27k.  

MIKE PRESTENBACK OF NEW ORLEANS FINISHES FOURTH IN THE HARRAHS SATURDAY TOURNAMENT:  Mike just missed a three way chop for the top chunk of the money.  Still he got a nice consolation prize for his effort.  With 12 remaining, paying eight, he put out one of the GCPers when he woke up to pocket rockets. 

SCOTTY CLARK'S INTERESTING LINK:  It sounds like UB/Absolute Poker owners Scott Tom and his "ilk", who were last seen egging a Coast Rican orphanage and tilting vending machines to get "free" Twinkies, weren't only cheating their customers but also their rich investors.  Scotty links to interesting article from St. Petersburg Florida.  Check it out.:  SCOTTY'S BLOG.

LITTLE LATE IN PUTTING THIS UP:  Our apologies Monkey.  Will Souther writes a great piece about poker players needing to do their part for the storm ravaged South.  Read it here:  THE POKER MONKEY

POKER NEWS

04.27.11

JONATHAN LITTLE TALKS TO POKERNEWS ABOUT HIS BOOK:  GCP blogger Jonathan Little talks about his book "Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker" with Kristy Arnett here.  He also hints at a sequel which is in the pipleline.  Also if you buy the book before May 2nd you get two live webinars from the man himself.  We'll have a link to buy his book later today or tomorrow.

SPORTSBOOK SAYS IT'S OKAY TO PLAY IN THE USA ONLY IF YOU SIGN UP BY MAY 1:  Odd, odd rumor floating around.  Kind of like a going out of business for everybody else sale.  Two contradicting reports, some say they were overwhelmed as one of the few U.S. providers still in the marketplace, but this almost sounds like a power play to sign up new players quick.  Online players that don't want to lose an option are going to be rushed to deposit. 

ONLINE PLAYERS, NOW LIVE PLAYERS, LACKING A POKER FACE?  Botox is the solution for you!  Mellows out wrinkles and makes it difficult to express yourself with facial movements.  We kid of course though we hear the older a star gets in Hollywood the better they get at poker.  Article somewhat about poker and botox here.

FLORIDA HOUSE GIVES THE OKAY TO GAMING WITHOUT RACING:  The next step is the Senate.  A huge vote in the positive for greyhound racetrack owners who say they lose money in holding their compulsory dog races and make money in poker.  Dog breeders are bitching because they have nobody to sell to.  Animal rights activists say that racing is a dog's life but shouldn't be, and are joining the tracks in endorsing the bill. 

WALL STREET SHUTS DOWN BECAUSE OF POKER:  A suspicious box near the FBI building leads to the shut-down of a one block stretch of Wall Street.  When x-rayed it revealed...  poker chips.  Somebody sending a message or weird coincidence?  BTW, it was Wall Street New Haven Conneticutt. 

NEW POKER WORLD ORDER NEWS

04.23.11

KEVIN EYSTER WINS DONKAMENT AT WPT:  Eyster took down one of the preliminary events at the WPT Hard Rock Seminole winning 7k for one days work.  The online pro is adjusting quite nicely to playing live. At the same series Monkey has a couple of final tables under his belt (including 4th for 3.5k) and and Brian Hawkins has a 6th for 6k.  Continued good luck guys.

DEADBEAT DADS CAN'T KEEP BADBEAT JACKPOTS:  Not paying your child support?  Louisiana's Gaming Control Board  will now seize casino winning starting May 20th.  Anything over $1200 is going to be taken from you.  Take care of your kids people, there is over $1 billion dollars owed to child support to thousands of kids in this state.

LOUISIANA STATE POKER CHAMPIONSHIP IS AROUND THE CORNER:  Isle of Capris Casino Hotel in Lake Charles will be hosting.  Go here for details.

aPOKERlypse NOW LINKS AND TIDBITS:

-Full Tilt says they have no authorized channel to pay clients.  Absolute Poker says they are talking to the DOJ and want to pay clients but gives no indication how.  For everybody but PokerStars only players premature celebration?

-Steve Wynn's opinion a moving target.  What a difference an indictment makes.  Read here for more.

-Shannon Shorr and other players share their feelings with PokerNews.com.

-John Stossel is getting a lot of praise for taking the PPA and ESPN to task for sitting on their hands (not a poker reference) go to FoxBusiness.  Michelle Minton's opinion piece on Fox News.com seems to indicate a fair amount of the conservatives are on the players side of things.

-Motley Fool treads similar ground in logic and goes a couple of steps further.

-Antigua is willing to fight the fight.  Reuters has the story where they call out the United States for violating international law.  We'll pretend that international law exists when we don't agree with it. 

-NPR offers a snippet of their publically funded radio to covering the news.

-Hasn't taken long for affiliates sites and former rivals to fill in the gaps.  Here's evidence of both.

-Hasn't taken long for the libertarians to go after Obama, either.  Wayne Allen Root a Vegas-based handicapper might be their presidential nomination next year.  Go here for more.

BREAKING NEWS!

Feds to Allow players to withdraw from Full Tilt and Poker Stars. 

DOJ Press Release:  You have been heard!

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FIRST SOME GOOD NEWS AND THEN BACK TO aPOKERlypse NOW NEWS

04.20.11

SPIDER!  Local rounder, known simply as Spider, chopped the Harrahs Saturday weekly.  One of the owners of this site was there to take a snapshot and share in the spoils.  Spider is used to getting to the final table and is a regular in the payout line.  Congrats Spider!  Spider is photographed with the excellent Harrahs Tournament Director Melvin.

GCP BLOGGER JONATHAN LITTLE HAS WRITTEN A BOOK:  One of the owners of the site (how many owners do we have) got his hands on a copy and is already learning new things.  Might say something of his lack of poker prowess that the first tidbit that jumped out at him was in the overview/get-everybody-up-to-speed section.  Actually, that says more about the quality of information in the book as every page offers a little gem to learn from.  Look for a review coming soon.  It's a quick and educational read so expect it sooner rather than later.

PETITION IS ONLINE:  There are already some poker petitions out there and we encourage you to sign them.  We've noticed that some are a little reticent to endorse some of the narrow views or political slants of those petitions.  Our idea is to create a simple petition with a wide umbrella that everybody can agree to.  We've also provided space for you to make your specific gripes.  Go to GCP PETITION to be heard.

We will forward this petition to local media outlets, local politicians in our region, and specific federal offices.  Should it get big enough we'll forward it on to similar places out of the region.  Please take a moment and lend your signature and support.  At least one legal scholar, linked yesterday, has gone on record as saying that individuals might be hard pressed to get their money back after the DOJ confiscates it. 

CONTACT YOUR POLITICIANS DIRECTLY:  As mentioned yesterday we've linked to the PPA Take Action plan.  If you have a moment please call your representatives or mail them.  Addresses and phone number s are there:  PPA TAKE ACTION.

POKER PLAYERS UNITED:  Our thanks to Jeremy Gaubert for organizing an effort to address these issues.  Please "like" his facebook page POKER PLAYERS UNITED.

SOME MORE aPOKERlypse NOW ARTICLES: 

GOP standing firm on Web Gambling Ban (Hillicon Valley).

Keeping us Safe from Poker (Time.com)

Pot, Online Poker Dominate as Americans Pose Questions To Obama On Facebook (Neon Tommy)

EVEN MORE aPOKERlypse NOW NEWS

04.19.11

BARNEY FRANK WITH DOJ:  Barney Frank said in an interview with the Hill, that Friday's actions were "an incredible waste of resources."  He continued with two bad poker references but we'll forgive him:  "Go after the people responsible for empty houses, not full houses," and the DOJ is only "protecting the public from the scourge of inside straights."  Frank, a Dem, went further "to give this priority in law enforcement over some other things I think is a terrible idea and I think the administration is wrong on this."

ONLINE POKER TRAFFIC DOWN ~25% WORLDWIDE:  Pokerstars is minus 25%, Full Tilt almost minus 50%, UB Cereus down almost 40%.  PartyPoker is up 9%.  Obviously BoDog (up 26%), Merge (up 23%) and Cake Poker (up almost 20%) have profited.  Considering it took the feds a year to go after the big boys, there may still be time to play some on these sites before they get the crack of the federal whip too.

VICTORY POKER PULLS OUT:  Dan Fleyshman, CEO of Victory Poker,  told the Cake Network to block U.S. players from the Victory Poker site.   Cake has complied, even though it is still offering U.S. play to its other skins.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA:  Darren Rovell did a piece on CNBC yesterday, he was also on the Dan Patrick Show this morning (they archive that at DanPatrick.com) and gave a basic regurgitation of what took place but still good to see in non-niche media.  Bloomberg also did a piece yesterday.  Greg Raymer will be on Fox Business today at 11:30 am.  Christian Science Monitor did maybe the worst piece on online poker in a quite a while.  Go here to pile on in the comments section.

SANFORD MILLAR LEGAL EXPERT FAKES HEART ATTACK AND THEN FORGET ABOUT CASHING OUT:  Okay, we got mixed up, sorry, it was Sanford of Sanford and Son that faked "The Big One" while Sanford Millar merely told Pokerati that it's likely players may have to forfeit their money and will have no legal way to recover it from the feds.  This goes against everything else we've read so take it with a grain of salt.  Course he's an expert and we just read the Internets.  Go to Pokerati for his take.

PPA TAKE ACTION PLAN:  We are linking this up top, but you can also just go here and do your part. 

MORE aPOKERlypse NOW NEWS

04.18.11

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO DO?  Thanks to Eddie Meier on our Facebook page who posted things you can do right now to help the plight of online poker.  Go there and do it.

LOOKING FOR US TO DO SOMETHING?  Unless somebody beats us to it, we'll have an online petition to get out to everybody probably tonight, that we will send to government and media types.  The thrust of it is to put a number on the people this is going to effect.  The story is now about some companies laundering money and no attention is being paid to the millions of dollars, most of it already accounted for in the form of taxes honest players paid, that is inaccessible. 

We read today, think it was on Wicked Chops (that we linked below), a very salient point:  The DOJ has probably opted to not go after recognizable names to make this money-grab and industry killer a silent heist.  We should not stand for it as a community.  We need to make it common knowledge just how many people's freedom is being impacted.  We'll have a link for you to go to later today for the petition.

MUST READS FROM SOME OF THE USUAL SOURCES:

LOOKING FOR A GOOD STOCK?  bwin.party is up 30% on early trading on Monday.  Poker-King with the story.

LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO PLAY?  We know of folks on Feltstars and it looks like BoDog seeing an uptick of 25%.  BTW, we endorse no site nor do we encourage players to get on and play at this junction if they are Americans.  Armenians yes, Americans no.  PokerNewsDaily has the scoop on BoDog.

LOOKING FOR SOME GOOD ADVICE FROM JOE SEEBOK?  "He has tweeted, "In every life we have some trouble, but when you worry you make it double.  Don't worry, be happy."  The poker world is reported to now be calm and soothed because of the profound nature of Seebok's tweet, This despite the millions of dollars that are frozen and inaccessible for millions of players.  We can only thank goodness for Bobby McFerrin and Joe Seebok and UB. 

We know of at least one so person inspired by this tweet he's not even worried about going to jail.  Scott Tom (the cheater who owned Absolute, and bought UB and now is indicted) is reported to no longer be as concerned about soap on a rope.  It was noted when he read the tweet he found the courage to return to the everyday things he does in life like run out of a Costa Rican cantina before his bill came. He did have time to spit on a baby on his way out, too.

LOOKING FOR REALISM?   Pokerati and Wicked Chops offer a more sober viewpoint.  While we could just be out there not worrying and being happy it's also entirely possible an industry, with a wide berth of collateral damage is all but dead.  Pokerati's take.  Wicked Chops thoughts.

WE'VE BEEN MAKING THE DC CONNECTION AND THE TIMING OF THEIR DISTRICT SPONSORED ONLINE POKER ANNOUNCEMENT SINCE THE FRIDAY'S POKER BOMB:  Loose lips sink ships and line the pockets of local money-grabbers.  Why tax when the government can take the whole thing.  Washington Post article on the DC plans.  Hot Air makes our case for us.

BLACK FRIDAY NEWS

04.17.11

SO MUCH FOR THE POKER BOOM.  On Friday, we asked if Chris Moneymaker is the face of the Poker Boom than who would be the face of the Poker Bomb?   You know the one that just detonated in the international offices of PokerStars, Full Tilt, and UB?  Turns out we have our man...  Daniel Tzvetkoff (which we hear means giant bag of Douche or Douchehead in Australian).

Moneymaker was a lot easier to spell then Tzvetkoff which we'll never get right.  So, in the future we'll refer to him as either Douche-head, Testekoff (look at his I-just-darkened-the-sun, scrotum eating grin in the picture above) or Testifykoff or some variation thereof.  Dan, it seems dropped the dime on the companies he used to work for, after the following chain of events:  The 27 year old Aussie was called a boy genius when Dan devised ways to process money (illegally?) and landed cush gigs doing just that with all the major sites.  Then, deciding 150k a day wasn't enough the boy "genius" decided to steal from his clients Full Tilt and PokerStars (...who cares if he stole from UB or not).

Feds were tipped off about his activities and tried to arrest him.  The "genius" then showed up in Vegas.  And one of the poker sites told the feds (allegedly) that Testehead was in town.  We say allegedly because we'd like to think they wouldn't be so dumb as to turn in the guy that knew all their dirty secrets but who knows in this debacle.  He went to jail...  Long story not so short, Dan Douchekoff just gave up all the information the feds are using to go after FT, PS and UB to reduce his sentencing.

Random things in numerical order (for no reason other than laziness on our part) somewhat related to this:

1.  Is Clonie Gowen glad she wasn't declared an owner of Full Tilt after her lawsuit failed?

2.  Has anybody come off more bitter than Kathy Liebert on twitter? Pouring salt into the wounds, for example, saying something like "Maybe Erik Seidel isn't running so hot." 

3.  Did we do the same thing in question 1 that Pokerkat has done in the twitterverse?  Considering we're not bitter that nobody ever sponsored us despite being highly marketable for wearing frumpy clothing and a reverse fanny pack we hope we are given a wider latitude than the kat.

4.  Doyle tells the online kids to bring it (ie their games to a live venue).  Nobody reminds him that he was the face of an online site... one that tried to market just those kids as Doyle's 10 or something like that.  However, Doyle is promptly informed that after his next heart attack those kids will be sure to twitter about it.  Kind of brings it home how serious this is for a lot of online players. 

5.  Things that might help or might not but can't hurt if somebody tries it.

- Write, call, write, call, write, call, write, call.   Congressmen, President, DOJ.  Probably too late to save the sites but if you want to play poker on the internet one day, you have to mobilize.

-Start a petition taking signatures of everybody that lost their livelihood, or major source of supplemental income because our government took away online poker.  Online kids can't file for unemployment but the media would be delighted to know an overzealous government just devastated a segment of the population and created more unemployed (even if it won't register as that).  Forward said petition to any media outlet that will cover it.  Obviously, spin it to Fox that it's Holder and Obama's fault, spin it to MSNBC it's W and Congress fault.

6.  Ultimately, the landscape of online poker has changed dramatically.  For all those people that said "just think of the extra revenue if the government taxed online poker," the government said screw taxing it we are just going to take it.

7.  Nobody shed a tear for Scott Tom being on the list of the indicted.  Even Scott Tom, as he was picking the pocket of his maid in Costa Rica and spitting on his dog, said "I probably deserve to go to jail for something why not this."  Perhaps, the DOJ can drop the case against everybody else and just fry the thief that stole from AP and now runs Cereus.

8.  Odd that DC, the day before there was a major vacuum in online poker announced they were going to offer online poker.  Hmmmm.  DOJ is in DC.  Just goes to show you, no matter the scandal you can't out-slime the crooks in Washington.

9.  Some more good articles, with fresher news since Friday:

Gary Wise:  ESPN.   

Gabe Costner on 2 + 2 suggests shenanigans in live poker too.

80 page Civil Complaint on Pokerati (also the 52 page criminal complaint).

The Fabulous Poker-King offers a lot of good tidbits of what is to come.

10.  Also, on Friday as news was breaking we urged you to withdraw your money from the sites.  That may have been slightly knee-jerk, but our thinking was it's better to be first in line than last.  We know many of you with significant amounts of money on the sites, and if there was still a way to recoup it, we wanted it to happen.  As one of our readers pointed out, maybe it's better to have you account balance sitting on the site than in limbo but ultimately it's the same thing.  Odds are this goes the same as Neteller and everybody gets their money, but who knows. 

11.  Tomorrow we'll have some upbeat news, local player chops the Harrahs tournament, Jonathan Little's new book, and some matters that dont' involve the aPokerlyspe.  For more on that, right now, check out Scotty Clark and Goondingy's thoughts on the matter on their blogs. 

LOCAL ROUNDERS MAKING NEWS

04.12.11

SHANNON SHORR VYING WITH WHITE HOT ERIK SEIDEL FOR WPT GLORY:  Seidel has been destroying poker in '11.  With over 4 million in live winnings he's clearly on his game.  He's ninth in chips at the WPT Hollywood Poker Open, in Southern Indiana.  Shannon Shorr has a chip advantage, second out of the remaining 27, but surely is extra wary of Seidel.  Ali Eslami, Tom Marchese, Allen Kessler, Chris Bell, and Andy Frankenberger also have chips. 

UPDATE:  Shorr busted in 20th.  Because of the small field only 12 made the money.  Kessler, Seidel, Marchese and Eslami all made the final table.  Shorr lost with pocket queens vs. the pocket kings of Marchese.  Predictably Seidel is one of the bigger stacks of the final nine.

BRANDON ADAMS ON P.A.D. AS IT SPREADS P.L.O.:  Looking for something a little spicier to watch on TV.  For folks tired of No Limit Hold'em you are in for a treat, Poker After Dark on NBC which airs after the sun goes down and sometime before it comes up, is featuring a lot of our favorite online poker room's featured pros playing Pot Limit Omaha.  Who, you may be asking besides Adams, well Phil Ivey, Tom "durrrr" Dwan, and Patrik Antonius to name a few.

TIM HEBERT MIN CASHES IN ST. LOUIS WSOP-C MAIN EVENT:  Hebert won $2,923 for 44th place.  Yes, that means there were over 400 runners in the event.  They are down to the final table with Kyle Cartwright the chip leader with an overwhelming 2.875 million.  Second in chips Steve Goff has less than half that with 1.27 million.  Two other players are over a million, after that it's a battle of shorties. 

MORE POKER & CASINO LEGAL NEWS

04.10.11

CRANBERRY CHIP THIEF FORCED INTO ROBBERY BECAUSE FATHER CUT OFF HIS 1k A MONTH ALLOWANCE:  Apparently, according to this L.A.Times article, his father was tiring of his drug use and spewing money in the casino.  You'll remember the thief returned to the Bellagio to spew off all of his ill gotten fortune.  They comped him a room, but also were quietly investigating him.  If they let him play those cranberries you got to wonder how long it would have taken him to return them through play.  Then how long it would take for him to walk into another casino with a helmet on brandishing a gun.

CAKE POKER IN A LAWSUIT:  As far as we can reckon a couple of guys think they invented the affiliate platform Cake Poker used to become a player in online poker.  After making an agreement to go into business with the owners of Cake, they received some dividends and then a couple of years later, were basically shut out.  Pokerati has the rest of the story.

 POKER & CASINO LEGAL NEWS

04.05.11

PAST MAIN EVENT CHAMPION VICTIM OF PONZI SCHEME:  Robert Varkonyi, former employee of Goldman Sachs as well as the cinderella Main Event champion one year too early, invested 1.4 million in a hedge fund that was Ponzi scheme.  Is there a hedge fund on Wall Street that wasn't a Ponzi scheme?  You'll remember Varkonyi won 2 million dollars for his Main Event.  He lost 1.4 million.  Bad beat. 

The owner of the hedge fund?  Chetan Kapur.  When a name that sounds like "Cheating the poor," is on the masthead you should probably take your money elsewhere.  Varkonyi, who probably has gotten more TV time cheering on his wife of late than he ever did for winning the Main Event, is joined in the suit by his wife, Olga.

HARRAHS NEW ORLEANS SUED OVER SECOND HAND SMOKE:  An employee, or a former employee, has cancer and since Harrahs like all casinos is an ashtray with cleverly hidden doors... people are lawyering up.   Wonder how long it takes an enterprising lawyer to start looking for a class of people that also make their living in a casino...  professional gamblers or poker players?  WWLTV.com has the scoop.

SOME MORE OLD NEWS ABOUT LOCAL CASINOS:  $400 Million casino riverboat is coming to Lake Charles.  The 15th, and last (?) available riverboat license beat out two smaller proposals ($145 million boat in Jefferson Parish and Hard Rock $167 million boat also in Lake Charles).  Should be open in 2013.

MORE SPRING BREAK POKER RESULTS

04.03.11

AGAIN NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

EVENT #3 $230 NLHE:  Farid Nasserazad of Atlanta won 15k for first.  Brett Terrell of Aniston, AL won 8.4 for 2nd.  Wesley Wesley Wesley has done it again, the Praireville, LA native (-minus one Wesley) finished 5th for 3.178k.  Ernest Moore of Braxton, MS 9th for a little over 1k.

EVENT #4 LADIES NLHE:  Brenda Whitten of Pine Mountain, GA won 3.1k for first.  Dianne Baitner of Fort Walton Beach, FL 2nd for 1.7k.  Sheryl Page of D'Iberville, MS 3rd for 1k.  Duplyn Rhodes-Brown of New Orleans 4th and Kristen Deardorff of Gulfport, MS 5th.

EVENT #9 $230 NLHE:  Randal Hollis of Birmingham, AL won first place and the 7.6k prize that went with it.  Natasha Barbour of Tampa, FL (pictured) won 4k for second.  Peter Palisi of Madisonville, LA won 2.5k for 3rd.  Larry Little of Pensacola, FL won 1.6k for 4th, you might have heard of Little's son.  If you haven't check out the blogs to the left.  John Patterson of Ontario, LA was 6th for 1.2k, J.J. Kigler of Panama City Beach, FL 7th for 1.05k.  Keith Robin of Chalmette, LA and Michael Zamorsky of Beaumont, TX rounded out the "In the Money" finishers in 8th and 9th respectively.

EVENT #11 $230 NLHE w/ $30 BOUNTY:  Sam Bailey (pictured way up there) of New Orleans won the event and 6.8k not in bounties.  We figure he won at least another $30  because he had to knock out second place finisher Andrei Neema of St. Petersburg, FL (3.7k)  Guy Turner of Mobile, AL won 1.2k for 5th and Curtis Terry of Metairie, LA won 1k for 6th.  Bill McGehee of Brookhaven, MS, Steven Pique of Long Beach, MS and Donald Tobin of Monroe, LA finished 7th through 9th respectively.

EVENT #12 $230 LIMIT HE:  Mary Williams of Oxford, GA won 3.1k for first.  John Sparks of Pascagoula, MS won 1.7k for 2nd.  Paul Mason of Tyler, TX 1k for 3rd.  Peter Szmurlo of Milton, FL and Josh Taylor of Hattiesburg, MS were 4th and 5th.

EVENT #13 $125 NLHE w/ REBUYS:  Blake Barousse of Lafayette, LA (pictured left) took down the top prize of 14.4k.  Tim Burt of Grenada, MS was 3rd for 4.8k.  David Nicholson of Biloxi, MS 7th for 2k.  Pamela Cobb of Panama City finished 9th for 1.2k.

 POKER NEWS

04.01.11

GUS HANSEN HAS A MASTER PLAN; QUIT FOR THE YEAR IN APRIL:  Okay, he has no such plan but he should.  The Great Dane is up over 4 million on Full Tilt this year.  If the past is any indication, should just play online poker at the beginning of the year because this is his third year in a row starting off on fire.  Last yea,r Hansen was up 2.2 million come March and ended the year being down 5.5 million.  The year before he was up almost 2 million and donated the rest of the year.  Scandis just play better in the winter.  Whoops, Gus has dropped almost 500k last week.  He needs to know when to step away from the tables:  late March/early April.

FULL TILT CALLS STATION CASINO OWNERS OFFER:  Full Tilt Poker has entered an agreement with Fertitta Interactive.  The alliance doesn't have much to do with Station Casinos although details are murky... other than the fact one of the partners of Fertitta Interactive who own Station Casinos also said it had nothing to do with Station Casinos.  It is contingent on the passage of federal legislation to legalize online poker.   Fertitta in turn is owned by UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) so it's likely the two brands will continue to find common ground in the coming months.   

 POKER NEWS

03.31.11

DWYTE PILGRIM IN CONTENTION AT RINCON:  Tim West may have the chip lead with 843k but all eyes (and likely all ears) are on Pilgrim who lurks in third with over 400k.  Steve Brecher and Ali Eslami are also at the WSOP-C Main Event final table. 

DURRRR CHALLENGE:  Challenge number two is almost 40% done and Dwan is in the hole about 1.25 million.  Considering his opponent Daniel "jungleman12" Cates stands to win an additional 1.5 million if he finishes the 50k hands ahead of Dwan this isn't going too well for Durrrr.  In the last sesssion Dwan won the biggest pot of the day with fourth pair.  That was the best he could do over 1,099 hands.  Cates won about 40k for the night.   With 60% of the hands to play it's getting near the time Dwan needs to start turning the corner.  Who is Dan Cates?  The New York Times will tell you.

MORE SPRING BREAK RESULTS:  First off, we can see first hand, how much better things are run with the media when Brian H is there from the first hand to the last hand of the tournament.  He's done a thankless job in events past and been really on the ball in getting this to us after the fact.  Again, these results are in no particular order...

EVENT #15 $340 NLHE:  Tim Hebert (smiling above) is back in the winner's circle.  The Lafayette, LA rounder won 15k for first place.  He was joined in the big payouts by Anthony Moore (Saucier, MS 2nd 8.5k) and David Poor (Baton Rouge, LA 3rd 4.6k).  Aaron Brant of Mobile was back at a final table finishing 7th.  Ryan Enis of Corinth, MS made it to 9th.

EVENT #14 $230 OMAHA 8 OR BETTER:  Sam Bailey of New Orleans finished second to Jacob Seale of Lumberton, TX.  Bailey earned 1.7k while Seale made 3.1k.  Danny Zaccaro of Mobile was third and Christopher Sheffield of Pensacola was fifth.  Les Anderson of Pearland, TX finished 4th.

 POKER NEWS

03.29.11

SPRING BREAK POKER CHAMPIONSHIP:  Sometimes these things peter into our "news desk" like molasses through a hose, and sometimes they show up all at once.  Anyway, some results, the theme is DD day:

Event 7 $230 No Limit Holdem 1 Re-entry/ 1 Add-on:  Tyler Smith (pictured above, but by this point you have to recognize the kid) bested David Davis in heads up play.  Smith won a shade over 12k.  Davis had to settle for 6k.  Both are from Biloxi.  Thomas Pullens of Picayune, MS was 4th, good for 2700.  Eric Rowell of Kiln, MS 6th for 2k.  George Bronstein of Houston won 1.3k for 8th and Andrew Rust of Lafayette 1k for 9th.

Event 8 $230 Seven Card Stud/Seven Card Stud 8 or Better Mix:  David Delchamps (that's his smiling mug to the right) of Mobile, AL won 2.4k for first. Billy Harvill of Birmingham, and Barbara Nelson of Fairhope made it an all-Alabama top three.  Steve Hazen of Port Orange, FL finished 4th.

Event 10 $230 Pot Limit Omaha 8 or Better:  Murray Manderosian of Pensacola, FL won 3.4k for first.  Josh Palmer of Daphne 1.9k for 2nd.  David Key of Baton Rouge 1.1k for 3rd.  Michael Watson and Daniel Day of Loxley and Montgomery, AL were the last two to cash in 4th and 5th spots.

JOHN RACENER WINS RACES ON SUNDAY AGAIN:  November Niner John Racener finished 8th in the Full Tilt $1,500 guarantee and won over 32k for his time. 

The youngster has been proving he can win on the virtual felt just as well as in a huge live tournament.  Still too early to call him something other than a November Niner but if he keeps up his steady results it might soon be online phenom.

SO MUCH ONLINE POKER NEWS

03.25.11

SO MUCH WYNN:  Wynn Casino now has a strategic partnership with PokerStars.  The new entity if poker legislation passes will become PokerStarsWynn.com.  Details are vague about what exactly that entity will do and the broader nature of the partnership.   Also, Pokerstars, an online poker room announced that they will be holding an EPT Tournament of Champions event that will go heads up with Full Tilt Poker's first ONYX Cup event.

In other Wynning news, the Wynn Casino offered a Calcutta Auction for any of the players that survived to day 2 of the Wynn Classic Main Event.   60% of the prize pool went to the bidder who picked the winner, 30% to second, and 10% to third.  The players were allowed to buy up to 50% of the winning bidders price on themselves.  Some players were lumped into "Field" pools (three groups).

Of note, GCP blogger Shannon Shorr "bought" Matthew Waxman who finished third.  Annette Obrestad finished second and was purchased by Ardavan Yazdi.  Dan Heimiller who spent by far the most money on the auction picked the winner Tim West.  Heimiller had four out of nine final table players so he had a great shot to get almost all of the pool.  Eric Froehlich, Carter King and John Kim also made the final table.  Phil Hellmuth, Men "The Master" Nguyen, and Billy Kopp all cashed.

SO MUCH LOSE:  "Robbin' Customers" UB and Joe "Robin" Seebok have had another bad week.  Much of it has been taking place on the Donkdown podcasts and on the 2+2 message boards.  Donkdown explored the idea that to hide Superuser cheating, employees of UB would access high balance accounts cheat with them, and then transfer money or chip dump to their own account.   One of the hallmarks was that they'd randomly change the password to the account to access it.  They have some circumstantial proof that the cheating continued after the management change.

Joe Seebok started a question and answer thread on 2+2 though much of it centered around a tweet he made to a subscriber and things got a bit bitter. 

Also, noted scandal blogger Haley Hintze gets into a pissing match on a thread with 2+2 site owner Mason Malmouth.  If you got some time and some popcorn head over there.  If you just want a bigger synopsis that covers most of this go to Chad Holloway's recap on Pokernews.

SO MUCH CONFUSION:  RakeTheRake announced that UB and Absolute Poker were welcoming Victory Poker to the Cereus Poker Network.  Victory Poker is leaving the Cake Network.  Meanwhile Cake Network has a new owner: PokerListings affiliate group.  Confused yet?  Jonathan Little is a Victory Poker pro along with Antonio Esfandiari, Paul Wasicka and Andre Robl.  

SO MUCH PODCASTING:  GCP Blogger Benton Blakeman was featured on "The Showdown" with John Friedberg.  Go to Benton's blog for details.  Also, Darryll Fish was on a recent episode of PokerRoad for his deep WPT run.  Check the archives and give a listen.

GENERAL POKER NEWS

03.21.11

SUNDAY ONLINE GRIND REWIND:  Jared Ingles aka bearbuck got another score cashing 15th in the Full Tilt 200k Guarantee (rebuy).  The $150 + $13 buy-in created a prize pool of 291k with 585 entrants.  Seems every week we have John Dolan cashing in his home poker site's tournaments but maybe Ingles is now the man. 

WHO IS GREG PIERSON?  The former head of UB has a closet full of secrets and Haleyspokerblog opens the closet.  Want more intrigue to this cheating scandal? How about a school teacher sleeping with her students and a husband in need of funds to pay her legal bills.  Motivation to go superuser and God mode on UB?  Maybe.  Gets juicy here.

JOE CHEONG GIVES YOU A GLIMPSE INTO THE SUNDAY OF A NOVEMBER NINER:  We like Joe, probably because he likes us via facebook.  You can like us too by clicking the little thingy on the right and then hitting "like."  Anyway, after doing that head over to Pokernews to see Cheong's grind station.  Go here to watch.

SORRY FOR THE DEARTH OF POSTS:  Seems one of us has a fever and the only cure for it is more buzzer beaters.  Yes, March Madness has it's psychological hold on one of the owners of the site.  With multiple rooting interests in the Sweet Sixteen it doesn't appear full mental health will be returning any time soon.

MIKE MATUSOW DOESN'T WIN WPT FINAL TABLE:  Nor does Mike Sexton or Vivek Rajkumar.  Vivek main his second WPT Main Event final tabl e in a row but had to settle for fourth (and almost 300k).  Sexton took home almost 150k for sixth.  Matusow beat both of them but only ended up third for just shy of 370k.  The winner a satellite qualifier Alan Sternberg.  The 1 million plus prize was Sternberg's biggest cash ever... by a long shot.

GENERAL POKER NEWS

03.15.11

KENNY MILAM HANGS ON TO WIN CHARITY EVENT:  Milam, a recent addition to FeltStars pro roster, took down a charity tournament in Marrero.  Milam got into the spirit of the event and put a $100 bounty on his own head... then won the thing.

FULL TILT SUNDAY BRAWL:  Harrison Gimbel had a large 50k score in the tournament finishing in 3rd.  Sharing the final table was Jared "Bearbuck" Ingles who finished 6th for 17k.

ONYX CUP:  Full Tilt has announced a new high roller--esque live tournament series.  For those of you that already play poker online at Tilt, you'll have a new bevvy of satellites to sign up for to play with the big boys.  There is some discussion as to whether this will go heads up against the Federated Cup Annie Duke is spearheading.   We think advantage Lederer.  Six events with buy-ins ranging from 100k to 300k and Full Tilt stars tied to the Oynx Cup.

RISE OF THE BOTS:  The New York Times did some more fear mongering this time the poker world was their target.  Okay, so it's a fairly even handed piece, much less so then our sub-headline but still there are bots on the poker sites and you should be scared.  Or not as the bots it turns out are still pretty bad players.

VICTOR RAMDIN PIPS JOE HACHEM:  In the Big Event, Ramdin edged Joe Hachem in heads up play to win a 500k prize.  While the Big Event sounds like a way to talk about a football game in January without paying the NFL is was a pretty well attended tournament.

GENERAL POKER NEWS

03.10.11

MCKLEAN KARR IS A WINNER!  The former Gulf Coaster took down the Full Tilt Sunday Mulligan for 56k.  McKlean is pictured on the right.

PHIL IVEY IS A WINNER!  Possible every week we could just run that headline. PokerKing breaks the story that Phil Ivey is up almost 2 million online in 2011.  Two Months, Two Million --- that's kind of catchy. 

ERIK SEIDEL IS A WINNER!  Spoiler alert.... stop reading now if you don't want to know that he won....  the NBC National Heads Up Championship.  Runner-up?  Chris Moneymaker.   The 750k Seidel earned for first makes it $4 million in live action this year... yeah that's 4 mil in two and half months, while not quite Charlie Sheen's salary for Two and a Half Men it's real good for poker just ask the kids from Two Months, Two Million.  As great a year as Seidel and Ivey are having in different arena's Moneymaker is off to one of his best starts to a year ever for him.  Great job Chris!

Jason Mercier won two matches but fell to Frenchman Oliveir Busquet in the quarters.  The Grinder beat Vanessa Ruosso and Phil Laak before losing to David Benyamine.  Frank Kasella was a first round victim to Bord, James Bord.  Complete bracket here.

CHALLENGE TO DURRRR FINISHING SOMETHING:  You ever get the feeling Tom Dwan was drawn to poker like many of us, not just because of the tiger blood coursing through our bodies but also because in life he's the type of guy that does something until he gets bored with it and never finishes anything?  What would give us that idea?  In his second, unfinished, Durrrr Challenge he played some more hands with Dan Cates.  Cates is now up almost a million with about 35% of the action completed. 

BRANDON ADAMS HAS A BLOG:  We all know the former Gulf Breeze native is an author, professor, and high stakes poker player and generally a shrewd dude.  His posts are usually the best on this blog, and he's recently updated.  Speaking of bloggers, lots of fresh content on either side of the news feed, including Monkey's successful Sunday with a deep run in the...

SUNDAY MILLIONS CHOP.  With a prize pool of almost 12 million and a Lamborghini given out to first, Pokerstars, an online poker room, watched nine players agree to a 9 way chop (not like they'd agree to a seven way chop because really wouldn't two of their opinions be kind of superflous?). 

HAPPY MARDI GRAS

03.08.11

GULF COAST POKER WISHES EVERYBODY A HAPPY MARDI GRAS!

QUICK OLD UPDATES: 

Darryll Fish finished 6th at the WPT event.  It was a short final table for the kid but over 200k for his time will probably soothe the pain of being first one out.  Shannon Shorr just missed the final table taking a kick to the gut when his pocket rockets ran into a set.

Ryan Lenaghan finished 5th at WSOP-C event.  Lenaghan (pictured), nor the rest of the field, couldn't beat fresh out of the womb, and virtual fetus John Riordan.  Riordan who is still waiting on his baby teeth played amazing.  Lenaghan also played great.  Jacob Naquin finished 17th.

MARCH (POKER) MADNESS

-Gulf Coasters vying for WSOP-C and WPT glory coast to coast

03.01.11

IN L.A., DARRYLL FISH AND SHANNON SHORR HAVE CHIPS:  They've slipped from their top ten status at the L.A. Poker Classic, but are still in the top 20.  Normally, that isn't too bad, but considering there are just 18 players left they've got work to do (and yes they are still alive).  All you have to do is scroll down and check the recent archives to see these two (and the guy at the WSOP-C, who we'll get too) are on heaters.  We wish them both the best.  Last night our facebook page had a link to live video of the tournament as they sat side by side against the rest of America and the world.  Shorr is 12th with 690k and Fish 14th with 584k.

Vivek Rajkumar, who is a previous WPT winner, is a massive chip leader with 3.2 million.  Okay, not Jaime Gold massive, but pretty good considering only one other player has over 2 million.  A slew of other young internet phenoms are in the top ten and a couple of live pros like Carlos Mortensen and Allen Cunningham.  Kathy Liebert pulled a bit of a "Chainsaw" yesterday.  Seemed like she was the short stack all day but nobody could knock her off.  Right now she's climbing the money ladder, but not the chip-counts, still mired next to last.

ALL THE WAY ON THE OTHER COAST JACOB NAQUIN AND RYAN LENAGHAN IN CONTENTION AT PALM BEACH WSOP-C MAIN EVENT:  With 24 players left Nocko has enjoyed highs of the penthouse, at one point the chip leader yesterday and now is battling just to stay in the house.  

He is 17th in chips with 24 players left.  Four players at the top of the leader board have over 1 million in chips.  One of those is Ryan Lenaghan, of New Orleans, who has 1.4 million in second place.    Let's go fellas!

SUNDAY GRIND REWIND:  John Dolan was up to his old tricks cashing in another tournament.  He finished 9th in the PokerStars Sunday 500 for almost 6k.  Matt "mattg1983" Graham managed to put out enough fires to finish 15th in the same tournament for 3.6k.

LOCAL POKER NEWS

02.28.11

SHANNON SHORR, DARRYLL FISH TOP TEN IN CHIPS AT WPT EVENT:  They are in the money at the L.A. Poker Classic, unfortunately that happened because Hoyt Corkins was THE bubble boy.  Jason Mercier doubled up Shannon Shorr prior to the money bubble than watched all his chips slip through his fingers before he could add another cash to his resume.  Shorr rode that coinflip to a big stack (6th at 655k) as action completed.  At one point Shorr was up to almost 800k but he doubled up Daniel Alaei late. 

Darryll Fish slowly compiled more and more chips and finished in the 8th spot with 595k.  Fish, through social media, said he is playing some of the best poker of his life.  The chip leader is Jason DeWitt who is the only player with over a million in chips.  Carlos Mortensen, 10th 557k, and Allen Cunningham 17th 375k are lurking amidst a sea of online poker players.  Also with hope are Kathy Liebert, Joe Hachem, Ted Lawson, Michael Mizrachi, Scott Seiver, Chad Batista, Daniel Alaei, Lauren Kling, Vivek Rajkumar, Jason Senti, Mike Sowers, and James Carroll. 

With 681 players to start, the field is sitting at a tidy 63 players.  First place is 1.65 million.  Second place is over 900k while third is 640k.   On the other side of things, the next eight players out will only little more than double their buy-in with consolation prizes of 22.23k.

TIM BURT WINS OMAHA EIGHT OR BETTER AT WSOP-PALM BEACH:  Tim is on the short list, along with Anthony Bellao to be added to our Who's Who.  Though we might just hold off on putting Burt up there considering how many tournaments he's winning, we don't want to burn up any positive Mojo.  Though being on our Who's Who list certainly hasn't stopped most of the others from continuing their tournament successes after earning that distinction.  Congrats for another title Tim!

GENERAL POKER NEWS

02.25.11

SHANNON SHORR 3rd IN WPT PRELIM EVENT:  Shorr won 66k.  Shorr was chip leader with three remaining but after two hours of play was eliminated in third.  The 10K LAPC Main Event kicks off today, Shannon Shorr, Darryll Fish, Jonathan Little, Frank Kasella and a few other local players are in the mix.

CBS TO TELEVISE DUKE-POLLACK POKER PROJECT?  Interesting another network joins the mix, reports Variety.  This new federation has a chance, as CBS declined comment no word yet if they are actually "buying" the TV rights or selling the time.  Either way network TV is a good sign.  However, this is only the second best news out this week from CBS Sports.  The first being that they are staggering the NCAA tournament games on the first two days by thirty minutes. 

This means instead of starting a couple at the same time and one 15 minutes later or so, you will have a full day of climatic action with endings timed to go after one after another (yay for sports gamblers).  No dinner break either (yay for degenerate sports gamblers).  Actually, this is like turning cocaine into crack for you degenerates.  No time to get air.  Be careful this March.  

SPEAKING OF MARCH MADNESS:  2011 National Heads-Up Poker Championship released the invites but not the brackets.  Emmitt Smith, Don Cheadle, Gabe Kaplan, Jennifer Tilly, and Jason Alexander early favorites.  Not favorites to win of course, just favorites.  Yes, those entertainers are taking up seats that otherwise could have gone to real players like Shannon Elisabeth, or less ironically, Shannon Shorr.

Locally, Frank Kasella, John Racener, Chris Moneymaker and Jason Mercier appear to be rooting interests along with whoever is playing Sorel "Cut the Deck" Mizzi.  We can only hope Mizzi draws Racener in the first round action.  The unretired Peter Eastgate will also be in action after flaming out in Copenhagen (that didn't sound like we meant it to... replace flaming out in Copenhagen with busting out of a poker event in his home country).

TOTALLY NOT POKER RELATED BUT HARD NOT TO POST THIS LINK OF ONE GUY BEATING THE BANKS AT THEIR OWN GAME:  Teaser guy in Philadelphia foreclosed on Wells Fargo after battling them over ridiculous fees and rate increases.  Can you imagine if poker players were as shady as banks when it came to debts?  Enjoy this.
 

SUNDAY GRIND REWIND AND BOTTOM DEALING?

02.21.11

JACOB NAQUIN WINS 230K IN FTOPS MAIN EVENT!  Great job Nocko!  J NOCK as he's known on Full Tilt finished sixth in the 14,479 person ME poker tournament.  Okay, since it was a Multi-Entry Tournament not quite that many people played, but there were almost 15k in entrants.  The 3 million Full Tilt guaranteed was easily surpassed by a prize pool of 8.6 million.

Fittingly on NBA All Star Sunday Con Artest, Rajon Rondon, Jordankickz, wu_wizard, da_gun_slinger, and UCFcollegefund (think about it) all cashed.  Locally, John Dolan, Brandon Adams, The Grinder, The Waco Kid, and we are assuming this guy's from 'round her LOLWhoDat, all made some money or got some of their buy-in(s) back. 

DARRYLL FISH FINISHES 8TH IN SUNDAY MILLIONS:  Fish won 20k for the 8th place finish.  The $200 +$15 buy in had 9178 players and a prize pool of 1.8 million.  Some local cashes included; noclue645 of Atlanta, hookembaby83 of Austin, SkillVille of Houston, dadz4eva of Mississauga, and Timkrank.

SOREL MIZZI GETS BACK IN POKER'S GOOD GRACES ONLY TO BE ACCUSED OF BOTTOM DEALING:  On a thread on 2+2 Shaun Deeb alleges Sorel Mizzi bottom dealt to John Racener playing Chinese Poker for high stakes using a joker (which he fed himself) at the PCA.  Racener spied the "hanger" and later told Deeb that Mizzi was making like "Worm."  If true, this is just another of the many allegations thrown Mizzi's way in regards to cheating and comes on the heels of his reinstatement to Full Tilt.  Interesting, that Racener has yet to refute or validate Deeb's tale after the thread has been on 2 + 2 for a couple of days.

GENERAL POKER NEWS

02.20.11

CHAD BROWN RECOVERING FROM  CANCER SURGERY:  Our thoughts and prayers are with Downtown Chad Brown, who had a ten pound (!) tumor removed from his stomach, along with a kidney.  Considering Chad's successes in tournaments down here we consider him almost a quasi-local (like Dwyte Pilgrim).

According to Vanessa Ruosso's twitter feed he is recovering and in time will start radiation treatment.  Apparently it is the same type of cancer as blogger Tiltin' Texan's.  So far so good for Tex, who had removal and radiation treatment, but his cancer was on his leg.  Good luck Chad, Vanessa and family, we are all praying for you.

SCOTTY CLARK AT THE EPICENTER OF A COUPLE OF CONTROVERSIES:  He does a great job recapping the Donkdown interview on the Cold Call podcast about the UB scandal.  Then he recaps the Internet war with Johnny Hughes that has raged across facebook and poker forums.  Read his blog for the nitty gritty.  We tend to side with Scotty obviously.

REAL TIME HOLE CARDS RFID TECHNOLOGY:  Pokerati has a story on this new table that allows you to broadcast just about any game complete with access to hole-cards and access to chances to win percentages.  They have a video too.

ANNIE DUKE'S FEDERATED SPORTS + GAMING KIND OF MODELS NEW POKER TOUR ON THE PGA (OPINION):  Annie Duke and Jeffrey Pollacks new league is on first blush kind of a pratical attempt to settle the debate I (Wild Bill) have been having with a lot of poker players/contributors to the site. I think a PGA league with sponsors supplying the prize money and covering the entry fees is the logical next step for poker players. On the most basic level, rather than rakes taking money out of the poker economy there would be injections of cash into these freerolls which would be good for us all.

I think in theory it should have been done long ago. Unfortunately, I also think the greed of poker players will keep it from happening... again. Though I should distinguish the argument, some contributors feel a league would be bad for the game, not that they think it couldn't work. I think a league would be good for the game, I think it could work, though I don't think it will work.

Please go to Wild Bill's poker blog for the rest of this.

If you want to debate this head-over to our facebook page and go to discussions.

GENERAL POKER NEWS

02.17.11

BLOGGERS TYPE ON THEIR KEYBOARDS AND PRODUCE CONTENT:  Perhaps, Valentines Day and not Christmas or Thanksgiving, is the holiday that produces the most self-reflection, because a few days after getting and giving candies and roses the bloggers at GCP have been busy.  Kai Landry recounts his deep finish at Tunica, Monkey revisits his run at the Venetian, Reid G and Big Smoove aka Goondingy reflect on poker and its tug, Bella Donkey gets funny in her wanderings in Tunica and then introspective, Wild Bill bashes male cashiers at Harrahs and ruminates about a mis-step in the Donkley, and Scotty solicits backers.  If you want to read,  start scrolling down in either column to the left or right and click the link.  If you need any other advice on navigating the internet go to AOL.com it's in the phonebook.

IF RUSS HAMILTON PLAYS AT THE GULFSTREAM IS CHEATING ALLOWED?  If cheaters are allowed... is cheating allowed?  You might think so but two Florida men found out just the opposite.  Many have wondered about palming some chips in one tournament to use in another.  Well, those of you that have ethics wonder what's to keep someone else from doing that, but guessing some of you don't have ethics even if you are honorable enough to visit this site. 

If you are still wondering if the punishment is worth the crime, you are a bad person, and the crime is a felony and one of the two is facing jail time of about half a year.   The Orlando Sentinel has the story here.  Meanwhile, according to some old Donkdown podcasts the Gulfstream seems somewhat proud to have Russ Hamilton playing in their game.  By the way he's the cheater or fall-guy or cheater fall-guy for the Ultimate Bet cheating scandal. 

NATALINA NIKITINA, AS WICKED CHOPS WOULD SAY "A WOMAN" WINS TOURNAMENT:  More than a woman we'd say, her name is like four or five women's names, Natalina, Lina, Niki, Tina, Nikitina (?).  By the way, congrats to womandom, all of you are winners.  Still, that strange name, got one of us thinking...  if only people were named after they've developed their personalities or psychosis. 

Person is schizoid?  Name 'em four different names, so by way of introduction you go by, say oh... Philbert Hoytwillis you are probably a loon and everybody knows it.  Though that would suggest it's hard to spot a crazy when usually it's not.  Self-sorting by names does occur, assassins usually go by all three of their names, which is a nice way of them to voluntarily give us fair warning that they may try to off an arch-duke, president or Union boss in their life.  Stay on the good side of people who go by three names.  We are watching you Sean William Scott and by the way if you are reading, "Dude! Where's My Car" is underappreciated.  Also, if your name is Phil try your hand at poker (Hellmuth, Laak, Ivey, Galfond, Gordon...) and start right now at any online poker room,  but specifically the one we linked to.

DID WE MENTION IT'S BEEN A SLOW WEEK FOR POKER CONTENT?

GCP BLOGGERS MAKING NEWS

02.16.11

BRYAN LANOIX AKA "MARAVICHLSU" WON THE 35k ON STARS:  Congrats to the local grinder from Baton Rouge.  Lanoix, also is a blogger, and we have a lot of blogger news.  First off, you can see Lanoix's blog on our expanded Blog page.  You'll see some of our GCP staples, some old favorites, and some other blogs from players in the region, like Bryan's we've recently added.  Probably will bring some of them up here and move some back quite often.  Lanoix's blog is quite good so you might see him on the front page sooner rather than later.  Speaking of which...

WE'D LIKE TO GIVE A HEARTY WELCOME TO JENNIFER GAY TO GCP'S BLOG ROLL:  Jennifer is the author of a popular blog that used to get a ton of hits under a different name.  Now she's started a new one, Bella Donkey, which will surely also be popular.  She's also a columnist for Ante Up Magazine.  Welcome aboard Jennifer! 

GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS FOR BLOGGER KAI LANDRY:  Bad news PokerNews posted he busted before the money bubble.  Good news he quickly tweeted "Rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated."  Believe he was quoting a confused Casper the friendly ghost.  More good news, he made the money at the Main Event in Tunica.

Unfortunately, when BJ McBrayer busted at that stage the reporting was accurate.  More bad news, the reprieve when Kai had when he was "ghosting" the tournament and not showing up in the chip counts or on the bust-out list was short lived.  Began to wonder if during a table break he took a left turn to the bathroom and was going to wait out the bubble with a tray full of chips.  While a popular move in Pro Wrestling Battle Royale's but frowned upon in poker.  Actually he was stationed in his seat biding his time. 

The really bad news came when his tournament ended yesterday, for real, as he ran AJ into KJ preflop.  Unfortunately, being the heavy favorite in a hand when the money gets in has nothing to do with winning the hand.  Would have been the type of double up that could have guided him to victory.   Of note,  the guy that delivered the bad beat is the chip-leader going into the final table.  PokerNews rehashes the hand here.  Congrats also to Bob Talbot (BJ too) for his deep run in the event.

SHANNON SHORR FINISHES 15Th IN FTOPS EVENT:  "BLUFFforRENT" pulled down 11k for his long run.  Event 22 only had 23,342 entrants and Shorr beat all but 23,327 of them.  The $120 No-Limit Knock-Out Mulit-Entry event offered a 279k first place prize.

BENTON BLAKEMAN MAKING THE ROUNDS IN THE POKER MEDIA:  Check out his blog for more details.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY LOCAL POKAH NEWS

02.14.11

KAI LANDRY BACK FOR DAY TWO IN TUNICA MAIN EVENT:  Kai Landry first made waves in the poker scene by capturing the Main Event at Tunica.  He cited a passion for cotton and dirty Waffle Houses as reasons for his success there, no with 87k in chips he's back for more.  Also making it to day two are Bob Talbot, a facebook buddy of ours (click like on one of the facebook widgets and you'll also earn that designation) with 87k, and BJ McBrayer with 34.2k.  Congrats also to Scotty Clark for cashing in Tunica this trip as well.  

MONKEY, ALL BUSINESS, TAKES 6TH AT VENETIAN SERIES:  Will Souther aka The Poker Monkey also came 15 away from cashing in the nooner while playing on breaks at his final table.  Things are headed in a positive direction.  Keep it up Will!

POKERSTARS DOING AWAY WITH DOUBLE OR NOTHING SIT 'N GOS:  If you chose your favorite online poker room based on the variety of sit 'n goes you have one less option.  As of today, you will no longer be able to play Double or Nothing Sit 'N Gos.  Stars has announced the format needs improvement.   

Perhaps, that improvement comes in the form of Fifty50 Sit and Gos.  The Fifty50 tournamenents end, like the Double or Nothing, when half the field has been eliminated however the distribution of the prize pool is partly determined by chip counts.  Thus, a greater incentive for players to not fold their way to a double up.

GENERAL POKER NEWS

02.09.11

RYAN COX WINS HARRAHS WEEKLY:  Word has it the attorney agreed to a chop with him getting a little bit more.  National man of mystery "Spider" also got a piece of the three way chop.  Congrats fellas.  Tough break for Kenny Milam who was the bubble boy.

COGANS TRADE POKER MOVIE STARING BRAD PITT FILMING IN NEW ORLEANS UPDATE:  Brad Pitt will star as title character Jackie Cogan, a mob enforcer investigating the robbery of a high stakes poker tournament.  That much we've know, but the film that begins filming locally this month has also added character actor Richard Jenkins (played the Dad in Step-Brothers).

FOXWOODS ORGANIZES NOVEMBER NINE REMATCH OF SORTS:  The freeroll tournament awarded to 18 lucky randomly drawn winners pitted them against the November Nine in a prize pool worth 15k.  The best part, some of the  amateurs didn't even realize what their prize was until midway through the November Nine introductions.  It's a great idea, and maybe something the World Series should take on the road with select Circuit events, but like many poker events you have to question the marketing of it, if the participants don't even know what they are playing in.

Ben Hopkins bested November Niner Matt Jarvis in heads up play.   Jarvis won more than that as there were extensive last longer bets made by the November Nine.  Some of whom have yet to blow through their winnings. 

NAQUIN GOES DEEP IN POKERSTARS 250K:  Congrats Nocko aka Jacob Naquin (pictured right)!  Great job taking fifth!   

TENNIS AND POKER:  James Blake was re-introduced to poker in Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown in 2004 and like many of the pseudo-celebrities on the show he was hooked.  Unlike most of them, Gail O'Grady and James Woods, Blake is still at it.  He's also under contract with Full Tilt.  He's not the first tennis player to pick up the game as he follows in the footsteps of pros Boris Becker and Yveginy Kafelnikov.  As this article points out poker already features former tennis players who have gone on to success on the felt:  Patrik Antonius, David Benyamine, and Gus Hansen.
 

GENERAL POKER NEWS

02.07.11

LIV BOEREE WINS SUNDAY WARM UP:  The British beauty, Liv Boeree won 147k for first when she bested James "mig.com" Mackey in heads up play.  Daniel Negreanu also made a deep run and continues improve his stats as an online poker player.

NORM MACDONALD TO HOST HIGH STAKES POKER:  There will be no "Welcome Back Kotter" as Norm McDonald takes over for Gabe Kaplan.  Though it is a welcome back for Norm to TV of any kind.  MacDonald was last seen ... at the Laugh Shop?

 High Stakes Poker has continued to shake things up as AJ Benza was fired a year ago.  Also, the line in the sand appears to be drwan or drawn or dwan-ned as no Full Tilt pros will be on the show.  PokerStars' poker stars are also noticeably absent from Poker After Dark.

KAI LANDRY IS BLOGGING AGAIN:  Look right and scroll down.  More GCP bloggers to come.

ASHTON GRIFFEN WINS MILLION DOLLAR PROP BET:  Real quick specifics:  Ran 70 miles on a treadmill in 24 hours.  Walking did not count.  Got drunk the night before and only had five hours sleep.  PokerNewsDaily has the story here.

BELLAGIO BIKER BANDIT NABBED BY 2+2 POSTER:  Looking to unload some Cranberrys (25k chips) that the Bellagio discontinued, the Bandit, Anthony Michael Hall, sorry Anthony Michael Carleo went to 2+2.  Cleverly he created a handle "OceanSpray25" (cranberry chips worth 25k) and posted things like "Know anyone lookin for a bargain on a few pieces of fruit?  Great for the liver and kidney and they make great stocking stuffers."  Pokernews has more here.

LOCAL NEWS DUMP

02.03.11

GCP BLOGGER NEWS AND BENTON BLAKEMAN GUEST ON POKERROAD "CASH PLAYS" PODCAST:  Benton earned the spot by besting famed  pro "Nicolak" who is a co-host on the show in heads up play.  To download the podcast go to:   http://www.pokerroad.com/radio/cash-plays/92.  Nicolak was filming the matchups as part of his teaching series to plug leaks for his students and ended up trying to plug leaks of his own.  Great job Benton.

In other blogger news, Jonathan Little has a some options to raise money for a good cause on his blog, check it out.  Scotty Clark's blog talks about his time on the UB TV show that really was his launching pad into the poker industry.

JOHN DOLAN WINS AGAIN ON SUNDAY:  Dolan was better than every other entrant, and there were 1085 total, in the PokerStars Sunday 500.  He won $95k for first place.    Also congrats to Ryan Daut for finishing second in the PokerStars Sunday million.

ESKIMO CLARK BREAKS HIS SILENCE AND GIVES EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW TO ANOTHER SITE:  PokerNewsDaily ran down the Bobby Fischer of poker read here.  Not sure if former New Orleans native, Eskimo Clark has a favorite online poker room or what his handle is, and it's a shame it's one of many questions PND did not ask, but we would have.  Others?  Player he least likes to sit next to, why it's important to wash... the deck, and when he's backing a player what kind of arrangement does he prefer.

POKER TOURNAMENT IN FLORIDA MAKES STRIP POKER A CHARITABLE EVENT:  We really enjoyed the Acadiana Series of Poker but got to wonder if the organizers should maybe consider this twist to the charity event.

FLORIDA TO LEGALIZE ONLINE POKER?  As if the juiceyness of the live cash games wasn't incentive enough to move to Florida, or the opportunity to razz Russ Hamilton for stealing millions from poker players in a 2-5 game, now Florida might legalize online poker?  The weather ain't bad either.  Go here for more.

TWO NEW BLOGS TO JOIN THE FOLD THIS WEEK:  Tomorrow an old favorite returns, Friday is lady's night with the addition of a new blog that promises to be a fun read.  Also got some Who's Who to add in the next couple of days. 

WORLDWIDE POKER NEWS

02.02.11

POKERSTARS PLAYS HARDBALL WITH GREG RAYMER AND RAYMER TAKES A WALK:  Pokerking reads between the lines of a Kathy Liebert tweet here.  They suggest PokerStars told their pros take a pay cut or take off, Greg Raymer did the latter. 

Raymer was a little less definitive in a statement he made on 2+2:

"There has been a lot of discussion about my representation of PokerStars, and it is true that right now I am not representing them.  In the near future, I will have a more detailed statement discussing this situation, but I have no further comment at this time."

Staying on the PokerStars news, recent signee, and 2010 Main Event Champion Jonathan Duhamel, took down another tournament.  He won the EPT 10k High Roller Event.  In a week of 250k high roller events, 10k doesn't seem to cut it as a high-roller.  Still he pocketed 200k in Euros.  Which is more than 199k in Euros and we have no idea what that equals in Dollars or, more pertinent to Duhamel, in Loonies,

BWIN AND PARTYGAMING MERGER APPROVED:  Over in Europe a big, big poker site is gathering momentum and players.  The merger is estimated to be worth 2.41 billion and now it's official.   

HENDON MOB UPDATES THEIR ALL TIME RANKINGS:  Now there are four lists:  All-Time Money List, All Time Money List Open Events Only, All-Time Money List buyins 50k or less, and All Time Money List Open Events of 50k of less only.  It changes things a little bit but mostly at the top.  For example, Jason Mercier, John Racener, Hoyt Corkins, and Jonathan Little crack the first list.  All make the second list, and Shannon Shorr slides into 100th. 

SOUTHERN POKER  CHAMPIONSHIP REVISITED (6 HANDED KO EVENT)

02.01.11

MIKE "RUSOSTREET" CARUSO TAKES IT HOME:  Wow...nice score Ruso.  We at GCP.Net try to get it all up as often as possible, but sometimes we miss some things. Don't want to forget about this guy.

Known as one of the nicest guys you ever want to meet, but a brutal opponent on the felt, Rusostreet gets his 1st live win for over $20k....to go along with his 1.7 million total winnings online. He beat out several other good local players like Kevin "1sickdisease" Eyster and David Diaz at the final table. Surely we will be seeing more of him on the live circuit in the near future.

SOUTHERN POKER  CHAMPIONSHIP MAIN EVENT FINAL TABLE UPDATE

01.28.11

THE RUSKIE TAKES IT DOWN:  Once upon a time Alex Kuzmin wanted nothing more than a good pair of blue jeans, American rock roll music and some pirated copies of Baywatch (okay, we don't know that, maybe he hates denim).  Now he's taking pictures with bundles of American cash.  What a country! 

SHORR SHORT, SHORR CHIPPED UP, SHORR OUT:  To tell the truth, we didn't run a pic of GCP blogger, Shannon Shorr, in the run up to the final table because we had a good feeling about this tournament for him.  Just felt like we were saving his big pic for a winner's shot today.  Alas, it was not to be for one of the better young tournament players in the world.

He got over the dreaded five spot, by only one place.  However, sweating him from the excellent updates by WPT and Brian Heptinstall over at the Beau, it's clear Shannon was playing to win and the cards just didn't go his way. 

He was willing to risk it all and several times he went from the short stack to a big stack at the final table.  The action around him was fast and furious.   We wonder how the WPT will edit it, because for a while almost all the drama involved Shannon and he went out fourth. 

 LEIF FORCE TRIUMPHANT IN SECOND:  Lots of subplots on the felt, Red Dawn, Allen Carter trying to do what no player has done before (get enough run good in the same place to win two WPT titles there), and Shorr's chip-stack rising and falling like a narcoleptic watching a horror movie in a dark theatre, but not to be dismissed is the heroism of Leif Force. 

He grrrr-rinded a short stack to the final table, he grrrr-rinded a short-stack at the final table, and he got all the way to just about even with Allen Carter and Alex Kuzmin at the final table.  He grrrr-rinded through Johnny Grooms heads-up pun "Leif Forces Kuzmin to fold."  Just kidding, JG, as if we should talk about bad puns and bad wordplay considering our content.  What a battle, what an effort!  The Florida native earned a lot of respect for his play.  Great job Leif.

TIM BURT WINS AGAIN:  Let's just admit it, Tim Burt might be, no, strike that, he is the best live mixed game tournament player on the Gulf Coast.  That's kind of fact, we all have to accept it.  Some of you may have too much pride to accept it, but you should.  Results speak for themselves.  Every couple of months (or less) we are doing a blurb about the guy, snapping one of these things off. 

He wins rings, he wins cash, he wins James Bond villain's trophies, seemingly every time he sits down at a mixed games table.  Blogger Scott Clark might give him a run for his money, but Clark doesn't play down here enough.  As it stands, it's Tim Burt's world and you are just living in it.  And if you are playing a home game and he suggests dealer's choice you might want to pass.

KUDOS TO THE BEAU RIVAGE:  Johnny Grooms and the entire staff pulled off another excellent tournament.  They tweaked their structures a bit and really pulled off another Beau Rivage caliber event.  Also, kudos to Brian Heptinstall and Eric Harkins of Imagemasters, who both put in long hours, and delivered top quality product.  Unlike us players none of them had the luxury of tilting and they were on top of their game for the entire tournament.  Great job guys!

WHAT CHA GETTING INTO TONIGHT?  We are going to be playing in a charity poker tournament in Lafayette.  Happy Gilmore checks, big beers, and a chance for your buy-in to do some good for once await.  Scroll down one box to see how to join us there. 

TEASER:  As if getting thechemist83 to join our rolls wasn't big enough news this week, we have the return of a much missed blogger next week.  Seen a preview of his first post, and you will be entertained.

CHARITY POKER TOURNAMENT REMINDER

01.26.11

ACADIANA SERIES OF POKER:  Ya'll are probably tired of reading about it and or receiving our emails in regard to it.  Our apologies, but once again our favorite charity tournament is right around the corner and it's worth repeating one more time.   Go here and sign up, right now.

Why do we want you to do the right thing?  It  makes us feel good about ourselves as a site to promote a tournament that benefits the United Way (we have site-esteem issues, obviously, because we are always begging to be liked on facebook... speaking of which feel free to click one of those widgets below).    It'd also make you feel good to play a night of poker to benefit a good cause, and if you are good enough to benefit yourself.

So, if you are reading and you'd like to help local poker help out a worthwhile cause make the trek to Lafayette and lend a hand by playing a hand (or two) in the tournament.  Come on your favorite online poker room is fun but it won't hurt you to take a night off.

Details: 

6:00 pm Friday Jan. 28, 2011

Cajun Dome, Lafayette, LA

You can register online here, or in person the day of, from noon to 8:00 pm.  If you register early, the $10 registration fee is waived.  Buy-in is $80 for $16k in chips.  $40 gets you a rebuy ($8k in chips).  One time $80 Add-on. 

The tournament starts at 6:00 pm and will be finished by 12:00 am

Previously, the tournament had enough players to award a 10k first place prize.  The United Way received $67k in '09 and 30k in '10.  Let's get things back on track to '09's levels with a good turnout this year.