Tag: poker

Team Americas Wins Caesars Cup

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The 2011 Caesars Cup featured two teams who had star-studded lineups, but one who was looking for redemption after a tough loss back in 2009.  Back in 2009, Team Europe took down the event with a score of four to one, but Team Americas was determined to make this years’ Caesars Cup a closer affair.  This years’ match-up featured Phil Hellmuth leading Team Americas, and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier leading Team Europe.

The Caesars Cup works very similar to the Ryder Cup in Golf.  Both of the two players listed above pick four players to play for their side, and then it is a best of five series with multiple different heads up and two player poker events.  Hellmuth had a team filled with stars such as Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan, Jason Mercier (who took Huck Seed’s spot), and the current Player of the Year leader Ben Lamb (who replaced Doyle Brunson).  Team Europe had their own star studded lineup of Grospellier, Gus Hansen, Jake Cody, Tony G, and Max Lykov.

The series kicked off with a tag team match, which included two players from both sides.  Team Americas sent out Mercier and Lamb against Jake Cody and Tony G.  Team America was able to take the first event, and get a 1-0 lead.  Then came another tag team match, with Hellmuth pairing up with Negreanu, who actually paired up together back in 2009; but lost the event.  This time they were up against Hansen and Lykov, and they had the same result as 2009, which evened up the series at 1-1.

At that point, came the heads up matches, and the first even put Chan against Team Europe’s captain Grospellier.  In the end, having the “C” for captain was not enough to take down the strong Johnny Chan, and Team Americas went up 2-1.  Hellmuth entered the last heads up match to finish the deal for Team Americas, and he knocked off Lykov to give Team Americas the win, and take home the 2011 Caesars Cup.

An interesting side note to this is that Hellmuth and Lamb both represented Team Americas, and are the two players who head the current Player of the Year race.

Tony G Cashes the WSOPE Main Event and Cashes In On a Prop Bet

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Cashing at the World Series of Poker Europe’s Main Event is already a huge feat, and one that many players dream of.  On that note, some players just dream of playing in the Main Event at all; and cashing is just an added bonus that most players never could even imagine happening.  Well, for Tony G, who has had some nice scores in his day in the game of poker; he was so confident that he would cash in the 2011 World Series of Poker Europe’s Main Event, that he decided to place a nice $20,000 wager on Matchbook.com that he would make the money in the Main Event.

Just a bit into Day 3 of the event, Tony G had made it into the money, and received both a nice payday from cashing, and also for his $20,000 bet on himself at 5 to 1 odds.  These odds gave him a payout of $100k for getting into the cash, and he also took home €37,000 for his efforts throughout the tournament.  Tony G then went on to survive Day 3 of the event with 24 other players, and make it to Day 4 of the event in Cannes, France.

As if it couldn’t get any better for Tony G, he also got to tell James Bord about the big win on the online gambling site; which is interesting because Bord is actually one of the owners of Matchbook.com.

Tony G has been in the news quite a bit lately, as he recently replaced Dario Minieri in the Caesars Cup (which may not hold up with this deep run at the Main Event), and also for getting into an argument with Andrew Robl at the tables.  On top of that though, he also debated filing a lawsuit against the AGCC for their actions against Full Tilt Poker.

While Tony G wasn’t able to build up his short stack when he entered Day 4 and make a final table push, he did end up finishing the event in 24th place and getting a nice payday.  Overall, you could say that his $125k+ payday was a nice consolation to not winning the 2011 WSOPE Main Event.

ESPN to Air WSOP Final Table (Nearly ) Live

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Leading cable sports network ESPN has just announced that they will be changing the way they will broadcast this year’s WSOP Main Event Final Table in November. Instead of broadcasting a recorded version of the events multi-million dollar conclusion after it’s already taken place, the cable network and its online affiliates announced they will be broadcasting the final table live…or nearly live.

What that means is the stations (and online affiliates) will be showing the WSOP main event final table from day 3 through day 8 with only a 15 minute delay. The action takes place on November 6 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas Nevada. The competition will proceed until the 9-player final table has been dwindled down to the top three competitors. This will be broadcast on ESPN2. Then, the conclusion will take place on November 8 and be broadcast on ESPN.

Providing the play-by-play will be Lon McEachern and David Tuchman while Norman Chad and the team from ESPN Inside Deal will cover the breaks. There will also be a group of professional poker players present to provide commentary on the goings-on. Although most of these pro player names are still to be announced, one confirmed commentator will be “The Magician” Antonio Esfandiari, there for the final two days of the event. Esfandiari was the winner of last year’s World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic.

The first prize for the winner of this year’s World Series of Poker championship is approximately $8.7 million.

Party Poker Launches WPT Five Diamond Satellites

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It’s time for another satellite series to take place for another esteemed World Poker Tour main event. This time the event is the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic happening in Las Vegas, Nevada between December 6th and 11th, 2011.

Players winning Party Poker prize packages into the WPT Five Diamond will receive, in addition to the $10,300 buy-in into the main event, accommodations for 7 nights at the Bellagio, where the tournament will be taking place, and $2K in expense money. That’s a $14,000 value for each prize package.

These prize packages will be awarded at Party Poker’s WPT Five Diamond Satellites, taking place every week between October 17th and November 20th, 2011 on Sundays at 3:20 pm ET. These satellites have a direct buy-in of $700 + $50 but players can win their way into the event for cheaper than that via daily satellite qualifiers for $80. These award one player in ten seats in the satellite where one prize package is guaranteed to be given away each time.

Likewise players can win their way into the satellite qualifiers as well via a choice sub qualifiers. Both are daily events and both are speed events, although one, with a $3 buy-in, has rebuy whereas the other, with a $9 buy-in, does not. Players can even win their way into the $3 sub qualifier speed rebuy event via freeroll WPT Five Diamond Freeroll tournaments, also running daily. The highest 25 finishers at each freeroll will advance to the next stage of the series.

Merge Poker Network Allowing New US Sign-Ups

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The Merge Poker Network had quite an increase in terms of their poker traffic in the month after Black Friday hit the United States poker population.  To put this statement into numbers, you can look at the 79 percent increase in their cash game poker traffic in just that month after April 15th.  While the three biggest online poker sites out there found themselves in quite a bit of trouble, Full Tilt Poker is no longer running, Absolute Poker shut down, and PokerStars is the only one of the big three to be able to make it past the fall out.  When online poker players in the United States were searching for places to go, the Merge Network offered them a few great options.

The Merge Network has a few well-known poker rooms under it, including Lock Poker and RPM Poker.  The only issue with the fact that these sites allowed US sign-ups after Black Friday, is that they were overwhelmed with new sign-ups, and couldn’t keep up with processing the incredibly high number of payments that were coming on the site.  Merge was on a two week back log of cash out requests, and found themselves having to make a decision.  They decided to stop allowing new US sign-ups at this point, in order to catch up on payouts, and hopefully be able to re-open in the near future.

It seems that the Merge Network has finally caught up on their payouts, and is now accepting new US players onto most their skins.  It will be interesting to see what kind of impact this will have on the poker rankings for the Merge Network, as they are currently sitting at 12th in the overall cash game traffic rankings.  Their current ranking though, actually puts them at the top of all online poker sites who accept US players currently, with Bodog sitting in 13th, and the Cake Poker Network in 20th.  Bodog is actually heading OUT of the US market at the end of this year, which could potentially send even more traffic to the Merge Network.

NBC Cuts National Heads-Up Poker Championship

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The National Heads-Up Poker Championship is one of the longest poker telecasts in history, but it will be no more.  NBC announced recently that they will not be bringing back the event for the 2012 session.  This season would have been the eighth consecutive season.  While it is tough for a lot of the players to deal with (especially ones who have had success at the events), it seems that the decision comes from the aftermath of Black Friday, and the current situation with Full Tilt Poker.

The main issue is that PokerStars and Full Tilt generated an impressive amount of revenue through live poker events; but recently it has been on a major decline which explains the loss of the National Heads-Up Poker Championship, as well as the decline in interest in two of the other televised events; Poker After Dark (backed by Full Tilt Poker), and PokerStars’ Big Game.

It has been reported that the event could potentially be back if online poker in the United States was the get legalized, but that seems to be far off in the future.  This event was essentially created by NBC, and featured some big named celebrities, who were typically matched up against some of the biggest and most popular names in poker.  It was a field of 64 players, and the show had done very well in the years that it was on the air.  It mainly included big named players such as Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke, Huck Seed, and even the always famous Chris Ferguson, who is currently in the news thanks to Full Tilt Poker.

Steve Billirakis Wins WSOPE Event #3

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Event #3 of the World Series of Poker Europe made the switch from No Limit Hold’em to Pot Limit Omaha.  The first two events at the WSOPE featured new names to take down gold bracelets, but event number 3 was a different story, as Steve Billirakis now took down his second gold bracelet of his career.  The final table of this PLO event featured some big names as well, so the task wasn’t easy in any way for Billirakis.  He made it past the likes of Sam Trickett, 2011 November Nine participant Eoghan O’Dea, and Sam Chartier.

It was about three hours of play until the final table was down to its final five players, but Billirakis and Trickett remained alive and in the hunt for the gold bracelet.  When five players remained, Billirakis was at the back of the pack though, and sitting in fourth place in chips; while what some would consider his toughest opponent, Trickett, was in first place.  It wasn’t until just before dinner break that Billirakis was able to make his move though, and took a big pot from Trickett, moving him all the way up to second in chips.

After the break, play didn’t take nearly as long as it did to get to this point, as Billirakis and Michele Di Lauro made it out on top, and headed into heads up play.  Heads up play was the shortest of all the action, as it lasted a grand total of two hands before the new champion was crowned.  Billirakis took a one million chip pot from Di Lauro on the first hand, to give himself a massive four to one chip lead over his opponent; and his next hand ended the tournament all together.

Billirakis won the bracelet, and the €238,140 first place prize for his incredible run.  Di Lauro on the other hand had a nice payout for the second place finish, getting €147,171.

The World Series of Poker Europe will now continue on with a few more events before the players head into the €10,000 WSOPE Main Event, which will feature some of the best names in the game.

Big Deal at 888 Poker

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888 Poker is making a Big Deal of all that it has too offer new and existing members these days. Starting with the new members, it includes a $400 welcome bonus and a chance to win an iPad or other portable Apple device.

To earn a seat in a Beginner’s Freeroll for a shot at an iPod or iPad2, simply deposit a minimum of $10 into your new 888Poker account using the promo code: IPAD4ME. The Beginner’s Freeroll takes place October 25, 2011 and can be found under the “All” tab in the 888 Poker “Tournament” lobby. First prize is an iPad2. Second and third prizes are each a 16 GB iPod Nano 6th Generation. Fourth through ninth places each get 10,000 Reward Points in the 888Poker Store. And tenth through fourteenth places each get a free seat in the $100K First Depositors Challenge.

While that first deposit for the iPad need only be a minimum of $10, the greater it is the greater the welcome bonus you’ll receive. The 888 Poker Welcome Bonus is a 100% match up to a $400 maximum. That’s essentially doubling the amount of money you get to start out with at the 888Poker tables.

Ipad Poker Sites

The Big Deal is not just for new players at 888 Poker though. Existing players can also enjoy big deals. For example, there’s currently a $20 Shopping Coupon for women playing 100 hands per day at the site’s new PokerCam tables, a $3,000 Big Deal Freeroll tournament for players who play at 888 Poker at least 4 days in any given week, and an $8 refer-a-friend bonus with $8 for you, $8 for your friend and an invite for each of you to a $1,000 invite-a-friend freeroll tournament.

Party Poker WPT National Bohemia On Now

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Party Poker has begun its satellite series for the newest stop to be added to the World Poker Tour itinerary: WPT National Bohemia in the Czech Republic.

The Party Poker WPT National Bohemia satellite series runs from October 10 to November 6, 2011. It starts with daily qualifiers costing only $1 to buy-in. There are two such $1 daily sub qualifiers: a speed event from which 1 in 10 players will advance to the next stage and a speed rebuy event from which 1 player will advance to the next stage for every $18 in the prize pool.

That next stage is the WPT National Bohemia Satellite Qualifier, taking place daily and as a Turbo tournament on Sundays. It costs $18 to buy-in directly and advanced 1 in 10 players to the next stage, the actual WPT National Bohemia Satellite where at least one prize package is guaranteed to be awarded. These take place on Sundays for a $150 + $12 direct buy-in and award prize packages to 1 player for every $3,000 in the prize pool.

WPT National Bohemia will take place November 18 – 20, 2011 at the King’s Casino located right near the Czech / German border in Rozvadov, the Czech Republic. Each $3,000 prize package into the WPT National Bohemia will include the $2,100 buy-in into the main event, hotel accommodations while the tournament is taking place and $400 for expenses.

Winners are responsible for their own transportation to the Czech Republic for the event and are affirming by playing in these satellites and qualifiers that they will be able to attend if they do win a prize package. Prize packages are non-transferrable and non-refundable for any cash value.

Hero Poker offers Aussie and Kiwi Freerolls

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Hero Poker would like to welcome players from Australia and New Zealand with a huge $3,000 freeroll.  The game will award the top 30 players with $100 each.  Only players from Australia and New Zealand will be allowed to register for this event which takes place on October 19, 2011.

Date: Wednesday Oct 19, 7pm Vic/NSW time!
Game: No Limit Texas Holdem
Tab Location: Tournaments / Scheduled / Special (priority listing)
Blinds: 10 minutes starting at 5/10
Prize Payout: Top 30 places
Payout: $3000 paid out to the top 30 places $100 per player
Maximum Players: 500
Starting Chips: 3,500 chips
Breaks: 5 minutes every 60 minutes
Registration opens: Now (Oct 11, 5pm)
Late Registration: ends 30 minutes in
Eligibility: Australia and New Zealand players only
Note: Australian players may only deposit using the moneybookers service.
Time Bank: 60 seconds

As an added bonus for all ANZ players, Hero Poker will also hold a $300 freeroll every day in October.  Again exclusively for New Zealand and Australia poker players.

Date: Every single day for the month of October: 7pm NSW/Vic 9pm NZ time
Game: No Limit Texas Holdem
Tab Location: Tournaments / Scheduled / Special (priority listing)
Payout: $300 paid out to the top 10 places $30 per player
Maximum Players: 500
Registration opens: 1 hour before tournament start time
Late Registration: ends 20 minutes in
Eligibility: Australia and New Zealand players only
Note: Australian players may only deposit using the moneybookers service.
Time Bank: 60 seconds

Get in on both of these great events Aussies and Kiwis and build yourself a risk free bankroll on Hero Poker