Yet another of the $1.5k donkaments took place in Event 18: $1,500 No Limit Hold’em. 3,157 entrants came to Vegas this weekend to try their hand at winning a bracelet and a big payday by playing poker for a few days, trying to get their share of the $4.3 million prize pool.
A field this massive makes it difficult for pros to navigate. However, since this event paid an incredible 324 players, many were able to cash this event. Costa Rican Godfather of Poker Humberto Brenes, Erick ‘E-Dog’ Lindgren, Dwyte Pilgrim, and Prahlad Friedman were among the many that finished in the money.
The big story in this event is that it was a FOUR day event. Originally scheduled to be played over three days, this tournament was pushed to a 4th after 6 players remained after the ten level rule was implemented on day three. While a couple of other tournaments also stretched into day 4, none did so with as many as 6 players still remaining.
When the players returned for day 4, 6 remained, with 25 year-old Foster Hays leading the way. He worked to ensure his victory, eliminating four of the other five competitors. His heads-up battle, however, was one that really tested his mettle.
Hays entered heads-up as the massive chip leader, but Casey Helton would not simply be overlooked. Helton battled back, and even held the chip lead at some points in the heads-up match. The final hand shows how close the match was: it took the tournament staff 3 counts to make sure Hays actually had Helton covered. He did, and Helton was sent home $450k richer. Meanwhile, Hays put on a new bracelet and added $735,400 to his bankroll.
Event 16 of this year’s WSOP has turned into the big story so far. While not much was expected out of the 10k 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship (No Limit) in the way of stories, this tournament changed those expectations incredibly.
Only 126 players were signed up to play this event, creating a $1.2 million prize pool. However, this tournament is not about overcoming a large field to win a bracelet, but who you have to overcome. Frequently, these tournaments are referred to as a pro’s opportunity to buy a bracelet, but after the field that turned out to play this tournament, that may be a hasty argument.
The final table: Phil Hellmuth, Richard Ashby, John Juanda, Steve Sung, Nick Schulman, David ‘Bakes’ Baker, and Hasan Habib (Joe Cassidy and Greg Raymer busted in 8th and 9th respectively). If you were going to try to “buy a bracelet” in this event, you would have to overcome these men to do so. All of the men at the final table each had a WSOP bracelet.
All the stars seemed to be aligning for Phil Hellmuth, who entered the final table as the chip leader. Hellmuth, who was going for his record 12th World Series of Poker bracelet, was trying to earn his first non-Hold’em bracelet. He kept this momentum up, getting heads-up versus John Juanda with a nearly 3-1 chip lead.
Juanda exactly isn’t a slouch, though. Having 4 WSOP bracelets and finishing 4th in this very event in the past two years, Juanda has been called the best 2-7 Lowball player in the world. He lived up to this title against Hellmuth. In a heads-up match that lasted over 4 hours, Juanda slowly picked at Hellmuth’s stack, quietly and methodically, until he sent the 11-time champion to the rail. Hellmuth, while more than disappointed to not have earned the bracelet, still took home $226k. Juanda earned his 5th bracelet and $367,170 for his win, along with the joy of denying the Poker Brat number 12.
For a limited time only, Poker Stars is adding to the incentives for new players to join the site with its $100,000 First Depositor Freerolls. Now, in addition to getting the usual first deposit bonus of 100% up to $600 for joining Poker Stars, the site will give you access to all of the $100,000 First Depositor Freerolls running. But only for the 20-day period running June 14 – July 3, 2011.
Each freeroll has its own guaranteed prize pool of $1,000, with 5 of these freerolls scheduled for each day of the promotional period, making $100,000 guaranteed in all. And the top 20% of the player pool gets paid out, splitting the $1K prize pool, with,
You need only make your first deposit of any amount between June 8 and July 3 using the promo code “100K” and you’ll automatically gain entry to all 100 freerolls (or however many are remaining by the time you do it.)
The freerolls run daily at 6:00 am, 10:00 am, 2:00 pm, 6:00 pm and 10:00 pm ET.
In other Poker Stars news, the site just revealed the scheduled for the first 7 events of the European Tour season 8. It starts in Tallinn, Estonia on August 2 and runs through February 6 in Deauville, France. Included in these first 7 EPT season 8 events are two events deemed part of the famed Festivals of Poker: EPT London starting September 30 and the 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure starting January 5, 2012. Buy-ins range from the season opener’s €4,000 + 250 to the PCA’s $10,000 + 300. Poker Stars will be running satellite tournaments leading into each of these EPT season 8 events as they approach.
Yet another Hold’em tournament was found in Event 15: $1,500 Pot Limit Hold’em. Unlike No Limit, players in this event are only allowed to bet or raise the value of the pot rather than the entirety of their stack.
765 players registered to play this event, creating a prize pool just over $1 million. All came out with the hope of earning a bracelet by paying one of the smallest buyins in this year’s WSOP. Only one, however, would make true on that wish.
A min-cash would almost double your entry fee, and many well known pros made at least the nearly 3k. John Dolan, Alessio Isaia (with his 3rd cash this WSOP), Hoyt Corkins, and Christian Harder all went deep in this event and made some good profit on their $1,500. However, all would exit the tournament before the final table was formed, either to enter another tournament or watch disappointedly from the rail.
Ted Lawson, Ali Eslami (also cashing for his 3rd time this event), and Allen ‘Chainsaw’ Kessler made this final table very difficult to overcome. While Lawson and Eslami bowed out early, Kessler had his sights strongly set on the bracelet.
To win the bracelet, Kessler would have to overcome lesser-known pro Brian Rast. Rast, who was staked by ‘The Magician’ Antonio Esfandiari, proved too much for the Chainsaw and ended up taking the bracelet and the $227,232 that went along with it. Kessler would have to be satisfied with the 2nd place prize of $120k and the hope of winning his first bracelet some other time.
Another Limit Hold’em tournament was played for Event 14: $3,000 LHE. While being a Hold’em tournament, its limit nature only brought out 337 players to vie for the bracelet, creating a prize pool just shy of $1 million.
Such a small field means that fewer players make the cash, and this event only paid the top 36 finishers. Barely making into the money by finishing in 36th was WSOP bracelet winner David ‘Bakes’ Baker, who was eventually joined in cashing by Marco Traniello (best known as Jen Harman’s husband), Sorel Mizzi, and Victor Ramdin (who celebrated back to back cashes).
The final table brought some TV time to players that had not received much in the past. In fact, former November Niner Jeff Shulman was the only player to have received much, and his run was cut short as he was the first elimination from the final table.
Brandon Demes entered the final table and allowed those chips to carry him into heads-up play against Tyler Bonkowski. However, Bonkowski was too much for him, and sent him to the rail to collect his $136k second place prize.
Bonkowski, who had a handful of cashes in last year’s WSOP, gets his first this year this win. He also collects a new piece of jewelry and $220,817 to parlay into another WSOP victory.
Event 13 of this year’s World Series of Poker, a $1,500 No Limit Hold’em Shootout tournament, had a capped number of entrants at 2,000. This cap never quite came into play, with 1,440 players showing up to play, creating a nearly $2 million prize pool.
How a shootout works: each player is assigned a table, as usual, to begin the tournament. However, as players bust, the tables are not balanced; rather, each plays down to a winner, much like a sit-n-go. Once someone wins the table, they wait until all tables are finished. Once they are, the winners of the individual tables are reseated again with the other winners, and the same thing happens until we are down to 9 or fewer winners. Once that happens, the final table is formed, and the winner of this table is the winner of the tournament.
Considering this is not a traditional tournament structure, the 1,440 entrants is still quite impressive. Many of these players are those we have seen on TV before: former November Niner Filippo Candio, former actress Jen Tilly, WSOP champion Greg Raymer, and Pokerstars spokesman Daniel Negreanu all finished in the money, making at least almost $5k for their efforts.
The final table was stacked with talent. Former bracelet winners David ‘the Dragon’ Pham, Vitaly Lunkin, Dan ‘djk123’ Kelly, and Erik Cajelais were all vying to add another to their trophy case. However, none of these were ever really in contention, with Cajelais outlasting the rest, but still finishing in 5th.
Eventual winner Andrew Badecker made sure to put himself in the best place to win this tournament very early, entering the final table as the chip leader. Throughout the entirety of the final table, he rarely lost the lead, and when he did, he reclaimed it quickly. Eventually, he busted Robbie Verspui, who took home $228k for his second place finish. Badecker, along with the bracelet, also took $369,371 home for his win.
Federated Sports + Gaming (FS+G) announced today that it has acquired Heartland Poker Tour (HPT), the nation’s leading grassroots poker tour and one of the largest independent producers of poker content on television.
“HPT is one of the great success stories in the poker industry,” said Jeffrey Pollack, chairman of Federated Sports + Gaming. “In a relatively short period of time, the Heartland Poker Tour has firmly established itself as an important national brand with a passionate, loyal player base. We are committed to poker entertainment in the broadest sense and to serving players and fans across the spectrum. The addition of HPT to the FS+G family fits perfectly with our approach.”
Founded in 2005 by entrepreneurs Todd Anderson and Greg Lang, HPT provides poker enthusiasts across the country with a televised tournament experience that prides itself on affordable buy-ins. HPT is currently filming its seventh season and is syndicated to more than 100 million US homes each week, as well as markets throughout Europe, the Middle East and the Caribbean.
Both Anderson and Lang, along with the rest of the HPT management and production team based in Fargo, North Dakota, will continue to lead the HPT, manage its day-to-day operations, deliver first-class events and television programming, and serve the tour’s mission of “Real People, Unreal Money.”
“I believe our partnership with FS+G goes a long way to round out the American poker market,” said Todd Anderson, president and co-founder of Heartland Poker Tour. “Our tour, combined with the new FS+G professional poker league, creates an offering that serves aspiring enthusiasts of the game, as well as top poker professionals. This alliance will create bigger fields for HPT events, and even greater television coverage and viewership, which will ultimately benefit players, fans and the game.”
HPT has hosted more than 81,500 entrants, awarded more than $28.6 million in prize money, produced more than 170 hours of “high quality poker” television content, and staged nearly 90 events since 2005.
“Uniting with Federated Sports + Gaming is a natural fit because we share the common goal of innovating and growing the poker market,” said Greg Lang, executive producer and co-founder of Heartland Poker Tour. “As entrepreneurs with an established history of forging an independent path, we look forward to breaking new ground in poker by leveraging the talents of the accomplished team that FS+G has assembled. As poker players, we are fired up about taking HPT to a new level of excitement and fun for our players and fans.”
Earlier this year, FS+G, in conjunction with the Palms Casino Resort, announced the launch of a revolutionary new professional poker league to serve more than 200 of the world’s top live tournament players. The first of four inaugural tournaments kicks off this August.
The four professional league main events will feature different formats of No-Limit Texas Hold’em, including six-handed play, a heads-up tournament with an innovative seeding structure and a special multi-format tournament to round out the season. Each event week will include a Pro-Am event, a charity tournament, and a $20,000 buy-in rake-free main event.
2011 Heartland Season VII Tour Schedule
Jan 10 – 16
Red Rock
Las Vegas
Feb 19
Raise Your Hand for Africa-Golden Nugget
Las Vegas
Feb 18 – 28
Downstream
Quapaw, OK
March 13 – 20
Shooting Star
Mahnomen, MN
March 27 – April 3
Meskwaki
Tama, Iowa
April 1 – 10
Golden Gates
Black Hawk, CO
April 8 – 18
Majestic Star
Gary, IN
May 6 – 15
Soaring Eagle Casino
Mt. Pleasant, MI
May 13 – 23
Peppermill
Reno, NV
August 8 – 15
Turning Stone
Verona, NY
Sept 16 – 25
Downstream
Quapaw, OK
Sept 23 – Oct 2
Golden Gates
Black Hawk, CO
Sept 30 – Oct 9
Daytona Beach Kennel Club
Daytona Beach, FL
Oct 30- Nov 6
Meskwaki
Tama, Iowa
November 15 – 20
Soaring Eagle – Championship Open
Mt. Pleasant, MI
November 28 – Dec 4
TBA
TBA
2011-12 Federated Sports + Gaming Season I Tournament Schedule
Pro-Am
Charity Tournament
League Main Event
Event #1
August 5 – 8, 2011
August 7, 2011
August 9 – 12, 2011
Event #2
September 2 – 5, 2011
September 4, 2011
September 6 – 9, 2011
Event #3
December 9 – 12, 2011
December 11, 2011
December 14 – 18, 2011
Event #4
January 27 – 30, 2012
January 29, 2012
February 9 – 12, 2012
Championship
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—-
February 13 – 14, 2012
About Federated Sports + Gaming
Federated Sports + Gaming (FS+G) was founded in 2010 to create proprietary world-class sports and gaming brands through the integration of traditional and digital media, including televised events, social media gaming and interactive digital programming. The company breaks new ground in the poker world through its launch of a revolutionary professional poker league in 2011. FS+G will celebrate the world’s top poker players by providing them with the spotlight they have long deserved. FS+G is dedicated to creating new traditions in poker entertainment by providing fans and players with an unmatched poker tournament, poker TV and interactive poker experience. FS+G offices are based out of Los Angeles and Washington D.C. For more information please visit www.federatedinc.com.
About Heartland Poker Tour
Founded by Todd Anderson and Greg Lang in 2005, Heartland Poker Tour is built on a grass-roots strategy, “Real People, Unreal Money”. HPT provides poker enthusiasts a televised “Texas No Limit Hold’em” poker tour with affordable buy-ins. HPT is currently filming Season VII and is available in over 100 million US homes each week, as well as widespread distribution throughout Europe, the Middle East and the Caribbean. For more information and a complete schedule of upcoming events, visit www.HPTpoker.com.
888 Poker is offering players a chance to win extra for their efforts every day of the week. With the Daily Challenge Series, 888 Poker invites players of all types of action and all sizes of bankroll to participate in 7 weekly tournaments, one on each day of the week, with a total weekly guaranteed prize pool of $210,000. What’s more, there are two Daily Challenge tournaments on Mondays, known as the Monday Twins, worth $10,000 each, and three Daily Challenge tournaments on Sundays, offering $5,000, $10,000 and $100,000 guaranteed respectively.
Every Daily Challenge tournament has a trio of low buy-in satellites leading up to it, awarding free seats in the day’s big event. Two satellites are Sit and Go tournaments, one of which is always a rebuy/addon event, both of which run every two hours. The third satellite is always a 15-seat guaranteed event starting at 17:35 GMT. All Daily Challenge Tournaments start at 19:35. Direct buy-ins vary depending on the prize pool.
The Tuesday Challenge and Thursday Challenge each have a $12,500 guaranteed prize pool; the Wednesday Challenge has a $10,000 prize pool; the Friday Challenge has a $15,000 prize pool; and the Saturday Challenge has a $25,000 prize pool.
The Monday Twins is a special kick-start to the weekly series, with a pair of $10K tournaments each preceded by its own three satellites (the third satellite for the “second” Monday Twin event starts at 17:55 GMT).
Winding up the week with a bang is the $100,000 Sunday Challenge and its satellites, as well as two Sunday Challenge Starters scheduled prior to it with staggered start times so 888 Poker players can enjoy all three Daily Challenge events that day.
A local police department in Maryland is celebrating after participating in a federal sting operation which shut down major internet gambling operations. The Anne Arundel Police Department received a check for $470,000 after helping the feds seize online gaming companies that processed over $33 million dollars’ worth of transactions through the undercover processor. The money comes from a case handled by federal investigators in Baltimore and the operation was suitably named “Operation Texas Hold’em.”
William Winter, the agent in charge of the Department of Homeland Security in Baltimore, made a statement earlier regarding the seizure and explained how the feds set up a phony processing company and allowed the undercover agents contact with the online gaming operators. It’s illegal in the United States of America for companies to accept and/or process gaming transactions; which gave the feds ample reason to go undercover.
Through the sting operation the federal agents negotiated contracts with online gaming operators and began processing funds for the companies. The agents could easily track the payments to numerous operations and bank accounts in the United States and abroad. The accounts were seized in the recent bust and the monies were shared among the agencies that participated in the sting. The amount given to the Anne Arundel Police Department was based on the number of agents from the force that helped take down the online gaming operators.
The Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold made it clear that this was the biggest asset distribution in the history of the county, and the police department will use their share of the funds to buy equipment needed for the force. The police chief, James Teare, also made a statement regarding their share of the funds by saying:
“This is huge, especially in these economic times; we just went through a very tough budget where we’re getting vehicles taken away. This infuses money to be able [to buy] vehicles, weapons that are less lethal and to do training that is much needed for these officers to do their job.”
Some industry insiders believe this is just the beginning. It’s obvious that the government in the USA is serious about taking down online poker and this is proof. Time will tell how many operators will shift and take their business out of the USA, and as of now the bigger names in online poker have already done so. Poker players in the United States can still play online at selected sites, but with operations like these going on who knows what is in store for online poker sites in the near future.
For those of you who had your Quicktender – UseMyWallet Funds seized. This is the case that led to those funds being seized.
Event 12: $1,500 Triple Chance No Limit Hold’em of the 2011 World Series of Poker brought a new spin on a typical NLHE tournament. In this tournament, players started with 1,500 in chips and had two rebuy chips, which each allowed them to acquire 1,500 more chips at any time they want.
This event brought 1,340 entrants to the felt, creating a $1.8 million prize pool, paying 144 players a minimum $2,800. Respected poker writer David Sklansky, as well as Isaac Haxton, Ted Forrest, and Cliff ‘JohnnyBax’ Josephy all finished in the money, earning some money for their efforts.
Very few stars highlighted the final table, but one headliner stood out: Bill ‘the SuperComputer’ Chen. Chen, already the owner of two WSOP bracelets, really wanted to add a third to the mantle. However, he would come up short, exiting the final table in 4th place, taking home a cool $100k.
The eventual winner of the event was David Diaz. Diaz, making his second final table in this event, also claimed his first bracelet with the win. He also pocketed $352,808 for his efforts, a great payday for just a few days’ worth of work.
Yet another of the $1.5k donkaments took place in Event 18: $1,500 No Limit Hold’em. 3,157 entrants came to Vegas this weekend to try their hand at winning a bracelet and a big payday by playing poker for a few days, trying to get their share of the $4.3 million prize pool.
For a limited time only, Poker Stars is adding to the incentives for new players to join the site with its $100,000 First Depositor Freerolls. Now, in addition to getting the usual first deposit bonus of 100% up to $600 for joining Poker Stars, the site will give you access to all of the $100,000 First Depositor Freerolls running. But only for the 20-day period running June 14 – July 3, 2011.
Federated Sports + Gaming (FS+G) announced today that it has acquired Heartland Poker Tour (HPT), the nation’s leading grassroots poker tour and one of the largest independent producers of poker content on television.
A local police department in Maryland is celebrating after participating in a federal sting operation which shut down major internet gambling operations. The Anne Arundel Police Department received a check for $470,000 after helping the