Yet another Championship event was held in Event 11: Omaha Hi-Low Split – 8 or better. 202 players ponied up the $10,000 entry fee for their shot at winning a WSOP bracelet and, of course, the first place prize of $465,216.
Of the 202 entrants, many were well known names and faces. Jason Mercier, Shaun and Freddy Deeb, and a man putting together a hot 2011 WSOP run in Alessio Isaia all finished in the money in the event, making just north of $16,000.
The final table also featured some impressive players, including Josh Arieh, Richard Ashby, Steve Billirakis, and George Lind III. Arieh, Ashby, and Billirakis were all trying to add another bracelet to their shelves. Lind, while not having a bracelet of his own, has had his share of success in the past, including being the first Supernova Elite in 2008.
Lind had the best shot of the group, going heads-up against Viacheslav Zhukov. Sadly, the Gilbert, Arizona native came up short on his closest bid for a bracelet, and had to settle for his quarter million second place prize.
Zhukov, well noted for his quiet demeanor, won his first bracelet in this event, and will try to parlay this win into further finishes to come.
Since Black Friday, much of the poker world has been closely following the dramatic, divergent stories of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker/UB, the three sites targeted by the Department of Justice’s indictment and civil complaint. However, there has been significant drama over recent months involving three other sites, too — DoylesRoom, Victory Poker, and the Cake Poker network. Targeted them selves, by a later Department of Homeland Security action (unsealed on May 23), DoylesRoom has seen its dot-com domain seized. However, prior to that action deals between DoylesRoom and Cake Poker left the latter in severe financial straits, with one consequence being the hastened demise of another, prominent site on the Cake network, Victory Poker.
The DoylesRoom-Cake Partnership — Two Years, Four Million +
Founded in 2004, DoylesRoom originally resided on the Tribeca Network before moving to Microgaming in 2007. Then in late January 2009, DoylesRoom moved once again to the Cake Poker network. At the time of that move, DoylesRoom borrowed $15 million from Cake Poker in order to settle its debts to Microgaming as well as to fund marketing campaigns going forward. (Note: Figures associated with the DoylesRoom-Cake partnership are close estimates of amounts given to us by several associates close to DoylesRoom, Cake, and Victory Poker.)
DoylesRoom remained part of the Cake Poker network for two years before moving once again, this time joining the Yatahay network in late January 2011. At the time of that move, DoylesRoom still owed significant money to Cake Poker.
Incidentally, while the exact nature Doyle Brunson’s previous involvement with the site that bears his name is unknown, a Twitter message from @TexDolly sent on January 10, 2011 noted he was “off to Cosra Rica for three days” (sic), suggesting a trip to DoylesRoom’s headquarters in Costa Rica. On May 13, 2011, a week-and-a-half before the DOJ domain seizure of doylesroom.com, Brunson announced he was terminating his endorsement contract with DoylesRoom.
Of that original loan of $15 million from Cake Poker to DoylesRoom, $2.5 million had been kept on deposit by Cake. Meanwhile, DoylesRoom had paid back approximately $9 million, with about $6.8 million still being owed. Minus the amount kept on deposit, DoylesRoom still owed Cake Poker about $4.3 million at the time of the move to Yatahay. Of that amount, DoylesRoom paid back 10 cents on the dollar to Cake, or about $430,000.
In other words, Cake Poker’s two-year relationship with DoylesRoom cost the network about $4 million plus altogether, a big hit for a relatively modest-sized network. To their credit players were always paid on time and the network continued to function as always. But there have been consequences.
As Cake Crumbles, Victory Suffers
Some of those consequences affected Cake Poker’s internal operations. According to a former Cake Poker employee, almost half of Cake’s staff were laid off. While the network’s operating budget was severely affected, it should be noted that at no point have player funds on deposit been at risk, although that situation remained tenuous for a couple of months.
Another consequence of the DoylesRoom-Cake Poker separation concerned Victory Poker, the site headed by 28-year-old CEO Dan Fleyshman. Launched in February 2010, Victory Poker began as part of the Everleaf Network before moving to the Cake Poker Network (CPN) in August. While never a large site in terms of player traffic, Victory did manage to earn a lot of attention thanks to the availability of CEO Fleyshman and the signing of high-profile pros like Antonio Esfandiari, Andrew Robl, Jonathan Little, and others.
Soon after joining Cake, Fleyshman recognized the network was potentially heading toward some financial difficulty and thus arranged a meeting between individuals who had invested in Victory Poker and Cake Poker brass in an attempt to find backing for the struggling network.
That meeting took place in London on January 5, 2011. Before the meeting Fleyshman posted on his Facebook page that he was “Walking into one of the top 5 biggest meetings of my life with ‘Big Boy’ executives who flew in from 6 countries.” However, despite such excitement, the meeting did not meet with the success Fleyshman or Cake envisioned.
In fact, once the potential backers got a look at the status of Cake Poker’s balance sheet and the unpaid debt from the DoylesRoom loan they not only declined to invest in Cake, they allegedly pulled their backing from Victory Poker as well. Fleyshman returned to his Facebook page to express his frustration: “I rarely curse,,. But today I calmly cursed 3 dozen times… Negativity & rudeness makes me :#€£¥%*•~# Grrrrrrrrr.”
Victory Nearly Turns Cereus, Then Folds
Left in a somewhat desperate situation in their own right Victory Poker made a decision to leave the Cake Poker Network and join the Cereus Network. Reactions in late March of this year to news regarding that impending move were mixed, with many wondering why Victory would choose to join embattled Cereus. At the time, Fleyshman spoke of the opportunity to join to the third-largest network as a primary incentive, although other factors — including the need to separate from Cake — were likely in play as well.
Then came Black Friday, two days after which Victory Poker announced it was no longer accepting U.S. players. In fact, on April 15 representatives of Victory Poker already had plane tickets in hand, ready to fly to Costa Rica to meet with Cereus, sign contracts, and finalize their deal. Given what the Black Friday indictment and civil complaint alleged regarding the Cereus network’s operations, one could say that Victory Poker’s having been prevented from completing its deal to join Cereus is a silver lining of sorts amid an otherwise dark scenario for the site.
While no longer serving U.S. customers, Victory Poker remained open as part of the Cake Poker Network until June 1 when it announced it was ceasing its poker operations altogether and that all of its players would be transferred to the Cake site. Victory Poker now plans to continue as an affiliate site offering news and strategy, but no games.
Cake in the Wake
While Victory Poker’s poker room has gone silent, DoylesRoom has moved its operations over to a new domain, doylesroom.ag, where it continues as part of the Yatahay network. Meanwhile, the Cake Poker network has survived.
A “strategic partnership” between PokerListings and the Cake Poker Network was announced in March of this year, essentially a partial selling of a majority stake in the Cake Poker Network to PokerListings, which has ensured Cake is at present and going forward financially secure. Previously — before Victory Poker’s involvement with CPN and well before Black Friday — attempts were made by Cake to sell the network in whole or in part to both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker according to our sources, though both of those major sites turned down the offer.
Cake now appears to be adopting a strategy whereby it maintains a lower profile in the U.S. than it had previously as far as advertising and promotion is concerned. Such an approach may well be recommended, given the attention being paid other sites that are seeking a more conspicuous U.S. presence.
Several attempts were made to contact representatives of Cake Poker and DoylesRoom for comment on this story. Neither site responded.
According to a post on QuadJacks.com the person who has been keeping the poker community informed of what’s going on with US player cash-outs from Full Tilt Poker is none other than Full Tilt Poker PR representative Michelle Clayborne posing as “FTPDoug” on the 2+2 Poker Forums. As source close to Full Tilt Poker claims that “the real FTPDoug left the company a long time ago and they just use the name since he had some credibility on 2+2.”
According to the same source claiming to be very close to Full Tilt Poker, “Ms. Clayborne is/was the personal assistant to Howard Lederer, among other Full Tilt pros. Another source reported in late May that she had also worked closely with Phil Ivey, but that he had since terminated their professional relationship.”
Most US online poker players have lost faith in Full Tilt’s ability to pay and as time passes players from other countries are beginning to as well. According to Pokerscout.com Full Tilt’s traffic is now down over 52% since April 15th, 2011.
Now that the “FTPDoug” account has been outed, we have no idea how Full Tilt will try and get a message out to players but we’ll keep an eye out for the next puppet show.
Something that hasn’t been reported nearly as much as it should be, is the involvement of professional athletes in the poker world during their down times. Poker is one of the most popular hobbies for people throughout the world, and especially in places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and multiple other cities with casinos. While a lot of athletes keep the fact that they play under wraps, Michael Phelps’ love for poker has come out more than once.
While Phelps has been spotted multiple times out playing and partying with the big names in poker out in Vegas, he really has no reason to hide his enjoyment of playing poker as a hobbie. A few years back he was spotted playing on Thanksgiving, while also being connected with poker legend Doyle Brunson. An even bigger story though was back in 2009 when he was spotted partying with Phil Ivey. Ivey is one of the biggest names in poker, and I’m sure Phelps could only hope that Ivey was giving him some poker tips.
Michael Phelps has also been connected to playing on the Merge Network. In a post on the two plus two forum, it was said that there may be a connection between Mer Brit and the Phelps family. On Mer’s twitter account, she is only following 32 people; and three of them are Michael Phelps, his sister Hilary, and Michael’s girlfriend Nicole Johnson. Of course this is all speculation, but there has been some contact between Michael’s sister and Mer on twitter. On the other side though, Phelps is only following 60 people, and one of them is Mer Brit.
It seems that Michael Phelps doesn’t care about hiding the fact that he has a general interest in poker, but it leaves the question of how many other athletes play poker? Of course there are quite a few who you can run into in a casino out in Vegas, especially retired players in the NFL, and NBA. So next time you’re out in Vegas, or Atlantic City, or even Tunica or Biloxi; keep an eye out for a professional athlete or two. I know I’ve seen a few in my time playing out in the casinos.
There’s a new EPT in town. PokerStars is host and sponsor to many a poker tour, including the European Poker Tour (EPT). And now a new one bearing the same initials joins the list, the Eureka Poker Tour, catering to players from Central Europe and Eastern Europe. Currently the Eureka Poker Tour is scheduled to make stops in Bucharest, Gorica, Nova, Prague, Varna and Zagreb, and Poker Stars is hosting satellites leading up and into each one of them.
The latest set of satellites are for the Eureka Poker Tour Golden Sands, Varna. You can play for one of three different kinds of prize packages: a seat in the tournament plus hotel and expenses (worth €1,400), a seat in the tournament plus expenses, and just a seat in the tournament.
The Eureka Poker Tour Golden Sands takes place June 23 – 26 in Varna, Bulgaria and has a direct buy-in of €800. Satellite opportunities to win free seats in this event include freerolls and VIP satellites. Direct buy-ins into these satellites range from €6.60 to €162.
Freerolls run through June 17 while €1.10 satellite qualifiers run through June 18. The VIP satellites include €3.30 SilverStar and €11 GoldStar events and there are FPP VIP satellite routes as well.
The culmination of the Poker Stars Eureka Poker Tour season, by the way, happens to be the same as the European Poker Tour Prague Main Event, taking place in the Czech Republic from December 5 – 10 for a €5,300 direct buy-in.
Bodog Poker launches their Mini Poker Series Saturday June 11, 2011. The Mini Poker Series boasts as one of its prizes the very first 2012 WSOP Main Event prize packages to be won. The series boasts 30 preliminary events, all with guaranteed prize pools. The real jewel is the final and you cannot buy into it, you have to win your way in. All events are holdem poker, but some interesting structures await.
Bodog Mini Series of Poker is accessible to everyone. All of the 30 preliminary events have a small $11 buy in. Getting into the final event can be done with quality or quantity, or a little of both.
Mini Poker Series Events #1- #30
1. Top 3 winners receive a ticket to the Mini Poker Series
Final on July 14th
2. Players finishing 4th to 9th receive a ticket to the Mini
Poker Series Semifinal on July 12th
3. Prize pool will be distributed as per Bodog’s standard
multi-table payout table
Mini Poker Series Semifinal
1. Top 50 finishers will receive entry into the Mini Poker
Series final on July 14th
How do I get invited?
1. Play in 15 to 24 Mini Poker Series Events OR
2. Place 4th to 9th in any Mini Poker Series Event
Mini Poker Series Final
1. 1st place Grand Prize: $12,000 prize package, including
a 2012 Main Event buy-in
2. 2nd and 3rd place prize: Bodog Poker Open VI prize
package, including a buy-in for every BPO event
3. 4th to 9th place prize: $162 Tournament Ticket for entry to the
$100,000 Guaranteed Tournament every Sunday at 4PM ET
How do I get invited? 1. Play in 25 or more qualifying events OR
2. Finish in the top 50 in the Semifinal OR
3. Place in the top 3 in a qualifying event
If you were looking to bet on someone to win Event 10: $1,500 No Limit Hold’em – Six Handed, you should have been checking to make sure Jeffrey Papola was in the field. Last year, Papola went heads-up for the bracelet not once in a 6-max event, but twice. While he took the consolation prize home in his first attempt, he walked out of the Rio after his second with a new piece of jewelry.
This event brought out 1,920 entries (including Papola) creating a prize pool of almost $2.6 million. This was a 3 day event, and players who made it just a bit into day two almost doubled their money. Only 15 players returned on the final day, all having locked up $20k and playing for the championship.
Who was surprised when, late in day 2, Papola began to make his presence known in the tourney? Not this guy. When chips were bagged for the night, Papola had more than anyone else in the room, one of two players over 1 million in chips.
Papola made a valiant run, but exited the Rio after busting out in third place. Eddie Blumenthal was left to battle Geffrey Klein. Blumenthal had the advantage of having 10x the chips of his opponent but could not put him away. In an Epic comeback Klein battled his way back to capture his first bracelet and $544,388.
Yet another of the 1k donkaments took over the Rio with Event 8: $1,000 No Limit Hold’em. Having two starting days, an astounding 4,178 players showed up to try their shot at one of the cheapest bracelet event at this year’s WSOP. This created a massive $3.7 million prize pool to compete for.
Most of the field had been eliminated by the time day 2 rolled around, with the fields combining and the remaining 623 players trying to position themselves for a win. It wasn’t long before the money bubble burst, with the top 423 players guaranteed $1,800.
Attempting the whole shot win was Jon ‘PearlJammer’ Turner. Turner led day 1b, day 2, and was one of the final three at the end of day 3. However, he came up short from the bracelet, exiting in third place.
Going into heads-up play, Sadan Turker and Sean Getzwiller found themselves almost equal in chips. Before the first hand was dealt, they requested a break. The tournament director denied their request, so they began “talking” at the table. Upon being informed this also was not allowed, both players simply got up, walked out of the room, and continued their discussion. While I was not privy to their conversation, I would expect that a chop was agreed upon.
While we may not know (though I will be sure to update if this ever comes to light), what we do know is that Getzwiller won the tournament, taking home (at least part of) $611,185 and a shiny gold bracelet.
I expect we will hear more in the days to come about chops in WSOP events.
How would you like to attend the German Grand Prix at Nürburgring this year? If that sonds like your idea of a good time, then Party Poker wants to send you there, if you’re one of the winners of its VIP Race to Nürburgring.
Running from June 10 to 26, 2011, the Party Poker VIP Race to Nürburgring is a simple points race, with progress tracked on a leader board. Earn points as you normally do, by playing at PartyPoker’s cash game and tournament tables. The top 10 finishers on the leader board at the end of the promotional period will win a Nürburgring German Grand Prix VIP package.
Each prize package includes a two night stay at a five-star hotel, tickets for the Saturday qualifying race and Sunday race, access to a special meet and greet event with Marc Surer, Sky motor racing pro, entry into a special Saturday night poker tournament at the hotel, transportation to and from the hotel and $850 in spending cash. Party Poker is also awarding an additional $25,000 in bonus prizes.
The top 150 finishers will win prizes. The top 8 will get a Nürburgring prize package. The remaining players in the top 150 will win either cash or PartyPoker points and entry into a special tournament where two more Nürburgring prize packages will be awarded. For example, places 9 through 12 will win $1,500 cash and a tournament entry, while places 100 to 150 will win 750 store points and a tournament entry.
Don’t forget to opt in for the promotion before you start playing so you can be sure your points will count towards leaderboard position.
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) today announced GoDaddy.com as a new premier sponsor of the 42nd Annual World Series of Poker. GoDaddy.com, the world’s largest Web hosting provider and domain name registrar, will be visible throughout the 2011 WSOP, both with on-site branding and television integration as the primary sponsor below the flop.
For those unfamiliar with poker, all community cards dealt on a poker table are positioned in the middle of the felt. GoDaddy.com has secured primary positioning just below these cards throughout all tournament action on televised tables, which is highly visible in all broadcasts of poker.
“When you talk about GoDaddy.com, you are talking about some of the best marketers in the world, who are thoughtful about their platforms and selective in their promotional partnerships,” said WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart. “We know GoDaddy.com has a fun and edgy style and we welcome them into the greatest poker spectacle on the planet, which shares its personality.”
Go Daddy CEO & Founder Bob Parsons is the architect of the company’s incredibly effective advertising campaigns when he’s not out shooting elephants. “We like this poker sponsorship because so many of the fans are passionate, loyal and interested in the Internet,” Parsons said. “We’re all in, baby!”
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is the longest-running, largest, richest and most prestigious gaming event in the world, dating back 41 years to 1970, and having paid more than $1.2 billion in total prize money to date. In 2011, the WSOP will feature 58 different poker events over 50 consecutive days. It began May 31 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas and runs through July 19, 2011.
About The World Series of Poker
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is the largest, richest and most prestigious gaming event in the world awarding millions of dollars in prize money and the prestigious gold bracelet, globally recognized as the sport’s top prize. Featuring a comprehensive slate of tournaments in every major poker variation, the WSOP is poker’s longest running tournament in the world, dating back to 1970. In 2010, the event attracted 72,966 entrants from 117 different countries to the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and awarded over $187 million in prize money.
Yet another Championship event was held in Event 11: Omaha Hi-Low Split – 8 or better. 202 players ponied up the $10,000 entry fee for their shot at winning a WSOP bracelet and, of course, the first place prize of $465,216.
Since Black Friday, much of the poker world has been closely following the dramatic, divergent stories of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker/UB, the three sites targeted by the Department of Justice’s indictment and civil complaint. However, there has been significant drama over recent months involving three other sites, too — DoylesRoom, Victory Poker, and the 
According to a post on QuadJacks.com the person who has been keeping the poker community informed of what’s going on with US player cash-outs from Full Tilt Poker is none other than Full Tilt Poker PR representative Michelle Clayborne posing as “FTPDoug” on the 2+2 Poker Forums. As source close to Full Tilt Poker claims that “the real FTPDoug left the company a long time ago and they just use the name since he had some credibility on 2+2.”
Something that hasn’t been reported nearly as much as it should be, is the involvement of professional athletes in the poker world during their down times. Poker is one of the most popular hobbies for people throughout the world, and especially in places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and multiple other cities with casinos. While a lot of athletes keep the fact that they play under wraps, Michael Phelps’ love for poker has come out more than once.
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) today announced GoDaddy.com as a new premier sponsor of the 42nd Annual World Series of Poker. GoDaddy.com, the world’s largest