Jason Kirk Blog

Welcome to the BLUFF Daily Buzz, where we scour the entire internet for all the latest news in and around the world of poker. If it involves chips and cards, or people known to associate with chips and cards, we’re there.

Michael Phelps at Borgata

Michael Phelps playing the 2010 Borgata Winter Open (Photo: Borgata Poker Blog)

Fourteen-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps isn’t just known in poker circles for hitting Carter King’s bong; he also enjoys playing the game himself and has had a fair bit of success in the past. It wasn’t a big surprise, then, when he turned up for the Borgata Winter Open’s heads-up tournament in Atlantic City.

Phelps won his first two matches of the double-elimination tournament before losing to Jeff Madsen in the third round. His first matchup in the losers bracket was 2006 WSOP Main Event runner-up Paul Wasicka, whom Phelps dispatched to move on to the fifth round against 2007 US Poker Championship winner Adam Gerber. Once again Phelps was able to pull out a win, but he finally faltered in the sixth round, falling to Basilios Diakokomninos.

The Olympian busted out one round shy of the cash, but he showed once again that he’s got chops at the poker table. When’s somebody going to get this guy a sponsorship?

Go jump out of a plane – Joe Sebok’s got your back

Players who want to hang out with Joe Sebok for a bit can win the chance to do so in a special freeroll at UB next month. There’s just one catch: if you win, you’ll get most of your Seebs time after leaping out the door of an airplane. The “Sebok’s Leap of Faith” freeroll is scheduled for February 17th and will have $2,000 in cash and prizes for winners, but the big winner will win a skydiving trip with Sebok.

“Winning money at poker is great, obviously, and it’s why we play the game in addition to the thrill of winning, competition, etc., but let’s come up with something more,” Sebok wrote on his blog yesterday. “I always wanted to give winners in tournaments something more than cash, something that they can’t do just anywhere, and finally I can. Let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you have seen the Strip off in the distance rocketing up at you at 200 mph. Sick!”

The tournament will require a password to enter; it will be posted on the UB Twitter account sometime before the freeroll begins, so you’ll want to keep your eyes peeled in that direction if skydiving’s your bag.

Alabama: Where poker players pay their debts (or else)

If this guy offers to loan you cash, you might be better off saying no.

There are some places where a $300 poker debt is no big deal. Apparently Mobile, Ala., is not one of those places.

Richard Johnson, the 53-year-old manager of an establishment called the Sports Bar and Grill (which is kind of like naming your poker room Poker Room), confronted an unidentified man who had borrowed the money from him at a poker game and demanded immediate payment of the debt. The man refused to pay and then turned away, at which point police say Johnson drew a knife and stabbed him three times from behind – once in the back, once in the arm, and once in his leg.

Johnson was arrested by Mobile police on Wednesday night and charged with first-degree assault. He was released after posting $7,500 bail. The stabbing victim was treated at a local hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.

(Sports bar manager charged with stabbing man over $300 poker debt – al.com)

Around the Table

While its neighbors weren’t looking, Delaware went and legalized poker and casino table games … The Toronto Globe and Mail says that PokerStars pro Vicky Coren’s For Richer or Poorer “may be the best-written poker book since The Biggest Game In Town, and that’s saying a lot” … ESPN’s Andrew Feldman says 2010 is going to be the Year of Annette … One PokerStars player got the chance to play a round of golf with Daniel Negreanu, saying, “Once he puts a little more into his drive, he’ll be quite the golfer” … Tiffany Michelle wants to clear up a few things about her appearance on FOX Business earlier this week.

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The final table of the Aussie Millions is set, and the tournament is Sorel Mizzi’s to lose.

Sorel Mizzi takes a commanding chip lead to the Aussie Million final table.

After coming to the table in third place today, the 23-year-old Canadian played the role of a wrecking ball for the dreams of his opponents all day long. He won pre-flop coin flips, flopped flushes, and turned quads to eliminate anyone unfortunate enough to get in his way, building a stack worth 6,033,000 by the time play was stopped. That ended up being three times as much as anyone else who survived the day, guaranteeing him an improvement on his 16th-place finish from last year’s tournament.

Joining Mizzi at the table tomorrow will be his Betfair teammate, Annette Obrestad, who becomes the first woman to make the Aussie Millions Main Event final table since Kristy Gazes in 2007. She brings with her a stack worth 1,349,000, more than enough to make her dangerous – and she’s also in a prime seat at the table, sitting two spots to Mizzi’s left. Also in the mix with 1,754,000 is Canada’s Peter Jetten, who has two WSOP pot limit Omaha final tables and an EPT High Roller final table on his tournament resume but is still seeking his first title.

Falling short of the final table but still taking home a little cash were Day 1 chip leader Pierre Aoukar (18th place), 2009 Aussie Millions final tablist Elliot Smith (15th), and $100,000 Challenge champion Dan Shak, who fell in 11th place to Mizzi’s quad kings. Here’s the lineup that will take to the table tomorrow and continue playing until only the champion remains.

Seat 1: Sorel Mizzi – 6,033,000

Seat 2: Stephen Shelley – 991,000

Seat 3: Annette Obrestad – 1,349,000

Seat 4: Tyron Krost – 1,869,000

Seat 5: Frederik Jensen – 1,754,000

Seat 6: Kosta Varoxis – 635,000

Seat 7: Peter Jetten – 1,700,000

Seat 8: Steven Friedlander – 694,000

In side event news, Erik Seidel won the $10,500 Pot Limit Omaha tournament, defeating Michael Guttmann in heads-up play to claim the A$120,000 top prize. Guttmann was denied his second Aussie Millions championship of the series after having won the team event with Mel Judah on Thursday. Seidel’s win was his first ever down under despite a few close calls in the past – he finished second to Erick Lindgren in the 2007 $100,000 Challenge and then took second to Alexander Kostritsyn in the 2008 Main Event.

1 Comment

Welcome to the BLUFF Daily Buzz, where we scour the entire internet for all the latest news in and around the world of poker. If it involves chips and cards, or people known to associate with chips and cards, we’re there.

FullFlush, Tony G ramp up the trash talk

One of the great things about made-for-TV poker is that the producers can pick players who, how shall we say this, have the potential for on-screen fireworks. The producers of the upcoming PartyPoker Premier League IV have made their event no exception to the rule by choosing Tony G and Luke “FullFlush” Schwartz for this season’s lineup, and just as planned the two have already started a war of words.

The G-man got things going with a blog entry last week describing Schwartz with a few garden-variety knocks: the kid’s rude and obnoxious, can’t wait to bust him from the table, yadda yadda yadda. Schwartz fired back saying G’s words were “LOLz all round,” and that he would “destroy that joker at the table.”

No good professional wrestler, er, poker player will let something like that go untouched, and the G’s response was perfectly in character: he’ll be bringing his bike for the other players to leave on as he busts them out but a tricycle for FullFlush. “You aren’t off stabilizers yet mate! You will need three wheels to keep firmly on the ground,” he wrote. “You have a lot to learn about heart and commitment to the game. I think I paid you a compliment by saying that you were the new Devilfish – the Fish has the game to back up the mouth.”

Keep an eye on FullFlush – if the script holds, he’ll be delivering more insults to the G sometime soon.

(War of words between Tony G and ‘_FullFlush_’ hots up – Bluff Europe)

Negreanu: Poker sponsorship “works in mysterious ways”

The WPT got a fascinating conversation on tape between Daniel Negreanu and Kathy Liebert in the hallway at the WPT Southern Poker Championship at Beau Rivage in Biloxi this week. Negreanu talks about the way sponsorships work in the poker world and naturally ends up honing in on the fact that Liebert, a successful professional in every sense of the term, isn’t sponsored.

“Kathy Liebert, without question, the last 10 or 15 years, there’s not another woman who is even on the same radar in terms of tournament success,” Negreanu says in the video. “It’s true. Consistently every year she’s always there, she does well. And you don’t toot your own horn like a hooo-ore, you handle yourself with class. But the poker world works in mysterious ways. It’s not just about what you’ve won.”

From there the conversation turns to Annie Duke, and – well, it’s best just to let you go check out the video for yourself. A tip of the hat to Dan at Pokerati, who made sure to share this one with the world over on YouTube before the the memory hole tried to swallow it up.

Victory Poker joining the online poker market

Rumors about Alec Torelli’s departure from the Brunson 10 last month centered on him joining on with a new online poker room called Victory Poker. Now the rumors can be confirmed, as Victory Poker has announced it is officially opening for business on February 1st.

Torelli is indeed a member of the team, and he’s joined by an accomplished crew of fellow pros. Antonio Esfandiari is the main man on Team Victory. Lee Markholdt and Paul Wasicka have come over from Full Tilt, and 2008 Bluff Online Player of the Year David “The Maven” Chicotsky is on board along with other online pros like Andrew Robl.

Victory is getting its name out there in what’s by now a time-tested method for online poker rooms: UFC fighter Randy Couture will wear its logo at UFC 109. The new room is also putting on the Trash Talk Championship of the World Straddle Tournament at Hard Rock in Las Vegas on February 6th – too bad they didn’t invite Tony G and Luke Schwartz along for the fun!

(Victory Poker Launches February 1st – Poker News Daily)

Around the Table

North Carolina rounders may soon be able to play live poker at the Harrah’s casino in Cherokee … Triple Crown winner Gavin Griffin went two years without winning a sizeable tournament before taking down the Nighty Hundred Grand on PokerStars last week, and he say he learned a few lessons from that experience … People are already trying to figure out how to bring poker to Apple’s new, poorly named iPad … The PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker is running right now and Stars is profiling all the winners on its blog.

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Annette Obrestad is just three tables away from her second major tournament title.

The Aussie Millions Main Event is down to its final 18 players after the third day of play at Crown Casino in Melbourne, and a handful of accomplished pros are still in the running for the biggest tournament poker title in the Southern Hemisphere.

Kosmas Dratsas finished the day out as the chip leader with 1,792,000 in chips, but the players everyone will be paying attention to are in the spots just below him on the leaderboard. Annette Obrestad, the 21-year-old former WSOP Europe Main Event champion who has already won one preliminary event at this year’s festival Down Under, finished with just about eight big blinds less that Dratsas at 1,711,000. And Obrestad herself finished only two big blinds ahead of her Betfair teammate, Sorel Mizzi, who ended the day with 1,695,000. Three spots further down the ladder is Dan Shak, who took down Phil Ivey in the $100,000 Challenge at Crown Casino earlier this week.

Not among the remaining players were a few fan favorites who started the day with championship dreams. Barry Greenstein dropped out in 50th place, while Gus Hansen had his repeat championship dreams dashed in 23rd. Other notables in the money included Andrew Feldman (24th), Nico Behling (35th), Marsha Waggoner (59th), Van Marcus (60th), and J.P. Kelly (67th).

Play resumes at noon tomorrow and will continue until the final table of six players has been reached.

1. Kosmas Dratsas – 1,792,000 chips
2. Annette Obrestad – 1,711,000
3. Sorel Mizzi – 1,695,000
4. Jurgen Wenigwieser – 1,626,000
5. Stephen Shelley – 1,241,000
6. Dan Shak – 1,144,000
7. Frederik Jensen – 1,144,000
8. Tyron Krost – 953,000
9. Jens Kerper – 886,000
10. Peter Jetten – 642,000
11. Steven Friedlander – 494,000
12. Elliot Smith – 334,000
13. Pierre Aoukar – 310,000
14. Jessica Dawley – 295,000
15. Joel Dodds – 242,000
16. Steve Topakas – 191,000
17. Fouad Chaptini – 183,000
18. Kosta Varoxis – 183,000

In side event news, the A$10,500 Pot Limit Omaha event drew only 26 entries and played down to a final table before pausing for the night. Former WSOP PLO champ Rafi Amit cashed in fifth place for A$15,000 before play was called off until noon tomorrow with these four players still vying for the title:

1. Michael Guttman – 172,100 chips
2. Mike “SirWatts” Watson – 166,500
3. Erik Seidel – 130,900
4. Florian Langmann – 51,200

The other big event running today was the A$5,300 Australian Heads-Up Championship. In the quarterfinals, Andrew “luckychewy” Lichtenberger took the first of three rounds against Martin Gudvangen only to see the Norwegian come roaring back to take their match. Vanessa Selbst caught some serious cold decks against Barry Woods and lost in two straight rounds, while Brian “Flawless_Victory” Roberts was a little less than flawless going down in two straight to Kyle McMurphy. And Andrew Seidman took his match to the limit against Darren Woods only to lose in a coinflip on the last hand.

The semifinals saw both matches go all three allotted rounds, with McMurphy defeating Darren Woods in three rounds and Barry Woods coming out on top of Gudvangen in three thanks to a little bit of luck at some opportune moments. In the finals, McMurphy took the first match when his top pair held up against Woods’ open-ended straight draw, but Woods grabbed the second when he turned a straight with the same card that made McMurphy a set. The third and final round saw McMurphy take the advantage and unsuccessfully try several times to put Woods away before winning a crucial coinflip to take most of his stack and finishing him off one hand later.

1. Kyle McMurphy A$75,000
2. Barry Woods A$50,000
3. Martin Gudvangen A$37,500
4. Darren Woods A$25,000
5. Andrew Seidman A$15,625
6. Andrew Lichtenberger A$15,625
7. Vanessa Selbst A$15,625
8. Brian Roberts A$15,625

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Welcome to the BLUFF Daily Buzz, where we scour the entire internet for all the latest news in and around the world of poker. If it involves chips and cards, or people known to associate with chips and cards, we’re there.

Delaware legislature moving fast on table games bill

Hi. We're in ... Delaware.

Pennsylvania took months at the end of last year to pass its table games bill thanks to a lot of partisan bickering and political grandstanding, and reports say it will likely take several more to prepare itself for poker, blackjack, and a number of other games to be introduced at the state’s slot machine casinos. Neighboring state Delaware apparently doesn’t have the same problems in its state legislature, and as a result it may end up getting a jump on Pennsylvania in offering the same games at its casinos.

The Delaware House passed its own table games bill last week and the bill has now cleared the Delaware Senate Judiciary Committee. The full Senate will vote on the bill, which would authorize card and dice games at the state’s three casinos and set the state up to collect more than $40 million per year in licensing fees, tomorrow. If passed, the newly authorized games could be in operation before the new Pennsylvania law has any chance of taking customers away from Delaware.

(Del. Senate to Vote on Table Gaming – ABC News)

PartyPoker Premier League lineup complete

While American poker fans are much better off than they used to be in the made-for-TV poker department than they used to be thanks to quality shows like High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark, there’s no doubt that the Europeans do the genre the best of all. One of the biggest of those competitions, the PartyPoker Premier League IV, is getting closer to filming and yesterday announced the addition of heavy hitters Daniel Negreanu, Vanessa Rousso, and David Benyamine to this season’s lineup.

Doyle Brunson will take to the Premier League tables next month at the M Resort.

As if that weren’t big enough, today the lineup was completed with the addition of 10-time WSOP bracelet winner Doyle Brunson. “I’m happy to have the challenge of playing against all these great players,” he said. “I know a lot about many of them but, of course, all the young players from the internet are very aggressive good players. It is impossible to make a favorite to win this because every player in this field is capable of winning. I feel I have as good a chance as anyone.”

Brunson and the other three new additions will join an accomplished and skilled group of competitors at the M Resort in Las Vegas starting February 18th for a series of single-table heats leading up to the finals. They will join the likes of Phil Hellmuth, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Roland de Wolfe, Luke “FullFlush” Schwartz, Tony G, Mike Sexton, Ian Frazer, Remy Biechel, Felipe “Mojave” Ramos, Bodo Sbrzesny, Dragan Galic, and Premier League III champion JC Tran in fighting for their share of a $1.5 million prize pool.

(Doyle Brunson joins PartyPoker Premier League IV – Casino City Times)

Bodog sponsorship up for grabs

Bodog has been cutting players loose lately, but now it looks like they’re finally ready to start replacing the dear departed. The online poker room is actively scouting for its next pro, with only one catch: she has to be a woman.

All you have to do to get your name in front of the right people is send a recent photograph, your Bodog username, and a short bio to pro@bodog.com. And if you don’t already have a Bodog account, it’s easy to get started.

Yes, they still play poker in Mississippi this time of year

In the midst of all the other tournaments and poker news going on around the world, there is still poker in Mississippi in January. The World Poker Tour is down to the TV table at the Southern Poker Championship at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi, Miss., and leading the way is Hoyt Corkins, who last won a WPT event back in 2003 but has made four more TV tales and added another WSOP win to his resume in the meantime. Accompanying the Alabama Cowboy to the stage are Tyler Smith, who made the TV table of this tournament last year as well, and four other players with combined career WPT earnings totaling a great big donut.

Offical live updates can be found at the WPT’s website.

Around the Table

T.J. Bracelet update: That WSOP bracelet of Mr. Cloutier’s that was up for sale on eBay recently was bought by online poker room Cake Poker, who according to poker superagent Brian Balsbaugh’s Twitter feed are planning to ship the bracelet back to the two-time WSOP Main Event runner-up with no strings attached … Eric Siegel asks the question: what does it mean to be a “pro”? … PokerStars pro and Guardian columnist Vicky Coren says the French don’t know how to play poker … The local media in Philadelphia sat up and paid attention when Dan Shak took down Phil Ivey at the Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge.

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The 294 surviving players from the three Aussie Millions Main Event starting flights convened for Day 2 at Crown Casino in Melbourne today and played until only 83 of them remained. That’s still a bit shy of the 72 spots that pay, so two tables’ worth of players will be going home tomorrow with no cash in hand.

2007 Aussie Millions champ Gus Hansen is looking for a repeat

Finishing out the day as the chip leader was David Frieling, who built a 537,000-chip stack. That puts him a bit ahead of the Day 1 overall chip leader, Pierre Aoukar, who finished Day 2 with 501,000. Notable players still in the hunt for this year’s title and two million Australian dollars include Sorel Mizzi (470,000), $100,000 Challenge winner Dan Shak (409,000), 2007 Aussie Millions champ Gus Hansen (328,000), 2008 Aussie Million Main Event final tablist Nico Behling (325,500), 2009 double WSOP bracelet winner J.P. Kelly (261,500), 2008 WSOP Europe Main Event champ Annette Obrestad (134,000), three-time WSOP bracelet winner Barry Greenstein (107,000), and 2008 Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge champ Howard Lederer (40,000). The plan for Day 3 is to play eight-handed until the field has been reduced to 36 players and then play six-handed until 18 players remain before quitting for the night, so it should be another long day of poker in Melbourne.

There was a little more poker going on around the periphery of the Main Event. The A$1,100 Team No Limit Hold’em event was won by Mel Judah and Mike Guttmann. Their opponents Carolyn Tulloch and John MacNaughton had them on the ropes before a hand where Tulloch imploded with K-2 against Judah’s pocket jacks and let the eventual champs back into the game. The winners split the first-place prize of A$30,250.

And the A$5,000 Australian Heads-Up Championship drew 50 players, eight of whom survived the first day of play to return tomorrow and play for the A$75,000 (US$67,493) first prize. The quarter final draws are as follows:

Barry Woods vs Vanessa Selbst

Andrew “luckychewy” Lichtenberger vs Martin Gudvangen

Kyle McMurphy vs Brian “Flawless_victory” Roberts

Darren Woods vs Andrew Seidman

Comment

Welcome to the BLUFF Daily Buzz, where we scour the entire internet for all the latest news in and around the world of poker. If it involves chips and cards, or people known to associate with chips and cards, we’re there.

PartyPoker founder cuts ties, sells remaining shares in company

In many ways, the worldwide online poker boom can be traced back a single source: PartyPoker. Now one of its founders has made the last moves to sever his ties with the company that made him one of the richest men in India.

Anurag Dikshit, whose name we swear to you is pronounced “dix-it,” programmed the early software that powered PartyGaming’s poker and casino software. After Party pulled out of the U.S. market in the post-UIGEA days, he cut a 2008 deal with the U.S. Department of Justice that saw him agree to plead guilty to breaking United States gambling laws and pay a $300 million fine.

Dikshit began the process of selling off his shares in PartyGaming last year, and with yesterday’s sale of his remaining 38.8 million shares he no longer owns any interest in the company. He will most likely continue the charity work that he began after amassing his fortune, and he could still face a two-year prison sentence in December of this year in relation to his 2008 deal with the DOJ. Shares of PartyGaming were up slightly after yesterday’s news yesterday but dropped 5% today.

(PartyGaming founder Anurag Dikshit severs ties with company after £114m share sale – Telegraph.co.uk)

Daniel Negreanu: not the first guy you'd expect to see eating in a Waffle House.

Kid Poker at Waffle House

Daniel Negreanu may be a vegan, but that didn’t stop him from taking a trip to regional greasy-spoon favorite Waffle House with a group of poker players in Mississippi last night. World Poker Tour tournament reporter BJ Nemeth, well known for his love of WH, was there along with the group and tweeted their entire stay at the restaurant.

The only other patron in the joint just happened to be a fan of the second-winningest tournament poker player of all-time, but by the end of the night all the staff were as well – Negreanu apparently paid out more than $200 in “goofy freeroll prop bets” with them. He also won one of his bets when he offered $5,000 to one of the other players to eat 10 saltine cracker in one minute. Folks who’ve seen this one before – it’s a common prop bet, and at least one source says Negreanu learned it from John Juanda at last year’s LA Poker Classic – won’t be surprised to know that Nemeth says the cracker-eater didn’t get anywhere close to winning the five large.

Nemeth has video of the cracker bet, but he said he won’t be posting it publicly.

Who else is betting on crackers in Mississippi? Find out on our Poker Tweets page.

Pam Brunson Hired to Manage DoylesRoom.com’s Brunson 10

Doyle Brunson has decided to keep management of his hand-picked “future of poker” crew, the Brunson 10, in the family by naming his daughter Pam Brunson to handle the group.

The younger Brunson, who has been known to play a tournament or two herself, will be responsible for managing the group’s schedules and PR. The announcement comes on the heels of DoylesRoom.com hiring new top-level executives earlier this month along with others in the business intelligence and product management departments.

“Mark my words, 2010 will be the year of The Brunson 10,” Doyle said in a press release announcing the move. “I’ll be spending the next 11 months filling the remaining six spots with online poker players who’ve proven themselves. Thanks to the smartest people in the industry now on board at DoylesRoom.com to help, that task should be a really easy one.”

Around the Table

Phil Laak is now the proud owner of his own online poker room on the Cake Poker Network, Unabomber Poker; apparently “Laak Poker” was already taken … Watch the 2008 WSOP’s last woman standing, Tiffany Michelle, have a bizarre and ill-advised talk with FOX Business comparing the president’s national health care plans to poker strategy here … ESPN’s poker news web show, Inside Deal, returned for a second season today with world champ Joe Cada and the Poker Player Alliance’s John Pappas … Two minor online poker networks, Everleaf Gaming and the Universal Poker Network, announced a merger into a new network that will supposedly soon expand to include former Brunson 10 member Alec “traheho” Torelli’s new poker room … American pro soccer player Charlie Davies had a car accident last October that required doctors to peel off his face to repair facial fractures, but now he’s all healed up and playing $5/$10 NLHE at the Bellagio.

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The most famous Aussie in poker still has a shot at his country's biggest tournament prize.

Tuesday was the final starting day for the 2010 Aussie Millions Main Event and 270 more players turned up for a shot at the biggest tournament poker prize in the Southern Hemisphere. That boosted overall attendance for this year’s event to a total of 746, a 9.5% increase over last year’s field but still short of the 2008 record of 780 players.

Just over half of the Day 1C starters had to acquaint themselves with the Crown Casino’s exits before play ended for the day. Brunson 10 memberChris Moorman, former pro bowler and 2009 WSOP $50,000 HORSE champion David Bach, ex-November Niner Kelly Kim, former multi-accounting scandalist Josh “JJProdigy” Field, and pros Clonie Gowen, John Myung, and Shawn Buchanan all busted early enough to go see some of the sights Down Under before catching flights back to the other side of the planet.

Filling up the heaviest bag at the end of the day was Pierre Aoukar, who amassed a stack of 178,500 chips. That appears to put him in the overall lead. Joining Aoukar in advancing to Day 2 were three of the best-known players from Australia, 2005 WSOP Main Event champ Joe Hachem, new Team PartyPoker member Tony G, and former WSOP bracelet winner Mark Vos, as well as pros Benny Spindler and Rayan Nathan.

Players from all three starting flights will come together tomorrow for Day 2, including Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Barry Greenstein, Annette Obrestad, Jeffrey Lisandro, James Akenhead, Sorel Mizzi, Van Marcus, Leo Margets, and David Steicke. They’ll all be vying for their share of the A$7.46 million (US$6.717 million) prize pool; 72 players will cash, with the winner taking home an incredible A$2 million (US$1.8 million).

Comment

Welcome to the BLUFF Daily Buzz, where we scour the entire internet for all the latest news in and around the world of poker. If it involves chips and cards, or people known to associate with chips and cards, we’re there.

Darrell Cain tops monster field at LA Poker Classic Event #1

Darrell Cain came out the big winner at the LAPC's first event. (Photo: LA Poker Classic Blog)

The first event of this year’s LA Poker Classic is officially in the books, and Darrell Cain of Sacramento, Calif., is its champion.

The $300-buy-in tournament sported a $1,000,000 guaranteed prize pool but ended up eclipsing that mark by more than $600,000 when it drew 5,847 entries. More than a few of those entries – 2,083 of them, in fact – were repeats by players who busted on earlier starting days but were allowed to buy in again thanks to the tournament’s unique rules.

Cain’s victory was by no means a sure thing. After several attempts to chop up the remaining prize pool at the final table, he lost a big pot and thought he was out of the tournament. Already on his way to receive a payout, the others at the table called out to him that he had eight chips left in play. Taking the “chip and a chair” trope to heart, Cain persevered and managed to make it to three-handed play with the chip lead. It was there that he finally managed to make a deal with Amir Ghazvinian and Joel Tushnett and be declared the champion. His official take for the win was $363,936.

Check out LAPC Tournament Director Matt Savage’s interview with Cain here. The official LAPC blog is here. Dr. Pauly’s Tao of Poker interview with Savage is here.

Aussie Millions update

The 2010 Aussie Millions is well underway at the Crown Casino in Melbourne and the two biggest tournaments on this year’s schedule were both on tap today.

First was the $100,000 Challenge, which has been won in the past by notable players like Erik Seidel and Howard Lederer. Another Full Tilt pro, the one and only Phil Ivey, had a shot at the title when he and seven others sat down to play out the final table today, but he ended up falling one spot short after falling in heads-up play against former WSOP Ante Up For Africa champ Dan Shak. Shak’s take was A$1,200,000 (US$1,084,920), while Ivey grabbed A$600,000 (US$542,460) for finishing runner-up. That moves him past Daniel Negreanu into first place on the all-time money list.

Meanwhile, today’s second starting flight of the Main Event drew 243 players, ten more than had showed up on Day 1A. 2008 WSOP Europe Main Event champion Annette Obrestad, who took down one of the preliminary events at the Crown last week, finished up the day with a healthy stack. Joining her in bagging chips at the end of the day were other notable players like 2009 WSOP Player of the Year Jeffrey Lisandro, 2008 APPT Manila champ Van Marcus, Marsha Waggoner, Leo Margets, Neil Channing, Dani “ansky” Stern, and Andrew “luckychewy” Lichtenberger. Others who were less fortunate and found their way to the rail included Erik Seidel, Grant Levy, Chris Ferguson, Vanessa Selbst, Jay “Krantz” Rosenkrantz, and Australian cricket legend Shane Warne.

The final Main Event starting flight begins at 12:30 p.m. local time tomorrow, and if past experience is any indicator it should be even bigger than the first two days.

Sega: the future of online poker?

The launch of the Sega online poker room last week was greeted with little more than curiosity here in the United States, a country whose players are blocked from even pulling up the new room’s website thanks to the UIGEA. But blogger Bill Rini is outside the country and knowledgeable about the business side of things when it comes to online poker, so he took a look at Sega’s offering and posted a few thoughts about what the video-gaming giant’s entry means for the market’s future.

“This is a multi-billion dollar a year business but when you look around at the leadership of most poker sites you wouldn’t know it looking at the resumes,” wrote Rini. “If the likes of Harrah’s or SEGA moves into the online poker space with any sort of seriousness you can expect that they’re going to be put their best and brightest people behind it. If smaller poker sites are hurting now, just wait because it’s only going to get worse if some of these new arrivals start deciding to throw some serious cash and resources at online poker.”

The whole post is worth a read, especially if you’re an American who dreams of a future where you can check-raise donkeys on your video game console.

(SEGA Poker Room Launches – Bill’s Poker Blog)

Around the Table

EPT cashing machine Antony Lellouche had half the chips in play at the EPT Deauville High Rollers event with three players left, but the Czech Republic’s Martin Kabrhel took down the title and the €250,000 prize … Somebody actually bought T.J. Cloutier’s WSOP bracelet on eBay, for the princely sum of $4,006 … The NHL’s Calgary Flames raised $300,000 for charity with their 5th Annual Texas Hold’em Poker Tournament on Saturday … Poker’s opponents are desperate enough to compare the game to drug addiction in order to maintain the status quo.

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The European Poker Tour was within two spots of its first-ever two-time champion today, but it looks like a repeat will have to wait for the time being.

Former WSOP Main Event champion Peter Eastgate came to the Deauville final table looking to improve on his second-place finish at last year’s EPT London main event, but of the eight men with a shot at the title he had the shortest stack – and therefore the toughest road ahead of him. He ended up being the first player eliminated when he moved all-in preflop with pocket tens and Craig “HU4ROLLZ” Bergeron’s K 9 paired a king on the flop. Eastgate walked with a disappointing €70,000 for his eighth place finish.

After a full level and a half of aggressive action, Frenchman Michael Fratty would be the next casualty. With each round costing upwards of 150,000 chips, Fratty moved all-in before the flop with A Q but got a call he didn’t want from Jake Cody, who held K K. The T 7 Q J 9 board gave no help and Fratty busted in seventh place (€92,000). The other French player at the table, Stephane Albertini, also fell short of keeping the Deauville title on home soil for the next year. After an early beat that saw Mike “Timex” McDonald’s A-Q outdraw Albertini’s kings, the Frenchman managed to hang on to a short stack for a few levels. But in the end he ran his K 9 into Cody’s pocket aces, leaving the tournament in sixth place (€129,000).

Shortly after Albertini’s departure the other short stack at the table, Claudiu Secara, found J J in the hole and moved all-in over the top of an opening raise from Mike McDonald. Unfortunately for Secara McDonald’s raise was the real deal – he flipped up K K and dodged Secara’s two outs to send the Romanian home in fifth place (€165,000).

Down to just four players, Craig Bergeron’s aggressive approach to the game meant he would either bolster his stack or be the next one out. After a few chances to do the former that didn’t get a call, Bergeron moved in with J T and got a call from Jake Cody with A 7. Already behind, the young American’s situation got worse when the flop brought an ace. With no running cards to help his cause, Bergeron made his way to the payout cage in fourth place (€221,000) for the best showing of his young career.

The three remaining contenders all hovered around the 7,500,000-chip mark, but that wouldn’t last too long as they continued to play the aggressive brand of poker that got them there and shift chips from one stack to another. Most of the shifting went away from Mike McDonald’s stack in the early going as Jake Cody and incoming chip leader Teodor Caraba began to three-bet with reckless abandon, and soon the Canadian found himself looking to claw his way back into position to become the first EPT repeat champion. He found a great spot to do that, getting the last of his chips in with J J against Caraba’s A T, but an ace on the flop was all it took to send McDonald packing in third place (€295,000).

Caraba held a 6-to-5 lead over his British opponent as heads-up play began, but Cody was determined not to let the Romanian get the best of him. After seeing a few bluffs from Cody, Caraba picked an inopportune time to make one of his own preflop, making a four-bet shove with 6 5 and running into pocket eights. The 4 9 2 flop gave Caraba some hope and the K turn brought even more possibilities, but the 7 river boosted Cody into the chip lead by a 6-to-1 margin.

Caraba managed to double up twice in the next ten minutes and pull nearly even again before he got hit by a major cooler, running his A K into Cody’s K K to end the tournament. Normally a cash game player, Caraba grabbed a solid €516,000 for his efforts. Cody, meanwhile, wins €847,000, a seat in the EPT Grand Final, and his first EPT title.

The EPT gets back in action in Copenhagen, Denmark, from February 16th-21st.

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After flopping a set to claim the chip lead the day before, unsung Romanian Teodor Caraba remained the biggest story at Casino Barriere de Deauville on Day 4 of the EPT main event there. Not only did Caraba retain the lead for a second straight day, but he actually expanded the distance between himself and his nearest competitor.

Caraba’s lead extension came thanks to his knockout of tournament powerhouse Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier on the final table bubble. The Romanian’s pocket rockets held up against ElkY’s A Q despite a flush draw on the flop, denying the Frenchman’s bid to become the first repeat champion in the tour’s six-year history and giving Caraba a nice cushion heading into the final day of play. (For a little more about Mr. Caraba, listen to the man himself.)

Mike “Timex” McDonald, former EPT Dortmund champion, also found his way to the final eight and will be looking to do what ElkY could not. He had to catch a set with his 4-4 against David Morante‘s 7-7 along the way, and his stack is on the smaller side at this table, but McDonald’s skills give him a solid shot at making EPT history tomorrow.

Besides Caraba’s run for the title and McDonald’s repeat bid, there are plenty of other intriguing stories at this final table. Michael Gratty, in sixth position, and Stephane Albertini, in third, are the two remaining French players with a chance to claim a victory in home turf in Deauville. Former WSOP Main Event champ Peter Eastgate will be looking to improve on his second-place finish at last year’s EPT London main event, though he will enter tomorrow with the shortest stack at the table. And Craig “HU4ROLLZ” Bergeron, the lone American at the final table, seeks his first career live tournament win to go with his impressive online resume.

The final table begins tomorrow at noon CET. You can watch the whole thing live on PokerStars.tv. Until then, here’s the final table lineup.

Seat 1 – Claudiu Secara (Romania) 795,000
Seat 2 – Jake Cody (United Kingdom) 4,650,000
Seat 3 – Michael Fratty (France) 1,595,000
Seat 4 – Teodor Caraba (Romania) 6,915,000
Seat 5 – Peter Eastgate (Denmark) 695,000
Seat 6 – Craig “HU4ROLLZ” Bergeron (United States) 3,135,000
Seat 7 – Stephane Albertini (France) 3,555,000
Seat 8 – Mike “Timex” McDonald (Canada) 1,815,000

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Three full days are in the books at EPT Deauville and a record starting field has been reduced to just 24 players, including several previous EPT champs and even a former WSOP Main Event winner.

Day 3 was, by necessity, a day of loss. Daniel Millar suffered the cruelest of them, busting on the bubble at the hands of 2008 world champion Peter Eastgate, who finished the day in third place. Plenty of others cashed but didn’t get as much as the would have liked, including Davidi Kitai (94th place), Patrick Bruel (86th), Luca Pagano (72nd), Dario Minieri (49th), and Shane Schleger (26th).  And proving that nobody can predict the outcome of a tournament based on chip stacks alone, the top two chip leaders from Day 2, Frenchmen Nicolas Levi and Ludovic Lacay, fell short of surviving to the final three tables in 28th and 40th places, respectively.

So far as those still in play, the man whose name appears at the top of the leaderboard overnight, Teodor Caraba of Romania, came out of nowhere toward the end of the day to claim the chip lead after flopping a set of deuces from the big blind in a three-way pot. Mike “Timex” McDonald and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier both lurk behind him in the top ten looking to become the first repeat EPT champion in the tour’s history, while Hugo Lemaire and actress Alexia Portal look to claim a major win on home turf and Craig “HU4ROLLZ” Bergeron tries to extend the American tradition of winning big EPT events. Further down the chip counts, but still in the hunt, are Freddy Deeb, Day 1 chip leader Robert Cezarescu, and Bruno Fitoussi.

Play continues in Deauville tomorrow until the final table has been reached.

EPT Deauville Day 3 Top 10 Chip Counts

1. Teodor Caraba (Romania) 3,220,000
2. Hugo Lemaire (France) 2,301,000
3. Mike “Timex” McDonald (Canada) 1,895,000
4. Peter Eastgate (Denmark) 1,682,000
5. George Claudius Secara (Romania) 1,525,000
6. Craig “HU4ROLLZ” Bergeron (United States) 1,447,000
7. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier (France) 1,220,000
8. Jake Cody (United Kingdom) 1,108,000
9. David Morante (Spain) 883,000
10. Alexia Portal (France) 820,000

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With the first starting day officially out of the way and the record starting field of 768 players whittled down to 388 players with a shot at the title, the EPT Deauville main event got down to business today.

That field was further reduced to just 133 players by the end of the second day of play at Casino Barriere de Deauville. Leading the field at the end of the day by Nicolas Levi of France, who bagged up 648,500 worth of chips when all was said and done. His friend and countryman Ludovic Lacay, coming off a big 2009 that saw him finish 16th in the WSOP Main Event and make the final table of the WPT Marrakech main event, finished the day in second position with 500,500.

Among the notable players outside the top ten who survived Day 2 with decent-sized stacks were Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier (331,500), Craig Bergeron (330,000), Shane “shaniac” Schleger (322,500), Peter Eastgate (294,000), Day 1B chip leader Luca Pagano (260,000), Day 1A chip leader Robert Cezarescu (251,000), Davidi Kitai (249,000), Dario Minieri (209,500), Juha Helppi (198,500), Bruno Fitoussi (157,500), and French pop star and former WSOP bracelet winner Patrick Bruel (128,500). Less fortunate were Arnaud Mattern, Katja Thater, Richard Toth, and Alex Kravchenko, who busted before the proceedings finished.

Play resumes with Day 3 tomorrow at noon in Deuaville.

EPT Deauville Day 2 Top Ten Chip Counts

1. Nicolas Levi (France) 648,500
2. Ludovic Lacay (France) 500,500
3. Stefan Fuchs (Austria) 490,500
4. Benjamin Juhasz (Hungary) 447,000
5. Jake Cody (United Kingdom) 435,500
6. Goghan Seref Soysan (Belgium) 413,000
7. Andrew Teng (United Kingdom) 372,500
8. Hugo Lemaire (France) 352,500
9. Maxat Aibayev (Kazakhstan) 337,000
10. Javed Abrahams (United Kingdom) 333,000

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Welcome to the BLUFF Daily Buzz, where we scour the entire internet for all the latest news in and around the world of poker. If it involves chips and cards, or people known to associate with chips and cards, we’re there.

No decision in Kentucky

It’s been nearly a year and a half since Steve Beshear, governor of the state of Kentucky, struck out without any sort of legal precedent to seize 141 domain names belonging to internet gambling companies. Despite the passage of time, though, the legality of Beshear’s attempted seizure is still under debate.

Many expected that debate to be settled by the Kentucky Supreme Court this week, but the window for the court to hand down a decision has come and gone without any resolution in the case. Joe Brennan, Jr., chairman of the Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (iMEGA), told Poker News Daily that everyone in Kentucky was surprised that the court didn’t issue a ruling. “The rumor mill thought the decision was going to be rendered,” he said. “That could have been why their attorneys acted so quickly at the end of December, so if they got an adverse decision, they could keep it alive.”

The next scheduled date for the court to issue new rulings is March 18th, but again there is no guarantee that a judgment will be handed down. Eight other dates throughout the rest of the year are scheduled from April through December for the court to rule on the cases before it.

(No Decision Handed Down in Kentucky Internet Gambling Case – Poker News Daily)

Usually “poker bust” isn’t a double entendre…

If you’re running an illegal business operation, there are a few facts that you simply can’t avoid: first, blatantly advertising your service is likely to hamper your long-term prospects, and second, claiming something is legal doesn’t make it so when the law comes calling. The operator of the Grand Rapids Poker Club in Michigan chose to ignore those facts, though, and now he’s looking at a possible two-year stint in jail.

The game’s organizer publicly advertised the game, using both fliers around town and Craigslist to let everyone know there were seats open at the table. He also told anyone interested that the game was legal in order to entice them to show up at the Ramada Plaza Hotel in Kentwood, where he had rented out the meeting room under the name “Game Room Angels.” Why, you ask, would he use the name “Angels”? The topless dealers might have had something to do with that. More than 20 people, including four of the topless dealers, were arrested when – surprise! – local and state police raided the hotel.

A tip of the Buzz’s hat here goes to Wicked Chops Poker, who inducted the game’s organizer into the Stupid Poker Criminals Hall of Fame.

(Topless Poker Tournament Raided at Michigan Hotel – Online Poker News)

Iowa looking to change gambling law

Iowa casinos are asking lawmakers in the state to consider a change to its gambling laws, one that would allow them to host poker tournament in convention areas that are currently off-limits to any gaming activities.

If passed, the bill would put Iowa on par with casinos in other parts of the country that normally host their large tournaments, which only come around once or twice a year and therefore don’t need permanent gaming space, in such convention areas. According to Radio Iowa, the Harrah’s casino in Council Bluffs would be one of the biggest beneficiaries – and the numbers from past WSOP Circuit events, which have historically been some of the lowest on the tour, would seem to bear that out. (The 2008 and 2009 WSOPC championship events there drew just 99 and 67 players, respectively.)

The proposed change for poker tournaments is included in a bill that would also allow casinos to pay an extra fee to the state in exchange for avoiding public referendums that are currently mandated every eight years. With Iowa facing the same budget problems currently afflicting the rest of the states, the extra $25 million the casinos are willing to pony up might be too attractive for legislators to turn down.

(Legislators to consider gambling package – Radio Iowa)

Around the Table

Finnish spark plug Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies went ballistic on Cole South in chat after South grabbed a $600K pot from him on Full Tilt Poker the other night, even going so far as to invoke the Isildur1 datamining incident … Rapper and one-time online poker room owner Ja Rule sweated Phil Ivey live in the Penn & Teller Theatre last November, but if his gun case goes badly Ivey might not have his superstar friend’s support if he becomes the first repeat November Niner … Accompanying former teen chess whiz James “AndyMcLEOD” Obst, 2009 Aussie Millions champ Stewart Scott, and Team PokerStars pro Florian Langmann to the final table of Aussie Millions Event #7 today was former Australian cricket captain Shane Warne … A Philadelphia lawyer who once sued Bally’s Atlantic City claiming he was attacked by a drunken patron at one of the casino’s poker tables has filed a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft over its online Microsoft Points payment system.

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Welcome to the BLUFF Daily Buzz, where we scour the entire internet for all the latest news in and around the world of poker. If it involves chips and cards, or people known to associate with chips and cards, we’re there.

Doyle’s Obama joke generates minor Twitter blowback

Doyle Brunson is one of the most popular poker pros in the world, and the majority of his fanbase has been nothing but supportive of his presence on micro-blogging social network Twitter as @TexDolly. But a joke tweeted yesterday led to a couple of fans having testy exchanges with the 10-time WSOP bracelet winner and one fellow poker pro calling Brunson “uninformed.”

The offending tweet was posted mid-afternoon. “The Democrats say “give Obama time,” wrote Brunson. “Us Republicans agree, 25 to life seems appropriate!” Two Twitter users took offense and decided to reply to Brunson with personal insults and accusations.

“Wow, how much more racist can u get sir…smh,” wrote user @TruthIzEz.

“Really?” wrote user @PattyDukesNY. “Be a Republican but don’t be an idiot.”

Brunson’s response to both the offended tweeters was to let them know he was blocking both of them from viewing his feed so they wouldn’t be bothered by him anymore. With the loss of those two followers, Brunson was left with a mere 329,598 people keeping track of his musings 140 characters at a time. He also posted a tweet reading, “Just because I don’t like the way things are going with Obama’s 1st year has nothing to do with the color of his skin. Stop the racist BS!”

Two-time WSOP bracelet winner Jeff Madsen was the only fellow pro to weigh in on Brunson’s tweet, telling the living legend “I respect u doyle but it seems that ur politics aren’t very informed are they. Don’t listen to television.” Yes, folks, the same Jeff Madsen who espouses 9/11 conspiracy theories told Doyle Brunson his politics are uninformed. Brunson didn’t shoot at the easy target, though, telling Madsen instead: “Yep, when I was 23 years old, I thought everybody should get a handout too. Now, I know better, let em get out and work.”

Only one Twitter user who didn’t fire off some sort of insult got a reply from Brunson. That was user @dfmaicher, who wrote, “You just lost my business on DoylesRoom… you should be more worried about that.” Brunson’s response was, “Sorry about that, I hope you reconsider leaving Doylesroom. But if you don’t we still have 2,247,000 players left. Don’t leave!!”

See who else is unintentionally irritating random poker fans on our Poker Tweets page.

Team PartyPoker expands again

After years of not having a stable of sponsored pros, PartyPoker has gone sponsorship-crazy the last few months. Kara Scott became the latest to join the team last week, but after a short time to enjoy her status she’s sliding over to make room for the newest member of the team, Tony G.

The G, born Antanas Guoga, will make his debut as a member of Team Party at the Aussie Millions. In his tournament career he has won nearly $4 million, including 15 WSOP cashes with three final tables, two WPT final tables, and a win at the special WPT Bad Boys of Poker freeroll. He currently ranks second on Australia’s all-time money winner list behind only Joe Hachem, making him the winningest Aussie player never to win the WSOP Main Event.

As part of his deal, G will play on PartyPoker under the screen name ‘TonyG.” He’ll also have buy-ins to major land-based tournaments provided by Party. His own poker room, TonyGPoker.com, will also be absorbed by PartyGaming and all of its players will be transferred to Party-owned Noble Poker.

“I cannot wait to start playing for Team Party on the circuit,” said G, known as much for his trash-talking at the table as his winnings. “I’ve always loved Party and what better way to kick off than at the Aussie Millions. I am also really excited about the Premier League in February – it is the best event in poker in my eyes. After finishing runner-up and third in the last two years the title has to be mine! I just hope my rivals have the heart and commitment to the game to stop me!”

Tourney series under way on both coasts

With the international crowd grinding away in Australia and France for the Aussie Millions and EPT, American poker players have their own tournament series running here at home – on both the East and West Coasts, no less.

East Coast grinders are flocking to the Borgata in Atlantic City for the Borgata Winter Open, which kicked off yesterday with 1,563 players putting up $350 apiece in Event #1, a deep-stack no-limit hold’em affair. Another 22 preliminary tournaments with buy-ins ranging from $350 to $2,150 are on the schedule, and the series will wrap up with the $3,500 Championship Event which sports a $2 million guaranteed prize pool. The last time Borgata put on a $3,500 main event with a big guarantee, they shattered the WPT’s all-time attendance record. You can keep up with this year’s BWO over at the official Borgata Poker Blog.

Out west , meanwhile, there’s the LA Poker Classic, which also got started yesterday with its first event, a $335 no-limit hold’em tournament with a $1 million guaranteed prize pool. The first of four starting days for the tournament drew 1,282 players, which would appear to be a signal that this year’s LA Poker Classic will be the biggest in the series’ history. With a schedule covering nearly every discipline in poker and superstar tournament director Matt Savage running the show, the LAPC is definitely one of the best tournament series going in poker today.

Around the Table

Richard Webb won the Canadian Poker Tour’s championship for the second straight year, earning a sponsorship for tournaments throughout Canada and the rest of the world … Newest Team UB member Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin has donated enough money to his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, to allow it to install lights at its baseball stadium, where Baldwin and the rest of the team won the national Division III championship in 2005 … Struggling television network NBC has commissioned a pilot for a series called Tommy Supreme, featuring a poker-playing lawyer described as “a likable version of actor Hugh Laurie’s irascible doctor character on Fox Television’s House” as its main character … Former WPT hostess Layla Kayleigh has been picked up for a fourth season as co-host on MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew … Video game producer Sega’s online poker room is finally up and running – but not open to Americans.

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