Everybody wants to have a strong poker Sunday, but its hard to have much better of a day than Dario Minieri did yesterday. He started things off with winning $100,000 in the PokerStars $5,000 High Stakes Freezeout. He then added another $50,000 when he bested the field of 8 elite players in the $10,000 buy-in High Stakes Showdown. The field featured some of pokers elite, including: Barry Greenstein, Sorel Mizzi, and Darrell Dicken. Minieri continued the rush, and found himself deep in the $1,000 buy-in Sunday Million, where he finsihed 42nd, for just over $5,000. The day was almost complete, but Dario needed another score, and he got it. Dario took down a field of almost 300 of the best online pro’s in the $215 rebuy event on PokerStars for another $56,000. Minieri who made a name for himself in this past years World Series of Poker Main event is proving that he is no one hit wonder in the poker world. Its safe to say we will be seeing, and hearing a lot about the y oung Italian in the year to come.

The third season of NBC’s popular Poker After Dark begins late night on Monday. The format remains the same: Six pros each putting up $20,000 in a $120,000 winner take all match. Poker After Dark airs one match over several nights, giving the audience a chance to see most of the hands played, as well as the great table banter. 57 players have competed during the first two seasons, and the newest season features 15 newcomers including: Jean-Robert Bellande, Hoyt Corkins, Beth Shak, Gavin Smith and Scotty Nguyen.

Josh Field, better known in the poker world as the infamous JJProdigy has to make changes to his travel plans. Fields, who will turn 18 just before the PCA, had planned on attending and playing in the PCA this year. Field, who was caught in one of the first of, what would be a few different multiaccounting incidents was banned from PokerStars for life. He recently came out to pocketfives, and twoplustwo apologizing for his actions in the past, and stating he was hoping for a clean slate. As you can imagine it stirred up quite a controversy that led to the ban. The poker community did not take to kindly to his apology, and promptly bombarded PokerStars support with emails comdeming the young poker pro. A response from PokerStars came in the form of an email, which was originally posted on Pocketfives:

The WSOP Ciruit event previously scheduled for April 2nd through April 16th has had a change in date. The new dates for the event are March 30th through April 13th. Please mark your calendars accordingly.

Monday marked a big day in the Casino industry. All year Harrah’s has been working on a buyout by Apollo Management, and Texas Pacific Group, private equity buyers. The sale, worth $17.7 billion will be the largest casino sale ever. The National Indian Gaming Commission was the last approval needed in the year long battle. Last week, the Nevada Gaming Commission approved the sale. Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Illinois, and Iowa have previously approved the deal. Harrah’s expects the deal to be finalized in the beginning of 2008.

NBC today released the names of 17 more players invited to participate in the 2008 National Heads-Up Poker Championship.

The event begins with a drawing party at the nightclub Pure inside Caesars Palace in Las Vegas at 6:00 PM on February 28, 2008, with the tournament taking place the following three days until the champion is crowned.

Each player will put up $20,000 in an attempt to win the $500,000 first place prize money and lay claim to the title.

First time invitees to this event in this group include Bluff Magazine’s Player of the Year Bill Edler (pictured) and Kenny Tran, whose impressive 2007 WSOP earned him over $850,000.

The complete list of the 37 players invited so far can be found below. All of these players have been invited, but their participation has not yet been confirmed.

First 20 names released:

Doyle Brunson
Johnny Chan
Annie Duke
Shannon Elizabeth
Antonio Esfandiari
Chris Ferguson
Ted Forrest
Jamie Gold
Barry Greenstein
Jennifer Harman
Phil Ivey
Howard Lederer
Erick Lindgren
Jonathan Little
Mike Matusow
Scotty Nguyen
Gavin Smith
Brian Townsend
Paul Wasicka
Jerry Yang

Next 17 names released:

David Benyamine
Chad Brown
Todd Brunson
Freddy Deeb
Bill Edler
Eli Elezra
Clonie Gowen
John Juanda
Phil Laak
Daniel Negreanu
David Pham
Greg Raymer
Vanessa Rousso
Erik Seidel
Shawn Sheikhan
Kenny Tran
David Williams

The remaining 24 invitations are scheduled to go out by the end of this month. The final 3 spots will be filled by online and Caesars Palace qualifiers.

In its second week, “MrSmokey1″, 2007 WSOP Bracelet winner Steve Billirakis took home the winner take all freezeout on PokerStars this past week. With twenty competitors, each putting up $5,000, the $100,000 payday is among the top sought after prizes of the week.. The field was stacked once again, and included many big name players including last weeks winner “TheCleaner11″. Some of the other notables playing were: Chad “lilholdem954″ Batista, Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken, “Dariominieri”, Kevin “BeL0WaB0ve” Saul, and Sorel “zangbezan24″ Mizzi.

With the holiday season coming to a close, the poker community is gearing up for a very busy January. With multiple stops to choose from, players are for sure going to be doing a lot of traveling. Players will be kicking off the year with a trip to Atlantis, in the Caribbean, for the Caribbean Poker Adventure, a new stop on the European Poker Tour. The event will start on Janaury 5th, and due to the more leniant age restrictions, many of the top young online phenoms will be dipping their feet in the live circuit for the first time.

Joe Beevers won the Ladbrokes Poker Million VI over the weekend, beating a field of 72 in a shootout format to win the $1,000,000 first place prize.

Beevers bested a final table that included Irish Open champion Marty Smyth, 2002 WSOP Main Event runner-up Julian Gardner and Howard Lederer.

The $1,000,000 payday is by far the biggest of Beevers’ poker career.

Final Results

1st. Joe Beevers $1,000,000
2nd. Marty Smyth $500,000
3rd. Julian Gardner $250,000
4th. Liam Flood $150,000
5th. Howard Lederer $125,000
6th. Ian Cox $100,000

By Sean Callander

Grant Levy, a teacher from Sydney’s outer-western suburbs has become the first Australian player to win a $1 million prize on home soil after he outlasted Jeremiah Vinsant from the USA to win the PokerStars.net Asia Pacific Poker Tour Grand Final at Star City Casino in Sydney.

The 28-year-old father of two and former rugby league coach emerged victorious after a marathon heads-up battle that went 67 hands (and a final table of 226 hands).

Levy has stamped himself as the hottest property on the local tournament scene. He was third at the PokerNews Cup in Melbourne, outlasting a field of 428 players to finish third (winning $131,800) and has taken down two significant online tournaments in recent months.

Vinsant, who had already planned to dedicate himself to 12 months of major tournaments in 2008, has built himself a handy start bank in claiming the second prize of $621,540.

Another local player, Lei He, captured third place while the other Australian at the final table, Jai Kemp, finished fifth.

Players from more than 30 countries converged on Sydney for the $6000 buy-in event: many of them making their first trip to Australia.

The field of 561 for the APPT Grand Final was the second largest for a big buy-in event in Australian poker history, and generated a prize pool of $3.336 million.

Despite a field that included four world champions (Team PokerStars Pros Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem, plus PokerStars player Scotty Nguyen), fellow Team PokerStars Pros Lee Nelson and Isabelle Mercier and WSOP bracelet winner Jeff Lisandro, it was a relative newcomer who conquered the field - continuing a tradition established in earlier APPT events this year.

The winners of the respective events have underlined the diversity of people who’ve been swept up by the excitement and drama of tournament poker in recent years.

Brett Parise: a young student from the USA who won his way to the Philippines via a freeroll on PokerStars and won $180,000. Ziv Bachar, an aspiring 25-year-old poker pro from the Israel who took out the APPT Seoul title and took home $140,000, and Dinh Le, born in Vietnam, living in the UK and etched in poker history as the winner of the first event on Chinese soil as APPT Macau: Asian Poker Open champion.

Results: PokerStars.net APPT Grand Final, Star City Casino, Sydney, Australia

1st. Grant Levy (Australia) $1,000,000
2nd. Jeremiah Vinsant (USA) $621,540
3rd. Lei He (Australia) $322,280
4th. Sol Bergren (Canada) $230,200
5th. Jai Kemp (Australia) $158,830
6th. Barry Kohlhoff (USA) $115,100
7th. John Matwey (USA) $92,080
8th. Vijayan Nagarajan (Malaysia) $69,060
9th. Larry Wright (USA) $46,040

2006 World Series of Poker Main Event champ Jamie Gold and actor Dean Cain have signed on to be part of the field in “Operation All In“, a charity poker tournament hosted by mixed martial arts legend Randy Couture.

The event takes place at The Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Saturday January 12, 2008 from 1 - 6pm. Poker players will join stars from the MMA world and Hollywood with the chance to win big while giving back to help injured G.I.’s.

The No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em Tournament, limited to 15 tables, has a $550 buy-in with $200 rebuys. The event will also feature a silent auction and a live DJ and is open to the public during tournament hours.

UFC Champion and Army Veteran Randy “The Natural” Couture started the Xtreme Couture GI Foundation after visiting with amputees at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.

The foundation was especially formed to raise money and awareness for those wounded in action and their families. To date, more than 28,000 U.S. troops have been wounded in the war Iraq, a figure that doesn’t include the many more suffering the mental effects.

The Xtreme Couture GI Foundation goal is to help these brave men and women fulfill any of their unmet needs as they return back to civilian life.

To buy tickets call the Box Office at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas 800-HRD-ROCK or log on to www.hardrockhotel.com. You can also purchase tickets through Xtreme Couture MMA at 702.616.1022 or log on to www.xtremecouturegifoundation.org for more information.

JT: My name is Jon Turner, originally from Winston Salem, North Carolina.  I went to NC State in Raleigh, where I started playing poker, and now I live in Henderson, Nevada, just outside of Vegas.

NA: So you started playing live poker before you played online?

JT: Yes, actually I started with freerolls online, but only occasionally deposited small amounts of money. My real initiation into real money poker was through home games with fellows students and friends at NC State.

NA: How old are you now?

JT: 25

NA: Did you finish school?

JT: I did not actually graduate, I am close now, but I have not graduated yet.

NA: What was the timeline of you playing poker, school, and moving to Vegas?

JT: I basically started playing with a group of guys at NC State, many of which are very good and some who I actually back online these days. Basically we played every day. We played tournaments and then lots of cash games. So it was pretty much every day playing live poker for about a year or so. I played online a little bit here and there during that but I was never really an online player until a few months after I moved to Vegas.

NA: When did you move to Vegas?

JT: I moved to Vegas just before the Series in 2005

NA: You have been there for a while now, so things are going well?

JT: Yeah, about 2 ½ years. It’s been great from the start. I was playing 2/5 no limit for a living. Then late in the Series I did well in a major tournament and started playing in the Bellagio daily tournament and did really well in those. I really caught the tournament bug.  At that point I got online and pretty much discovered the online MTTs and never went back.

NA: So you started out as a 2/5 live player mainly playing in casinos in Vegas.

JT: Yeah, that’s how it started

NA: So as you said, now you are pretty much a full time tournament player. I guess you play a fair amount of live, but more of an online player. Would you say you are in a transitional stage or a lot of both — what would you call yourself? More online?

JT: Well, these days I’m definitely more of an online player but I don’t really like the moniker to begin with because I really played live for two years before jumping online. These days it’s pretty much just online except for about 10 big events every year and then all the prelims that I feel like getting in. You know, like this Five Diamonds Bellagio Series, I’m only playing three prelims. And then I’ll probably play the main event.

NA: So if you’re playing a lot more online these days, what would you say are your favorite tournaments to play across all sites, other than the Sunday majors.

JT: Well, I always look forward to Sundays but probably my best tournaments and the ones I’m mostly pulled to are the HORSE tournaments on Sundays, the 200 on stars and Full Tilt. I really consider myself more of a mixed game player than I do No Limit.

NA: So you mostly play No Limit due to the prize pools but if it was up to you, you’d play mixed games?

JT: Yeah, if it was up to me, every tournament online would be HORSE. And when it comes to cash games online I play 2-7 triple draw and Razz, and Stud8B, and a little bit of horse. And when it comes to live cash games, I pretty much only play mixed games.

NA: So how do you develop competencies in all different games? Is it practice, reading or what?

JT: I have done reading on all the games - well, not razz, it’s fairly easy to figure out, but all the other games, I have done some reading, and by this point, I have lots of experience.

NA: Who would you say are your toughest opponents online?

JT: apestyles has always been one.  He’s kind of the one who first got me into the online community so he’s always been a good friend.  SCTrojans is certainly one I want to stay away from.  And lilholdem954 - although we don’t always agree on things, I never want to have him on my left.  He’s probably the name that I most don’t want to see on my table.

NA: What would you consider to be your most significant poker accomplishment?  I know you got 2nd in the PokerStars Sunday Million, the WSOP final table mentioned earlier, etc.  What would you point to specifically?

JT: That’s a good question, it’s hard for me to answer that.  I’m kind of the guy who plays a lot of volume and I don’t have any really big wins.  I have plenty of wins, but nothing really big.  I’m more of a consistent, high-volume player.  The Sunday Million 2nd place is certainly my biggest cash live or online.  So that would be my biggest accomplishment online.  Live I would say it’s my competency in all of the games.  That’s probably what I’m most proud about as far as my poker career goes.

NA: One thing I noticed when reviewing your stats on thepokerdb was that unlike some players, it seems like you actually crush every site.  Some of the other players at the top of our rankings will crush Stars but lose on Full Tilt or the opposite and tons of people complain about certain sites in forum posts. How do you think you’ve done so well on across all sites?

JT: When I first started playing all the online tournaments, Stars took me a long time to get used to. It’s just a different mindset when you are on the different sites. And for a long time for me I couldn’t win on Stars but eventually I got over that and I really don’t know what it is these days. I back about nine players right now and a couple of them have a problem where they either hate UB and one hates Full Tilt and I think one of them now hates Stars. I think it just has to do with getting used to the blind structures of the different places, and the structures of the tournaments. Even though they are overall fairly similar, they have small differences that still stick out.

NA: Do you have any specific goals as far as winning any of the various internet player of the year awards (including the “2008 BLUFF Online Player of the Year”) or do you just play and see what happens?

JT: I pay a little bit of attention to them but my main goals are never to win one of those. I’ve heard a few players say they are trying to win some of the existing ones. If anything I’m looking to stay on top of the internettexasholdem.com rankings as I’m currently on top there.  Overall though, I’m really just playing to win the money.  I’m not trying to win awards or receive recognition; I’m trying to win tournaments. I’d love to build a bigger live career. I’m really a little bit frustrated that I only cashed one WPT Main Event. I’ve probably played about 13-14 10K+ as well and it’s really a goal of mine to get some big live cashes.  A WPT final table is a good goal. But I don’t really have big goals as far as online play goes.

NA: Now obviously for you, if you really like decent size buy-in HORSE, there are only Stars and Full Tilt options for you to play. What would you say is your favorite site, outside of the HORSE-offering component.

JT: These days I’d say Full Tilt. And its not just because I did get a deal with them, I was saying they were my favorite site before that as well. They are consistently looking at upping their guarantees, they are trying to grow, and they have been growing faster than any site in the last year or two. The support on both sites has been good. I just found that overall their deep stack structure takes longer on Full Tilt than Stars.  You play without antes for longer and the tournament seems to last longer. And it seems to have more play for a long time on Full Tilt rather than Stars.

NA: As you just mentioned, Full Tilt recently signed you and The Waco Kidd and a few more online players to deals.  That’s pretty exciting stuff for the online players to get recognized like that.

JT: To get a deal with any site like this in the first place has always been a goal of mine in a way. I think it’s great that Full Tilt is branching out to the online players. It is an online site, it’s what you are supposed to do. They made a very good effort to do that, and I’m glad to be apart of it.

NA: So even though Full Tilt doesn’t have a “flagship” live tournament every year like the PCA for PokerStars, you might call Aussie Millions their flagship tournament even though it doesn’t have their name directly attached to it. Will you be going to the Aussie Millions this year?

JT: I actually did already win a seat in the very first satellite they had, the 1k one. And I probably spent about 10K trying to get another one, so it’s not always as good as it seems. But yeah, I’m definitely going, I’d be going even if I didn’t win the satellite. I’ve always wanted to go to Australia and it’s an excellent tournament with a great structure that gets a lot of TV coverage. Full Tilt does make a big effort to get all their pros over there, so I definitely would consider it to be the Full Tilt Tournament.

NA: So like you were saying, you’ve been to a bunch of live events before, you plan on going to the Aussie Millions. Other than the obvious ones like the World Series of Poker in 08, what else do you plan on playing in 08? Any EPTs or just Vegas and LA?

JT: I played the Barcelona EPT this year, won my seat online and honestly wasn’t thrilled with the structure and compared to a WPT event, it wasn’t run very well.  I’m not really big on the EPT unless its for the Monte Carlo championship - I’m trying to win a seat in that.  I’m definitely going to play the WPT events in Vegas - the Mirage, Mandalay Bay, and several at Bellagio. Bellagio is my favorite place to play live for sure. And maybe get back to Borgata.

NA: LAPC and stuff like that?

JT: I haven’t done the LAPC before. I’m not a big fan of Commerce, but it’s so big and this year I think I will make the effort to go to it.

NA: So I guess, even though you don’t have specific goals, I guess the two goals for anyone would be WPT final table and a WSOP bracelet. So do you plan on playing most of the NLHE events?  Since you are a mixed game player you probably play even more. What sort of volume do you plan on putting in at the World Series in 2008?

JT: In 2006 I played 11 events and this past year I played 21.  I final tabled Event #1 (won by Steve “MrSmokey1” Billirakis) and then as soon as I busted out of the final table, I jumped in the $2500 S8/LO8.  I’m definitely looking forward to playing a lot of the mixed game events.  I’ll play at least 20 events and hopefully a little more.

NA: I saw that you, Rizen and apestyles agreed to collaborate with Matthew Hilger to write a couple of books.  Can you tell us a little bit about that?

JT: Sure, Matthew Hilger is publishing a book and he’s invited a few of us to produce a series of books about online hands in the vein of Harrington’s books.  We’re basically going to be analyzing a lot of online hand histories of our own.  I believe there’s going to be at least 150 full hands in each volume and there’s going to be a lot of in-depth analysis by all three of us.  It’s going to be a two volume work - one focusing on before you make the money and one focusing on after you get into the money.  We’re shooting to have the first one out by the 2008 WSOP.  It’s a great opportunity for me and hopefully everybody’s going to love the book.

NA: So it’s all people contributing hand histories, it isn’t like you’re doing mixed games, someone else is doing another game, etc?

JT: No, it’s all no limit hold’em.  One point of having the three of us together is basically to look at contrasting styles.  Rizen the TAG, I would be the mix and apestyles would be the LAG.  I go back and forth a lot.  To be fair, both of them are able to play both styles as well.  I think Matthew specifically wanted the players to have varying styles.

There are some hands that all three of us are going to give answers to independent of each other trying to show what we would each do.  From what I’ve heard so far, Matthew really likes the results of that.  So it should give you a lot of different options to see how three different poker minds work through the same hand.

NA: I know that you’ve done a little bit with PokerXFactor.  And apestyles is a guest pro there and Rizen is more involved than either one of you there.  Is it just a coincidence that the three of you came from PokerXFactor to do this book?

JT: That’s pure coincidence.  Matthew had Rizen and I on board and he asked for suggestions for another player and Rizen and I both put down apestyles as our #1 choice.  And everything fell into place from there.

NA: Do you plan on doing more with PokerXFactor?

Antigua and Barbuda today expressed its mixed reaction to the ruling of the arbitrators issued today in its long running dispute with the United States over Internet gambling.

The panel agreed with Antigua that it had no effective trade sanctions against the United States in the area of services and authorized Antigua to suspend its obligations to the United States in respect of copyrights, trademarks and other forms of intellectual property rights.

However, it went on to set Antigua’s level of annual trade loss at US $21.0 million, much less than the US $3.4 billion Antigua had requested, although considerably more than the US $500,000 the United States had proposed.

In an unprecedented approach that is sure to arouse controversy, the arbitrators assessed Antigua’s level of damages based upon a hypothetical form of compliance proposed by the United States rather than through the withdrawal of the overall prohibition on the provision of remote gaming services. This decision resulted in a rare, perhaps unprecedented disagreement among the arbitrators, with one of the three panelists dissenting from the approach adopted by the other two members.

Mark Mendel, the lawyer who has been spearheading this case for the Antiguan government since it began back in 2003 observed “I am pleased that the panel approved our ability to cross-retaliate by suspension of intellectual property rights of United States business interests. That has only been done once before and is, I believe, a very potent weapon.”

Mr Mendel expressed less satisfaction with the amount of damages assessed. “I find it astonishing that two of the three panelists would in essence grant the United States the benefit of a hypothetical method of compliance most favorable to the American side in assessing Antigua’s level of trade impairment. What appears to have been done here is assuming a form of compliance that has not happened and probably will not happen without giving Antigua the ability to contest the method under the WTO’s normal procedures,” he added. Unlike other WTO rulings, awards of arbitrators are not subject to review by the Appellate Body of the WTO.

While questioning the low number, Mr Mendel remains positive about the dispute going forward. “US $21 million a year in intellectual property rights suspension going forward indefinitely is not such a bad asset to have. I hope that the United States government will now see the wisdom in reaching some accommodation with Antigua over this dispute and look forward to seeing efforts in this regard.”

NBC has announced the first group of players invited to the 2008 National Heads-Up Poker Championship, scheduled to take place February 29 - March 2, 2008, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and air on NBC in April and May.

Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, Johnny Chan, Chris Ferguson, Barry Greenstein, Phil Hellmuth, Gavin Smith, Antonio Esfandiari, Shannon Elizabeth and defending champ Paul Wasicka have all been invited back, while Jonathan Little, Brian Townsend and WSOP Main Event champ Jerry Yang (pictured) are among the new invitees.

Well, its official, Bill Edler is the third annual Bluff Player of the Year. Edler bested a tough field of competitors, amassing a whopping 707.57 points, the most points ever earned in a calendar year. Edler joins 2006 Player of the Year Chad Brown, and 2005 Player of the Year Phil Ivey. The tremendous year was highlighted with his first World Series of Poker Bracelet in the $5,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em event and the WPT Gulf Poker Championship he won in Biloxi. Be sure to check out the March issue of Bluff for the full story, as well as a recap of the 2007 year in poker.