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.

Brandon Cantu takes his taser like a man

Cantu takes a taser for TASER

From the annals of charity poker tournament prop bets comes this video from Phil Hellmuth, shot at the TASER Foundation tourney that recently went down in Arizona with Hellmuth playing the host’s role. The video has a lot of set-up and starts to feel like it won’t be worth it, but then comes the great payoff of Brandon Cantu taking a taser in front of a crowd of poker players and hangers-on who are all chanting, “TASER! TASER!”

Hat-tip on this one goes to Pokerati, who says that Cantu was paying up on a prop bet he lost to Clonie Gowen at the tournament last year.

Corporate fringe benefits don’t look like this

Taking the odd taser shot to pay off prop bets probably wouldn’t be considered a side benefit of being a poker player, but judging a beauty pageant would definitely fall into that category - if you can get the work, that is. Luckily for Absolute Poker pro Matt Vengrin, he’s been hired on to lend a scrutinizing eye to the Miss California Teen USA pageant this weekend.

“As a poker player, I know how fierce competition can be,” said Vengrin. “Just like playing in the World Series of Poker, these girls are in for a grueling but fun weekend and I’m excited to be an integral part of the experience.”

Vengrin signed with Absolute this June, his reward for playing well enough to earn more than $2 million in online tournaments over the last two years.

Dwan crushes George on final day of Million Dollar Challenge

With the way Isildur1 has been spanking him lately on Full Tilt, it’s a good thing Tom “durrrr” Dwan ran good on the last day of has the Full Tilt Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge to help recoup some of his losses. After two days of five-figure swings and a relatively small total profit against two professional opponents, the third day of the challenge saw Dwan take amateur Sammy George for $750,000 to end the challenge on a high note.

Tom Dwan, Hammer Master

George started off well but had to rebuy when he ran his A-K into Dwan’s aces. Then the two players started playing “the 7-2 game,” with anyone who won a pot showing 7-2 getting $10,000. George managed to win a few good pots that way, but Dwan pulled off the coup of the night with the hand known to many as The Hammer. With about $130,000 in the pot and the board reading J A 6 3 3, Dwan moved all-in with 7 2 for $400,000; George held A 6 for two pair and would have won a million-dollar pot, but he elected to fold and gave Dwan the chance to show the spirit-crushing bluff.

“We’re playing the 7-2 game and the board has come very strong – he either had the nuts or nothing and I was so close to calling,” George said of the hand. “But you can’t in that situation – if I’d called and he has the nut-flush I’m an idiot, if I call and he has air I’m a hero. But I enjoyed my game and the way I played, I guess there are a few things I could tweak but not totally change. I’m a bit disheartened by the loss and I know a lot of people thought I would lose but when it airs people will see a different side to the result.”

With his small loss to Marcello “luckexpress” Marigiliano and his relatively small win against Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies figured in, Dwan’s total take for the three-day challenge was $790,000.

(Dwan ends Million Dollar Challenge in fine style - Matchroom Sport)

Canadian Olympic curling hopeful is online poker player

The Winnipeg Free Press featured a story earlier this week about 25-year-old Olympic curling hopeful Jason Gunnlaugson, who plays online poker to pay the bills while he tries to make his way to Vancouver for the upcoming 2010 Winter Games. Not only is the story a good read, but the writer seems to have a pretty good handle on the language of poker, too.

Gunnlaugson, he of the wild mop of hair and exuberant fist-pump, lives in a Winnipeg crash pad with five other 20-somethings and when he’s not throwing rocks and working on his plot to overthrow the old boys of curling, Gunnlaugson flops down in front of his computer and attempts to grind out a living playing online poker.

“It’s a bit of a different lifestyle but I’m basically in love with the game of curling. I want to spend as much time as possible playing and learning about it and to do that… well, the cards thing just came about because of the amount of time we have to take off to play. Most employers aren’t cool with that, so I had to find something on my own that was a financial fit,” said Gunnlaugson, who last weekend clawed his way through the pre-qualifying event in Prince George to grab a berth in the Road to the Roar Olympic qualifying event in Edmonton.

“I make a little bit of money. Nothing fancy. It kind of becomes like a normal job where you sit at the computer for a couple of hours and you make like an hourly wage. It’s better than anything else I could do.”

Gunnlaugson and his team are seeded last in the final tournament that will determine who becomes Team Canada for the curling competition next year in Vancouver.

(Curler is coming up aces - Winnipeg Free Press)

Poker: better for your job prospects than you may have believed

Contrary to what you’ve heard from your nagging relatives, it turns out that taking time off to play poker for a few years actually can land you a job.
Bloomberg took a look at the intersection of poker and finance today in an article that examines how suitable successful poker players are for jobs in the financial industry. With the success of so many players with financial backgrounds that’s not too surprising, but a few of the quotes in the story will definitely an eyebrow or two.

After the World Series of Poker started in Las Vegas four months ago, Options Group recruiter Simon Satanovsky said he received a hedge-fund request for online poker players with no financial experience. He wouldn’t identify the client. “Before, we were asking about GPA or the Math/Physics Olympiad,” Satanovsky, a former Russian national bridge champion, said in a telephone interview. “Now, we’re asking questions about poker successes.”

The article features plenty of input from Full Tilt pro Brandon Adams and even a few quotes from new world champ Joe Cada, who says he won’t be taking a job in finance anytime soon.

(Harvard Poker Pro Says Texas Hold’em Can Teach Traders To Fold - Bloomberg)

Day 3 at EPT Vilamoura is in the books and the rich continued to get richer as Antony Lellouche and Jeff Sarwer steamrolled the field for a third straight day.

After two days of letting Sarwer enjoy the top spot, today was Lellouche’s turn to assume the role of chip leader. The French pro, whose resume boasts three EPT final tables including a second-place finish at the 2008 EPT San Remo, more than doubled his stack over the course of the day to end the day as the only player to crack the one-million-chip mark. Sarwer, meanwhile, piled up nearly another 400,000 chips to end the day at 913,500.

Of the 45 players who busted today, 24 made the money, each taking home a minimum of €7,652. Tomorrow’s payouts will go from €10,151 for 17th through 24th places, all the way up to €23,426 for ninth and tenth places. Play is scheduled to resume at 12 p.m. local time tomorrow.

Host country Portugal is home to six of the remaining 24 players, including three who will enter Day 4 with one of the ten largest stacks in the tournament. Tops among them is pro Ricardo Sousa, who is looking to make up for a second-place finish at the 2008 EPT Warsaw with a win on his home turf; Joao Barbosa, the only Portuguese player ever to win an EPT event, is still in the running to become the first player ever to win two EPT titles; and Claudio Coelho has already achieved his first EPT cash but moved up late in the day thanks to being on the right side of a queens-over-jacks all-in confrontation with Ruben Visser.

EPT Vilamoura Day 3 Top Ten Chip Counts

1. Antony Lellouche (France) 1,134,000
2. Jeff Sarwer (Canada) 913,500
3. Ricardo Sousa (Portugal) 765,000
4. Ruben Visser (Netherlands) 749,000
5. Jan Skampa (Czech Republic) 562,000
6. Claudio Coelho (Portugal) 508,500
7. Jude Ainsworth (Ireland) 491,000
8. Gino Gabriel (United Kingdom) 385,000
9. Matt Johns (United States) 374,000
10. Joao Barbosa (Portugal) 362,000

Two days of poker are in the books at EPT Vilamoura in Portugal, and former child chess prodigy Jeff Sarwer of Canada leads the way with only 69 players still in contention for the top prize of €404,793.

Sarwer, who also held the chip lead at the end of Day 1B, made the most out of several confrontations with his friend Shaun Deeb, especially the last one when he flopped a straight against Deeb’s top pair, top kicker. After leading this tournament for two days it appears that he is once again poised to make a run at the final table, which eluded him at EPT Warsaw last month when he finished in tenth place.

Sitting right behind Sarwer is French pro Antony Lellouche, who was one of the chip leaders along with Sarwer on Day 1B and Day 3 in Warsaw. Lellouche was fortunate enough to pick up Jason Mercier’s stack on a hand where aggressive young champ decided to make a huge move at the wrong time; his K K held up against Mercier’s Q J and boosted his stack past 400,000 late in the day. Lellouche is looking to add to his already impressive total of three EPT final tables, though a win here would be his first championship.

Also in the top ten are new Dutch Team PokerStars pro Ruben Visser, Day 1A chip leader Ljubomir Josipovic, Dutch online star Johan “busto_soon” Van Til, and new Irish Team PokerStars Pro Jude Ainsworth, who sits in tenth place heading to Day 3 despite only beginning the day with a stack worth 13,100. Still in the hunt, but further down the leaderboard, are the Hendon Mob’s Ross Boatman, Season 5 EPT Warsaw winner Joao Barbosa, Dutch pot-limit Omaha guru Rolf Slotboom, 2007 WSOP Main Event final tablist Alexander Kravchenko, and 2005 WSOP Main Event final tablist Andy Black.

Day 3 begins tomorrow at noon local time at Casino Vilamoura.

EPT Vilamoura Day 2 Top Ten Chip Counts

1. Jeff Sarwer (Canada) 549,800
2. Antony Lellouche (France) 484,700
3. Ruben Visser (Netherlands) 389,500
4. Ljubomir Josipovic (Austria) 371,700
5. Martin Wendt (Denmark) 360,300
6. Luis Rodriguez (Spain) 321,500
7. Pierre Neuville (Belgium) 270,500
8. Gino Gabriel (United Kingdom) 264,800
9. Johan Van Til (Netherlands) 259,500
10. Jude Ainsworth (Ireland) 230,600

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.

Full Tilt Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge continues

Tom “durrrr” Dwan completed the second leg of his live Full Tilt Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge at the Les Ambassadeurs club in London yesterday, and his opponent was none other than the combustible Finn, Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies. Blinds began at $500/$1,000 and went as high as $2,000/$4,000; the two both bought in for $250,000, and each opted for one $250,000 rebuy during the 500-hand session of pot limit Omaha.

Still tired from the previous day’s session against Marcello “luckexpress” Marigliano and a night of high stakes action with mysterious Swede Isildur1 on Full Tilt, Dwan nevertheless managed to carve out a $68,000 win against Ziigmund during a session that saw some big swings in both players’ favor. Afterward both of them acknowledged that it could have gone either way, though Sahamies admitted to fatigue near the end of the match. “I played badly in the last five hours and made six or so bad calls in the last half an hour,” he said. “But we played for such a long time that I was a little bit tired. It was one of the toughest I’ve ever played in and it was great to be involved.”

Minus the loss to Marigliano, Dwan is up $42,500 over the first two days of the three-day challenge. Tomorrow he will face businessman and high-stakes amateur Sammy “Any Two” George in what Bluff Europe calls Dwan’s “most +EV match of the challenge.”

(Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan beats Ilari ‘Ziigmund’ Sahamies in Full Tilt Million Dollar Challenge - Bluff Europe)

Marcus Bebb-Jones may be extradited to the US on murder charges (Photo: The Daily Telegraph)

British poker player faces extradition to US for wife’s murder

A British poker player with more than $240,000 in tournament winnings since 2007, is facing extradition to the United States on charges that he murdered his wife.

Prosecutors for the United States government told a British extradition court today a sordid tale with Marcus Bebb-Jones, now 46, at the center. The prosecution maintains that in 1997 Bebb-Jones murdered Sabrina Bebb-Jones, dumped her body in a national park, and then took off for a weekend in Las Vegas where he racked up thousands of dollars in charges on her credit cards. Over the course of his “playboy lifestyle” weekend he attempted suicide by firing a gun into his mouth but somehow managed to survive the incident without serious injury. He later moved to live in Kidderminster, England, with his mother and his son, who is now 15.

After returning to England, Bebb-Jones found success playing mostly small buy-in tournaments in the United Kingdom. His first win came in September of 2007, when he booked £90,000 ($184,370) for winning a £100 pot-limit holdem tournament at the Grosvenor Grand Prix in Walsall. All told he has eight final tables to his credit, including an appearance in the final nine of the 2008 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour main event at Brighton, where he finished in seventh place.

Bebb-Jones was questioned by police at the time of his wife’s disappearance but never faced criminal charges, as her body could not be found. Her skull was found by a rancher in a mountain pass in northwest Colorado in 2004, however, opening the door to criminal charges. If extradited to the United States, he would face a maximum punishment of life in prison without chance of parole. The British Home Secretary is set to make a final decision on Bebb-Jones’ extradition by next week.

(Champion poker player facing extradition over wife’s murder - The Daily Telegraph)

Cada media blitz continues

Joe Cada has been the WSOP Main Event champion for a little more than a week, but life hasn’t slowed down for him since the moment he won the tournament. David Letterman and CNN have come calling this week, following on the heels of FOX, CNBC, CBS, and countless radio stations. This evening he continued his media tour with a stop in the Bristol, Conn., studios of ESPN, where he appeared on SportsCenter. (If you missed it, you’re in luck - ESPN runs it a few hundred times per day.)

Cada will keep with the sports theme this weekend when he travels to Ann Arbor, Mich., for the Michigan-Ohio State football game on Saturday. There’s no advance word as to whether he’ll appear on that broadcast, but given how quickly he’s taken to the media game it also wouldn’t be a very big surprise.

A Piece of Taylor could be worth $5,000

Piece of Taylor up for grabs at CardRunners

CardRunners founder Taylor “Green Plastic” Caby will be at the final table of the Full Tilt Poker Million early next month, and you can win a piece of his action - for free.

Truly Free Poker Training (TFPT), a program sponsored by Full Tilt, is backing the Piece of Taylor promotion which will see one of its members win 1% of Caby’s action at the Poker Million final table. TFPT lets players earn free memberships to training sites CardRunners and StoxPoker just by playing at Full Tilt, and the accrued benefits don’t affect any bonuses or rakeback. That means it doesn’t cost anything at all to take part in this promotion - a rarity in poker.

Anyone who is signed up at TFPT by December 3rd will have a chance to win the Piece of Taylor, which is guaranteed to be worth at least $500. But if Caby can overcome fierce opposition from the likes of James Akenhead, Luke “FullFlush” Schwartz, Dag Martin Mikkelsen, Juha Helppi, and Peter Vasiliou at the December 4th final table, the value of the one-percent share goes all the way up to $5,000.

(Piece of Taylor - CardRunners)

Today was the second starting flight at Casino Vilamoura in Portugal, where the European Poker Tour’s latest main event is taking place. Yesterday’s field of 136 and the 186 players at the tables on Day 1B combined for a total field of 322, building the prize pool to €1,561,700. A total of 48 players will make the money, with €404,793 designated for the winner.

Rising above the fray on Day 1B was Canada’s Jeff Sarwer, a former chess prodigy who just missed out on an EPT final table in Warsaw when he finished in tenth place. Today saw him making plans to do himself one better in Portugal, as he ended up with a stack worth 143,400 by the end of play thanks in large part to two big pots in the final levels. One of those was his elimination of Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier; Sarwer flopped trips with 9 7 on a 9 9 6 board and managed to outrun ElkY’s A 8 to begin his climb up the leaderboard.

Among those who registered but busted out before the day’s play was complete were the aforementioned Mr. Grospellier, Peter Eastgate, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Dario Minieri, and Vanessa Rousso. Noteworthy Day 1B survivors include high-stakes online cash game player Sami “LarsLuzak” Kelopuro, 2009 WSOP double bracelet winner JP Kelly, 2005 WSOP Main Event final tablist Andy Black, Belgian WSOP bracelet winner Davidi Kitai, 2009 WSOP Europe Main Event final tablist Praz Bansi, 2007 WSOP Main Event final tablist Alexander Kravchenko, and former EPT Player of the Year Luca Pagano.

Day 2 play begins tomorrow at 12 p.m. local time.

EPT Vilamoura Day 1B Top Ten Chip Counts

1. Jeff Sarwer (Canada) 143,400
2. Stefan Mattsson (Sweden) 125,100
3. Vishal Pundjabi (Germany) 124,600
4. Rob Yong (United Kingdom) 123,300
5. Amir Pirbazari (Ireland) 122,800
6. James Collopy (United States) 122,400
7. John Eames (United Kingdom) 110,200
8. Marco Della Tommasina (Italy) 109,600
9. Eduardo Lopez (Spain) 106,100
10. Rumen Nanev (Bulgaria) 104,600

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.

Dwan drops first Live Challenge match

The Full Tilt Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge is officially underway, and its namesake came out on the wrong end of the first match - though not by much.

Durrrr lost some pocket change to Marigliano at Les Ambassadeurs

Tom “durrrr” Dwan played Marcello “luckexpress” Marigliano heads-up for 12 hours yesterday at the Les Ambassadeurs club in London, with a $250,000 initial buy-in and the first 11 hours of play consisting solely of no-limit hold’em before the format changed to pot-limit Omaha for the final hour. Dwan won 55 percent of the pots in the match, but that wasn’t enough to keep him from posting a $25,500 loss at the end of the session.

“It was a really aggressive match,” said Dwan. “There was a time when Marcello folded 20 hands in a row then the next hand he picked up a gutshot and decided to win the 150k out there. But he made two really good reads and without either one of them he ends up down 50k or so but instead he’s up. They were key hands really and there were some other big hands but it was an interesting match – of course I wish I’d won.”

Next up for Dwan is Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies, followed by Sammy “Any Two” George. The series of heads-up matches is being filmed to air on British television next year, while Americans will have to be content with reruns of the WSOP and whatever new “poker game show” the networks throw our way until it’s time for the new season of High Stakes Poker.

(Marigliano wins Million Dollar Challenge opener - Matchroom Sport)

2010 WSOP: more space, July 4th off, no commissioner

WSOP spokesman Seth Palansky talked to the Las Vegas Sun yesterday about next year’s plans for the Series, and while Jeffrey Pollack is no longer along for the ride it seems as if the former commissioner’s tradition of meeting past mistakes head-on and making every year better than the one before is still in place.

This year’s Main Event scheduling snafu, which saw Day 1D sell out after the poorly-attended Day 1B fell on July 4th, is being fixed permanently: the Main Event will either start after the national holiday, or there will be no poker played that day. “We hope to address it somewhat with an expanded footprint for this year, which means more poker tables so we can have more players,” Palansky said. “But it’s more important to make it abundantly clear to register in plenty of time.” As for the rest of the schedule, there will be an even bigger focus on events with lower buy-ins in light of the success of this year’s “Stimulus Special” tournament. (A preliminary schedule was leaked on the WSOP.com website yesterday but has since been removed.)

Finally, Palansky confirmed that there are no plans to replace the commissioner role that Pollack vacated. “There’s no plans to replace the commissioner role, nor do we feel that there’s a void there,” Palansky said. “We feel that the brand has grown and the staff that has been here throughout is here and ready.”

(World Series of Poker looks ahead to 2010 - Las Vegas Sun)

Matt Keikoan banked $106,435 for his win at Harvey's Lake Tahoe

Matt Keikoan wins WSOP Circuit Lake Tahoe main event

The latest stop of the WSOP Circuit has concluded at Harvey’s Lake Tahoe, and 2008 WSOP bracelet winner Matt Keikoan came out on top of the championship event.

The tournament drew just 64 players and took only two days to play to completion. Despite the small field, Keikoan’s ascent to the top was anything but guaranteed. Recent Festa al Lago champion Tommy Vedes, former WSOP bracelet winner Michael Woo, and online pro Alan “BodogAri” Engel all had designs of their own for capturing the gold ring. It was Keikoan’s confrontations with the loose-aggressive Engel that helped him to secure the tournament, particularly the hand where he spiked a two-outer on the river to eliminate Engel and seize a big lead with just three players remaining.

“I’m really excited to win, but I’m also really tired,” Keikoan said. “There were some good players here.  But I always feel comfortable playing at Lake Tahoe because I have come here to the Circuit each year it’s been held.  It’s kind of a home field advantage for me, I believe.”

(Cop Gets Beat By a King - WSOP.com)

Cada media tour hits CNN; ESPN on deck

The Joe Cada World Tour continued today on CNN’s American Morning, where the youngest WSOP Main Event champ of all time got a chance to talk with hosts John Roberts and Kiran Chetry for several minutes and acquitted himself well, much like he did last night on the Late Show With David Letterman. Check out Cada’s appearance on CNN here, and the Letterman video here.

The World Tour continues tomorrow at ESPN’s website. If you’ve got a question of your own that nobody’s asked Cada yet, you’ll have a chance to ask him yourself tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. ET when he stops by ESPN SportsNation for a chat with fans. You can send in your question or comment at this SportsNation page.

PPA’s Twitter campaign gaining attention in Washington

With time nearly out before the UIGEA regulations go into effect on Dec. 1, the Poker Players Alliance has organized a “Tweet For Poker” campaign to contact Senators and members of Congress directly via Twitter and urge them to protect online poker. While it’s hard to gauge how effective the campaign has been so far, it’s worth noting that Tweet For Poker has earned the notice of Washington-based political paper The Hill.

In a column that normally covers activity on the Twitter accounts of politicians and diplomats, The Hill drew attention to the PPA campaign, which is noteworthy for what constituents are telling politicians instead of the other way around. The writer got a few minor facts wrong (such as saying the UIGEA banned online gambling, which it did not), but even having poker talked about outside of regular poker circles is a good thing. After all, as Oscar Wilde once said, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

(Online poker group organizes Twitter advocacy campaign - The Hill)

Poker programming on mainstream television has always been a two-hour final table broadcast, cash game action or more recently a game show mash-up. However Wednesday night marks a new direction for poker on TV with the debut of Poker2Nite on Fox Sports Net.

Hosted by Joe Sebok and Scott Huff, the 30 minute show will cover all the current events from inside the poker world both online and live. Sebok and Huff have worked together in some capacity for years now most recently on PokerRoad.

Episodes begin airing Wednesday night at 11 pm local time with repeats scheduled for Thursdays at 4 pm and Fridays at 11 am and 6 pm. Check local listings for the time in your area.

The new look of the online poker tables at UB.com.

Online poker players have used the moniker “UB” for over ten years and now UltimateBet will simply be known as UB Poker an will be found at a new domain name, www.UB.com.

The move from the old company name to UB.com comes complete with some software updates and a much improved tournament schedule. Company executives are promising that the new branding initiative isn’t just about a fancy new logo but a new way of doing business.

“The launch of UB.com represents a turning point for our company. We have assembled a great group of professionals who are passionate about poker to build the UB brand. Our goal is to create products and services that poker players really want,” said Paul Leggett, Chief Operating Officer of Tokwiro, the parent company for UB Poker. “We are trying to listen very carefully to both our players and the poker community to help us achieve this goal.”

Critics will point to the superuser scandal of 2008 as the reason behind the new corporate identity but Leggett stresses it’s all about returning the company to the players.

“The launch of UB.com is not just a new domain with a different logo, it’s much more than that. It’s a complete new direction for UB. It’s software built with the serious poker player in mind,” said Leggett. “And finally, it’s tournaments and promotions that poker players care about.”

Annie Duke, Phil Hellmuth and Joe Sebok will continue to represent UB Poker at international tournaments around the world. All three will also have input into the day-to-day operations of the company.

“In the ten years since I have been involved with the UB brand, I have never been prouder to represent the company as much as I am right now. We have great people captaining the ship, we have a great vibe and some serious swagger. I look forward to the day when we are the largest poker site on the planet,” said Hellmuth.

A total of 136 players showed up today for the first of two starting flights of the European Poker Tour main event in the Portuguese seaside resort region of Vilamoura, the newest addition to the the EPT’s Season 6 schedule.

EPT Vilamoura Day 1A chip leader Ljubomir Josipovic - photo courtesy PokerStars

The overnight chip leader is Austria’s Ljubomir Josipovic, who closed out the day with a stack worth 192,900. Josipovic has five final table finishes at non-EPT European poker festivals since last August, including a second-place finish in a preliminary event at the Master Classics in Amsterdam last week.

Trailing Josipovic is Lithuanian Dominykas Karmazinas. On the last level of the day he hit the action flop of A 7 6 a little harder than his American opponent, Tyler Bonkowski. Karmazinas held K 8 for the king-high flush to Bonkowski’s A A for top set, and it held to send the American home and Karmazinas to the top of the leaderboard.

Dutch PokerStars pro Ruben Visser finished the day in third place, thanks mostly to a huge pot against France’s Guillaume de la Gorce. The two both got their stacks in on a T 8 6 9 9 board, de la Gorce with J T for the jack-high flush and Visser with 6 6 for a full house and one of the biggest pots of the day.

Plenty of familiar names are sprinkled throughout the list of 76 remaining players who will return on Thursday for Day 2, including Jason Mercier, Katja Thater, Chad Brown, Shaun Deeb, Antony Lellouche, and Joao Barbosa. Play on Day 1B, when Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Dario Minieri, and Luca Pagano are set to hit the felt, is scheduled to begin at 12 p.m. local time. Prize pool and payouts will be available after registration closes tomorrow.

EPT Vilamoura Day 1A Top Ten Chip Counts

1. Ljubomir Josipovic (Austria) 192,900
2. Dominykas Karmazinas (Lithuania) 183,000
3. Ruben Visser (Netherlands) 172,400
4. Daniel Drescher (Germany) 146,800
5. Pierre Neuville (Belgium) 141,100
6. Mohamed Razab (Netherlands) 97,100
7. Alexey Yuzikov (Russia) 96,500
8. Pedro Tomas (Portugal) 87,900
9. Michel Abecassis (France) 85,500
10. Goncalo Santos (Portugal) 84,400

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.

New poker game show features familiar faces

Mike Sexton will host new MyTV game show Shuffle Up And Deal

Poker game shows are apparently the biggest trend at the crossroads between television and poker right now, so it’s not surprise to hear that another one called Shuffle Up and Deal is coming to the small screen in the near future. According to the press release announcing the show:

In each episode, amateur poker players choose their own cards from an over-sized electronic board, and the turn of each card either helps the contestant’s hand or destroys their chances of winning. The main objective of the game is to finish with the largest amount of cash winnings amongst the five contestants. The one that advances to the bonus round plays for a progressive jackpot that seeds at $250,000 and goes up ten thousand dollars for every day it is not hit. The jackpot will eventually top out at one million dollars.

That doesn’t sound all too poker-y, but it seems that’s the cost of doing business as “TV’s First Family-Friendly Poker-Themed Game Show.” The lineup of talent attached to the show helps to tilt it back in the right direction, though; hosting the show will be none other than 2009 Poker Hall of Fame inductee Mike Sexton, along with former Ultimate Poker Challenge hostess Brandi Williams. A traveling live version of the show will also visit casinos around the US, sporting former Bluff Player of the Year Chad Brown as its emcee.

The myTV network, which reaches some 50 million viewers in the U.S., has ordered 13 episodes of the show to air early next year.

World champ to appear on Letterman tonight

Newly crowned world champion Joe Cada is just beginning to enjoy his reign. After appearing on WWE Monday Night Raw at Madison Square Garden last night, the 21-year-old is continuing his New York trip with a scheduled appearance on the Late Show With David Letterman.

It looks like he’s the first poker player to appear on the late night king’s show since 2004, when Annie Duke was a guest, which has to put Cada’s WSOP Main Event win firmly in the “good for poker” category - especially if Dave asks him about playing online and gives him a chance to stump for the entire community. Cada said last night that he’ll be playing a cash game backstage with the Late Show production crew before heading back to MSG for a New York Rangers-Washington Capitals hockey game - not a bad way to spend the evening whether you’re the world champion or not!

The Late Show With David Letterman airs on CBS at 11 p.m. ET.

Bodog bids Bellande bye-bye

Bellande out at Bodog

You wouldn’t know from looking at his Twitter feed, where Bodog’s logo is still prominently featured, but Jean-Robert Bellande is no longer a member of Team Bodog. Sources close to Bellande say that his sponsorship contract expired at the end of October and the online room declined to renew it.

The move doesn’t come as a big surprise. With the exception of a second-place finish in a bracelet event at the 2008 WSOP, success in big tournaments has eluded Bellande for the last several years. However, he made the most of a 2005 televised final table appearance at the WSOP Circuit Las Vegas, spinning that face time into an appearance on CBS’ reality series Survivor and the Bodog sponsorship. Who knows - with the public’s appetite for reality television as hearty as ever, JRB might be able to spin up another sponsorship if the online market in the U.S. is ever opened up.

Bodog still has three sponsored pros on its roster - Justin Bonomo, Evelyn Ng, and David Williams - none of whom are expected to leave anytime soon.

Keep up with Jean-Robert Bellande to see what he does next by following his Twitter account.

Cake Poker introduces synchronized tournaments

Starting today, Cake Poker is giving its tournament players a break - a synchronized break, that is.

The growing online poker room today implemented synchronized breaks across its entire tournament schedule, giving players the chance to actually step away from the computer long enough to grab a quick bite or hit the bathroom without missing any of the action. All multi-table tournaments on the site, including those in late registration or the first blind level and multi-table sit-and-go tournaments that started with more than 30 players, will now go on break at 55 minutes past the hour, every hour.

Shark Out Of Water

And finally, have you ever noticed just how few good poker movies there are? There’s the Steve McQueen classic The Cincinnati Kid, the pre-poker-boom Matt Damon flick Rounders, and maybe the improvisational The Grand, and then not much else to choose from - unless you’re one those people who actually liked Deal or Lucky You, in which case you might want to consider never telling anybody about your forbidden love.

Maybe the reason so many directors have gotten it wrong is that they’ve gone feature-length, rather than going for the short film route. If that’s the case, there’s hope for director Juan Riedinger’s Shark Out Of Water, a newly-released 18-minute film that’s making the rounds of the North American film festival circuit. Shark boasts cameo appearances from Phil Hellmuth and Brad Booth, and with such a short running time there’s no room for a bloated plot, which has to bode well. Right now there’s no way to see the film without attending one of the many film festivals for which it was selected or buying it on DVD for $10, but there are apparently plans to release the film via iTunes sometime in the near future.

Check out the sharp-looking trailer at the official Shark Out Of Water website, where you can also purchase the DVD. A tip of the hat goes to Pokerati, who first alerted us to the Shark in the water.

Antonius is up over $8 million this year

Last night the ongoing saga of “Isildur1″ continued, but ended a little differently than the other chapters we’ve documented so far.  Not only was the mystery Swede on the losing end of a monster session against Patrik Antonius, he also dropped the biggest pot in the history of online poker, worth almost $900,000.

That monster hand was the crowning jewel of a remarkable run by Antonius, who took his opponent for $2.7 million at the $500/$1,000 PLO tables over the course of a lengthy evening session in which the two players logged more than 2,000 hands.  There were several other big pots, more than one exceeding half a million dollars.  As for the historical hand, here is how it went down:

Preflop, the two players kept it rather tame.  Isildur1 raised to $3,000 and Antonius called from the big blind.  The flop fell Q75 and Antonius checked to Isildur1, who bet out $5,000.  Antonius made it $21,000 to go, Isildur1 called and they both saw the turn come  A.  This is where the fireworks really start.  Antonious made a pot-sized bet of $48,000 and Isildur1 repotted it to $192,000 total.  Antonius moved all-in for $415,479.50 and Isildur1 called, having him covered by just over $11,000.

When the cards were turned up, Antonius revealed A6Q9 for top two pair, the nut flush draw and a gutshot.  Isildur1 also had top two pair and a better straight draw with his AKQT.  At that moment, the two were chopping the pot, but both players hands could improve on the river, which is exactly what happened.  The river brought the 8, making Antonius his nine-high straight and shipping the  $878,958.50 pot his way.

It seemed as though most of the big pots were going Antonius’ way last night and the big session only added to his ample profits on the year.  After a $3 million day yesterday, Antonius is up nearly $8.5 million over the course of 2009.  Prior to last night, Isildur1’s performance over the past month made him the second most  profitable player of the year.  Yesterday set Isildur1 back quite a bit, but he is still up more than $2 million since he started playing on the Full Tilt Poker high stakes tables.

It remains to be seen if Isildur1 is going to cut his losses, take a break, or be back at the tables tomorrow, but we’ll be keeping an eye out on those cash game tables to see if Antonius can continue to crush and if Isildur1 will be back for more any time soon.

Seven days ago Joe Cada sat across from Darvin Moon in pursuit of a world championship at the WSOP Main Event. Monday night he sat ringside at Madison Square Garden for World Wrestling Entertainment’s Monday Night Raw along with his agent Dan Frank and fellow Team PokerStars member Dennis Phillips for a Main Event of a different kind.

Towards the end of the two-hour episode RAW the three appeared behind the announcer’s table. Cada is slowly adjusting to life as world champ and the chance to be at Madison Square Garden was, apparently, too good to pass up.

“Life has gotten real interesting all of a sudden. Tonight I was ringside at WWE Monday Night Raw, tomorrow I’m taping with David Letterman and I’ll be playing in a cash game backstage with the Late Show production crew, capping it off with seats on the glass for the New York Ranger game,” said Cada. “I highly recommend playing poker for a living and shipping the Main Event. I’m very grateful”

Cada will be appearing on the Late Show with David Letterman Tuesday along with Phillips.

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.

Dude looks like a lady redux

Once again, a man has won a ladies tournament. No, Abraham Korotki isn’t traveling the country trying to break the hearts of women everywhere. This time Greg Sessler, a 22-year-old communications and film major at the University of California at Davis, irked the female poker-playing public when he took down the $340 WSOP Circuit Lades Championship at Harvey’s Lake Tahoe.

The next target for women poker players everywhere

Sessler told the WSOP afterward that he only played the tournament because it was on his day off. He was one of four men in the 96-player field, and the only one who cashed. “Me playing in this tournament really had nothing to do with trying to take advantage of the ladies or thinking it was a softer field,” he said. “If (poker pro) Jennifer Harman would have come and played in the ladies event, she would have been much tougher competition than me.  I came here because I only had one day, and I really like the structures and the payout.  This was the only tournament I could play.”

Of Sessler’s participation in the tourament, Nolan Dalla wrote:

How is this possible, you may ask?  Easy.  The WSOP isn’t a political organization and can’t be expected to get involved in debates about sexism, discrimination, or other polarizing issues which may be applicable to poker tournaments.  While the WSOP makes a sincere effort to promote women in poker and offers quasi-exclusive tournaments designed to increase female participation in the game, officials generally do not turn away those who want to play in the event, based solely on gender.  In short, the WSOP hopes that by offering and supporting ladies-only poker tournaments and providing an event for which there is considerable interest (by women), others (namely men) will respect and understand the spirit of competition.”

Mega-mainstream outlet USA Today picked up on Sessler’s win this morning and ran a story on it.

Jeffrey Pollack’s exit interview

Last Friday was WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack’s final day on the job before heading for greener pastures. The initial news didn’t offer much insight into his departure, but RawVegas sat down for a three-part interview on Friday to talk with Pollack about his reasons for leaving, what he accomplished during his four years with the WSOP, his appreciation of the poker media (thanks Jeffrey!), the future of the poker industry, and his plans post-WSOP.

Pollack’s departure was met with a sense of loss from almost everyone in the poker community, and the reasons why come across very clearly in the interview. He

Check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the interview.

Another bad beat for Pa. poker game organizer

Sara Lazzaro can’t catch a break. First she took a pistol to the head a few weeks ago when her poker tournament in a Volunteer Fire Department hall outside Pittsburgh, Pa., was raided by armed robbers. Now she’s been arrested on 69 counts of illegal gambling for running the tournament where she was assaulted and robbed.

Police served a search warrant on Lazzaro’s home this weekend and seized 21 poker tables, thousands of poker chips, a computer, and numerous tablets and notes related to the game that was raided in Heidelberg, a suburb of Pittsburgh. That was the game where the 54-year-old Lazzaro was pistol-whipped by the robbers, who made off with $5,900. Lazzaro was not home when police served their warrant, but she later turned herself in and was released on her own recognizance.

Lazzaro will have a preliminary hearing before this Thursday before District Judge Gary Zyra.

(Texas hold’em hostess arrested for gambling - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Golden angles on the Tao

As if anybody needed another reason to avoid downtown Las Vegas, this morning Dr. Pauly posted a sordid tale from the Golden Nugget poker room called “Golden Angle Shooters at the Nugget” over at the Tao of Poker.

Pauly was at the Nugget for a fun night of poker with some friends from the poker media and ended up having the fun ruined by an angle-shooting local. Anyone who has ever played poker on vacation has invariably seen a ruling from the floor incorrectly go to a local player and will empathize with the good doctor’s treatment at the hands of Nugget floorman. It had to have been pretty bad, because it takes a lot to make Pauly write something like this:

It goes without saying that I’ll never return to the Nugget to play poker again. I hope the poker room manager reads this because he needs to know what type of environment he’s condoning. This post should have a sub-heading “Why I’ll never play at the Golden Nugget ever again.”

Check out the full post at Tao of Poker.

While Full Tilt Poker was busy serving up its trifecta of FTOPS events on Sunday, the other sites did not just roll over and let them run the busiest online poker day of the week. Rather, quite the opposite happened and PokerStars hosted their “Landmark” Sunday Million tournament, commemorating more than $250 million in Sunday Million prize since the tournament’s inception. The special version of the popular weekly event promised a $2.5 million guarantee which was easily shattered when more than 18,000 players signed up to take part in the $200 + $16 buy-in event.

The tremendous Sunday Million prize pool came in at $3,656,600 and, thanks to a six-way chop, the top six finishers all took down in excess of $140,000. In addition to taking home the biggest payday at $282,662.86, “Zadman5311” also won the event while “m8675309a” and “call110” rounded out the top three. Mark “The Omaholic” Roland also made an appearance at the final table, but busted out in 7th place, just missing out on the chop talk.

Other big winners on the day included “egor2077“, who defeated Tom “titantom32″ Braband heads-up in the Sunday Warm Up and Marc “mysterio6044″ Karam who took down the Sunday 500.

Here are the final table results from several of the Sunday Majors, including the UB Poker $200K GTD:

PokerStars Sunday Million
Prize Pool: $3,656,600
Entrants: 18,283

1st: Zadman5311 ($282,662.86)
2nd: m8675309a ($200,844.74)
3rd: call110 ($250,037.00)
4th: ZyeD3 ($144,353.10)
5th: waWe ($205,477.38)
6th: Guldlemmen4 ($177,650.76)
7th: Mark “TheOmaholic” Roland ($54,849.00)
8th: MATPOC28 ($32,909.40)
9th: E-Daddie ($21,939.60)

Notable finishes: Bryan “bparis” Paris (14th), Str8$$$Homey (25th), Brian “$tinger 88″ Hastings (44th) and Ravi “govshark2″ Raghaven (62nd)

PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up
Prize Pool: $952,600
Entrants: 4,763h

1st: egor2077 ($149,017.54)
2nd: Tom “titantom32″ Braband ($110,977.90)
3rd: FUTURE102 ($78,589.50)
4th: xQ024 ($53,821.90)
5th: olle101 ($40,485.50)
6th: fabregarp ($30,959.50)
7th: timdmd ($21,433.50)
8th: funywiteshss ($11,907.50)
9th: Brad “smerks” Marsh ($7,620.80)

Notable finishes: Matt “All_in_at420″ Stout (32nd), Lauren “locoenlacabeza” Kling (39th), Jamie “pokerjamers” Armstrong (41st), Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar (56th) and Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen (64th)

PokerStars Sunday Second Chance
Prize Pool: $316,400
Entrants: 1,582

1st: WhoGivzABuck ($56,952.00)
2nd: Joao “vovo_leo” Monte ($41,132.00)
3rd: Bal87 ($31,640.00)
4th: dan82mur ($23,730.00)
5th: tcblade ($16,611.00)
6th: Sam “siola” Iola ($13,447.00)
7th: Kevin “KevBoyStar” Stani ($10,283.00)
8th: smokrokflock ($7,119.00)
9th: Ship ThA $$$ ($4,429.60)

Notable finishes: Brandon “AreTheseUtz” Hall (11th), PeachyMer (13th), Jared “SOXFAN83″ Mahoney (14th) and Matt “ADZ124″ Marafioti (18th)

PokerStars Sunday 500
Prize Pool: $614,000
Entrants: 1,228

1st: Marc “mysterio6044″ Karam ($102,568.70)
2nd: ohnistun ($74,908.00)
3rd: Steven “19FMS86″ Levy ($56,588.00)
4th: 1shark2007 ($41,752.00)
5th: McMang ($30,086.00)
6th: $30K ($23,946.00)
7th: Zackattak13 ($17,806.00)
8th: levinhostar ($11,666.00)
9th: Christian “charder30″ Harder ($6,385.60)

Notable finishes: Jay “J_HasTheNuts” Conley (20th), Evan “Oakplayer” Schwartz (25th), Bahbak “bigredAK” Oboodi (28th) and Randal “RandALLin” Flowers (29th)

UB Poker $200K GTD
Prize Pool: $209,200
Entrants: 1,046

1st: JAYHOVAHVOL1 ($37,321.28)
2nd: SCHAPPUSCHA ($37,321.28)
3rd: Eric “SHEETSWORLD” Haber ($18,932.60)
4th: Michael “MIKEIVEY” Meredith ($13,493.40)
5th: AMYGDYLA ($11,401.40)
6th: CLASS_ACT ($9,309.40)
7th: Mohsin “CHICAGOCARDS1″ Charania ($7,217.40)
8th: JVONK424 ($5,125.40)
9th: Mike “MEEELOSH” Lawson ($3,556.40)

Team Bluff is in full swing at Carbon poker.  Last week, the winner of the Team Bluff October leaderboard, ‘89yotastacked’ defeated 2008 Bluff online poker player of the year David ‘The Maven’ Chicotski.  The match was hard fought, but ultimately came down to an all in preflop hand with ‘The Maven’ holding AQ, and ‘Yota’ holding QQ.  No help for The Maven, and ‘Yota’ was $500 richer.

All ‘89yotastacked’ did to earn a match with The Maven is do what he normally does: play online poker at Carbon Poker.  Yota had the best results of the month out of all the members of Team Bluff, and earned a match with The Maven, and took the match down.  Yota’s top scoring Team Bluff teammates (those that finished 2nd – 5th on the October Team Bluff leaderboard) also picked up $25 for Yota’s win.

November’s leaderboard is shaping up, with player ‘Y2icon’ on his or her way to playing a heads up match with a Team Bluff pro, for $500.  All you have to do to become a member of Team Bluff is to sign up for Carbon Poker using the exclusive Team Bluff links.  No minimum hands, no requirements other than making a deposit.

Sign up for Carbon Poker today, and get your share of the free money as a member of Team Bluff.