DAILY BUZZ: Akenhead Wins, Outlast the Pros, G. Smith’s Got a Bet

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DAILY BUZZ: Akenhead Wins, Outlast the Pros, G. Smith’s Got a Bet

Jason Kirk | December 7, 2009

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.

James Akenhead, how do you spell relief?

Up until this past weekend it had been one of those years for James Akenhead where he’d done too well to complain, but not as well as he would have liked. After making the final tables of both the WSOP Main Event and the WSOP Europe Main Event but finishing a disappointing ninth place in both tournaments, the British pro finally added some winner’s hardware to his collection with a win at the live televised final of the Poker Million VIII.

Akenhead’s ride at the Poker Million was a bumpy one, as he lost a crucial coin flip in the early going with A-J to the 9-9 of Luke “FullFlush” Schwartz. But the November Niner managed to hang tough and later his A 7 picked off another FullFlush pocket pair - this time pocket eights - to get back in the game and reduce his opponent to just over four big blinds. After that key pot Akenhead cruised to the heads-up match, where he defeated Juha Helppi when his pocket tens held up against the Finn’s pocket sixes.

“It’s been such a great year and ever since I came second for a bracelet in such a brutal way I’ve just been striving to win a big tournament,” said Akenhead after his win. “I’m really looking forward to next year and all the events I’m going to play. Every year that I’ve played since I started I’ve won more than the previous year so I’ve got a big hill to climb next year!”

1. James Akenhead - $500,000
2. Juha Helppi - $250,000
3. Dag Martin Mikkelsen - $200,000
4. Luke Schwartz - $150,000
5. Craig Wakeham - $100,000
6. Peter Vasiliou - $75,000
7. Taylor Caby - $50,000

(James Akenhead wins Full Tilt Poker Million VIII - Matchroom Sport)

Outlast the Pro tourneys this month on PokerStars

The world’s largest online poker room is mixing things up this month - not to mention juicing the pot - with a fun series of tournaments called “Outlast the Pros.”

Twice every Tuesday for the rest of December, at 1:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. EST, PokerStars is running an $11 tournament with $1,000 added. The main prize pool will be divided up normally, but the extra $1,000 will be divided up evenly among all the players still in the tournament when the last remaining member of Team PokerStars Pro is knocked out. So if 100 players are left after the last pro goes down, everyone remaining would win an extra $10 on top of whatever cash they earn in the tournament; likewise, if the final pro busts in 5th place then the last four players would get an additional $250 each.

According to Daniel Negreanu, he and most of the PS pros will be playing in these events throughout the month, so they should be a great chance to take to the felt with some of your favorite players without blasting your bankroll to tiny bits to get there.

(Team Pro Tuesdays - Full Contact Poker)

Prop betting hijinx with Gavin Smith

If you’ve a fan of prop bets and you just can’t wait until Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari’s I Bet You finds a new network home, there’s a website that might just be up your alley.

The centerpiece of You Got A Bet right now is “The Escapades of Ole G. Smith,” which as you might guess follows Full Tilt pro Gavin Smith around the tournament trail as he makes prop bets with his fellow poker players (and whoever else happens to be around). In one video the G-man takes up a a field-goal-kicking competition against the Northeastern University football team’s backup kicker - after a home game in which he relentlessly insulted the kicker. In another, “The B*tch Slap,” Smith gets a free, hard-as-you-can slap at Allen Bari’s face after Bari asks for a bigger point spot in the game of hearts the two are playing with Allie Prescott and Matt Brady. It’s all the kind of stuff you can’t make up, and with Smith at the heart of the action it’s almost always entertaining.

You can check out all the G-Smith madness - as well as videos featuring Layne Flack, Jeff Madsen, and more - at You Got A Bet.

Is the president bluffin’ with his muffin?

Our friends at Pokerati today posted the full text of a National Journal article looking at President Barack Obama as a poker player, which may have already locked up this year’s award for Most Original Use of Poker as a Metaphor in a Mainstream Magazine Article.

The article draws on some heavyweight sources, including Positively Fifth Street and Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker author Jim McManus and Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, to characterize the president in terms of the game he learned to play in the Illinois legislature. McManus says Obama is “a cerebral gatherer of information,” while Nesson paints him as “the kind of poker player who bides his time in the game.”

But more interesting are the quotes from Illinois State Senator Bill Brady, who played in the Springfield games with the president. “He was a cautious poker player — in some cases, too cautious,” says Brady. “I used to take his money when we played poker.” That might not be such a good thing for the country when it comes to Big Issues national security, but if the rest of the administration is just as weak-tight there might be hope for all the anti-UIGEA measures out there after all.

(Obama as Poker Player Cover Story in National Journal - Pokerati)

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