DAILY BUZZ: Penn Poker Politics, Chicago WSOPC Love, WPT Marrakech

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DAILY BUZZ: Penn Poker Politics, Chicago WSOPC Love, WPT Marrakech

Jason Kirk | October 19, 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.

Penn. governor sets tax floor for table games

If you keep up with the Buzz regularly you know the state of Pennsylvania has decided to make poker, lumped into the category of “table games” along other games like blackjack and roulette, legal within its borders. However, Governor Ed Rendell has yet to sign the law authorizing table games because of hold-ups in the legislature over tax rates and licensing fees for allowing the state’s already existent slots parlors to add table games to their lineup of games. Playing a little political pressure poker of his own, Rendell tried to urge legislators into action by tying the passage of table games legislation to some $730 million in funding for various universities, hospitals, and museums.

Now Rendell has upped the ante again, announcing that he expects a bill on his desk by the end of the week, with one condition: he will veto any table games legislation that produces less than $200 million in new revenue for the next year. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Rendell’s figures say that to raise $200 million each casino would have to pay a $15 licensing fee and a 16% tax on table games. That means it’s time for the Senate, which favors a 14% tax rate on table game profits, and the House, which wants a 34% tax, to work out their differences and get the job done.

(Rendell sets minimum taxes for table games - Philly.com)

Chicago and poker, sitting in a tree…

There are more poker players than Cubs fans in Chicago this time of year.

Chicago poker players launched into a big public display of affection with their favorite game this weekend at the WSOP Circuit at Horseshoe Casino Chicagoland (which is actually in Hammond, Ind., 16 miles from the Windy City, but let’s not get too picky).

The Horseshoe opened its special events center, The Venue, and expanded the 34-table poker room, already the largest in the Midwest, into a 112-table tournament facility to make the new record possible. The first event on the current WSOPC schedule, a $345 no limit hold’em tourney, broke a nearly four-year-old attendance record for the WSOPC when it drew 1,412 players; Josh Shmerl was the benefactor with a $79,107 prize for the win. The second event, a $555 no limit hold’em, drew another 550 players. Marvin Thompson walked away with $60,156 for first place in that one.

New events start through next Sunday, October 25th, with the $5,200 Main Event beginning this Friday, the 23rd. If you leave right now, you might just beat the registration rush!

WPT Marrakech comes to a close

The main event of the WPT Marrakech closed out last night, and once again a tournament ended in another close call with victory for France’s Ludovic Lacay. The young pro went deep in the WSOP Main Event this summer before bowing out in 16th place, and had previously finished in second place at the 2007 WPT Spanish Championship. This time Lacay came in third place at the first-ever WPT stop in Africa, taking home €164,182 after busting at the hands of the eventual champion, fellow Frenchman Christophe Savary. Savary conquered Ireland’s Eoghan O’Dea, son of 22-time WSOP casher Donnacha O’Dea, in heads-up play for the title.

(WPT Marrakech ME Final Table Play By Play - ChiliPoker Blog)

November Niner cashes again

James Akenhead is on a roll lately. The young British pro started off by making the November Nine at the WSOP Main Event this summer, and then he did the double when he finished 9th at the WSOP Europe Main Event in September. Now he has another poker feat to add to his resume after making the final table of the UK’s made-for-television Poker Million tournament.

Akenhead won his preliminary heat to advance to the final table, knocking out Tom “durrrr” Dwan along the way. At the final table he’ll be facing down CardRunners founder Taylor “GreenPlastic” Caby and Full Tilt pro Dag Martin Mikkelsen, among others. Regardless of where Akenhead goes out he’ll finish better than he did at WSOP Europe: there are only eight seats at the table.

(Full Tilt Poker Pro James Akenhead Continues to Run Deep)

Poker writer goes Hollywood

News about a David Schwimmer-directed film in production normally wouldn’t merit a mention here. So why am I telling you about Trust, starring Clive Owen and Catherine Keener? Because the screenplay was written by one Andy Bellin, author of a book first published in 2002 called Poker Nation.

In the space in poker history right before the online boom was ignited by the double whammy of the World Poker Tour and Chris Moneymaker’s WSOP win, when an underground poker renaissance was in full swing in New York and the Mirage was the biggest name in Vegas poker, Bellin dropped out of graduate school for astrophysics to play poker and lived the life that led to writing Poker Nation. The narrative is written for an audience generally unfamiliar with poker; as such, it’s peppered with explanations of elementary poker jargon that wasn’t well known at the time and its discussions of poker strategy won’t really help any remotely well-read player in today’s games. But whatever Poker Nation lacks as a modern poker guide it makes up in its value as something of a time capsule, capturing what the world of professional poker looked like before the corporations got in on so much of the action and the game went global.

The book is easy to find and also cheap; you can literally get a copy from some used bookstores online for a penny. It’s also a lightly written breeze of a read; anyone with any interest in poker can easily finish the entire 272 pages on a flight to Vegas.
Poker Nation website here. Andy Bellin’s IMDB page here.

WSOP Circuit Chicagoland photo courtesy of IMPDI.

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