Gigi Gagne made plenty of headlines this week

While you were off making googly eyes at your Valentine’s Day date, the poker world continued to turn without you.  With news coming from Vegas, Florida, France, and even Capitol Hill, there were a lot of stories to keep track on both on and off the felt.  Don’t worry though, we’ve got you covered in this edition of The Week That Was:

Florida the Happening Place to Be

Whether you were an amateur taking a shot in the Heartland Poker Tour or the World Series of Poker Circuit or a more serious grinder attempting the bigger buy-in of the World Poker Tour, Florida was the place to play poker in the United States this past week.  The biggest event of the week had to be the Lucky Hearts Poker Open, a $3,500 non-televised WPT Main Event with a re-entry option hosted by the Seminole Hard Rock.

While the event’s 295-person field was smaller than the nearly 400 players a similar event in Jacksonville drew in November, the tournament nonetheless generated a prize pool of nearly $1 million.  Gigi Gagne came close to being the first-ever female winner of an open WPT event, but she came up just shy of the win, finishing second to student and poker player Matt Juttelstad of Florida.

Over in Daytona Beach, the Heartland Poker Tour kicked off its eighth season of action with a debut event at the Daytona Beach Kennel Club.  Joey Chalbaud defeated the 277-person field in the $1,650 buy-in event to pick up the $105,177 first place payday.

The WSOPC is now in Palm Beach for its latest stop on the Circuit.  Earlier this week, Kurt Jewell picked up his third career WSOPC ring by winning the WSOPC Tunica Main Event.  The opening event of the WSOPC Palm Beach indicates this stop will be even bigger than the visit to Tunica.  The $500 buy-in event easily bested its $1 million guarantee, making it the largest prize pool for a non-Main Event on the WSOPC.

Internet Poker Legislation Rumors Run Rampant

Poker fans in the United States got their hopes up this past week, as rumors swirled that the payroll tax legislation going through Congress would have regulated online poker legislation attached to it.  While some within the poker community objected to the legislation being snuck in the same way the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was in 2006, they got worked up over nothing after all.

Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada confirmed with the Las Vegas Review Journal that the payroll tax bill would not include anything related to online poker.  That news has some, like Ken Frankel of Business Insider, speculating that regulated online poker on a national scale is still a pipe dream.  Chad Beynon of Macquarie Securities told the Las Vegas Review Journal it will be at least 2013 before poker gets debated on the Hill again.

Duhamel Takes Back the Top Spots

Jonathan Duhamel appears to be a man on a mission in 2012.  Just a few days passed before the 2010 WOSP Main Event champion reclaimed his top spot in both the BLUFF Power Rankings and the 2012 BLUFF Player of the Year race.  Duhamel didn’t pick up a ton of cash during his recent trip to Deauville for all the European Poker Tour action, but he did make his fifth final table of the year, taking eighth in the €2,000 No Limit Hold’em side event.  That score earned him 42 points, which put him back in front of Oliver Speidel in the POY race and Shawn Buchanan in the Power Rankings.

Will Failla also surged up the power rankings this week after a strong performance at the Borgata Winter Poker Open.  It won’t be the last time you hear from Failla this week either.  The first of the three World Poker Tour episodes from the Legends of Poker event Failla won back in August debuts on Fox Sports Sunday evening. Here is a look at Failla in action:

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