Monthly Archives: March 2012
Trickett Wins Big at Macau’s Big Game
Big news comes from Macau’s Big Game that has been going on this week in China. Gus Hansen, who won about $3.8 million, and Sam Trickett, who $2.3 million at Macau’s StarWorld Poker King Club earlier this year, only to lose substantially in Macau thereafter, have both been experiencing a financial upswing this week. This week though, Hansen said, “I have just sat at the table for my first session and apart from a local talent, we have a lot of well known high-stakes names, among others, Sam Trickett and Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan.” Hansen says he won a HK$4 million pot, about $515K in US$, before giving some up to Dwan on a HK$1.7 million river-bluff. Dwan made the call and earned Hansen’s chips. Meanwhile, Trickett, was not doing so bad himself. He tweeted: “Been playing for 12 hours now,Just won my biggest pot ever….. :)” and soon after, he… Read More »
Elie Pleads Guilty in Black Friday Case
Chad Elie, from Las Vegas, is one of two men headed for trial in the Black Friday case. He was originally charged with bank fraud and illegal gambling when the big three online poker sites went down for processing hundreds of millions of dollars in online gambling transactions. Elie was scheduled to go on trial April 9th, along with John Campos, also indicted on April 15th, 2011. However, Elie has entered into a plea deal with the US District Court in Manhattan. Campos maintains his innocence. Elie, 32, will plead guilty to operating an illegal online gambling business and conspiracy to commit bank fraud and decrease his 75-year sentence to an expected mere six months with a $500K forfeit over two months, as well as $25 million that is being held in transaction processing accounts around the world. He is scheduled to be sentenced on October 3rd of this year.… Read More »
All In: The Poker Movie
A new documentary on poker will come out tomorrow, released by 4th Row Films, “All In: The Poker Movie.” A nice review on PokerNewsDaily suggests that director Douglas Tirola successfully met the goal of the movie: to examine the game of poker. “All In” is a movie that anyone with interest in poker can watch, whether you are a rookie or a master, or even just a spectator of the game. It is light enough to be entertaining, yet informative enough to be educational—the perfect kind of documentary. Questions posed and answered in the film include “What attracts people to the game?” and “How has poker remained so popular over the years and now become a worldwide phenomenon?” The 109-minute “All In” serves as a history lesson on the game of poker from the Civil War to the Mississippi River riverboats to the Gold rush and the Wild West. The… Read More »
Blom Wins Another SuperStar Showdown
The latest installment of PokerStars SuperStar Showdown featured PokerStars pro Viktor “Isildur1” Blom going heads up against Alexander “Kanu7” Millar. After a second loss to Isaac Haxton earlier in the month, Blom was able to get more in the black with a $37,687 come up off Millar. Millar was the 11th opponent since the PokerStars SuperStar Showdown began, and Blom has only lost twice—both times to Haxton, this last time by only $5,000, but you can bet there will be another showdown between Blom and Haxton two before it’s over. Blom remains up at around $650K in the black. Twenty-one-year-old Millar is from the UK and has won almost $1 million playing online at PokerStars and another $250K+ at Full Tilt Poker in the past year and a half, so you would think he’d be a pretty good match for Blom. And he was, he just didn’t bring quite enough… Read More »
FBI Informant Daniel Tzvetkoff Comes Out of Hiding
When the online poker industry was served a massive blow last April 15th, known as Black Friday, two of the biggest online poker sites in the world didn’t survive, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker. PokerStars was also a target of the sting, but they managed to pull out of it alive. Full Tilt Poker may make a comeback if they can come to an agreement with potential buyer, French firm Groupe Bernard Tapie. And we have one person to thank for all of this. Daniel Tzvetkoff. Tzvetkoff was arrested in Las Vegas back in 2010 on money laundering and bank fraud. He was facing up to 75 years in prison and was being detained in New York without bond. Sometime thereafter, Tzvetkoff decided to cooperate with police. His allegations led to the Black Friday events and the indictments of 11 individuals associated with the three online poker sites targeted.… Read More »
Zoom Poker Live for Real Money at PokerStars
Ever since Full Tilt Poker closed, perhaps one of the most unfortunate things has been the absence of Rush Poker, an uber-fast online poker game that let you fold the hand you were dealt if you didn’t like it and instantly seated you at a new table with new players and a brand new hand. Repeat. PokerStars, however, has finally come out with their version of Rush Poker, similarly named Zoom Poker. While playing online poker avidly could never become “boring,” variations to the old school game can make playing online poker new and exciting again. Plus it gives you something to do while you are taking a break from regular poker. PokerStars’ Zoom Poker groups players together in larger “clouds” of players. You remain in this cloud whether you fold your hand or not. When you start a session of Zoom Poker, you are seated at a table within… Read More »
Nevada Intrastate Poker Expected this Year
While the Mississippi intrastate online poker bill officially died this week, other states are still working on legalizing and regulating intrastate poker. The Mississippi Lawful Internet Gaming Act of 2012 indicated rules that would regulate the state’s online gambling industry via the Mississippi Gaming Commission, the same forum that regulates casino gambling, legal in the state since 1990, but this unfortunately is not going to happen. Other states however are on the right track for legal intrastate gambling, Nevada most significantly, which is its way to being the first state to allow real money intrastate online poker. Other states with online poker regulations in the works include Iowa, California, and New Jersey. Nevada will likely see intrastate online poker go live later in the year or early next year, and many believe it will only take one state to legalize intrastate online poker before others follow suit. Already 24 potential… Read More »
Dwan Featured in the PartyPoker Premier League
It was recently announced that some new big name poker pros will be joining the lineup for the 5th annual PartyPoker Premier League. The three new additions to PartyPoker Premier League V are Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Phil “The Unabomber” Laak, and Dan “Jungleman12” Cates, who will be joining the already impressive lineup that includes Vanessa Selbst, Patrik Antonius, Sam Trickett, Tony G, and Luke Schwartz, as well as winner of last year’s $25K Premier League Poker Mixed Game in London, Andrew Frankenberger. PartyPoker Premier League V will take place in Vienna’s Montesino on April 4th through 10th, just before the World Poker Tour Vienna event kicks off on the 11th. Premier League V will feature a $125K buy-in and 16 players divided into two eight-player groups. Each player will play four games using the Premier League unique point system that awards $2K per point. The top three players from each… Read More »
Poker After Dark Returns
Since Black Friday and the series of unfortunate events that followed Black Friday throughout the past 11 months, many televised poker shows have gone off the air. A lot has happened in poker, but now that the dust has settled, it looks like some of our favorite poker TV shows will be back on the air over the next year or so. In fact, Poker After Dark has already returned. NBC Sports Network (formerly Versus) is airing re-runs of PAD nightly at midnight Monday through Friday with a Director’s Cut on Saturday. And they aren’t just airing re-runs. Apparently there are 24 episodes that never aired that will be aired sometime this year, as producers are still discussing the best way to re-introduce the show and bring back the great following that PAD once had. Mori Eskandani of POKER PROductions was interviewed by PokerNews, who confirmed the PAD confirmed. He… Read More »
Dwan Takes Down Nergård in Macau
After re-joining Macau’s Big Game, Tom “durrrr” Dwan sat down and right off the bat won a $3.6 million HKD (about US$465K) on his first hand. The blinds at this massive cash game were at HK$5K/10K, which equates to US$650/1,300. Other poker pros in on the action included Andrew Feldman and Alec “traheho” Torelli, but this is really a story about Dwan and Norway’s Ole-Kristian Nergård, an 19-year-old millionaire who inherited his dad’s $30 million fishing business share. In this particular hand, Dwan held 8/7 in the hole and called Nergård’s Q/J under the gun raise, followed by a check-raise by Dwan on the T/9/6 flop. Nergård then called Dwan’s HK$1.5 million shove. Fortunately for Dwan, Nergård’s hand did not hold up, and he later tweeted, “meh should have went to bali yesterday. Played 5k/10k with 20k mandatory straddle. lost a 3,6 mill pot v durrrr the first hand he… Read More »
