Day 3 was an action-filled day of poker as the field of 235 players was narrowed down to 79 players in just five 90-minute levels of play. At the beginning of Day 3, Pablo Tavitian held the lead and was looking to be the first player ever to win both an LAPT and an EPT, however, the Argentinian pro's dream won't come true this time as he was sent packing already in 127 place for €10,000.
According to Forbes, United States Senator John McCain was playing poker on his iPhone during a 3+ hour senate hearing on whether or not the country should send missiles into Syria and get involved in a war that has claimed over 100,000 lives so far.
The image of McCain's mobile phone was taken by Washington Post photographer Melina Mara, and after it was passed on to Twitter, McCain tweeted the following:
Day 2 of the EPT Barcelona Main Event is in the books and there are now only 235 of 1,234 players left! The new chip leader is Pablo Tavitian who bagged up 465,000 chips at the end of Day 2.
The Argentinian pro won a Latin America Poker Tour event earlier this year in Vina del Mar, Chile for $184,220, and now has the chance to give his bankroll an incredible boost as a prize pool of €5,984,900 is up for grabs (the winner will get €1,067,000).
708 players signed up for the second flight of the EPT Barcelona Main Event, which brought the total number of entrants to 1,226 - a new record for EPT Barcelona! However, the number of entrants is still not final as the registration is open until the beginning of Day 2 (a new rule change for EPT season 10 that applies to all High Roller events, Super High Rollers and Main Events) and the all-time record EPT field outside of the PCA is in serious jeopardy. The current record hasn't been broken since Season 6, when the San Remo Main Event attracted 1,240 players!
On Sunday, the first day of the 2013 EPT Barcelona Main Event kicked at the Casino Barcelona. 518 entered the tournament for €5,300 each and battled for eight 75-minute levels. A total of 308 players made it through the day and Dragan Kostic was the only player to surpass 200k in chips. The Spaniard, who finished second to Martin Schelich in Season 8's EPT Barcelona Main Event, will be joined to Day 2 by Team PokerStars Pros Marcel Luske, Vanessa Selbst, Jonathan Duhamel, Jason Mercier, Eugene Katchalov, and others.
According to PokerStars Blog, several big names have already signed up for Day 1B, including Team PokerStars Pros Daniel Negreanu, Nacho Barbero, Martin Hruby, Max Lykov, Ivan Demidov, Christophe and Matthias De Meulder, Luca Pagano, Toni Judet, Johnny Lodden, Leo Fernandez and Team PokerStars SportStar Fatima Moreira De Melo and Friend of PokerStars Pierre Neuville.
The European Poker Tour Barcelona €50,000 Super High Roller (the first event of EPT Season 10) came to an end on Sunday with Vitaly Lunkin as the champion! The event saw 51 entries and Lunkin, a Russian poker pro with two WSOP bracelet to his name, had to overcome increadible players such as Erik Seidel, Steve O'Dwyer and David Benefield at the final table! He received his first EPT trophy and a sweet €771,300 for the amazing achievement and now "only" needs a WPT title to complete poker's Triple Crown!
Final table results: 1st Vitaly Lunkin €771,300 2nd Erik Seidel €557,100 3rd Steve O'Dwyer €355,100 4th Mike McDonald €269,400 5th David Benefield €208,150 6th Ole Schemion €159,200 7th Fabian Quoss €128,515
The gambling mecca of the world might see another visitor record this year as 24.4 million visitors already have flown there this year - almost the same 7-month span as last year. Close to 40 million people flew into Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport in 2012 and broke the previous record of 39.2 million, which was set in 2007.
After 56 hands of play at the Seminole Hard Rock Open $10 Million Guarantee Championship Event final table, Justin Bonomo and Blair Hinkle were the last men standing (just as many had predicted). The two American pros, who started the final table as chip leaders, battled it out for the next 167 hands...Read more » Blair Hinkle Wins Seminole Hard Rock Open ($1,745,245)
After four days of play, the final table of the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open $10 Million Guarantee Championship Event is set! Blair Hinkle, a WPT bracelet winner and a player with $1m+ tied up at Full Tilt Poker since Black Friday, leads the final 6 players with a stack of 22.8 million, and his closest opponent is Justin "ZeeJustin" Bonomo (more than $6 million in lifetime tournament earnings) with 18.5 million chips.
The first-ever World Poker Tour Alpha8 tournament ($100,000 buy-in) concluded yesterday at the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida with Steven Silverman as the champion! The final table lasted for almost 18 levels and Silverman had to defeat November Niner J.C. Tran, who recently signed with 888poker, heads-up to take down the first place prize of $891,660.
The 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event final table chip leader J.C. Tran has signed for online poker site 888poker! Tran, a 36-year-old poker professional from Sacramento, California, has two WSOP titles, a WPT title and a World Championship of Online Poker Main Event title under his belt and is the big favourite to take down the $8.3 million first place prize money at the WSOP Main Event on November 9. Whatever happens on the final table, he is still guaranteed to get a minimum payday of $733,224! Not bad for a guy who already has $9 million in career winnings, hah?
"I am extremely excited to work with 888poker and looking forward to a great experience. I can't wait to represent 888poker at my best and help in any way possible," he said in a press release last Sunday.
"We are excited to have JC Tran join our Team 888poker, his attitude towards the game and inviting personality embodies what we look for in our Team ambassadors. This year Team 888poker will be at its strongest and should bring some exciting content and opportunities to our continuously growing poker room. Good luck to Tran and the rest of our Team," Inbal Lavi, Vice President of 888poker, stated.
The very first World Poker Tour Alpha8 event kicked off yesterday at the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida. A total of 18 players signed up for the $100,000 buy-in event and three players even made a rebuy during the day!
The 10th season of PokerStars European Poker Tour kicks off today in Barcelona, Spain (click here to find out what's new for the 10th season). The Festival will run August 26 - September 7, 2013 and the whole event will (once again) take place in an annexe of the Casino de Barcelona at Hotel Arts Barcelona, which offers plenty of space for the particpants.
Team PokerStars Online member Mikhail 'innerspy' Shalamov, a legend on the local scene in Russia, has a very popular video blog in Russia that is being updated on a regular basis. After spending the past 9 summers in Las Vegas for the WSOP, Shalamov has now launched his first video blog episode in English. In the first English version we get to follow Shalamov's adventures during the 2013 World Series of Poker.
A big congratulations to Alexey Rybin, the champion of the 2013 bwin WPT Merit Cyprus Classic! The 33-year-old businessman from Moscow, Russia was the chip leader every single day of tournament and had a decent lead over his 5 opponents when the final table kicked off yesterday.
1 Pierre Sayegh 349,000 Lebanon 2 Alexey Rybin 2,698,000 Russia 3 Andrei Nikonov 1,280,000 Russia 4 Sergey Rybachenko 921,000 Russia 5 Albert Daher 1,595,000 Lebanon 6 Kayhan Tugrul 1,025,000 Turkey
After four days of play, the final table of the World Poker Tour Merit Cyprus Classic Main Event is set! The final 6 players will return to play in about 1 hour and fight for a first place prize of $258,00!
The big favourite to take down the tournament is the 1 million+ chip leader Alexey Rybin who has led the tournament from start to finish Day 2, 3 and 4. The 33-year-old from Moscow, Russia has $483,503 in live tournament earnings and his best score so far is a 5th place finish at EPT San Remo in 2010 for $366,833 (Liv Boeree won the tournament).
1 Pierre Sayegh 349,000 Lebanon 2 Alexey Rybin 2,698,000 Russia 3 Andrei Nikonov 1,280,000 Russia 4 Sergey Rybachenko 921,000 Russia 5 Albert Daher 1,595,000 Lebanon 6 Kayhan Tugrul 1,025,000 Turkey
The 23rd edition of Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) concluded over the weekend after 38 events had been played over 2 weeks. Here's a brief recap on the most prestigous events...
The two-day $2,100 No-Limit Hold'em Re-Entry concluded on Sunday with Toby "sexystuff1989" Lewis (picture) defeating Clark "Snake8484" Hamagami, who won PokerStars Million last week, after a heads-up deal. Lewis, who has one European Poker Tour title and $2.6m in live tournament cashes, received $253,063 and his first FTOPS jersey and Hamagami received $223,141 for his second place finish.
In case you missed it, PokerStars released its official schedule and satellites for the 2013 World Champion of Online Poker about 1,5 week ago! The tournament series will kick off on September 8th and run for three weeks with a total prize pool of $40,000,000 spread across 66 events, including the Main Event where the winner will take home at least $1,250,000! Although WCOOP 2013 is still 20 days away, you can already now start qualifying for all the 66 events on PokerStars! Good luck!
On Sunday, Tom Alner of Bristol, England won the third instalment of the 2013 PokerStars Macau Poker Cup Red Dragon. Alner, who has several nice results from the Asia-Pacific region, bested a field of 645 players and received HK$823,000 (approx. 106k USD) in prize money after a four-way deal on the final table. He now has over $700,000 in tournament winnings!
1 Tom Alner UK HK$823,000* 2 Jason Chong Singapore HK$758,000* 3 Wilson Fu China HK$827,000* 4 Victor Sheerman Russia HK$853,000* 5 Thomas Ward New Zealand HK$317,000 6 Brian Yip Hong Kong HK$253,000 7 Frank Maley Australia HK$206,000 8 Joao de Castro Portugal HK$158,000 9 Shinichi Takenouchi Japan HK$126,578
There will be some changes for the 10th season of PokerStars European Poker Tour, which begins on August 26th in Barcelona, Spain. According to a forum post by PokerStars' live events coordinator, Neil Johnson, it will now be possible to register for all high roller, super high rollers and Main Events until Day 2. Besides that, it will be possible to register for all side events until the end of levels five and all high roller events will be played over three days - two starting days (10 levels each day) and a final third day. Lastly, there will be a change in the payout structure...
"We will pay one person less than full tables so all payouts will be made AFTER a table breaks, instead of before. If we're paying out nine tables (eight handed still) instead of paying 72 places as in EPT9, we will pay 71 places so all tables will balance and be playing the bubble equal handed," Johnson said.
In case you missed it: Jamie Gold's 2006 WSOP Main Event gold bracelet was sold (after 9 different bids) earlier this month for an incredible $65,725 at an auction in Rosemont, Illinois. According to The Heritage Auctions, the organisation that sold the piece, the bracelet has 259 stones including over seven carats of diamonds and 12 grams of white and yellow gold.
According to WSOP's website, poker players at the 2013 World Series of Poker raised more than 1.3 million dollars for One Drop, a non-governmental organisation based out of Montreal, Canada that fight poverty worldwide by supporting access to clean water.
More than 750 video poker machines were seized in an old warehouse in southern Lexington County on Tuesday. The machines were discovered on Monday morning by Swansea police and Lexington County firefighters after they had been informed about a possible fire at the warehouse.
Here's one of the craziest prop bets in history. According to several news sites, Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari, the winner of The Big One for One Drop in 2012 ($18.3 million), has made a bet with millionaire businessman and poker amateur Bill Perkins that he will get $500,000 if he doesn't have sex for 1 year.
The bet followed another prop bet made the same day. That bet was that Esfandiari would get $150,000 from Perkins if he didn't eat bread for a whole year. If he failed, he would have to give $25,000 to Perkins. Now, that bet didn't last for long as Esfandiari asked Perkins after just a few minutes to buy out of the bet - Perkins accepted 90 minutes later for a small fee of $5,000
A big congratulations to Alan Gold of Scotland, the champion of the Full Tilt Poker UK and Ireland Poker Tour (UKIPT) Galway Main Event! Gold, who qualified for the event through a satellite at Full Tilt Poker, brought the largest stack to the final table, which was played yesterday, and it only took about four hours of play until he was the last man standing. It was one of the fastest final tables in UKIPT history.
Final table results:
1 Alan Gold €187,494* 2 Paul Febers €149,906* 3 Daragh Davey €80,400 4 Dimitri Pembroke €62,000 5 Damian Porebski €45,300 6 Benjamin Spragg €30,210 7 Christy Morkan €22,310 8 Jonathan Slater €16,500
After four days of play, the final table of the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open $10 Million Guarantee Championship Event is set! Blair Hinkle, a WPT bracelet winner and a player with $1m+ tied up at Full Tilt Poker since Black Friday, leads the final 6 players with a stack of 22.8 million, and his closest opponent is Justin "ZeeJustin" Bonomo (more than $6 million in lifetime tournament earnings) with 18.5 million chips.
The 10th season of PokerStars European Poker Tour kicks off today in Barcelona, Spain (
In case you missed it, PokerStars released its official schedule and satellites for the 2013 World Champion of Online Poker about 1,5 week ago! The tournament series will kick off on September 8th and run for three weeks with a total prize pool of $40,000,000 spread across 66 events, including the Main Event where the winner will take home at least $1,250,000! Although WCOOP 2013 is still 20 days away, you can already now start qualifying for all the 66 events on PokerStars! Good luck!
In case you missed it: Jamie Gold's 2006 WSOP Main Event gold bracelet was sold (after 9 different bids) earlier this month for an incredible $65,725 at an auction in Rosemont, Illinois. According to The Heritage Auctions, the organisation that sold the piece, the bracelet has 259 stones including over seven carats of diamonds and 12 grams of white and yellow gold.
