According to some news sources, Douglas "WCGRider" Polk, a regular of PokerStars nosebleed tables, recently got approximately $35,000 refunded after PokerStars found out that he had fallen victim to a computer hacker.
It all began in March when Polk played against an unknown "fish" named "Forbidden536" at a $5/$10 no-limit hold'em table. The two moved up to $25/$50 after some time and then $50/$100... Polk was getting his ass kicked... and after some time he suspected that something was wrong when his opponent called huge 4 bets with 83 off-suit and raised every spot in 3 bet pots when Polk didn't have a good hand.
A total of 36 players entered the Full Tilt Poker UK & Ireland Poker Tour Galaway €2,200 High Roller event on Wednesday. After two days of play, Sergio Aido, who won the WPT National Series Barcelona in October for $115,240 and the UKIPT London £700 NLH event in March for $217,530, was the last man standing and received €24,450 in prize money and the prestigious Full Tilt Poker High Roller trophy.
High Roller results: 1 Sergio Aido €24,450 2 Kyle Maguire €17,460 3 Dermot Blain €11,870 4 Chris Day €6,980 5 Jan Przysucha €4,890 6 Niall Farrell €4,190
Aquis Resort at the Great Barrier Reef Pty Ltd, a company led by China-based business tycoon Tony Fung, is planning on building a $3.74 billion casino and resort in Cairns City, Queensland, Australia.
The plan is to build the resort and casino on over 343 hectare of land, located close to Great Barrier Reef. The resort will include an international class casino with 750 tables and 1,500 slot machines, one of the world's largest aquariums and a 25,000-seat sports stadium, nine luxury hotels with 3750 hotel rooms, 1200 apartments, 135 villas, two 2,500-seat theatres, an 18 hole golf course, a 45,000 square metres convention and exhibition centre, and more.
If everything goes according to plan, the project will be ready in 2018 and would generate 9,300 jobs while being build and 10,000 jobs when it's ready. According to local news papers, Tony Fung has secured a Coordinated Project status from the Queensland Government.
Last week, we wrote that Revel Casino-Hotel in Atlantic City would close its poker room in August as it wasn't profitiable enough. Now another casino has closed its poker room. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, The M Resort (a casino off the strip in Las Vegas) has closed its 14-table poker room to make space for a slot machine tournament area. Apparently the poker room didn't do as well as the slot machine tournaments that usually attracted 800 players to the ballroom, which was way too small.
Currently tournaments are held in a ballroom and with the new area, guests will be able to play on our floor with better access to our amenities and easy access to self-parking," a spokeswomen for the casino said.
Although M Resort has closed its poker room, they still plan to host poker events, such as the Hollywood Poker Open, a $500,000 guarantee tournament that attracted 631 players in June ($1,423,062 prize pool) and was won by Spanish poker pro Ana Marquez.
Six people have been indicted for stealing almost $10,000 while playing video poker at Kewardin Casino Hotel & Resort in Michigan, USA. According to local newspapers, Joseph Michael Koster used a "light wand" device to increase payouts from the video poker machines while his companions (Michael Leo Patterson, Cheryl Rose Steinsiek, Vannessa Dale Robb, Bruce Kirby Robb and Jeffrey Paul Neighbors) watched out for casino security and patrons. The scam went on for almost two years from July 2009 to June 2011.
"By using this device, defendant Koster tricked the video poker machine into paying out winnings well in excess of those to which Koster was entitled," Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Lochner wrote in an indictment.
Alessandro Bastianoni, 48, a relatively well known poker player in Italy, was found dead inside a luxury apartment in Miraflores, Peru on July 17th. According to local newspapers, authorities found a glass container with waste water mixed with poison gas next to his body and a briefcase containing $140,000 and a letter requesting that the money would be used to cremate his remains. His girlfriend, Colobian Yeinni Ospina, told the police that she last spoke to him on July 6.
"He told me he'd lost a lot of money and I could hear a profound sadness in his voice. I tried to cheer him up but it was useless," she said.
According to local newspaper 'The Republic', Bastianoni had competed in two live tournament series and racked up $600,000 in gambling debts shortly before his death. Medical examiners believe he died 10 days before he was found. In other words, he most probably committed suicide shorlty after calling his girlfriend.
According to highstakesdb, Viktor "Isildur1" Blom was up a six figure amount yesterday before he took on Alex "IreadYrSoul" Millar at Full Tilt Poker's $400/$800 NLH tables. The two played two tables for just about 45 minutes (approx. 200 hands) and Blom ended up losing $425k to Millar.
Just about three years ago, Tom "durrrr" Dwan and Daniel "jungleman12" Cates agreed to play 50,000 hands as a part of a heads-up challenge at Full Tilt Poker. The rules were that Dwan would get $500,000 from Cates if he won the challenge, and Cates would get $1,500,000 from Dwan if he won. Now, as you probably already know, the two pros have only played about 19,000 hands and it seems like a lifetime ago when they played last.
Now the good news... according to a forum post by Daniel Cates, the challenge is set to resume in August. Cates wrote that he and Dwan have agreed to play a minimum of 4,000 hands in August and a minimum of 8,000 hands the followings months until the challenge is completed.
Cates is currently holding the lead with a $1,251,059 profit after 19,335 played hands. Besides that, he's been running very good at Full Tilt Poker as of late, so you can't blame him for wanting to complete the challenge and, most probably, get $1.5 million from Tom Dwan.
Revel Casino-Hotel in Atlantic City will be closing its poker room next month. Apparently the poker room hasn't made enough money compared to the rest of the casino games (black jack, slots machines etc), so it simply wasn't worth it for Revel Casino Hotel to keep the games going anymore. Below is a statement on the decision to close the poker room:
After careful consideration and in an effort to further improve the overall operating performance of Revel Casino Hotel, management has made the decision to close our poker room operations effective August, 2013.
Offering poker as an amenity on the property will be considered in the future as a component of an overall strategy related to our online opportunities. We have a very talented team of professionals who work in poker operations and we are actively working to place as many as we can in other areas.
On Monday, 888 Poker announced via a press release that they had signed Australian poker professional Jackie Glazier to be the ambassador for its Team 888poker. Glazier wrote a piece of history at the 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event by finishing in 31st place for $229,281 (last woman standing in the Main Event).
After a couple of not-so-successful sessions in the past 1,5 week or so, Viktor "Isildur1" Blom was back on track yesterday and booked a massive profit at Full Tilt Poker's nosebleed tables. He started the day by taking $150k from Isaac Haxton at the $500/$1000 CAP NLHE tables, then he won about $500,000 (in about 4 hours) playing Triple Draw and FLO8 against Kyle "KPR16" Ray, Phil "Polarazing" Ivey, Gus Hansen and Patrik Antonius.
Here's something to look forward to this weekend! PokerStars' MicroMillions 5 is concluding on Sunday with the $1,000,000 guarantee Main Event (at least $150,000 to the winner) and another 8 exciting events! It only costs $22 to enter the Main Event and take a shot at the massive prize pool. Also, there are Main Event satellites up and running around the clock for a fraction of the buy-in! Don't miss out on this chance of laying hands on $150,000! Good luck!
On Thursday, after over two months of silence, Doyle Brunson was back with another blog post: "Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker". This time the 79-year-old Texan talked about playing the $50k HORSE and the Main Event at the 2013 World Series of Poker, a dinner with an old friend, basketball, cats, and more.
50-year-old poker pro Masaaki Kagawa of Tokyo, president of an IT company named Koei Planning and poker pro with over $1.5 million in tournament winnings, has been arrested and charged with running Android malware ring together with another 8 individuals.
Andy Murray became the first UK champion at Wimbledon in 77 years when he beat Novak Djokovic in the men's singles final 2,5 weeks ago. Murray received a £1.6 million cheque for the historic victory and now has approximately £19.8m in career winnings. So what do you give a wealthy and very successful tennis pro who has everything (or could buy) he possibly could want? Well, according to The Edinburgh News, a bespoke poker table.
After a few days break from poker, Viktor "Isildur1" Blom was back at Full Tilt Poker's tables on Tuesday. Blom, who had won over $2 million dollars in the first one and a half week of July and was the biggest winner of 2013, must have been full of confidence and energy when he took on Bttech86, Doug "WCGRider" Polk, Alex "IreadYrSoul" Millar and other regulars at the nosebleed tables.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: No Buy-in is required to join the BankrollMob 2 Tournament on the 28th of July! The only requirement is that your 888poker account is tracked to BankrollMob!! 100% FREE for BankrollMob members!!
This is a great opportunity for the winner to get a Super Stack Live Tournament ticket!
Please note, you do need to be a member of BankrollMob and have a 888poker account tracket to us in order to participate.
Details: Name: BankrollMob 2 Tournament ID: 49364303 When: 28th of July @ 17:00 GMT Game: Hold'em No Limit Maximum Entrants: 3,000 Minimum Entrants: 4 Buy-in: FREE!!! Starting Chips: 1,500 Re-buy: Yes, unlimited first hour - $1. Add-on: Yes, 1 allowed - $1 for 2,000 chips Prize: A Super Stack* Live Tournament ticket is guaranteed ( except High Roller event ) for the winner. The re-buys and add-ons will be distibuted on 1st and 2nd finishers. How to find it in the 888poker client: All Games > Tournaments > Restricted.
*About Super Stack Super Stack Live Tournament events was founded in 2007 by the London Poker Circuit. A few years later, they joined forces with 888poker and since then the number of participants has increased every year. Currently, the Super Stack Live events spans 9 countries with 27 legs in 18 cities. Below is this year's remaining Super Stack Tournament events:
Unless you've been hiding under a rock lately, you probably know that the fifth edition of PokerStars' MicroMillions is running at the moment. The low stakes series started on July 18 and 44 of 100 events are in the history books so far, which means that 56 events (with buy-ins from as little as $0.11) are still to be played.
The series will conclude on July 28th with the Main Event and its massive $1,000,000 prize pool (the winner is guaranteed at least $150,000). It will cost $22 to enter this tournament, but, as always, there are satellites running around the clock for a fraction of that amount!
After 2 months of silence, Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu was back with a new edition of his very popular Rant last Sunday. In a 20-minute video, Negreanu talks about his 2013 World Series of Poker, his chase for several Player of the Year titles, recently implemented tournament rules that he doesn't like, and more.
Sunday was an action-packed day at Full Tilt Poker's nosebleed tables with Daniel "jungleman12" Cates and "proudlikeagoat" ending up as the biggest winners with a profit of $200k+ each! proudlikeagoat, whose identity is unknown, made all his profits from a morning session at a $400/$800 No Limit Hold'em table. In total, he took down 2 of the 3 $200k+ pots of the day (both from a player called "MalACEsia") and called it a day when he had won $246.8k!
World Poker Tour Alpha8 is a brand new series of high-stakes, televised poker tournaments held at the most exclusive resorts around the globe, including stops in North America, Europe, Asia and South Africa. The minimum buy-in starts at an insane $100,000 and the first tournament is scheduled for August 26-27, 2013 at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida. All WPT Alpha8 tournaments will feature an eight-player final table that will be broadcasted on the new FS1 network starting 10pm EST on Sunday, March 16, 2014.
"I am honoured to announce Alpha8, WPT's newest and most ambitious offering in conjunction with its primetime home on FS1," said WPT President, Adam Pliska. "Showcasing the world's poker elite and featuring multimillion dollar prize pools, Alpha8 represents the highest televised treatment of super high-roller tournament poker to date. Playing out over a global stage, this series will give audiences insight into the intensity and skill demanded at the sport's highest levels."
The first of two exclusive BankrollMob tournaments is scheduled for this Sunday (21st of July) at 17:00 GMT. This will give all eligible mobsters a chance to win a Super Stack Live Tournament ticket ( see below for more details) in addition to the prize money!!! If you don't make it this Sunday, you'll have another chance on Sunday the 28th of July.
The 12th season of the World Poker Tour (WPT) will kick off in just about one month's time. So far, the organisers of the very popular tournament series have revealed half of the schedule of season XXII (11 stops), which includes a brand new stop in South Korea. WPT South Korea begins December 16 and will be held at the brand new WPT Club Phoenix Room at the Ramada Plaze Hotel in Jeju.
The first televised event on the new season will take place in Los Angeles at the Bicycle Casino on August 29. Other televised Main Events include:
WPT Borgata Poker Open (September 15)
WPT Grand Prix de Paris at the Aviation Club de France (October 25)
WPT Montreal at Playground Poker Club (November 29)
The WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic (December 6)
WPT Season XXII Aug 16: WPT Merit Cyprus Classic, Cyprus Aug 29: WPT Legends of Poker,USA Sep 15: WPT Borgata Poker Open, USA Oct 25: WPT Grand Prix de Paris, France Nov 7: WPT Emperors Palace Poker Classic, South Africa Nov 15: WPT Jacksonville, USA Nov 19 : WPT Caribbean, Carribean Nov 29: WPT Montreal, Canada Dec 6: WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic, USA Dec 15: WPT Prag, Chezch Republic Dec 16: WPT South Korea, South Korea
The 2013 WSOP Main Event is now down to the last 9 remaining players who will re-unite to battle for the most prestigous poker prize in the world this November! This year's Main Event kicked off on July 6th with 6,352 players and a total prize pool of $59,708,800. Ten days later, only 9 remaining players are remaining to fight for the first prize of $8,359,531 + the Gold bracelet.
The following players will be seated around the 2013 WSOP Main Event final table in early November:
Player
Chip Count
JC Tran
38,000,000
Amir Lehavot
29,700,000
Marc McLaughlin
26,525,000
Jay Farber
25,975,000
Ryan Riess
25,875,000
Sylvain Loosli
19,600,000
Michiel Brummelhuis
11,275,000
Mark Newhouse
7,350,000
David Benefield
6,375,000
Two out of the remaining players has won WSOP Gold Bracelets in the past. The chip leader JC Tran has two previous WSOP Gold Bracelets: 2008's $1,500 No Limit Hold'em event #49 and 2009's $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event #30. Amir Lehavot won the 2011 $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold'em Chamionship.
Day six of event #62 concluded and only 27 players are remaining in this year's main event. The chip leader is Germany's Anton Morgenstern who's previous WSOP record is three cashes and total winnings of $33,206. On second place is Sylvain Loosli (France) with a chip difference of 7,830,000 from Morgenstern's chip count of 21,955,000.
The buy-in was $10,000 and the total prize pool is $59,708,800 with 648 places paid. The first place is worth $8,359,531. The remaining 27 players are listed below:
Here's something to look forward to this weekend! 
World Poker Tour Alpha8 is a brand new series of high-stakes, televised poker tournaments held at the most exclusive resorts around the globe, including stops in North America, Europe, Asia and South Africa. The minimum buy-in starts at an insane $100,000 and the first tournament is scheduled for August 26-27, 2013 at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida. All WPT Alpha8 tournaments will feature an eight-player final table that will be broadcasted on the new FS1 network starting 10pm EST on Sunday, March 16, 2014.
The 2013 WSOP Main Event is now down to the last 9 remaining players who will re-unite to battle for the most prestigous poker prize in the world this November! This year's Main Event kicked off on July 6th with 6,352 players and a total prize pool of $59,708,800. Ten days later, only 9 remaining players are remaining to fight for the first prize of $8,359,531 + the Gold bracelet.
