Just a few hours ago the very first event at the 2013 WSOP (Event #1: $500 Casino Employees No-Limit Hold'em) concluded at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. Chad Holloway, whose previous biggest cash was $3,719 in a $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em event at the WSOP in 2012, bested a field of 898 players during two days of play to lay hands on $84,915 in prize money! In addition to that, he received the first gold bracelet of the 44th annual WSOP!
Final table results:
1 Chad Holloway $84,915 2 Allan Kwong $52,318 3 Bobby Rooney $33,903 4 Brian Pingel $24,811 5 Daniel Ellery $18,426 6 Sean Small $13,868 7 Tyrone Smith $10,567 8 Michael Trivett $8,146 9 Hieu Le $6,348
On Wednesday, the 2013 World Series of Poker kicked off at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas and yesterday we posted our very first update on Event #1 and #2. WSOP posted 33 things to know about the 44th Annual WSOP on its website the other day. We have narrowed it down to the 10 things that we consider to be the most important.
1. This year's WSOP runs from May 29th thru July 15th. The November Nine will play down to a new World Champion November 4th and 5th.
2. This year features 62 bracelet events, one more than offered last year. The bracelets are once again furnished by Jason of Beverly Hills.
Event #1: Casino Employees No-Limit Hold'em ($500 buy-in) 898 players (a larger field than expected) signed up for Event #1: Casino Employees No-Limit Hold'em and, after 11 levels and over 14 hours of play, only 55 made it through to Day 2. The chip leader is Michael Trivett with 133,900 chips, putting him about 30k ahead of Sean Small's second-place stack of 103,700. Play will continue at 1 p.m. local time tomorrow in the Amazon Room at the Rio, Las Vegas. The winner will take home $84,915 and a WSOP bracelet!
Event #2: No-Limit Hold'em / Eight Handed ($5,000 buy-in) Day 1 of this event kicked off yesterday and saw a 481 players battle it out for eight levels of play. 232 players remained at the end of the day and the chip leader is Tom Marchese, who bagged up 153,975 chips. Only a few other players accumulated six-figures stacks, including David "Doc" Sands (110,825) and Scott Baumstein (111,100).
In addition to the players already named above, poker stars such as Antonio Esfandiari, Chris Moorman, Vanessa Selbst and Barry Greenstein will bring healthy stacks to Day 2. Here are some big names that, unfortunately, were eliminated during Day 1: Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Jason Mercier, Erick Lindgren, Jonathan Duhamel and Marvin Rettenmarier.
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On May 16th we wrote about Gus "The Great Dane" Hansen's incredible $1.57 million win in less than 24 hours. Hansen has been very active at Full Tilt's nosebleed tables since then but not managed to book a nice win until last Monday. He started the day by playing heads-up against Alex "Alexonmoon" Luneau at the $1k/$2k 2-7 Triple Draw Tables. The match lasted for four hours and Hansen dominated from start to finish and added $374k to his bankroll.
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At the bottom of the giveaway page, there's a "giveaway widget" in which you enter for the giveaway. You can earn entries by follow the instructions in the widget, such as sharing on Facebook/Twitter etc., although all that is needed to enter and get 1 entry, is to connect to the widget either using your e-mail address or Facebook login.
An incredible $75,585,305.05 has been won in the 132 tournaments of the 2013 Spring Championship Of Online Poker (PokerStars) in the past couple of weeks, making it the richest poker tournament series in history! A big chunk of the prize pool was awarded to Viktor "Isildur1" Blom who won $1,096,200 in the Main Event!
The Canadian Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu has been running very well this year. Last month, he won the WSOP APAC Main Event for $1,087,160 and received his fifth gold bracelet. Then, a few weeks ago, he finished 4th in the EPT Monte Carlo Main Event for $490k! Now he has won his first major title online as well! On Saturday, he outlasted a field of 180 opponents (Isaak Haxton, Jason Mercier, Joe Ebanks, Shaun Deeb, Ville Wahlbeck, Justin Bonomo and many other pros) in Event #39-H ($5,200 PLO 6-Max -Spring Championship of Online Poker at PokerStars) and received $216,000!
On Friday, the $100,000 Super High Roller at the WPT World Championship final table saw 6 players battling it out for the title. It's not that common that anyone who plays a final table walk away empty handed, but that was the case for 3 players on this televised final table: Andrew Robl, Steven Silverman and Jim Courtney. After many hours of play, Daniel Perper was eliminated by David "Doc" Sands in third place for $409,500, which left Sands and Joseph Cheong playing heads-up for the title.
The 2013 WPT World Championship main event ($25,000) concluded early Saturday morning with David "Chino" Rheem, who entered the final table with a big lead, defeating Erik Lindgren heads-up for an incredible first prize of $1,150,297. It was Rheem's second World Poker Tour title (His first victory came at the Five Diamond World Poker Classic in Season VII) and now he has over $7 million in live tournament winnings.
Jamie Gold, 43, won the World Series of Poker Main Event in 2006 and took home an incredible $12 million! The 2006 Main Event was played during the height of poker's popularity and Gold outlasted 8,722 other players (the biggest main event in WSOP history). A few days ago, The Heritage Auctions wrote that Jamie Gold's gold bracelet from the epic win will be up for grabs at an auction in Rosemont, Illinois, August 1-2, 2013.
The bracelet is described on the site as having "259 stones including over seven carats of diamonds and 120 grams of white and yellow gold. Rubies are inset to create the red of the heart and diamond suits, while a sapphire represents the spade and three black diamonds the clubs."
Neither Gold nor Heritage Auctions have commented on why the bracelet is for sale, but many believe it's another of Gold's ideas to raise money for charity.
The time was just before 2am on Wednesday when two heavily armed robbers ran into the facilities of the Royal Casino in Århus, Denmark. According to witnesses, one robber threatened the casino staff in the entrance and reception with a big gun while the other robber went to the cashier and demanded cash.
"Everyone was hiding under the tables just in case they would start shooting," a witness told a Danish newspaper.
The police don't want to say how much money the robbers got away with as it could encourage others to do something similar, but a witness claims that it was around 200,000 danish crowns (approx. 26,833 euro). Below is a short video clip of the robbery.Read more » Danish Casino Robbed
The WPT World Championship Super High Roller with its $100,000 buy-in attracted 17 players, and four players bought in twice: Cary Katz, Jason Mercier, Erik Seidel, and Jean-Noel Thorel. However, none of the $200,000 players reached the televised final table, which begins at 4:00 pm PT today. Here are the six finalists:
Seat 1. Joseph Cheong - (picture) 1,646,000 (102 bb) Seat 2. Andrew Robl - 169,000 (10 bb) Seat 3. James Courtney - 1,690,000 (105 bb) Seat 4. Steven Silverman - 1,339,000 (83 bb) Seat 5. Daniel Perper - 164,000 (10 bb) Seat 6. David Sands - 1,286,000 (80 bb)
Only the top 3 players will receive a slice of the prize pool, so expect it to be a very interesting final table with a lot of nerve.
On Tuesday, WSOP announced the 2013 WSOP Europe schedule. The 7th Annual WSOPE offers seven gold bracelet events and will run October 12 to October 25, 2013 in Paris, France. The highlights of the tournament will be a brand new €25,000+€600 No Limit Hold'em High Roller event and, of course, the main event. Last year the main event was played in Cannes and Phil Hellmuth bested a field of 420 players and laid hands on $1.3 million and his 13th bracelet! The organisers of the tournament believe that this year's main event will attract more players thanks to the move to Paris.
"New tournament dates and 12 million Parisians have us aiming for the largest Main Event in Europe," said WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart. "Baguettes and Bracelets; Champagne and Cash; we think is a winning recipe for the 2013 WSOP Europe."
Click here to check the complete tournament schedule.
Chino Rheem entered Day 4 21st in chips with 24 players remaining and he went on an incredible winning spree after the field reached the money to take the chip lead. Rheem, winner of the WPT Doyle Brunson Classic in 2008, has almost twice as much chips as any other finalist. He he will be joined by two-time WPT title winners Erick Lindgren and Daniel Negreanu on the final table. Negreanu only has 545k to work with, but Erick Lindgren has 2.5 million and is second in chips. In total, 5 of 8 finalists already have their names engraved on the WPT Championship Cup trophy: Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren, Rocco Palumbo, Chino Rheem and Jonathan Roy.
Another day of action-packed poker is in the books at the Bellagio Poker Room in Las Vegas. Now there are only 24 players left, which means that just another 9 need to be eliminated before everyone's guaranteed a min-cash worth $49,120, and Amir Babakhani (player of the day) leads the pack with 1.2 million chips. Other big stacks include Brandon Steven (1,091,000), Matt Hyman (1,042,000), Hyon Kim (891,000), and Alex Phahurat (878,000).
Not familiar with any of the names above? Don't worry! Poker stars such as Dan Shak (698,000), Jason Mercier (583,000), Erick Lindgren (467,000), Jake Cody (365,000) and Daniel Negreanu (329,000) will return to play tonight and battle it out for a seat at tomorrow's final table - where a first prize of $1,150,297 is up for the grabs!
The second day of the International Stadiums Poker Tour (ISPT) is just around the corner! Day 1 of the tournament is being played online (February 3rd - May 26th) and live action begins May 31st in Wembley Stadium in London. The tournament (€1,000,000 guaranteed for the winner) is set to become the biggest live poker event ever and lots of pros have already confirmed their participation including WEMPLAYERS (amassadors) Tony G, Dave Ulliott, Marcel Luske, Robert Mizrachi, Like Schwartz, Sam Trickett and David Benyamine.
We will keep you updated from start to finish, so make sure to check our news section from May 31st onwards.
A total of 146 players signed up for the 2013 World Poker Tour World Championship. The tournament kicked off last Saturday at Bellagio in Las Vegas and now, after two days of play, there are 66 players left. Mike Linster will bring the largest stack (744,000) to the tables tonight and Dan Shak (617,300) and Antonio Esfandiari (536,100) are ranked second and third.
Apart from Linster, Shak and Esfandiari, there are quite a few poker stars alive and kicking, including Jake Cody (Day 2's Players of The Day) Phil Hellmuth (307k), Matt Salsberg (130k), Erick Lindgren (124k), Daniel Negreanu (124), Jason Mercier (109k) and Scotty Nguyen (81k).The money bubble will burst when 15 players remain ($49,210 minimum cash); the winner will take home an incredible $1,150,297!Read more » WPT World Championship: 66 Players Remain After 2 Days of Play
It's nothing new that Gus Hansen, of Denmark, has lost millions of dollars at Full Tilt Poker. Many of his fans hoped and prayed that things would change once the site reopened for business last year and signed him to its The Professionals, but the bitter truth is that he has continued to lose huge amounts month after month.
Yesterday, after 2 days of play, the final table of the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo European poker Tour Grand Final €100,000 Super High Roller saw 7 finalists battling it out for a prize pool of a whopping €4,851,000! Mike Watson and Scott Seiver, the two short stacks, hit the rail in 6th and 7th place although they managed two double up during the first hour of play.
Russian poker pro Vladimir Troyanovsky busted in 5th place after losing an all in with KQ vs AJ of Sorel Mizzi. Next to hit the rail was Timothy Adams. He shoved his remaining chips with 99 pre-flop and was called by Max Altergott holding A8. The flop brought an ace and the rest was history.
Doyle Brunson has won an impressive 10 WSOP Gold Bracelets in his poker career. He won the first bracelet back in 1976 ($5,000 Deuce-to-Seven Draw) and his 10th bracelet in 2005 by winning the $5,000 Short-Handed No-Limit Hold'em event for $367,800 - one of the biggest tournament cashes in his career. His last WSOP cash occurred in 2009 when he finished in 17th place in the WSOP Europe £10,000 Main Event in London for £31,198. As of 2011, his total live tournament winnings exceed $6,000,000. He has totaled $2,945,053 in earnings from his 34 cashes at the WSOP
Two more players signed up for the second day of the Super High Roller (Phil Ivey made a third attemp but busted in 10th place) to take the total number up to 50. Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier (Day 1 chip leader) continued to dominate the action during Day 2 and will bring 4,165,000 chips to today's final table. Mercier's closest opponents will be Sorel Mizzi, Max Altergott and Vladimir Troyanovsky - all with about 2 million chips each. The seven finalists will be fighting for a prize pool of €4,851,000. Below is the payout structure:
While most poker players think €100,000 is an awful lot of money, there are some who have the bankroll to use it for a single tournament. On Monday, the 2013 EPT Monaco Super High Roller (€100k buy-in) kicked off and saw, believe it or not, 48 entries. Phil Ivey was in for two bullets, but still he wasn't among the 29 players who survived the day.
Jason Mercier had better "luck" than Mr. Ivey. He bagged up 1,183,000 chips and has about 1 million more than his closest opponent - Sorel Mizzi. Here are few other big names who made it through Day 1: Viktor Blom, Sam Trickett, Erik Seidel, Faraz Jaka and Scott Seiver.
There's €4,900,000 in the prize pool at the moment, but most probably it will pass the 5 million mark today as registration close at noon. It will be interesting to see if Phil Ivey makes another attempt!
Last week, Phil Ivey, 36, filed a lawsuit against Mayfair club Crockfords at the High Court in London for refusing to give him the £7.8 million he won there in August last year playing Punto Banco, a game based purley on luck.
On Sunday, Daily Mailreported that Crockfords Casino, the oldest casino in Britain, refuses to pay Mr. Ivey because they believe he and his companion (a Chinese women who is banned from at least two casinos around the world due to alleged cheating) could 'read' the back of the cards and get a huge edge against the house.
It has been an action-packed, thrilling and simply amazing weekend at Full Tilt Poker's nosebleed tables, and, as many times before, we can thank Viktor "Isildur1" Blom for that! Blom had won $700k in the early hours of Saturday when he and Ben "Bttech86" Tollerene played some heads up at the $500/$1000 CAP PLO tables! The two pros were later joined by Tom "durrrr" Dwan.
It's time for a giveaway - so we decided to give away 3 licenses to PokerOffice5 - each worth €98.99. 
