Yesterday PokerStars announced the 100-event schedule of the upcoming MicroMillions III. The low-stakes tournament series will kick off November 15, 2012 and run for 10 days ($5 million in guarantees). If you never had the chance to play the MircoMillions yet, we can inform you that it's an amazing concept where you can buy into events for as little as 11 cents and have the chance of winning thousands of dollars!
It ended up being a very thrilling (and long) quarterfinal between Phil Galfond and Ben Tollerene for the last ticket to the semifinals. The two poker pros, who live in the same apartment building in Vancouver and know each other very well, battled it out for over 14-hours and 4,341 hands until a winner had been crowned: Phil Galfond. Galfond will now face Daniel "jungleman / w00ki3z" Cates on Saturday. It will be very interesting to see who wins that battle!
Russ Fox, a tax consult based in Las Vegas, has in the past few years been calculating how much the WSOP Main Event finalists will get to keep after paying taxes. This year $10,028,396 of the $27,258,025 final table prize pool should be taxed. The biggest tax bite will be taken from the winner Gregory Merson...
We are very happy to inform all our members that you will have an exclusive opportunity to qualify for the 10th Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure which is held at the Atlantis Resort and Casino, situated on Paradise Island in The Bahamas between the 5th and 14th of January 2013. BankrollMob will host an exclusive Deadline Turbo where the prize pool of 175 seats to the 10th PCA Satellite $10 Qualifier (10 Packages Gtd worth $16,000 each) will be up for grabs!
The exclusive PCA offer On Sunday the 4th of November at 18.30 CET BankrollMob will host the exclusive tournament at Pokerstars. All BankrollMob members will be able to join the tournament for a shy buy-in of only $0.10. The tournament is a Deadline Turbo which means that the winners (top 175 chipleaders) are decided once the time runs out. Please note: If the Deadline Turbo continues over the starting time (19:00 CET) of the 10th PCA Satellite $10 Qualifier (10 Packages Gtd), don't worry - the late registration is extended 180 minutes! The winners will be automatically seated in the target tournament. The seat is only for this Sunday's tourney.
You will need to get a password to register for the tournament. The password is: BRMPCA The maximum amount of players are: 1 000. No less than 175 seats to the 10th PCA Satellite $10 Qualifier (10 Packages Gtd) will be awarded to the 175 top finishers. Click here for all the information you need!
About Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) has a long history of being an event that all players want to win. Since it started in 2004, over $60,000,000 has been awarded in prize money, with thousands of players taking part - including hundreds of PokerStars qualifiers. PCA 2013 will be the 10th Anniversary of this incredible poker event. From its beginnings on a cruise ship meandering its way around the Gulf of Mexico, to the live event extravaganza it has become today, the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is an event like to other. Below you will find some essential PCA facts, plus details of every event since 2004, including tournament winners and prize details.
On Sunday it's once again time for a Double Vision Sunday at the world's largest poker site. This means that you will have two chances to play poker's biggest weekly tournaments! Don't miss out on this fantastic chance to compete for millions in guaranteed prize money in events like Sunday Million and Sunday Warm-Up! Plus, besides the the normal Sunday Major satellites running 24/7, there are brand new VIP Bash Sallites taking place on November 3, guaranteeing 250 seats into Double Vision versions of Sunday Million for just 1,000 FPPs (Frequent Player Points).
Click here for more information + complete tournament & satellite schedule.
Yesterday Greg Merson won the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event after a very exciting final table that lasted 18 hours. The 24-year-old poker pro from Laurel, Maryland overcame a field of 6,598 players to collect the first place prize of $8,531,853 and, of course, the coveted WSOP Main Event bracelet. Below is a video clip of the final hand and also a clip of a very emotional Greg Merson being interviewed and congratulated by Kara Scott after the win.
It's over. After 13 hours of play and 399 hands, the American poker pro Greg Merson, 24, was crowned the champion of the 43rd Annual World Series of Poker Main Event! Merson sat down at the final table two days ago with the third largest stack. After about seven and a half hours of play, only three players had chips left and Merson had 88.35 million chips - about 26 million more than his closest opponent, Jesse Sylvia.
Big One for One Drop, the biggest buy-in tournament in poker history, took place in Las Vegas during the 2012 WSOP and attracted a field of 48 professional players and amateurs who put up $1 million each. The tournament was won by Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari ($18.3 million) and raised a total of $10 million for charity.
A total of 8 players entered PokerStars All-Star Showdown for $100,000 each. Three of four quarterfinals are now in the history books, and Ben Sulsky, Isaac Haxton and Daniel Cates are through to the semifinals.
Sulsky won his match against Tobias Kuder pretty easy (6 hours), Daniel "jungleman /w00ki3z" Cates eliminated the Swede Alexander "Sussie Smith" Roumeliotis after 9,5 hours of play, and it took PokerStars' recently signed Online Pro Isaac Haxton about 17 hours and more than 3,800 hands to defeat Alex "Kanu7" Millar. Tonight, Phil Galfond and Ben "Ben86" Tollerene will battle it out for the last seat in the semifinals. It will defiantly be a very tough and thrilling match. We will be back with an update tomorrow for the ones interested in how it went.
Ilari Sahamies winning spree ain't over yet. On Monday, he played against Jeans89, Skjervoy, patpatman, barcode and other regulars. He won $90k playing $100/$200 PLO, $34k from a six-handed session of $50/$100 PLO, and about $324k from 2 three hour sessions at the $200/$400 PLO tables.
In total, Sahamies won $450,000 on Monday and is now up over $2.6 million in the past 7 days. Just a week ago he was down about $1.4 million, now he's up $1.25 million this year. According to highstakesdb, Sahamies is the second biggest winner at PokerStars with over $3.44 million won since they started tracking in 2010.
After about seven and a half hours of play, Day 8 of the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event and the first night of the final table came to an end. The final 3 players who still have the chance of taking home the $8.5 million first prize and the world champion title are Greg Merson, Jesse Sylvia and Jacob Balsinger - all from the U.S. (the only non-U.S. player, Andras Koroknai, was eliminated in 6th place for $1.6 million).
Greg Merson, who was ranked third when the final table kicked off, had an amazing winning streak during Day 8. When Day 9 begins tonight, he will bring a massive 88.35 million stack to the table - about 26 million more than Jesse Sylvia, who had the lead when the final table kicked off yesterday. Balsiger, who eliminated Russel Thomas in 4th place and put an end to Day 8, will bring 46.8 million chips to the final table when play resumes. Day 9 is scheduled to kick off tonight at 5:45 PM local time. Until then, check out the interviews below (taken from WSOP's website).
It's not a secret that Ilari Sahamies, 2011's biggest winner on PokerStars, has been struggling very hard this year. However, the Finnish poker pro started an amazing winning streak last Monday and had turned -$1.4 million into a $900k profit for the year on Sunday evening.
In total, he won $2.2 million last week and the biggest chunk of those winnings ($777.5k) came from different PLO sessions on Saturday against barcode, Odd_Oddsen, bernard_bb and other regulars at PokerStars' nosebleed tables.
The 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event started on July 7, 2012 with 6,598 players each putting up $10,000 to create a $62,031,385 prize pool. Today, after about a 3 month break, the final nine players ("The October Nine") will meet again at the Rio in Las Vegas and fight for the remaining $27,285,025 in prize money and, of course, the world champion title!
PokerStars has changed the concept of the SuperStar Showdown quite a bit since Viktor "Isildur1" Blom left. The new challenge is called All-Star Showdown and 8 players will face each other in a heads-up tournament on PokerStars running from October 27 - November 4 (starting at 18:00 CET). Each match will take place over 4 tables at once and the blinds will double every 3,000 hands. Each match ends when a player busts on all 4 tables.
In total, 5 players have signed up for the All-Star Showdown so far. All players will pay $100,000 each to enter the competition and Isaac Haxton, PokerStars latest signing, is one of them...
"I'm excited to start my tenure with Team PokerStars with the chance to win a big title and a lot of money in my favourite form of poker,"he said.
"There are no titles or champions in heads-up cash games, just winners and losers. This tournament will change that by crowning the first All-Star Showdown champion."
Greg Raymer followed up his great success on the 2012 Heartland Poker Tour with his third win on Monday's event at the Prairie Meadows Racetrack Casino Hotel in Altoona, Iowa. Raymer was the last man standing out of a field of 185 participants. He left the event carrying a bag weighing $72,089.
This was Raymer's third win on the 2012 HPT. The previous wins on the tour were at the Route 66 Casino Hotel in Albuquerque, New Mexico and River City Casino in St Louis, Missouri.
Monday's HPT final table results:
Finishing position
Player
Prize amount
1
Greg Raymer
$72,089
2
Chad Lawson
$41,771
3
Craig Casino
$26,275
4
Ben Stroh
$22,233
5
Ed Sinnett
$16,978
6
Josh Birkenbuel
$14,526
Greg Raymer is the 2004 WSOP Main Event winner. He has a total of $7,217,206 in live event earnings and his online earnings are estimated to $184,823. His nickname "Fossil Man" comes from his hobby of collecting fossils which he often use as card protectors.
Dan Smith is a player in form. Not satisfied with booking $3,650,758 in live tournament winnings this year, a large portion of which comes from his €962,925 win in the EPT9 Barcelona Super High Roller, but Smith, just a matter of hours ago, secured first place in the $215 Sunday Million for $219,504.25. It's his largest win on PokerStars and one that will be tough to beat.
Poker Hall of Fame recently announced that Eric Drache and Brian 'Sailor' Roberts are the 2012's inductees. There will be an official cermony held at the Rio in Las Vegas just before the final table of the WSOP main event kicks off on October 30th!
Brian “Sailor” Roberts earned his nickname from serving in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War. As a poker player he travelled alongside Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim. He won two WSOP bracelets in his career: 1974's Deuce to Seven Draw event and the 1975 Main Event. He passed away on the 23rd of June 1995.
Eric Drache is mostly known for his contribution to poker as a poker manager/cardroom manager even though he is a pretty successful seven-card stud player. He finished on 2nd place three times in WSOP stud events: 1973, 1981 and 2009. According to wikipedia, Drache invented satellite tournaments and ante structures among other things.
Hollywood writer and producer Matthew Salsberg who is known for his work on some very successful tv series like Weeds and Entourage, has recently announced that he is working on a new tv series project that will be set in the international poker circuit.
During an interview with Giovanni Angioni at the EPT San Remo, Salsberg unfolded the project that combines his two passions in life - writing and poker: "...But right now I have a show in development that I’m working on and it’s about poker players so there is probably a mix of fifty people in the room that I could potentially put there".
Salsberg was later asked for more details on his upcoming tv project: "It’s about guys in their twenties that travel the circuit playing poker. It’s going to be a comedy but sort of a pretty realistic one. Reasonably realistic, let’s say".
"What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" is a cliché that probably most people have heard of sometime in their life. Luckily this unwritten law didn't stop the following story from reaching the newspapers.
Back on September 2, the 42-year-old taxi driver Adam Woldemarim was cleaning out the back seat of his van before the start of his 2 p.m. shift when he found something between the seats. It was a black soft laptop case that was stuffed with $221,510.
For the second week in a row, 1Il|1Il|1il| (barcode) tops the charts of the biggest winners on PokerStars high stakes tables! The anonymous Canadian played 24,556 hands over 407 sessions last week and accumulated an impressive $554,236 profit!
On Tuesday, young Slovenian Tomaž Kogovšek sat down at the €1,100 WPT National Series Vienna Main Event final table with the largest stack of chips. After dominating most of the final table, he began heads-up with a big lead over Thomas Mühlöcker. The battle lasted for some time until Mühlöcker and Kogovšek got their stacks all-in preflop.
It's been a while since we've heared anything from Brian Townsend, but apparently it's not because he's been chillin' out at some beach or something like that. Believe it or not, but the American high stakes poker pro has been training day and night for an upcoming Sahara Desert Race and therefore had very little time to spare for poker.
Daniel Negreanu has been very busy as of late with travelling, playing poker tournaments etc. However, now he's back home and even took some time to put together a rant that he released yesterday. His latest video is about one thing, and one thing only, The Lederer Files (the video interviews with Howard Lederer about the Full Tilt Poker scandal).
On Monday, Full Tilt Poker announced another two names that have joined Gus Hansen as members of the new team of ambassadors known collectively as "The Professionals". The two players are Tom "durrrr" Dwan and Viktor "Isildur1" Blom and the press release says that the they will "reignite a fierce competition at the highest stakes tables on the Full Tilt Poker site."
Since the inception of the November Nine 2008, there have been quite a few stories about how the finalists have practiced and prepared before the WSOP Main Event final table. Some of the finalists have even hired other poker players to help them improve their game. This year is no different...
A total of 8 players entered PokerStars All-Star Showdown for $100,000 each. Three of four quarterfinals are now in the history books, and Ben Sulsky, Isaac Haxton and Daniel Cates are through to the semifinals. 
After about seven and a half hours of play, Day 8 of the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event and the first night of the final table came to an end. The final 3 players who still have the chance of taking home the $8.5 million first prize and the world champion title are Greg Merson, Jesse Sylvia and Jacob Balsinger - all from the U.S. (the only non-U.S. player, Andras Koroknai, was eliminated in 6th place for $1.6 million).
Greg Raymer followed up his great success on the 2012 Heartland Poker Tour with his third win on Monday's event at the Prairie Meadows Racetrack Casino Hotel in Altoona, Iowa. Raymer was the last man standing out of a field of 185 participants. He left the event carrying a bag weighing $72,089.
Hollywood writer and producer Matthew Salsberg who is known for his work on some very successful tv series like Weeds and Entourage, has recently announced that he is working on a new tv series project that will be set in the international poker circuit.
For the second week in a row, 1Il|1Il|1il| (barcode) tops the charts of the biggest winners on PokerStars high stakes tables! The anonymous Canadian played 24,556 hands over 407 sessions last week and accumulated an impressive $554,236 profit!
