Gus "broksi" Hansen has been doing very well at PokerStars' high stakes tables lately. Last Friday, he won $431k playing $200/$400 PLO - $350k of those winnings came from late night/early morning sessions against Ben86, duubadaaba, Axel82 and other regulars. In total, he won $548k in 48 hours and was involved in 7 of the biggest pots on Saturday. Here is the biggest pot Gus won...
Last week, PokerStars' purchase of Full Tilt Poker through the Department of Justice was officially completed, which means that all non-U.S. players will be get their money back - totalling $184 million - within 90 days. In total, $225 million was transferred to the U.S. government last Thursday, and the remaining $547 million will be paid over the next 3 years.
Season 9 of PokerStars European Poker Tour will begin on Wednesday with the Festival of Poker in Barcelona. Besides the Main Event, the highlight on this stop will be the brand new Super High Roller event with a €48,500 + €1,500 buy-in. 37 players have pre-registered for this event so far, which means that at least a €1,794,500 prize pool will be up for grabs.
A few days ago, EPT crew announced that a "High Roller of the Year" award will be handed out at the EPT Awards in the end of the season. The honour will go to the player who racks up the most EPT Awards points in events with a buy-in of 10,000 ($ / € / £ ) or more. In total, there will be 16 events that qualify for the High Roller of the Year award.
Want to represent your country in Poker's World Cup and have the chance of making some big bucks? If the answer is yes, then it's high time to open up the PokerStars client and start playing the $2.20 heads-up NLHE Super Knockout tournaments and aim to finish as high as possible each time.
In total, 72 national teams will take part and the country that tops their group will make it to the live final in The Bahamas - where some serious cash is up for grabs! The tournament format will favour the country that enters the most players, so it's a good idea to tell friends and family in your country to take part in this competition.
Martin Rettenmaier won WPT Merit Cyprus Classic main event last night and became the first person in history to win back-to-back World Poker Tour main event titles. Not many could see this coming two days ago, when Day 4 started with 18 players and Rettenmaier had one of the smallest stacks...
Day 4 of the World Poker Merit Cyprus Classic kicked off yesterday with 18 survivors, including notables such as Erik Cajelais, Sam El Sayed, Robert Mizrachi and Marvin Rettenmaier. Many expected either Cajelais, Mizrachi or Sam El Sayed to make it through the day with their healthy stacks, but unfortunately all of them hit the rail during the day and will miss out on today's final table.
A player with the nickname "5tgb6yhn7" crushed everyone who stood in his way and ended up as the biggest winner online last week. In total, he won $663,701 and most of the money was won at the $200/$400 PLO tables last Sunday. 5tgb6yhn7 also ended up taking home the biggest pot at PokerStars on Sunday. Here is how the hand was played out...
The plan was to play 5 levels of 90-minutes but it wasn't necessary since the field had been narrowed down to only 18 players when 65-minutes remained of the final level. The new chip leader is Erik Cajelais, who has been in the top of the field since the very beginning of the tournament, with 1,190,000 chips. The Canadian poker pro finished runner-up in the 2007 Turks and Caicos Poker Classic and then finished 4th in the more recent Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event, and now he has a fantastic chance of winning his first WPT title.
Yesterday the second day of WPT Merit Cyprus Classic was played. There were 132 players left when the day started and Chino Rheem had the lead, and Sam El Sayed was in 3rd place and Robert Mizrachi in 6th place ("The Grinder"'s brother).
Believe it or not but all of them did very, very well during Day 2 and are the in the top of the field with only 53 remaining players. Sam El Sayed, winner of of 2010 WPT Amneville, is the chip leader with 375,500 chips, closely followed by Erik Cajelais (371,500), Robert Mizrachi (365,000) and Chino Rheem (361,000). Many of the 53 players are relatively unknown players, so it's very nice to see some familiar faces in the top of the field.
The money bubble will burst when 36 players remain (28 - 36 place pay $8,070). The winner of the tournament will take home $287,784k and the runner-up gets $184,020.
On Monday, Daniel Negreanu finally released another "Weekly" Rant. This time Daniel talks about PokerStars' purchase of Full Tilt Poker, the 2012 World Series of Poker, homosexuality, the TV Series Breaking Bad, the tragic death of Ryan Young, and more.
The two starting days (Day 1a and 1b) of World Poker Tour Merit Cyprus Classic were played over the weekend. The main event attracted 329 players thus creating a total prize pool of $1,212,694. Now there are 132 players left and they will return to the tables in a few hours to play Day 2. The chip leader is no one else than David Rheem with 291,500. Doesn't ring a bell? David "Chino" Rheem is a well-known figure on the poker circuit having finished 7th in the 2008 WSOP Main Event for 1,7 million and won WPT's Season VII Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic, earning $1,5 million.
In the past seasons of European Poker Tour winners have been awarded with exclusive bracelets from the jewlery designer Shamballa Jewels. But now that era has come to an end as PokerStars has announced a new partnership with luxury Swiss watch brand Slyde by HD3, who will be supplying a new range of trophy watches to the winners of Season 9.
The cheating scandal on Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker between 2004 and 2008 is, according to many, the biggest cheating scandal ever in the online gaming industry. There has been a lot of information on this scandal since it was brought to light. However, a lot is still unsaid and many wonder what exactly happened behind the scenes.
Tomorrow the 11th Season of World Poker Tour kicks off with WPT Merit Cyprus Classic, running August 4 - 9 at the Merit Crystal Cove Hotel and Casino. The highlight of this event will, of course, be the main event with a $4,000 + $400 buy-in.
Poker pro Ryan Young passed away on Monday at the age of 28. There are very few details of Young's death, but most sources claim that he died in a car accident. Young was a well-known face in the poker community for his fantastic achievements at the World Series of Poker, where he has cashed 12 times and won 1 bracelet (2007 WSOP event #35: $1,500 No Limit Hold'em).
There was some really nice action on PokerStars nosebleed tables yesterday, and Finland's very own Ilari Sahamies ended up as the biggest winner of the day. Sahamies started in the morning by winning about $60k at some $200/$400 and $50/$100 PLO tables. However, it was later in the evening that the real action started and he won some serious cash.
Doyle Brunson has played poker professionally for over 50 years and still is very enthusiastic about the game. In fact, at the age of 78 he still lives and breathes poker around the clock.
In his latest blog, "Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm", he writes that nothing else matters when he's playing poker and that he's thinking about how he can improve his game when he's not playing. But even though Doyle's enthusiasm and knowledge about the game has made him extremly wealthy, he admits that it has its downsides as well...
Yesterday, PokerStars finally confirmed that it has reached an settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to take over Full Tilt Poker. As a part of the settlement agreement, PokerStars has also acquired the assets of Full Tilt Poker.
PokerStars has 3 years to pay USD$547 million to DOJ, and all non-U.S. customers of Full Tilt Poker will get their money back (an amount totaling $USD184 million) within 90 days after PokerStars has transferred $247 million to DOJ (this transfer should be completed within the next 7 days).
Viktor "Isildur1" Blom has been lying low since he returned home after the 2012 World Series of Poker, but yesterday he finally made a comeback on PokerStars. He started in the afternoon with $3-4k stacks on six $25/$50 Pot-Limit Omaha tables. The short-stack strategy worked very well and he built up a nice $40,000 stack in no-time.
Ilari Sahamies is up more than $300k this year and is among the biggest winners online. But it seems like the Finnish poker icon's economy still isn't all that good -- even though he has turned a big minus into a big plus in just 2-3 weeks time. During a heads-up match against Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky a few days ago, Sahamies revealed in the chat that he's broke.
Yesterday, Aussie David Allan became the 2012 PokerStars.net ANZPT Queenstown Snowfest main event champion after a very thrilling heads-up match versus Ken Demlakian! Allan had a bit less chips than Demlakian when the battle started but took a decent lead almost straight away and managed to maintain it for quite some time, but the lead then chopped and changed several times until Demlakian seemed to be in full control. In fact, Allan only had 20 big blinds left and no one expected him to come back.
Last Friday it was reported by numerous sources that PokerStars had finalized a deal with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) to pay back frozen Full Tilt Poker player funds. Besides that, some people claimed that Full Tilt Poker will be back online in November this year.
The rumor that PokerStars is interested in buying Full Tilt Poker started popping up already in April this year. It came as a huge surprise since the French investment group Group Bernard Tapie had been the potentional buyer for several months. Something that added fuel to these rumors was when Alex Dreyfus, CEO of Chili Gaming, wrote that PokerStars had paid $750 million to acquire Full Tilt and settle its outstanding legal issues with DOJ.
In January, Ira Rubin pleaded guilty to conspiracy in connection with his role as payment processor for PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker. He faced a maximum penalty of 55 years, but since he pleaded guilty many expected him to get away with a much lighter sentence. And so he did...
According to Bloomberg, Ira Rubin was recently sentenced to three year in prison and order to forfeit $5,000,000. Bloomberg also revealed that Rubin cannot participate in any business occupation related to payment processing or financial services once he's out of prison.
In case you missed it: Tennis pro Rafael Nadal recently joined PokerStars Team SportStars. Rafa has won 11 Grand Slam titles so far, with his most recent win being the 2012 French Open. However, he will not take part in the London Olympics because of continuing knee problems. PokerStars Pro Victoria Coren had a chat with with Nadal about poker and tennis.
Many expect the International Stadiums Poker Tour (ISPT) to become the world's largest live tournament ever. The tournament will take place at Wembley Stadium in London between May 31 and June 6th, 2013. The buy-in is €600 (1 rebuy or add-on possible) and 30,000 players (2,631 players have registered so far) are expected to take part and fight for a chunk of the €20,000,000 prize pool. The players will play online against each other at first, then the "laptops" will be put aside when 3000 players remain and live action begins. 1000 seats are reserved for players that want to buy-in directly (€6000) to the live part of the event.
