According to The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District in New York, Ray Bitar returned to USA and gave himself up to the FBI on Monday.
Bitar, the CEO of Pocket Kings, the parent company of Full Tilt Poker, is facing 5 charges for his role at Full Tilt Poker, including money laundering, illegal gambling business etc.
The Big One for One Drop ($1,000,000 buy-in) is now down to only 8 players. Antonio Esfandiari holds the lead with 39,925,000 chips, and Sam Trickett is not far behind with his 37,000,000 stack. Brian Rast, the Day 1 chip leader, is still in the tournament, but he's now in 4th place with 11,350,000 million chips.
The first day of the most expensive tournament in poker history has come to an end. Not less than 48 brave (and rich) players entered the $1,000,000 buy-in tournament The Big One for One Drop (Event #55 - No-Limit Hold'em).
After 9 levels of play, the first day came to an end with 37 players (players that were eliminated on the day included, for example, Jens Kyllönen, Jonathan Duhamel, Paul Phua, Erik Seidel, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Nick Schulman, Eugene Katchalov, Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi and Giovanni Guarascio.). Brian Rast tops the the remaining field with his 10,7100,000 stack, Phil Hellmuth is in second place with 8,395,000 chips.
Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst won the $2,500 Buy-in Six-Handed Ten-Game Mix (Event #52) this morning. The Yale University graduate and poker pro from New York City defeated a very tough field of players and now has a second WSOP gold bracelet and a whopping $244,259 in prize money in her bank account.
This prestigious event attracted a field of 108 players (most of them well-known poker pros) that generated a massive prize pool of $5,184,000! After a five-day battle, Michael Mizrachi was the last man standing and received his 3rd gold bracelet and stunning $1,451,527! Mizrachi is now in fourth place on the all-time money leader board!
Final table results: 1 Michael Mizrachi United States $1,451,527 2 Chris Klodnicki Unites States $896,935 3 Andy Bloch United States $561,738 4 Luke Schwartz United Kingdom $604,736 5 Roland Israelashvili United States $317,882 6 Stephen Chidwick United Kingdom $253,497 7 Bill Chen United States $205,856 8 Bruno Fitoussi France $169,879
Thursday night concluded event #46, the $2,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em tournament, and the winner was the firstime WSOP winner Joey Weissman. He left the final table with $694,609 in prize money and his first WSOP Gold Bracelet.
The 24 year old american has a WSOP record that shows two cashes from last year's No-Limit Hold’em #28 in which he earned $11,407 for finishing on the 44th place and event #20 where he ended up on the 74th place and won $4,572.
Event #46 had 1,607 entrants and the final table went on for more than nine hours. The runner up was the french player Jeremy Quehen who was chasing the first french WSOP win in 2012. It was the first time Quehen cashed in the WSOP, after the duel that took nearly three hours. His 2nd place gave him $429,535.
Event #45: The Poker Players Championship is now down to a final table with 8 players. Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi (2 WSOP bracelets) has the lead with 3,648,000 chips, and Andy Bloch (1 WSOP bracelet) is in second place with 3,598,000.
The tournament attracted a field of 108 players who could afford the very expensive buy-in of $50,000! Now, after 4 days of play, the remaining 8 players are guaranteed at least 169k each! The winner will take home amazing $1,451,527 and the gold coveted WSOP bracelet!
Final Table Seat Draw
1 Bill Chen 1,293,000 2 Luke Schwartz 1,494,000 3 Andy Bloch 3,598,000 4 Stephen Chidwick 2,026,000 5 Michael Mizrachi 3,648,000 6 Chris Klodnicki 3,276,000 7 Bruno Fitoussi 188,000 8 Roland Israelashvili 694,000
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The 6th Italian to ever win a Gold Bracelet in the history of the WSOP was declared the winner of the $1,000 No Limit Hold'em event #44 which concluded late on Tuesday eve.
Rocco Palumbo of Genoa was the last remaining player of the 2,949 entrants that battled it out for three long days at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. Besides the Gold Bracelet, Palumbo left the ESPN Main stage with $464,464 in prize money and could proudly enter the exclusive group of Italian WSOP winners which up until Tuesday eve only included Valter Farina, Dario Minieri, Dario Alioto, Jeffrey Lisandro and Max Pescatori.
Palumbo's previous WSOP record shows a 81st placement in this year's No-Limit Hold'em event #41 which earned him $8,791.
The runner up was the american poker pro Nelson Robinson whose past WSOP merits dates back to 2009 and includes 6 cashes and total earnings of $262,381.
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Monday night presented two new first-time Gold Bracelet winners in the events #41 & #43.
Event #41, the $3,000 Buy-In No-Limit Hold’em, resulted in the 1,000th bracelet to be won in the WSOP history and it was the american, former police officer and Calvin Klein menswear model, Greg Ostrander that walked away with the jewlery but also the amazing first prize of $742,072. Ostrander's WSOP records shows total winnings of $43,968 from 2011 where he ended up in the money in two events: event #58: No-Limit Hold'em Championship where he finished 232nd which gave him $40,654 and a 160th placement in the No-Limit Hold’em event #38 where he earned $3,314.
After his win, WSOP.com published a short interview with Ostrander where he answered the question What is toughest -- being a model, a poker player, or a police officer? Ostrander replied: "The toughest is probably a poker player because you don’t have benefits thrown at you. It is a grind, you can have one large score that would set you for life, but if you do not and just have a chunk of scores the variance is so great and that is why people have a lot of backers. As far as job wise, being a cop is probably the best because financially it was fine, benefits were awesome, you had vacation and everything was there for you. But the modeling was toughest -- being out in front of people in my underwear was kind of tough!"
Event #43, the $1,500 Buy-In No-Limit Hold’em, gave the 22 year old, Broklyn born Henry Lu his first Gold Bracelet and a healthy cash prize of $654,380 for being the last man standing out of the 2,770 entrants that battled it out for three days. Henry Lu's previous WSOP merits shows a total of $15,558 in winnings from last year's event #54: $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em in which he finished at 79th place and the $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em event #18 that placed him on 56th place. The runner up was UK's Neil Channing who, according to WSOP.com, "barely missed the chance at what would have been his long-awaited first WSOP victory". Mr. Channing's WSOP past dates back all the way to 2001 and shows total WSOP earnings of $768,531.
When Oleksii Kovalchuk, who won the $2.5k buy-in No-Limit Hold'em event in 2011 for $689,739, entered the $2,500 buy-in Mixed Split - Seven-Card Stud/Omaha (Event #42), he had little hope that he would succeed. Mainly because he hadn't mastered the games or even understood them completely.
102 players are battling it out in the $50,000 buy-in tournament The Poker Players Championship at the moment. In the lead is Ali Eslami with 253,300 chips, closely followed by Bruno Fitoussi with 251,400.
The remaining field of players includes so many well-known pros that it's hard to pick a few favorites to reach the final table. Besides that, the prize pool and the total entries are sill not stated on WSOP's website, so we will have to return with some more information about that later on today.
Poker pro and loudmouth Antanas Guoga, better known as Tony G, won't be taking part in Big One for One Drop at the 2012 World Series of Poker - even though he was one of the 42 pre-registered players for the tournament. The reason seems to be that he will travel around with Lithuania's basketball team, together with other big sponsors of the team, at the same time as the tournament is played in Las Vegas.
This means that 41 players will take part in Big One for One Drop. The tournament kicks off in a week and still there are 7 seats (48 player cap) available to anyone who has the money and the guts to use $1,000,000 for a single poker tournament!
Thursday night delivered some of the best poker action so far in the 2012 WSOP. It was the No-Limit Hold'em Shootout event that brought on some of the loudest crowds at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in this year's WSOP. UK's Craig McCorkell was the last man standing after the battle. The victory resulted in 2012's first British Gold Bracelet and a healthy bag of money for McCorkell - $368,593.
When only three players remained in the game, the 2004 Pot-Limit Hold'em winner Antonio Esfandiari was holding an estimated 80% of the chips. Then something happened... WSOP.com reporter Nolan Dalla explains the events: "the most stunning turn of events at this year’s WSOP took place when Esfandiari not only lost the chip lead, he was ultimately knocked out of the tournament. All it took were three brutal hands for “the Magician” to completely disappear from the ESPN Main Stage".
Esfandiari went all-in with a pocket of 9's facing Jeremiah Fitzpatrick's pocket 7's. The flop showed a 7 and Fitzpatrick, who's best WSOP record shows a 102nd placement in 2009's No Limit Hold'em event 11, terminated Esfandiari. Fitzpatrick was in a great position for the Gold Bracelet.
Thirty minutes into the heads-up between Fitzpatrick and McCorkell, the chips had turned to McCorkell's favour. The final hand gave McCorkell the bracelet with a pair of eights. Nolan Dalla describes the last hand of event 36 as "Oddly enough, the final board was an inappropriately anti-climatic swan song of a thrilling final table that included nine full hours of ecstasy, tragedy, jubilation, and heartbreak".
The winner of event #34, Naoya Kihara took his nation's first ever WSOP Gold Bracelet last night when he won the Six-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha event and won $512,029 in prize money.
The 30 year old Japanease player made his WSOP debut in last year's WSOP where he managed to get in the money by finishing 653rd in event #58 which gave him $19,359. The former school teacher turned poker pro is mostly playing online poker but according to WSOP.com Kihara now "hopes to travel around the world and play in more live tournaments with this victory".
At the final table in event #34, Kihara was accompanied by two former Gold Bracelet winners; the 2008 Pot-Limit Hold'em winner Davidi Kitai (finished at 5th) and the No-Limit Hold'em winner of 2010 Jason DeWitt (finished at 8th). The runner-up was Chris De Maci who's WSOP record shows a 12th placement in 2005's Hold'em event #9.
As for the future, Kihara is hoping to get an online sponshorship deal but also, according to WSOP.com, to "become a poker ambassador in his home country, as well as throughout Asia".
Carter Phillips is the name of the winner of Event #31: $1,500 No Limit Hold'em. Phillips topped a field of 2,811 players, the largest $1,5k NLHE event so far at the 2012 WSOP, and defeated the winner of the 2009 Main Event heads-up, Joe Cada.
This was Phillips' second WSOP bracelet after winning the $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em - Six Handed event in 2010 for $482,774. This time he received amazing $664,130 - the second biggest tournament cash of his career after the EPT Barcelona main event win in 2009 that gave him $1,216,023!
Instead of the ordinary Weekly Rant, Daniel Negreanu posted a short video on youtube called Checking in from WSOP this time (July 16th). In the video, Daniel talks about, for example, how unlucky he has been so far at the 43rd Annual World Series of Poker.
Doyle Brunson is turning 79-years-old later this year and has a long and sucessful poker career behind him. However, as of late his health has been getting worse and many of his fans were even worried that he wouldn't be able to take part in the 43rd Annual World Series of Poker, which started a few weeks ago.
But just as the tournament series had started Brunson wrote on his website that he had decided to play 4-5 events at this year's WSOP - something that made his fans and friends both happy and proud.
The 43rd Annual World Series of Poker is running day and night in Las Vegas at the moment. All the best poker players in the world are there to play poker, party and simply have a good time. One of them is Viktor "Isildur1" Blom from Sweden.
After a very tight heads-up against John Monnette (lasted for about 90 minutes), David 'Bakes' Baker took home his second gold bracelet (winning the $10,000 2-7 Draw Lowball event in 2010) and the $451,779 first place prize! On the final table, Baker overcame fantastic players such as Phil Hellmuth (4th) and Phil Ivey (5th), so it definitely was a well-deserved win by the 25-year-old poker pro from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
Event #32: H.O.R.S.E. attracted a field of 178 players that generated a $1,673,200 prize pool. A total of 24 players received a share from it and here are the 8 finalists:
Last night the extended Day 4 of Event #29: Seniors No-Limit Hold'em Championship continued. Only 4 players had chips left and Dennis Phillips, best known for his 3rd place finish in the 2008 WSOP Main event, had a decent chip lead over the other players.
After some hours of battle, Dennis Phillips and Allyn Jaffrey Schulman, wife of 2009 WSOP Europe Main Event winner Barry Shulman and step-mother of 2009 WSOP Main Event final tablist Jeff Shulman, were the last 2 players of the tournament. Phillips had five-to-one chip lead at some point of the heads-up and no one thought Schulman would come back.
Ylon Schwartz, finished 4th in the 2008 WSOP Main Event for $3,7 million, won his first gold bracelet last Saturday when he took down Event #27: H.O.R.S.E. Now, 3 days later, another 2008 WSOP Main Event finalist has the chance of winning his first gold bracelet.
The former chess master and poker pro Ylon Schwartz won his first World Series of Poker gold bracelet last Saturday! He topped a field of nearly 900 players in the $1,500 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. tournament and received $267,081 in prize money!
Schwartz has now earned over $4,4 million (23 cashes) in the past six years at the World Series of Poker. Most of his WSOP earnings come from when he finished 4th in the 2008 Main Event and received mind-blowing $3,774,974 in prize money.
Thursday night concluded event #46, the $2,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em tournament, and the winner was the firstime WSOP winner Joey Weissman. He left the final table with $694,609 in prize money and his first WSOP Gold Bracelet.
The 6th Italian to ever win a Gold Bracelet in the history of the WSOP was declared the winner of the $1,000 No Limit Hold'em event #44 which concluded late on Tuesday eve.
Monday night presented two new first-time Gold Bracelet winners in the events #41 & #43.
Thursday night delivered some of the best poker action so far in the 2012 WSOP. It was the No-Limit Hold'em Shootout event that brought on some of the loudest crowds at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in this year's WSOP. UK's Craig McCorkell was the last man standing after the battle. The victory resulted in 2012's first British Gold Bracelet and a healthy bag of money for McCorkell - $368,593.
The winner of event #34, Naoya Kihara took his nation's first ever WSOP Gold Bracelet last night when he won the Six-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha event and won $512,029 in prize money.
