BankrollMob News: Poker, Casino, Crypto & Betting

In Doyle Brunson's latest blog "You Only Live once. If you work it right, once is enough" the 78-year-old poker legend writes about his good old friend Amarillo Slim, who passed away last month at the age of 83. Brunson writes, for example, about the phone call he made to Amarillo Slim when he was in a hospice and when the two of them traveled the US looking for poker games to take part in.

Below is the full version of Doyle's blog "You Only Live once. If you work it right, once is enough".

Read more » Doyle Brunsons's Tribute to Amarillo Slim

In ended up being a very exciting final table in the Spring Championship of Online Poker #6-High ($1,050 NL Draw) event as both Daniel "KidPoker" Negreanu and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier were on it.

Both of them did extremely well on the final. ElkY, however, was sent packing in 3rd place for $11,530,00, which left Daniel Negreanu playing heads-up against Argentian pro Roberto "Maestro Shao" Greco.

Negreanu, who has reached several final tables both online and live this year but failed to win, didn't win this time either and instead it was Roberto Greco who laid hands on the title and the first prize of $22,890. Negreanu received $15,330 for his efforts.

A few days ago the Brittish poker pro Sam Trickett announced on Twitter that he and Titan Poker had parted ways: "Me an Titan have decided to part ways. I have enjoyed representing them and they was a absolute pleasure to work with. Thanks again Titan..."

According to Trickett's ex team-mate Marvin Rettenmaier's Twitter, Titan Poker is parting ways with all its Pro Team players. This means that Titan Poker no longer has any pro players. However, nothing has been announced on Titan Poker's website, so we will have to wait and see if they will spend the Pro Team money on something else instead.

After winning Event #2-Medium for $247,200 on Monday night, it didn't even take 24 hours until Viktor "Isildur1" Blom striked again and won his second Spring Championship of Online Poker event! The win came in Event #3-High NLH 6-max rebuy Action Hour - after defeating a player called "Ruxandescu" from Romania heads-up.

Read more » Viktor "Isildur1" Blom wins his second SCOOP Event!

In the latest edition of the weekly rant (was recorded May 2nd but released 2 days ago due to "techinical issues"), Daniel Negreanu talks about his recent success at EPT Monte Carlo, Amarilo Slim - who passed away on April 29th, a video with Howard Lederer discussing business ethics, and a lot more. Click here too check out the video blog!

PokerStars 2012 Spring Championship of Online Poker started 2 days ago and already 10 of the 40 events are in the books. However, the most notable win so far has to be Viktor "Isildur1" Blom's win of of Event #2-Medium last night - $215 NLH (1 million guaranteed)! No deal was made among the finalists so Blom received amazing $247,200 - his biggest online tournament cash ever!

Read more » "Isildur1" wins a SCOOP Event!

The 2012 Spring Championship of Online Poker kicked off yesterday and will run until May 20th, with $30,000,000 guaranteed across 40 events! Each tournament has a low, medium and high buy-in, which makes it the ultimate tournament series for every type of player. The main event will be played on the very last day and not less than $5,000,000 is guaranteed by PokerStars!

Click here to see the 2012 SCOOP schedule (events and satellites).

Following the very successful and popular SuperStar Showdown with Viktor Blom, the very first Limit Hold'em Challenge with Daniel Negreanu was played yesterday on PokerStars. KidPoker's first opponent was the German Limit-specialist "rUaBot".

Read more » Negreanu lost the first Limit Hold'em Challenge

Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier is back in first place on Global Poker Index thanks to his third-place finish in the €100,000 Super High Roller that was played during EPT Monte-Carlo.

Jason Mercier, who had the lead last week, has now dropped to second place. This is the first time since December last year that ElkY is back in the lead on GPI's list. However, it extremely tight among the top players, so we might see a change already next week.

Read more » Global Poker Index: "ElkY" Reclaims Top Spot

It's time to take a look at the online high stakes scene's past month as there have been many interesting games running on PokerStars in the past few weeks. By far the biggest winner in April month was Ben "Ben86" Tollerene who got away with a fantastic $1,300,553 profit - more than double what the runner-up won (EireAbu - $634,825). Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky won $556,492 and secured the third place on April's list of winners.

Read more » High Stakes: April's Biggest Winners and Losers

Yesterday World Series of Poker announced on its website that a new partnership has been made with Crown Melbourne, Australia's leading integrated entrainment resort where Aussie Millions is played, to bring the WSOP series to the region.

World Series of Poker Asia -Pacific (WSOP APAC) will take place April 4-15, 2013, at Crown Melbourne and feature 5 WSOP gold bracelet events.

Read more » WSOP Expands to Australia in Partnership with Crown Melbourne

Yesterday we wrote about Justin Bonomo and what a fantastic chance he had to take down his second EPT Monaco High Roller event as he carried a massive lead to the final table. But unfortunately nothing seemed to work for Bonomo on the final table and he fell short in bid for a second High Roller title after getting knocked out in 4th place by Daniel Negreanu.

Read more » EPT Monaco High Roller: Igor Kurganov defeated Daniel Negreanu heads-up

A big congratulations to Mohsin Charania who took home the EPT Monaco Grand Final tonight for amazing €1,350,000 - after a 20-minute heads-up against Lucille Cailly, the first women ever to reach a Grand Final final table! However, Charania really deserved the title as he was playing fantastic poker from start to finish. But but of course he can also thank the poker gods for winning so many all-ins.

Read more » Mohsin Charania wins the EPT Monaco Grand Final for €1,350,000!

On April 25th, the American poker pro Justin "ZeeJustin" Bonomo took home the first-ever EPT Monaco Super High Roller for €1,640,000. Today he's playing the EPT Monaco High Roller final table as well! But he hasn't just made it to the final table with an average stack! No no! Bonomo has accumulated 2.2 million chips and has a massive lead and great chance of taking home another EPT Monaco event! What makes this even more impressive is that the Super High Roller and the High Roller events include many of the world's best players!

Read more » EPT Monaco High Roller: Justin Bonomo can write poker history today...

EPT Monaco's €25,000 High Roller event attracted 133 players when it started yesterday - the biggest High Roller event ever on the European Poker Tour! The first day lasted 10 one-hour levels and 46 players will return at noon today and play Day 2.

The American poker pro Andrew Badecker leads with a 350,000 stack at the moment. His closest challenger is Vincent van den Fluit with 341,800. There are some big names not far behind (just to mention a few): Sami Kelopuro (310k), Patrik Antonius (307,500) and Phil Ivey (271,500).

The money bubble bursts when 14 players remain. Then all players will be guaranteed at least €60,000 each. The winner will take home €1,080,000 and become a part of poker history since it's the biggest ever EPT High Roller!

The poker world lost an icon yesterday as five-time World Series of Poker Champion "Amarillo Slim" Preston passed away just after midnight at a hospice near his home in Amarillo, Texas.

His family was by his side from the day he was hospitalized till the very end. Preston's daughter confirmed the poker legend's death by releasing a statement regarding her father's passing:

Read more » Amarillo Slim Passes Away at 83

After a week of tense action, PokerStars Monte Carlo EPT Grand Final's 665 players have become only 8, which means that the final table is set and the big money is really, really close.

Seat 1 - Rodrigo Capriolo, Brazil, 2,945,000
Seat 2 - Bernard Guignon, France, 4,900,000
Seat 3 - Michael Dietrich, Canada, 1,550,000
Seat 4 - Sergio Castellucio, Italy, 1,410,000
Seat 5 - Mohsin Charania, United States, 2,215,000
Seat 6 - Daniel Gomez, Spain, 2,665,000
Seat 7 - Clayton Mozdzen, Canada, 1,430,000
Seat 8 - Lucille Cailly, France, 2,865,000

Read more » EPT Monaco: 8 Players Left. The winner will take home €1,500,000!

Both Day 1a and Day 1b have now been completed and around 400 players will return to the tables today and play Day 2. Nick Yunis from Chile will sit down with the largest stack today (191,700) and his closest opponents are Ivan Kudriavtcev (186,200) and Andoni Larrabe Sánchez (181,300) - all from from Day 1b. Martin Kabrhel, Day 1a chip leader, can now be found in 4th place (167k stack).

Read more » EPT Monaco: Nick Yunis leads the way into Day 2

Orinic Limited, Full Tilt Poker' subsidiary, has withdrawn the application for a gaming license that was made to Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC). This was reported by AGCC in a press release 2 days ago. Also, this means that the scheduled public hearing next Thursday is canceled.

This doesn't come as a surprise since Group Bernard Tapie, the investment group that was going buy Full Tilt Poker until a few days ago, sent out press release the other day that it had failed to reach an agreement with the United State Department of Justice to acquire the assets of Full Tilt Poker.

Now, let's hope that the rumor about PokerStars buying Full Tilt is true so players will get back their money.

PokerStars EPT Grand Final main event ($10,000 buy-in) kicked off yesterday and saw a field of 271 players. 165 of the participants made it through the day and Martin Kabrhel is the chip leader with 167,800, closely followed by David Sands with 160,300. Freddy Deeb also had a fantastic start on the tournament as he managed to accumulate 114,600 chips (6th place).

Other poker stars that survived the day are JP Kelly, Ondrej Vinklarek, Mickey Petersen, Phil Ivey, Joe Cada, Luca Pagano, Ville Wahlbeck, Mike McDonald, Vanessa Selbst - just to mention a few.

Day 1b of the tournament will start in a few hours and a large field of players are expected and many big names in the poker world. We will report throughout the tournament so you won't miss out on anything! Stay tuned!

Yesterday we reported that Justin Bonomo, who had a huge lead when the final table begun, was playing against Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier and Tobias Reinkemeier for the title and a first prize of €1,640,000!

Bonomo had an enormous chip advantage at this point and it didn't take long before he had knocked out both ElkY and Reinkemeier (his toughest opponent on the final table, according to himself) and was the last man standing.

Read more » EPT Monaco: Justin Bonomo won the Super High Roller (€1,640,000)

The final table of the first-ever EPT Monaco Super High Roller was set last night with the following 8 players.

1) Justin Bonomo, 4 393 000
2) Tobias Reinkemeier, 1 682 000
3) Daniel Negreanu, 1 581 000
4) Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, 1 265 000
5) Masa Kagawa, 1 076 000
6) Jonathan Duhamel, 654 000
7) Patrik Antonius, 338 000
8) Eugene Katchalov, 262 000

Read more » LIVE: Justin Bonomo leads the Super High Roller in Monaco

Group Bernard Tapie Group made a statement yesterday in which they wrote that they have failed to reach an agreement with the United State Department of Justice to acquire the assets of Full Tilt Poker.

Groupe Bernard Tapie regrets to announce that, after seven months of intensive work, our efforts to obtain final approval of the United States Department of Justice of the agreement to acquire the assets of Full Tilt Poker have ended without success.

Read more » Group Bernard Tapie won't buy Full Tilt

According to numerous sources, PokerStars has reached a settlement with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to buy Full Tilt Poker and settle its outstanding legal matters. No official statements have been made by either sites so far, but according to Alex Dreyfus, CEO of Chili Gaming, PokerStars has paid $750 million to acquire Full Tilt and settle its outstanding legal issues with the DOJ - $330 million will go to repay Full Tilt account holders.

These news, if they are true, come as a big surprise since the French investment group Group Bernard Tapie were known to be the buyers of Full Tilt Poker until now. And there has been lots of news in the past few weeks indiciating that the deal was as good as done. Now, however, it seems like new owners might be PokerStars, the world's largest poker site.

Day 1 of the first-ever EPT Monte Carlo Super High Roller was played yesterday. A total of 38 players paid $100,00 each and entered the tournament. 29 players survived the day and will return today to play Day 2.

Talai Shakerchi, from England, is leading the tournament with 1,165,000 chips. Shakerchi eliminated, for example, Viktor "Isildur1" Blom in one of the last hands of Day 1. 

Read more » EPT Monte Carlo Super High Roller