There has been plenty of live tournament action over the weekend with LAPT Chile, ANZPT Sydney, France Poker Series, and WSOPC Harrah's Rincon (the only tournament that isn't run by PokerStars) But yesterday was the most entertaining and exciting day since both the LAPT Chile and the ANZPT Sydney (main events) final tables were played...
The weekend is soon here and it's high time to play in one of the MicroMillions events as the micro stakes tournament series ends on Sunday. There are 3 tournaments left to play today, and another 10 events tomorrow - all with big prize pools but small buy-ins.
However, on Sunday it will get really exciting as the main event with a
$1 million guarantee will be played. Apart from the main event, there will be another 3 events with big gaurantees: a $75,000 guarantee, a $100k guarantee and a $400k guarantee.
Nicolai Jacobsen, 21, from Denmark, thought he was the unluckiest poker player ever when his four of a kind aces hand was beaten on the river by an even better hand: Royal Straight Flush. The pot of 2,541 SEK (about €285) went to his opponent, but it didn't take long before he realized that he was the big winner of the hand.
The table Jacobsen was sitting at was a so-called Bad Beat Table on NordicBet and because he lost the hand he had won amazing €219,644,93! Jacobson, as you probably can imagine, was in shock and thought that it all was a dream.
"It's totally crazy. I didn't even know that it was a Bad Beat table I was playing on. I really got shocked and had to check my account balance an extra time."
Last week, around 200 people gathered in downtown Madrid to protest against the construction of Sheldon Adelson's Eurovegas complex in their city. Adelson, CEO for Las Vegas Sands and the 14th wealthiest person in the world, will choose either Madrid or Barcelona as the location for the Las Vegas's sands next project - a $21 billion entertainment complex that includes 6 casinos and 12 hotels.
Some fun news for all poker players and Simpsons fans out there. According to Inside TV, poker pro and actress Jennifer Tilly will make a cameo appearance in an episode of Simpsons' as herself, popping up in an instructional DVD that Lisa watches to brush up on her card skills.
Tilly, the ex-wife of Sam Simon, who developed The Simpsons with Matt Groening and James L. Brooks, frequently lends her voice to another animated Fox Comedy, Family Guy. Apart from Family Guy, Tilly has made vocal work for popular films such as Monsters INC and Stuart Little.
The Simpsons' episode with Jennifer Tilly will be aired early next season - the show's 24th.
Two of Party Poker's heaviest events are just around the corner. First up is PartyPoker Premier League V, a televised tournament in which 14 poker pros buy-in for $125,000 each and $200,000 is added for the final table. The tournament will be running April 4-10 and the field includes the following players: Tony G, Erik Seidel, Patrik Antonius, Like Schwartz, Sam Trickett, Ian Frazer, Vanessa Selbst, Andy Frankenberger, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Tom Dwan, Phil Laak, Daniel "Jungleman" Cates, Eugene Katchhalov and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier.
"ElkY" signed up for the tournament as late as yesterday and he seems to be excited about his first Party Poker Premier League.
"This will be the first time I have taken part in the Premier League and I'm super excited to compete with all those great players in such a unique and interesting format," Grospellier told the PartyPoker Blog on Wednesday.
According to the BBC, Mitchell, an award winning comedian best known for his role on the TV series Peep Show, placed an ad in the Birth, Marriages and Deaths column of The Times newspaper to announce that he and Vicky Coren, Team PokerStars Pro, TV host and highly regarded writer, are engaged.
Mtichell and Coren met on the BBC quiz show The Bubble in 2010. Both have received lots of well-wishes on Twitter since the news became official.
The anonymous poker player RaiseOnce did very well at PokerStars nosebleed tables last week. In total, he won $625k from different high stakes regulars last week and ended up as the biggest winner online - about $150k more than the second biggest winner, Terje Augdal from Norway.
Tired of slow games and no action? Then you should really check out Zoom - PokerStars new, fast-paced ring game format. When you fold in Zoom you will be dealt into a new hand on a new table straight away. In fact, as soon as you have been dealt a hand, you can click the 'Fast Fold' button, which allows you to fold when it's not yet your turn to act. This speeds up the game a lot as you don't have to sit and wait for good hands.
The beta version is already available on PokerStars. You can find Zoom tables under the 'Zoom' tab in your poker client. Click here If you would like to know more about Zoom before trying it out!
After losing the postponed match against Isaac Haxton last wednesday, Viktor "Isildur1" Blom played the second SuperStar Showdown of the year against the British poker pro Alexander "Kanu7" Millar yesterday. Viktor Blom, who lost about $200k to Millar during last week, took an early lead against Millar and was up about $80k after 200 hands had been played.
But Millar fought back really well and suddenly had a $20k+ lead after 500 of 2500 hands were in the books...
It ended up being a Scot and Dane who battled it out for the EPT Madrid title. Frederik Jensen, from Denmark, started the heads-up with a 2-1 lead over Fraser MacIntyre. Jensen dominated the heads-up totally and a few hands into the match he had a 4-1 advantage. MacIntyre had basically given up at that point, and it didn't take long before Jensen had all the chips (to be precise, the heads-up only lasted for 15 minutes).
If you love small buy-ins and big prize pools, then PokerStars MicroMillionsis something for you! MicroMillions, a brand new micro stakes tournament series on PokerStars, started yesterday and will run until Match 25. In total, there will be 100 events with buy-ins starting from as low as only $0.11, which makes it a tournament series that everyone can afford to play.
There are up to 10 events running every day, starting around the clock, and the most events have a buy-ins of $5 or less. The highlight of MicroMillions will be Main Event on March 25 with a $1 million prize pool. The winner of this tournament is guaranteed to get at least $150k.
There are satellites running 24/7 to all 100 events. And you can find satellites for as little as $0.4 or 10 FPPS. In other words, it's enough to make a very small deposit on PokerStars to have the chance of winning big.
Now only 3 tables and 24 players remain in the European Poker tour main event in Madrid. Mike "Timex" McDonald, the day 2 chip leader, is one of the players who will return to play Day 4 today with 883k chips - not even half the stack of the new chip leader, João Paulo Simão. Simão, 23, from Belo Horizonte in Brazil, crushed everyone who got in his way during Day 3 and boosted his stack from 169k to amazing 1,973,000 chips, which must be some kind of record in EPT history.
Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu has posted a new video blog in which he discuses Ray Bitar's (the CEO of Full Tilt Poker) late apology to the poker world, Bay 101, Epic Poker League's failure, and other interesting and funny things that have happened in his life recently.
Last Sunday, Viktor "Isildur1" Blom won $100,000 in the "first half" of the SuperStar Showdown against Isaac Haxton, then he continued winning a few hundreds of thousands of dollars the next day. However, Blom's winning streak came to an end on Tuesday when he lost back $100k + another $5k to Haxton when they finished all 2,5k hands of the SuperStar Showdown.
The two starting days and Day 2 are now history and the player field has been narrowed down from 477 to 116 players. Unfortunately, Day 2 saw the departure of many former EPT champions: Jake Cody, Anton Wigg, Michael Eiler, Arnaud Mattern, Michael Tureniec and David Vamplew etc. However, one former EPT champion is leading the way into Day 3.
Mike "Timex" McDonald (picture), a Canadian poker pro who won EPT German Open in Dortmund in 2008, must have bribed the poker gods (or perhaps the dealers?) since he was running so extremely good throughout Day 2. When he had good hands - he always got paid off very well. When he didn't have good hands and needed luck - the turn and river cards performed magic.
According to an interview with the chairman of Nevada Gaming Control Board, we might see a legislation of online poker in USA already this year. The chairman, Mark Lipparelli, says that a new gaming license system might get the first official applications within a few months time. This would mean that gambling sites could be running legally in some states already this year. The first state to get a license, however, will most likely be Nevada.
In the interview, Lipparelli also talked in detail how the procedure for applying gambling sites would work. Besides the application itself, this procedure includes other things such as a real technical evaluation of the applicant's products to make sure that only serious, well-functioning sites get the license.
In case you missed it: Last Sunday the first SuperStar Showdown of 2012 kicked off and Viktor "Isildur1" Blom and Isaac Haxton sat down at four $100/$200 NLH tables with $300,000 each. Isildur1 dominated the match and after 692 hands, when Haxton had reconnected for the 4th time due to unstable Internet connection, Viktor Blom was in the lead with $100,000 and they decided to continue the match another day.
The match resumed yesterday and Isildur1 increased his lead to about $130k over the first hundred hands. But Haxton kept a cool head and managed to get back into the game, and It didn't take long Haxton had gone from -$130k to -$70. The young Swede was folding several hands at this points, which made many of the spectators believe that he was afraid of losing the lead and therefore waited for "monster hands".
On Sunday night, as a part of PokerStars SuperStar Showdown, Viktor "Isildur1" Blom and Isaac "philivey2694" Haxton sat down at four $100/$200 No Limit Hold'em tables with $300,000 each. Blom, who lost the previous SuperStar Showdown against Haxton, took the lead straight away and was up $70k after about 500 hands of play.
Only two days to go until PokerStars MicroMillions will see daylight for the very first time. The new tournament series is for anyone who likes to play low-stakes tournaments but still play for huge prizes. In total, there will be 100 events running from March 15-25, with million of dollars in guaranteed cash prize pools.
The buy-ins starting from as low as $0.11, so it's really the series that everyone can play. There are satellites to all 100 events up running already, and it's possible to buy-in for some satellites for as little as 10 FPP.
There are 7-10 events running every day March 15-25th, starting around the clock, so it doesn't matter where in the world you are located - you will always find an event to take part in! The highlight of MicroMillions will be the $1,000,000 Guaranteed Main Event on March 25th ($22 buy-in). Then there are two $400,000 guarantee events ($11 buy-in) - March 18th and March 25th.
The WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star event didn't turn out the way most people had predicted. Firstly, for the first time in Bay 101 Shooting Star history, not a single Shooting Star made it to the final table. Secondly, a satellite winner ended up beating a field of 364 players and grabbed the title and almost $1 million in prize money.
Yesterday was the quietest day on PokerStars high stakes tables this week. In fact, there were only two short sessions at the $100/$200 PLO tables and those were heads-up matches between Radi "refealamit" Amit and "RaiseOnce" (rumored to be Phil Ivey) and between "Fake Love 888" and Ilari Sahamies.
The biggest pot of the day was a pot when RaiseOnce got his money in with nuts for a $49k pot. The biggest winner, however, ended up being Rui "PepperonifF" Cao (picture) who won $108k playing at the $25/$50 and $50/$100 PLO tables.
After 3 days of play (4 if you include both Day 1a and b), the World Poker Tour's Bay 101 Shooting Star main event is down to a final table. Erik Cajelais, from Canada, will sit down at the final table today with a 3,6 million stack - about 1,3 million more than Ubaid Habib in second place.
Time is up and Day 2 of the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event has come to an end with 20 players. Jonathan Duhamel is one of them and he has a great chance of reaching the final table with his stack of 751,000 chips (6th place). Another 2 familiar faces that are closing in on the final are Joe Serock (647,000) and JC Tran (145,000).
PokerStars announced the other day that its very popular SuperStar Showdown is about to return! The SuperStar Showdown, incase you never heard of it before, is a heads-up challenge where anyone with enough money can challenge Team PokerStars Pro Viktor "Isildur1" Blom to play an heads-up match for 2,500 hands (or until someone is broke) on 4 tables with the minimum stakes of $50/$100.
