After almost a year of total silence, Full Tilt Poker's CEO Ray Bitar has finally let a news site interview him. In the interview, which was released yesterday, Bitar talks about, for example, how his life has drastically changed since last April (Black Friday) and why he the rest of Full Tilt's owners haven't made any statements. Below is the full interview with Ray Bitar:
Ray, there has been public outrage surrounding the fact that you have been silent since the Black Friday shutdown and indictments. Can you say why you haven't made any public statements?
The second starting day of WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star attracted a field of 222 players. The day ended with Christ Summers as chip leader (188,000) and Taylor von Kriegenbergh in second place with 181,300. Summers and Kriegenbergh played outstanding poker throughout the day and it will be interesting to follow theme during Day 2.
World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star is back once again and already the first day of the main event has come to an end. A total of 142 players signed up for Day 1a, and after several hours of play, 54 players remained.
Bryce Yockey (left in picture together with tournament director Matt Savage) ended the day as the chip leader with 245k. Apart from having the lead, Yockey has already earned $15,000 in this event thanks to the chip leader bonus and a Shooting Star bounty. Yockey sent Poker Hall of Famer Erik Seidel to the rail late in the day to add to his growing stack.
However, a few Shooting Stars still made it through Day 1a: Vanessa Selbst (125,400), Jontahan Duhamel (102.200) and Mike Matusow (83,800). Day 1b kicks off in about 8 hours and we can expect an even bigger field of players today.
World Series of Poker bracelet winner Todd "Dan Druff" Witteles has launched a site dedicated to keep cheaters and fraudsters away from the poker community. The site features a blog from Witteles and a forum where poker players can discuss poker cheaters and how to avoid them. Also, there will be a radio show on the site in the near future.
"Why did I start this site? Because I love the game of poker. And because I hate what the scumbags and criminals are doing to it. Prior to the "boom" of 2003, the poker community was small and close-knit. Cheating was localized to a few people engaging in collusion or other small-time scams. Times have changed. Poker has become big business, and the massive amount of money involved has attracted many bottom-feeders of our society," Wittleles writes on his site.
Last January, Federated Sports + Gaming entered the poker scene by launching Epic Poker Tour, a tournament series that attracts some of the world's best poker players.
Last Wednesday, a little bit more than a year after the launch of Epic Poker Tour, the company has announced on its website that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
About one week after finishing seventh in the EPT Copenhagen Main Event, the American Poker Pro Steve O'Dwyer won the WPT National tournament in Vejle, Denmark.
O'Dwyer received a first prize of 900,000 DKK (about USD 160k) for his amazing achievement - especially since he had to beat 5 "locals" on the final table. O'Dwyer is now closing in on the $2.5 million mark in his career live tournament earnings.
WPT National Vejle final results (players 289, 1.00 DKK = 0.177533 USD): 1: Steve O'Dwyer - 893,960 DKK 2: Martin Tonnesen - 490,140 DKK 3: Claus Uhrskov - 339,960 DKK 4: Jan V. Sorensen - 225,030 DKK 5: Justin Lund - 175,710 DKK 6: Kenneth Laursen - 138,720 DKK
The Cypriot police raided a house in Limassol in 2009 after they had received complaints that the house had turned into a gambling club. The police entered the house and found a group of female pensioners playing cards. The police recovered around €100 in stake money and confiscated playing cards and poker chips.
Two of the women have since the raid passed away and two are in nursing home. The organizer of the private home game, a 98-year-old Cypriot woman, can now get up to a 6-month jail term or a €750 fine since gambling for money, even in a private home game, is illegal in Cyprus.
Yioula Diakantoni, the daughter of the 98-year-old told the Associated Press, "They were playing with only very small sums of money, just to make it interesting. My mother has never done anyone harm and we hope she continues playing because it keeps her mind sharp."
In an interview on Short Stacked Radio on Wednesday, Jerry Yang told the interviewer that his autobiography, All in: From Refugee Camp to Poker Champ, could be set for the big screen.
"I'm very excited and I'm praying, I'm really praying right now," said Yang, "We have a scheduled meeting already. My father and I will fly out and meet with this particular (film) company. This is my third meeting with them by the way, so hopefully we'll be able to put something together that is agreeable with both sides."
Jens "Jeans89" Kyllönen from Finland is on everyone's lips lately (well, at least the ones who follow the online high stakes scene). Kyllönen has been dominating PokerStars' nosebleed table this year and he's up about $1,7 million so far, which gives him a lead of about $600k over the second biggest winner.
Yesterday, highstakesdb.com posted a quite interesting interview with Jens Kyllönen. Below you read the interview in its full version:
Going way back, do you remember how you first heard about poker and when you started playing the game first time? Did you start playing online or live and what stakes? Did you realize quickly that you had an eye for the game?
About 2 weeks ago we wrote about the 19-year-old Norwegian poker player Ole-Kristian Nergard and his trip to Macau. He was running well in Macau's big game then and it seems like he's still going strong.
In fact, according to Andrew Feldman - who's also taking part in the big games, the Norwegian young-gun took home a pot of amazing 3.6 million Hong King Dollar (about USD 465,000) the other day and mucked the winning hand on the river. According to Nergard's twitter, it was the biggest pot of his poker career.
It ended up being an amateur who won the prestigious World Poker Tour LA Poker Classic! Sean Jazayeri went to the WPT Boot Camp with hopes of improving his game and maybe winning a $1,000 buy-in event. But things went really well for him and he decided to enter the Main Event for $10,000. After 5 days of play, he had made it to the final table with the biggest stack.
The World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic final table is finally set! It took 5 days of play to narrow down the field of 549 players to only 6 - the players below:
Seat 1. Sean Jazayeri - 4,380,000 (73 BBs) Seat 2. Jason Burt - 835,000 (13 BBs) Seat 3. Dan Kelly - 2,570,000 (42 BBs) Seat 4. Jason Somerville - 840,000 (14 BBs) Seat 5. Noah Schwartz - 3,835,000 (63 BBs) Seat 6. David Sands - 4,010,000 (66 BBs)
The final table begins at 4:00 PT and there will be a live stream on WPT's website. The winner will take home amazing $1,370,240 and the second place pays $806k. But all the finalists are guaranteed to get at least $202,910 each - could easily be the first place prize in any major tournament.
According to numerous reports, the Dutch Supreme Court has ordered several gaming operators to implement software that blocks residents in Holland from using foreign gambling sites.
The government has tried to block foreign companies from offering services in Holland since 2003. There are several reasons for this, however, there is no secret that they wa
nt people to bet at Dutch Lotto, the only organizing with license to run online gaming in the country.
The ruling took almost 10 years because the Dutch Supreme Court waited for a judgment from the European Court of Justice, which declared in 2010 that Holland has the rights to ban foreign operators as long as their intentions are to reduce fraud and discouraning people from gambling.
Ryan Lang, one of 11 men indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice on Black Friday, pleaded guilty to U.S. conspiracy charges on Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan, New York. From 2007 to 2010, Lang, 37, severed as a middleman between poker companies and brokers who tricked banks into processing money for the gambling businesses.
Lang apologized in court for the crime he has committed, which can give up to 30 years in prison.
"I wish to publically apologize to anyone I've harmed by my conduct," Lang said.
It was a hectic week at PokerStars nosebleed tables last week and a few made some big bucks while others lost huge amounts. For the second week in a row, the mysterious Swede MaiseE crushed everyone who got in his way. In fact, he had six winning days out of seven (the biggest loss was only 15k).
MaiseE biggest score, however, came on Monday when he took home $344k playing Pot Limit Omaha against many of PokerStars best players. He ended the week with some nice winnings as well - with the biggest single win coming from this $100k pot...
According to different reports, the popular cash game show Poker After Dark will return on March 5! The new episodes of Poker After Dark were primarily shot in December of 2010 and produced by Poker PROductions. In total, 24 new cash game episodes (4 weeks) and 6 sit-n-go episodes (1 week) will be aired on NBC Sports Network over a period of 5 weeks.
Also there will be reruns of old Poker After Darks episodes on NBC Sports Network. However, we will have to wait and see whether or not there will be another season of PAD after this one. According some people, Poker After Dark needs to secure a big sponsor if they want to record a new season.
Some time ago rumors that Phil Galfond was selling his luxury penthouse apartment in New York started circulating in different poker forums. Now the property has hit the open market and anyone with $3,990,000 can buy it.
The future owner will get a 2,400-square feet penthouse apartment that can be accessed through a private elevator. The penthouse has 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a media/game room, home office, 18-foot double height atrium, two large glass walled terraces, a private r
oof deck, and much more.
Team Online against PokerStars Pro; youth against old timer; blonde hair against dark hair; foreigner against local - all could describe the heads-up between Mickey Petersen and Pierre Neuville. One thing is for sure though - it was one of the most entertaining EPT finals for quite some time and it took six-and-quarter-hours before a winner was crowned, Petersen.
Petersen, who's a well-known and respected tournament player in Denmark, really deserved the win against the Belgian Team PokerStars pro. Firstly, he usually had the best hand when the money went into the center of the table. Secondly, he stayed focused from start to end and didn't let his older, more experienced opponent push him around. Thirdly, he saw that his opponent was getting more and more exhausted and used time to his advantage.
Red Spade Open is back this month with a $1 million guaranteed prize pool, of which the winner is guaranteed to take home at least $200,000. Apart from that there will be $100 bounties on all Team PokerStars Pro and Team Online players taking part.
The Red Spade Open tournament is taking place on Sunday, February 26 at 15:00 ET and the buy-in is $55. There are plenty of satellites up running already, so you don't to spend more than a few $/FPPs to take a shoot at the really big money. Also it's possible to buy a ticket for the tournament in the VIP Store. Depending on your VIP status, you can get a ticket for just 3,100 FPPs.
The celebration of different milestone hands and other things never seem to stop on PokerStars. But it's all good since PokerStars keeps on spoiling its customers with amazing cash prizes everytime they celebrate something.
On March 11, 14:30 ET, it's time again as PokerStars will be celebrating the 6th Anniversary of the weekly Sunday Million tourney by hosting a Sunday Million tournament with an amazing $6 million guarantee. The winner of this tournament is guaranteed to walk away with at least $1 million!
Many well-known players didn't survive the third day of the Main Event and the tournament is now down to only 24 players. Melanie Weisner, the Day 3 chip leader who was very confident of a deep run, is not among these 24 players, nor is the Day 1b chip leader Mads Wissing from Denmark.
There are still some pretty interesting players who made it through the day though. For example: the American poker pro and Day 1a and Day 2 chip leader Steve O'Dwyer with 423,500 chips, and the reigning EPT Copenhagen Champion Micheal Tureniec from Sweden with 294,500.
MaisE is the alias of a player that has dominated on PokerStars nosebleed tables in the past 2 weeks. In fact, last week he won $471,892 (of which $344k comes from $50/$100 and $100/$200 PLO games last Sunday) and beat the second most successful player with about $200,000! According to different sources, a Swedish player is hiding behind the alias and many even compare him with Isildur1, who was revealed as Viktor Blom when he signed for PokerStars.
Top 5 winners and losers of the previous week: "MaiseE", $471 982 Alexey "LuckyGump" Makarov, $272 431 Ronny "1-ronnyr3" Kaiser, $268 842 Rafi "refaelamit" Amit, $224 337 "bernard-bb", $192 878
The EPT Copenhagen Main Event is down to 72 players after 2 days of play. Day 1a and 1b chip leaders Steve O'Dwyer, from USA, and Mads Wissing, from Denmark, are among the players that will return today, however, neither of them are among the top players.
The new chip leader is the American poker pro Melanie Weisner who managed to accumulate 368,200 chips during Day 2. Weisner indeed had an amazing day at the poker tables and now she has a fantastic chance of taking home the biggest cash of her career.
A few weeks ago, Doyle Brunson promised his followers on twitter that he would write his own thoughts on Black Friday and the Full Tilt scandal. Two days ago, just as promised, The Godfather of Poker posted a blog on the matter that has affected hundreds of thousands of players all over the globe.
Peter Eastgate, the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event winner, is the newest member of Team Betfair Poker. The Ex World Champion retired from poker in 2010 but is now back in business as he's planning on playing several major tournaments. He will make his first appearance wearing the Betfair logo at the 2012 WSOP Main Event in July.
So what has Peter Eastgate been up to since he quit poker in 2010? Watch the video below and find out for yourself
