BankrollMob News: Poker, Casino, Crypto & Betting

Day 1a of the EPT San Remo Main Event is over. 225 out of 438 players survived the first starting day and they will now rest 1 day before it's time for Day 2. In the lead is Leonid Bilokur, from Russian, with a 187,000 stack, closely followed by Aleksey Zharko, from Ukraine, with 178,400 chips.

Things didn't go so well for the Swedish Team PokerStars Pro Viktor "Isildur1" Blom as he was sent packing during the early stages of the day. However, this time, he was quite unlucky. Blom had Q 9 and the flop came J 8 10 (nut straight). The turn card gave Blom a flush draw as well and he decided to move all-in. His opponent called with J 8 (two pairs) and only had 4 outs. The poker gods must have turned against Blom as an 8 fell on the river and gave his opponent a full house.

Read more » EPT San Remo: Viktor "Isildur1" Blom is out of the Main Event

In a recent interview, Daniel "jungleman12" Cates, 21, tells the story about the tough time 3 years ago when he had to work at McDonalds to finance his poker and how he turned around the negative trend and became one of the world's best poker players. Cates also reveals 2 players he's afraid of playing No Limit Hold'em against.

Read more » Daniel "jungleman12" Cates's tough road to become a winner

Di "Urindanger" Dang and Hac "trex313" Dang are two well-known faces at Full Tilt Poker's nosebleed tables. The brothers have been around the online high stakes scene for quite some time and it has really paid off as their total winnings (only at FT) are close to $13,000,000. In a recent interview, Di "Urindanger" Dang was asked about 'Black Friday' and how it has affected him and his brothers daily life.

"I think we're okay. We've saved up our money, but a lot of our friends haven't. They're struggling. I actually wanted to retire from poker eventually, so the news didn't hurt me as much as it hurt my friends."

Read more » High Stakes: The Dang brothers think of retiring from poker

Last Sunday Viktor "Isildur1" Blom took on the second online qualifier in a special 1/10-sized edition of the SuperStar Showdown. This time it was a player with the alias "Mastermixus" who had qualified through satellites and received a $15,000 bankroll to play 2,500 hands of $5/$10 no-limit hold'em against Isildur1. 

After 2500 hands had been played, Isildur1 was the winner with a profit of $1279. His opponent, "Mastermixus", had $13.721 left and got to keep all of it. He must have been very satisfied with the money and to have played so well against one of the world's best NLH heads-up players.

There were some insane games at Full Tilt's nosebleed tables last Thursday. A player with the alias "ronnyr37617" (Switzerland) took on Gus Hansen in a $300/$600 PLO session that turned out to be very thrilling. For some time, Gus Hansen was down almost 1 million dollars, but thanks to winning a few big pots at the end of the session he "only" lost $427,000. "ronnyr37617" logged off when he was up $186,000. But most probably he hated himself for not quitting a bit earlier - before losing the big pots to Hansen.

Read more » High Stakes: Finnish high-stake regulars won big!

Black Friday has turned many American poker pros daily life up side down. According to a survey made by a very popular American poker magazine, many Poker Pros have considered to move from the U.S. in order to avoid further hassle. Below you can read what 6 poker pros had to say about online poker's future in the U.S.

Adam "squee451" Sherman - ($1.1 million in tournament earnings)
Right now I'm undecided between moving to a foreign country to play online or just going back to grad school. I'll probably make my decision after the end of the World Series of Poker.

Read more » American poker pros consider moving abroad

On Sunday Microgaming (poker network) throws a tournament with a €750,000 guaranteed prize pool (buy-in €300+€20). It's the old €500,000 tournament that has gotten its prize pool boosted with €250,000 or 50% extra. That Microgaming with such a short notice add so much money to a single tournament doesn't come as a surprise. Just like many other poker sites/networks, Microgaming are now taking up the fight for the tournament players since Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars were forced to reduce the guarantees in their biggest Sunday tournaments.

Read more » Mircrogaming announces a €750,000 guarantee tournament

Yesterday, the Department of Justice, Full Tilt Poker & PokerStars finally came to an agreement. The Department of Justice has allowed both sites to regain the use of their worldwide.com domains and they claim that there's never been anything stopping them from returning funds to their players. However, U.S. players are still not allowed to play real money games at PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker.

Read more » U.S. players will get their money back!

In a brand new interview with Gus Hansen, he speaks out about, for example, the millions he has lost in the past 2 years, how he managed to come back and become a big winner again, and the rumors claiming that he's dating Caroline Wozniacki (the world's best female tennis player).

Read more » Gus Hansen interview: "Everyone thinks I'm a maniac"

Almost a week has now passed since F.B.I. and the Department of Justice closed down PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker due to suspicion of bank fraud, illegal gambling offenses and laundering millions billions in illegal gambling proceeds etc. Yesterday, the 2004 World Series of Poker Champion Greg Raymer went on Fox Business to discuss Friday's poker indictment.

Read more » 2004 WSOP Champion on FOX Business

This means that the following countries can now also apply for our juicy no-deposit bonus:

Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom.

The $21 no-deposit bonus consists of:

• $11 ticket good for Bodog's Sunday $5K Guaranteed Tournament. 

• $10 Bonus - standard rollover 3x poker points for each dollar. 

In case you missed it: Full Tilt Online Poker Series is running at the moment. Between April 17th - May 1st over $38 million is guaranteed in 45 events. There are daily satellites to all the events, so it doesn't have to cost a lot to, for example, play in the Main Event with a $7,5 million prize pool on May 1st. Another exciting tournament will be the 2-day event (NLH) with a $10,000+$300 buy-in on April 23rd. So far no one has signed up this tournament, but it's probably just a matter of time.

Read more » FTOPS XX: $38 million up for grabs!

Even though the end of last week's high stakes games fell into the shadows of the news that F.B.I. closed down PokerStars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker in the US, there were still some quite interesting high stake games running at Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars.

Gus Hansen, the Danish Full Tilt Pro, is one of the players we could thank that for! Even though it must have been a very stressful week for him as a part owner in Full Tilt Poker, he still managed to keep a cool head and play his very best game. At the end of the week, Gus had won almost $1,4 million in just about 10,000 hands and was by far the biggest winner online. 

Read more » High Stakes: Hansen dominated last week

Last Friday, the terrible news that the world's 2 largest poker sites (and Absolute Poker) had been blocked in the US (due to suspicion of bank fraud, illegal gambling offenses and laundering millions billions in illegal gambling proceeds) dropped down like a bomb and left no one untouched.

Read more » No huge overlay tournaments/series to expect

ATTAN U. S. ATTORNEY CHARGES PRINCIPALS OF THREE LARGEST INTERNET POKER COMPANIES WITH BANK FRAUD, ILLEGAL GAMBLING OFFENSES AND LAUNDERING BILLIONS IN ILLEGAL GAMBLING PROCEEDS.

On Friday, the founds of online poker's "Big Three" was indicted by federal authorities. The founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker were indicted on charges of bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling. In addition more than 75 bank accounts used by the online poker companies (and payment processors) and 5 domain names was seized (restraining oders issued).

The allegations revolves around the companies trying to circumvent federal laws by tricking U. S. banks into processing payments after UIGEA was passed.

As of now both PokerStars & Full Tilt Poker has shut down real money play for U. S. Players. Players from other countries can however play as normal. PokerStars.com now redirects to PokerStars.eu.

PokerStars has issued the following statement (via pop-up in client):

"As you may have heard, we have had to suspend real money poker services to people based in the US due to legal developments there. The developments are confined to the US and do not have any impact on your ability to continue using our services. Please be assured player balances are safe. There is no cause for concern. For all customers outside the US it is business as usual."

"The PokerStars website has been moved to www.pokerstars.eu and our support e-mail address is now [email protected]. We apologize to our players for any inconvenience caused by this disruption. Please be aware that we are currently experiencing a very high volume of e-mails, so response times are delayed. We will answer player e-mails as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience and understanding in this matter."

Full Tilt Poker wrote in parts of their statement:

"Unfortunately, as a result of this action, Full Tilt Poker has decided that it must suspend "real money" play in the United States until this case is resolved. However, Full Tilt Poker will continue to provide peer-to-peer online poker services outside of the United States."

We at BRM will try and keep you updated during the day as events unfold.

Justice dept. official press release: http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergtalindictmentpr.pdf

U. S. players can as of now still avail our PlayersOnly & Bodog - no deposit offers.

Moneybookers NOT affected (UPDATED 16/4-2011 17.31 GMT):

Official statement from MoneyBookers stated the following:

"Moneybookers is not part of this investigation and have not been approached by any authority. As a general principle we never process transactions for online gambling purposes including poker for US citizens."

Onyx Cup - cancelled (UPDATED 16/4-2011 19.19 GMT):

According to Poker News a spokesperson from Full Tilt Poker has confirmed, that in light of recent events, the Onyx Cup poker series has been cancelled. 

Even though many big names made it to final table of WPT Hollywood Poker Open, it was an unknown poker player who won it. It only took 3 hands of play before a short stacked Ali Eslami was sent packing, then it was Andy Whetstone's turn a few hands later. After about 30 hands had been played, Tom Marchese was also knocked out and left were only 3 players - William Reynolds, Erik Seidel and Mike Scarborough.

Read more » WPT Hollywood: Erik Seidel finished as runner-up

Lately there have been a lot of rumors claiming that Viktor "Isildur1" Blom is broke. Well, the rumors have been around since he started losing big at Full Tilt's nosebleed tables, but many think that it's different this time since he is sponsored by the world's biggest poker site (PokerStars) and still only plays stakes as low as $1/$2.

Read more » Is Isildur1 broke?

Last night the NAPT Mohegan Sun final table was played! 8 players of 387 made it to the final table and in the lead was young gun Tyler Kenney (Bryn Kenney's brother) and in second place defending champion & Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst. After hours of play, Tyler Kenney had been knocked-out in 3rd place, which left Dan Shak and Vanessa Selbst playing heads-up. 

Read more » Vanessa Selbst wins her second NAPT Mohegan Sun title! ($450k)

The NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event final table is set and 8 players are about to fight for some serious cash. Tyler Kenney, 21, is the chip leader with a little bit more than 3 million chips and Vanessa Selbst, defending NAPT Mohegan Sun champion, is in second place with a 2,249,000 stack.

Read more » NAPT Mohegan Sun final table set: Will Selbst defend her title?

Vanessa Selbst became the first winner of NAPT Mohegan Sun last year, and now she is the chip leader with just 24 players left, in this year's edition.

For many years, Jennifer Harman, Annie Duke and Kathy Liebert were the ones you talked about, as the world's best female poker players, but the last few years the trio has gotten fierce competition, especially from the two Vanessa's, with the surnames - Rousso and Selbst.

And especially Selbst looks like a better and better bid, to take over the unofficial title from the three female "poker veterans'.Read more » Vanessa Selbst on the way to NAPT title defense

Under the name 'NeverScaredB', Canadian Ben Wilinofsky has won his fair share of major tournaments on the internet, but before EPT Berlin he had despite numerous attempts, never even cashed in a live tournament.

With a completely empty live-CV before EPT Berlin, Ben Wilinofsky did'nt seem to be the biggest threat in the fight for victory, but the 22-year-old Canadian was probably one of the tournament's most experienced players.

According to different tournament portals, he has cashed for more then $ 2,100,000 in online tournaments, including $ 65,000 for a victory in the prestigious Super Tuesday on PokerStars.Read more » Ben Wilinofsky wins EPT Berlin

The theme for this week's Poker After Dark is "Idol". Five young successful players will play against the man who's been playing poker since the days when the west actually used to be wild, Doyle Brunson. Below is the lineup of players that have paid $50,000 each for the freezeout tournament where the winner will walk away with the whole prize pool ($300,000).

Annette "Annette_15" Obrestad
Andrew Lichtenberger
Eric Baldwin
Melanie Weisner
Tom "durrrr" Dwan

Read more » Poker After Dark: The godfather takes on 5 young guns

The 2011 EPT Berlin Main Event attracted a 773-player field (€5,500 buy-in) and 353 of them made it through the two starting days and will soon return to the tables and play Day 2 of the tournament. The total prize pool is €3,865,000 from which the top 120 will get a piece of. The first place pays €825,000, the runner-up will get €500,000, and third place finisher will get €300,000.

The average chip stack is 65,694 and the chip leader is Sander Berndsen from Netherlands with 242,900, then Oleg Elkin, from Russia, in second place with 210,000 and Christian Dragomir, the Day 1a chip leader, in third place with 205,500.

We will return with an update as soon as Day 2 comes to an end. Stay tuned!

Yesterday EPT Berlin began. 315 players, all full of hope to survive the day with a large stack, signed up for the first starting day of the Main Event. Martin Jacobson, Jeff Sarwer, Antonio Buonanno and Mathias Kuerschner were 4 of the players whose chip stacks took the center stage during the day. All of them had over 150,000 chips at different times of the day.

When Day 1a almost had come to an end it seemed like Martin Jacobson, from Sweden, would be the chip leader with a 177k stack. But 4 players passed Jacobson and instead it was Romanian Christian Dragomir (picture) who finished the day with the largest stack. Dragomir sent Benny Spindler to the rail in the last five hands and finished the day with 205,500 chips.

A few days have now passed since April 1 (April fools' Day). In case you missed it, we put together some news about Phil Ivey quitting poker and running for the governor post in Las Vegas, Nevada. Maybe not the best April Fool, but at least we (and hopefully many who read it) had a good laugh

Now we wanna hear about your April Fools' Day. Maybe you fooled your friends or even a family member? Maybe someone fooled you? We wanna hear your stories! Top 3 April Fools' will be awarded with 100 mob points each (winners will be announced on Thursday March 14th at 12:00AM).