BankrollMob News: Poker, Casino, Crypto & Betting

Its not only Tiger Woods who have problems with his relationship at the moment, but also Phil "Tiger Woods of Poker" Ivey who's leaving his wife, Lucietta. According to an american news site, Phil Ivey handed in the divorce papers on 22nd December and then he got his divorce request approved already on the 29th December. At the moment details on this divorce are very few and it might remain so as Phil Ivey and his ex-wife probably didn't have the same kind of problem as Tiger and Elin Woods.

Do you hope that american media will write much more about this divorce, or do you think that they should leave Phil Ivey alone and write about his poker instead? 

2009's last Sunday Million tournament was played last Sunday at PokerStars. Even though the world record tournament was played the very same day, not less than 9344 players signed up for the Sunday Million Tournament, which created a total prize pool of $1,868,800.

The final table was very thrilling one this time as lots of cash was up for grabs. And when there were 5 remaining players on the final table - they all agreed on making a deal. However, the winner of the tournament came to be Coach6999 who received $143,444 and the second place finisher, BBOY received $213,000 thanks to the deal.

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The past week has been very quite at the higher stakes on many poker sites. Its seems like even poker players need a break once in a while. Yesterday night, however, it was finally time for some action at Full Tilt poker as one of Finlands biggest pros Ilari Sahmies and the American high stakes king Tom Dwan were about to play for some serious cash.

Tom "durrrrr" Dwan took the command straight away and showed Sahmies why he's one of the worlds best high stakes players. Tom Dwan took down 6 of 8 of the biggest pots and was up around $1 milllion for a while. After this, we saw a new Sahamies who played much better and more focused as he managed to take back around $340k in no-time. Tom Dwan is now up around $2 million dollars this month. It must feel really great for Dwan to eliminate some of the loses he had in November when he lost more than 6 million dollars.

Not long ago, PokerStars announced that they will try to break the old record of the biggest online poker tournament. The old record was already held by themselves as they had 65,000 players in the same tournament last summer. Yesterday, it was time for a new world record attempt. To make sure that this tournament would be interesting to take part in, PokerStars guaranteed a prize pool of $300,000 where the top 30,000 players would get a piece of the cake.

So how did it go?
Thanks to the low buy-in and the big guarantee this tournament offered not less than 149,196 players took part and a new world record was a fact as the old record had been beaten with almost 85,000 players. The winner of the tournament, Oskar69, received $50,000 in first place prize.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes before another world record attempt takes place and if Full Tilt or some other site will try to break PokerStars record.

Not long ago, Brian Townsend got his red pro status at Full Tilt removed after that the poker site found out that he had been using a non-allowed poker program to collect hand history against Isildur1. Townsend had also shared the information he had collected using this program with Brian Hastings and Cole South. However, neither of them got any kind of penalty from Full Tilt poker. This made Isildur1 really upset, and now he wants his money back, or at least some of it according to what he said in a recent interview.

"I do feel like I deserve to get something back. I feel that Hastings had a big edge over me due to the hand history database. They were able to dissect the exact way I was playing because they analyzed the hands so precisely, and it was impossible for me to adjust, as I had no idea they were doing it.
Even though this information is not out there, since they admitted to sharing hand histories, how can I be sure that all three of them did not have input on the hands while we were playing?"

Isildur1 about the future and if he will continue playing at Full Tilt poker after the scandal.

"Well, honestly I am going to stay quiet for a while now. I am planning on putting in the request to Full Tilt to look into this further, and until I hear back, I don't plan on playing much poker on the site."

Yesterday, it was finally time for another durrrr challenge session between Tom "durrrr" Dwan and Patrik Antonius. Lots of people rushed to their computers as 2 of the worlds best were about to play some real high stakes poker at Full Tilt. None of these people/spectators can have been disappointed with the action field game they got to watch.

During 7 hours, Dwan and Antonius played almost 2000 hands. And as usual when Tom Dwan and Patrik Antonius play against each other -the swings were enormous. Many times during this session, Patrik Antonius was in the lead and seemed to have everything under control, but Tom Dwan managed to fight back and make some great plays and also overtake the lead. After that the session was over, Tom Dwan had won another $225k from Antonius. This means that after almost 30,000 hands, Tom Dwan is in the lead with almost $940,000.

Everything seems to go Eric Baldwin's way at the moment. First he had a fantastic 2009 and won over $1.5 million in different live tournaments, then he was voted player of the year by one of the biggest poker magazines, then  Ultimate Bet asked him to join their team, which he gladly said yes to. His teammates at Ultimate Bet will now be some of the worlds best - Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke and Brandon Cantu -just to mention a few.

Didn't become player of the year for nothing
2009 has been a great year for Eric Baldwin, and its not for nothing that he became player of the year. Just listen to this. He made it to 17 final tables in major poker tournaments and ended up winning 4 of them. However, the most notable win for Baldwin this year must be when he won Event #34 $1500 NL Hold'em in the 2009 WSOP and got his first bracelet.

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Brian Townsend has been in the center of the storm since last week when he got his red pro status removed (for a month) by Full Tilt after that they found out he had been using a non-allowed program to save hand history against Isildur1, and also discussed and shared this information with Brian Hastings and Cole South.

After this, Brian Townsend wrote in his blog that he was the sole one to break Full Tilt's terms & conditions and that Hastings and South had nothing to do with it. Brian Townsend probably thought that he would get some peace and quite after writing this. Unfortunately, for him, this "scandal" has now been taken to another level as many other pros now have started giving their opinions and thoughts on the Brian Townsend scandal. One of these pros are Tony G.

"The world of poker is a very complex structure built around players, the online poker sites and casinos that provide the games, the limits and games played, rake, backers, and a lot more, and in the end, trying to provide the best game possible that helps everyone.  The entire situation with Townsend, Hastings, and Cole involving their combined knowledge and play against Ilsuldur1 leaves a bad smell in the air for everyone, especially for Full Tilt since Townsend is one of their Red Pros. As a player, I would like to see Townsend be more committed to giving his attention to doing what being a Red Pro demands at Full Tilt."

Read more » Tony G comments on the Brian Townsend scandal

The Main Event of Bayou Poker Challenge attracted 80 players this year. Not a lot of players in other words, but since the buy-in was $3000+$120 it created a total prize pool of $221,709. It came to be the American poker pro Allen "Chainsaw" Kessler from Las Vegas who took home the the three-day event. A very well deserved win for Allen Kessler who has developed quite a reputation in the past few years. For the win of this tournament he received $70,797, a gold ring, and also a seat in the 2010 World Series of Poker. Allen Kessler now has almost $1,5 million dollars in tournament winnings through his career.

Final table results:
1. Allen "Chainsaw" Kessler - $70,976

2. Ed Corrado - $44,360

3. Moutray McLaren - $28,279

4. Jim McBride - $19,262

5. Michael "Car Wash" Schneider - $16,080

6. Justin "Lockdowntex" Allen - $13,308

7. Ben "the Destroyer" Mintz - $11,090

8. Will "the Monkey" Souther - $9,426

9. Phil Hall - $8,317

Last week rumors that Brian Townsend, Brian Hastings & Cole South had been cheating against Isildur1 started circulate on the web. It all started after that someone got to know that Brian Townsend, Brian Hastings & Cole South had been going through thousands of hands Isildur1 had played and also discussed different strategies on how to beat the Swede. They could do this thanks to that Townsend had been using a program that is not allowed at Full Tilt poker. Full Tilt took action sraight away after getting to know this and they punished Townsend by giving him warning and removing his red pro status for a 1 month. However, Brian Hastings and Cole South didn't get punished as Full Tilt couldn't see that they had broken any of their rules.

This is not the first time Brian Townsend has been breaking the rules at Full Tilt poker. Back in August 2008, Townsend got his red pro status removed for 6 months after that Full Tilt found out that he had been using multiple accounts playing cash games. After this, he apologized in his blog. It will be interesting to see what he writes this time. It will also be interesting to hear what Isildur1 has to say about all this.

The TV show PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge became the most watched poker show through all time when the first episode was broadcasted earlier this year. In each show of the Million Dollar Challenge a non-pro got to play against some of PokerStars biggest names in heads-up poker for some serious cash. However, only one "lucky" player would get the chance to play against PokerStars biggest PRO Daniel Negreanu in the final for the first prize of $1 million dollars. The one that made it all the way to the final table and got to play against Daniel came to be the September 11 hero, Mike Kosowski. It was a very thrilling heads-up match between the two of them, but Mike Kosowski had a great day and won at last.

Read more » PokerStars: 9/11 hero wins the Million Dollar Challenge

Mansion Poker and BankrollMob are having a $2000 Rake Race for all Mansion Poker players who signed up at Mansion Poker through BankrollMob, either by using our previous $150 no deposit bonus or our current 100% up to $500 deposit bonus.

The $2000 Rake Race starts Monday December 21st 2009 and ends Sunday 31st January 2010. Weekly updates can be found in our Poker News section.

Taking part and winning your share of the Rake Race is really easy, all you have to do is play poker at Mansion Poker. The points you earn in the Race period will count toward your placement in the race.Read more » $2000 Rake Race at Mansion Poker

The Doyle Brunson Classic attracted a lot of pros this time and the tournament seemed to become a success, but during day 3 of the tournament Scotty Nguyen once again ended up in trouble and suddenly the nice atmosphere was gone. It all started after that the dealer made a small mistake that made Scotty very upset. Scotty started complaining about the dealer, and after a while Dan O'Brien had enough and started defending the dealer. This just made Scotty even more frustrated as he started complaining and whining even more.

Unfortunately, this was just the beginning
A young unknown player raised to 24,000 before the flop and scotty re-raised to 50,000. The unknown player then re-raised Scotty to 150,000, Scotty called.

FLOP K 7 3

The unknown player went all-in with AA and Scotty called with 7 4.

When another 7 landed on the river, Scotty slammed his fist in the table and started shooting different swear words and something about that he was tired. After this the tournament crew had enough and gave Scotty a 10 minute penalty. This meant that Scotty had to leave the table for 10 minutes at the same time as his cards were auto-folded.

Even though the mysterious Swede "Isildur1" moved down in stakes after the $4 million losing session against Brian Hastings, he still keeps on losing a lot of money. Between 11th and 15th December, Isildur1 has played almost 5,000 hands and lost more than half a million dollars. In total Isildur1 has lost almost $2.2 million dollars since he started showing up at Full Tilt's poker tables. 

Lets hope, if Isildur1 is playing at more poker sites than Full Tilt at the moment, that he's not losing there as well, because the high stakes scene wont be the same without the mysterious Swede.

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We just received another standings update for our exclusive BigBet Poker $25,000 RakeChase.

The BigBet Poker $25,000 RakeChase is exclusive for BankrollMob members and it's really simple. Just hit each of the 9 VIP Point Milestones and get RakeChase Prizes for hitting that level.

There's a massive $5000 up for grabs for the 1st person to reach the last level and if you make it through each of the 9 levels, you will get nearly $10,000 in RakeChase Prizes!!

The RakeChase runs betwen 20th November 2009 and Sunday 28th February 2010 - still plenty of time to get involved. Read more » BigBet Poker $25,000 RakeChase - Standings (Dec 17th)

Brian Hastings became one of the most talked about poker players after that he won over $4 million dollars in one single session against the unknown Swede "Isildur1." The win is the biggest someone has ever had in a single session, so of course, it wasn't so strange that he ended up in almost all poker headlines around the globe.

After the huge win, one could read in his blog about how happy and chocked he was after winning so much money. Now, a few days later, he has made his first big interview. In this interview one can read that he could never see this happening when he started playing against "Isildur1" that day and that he feels very fortunate to be were he is right now, and even though he played very well, luck was a major factor, according to himself. Brian Hastings says that he have received a lot of great feedback from players and friends after the big win, which he is really thankful for.

Its also mentioned in the interview that according to some rumors, a few players had a piece of his big win. However that was nothing he wanted to leave out any details about. And when he was asked about a possible comeback from "Isiludur1", he answered that he's a great player and that he for sure will be back at the high stakes in a near future.

The 2 poker giants PokerStars and Full Tilt poker just keep on growing and growing. This year both of them have increased their customer base with 68%, and last week both of them reached a new milestone as they stood for 60% of all the poker traffic online. Its seems like it has paid off very well for these 2 sites to spend lots and lots of money on marketing and by offering the biggest monthly/weekly guarantee tournaments online.

However, its not just PokerStars and Full Tilt that have increased their traffic, since the traffic at all other poker sites has increased with 12%. In other words, its seems like the financial crises that has been going on for quite some time now hasn't stopped people from gambling. Now the question is: Has the traffic online increased because of the financial crises, or is it just a normal growth we are seeing?

Lately a lot of rumors have been circulating on the web that PokerStars is about to sign a huge a sports star to its Team PokerStars. One of the hottest candidate's so far is the old heavy weight champion Mike Tyson. Whether or not Mike Tyson is a good poker player, we will have to wait and see (if he's the one that PokerStars will sign).

The rumors about Mike Tyson to become the new Team PokerStars member started when Johnny Lodden wrote in his blog that a huge sports star is about to join his team. However, Johnny Lodden couldn't give any further information about the new member until it was official news.

In the month of September, Thuy Doan went public with a very sad message in her blog - she had been diagnosis with cancer. Since Thuy Doan was diagnosed with cancer, she has been a break from the poker scene, but still she has continued writing in her blog about her fight against the cancer.

Now, a few months later, 16 of the world's best poker players (Doyle Brunson, Eli Elezra, Barry Greenstein, Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Bertrand "ElkY", and Grospellier - just to mention a few) shaved their heads in soldiery for her. This really shows that even after all the success these players have had, they still have huge hearts and care for other people.

After that Isildur1 lost big to Brian Townsend last Sunday and also stopped bringing in money to the tables he went broke on - many said that he probably was running out of money and that he would soon be gone from the high stakes scene. However, already on Monday he was back on the high stakes, but this time "only" playing $100/$200 PLO against Cole South. The losing streak continued for the Swede in the session against Cole South and at around 6:00AM on Tuesday morning they called it a day.

"He must be missing a chromosome"
That is what Ilari "Ziigmund" Sahamies said about Isildur1 in recent interview he made in Finnish radio. However, Ziigmund said that he thinks that Isildur1 is one of the best NL heads-up players in the world and that he should stick to playing that instead of Pot Limit Omaha. Ilari "Ziigmund" Sahamies also said that he dont have the bankroll to play as high as he and Isildur1 did for a while. However, it seemed to have paid off as he's up about a million dollars against the Swede.

In one of the latest issues of the british newspaper The Sunday Times, one can read that the 2 betting giants BWIN and PartyGaming have been talking about gathering up since last summer. Today, BWIN is worth about £1.2 billion and PartyGaming about £1 billion. In other words, if BWIN and Party Gaming merges, it would create a betting company worth over £2 billions and most probably be a huge threat to some of the biggest sportsbetting, casino and poker sites.

BWIN, PartyGaming dismiss the new merger speculations
After that The Sunday Times published the article, both sites have received lots of questions about the new merger speculations. BWIN denied that they are holding advanced talks with PartyGaming at the same time they admitted that they are always talking to other betting companies on the market for new deals. PartyGaming, on another hand said that they are looking for a major sports betting platform so that they can offer their customers a complete action filled site, however they didn't want to comment anything about the merger speculations.

The losing streak continues for the unknown Swede after that he lost another 400k+ last night to Brian Townsend at Full Tilt. Isildur1 played many tables as usual in last nights session, however, he didn't bring in any more chips to the tables he lost on, and when he went broke on a table, he just closed it down. This is nothing Isildur1 ever has done before, and because of it, many people believe that Isildur1 is running out of money and that its just a matter of time before he disappears from the high stakes scene.

The man behind the nickname "Isildur1"
Many people who have followed the unknown Swede for some time now strongly believes that Viktor Blom is the man behind the nickname "Isildur1". And many pros that have played against Isildur1 thinks the same, even though Viktor Blom already has denied that he's Isildur1. Whoever Isildur might be, he will surely be missed by thousands of people if he stops playing for high stakes.

Darvin Moon, the working class hero and second-place finisher in the WSOP 2009 Main Event, was a few days ago in a radio interview taking about his game and mistakes he had made on the final table. One of their main questions Dennis Phillips got, was the one about when he folded King-Queen to Steven Begleiter's Ace-Queen and then went to his wife to tell her that he had pocket queens. After doing this, most people were thinking, "What in the world is he doing?" He knew that people will see and hear what he's doing since the final table was being broadcasted. However, according to Moon, it was intentionally done and part of his big plan.

"No, that wasn't a mistake. I felt that the people backstage were listening on those mics and sending stuff out to the coaches. She'll tell you, before we come down there, that was the plan. Because I was miked when we went down to nine players and I felt that there was some stuff being sent around. I don't trust anybody when I'm playing cards."

Patrik Antonius, the Finnish poker pro, has played and followed Isildur1 since he started showing up at Full Tilt poker. In a recent interview with a poker magazine, Patrik Antonius gave his opinion about Isildur1 and his way of playing poker.

"At first, I wasn't very impressed about the way he played poker. But at that time we played fewer tables than he wanted to. However, I noticed that Isildur1 is a great player when it comes to playing many tables at the same time as he then plays a very aggressive style of poker which gives him a great advantage against many of the world's best players."

Patrik continues...

"Every time I thought I figured out how he's playing, he changed tactics. It seems like he always have a plan and a thought behind every single move he makes. And when he's bluffing, it's not a thoughtless move."

Patrik about Isildur1's money management
"When it comes to such a talented and young poker player as Isildur1, he probably doesn't have a lot of expenses, and even if he goes broke and only have for example $2000 left, I still think that he easily could build up a $1 million dollar bankroll in a year. All of the best players, including me, have been taking many risks on the way to the top. The ones that fail on the way just have to move down in stakes and start building up their bankroll again."

Titan Poker celebrates that 2010 soon kicks in by having lots of daily freerolls, tournaments, cash game races and other events until January. All these events have at least $2,010 in the pot, which means that many tournaments most probably will have a great overlay. 

We at BankrollMob think that this is a great promotion, especially since we give all new players at Titan Poker a $150 NO DEPOSIT BONUS or a FREE POKER GIFT when signing up through us. Of course we will also be more than happy to see all our mob members with old Titan accounts to take part in this promotion.

Good Luck and may the flop be with you!