BankrollMob News: Poker, Casino, Crypto & Betting

The main event of EPT London attracted a huge starting field this time. Not less than 730 players took part this year (about 100 more than last year). Of the 730 players who signed up for the main event - 111 of them will play Day 3 of the tournament. Among these 111 players we find some really hot names at the moment in the world of poker. However, the 2 most interesting players to follow in Day 3 have to be these 2.....

Read more » EPT London: Peter Eastgate and Kevin Schaffel through to Day 3

WPT Borgata attracted a huge starting field this year. Not so many notable poker players, but the tournament turned out great even though the most stars decided to play WSOPE in London instead. Of the huge starting field it came to be the 6 players below who made it to the final table.

Olivier Busquet - 10,350,000
Yanick Brodeur - 5,780,000
Ivan Mamuzic - 5,655,000
Jeremy Brown - 5,480,000
Keith Crowder - 2,750,000
Kenny Nguyen - 600,000

Olivier Busquet, from New York, had a big chip lead as the final table started. It was a very well deserved chip lead, and to be honest it seemed like nothing could stop him from grabbing the first prize of $925,514. But the way to the win of WPT Borgata wasn't all that easy for the American.

Read more » WPT Borgata - Final table: Greatest comeback ever?

Gus "The Great Dane" Hansen has won millions of dollars during his poker career. He has won all these money from playing the biggest tournaments and at the highest cash game tables (both online and live) there are, against the best poker players in the world. Gus Hansen's poker career has been great with other words. But as we all know, playing at the highest stakes is not always a bunch of roses.

Gus Hansen has really got to experience it this year as his bankroll has decreased with around 2.9 million US dollars. But even though he has lost so much money this year, the most people following his poker career are certain that he will start winning soon again. It's just a matter of time according to them. It's hard to disagree with them as this is not the first time he has lost big amounts of money.

World Poker Tour Borgata attracted a huge starting field this year. Maybe because of the low buy-in, or maybe because not so many stars decided to play this time. Many of the bigger names are instead playing World Series of Poker Europe in London at the moment.

Whatever the reason might be for so many participants this time, the tournament is now down to the 6 players below who are going to play the final table. No notable names as you can see, but it will be a very entersting to see whether the big chip leader, Olivier Bisquet, from New York, can manage to keep the big lead and get another great result this year (311th place in 2009 WSOP Main Event).

Olivier Busquet - 10,350,000
Yanick Brodeur - 5,780,000
Ivan Mamuzic - 5,655,000
Jeremy Brown - 5,480,000
Keith Crowder - 2,750,000
Kenny Nguyen - 600,000

Last week one could read on Ilari Sahamies blog that things are not going his way at the moment. For example he complained a lot about himself being unlucky, but also that he played very bad. All this because he lost 1.4 million dollars (400k of them coin flips) in two hours against Phil Ivey. After this huge loss he wrote the following in the poker chat about his scheduled trip to London to play EPT and WSOPE.

"Ziigmund: no london"
"Ziigmund: jumping from balkony"
"Phil Ivey: lol"

However, according to what he wrote in his blog, it seems like he's still planning on going to London.

"I hate that fcking poker still and havent had good feeling playing that bullshit game like in 4 months....Whatever...Im going to fcking London next week where I play fcking EWSOP,fcking EPT and F Cesar cup and those fcki"

It has been kind of quite around Tom "durrrr" Dwan and his high stakes games lately. But now he hits the headlines once again as he has played what probably is the biggest pot in the history of televised poker in Full Tilt's Million Dollar Challenge. 

The pot landed on $1,100,000 dollars, and it was against one of the best poker players in the world at the moment - Phil Ivey. This is how the $1,1 million dollar hand between Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey was played out.

Read more » Biggest pot in the history of televised poker

2009 World Championship of Online Poker has now come to an end as its last and most prestige full event has been played - The Main Event with a $10,000,000 guarantee. The Main Event of WCOOP started last Sunday. 2144 players signed up for the tournament by paying the buy-in of $5200, or winning a seat through one of many Main Event satellites. Out of those 2144 players, 178 made it to Day 2 of the tournament that was played yesterday (Monday).

Read more » WCOOP - Main Event: "Jovial Gent" wins $1,715,200

Two weekends ago a 65-year old man named Abraham Kortotki won a No Limit Texas Hold'em event for women at the Borgata in Atlantic City, NJ. Kortotki and several other men were able to enter the tournament for women thanks to a legal loophole involving discrimination laws. Of course this made many of the female participants very upset as they thought a "ladies no limit event" only should be for females. Probably the most upset of all the women that took part in the tournament was the second place finisher, Nicole Rowe.

Nicole Rowe thought that the tournament organizers openly dismayed by the outcome as they confirmed that Kortotki's win is legitimate. And when she asked Kortotki to split the first prize, she got her request rejected by Kortotki as he claimed to have entered the tournament with the law on his side just like the other male participants had. However, he promised to donate some of the $20,982 cash prize he won to a breast cancer charity - a condition that Rowe has been diagnosed with. Kortotki, probably made this good will gesture just to cool down the feminist flames a bit? Who knows? However, one thing is for sure, and that is that Kortotki's win of a poker tournament for women has brought many questions to life. For example: What exactly is the purpose with a "ladies tournament"?

Do you think its discriminating to organize poker tournaments only for women?

Day 1 of PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker started yesterday. Even though the buy-in was as high as $5200 the tournament still attracted a big starting field. 2144 players signed up for the WCOOP Main Event, many of them won their seat through satellites starting from just a few dollars. Thanks to that so many people took part in the tournament the prize pool became greater than the $10,000,000 guaranteed by PokerStars.

Read more » WCOOP - Main Event: Day 1 report

A new TV show called "The Poker Star" was introduced by PokerStars a while ago. The show will be quite similar to the very popular "POP IDOL" where talented and not so talented musicians get to perform in front of a jury with the chance of winning a contract with a big record label. However, PokerStars are not interested in Musicians, but instead in talented poker players. The winner of "The Poker Star" will get $100,000 in prize money and also a sponsorship contract with PokerStars which includes free buy-ins to a load of WPT events.

Around 18,000 people have applied to be in PokerStars new TV show. Among them you will find everything from old and experienced players to beginners with lots of self-confidence. The most of the people that get to be in the show will be handpicked by no one else than Joe Hachem (2005 WSOP Champ). Joe Hachem, will also be the one who trains the winner of the TV-show.

The show has premier next Saturday in Australian television.

After the last freeroll that was sadly disrupted by a technical issue, RummyRoyal is making it up big time. As promised earlier, the next freeroll game is the new Rummy 500 (click for a tutorial).

To make it as symbolic as possible and to compensate all those who were registered for the previous freeroll, this one is going to be a huge $500 freeroll! That is by far the largest private freeroll ever held at RummyRoyal. It takes place on Tuesday, September 29th, 20:00 GMT.

If a $500 freeroll is not enough, then how about the open $2000 freeroll at RummyRoyal? This one is right on the next day, Wednesday, September 30th at 19:30.  Play at least one “Real Money” game during September and you’re in!

As for other big tourneys, there is a $10,000 guaranteed in October, and a blockbuster $30,000 guaranteed in November.

Unfortuantely we had to close down our 10Bet No Deposit Bonus due to structural problems from 10Bet with giving out the correct amount of bonuses and at the right time.

At this time we do not know if the bonus will re-open again at a later time, but we decided to close it down for now, as it turns out that too many of our members are having problems actually getting the 10Bet bonus.

We're sorry about any inconvenience this bonus may have caused our members.

Denmark is well-known for having one of the most heavy-handed taxation codes of any country in the EU. Peter Eastgate who took down $9.1 million when he won the WSOP last November, was taxed at a 45% rate for the first $4 million he earned and at 75% for the remainder of the money, leaving the youngest WSOP champion ever with an estimated $2.5 million in prize money.

The Danish Supreme Court ruled that a 35 year old unemployed man who had been making a living as an online poker player, would have to be taxed as a "professional gambler", similar to the tax rate of Peter Eastgate. Over the past year, he allegedly earned around €26,000 from playing at several online poker sites.

The Supreme Court did, however, refuse to enforce the DKK 5000 fine (€670) issued by a lower court, his resulting tax bill ends up at €11,700.

Isabelle Mercier was part of Team PokerStars Pro for five years. The French-Canadian poker superstar is saying goodbye to one of the most lucrative deals in the poker industry, apparently to "take on new projects".

Mercier yesterday sent out a press release stating that she "currently has extensive projects, both nationally and internationally, in the world of poker" and "is not about to give up her life's passion."

PokerStars said it was Mercier's decision not to renew the sponsorship with them and they wish her all the best in the future, says a representative from PokerStars.

"I'm sad that Isabelle has left Team Pro, but I do understand it. The International tournament circuit is pretty relentless, but Isabelle has embraced the full-on romantic poker life, always on the road, living out of a suitcase for months at a time." said Vicky Coren from Team PokerStars Pro. Read more » Isabelle Mercier quits Team PokerStars

After 6 days, World Poker Tour Cyprus finally has a winner. It came to be the Frenchmen Thomas Bichon, 32, who took home the tournament after that he had defeated his last opponent Uri Keidar in heads-up.

For the win, Thomas Bichon, received the first prize of $579,165 and also wrote a bit of history as he became the champion of the first ever big international poker tournament in Cyprus.

Final table results:
1 Thomas Bichon - $579,165
2 Uri Keidar - $380,645
3 Steven Fung - $216,275
4 Rep Porter - $121,115
5 Janar Kiivramees - $90,835
6: Rony Jazzar - $73,535

Not much interesting happened during the very short Day 4 of WPT Cyprus. So, what can we tell you about Day 4 then? Well, Rep Porter, took over the lead after that he doubled up and played great poker throughout the day. The big stacks continued playing great and remained in the tournament. After 2 levels, 10 out of 21 players were still in the tournament as Day 4 came to an end. Day 5 of WPT Cyprus will also be a very short day as these ten players will play down to a final table of six:

Rep Porter - 1,786,000
Jonathan Little - 972,000
Layne Flack - 952,000
Steven Fung - 681,000
Huck Seed - 669,000
Uri Keidar - 583,000
Janar Kiivramees - 509,000
Rony Jazzar - 437,000
Thomas Bichon - 396,000
Nenad Medic - 256,000

Gus Hansen, has been fighting for quite some time now to get the rights to a domain/website that has been used by someone else to make money in his name. The domain was bought 5 years ago by Yevgen Kedashov who has lured people that he's the real Gus Hansen. All this just so he could make some extra money. But now, 5 years later, justice has been done as Gus Hansen finally gets the rights to the domain/site that has been using his name to make money.

He got the rights to the domain thanks to that he joined Safenames - an online domain registration which protects names and brands. Safenames came to the conclusion that the owner, Yevgen Kedashov, had been using the domain with a bad purpose, and therefore Gus Hansen should get the rights to the domain. Gus Hansen's lawyer is very pleased with what Safenames did for Gus Hansen, and he thinks that this could help other celebs and companies with similar problems.

Only 10 players are now left in the tournament with the chance of winning the first prize of almost $600,000. The Team Full Tilt pros have been doing very well in WPT Cyprus. However, Huck Seed, is the last Team Full Tilt pro who still have a great chance of winning the tournament after that Kelly Kim was eliminated a few minutes ago in 11th place ($20,760)

Rep Porter, has a big chip lead at the moment with around 1.7 million chips. On second place is Jonathan Little with 940,00 chips, and on third place is Layne Flack with a bit less than 940,000 chips.

Payout structure:
1 $579,165
2 $380,645
3 $216,275
4 $121,115
5 $90,835
6 $73,535
7 $56,240
8 $38,940
9 $27,680
10 $20,760

There is probably nothing bigger for a poker player than getting inducted to The Poker Hall of Fame. Its a proof that one has been a really successful player that have stood the test of time and contributed to the game of poker. The nominated players this year are the following.

Read more » Poker Hall of Fame: These are the 9 nominated players

PokerStars 'World Championship of Online Poker' is just getting bigger and bigger every year since it started 7 years ago. In this years WCOOP not less than $40,000,000 is guaranteed in 45 events. Not many poker sites in the world other than PokerStars could guarantee these enormous amounts of money within the short time that WCOOP has been running.

Neither the PGA Tour or the ATP-tours biggest tournament 'Wimbledon' comes even close those to these kinds of prize pools. Since the first WCOOP was played, the total prize pool has grown with around 6000%, and probably it will continue increase in future WCOOP tournaments.

125 players made it to Day 2 of World Poker Tour in Cyprus. Of those 125, only 64%, or 55 players survived to Day 3 of the tournament. Among the survivors we find Full Tilt pros Allen Cunningham, Andy Bloch, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, along with the overnight chip leader, Nenad Medic. Unforutunartly the 4 players (Phil Gordon, John Tabatabai, Jan Skampa and Ludovic Lacay) with the biggest stacks as Day 2 started, were sent packing.

Day 3 of the tournament has now been running for a while now and at the moment there are only 47 players left. Nenad Medic is still the chip leader, he has around 360,000 chips at the moment. On second place and ninth place we find Full Tilt pros Roy Winston and Huck Seed. It will be very interesting to see if any of the big names will make it to the final table.

Day 1b of World Poker Tour in Cyprus attracted a very interesting starting field which included lots of pros. For example: John Juanda, Phil Gordon, Howard Lederer, Chris Furguson, Gus Hansen, and Erik Lindgren. 62 players made it through from Day 1b to Day 2. In the chip lead of Day 1b we find no one else than Team Full Tilt pro Phil Gordon with around 160,000 chips. Not far behind him is Jean Robert Bellande with around 155,000 chips.

Unfortunately, the poker legend John Juanda went out in the very last hand of Day 1b. Before he went out of the tournament he was quite short-stacked and also seemed to be a bit "tilted". Many disappointed fans of his probably expected him to make it at least to Day 2 of the tournament. But, one can't blame him for having a hard time as he was seated at the same table as these guys....

Seat 1: Unknown player
Seat 2: Va Shon Watkins
Seat 3: Patrik Antonius
Seat 4: Howard Lederer
Seat 5: Chris Karagulleyan
Seat 6: Albert Yakoub
Seat 7: Unknown player
Seat 8: Phil Gordon
Seat 9: John Juanda

Earlier this year, Full Tilt poker, created the TV show "Face The Ace" where anyone can get the chance to play against Full Tilt pros with the chance of winning lots of money. Now, PokerStars, have announced that they will start their own TV show. "Million Dollars Challenge" is the name of PokerStars new TV show, and in this show anyone have the chance to play a heads-up versus Daniel Negreanu for 1 million dollars.

How to qualify for the Million Dollar challenge
First off, one has to come top 10 in one of the "million dollar challenge"-freerolls at PokerStars. If you are one of those 10, then you get the chance to send in a presentation video of yourself to FOX and PokerStars. Fox and PokerStars will then review the video and decide if you will get to play against a PokerStars pro. If you do well there, then you will finally get to play against Daniel Negreanu and have the chance to win some serious cash. With other words it's not that easy to qualify for the million dollar challenge. But, the good thing is that it's for free which gives "rich as poor" the chance to win a life changing amount of money.

WPT (WORLD POKER TOUR) Cyprus (BUY-IN - US$10,000 + US$300) started yesterday and is now over. Only 91 players signed up for Day 1a, which are quite few players to be any starting day of a WPT event. But most probably the other starting day will make up for it. Anyhow, 63 out of 91 players made it through to Day 2 of the tournament. John Tabatabai, is the one that accumulated the most chips in Day 1a. He will bring around 170,000 chips to Day 2. But, even though John Tabatabai is the chip leader, it wasn't he who got the most attention in Day 1a.

Layne "back-to-back" Flack, had more than 120k chips in less than 90 minutes, which is quite an impressive achievement. But Flack's luck ran out after a while and he ended the day on 5th place with 112k chips. Day 1b of the tournament has a very interesting starting field. Just to mention a few of the players that will play this day, Howard Lederer, Chris Furguson, Gus Hansen, Erik Lindgren and John Juanda

The past few days, Gus Hansen, the Danish poker pro, has been playing on much lower stakes than he usually does. There are many theories why he has moved down in stakes. One of them is that his bankroll isn't what it used to be, and therefore he can't afford to play against "durrrr", Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, and other big names at the highest stakes. Another theory is that he finds the opponents at the lower stakes much weaker. 

So how is Gus doing at the lower stakes?
It seems like he is doing very well at the lower stakes. He also seems to play more comfortable there than at the highest stakes at Full Tilt poker. It will be very interesting to see if he stick to the "lower stakes", or if he decides to move up in stakes again. However, Gus Hansen, has had a rough 2009 with around 2 million dollars lost, and most probably much more on other things next the poker. For example he lost a lot of money when the best tennis player in the world (Rafael Nadal) surprisingly lost against the Swede Robin Söderling in French open.