Poker King Club, the home of some of the world's biggest cash games, was relocated from StarWorld Casino to The Venetian Macau in September last year. Due to refurbishment works being carried out since the re-location, the poker club used a temporary space until the official re-opening last Friday.
The 2014 WSOP's Main Event kicked off this weekend on Saturday. There were 771 players that sat down at the tables at the Rio for Day 1A of this year's $10,000,000 1st place guarantee event. No other than the legendary 2005 main event winner Joe Hachem kicked off the event by announcing the classic "Shuffle up and Deal".
Day 1A gathered some famous poker faces. No less than 5 previous gold bracelet winners were among the participants: Tom McEvoy, Johnny Chan, Chris Moneymaker, Greg Merson, and Ryan Riess.
Once Day 1A concluded, the chip leader was Sweden's Martin Jacobson who bagged 200,100 chips for round 2. The young Swede has earned a total of $1,204,983 in WSOP winnings where the major part comes from finishing on 6th place in 2013's Event #47: One Drop High Rollers No-Limit Hold'em where he won $807,427.
Apparently APPT Macau didn't only attract big names to come and play poker tournaments, but also some high stakes players who were up for playing cash games. According to what "MacauPro" writes in a big poker forum, Johnny Chan, the 10-time WSOP bracelet winner, won about 11 million Hong King Dollars (US$1.4 million) in different cash games, and players like Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey (took part in the main event as well), Guy Laliberte and Tom Dwan were involved in some big games as well. However, "MacauPro" doesn't seem to know how much they have won or lost. As for Tom Dwan, Poker Portal Asia wrote that Dwan was in Macau but that he had to go back to the US for a few days because he lost his passport.
Day 5 of the 2010 WSOP Main Event finished about an hour ago. It was a super thrilling day with huge swings, at least for some of the players. Chip leader of the tournament is the PokerStars sponsored player Evan Lamprea, 21, with about 3,5 million in chips. Not far behind him are notables such as the danish poker pro Theo Jorgensen and also the poker legend Johnny Chan. Unfortunately only 1 woman made it through Day 5. Her name is Breeze Zuckerman (picture) and she will bring about an average stack to Day 6 of the tournament. Best of luck to her!
Ladies and gentleman, the 2010 WSOP Main Event start getting very exciting now! Tonight, 205 players will return to the tables to play Day 6 of the tournament. It's almost impossible to predict which players that will be in the top after this day comes to an end. We don't have any big chip leader(s) yet and most of the remaining players have decent stacks to work with.
Day 4 of the 2010 WSOP Main Event is now in the books. 574 of 7,319 players are still in the tournament and all of them are guaranteed to get a share from the enormous prize pool of nearly $69 million. Chip leader of the tournament is Tony Dunst from Las Vegas, Nevada who sits on a stack of 1,546,000 (average stack 381k).
There are several notables left in the field (Johnny Chan, Hasan Habib, Johnny Lodden, Scotty Nguyen etc -- all top 100), with 4 days to go before the tournament is down to the final table and goes on a break. In a couple of hours day 5 of the main event kicks off. It has been a very interesting tournament to follow so far and hopefully the rest of the tournament will be even better.
Day 1 of Tournament of Champions is now in the books. 22 of 27 players (20 of them chosen by popular vote) have survived and made it to the second starting day. In the top of the field is Erik Seidel (72,075) closely followed by Johnny Chan (71,325) and Mike "The Mouth" Matusow (70,575). I must say that it was a quite entertaining first day of the tournament.
Many great plays, bluffs and lay downs is what we got to see in the first day of the tournament. But maybe this is what to expect when the poker world's elite are playing cards? I'm sure that day 2 of the tournament will be as interesting as the first one, and I hope that "The Mouth" will make it far in the tournament! Not because he's the best poker player, but because he's a great entertainer at the poker table! :)
72 out of 745 players have made it to Day 4 of the L.A. Poker Classic. Three of the most notable players that have made it this far in the tournament are Annie Duke (321,000), Daniel Negreanu (222,500) and Johnny Chan (218,000) - all of them with a bit over the average stack. Chip leader at the moment is Mark Newhouse with 498,000 chips and only 10k behind him is Chris Moore.
At the moment it looks like almost anyone in the remaining field of players has a decent chance of making it to the final table, however, we will have to wait for Day 4 of the tournament to pass before we know who the big favorites to win the tournament will be.
Day 4 of the tournament kicks off in a few hours time! Lets hope that it will be the most action filled day so far!
The poker boom is still to occur in China. Many betting companies have tried to get into the Chinese gambling market, and also tried to get a poker boom going like it did in the rest of the world a few years ago. But so far not with such a great success. So what is preventing poker to grow in China? First off, China is not officially open to online poker sites, and the current laws are unclear as to the punishments or reprimand that face players and providers of online gaming. Another reason is the deposit options.
Many Chinese banks and credit card companies will not allow direct deposits to online gaming companies, and the ones that allow them to deposit usually charges big fees. To this date, Neteller, and other popular online payment services do not accept transfers from Chinese citizens. There you have the 2 of the main reasons why the poker boom in China still hasn't occured. So, what can start the poker boom in China when so many things are preventing people there from playing? A poker movie is maybe the answer?!
Phil Hellmuth's own publishing house has just released a new book called "Deal Me In". The book is about 20 poker players, their way to success and their lives before making it pro. Players like Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu and Scotty Nguyen's life time storys are included in the book.
The 2014 WSOP's Main Event kicked off this weekend on Saturday. There were 771 players that sat down at the tables at the Rio for Day 1A of this year's $10,000,000 1st place guarantee event. No other than the legendary 2005 main event winner Joe Hachem kicked off the event by announcing the classic "Shuffle up and Deal".
