Strip Poker
FIRST BLOOD TO BLOM IN POKERSTARS CLASH WITH NEGREANU
2011-03-21
Enigmatuic Swede walks away with $150 000
Swedish online high stakes poker ace Viktor 'Isildur1' Blom drew first blood - and $150 000 - over the weekend in the first of two heads up challenges against Daniel Negreanu on the Pokerstars site in the PokerStars SuperStar Showdown..
In just 1 440 hands the enigmatic young Swede crushed his high-profile opponent.
Negreanu's comment on Twitter summed up his disappointment: "This has been pretty disgusting so far. Can't imagine running any worse."
The Challenge between the two exciting players was originally planned to take place over two consecutive Sundays, March 20 and March 27, at 15:00 ET, with each player starting with $150 000 bankrolls, playing across four virtual tables at $50/$100 stakes, with a ceiling of 2 500 hands.
Earlier, there was speculation that a despondent Negreanu had been cleaned out and may not be able to make the second clash. However, he subsequently dispelled this, tweeting: “OK, officially shook off the loss. Back to the grind this week and a rematch with a fresh 150k next week.”
2011 W.S.O.P. TIMETABLE RELEASED
2010-12-24
May 31st is launch date for the next episode of poker's biggest event
The World Series of Poker for 2011 will kick off on May 31st 2011, according to a statement from the organisers, Caesar's Entertainment, this week. The series will run for 50 exciting days, during which tens of millions of dollars will be won by thousands of players, including some of the world's best.
And there is no change to the now established Main Event Final Table timing - this $10 000 buy-in event will play down to a final table of nine by July 19, with a four month hiatus before the survivors compete for the massive main event first prize sometime in November.
Next year's event will take place as usual at the Rio in Las Vegas, the home of WSOP since 2005, with a full schedule of at least 57 events, details of which will be released in January. There will be a variety of poker genres, and events for all bankrolls, from $1000 buy-ins right the way up to major competitions that will cost players $50 000 to sign up.
A new feature of the 2011 series will be what the statement refers to as 'hard stop times'; these restrict the action to ten levels on any given day in any given event. Regardless of the number of players remaining in action, play will be halted and chips bagged for the next day once ten levels have been reached.
ANOTHER ONLINE POKER PAYMENT SYSTEM BUSTED
2010-11-01
UltimateBet winners were classed as "payroll" payments by Canadian processing company
The epicentre for US online gambling payment processing prosecutions shifted this week from the east coast of the US to Washington State, already infamous for its draconian anti-internet gambling laws.
The publication Seattle PI reports that Federal prosecutors in Seattle have moved to seize $553,000 from a Canadian company they say is facilitating payments to online poker players.
In a civil complaint filed earlier this month, prosecutors asked a U.S. District Court judge to order the balance of six bank accounts associated with the service be forfeited to the government. Prosecutors claim the service, identified in court documents as Secure Money, Inc., mailed payments, disguised as payroll payments, to Washington poker players using online gambling sites in violation of state law.
The investigation began in 2009 with a sting operation where an agent for the state Gambling Commission began playing online poker through the Ultimate Bet website.
An Assistant U.S. Attorney alleged in court documents "Secure Money, Inc. distributed checks on behalf of illegal websites that host gambling activity." Processing checks that represent the funds derived from illegal gambling … constitutes a violation of the money laundering
provisions set in federal law.
Bank records seized by investigators showed that more than $5,500 checks had been issued from the Secure Money, Inc. account between June 2009 and January, totaling $2.7 million, with memo line on each listed "payroll" as the reason for payment. Investigators contend Secure Money, Inc., was operating as a money transfer business without the licenses required by Nevada and Florida state law, according to the civil complaint.
The case continues.
MELBOURNE POKER TOURNEY WINDS DOWN
2010-06-02
590 entries for A$ 1 100 buy-in main event
The media noise level from the first days of the World Series of Poker championships unfolding in Las Vegas have almost obliterated coverage of another important tournament currently winding down in Melbourne, Australia.
The Crown Casino in Melbourne has been hosting the Melbourne Championship, which this week saw 590 players pony up the A$1 100 buy-in for a main event with a creditable prize pool of A$590 000.
Following three tough days, 20-year-old Brendon Rubie emerged as the victor, taking home the winner’s spoils of A$118 000 after a tense heads up with Minh Nguyen.
The final table results looked like this:
Brendon Rubie - A$118,000
Minh Nguyen - A$83,780
Mark Iskander - A$56,050
Michael Spilkin - A$41,300
Amanda De Cesare - A$35,400
Sam Vakili - A$29,500
Brian Boyle - A$23,600
Rob Salter - A$17,700
Andrew Scarf - A$11,800
Jarred Graham - A$8,850
HUNGARIAN PRO WINS L.A. POKER CLASSIC
2010-03-09
"I'm going to spend it all!" says winner of $1.78 million main prize
Andras Koroknai, a professional player from Hungary, is the latest WPT L.A. Poker Classic champion after besting a final table of six players at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles this week.
The final table crowned five days of hectic action as the original field of 745 was narrowed down to just six survivors: Andras Koroknai, Raymond Dolan, Tri Huynh, Gevork Kasabyan, Jean-Claude Moussa and Michael Kamran.
In the end, it was Koroknai vs. Dolan, with the Hungarian holding a 13 to 1 chip advantage which ensured that the heads up was brief and decisive.
The Hungarian walked off with the main prize of $1 788 040, vowing cheerfully "I'm going to spend all of it!", whilst the runner up collected a check for $ 1 002 710.