WSOPE Marathon Champion: John Juanda

Date: Thu, Oct 2, 2008

Playing through a long night and early into this morning, John Juanda took down a strong final table and won the main event of the 2008 World Series of Poker Europe. Russian Stanislav Alekhin finished second after he and Juanda battled for over seven hours and 241 hands heads up. John Juanda was down to a final river card on hand #399 but he caught a miracle straight to stay alive.

This WSOPE final table took 484 hands (a WSOP record for most hands at a final table) and 22 hours (including dinner and other scheduled and unscheduled breaks) finishing after 10 AM local time in London.

Fellow Russian Ivan Demidov finished in third place, Demidov is one of the "November Nine" who will be playing for the WSOP main event championship next month.

Here is how the final nine finished:

1 £ 868,800 John Juanda
2 £ 533,950 Stanislav Alekhin
3 £ 334,850 Ivan Demidov
4 £ 271,500 Bengt Sonnert
5 £ 217,200 Daniel Negreanu
6 £ 171,950 Scott Fischman
7 £ 135,750 Robin Keston
8 £ 108,600 Toni Hiltunen
9 £ 81,450 Chris Elliott

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World Series of Poker Europe: Final Table

Date: Wed, Oct 1, 2008

They are down to the final nine in London at the World Series of Poker Europe. Daniel Negreanu is there as is John Juanda. The most interesting player to notice is Ivan Demidov. Why? Because Ivan has another final table to play next month in Las Vegas. Ivan Demidov is one of the November Nine, still in the running for the 2008 WSOP main event bracelet. Now wouldn't this be a double win that would be talked about for a long, long time.

Seat 1: Robin Keston 849,000
Seat 2: Daniel Negreanu 1,002,000
Seat 3: Chris Elliott 281,000
Seat 4: Bengt Sonnert 385,000
Seat 5: John Juanda 1,349,000
Seat 6: Ivan Demidov 1,006,000
Seat 7: Toni Hiltunen 386,000
Seat 8: Scott Fischman 732,000
Seat 9: Stanislav Alekhin 1,278,000

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World Series of Poker Europe: Final 24 players

Date: Wed, Oct 1, 2008

They are down to 24 players in the main event of the World Series of Poker Europe. Still a fair number of big names in the hunt with John Juanda leading the field into Day Four. They will play down from 24 to 9 tomorrow.

Here are the survivors:

Juanda, John - Las Vegas 657,500
Negreanu, Daniel - Las Vegas 653,000
Smith, Justin - Kissimmee, FL 624,500
Rouas, Phillippe - San Francisco, CA 573,000
Lodden, Johnny - Orpezano Italy 478,000
Townsend, Brian - Santa Barbara, CA 424,500
Sonnert, Ben - Linkoping Sweden 346,500
Hiltunen, Toni - Lahti Finland 321,500
Kongsgaard, Soren - Aarhus Denmark 316,500
Demidov, Ivan - Moscow Russia 316,000
Bloch, Andy - Las Vegas 301,000
Fischman, Scott - Las Vegas 298,000
Bergius, Perttu - Espoo Finland 261,000
Judah, Mel - London 254,000
Shakerchi, Talal - London 225,000
Alekhin, Stanislav - Moscow Russia 215,000
Neff, Peter - Los Angeles 213,500
Adams, Brandon - Miami, FL 212,000
Elliott, Christopher - Alloa UK 181,500
Matusow, Mike - Las Vegas 147,500
Seidel, Eric - Las Vegas 85,000
Torsvik, Kim-Andre - Bergen Norway 78,500
Keston, Robin - London 74,000
West, Tim - Los Altos, CA 63,500

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PartyPoker.com 36 Hour Poker Den Live!

Date: Tue, Sep 30, 2008

You can follow the live action from the 36 hour marathon Party Poker Poker Den from the Matchroom site. The event is underway now in London, with a huge line up of professionals in town for the WSOPE. The format is a $10,000 buy-in with $50/$100 blinds and eight seats at the table. Players may come or go as they like with an interesting group ready to take any empty seats.

Currently playing (at hour 20 of 36):

Neil Channing*
Chris Parker (second session)
Phil Laak
Richard Wheatley
Chris "Smitty" Smithy
Roberto Romanello
Josh Ladines
Andrew Feldman (second session)

*Original participant from hour 1.

Also played:
Ilios Kamatakis (busted)
David Williams (busted)
Ian Frazier (out)
Jennifer Tilly (left game a winner!)
Robert Williamson III (out)
Barny Boatman (out)
Bodo Sbrzesny (out)
Roland de Wolfe (out after two sessions)
Sammy “any two” George (out after 15 hours)

There is a $1,000 added "Party Pot" once an hour, which seems to stimulate a lot of action. The first Party Pot got up to $17,000.

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World Series of Poker Europe down to 62

Date: Tue, Sep 30, 2008

The World Series of Poker Europe main event is down to 62 players from the starting field of 362. With so few starting runners compared to the thousands in the Las Vegas WSOP, it is not surprising that the leader board is still full of big name professionals. Here are the players at the top entering day three.

1 Bloch, Andy - Las Vegas 321,600
2 Townsend, Brian - Santa Barbara, CA 290,100
3 Seidel, Erik - Las Vegas 282,300
4 Juanda, John - Las Vegas 252,500
5 Rouas, Phillippe - San Francisco 233,300
6 Elliott, Christopher - Alloa UK 231,900
7 Moorman, Christopher - Brighton UK 219,500
8 Smith, Justin - Kissimmee, FL 217,700
9 Negreanu, Daniel - Las Vegas 203,700
10 Adams, Brandon - Miami, FL 190,000
11 Sointula, Jani - Helsinki Finland 184,800
12 Sonnert, Ben - Linkoping Sweden 184,600
13 Matusow, Mike - Las Vegas 180,300
14 Demidov, Ivan - Moscow Russia 176,200
15 Moreira, Tome - Porto Portugal 165,800
16 Alekhin, Stanislav - Moscow Russia 164,000
17 Williamsson, Christofer - Gothenberg Sweden 163,500
18 Fischman, Scott - Las Vegas 152,800

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29 September 2008: Ultimate Bet Cheating Scandal Update

Date: Mon, Sep 29, 2008

(MOHAWK TERRITORY OF KAHNAWAKE – September 29, 2008) Kahnawa:ke Gaming Commission ("KGC") Chairman Dean Montour today announced the initial findings of the audit conducted on licensee Ultimate Bet, as well as the sanctions to be imposed.

According to KGC Chairman Montour, the Commission has reviewed the information provided to it over the past months from Frank Catania of Catania Gaming Consultants of New Jersey; Gaming Associates, an Australian game testing company; and the permit holder. Chairman Montour said, "The Commissioners have made several findings of fact with regard to the cheating that occurred on the Ultimate Bet web site that included the identification of some of the individuals responsible for these incidents as well other significant violations of the Kahnawa:ke Interactive Gaming Regulations."

The Commission found clear and convincing evidence to support the conclusion that between the approximate dates of May 2004 to January 2008, Russell Hamilton, an individual associated with Ultimate Bet's affiliate program, was the main person responsible for and benefiting from the multiple cheating incidents. Furthermore, the KGC is currently in contact with the appropriate law enforcement agencies and intends to fully cooperate in the prosecution of all individuals involved in the UB cheating incidents.

Mr. Catania states,

"My intention is to provide further information as it is uncovered, although the information already submitted to the KGC relating to Ultimate Bet warrants the KGC taking the actions it has today. Any further evidence uncovered with regard to cheating, withholding or destroying records in our continuing investigation will be reported to the KGC and the proper agency for appropriate action."

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As a result of the KGC's findings of fact, the Commission called a special meeting, at which time it was unanimously decided to impose the following sanctions against Ultimate Bet:

1. Ultimate Bet is directed that by November 3, 2008 it shall, under the close supervision of the KGC, its employees and agents, commence refunding all players accounts found to have been adversely affected by the cheating of individuals under the control and supervision of the licensee. It is estimated that Ultimate Bet has to date reimbursed $6.1 million USD to players' accounts found to have been adversely impacted by the cheating activity

2. Ultimate Bet is directed that by November 3, 2008 it is to remove any and all persons deemed as "unsuitable" by the KGC from all involvement with the company, which shall include all levels of ownership, management and operation. Ultimate Bet during that time period until November 3, 2008 is required to continue to provide complete details of all day-to-day operations of the company. These shall include financial as well as daily gaming records to Frank Catania and or his assigns. It is anticipated that this action will provide full disclosure and prevent any further improprieties or wrongdoing from occurring while ensuring that the public is being offered fair and honest games and all player monies will be protected.

3. Ultimate Bet's control system as defined in section 9 of the Kahnawa:ke Interactive Gaming Regulations has been modified to prevent any further incidents of cheating or related improprieties.

4. Ultimate Bet will not delete or modify any logs including but not limited to web logs and game logs as required by the Kahnawa:ke Interactive Gaming Regulations and will continue to have those logs immediately available for inspection by the KGC or its agents.

5. Ultimate Bet shall immediately pay a fine of $1.5 Million USD to the KGC for its failure to implement and enforce measures to prohibit and detect fraudulent activities.

6. Ultimate Bet's failure to comply fully with these measures will result in the immediate revocation of its KGC gaming permit.

Murray Marshall
Senior Advisor
Kahnawa:ke Gaming Commission

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Asia Pacific Poker Tour

Date: Sun, Sep 28, 2008

Lost in the glow of the World Series of Poker Europe is the Asia Pacific Poker Tour event in Seoul, Korea. While Southeast Asia remains a difficult area of the world to bring big poker tours to, because of various national laws and controls. There is both an Asian Poker Tour and competing Asia Pacific Poker Tour. The APPT main event in Seoul is down to a final table of nine players today and unlike many tournaments, this one has not been dominated by either youthful internet players or big name professionals. While most of the "name" players are in London or on the rail here in Seoul for the final table, the field was full of internet qualifiers, but age and experience seems to have won out at the APPT, thus far. Only one player under 21 years of age will take a seat for the championship. Here is the line-up for today's final table.

Seat 1: Dan Williams, Canada (42,000 in chips): This 29-year-old is playing in his first live tournament.
Seat 2: Daniel Schreiber, Seoul, South Korea (253,500): At the age of 22, he arrived in South Korea in 2004 to compete as a professional StarCraft gamer.
Seat 4: Fam Yat, Singapore (66,500): A 28-year-old primary school maths tutor.
Seat 5: David Horvath, Szodliget, Hungary (124,000): A 29-year-old experienced poker player, who qualified online.
Seat 6: Yuji Masaki, Hiroshima, Japan (13,500): A 45-year-old pharmacist, he also qualified via an online satellite.
Seat 7: Sam Faqiryar, Calgary, Alberta, Canada (185,000): Just 20 years of age, but he calls himself a full time professional poker player.
Seat 8: Brian Kang, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (394,000): This 29-year-old financial analyist was born in Canada to Korean parents.
Seat 9: Hidenari Shiono, Tokyo, Japan (269,000): A 39-year-old president of a hardware company.
Seat 3: Yoshihiro Tasaka, Osaka, Japan (226,500): This 49-year-old service industry employee has been playing poker for over 30 year. LATE UPDATE: Yoshihiro Tasaka is the winner of the APPT Seoul Championship.

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Pondering Poker

Date: Sat, Sep 27, 2008

There has been some interesting and sometimes strange news around the poker world this week. Here is a glimpse and a glance at some of the more or less interesting tidbits.

The World Series of Poker Europe has been running this week with three preliminary events and today's first of two Day Ones in the main event. The Events are being "double numbered", they are WSOPE 2008 Events 1-4, as well as 2008 WSOP 56-59. We have heard only minor grumbling about "diluting" the value of the WSOP bracelet; I mean they give out 55 bracelets in Las Vegas every summer, so what are four more. The question may be raised in 2009 when rumor has it, there may be a WSOPE group of tournaments in both London and Barcelona. Then again, it is supposed to be the World Series of Poker.

Next item, the State of Kentucky in the United States is attempting to seize control of 141 poker websites because.... well you can read the legal background but it comes down to yet another moralistic fundamentalist who believes that politicians have the right to restrict the freedoms of citizens based on their own irrational fears and beliefs. Wars have been fought over such morality or immorality based legislation.

A new study was found that interest in poker, at least among youth, has fallen. Indeed, according to this study: "interest in poker peaked in 2005" and has been falling dramatically since then. The reason? Poker was trendy and like all trends the novelty wears off. So poker will go the way of backgammon and the macarena?

One final report, gaming revenues for July in the State of Nevada were off again. The total "take" or "win" for the casinos was down 14% year over year and this includes the Las Vegas Strip casinos, which account for 50% of the total gaming revenues in Nevada. Poker revenues were down just slightly more than were the overall gaming totals. There is some doubt about whether all of the revenue from the World Series of Poker was included in these numbers, since the WSOP does not technically end until November 11th.

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"Poker site cheating plot a high-stakes whodunit"

Date: Wed, Sep 24, 2008

I remember over five years ago having the "online cheating" argument with my poker buddies. They would argue that the online sites would not cheat for "a couple of extra bucks" when they were already making millions on the rake. I would argue that money is money and since cheating was so easy from inside the server firewall that it just had to be happening. We had this same argument every time we got together on one of our poker road trip. Guess what! They don't argue with me any more. Not after both Ultimate Bet and Absolute were caught cheating.

Now to be fair, some of the details of both of these scandals are still unclear but the bottom line is not. Cut away all the accusations and finger pointing and you have the unrefuted fact that insiders with "super user" accounts were able to see the hole cards of other players and they cheated them out of millions of dollars. No one, any longer, denies this happened.

Did either site try to cover up the facts? Was it the 'previous owners' committing these crimes? Is there any jurisdictional basis for anyone to go to jail? Was any of the cheating erased from the databases? Who ultimately is responsible?

If you would like to know just how convoluted this mess really is... I want to point you to the MSNBC article from last week: Poker site cheating plot a high-stakes whodunit. For the first time in the "non-poker media" there is an honest treatment of just what may have happened in this case. The article ought to convince you not only of what did happen but of how legally difficult it might be to hold anyone accountable for the fraud and theft.

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U.S. Poker Players: Action Alert

Date: Tue, Sep 23, 2008

The federal elections in the United States are less than 45 days away. This is the time, once every four years, when elected officials actually listen to voters. If you are a poker player and you want the right to play poker online, then you need to take two minutes to go to the Poker Player Alliance website and fill out this form, which will be sent to your Congress person and both of your Senators. This is a new legislative notice, if you have written in the past, please do it again today. Might I suggest that you add a line or two at the beginning of the pre-packaged message. Here is what I wrote:

"This year, I am a single issue voter. You either fully support my right to play poker online or you are against me. No half-ass political double-speak. If you fully support the right of all Americans to do with their money and time whatever they see fit, then you have my vote. If you don't, then your opponent gets my vote. I wanted to keep it simple, so you understand. You are for us or against us and my vote will reflect your position. If I do not hear from you before the election or if you send some non-committal bullshit about further studies, I am voting for the other guy. I hope we are clear on this issue."

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European Poker Tour Adds Tournaments

Date: Mon, Sep 22, 2008

The European Poker Tour has added two events to its previously announced 2008-2009 tournament schedule. The Hungarian Open in Budapest is a new event. EPT has also put the Caribbean Adventure back on its official schedule after some talk of moving that tournament to the North American Poker Tour. The Caribbean event will again be held at the Atlantis Hotel and Casino.

Here is the current EPT 2008-2009 schedule:

Barcelona Open (Casino Barcelona) - Sept 10-14, 2008 - €8,000
London (Victoria Casino) - October 1-5, 2008 - £5,200
ADDED: Hungarian Open (Budapest) - Oct 28-Nov 1 - €4,000
Polish Open (Hyatt Regency, Warsaw) - November 15-19, 2008 - 20,000 PLN
Prague (Hilton Hotel) - December 9-13, 2008 - €5,000
ADDED: Caribbean Adventure - Bahamas - January 1-5, 2009 - $8,000
Deauville (Barrière Casino) - January 20-24, 2009 - €5,000
Scandinavian Open (Casino Copenhagen) - February 17-21, 2009 - 50,000 DKR
German Open (Casino Hohensyburg) - March 10 - 14, 2009 - €5,000
San Remo (San Remo) - April 18-23, 2009 - €5,000
Grand Final (Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort) - April 28 - May 3, 2009 - €10,000

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Michael Phelps a Poker Star?

Date: Sun, Sep 21, 2008

Last week there were a lot of pictures and stories about ninety-two time gold medalist Michael Phelps joining up with Doyle's Room. Yes, Mr. Limpet was in Las Vegas and he did ask to meet Doyle Brunson and there were lots of photos with Michael and Doyle and Todd and all the rest of the Doyle's room gang. Not sure if they had time to get Shannon Elizabeth into a merry widow in time to lure Michael to the cowboy side of online poker.

However, no announcement has been made and for a damn good reason. The fish boy is the hottest commercial commodity out there right now; a veritable Michael Jordan of the waves. He is commanding huge amounts of blue-green for appearances and commercials and quite frankly, Doyle's Room can't afford him. Sure he might make take a lowball deal to be associated with Doyle, but I think his financial advisers are way too smart for that.

What online room has a tennis player, a soccer player, a couple of cricketeers... Need I go on?

You heard it here first (or second if you are reading all the poker forums): Michael Phelps gets the water out of his ears and the cash in his wallet and signs a sponsorship deal to be a Poker Star.

Was that too cryptic?

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Party Poker Launches New Table

Date: Thu, Sep 18, 2008

You may have heard the rumours swirling around cyberpokerspace that PartyPoker is about to launch a ground-breaking new table, complete with stunning features. Well, here it is.

The slick design is a huge improvement on the previous table, which despite serving players so well over the years, had become a little dated. Players who can’t bear to part with the old design will still have an option to continue with it if they wish.

But everyone else will love to play on the slickest, most eye-catching and ergonomically-pleasing table available anywhere.

The new look is part of a major overhaul of PartyPoker.com will go live next week. There are loads of changes and new features.

Here’s just some of the improvements:

* Fine new design that makes playing easier and more user-friendly

* Now you can select your own player photo - either an image from our new, extensive library, or you can upload your own photograph

* All your action buttons are in a more logical position, and they are easier to use

* The bet slider is simpler and more responsive

* You’ve now got access to pre-set bet buttons: Min, 1/2 Pot, 3/4 Pot, Pot and Max (all-in).

* There’s an improved note-taking facility

* The chat area will be easier to read and manage

More details on the big changes will be revealed here over the next week.

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Orwellian Logic Alive in the U.K.

Date: Wed, Sep 17, 2008

In a bureaucratic ruling worthy of only the paranoid dreams of Big Brother, the government paid for and appointed "save-us-from-ourselves" UK Advertising Standards Authority has banned a television advertisement by PKR which "glamorised the risks involved in gambling and implied it was possible to win against the odds".

The ad showed a computer-generated image of a poker room with a number of players seated around a poker table. The main "too glamorous" character makes a huge all in bet while the ad's voice-over states:

"I've come in over the top of pot-sized raises with middle pair. Bluffed under the gun with four runners behind me. Folded pocket kings on a hunch. I've survived bad beats, sick draws and cold decks. And I've played through fields of thousands to make the final table. Here I come."

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To justify its censorship, the ASA said that the ad gave the impression that it was acceptable to take risks 'on a hunch' and implied that poker could be played in a reckless way. The ASA also specifically noted that the main character at the virtual table is shown laughing as he made his all in bet, and therefore the ASA concluded that the ad could be seen to glamorise the risks involved with gambling.

PKR has been told not to broadcast the ad again in its current form and in the future all representations of real or virtual individuals engaged in gambling activities should depict sad and angry demeanors.

"People playing poker should not be seen to be enjoying themselves."

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