PCA Super High Roller; Zynga Poker gains fans; PPA optimistic; Duke dancing fan

pca-zynga-ppa-dukeAfter Day 2’s high stakes action at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Super High Roller event, there are just seven players left to do battle at the final table on Saturday. (The play will be aired on ESPN2 later in the year.) Nick Schulman sits atop the remaining field with 2.99m chips, Daniel Negreanu is in second with 2.166m and Eugene Katchalov third with 1.39m. The rest of the field looks as follows: Bryn Kenney (1.39m); Humberto Brenes (756k); Sandor Denjan (379k) and Andrew Lichtenberger (373k).

Schulman and Katchalov are good friends, but neither man has any compunction about sending each other packing if/when the opportunity presents itself. If Negreanu finishes first or second on Saturday, the seven-figure payday will propel him past Phil Ivey on the all-time money list.

According to Famecount.com, Zynga’s Texas Holdem Poker is so popular it holds down both the #1 and #2 positions on the ‘top rising brands on Facebook’ chart. The double-dipping is explained by the fact that the Chinese-language version of the popular poker product is counted separately from its English-language parent. The Famecount chart tracks the number of ‘likes’, ‘fans’ and ‘followers’ a product receives on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. For the record, English Zynga garnered 634,648 fans this week, while its Chinese counterpart scored 838,965.

The Poker Players Alliance has issued a statement to the effect that it is optimistic about working with the new Congress in Washington to achieve the PPA’s dream of a federally regulated online poker regime in the US of A. Frankly, we think Phil Hellmuth has a better chance of winning Dancing With The Stars than the PPA has in herding the Congressional cats, but hey, knock yourselves out.

Speaking of Phil’s fancy footwork, former UB.com roster mate Annie Duke told PokerNewsDaily that she hopes Hellmuth makes the cut on DWTS. Duke believes it would be good for the game of poker, but also thinks it would be ‘hilarious’ and that people would tune in “because they love to hate him.” In non-Hellmuth news, Duke revealed that she and Vanessa Rousso have “a 400-page poker strategy bible” in the works, and that there will be a website with audio files for those poker players who can only read the letters A-K-Q-J.