Calling the Clock: McKeehen Cleaning up; Juanda Not Turning up And More

Calling The Clock: Sexism, Guns and Oil Paintings

This week’s round-up of poker news focuses on the World Series of Poker Main Event results, a no-show at the Poker Hall of Fame and more.

Calling the Clock: McKeehen Cleaning up; Juanda Not Turning up And MoreThe 2015 World Series of Poker (WSOP) is finally over.

Joe McKeehen won the most one-sided WSOP Main Event you would have seen in an age, Mike Gorodinsky won the Player of the Year Award, and being inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame (PHOF) was not seductive enough to lure John Juanda away from some juicy cash games in Macau.

The 2015 WSOP Main Event was one of ephemeral ennui. It was tortoise sex. Alex Dreyfus and the Global Poker League (GPL) must be having second thoughts. I’m not sure standing up would have sorted this mess out?

We will remember the final for two things. The ridiculously long tank times that have made live poker about as exciting as watching The Hunger Games, and for McKeehen’s dominant performance. He never came close to surrendering the chip lead and eliminated six of the eight final players on his way to one of the shortest Main Event’s by hand count for some time.

Preceding the Main Event was the Poker Hall of Fame induction ceremony. It was a hot potato this year, with Devilfish not getting the vote and all that, so it was a tad annoying for European folk when John Juanda decided not to turn up to accept his invitation into the halls of power.

I think Jesse May said it most eloquently.

The WSOP Main Event grabbed most of the headlines this week, but there was some room for Amaya Gaming. The Canadian online gambling giant held a teleconference to share news of their 2015 Q3 earnings. It was an interesting call.

Despite revenues rising 8% in the quarter, Amaya adjusted their revenue forecast by $167-$225m as a result of currency issues, a slower than expected rollout of casino and sports betting products, and withdrawal from a few profitable markets.

Amaya continued the party line that they would enter the New Jersey market sometime in Q1 2016, that eSports would be one of the new sports added to their ever growing sportsbook, and they would be looking to create a new product that would entice video gamers into the fold.

Perhaps that last decision came as a result of glowing reports from two of their own who attended BlizzCon 2015 this week. PokerStars Team Pros Daniel Negreanu and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier were invited to take center stage in a best of five Hearthstone exhibition match. Negreanu won the game, and ElkY will have to dress as Hearthstone character Sludge Belcher at the 2016 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA).

Poker is going to have its very own reality TV show.

California-based VAMN-TV is creating a show called Girl Got Game. Eight female stars of poker will participate, and the winner will win a seat in the 2016 WSOP Main Event. Sofia Lovgren, Danielle Andersen, Sabina Hiatullah, Lilou Agostini, Oanh Bui, Xuan Liu, Joanna Kwak and Kitty Kuo will all start the show with a $10,000 bankroll and cameras will follow every move as they compete in Macau and Las Vegas cash games. They will air the first season in April 2016.

One man with his fair share of time under the glare of the TV cameras is the four-time world boxing champion Carl Froch. The man known as The Cobra signed on to become the new partypoker Ambassador and went to work immediately promoting their new Power Series.

The Microgaming Poker Network was also in the news this week. Head of Poker Alex Scott revealed plans to experiment with only 100BB starting stacks allowed in Omaha Hi/Lo cash games. Scott made the decision after over 2m buy-ins were examined to show that 30bb poker was not only bad for business, but it was bad for the player’s executing the annoying strategy. If his experiment works, he will roll it out in Omaha Hi games and eventually Hold’em.

The World Poker Tour (WPT) welcomed two new members into their Champions Club. Tyler Patterson won the WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble for $375,270, and Iaron Lightbourne picked up the top prize of $308,766 in the WPT UK Main Event.

Other individual pats on back go out to Mateusz Dziewonski for winning the inaugural WSOP Circuit Rozvadov Main Event For €206,927; Robert Georato for winning the WSOPC Main Event in Lake Tahoe for $153,505; Vincent Fiorenza for winning the 2015 PPC Aruba World Championship for $106,027; Rich Alsup for winning the 2015 MSPT Meskwaki Main Event for $101,229, and the roll off the tongue name of Phanlert Sukonthachartnant for winning the ACOP High Roller for $652,080.

Time ladies & gentlemen, please.

Someone has just called the clock.