Betfair Poker has joined the elite top tier of iPoker’s recently split network. The company announced via its blog that “New Betfair Poker” would run separately from “Classic Betfair”, which will continue to offer services on the Ongame Network. It joins Bet365, Poker770, Titan Poker, Winner Poker, William Hill, Paddy Power and Everest Poker on the top tier. For those not in-the-know, the top tier was created in Sept. 2012 and means that a small number of larger firms can segregate certain games so that they only feature the top tier skins. The higher level is larger and a more fish-friendly recreational pool of sites that meet iPoker’s requirement to (a) maintain an active player base over 6,000 and (b) bring in 850 new players per month. Betfair Poker will have given assurances as to their compliance with these rules and passed the process without being black-balled by their peers.
Back on land, Scott Seiver won the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Super High Roller and with it a prize of over $2million. Seiver bested a field of 59 players in the event that took place at the Atlantic Casino in The Bahamas and the $2,003,480 prize takes his live career earnings to $6,986,732. The turn out was 85 percent higher than last year and Seiver didn’t have it all his own way as for much of the day he was trailing the eventual runner up David Sands, who took home a sweet $1,259,320. Nick Schulman made up the top trio and a payday of $744,140.
This year’s PCA $10k Main Event is already underway with day 1b set to get underway today. Leading the field coming out of day 1a is Maxim Lobzhanidze with 248,900 chips, closely followed by Gilbert Diaz (215,900) and Darren Elias (191,000). Attendance on the day was 320 players – a drop from 418 last year – and of that number just 162 made it through to day 2. Worrying? Perhaps not, as Pokernews points out that many of the big names have been drawn to the Open-Face Chinese Poker tournament on the other side of the room. That will mean the likes of Phil Hellmuth, Vanessa Selbst, Daniel Negreanu and Jason Mercier wandering over.
