Lee Davy condenses the highlights of last week’s poker news into a much more manageable 1,131 words.
The Poker Community Gets Ice Cold
Poker rallied along with the rest of the world, this week, when my Facebook wall was splattered with ice bucket challenge videos. Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, Lynn Gilmartin and Dan Bilzerian getting in on the action, but the absolute best vid came from the hallowed offices of the World Poker Tour (WPT) President, Adam Pliska.
Check it out.
Kessler Takes His Chainsaw to the WPT
One man who won’t be giving that video five stars is Allen Kessler. The Chainsaw is not on good terms with the WPT after their Quantum Reload ideology rattled the man so much he boycotted the Legends of Poker Main Event.
“This format creates a gap between the haves and have not’s,” says Kessler, alluding to the decision made by the WPT to allow players who bust Day 1 to enter Day 2 for $10,000.
Quantum Reload means a player can fire three bullets, at $3,700 a pop, and a fourth at $10,000, if they want to continue in the tournament with a Day 2 stack of 60 bigs.
Now that’s a lot of money.
Poker and Politics Don’t Mix
One man who should be able to afford it is Daniel Colman. The BIG ONE for ONE DROP winner – who doesn’t like to draw attention to himself – has now won $19.6 milion, in 2014 alone, after finishing runner-up to Olivier Busquet, in the €50,000 Super High Roller (SHR), at the European Poker Tour (EPT) in Barcelona – an event where he decided he did want to draw attention to himself.
Colman’s friendship to Busquet came to light during the ONE DROP, when it was revealed that Busquet had helped Colman with a spot of heads-up coaching. The pair shared a room in Barcelona, and it must have been during a cozy night in that the pair decided to wear ‘Save Gaza’ and ‘Save Palestine’ t-shirts for the final table.
It seems poker and politics don’t mix, as fans vented their frustration on Twitter, prompting the Rational Group Head of Communications, Eric Hollreiser, to issue an apology and state that it wouldn’t happen again.
PokerStars TV Returns to the US
Lesson learned; and it came at a good time, with PokerStars inking a deal with the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open (SHRPO) to provide live stream coverage for the $10 million Guarantee, and $100k SHR, when the action gets underway at the end of the month.
It’s the second time the pair has done business, in recent weeks, after Stars announced that their players could buy-in to the $10m Guaranteed Main Event through their online accounts. It will be the first time that Stars have streamed a US event since 2010, and according to Amaya Gaming CEO, David Baazov’s, strategy, one doubts it will be the last.
A Record Breaking EPT100 Barcelona
By the time PokerStars TV hauls ass across the Atlantic they will be in fine fettle after showing the world how great poker life is in the Catalan capital of Barcelona.
EPT100 Barcelona has been a monstrous success with the €1,100 Estrellas Poker Tour Main Event attracting 2,560 players, and the €5,300 EPT Main Event attracting 1,496 players. Both fields were EPT records with the first taking the title of largest live tournament field in EPT history, and the latter the same accolade in Main Event history.
Goliath by Name, Goliath by Nature
You call those big fields?
This is a big field!
The Grosvenor United Kingdom Poker Tour (GUKPT) Goliath Main Event broke the record for the largest-ever live tournament to be held outside of the US, after 3,394 players turned up at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry.
Ryan Foster won the event for a prize of £62,120, but Mark Adam took over £40,000, for second, and he found his way into the field after winning a satellite for just 2p.
Impressive ROI’s
You call that an ROI?
This is an ROI!
Leigh Wiltshire won the Sky Poker UK 6-Max Poker Championship Main Event, at Dusk till Dawn (DTD), Nottingham, for £110,000, and he satellited his way into the £1,000 event for just 1p.
1p?
2p?
Online poker is magical.
But it’s also beatable.
Daniel Negreanu Apologises to the Online Cash Game Wizards
Just ask Daniel Negreanu; who upset a whole host of high stakes online grinders when he took a sabbatical from tweeting about the Gaza Strip, to focus his 140 characters on the high stakes online cash games. More pointedly how he believed he could beat them and stake a million on the outcome.
A challenge?
Not so.
During an interview with PokerNews, Kid Poker told the likes of Doug Polk and Daniel Colman not to be offended about the faith he has in his own ability. He understands how tough the game is, how exceptionally talented the players are and didn’t mean to ruffle anybody’s feathers. That and the fact that PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker are illegal in Las Vegas and he doesn’t fancy leaving his dog behind for the three months it would take him to get through a million-dollar challenge.
PokerTracker and Hold’em Manager Merge
If Negreanu was to get jiggy with the high stakes online cash game wizards one would assume he would have to get used to the intricacies of a Heads Up Display (HUD)?
Would it be PokerTracker (PT) or Hold’em Manager (HEM)?
By the time Amaya push their two starlets into the midst of the Nevada iGaming industry, the answer to that question will be irrelevant after the two giants of the online poker tracking software market have decided to join forces. Fans of both products needn’t worry, as plans to roll out updated versions of both PT and HEM will continue as normal.
Tony G Ties the Knot
One poker player you can be sure has never used a HUD in his life is Tony G. A cross between Michael Jordan and Maggie Thatcher, the G-Meister General doesn’t have a lot of time for poker these days, and that’s just gotten a whole lot worse after he decided to tie the knot in his home country of Lithuania.
More Nov Nine Deals
Two other players who entered into long term deals this week are the November Niners Felix Stephenson and Bruno Politano. The former inking a deal with the Swedish online gambling outfit Betsafe and the latter signing on the dotted line with 888Poker.
The EPT Turn One POY Leaderboard into Three
Finally, it wouldn’t be a week in poker without the Global Poker Index (GPI) getting a mention. The busiest man in poker has been at it again, this time inking a deal with the EPT to split their Player of the Year (POY) leaderboard into a three tier structure designed to celebrate successes at the high, medium and low-level bankrolls in our game.
Is there nothing that Alex Dreyfus hasn’t gotten involved in recently?
Yes there is.
The ice bucket challenge.
Get it on Dreyfus.
Get it on.
