Lee Davy spends his morning bringing you up to date on all of the weekly news including Asher Conniff’s incredible rise to the top, Anthony Zinno wrapping up a sound Season XIII at the World Poker Tour with the Player of the Year award, Bryan Micon having the worst week of his life, and much more.
The weekly news round up begins with Bryan Micon.
When you talk about Bryan Micon you immediately think about Seals With Clubs (SWC), the Bitcoin only online poker room that seemed to be doing decent business in the states, before the shutters came down.
Speaking with Micon about SWC his passion for Bitcoin, and online poker, is unparalleled, and yet he has always insisted that his role with the company has never been anything more than ‘bit-part.’
That view isn’t shared by the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) who this week issued a warrant for his arrest for his role in running SWC without the requisite licensing. The view of the NGC, and specifically their agent Ricardo Lopez, is Micon was the main man behind SWC.
Lopez, who monitored Micon’s home, and his social media accounts, even came across a Skype log of a conversation between Micon, and Lock Poker owner Jennifer Larson, showing Micon trying to buy the troubled online poker room, so he could make the ‘players whole again’.
If he’s found guilty, Micon could face up to 10-years behind bars, accompanied by a $50,000 fine. It’s thought he is currently living in Antigua with his wife and two-year old daughter. He has set up a GoFundMe account to help him fight the charges levied against him.
Micon has hired the services of David Chesnoff. This is the man Paul Phua hired to try and find a loophole that would allow him to wriggle free from charges of operating an illegal sports betting ring, from a trio of Caesars luxury villa’s, during the 2014 World Cup, and he was also hired by Dan Bilzerian after the man mountain blew up a tractor in the Nevada desert.
I think it’s a great shame that Micon has turned to Chesnoff. Let’s keep this in house. PokerStars Team Pro, Vanessa Selbst, announced that she passed the bar exam this week. What a great opportunity to get stuck into her first case whilst the iron was still hot.
Selbst wasn’t the only PokerStars Team Pro in the news this week. Daniel Negreanu took a few minutes out of his busy Twitch schedule to announce his intention to support the creation of the new 24/7 poker channel: Poker Central. He will act in the role of ambassador, and will also play in the $500,000 buy-in event this summer
Kid Poker continued his growth on Twitch by surpassing Friend of PokerStars Jaime Staples in terms of numbers of unique followers this week. At the time of writing Negreanu has 25,072 followers, compared to the 24,613 of Stapes. The market leader remains Jason Somerville, with 95,008, but Negreanu will beat that if he can keep up the hard work.
Daniel Negreanu is a former World Poker Tour (WPT) Player of the Year. He won that accolade in Season 3, and Anthony Zinno is the latest edition to that exclusive club. Zinno waltzed into the Season XIII WPT World Championships with only Darren Elias capable of overhauling his points total. Elias’s run ended on Day 2, and Zinno’s hand was held aloft. The 3-time WPT Champion was awarded with a very expensive Hublot watch, and accommodation and ground transport for next season’s WPT events.
Zinno’s POY award signifies the end of a great WPT season, and Asher Conniff has come from absolutely nowhere to become the latest World Champion. This kid has definitely been praying to the right God these past few weeks.
Check this out for a run.
On April 14th, Conniff beat 2,408 entrants, including Matt Stout in heads-up action, to take the first prize of $203,231 at a side event at the Borgata Spring Poker Open. It was by far his biggest win of his career. As the New Yorker was in New Jersey, he was able to play a little online poker. One night he misclicked and entered a $1,000 satellite for the WPT World Championships. He played. He won a seat, and yesterday he parlayed that seat into a $973,683 payday.
Now that’s what I call a run.
Conniff wasn’t the only player winning titles this week. Ryan Jones won the World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) Main Event in Cherokee, Brian Lemke won the Borgata Spring Poker Open Main Event and James Mitchell won the Grosvenor United Kingdom Poker Tour (GUKPT) Main Event in Edinburgh.
They didn’t win any titles, but four of our brightest online poker stars continued to beat the crap out of the Claudico robot and Phil Hellmuth Jr. and Phil Hellmuth Jr.-Jr. both cashed in a SugarHouse Casino event. The Poker Brat legacy continues…
We end this week’s write up where we started – online poker in America. Global Poker Index, CEO, Alexander Dreyfus declared it was a matter of WHEN and not IF online poker would come to California, after Adam Gray’s AB 431 online poker bill managed to pass through the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee hearing. It’s the first time a Cali bill has managed to get through a hearing. I guess it helped that Gray was the chairman of that hearing.
Pull up the reigns. Take one step at a time. Nothing has been legalized yet, but it does mean that the important voices in this campaign are finding more and more common ground. All we need now is a unified voice on the involvement of the racetracks and bad actors and Californians will be ready to rock n roll.
Time, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Someone has just called the clock.
