In this week’s Calling the Clock we bring you up to speed on the collapse of the Poker Player’s Championship tour, the return of the Bank of Timex, and the coronation of King Peters.
We begin our weekly poker news round-up with a scandal.
Several players who failed to receive their winnings at the most recent Poker Player’s Championships (PPC) in Aruba are suing the tour’s owners, Bryan Oulton and Thomas ‘Sandy’ Swartzbaugh, and four more defendants including Maryland Live! casino, after it came to light that the top seven finishers only received $10,000 in prize money.
Amongst the allegations cited on the legal paperwork, include the words ‘Ponzi Scheme.’ The four plaintiffs are event winner Stephen Deutsch, Michael Lerner (4th), John Ott (5th) and Joan Sandoval (6th). Former tour ambassador, and World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner, Ronnie Bardah, has severed ties with the now maligned outfit. Maurice “Mac” VerStanding is the man trying to get the boys their money back.
The two owners have been busy finding a cave somewhere in Tibet as they slowly delete all traces of existence on social media.
You won’t find any of this crap at the Irish Poker Open. The second oldest poker tour in the world has released their schedule for 2017. Only this time the side event action will include a collaboration with partypoker, with players able to compete in the £6m Guaranteed partypoker MILLIONS event. You can read the full schedule right here.
Partypoker has a healthy relationship with the World Poker Tour (WPT) and this week the live tour extended their relationship with Wazee Digital. Specialising in cloud-native video management and licensing, Wazee will continue to be the conduit between the action and delivery of the recording content to the appropriate broadcasters.
There was a time when the WPT was the premier live event in world poker, outside of the WSOP, but in recent years that mantle has arguably passed to the European Poker Tour (EPT). This week, PokerStars rebrand the EPT as the PokerStars Championships, and an 84-year-old Canadian is one of over 250 people who has qualified for the inaugural Bahamian festival.
The full schedule of events is right here.
Speaking to a Canadian news crew, the 84-year old man’s wife said she hated poker, but would make sure any money her husband won would go to good use with a charity benefiting from the lion share.
Earlier this week, Dan Smith was doing his bit for charity when he became the leader of a charity drive that saw $1.7m head into the coffers of some of the most effective charities on the planet posing the question: why don’t more people donate publicly? I respond to that question right here.
It’s not the first time that Dan Smith has put his weight behind a charitable drive after raising over $200,000 with Dan Colman a little while back. One of the charities that benefited from Smith and Colman’s heartfelt contribution was the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, designed to ensure that the creation of artificial intelligence has a positive impact on the world.
This week we learned that Carnegie Mellon University is doing just that with their continued focus on creating a poker AI machine that will enable them to use the research to make medical advancements.
Brains Vs. Artificial Intelligence: Upping The Ante will play out at the Rivers Casino, Pittsburgh where a team consisting of Jason Les, Dong Kim, Daniel McAuley and Jimmy Chou will take on the AI Libratus over a sturdy 120,000 hand examination.
To read more about the battle between humans and machines click here.
And if you wanted to place a bet on the outcome of that match then PokerShares is offering odds. PokerShares is the brainchild of Mike McDonald (himself a potential AI masquerading as a smart human) looking to offer punters better value than the pro poker players offer when selling pieces of their action.
You can read more about the story right here.
Online Poker News
Portugal has finalised their online poker liquidity plans. They currently reside with the European Commission and not only contain plans to join other EU-licensed rooms, but rooms that the Serviço Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos do Turismo de Portugal (SRIJ) can prove are pukka.
Read more about it right here.
Turning stateside, and the Winning Poker Network (WPN) has finally woken up to the profits that reside in a Weighted Contributed Rake model; online poker is back on the menu in Pennsylvania after Jay Costa submitted a new memo for the creation of an online gambling framework (); and OnlinePokerReport’s Steve Ruddock believes the Borgata in Atlantic City will not divorce GVC despite the latter acquiring bwin.party in 2016.
Personal Pats on The Back
Justin Bonomo, Tom Marchese and Cary Katz were the final recipients of any gold remaining in the 2016 Aria High Rollers. Bonomo ($639,000) and Katz ($733,000) chopped the final $100k event. Tom Marchese won the final $25k event for $288k with Katz coming second for $155,520. One day earlier, Katz also picked up a third at the same venue.
But the man of the moment has to be David Peters. A late surge in luck, skill, whatever you want to call it saw the Toledo man overtake Fedor Holz at the top of the Global Poker Index (GPI) and CardPlayer Player of the Year races. Peters is that special, PokerNews reporter Mo Nuwwarah, included the possibility that he would go back-to-back with GPI POY wins in 2017 in his Five Poker Predictions for 2017 article.
Time ladies & gentlemen.
Someone has just called the clock.
