Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

Thanks to the great reporting at Wicked Chops Poker, they found that 60 Minutes was snooping around at the WSOP yesterday trying to gather information for their segment on the Absolute Poker Scandal.

This will obviously be a bad thing for online poker, as you can almost guarantee that 60 minutes will cover the entire industry with such a negative light.

In the picture on the left (thanks to Wicked Chops) you can see Michael Josem (owner of AbsolutePokerCheats.com) talking to 60 minutes anchor Steve Croft.

Apparently there were also other interviews with poker pros Mark Seif (Absolute Poker Pro), Greg Raymer (Pokerstars Pro), Mike Sexton, and Linda Johnson (aka The First Lady of Poker).

For more pictures check out Wicked Chops Poker.

Today will be one of the greatest final tables ever at the WSOP for the conclusion of the $5k Rebuy Pot Limit Omaha event at the 2008 WSOP.  Let’s take a look at the line-up:

Seat 1: John Juanda 694,000 - Over $6.3 Million in live event earnings and 3 WSOP bracelets, Juanda will not go down easy.
Seat 2: Phil Hellmuth 119,000 - 11 WSOP bracelets and argued by many as one of the best poker players of all time (though we find him more annoying).
Seat 3: David Benyamine 1,041,000 - Known for playing in the highest stakes poker games online, Benyamine’s specialty is PLO.
Seat 4: Kirill Gerasimov 558,000 - Cashed in 4 of the Omaha events at the 2006 WSOP, he knows the game well.
Seat 5: Phil Galfond 1,393,000 - Another high stakes online poker player, Phil plays online as OMGClayAiken and is often seen dominating the PLO tables at Full Tilt Poker.
Seat 6: Daniel Negreanu 460,000 - Just won his 4th WSOP bracelet the other day, Negreanu is already in this event for $85,000 worth of rebuys.  He wants to win, and he wants it BAD!
Seat 7: Brian “tsarrast” Rast 1,176,000 - Another online player, Brian goes by the handle tsarrast on PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker and has had some experience playing the highest stakes games online.
Seat 8: Adam Hourani 300,000 - The least known of all the players, though Hourani did win a Bellagio Cup II Tournament in 2006.
Seat 9: Johnny Chan 624,000 - Currently tied with Doyle Brunson with 10 WSOP bracelets, Chan wants this bracelet bad to get back tied up with Phil Hellmuth for most WSOP wins ever.

So, if you don’t get the point yet, this table is full of some of the best poker players in the world, all of whom want this win REALLY bad.  We’ll let you know what happened after it plays out.

For the first time ever in WSOP history, a pair of brothers have won bracelets in a single series.

After watching his brother Grant take down event #2, Blair Hinkle went on to take down the $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em event yesterday at the 2008 WSOP to win $507,563.

It was by no means an easy task for Blair.  The field started with 1344 players and lasted over 3 days.  On the final day Hinkle started off with 2nd in chips, but had a long day ahead of him.

After beating out the rest of the field, the tournament finally came down to a race between Hinkle’s pocket 6’s and Mark Brockington’s AK.  Hinkle helped seal his fate when the flop came 6 A 2 (meaning that Brockington would have to hit runner runner to stay alive).  The turn was an 8 which meant Brockington was drawing dead and Hinkle was announced the winner.

Between the 2 brothers they have now cashed a total of $1,339,025 at the 2008 WSOP.

After 4 years of not winning any bracelets, pokerstars pro Daniel Negreanu is back!  Yesterday he took down the same event where he won his last bracelet, the $2000 Limit Holdem event.

Daniel beat out a table of players who had never played in a WSOP final table before.  That doesn’t necessarily mean they are bad, just did not have the experience and comfort level that most seasoned pros have at these tables.

For his win Daniel cashed $204,874, but rumour has it that he also had some side bets with Ted Forrest and Phil Ivey for $200k per bracelet (which he briefly touches on in his latest video blog entry).

Here are the final 9 from that event:

1. Daniel Negreanu - $204,874
2. Ugur Marangoz - $126,671
3. David Baker - $78,624
4. Richard Li - $63,335
5. Fu Wong - $51,542
6. Jeremy Kottler - $51,542
7. Greg Wohletz - $31,886
8. Derek Lerner - $25,334
9. Hien Tran - $18,782

HeadsUp Entertainment announced today that they have completed their takeover of the Canadian Poker Tour and Canadian Poker Player magazine.

The CPT is set to launch their first event, the Calgary Classic, on June 28th at Cash Casino.  Then, on the 14th of July they will be heading to the Calgary Stampede to host the Stampede Classic at Deerfoot Hotel and Casino.  You can qualify for the Calgary Classic in a league being run on Canada’s largest poker forum.

“We are excited about where poker in Canada is going’” stated president and CEO Kelly B. Kellner. “The model we have designed takes poker and tournament play to the next level with a properly designed player ranking system as well as a national televised Final Event, something the tour has lacked in the past.”

The re-launch of Canadian Poker Player Magazine is also a key element to the unfolding business model, which is designed to provide players with a comprehensive overview of what is happening in poker in Canada. The first new issue is currently in the works and any potential advertisers are encouraged to contact the marketing team at info[at]canadianpokerplayer.com.

Either way you look at it, this is good news for poker players in Canada that the CPT isn’t just going to die off.

To see the entire press release, click here.

Everyone’s favorite poker player, Mike Matusow, talks about his thoughts on the WSOP Final Table Delay. Mike thinks that the delay is a bad idea and basically just a cashgrab for the WSOP. One thing that he says that makes a lot of sense is that when those players make the final table they are really in the zone and playing the best poker of their life. By throwing a huge amount of time in between the game, they lose this “zone” and it suddenly becomes a completely different game. Anyway, here is the video of Mikey: