Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

After the TwoPlusTwo forum highlighted the issue of the Chinese Collusion ring at PokerStars, the story became a topic of much interest in the gaming industry. The issue was reported by several online poker new sites and even featured on air by the British Broadcasting Company’s radio.

All this exposure, led Tom Broadbent, a poker player from the U. K. to conduct an investigation on the matter. Broadbent is currently pushing the issue with law enforcement officials in China.

5 Live Investigates, the BBC Radio program hosted by Adrian Goldberg covered the story on the Chinese collusion ring, which involved a group of Chinese poker players who would gather at the high limit Double or Nothing sit and go tables and cheat. As a result of this collusion, PokerStars ended up paying compensation fees to more than 25,000 players. Michael Josem, the Game Security Specialist at PokerStars stated, “We wanted to be fair and reasonable to those players who had been a victim of the collusion ring.”

On his show, Goldberg discussed the collusion ring with Mike Wendling, a BBC correspondent, who investigated the issue. Wendling claimed that collusion could be done with ease by using instant messenger software such as MSN Messenger, Skype, Yahoo Messenger, the telephone or even by soft playing with companions as the ring had done. “Legitimate sites have protection, but the growth of online gaming has caused problems,” he stated.

Wendling’s investigation revealed that while many online poker sites have secure software that alerts them when cheating is happening. Wendling also discussed his findings after interviewing an ex PokerStars employee, who claimed that the security team had been known to have a “difficult time keeping up with complaints.” The employee also claimed that volume of the games and player traffic made it difficult for the site to monitor security, which had opted to shut off auto alerts.

In her autobiography titled “My Life in Pictures”, Jerry Hall claimed that her ex-husband Mick Jagger, the noted singer of the Rolling Stones was a poker addict.

Her autobiography has only been on the shelves for a while now, but has already stirred up quite a bit of controversy. This is because the once model and wife of star singer Jagger makes strong statements saying that her husband of many years and the father of her four children was addicted to both a poker and women. Jerry Hall, who got involved with Jagger in 1977 is noted as being very open about her feelings and opinions for and about her ex-husband in her book “My Life in Pictures.”

The book discusses Jagger’s long addiction with gambling and poker in particular. Hall discusses her ex-husband’s strong inclination to play poker and how it contributed to the end of his marriage. Hall also brings out her feelings on Jagger’s womanizing ways which she states brought their relationship to its end in1999. Hall also claims that Jagger’s poker addiction almost destroyed the singer’s life and that of his family.
“Although I loved him and he wore undying love for me, I felt very unsure of him. I had weaned him off drugs, but they had been replaced by sex,” she said.

Hall writes of how Jagger’s desire to play poker spun out of control when he began to sell things and make huge gambles. Reportedly, Jagger had wagered the family residence and the farm in his poker games, which he ended up losing. However, Jagger did not remain unaffected by this and was struck by his conscience for his gambling ways, at which point the star attempted suicide.

“He succeeded only in breaking almost every bone in his body and losing a kidney, leaving Mama with five children to raise, no home and a husband destined to spend a long time in hospital…“He detonated our entire existence,” wrote Hall.

A veteran poker player called “KAPPIT” got very lucky on Tuesday when she lost at a $0.25/$0.50 poker game at UB.com. Instead of going home as a loser, this 60 year old woman from Ferris, Texas managed to trigger the Bad Beat Jackpot and went home richer than the winner of the poker game that evening!

The Bad Beat Jackpot as offered by UB.com was worth $670,575.38 when it was triggered and issued a six figure paycheck to KAPPIT. KAPPIT had lost the game to a player called CIBV, as she had four nines to his quad queens when he played her on the river. Indeed, it was a bad beat – that turned out to be a good win for KAPPIT and most of the players at the poker table that day!

Several other players, who had lost that day, also went home with heavy pockets as the jackpot was broken up and divided among the losing players who had a bad beat. The jackpot was shared out among a hundred and more players with KAPPIT taking in the biggest chunk of the prize money and going home with $218,115.71, while CIBV who came in at first place took in $109,057.85. Seven other winning players also were rewarded along with CIBV, each of them taking in a $1,000 each for participating.

“I’ve been playing poker for 45 years now, mostly live poker, and I hit a jackpot once in a land-based casino. This is the biggest prize I’ve ever gotten, though. Hats off to UB Poker. It was ‘SO’ my lucky day to capture the Bad Beat Jackpot,” KAPPIT said when asked about her win.

More than 600 other players benefited from UB.com’s Poker Bad Beat Jackpot that day, whom each took home $89.36 just for playing the same stakes.

KAPPIT has plans to buy a new vehicle with her money. “It looks like our dream of trading off our 1995 truck will finally happen. Keep those jackpots coming UB… dreams do come true,” she said.

One of the most controversial plays at the 2010 World Series of Poker occurred on Day 2 B of the event, between poker professional Prahlad Friedman and Ted Bort. The hand involved a last second call made by Prahlad Friedman that was declared dead even though Friedman made the call in time as read by the dealer. In the play, Friedman went all in and had everything at stake, and if his call was wrong he would have been busted. When the hand was declared dead, Friedman escaped with his money which he would have lost since he held a 9-5 against Bort’s J-9.

Prahlad Friedman recently came on ESPN’s Inside Deal and explained the whole event. During game play, Bort made his call, which left Prahlad Friedman with 10 seconds to make his move, at which point, Friedman waited for the last second and then made his call.
According to Friedman, “Anyone knowledgeable about poker and poker rules can understand where I’m coming from, especially in this situation. I said ‘call’ at the very last second because I honestly didn’t know what to do, not because I was pulling any kind of angle or anything like that.”

When watching a replay of the event, it is possible to note that the call was indeed made within the last second mark. However, after the hand was declared dead, the players at the table reacted in an outburst beginning with Mike Mustafa who shouted at the WSOP floor staff that Friedman should have been eliminated.

Friedman responded to this when he went on air by saying, “Everyone argued that I should have been out of the tournament, but I don’t know that it affected play from there on out. Everyone just went back to normal. In my mind, it felt like I was freerolling because the ruling could have gone both ways.”

A few days ago Harrah’s announced the ten nominees for the Poker Hall of Fame’s Class of 2010. Officials at the Poker Hall of Fame have specific criteria that they use to select poker players to be nominees. The list of ten player names is then sent for evaluation to the Poker Hall of Fame Governing Council, who will decide who on the list is not eligible for nomination.

Daniel Negreanu was one among the poker players nominated for the Poker Hall of Fame, and it remains to be seen whether his name will stay on the list. Although Daniel Negreanu is a great poker player and is very popular with the crowds, his recent outburst at Annie Duke has left him in a very poor light.

To be on the list of nominees for the Poker Hall of Fame, officials require players to meet certain requirements, four in all. According to the Poker Hall of Fame’s rules, “A player must have played poker against acknowledged top competition; played for high stakes; played consistently well, gaining the respect of peers; stood the test of time; or, for non-players, contributed to the overall growth and success of the game of poker, with indelible positive and lasting results.”

Although it can be said that Daniel Negreanu meets most of those criteria, he may end up being disqualified if officials feel that it just would not do to reward a player who has insulted another reputed poker professional in one of the worst ways possible.

This year, Jennifer Harman and Linda Johnson, two female poker players are up for nomination and Andrew Feldman, one of the judges on the deciding panel had this to say, “The nominees this year show the amazing diversity that we have in the industry and there are definitely some names that stick out above the rest. Every player on the list will definitely deserve some credit.” Other players are Barry Greenstein, Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, Erik Seidel, Dan Harrington, Scotty Nguyen and Tom McEvoy.

According to a recent press release, ex-cricketer Shane Warne will be launching his very own poker room, branded with his illustrious name at James Packer’s Crown Casinos in Melbourne. It is expected that the casino will open next year in 2011 and will mark Warne’s growing business empire.

After Shane Warne retired from playing cricket for Australia, he turned his focus on to poker. Today, Warne is very much a poker enthusiast and is almost set to launch his own poker room. Warne has dabbled in several industries and is putting his name to enterprisers and businesses that will enhance his corporate empire. Warne is also expected to launch a cricket show relating to the Ashes on Channel 9. Despite the recession, this seems to be a good time for Warne, “Life is going great, never been better,” he said.

Warne has 16 business partnerships with corporates as of now and this includes an alliance with 888.com, the popular internet poker group. Warne, who is sometimes described as a “poker addict” will be creating the new poker room in collaboration with James Packer, who is a strong gambler. Reputedly, Packer is also Warne’s business mentor.

Shane Warne appears to have a very good head for business, which would obviously come in handy when playing poker. In regards to his new casino, “We’ve got two or three that we are looking at, at the moment, there’s a business that I have with James Packer that we’ll be launching next year,” Warne claimed. “I’m not sure James would want me talking about that yet,” he added.

So far Warne has involved himself in enterprises like Groove Gallery, an enterprise that sells ambient music, the “Advanced Hair, yeah yeah” campaign and deals with Dunhill, Messages on Hold and television channels like Sky Sports, Channel 9 and Cricket Australia. The new poker room will be his second most prominent foray into the gaming world.