Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

Brazilian poker player Robert Chiro won the PokerStars Sunday Million and collected a breathtaking sum of $200k. This site which once catered mostly to US poker players is now thriving in other markets.

This event, which had a buy-in of $200+$15, attracted 6,609 participants, all playing for their share of a prize pool of $1,321,800. Nine players made it to the final table of the Sunday Million, and although Phantomes 124 was the chip leader in the initial phases, it was Robert Chiro who was the last man standing while Phantomes 124 finished third.

When Phantomes 124 nearly doubled Chiro’s call, six players folded and quit the game and only 3 were left at the table. Phantomes 123 got an Ace of Clubs and a Seven of Hearts and bet all in when Chiro called with a Nine of Diamonds and a Nine of Spades. Phantomes 124, however, ended up finishing third when his Seven Pair proved to be no match for his opponent Wayne Gretzky’s hand.

This marked the beginning of Chiro’s heads-up game against chirsf44. Chiro was already the chip leader at this stage and he continued building his stack till the last hand was played. When the last hand of the game was being played, Chiro raised to $1.26 million and chirsf44 made it $3 million with an Ace and a Queen of Clubs. Chiro raised it yet again to $7.6 million and when he called with a better hand, chirsf44 was definitely out of the game.

Here are the results of the final table of PokerStars Sunday Million. Robert Chiro, who finished first, won $201,049.56. Chrisf44 and Phantomes124, who finished second and third, won $148,702.50 and $105,744, respectively. Pasiu, andethegreat, KumoZing, S0me1Call911, PUSHTHELIMP, and Frqen finished fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eight, and ninth winning $72,699, $55,515.60, $42,297.60, $29,079.60, $15,861.60, and $10,243.95, respectively.

PokerStars is now gearing up for its 10th Anniversary, which will start the following month.

The incidents of Black Friday have taken a toll on online poker in the United States, and as a result there has been an increase in the demand for live tournaments. To meet this need, Card Player has launched the latest new poker tournament called the Native American Casino Poker Tour.

Native American Casinos has partnered with Card Player and they are offering a variety of games on the tour which will take place across the nation. These games have buy-ins that are easily affordable. What’s more, the Native American Casino Poker Tour’s main event final table game will apparently be screened live at the CardPlayer.com site. The $930 + $70 main event is set to begin on the 10^th of December.

From the 1^st of December 2011, when the tour is on, the first stop would be the Choctaw Resort, in Durant, Oklahoma.

Card Player will feature the winner of the main event on the Card Player magazine and the winner will receive a $1,600 seat into the WSOP Circuit event being held at Choctaw in January 2012.

The president of Card Player, Jeff Shulman, said that their vision was to unite the efforts of Card Player’s huge poker audience and Native American poker rooms into a poker tour held for the nation. Card Player is an expert in the field of media and poker and hence the Native American Casino Poker Tour will benefit from the same and build a good relationship amongst poker players and their casinos.

The NACPT as it is called, will feature 20 events that range from $100 + $25 to $270 + $30 on no limit hold’em Omaha eight-or-better, and on pot-limit Omaha. The Native American Casino will host the satellite tournaments for this main event. The rules of the game are simple, players can only be 18 years or above to enter these tournaments and the other tour stops will be announced later.

The Epic Poker League (EPL) has issued a statement this Wednesday regarding the fate of two of its members, who have been named in the amended version of the civil complaint filed by the US Department of Justice against US poker site, Full Tilt Poker—Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson.

Stephen Martis, the chairman of the of the EPL standards and conduct committee, said that the committee has decided to suspend Chris Ferguson and Howard Lederer till the case between the US government and Full Tilt Poker has been decided.

The committee however has made no comment on Rafe Furst, who is also mentioned in the complaint, because he does not qualify for this season’s tournaments.

Previously, the committee had suspended David “Chino” Rheem, who failed to pay off his debts, and Michael DiVita, who turned out to be a convicted sex offender.

Explaining the committee’s action, Mr. Martin said that the EPL has a code of conduct for its players, which includes in-play rules and conduct outside the game, and if players violate either the law or the rules of EPL, they can be reprimanded, suspended, or permanently dismissed from the league—all decisions that are taken by the committee after carefully considering individual cases.

He also said that the EPL has a standards and conduct committee to give poker the status of a national game, explaining that a disciplinary body is essential to deal with players who damage the reputation of the game if it is to be raised to the levels of a national game.

Comparing the EPL to the National Football League (NFL), he said that in-house violations such as cheating have a direct affect on the game’s integrity while conduct violations can have an adverse effect on the game’s reputation, stunt its growth, and damage the entire poker gaming community.

The largest ever UK & Ireland Poker Tour (UKIPT) involving PokerStars was held in Brighton, England recently and around 603 players turned up for the event. The event had a buy in of £500, which is half the price of what it was last year. The prize pool came up to £292,455.

Chris O’Donnell was announced as the new winner of the UKIPT, and he boasts of having Toby Lewis as his roommate. Toby Lewis is the EPT Vilamoura Champion. Chris O’Donnell won £71,100 as the final take home from the UKIPT and he beat the other lead Richard Hasancebi and Jeff Duvall by a large margin.

The winners of the event along with the prize they won are as follows:

1^st place: Chris O’Donnell, UK; Prize: £71,100,

2^nd place: Richard Hasancebi, UK, PokerStars player; Prize: £41,300,

3^rd place: Jeff Duvall, UK; Prize: £25,300,

4^th place: Rudi Johnsen, Norway, PokerStars qualifier; Prize: £18,600,

5^th place: Sinem Melin, UK; Prize: £14,900,

6^th place: David Rudling-Smith, UK, PokerStars player; Prize: £11,400,

7^th place: David Trigg, UK, PokerStars player; Prize: £8,950,

8^th place: Jaroslav Horak, Czech Republic, PokerStars qualifier; Prize: £6,900, and

9^th place: Alex Ferguson, UK, PokerStars qualifier; Prize: £4,930.

After around three hours of playing the cards Chris O’Donnell was ahead of Richard Hasancebi by a seven million to two million chip lead, and the game ended with Chris taking the lead with AK, while Richard held A7.

Last year there were around 250 players are the event, and the turn out this year has been doubled; This shows that like the US poker scene, the UK poker industry is also buzzing with excitement.

The next part of this tour will take place at Edinburgh between 11^th August and 14^th August 2011. Players can take part in the qualifiers that are now running at PokerStars.

After the recent events of Black Friday, the US online poker community has been floundering looking for a reliable online poker room to play in. The loss of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker has left US poker professionals looking for good US poker sites where they can enjoy poker tournaments.

To meet this need, Jeffrey Pollack, the man behind the behind the World Series of Poker, has decided to launch an international live poker tournament only allowing poker professionals to participate in it. This move has not surprised the online poker community despite Jeffrey Pollack’s strong views on poker being a game of skill for anyone who has the skills. This tourney will be an event that is exclusive to poker pros who have a huge bankroll.

A $20000 buy-in league will be held at the Palms Hotel and casino, where four main events will be held during August, September, December and February. The top 27 players will move on to the championship on February 13-14 and will play for the $2.6 million prize.

Jeffrey Pollack wants all the biggest names in poker to be showcased at the event and hence online poker participants will include Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Vanessa Selbst, Chris Ferguson, Scotty Nguyen and Phil Ivey. The participants for this poker event are not just poker pros but also have to be consistent winners with good poker bankrolls. This means, one time poker champions like Jamie Gold, the 2006 WSOP winner and Chris Moneymaker, the 2003 WSOP winner have not been included in the same.

Although, Chris Moneymaker was regarded as a potential candidate based on his past contribution to the poker industry, he is still “on the bubble”. The list will be finalised after the 1^st of August 2011, after this year’s WSOP main event takes place.

Hung-sheng Lin from China was recently declared the winner of the 2011 Macau Millions and took home a large prize amount of HK$400,000.

The Macau Millions poker competition bears a very different structure to normal poker tourneys, in which the players were required to compete in seven events, with a probability of receiving rewards for every event. Every day, the players had to play up to the top 7% of the field and each of them was promised a HK $8000 on pay day and a day 2 seat.

In this tournament, all of six players managed to make money more than once and even so, many of them thought that the structure of the game was very lucrative.

The Macau Million 2011 was a very successful poker tournament and had a turn out 1329 players. So far, in the history of poker tournaments in Asia, this is one of the biggest live poker tournaments that have taken place. The event saw a handful of well-known poker players on the field apart from the resident players, namely, Bryan Huang, Celina Lin, 2010 WSOP Champion Jonathan Duhamel and Raymond Wu.

On Day 2 of the tournament, a total of 93 players qualified and the number came down to 34 on the last day wherein, Hung-sheng Lin dominated the table as he was the chip leader. This gave him an edge over anybody else and led him to win the pot.

On the final day, the most fascinating turning point happened at the three handed play, when subsequent to the commencement of the pot by Huy Khiem from Germany, Lin made a three bet pre-flop having A-6. The former took the call and the series was A-3-T and a wager of 850,000 was made by Lin for the same. Nguyen decided to go all in and had a T-7 but Lin inevitably had the best cards and definitely had the edge over Renaud.