Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

A poker player playing under the moniker of Eulson won a breathtakingly huge Bad Beat Jackpot worth $1 million on the Merge Gaming Network.

While Eulson collected a prize of $$355,092.35 for winning the Bad Beat Jackpot, the winner of the game 123maryc got a prize of $177,546.17. The rest of the players at the table added a cool sum of $25,363.73 each to their respectively bankrolls.

Online poker players are required to lose the game with four sevens of a kind or a better combination while playing at a table marked as a Bad Beat Jackpot table. Each of the players with quads or a royal flush or a straight flush is required to use their hole cards. At least four of the players on the table must have a hand and the total value of the pot must be $5 or above. For every $5 added to the pot, a fraction of $0.50 is added to the Bad Beat Jackpot, which continues to grow this way till it is won.

Whenever a player gets a bad beat and wins the jackpot, 70 percent of it is distributed among players who have received hole cards in their hand. Of this 70 percent, the player with the bad beat holding at least four sevens of a kind will receive 50 percent, the winner receives 25 percent, and the other players at the table will receive a share of the remaining 25 percent.

Of the remaining 30 percent, the house keeps 10 percent as fees and the other 20 percent is used as the seed value of the next Bad Beat Jackpot.

Reliable online poker rooms such as Carbon Poker, Poker View, and Lock Poker form part of the Merge Poker Network. Currently, the Bad Beat Jackpot at Merge Gaming Network is worth over $219,000.

Gus Hansen, the Danish professional poker player, has already made an impressive profit of US$3.86 million at the big money games in Macau. The poker player had arrived at Macau a few days back and is soon scheduled to participate in the Aussie Millions.

Poker King Club of StarWorld Macau has been hosting the HKD $10k/$20k or US$1,300/$2,600 poker games for the past several weeks and a number of rich Asian entrepreneurs are playing for recreation against top professional online poker players such as Andrew Robl, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, and Gus Hansen.

Fortune has been smiling on Hansen ever since he sat down at the tables, and he has already raked in profits of US$258,000. Pleased with his own performance, Gus intends to stay back in Macau for a few more days before heading over to Australia.

According to his latest blog post: “This session was more up and down than the previous 2 sessions and at one point I found myself holding Aces – unfortunately I was also holding Jacks vs. Queens in another huge all-in hand. At first a Jack hit the flop, but a Queen came sailing in on the river.”

According to his blog, Gus is in high spirits right now. Moreover, he is feeling more than ready for the competition in Melbourne. Simultaneously, he also said that he is amazed at the high energy level of the other poker players in Macau and stated that he was one who had to quit the game and go to bed, leaving the others playing till the wee hours of the morning.

Hansen also expressed his appreciation of the big money games hosted at Poker King Club. He stated that the games are being played in an excellent spirit with plenty of laughter; while simultaneously, the players respect one another, the dealers, and the staff.

British poker players who had accounts at Full Tilt Poker before the online poker site crashed have been advised to complain to their local police if they consider themselves to be victims of a crime.
In a statement issued recently, the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC), which revoked Full Tilt Poker’s licenses to provide online gaming services at the end of June last year, stated that UK poker players who had accounts on Full Tilt Poker must approach their local police if they have not yet been refunded.
AGCC has issued a statement regarding Full Tilt Poker after a number of months, but this statement makes no mention of the acquisition deal signed between the online poker room, the US Department of Justice (DoJ), and Groupe Bernard Tapie (GBT), the French investment company, according to which GBT will soon purchase Full Tilt Poker for $80 million.
Once the acquisition is completed, DoJ will take up the responsibility of refunding Full Tilt Poker’s US players while GBT will refund Full Tilt Poker players in the rest of the world. However, no details have been revealed regarding the exact procedures the DoJ and GBT intend to follow while refunding the players.
Here is what the AGCC statement says: “At the request of the police, AGCC will continue to log incoming player complaints: these records will be made available to the police. However, following the revocation of the licences, AGCC no longer has authority to intermediate or arbitrate on player issues or disputes with Full Tilt (excepting for players registered under a Swiss address)”
The statement also says: “It is understood that a number of civil actions have been initiated by players against Full Tilt, some as class actions representing multiple players by UK, US and Canadian lawyers. Details of the firms concerned can be found through internet search.”

Team PokerStars pro Viktor “Isildur1” Blom was not a grand success at online poker tournaments last year, but he surpassed all expectations at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure 2012. This year, Blom’s performance was spectacular, and at the end of the event, he emerged as the online poker winner of a large prize of $1.2 million.

Commenting on his spectacular victory, Blom said: “This was more fun than winning the same amount in a cash game. I’m not used to making it this far in a tournament. I didn’t expect it. It feels great – very different to playing online.”

Blom played against a field of 30 players. While it is not a great achievement to buy-in to the event with $100,000, winning the $1.2 million prize pot is the greatest achievement ever. Blom has earned the online poker community’s respect forever with his great win. While stating how terrible he felt when he participated in the PCA last year, Blom said: “It feels so good to succeed. I really appreciate this win, and I love the Bahamas.”

Blom knocked Galen Hall, the champion of the PCA 2011 main event, when he was in the third position, after which he systematically knocked off Dan Shak and Humberto Brenes.

The other players who raked in profits at PCA 2012 were Jonathan Duhamel and Daniel Negreanu. Negreanu, who finished in the second position in 2011, was knocked off in the fifth position this year. He collected a cool prize of $250,900 for his efforts. Duhamel, who is still recovering the recent assault made on him at his residence, finished fourth and collected a prize of $313,600. Later, Duhamel posted a tweet on Twitter, stating “Yeah that was a good rebuy.”

Poker fans are now looking forward to the super high roller events of Aussie Millions, which is round the corner.

The Belgium Gaming Commission (BGC) has recently released a list of online gaming sites, including two online sports betting sites, three online poker rooms, and four online casinos, where Belgian players can legally play online casino and poker games.

The online poker sites included in the list are PokerStars.be, GPWin.be, and Partouche.be. Since Belgium does not exclude itself from the rest of the world as far as Internet gaming is concerned, Belgian players playing at PokerStars.be and BPWin.be can play against opponents from all over the world.

The only exception will be Partouche.be, which is a French online poker room. Since the gaming laws in France allow its online gaming operators to offer gaming services only to French players, the Belgian offering of Partouche Poker can be accessed only by French and Belgian players. However, Belgian players playing at PokerStars.be and GPWin.be will enjoy the same game experience available at PokerStars.com and GoldenPalacePoker.com, respectively.

Belgian online gaming laws are not only controversial, but also vague and unclear. Belgian players can play only on approved sites and will be penalized if they play at any other gaming site. The Belgian Gaming commission has instructed Belgium’s four internet service providers (ISPs) to block all unapproved online gaming sites. Besides, any online gaming site in Belgium ought to have a land casino too. While PokerStars.be has already got into a partnership with Circus Groupe, Partouche and Golden Palace already have land casinos in Belgium.

While it is quite clear that players need to be at least 21 years of age in order to sign up  for real money play, the gaming laws of Belgium do not make it clear whether the winnings are to be taxed.

Meanwhile, several online poker rooms continue accept Belgian players on grounds that Belgian gaming laws go against EU law and therefore cannot be enforced.

According to Howard Stutz, who has recently published a report in the Las Vegas Review, the recent DoJ announcement regarding the Wire Act of 1961 is no reason for celebration. He points out that online poker fans have been celebrating this DoJ move without properly analyzing the situation. The DoJ delighted US online poker fans by stating that the Wire Act of 1961 does not apply to online poker as it is not a sport.

Quoting Prof. I. Nelson Rose, who said “we are about to see this explosion of internet gambling sweep across the nation,” Stutz voices his opinion that he does not “want to be the wet blanket dropped on the party, but we need to analyze the situation.” He agrees with Greg Gemignani, the gaming expert and lawyer, who said, “This is not a green light to fire up the online poker servers by any means.”

In his report, he also studies the opinions voiced by American Gaming Association and the big casino operators in Las Vegas, who are steadily applying pressure on the US federal government to create a regulatory framework for online poker before individual states do it.

He writes, “The move could make Nevada, which adopted internet poker regulations last month, the regulatory hub for the nation’s online poker industry, providing the state with a new revenue source and high tech jobs.”

He does not feel that the federal government will regulate the US online poker industry this year, and neither does he feel that the states will make much progress either. He points out that a number of small US states simply lack the financial power to invest into the industry, while others have to face the demands of Native American tribes. He, however, predicts that online poker will be in the news for the next one year.