PartyPoker players head to APT Philippines

The Asian Poker Tour is heading to the Philippines this week to get started on another season. With the help of PartyPoker, 22 online poker players will be joining in the festivities as well, including playing in the $2,700 main event.

The 22 players won their way to the APT Philippines via online qualifiers at PartyPoker. Their prize packages are worth $6,000 and include the buy-in for the main event, accommodation at the Dusit Thani Manila Hotel, and $2,500 in spending money.

“Some of the players who qualified for the Asian Poker Tour only invested a few dollars to secure their thriller in Manila,” said a PartyPoker spokesman. “Last year, plenty of the online qualifiers ended up in the money, so we’ll be looking for a repeat performance or better.”

Leading the charge for the PartyPoker players is Irish Poker Championship winner Rory Reese Brennan. The Dubliner plus the bevy of online qualifiers from around the world will hit the main event when it begins Thursday in Manila.

The online qualifiers will also get to take in some of the parties taking place during the APT series. One event that promises to be “tastefully wild” is the FHM player’s party on Jan. 31. FHM will bring cover models to act as hosts at the party, and afterward, FHM will have party buses available to take players around Manila’s hotspots.

There will also be cocktails to mark the opening ceremony on Jan. 28, plus a gathering exclusive to those players who won their seats on PartyPoker.

In addition to the parties and the main event, the AP also has a few other poker events lined up. There is a Pot-Limit Omaha tournament, a GREED tournament, a Headhunter event and a 13-card poker game.

Plus players will want to be on the lookout for the APT’s sponsored pros at the events – David Rheem, Nam Le, Steve Sung, Quinn Do and others.

While the online qualifiers are living the live poker tournament life in the Philippines, PartyPoker still has loads of action to offer its players online. Feb. 1 will be the first Monthly Million at the online poker site, offering players a $1 million guaranteed event.

The buy-in for the Monthly Million is $600+$40, and it will take place at 5:45 p.m. GMT. There are also diverse qualifiers for players to win their way into the Monthly Million for as little as $1.

For more information about the poker site, check out the PartyPoker room review and get signed up to play today.

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Official 2009 WSOP schedule released

No more rebuy events?There will be a total of 57 World Series of Poker events played out over the span of 50 days, according to the official 2009 WSOP schedule that was released Monday morning.

In one of its more diverse schedules, the WSOP will hosting tournaments with buy-ins that range from $1,000 all the way up to $50,000 for the marquee H.O.R.S.E. event.

On May 28 the WSOP will be offering a special one-time-only $40,000 No-Limit Hold’em event to commemorate the 40th year of the Series.

If you don’t have $40,000 to buy into a poker tournament, you might be more interested to learn that Harrah’s is also adding a special “stimulus” $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em event during the opening weekend of the WSOP.

It is the lowest buy-in offered by Harrah’s since 1989 (not including “closed” events and rebuy events).

The November Nine delay will make a return, with the final table to be played out Nov. 7-10, 2009, at the Rio.

Here’s a rundown of all the major points of interest:

• 57 gold bracelet events over 50 days
• No more re-buy events. Concerns were raised over the possibility of professional poker players’ essentially buying a bracelet, and it appears Harrah’s has eliminated them for the time being
• A onetime commemorative gold bracelet event, a $40,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em tournament, to help mark the 40th annual WSOP on May 28, 2009
• A “stimulus special” $1,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em tournament on the opening weekend, May 30-31, 2009, which is anticipated to draw the largest-ever live tournament field outside the Main Event and offer a prize pool approaching $5 million
• The third annual $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. tournament, with an enhanced gold bracelet and the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy awarded to the winner
• 10 $10,000 buy-in World Championship events (World Championship refers to tournaments with a buy-in of $10,000 in each of the various disciplines of poker)
• 35 open events priced at $2,500 or less, seven of which are the popular $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em events
• New events including 2-7 Single Draw (without rebuys) and a No-Limit Hold’em “Triple Chance” event
• Return of the ladies, seniors and casino employees events. The ladies-only event features a $1,000 buy-in, and helps raise awareness about the Nevada Cancer Institute

The Amazon Room in the Rio will once again be the heart of the poker world for all 50 days, with the same blueprint as last year.

Gold bracelet tournaments will begin at 12 p.m. or 5 p.m. Pacific Time every day, with a maximum of 10-one hour levels being played for the noon starts, while the 5 p.m. events will play a maximum of eight one-hour levels.

For those who are fortunate enough to advance past the first day, restarts for 12 p.m. bracelet events will be at 2 p.m., and 5 p.m. tournaments will restart at 3 p.m., with a maximum of 10 levels being played each day until a champion is crowned.

“Whether you play poker around the kitchen table or consider yourself a professional you will find a comfortable seat at the 2009 World Series of Poker,” said Jeffrey Pollack, commissioner of the WSOP.

“This year’s schedule offers more variety than ever before and we look forward to welcoming players from around the world to our 40th extravaganza this summer.”

Preregistration for the 2009 WSOP will begin in late February. A number of online poker rooms are already starting to offer satellites for the Series, and you can check out the very best ones here. As usual PokerListings.com will be providing extensive live coverage so be sure to familiarize yourself with the live tournaments section.

You can find the complete WSOP schedule by going to www.worldseriesofpoker.com.

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Poker inches closer to legalization in Texas

Poker advocates in Texas are making a serious push in the upcoming legislative session to legalize the game, according to a story with the Dallas Morning News.

Currently there is no casino gambling of any kind offered in the state of Texas but the underground poker scene seems to be exploding and with it the amount of police raids. Dallas alone had 10 raids on poker rooms between 2006 and 2007 with a total of 270 players arrested.

Poker advocates are arguing that with the newly elected House Speaker Joe Straus (who many see as much more open-minded about the issue than his predecessor) the time is right to legitimize No-Limit Hold’em in the state.

Perhaps the most positive development for poker fans has been that Rep. Jose Menendez has re-submitted HB 222, which would see poker games operated under the authority of the Texas Lottery Commission.

The bill’s supporters say that Texas is missing out on a huge financial opportunity and that legalized games would bring more safety to poker players in the state.

“Right now, you don’t know what kind of game you’re walking into,” said Mike Lavigne, Texas director of the Poker Player’s Alliance in the Morning News article.  ”It could be a game with cheating. There could be collusion. There could be guns. The bill gives the players a safe place to plan in an honest game.”

Last session the HB 222 bill made it through committee but never to the full House. It was estimated the bill would bring over $1 million to the state of Texas over two years time.

One of the biggest supporters is Dan Michalski, the editor and founder of poker blog Pokerati.com. Michalski is a former Dallas resident and mentioned the danger of not legalizing the game in the article with the Morning News.

“It can turn into a criminal enterprise, which is something we don’t want it to be,” he said. “When you make something legally questionable it has to underground, it starts to attract people who are looking to make money in an off-the-radar way.”

Ironically some of the world’s best poker players including Doyle Brunson and the now deceased Johnny Moss and Sailor Roberts all hailed from Texas.

Michalski is encouraging Texas poker fans to write emails of encouragement to both Straus at joe.straus@house.state.tx.us and Menendez at jose.menendez@house.state.tx.us.

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WSOP Circuit $300+40 NLHE – Gotta Win Those Races

As I take my seat for today's event, a floor person comes on the loud speaker and announces “turbo satellites, blinds are now going up every hand.” Seriously, why even play something like that? Just go to the black jack table and put down $100 on one hand or go to the roulette table and put down $100 on a color. Better odds than $100 in a poker satellite where the blinds go up every hand.

Anyway, I digress… back to poker. 10,000 starting chips, blinds start at 25/50, 40 minute rounds. Really good beginning structure, and to be honest the middle isn't too bad either. I pick up a quick 500 in chips when I complete with 8-7 out of the small blind and flop trips and bet the flop and turn and get called both times. My opponent folded to my over bet on the river though. I add another 1,500 to my stack when I limp again with Q-J suited on the button and call flop, turn, and river bets from the big blind on a J-8-5-4-5 board. I don't raise here for two reasons. One, if he re-raises my raise I'd have to toss my hand. Two, if he is bluffing, a raise will chase him off and I lose value. He had a flush draw that missed and made a stab on the river in an attempt to pick up the pot.

I pick up another pot when I call a minimum raise with 8-7 of spades and see a flop of 5-3-2 with two spades. I lead out for 250 into the 500 pot and am minimum raised by an old guy who I will find out later to be somewhat of a maniacal idiot, but I didn't know this at the time. Everyone folds and I call. The turn is the jack of spades giving me the flush. I'm pretty sure my opponent has a strong hand, so I check with the plans of check calling and then check raising the river. He bets smallish this time, 300 into the 1,500 pot. In hindsight, I should have raised here, but I just call. The river is a terrible card for me, the queen of spades. Now my goal is to just check call a bet and try and keep the pot as small as possible. He checks behind me and I win over his set of 2's. Like I said, I should have bet the turn, there's a good chance we would have gotten all the chips in the middle.

The table I am at is having a lot of fun and I'm having a good conversation with a young 30 something guy from my neck of the woods named George. We talk about movies, poker, divorce, and kids (he has two young boys back home). He tells me about some home games in Nashville and I get his e-mail address so I can get invited to them.

A man is paged by the floor and when there is no response, she gets back on the microphone and says, “we know you're here, your wife is here.” The entire room cracks up at that comment.

Our dealer, a cute thing named Jennifer that I've seen around the circuit, tells a story about how a man is getting a massage from a massage therapist and his wife walks into the room and taps the massage therapist on the shoulder and has her move to the side. The wife proceeds to start massing her husband and after a few moments starts to massage him in very erotic areas. The husband does nothing, just sits there and stares straight ahead, and according to Jennifer the wife taps him on the shoulder and slaps the living hell out of him. The table laughs.

A player at our table says, “I have a shirt that says I'm All In on the front and on the back it says And She's Still Bitching.” As I said, the table is having a good time, but yes… there is poker being played.

I lose a bit of my stack right before the first break when I raise to 500 with the blinds at 100/200 with A-8 from late middle position and am called by the small blind who I will now refer to as my nemesis since we will tangle in numerous pots before the day is over. The flop comes 8-5-2 and he checks. I bet 500 and he calls. The turn is a 6 and my nemesis leads out for 1,000. It's a pretty draw heavy board, so I should recognize here that he's protecting a hand better than a top of 8's. I don't though and make the call. The river is a king and he checks. I check behind and he shows pocket 9's. I get to the break with 10,225 in chips.

Play after the break does not start well for me. I open with A-J and am called by my nemesis who minimum raises my continuation bet on the rag flop. I fold. I lose another grand when I flop a flush draw with K-10 of spades and don't improve (I bet the flop and check called a small bet on the turn). This puts me down to 7,500 in chips. I am able to pick up a small pot when I raise a tight player's big blind from the cutoff with J-8 off. He calls but check folds to my continuation bet on an A-10-3 flop. I don't play a hand for a good 20-30 minutes and open raise to 750 with the blinds at 150/300 in early position with K-Q of spades.

My raise gets no respect as I get four callers. The flop comes K-10-3 rainbow and it is checked to me. I bet 1,250 into the 4K pot. My nemesis on the button acts very quickly and makes it 4K to go. I think about it for some time as 4K would basically commit my entire stack, but everything in my head tells me I'm behind so I show the king and fold. My nemesis (who was actually a really nice guy that I chatted with) says, “I raised too much didn't I, I had a set of tens.”

Whether he actually did or not is irrelevant, I feel the fold was the right play at this time. This hand puts me at around 6K in chips. I still have 20 big blinds though so I'm not panicking. Yet.

With the blinds at 150/300, there are two limpers and I look down at A-Q of diamonds on the button. One of the limpers is a big stack and I don't think I can make a regular raise here as he would be likely to push me off the pot if I missed the flop. I'm more than happy to pick up the 1.5K in dead money right there and move all in. The blinds and the initial limper fold but after a few moments of thought the big stack calls with K-10 of clubs. Ugh. The flop comes 6-4-2, but with two clubs. Ugh again, but it points out that my reasoning for moving in was correct. If I had made a regular raise, I would have probably had to fold on the flop. I actually manage to face the king, ten, and clubs and double through to 12,750.

A few years ago I mentored a large number of poker newcomers at an online web site. I'd gotten to know a number of the people well and one of the old timers from that site whom I see often came over to give me a hug. One of the players at my table asks her who I am and she tells him. He laughs and introduces himself as a member of the school. “I've heard good things about you,” he said.

He asked my advice on one of the breaks about a bet he had made and I told him that if he was going to make a bet in that situation, that it needed to be larger and that the bet needed to make sense.

I mention this because it plays a role in this next hand. I'm in the big blind and have K-8 off suit. Six of us see the flop of K-J-9. I've flopped top pair but on that coordinated board and with that many people in the pot, I don't like my hand that much. Fortunately for me, everyone checks. The turn is a good card for me, an 8, giving me two pair.

The small blind, the big stack who doubled me up with K-10, bets 500 into the 2K pot. I call as does the school member on the button. The river is a 5. The small blind checks. I remember back to the hand that the school member bluffed on the river and lost and our conversation. I'm fairly sure I have the best hand but know that if I bet that I'm only going to get raised by a better hand or induce folds from worse hands. I decide to give the school member an opportunity to bluff and to minimize the potential damage if one of the two actually do have me beat. I check. Sure enough the school member makes a larger bet than the time he did before… 3,000 into the 3.5K pot. The small blind folds and I make the call. The school member shows A-10 for the missed straight and I scoop in a nice sized pot.

Two hands later, a short stack moves all in for 5,000 with the blinds at 200/400. I'm in the small blind and have pocket 9's. His range of hands here in my opinion includes pairs smaller than mine and two big cards. I have enough chips that I can recover if he has an over pair or lose a race. I make the call. He has K-J and I win the race and build my stack to 24K which is where I hit the 2nd break.

I manage to lose a rather large chunk of that to my nemesis immediately after the break. I limp in the cutoff after two limpers with 6-5 suited and five of us see a J-J-5 flop. It is checked to me and I decide to see where I am at and make a 1,750 bet. My nemesis calls from the blinds and everyone else folds. The turn is a 2 and he checks to me again. I remember his hand with the 9's where he led out after check calling a bet on the flop. He has checked this time so I don't think he has a jack. I make a bet of 2,250 but much to my chagrin (and surprise), he calls. Now I know he has a jack. Oh well. The river is an ace. He checks and I quickly check behind knowing there is no value in betting here. He turns over J-10 and I muck. My stack is down to 17.5K now.

I don't waste much time getting those chips back from him though as the next orbit I open to 1,500 with the blinds at 300/600 with 10-9 of diamonds. My nemesis re-raised it to 3,000 from the button – his raise amount is a mistake in my opinion, there is 6K+ in the pot so I'm getting 4:1 on my money to call. I make the easy call.

The flop comes 10-5-3 rainbow and I check to him. He bets 3K and I just call, mainly because I want to see what the turn is and what he does on the turn before I put the rest of my stack in. The turn is a 6 of diamonds giving me a flush draw along with my top pair. I check with the intention of check raising all in. He foils that plan by checking behind me. The river is a black jack and I'm pretty sure now that I am ahead. I make a small bet of 3K and he folds, showing A-K. I'm up to 25K after the hand.

A similar situation to the hand I doubled up on with A-Q arrives when the school member and big stack who had K-10 both limp in. I look down at A-K of hearts on the button and make it 5K to go. The school member hems and haws for a while. He's probably thinking about something I've taught my students about “punishing the limpers” and is wondering if I am doing that here. He must think that I am because he decides to move all in for his last 9K, another 4K or so for me to call. Much to my surprise the big stack calls. I really don't want him in there with another K-10 type of hand, so I move all in for an additional 15K. The big stack looks at me and says, “I guess we're going to gamble” and makes the call. I'm thinking he has a medium pair, not really what I want to go up against. The school member turns over A-10 and much to my delight the big stack turns over A-K. I'm more than happy to split the pot with him at this point, and this is exactly what we do when a king hits. This puts me up to 30K and sends the school member to the rail. I shake his hand – he was a nice guy and it was fun to play and talk with him.

I lose 3K when I open raise with K-J of diamonds and receive a call from a fairly solid player in the big blind. The flop comes 7 high with two diamonds and I make a continuation bet of 1,500 and am called. The turn is a 4 and I check behind his check. The river is a 9 and he leads out for 6K and I quickly fold. A few minutes later I lose one of those key races you need to win in these events in order to have a chance. It's folded to the button, a solid player who has moved in a couple of times first to act with his short stack. He does so again and I look down at pocket 4's. His all in is for 8,550 so it's about 1/3rd my stack. It's close but I'm confident it's a race and if it's not I'm still in ok shape. I'm looking to accumulate chips at this point and this seems like a good spot. I call and he shows A-Q. He hits the ace though to double through me and I'm back down to 18K. Quite the roller coaster… just the way I like my tournament poker!

I lose two small pots to fall down to 12.5K and am quickly approaching the desperation stage. With the blinds at 400/800, I make it 2,000 to go with 10-9 of spades. I hadn't been getting dealt a lot of hands and wasn't content to sit back and blind/ante myself into oblivion. My nemesis calls me yet again out of the big blind. The flop comes perfect for me J-8-4 all spades. He checks and I make a continuation bet of 2,500. He quickly makes it 10,000 to go. I have 10,500 and put the rest of it in. He shows K-J, no spade and doesn't hit the miracle. I double through to 26K. I don't get an opportunity to play a hand for two levels and I hit the dinner break with 20K in chips.

Immediately after the dinner break, my nemesis moves his short stack all in for 6,000 total. I look down at A-9 suited from the cutoff and feel that I'm in good shape against his range and it's a good spot to pick up 10K in chips. I call. I haven't talked much about the old maniacal idiot to my left much, mainly because he had position on me and I seldom had a chance to play pots with him. He had made some of the strangest and stupidest calls I've ever seen at a poker table, including calling a massive all in over bet with K-10 (and spiking a king to knock out a guy with queens) and making a massive all in over bet on a flop with absolutely nothing.

I'd never seen someone his age play this loose and aggressive. I was starting to wonder if it was Phil Laak wearing that old guy mask. Anyway, he calls as well. The flop comes J-2-2 and I check. The old maniac bets 4,000. I guess I should have re-shoved pre-flop to isolate and can't imagine that my A-9 is in good shape here. All he needs is a bigger ace or a pocket pair and since he's betting into a dry pot, he surely has me beat right? Wrong. He had K-9 off suit. My nemesis had Q-10. Ugh. There went an opportunity to pick up a huge pot. The king high holds up and I can feel steam coming out of my ears, but I quickly calm down.

I then suffer my biggest bad beat of the tournament. I typically don't look at my cards before it's my turn to act unless I am in the blinds. I am in the big blind and am dealt pocket aces. Sure enough, I get a walk. My first walk of the tournament. “Are you kidding me,” I laugh as I turn my hand face up. There are different kinds of bad luck in poker, and this is one type.

I pick up the blinds three times with A-10, A-Q, and A-K when I raise and receive no callers. This virtually doubles me up to 24K. I open for 5K with the blinds at 1,000/2,000 with K-Q and am re-raised all in by a solid, tight player. I have him covered by 4K and am getting over 2:1 on my money. I think it over. The math says call in this situation but I just didn't like it so I folded.

A few hands later I get pocket 9's and move all in for 18K. I am called by the old maniac. I'm thinking this is a good thing until he turns over his cards. Pocket kings. I stand up and get ready to leave but finally get lucky and hit a 9 to double up to 40K. Just to show you how bad this old maniac was, he ended up calling an 80K all in from the other big stack at the table with A-9 on an A-10-8 flop. He was of course crushed by A-K and shipped over 80% of his stack and the new big stack at the table had nearly 200K in chips. About an orbit later, the big stack opened on my big blind for 9K with the blinds at 1,500/3,000. I look down at pocket jacks and make the easy move all in. He quickly calls with A-K. A race I can live with. Win this and I have 90K and am in good position to make a run. He hits a king though and that ends my tournament as I finish in about 85th place out of 509. Close again, but that means nothing in tournament poker. The key for me, however, was that I thought I played well, with a few small mistakes here and there and I know that it's just a matter of time before I break through.

Up next is the 6 handed NLHE event. Aggressive poker for the win!

*WSOP Circuit $300+40 NLHE – Not The Best Start*

*WSOP Circuit $200+30 Limit O8 – How to lose 25K in 5 minutes*

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Negreanu Wins British Columbia Poker Championship

It is not among the most well-known poker tournaments in the world, and there is no coverage there by any of the major poker media outlets. But poker players have known about the British Columbia Poker Championship for years, as it attracted a substantial crowd of pros in 2007 and an even bigger field in 2008. Nov 25, 2008

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WSOP Circuit $300+40 NLHE – Gotta Win Those Races

As I take my seat for today's event, a floor person comes on the loud speaker and announces “turbo satellites, blinds are now going up every hand.” Seriously, why even play something like that? Just go to the black jack table and put down $100 on one hand or go to the roulette table and put down $100 on a color. Jan 25, 2009

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Full Tilt Fever: Kongsgaard Becomes Full Tilt Pro

The Full Tilt Poker family continues to grow by leaps and bounds, consistently adding to the extraordinary roster of professional poker players that represent the online poker site. Most recently, online phenomenon Soren Kongsgaard has been signed on as an official Full Tilt Pro.

He is a 21-year old Danish poker pro, and the online poker world sure knows who he is. According to internet poker ranking sites, Kongsgaard has made over $800,000 in online tournament earnings, with more than half of that at Full Tilt Poker alone. And as he has parlayed his success into live tournaments, he has racked up over $1.5 million in winnings there, with the biggest takes coming in March of 2007 with a third place finish at the European Grand Finale in Monte Carlo and September of 2007 when he won the main no-limit hold’em event of the Danish Championships.

Full Tilt Poker saw the up-and-coming pro for the talent he possesses in poker and signed him to a contract to play tournaments going forward as a Full Tilt Pro.

“I am extremely happy and glad about this opportunity,” Kongsgaard said. “It’s really huge for me to get a chance to join Full Tilt Poker’s team. My agency, Pokericons, have [sic] really done a great hob at making this happen. I have played at Full Tilt Poker for many years and I know many of the other team members and they are all great players and persons that I’m glad to be a part of.”

The latest member of the Full Tilt family joins more than 100 other players as representatives of the site, one that boasts of a primary team of Lederer, Ivey, Ferguson, Juanda, Harman, Gordon, Lindgren, Seidel, Bloch, Matusow, Hansen, Cunningham, and Antonius. Not a bad lineup with which to merge.

And you – yes – you can play poker with Kongsgaard or any of the other Full Tilt Poker pros. Simply download Full Tilt Poker now, use the bonus code “POKERWORKS” for a 100% bonus on any deposit amount up to $600, and start learning from Kongsgaard and the Full Tilt crew now.

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Full Tilt Signs Scott Clements and Jonathan Little

The Full Tilt Poker team of players continues to grow to a roster of more than 50 players with the recent signings of Scott Clements and Jonathan Little. Both players are young poker pros, each with an impressive list of accomplishments that caught the attention of the Full Tilt staff.Clements has proven to be a top-notch Omaha hi-lo and Texas no-limit hold'em player. Nov 10, 2007

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Full Tilt Fever: Kongsgaard Becomes Full Tilt Pro

The Full Tilt Poker family continues to grow by leaps and bounds, consistently adding to the extraordinary roster of professional poker players that represent the online poker site. Most recently, online phenomenon Soren Kongsgaard has been signed on as an official Full Tilt Pro.He is a 21-year old Danish poker pro, and the online poker world sure knows who he is. Jan 25, 2009

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Poker Pundit – Jeremy “Chipsteela” Menard- Poker in Paradise Part 1

A blog of sorts, a story to be told, the true depth of poker is about to unfold:

Another Poker Stars Caribbean Adventure has come and gone, and I can't help but feel that live poker is just a little rigged. Well maybe it's not rigged, but I have yet to win an important coin flip, or really any coin flip at all in any tournament with a buy in of $5,000 and over. Aside from the poker I had a great time down in the Bahamas hanging out with friends, relaxing in the sun, and dropping thousands of dollars on incredibly overpriced food.

I first arrived to the Atlantis, where the tournament was being held as always, a little later than I expected on Sunday. Maybe the taxi drivers down there read my last blog and realized how they were driving was incredibly unsafe or something, but I definitely noticed a much different experience this time in comparison to the death ride I explained in my last entry.

Since it was Sunday I decided that once I got down there I would jump into the lobby where a lot of my friends were already playing online poker, and try to take my share of the money up for grabs in the Sunday majors. The first problem I encountered was that there was no place to plug my laptop in left in the lobby; apparently all the outlets were being monopolized by the swarm of players who had already taken over the space. When I finally hunted down an outlet in a very obscure spot I quickly discovered problem number 2, for some reason the wireless internet wasn't working. I tried for around 15 minutes to move around the lobby thinking that maybe it was just the spot I was in that was causing the problem, but I couldn't get a signal anywhere.

It was almost time for the 3'o clock tournaments to start, so I decided to go talk to guest services to see if they could figure out what was wrong. Apparently several other people were having the same problem, including none other than Daniel Negreanu . If PokerStars golden boy can't even get his internet to work, then there is obviously a huge issue here.

For the next 30 minutes I talked to Daniel, mainly about how Windows Vista is a piece of shit operating system and how Sony Vaios suck just as much, which coincidentally we both had. He even went as far as saying he was going to take his laptop back to Best Buy and smash it right in the middle of the store. Daniel is a pretty interesting guy, and he kept us entertained until the situation was finally resolved.

I played the rest of the day in the lobby, often times having various tourists come over and wonder what the hell was going on. They will never understand our world, but they did ask plenty of annoying questions in an attempt too while I was trying to focus on the 9 tournaments I had going on at the same time. It was cool having friends come over to check out what was going on; especially when I was deep in the nightly 100 rebuy on Stars. I even had Scott "SCTrojans" Freeman come over at one point and tell me not to worry because I was going to win the tournament, I promptly bubbled the final table right after that. Thanks Scott…

The next night I met up with a bunch of friends who were also playing the second day of the tournament to go to this Japanese fusion type restaurant that seemed to be very popular called Nobu. Some of the people that were along for the ride included Adam "Roothlus" Levy, Dan "Wretchy" Martin, Kevin "BeL0WaB0Ve" Saul, and poker writer/agent Katie Lindsay. Apparently this place was known for having great food that was also very expensive, and with our large group it was inevitable that the bill was gonna be huge.

Kevin made it clear that he wanted to play Credit Card Roulette (CCR) to see who pays the bill, and then throughout the meal him and Dan kept saying thank you in advance to me for paying for their meals. Guess they had heard stories of how bad I run in the game. We did end up having some really good grub, and when it was time to pay the bill it ended up only being a mere $1600. Katie did her best Vanna White impression as she pulled out the cards one by one during the CCR game, and as luck would have it my card was picked sixth so I didn't have to sweat too much. I believe the person who did end up paying for the bill was a guy I had just met that night, whose online name is "Sivtec", so thanks for the meal bro. My luck was looking up.

I managed to show up around 15 minutes late the next day for the tournament, but somehow the tournament hadn't even started yet. It didn't take long for me to recognize some of the faces at my table which included PokerStars pros Noah "Exclusive" Boeken, Alex "Allingomes" Gomez, and Will "The Thrill" Failla. I wasn't that worried about this table assignment, that is until Dario Minieri took the last empty seat at my table. Now I wasn't so stoked. From everything I've heard about playing with Dario and also from seeing him on TV, I know he's insanely aggressive and he kinda looks like an Italian version of Harry Potter especially with his scarf. I figured it would be best to wait to get hands to make my move against him.

The first level went by and I watched as Dario and Allingomes raised, 3 bet and 4 bet nearly every single pot. If they did manage to see a flop they would bet on every single street, usually causing their opponent to fold, but every once in awhile they would decide to actually hit their hands on the river and just get paid off that way. It was quite an interesting show. I wasn't scared to get involved with these lagtards, however whenever I did see a flop I managed to miss it in every way possible. I could already tell it was going be a long day.

Stay tuned for part 2 to find out how the tournament progressed along with my week in paradise.

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A blog of sorts, a story to be told, the true depth of poker is about to unfold:Well the last blog that I wrote, I had taken a 2 week break from poker, and now I've flipped the switch and tried to go on a poker binge. I've been staying at Bellagio for the last 10 days and I've been playing almost every day. Dec 12, 2008

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From Underdog to Champion, Ortiz Wins LAPT Chile

The last time the PokerStars Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) was in action was in Mexico, where the local officials shut down the tournament near the end of the first day. It never resumed, though a resolution for the remaining players was hosted by PokerStars . Jan 23, 2009

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Kentucky to Take Internet Domain Seizure Case to State Supreme Court

One day after Kentucky’s Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s decision to allow the state the ability to seize 141 internet domain names should sites hosted on those domains fail to block Kentucky residents access to online gambling and poker, the Commonwealth of Kentucky filed an appeal to the Kentucky Supreme Court challenging the decision. The appeal was not a surprise, as many expected Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear to continue his quest to seize the domains as a means to protect the state’s horse racing industry, the interests of which Beshear believes are jeopardized by the availability of online gambling in his state.

J. Michael Brown, Kentucky’s Secretary of Justice and Public Safety, reiterated the Beshear administration’s intentions to pursue the matter. “The Commonwealth will continue its action to protect Kentucky citizens from illegal internet gambling operations” by appealing the appellate court’s decision, according to Brown.

Brown also disputed the notion that the three-judge appellate court panel’s 2-1 vote conclusively demonstrated the Commonwealth did not have a valid case. “The evidence [presented in the original lower court case] demonstrated that illegal and unregulated activity is occurring in Kentucky and that millions of dollars are being lost as a result of that activity,” said Brown, who additionally maintained that “fact that wasn’t disputed in Tuesday’s ruling.”

Wednesday’s appeal could potentially reopen various issues addressed in the original decision handed down by Franklin Circuit Court Judge Thomas D. Wingate. The Court of Appeals based their ruling solely on the technical issue of whether or not a domain named could be considered a “gambling device,” deciding against such a definition and thus rejecting the lower court’s ruling. However, the original decision had also included amid its lengthy “Discussion of the Issues” other areas of inquiry, including matters of jurisdiction as well as an argument claiming poker to be gambling. The three-judge panel chose not to address those issues fully, but the Kentucky Supreme Court may well do so when rehearing the case.

The Poker Players Alliance quickly issued a statement in response to the news that Governor Beshear intends to take the domain-seizure case to the state’s Supreme Court. “Kentucky residents should be outraged that the Commonwealth is investing another minute of time and another dollar of scarce resources in this quixotic case,” said PPA Executive Director John Pappas.

“The appeals court’s sound rejection of the Commonwealth’s case should have ended this legal debacle in its tracks,” added Pappas. “Unfortunately, the Governor and the hired-gun attorneys want to drag their ultimate defeat to another venue at the expense of Internet freedom and the rights of law-abiding Kentucky poker players.”

PokerStars EPT Deauville Day 1b: Stars Out in Force

Action resumed on Wednesday at the Casino Barriere in the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Deauville (France) stop. 343 players took part on Day 1b, joining the 312 Day 1a starters on Tuesday for a combined field of 645. The prize purse swelled to €3,096,000, with EPT officials announcing during the session that 64 players would cash, with first receiving €851,400.

As with the first starting session, the field was heavy on Team PokerStars personalities and other notable pros. Taking part on the day were such players as 2008 WSOP World Champion Peter Eastgate, plus Luca Pagano, Dario Minieri, Noah Boeken, chess master Ivo Donev, Remy Biechel, Max Pescatori, Mats Iremark, Gavin Griffin, Bruno Fitoussi, Alessio Isaia and David “Devilfish” Ulliott. Isaia topped 100,000 by session’s end, as may have Ulliott, pending a recount of his bagged chips at the start of tomorrow’s Day 2 due to conflicting reports.

The preliminary top ten from Day 1b play:

Alessio Isaia — 104,500
Joep van den Bijgaart — 80,800
Arnaud Vicente — 65,000
Otto Richard — 62,500
J B Bot — 59,300
Jonathan Azoulay — 59,100
David Ulliott* — 55,000 (pending recount)
Moritz Kranich — 54,600
Pawel Chimiel — 53,500
Charles Marques — 53,100

PokerStars EPT Deauville Begins, Abdellatif Tops Opening Session

The PokerStars-sponsored European Poker Tour returned to action on Tuesday with the opening of 2009′s first Continental EPT stop, in Deauville, France. Day 1a play brought 302 entrants to the tables, and after eight levels of play, 125 survived to return for Day 2. The pack was led by Belgium’s Jonathan Abdellatif, who topped all players by finishing with 105,000 in chips, the only player to cross the 100,000-chip plateau. The return to Deauville’s Casino Barriere by the EPT was itself a joyous occasion, ended a three-year gap caused by uncertain French laws during those years.

Abdellatif led a relatively anonymous Day 1a leaderboard as many of the biggest names in action found tougher sledding. The Team PokerStars contingent included Vicky Coren, Vanessa Rousso, Alex Kravchenko, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Isabelle Mercier, but Coren and Kravchenko both busted during the day. Rousso’s task will be among the most difficult, as she returns with a shortish stack of 7,000. Other notables who were not only present but survived to Day 2 as well included Juha Helppi, Joao Barbosa, Michel Abecassis, Ludovic Lacay, Eric Haber and Gino Alacqua.

The top ten chip counts from Day 1a action:

Jonathan Abdellatif — 105,000
Guillaume De La Gorce — 79,800
Manuel Bevand — 72,500
Olivier Da Silva — 64,700
Conor Crilly — 64,000
Michiel Brummelhuis — 61,100
Yury Kerzhapkin — 52,800
Gabriel Nassif — 51,700
Stefano Busino — 51,600
Herbert Kock — 51,300

Hail to the Chief! LosChief wins Sunday Million

Thousands of players packed into their virtual seats in this week’s edition of the PokerStars Sunday Million but it was online player LosChief who would walk away with the best of it, taking down a staggering $183,134.

When all the entries were tallied in poker’s biggest weekly online tournament there was a total of 8,260 players in the hunt for exorbitant amounts of cash. The players combined to create a prize pool of $1.6 million, which was just enough to eclipse the PokerStars guarantee of $1.5 million on the tournament.

The top 1,261 players would get paid and it would take roughly three and a half hours to get to that point. It took about five more hours to get down to the final table of nine and by that point LosChief had been established as one of the middle stacks.

After outlasting seven of his eight opponents, LosChief entered heads-up play against Birdstone44 with nearly the same amount of chips. The two players decided to do an almost even chop but leave $30,000 for the first-place finisher.

As you’ve probably ascertained, LosChief was able to crank the aggression and finally put Birdstone44 away for good. Second place was still good for $151,560 so it was hard to feel sorry for Birdstone44.

Meanwhile the PokerStars Warm-Up was played out on a cosmic level with Kenny “SpaceyFCB” Hallaert eventually taking top honors for $107,844.

Finally the $109+R Sunday tournament (which is typically one of the larger events of the day) went to Nick “FU_15″ Maimone, who beat arbianight in heads-up to take down the $71,058 first-place prize.

It looks to be a busy week for PokerStars fans, as the site is in the midst of hosting EPT Deauville in France and LAPT Vina del Mar in Chile. You can read PokerListings’ coverage of EPT Deauville here.

Here are the rest of the major final-table results from the PokerStars Sunday that occurred on Jan. 18, 2009:

Sunday Million [Two-way deal]

1.	LosChief	United Kingdom	$183,134
2.	Birdstone44	United States	$151,560
3.	twopairdad	United States	$91,686
4.	swifterjet	Canada	$74,340
5.	Oracle MCA	United States	$57,820
6.	dyeti	United Kingdom	$41,300
7.	play2call	Germany	$28,910
8.	AngeL_fH	Brazil	$18,998
9.	Raccabacka	Sweden	$11,564

Sunday Warm-Up

1.	SpaceyFCB	Belgium	$107,844
2.	IM CRU	United States	$75,240
3.	sanuk7	United Kingdom	$50,160
4.	Sibirn	Norway	$41,800
5.	cjf123	United States	$33,440
6.	wtfsvi	Norway	$25,080
7.	Gripen76	Finland	$16,720
8.	Montilja	Sweden	$10,450
9.	wieselsen	Germany	$6,771

No-Limit Hold’em $109+R

1.	FU_15	United States	$71,058
2.	arbianight	United States	$51,469
3.	tomgus456	Finland	$38,410
4.	jayvedo	Netherlands	$28,807
5.	Roothlus	United States	$20,165
6.	Pokerccini	Germany	$16,324
7.	Amke	Russian Federation	$12,483
8.	chuckcp1	United States	$8,642
9.	woltas	Canada	$5,377

Sunday 500 [Three-way deal]

1.	cwp394	United States	$69,667
2.	Pappe_Ruk	Netherlands	$77,259
3.	kaisersaus	Norway	$70,006
4.	dropkick84	Netherlands	$39,337
5.	Metsfan512	United States	$27,536
6.	kleath	United States	$22,291
7.	Apathy123	Canada	$17,046
8.	RaSZi	Netherlands	$11,801
9.	Miltyj55	Canada	$7,343

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