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2013 WSOP Summary of Events

This year the 44th Annual WSOP unfolds at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas from May 29 to July 15. It is open to poker players over 21 years old and involves satellite events or cash games, daily deepstack tournaments, and WSOP gold bracelet events. The prices range as low as $1/$2 in cash games and $75 in tournaments, which is affordable for any bankroll.

This years, there is a record 480 poker tables to be spread, which could mean a higher player turnout than the 240,000 entries of last year’s 50-day extravaganza. A total of 62 coveted WSOP gold bracelets are up for grabs.

Notable Events

Every weekend in June will be a No-Limit weekend, with No-Limit Hold’em bracelet events happening to cater to the national and regional players visiting on weekends. There will be a $1500 NLHE each Saturday and a $1,000 NLHE each Sunday.

Event #2- The $5,000 buy-in Eight-Handed No-Limit Hold’em tournament is scheduled for Wednesday, May 29 AT 5:00 p.m. It is the first open WSOP gold bracelet event.

Event #3- The 1,000 buy-in Single Re-Entry No-Limit Hold’em tournament is scheduled for Thursday, May 30. Players who take part in the 3A event at 11:00 a.m. and are eliminated get to buy in to the 3B event at 5:00 p.m. The final battle is on day 2, Friday, May 31.

Event #6- The $1,500 buy-in Single Re-Entry No-Limit Hold’em tournament, “The Millionaire Maker”, is scheduled for Saturday, June 1. It includes Flight 6A and if players bust, they can enter 6B. The final battle for the survivors is on Sunday, June 2, with the victor getting $1,000,000.

Event #34- The $1,000 buy-in Turbo No-Limit Hold’em tournament is scheduled for Wednesday, June 19 at 12 noon. It features the first Turbo format of the WSOP.

Event #47- The $111,111 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em tournament is scheduled for Wednesday, June 26 at 12 noon. The “ONE DROP High Roller” is a WSOP gold bracelet event and the 3% house fees will go to the ONE DROP organization as a donation from Rio.

Event #52- The $25,000 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em event is scheduled for Friday, June 28 at 5:00 p.m. This popular variant is where the world’s best short-handed specialists will converge to look for a huge payday and a gold bracelet.

Event #55- The Poker Players Championship returns on Sunday, June 30 at 5:00 p.m. The world’s greatest all-round poker players part with a $50,000 entry fee and participate in an eight-game mixed event, with the winner receiving a WSOP gold bracelet and getting to add their name to the prestigious Chip Reese Trophy.

Event #58- The “Little One for ONE DROP” is scheduled to kick off on Wednesday, July 3 at 12 noon. It features the only unlimited re-entry tournament on the WSOP schedule, a $1,111 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em tournament that has two start days and unlimited re-entry through the first four levels. For every buy-in, ONE DROP will receive $111.

The $5,000 buy-in Open Face Chinese tournament is a non-bracelet but equally exciting WSOP event scheduled for Saturday, July 13 at 5:00 p.m. The WSOP staff will monitor this event and determine its viability of being added as a bracelet event in future.

Event #62 2013 WSOP $10,000 NLH Main Event to begin on July 6, 2013.

Trevor Pope Takes WSOP Event #2 Bracelet

When a player takes the chip lead into a final table, sometimes it turns out to be a curse. It is expected that you will do great but when this doesn’t happen, it becomes one huge disappointment. Today, though, there was nothing cursed about Trevor Pope’s chip lead.

Pope took a large chip lead into the Event 2’s final table and in this $5,000 Eight-Handed No Limit Hold’em tournament, the Wisconsin-born poker pro emerged with a $553,906 payday and his first gold bracelet.

Pope’s tablemates suffered heavy punishment in a dominant wire-to-wire action at an eight-handed final table that had not a single soft spot. The pro came into the table with nearly half of the chips in play and about six times the number of chips his closest competitors had, giving him quite an unreal chip advantage. He maintained his big stack position throughout the play without being at any risk. The last standing player between him and the title was EPT winner David Vamplew, but not even doubling up the one time could help Vamplew slow down the Trevor Pope Express.

There was something else working in Pope’s favor other than the chips. The Las Vegas-based pro had a number of his friends on the rail, most notable being his four-legged canine friend Revis. Revis is a dog remembered as a lucky charm last year on Joey Weissman’s rail, and he has once again proved to be a lucky charm. It seems that the presence of canines translates into six-figure paydays and massive wins, and at this rate it won’t be surprising to see more canine companions in the dog-friendly Rio hallway.

The results of the final table for Event 2, the $5,000 Eight-Handed No Limit Hold’em Event are as follows:

1. Trevor Pope – $553,906
2. David Vamplew – $342,450
3. Darryll Fish – $215,286
4. Jared Hamby – $154,518
5. Jamie Armstrong – $112,695
6. Dan Kelly – $83,532
7. Brandon Meyers – $62,915
8. David Peters – $48,130

These are all accomplished poker pros with millions in career tournament earnings but only Dan Kelly, who came in 6th, has a bracelet in his resume. Others have made the final tables at the WSOP before, like Darryll Fish (3rd) and Jamie Armstrong (5th), but they couldn’t come in the way of Trevor Pope getting the coveted gold piece this time round.

New Poker Book Straight Flush

Author Ben Mezrich is renowned for spawning films like “21″ and “The Social Network” through his works. In the new book, Straight Flush, he weaves a dramatic plot full of twists and turns, telling a rise-and-fall story without ruining the ending.  The story is about a group of University of Montana fraternity brothers who are inspired to start an online poker company and how the government’s decision that it’s illegal affects them.

Mezrick says the actual online poker operation was started in Seattle, in a basement. “The ma in character, whose dad lived in Seattle, started the business in his dad’s basement.”

It was established in the early 2000s, a time when the rules of online poker were almost non-existent. According to Mezrich, “There was no specific law that said online poker is illegal, and there was no reason to think that you could get arrested for having an Internet company like that.”

The online poker gaming market was definitely huge and soon enough, the founders of the site found themselves with a Costa Rica operation earning them $1 million a day.  “Essentially they were bringing in $1 million a day, there were about 15 million U.S. people playing poker online and it just grew into a massive industry.”

One fateful day, though, the government made its judgment on online poker, thus changing the story of the online poker company.  Mezrich said, “There was a day which is known as black Friday. It was April 15 of 2011 when the U.S. government raided all these sites,” adding that “This was the sort of moment [...] known when to hold them, know when to fold them.”

This is a book likely to follow in the footsteps of Mezrich’s other books and land on the big screen someday, but the writer says there is yet to be a movie deal in place. So for now, if you like the sound of the story, just pick up the book.

Skepticism Raised with UltimatePoker.com

The 2008 Russ Hamilton scandal has erupted again, this time ensnaring the new UltimatePoker.com. Hamilton, the former poker champion and consultant to Ultimatebet.com, cheated players out of millions of dollars using software that allowed him to peek at the hands of other players. Officials of the Kahnawake-licensed and Costa Rica-based poker site Ultimate Bet said Hamilton had been acting alone, and his reputation ended up ruined.

UltimatePoker.com opened for business at the end of April in Nevada and calls itself as “America’s first and only regulated online real money poker site.” This is true only since the Black Friday, when the Department of Justice crashed the few online poker sites that were still operating within the U.S. borders. Unfortunately, hardly two weeks after the poker site’s launch, the five-year-old online poker scandal re-emerged to remind everyone that the industry can be shady even as operators bill themselves as legitimate businesses with no intentions of shutting down abruptly and taking off with players’ money.

Two weeks ago, Travis Makar, a former Ultimate Bet employee, posted secret recordings on an online poker forum that show the scandal was on an even larger scale than originally imagined. These recordings have confirmed Hamilton as the primary actor, with him bluntly saying, “I did take this money and I’m not trying to make it right, so let’s get that out of the way.”

However, the tapes have also shown that there were other officials at Ultimate Bet who knew of the scheme, such as the founder Greg Pierson who is heard talking of ways of containing and covering up the scandal. Pierson currently runs Iovation, an online security company, and as was noted by poker writer John Mehaffey, “The tapes imply that Iovation may have even been founded and floated with money stolen in the cheating scandal by Hamilton and others. Iovation was Ultimate Bet’s software company and provided Hamilton and others with the ability to see player’s hole cards in real time.”

This gets messy for Ultimate Poker because at the time of its launch in April, the poker site was using Iovation’s software to verify the identities of the players. As soon as the Makar tapes went public, though, the site dumped Iovation.

As much as Ultimate Poker claims its games are wholly legitimate, using Iovation, whose co-founder seems complicit to one of the world’s biggest online gambling scandals, is inexcusable, and in the least raises skepticism.

Gus Hansen Turns it around Again

Following his huge loss last week, poker pro Gus Hansen has landed back to his feet on Full Tilt Poker this week.

The 39-year-old Danish poker player has developed a downswing pattern running in the millions, but he seems to always remain motivated. Following the big loss of over 1 million last week, he admitted that he gained about $811,000 in one day earlier this week.

Halfway through the month, Gunsen showed the stuff he’s made off by beating his opponents and bagging a cool $1.5 million in a single day. However, this win was short lived as late last week he went through his usual downhill path and lost $1.64 million to the regulars. Nevertheless, the pro made a comeback this week.

He started by playing against Frenchman Alex Luneau (Alexonmoon), taking him in the $1,000 / $2,000 Limit Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw to win about $370,000. Next, in the $2,000 / $4,000 Limit Omaha High-Low, he beat Patrik Antonius (FinddaGrind), Kyle Ray (KPR16) and samrostan to garner $185,000. The Dane then resumed at the Draw Lowball Tables and ended up with a daily balance of $811,000.

Gus Hansen ended up being not only the player with the highest wins on Monday, but also the top player in the rankings of the last days. When it comes to the monthly performances, Gus is also out of the red zone. The biggest losers since Friday seem to be Kyle Ray (- $289,400) and Alex Luneau (- / $297,800).

Mentalist Banned from UK Casinos

Mentalists have a reputation for highly developed intuitive and mental acuity, and few rank as highly as 42 year-old television and stage celebrity Derren Brown in the UK. The British illusionist recently encountered a snag due to casinos’ adversity to calculating and crafty customers.

It came as no surprise when on Saturday night, Derren Brown was escorted from the Broadway Plaza Casino in Birmingham shortly after attempting to have a go at Blackjack on a private table. It so happens that he visited the casino with a couple of friends immediately after finishing his live show Infamous. However, in fear of losing their profits, the Broadway Plaza Casino did not take long to pull the plug on the showman’s fun, opting to escort him out of the gaming halls.

Later, as Derren commented on the incident to AGE, he said, “I went in after the show and sat down to play blackjack. They were very nice, served me food, but they wouldn’t let me play. So I watched the others for a bit and then left. I was escorted out by a member of staff and the manager.”

As a matter of fact, the mentalist had already been banned from most UK casinos before his name became famously anonymous with illusionism. Nikki, a casino worker, recounted one story of how Derren’s situation came about on derrenbrown.co.uk. Apparently, Derren would sit for a really long time at a blackjack table in a casino without playing. When he finally placed a bet, his wins would be with a 100% regularity.

It did not take long before the polite and very charming Briton had gained popularity with patrons, who were eager to know more about him. He also drew the attention of the pit bosses who would have preferred that he didn’t show up at their casinos at all. These casinos wouldn’t risk scandal in the eyes of their customers, so they banned him one at a time. Eventually, Derren Brown found himself unwelcome at most gambling venues in the country.

Regarding The Broadway Plaza Casino incident, Derren’s comment was that, “Over the years I’ve been banned from playing at most of the UK’s casinos, so I wasn’t unduly surprised.”

Wembley Stadium Hosts ISPT

The International Stadiums Poker Tour (ISPT) is headed for the home of English football, Wembley Stadium, where its Day 2’s first plays out on Friday on the hallowed turf. A recent blog by the Dusk Till Dawn (DTD) owner Rob Yong makes it very clear that the ISPT will have tremendous value to the players.

The ISPT is a new and unique event that Yong promotes, taking time to address 10 most commonly asked questions on the DTB website. In an open and frank blog, he sheds light on the issue of attendance figures and prize pool figures.

Yong answered the question, “How many runner have you got, how many do you think you will get?” with: “At the time of writing this (4.22am Tuesday morning) we have 373 player names – this equates to a prize pool of just over €1 million euros, with more guaranteed seats over the next 4 days. But how many players will buy-in directly for €3000 on Day 2a Friday and Day 2b Saturday – this is the million dollar question – literally!”

Yong went on to explain, “I heard 700-800 players bought in for €5K at this year’s  EPT Berlin - but the EPT’s are established, prestigious events so maybe it’s not correct to compare? When we partnered with ISPT they had around 30 players in Day 2 with only 12 weeks to go. At the time I said to the press that 500 runners would be a disaster, 1000 would be okay, 1500 a job well done and 2000 a miracle from the poker gods, so I am just praying that all the of hard work done by the ISPT team in promoting the event in so many different countries will pay off.”

In terms of potential overlay from a player’s point of view, it will be a ridiculous overlay on the cards if there are low numbers. “If 1,000 players buy in there will be €460,000 added to the prize pool, which will surely be one of the largest overlays in the history of the game of poker. Should that figure be even lower, at say 500 entrants, the cost to DTD will be enormous; the overlay could potentially top the scales at €730,000!”

The payout structure of the tournament is expected to be extremely high, so ISPT and DTD have decided to allow making of deals once the final table is reached. The nine finalists are allowed to flatten the payouts in case they want to, but under the Tournament Director Simon Trumper’s watchful eye.

Ongame and Amaya Hire Former Absolute Poker Exec

Amaya, Canadian international online gambling brand, has hired Paul Legget, former Absolute Poker front man, to replace Paul Bartilsson as head of online gaming. Legget will not only serve as head Amaya’s online gaming, but will also be a consultant to the company as well.

Legget’s new role includes overseeing Ongame Network, a new acquisition by Amaya. Previously, Bertilsson managed Ongame Services, and Legget is expected to head the online division of Amaya. He is also in charge of all the online activities of Amaya. Legget comes in with broad experience in the same position and industry.

The future duties of Ongame and Legget could raise eyebrows within some states like Nevada, in which recently enacted poker legislation entails a five-year provision for post-UIGEA, the US friendly sites.

Absolute Poker, which initially owned UB.com, stopped operations after the Black Friday in April 2011. This was due to the US crackdown that left huge amounts of money unpaid to players, especially those from America. At the passing on of the Black Friday’s indictments, many cited Legget as UB.com’s COO.

The Ongame Network is among the oldest poker networks that operated in the US before the  UIGEA was passed. It was the previous home to sites such as PokerRoom.com, Hollywood Poker, and bwin. Initially, BetAndWin operated the network but they merged to form bwin.party in 2011.

With an excess of gaming assets after merging, bwin.party started searching for the Ongame buyer. First, they sold the network to Shuffle Master, but he got out of the deal later. Amaya then bought Ongame at a reduced cost. Afterwards, Shuffle Master (SHFL) negotiated with Amaya for use of the Ongame platform.

Amaya also struck a deal with Bally Technologies, which is already licensed for the new poker regime in Nevada. Whether the hiring of Legget offers any superseding concerns for the Nevada regulators or not remains to be seen.

EPT Releases 2013/14 Schedule

With the Grand Finale of Export Poker Tour (EPT) underway in Monaco, EPT’s schedule for the 10^th anniversary season has been announced. The 2013/2014 tour will be running from August to May and will kick off in Barcelona on August 28. Although some dates have been flip-flopped, the familiar spots still remain on this tour.

The EPT London for 2013 has been shifted to October, and it switches the dates with the EPT Sanremo that will run come April 2014. The Berlin event is scheduled for March and it took place in April before the 2013’s Grand Finale. Edgar Stuchly, the EPT President announced that they decided to put their focus on stability. He further reported that in the successful Season 9, they chose to host bigger and fewer events that integrated the national tours.

EPT coordinators have paid attention to feedback from players who seemed to value spending more time in playing and less time travelling. Given that the Sanremo tournament occurs shortly before April’s EPT Grand Final, players will have the entire month of April to be on the glamorous Riviera.

The new season entails €10,000/£10,000 High Roller activities at London, Barcelona, Berlin, Prague, Deauville, and Sanremo, in addition to €50,000/£50,000 events in London and Barcelona. The Grand Final and PCA will host the $25,000/€25,000 High Roller plus the Super High Roller – $100,000/€100,000. Season 10’s online satellites commence on May 15.

Although information regarding the preliminary events is yet to come out, every tour’s spot has a main event of €5,300 except for 2014 PCA’s €10,300 main event at Bahamas and Monaco’s €10,600 main event for the 2014 Grand Final.

You can watch the events as they’re streamed live at the EPTlive Webcasts through PokerStars.tv. Season 10’s airing dates are yet to come out though. After the schedule is posted, you will find it on europeanpokertour.com/tv.

MGM Contemplates Profits in Online Poker

The management of MGM Resorts International reported that the company was yet to decide whether it will be launching a poker website in Nevada or not. Their report said that the state could not be large enough to offer a productive online market by itself.

In February, Nevada authorized online poker and this week, it was the first to go live as the Station Casinos inaugurated their first offering called UltimatePoker.com. Delaware and New Jersey have legalized online gambling too, and are working on plans to go live.

As MGM continues to pursue a licensing and regulatory process in Nevada and New Jersey, the MGM management believes that state compacts or federal legislation can help to draw more gamblers and raise the liquidity, resulting in a great market that will ultimately generate greater revenue for local governments and companies.

The operators of big casinos would favor state compacts or federal standards because they would offer bigger and uniform markets that would attract more gamblers and bring in greater revenue. State based legislation could result to more regulations and varying tax rates.

The prediction of some analysts is that the online gambling market in Nevada will produce between 50 and 250 million dollars in annual revenue. The larger New Jersey may generate between 500 million and 1 billion dollars annually. Earlier, the MGM officials reported that if done properly at the state level, online gambling will indeed perform better.

MGM reported unexpected profits during the first quarter resulting from the Las Vegas rebound and continued to improve in Macau, China. The casino generated $6.5 million (1 cent a share) though earlier on, it got a loss of $217.3 million (44 cents a share). On average, analysts had predicted that the company would get 10 cents per share as loss.

MGM and Boyd have collaborated with other poker companies such as Bwin.party to offer software and other gaming services in the U.S. The MGM officials are optimistic that Nevada may perform better because of its renowned history in gambling regulation and nearness to bigger states like California, which are also considering gambling legislation.

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