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Update on November Nine Players O’Dea and Collins

If you are wondering what November Nine contenders do to kill time or prepare for the WSOP Main Event Final Table, Eoghan O’Dea will be in Ireland for the Irish Winter Festival sponsored by Paddy Power Poker. O’Dea, who took time off from poker to complete a triathlon in September and play tennis, will be at the Burlington Hotel in Dublin, Ireland to compete in the Irish Winter Festival which starts tomorrow before jetting to Las Vegas to finish off the WSOP the following week where he could win up to $8.7 million if he were to win first place. Prior to this, he has been brushing up on his poker at the EPT London. He will start the final table with nearly 34 million chips, the third most chips, in Seat 3.

Twenty-seven-year-old Phil Collins, who will sit down in Seat 4 and has the fourth biggest chip stack with nearly 24 million (almost 10 million less than O’Dea). Like O’Dea, Collins has also been busy competing in European tournaments to prepare for the final table, including EPT London, WSOPE, and EPT San Remo, though he hasn’t had any results worth noting. He says this has provided him with some great experience. He’s also been re-watching the coverage from ESPN and plans on discussing his game plan with friends before the final table. He also says he has an understanding of how his opponents play and that will help him.

WSOP Circuit has a Successful Run

The World Series of Poker Circuit recently stopped at the Horseshoe Hammond in Hammond, Indiana nearby to the massive player base that occupies Chicago. Event #1 saw an attendance of 3,001 players, though the 11 events thereafter did not match its attendance, as expected. The tournament was overall a smashing success.

Changes to the 2011-12 WSOPC saw that the re-entry main events allows for more players to enter, and leading up to the main event, it was expected that this would be the largest main event in the history of the WSOPC. The main event included 1,615 players, which made one of the biggest prize pool at $2.3 million.

After four days, nearly $400K and the WSOPC ring was awarded to 51-year-old, semi-pro Robert Chow, who will also receive an automatic bid into the National Championship. Chow had never won more than $23K and some change before this victory.

“I’ve been the bridesmaid a couple times,” said Chow. “This is the first time I’ve actually cracked through and made first place. I’m ecstatic. I thought I had a deep run this year at the WSOP Seniors event when I came in 66th.”
After being eliminated on Day 1A, Chow won a satellite and was able to re-enter on Day 1B. By the end of Day 2, he was in 9th place out of the 20 remaining players.

Chow described Day 2:

“When we came back with 20 players, I just felt good. I never had the chip lead until we got down to the final table and I knew there was a lot of very accomplished, very aggressive players here, but I just felt good. I didn’t try to push the game, I let the game come to me and that was the best way to handle it and it worked. Everything just fell into place.”
Among those he was up against included Eric Cain, three-time WSOPC winner; Aaron Steury, 2011 WSOP bracelet winner; Mark “Poker H0” Kroon, online poker pro; and Drazen Ilich, two-time WSOPC winner.

“It’s validation of all the grinding and the hard work,” explained Chow. “I’ve come close and never finished. This is definitely a very significant, major event. It’s the main event, a Circuit, and I beat out 1,600 people. I can’t feel any better.”
The next stop for the WSOPC is at the IP Casino Resort & Spa in Biloxi, Mississippi and begins today.

Committee Hears Arguments for US Online Poker Regulations

Online gambling had its day in Congress today when the House heard Al D’Amato, former US Senator and Chairman of the Poker Players Alliance, as he laid out problems with current Internet gambling laws along with ways in which they should be amended.

D’Amato argued that currently players are not able to “play on a site that is located in the US that employs US citizens, plays US taxes, or is regulated by any level of the government in the US.”

Additionally, he mentioned that because the US Justice Department under the Obama administration has been cracking down on online poker sites that accepted US players, “many thousands of US poker players have not been able to recover money that they deposited into Full Tilt Poker and Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker accounts, or money they won playing on these sites.”

He also urged Congress to clarify legislature regarding online poker and write more effective laws against what exactly is illegal. He said, “Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 simply told banks to block payments for ‘unlawful Internet gambling’ without defining that term.”

The National Indian Gaming Association’s Ernest Stevens also spoke, calling online gaming “the Native American success story,” mentioning that the Supreme Court has upheld that Indian gaming is “crucial for tribal self-determination and self-governance” since 1987.

Stevens’ argument was that Congress should respect the Native American tribes’ “sovereign governments with a right to operate, regulate, tax, and license Internet gambling.” He also said that Indian tribes must be able to provide their services “to customers in any locale where Internet gaming is not criminally prohibited.”

Other testifiers compared Internet poker to illegal drug use. All witnesses though pointed out the “threat of offshore gambling” and identified that regulatory laws were necessary to protect US consumers.

College Students Start Nationwide College Poker Club

Arizona State University student Chandler Bator and alumnus of the school Anthony Bucca started a web project that provides a safe and legal online venue for college students to play casino games with no risk. The project is called, “Your College Poker Club” and has been established in160 universities across the US.

After the feds turned the lights out on online poker for US players, Bator got the idea for the project after a friend of his had to drop out of college due to the cash he lost playing online poker at PokerStars.

Bator, who hopes to become the Mark Zuckerber of Internet gambling, says, “We wanted to make something that was safer for them to fulfill their need without the same type of risk involved with regular gambling sites,” he said.

The site allows the students to play in poker tourneys, casino games, and bet on sports for a fee paid upon sign up. As membership grows, there may even be monetary rewards in the future for winners.

Bator says, “We will have daily and weekly prizes, and as our membership basis grows, our prizes will be able to grow. We want to give out a $10,000 weekly seat to the World Series of Poker.”

The founding partners looked at athletic involvement when choosing what schools to admit into the program, so that ultimately school spirit would create competitive popularity as schools go head-to-head in tournaments and then see how they rank alongside each other.

“It will be fun to see how students take their school spirit and translate it into their usage of the site to try to perform better in the tournaments than students from other schools,” says Bator. All 160 sites are scheduled to be operational at the end of this month.

Progress for US Internet Gambling Regulation Effort

A step in the right direction for legal online poker could be made as soon as next week when the House Subcommittee for Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade will have a hearing on Internet gambling Tuesday. This committee is a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and consists of 14 republicans and nine democrats, who will debate Congressman Joe Barton’s Internet Gambling Prohibition, Poker Consumer Protection, and Strengthening UIGEA Act (HR 2366).

Executive Director of the Poker Player’s Alliance (PPA), John Pappas, says “The hearing may be more about Internet gaming, but the Barton bill will be hard to ignore given that Barton sits on the subcommittee.”

If passed, HR 2366 would legalize and regulate Internet poker in the US by giving state-licensed agencies the green light to act as regulatory authorities. The biggest players in land-based casinos, Nevada and New Jersey, would get the first go ahead to issue gaming licenses. The PPA is encouraging its members whose US reps are seated on the subcommittee to communicate their support of the bill to the subcommittee in hopes that the subcommittee will also be in support of online poker.

In addition, a bipartisan supercommittee, whose purpose is to obtain money for the government is being urged by Congressman Barney Frank to support regulation and legalization of Internet gambling as a means of earning funds for the government.

“Several of us are trying to get it into the supercommittee,” says Frank. “It would create $40 billion [in revenue] over 10 years.” While there are no guarantees, it is a sign of progress.

Pappas is optimistic of the supercommittee. He says, “The supercommittee has been very receptive. I don’t think every member of the committee is making this their priority, but there are benefits of revenue and consumer protection.” He also believes that the open debate is a good idea. He says, “This committee hasn’t had an opportunity to examine the issues. It gives lawmakers a chance to say they’ve discussed it.”

New Time Tourney Format at PokerStars

Now that online poker is business as usual (outside of the US anyway), Internet poker technology is once again thriving. The new Time Tourneys at PokerStars have everyone flocking to see what all of the buzz is about, and there hasn’t been this much buzz about a new online poker feature since Rush Poker.

Time Tourneys sets a time limit on the game, so that instead of playing until all your chips run out, you play until your time runs out. When time is called, the prize pool is divided among the remaining players according to their chip stacks at that time.

Time Tourneys feature an array of buy-in ranges from as little as $1, so anyone can try this new poker trend out. Just visit the PokerStars lobby and hit the “Tourney” tab. Once there, you will find the new Time Tourneys marked with a stopwatch icon.

Betrand “ElkY” Grospellier says, “Time Tourneys are going to be so much fun. I often want to play a tournament but don’t have hours to spare, so these are just perfect. I think Time Tourneys are also going to be intense, because as the clock ticks down there’s going to be even more action. I can’t wait to get playing them!”

So that everyone can try these new tournaments out, PokerStars is giving out free tickets worth $5.50 each to anyone who makes a deposit of at least $30 by October 28th.

Also new to PokerStars is the Saturday Countdown, a $22 buy-in time tourney with a $10K guaranteed prize pool. The first Saturday Countdown will take place this Sunday, October 22 at its regular 13:00 ET time.

WSOP Main Event to Air Live on ESPN

Due in part to the extremely successful coverage of the World Series of Poker this past summer, ESPN and WSOP officials have announced a change in the way the WSOP Main Event will be aired. Aside from a mere 15-minute delay, the WSOP will pretty much be televised live beginning November 6th when the final nine players vie for the coveted WSOP Main Event championship bracelet and first place title.

Viewers at home will be able to view the last leg of the $10,000 buy-in NLH WSOP Main Event at home as the action unfolds. There will be no need to watch online updates or wait for coverage to air later, which is huge for televised poker, especially since much of the televised poker series were previously cancelled this year.

The first place finisher will earn an $8.7 million payout, and the entire world will experience the win right along with those at the event, well only 15 minutes later anyway. There will be no need for spoiler alerts this year, as those watching on television will know the outcome about the same time the results are posted online. WSOP exec Ty Stewart said, “This coverage shifts the paradigm for poker’s potential on television and will showcase our championship with unprecedented richness and scale.” He also said, “For the first time, we will truly be represented as live sport versus just being broadcast on a live sports network.”

The November Nine will commence play on November 6th at 11:30 a.m. at the Rio All-Suites in Las Vegas, Nevada. The final three will come back on November 8th at 5:00 p.m. until a winner is determined. Eight of the nine are guaranteed to become millionaires, while the 9th place finisher will leave with more than $780K.

Tzvetkoff to Testify for Prosecution in Federal Case against Online Poker Execs

Fake payment processor operator Daniel Tzvetkoff is now reported to be a star witness on the side of the prosecution in the case against the 11 Internet poker execs that were accused of money laundering and illegal gambling activity by the feds back in April—the very same individuals who helped him make his illegal fortune. Tzvetkoff was actually the one who led police to arrest the 11 execs, so it’s not surprising that now he’s going to go ahead and testify against them in order to receive a lesser sentence for himself.

According to reports, Tzvetkoff is hiding out in New York, where he was spotted for the first time in months. Some believe, he’s already received his sentence, but the details are being kept secret due to the bigger case against the executives of PokerStars, Absolute Poker, and Full Tilt Poker.

When the three biggest online poker sites in the world were shut down and the indictments were handed down, it was a sad day for online poker, especially in the US. Only one of those three poker sites is still in operation today, and Tzvetkoff is to thank. He, who made billions of dollars by hiding online poker transactions and was just as guilty as any other, will likely end up in witness protection to save his butt after he helps bring down some of the biggest online poker figures in the history of online poker. If it weren’t for these men, the industry would not exist in the capacity that it does throughout the world, as online poker is much bigger than the US now. It is unfortunate that it all had to go down the way it did.

National Heads-Up Poker is No More

NBC’s National Heads-Up Poker was started in 2005 and has run every year since, but for no longer. The invitation-only televised tournament series featured 64 pro poker players who played in a bracket style competition, reducing down to six players, one of which was pronounced winner, has been cancelled by NBC.

This isn’t the first poker TV cancellation though, as Poker After Dark was ended earlier this year by NBC, and the Fox Network has also ended PokerStars’ The Big Game, though it can still be viewed online on PokerStars TV.

Despite this though, the long-standing deal between the World Series of Poker and ESPN means there will be some poker on TV in the US, along with the World Poker Tour, now in its 10^th season. WPT airs on Fox Sports Networks. In addition, the new Epic Poker League debuted on CBS and new Velocity network recently.

Fans of the NHUPC hope that the tournament does continue even without its TV spot, as it yielded a $750K first place payout and allowed the best of the best poker pros to play each other live. Since PokerStars and Full Tilt were the main sponsors of the event, it’s not too surprising that the show will not continue in 2012. It was however the top ranking poker show throughout its seven-year run with an average 1.5 rating.

It may not be cancelled forever though, as Adam Freifeld, NBC Sports Senior Director of Communications, suggested that they were continuing to evaluate poker programming on the network.

Leaf Trading Cards Introduce Poker Cards Series 2

Sports card trading industry has seen better days, but the Leaf trading card company is taking its chances with a second series of poker trading cards that feature poker pro celebrities complete with autographs.

The new series is very similar to the first series released last year. The 2011 set features around 60 poker players and multiple card types with at least one autograph on each card. The basic set has cards with photographs of poker greats like Phil Helmuth, Daniel Negreanu, and the godfather of poker, Doyle Brunson. Other players featured on their own cards include Orel Hershiser (former MLB pitcher and baseball star) and Jason Alexander (actor from the show Seinfeld).

Special cards include the “Stacked Deck” series is an autographed collection of playing cards. Each player has signed one full deck of cards. Also, the “Pocket Pair” series has two players on one card with both players’ signatures. Featured “Pocket Pair” players include Hellmuth and Johnny Chan, among other famous pairs.

The series titled “Classic Nicknames” will present 10 players who are otherwise known by their nicknames such as Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi. The “Final Table Signatures” set will feature signatures on actual poker table felt.

The rarest of all the collections are nine redemption cards that are randomly inserted and actually serve as a ticket to an online poker tournament. The winner of this tourney will receive an authentic 2006 World Series of Poker bracelet. This is like the poker version of the Willy Wonka golden ticket.

All cards are individually numbered with limited autographs. There are four levels of cards available, and some cards have more copies made than others. For instance, the “Classic Nicknames” cards will have print runs of 25 or fewer.

A full set of the 2011 Leaf Poker trading cards will be more difficult to come by than you may think. A case of 12 boxes (5 cards in each box), for a total of 60 cards is only a little over $800.

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