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60 Billionth Hand Dealt at PokerStars

PokerStars foresaw their 60 billionth hand to be dealt before the month’s end, and so it came. The lucky 60 billionth hand winner was “Pogo650,” who took an added $102K on top of the winning pot that consisted of $150. The hand was dealt at a $5/$10 Limit Texas Hold ‘em cash game, and there were five other players in the hand. Each of them divvied up an additional $100K prize pool, four earning $21K and one getting $11K, based on their frequent player points earned while seated at the table.

It all went down on PokerStars at the reasonable hour of 9:35 am. EDT on a Tuesday morning. Pogo650 was holding a Q/3 offsuit when he won the hand with a 3 on the flop for a pair. He had re-raised before the flop forcing “DrPepel,” the following player, to fold, taking himself out of the running for any prize money. The remaining four opponents called, and then all players checked the flop of K/3/2. Pogo650 bet; the others called. Then this all happened again on the turn, a 6 and the river, a 9. By then, the pot was up to $150.

Pogo650 said after winning, “I think I can afford to change my old banger of a car now.”

This wasn’t the first milestone hand for Pogo650 though. He was actually lucky enough to hit two, commenting, “I’m possibly the biggest luckbox alive over the last week or so. Two losing sessions ended in milestone hands.”

Round 2: Blom v. Negreanu PokerStars SuperStar Showdown

After the beat down suffered by Daniel “KidPoker” Negreanu in the first round of the SuperStar Showdown between him and Viktor “Isildur1” Blom of only 1,439 hands, Blom had pocketed $150K of Negreanu’s bankroll. Negreanu promised to return a week later better prepared. The rematch held the same rules: four tables of $50/$100 heads up NLH for up to 2,500 hands. It wasn’t long before spectators saw a repeat of the first round. Blom dominated for the first half of the session taking $120K of Negreanu’s bankroll in just about 1,300 hands.

But that wasn’t the end of the story this time, Negreanu managed to turn it around, coming back and finishing $26,500 in the positive direction and ending the five-game winning streak by Blom.

At the end of the session at PokerStars, the chat window read:

Isildur1: gg, nice comeback!
KidPoker: I won? wow sick! gg man thanks
KidPoker: I broke so much stuff in this room the first half
KidPoker: my assistant has lots of cleaning to do lol jkjk

Negreanu’s final words were “Isildur is incredible. I hope to do a training lesson with him one day. He’s the best.”
Negreanu may have walked away with his pride mended, but across the two sessions, he still lost $123,500 to Blom. However, according to match rules, Round One was one match in itself that Blom did in fact win. Round Two was in fact won by Negreanu, so technically they are even.

ESPN Nominated for Sports Emmy for WSOP Coverage

Poker fans across the world look forward to ESPN’s coverage of the World Series of Poker each year, and now again, for the third year, the broadcasts have been nominated for a Sports Emmy. This year, the category is “Live Event Turnaround—World Series of Poker Final Table.”

ESPN receives numerous nominations every year for their far reaching sports coverage. This year they received exactly 52 nominations for Sports Emmy Awards including 12 nominations for the 2010 FIFA World Cup event in South Africa and five nominations for NFL broadcasting.

Not surprisingly, this year ESPN earned the most nominations of any other submitting brand for the tenth time in 11 years. The Sports Emmy Award nominations are decided by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Winners will be presented with their awards on May 2, 2011.

Possible Underage Player Places in Sunday Million

When PokerStars awarded sixth-place finisher, “zeurr” with a $518K payout for the Sunday Million earlier this month, it didn’t take long for the chatter regarding the player’s age to start. The 17-year-old Jimmy Jonker is technically not of age to play, or win for that matter, online poker at PokerStars. Now Jonker’s father, Jos Jonker, 47, is claiming he was actually the one playing, although Jimmy was allegedly tweeting and commenting on the poker forums during and right after the Sunday Million tournament about playing in the event, himself.

It is still not clear exactly who the account is registered to. If it’s in Jimmy’s name, then he would have had to lie about his true age when he registered, as the minimum age requirement at PokerStars is 18.

The tournament in fact set a new record for biggest prize pool at $11.8 million, and the final nine players struck a deal and took a nine-way split of the remaining prize pool, which is how player zeurr ended up with the $518,204 payout.

Whether the account was in the elder Jonker’s name or not, if in fact it is proven that it was the younger who played in the event, then they both violated PokerStars T&C anyway. Stars reserves the right to deny payment to a fraudulent account anyway, as stated in their Terms & Conditions.

Terms state: “If a User breaches in whole or in part any provision contained herein, PokerStars reserves the right to take such action as it sees fit, including terminating this Agreement, immediately blocking access to the Service to such User, terminating such User’s account with PokerStars, seizing all monies held in the relevant PokerStars account and/or taking legal action against such User.”

PokerStars has not made a statement regarding how they will handle the situation or how they will redistribute the payment if it is confiscated.

Negreanu Reflects on the SuperStar Showdown vs. Blom

This weekend, Daniel Negreanu and Viktor “Isildur1” Blom will go up against each other for the second phase of their SuperStar Showdown. Last Sunday on PokerStars, Negreanu was no match for 20-year-old Blom, who took the max $150K from Negreanu in only 1,439 hands that spanned a mere four hours. Thirty-six-year-old Negreanu, though, claims he’s been working on his game ever since he was obliterated last weekend and will be ready to go this Sunday for the next match. The four-table, $50/$100 No Limit match will consist of up to 2,500 hands.

Negreanu, known as Kid Poker, is one of the best live poker players the sport has ever seen. In fact, he’s second on the list of all-time money winner, but he admits that Blom is a better online player than he is. However, Negreanu does not plan on letting Blom get in his head again and promises that the second half of the showdown will be a much better match.

Negreanu wrote about his match on his Full Contact Blog. He says he has reflected on the match and claims he’s been experimenting with some new things. He also stated that he’d reclaimed $85K of the $150K losses within 24 hours of the first showdown with Blom.

According to Negreanu, the Swedish poker phenom was able to figure Negreanu out and develop a counter strategy fairly quickly. By the time Negreanu had prepared himself to counter attack, the match was over. He claims that if he hadn’t already committed to the showdown and it had been a normal cash game, he would have quite way before he got down that badly.

Negreanu is prepared for the rematch and is very excited to recover some of his pride and mend his reputation, though he doesn’t claim to have improved so much in a week to be “better than” Blom. Negreanu wrote on his blog, “I can’t do much about the bad luck, but I can do something about him outplaying me. Whatever happens next Sunday, whether I win or lose, the fact that Isildur1 is the better player won’t change.

Nevada Is Next to Offer Up Online Poker Legislature

Now it seems as if Nevada is jumping on the intrastate online poker bill bandwagon. Yesterday, one week after the New Jersey online poker legislature failed to pass, bill AB258 was introduced in Nevada.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “The lobbying force behind the Nevada bill is Rational Entertainment Enterprises Ltd., which does business under the name PokerStars. Based in Britain’s Isle of Man, it runs gambling sites the U.S. considers illegal.”

The bill is seemingly be tailored to online poker sites like Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars that serve the U.S. market despite the UIGEA and other discerning factors.

The bill reads, “The Commission shall not deny a license to an operator of internet poker… solely because the operator… before the effective date of this act, operates, operated, or was associated with interstate or foreign commerce… while licensed in another jurisdiction.” It goes on to say, “The Commission may issue a license as an operator of internet poker to a person or an affiliate of a person who has been licensed to operate internet poker by a recognized body of another jurisdiction with licensing requirements that are similar to the licensing requirements of this state and who has successfully operated internet poker pursuant to such a license for at least two years before the date on which the application for the license is submitted.”

This bill would apply to online poker only and strictly forbids sportsbetting. It will also allow Nevada to “enter into compacts” with outside jurisdictions that also allow online gaming, though the business would only be regarding online poker.

Whether or not this bill will make it as far as the New Jersey bill is yet to be seen, as we all know, that bill was passed, only to be vetoed by Governor Chris Christie on its way into ratification because of the bill’s constitutionality. A veto of the Nevada bill is not being foreseen.

Zynga Poker Hacker Trial

In Exeter Crown Court last week, Ashley Mitchell, the Zynga Poker hacker, plead guilty to multiple charges under the Computer Misuse Act, as well as the Proceeds from Crime Act. He was caught embezzling large numbers of online poker chips. A witness, however, has recently come forth claiming to have “pertinent information” to the case as a former Zynga Poker employee.

Allegedly, Mitchell hacked the Zynga Poker server masked as an administrator. This allowed him to access and steal more than 400 billion chips that may have possibly been worth as much as $12 million in US dollars in value had they been sold. This amount, however, is the disputed evidence by the new witness. The court has postponed further ruling until March 14th, so that the defense can get a statement from the witness.

Regardless of what the chips were in fact worth, Mitchell did in fact hack the servers of Zynga Poker, a crime punishable by law. In fact, he was forewarned by the judge at the onset of the case that he would by a facing “lengthy sentence” for his crimes, especially since this is not the first time Mitchell has been caught in cyber stealing.

He was found guilty in 2008 of hacking the computer systems of a previous employer, Torbay Council, in order to pay himself a £2000 cash payment. He was given a suspended sentence for this crime, but he is most likely looking at jail time after stealing 400+billion poker chips from the online poker app via Facebook, Zynga Poker.

Bluff Online Poker Challenge Starts Next Month

The Bluff Online Poker Challenge is back brought to you by co-sponsors Lock Poker, Pokernewsboy, and Bluff Magazine. Its purpose is to showcase the very best of the crop where anyone in the world can step up to the challenge. It all starts April 1st.

If appearing on the cover of the July 2011 Bluff Magazine or perhaps being the feature of a six-month marketing spread or even a two-year sponsorship deal with LockPRO ELITE or a seat at the 2011 WSOP Main Event appeals to you, then you should definitely register for the BPC because they can make it all happen.

Bluff Magazine president Eric Morris says, “We are so excited to be doing this type of challenge with Lock again. We really are in a new generation of poker where online Pros are the new rockstars.” He continues, “We want to be a part of making the next amazing player really matter. This is a life changing moment for any serious poker player out there and we are excited to be a part of it.”

Each player will start the competition off with a bankroll of their choice. They will each have the full month of April to enhance that bankroll by participating in multi-table tourneys, ring games, and sit n gos on LockPoker.com. Whoever comes out of the month with the biggest profit margin will be the winner—it’s that simple. Bankroll reloads are allowed throughout the month. There is a minimum play amount required though to keep you playing. You must play at least 2,000 raked hands or at least 250 multi-table tournaments or sit n gos. Play will run through April 30th at Midnight.

Isildur1 Has A New Adversary: urnotindangr

Team PokerStars Pro Viktor Blom, otherwise known as the infamous “Isildur1” and his latest adversary Scott “urnotindangr” Palmer have been at it at the high stakes tables recently. Palmer has been trying his hand at Blom, but alas, Blom has been the better of the two. Last weekend the duo played 745 hands at the $50/$100 PLO with mandatory pre-flop betting with three re-raises, making the game more like $300/$900. The battle ended in Blom’s favor. In fact, after it was all said and done, Blom was $620,000 richer, making Blom’s profits more than $800,000 since he joined Stars back in January.

However, the story doesn’t end there. Blom and Palmer met again Tuesday, playing into the wee hours of the morning. The session went on for 17 hours and lasted more than 7,000 hands carried out across six tables at once. At half point, Blom was down to about $25,000 at one table and there seemed to be little hope for him until he double up and went back up to two tables. Palmer had meanwhile become bored with Blom and was multi-tabling seven other cash games on top of the six he had going with Blom. But Blom came back after another eight hours and finished with well over $400,000.

Now Bloom is up more than $1 million since signing on with PokerStars and revealing his identity at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. Palmer though is still up as well, to the tune of about $800,000 between PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker activity. But if he keeps messing with Blom, within weeks, he could actually be in trouble.

Another Cheating Scandal Involving Sorel Mizzi

It’s not the first time Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi has been accused of cheating at poker. Last August, the online poker forums have been buzzing about an IM chat between a supposed co-conspirator, Steve “thorladen” Weinstein, and Mizzi.

The alleged convo between the two discussed ways in which to violate the Terms and Conditions of online poker sites by using a common tool that allows access to a PC from another PC like the popular programs GoToMyPC.com or PCNow.com. These programs allow users to access computers from different locations via the IP address of the other computer.

Mizzi noted that use of these programs “revolutionizes teaching/ghosting in poker” and he also notes that they can be “used for multiaccounting.”

Fast forward about six months and a story has surfaced on 2+2 regarding a live game of Chinese Poker between Mizzi and John Racener at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. The story goes that Racener caught Mizzi dealing off the bottom of the deck. Mizzi replied to the thread in an attempt to clear his name, denying the allegations and stating that he is “by no means a magician.” He even said after the WSOP this year, he will “seriously consider finding another job.”

According to Racener, Mizzi did beg Racener not to leak the story since they were the only two in the room when the incident occurred. The 48-page thread, “Sorel allegedly bottom dealing vs John Racener” remains active on 2+2.

It remains to be seen come July whether or not Mizzi will actually retire after the WSOP or if his true character will inevitably surface again. Either way he will eventually be outed for one shenanigan or another. Perhaps he will someday be banned from poker all together.

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