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Third Ukranian Wins Bracelet at 2011 WSOP

Event #38 in the 2011 World Series of Poker was played out recently and the bracelet went to Arkadiy Tsinis, who is better known in the chess and backgammon circuit than the poker community. He has been a world renowned chess champion for more than a decade now, but has only been playing poker since 2004.

Tsinis switched from chess to poker for the pay increase. Fortunately, Tsinis has been able to make a much better living playing poker. Thus far, he’s won almost $800K in live poker tournaments and has cashed 11 times at the WSOP including the $540K paycheck he landed and his first gold bracelet in the $1,500 No Limit Hold ‘em event.

Tsinis is originally from the Ukraine and is now the third Ukranian to score a WSOP bracelet this year. The other two being Oleksii Kovalchuk and Eugene Katchalov. Tsinis now lives in New York and has followed his good friend Ylon Schwartz from chess to poker. Schwartz has earned more than $4.3 million in his live poker career. He says, “There’s not a great living in chess unless you’re in like the top 20 in the world.”

Schwartz continues, “You’re trained to sit and you’re trained to study and you’re trained to memorize things which are all applicable to poker. It’s cute to be a chess player and be broke when you’re in your 20s but when you hit 30 you’ve got to switch.”

US Politicians Still Trying to Regulate Online Gambling

Despite the controversy that the online poker market has seen over the past two+ months, US politicians are still hammering away at legalizing Internet poker. Washington’s Representative Jim McDermott just presented a new bill that puts forward ideas about taxing online gambling.

The proposed Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act delineates ways online gambling operators would pay taxes, and while it doesn’t actually legalize online gambling for real money at online casinos, it is a step in the right direction and offers a platform to begin with by outlining the standards that would ultimately regulate the online gambling market in the US. It’s a new approach at an old game.

In addition, McDermott’s bill puts forth the notion that Internet gambling operators would be required to supply a list of all the names and addresses of their players to the federal government, as well as reporting all gross wagers, wins, and losses to the US Treasury Department every day. Players’ deposits, withdrawals, and taxes would also be have to be accounted for.
Another bill drafted by John Campbell and Barney Frank entitled the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act will accompany McDermott’s bill. Collectively, the two bills will be presented in front of Congress as an effective solution to the regulation of online gambling dilemma in the US. The tax benefits alone are just too much to pass up. With every day that goes by, more and more much needed tax opportunities pass the US government by.

Two Team 888 Poker Members Win WSOP Bracelets

Out of 19 events completed so far at the 2011 WSOP, two bracelets have been secured by Team 888 Poker. The first victory for Team 888 Poker came in the 14th event, the $3,000 Limit Hold ‘em when Tyler Bonkowski took the bracelet. Later in the series, Darren Woods took event #19, the $2,500 Limit Hold ‘em 6-Handed.

Woods won his bracelet off a field of 353 poker players, and it took him three days to earn it. In addition to the bracelet, he took more than $213,000 in prize money. The final heads-up was between Woods and female player, Kim Nguyen. He quickly dominated the table and eventually after only an hour and a half, Woods was deemed winner. His hole cards, 4H and 2H ended up being a better hand over Nguyen’s KS and 2C. The turn, KH, 4D, 6S, JS, saw Nguyen favored to win, but the river landed Woods a 4C giving Woods trip 4s for the win.

The future looks bright for Team 888 Poker, and many of the members of this robust team plan on winning a couple more bracelets this year at the World Series of Poker. Shane Warne, Team 888 Poker Team Captain, will compete in the Main Event which begins on July 9th, and he’s a good possible for a final table member for Novemeber.

Grospellier Wins Triple Crown

Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier is one poker pro who has made it a priority to participate in the 2011 World Series of Poker. He is also the fourth poker pro to win the live “Triple Crown”— European Poker Tour, World Poker Tour, and World Series of Poker titles after winning 2011 WSOP Event #21, the $10,000 Seven Card Stud Championship early Wednesday morning at the Rio All Suite in Las Vegas.

This win landed him a $331,639 payout for his first place victor. Grospellier follows British pro Jake Cody, also a Triple Crown winner, who won Event #2, the $25,000 Heads-Up No Limit Hold ‘em Championship. Other Triple Crown winners include Gavin Griffin and Roland de Wolfe.

Not long after his win, Grospellier tweeted: “Soooo sick, finally did it after five years of the WSOP!! Thanks so much for the support and best wishes!”

ElkY’s other Triple Crown titles include a January 2008 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event title and a $2 million win. Later in October of that same year, he took down the WPT Festa Al Lago title and $1.4 million. Now his June 2011 WSOP win makes it official.

Blom Wins Another SuperStar Showdown

Despite the fact that Internet poker sensation and until earlier this year an international man of mystery, Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, isn’t old enough to participate in the World Series of Poker, He’s still managed to find some action. Still sponsored by PokerStars, Blom had the chance to go head to head with Full Tilt Pro Rui Cao in the latest edition of the SuperStar Showdown.

PokerStar’s SuperStar Showdown is Blom’s opportunity to play heads up poker against some of the best poker players in the world, and this time it was Cao. According to the Showdown rules, the two participants each play four No Limit Hold ‘em tables at $50/$100 stakes simultaneously. Both begin with a $150,000 chip stack. The player who runs out of chips first, or is in the negative after 2,500 hands is declared loser.

This installment saw Blom going full force, winning a $20,000 pot and then a $40,000 pot from Cao in just the first 200 hands of poker. After the 1,000th hand, Cao was nearly bankrupt, but he managed a comeback over the following 250 hands and was able to build his bankroll back up. Blom and Cao then agreed to change it up and switch the game to Pot Limit Omaha, which would prove to be a bad decision on Cao’s part.

The Frenchman ultimately took a beating by Blom, who had him whipped in about a half hour’s time. Cao was down to one table when Blom landed trip nines on the river and took the few chips Cao had left. This marked Blom’s seventh win in the Showdown series. He’s also taken down Tony G, Daniel Negreanu, Scott Palmer, and Eugene Katchalov. He’s also loss to Negreanu, Palmer, and Isaac Haxton. Blom is doing fairly well for the year though with only a $350K deficit.

This was the first installment of SuperStar Showdown since before Black Friday when the online poker community was left devastated by the major blow to the biggest three online poker sites in the business.

Phil Ivey Suing Full Tilt Poker for $150 Million

Phil Ivey was one of the nine final table participants in the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event, though he didn’t win that year, he took in two bracelets. Last year, he won his 8^th bracelet making him the fifth highest bracelet winner for WSOP bracelets and giving him a $5.3 million total WSOP lifetime earnings making him the 13^th all-time WSOP winner, but this year, he won’t be attending the WSOP. Ivey, along with a select few of other poker pros has decided to boycott the series this year.

“I am not playing in the World Series of Poker as I do not believe it is fair that I compete when others cannot. I am doing everything I can to seek a solution to the problem as quickly as possible,” Ivey commented in a statement.

But that’s not all, Ivey, who was once known as the Tiger Woods of poker, has filed suit against Tiltware LLC, parent company of his sponsor, Full Tilt Poker for $150 million for “irreparably” damaging his reputation.

Ivey claims that since Full Tilt used “fraudulent methods” to skirt around the laws that pertain to banking and online gambling transactions and have not made attempts to return funds owed to former Full Tilt Poker players that was seized along with their rights to play on Black Friday, he blames Full Tilt for breeching their agreement to provide “software and related support for the conduct of legal online poker” to him.

“I am deeply disappointed and embarrassed that Full Tilt players have not been paid money they are owed. I am equally embarrassed that as a result many players cannot compete in tournaments and have suffered economic harm,” said Ivey.

According to the suit filed by Ivey against Tiltware, LLC in Nevada’s Clark County court, Full Tilt owes approximately $150 to their former US players who loyally trusted and played on their site for years. Ivey contends that Full Tilt did not maintain sufficient reserves to account for players’ funds. And because these funds have not been returned to players, Ivey claims he will not be present at the WSOP tournaments this year.

Since February of 2004, Ivey has engaged in a sponsorship deal with Full Tilt Poker through which he has endorsed the brand and been in a non-compete agreement that prevents him from investing in or playing on a competitive brand site.

Full Tilt Poker’s response to Ivey was less than amiable. They stated, “Contrary to his sanctimonious public statements, Phil Ivey’s meritless lawsuit is about helping just one player – himself. In an effort to further enrich himself at the expense of others, Mr. Ivey appears to have timed his lawsuit to thwart pending deals with several parties that would put money back in players’ pockets.”

Full Tilt continued, “In fact, Mr. Ivey has been invited — and has declined — to take actions that could assist the company in these efforts, including paying back a large sum of money he owes the site.”

David Chesnoff, Ivey’s star attorney who has assisted other celebs in the past such as Paris Hildton, offered no comment, and Full Tilt had no additional comments to offer as well.

Daniel Negreanu, PokerStar sponsored pro says of Ivey, “I admire that he’s willing to give up something like the WSOP, that I know is so important to him, for what he thinks is principally right.”

However, not everyone agrees with Ivey. High-stakes poker pro, Andrew Robl wrote in his blog that “Phil Ivey is one of the primary equity holders of Full Tilt and has profited off their business more than almost anyone. If he really cared about the players he would pledge to return every cent of the MILLIONS of dollars he’s made from Full Tilt to the players as like Tom Dwan (who is not a owner) has done.”

Dwan, also a member of Team Full Tilt said that he would take his earnings incurred from Full Tilt Poker and used them to repay players who did not receive refunds of their player accounts.

Resource: abcnews.go.com

Hellmuth Barely Misses his 12th WSOP Bracelet

Phil Hellmuth, 11-time World Series of Poker winner, came in second place over the weekend at the 2011 WSOP No-Limit Deuce to Seven Draw Lowball with $10,000 buy-in, just barely missing his 12th bracelet win. Runner up to John Juanda, fellow long time poker pro, Hellmuth congratulated Juanda after losing. Hellmuth told Juanda, “Well played buddy. Well played.”

This was Juanda’s fifth bracelet, which also paid him $367,170 after he defeated the field of 125 players. Juanda is a US resident, though he first came to the US back in 1990 from Medan North Sumatra in Indonesia to go to college at Oklahoma State University where he got his degree. He also attended Seattle University and received an MBA. He worked as a salesman before he realized playing poker full time was more lucrative.

Within five years of playing in the WSOP, Juanda had earned three gold bracelets and made it to 16 final tables, though he hadn’t won a bracelet since 2003 when he won a Pot Limit Omaha event, until now.

Juanda is one of nine WSOP players to hold five bracelets. Others in this exclusive club include the late Stu Ungar, Chris Ferguson (2000 WSOP champ), Berry Johnston, Jeffrey Lisandro, Ted Forrest, “Bones” Berland, Allen Cunningham, and Scotty Nguyen (1998 WSOP champ). Other significant WSOP bracelet holders include Phil Ivey and Erik Seidel with eight bracelets each and Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan at 10 each. Hellmuth holds the most with 11.

Hellmuth, who once held the record for youngest player to win the WSOP Main Event when he took the title in 1989 at the young age of 24, still took home a decent prize worth $226,907 for second place, his 80th best career cash and pushing his career earnings up to $6.4+ million. He hasn’t won a WSOP bracelet since 2007.

Two US Bracelet Wins at the WSOP

Despite the fact that there have been some very big name US poker players absent from the World Series of Poker, namely Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, and Howard Lederer, there have been some US poker players to even win a couple bracelets. Because of the lack of online poker players satelliting to the WSOP and the lack of players who could afford to go to the WSOP because their money was seized by the government back in April, many speculated that the WSOP just wasn’t going to be the same, but that has all changed with two unknowns who have beat the odds and won bracelets in spite of everything.

One poker player from Las Vegas, Sean Getzwiller, took the gold bracelet for the WSOP $1,000 buy-in NLH Championship from a tough to beat British online poker player. Getzwiller earned a great deal of accolades and applause from fellow US supporters on the sidelines and a few Irish players as well.

Getzwiller said, “I feel amazing. I mean, I won a bracelet in a 4,000-player event. How much better can I feel? I ran really well. I won a great tournament. If you’re going to win a 4,000-player event you’ve got to feel really good and run really well. I’m just happy that I’m here!”

He took home a nice $611,185 prize purse that will remain in the US economy. Most likely some of it will go back into WSOP buy-ins.

Another US poker player who has won at the WSOP this year is Harrison Wilder, a 29-year-old online poker pro, who was a direct victim of Black Friday. Like other displaced US poker pros, Wilder took his game to the land-based casinos of Vegas to make his living after being booted out of his online poker account.

Wilder won the $1,500 buy-in LH event and is grateful for the support and encouragement of his parents.

Both winners are based in Vegas, which may be the reason they were able to make the tournament. Other US players though remain at home while the 2011 WSOP goes on without them.

Seized Online Poker Funds Distributed to Police Department in Maryland

Last week it was reported that the Anne Arundel County Police Department in Maryland, USA received more than $470K worth of seized funds that were the result of a federal investigation on Internet gambling. Now poker players around the world are questioning this news.

On June 2nd it was reported that a fraction of the money confiscated by the US Department of Homeland Security’s International Customs Enforcement (ICE) division was given to Anne Arundel County. ICE seized more than $30 million in payment transactions between December of 2009 and January of 2011 when they set up a faux processing company. The story generated opposition from people across the globe who thought the distribution of the money by the government was wrong. In the eyes of online poker players and gamblers, this seizure and distribution was mere theft.

Bill Sutton, restaurant manager in Edgewater, lost $1,000 when the poker site he played at, Full Tilt Poker, was shut down by the feds. He said, “What upset me so much was the seizure of those funds and it not being facilitated to get the funds back to the players.”

Full Tilt Poker’s seizure, along with Sutton’s cash, was separate from the funds that were distributed to Anne Arundel County, but he is still angered by law enforcement officials who appear to have no intention of refunding players money.
Sutton said, “I understand it was a big score for them, and it was a lot of work for them to do it. The thing that upset me the most was that they are taking funds from players when it has not been deemed illegal.”

Furthermore, Baltimore’s US Attorney’s Office says it has no intentions of returning the money to the players.

Spokeswoman for Maryland’s US Attorney’s Office Vickie E. LeDuc says, “Illegal gambling proceeds are forfeited to the government. Anyone who believes that an Internet gambling business owes them money can try to collect from the Internet gambling business. The government is not going to give the money to gamblers.”

According to legal experts, the distribution of the seized money in not unprecedented, but it is unusual for a local department to hold a press conference with a photo op.

Frequent legal consultant for gambling issues and business law professor at SUNY College at Buffalo, Joe Kelly, says, “I think this unusual. I’m not saying it hasn’t been done, but this is the first time I’ve seen it done with this type of publicity.”

A federal grand jury in Baltimore back in April indicted three defendants and two business for online gambling, and in May, ICE seized 10 domain names and 11 bank accounts relating to online gambling charges in what appears to be a national attack on Internet gambling institutions that started with Black Friday when the three biggest online gambling operations, PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker, were shut down by the US Department of Justice. Charges of illegal gambling, bank fraud, and money laundering were also involved. Most affected US poker players are now without their money and have reportedly lost their only source of income.

Sutton, who once had funds on as many as 15 different poker sites, said, “I know a lot of people that do play for a living. A lot of them are my mentors, and they’ve lost their livelihood.” After the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), he shaved down his online assets.

The UIGEA has been the main vehicle for the recent shutdowns of online gambling operators, though there is still much debate among gamblers and law enforcement agencies regarding what types of gambling is legal and what types are illegal.
Federal law makes it illegal to process online gambling payments via US financial institutions, explicitly banning online sports betting. However, many online gambling supporters believe that poker is a game of skill rather than luck and should not be categorized with games of chance and sports bets.

“With poker, you’re not playing against the house, you’re playing against other people,” said Sutton. “Yes, there is some luck involved, but it’s an odds thing. If you play when the odds are in your favorite during a particular hand, you’re going to win more than you lose.”

Sutton claims his first $50 deposit at an online poker website was made five or six years ago and ever since, he had done well enough that he hasn’t deposited any personal funds since.

He said, “I’ve been able to purchase some nice things. There have been thousands of dollars that I’ve been able to pull out as a fun hobby.”

Online poker is treated differently in each state. Some states have sided with the player, and rarely are the players themselves targeted by law enforcement. In fact, Washington state is the only state that deems online poker explicitly illegal. Maryland also has unfavorable laws against it as well.

“When you look at everything, it doesn’t look good for poker in Maryland. I’d much rather defend poker players in New York, South Carolina or a number of other states than Maryland,” commented attorney Kelly.

Study Reveals Gambling Problem on the Rise in Adolescents

A recent study by Dr. Jeffery Derevensky, director of the International Centre for Youth Gambling Problems and High-Risk Behaviors located at McGill University in Montreal shows that problem gambling is most closely associated with younger men.

The study shows that 8% of participating adolescents between 14 and 17 years of age were at risk for developing gambling disorders, and almost 5% were already considered to be gambling addicts.

Additional research shows that one of every 100 Canadians and one of every 100 Americans are compulsive gamblers and are at high risk to suffer from substance abuse. In the UK, online gambling activity (poker, sports betting, and casino) has risen 42% over the last year with little age group or gender distinction.

Dr. Derevensky also found that about 6% of adolescent males took part in one form or another of online gambling during 2010. Furthermore he predicts that this number will increase significantly, especially as smart phone technology becomes more and more common among young people.

Negative outcomes associated with adolescent gambling disorders include family quarrels, behavioral difficulties, and substance abuse problems, as well as financial troubles—many of the same problems adults face who suffer from gambling addicition.

Derevensky warns parents to be aware of online activities among children and encourages them to discuss online gambling related issues with teens and even check credit card statements to make sure teens aren’t gambling online.

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