Card Squad

Borgata Winter Poker Open Final

Joanne Lutynec — 2007-01-31T09:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Tournaments, World Poker Tour

I was absolutely thrilled to see that the winner of the 2007 Borgata Winter Poker Open was none other than John Hennigan. He's always been one of my favorites (even back in his pool playing days) and it's been far too long since he has placed first in a tournament. The final table had some pretty crazy hands, especially the very last one that resulted in Hennigan taking down the title. If you have time, go read the play-by-play over at Bluff.

The final six players and their prize money were:

1. John Hennigan $1,606,223
2. Chuck Kelley $849,082
3. John Gale $443,096
4. Joe Simmons $387,709
5. Michael Sukonik $332,322
6. John James $276,935

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Winter Poker Open Final Table

Joanne Lutynec — 2007-01-29T22:15:00+00:00

Filed under: Tournaments, Casinos & Card Rooms, World Poker Tour, No Limit Texas Hold'em, Atlantic City

Bluff has announced the final six players who will be moving on to the televised World Poker Tour final table tomorrow at the Borgata Winter Poker Open. Players and their chip counts are as follows:

Joe Simmons 5,500,000
John Gale 4,830,000
John Hennigan 3,255,000
Chuck Kelley 1,610,000
Michael Sukonik 1,305,000
John James 535,000

The four players who rounded off the top ten but didn't make the final table were:

7. Joseph Cappello $221,548
8. John Racener $166,161
9. David Redlin $110,774
10. Davidson Matthew $72,003

For a detailed recap of today's play, as well as a look at the final six players, check out Bluff Magazine's coverage.

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Borgata Winter Poker Open

Joanne Lutynec — 2007-01-29T11:02:00+00:00

Filed under: Tournaments, World Poker Tour, No Limit Texas Hold'em

Today is the 4th day of the Winter Poker Open Main Event at the Borgata in Atlantic City, and of the 27 players remaining only 6 will move on to the WPT televised final table tomorrow. Among those remaining are John Phan, John Gale, and Chip Jett. Also, one of my my all-time favorites, John Hennigan, is still in the running. Hennigan also cashed in event #9 of this series, $5000 buy-in No Limit Hold'em, placing 21/242.

As usual, the Bluff Magazine team is providing their outstanding live coverage, so you can check in with them for updates throughout the day.

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2007 World Poker Open final results

Joanne Lutynec — 2007-01-26T16:19:00+00:00

Filed under: Tournaments, World Poker Tour

The 2007 World Poker Open Championship Event wrapped yesterday, and Bryan Sumner took down the title and over $900,000 in cash. This is the second year in a row that this event has failed to reach $1 million for first place. Quite surprisingly, the total number of entrants only reached 294 as opposed to last year which had 327. It will be interesting to see if other upcoming main events can maintain the numbers that we have seen over the past few years.

The final 9 finishers in this tournament and their prize money were as follows:

1 Bryan Sumner (Bluff reports $904,574, CardPlayer reports $913,986)
2 Daniel Negreanu (Bluff reports $497,517, CardPlayer reports $502,691)
3 Young Cho $257,058
4 Gary Kainer $199,934
5 Thang "Kido" Pham $171,372
6 J.C. Tran $142,810
7 Robert Thompson $114,248
8 Matt Russell $85,686
9 James Bullard $57,124

For a complete recap of the tournament, visit the guys over at Bluff Magazine who covered the event live.

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LA Poker Classic begins tomorrow

Joanne Lutynec — 2007-01-24T11:30:00+00:00

Filed under: Tournaments, Casinos & Card Rooms, World Poker Tour

It's getting almost hard to keep track of them all, as January seems to have more poker tournaments than any other month. The 2007 LA Poker Classic begins tomorrow, January 25th at the Commerce Casino in California. This is a huge series, spanning almost a full month before culminating with the WPT $10,000 buy-in Championship Event. The final table last year was as follows:

1. Alan Goehring $2,391,550
2. Daniel Quach $1,162,560
3. Michael Woo $571,315
4. Steve Simmons $338,803
5. J.C. Tran $265,728
6. Per Ummer $199,296
7. Anahit Galajian $166,080
8. Kevan Casey $132,864
9. Michael McClain $99,648

This year's events are scheduled as follows:

Jan. 25 $300 NLHE
Jan. 26 $300 Limit Hold'em
Jan. 27 $300 O8
Jan. 28 $300 NLHE w/ rebuys
Jan. 29 $300 Seven Card Stud
Jan. 30 $500 NLHE
Jan. 31 $500 NLHE Shootout
Feb. 01 $500 NLHE
Feb. 02 $1000 Limit Hold'em
Feb. 03 $1000 Ladies NLHE
Feb. 04 $300 Seven Card Stud
Feb. 05 $1000 NLHE
Feb. 06 $500 O8
Feb. 07 $500 Turbo NLHE 6-handed
Feb. 08 $1500 NLHE
Feb. 09 $1000 Limit Hold'em
Feb. 10 $1000 NLHE Shootout w/rebuys
Feb. 11 $300 NLHE
Feb. 12 $2500 NLHE
Feb. 13 $1000 NLHE PPT Event
Feb. 15 $2500 Limit Hold'em
Feb. 16 $2500 NLHE
Feb. 17 $1500 Limit Hold'em
Feb. 18 $500 NLHE Shootout
Feb. 19 $1000 NLHE
Feb. 20 $500 NLHE
Feb. 21 $1500 NLHE
Feb. 21 $1500 NLHE
Feb. 22 $1000 NLHE
Feb. 24 $10,000 NLHE World Poker Tour Championship Event
Mar. 03 Celebrity Invitational Event

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World Poker Open, down to 18

Joanne Lutynec — 2007-01-24T10:13:00+00:00

Filed under: Tournaments, Casinos & Card Rooms, World Poker Tour

The 2007 Gold Strike World Poker Open is down to the final 18 players heading into today's action. According to Bluff Magazine who is covering the event live, Gavin Smith took 19th place and the remaining competitors vying for the title will be:

Jim Bullard - 966,000
Young Cho - 674,000
JC Tran - 561,000
Robert Thompson - 466,000
Daniel Negreanu - 446,000
Brian Gabrielle - 323,000
Gary Kainer - 300,000
Jeremy Tinsley - 295,000
Bryan Sumner - 290,000
Eddy Putrus - 255,000
Amir Vahedi - 236,000
Matt Russell - 201,000
Adeep Harb - 194,000
John Racener - 178,000
Don Mullis - 168,000
Thang (Kido) Pham - 166,000
Justin Marsh - 109,000
Jolyne Thompson - 72,000

Chip counts via BluffMagazine.com. Check them out for live updates throughout the remainder of the tournament.

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2007 Gold Strike World Poker Open

Joanne Lutynec — 2007-01-23T17:01:00+00:00

Filed under: Television, Tournaments, Casinos & Card Rooms, World Poker Tour

The $10,000 buy-in WPT Main Event at the Gold Strike World Poker Open (not to be confused with the Winter Poker Open which is also currently running) is well underway, and according to the live coverage provided by Bluff Magazine, they will be playing down to 18 players today. It's unbelievable how many big names are still in the race - top nine chip leaders are as follows:

Thang (Kido) Pham 580,000
Victor Ramdin 570,000
Hoyt Corkins 450,000
Gavin Smith 320,000
JC Tran 305,000
John Racener 240,000
Matt Russell 140,000
Amir Vahedi 88,000
Mark Seif 88,000

Last year, Scotty Nguyen won the championship event in this tournament, claiming $969,421. The second place finisher was none other than Michael Mizrachi, helping solidify his Player of the Year standings early on in the year.

For more on the live action in this tournament, go check out BluffMagazine.com.

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World Poker Tour 2007 Winter Poker Open

Joanne Lutynec — 2007-01-17T11:06:00+00:00

Filed under: Tournaments, Casinos & Card Rooms, World Poker Tour, Atlantic City

Just in case there currently aren't enough live tournaments for you to keep track of, I'll toss one more in your direction. The 2007 Winter Poker Open begins today, January 17th, at the Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, NJ. There are 13 events total, with a $10,000 buy-in Championship Event that will be broadcast by the World Poker Tour.

If you recall, last year the Main Event at this tournament was won by none other than Michael Mizrachi, with John D'Agostino placing second and Erick Lindgren finishing in third. This was just one short week after Mizrachi placed second at the 2006 Gold Strike World Poker Open, losing out to Scotty Nguyen. That was one helluva week in poker.

Full event schedule for the 2007 Winter Poker Open is as follows:

January 17 - $500 NLHE
January 18 - $750 NLHE
January 19 - $1000 NLHE
January 20 - $1500 NLHE
January 21 - $260 Ladies NLHE
January 21 - $500 Limit Hold'em
January 22 - $2500 NLHE
January 23 - $500 NLHE
January 24 - $5000 NLHE
January 26 through 30 - $10,000 WPT NLHE Championship Event
January 27 - $1000 NLHE
January 28 - $750 NLHE
January 29 - $500 NLHE

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Doyle's Room: Bay 101 Shooting Stars Qualifier

Joanne Lutynec — 2007-01-11T07:58:00+00:00

Filed under: Tournaments, Casinos & Card Rooms, World Poker Tour

For those of you wishing for nothing more than to play in the World Poker Tour (and I know you are out there), Doyle's Room will be hosting a tournament on Sunday, January 21, 2007, awarding $11,500 prize packages for the Main Event of the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars Tournament - to be held in San Jose beginning March 12.

You can either buy-in directly to the qualifier for $105 (with $100 Re-buys up to level four, with $100 add-on at end of level four) or play in the daily $10.50 feeder satellites at 8pm & 10pm ET.

Also, according to Doyle's Room, at the WPT tournament:

This prize-filled WPT tournament has a truly unique feature in which one Bounty with a $5,000 bonus prize is placed at each and every table. Sound familiar? Knock out a celebrity bounty sitting at your table and win $5,000 right there on the spot. Win the whole thing in front of television cameras and win the million dollar first place prize! Doyle Brunson, Todd Brunson, James Woods, Mimi Rogers, and Jennifer Tilly are some of the notable celebrity bounties scheduled to appear this year.

For more info on the Bay 101 tournament, you can visit their website via the 'read' link below.

(image: Bay101.com)

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2007 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure

Joanne Lutynec — 2007-01-04T13:56:00+00:00

Filed under: Professionals, Tournaments, Casinos & Card Rooms, World Poker Tour, No Limit Texas Hold'em, International

The 2007 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure begins this weekend at the gorgeous Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas, and Brad "Otis" Willis of the official PokerStars Blog is there covering the event live. He already has some amazing pictures up of the resort and surrounding area, which is a nice change of pace (yes, I get sick of looking at pictures of poker players all the time) so go check them out when you get a chance.

The event itself is an $8000 buy-in No Limit Hold'em World Poker Tour championship. Last year's winner, Steve Paul-Ambrose, took down the title when he beat Brook Lyter in heads up play, collecting $1,363,100 and a $25,000 entry into the $25,000 WPT Championship. Lyter won $681,500 for finishing in second place.

PokerStars has also brought along the 27 finalists of the The Moneymaker Millionaire challenge to the Bahamas, so we will be watching for results of that as well. Should be a very exciting weekend of poker.

(image: PokerStars.com)

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Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Hachem Wins Five Diamond

Wil Wheaton — 2006-12-21T21:59:00+00:00

Filed under: Professionals, Tournaments, World Poker Tour, No Limit Texas Hold'em

The WWdN started around the same time on Tuesday as the final table of the Five Diamond Classic, so I kept PokerWire open in Firefox and sweated Joe Hachem the entire time I was playing.

I don't know Joe as well as I know Greg, but in the little time we've spent together, I've grown incredibly fond of him. He is truly a great guy, a wonderful ambassador for the game, and a very, very good poker player. He would have certainly picked up another bracelet in the 2006 WSOP if he hadn't gotten insanely unlucky, and I know from personal experience how important it can be to Prove To Everyone that one victory wasn't a fluke. Though I've learned not to get emotionally invested in a player (poker tourneys are cruel that way) I couldn't help it. I wanted Joe to win even more than I wanted to win the damn tourney I was playing in myself.

It was fantastic to watch Joe take down pots here and there, while Daniel Negreanu slowly bled his chip lead away. Now, the thing is, I personally like Daniel, but Joe and I are Teammates (he's like Joe Dimaggio and I'm Jimmy the retarded kid who gets to dump a pail of water on this one patch of grass every game, but we get to wear the same uniform, dammit!) so I was cheering for Joe the whole way. My cheering was made even more fun because my fellow writer (and good poker player, I will grudgingly admit) CarolP was cheering for her FCP BFF Daniel.

Ah, the trash talking was something to behold, especially when Joe eliminated Daniel to get heads up, but it was nothing compared to how awesome it was to see the update come across Pokerwire that Joe had won.

He picks up over two million dollars with the victory, but he should also pick up the respect of his peers (well, the last few holdouts, anyway) and that's something that you can't put a price tag on.

Well, maybe you can. How about $2.1 million?

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One Hell of a Final Table at the Five Diamond

Wil Wheaton — 2006-12-19T14:52:00+00:00

Filed under: World Poker Tour, No Limit Texas Hold'em, Las Vegas

The Bellagio is one of the most beautiful casinos in Las Vegas, and its Fontana Room is my favorite place in the world to play poker. They run fantastic tournaments there, and back in the days before the Intertubes were clogged with poker sites, it was one of the very few places where tournament players could find big buy-ins that rivaled the WSOP.

The crown jewel in the Bellagio's tournament series, called the Five Diamond Classic, is underway right now, and tonight's final table to be aired on the World Poker Tour next season is one of the best I've seen in a long, long time.

Check it out:

1 Daniel Negreanu 4,670,000
2 Mads Anderson 4,315,000
3 David Redlin 2,400,000
4 Joe Hachem 2,345,000
5 Ed Jordan 2,320,000
6 Jim Hanna 1,280,000

Holy crap. The 2004 player of the year, the 2005 WSOP champ, and the 2006 EPT Scandinavian Open champ. Even with the WPT's retarded final table blind structure, this will be one hell of a battle when play gets underway at 5pm Pacific this afternoon.

If you'd like to follow the action, Pokerwire has you covered.

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2006 Five Diamond World Poker Classic

Joanne Lutynec — 2006-12-13T06:34:00+00:00

Filed under: Tournaments, Casinos & Card Rooms, World Poker Tour, No Limit Texas Hold'em, Las Vegas

In a rather unbelievable run, Justin Bonomo, better known to the online poker world as the controversial "Zee Justin", has made three final tables at the 2006 Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. (Insert your own joke here, if desired.) Scoring a 4th, 5th, and 8th place finish, he has earned himself over $110,000 in this series alone. Huh.

Actually, the final tables have been littered with familiar names throughout the duration of this tournament, as you will see in the recaps below.

The $15,000 buy-in WPT Main Event: The Doyle Brunson North American Poker Classic Championship, begins tomorrow, Thursday December 14th and runs through the 19th. FlipChipPro has been at the tournament taking his usual outstanding photographs, so go check them out at the LasVegasVegas poker blog. Also, Card Player and Bluff have been covering the events so feel free to peruse them at your leisure. We all know you don't want to do any work today anyways.

Final table recaps for the first 11 events can be found after the jump..
Event #1, $1500 NLHE Total prize pool: $785,700, 540 entrants

1. Kevin Song $253,560
2. Brandon Cantu $136,835
3. Sebastian Skuja $72,220
4. Gavin Griffin $41,855
5. Nick Moeller $30,410
6. Larry Tull $21,285
7. Sang Yi $15,205
8. Thanh Ngoc Tran $12,165
9. James Van Alstyne $10,645

Event #2, $2000 NLHE Total prize pool: $733,320, 378 entrants

1. David 'Devil Fish' Ulliott $266,160
2. John Strzemp $148,640
3. David Farber $74,320
4. Bassam 'Sam' Alsharairi $42,475
5. William Lin $31,850
6. Rayshawn Smalls $24,775
7. Brad Booth $17,695
8. Gerald Rhoades $14,155
9. Mo Fathipour $11,325

Event #3, $2500 NLHE Total prize pool: $538,350, 222 entrants

1. Steve Wong $215,255
2. Gevork Kasabyan $112,825
3. Nam Le $56,415
4. Theo Jorgensen $30,770
5. John Esposito Jr. $23,080
6. Alan Cutler $17,950
7. David Tran $12,820
8. Mark Abousharkh $10,255
9. Dapo Fadeyi $8,205

Event #4, $3000 NLHE Total prize pool: $590,730, 203 entrants

1. Ralph Perry $234,635
2. Roland De Wolfe $124,350
3. Rene Angelil $62,175
4. Gioi Luong $33,905
5. David Plastik $25,435
6. Peter Gould $19,785
7. Massoud Nikjouian $14,130
8. Bill Ferrand $11,305
9. Tony Ma $9,045

Event #5, $5000 NLHE Total prize pool: $848,750, 175 entrants

1. David Daneshgar $330,105
2. Tim West $181,115
3. Paul McCaffrey $90,560
4. Daniel Shak $49,385
5. Tony Cousineau $37,045
6. Fabrice Soulier $28,815
7. Ramesh Hulugalle $20,580
8. Justin Bonomo $16,465
9. Amir Nasseri $13,170

Event #6, 1500 NLHE Total prize pool: $755,145, 519 entrants

1. Jay Glazer $244,395
2. Johnathan Westra $131,335
3. Gioi Luong $69,315
4. Fred Bonyadi $40,095
5. Rob Kelepouris $29,185
6. Timmi Derosa $20,430
7. Ty Witteman $14,595
8. Farhad Sinaei $11,675
9. Jeff Blenkarn $10,215

Event #7, $2000 NLHE Total prize pool: $735,260, 379 entrants

1. J.C. Tran $266,820
2. David Pham $149,050
3. Men Nguyen $74,525
4. Justin Bonomo $42,565
5. Barry Greenstein $31,940
6. Peter Gould $24,840
7. Todd Arnold $17,745
8. Ken James $14,195
9. Alan Sass $11,355

Event #8, $2500 NLHE Total prize pool: $889,975, 367 entrants

1. Danny Wong $319,420
2. David Pham $181,540
3. Jeff Madsen $90,770
4. Rhett Butler $51,890
5. William Gaffney $38,900
6. Chris Bjorin $30,255
7. Hans Lund $21,610
8. Nam Le $17,290
9. Yoon Kim $13,830

Event #9, $3000 NLHE Total prize pool: $907,920, 312 entrants

1. Daniel Quach $325,525
2. Patrick Madden $185,310
3. Jason Lester $92,655
4. Raj Sawant $52,925
5. Erica Schoenberg $39,710
6. Jeff Shulman $30,885
7. Jason Berilgen $22,060
8. Charlie Shoten $17,650
9. Robert Nehorayan $14,120

Event #10, $5000 NLHE Total prize pool: $1,217,350, 251 entrants

1. Erik Cajelais $430,730
2. Joe Tehan $250,290
3. Steve Sung $125,145
4. Shannon Shorr $71,520
5. Justin Bonomo $53,635
6. Zachary Cherry $41,715
7. Erik Seidel $29,795
8. John Barch $23,835
9. Mike Thurman $19,070

Event #11, Seniors $2500 NLHE Total prize pool $368,600, 152 entrants

1. Michael Halford 163,000
2. O'Neil Longson 81,950
3. Stan Schrier 55,550
4. Peau Penultima 48,075
5. Andreas Athanasopoulous 45,600
6. William Davis 42,575
7. Julian Salazar 35,750
8. Myrl Unzelman 31,575
9. Thomas Lock 31,250

(Source: Chip counts / final standings via CardPlayer.com and BluffMagazine.com)

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Soren Turkewitsch wins N.A. Poker Championship

Joanne Lutynec — 2006-10-30T16:41:00+00:00

Filed under: Tournaments, Casinos & Card Rooms, World Poker Tour, Canada

The 2006 North American Poker Championship has wrapped in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, and there is a new millionaire in our midst. Soren Turkewitsch claimed the bracelet, a $25,000 entry into the WPT Championship Event, plus $1,352,224 in cold hard cash for his efforts at the table. Placing in second was Jason Sagle who collected $676,107.

The top six final table finishers and their cash prizes were as follows:

1. Soren Turkewitsch $1,352,224
2. Jason Sagle $676,107
3. John Lam $352,541
4. James "KrazyKanuck" Worth $289,760
5. John Juanda $217,320
6. Marc Karam $169,027

You can read Soren's exit interview on the WPT site via this link - it is pretty amusing, and very obvious that the win hadn't quite sunk in yet. Since this was a World Poker Tour event, the final table action will be broadcast on an upcoming episode. Next up on the tour will be the World Poker Finals held at Foxwoods November 12-16.

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WPT heads to Canada, eh?

Joanne Lutynec — 2006-10-25T16:27:00+00:00

Filed under: Tournaments, World Poker Tour, Canada

The World Poker Tour has headed North to the beautiful Niagara Fallsview Casino and Resort for the 2006 North American Poker Championship. The first event began today, and according to CardPlayer.com Kathy Liebert, Joe Tehan, Michael Gracz, and Joe Sebok have all been eliminated. Good news for Liz Lieu fans though, she has doubled up early and currently sits amongst the top ten with the likes of John Juanda, Eli Elezra, and Carlos Mortensen.

I'm a little surprised at the number of big names that have crossed the border for this event. If you want to see the chip counts as the tournament progesses, check out PokerWire and CardPlayer.com for live updates.

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4th Annual PokerStars Caribbean Adventure

Joanne Lutynec — 2006-10-24T10:14:00+00:00

Filed under: Casinos & Card Rooms, Online Games, World Poker Tour, Satellites

PokerStars is now running satellites around the clock for the 4th Annual PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, a World Poker Tour event. They will be giving out Atlantis prize packages worth $12,000 which include the $7800 plus $200 tournament buy-in, $3000 for accomodation and food at the Atlantis Resort & Casino, and $1000 credited to your PokerStars account for spending and travel expenses.

The actual event will take place at the Atlantis Resort and Casino in the Bahamas between January 4th - 11th, 2007. For information on their daily satellites / qualifiers, you can check our their touranment information page via this link. Also, they have set up a page of frequently asked questions which can be found here. In their terms & conditions they mention that you must be the legal age to play poker (duh), but I don't see any information regarding US players being/not being allowed to win the prize packages. Anyone have any information on this otherwise?

(image: PokerStars.com)

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Festa Al Lago Main Event Results

Joanne Lutynec — 2006-10-23T17:36:00+00:00

Filed under: Tournaments, Casinos & Card Rooms, World Poker Tour, Las Vegas

Ok, I'm a little late on this one, but for the sake of posterity - The 2006 Festa Al Lago World Poker Tour Championship Event wrapped on October 20th, and Andreas Walnum took down the title and over $1 million dollars in cold hard cash. Yeah, that would be a pretty nice payday. 433 players entered this main event, bringing the total prize pool to a whopping $4,200,100. The final table players and their respective earnings were as follows:

1. Andreas Walnum $1,090,025
2. Steve Wong $542,700
3. Joe Pelton $292,220
4. Christopher Loveland $187,745
5. David Baker $125,240
6. Can Kim Hua $83,490
7. Danny Smith $75,145
8. Loi Phan $66,795
9. Christopher Cellery $58,445

Also, for some outstanding pictures of the event, go check out FlipChipPro's work at the LasVegasVegas blog.

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Poker Prohibition Act Hurts More than Just Players

Wil Wheaton — 2006-10-05T16:41:00+00:00

Filed under: World Series of Poker, Casinos & Card Rooms, Online Games, Business, World Poker Tour, Legal Matters

Frist, Kyl, Goodlatte, Leach and other supporters of the poker prohibition act either failed to consider or chose to ignore the fact that passage of the act would affect more than poker players and poker sites.

There is an enormous industry built around poker's popularity right now, including magazines, television programming, and video games. Contrary to the laughable claim by the World Poker Tour that they are solely to thank for the boom, it is undeniable that online poker has driven the market.

People watch WPT or WSOP or Poker Superstars or any one of the other poker shows on television, get fired up, and race to their computers to pull or snap off a huge bluff. Those same people, who are hundreds of miles from a B&M casino spend lots of money on books and magazines to improve their game, which they play exclusively online. Maybe they buy video games for their kids so the kids can also play poker, without risking any real money. Now that those people can't play online, the industry they help support will suffer and most likely die.

Companies will stop buying ads, and will no longer spread money around the magazines and television shows that, for the last few years, has cascaded into employment for film crews, printers, editors, writers, and too many other jobs to list.

Bill Frist and his allies have, with one cynical, blatant, base-pandering move, hurt the livelihood of thousands of people -- perhaps more. Too many poker bloggers to count will lose enormous amounts of income, now that affiliate and advertising opportunities will almost certainly go away. Hell, this could mean the end of CardSquad, and WWdN readers are going to be pissed if I have to put all of my poker writing back there.

Over the last few days, I've clipped the following posts from Bloglines, which inspired this post:

Up for Poker has a magnificent, must-read commentary on the latest form of prohibition, which puts this into an historical context.
BLUFF magazine has a lot to lose if poker's growth and popularity in the United States is slowed or crushered. They've issued a statement, as has the PPA (who really dropped the ball on this one. This is why we joined, guys. This is why we joined.) You can read them together at Poker Gazette.
BG makes a very good point about why it's hard for him to get worked up about this.
Scurvydog wrote a post about how this will affect a lot more than his ability to play in a Wheetie or a Mook, and it is a very good representation of what I've read all over the pokerblog-o-sphere.

Scurvydog's post is what finally pushed me to sit down and write this. By taking away yet another one of our freedoms, the party of smaller government once again steps on the necks of anyone who is not ultra-wealthy or a multi-national corporation. Haven't we had enough?

The bottom line is, everyone who is not in the base Frist was pandering to when he jammed this through on Friday sees it for what it is, but that doesn't change one cold, hard reality: this bill's passage affects far more than just players or site operators. Poker is a huge business in America, and the unintended consequences of this bill's passage won't be truly felt for months. But when they finally are felt, it will hurt a lot of people who don't even play that much (if any) online poker. A lot of good people will suddenly be looking for new ways to support themselves and their families. For a government established by and for "the people," this Congress sure seems to have lost its way.

Image of Mustard Man provided in futile effort to "lighten things up."

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Festa Al Lago Running at Bellagio

Joanne Lutynec — 2006-10-03T17:17:00+00:00

Filed under: Tournaments, Casinos & Card Rooms, World Poker Tour, Las Vegas

It's almost difficult to focus on anything but the online poker ban news this week, but I'm going to take a much needed break from it and talk about what else is happening in the poker world.

The fifth annual Festa Al Lago at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino kicked off yesterday, and runs through the 19th of October. It culminates with a World Poker Tour Championship Main Event held between Oct 15-19. The lowest buy-in for this tournament is $1500 - definitely one of the more prestigious (and expensive) live tournaments there is.

Following is the schedule of events for the tournament:

October 2 - $1500 NLHE
October 3 - $2000 NLHE
October 4 - $2500 NLHE
October 5 - $3000 NLHE
October 6 - $5000 NLHE
October 7 - $1500 NLHE
October 8 - $2000 NLHE
October 9 - $2500 NLHE
October 10 - $3000 NLHE
October 11 - $5000 NLHE
October 12 - $1500 Seniors NLHE
October 15 - 19th - $10,000 NLHE WPT Championship

The winner of the Championship Event also receives a $25,000 + $500 entry into the 2007 WPT Championship, also held at the Bellagio.

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Borgata Poker Open Main Event - Results

Joanne Lutynec — 2006-09-20T17:24:00+00:00

Filed under: Tournaments, Casinos & Card Rooms, World Poker Tour

The World Poker Tour $10,000 Championship Event at The Borgata wrapped yesterday, and Mark Newhouse of Chapel Hill, NC collected the first place prize of $1,519,020. Here is a look at how the final table players finished, as well as the prize money they took home:

1. Mark Newhouse $1,519,020
2. Chris McCormack $802,985
3. David Sklansky $419,040
4. Anthony Argila $366,660
5. Christopher Bell $314,280
6. Blaise Ingolia $261,901

(image: TheBorgata.com)

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