Poker News June 2nd, 2008

Posted on June 2nd, 2008 by admin

German Player Wins European Championship Tournament at Titan Poker

Player “Heins77″ from Germany was the winner on Wednesday of the sixth tournament staged as part of Titan Poker’s ten-day European Championship of Online Poker (ECOOP) tournament series.

The ECOOP series is currently attracting unprecedented player interest at Titan Poker, the largest online poker room on the iPoker Network. A total of $3,600,000 is guaranteed in prizes at the ten tournaments, but the large number of online poker players participating in the tournaments has driven up the prize pools even higher.

Player “Heins77″ took home a first prize of $45,570 as he beat off 1,084 other players in the Texas Hold’em No Limit, 6-Player table tournament with a buy-in of $200+$15. A total of $217,000 was distributed to the winning players, more than the event’s guaranteed prize pool of $200,000.

The previous night, the fifth ECOOP II tournament saw 505 players compete at a Texas Hold’em No Limit Freezeout tournament with a stiff $750 + $50 Buy-in. The prize pool, at $378,750, again surpassed the promised amount.

The ECOOP II tournament series continues at Titan Poker until June 1st, when it culminates with a tournament finale with $1,500,000 in guaranteed prizes.

Titan Poker players are able to buy-in directly to each of the ECOOP II events or win their seats at online daily qualifying tournaments, which start at just $2 + $0.20.

This is the second European Championship of Online Poker staged by Titan Poker. The first ECOOP series was staged in December 2007 and exceeded expectations by awarding more than $2,500,000 in prizes.

Bettors go all-in on 2008 World Series of Poker

Poker betting is one thing but wagering on poker betting is quite another. And yet that’s the challenge gamblers will face when they match cash to conviction on the 39th World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, beginning May 30.

Although some books have prices for which poker players will win each of the 53 preliminary card games, it is Event #54, the $10,000 buy-in World Championship of No-Limit Texas Hold ‘em, known as the Main Event, that not only attracts the most poker players but the most action from bettors, as well.

That competition gets underway July 3 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel with the Final Table determined on July 14. The nine players who advance to the Final Table will return to the Rio on November 9 where the outcome will be decided on the evening of November 10.

Poker exploded as a TV and gambling essential a half-decade ago when new technology allowed viewers watching at home to see each player’s hole cards. Bookmakers, who tried to keep pace with the phenomena, have been swamped of late as the number of entries to the Main Event swelled to a record 8,773 in 2006. Try making a future book involving that many names!

So, given the huge fields and the fact that an established professional poker player has not won the Main Event since 2001, books have taken to offering prices on players merely making it to the Final Table. (Odds on winning the top prize will follow after that).

The lowest odds on any individual reaching the Final Table is 100/1, a price afforded to 1987 and 1988 Main Event champion Johnny Chan, 1989 winner Phil Hellmuth and 2001 champ Carlos Mortensen, as well as such highly regarded poker players a Gus Hansen, Daniel Negreanu and Allen Cunningham.

Saab wins RP leg of Asian Poker Tour

Australian national David Saab emerged as the top winner of the 2008 Asian Poker Tour as he bested more than 300 players in the finals of the six-day event Sunday at the Dusit Thani Manila Hotel in Makati City.

The 35-year-old became the last man standing at the “no limit Texas hold’em” after beating South Korea’s Chris Roh in six hours at the gambling table.

Saab already had 2.2 million worth of chips against Roh’s 800,000 before the winning the tour’s Philippine leg.

Saab, who started Sunday’s game as the chip leader, pocketed the $280,000 top prize. He was a former chief executive officer of a public company before turning pro full time.

Second placer Roh, who owns an online gaming room, took home $150,000.

Roh and Saab eliminated Japanese player Satoru Ishii to arrange their one-on-one match.

The 29-year-old Japanese, who works as a magazine writer, pocketed $100,000.

Filipinos reach the finals

Two Filipinos, meanwhile, made it into the finals before eventually bowing out of contention.

Terry Gonzaga and Don Carmona were eliminated from the competition after running out of chips to play.

Gonzaga, who works as a business manager of a semi-conductor outsource assembly plant, was the third to be eliminated among the top nine players who made it into the finals.

“Talagang matindi ang pressure,” said Gonzaga. He said that this was his first major tournament.

Carmona, who was cheered on by Filipino spectators, was the next to be eliminated.

“Magaling… magaling sila,” said Carmona, who is engaged in the customs brokerage business.

Other players who made it into the finals were Michele Ferrari (Italy), Yun Man (South Korea), Kwang Soo Lee (South Korea) and Gerasimos Deres (Sweden).

More than 300 players battled it out at the APT leg in Manila for a share of the guaranteed $1-million prize pot.

Meanwhile, APT CEO Chris Parker announced announced a US$1,500,000 guaranteed prize pool for its next event in Macau.

The Asian Poker Tour Macau will be held at the StarWorld Hotel and Casino from the 27th to 31st of August 2008 with the buy-in at $5,000+$300.

Another scandal rocks online poker

Ultimatebet Scandle The Absolute Poker scandal mostly flew under the mainstream media’s radar last year, but as the old saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Maybe George W. Bush can’t get that cliche correct, but if he played online poker he would definitely understand it’s meaning right around now.

The news is now official as UltimateBet has admitted that it has suffered its own cheating scandal.

And this time, the mainstream press is noticing. Canada’s National Post newspaper is already on top of the story.

A media organization with an already conservative bent, on Saturday the Post published a stark story about the state of security inside the poker world, with an article titled Native policing of gambling in doubt after online cheating.

And while I’m generally loathe to agree with conservative views of online gambling, I’m having a hard time disagreeing with the premise of the article, which questions whether the Kahnawake reserve has the balls to properly regulate the gaming companies under its watch.

Right now, it looks like it doesn’t.

World Series of Poker shows Vegas at its best

Las Vegas has been beset by weird, bad news this year. There’s the mortgage foreclosure crisis, plus a hepatitis outbreak. And you could drown away such troubles with a night on the town, but then you might deal with long lines at expensive, celebrity-owned nightclubs that are, alas, under investigation by the feds.

So it was a relief this weekend to see the focus of Vegas rooting into what it does best: poker. Specifically, taking people’s money away from them for their own good, or at least Las Vegas’ good.

The World Series of Poker was a magnet for many hundreds of action junkies from around the world. They chipped in up to $10,000 each to play the tables. A swarm of international media buzzed around them.

And some poker players and spectators did their part to help alleviate our housing crisis. Quite a few told me they just moved to Las Vegas within the past month, either to get closer to tournaments here, or to prey as poker pros on tourists in hotels.

The most prominent gaming duo was actress Jennifer Tilly and her poker champ boyfriend Phil Laak. They just moved here a few weeks ago. And they were hard to miss at the Rio, since he’s known as “The Unabomber” for hiding his poker face behind dark glasses and a hoodie. And she’s appropriately called “The Unabombshell.”

Tilly thinks “Unabombshell” is a cute alias, but she prefers another nickname she hears: J-Tilla the Killa.

“I think that strikes fear in the hearts of men,” she says. “‘Unabombshell’ sort of implies ‘decorative:’ someone you can have at the table so you can stare at her boobs.”

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