Category: Poker

New Full Tilt Investors Behind ISPT Events

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The Groupe Bernard Tapie has had their names all over the poker news lately.  It began with their potential purchase of the massive online poker site, Full Tilt Poker, and now has shifted to the brand new International Stadiums Poker Tour (ISPT).  This event will kick off at Wembley Stadium in London, England, and could potentially be one of the most impressive poker tournaments in history.  The group has reported that they plan on having the event feature a mind-blowing $30 million guaranteed prize pool, and will pay out $10 million to the player who is able to beat out the field and win the final event.

The real question is how this event will be able to pay out a $30 million guaranteed prize pool.  This can be answered in the fact that the Groupe Bernard Tapie is actually expecting the event to draw in between 20,000 and 30,000 players.  They aren’t planning for these events to get underway too soon though, as the anticipated date for the first event is around September 2012.

One of the most interesting things about this event is how it will be laid out.  It will do both online poker and live poker in the event, and players will actually play with software on electronic pads in the stadium to start with.  After that, when the field is narrowed down to about 3,000 players; the event will change over to a live tournament with all of the players participating at different tables on the actual field itself.  The event then goes down to the final table (which will consist of ten players), with the final table paying out an incredible $17.5 million among the ten players.

The expectation of this event (with the combination of the Groupe Bernard Tapie’s possible purchase of Full Tilt), is that they could combine the Full Tilt Poker software in some way with the ISPT events.  This could be an excellent way for players to satellite their way into the ISPT as well, making the buy-in much more affordable for many players.

The information is listed on the actual ISPT website, as well as an advertisement that gives you a more in-depth look at what will go on at these massive events.

10 Finalists for 2011 Poker Hall of Fame Announced

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Being inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame is one of the most most prestigious awards in poker, and only a select group of players has made it in so far.  Currently there are a large number of big named players who have made it, and we’ll mention a few such as Doyle Brunson, Benny Binion, Stu Ungar, Johnny Chan, TJ Cloutier, Barbara Enright, Phil Hellmuth, Dan Harrington, Erik Seidel, and Mike Sexton.

Players must be voted on in order to have a chance to be inducted into the 2011 Poker Hall of Fame, and the induction process is now through.  The top 10 vote-getters are now voted on by a group of 17 men and women from the poker media, and also will be voted on by the 18 current living members of the Hall of Fame also.

Recently, the rules have changed a bit, and as of last year the eligibility rules have been modified.  There are quite a few things that go into determining what makes a player eligible for the Poker Hall of Fame.  Some of the requirements that factor into the players eligibility are that a player must have played poker against top competition in the game, must be at least 40 years old at the time of their nomination into the Hall of Fame, must be a high stakes player or have played high stakes at some point, must have gained respect from other players and played well, and also must have positive and consistent results in terms of being a profitable poker player.

Check out the best online poker sites for players from around the world.

There are ten players who are eligible for being inducted into the 2011 Hall of Fame, and only two of these ten players will make it into the Hall.  The players are listed in alphabetical order starting with Annie Duke, Barry Greenstein, Jennifer Harman-Traniello, Linda Johnson, John Juanda, Marcel Luske, Jack McClelland, Tom McEvoy, Scotty Nguyen, and Huck Seed.  While all of these names are excellent players, one interesting player is Luske, who is actually a Stud Poker player predominantly, and is also the first player from Europe to make the voting cut.

We’ll be sure to keep you updated on the final vote, and the decision for which two players will make it into the Poker Hall of Fame.

European Poker Tour London Day 2 in the Books

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Benny Spindler may not be the most well known name in poker, but he’s making some big time moves that will draw quite a bit of attention at the European Poker Tour’s London Event.  After Day 1, Spindler was the second largest chip stack with 160,800 chips.  After Day 2, Spindler ended with 469,800 chips, and is sitting at the top of the leaderboard heading into Day 3.

Spindler first made some noise on the live poker tournament scene back in 2009, when he pulled in a third place finish at the European Poker Tour PokerStars’ Caribbean Adventure, and took home an impressive payday of $1.1 million.  His strong play in 2009 continued on since then, as he has had some excellent finishes such as his $44k payday last year at this EPT London Event.  He has also made three final tables this year, cashing for $48k at the EPT Berlin, finishing second at the EPT Grand Final High Roller Event for a nice $469k payout, and taking down the $10k Single Reload event at the EPT Talinn for $71k.  All in all, Spindler has been able to top the $2 million mark in terms of his live tournament earnings in his career.

Day 2 saw some big name eliminations, as well as some big names who will move on; and there is a total of 160 players who will kick off Day 3.  The top 104 players will make it into the cash for the event, and the players who are able to make it into the final six of the event will bring home a six-figure payday.

Some of the names who have made it through to Day 3 include Doyle Brunson, John Gale, Humberto Brenes, Jake Cody, Brian Hastings, Jason Mercier, Sorel Mizzi, Andrew Feldman, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Toddy Terry, Freedy Deeb, and James Akenhead.

A few of the names who were unable to make it through Day 2 were players like Joe Cada, Ivan Demidov, Joe Hachem, Vicky Coren, Barry Greenstein, and Vanessa Rousso.

Day 3 has been ongoing throughout today (Monday) and will have the final players who make the cash by the end of the day today.  The final table is already scheduled to kick off on Thursday the 6th and will be a televised event.

David Williams Separates Himself from Field on Day 2 of Borgata Open

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While the world of online poker is blowing up with news about Full Tilt Poker, there is a very interesting World Poker Tour event going on that is starting to draw quite a bit of attention as well.  The 2011 Borgata Poker Open kicked off this past Sunday with Day 1a, and was followed up by Day 1b on Monday.  Yesterday, the two days combined the field to make the push towards the final table, and there were quite a few big time names still remaining in the field.  One of the many names out there is poker pro David Williams.

Williams separated himself from the field on Day 2, and took a chip lead with an impressive 727,100 chips.  The next closes to him on the leaderboard is Maurice Hawkins with 646,500 chips.  Two other big names who held their own throughout Day 2 were Vanessa Selbst, who ended with 315k chips, and one of the hottest players in poker currently, Will Failla, who ended up with 315k chips as well.

Day 1b chip leader Jeff Madsen struggled to get anything going, and ended the day with 100k chips left, but is still alive heading into Day 3.  There were also quite a few big names who were eliminated from the event as well, with players like Gavin Smith, Andy Frankenberger, Hasan Habib, Allen Kessler, Christian Harder, and Todd Terry all being eliminated before Day 2 came to a close.

Day 2 saw quite a few eliminations, and ended with only 170 players who will be moving on to Day 3.  With the incredible number of entrants at 1,313; 100 total players will make the cash, and Day 3 of the Borgata Open will be played until the field is cut down to only 27 players remaining.

The current top ten at the WPT Borgata Poker Open features a wide range of stacks, with David Williams leading with his 727k stack, and the 10th place player, David Diaz holding 457,100 chips.  Day 3 should be the most interesting day yet, and could set up a few of the big names who are left in the event to make their final push to the $922k+ first place prize!

Amanda Leatherman Joins Team Bodog

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Bodog has signed another member of the poker sisterhood in Amanda Leatherman who will be joining Evelyn Ngand Tatjana Pasalic as Team Bodog trebles up.

The single, ex-cheerleader is well known to the poker community and will soon be hitting the felts in the famous Bodog brand colours…once her knee has healed up. Being a Bodog girl Amanda likes a drink and at her recent birthday party she had a fight with a hammock…and lost, resulting in an impressive gash on her right knee.

Originally from North Carolina, Amanda can now be found lounging on the beaches of LA, but always in very impressive shoes and little else!

Amanda stated: “The Bodog life and my own are scarily similar. I can’t wait to do the Bodog photo shoot. I’ll be posting those shots on my facebook as soon as I have them but in the meantime I’ll see you all at the tables, both live and online.”

888poker’s Live Tournament Series Now in Canada!

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888 Poker888 poker is proud to announce Playground Poker Club in Kahnawake, Quebec, Canada as the newest location for the live tournament series, Super Stack.

The Super Stack series offers live deep stack tournaments throughout the UK, Australia and now Canada. The first Canadian Super Stack series event will take place over 2 days, 7th-8th April 2012. Buy-in for the event will be CAD$185 with a 20K starting chip stack and 30 minute blinds. The prize pool is estimated to reach over CAD$20,000+.

Qualifying for the event is easy. 888poker.com offers regular feeder tournaments and a weekly Sunday qualifier (01:00 GMT on Mondays) for $38+$3 with at least one seat guaranteed.

About 888poker:

888poker.com, is the fastest growing online poker brand in the industry, hosting thousands of poker enthusiasts the world over at any given time. 888poker strives to provide quality entertainment by providing a safe, fun and secure poker environment.

Customers play on state-of-the-art software with 3D, Pokercam and Teams features.

As part of the 888poker experience, players also enjoy an 888poker Rewards Program, 888poker Online Shop and access to My.888poker.com Community.

With over 5 million registered users, 888poker continues to offer the best consumer experience.

Brand New Epic Poker League To Air On CBS

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The folks who brought us the World Series of Poker, 441 Productions and David Neal, have created a brand new poker league: the Epic Poker League. And broadcasters of EPL events include none other than CBS Sports.

The Velocity Network, the new HD cable “male upscale lifestyle” network of Discovery Communications, will also be airing footage of Epic Poker League tournament action. Between the two broadcasters, over 20 hours of EPL coverage will be presented to fans at home: 13 hours from Velocity and 7 hours from CBS Sports. Broadcasts on the latter station will be hosted by Emmy Award-winner Pat O’Brien and the off-screen announcer at the National Heads-Up Poker Championship and NBC television’s Poker After Dark, Ali Nejad.

The first EPL event takes place August 9 – 12 at the Las Vegas Palms Casino. This inaugural season of the tour will consist of four main events, all of which culminate in 2012 in a $1 million guaranteed freeroll final at which only 27 players will remain.

Comprising the Epic Poker League will be 218 of poker’s biggest names, including Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan, Phil Hellmuth, Erik Seidel, Barry Greenstein and Phil Ivey.

The parent company of the tour, Federated Sports & Gaming (FS+G), which is headed up by chief executive Jeffrey Pollack, paid CBS Sports to buy time to broadcast the Epic Poker League, not unlike an infomerical producer buys time to air their material, while the Velocity Network agreed to air footage as part of a promotional tie-in deal in.

ESPN Knows Poker

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With the April 15th indictment of the big online poker rooms like Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars, and Absolute Poker, there was a major concern that the 2011 World Series of Poker would take a dip in terms of it’s entrants, as well as it’s fans watching.  This turned out to not be the case at all, on either fronts.

The 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event drew in a crowd of 6,865 players, and had an incredible number of fans watching the live action daily, all the way down to the November Nine.  There were 10 programs for the Main Event that aired on ESPN2, and had around 415,000 people watching each episode.  To top that off though, the primetime coverage of the event drew in 646,000 viewers, and there was also the live action streamed on ESPN3 online daily as well.

According to the senior director of programming and acquisitions of ESPN, Doug White, the show also did incredibly well in the early morning hours of 1am to 5am, boosting numbers around 136% overall.  Another great addition to the show was the professional poker player guest commentators, such as Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, Olivier Busquet, and Johnny Chan.  One of these players was constantly there to give analysis, predictions, and opinions on how hands were played, and how they would have played them.

The Main Event was even discussed on the biggest show on ESPN, Sports Center.  It’s incredibly impressive that after all that the United States has been through in terms of the ups and downs of online poker, that they were able to bring in not only the large number of players; but also the large number of fans as well.  While the future of online poker is still up in the air, one thing that seems to not be is the big time events like the World Series of Poker.  The 2011 World Series even broke records for largest total prize pool, as well as most entrants across all of the events.

From Land Based to Online Poker

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The question is not if, but when:  What will happen when the biggest land-based gaming companies start competing for real on the Internet?

We already know the answer, from looking at what has happened in every other industry.  There is a natural progression, starting with any new invention.  It does not matter if it is automobiles at the dawn of the 20th century; radio, movies and television from the 1920s to the 1960s; or computers, more recently.  And it makes no difference if the invention is a “true” patented contraption, like the camera or the photocopier, or merely an idea whose time has come, like casinos on land or poker on the Internet.

Inventors and entrepreneurs are the first to grab onto any breakthrough.  The first efforts of these garage inventors are not always the most graceful.  For example, the first computerized bingo machines were raw cathode-ray tubes with wires.  I was sure I would get electrocuted if I touched it.

Once the invention is shown to not actually kill people, partnerships and small companies, commonly called mom-and-pop operators, hop onboard.  These small start-ups grab a large share of the market, because the big boys have not yet caught on.

If the idea is a good one, and the execution is competent, these small companies start making money and growing.  But, soon, corporations, with greater access to capital for expansion and marketing, begin to dominate the business.  Sole proprietorships and partnerships are consigned to niche markets.

At some point the business finally attract the attention of large international companies.  They have the means to buy up their competitors.  It’s called consolidation, but what it really means is, if the law allows, conglomerates will take over just about everything, leaving only crumbs for smaller, local operators.

Land-based gaming has already gone through its waves of consolidation.  There are 30 major casinos on the Las Vegas Strip.  Most are owned by only two companies:  MGM Resorts International (more than a dozen casinos) and Caesars Entertainment (nearly as many).  It’s a long way to the next level of ownership.  The Las Vegas Sands (“LVS”) and Wynn Resorts each own two casinos on the Strip.  Only a few are independent, if you can call it that, when, for example, it is a bank that got stuck with a casino:  Deutsche Bank, which ended up with the Cosmopolitan.

Internet gambling is following the pattern.  Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) first gave Party Gaming the World Poker Tour and then created the giant, awkwardly named bwin.party digital entertainment.  Eventually, there will be only a few dominant online gaming companies in the world.

Who the survivors will be is not only unknown, but unknowable, due to the uncertainties created by shifting laws and even faster changing technology.

Caesars Entertainment, formerly Harrah’s, would be the largest Internet gambling company in the world, if only it did not have to worry about keeping its Nevada license.  The company bought Binion’s Horseshoe in 2004 just to get the World Series of Poker brandname; it also kept the Horseshoe brand, but sold the actual hotel and casino.  Caesars created a subsidiary, Caesars Interactive Entertainment, headquartered in Montreal, combining both its poker and online activities.  It chose as its first CEO Mitch Garber, former CEO of Party Gaming.  But it can’t take interstate bets from Americans, and it can’t buy up existing operators who do.

Predictions are also difficult, since some of the biggest potential players either did not exit ten years ago, or don’t exist today.  Technology creates stock bubbles, which can lead to strange combinations, like AOL and Warner Bros.  I would not be surprised to see M&As involving Facebook and Google, perhaps buying bwin.party or Caesars.

Powerful individuals throw in another variable, when they control giant companies.  It will be entirely up to Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn to decide whether their multinational landbased casino companies, LVS and Wynn, are going to get into the field of online gaming, or not.

Of course, having one person in absolute control can cause problems beyond missing opportunities.  LVS was hit with civil suits and criminal investigations, all involving allegations of wrongdoing by Adelson.  Meanwhile, Steve Wynn’s announcement of his company’s earnings was lost in the uproar caused by his knocking Obama as a socialist, while praising the government of China – that’s the Communist government of the People’s Republic of China.

The land-based operators are gearing up for when they can take Internet bets from Americans.  The easiest way to instantly gain expertise is to buy it.  International Game Technology, one of the largest manufacturers of slot machines, paid about $115 million for Entraction Holding AB of Stockholm, Sweden.  The M&A was textbook:  Entraction has one of the world’s largest online poker networks and is one of the leading suppliers to the industry.  Most importantly, it had never taken bets from the U.S., and will thus not cause IGT any problems with its dozens of regulators.

Caesars is more aggressive.  It entered into a partnership with subsidiaries of 888 Holdings.  In March, both the Nevada Gambling Control Board and the Nevada Gaming Commission declared 888 suitable.  This was a significant departure from Nevada regulators’ former position, that any company that had taken bets from the U.S. was violating the law.  Now 888 is considering applying for a Nevada license and planning a strategic partnership with Caesars to operate online poker, once the law allows.

Wynn took this trend to the limit, by announcing he was going to work with PokerStars to set up PokerStarsWynn.com.  It was a gutsy move, since, unlike 888, PokerStars was still taking bets from the U.S.  How gutsy was seen a few days later, when the federal DoJ indicted PokerStars’ principals.     Naturally, Wynn cancelled his plans.

The large land-based operators understand how important it will be, to be the first online with 100% legal poker targeted at Americans.  This means not only getting all regulatory approvals.  The operation has to have no glitches, since players can move to a new poker room with the click of a mouse.

If laws are changed to clearly allow U.S. betting, the eventual winners will be the land-based gaming companies, or whatever conglomerate owns them at the time.  The reason is simple:  Success on the Internet is almost entirely due to marketing.  There is nothing magical about the words Party Poker that would guarantee that it would end up with 40% of the world market, before it pulled out of the U.S.  Why did Party Poker succeed, while so many other online poker companies went under?  It was among the first, it had technology that worked, and it bought the rights to have its name in the middle of every table on the televised World Series of Poker.

Could even a pre-Black Friday PokerStars have competed with the brandnames and loyalty of a Caesars Palace or Harrah’s?  The land-based gaming companies have player data bases with millions of names.  They can offer players a lot more than free T-shirts.  And, if they can’t win, they can raise corporate money to simply buy off their competitors.

But land-based operators, particularly casinos, have one enormous disadvantage:  They have all the expenses connected with massive real estate holdings and tens of thousands of employees.  Online casinos are cheaper to set up and cost less to maintain, even including the costs of acquiring and keeping patrons.

The big money understands that Internet gambling is simply a better investment, if it is legal.  If the land-based operators can’t beat their online rivals, they can buy them.

So, welcome to the future world of mgm.bwin.party and Zynga-Caesars-888.

Republished with permission © Copyright 2011, I. Nelson Rose, Prof. Rose is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on gambling law, and is a consultant and expert witness for governments and industry.  His latest books, Internet Gaming Law (1st and 2nd editions), Blackjack and the Law and Gaming Law: Cases and Materials, are available through his website, www.GamblingAndTheLaw.com.

Tom Dwan Responds to the $1 Million Question

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Just after the indictment of Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars, and Absolute Poker, the online poker world was in a frenzy in the United States.  Players had an incredible amount of money locked up in the online poker sites, so on April 19th, just four days after the indictment; both Tom “durrr” Dwan, and Phil Galfond took to Twitter in hopes of calming the US online poker nation down.

Both pro poker players said that they would pay back $1 million out of their own pockets if Poker Stars and Full Tilt didn’t pay back their players.

Since that time, it’s been an up and down ride.  Poker Stars was able to pay back over $120 million of what they owed to US players, while Full Tilt is currently not even up and running anymore.  Full Tilt still currently owes $150 million, and had its gaming license suspended by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission last month.  The US online poker nation now waits to see if a group of European investors will be purchasing the site, so that they have a shot to get their money back.

With Full Tilt currently in a really bad spot, players have been lighting up Dwan’s Twitter attempting to find out more about the $1 million that he said he’d put in.  Dwan has responded though, saying that: “Lotsa ppl pming me n messaging on twitter w/o having read up on what I said. If worst case happens I’ll pay in a fair way, and that won’t involve paying individuals jus b/c they messaged me a lot. Timeline was late 2012 I think (or anytime I’m >90%ish of ftp not paying out).  That said let’s hope everything gets resolved n I can keep my $$s to spend on some goofy stuff that I’ll think up later.”  Galfond originally set the date as Hanukkah of 2012.

It’ll be interesting to see how this is handled when the $1 million is paid from Dwan and Galfond.  Will they pay random players, or do they have specific people in mind?  Only time will tell.