Foxwood’s Final Table Analysis
Yesterday at this time all the talk was about the Ted Forrest vs. Erik Seidel showdown at the Final Table of the 2008 Foxwood's Poker Classic. Well it was a classic but not the way most pre-game observers imagined. Ted Forrest was an early elimination when he was dealt two pocket pairs (99 and JJ) only to run into bigger pairs (KK and AA). The plot was not going to play out the way the "pro watchers" had planned.
In fact, Erik Seidel had a roller coaster ride to the victory but he eventually (12 hours and 229 hands) took down the title. Here is a bit of 'day after' mathematical analysis.
The players began the final table with these chip stacks:
Seat 1 - Erik Seidel - 3,280,000
Seat 2 - Frank Cieri - 403,000
Seat 3 - Robert Richardson - 526,000
Seat 4 - Ted Forrest - 2,347,000
Seat 5 - Andrew Barta - 1,522,000
Seat 6 - Adam Katz - 2,301,000
Percentage-wise it looked pretty obvious that the short stacks needed to move early and often to stay alive.
Erik Seidel - 31.6% of chips in play
Frank Cieri - 3.9%
Robert Richardson - 5.1%
Ted Forrest - 22.6%
Andrew Barta - 14.7%
Adam Katz - 22.2%
So they started the final table in these chip positions:
1 - Erik Seidel - 3,280,000
2 - Ted Forrest - 2,347,000
3 - Adam Katz - 2,301,000
4 - Andrew Barta - 1,522,000
5 - Robert Richardson - 526,000
6 - Frank Cieri - 403,000
....but they finished:
1 - Erik Seidel - 3,280,000 First Place
2 - Ted Forrest - 2,347,000 Sixth
3 - Adam Katz - 2,301,000 Fifth
4 - Andrew Barta - 1,522,000 Third
5 - Robert Richardson - 526,000 Second
6 - Frank Cieri - 403,000 Fourth
Anyone have Robert Richardson in the Heads Up finish?
Final money results for the 2008 Foxwood's Poker Classic Final Table:
1. Erik Seidel - $992,890
2. Robert Richardson - $558,792
3. Andrew Barta - $281,011
4. Frank Cieri - $200,261
5. Adam Katz - $151,811
6. Ted Forrest - $103,360
Erik Seidel also wins a seat in the WPT Champpionship at Bellagio later this month.
TI offers weekly Head Hunters bounty tournaments
photos by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com
TI Las Vegas
The Orleans has $5 bounties, but $50?
TI (Treasure Island) in Las Vegas has a Head Hunters bounty tournament that runs every Wednesday at 11 a.m. and every Sunday at 7 p.m.
The tournament attracts about 30-40 players and 1st place averages $600.
Buy-in is $125 with a $50 bounty on each player (so technically a $75 tourney). If you bust someone out, you not only get their chips, you also get $50. If you win the tournament, you get your own $50 bounty.
Starting chipstack is 5,000 and levels are 30 minutes.
For more information, call (702) 894-7291.
Montel Williams charity tournament at Golden Nugget
photos by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com
Golden Nugget Las Vegas
Golden Nugget's upcoming Grand Poker Series in downtown Las Vegas will host a celebrity poker tournament on the first night of the series, June 6.
Buy-in is $1,080 with half going into the prize pool and half going to the Montel Williams MS foundation.
Golden Nugget will host a pre-tourney cocktail reception at 4 p.m., including live music and showgirls and plenty of photo and autograph opportunities.
Later that night will be a tourney after-party upstairs in Golden Nugget's new indoor/outdoor nightclub Gold Diggers.
Satellites into the charity event will also be available, and total players are capped at about 400.
To register, call (702) 386-8164.
(North) Latin America Poker Tour
When the Latin America Poker Tour was first announced it was hard not to notice that about half of the tournaments were going to be played in South America. Now if I remember correctly the term "Latin America" refers to a particular portion of the geography of the Americas and some residents of South America are a bit touchy about being included under the designation of "Latin" America. Well now that has all been remedied because the promoters of the LAPT have announced they will be adding tournaments in the United States and Canada. Apparently Mexico has been left out because the tour directors couldn't find it. Hint: Look in the southern portion of North America, just north of Latin America but do not use the map provided above. Oh nevermind. Here is the official sounding announcement.
Vega Promotional Systems announced it is expanding its Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) to include North American venues. The name of the Tour has changed to become the "Poker Tour of the Americas" (PTA). As a result of increased interest from cities all over North and South America, Vega has agreed to expand the Tour's reach to include cities in the United States and Canada.
The plan for the inaugural season remains the same. The company is currently negotiating with venues in several Latin American countries, including Puerto Rico, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, and Costa Rica.
Omaha at the 2008 WSOP
photos by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com
Robert Mizrachi, 2007 WSOP $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha Champion
Are you an Omaha guru waiting for a shot at a coveted WSOP bracelet? Do you cringe when you only get two cards dealt to you instead of four? Are you a total action junkie and love getting your money in with a flush draw and a gutshot? Are you sick of Texas Hold'em?
If you answered yes to any of those four questions, then you need to check out the list of Omaha themed events at the 2008 WSOP. There are ten bracelet events in total and include two $10,000 buy-in World Championship events.
6 Tuesday, June 3, 2008 5:00 PM
$1,500 Omaha High-Low 8/b
10 Thursday, June 5, 2008 5:00 PM
$2,500 Omaha 8/b and Stud 8/b
16 Sunday, June 8, 2008 5:00 PM
$2,000 Omaha 8/b
19 Tuesday, June 10, 2008 12 Noon
$1,500 Pot Limit Omaha
24 Thursday, June 12, 2008 5:00 PM
$2,500 Pot Limit Hold'em/Omaha
28 Saturday, June 14, 2008 5:00 PM
$5,000 Pot Limit Omaha (Rebuys)
34 Wednesday, June 18, 2008 12 Noon
$1,500 Pot Limit Omaha (Rebuys)
37 Thursday, June 19, 2008 5:00 PM
$10,000 World Championship Omaha 8/b
43 Tuesday, June 24, 2008 12 Noon
$1,500 Pot Limit Omaha 8/b
50 Sunday, June 29, 2008 12 Noon
$10,000 World Championship Pot Limit Omaha
Most of these events start at 5pm and unlike last year, they will not be held inside the poker tent.
Deep Stack Extravaganza II at Venetian Las Vegas
photos by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com
Venetian Las Vegas
Venetian poker room is the place to be April 4 - 25 if you're looking for one of the most popular poker tournament series in Las Vegas. The 2008 Deep Stack Extravaganza II (DSE II) is the original poker tournament providing lower limit tournament players the same conditions featured in major money tournaments. More starting chips and longer playing times make the events more of a contest of skill and less of a crap shoot.
All daily events in the Deep Stack Ex II have identical conditions with a $330 buy-in for $4,500 in starting chips. Another $10 for the staff will add $1,500 to your stack for a total of $6,000 in play money. Playing levels have been expanded to 40 minutes, double the time for other comparable tournaments. All events begin at 6 PM with player registration opening 2 hours earlier at 4 PM. Satellites go daily for event entry.
Players in any event receive a $10 food credit, poker room rates and there's guaranteed valet parking for all poker players. Tell the valet you're there to play poker. Complete up to date information and tournament details are available by calling the Venetian poker room at 702.414.7657.
The Deep Stack Extravaganza series has become a magnet for poker players making for larger fields and bigger prize pools. Fact: The 2008 DSE I held in February attracted more than 6,700 players and paid out over $3.5 million in prize money.
Legal US Internet Poker a Distant Mirage?
Rep. Barney Frank
This month marks the one year anniversary of Rep. Barney Frank's Internet Gaming Regulation and Enforcement Act of 2007. This time last year I was paying homage to this campaign for removal of the Port Security Bill's ban of Americans' rights to play poker in the world's great Internet poker rooms. Now, a year later, I realize the deck is stacked heavily against us. When a professional politician as powerful as Rep. Barney Frank, D-MA, doesn't have the horsepower to nudge his Internet poker relief bill out of the starting blocks what's our chance of success? How long are the odds for any of us ordinary poker players doing anything - solo, collectively or otherwise - to return this freedom to the US poker players? Slim to none.
How come a collection of rich, powerful, and well connected professional politicians can't undo, given a whole year, what just one of their unscrupulous brethren accomplished in minutes? If it was so easy for then Senate Majority Leader Frist to attach his Internet poker torpedo to the Port Security Bill; then what's preventing the equally powerful Frist successor from returning this missing freedom using the same proven technique of eleventh hour must-pass bill riders? Two Words...Harry Reid (D-NV). Nuff said?
A whole year has passed and there's not even been an agreement to start a "year long study" of Internet poker before proceeding to pass any legislation overturning the Frist Internet poker death warrant. Next April will I be posting the same old Internet Poker story of "no demonstrated progress" for the second straight year? The smart money is saying I will do exactly that.
Flipchip has posted a gallery of Las Vegas HDR photos on the Las Vegas News Blog.
WSOP Faces Show Up
The World Series of Poker can make you and the big stage of the WSOP can break you. Apparently some of the new faces from last summer's Series are more than just one hit wonders.
Dario Minieri and you thought he was just a pretty face with a collection of wild scarves. Check out the final table at today's EPT San Remo.
Dario Minieri (Italy) - 1,832,000
Jason Mercier (USA) - 1,591,000
Anthony Lellouche (France) - 1,192,000
Gregory Genovese (Italy) - 694,000
Dag Palovic (Slovakia) - 585,000
Eric Koskas (France) - 449,000
William Thorson (Sweden) - 418,000
Marcus Bower (USA) - 278,000
Hevad Khan is another face, voice, ass? from last summer we all remember, even though in his case most of us wish we had not. But like Dario, Hevad may be with us for awhile. Hevad picked up a cool $108,000+ taking down a NLHE preliminary event this week at Foxwood's.
Bodog’s David Williams Wins Poker After Dark
photo courtesy BodogLife.com
David Williams
Team Bodog's David Williams won last weeks Poker After Dark 'Jam Up' tournament. Poker After Dark is the very successful televised series structured as a week-long No Limit Texas Hold 'em mini-tournament for six top poker professionals.
David, who won his first WSOP bracelet in 2006, was up against some hard hitters: Howard Lederer, Mike Matusow, Antonio Esfandiari, Eli Elezra, and Barry Greenstein. The final hand saw Esfandiari all-in with A-5 against Williams' pocket 7s. The 7s held and Williams won the $140,000 prize pool.
You could join David Williams and the rest of Team Bodog at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas this year. Qualify online for the WSOP and find out what winning really means at the most legendary poker tournament in the world.
U. S. Congress Holds “Poker” Hearings
Let us suppose that the United States Government abandoned the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act tomorrow. There would be world wide web complications of enormous potential:
What does the World Trade Organization do with the Antigua/US dispute?
What does the EU do with the biggest player in the online gaming world back in play?
Does Germany want to control its online poker players, if that means no US players?
Does anyone care about the UK "White List" if the US opens its cyber-doors to everyone?
Of course, the U.S. is not going to abandon the UIGEA anytime soon but the Congress did hold hearings yesterday and listening in might be of some educational benefit, but congressional hearings are boring, so let's just go for the high and low points:
“The UIGEA and the Proposed Rules do not provide a rational path towards halting unlawful Internet gambling,” said Wayne Abernathy, American Bankers Association’s executive vice president. “The path leads to an increased cost and administrative burden to the banks and an erosion in the performance of the payments system, but it will not result in stopping illegal Internet gambling transactions. Imposing this enormous unfunded law enforcement mandate on banks in place of the government’s law enforcement agencies is not likely to be a successful public policy.”
To be fair, not everyone agrees that internet gaming is harmless:
Spencer Bachus (R-AL) shared his never changing position that
“illegal internet gambling ruins lives and tears families apart.”
.
He once again cited his favorite statistic
“74% of those who have used the internet to gamble have become addicted to gambling, and many of these gambling addicts have turned to crime to support their habit.”
.
Both the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve had statements, you can read them here if you like. The condensed versions are: "The law cannot be enforced the way it was written without imposing a heavy financial burden on banks and slowing the commercial processing of payments and credits with the U.S. cyber economy."
The Poker Players Alliance offered up this statement:
“We commend the House Financial Services Committee for holding today’s hearing to better understand the burdens UIGEA places on the banking industry. As many banks have commented, UIGEA is completely unworkable and puts undue strain on the financial industry’s relationship with its customers. Banks should not be deputized by the federal government to enforce unclear laws that prevent their customers from enjoying lawful Internet poker. Even the Federal Reserve in its testimony agrees that the myriad of gambling laws are ‘not well-settled and can be subject to varying interpretations.’ If the regulators don’t know what an ‘unlawful internet gambling’ transaction is how can the banks be expected to know?
“The proposed UIGEA regulations are troublesome but the trouble started with the statute. It is not practical, nor is it sound federal policy to try to prohibit adults from engaging in games of skill on the Internet. We urge members of Congress to reconsider this legislation and move towards regulation of online poker that will protect children and problem gamblers, fight fraud and abuse and collect billions in federal and state tax revenue."
Here is the "Summary Quote" many pro-gaming articles have used:
“Testimony from the federal regulators and representatives of the financial services community made clear today that the prohibition on Internet gambling isn’t working now and will not work in the future,” said Jeffrey Sandman, spokesman for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative. “U.S. banks and credit card companies, along with every other type of U.S. company involved in payment systems, would be forced spend substantial resources to force compliance with a ban on Internet gambling that can be easily circumvented by anyone in the U.S. that wants to continue to gamble online.
“Rather than trying to implement a ban that is unclear, burdensome and doomed to fail, Congress should instead look to regulate Internet gambling in order to protect consumers and collect billions of dollars that is being lost to offshore Internet gambling operators.”
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