UIGEA Delayed Six Months

UIGEA Delayed Six Months

Poker players and industry members around the country are rejoicing after the announcement that the Treasury and Federal Reserve would be delaying the implementation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act regulations for no less than six months. The original deadline for the UIGEA was December 1st and would have forced banks to comply with regulations set by the act. A request for a delay was submitted by the PPA and a number of other associations including the National Thoroughbred Racing Association and American Greyhound Track Operators Association, which now approved pushes the deadline back to June 1st, 2010.

“The [Poker Players Alliance] is extremely pleased with the decision by the Federal Reserve and Treasury to grant the six month extension. This is a great victory for poker, but an even greater victory for advocates of good and fair public policy,” said PPA Chairman and former Senator Alfonse D’Amato. “These additional months are critical to provide legislators time to clarify UIGEA and pass legislation to license and regulate poker early next year. It is our hope that another extension would be granted should the deadline approach before these pieces of legislation can be passed.”

Players are hopeful that the delay will allow for new poker legislation to be heard, such as the hearing on December 3rd held by Rep. Barney Frank, which will start the process on two poker-related bills he introduced back in May. One bill seeks to legalize and regulate the online gaming industry, while the other asks the UIGEA deadline to be pushed back all the way to Dec. 1st, 2010.

“It shows signs from this administration that the UIGEA, as it is drafted, is not sound public policy and that it is worthy of further review,” said PPA Executive Director John Pappas. “This also puts the burden back on Congress to say, hey, we’ve delayed this, it’s up to you guys to clarify this law. It really puts Congress on notice to do something.”

Five Diamond World Poker Classic at Bellagio

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Bellagio Resort Las VegasBellagio Resort on the Las Vegas strip


The Bellagio's holiday poker tournament, Five Diamond World Poker Classic, is up and running at the luxurious Bellagio Resort on the Las Vegas strip. Satellites and the first event begin Friday, November 27, and continues with daily events through the final table of the Doyle Brunson Classic championship event on December 19.

This is the big holiday tournament that stages daily events with buy-ins ranging from a low $500 + $40 to the $15,000 + $400 Championship Event hosted by poker legend, Doyle Brunson. Super Satellites for the $15K championship go with a $1,500 + $90 buy-in beginning December 12. While most of the events are No-Limit Hold'em, players will also have Pot-Limit Omaha nwith and without rebuys and Limit Omaha Eight or Better. Seniors 50-years-old or better will have their own $1,500 + $90 three day event on December 6.

Stop by the Bellagio and enjoy the holiday spirit flowing throughout the resort and then put a little poker into your festivities. What better gift for yourself than to win one of the events and cart away a huge pile of cash.

Poker Journal Entry: Home Game Mayhem

Poker Journal Entry: Home Game Mayhem

I don’t often play in a lot of home games; I apparently just don’t have the patience for them. The buy-ins are too low, the action moves at a snails pace and more often than not at least a good portion of the participants have a fairly poor understanding of poker. To me, home games are more fun when the card games being played are less competitive and more centered on being fun, such as games like “Legs” and “Indian Kings”. Still, despite my hesitation, I recently agreed to play in a three table home game tournament that held a buy-in of $25 with a single add-on/rebuy available for $10.

The majority of the attendees were teachers and principals from around the area that were friends of the family, with poker abilities ranging to non-existent (One girl had to resort to using a poker cheat sheet since she didn’t know what beats what) to those that had a decent understanding of the game and could make plays that made sense.

I was assigned to the table that was highlighted by an assistant principal who apparently moonlights as an alcoholic in his spare time, plus a handful of other colorful characters that would happily bet/fold out of turn, fold when they still had the option to check, and indulge in numerous other frustrations that gave me median blood pressure of someone twice my age.

As suspected, the action moved very slow and for the most part I was running very card dead. Raising with mediocre hands was completely out of the question since everyone was calling pre-flop raises with hands like Q-10 offsuit, making it very difficult to play post-flop with any kind of aggression when you missed your hand since one wrong move could result in quick elimination due to the small starting stacks.

I bided my time by waiting for an opportunity to double-up early, and I kept my eye on the speakeasy assistant principal when he began moving all-in pre-flop about a half dozen times before we were even 30min into the tournament. I woke up with pocket kings in middle position and min. raised with the hopes that he would bite and shove with anything resembling a hand. My ploy worked and he ended up all-in with pocket threes which didn’t improve at all through the flop, turn or river, leaving him to become the first to reach in his pocket for a rebuy.

From that point on I was stuck with nothing better than J-5 offsuit for the next two hours and had to rely on some correctly timed bluffs in order to stay afloat. My defensive stance was good enough to get me to the final table, where I took every possible opportunity to shove against players I felt would call with mediocre hands. I ended up applying that tactic three times and it held up each time, thankfully giving me enough chips to actually go back to using my usual style. Humorously enough, by the time it was all said and done, the top three spots would consist of my father, my stepmom, and myself, the only three members of our family that decided to play the tournament. Needless to say the other 33 eliminated participants thought the fix was in, even though we had all been seated at different tables for most of the tournament. We ended up splitting the prize pool three ways, which netted me a cool $200 for the night.

Did I say I didn’t like home games? Yeah, my opinion hasn’t changed. Thanks for the two dimes though!

ESPN Happy with WSOP Final Table Concept

Let me ask you something. If the 2008 WSOP main event final table featured a November Nine made up of completely unknown players and drew in good ratings, you would think that the inclusion of poker superstar Phil Ivey and a few other notables like Jeff Shulman in the broadcast of the 2009 November Nine final table would bring in even bigger ratings right? Nope. Turns out the ratings for both years were practically identical, but that hasn’t dulled ESPN’s enthusiasm for the delayed format.

“Look, the attention that Phil was getting — E:60, the cover of ESPN The Magazine — this is part of everyone’s effort to grow the sport. We’re all trying our hardest to get these players out into the ‘mainstream,’ to become recognizable to sports fans,” said White. “I thought this year was one of the best concerted efforts that we’ve all had to try to do that, so I wasn’t disappointed. I was very happy, as far as ESPN goes. I was very happy with our efforts, in some way, to introduce Phil to the general sports public.”

Overall, the 2009 final table attracted 2.1 million viewers, which was actually less than the number that tuned in during the 2008 finale, however the complete WSOP 2009 coverage on a whole did perform better than the entire 2008 coverage. With those results, you would think that ESPN would want to not delay the broadcast of the final table, but White sees it differently.

“I think it helps increase the hype. It allows us to tell stories … I just can’t see how anybody who is actually at the event doesn’t think this is good for poker and doesn’t get goosebumps watching that,” said White. “Do the poker purists like it? No, probably not. But I think people are starting to turn the corner … and no one has been able to tell me how it’s hurt the game.”

Looking forward though, it’s going to be hard to imagine a final table that could match the hype surrounding Phil Ivey’s presence in the ’09 November Nine, and if Phil couldn’t send ratings through the roof, who can?

Venetian Daily Poker Tournament Schedule Update

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Venetian Resort Las VegasVenetian Resort Las Vegas, the poker place in Las Vegas


An all new Venetian daily poker tournament schedule will go into effect November 24th. The new schedule follows:

A 12:00 PM event Sunday through Friday with a $130 + $15 buy-in and an optional $5 bonus buy for an additional 1,500 chips. Players begin with 6,000 (7,500 with the $5 option) and blind levels last 30 minutes.

A 7:00 PM event Sunday through Saturday with a $100 + $15 buy-in and an optional $5 bonus buy for an additional 2,500 chips. Players begin with 5,000 (7,500 with the option) and blind levels last 20 minutes.

A 12:00 PM event on Saturdays with a $300 + $30 buy-in and an optional $10 bonus buy for an additional 2,000 chips. Players begin with 10,000 (12,000 with the option) and blind levels last 40 minutes.

Satellites for the Noon event on Saturday run 8:00 AM through 11:00 AM with a $80 buy-in for 2,000 in chips and 15 minute blind levels.

Check out all the poker tournaments in Las Vegas using the Pokerprof's Poker Tournament Schedule. The most accurate and up-to-date tournament directory on the Internet is easily searched to help you plan your play for any day and time. Best of all it's totally free.

Patrik Antonius Sets Largest Online Pot Record

Well this is just disgusting. Not only does Patrik Antonius look like the Brad Pitt of poker, but the guy just set the world record for not one but two online poker benchmarks, one for largest pot-limit Omaha pot and the other for the largest overall online pot. The pots in question occurred when Antonius was playing against the famous online player known as “Isildur1”, whose real identify remains a mystery to most players.

Prior to heading into a pot-limit Omaha with Antonius, Isildur1 was allegedly up about $6 million over the last three weeks, but by the time Patrik was done with him the mysterious player from Sweden had lost about $2.7 million. The blinds were set at $500 - $100 with Isildur1 sitting at $450, 494.50 in chips and Patrik with $439,479.50 in chips. The monster pot took place when Patrik was dealt A-Q-9-6 with two hearts and Isildur1 was given A-K-Q-10 with two spades.

Isildur1 raised on the button to $3,000, followed by a call from Antonius. The flop came Q-7-5 with two hearts, and Antonius checked to Isildur1, who bet out with a $5,000 bet.

From there Antonius check-raised to $21,000, and Isildur1 made the call. The turn brought an ace of diamonds, which lead to Antonius make a pot-sized bet of $48,000.

Isildur1 re-popped the bet, making it $192,000. Antonius then moved all in for $415,479.50, and Isildur1 made the call, having Antonius covered by $11,015.

Both flipped over aces and queens for top two pair, but Antonius held both a flush and a inside straight draw, while Isildur1 could only win with a non-heart king or jack. 62.5 percent of the time the players can expect to chop the pot at this point with one card to come. However, the eight of diamonds came on the river, giving Antonius a 9-high straight and a pot worth $878,959. And remember folks, this is a cash game.

Man Wins “Ladies Championship” at Harvey’s Lake Tahoe

At the Harvey’s Lake Tahoe Circuit event a male has taken down the “all ladies” event. Greg Sessler, a 22-year-old student entered the all ladies event with three other males. At the end of it all, Sessler defeated the other 95 players and took home a first place prize of $9,932. The intrusion has left some people questioning the future of ladies events.
Ladies events have been a standard in many poker tournament series, and the World Series of Poker Circuit events are no different. In almost every tournament series, ladies events have been introduced to encourage more women to get involved with poker. For many women, this is a more comfortable atmosphere where they can exert their poker skills without dealing with the male ego. Although these tournaments are marketed as “ladies only” tournaments, it does not discriminate against men entering.

There are some women who have voiced their concerns with all women events stating that it hinders women from getting the respect they deserve at the poker table. These women say that women possess the skills to win big events and go head to head with other males, but in creating all women events it retains the line between male and female poker players. No matter what the popular opinion is on ladies tournaments, it is safe to say that the prestige for men winning all women events is highly diminished.

According to Nolan Dalla’s tournament report of the Harvey’s Lake Tahoe Ladies Circuit event, women were banded together in showing their discontent for these guys who entered the event. “When three of the four men busted out, women broke into spontaneous applause and cheers.” More often than not, the poker community is very supportive of each other, but it was apparent that these women were not interested in having these guys around.

Sessler seemed to be just as excited to win the ladies event as to have won any other event. “Me playing in this tournament really had nothing to do with trying to take advantage of the ladies or thinking it was a softer field,” Sessler stated afterward. “If Jennifer Harman would have come and played in the ladies event, she would have been much tougher competition than me. I came here because I only had one day, and I really like the structures and the payout. This was the only tournament I could play.”

Gambling Tales Podcast is now available featuring Falstaff and Special K

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Special KSpecial K seen playing in the 2006 Blogger's Tournament at Caesars Palace


Poker bloggers, Falstaff and Special K, have taken to the Internet airways with the all new Gambling Tales Podcast. They already have their first installment in the can and available for listening. Listen to the premier edition of the show at http://www.gtpodcast.com. It's 40 minutes of easy listening with an interesting analysis of the 2009 WSOP Main Event final table followed by an interview with "A-list" poker blogger and math whiz, Bad Blood. The show concludes with a bit of early gambling history.

Upcoming shows will feature Dr. Pauly, Lee Jones, and internationally acclaimed gambling expert Dr. David Schwartz, author of the definitive history of gambling tome, Roll the Bones. New shows will be broadcast every two weeks.

RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/GamblingTalesPodcast

Available on iTunes at: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=339814710.

WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack Resigns

Early Friday it was announced that Jeffrey Pollack, the acting commissioner and organizational face behind the WSOP since 2006, has resigned. The WSOP has experienced great success under the direction of Pollack, as the total number of overall participants in the World Series has increased each year since ’06, due in no small part to Pollack’s focus on emphasizing the international appeal of the WSOP.

“It’s been a very good run, and I’m proud of the growth that the tournament, and poker, for that matter, have experienced,” Pollack told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “I came into this role with a certain set of objectives, and now there’s a sense of accomplishment of how the World Series of Poker has expanded.”

Pollack’s resignation comes six months after Harrah’s formed Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment (HIE), a new division that was designed to oversee online and international operations for the WSOP. Former PartyGaming executive Mitch Garber was selected as the CEO of HIE, while Pollack was put in place to serve as president.

A lot of the big changes at the WSOP in recent years, such as the delaying of the main event final table and the inclusion of the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E event, were put into motion thanks to Pollack. On his final day with Harrah’s, the company released a statement that showed their approval of Pollack’s time with the organization.

“The World Series of Poker remains the market leader, with this year’s tournament exceeding all expectations, and we are well-positioned for the future. There is no intention at this time to replace the commissioner role,” said a spokesperson for Harrah’s.

Venetian Deep Stack IV players treated to free buffet

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Venetian Las VegasPoker players are treated like Kings at the Venetian Las Vegas


The Venetian Deep Stack Tournament IV continues through Nov. 25.

And now, all tournament players in the Deep Stack Extravaganza will get access to a free buffet. That's pretty impressive, as The Venetian doesn't have a regular buffet. Chow down between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., and show your tournament entry receipt.

Remaining no-limit tourneys (all begin at noon):

Tuesday, 11/17 $340
Wednesday, 11/18 $340
Thursday, 11/19 $340
Friday, 11/20 $340
Saturday, 11/21 $550
Sunday, 11/22 $275 (super satellite)
Monday, 11/23 $2500 (main event, day 1)
Tuesday, 11/24 $2500 (main event, day 2)
Wednesday, 11/25 $2500 (main event, day 3)

Sit-n-go satellites run throughout the day beginning at 8 a.m., with lammers awarded that can be used for any tournament, even for the next Deep Stack.

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