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PhilIvey 2010WSOP 15 2010 WSOP Recap: The Series in Pictures

One of the best parts of this gig is getting to work with some of the best photographers in the business. Last summer most of our top pictures came from the work of our HeatherB who seems to be in all places all the time. There was so much action to cover between the Pavilion and Amazon Rooms yet she managed to capture some of my favorite images over the last few years.

But sometimes you need special access to get a memorable shot and that’s what happened in the one above. It’s an image of Phil Ivey collecting his 8th career WSOP bracelet and was taken from atop a tall ladder. This technique was used by BJ Nemeth to catch probably my favorite WSOP picture in 2009, and it worked again in 2010.

Below is a recap of a few photo posts we put up last summer during the long, hard grind. We’ll be running a contest to pic the favorites so feel free to drop a comment.

2010 World Series of Poker: Week One in Pictures
2010 World Series of Poker: Week Two in Pictures
2010 World Series of Poker: Week Three in Pictures
2010 World Series of Poker: Week Four in Pictures
2010 November Nine in Pictures

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Your Vegas Summer Series Guide
By “Tuscaloosa” Johnny Kampis

As usual for a Las Vegas summer plenty of tournament series abound to attract some of the masses that descend on the Rio for the World Series of Poker. Tournament types and buy ins vary widely across the city and events can be found on the Strip, off Strip and downtown on Fremont Street.

Bellagio Cup

Only heavy hitters need apply to the Bellagio Cup this year, as the schedule is trimmed down to only two tournaments—including the $10,300 World Poker Tour event.

Bellagio will offer two $1,080 super satellites into the main event on July 10 and 11, and the WPT tournament will run from July 12-19. A second $5,180 NLHE tournament will take place on July 18 and 19.

See the schedule at http://bellagio.com/casino/world-poker-tour.aspx

Binion’s Poker Classic

String, duct tape and perhaps this event are all that continue to hold together the stalwart downtown property, which has seen its hotel and famed coffee shop close in the last few years. The Binion’s Poker Classic returns for a fifth year of competition from May 30 to July 11 with most tournament buy-ins at $150 and $200.

This series has been known for a wide variety of offerings, but tournaments definitely lean more toward No-Limit Hold’em in 2011 with 32 of 43 events in this format this year. The main event is a $1,000 NLHE tournament that lasts for two days, beginning on June 30.  Of note is the final event on July 11, a $150 Dealer’s Choice tournament. The structure sheet for this event only reveals that all games will be of a limit nature and that games will rotate every eight hands, and does not specify how games are called.

Most events at the Binion’s Poker Classic begin at 2 p.m. A nightly $100 NLHE second chance tournament will be held at 7 p.m. Despite the lack of a hotel, players can get discounted room rates here—they are put up in sister property Four Queens across the street.

See the complete schedule at http://www.binions.com/gaming/poker_classic.php

Caesars Palace Summer Mega Stack Series

Want a big series? Try Caesars Palace, which will host 91 events in its Summer Mega Stack Series from May 30-July 15. No, that is not a typo—91 events.

This series will feature a NLHE event each day at noon and a variety of other tournaments daily at 4 p.m., including turbo NLHE, heads-up NLHE, HORSE, Limit Hold’em and all of the Omaha disciplines—including a Pot-Limit Big “O” Hi-Lo in which each player gets five hole cards instead of four.

Most buy ins will be in the $120 and $230 range, with a four-day $1,060 championship NLHE event that has two starting days.

Check out the schedule at http://www.caesarspalace.com/casinos/caesars-palace/casino-misc/poker-mega-stack-summer-2011-noon-detail.html

Grand Poker Series

This Golden Nugget series throws in some interesting wrinkles this year with the addition of a “Young Guns” NLHE event in which players must be 30 and under and the “Guys ‘n’ Dolls” NLHE tag team tournament with teams consisting of one male and one female player.

The majority of the buy-ins are in the $125 to $230 range, and this series is notable for the large number of Omaha tournaments, with 15 events in the Pot-Limit Omaha, Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, Limit Omaha Hi-Lo and Limit Omaha Hi formats.  Most events begin at noon and players start with 10,000 chips in each tournament (2,000 more can be had for the ubiquitous $10 dealer bonus).

The series runs from June 4 to July 4 with a two-day $1,080 championship NLHE event on July 2 and 3 and the annual Suzie and Howard Lederer charity tournament and pool party on Independence Day.  The charity tournament, which always draws plenty of poker pros and semi-celebrities offers up a $20,000 seat on Poker After Dark to the winner.

Room rates begin at $42 per night on weekdays.

See the event list at http://goldennugget.com/downloads/gps_2011.pdf

Orleans Open

Once a major player in Vegas summer tournaments, the Orleans Open now consists of a small series of events prior to the WSOP. Running from May 21-29, most events cost $255 to enter and the final NLHE tournament will feature a $540 buy in. The Orleans, which is about a mile off the Strip, is home to some of the most populated Omaha Hi-Lo games in Vegas and this series will feature three events dedicated to that poker discipline, with one HORSE tournament among the mix.

Participants in each tournament get a $5 food voucher for use in casino dining areas. The Orleans will offer $35 weekday and $75 weekend room rates during the Orleans Open.

The Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza

This thrice-annual series at The Venetian is the closest that the WSOP has to a rival, and may be the root of Harrah’s offering low-buy-in afternoon deep stack tournaments to ostensibly keep the crowds from heading to the Strip. Despite Harrah’s ploys, the DSE still attracts plenty of players.

This is a great tournament series for fans of No Limit Texas Hold’em and not so much for fans of other poker games. As usual, the DSE summer schedule only features one HORSE, one PLO event, and one PLO8 tournament among the dozens of NLHE events during its May 27-July 15 run.

Most buy ins here are in the $340 and $550 range, with a handful in the $1,000 to $2,000 range. The series culminates in a $5,000 championship tournament. All tournaments with buy ins of $550 and less will be two-day events; those with higher buy-ins will be three-day events.

The top 10 players during the series will be awarded additional money, with one-half percent of each prize pool going to these rewards.

Room rates are higher this summer as management at The Venetian has decided to be tougher on comps and discounts in 2011. You can get a room here—all of them are suites—for $129 on weekdays and $179 on weekends. In addition, you must pay a $17 resort fee and there is a $30 charge to switch from one king bed to two queen beds.

Find the schedule here http://www.venetian.com/uploadedFiles/The_Venetian/Content_Blocks/Gaming/Deepstack_Extravaganza/DeepStackIII2011.pdf

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“May you live in interesting times.” – Chinese proverb/curse

We’ve seen a few weeks of interesting news around Full Tilt Poker but the show must go on, including the 45 events comprising FTOPS XX which saw smaller fields with the exclusion of US players but also a winning class from all around the world. While we work out the details for our US-based players (you can find the FAQ here), there was plenty of action the deserved attention.

One result is we now see a new batch of players from outside the States who will have a chance to shine. I personally expected to see a large number of Brazilians jump to the forefront during FTOPS XX but it turns out Europe was ready to shine. Russia lead the way with 7 FTOPS titles followed by Germany with six, while Canada was the top country from the Americas with 6 and Brazil only collecting two jerseys. Below is how the 45 titles were divided up around the world.

7 – Russia
6 – Canada
6 – Germany
3 – Sweden
2 – Australia
2 – Austria
2 – Brazil
2 – Denmark
2 – Kazakhstan
2 – Norway
2 – Ukraine
2 – United Kingdom
1 – Italy
1 – Malta
1 – Netherlands
1 – Portugal
1 – Romania
1 – South Korea
1 – Switzerland

This was also a remarkable series for both repeat winners and new Full Tilt Red Pro winners. Newly minted pro Peter Jetten took advantage of the smaller, expensive field to win his first FTOPS title in the $10,000 buy-in Heads up tournament. The only two titles for Australia were captured by red pros, Jonathan Karamalikis won the $300 6-max rebuy event (Full Tilt pro Cristiano “crisbus” Guerra finished 3rd) and the always charismatic Billy “The Croc” Argyros conquered the Stud/8 Event #36.

There were also four repeat champions including the only two wins this series for Kazakhstan when KoksharovSergey captured FTOPS XX Events #18 and #34. The other player to capture two titles in FTOPS XX was “iseeyouthrough” from the heavy Russian contigent. Germany’s “NatWork” followed up his FTOPS XIX victory with his second jersey in Event #41 while Russia’s “NoParasan” also added his second FTOPS title.

The absence of the US players was evident throughout with total entries dropping from 82,429 during FTOPS XIX to 39,021 for FTOPS XX. But there were also plenty of added value for our players as we saw nearly $259,000 in overlays due to missed guarantees, the total prizepool for FTOPS XX still exceeded $16,000,000.

Stayed tuned for more information to come out later this week, in the meantime we still have our WSOP Main Event seat satellites for eligible players and we’ll be there to cover the proceedings.

FTOPS XX Sunday results below.

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by Paul “Coolwhipflea” Ellis

WSOP WSOP Rematches, Tournament of Champions, Player of the YearYou can count me among the list of people that has a hard time getting excited about this year’s WSOP Heads-Up Rematches.  I mean, I remember in 2003 when Moneymaker went from a no-name accountant to WSOP Champ vividly.  The memory of the bluff verses Sammy Farha is permanently etched into my brain, and even now it still surprises me that it worked when I see it replayed.  I’ve seen it on ESPN at least a dozen times, which may be a low number considering the number of people that I talk to that say they watch it every time that it’s on .  It was a magical event because when it happened nobody realized exactly how special the event would become, and how it would be this great turning point for the poker industry.  To me, the rematch has none of the nostalgia attached to it, and that the thought of running em’ twice just doesn’t really get my blood boiling.

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by Kevin “Kevmath” Mathers

2011WSOPRematch WSOP Heads Up Rematches: More OptionsThe World Series of Poker announced last week that they would hold a series of “Main Event Rematches” to be filmed in June on ESPN. The first two matches scheduled have already been announced: Chris Moneymaker v Sammy Farha from the 2003 Main Event and Phil Hellmuth v Johnny Chan in a repeat of their 1989 Main Event. Fan voting on Facebook will decide the final match, and the prevailing opinion is that a repeat of the 1988 Main Event between Chan and Erik Seidel will get the most votes.

Here’s some other WSOP Main Event heads-up duels people may want to see:

2000: Chris “Jesus” Ferguson v TJ Cloutier – Cloutier has 6 WSOP bracelets, but would like to have traded any of those wins for another chance at a Main Event win, having a pair of runner-up finishes in his Poker Hall of Fame career. The 2000 WSOP against Ferguson appears to be Cloutier’s last chance at Main Event glory, as he overcame Ferguson’s dominant chip advantage at the start of heads-up play to almost even in chips. Holding a dominating A-Q against Ferguson’s A-9, if Cloutier’s hand held up he’d hold most of the chips and have his picture appear on the Wall of Champions and eventually have his banner hanging in the Amazon Room. A fateful 9 of hearts on the river gave Jesus the title, a card that may haunt the former football player the rest of his poker career.

1978: Bobby Baldwin v Crandall Addington – A battle of two future Poker Hall of Fame members, the 1978 WSOP Main Event was one of the first poker tournaments to get national television coverage. The audience would see Baldwin, a “young gun” at the age of 28 take on the well-dressed Addington for the first place prize of $210,000. Addington held the chip lead when heads-up play began, but Baldwin pulled a daring bluff with just 10 high against his opponent to turn the tide and eventually become the youngest player to win the Main Event at that time. Both men later enjoyed successful careers in business, but another heads-up match between the two legends would be a welcome sight to those looking for some old-school poker.

2001: Dewey Tomko v Carlos Mortensen – Another player with a pair of runner-up finishes, Tomko held the best hand with one card to come, but the river would betray him both times. Jack Straus would make a high two pair against Tomko in 1982; against Mortensen his pocket aces were cracked on the river when a 9 on the river gave Mortensen a straight. The unflappable Tomko hasn’t given up trying to win a Main Event, playing every Main Event since 1974, and was entered into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2008.

And finally from 1994: Russ Hamilton v Hugh Vincent – I don’t know if Mr. Vincent’s still alive, but anything that could bring Russ back to Las Vegas would be a good idea. I’m sure certain members of the poker community would love to welcome him back with open arms and closed fists.

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DavidBaker WSOP Big Money Sunday   April 10thThis was the “slow” Sunday on Full Tilt, the weekend sandwiched between Double Guarantees week and the kickoff of FTOPS XX on April 17th but how that definition was crushed with a nearly $2,000,000 prizepool in the biggest game of the day along with the $1,000 Onyx Cup Qualifier. So while there wasn’t the kind of action we’ve seen over the last several weeks, there were still plenty of opportunities out there for players to pick up a big prize.

$1,922,400 was the prizepool in the biggest tournament of the day after the guarantee was bumped to $1,500,000 and switched to a Multi-entry format. A significant increase in money from the standard $750,000 which usually accompanies the $200+16 buyin and nearly 10,000 players took advantage off the field. 1,080 entries made the money but it was “Mr Boogerz” (nice name sir) who would take the top prize of $307,584 for the win.

We saw another interesting deal made in the Sunday Brawl to kickoff the day when “lindah3″ finished in 3rd but banked more money then the runner up and eventual winner “Exan13″. The $200,000 Guarantee (Rebuy) had another stellar final table on display with Full Tilt pro Jono Karamalikis, Michael “grindtherail” Lavin, and Keven “Stamdogg” Stammen who would beat Stan “stanman420″ Lee after a long heads up battle. Kevin “Wu_Wizard” MacPhee was the player of note to make the Sunday Mulligan final table but drop out of the tournament in 6th.

The most entertaining final table was in the second Onyx Cup Qualifier, a $1,000 buyin satellite to the high stakes poker tournament in May. At stake was a winner-take-all $100,000 seat in the first Onyx Cup event and 3 of the 4 final players were all world class. “Eldos” from Kazakhstan was facing three players with six WSOP bracelets between them in Daniel “FakeSky” Alaei (3), Josh Arieh (2), and David “Bussa Buss” Baker (1). After a long battle, the anonymous “Eldos” would outlast, outflop the rail favorite David Baker to book a seat in the biggest tournament of his life. Look forward to meeting the mystery man on May 11th.

With the conclusion of Big Money Sunday it is time to turn the grinder attention to FTOPS XX which starts with a nice $3,000,000 in the first event. Satellites for all FTOPS events are running around the clock, pick up a big score on the cheap. Full Tilt also recently announced the schedule for MiniFTOPS XX for our lower bankrolled players. Plenty of chances for our players to inflate their bankroll.

Big Money Sunday results listed below.

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by Jason “Spaceman” Kirk

2011WSOPRematch World Series of Poker Heads Up RematchesI just got a press release announcing a special made-for-TV event that the WSOP is putting together. The show will consist of three rematches from famous heads-up duels in the WSOP Main Event, played out on June 2nd and air on July 26th on ESPN. Two of the rematches – 2003’s Chris Moneymaker v. Sam Farha and 1989’s Johnny Chan v. Phil Hellmuth – have been chosen by the WSOP, but the third is going to be chosen by the fans. I can understand the rationale behind both of the WSOP’s picks. Moneymaker’s win was the shot heard ‘round the world that ignited the poker boom, while the 1989 match saw Chan denied a third straight world championship and gave rise to the most monumental ego in the history of poker in the form of Phil “The Poker Brat” Hellmuth. Fair enough. However, it seems pretty obvious to me that the WSOP missed out on a fantastic opportunity to give one of its greatest players a chance to shake an unfair mantle foisted upon him by Hollywood.

Erik Seidel’s first-ever WSOP cash was second place in the Main Event, which under normal circumstances would garner him a nice second-place check and the honor of having the details of his performance lost to all but his own memory. Thanks to screenwriters Brian Koppelman and David Levien and their little 1999 movie Rounders, though, he’s known worldwide as the guy who moved all-in against Johnny Chan’s nut straight, even by people who don’t know anything more about poker other than to fold when the Russian guy gives his Oreo tell. Sure, Seidel has acquitted himself pretty well since then, especially so far this year. Sure, he now tops the all-time money list in tournament poker and is highly respected by his peers. But in popular culture, the Rounders moment lingers – and to me, as somebody who appreciates both Seidel’s achievements and the history of the game, that’s seriously not cool.

SeidelChan World Series of Poker Heads Up RematchesLuckily, the rematch could still happen. One of the four choices poker fans have before them is the Seidel-Chan. None of the other three – 2004’s Greg Raymer v. David Williams, 2006’s Jamie Gold v Paul Wasicka, and 2010’s Jonathan Duhamel v. John Racener – hold any of the same historical significance as Seidel-Chan. One of them goes a step further by raising the frightening spectre of allowing Jamie Gold to return to television. (Isn’t there a law somewhere banning that? If not, there should be.) The oldest matchup of the four available is by far the best choice, so consider this my request to the poker community at large to do a great poker player justice by voting Seidel-Chan today at WSOP Facebook page.

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Dave McCarthy Dave McCarthy

Fans of google’s occasional search pranks (or Rush Poker Mobile) might have noticed that if you google “Tilt” from a smart phone on April 6, the results are literally tilted.

Rush Mobile continues to function regardless of the angle you hold your Android phone at.

rush poker mobile Google Tilt on a Smartphone

Rush Mobile: Play online poker on a smartphone.

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DoubleGuarantees Big Money Sunday and Triple GuaranteesThe final weekend of Double Guarantees Week brought another boat load of players to the online tables concluding with a Sunday featuring triple guaranteed prizepools. This ballooned things up to 11 payouts which topped the six figure mark including a 5-handed deal in the Sunday Brawl which saw 5th place paying out more than any of the other four which finished afterwards. Two Full Tilt pros came up just short of a win in one of the majors, a 2008 November Niner made a run in the biggest tournament of the day, and the $600,000 (rebuy) payout roster was a who’s who of the online poker world.

Luckily Full Tilt has given us the next weekend to gather our breath with a regular schedule before FTOPS XX kicks off on April 17th.

The Sunday Brawl kicked things off by blasting over it’s guarantee and came just 56 entries short of a cool $2,000,000 prizepool right out of the gate. It was a solid final table which featured two top players in Yevgeniy “bballer88″ Timoshenko and Casey “bigdogpckt5s” Jarzabek but it would be “SOLID_FUNDS” who would take the 1st place along with the coveted Best Trash Talker award for his constant ragging on Jarzabek from two tables down. The big winner of the tournament was “Popp1987″ who managed to work a deal where his 5th place finish grabbed him $227,845 of the prizepool, larger than any of those who finished after him. Well played sir.

The always entertaining 16:00 rebuy tournament was bumped up to a $600,000 guarantee and once again did not disappoint. Several players ran multiple entries deep including Jay “THE_GOLDMINE” Kinkade (7th/30th) but it was a heads up battle of pros when Kyle “kwob20″ Bowker out lasted Full Tilt Pro Joao Barbosa for the win. You can look below at the results for the long list of big names players who would go deep in the tournament, I generally list the notable names in the top 100 and this took awhile.

The Sunday Mulligan was the next tournament to play down to a winner and Full Tilt’s David Chiu was the next to just miss the victory. He finished 2nd to Mike “dartz222″ Dietrich at a final table which also featured WSOP champion Scott Clements. The last major of the day also featured a fine collection of the names coming up just short.

The big game of the day was the tripled up $2,250,000 Guarantee which drew of 14,000 entrants and 1st place would end up carding a score over $350,000 on the day. Casey “bigdogpckt5s” Jarzabek was looking for his second major final table of the day but would come up just short as would Jason “TheMasterJ33″ Dewitt. As players busted and tables combined, the twitter world was all atwitter with the news of 2008 November Niner Chino “TheComeUp” Rheem making a big run at the title.

While most of the remaining players were looking for the biggest payday of their career, Rheem was sporting a rail which included several Mizrachi brothers, Mike Matusow, Stuart Paterson, and an all-star cast of characters cheering him on. Easily the most entertaining tournament to watch but the crowd favorite would have to settle for just a 14th place showing. The wee hours of the morning would see the final 4 players chop up nearly $1,100,000 between them with happymon32 ($353,769) getting the biggest cut.

Those were just a few of the huge fields throughout the day. There was something for all stakes/games with the first $1 WSOP Main Event Qualifier kicking off along with the Double Deuce and FTOPS XX satellites. Enjoy the short pause as more great promotions are right around the corner including the Take 2 bonuses, FTOPS/MiniFTOPS XX, and so many cheap ways to satellite into the 2011 World Series of Poker.

Triple Guarantee Big Money Sunday results below.

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MikeSowers Mike SowersUNCC Sowers and The Multi entry Merged StacksIt’s been a few months since Full Tilt introduced the latest tournament system tweak, the much talked about Multi-entry format. There are players out there who absolutely love throwing their buyins at this new type of tournament. There are just as many who weep, wring their hands, and bemoan the oncoming death of online bankrolls. My general response is play them if you like, don’t play them if they are not your style (or exceed the delicate boundaries of proper bankroll management). It’s not rocket science.

Love them or hate them, they are a lot of fun to witness.

Since they were introduced, we hadn’t seen the mythical “merged stacks” as defined in the rules of the game. The system is set up so that players are never seated with any other their other entries. If a player has more entries than tables remaining then two stacks are merged together with the eliminated entry being paid at that finished position. A novel idea and one that (to my knowledge) had never been enforced. That was until early Tuesday morning in the $1k Monday $2,000,000 Guarantee Multi-entry tournament.

Thanks to random overly dedicated railbirds, it looks like Huck Seed did it for $7,000 finishing 7th and 9th way back in January 2011.

Adam “TheSquee” Sherman and Bjorn “kleath” Kleathersson came close to this accomplishment, both in the $400,000 Guarantee (rebuy) back in January but it was Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers who finally pulled it off. The first idea that we could see something unique appeared with just 72 of the starting 2,404 remaining and Sowers had two entries remaining with them sitting 1st and 2nd in chips.

Sowers72Players Mike SowersUNCC Sowers and The Multi entry Merged Stacks

The chip counts were still deep with the average stack sporting an effective M in the 18-20 range and it would still take another 4.5 hours to play it out. The play slowed dramatically when the field hit the final two tables with Mohsin “chicagocards1″ Charania exiting in 12th and the unique merged stacks finally occurred when “SqueezePlease” turned in his bid as the final table bubble boy.

There was finally a situation were a player had more entries than tables remaining. The tournament was paused slightly as both of Sowers stacks were combined, with his removed entry grabbing the 9th paid position for cool $28,848 and still playing for the big prize. The other seven players still presented him with a huge hurdle that included Mickey “Mement_mori” Petersen, Chris “MoormanI” Moorman, Chris “Big Huni” Hunichen, Michael “YrrsiNN” Huber, and Ben “Bttech86″ Tolleren.

While the interesting historical story was written with the first ever merged stacks, Sowers didn’t stop there and went on to cap off an evening by adding another $490,000 with a first place finish. He defeated a tough field, much larger than normal due to Double Guarantees Week, to book over $500,000 for 11 hours work. A nice up-tick in his yearly ROI statistics and putting his career online tournament winning near $3,000,000.

It’s good work if you can get it.

SowersMerge Mike SowersUNCC Sowers and The Multi entry Merged Stacks

1st – Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers – $490,296
2nd – Kagm7F7 – $317,328
3rd – Chris “MoormanI” Moorman – $235,592
4th – Kadabra – $177,896
5th – Michael “YrrsiNN” Huber – $125,008
6th – Ben “Bttech86″ Tollerene – $81,736
7th – Chris “Big Huni” Hunichen – $55,292
8th – Mickey “Mement_mori” Petersen – $38,464
9th – Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers – $28,848

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