Speedyfold Poker Blog

Has Pokerstars got too much of a stranglehold of the poker tour world? It is certainly open to debate. Pokerstars owns and operates numerous live poker tours such as:

EPT - European Poker Tour
NAPT - North American Poker Tour (including the PCA)
LAPT - Latin America Poker Tour
APPT - Asia Pacific Poker Tour
ANZPT - Australia and New Zealand Poker Tour
IPT - Italian Poker Tour
UKIPT - UK and Ireland Poker Tour
RPT - Russian Poker Tour
CSPT - Czech-Slovak Poker Tour

It is an impressive portfolio for sure. But is it too much? We have seen recently the Full Tilt pros not being allowed to play in the NAPT because it is basically heavily promoting the Pokerstars brand.

I would tend to disagree though. It isnt like they’ve been buying up existing poker tours and taking them over. They are new tours, providing some great tournaments for poker players. Their immediate success is a product of the power and pockets of the Pokerstars brand. They have generated field sizes that any fledging tour could only dream of. If some of the major competing brands stop their players playing it is both unfortunate but also fully understandable. On the flip side I doubt Pokerstars will be allowing their main guys to play in any Full Tilt live tours either.

The saving grace to all this is that more well run and reliable live tournaments is a good thing for the average well-rolled poker player, and that the ultimate of all poker tours the WSOP remains unaffected, largely independant and the utlimate unifying tour for every player. In many sports and skill games such as Boxing, Darts, Chess etc there have been major splits at the top basically creating more than 1 world title. Thankfully with Poker this situation doesnt exist and long may that continue

If you are interested in qualifying for any of the above poker tours then signup with a $600 deposit bonus to Pokerstars who have plenty of online satellites available for all the tours

Darvin Moon, a likeable lumberjack and WSOP Main Event final tablist lost out to Joe Cada in the Heads-up battle to be crowned world champion.

Moon, who has refused many endorsement and martketing deals is fully commited not to let the $5 million winnings change his lifestyle. He is going to go back to his job chopping trees, and his wife has been told she cant have a new lawn trimmer, as the old one is just fine.

Perhaps the sites and the poker industry in general are happier to have Cada as the winner. At least there will be some marketing miles in him. Joe Cada became the youngest Main Event champion ever, surpassing Peter Eastgate’s record of last year. He won $8.5 million and the much coverted WSOP ME Bracelet. He has been signed up by PokerStars.

yes my friends, you did indeed hear it here first, at the hands of super fast speed typer speedyfold.

Two players from the WSOP 2009 Main Event table (November Niners) have also made it to the final table of the WSOP Europe Main Event (WSOPE ME Niners). Sick Sick Sick. When you run good you run good! wow.

The November Nine men in question are James Akenhead (of Hitsquad fame) and Antoine Saout (a baguette munching, garlic chewing man from a medium sized town somewhere in northern Europe)

When I called up my pal at a local bookermakers and enquired on some odds of this sort of thing, he said he havent got a clue. After further prompting he/we agreed on 850,000-1. Wow again. Epic? For sure

over and out, Speedyfold (fastest blogger in town)

Every poker player on the planet must at some point in their career pay a visit to the gambling mecca of Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas is truely unique. It is like no other city on earth. Out in the desert rises up some of the most fantastic and elaborate buildings you could ever imagine. A visual bombardment of extravagance and more entertainment than you can shake a stick at.

Here is a map of the strip to give you a general idea of getting around and where some of the most major hotels and resorts are located. Enjoy your trip

If you are looking for one particular time to go, then around June time each year is WSOP season. Although the action is very much 365 days a year, so you’ll always find plenty of games going on whenever you choose to go.

It is a difficult task to negociate 6494 poker players, but if anyone can then Phil Ivey surly can. He is still going strong with just 19 players left. The final table is almost in touching distance. Lets hope Phil can make it. He’s already picked up 2 bracelets this series, so it’s proving to be an excellent WSOP year for Phil, who is one of a very few people ever to get 3 bracelets in one series (in 2002).

Another biggish name is also still alive in the tourney, that being Jeff Shulman. So, a slightly smaller cheer for Jeff too

Former crowd favorite, Tiffany Michelle, developed a bit of repuation as a super bitch at the 2008 WSOP. The 3 things in summary that did it were:

1. Calling the clock on someone when their tourney life was on the line and they had a tough decision

2. Eating fries at the table with her hands

3. Waggling her finger around (pointing at her chips) and not saying a word when asked for a chip count.

Having seen a few more recent interview videos with Tiffany, it seems that perhaps she received a bit of a hard time due partly to some rather harsh editing. For example, the player in question who she called the clock on had apparently been deciding for 10-15 minutes. She also says she received quite a lot of constant ribbing at the table, that put her quite a bit on the defensive, which naturally when seen in isolation looks like giving it some attitude.

Regarding the french fries saga she says she ate them with one hand and handled chips and the cards with the other hand.

Having seen the videos it’s tough not to like her as she always seems very friendly, passionate, and well-natured. The jury is out, I’ll let you decide for yourselves, but personally I’ve re-warmed to her as a poker personality, and it will be interesting to see if she can gradually turn the image around to a more favorable one.

Victoria Coren has had an interesting career progression. Some people cant help themselves to consider any new player they havent heard of who happens to win a major title as a lucksack. But here in this video you get a proper flavour of the work Victoria has put in, and why she is one of the top female poker players around.

Victoria Coren won the EPT London in 2006 winning $941,513

Sandra Naujoks has become the 2nd women to win an EPT title, by winning the 2009 EPT Dortmund. She took home over 900K in Euros in the process.

Result

1st: Sandra Naujoks (Germany) - €917,000
2nd: Holger Kanisch (Germany) - €533,000
3rd: Marc Gork (Germany) - €307,000
4th: Johan Storakers (Sweden) - €237,000
5th: Mike McDonald (Canada) - €197,000
6th: Luca Pagano (Italy) - €153,000 (PokerStars Pro)
7th: William Thorson (Sweden) - €116,500
8th: Cengizcan Ulusu (Turkey) - €83,500

(All prize money is Euros)

The WSOP Main Event has reached it’s part one conclusion. The Final Table will be played, after a considerable gap, on the 9th November. The nine players who made it are (with chip counts):-

Dennis Phillips 26295000
Ivan Demidov 24400000
Scott Montgomery 19690000
Peter Eastgate 18375000
Ylon Schwartz 12525000
Darus Suharto 12520000
David ‘Chino’ Rheem 10230000
Craig Marquis 10210000
Kelly Kim 2620000

The rest of the top 100 are as follows (all of these players are out):-

10 $ 591,869 Dean Hamrick
11 $ 591,869 Joe Bishop
12 $ 591,869 Chris Klodnicki
13 $ 463,201 Nicholas Sliwinski
14 $ 463,201 Gert Andersen
15 $ 463,201 Owen ‘ocrowe’ Crowe
16 $ 334,534 Anthony Scherer
17 $ 334,534 Tiffany Michelle
18 $ 334,534 Jason Riesenberg
19 $ 257,334 Albert Kim
20 $ 257,334 Brandon Cantu
21 $ 257,334 Paul Snead
22 $ 257,334 Judet Toni Cristian
23 $ 257,334 Tim Loecke
24 $ 257,334 Aaron Gordon
25 $ 257,334 Niklas Flisberg
26 $ 257,334 Phi Nguyen
27 $ 257,334 Michael Carroll
28 $ 193,000 Nikolay Losev
29 $ 193,000 Cristian Dragomir
30 $ 193,000 Mike Matusow
31 $ 193,000 Garrett Beckman
32 $ 193,000 Clint Schaefer
33 $ 193,000 Jamal Kunbuz
34 $ 193,000 Greg Byard
35 $ 193,000 Andrew Brokos
36 $ 193,000 Peter Neff
37 $ 154,400 Andrew Rosskamm
38 $ 154,400 Felix Osterland
39 $ 154,400 Craig Stein
40 $ 154,400 Mauro Lupo
41 $ 154,400 Kido Pham
42 $ 154,400 Jonathan Plens
43 $ 154,400 Jason Glass
44 $ 154,400 Chris Crilly
45 $ 154,400 Phil Hellmuth
46 $ 135,100 David Saab
47 $ 135,100 Nhan Le
48 $ 135,100 Adam ‘Roothlus’ Levy
49 $ 135,100 Aaron Keay
50 $ 135,100 Allen Kennedy
51 $ 135,100 Alfredo Fernandez
52 $ 135,100 Mark Ketteringham
53 $ 135,100 Alan Gould
54 $ 135,100 Alex Outhred
55 $ 115,800 Rafael Caiaffa
56 $ 115,800 Eric Bamer
57 $ 115,800 Jeremy Joseph
58 $ 115,800 Jeremy Gaubert
59 $ 115,800 Justin Sadauskas
60 $ 115,800 Mark Owens
61 $ 115,800 Thomas Keller
62 $ 115,800 Geert Jans
63 $ 115,800 Brian Tatum
64 $ 96,500 Victor Ramdin
65 $ 96,500 Larry Wright
66 $ 96,500 Chris Zapf
67 $ 96,500 Justin Scott
68 $ 96,500 Suresh Prabhu
69 $ 96,500 Sean Davis
70 $ 96,500 Terry Lade
71 $ 96,500 James McManus
72 $ 96,500 Daniel Buzgon
73 $ 77,200 David Benefield
74 $ 77,200 Jamal Sawaqdeh
75 $ 77,200 Keith Hawkins
76 $ 77,200 Lisa Parsons
77 $ 77,200 Mark Wilds
78 $ 77,200 Matt Matros
79 $ 77,200 Bob Whalen
80 $ 77,200 Mark Vos
81 $ 77,200 Davor Lanini
82 $ 64,333 Stephen Kenna
83 $ 64,333 Lonnie Heimowitz
84 $ 64,333 Alexander Kostritsyn
85 $ 64,333 Cedric Kolstad
86 $ 64,333 Reagan Silber
87 $ 64,333 Karle Wilson
88 $ 64,333 Santeri Valikoski
89 $ 64,333 Jose Barbero
90 $ 64,333 Jeffrey Papola
91 $ 51,466 Tim Taylor
92 $ 51,466 Geoffrey Herzog
93 $ 51,466 Markus Feurle
94 $ 51,466 Robert Hwang
95 $ 51,466 Yde van Deutekom
96 $ 51,466 Aditya Agarwal
97 $ 51,466 Dwayne Stacey
98 $ 51,466 Darren Grant
99 $ 51,466 Cort Kibler-Melby
100 $ 41,816 Marc Podell

Out of my 40 main event horses, I have lost 13 to my knowledge. Which is great. Maybe there are a few I’ve missed, but quite a few are looking good, especially Mark Vos and Jon Turner, who are amongst the leaders.

The 13 bust-outs so far are:

Chris Ferguson
Andy Black
Bo Sehlstedt
Dario Minieri
Kevin Saul
Humberto Brenes
John Gale
Kristy Gazes
Marc Goodwin
Sammy Farha
Steve Paul-Ambrose
Vanessa Selbst
Young Phan

Fingers crossed for the remaining 27 horses