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Isildur1 tourney central!

On May 7, 2012   /   Isildur1, News, No Limit Hold'em, Off the Table Isildur1 News, Player News, Tournament Updates   /   Comments Off
Viktor "Isildur1" Blom

Isildur1 takes down the PCA 2012 super high roller

The world of live tourneys opened the 2012 season with a bang, with Pokerstars hosting the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure. As most of you know, Viktor “Isildur1″ Blom took down the opening event; the 100k buy-in super high roller. At the time, Pokerstars announced they would be airing the second and third day (final table) of this event at a later date, and that later date is finally here. Earlier this week, via Pokerstars.tv, the site released full footage of the tourney in three parts. You can watch for yourself by clicking here. The footage is really well produced and definitely worth the watch. Of course, being a super high roller event, it’s a who’s who of the poker community, and the entirety of the footage has plenty of light 3betting and 4betting to make it worth the rail. Unfortunately, if you’re in it to see Blom only, your best off skipping straight to the third part, as he is stuck on an outer table for the first two parts of the taping.

Keeping with the Isildur1 tourney theme, the Pokerstars SCOOP (spring championship of online poker) events are in full swing, and Isildur1 has gotten off to a hot start. As this article is being written, he is building a stack in the late stages of the $215 NLH event number 2. The event, which has a guarantee of a million dollars, managed to attract 8240 runners, but that field has currently whittled down to 100. Our favorite Swede’s stack has fluctuated quite a bit, but he is currently holding steady at 5th place. Of course, as is standard with big tourneys, the top few places take down a huge chunk of the prize pool. If Blom were to bust now, he would manage only $1500 for his efforts, likely a waste of time in his eyes. However, if he is able to take down the event, he would add 247k to his bankroll. Many would love to see Isildur1 pad his bankroll. We will be sure to do a follow-up here at BeTheNuts, to let you know how things turn out for him in his quest for his first SCOOP title.

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Tapie building a new Full Tilt?

On May 1, 2012   /   News, Non-Poker News   /   Comments Off

In an article published by diamondflushpoker this morning, an e-mail from Laurent Tapie addressed to the employees of Pocket Kings (FTP parent company) was released. Within the e-mail he explains the situation that led to the eventual failure of an effective deal between the DOJ and the Groupe Bernard Tapie. Following this explanation, he begins to propose an alternative plan to the employees, and requests their assistance in fulfilling it. He says:

 I am unwilling to allow 7 months of effort to go to waste, to see 200 employees lose their jobs and to witness former FTP players around the world go unpaid.
For that reason, I have decided to devote a significant portion of the funds that I was planning to use for the acquisition of the FTP assets instead to launch my own company, under the auspices of Game Cubed, the company I have created in Ireland.  I will do this only if I can attract ALL OF the Pocket Kings KEY STAFF to join me.  With your help and know-how, we will launch a new website that will be best of breed in 6-7 months.
I know that any such step requires a leap of faith, so here is my offer:  as of May 1, I will hire the entire Pocket Kings key staff – every single one of you – at your current salaries and with your accumulated benefits intact.  I also will include stock options in the new company, so that we all will share in what I believe to be the exciting upside this opportunity represents.
We will write a new poker software platform based on your knowledge and relaunch using a new brand, with an offer to former FTP ROW players that will allow them to recover their lost balances if they come to our new site, just as we had planned in our agreement with DOJ.
I have the money to make this happen and am working with the Alderney licensing authorities on obtaining a license and getting their help on the repayment plan.
Laurent Tapie

Tapie moves on from his DOJ experience

The article goes on to note that there has been no indication that the Pocket Kings employees decided to follow Tapie. Of course, even if this plan did go into action, it is unlikely we would see the res ults of it for some time. However, it would be interesting to see someone with some money to throw, attempt to build a site that could rival Pokerstars. This would also be good for the players, as competition drives down prices, and in this case, rake.

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2+2 forums down and !P0krparty¡ up

On April 27, 2012   /   !P0krparty¡, News, Non-Poker News, Player News   /   Comments Off
2+2 forums

The 2+2 forums were hacked yesterday

Yesterday morning, the 2+2 forums were hacked. The parent of the forums TwoPlusTwo.com later released this notice:

Two Plus Two Forum Outage
On April 26th at approximately 11:20 AM pacific time, the Two Plus Two Forums were closed as a result of a hacker who has displayed the ability to access e-mail addresses and encrypted passwords.  He also indicated the ability to decrypt passwords.
While it is unclear the extent of data to which he gained access, e-mail addresses and passwords on the Two Plus Two forums should be considered compromised.  If you have used your 2+2 password on any other site, you are advised to change it.
For your security, we are closing the forums until the breach is patched.  Upon reopening the forums you will be forced to change your password – it is counterproductive to do so now.
We hope to be back up as soon as possible.

The forum moderators have strongly advised anyone using their twoplustwo password on any other site to change it immediately.  For advice on what to do specifically you can visit NoahSD’s blog, where he has written about how to protect your accounts from being attacked.

Pokerparty

!P0krparty¡ is running like the sun at the moment

In other news, !P0krparty¡ is on the rise. We wrote an article earlier in the week about his not-so-triumphant return to Pokerstars. He managed to only get his account high enough to play 1/2plo before busting it. However, he came back with a vengeance two days later, playing every running mtt. He would later mention in a chat log that his account was at $100 when starting this run. However, within two days of this low point, his account sat at 36k, as he also mentioned in the chat box. During this run, he hardly slept at all, putting in a 30 hour session at one point. He is back on a we speak, taking a shot at the 10/20 games. He is playing 12

!P0krparty¡ spread

6 of the tables !P0krparty¡ is currently playing

tables of 10/20 with over 50k spread across them. Most of the money has come from a heads up battle with KRfishONE, who is currently bleeding money all over the tables. It is intriguing to see someone who had $100 to their name just days ago, now with over 50k in their account. If it were me, I would take the money and run, however, if past history holds, we will likely see !P0krparty¡ either sitting the 100/200 games or busto within the next few days.

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Stars FTP takeover notes

On April 24, 2012   /   News, Non-Poker News, Other Top Players   /   Comments Off
Phil Ivey

Could this be a frequent sight in the future?

I’m sure by now everyone has been following the quickly growing forum thread on 2+2 about the breaking news in the Full Tilt takeover story. That thread is growing so quickly it is hard to keep up with at the moment, so were going to post the cliff notes of the breaking story here for you. With each point we will give a link where you can visit the source of the information.

 

 

  • 2 days ago Daniel Cates tweets that some promising news is coming in regards to the Full Tilt situation
  • This morning a 2+2 thread is launched by an unknown poster stating that the Full Tilt deal with Laurent Tapie’s group has fallen through and Pokerstars has moved in to make the purchase
  • NoahSD, the forum moderator, posts that he is leaving the thread open because several reliable sources have confirmed this news to him privately
  • Another unknown poster states that they have a family member that is a Pokerstars employee and has confirmed the news
  • The CEO of ChiliPoker is the first to confirm via Twitter that Pokerstars has purchased FT for 750 million dollars with an agreement to pay back the 300 million dollars owed to players
  • egaming review tweets a quote from Laurent Tapie stating “our efforts to obtain final DOJ approval to acquire the assets of Full Tilt Poker have ended without success” and that more information is to follow
  • Many poker news websites begin to confirm the news
  • Quadjacks radio site has Tom Victor, an egaming review representative on their radio stream to discuss the his previously mention tweet
  • iGaming Post releases an article with a full statement from the Tapie group explaining the situation that references the Stars takeover, but does not entirely confirm the news
  • News circulates of a Stars press release to be given very soon
  • Shaun Deeb opens a thread stating that a reliable source has told him that the Full Tilt deal is done, players will receive their money within 90 days and FT will be open in the US market
  • Andrew Feldman (not the player) tweets that he has spoken to Pokerstars and they have no comment at this time
  • Pokerstars releases an initial statement acknowledging the rumors but does not confirm nor deny any information

 

This is all we know at this point, and hopefully Stars will fill us in soon. If they release anything it will likely come via their press release site, so keep your eyes peeled.

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Poker Table Ratings loses heads up battle with Pokerstars

On April 20, 2012   /   News, Non-Poker News   /   Comments Off

The well-known website pokertableratings.com (ptr) stood up to the poker industry giant, Pokerstars.com, and lost. Information came out yesterday, April 19, that Pokerstars had repeatedly asked ptr to stop providing their players information publicly, but ptr had ignored these requests. Earlier this week however, stars showed that they meant business by filing a cease and desist order against ptr. Ptr has since complied with the legal action and removed all Pokerstars tracking from their site. They did manage to get in the last word by posting an article this morning that was riddled with sarcasm. They outlined several productive things they do for the community including discovering bot rings, improving player experience and discovering mid level players who deserve recognition. They then said they would reluctantly agree to stop tracking stars player accounts, while making it quite obvious they did not wish to do so.

pokertableratings.com

ptr is down for the count

Ptr does offer a unique experience as the lowest level players can see their results on their own personal profile page. This can also be a negative thing for the poker community however, as it enables regulars in the games to ridicule and easily track down the biggest fish in the games, making playing online poker a less enjoyable experience for recreational players. With stars being the ‘be all, end all’ of the online poker world at the moment, ptr is sure to take a major hit to their traffic, and as an extension, their future plans. It will be interesting to see what ptr does from here in an attempt to save their site and their reputation.

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Site Launch

On March 31, 2012   /   News   /   Comments Off

The site has just launced and we will begin following the PokerStars high stakes action as well as major poker news stories.

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