The Best Position in Poker

Posts Tagged ‘poker’

Home → Tag: poker

Ivey and Merson Run Good in the Main Event

On November 2, 2012   /   High Stakes Action, No Limit Hold'em, Other Top Players, Tournament Updates   /   Comments Off
Gred Merson

Greg Merson captures the bracelet and 8.5 million dollars

Three players entered the final night of play in hopes of bringing home the World Series of Poker Main Event bracelet and 8.5 million dollars to boot. Greg Merson came into this final night of play with a stranglehold on the competition. His opponents, Jesse Sylvia and Jake Balsiger, lacked the experience and chip count that Merson had. However, things did not go exactly as planned for Merson as both of his opponents fought him throughout the night and into the morning hours for the coveted title. Each of the three held the chip lead for portions of the final hours of play and each refused to go down. However, in the end it was Merson who came out victorious, and after an exhausting grind he could finally lift the Main Event bracelet and heavily pad his already sizable bankroll.

Ivey at Main Event

Phil Ivey happy Merson took down a pot

In the stands for most of the night was someone you might expect to see at a poker tournament, but not necessarily railing one. It was the great Phil Ivey, who had come to cheer on Merson. If you know anything about Phil Ivey, you might be surprised to hear that. However, Ivey had an agenda of his own. Earlier in the week, Phil Ivey’s new website, Iveypoker.com, announced the signing of Greg Merson as their newest team pro. Of course, Merson had already made the final table of the main event by this point, but there were still 9 players remaining. Well, talk about your run good for Ivey’s PR. His newest signing bulldozed the final table of the Main Event, bring the new site invaluable publicity. We can only imagine how excited Ivey was about this, as the viewers actually saw him crack a smile on national television when his boy, wearing an Iveypoker patch, took down a big pot.

Iveypoker.com

Phil Ivey launched Iveypoker.com Last Week

As for the biggest question you’re probably asking yourself at this point, well, we are not quite sure what Ivey’s site is yet. It appears to be some combination of a phone app (similar to Zynga), a coaching site and a PR stunt. Only time will tell exactly what direction the website is moving or how big of a role Ivey will play in it. All we know for now is that something is in the works, which adds one more story to a plethora of exciting events taking place in the world of poker this week.

Back to Top

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.

Back to Top

Zypherin brings the action

On April 21, 2012   /   High Stakes Action, Other Top Players, Player News, Pot Limit Omaha   /   Comments Off

Guy Laliberte Interview

Guy Laliberte

Cirque du Soleil owner Guy Laliberte

Last night, when I went to bed, the 200/400 plo tables were up and running for the first time in a long while. When I woke up this morning,  I was excited to check how the games had turned out. To my amazement, the games were still running and had been throughout the night, with essentially the same players competing. The source of this rare action was Zypherin, who is rumored to be Guy Laliberte. Laliberte is still relatively new to poker in general and would be a newcomer to plo. You can hear him discuss his love for poker by clicking the link at the top of the article. The high stakes fish managed to drop just over 500k over the 18 hour 2 table session. If the account is controlled by Laliberte, it is unlikely the loses will keep him away from the tables for long, since his 3 billion net worth will barely notice the missing half a million. Lets hope this is the case, and that the 40k tables will become a regular running game on Stars.

Deldar182

Deldar182's Pokerstars image

Zypherin was easily the biggest loser in the games yesterday, but the high stakes produced other 6 figure winners and losers. The biggest winner in the games was David “deldar182“ Eldar, who scooped up almost 300k in the 40k plo games. Many will know him better by his Full Tilt screen name, “POKERBLUFFS“. He was a big player in the nosebleed no limit hold”em games on Full Tilt and has successfully made the transfer to plo, as indicated by his recent profits in the Pokerstars plo games. His recent winnings have brought him to a combined 2 million in profits since his accounts became active on the high stakes scene in late 2009. With a little run good, I think we can be sure we have added another big winner to the high stakes plo mix on Stars.

Back to Top

Premier League, Ben86 and Baseball!

On April 12, 2012   /   High Stakes Action, Non-Poker News, Other Top Players, Player News, Pot Limit Omaha, Tournament Updates   /   Comments Off
Draftday

Draftday Daily Fantasy Leagues

You can tell summer is on its way, as the beginning of the MLB season kicked off this week. It couldn’t have come at a better time either as online games have been in a lull the last two weeks or so in the absence of Isildur1. If your a baseball nut or just looking to mix up your gambling habits you should check out Draftday. They do daily fantasy leagues where you will choose a team, join a league that is ran sit n go style, and collect your winnings. They have games ranging from the micros to higher stakes games. If baseball doesn’t do it for you, they have basketball leagues as well. Its a fun and cheap way to get more involved in the games without having to commit to a fantasy league long-term.

Ben Tollerene

Ben86 is the Big Winner This Week

While we have not had the wild sessions we were becoming accustomed to in March, we have seen plenty of sessions from Ilari Fin with mixed results, but no major swings in either direction. This week also brought the return of Ben86. Since Ben is one of the few players still willing to play high stakes PLO and NLHE he was able to get plenty of action and ran pretty well also. All together at last count, he was able to cross the 500k mark in profits for the last 7 days. That’s a pretty solid week considering the low traffic among the high stakes games this week.

Premier League also wrapped up yesterday. The final 8 players battled but in the end Scott Seiver managed to overtake Dan “Jungleman” Cates in heads up play to secure the first place prize of 500k. You can check out what the final two players had to say afterward here: Scott Seiver Interview and Dan Cates Interview. The Party Poker festivities are not quite over yet, however, as the Big Game VI is now currently running. They are streaming the whole event live and Tony G’s mouth has yet to stop running so don’t forget to stop by and check that out as well!

Back to Top

Lights, Cameras, and Lots and Lots of Action!

On April 5, 2012   /   Durrrr, High Stakes Action, Isildur1, Other Top Players, Pot Limit Omaha, Tournament Updates   /   Comments Off
Ilari Fin

Ilari Fin has had some big swing lately

Compared to the last month or so, this week online has been a little slow. We have seen Ziigmund put in some lengthy sessions though. He has been winning nearly every session lately, but yesterday gave a lot of it back in a -200k+ session. Our boy Isildur1 has put in a few short sessions at the plo tables, but hasn’t had much luck.. He has managed to give back the majority of his Superstar Showdown earnings without even the courtesy of a marathon session to rail. :(

However, what the online world is lacking in this week, the live world is making up for. Today, April 5, marks the opening of 2 different major live poker events.

iseries poker

Daniel Headlines First iseries Event

Firstly, the iseries live event #1 is kicking off and it should be a fun one to rail. They are streaming the event live and have managed to attract some favorite poker TV personalities  including Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, Devilfish and Carlos Mortenson. If this doesn’t make the event interactive enough for you, iseries is adding an interesting twist to the tournament. If you visit the iseries live website you can watch the tourney and actually bet yourself on different aspects of the tourney. For example, you can actually place a wager against the house on who will win the 5th hand of the tourney, similar to horse racing. I, personally see this as the first step to making the players more like entertainers, similiar to professional athletes. It kinda sucks that players may eventually be judged as much for their ability to entertain at the tables as for their playing ability, but this may be the only way to grow the sport and if it leads to another poker boom, then I’m all for it. If you want to take place in the festivities, however, you had better hurry as they are already underway!

Premier League

The Party Poker Premier League is Underway

The other tourney taking place today is a fun one also. It’s the Party Poker Premier League and while you can’t bet on it yourself or rail a live stream, it does have a live update blog and an extremely high caliber player list including Tom Dwan, who made the trip from Macau to be there. He joins other big name players like Dan Cates, Patrik Antonius, and ELKY. You can link to their twitter pages by clicking on their names and all of them do a good job of posting with the exception of Patrik. Beyond the nice player pool, this tourney offers a fresh format. The two groups play 4 separate heats, earning points for their finishing place in each heat. The players with the most points then advance to play a final table. Party Poker is hosting the event and added 200k to the prize pool to attract such high caliber players in. The fist heat is over with Phil Laak and Patrik winning their respective heats. Durrrr busted out 4th in his after getting the money in pre and losing with JJ<88 in a hand that would have vaulted him into the lead.. :( Luckily for him there is plenty more action to come and luckily for you there is plenty more action to rail ;)

Back to Top