Poker Blog & Poker Forum

The 2012 WSOP kicks of on Sunday May 27 with the customary Casino Employees event. The Main Event is Event No. 61 and will begin only on Saturday July 7. The event will run for 10 days till the final table is set. The final table will be played out only in November.

The online sports book bwin.com has been first off the block to post odds for the WSOP 2012 Main Event winner. Incidentally bwin.com also hosts its own online poker room. The odds just categorize players into five groups rather than go into detail. Phil Hellmuth stands all alone at the top with odds of 40/1. Given his stature in the poker world and that he holds a record 11 WSOP bracelets may justify putting him a cut above the rest, but the fact is that the Poker Brat has been riding on his past for some years now. Of more interest than the elusive 12th bracelet are the antics expected from Hellmuth during WSOP.

At 50/1 are Bertrand Grospellier, Chris Fergusson, Johnny Chan, Phil Ivey and Allen Cunningham. The inclusion of Phil Ivey is understandable. Ivey had skipped WSOP 2011 last year citing the Full Tilt imbroglio, but is back on the circuit. It is not known whether his WSOP prop bets are being carried forward. Chan is there because of his 10 WSOP bracelets. Chan is better placed that Hellmuth to pull off a WSOP Main Event victory.

Then three players are placed at 66/1 and they include Erich Seidel, Michael Mizrachi and Doyle Brunson. Doyle is again there only because of stature. An endurance event like the WSOP Main Event is beyond him. Mizrachi has a fantastic WSOP 2010 with a bracelet in the Poker Players’ Championship and a place in the Main Event final table. He will want to repeat the magic.

Two players are at 80/1. They are Josh Ariel and the Russian Vitaly Lunkin. Why bwin.com has singled them out from the pack is anybody’s guess. Everybody else is at 100/1. With Hellmuth at 40/1, players like Daniel Negreanu, Gus Hansen and Jason Mercier are not a bad bet at 100/1.

Just a few weeks before the start of the 2012 WSOP at Las Vegas, the announcement was made for the third series of WSOP events. From 2013 WSOP will hold an Asia-Pacific event at the Crown Casino Melbourne. The discussions for this event, which has been designated as WSOP APAC, began earlier this year during the Aussie Millions.

WSOP APAC will be the first of the annual WSOP events. Next year it will take place from April 4 to April 15 and will offer five bracelet events. WSOP executive director Ty Stewart said, “Our goal is to establish the worldwide grand slam of poker and use our platform to elevate the game through a series of major championships.” He pointed out that the Las Vegas event was growing annually. The latest addition is the $1 million buy-in One Drop event that will offer a special platinum bracelet. After five successful years the WSOPE is firmly entrenched in the annual poker calendar. The poker scene is growing fast in Asia and Australia and given Crown Casino’s association with poker, it was the ideal partner for WSOP.

The chief executive officer of the Crown Casino, Greg Hawkins, said that the coming together of [...] Continue Reading…

The last week was one of the most eventful ones in recent times. It ended on a somber note with the passing away of Amarillo Slim on Sunday. Slim was in ailing and in hospice. Slim was one of the original rounders, the other two being Doyle Brunson and Sailor Roberts. This group did much to popularize poker and make it a reputable activity and for that American poker will always be indebted to them. Slim won the WSOP Main Event in its early years in 1972 and won the last of his four bracelets in 1990. In the coming days and weeks the poker fraternity will stand up and salute this legend.

Last week the online news portals were buzzing with reports that Groupe Bernard Tapie (GBT) is out of the Full Tilt Poker deal and that PokerStars has completed the negotiations with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) to acquire its erstwhile competitor. GBT confirmed that it is no longer interested after the DoJ last minute revised the time frame for repayment of outstanding player balances down to 90 days. There were unresolved legal issues as well. Neither PokerStars nor the DoJ has made any official announcement. The [...] Continue Reading…

Doyle Brunson has been away from the columns at online poker forums and news web sites for a while. But you cannot keep that man from the action for long. And Doyle has made up for the absence by being the focus of two events.

Doyle has confirmed his participation for the Tiger Woods Poker Night event that will be held on April 27 at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas to help raise funds for Tiger’s Foundation. The other big poker professional who will play is Phil Poker Brat Hellmuth. The $10,000 buy-in to the charity event includes one playing spot plus a guest to attend Tiger’s Poker Night, one suite at the resort for Friday and Saturday nights and two VIP tickets to attend Tiger Jam, featuring Jon Bon Jovi and Friends on April 28. The big prize is the once-in-a-lifetime foursome of golf with Tiger Woods. Other prizes include a putting lesson from the master, Pro-Am spots at PGA tour events, rounds at exclusive courses across the country, unique Tiger Woods autographed memorabilia items and a Nike golf custom club-fitting at The Oven in Fort Worth, Texas. On April 27 the cocktails and hors [...] Continue Reading…

Black Friday has affected everyone associated with the online gambling industry in some way or the other. Most affected are the players of the online poker rooms that were shut down by the US Department of Justice (DoJ). The PokerStars players have been paid in full. PokerStars is continuing its operations outside of the United States. One can presume that many of the PokerStars players are now playing at other online poker rooms. Some may be waiting for Internet poker to be legalized in the United States before venturing online.

The players of Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker are still waiting for their money. Full Tilt Poker did reach an initial settlement with the DoJ, but did not have enough funds in the frozen accounts to pay its players. This led the Attorney General’s office to comment that Full Tilt Poker was running a Ponzi scheme and defrauding its players to line the pocket of its shareholders. Full Tilt Poker has arrived at an understanding of selling out to a French group. If this goes through it is expected that its players will be paid. Meanwhile player groups have filed class action suits against those individuals involved in running [...] Continue Reading…