Poker Blog & Poker Forum

It is quiet in the poker world. The big news of recent days is that Kent Lundmark won the Barcelona leg of the European Poker Tour (EPT). Lundmark has been described as a 22 year old quiet, unassuming Swede who hails from Stockholm. Apart from the crown, Lundmark also takes home just over a million dollars (€825,000 to be exact). What this means to him can be judged from the fact that before this win his total earnings in live tournament play was only $91,556.

Barcelona is an important leg of the EPT, but the American poker professionals rarely frequent it. Therefore Lundmark did not have to face the likes of Daniel Negreanu who made an unsuccessful bid for the EPT Vienna. But the player he pushed to second spot in the heads up was a PokerStars player named Jesus Cortes Lizano. Expecting trouble in the United States for continuing to offer online poker against official diktat, PokerStars is focusing on making Europe its second home. In fact there were three PokerStars qualifiers in the top ten in EPT Barcelona.

The real action in Barcelona during the EPT was, however, not on the poker tables. EPT players William Reynolds, Carter Phillips, Kevin Stani and Kayvan Payman were exiting a local bar at six in the morning after an all night drinking binge. Payman was accosted by some thieves who nicked €4,000 from him. The poker professionals gave chase only to find the thieves locking themselves in a nearby subway station. The poker professionals approached some workers in a restaurant for help but were ironically mistaken for thieves.

William Reynolds writes in his blog, “One is holding a frying pan and the other is holding an 18 inch machete. I’m like wow these guys really want to help us.” The guy with the machete attacks Reynolds, though fortunately not with the machete. Meanwhile the man with the frying pan tries to crack Payman’s skull. Reynolds continues in his blog, “The two guys we were trying to get help from end up causing more harm than the robbers. This entire time my eyes are fixated on this crazy Spaniard and his machete. Eventually the two realize we are not trying to fight back and go back inside their locked store.” All is well that ends well.

Poker players often have been in the position of “so near and yet so far”. But the position that Kid Poker Daniel Negreanu has just gotten himself into must be excruciatingly painful. He entered the final table of the Vienna stop of the European Poker Tour (EPT) with a considerable chip lead and a bunch of relatively unknown faces. But he blew it all by crashing out in fourth place.

2010 has been a particularly bad year for Negreanu. His annual live tournaments earnings are so far the lowest since 2001. And he has got himself into needless controversies like calling Annie Duke an unmentionable name that has been reported at every poker news portal. This has diminished his reputation as one of the role models of the poker community. He was not inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame. In the Vienna EPT he had a chance to make 2010 count for something, but that was not to be.

Had Negreanu won the Vienna EPT he would have achieved two very special things. There are three major live poker tournament circuits – World Series of Poker (WSOP), World Poker Tour (WPT) and EPT. Winning an event in each of these circuits is winning a Triple Crown in poker. Negreanu has four WSOP bracelets and two WPT titles but nothing so far on the EPT circuit. By crashing out of the Vienna EPT Negreanu lost the chance of becoming only the third player in poker history to win the Triple Crown. The two who have achieved this feat are Roland de Wolfe and Gavin Griffin. At one time Negreanu was number one on the list of players with the maximum winnings from live poker tournaments. But rival Phil Hellmuth, known as Poker Brat, overtook him and since then Negreanu is playing catching up. Had Negreanu won the first prize of €700,000 he would have regained the top spot on the money list. But as things stand Hellmuth will have the bragging rights for now, and though Negreanu may not admit it this will hurt more than missing out on the Triple Crown.

There has been no Tweet so far from Kid Poker after his defeat. His last message was, “5,360,000 good for chip lead with 5 left but stacks are much closer now. Next level is high 60k-120k 15k ante”. For the sake of record, Michael Eiler of Germany took home the Vienna EPT.

“The name is Bord – James Bord.” Those who have not been following the WSOPE at London are likely to respond “So what?” For their benefit it needs to be recorded that Bord won the Main Event at the WSOPE 2010 and along with it a purse of £830,401. He beat a relatively unknown final table. The most prominent member was Dan Fleyshman, the owner of Victory Poker, who is more known for promoting women in poker than his own playing abilities. Perhaps, if Bord wins another major poker tournament, soon, he will get more than the statutory 15 seconds of fame.

But Liv Boeree, for whom fame is a constant companion, fills up the poker forums merely by flashing a smile. And this time she has done more than that. She has donned a new avatar. About three months back Liv had amicably parted ways with her mentors Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke and UB.com, but for undisclosed reasons. At that time the gossip mills worked overtime to guess where she would be heading. That question is answered now. Liv Boeree is the latest member of Team PokerStars Pro. And it is difficult to say who will benefit more from this association.

Anyway, this is how PokerStars describes her in their announcement. “She’s one of the hottest properties on the world poker circuit, and now she’s signed up to the world’s biggest and best poker site… we’re delighted to announce that Liv Boeree has joined the elite Team PokerStars Pro.” And in the customary interview with her new home Liv responded in kind. She said, “It’s more of an honor than I can really describe. It’s something I’ve been aspiring towards ever since I learned about the world of poker, and I am over the moon to be achieving such a huge personal goal!” Though her personal outburst on Twitter says it better “I’m on Team PokerStars eeeeeeeeeeee!!!!” The advantages to PokerStars of having Liv on board are obvious. With all the unresolved problems in the United States, PokerStars is trying to expand its base in the United Kingdom and Europe. And Liv is a big fish on this side of the pond.

There are several more flattering pictures of poker babe Liv available, but this one was sort of mandatory for the occasion. You surely did not think we would be carrying a picture of Bord.

The WSOP Europe tournament, more popularly labeled WSOPE, is currently running at London. The action is taking place at the swanky Casino at the Empire in Leicester Square. The event that is underway is the No-Limit Hold’em High-Roller Heads-Up Championship. With a buy in of £10,000 this event attracted the biggest names in the poker world. In all 103 players registered. In the first round the field was brought down to 64 so that the heads up could progress systematically after that. Some of the top professional poker players to fall in the first two rounds included Sorel Mizzi, Tom Dwan, Frank Kassela, John Juanda, Phil Hellmuth, Jeffrey Lisandro, Mike Matusow and November Niners Michael Mizrachi, John Racener and Joseph Cheong.

At one time Phil Ivey was going strong. He was being tipped for his ninth WSOP bracelet having won his eighth at Las Vegas earlier this year. But this was not to be. Gus Hansen put an end to Ivey’s dream. Ivey however finished in the cash. Ivey has a  prop bet with Howard Lederer that he will win nine WSOP bracelets by 2011. He has one event left if he wants to win that bet in 2010 and that is the Main Event of WSOPE. If not next year is always there.

Daniel Negreanu made it to the last eight. Negreanu is one of the most high profile and visible poker players who stands on the basis of reputation with the likes of Phil Hellmuth and Doyle Brunson. However his WSOP bracelets tally, which stands at four, does not do justice to his stature. He had a very good chance of improving that tally but was just knocked out at the time of writing by Andrew Feldman in a marathon battle. Of late Negreanu seems to be losing stature as well with uncalled for bitching on colleagues.

The semi-final line up is as follows: Gus Hansen vs. Andrew Feldman and Jim Collopy vs. Ram Vaswani. This is what WSOP had to say about these four. “We’ve got our crazy Scandie in the form of Hansen, Collopy the online tournament specialist, Feldman representing the nosebleed online cash players, and Hendon Mobster Vaswani – the only one of our semi-finalists already in possession of a bracelet – representing for the old school live players.” The winner will get £288,409 and the even more coveted gold bracelet.

A very unusual strip poker tournament has been organized in London next month. It is a part of the London Poker Festival, which kicks off on August 28 and runs till September 30. Apart from the strip poker event, the London Poker Festival will be hosting the London leg of the WPT, the WSOPE events and Poker in the Park, which will be inaugurated by poker babe Liv Boeree.

The strip poker event is called the Baller Strip Poker Championships. It will take place at the legendary Stringfellows gentlemen’s club in London’s Covent Garden on September 21. Stringfellows is the most famous gentlemen’s nightclub in the world and the ideal location for the event. However this strip poker tournament has a twist. The poker players will not be relieved of their clothing when they lose. According to the Baller Strip Poker rules, the Stringfellows girls will be doing the undressing on their behalf. Each player will be assigned a Stringfellows dancer and she will strip by removing an item of clothing instead of the player. The Baller Strip Poker Championships will raise money in support of cancer awareness charities. London hosts the regular type of strip poker championships as well. It was started in 2006 by Paddy Power. Today the World Strip Poker Championships have become an annual event. Each player begins wearing five items of clothing, supplied by the organizers and the event continues until only one player is left partially dressed. Towels are provided for modesty but there is only so much a towel can do.

In strip poker players end up naked, but in a recently announced event players will start that way. This is a regular poker tournament that will be played at Cap d’Agde, one of the world’s most popular naturist resorts located on the French Riviera. The resort features restaurants, bars, gyms, bakeries and a casino, all of which can be enjoyed au naturel. The nude poker tournament is being held to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the resort’s casino. No date or tournament structure has been announced yet. Those interested should track the resort’s web side and be prepared to lose their inhibitions.