Poker Blog & Poker Forum

Poker in the Park has become a permanent fixture in the annual poker calendar. This year will be the fifth season of the annual event. It is billed as the World’s Largest Poker Festival and will be held on Friday September 2 and Saturday September 3 at Hanover Square in London. Over 20,000 visitors are expected to attend the event that will be free. The sponsors include PokerStars.com, Bluff Europe, Calvin Ayre and others. Model and poker champion Liv Boeree (see picture) cut the ribbon and declared the event open in 2010. Liv has made London her home and plays a major role in promoting Poker in the Park.

The center piece of the expo is the PokerStars Festival Stage. It will feature live music and other entertainment. The free poker tournaments will be held at the Genting Poker Dome. Players can participate in the running sit and go tournaments and enjoy Genting’s legendary hospitality. Live tournaments will also be held at the Bluff Europe Suicide King Saloon. For the poker player who wants to learn new tricks there will be educational stalls as well. The best poker players in the world will participate in lectures, questions and answers sessions, autograph signings and photo ops round the clock at the Poker Farm Marquee. A more formal tuition can be had at the Poker Academy Live Tuition Marquee. The Paysafecard Festival Bar will help keep the spirits high.

The British Poker Awards are traditionally announced during Poker in the Park. The most interesting category is the Best International Player. The nominees include Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Phil Hellmuth, Jason Mercier and Erik Seidel. Awards will be given to various categories of poker players. There are awards for Best Social Media User, Best Blogger and Poker Personality of the Year. The last one has three poker babes as nominees – Liv Boeree, Kara Scott and Vicky Coren.

Poker in the Park 2010 had some naughty events. The Nuts Magazine girls were providing photo ops, free issues of their magazine and a chance to play poker with them. Victory Poker had a unique heads up tournament. Players were teamed up with a skimpily dressed Victory Poker model and played for her honor. If they lost the model was tossed into the dunk tank.

Epic Poker League (EPL) means business. EPL had made it clear that it put a high premium on personal conduct of its members and that violators would be dealt with. Within weeks of David Chino Rheem winning the first tournament to be hosted by EPL, he finds himself on probation.

The story begins during the 2010 EPT London and involves poker professional Will Molson. Rheem was by then well known as the 2008 WSOP Main Event finalist. A common friend brought Rheem to Molson’s room to play online. Rheem needed PokerStars money for Michael Mizrachi and himself. He said he would transfer the money to Molson’s Full Tilt Poker account where he had a balance. Accepting Rheem’s request in good faith Molson transferred $40,000 each to Rheem’s and Mizrachi’s PokerStars accounts. Mizrachi returned his $40,000 but said he had never agreed to stand guarantee for Rheem. Molson claims that Rheem began playing hard to get and began to make excuses for not repaying the amount. Ultimately Rheem sent a text to Molson, “I’m broke and I can’t get you the money”.

The Standards & Conduct Committee of the EPL had decided that that any personal (mis)conduct occurring prior to the League’s formation would not count, because that would open a Pandora’s Box. The Committee has interpreted Rheem’s case as one of current financial obligation that he is avoiding, even though it arose prior to the League’s formation. Rheem was the winner of the League’s first event. If the League failed to act then all its talk of enforcing personal conduct on and off the tables would come to zilch.

Therefore the Committee has voted to place David “Chino” Rheem on probation and will monitor his personal conduct as he works to meet his personal financial obligations. Under the integrity and honor principles of the Player’s Code, meeting “financial responsibilities on time and honoring contractual agreements” is required to maintain eligibility. Stricter action was not taken against Rheem because he used the proceeds from winning the EPL Main Event to partially pay his debt to Molson. However, the Committee noted that Rheem must continue to proactively repay his remaining debt using any and all proceeds he receives from poker winnings worldwide. The Committee has asked Rheem to provide updates and has warned him that failure to comply or any subsequent violations will result in immediate suspension.

WSOP 2011 is in cold storage till November and no one is really interested in Full Tilt any more (except the players who are still to get their money). So the news is shifting on other issues. The man in the news at the moment is Viktor Blom and he is in the news for being the lead feature in the August issue of Bluff Europe.

As Isildur1 Blom changed the way nosebleed online poker was played in the latter part of 2009, when winning and losing millions of dollars in a session became commonplace. Then the revelation of the mystery man Isuldur1 as Viktor Blom by PokerStars turned out to be a damp squib, because this was already common knowledge. So what is the big deal in Blom featuring in Bluff Europe?

For those who are interested, this will be the first interview with an English language magazine that the 20-year-old Blom will be giving. He will describe his epic rise in high stakes online poker, talk about how he took Tom Dawn to the cleaners and also say how he felt when he lost five million dollars in a matter of days to the likes of Brian Hastings and Cole South. And his female fan following will be thrilled see him on the cover from a shoot with photographer Rankin. The number of the female fan following is not known, but Jenny Woo did rank him as the 6th most sexy poker player.

Philip Conneller, Editor for Bluff Europe, explains the choice. “Viktor is now a proud member of Team PokerStars and, although still notoriously publicity shy, is beginning to emerge from the shadows. … So, it’s very exciting that we’ve finally got him.” The issue also contains the portrait and fashion photographer’s depictions of other members of Team PokerStars including Liv Boeree, Bertrand Grospellier, Sandra Naujoks and Dario Minieri. Liv is a favorite of Bluff Europe. In a first of its kind deal for Bluff Europe, iPad users are being allowed to download the August issue for free in advance of its publication on the web or anywhere else. iPad savvy poker fans simply need to search for ‘Bluff Europe’ in Apple’s iTunes Store and downloading their copy for free.

The WSOP Ladies No Limit Hold’em Championship has always been popular and controversial. Till a few years back the controversy was about whether this event was demeaning for women. One group was women found a Ladies Only event discriminatory and an insult to their poker playing abilities. The other group used it as an opportunity to try for the coveted bracelet, which was beyond their reach in an open event.

Now the controversy is about the increasing number of male players shamelessly participating in this event, some of them in drag. The WSOP authorities are either unable or unwilling to prevent this. This year Jonathan Epstein final tabled the Ladies Event, but was fortunately eliminated in 9th place. When Epstein moved all in against Marsha Wolak the rails chanted “Beat the dude! Beat the dude!” And when Epstein was out, tournament director Robbie Thompson announced, “Finally, welcome to the Ladies Event!” As to why a person like Epstein would want to participate in a ladies only event, it was pointed out that he is single and unemployed and that says it all.

As of now the field is down to three. Carol Tomlinson has a clear lead with a chip count of 1.3 million. Marsha Wolak is in second place with a chip count of 900,000. And the pregnant Karina Jett (in picture) is third with 690,000 chips. Karina is no newcomer to the Ladies Event final table. She had placed fourth in 2003 and 2004 and has a total of nine cashes until this point. However, this is her best performance. Carol is a registered nurse from Florida and Marsha Wolak is a real estate investor who runs an all-female motorcycle club on the side.

The WSOP Ladies No Limit Hold’em Championship boasted over 1,000 entries and has a prize pool of $949,500. The winner will take home $192,344. The bevy of poker babes participated in full strength. Vanessa Selbst, Liv Boeree, Melanie Weisner, Leo Margetts, Jennifer Tilly, Lauren Kling and Maria Ho were some of the bigger names. Among the old brigade were Linda Johnson, Barbara Enright (winner of two WSOP Ladies Event bracelets), Cyndy Violette and Susie Isaacs.

Integral to WSOP are the parties and bashes thrown by various poker institutions. They form an outlet for the tensions built up at the tables and everyone has a great time. Though Black Friday does not seem to have affected the participation in the events, many of the prominent bashes are missing. PokerStars has cancelled its party at the Palms and Howard Lederer is not holding his party at the Nugget. But there was a surprising addition. The poker babes Maria Ho, Tiffany Michelle and Vanessa Rousso threw a party at Nikki Beach.

When Maria placed second in the $5,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em event she had said, “It’s a disappointment and I feel bad for saying that, because I won a lot of money and I should be proud.” Maria’s take from the prize pool was $540,020, which was the largest prize won by a woman ever at the Las Vegas WSOP. And Maria was quick to share the prize and her happiness with the poker fraternity at the celebration at the Nikki Beach Club at Tropicana. The party has been billed as the WSOP 2011 Ladies in Poker Kickoff Party. Speaking to the hostesses, Lynn Gilmartin and Kristy Arnett, who were covering the party, Maria appreciated the importance and congratulations that she had received, but she added, pointing to the jeweled bracelets that she was wearing, that these things would not cut in and that she was ready for the frigging real deal.

Kristy said that she had covered a lot of poker parties and it had always been a bunch of dudes. Lynn said that she had never seen so many sexy poker babes at the one time and the one place before. Vanessa described the mood of WSOP as work hard (at the tables) and play hard (at the parties). The get together of hot poker babes can never be complete without Trishelle Canatella and Lacey Jones and both were there. Lacey just about made it but was happy and excited to be a part of the celebration. The roster included Lauren Kling, Melaine Weisner, Michelle Lewis and Liz Lieu and more will be heard of the good times had in the columns and blogs that the poker babes write.