Poker Blog & Poker Forum

Like most poker players, I took the opportunity last night to sweat the election results from the rail last night. Of particular interest (other than the obvious) to me in this election were the races involving “friends” of online poker such as Barney Frank and Ron Paul. It was a good night for Democrats but some Republicans won key spots as well with a few of them being pro-online poker types.

While we’re not sure where Obama stands on the subject, Barney Frank has been vocal about his efforts and support of online poker. He was instrumental in pushing HR 6870, the Payments Systems Protection Act through the House Financial Services Committee. The bill clarified language in the UIGEA regarding payment processors like Neteller and was a small victory for online poker players.

Other wins of interest involved Congressman Pete Sessions, who’s a Republican, believe it or not. Hailing from Texas, a big gambling state, Sessions introduced HR 6663, which tried to carve out an exemption for poker in the UIGEA. Ron Paul was also a big winner, mainly because he was unopposed in his bid for re-election but regardless; he’s a great friend to the online poker community and will hopefully continue to push forward on our behalf.

Overall, it’s clear that these politicians have bigger hurdles to clear before they’re able to tackle the online gambling bits. Here’s to keeping our collective fingers crossed that once they figure out to stimulate the economy and end the war, that we see a win on our behalf soon as well.

Who isn’t trying to capitalize on the November Nine?  Word comes that the Hard Rock Casino is hosting “The 10K Dennis Phillips Chipleader Challenge” in the hopes of driving more traffic to the off-the-strip casino’s poker room. It’s been widely acknowledged the grand opening of the Hard Rock poker room has been less than a success. They fired the old poker room manager and that didn’t do much to increase traffic, either.

This little stunt makes no sense, really. Taking the chip leader, who hasn’t really won ANYTHING yet and trying to attract players is a risk, at best. At worst it will flop and they won’t even get the 20 players needed to run the tournament. The two table event will pay $50K to each table winner and then match the two in a heads-up match for the remaining $100K left in the prize pool.

So far the only players confirmed to play are Phillips, Hoyt Corkins, Roy Winston, and the cuddly little combo of David Benyamine and Erica Schoenberg. I’ll seriously be surprised if 15 more folks pony up the 10K to play this event. At least the buy-in comes with a bonus after party invite. I’m sure the 50ish Phillips is a party machine…

“His poker skills are quickly becoming on par with his blackjack skills and it’s only a matter of time before ‘Hollywood’ Dave Stann becomes a household name in the poker world. “

So reads the press release from Ultimate Bet proclaiming this kid as the next “household name in poker”. Are you kidding me? If I didn’t tell you WHO he is, would you know? Probably not so I’ll give in.

If you’ve ever watched the silly Blackjack show that comes on after poker on the Game Show Network, you’ve probably seen the douche bag with the spiked hair that makes an ass of himself. The guy that you’ve probably thought, “damn, I bet he never gets laid”. That guy. That’s “Hollywood” Dave Stann.

And UB thinks he’s good enough to be a Team UB poker player. I’m sure players will FLOCK to Ultimate Bet now that they have the chance to play poker with this guy. So now that we’re all excited to see him play at UB, let’s all head over to UB with the other 17 players online right now and see if we can play with “Hollywood”!

Source http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/10/prweb1517504.htm

Kid Poker, aka Daniel Negreanu shipped most of his stack today to an amateur player who fortunately hit a set of 7’s against Daniel and his top two when the flop came A K 7 at today’s Festa Al Lago event on the World Poker Tour. This would set up a strange turn of events when, as the bubble approached, three top players went out with at least two of them thinking they were in the money.

Daniel, Jennifer Tilly, and Ted Lawson wound up splitting 50th place money taking home a little over $7 grand each. After losing his stack on the money bubble, Daniel was sent to the rail. Ted Lawson followed suit immediately afterwards. Then, after the bubble burst announcement was made, Jennifer Tilly lost a hand and her remaining chips with it. The only problem was that the hand with Tilly was still in progress during the announcement. After some wrangling (and the story is murky here), the tournament director decided that the three would split the $21,135 50th place money.

For the remaining 34 players that will head to day four, there are still some hills to climb. With big names such as Bertrand Grospellier (the Joker), Joe Sebok, Nenad Medic, and Brad Booth still in the hunt (they’re all in the top ten) it’s anyone’s game to win. Day  four action resumes tomorrow at 12 PM EDT.

Adam “Roothlus” Levy is the latest player to join Ultimate Bet’s star player’s team. Levy gained recognition this year in the World Series of Poker main event, but he has been raking in the cash for well over two years now in both online and live poker tournaments. Levy currently has lifetime winnings of almost two million dollars. Levy went on quite the run at this years World Series of Poker events by cashing out in six times in the various events and he even finished forty eighth in the main event. Along the way to his forty eighth place finish Levy even was the lucky recipient of a Phil Helmuth temper tantrum! Levy outplayed Helmuth on several key hands and maintained his composure during the whole event. Levy’s finish earned him a cool $135,000 in the main event.

Levy joins an already star studded lineup of excellent poker players with Ultimate Bet. The list includes Tiffany Michelle, Cliff Josephy, James Campbell and Tracy Scala. Levy is twenty six years old and was able to gain a large amount of respect from both his peers and poker fans around the world with his impressive performance at this years World Series of Poker. He will be featured in a number of upcoming promotions and special events that Ultimate Bet will be putting on throughout the year.

Levy has had other impressive bouts at live tournaments as well. He finished ninth at the World Poker Tour North American Poker Championship in 2007 and took home nearly ninety thousand dollars. He is highly regarded as one of the best online players in the world and is an incredibly consistent winner in online play. Levy is from Orlando Florida and is twenty six years old. Like many online poker players, he started out playing the popular collectible card game Magic: The Gathering.