Poker Blog & Poker Forum

The Subject Poker web site last week put out details of some murky bank account transactions of Chris Ferguson related to the Full Tilt Poker Black Friday saga and insinuated that the poker player could be stalling the beleaguered online poker site’s takeover by Groupe Bernard Tapie. Ferguson and his attorney Ian Imrich have been unavailable for comment. It is significant that Imrich was earlier the attorney for Full Tilt Poker.

It was reported that from April 2007, Chris Ferguson funneled about $60 million of his Full Tilt Poker distribution payments into bank accounts held for him in the name of Pocket Kings Ltd, but which were under his control. Pocket Kings Ltd is a subsidiary of Full Tilt Poker. Ferguson was able to withdraw about $45 million of this amount, some of it allegedly after Black Friday. Apparently he allowed Full Tilt Poker to use the balance $14.3 million to meet its post-Black Friday expenses. Now Ferguson wants to recover that amount before Full Tilt Poker implements the deal with the Department of Justice and Groupe Bernard Tapie. He is using his clout as a shareholder in the online poker site to derail the agreement that could see American players getting their money back.

Some known poker players have spoken out against Ferguson. Gavin Griffin said on a sentimental note that he once liked Chris, but is now disgusted with him. WPT Raw Deal host Tony Dunst was vitriolic. He said, “If Chris Ferguson shows his face in poker again I’ll happily be the first one to drive a stake through that piece of shits ankle.” Dunst added, “I’d bring retribution to Lederer too if I weren’t so confident that the fat fuck will eat himself to death if he has any money left.”

Tom Dwan is one of the Full Tilt players who have not been implicated in any hanky panky. Dwan joined Full Tilt only a few months before Black Friday. He had this to say from Australia where he was playing in the Aussie Millions. “Well obviously the whole Full Tilt situation still makes me sick to my stomach every time I think about it. It sucks that I went on a USO Tour where there were a bunch of soldiers talking about how they could play online poker wherever they were in the world, and then came home and weren’t allowed to.”

Annie Duke and Daniel Negreanu are in the news again but fortunately not together. The last time they appeared in the same news item it did not make good copy.

Annie Duke is now the Commissioner of the Epic Poker League, which is reportedly in the process of an acquisition deal with Pinnacle Entertainment. In an interview given to The Las Vegas Sun Annie was dismissive of the younger poker professionals. Annie said, “When somebody wins the Main Event, in general, they are known for a little while, and that’s kind of it. There are lots and lots of winners in the last five years, yet none of them have become huge stars and none of them have been able to generate the ratings that the original poker players did. The players falling into this class were named as Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, Tom “Durrrr” Dwan, Jonathan Duhamel and Pius Heinz. Incidentally Duhamel has had huge cashes in the big events at the PCA 2012. Annie said that if people from Middle America are asked who the best poker players are, the names that will be mentioned are Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Mike Matusow and Annie Duke. These people are brands unto themselves. Annie made full use of her brand name by reaching the final of Celebrity Apprentice a few years back.

Negreanu had to disagree. He praised Jason Mercier to the limit. Negreanu said, “There is no one in poker today that reminds me more of myself when I was 25 than Jason. He is a winner at poker and life. His consistent success has motivated me to get back on top of the game I love.” The “getting back on top” has motivated Negreanu to make two New Year Resolutions. He wants to regain the top spot on the four major all time money lists. In the Hendon Mob list Negreanu is second to Erik Seidel by almost $2 million. In the WPT list he is second to Carlos Mortensen by almost a million dollars. These goals are unlikely to be met. His second resolution is equally not maintainable. Negreanu has promised not to drink, socialize or engage in sexual activities prior to a major poker tournament.

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) is the first big event on the poker calendar for 2012. As usual it is being held at the luxurious Atlantis Resort & Casino on Paradise Island in The Bahamas. The $100,000 Super High Roller has just been completed and it was a fitting beginning to the New Year.

The final table of eight players was the most star studded one seen in a long time. The poker fans have been dreaming of such a table at the WSOP Main Event for years. At the top of the table was Galen Hall, the winner of the 2011 PCA Main Event, hoping to create history at the Atlantis with back to back wins. Jonathan Duhamel, having put aside the home robbery by his ex-girl friend, was in the second spot. The veteran Daniel Negreanu, the leader in the all time live tournament earnings, was in third spot. Viktor Blom was next. As Isildur 1, Blom has ruled online poker rooms, but has yet to make a mark in live tournaments, where he has only one cash to his name. He finished 16th at the 2011 WSOP Europe Main Event. Dan Shak was the last player with the million plus chips. The last three were Scott Seiver, Mike “Timex” MacDonald and Humberto Brenes.

Brenes was the first to get eliminated, followed by McDonald and Seiver. All this while, Blom was grinding away making small but steady gains. Of the biggest names Negreanu was the first to go. His live tournament earnings will go up by a minuscule $250k. Soon after Duhamel was eliminated, Blom seized the top spot and things were tight from then on. Hall went next and Shak lost to Blom in the heads up.

It was a different Blom at the PCA Super High Roller. The aggressive raises were replaced by a patient waiting game. There is a list somewhere of top class poker players who have not won a major event. That list will now have one name less. Blom is a member of Team PokerStars, the sponsors of the event and this is what the PokerStars blog says. Famous among fans and infamous among the media for his reticence, Blom nearly escaped after his victory without saying a word. Instead, he gave a rare on-camera interview during which he said, in part, “It feels good to succeed.”

The year 2011 did not end well for 2010 WSOP Main Event winner Jonathan Duhamel. On December 21 his home in Longueuil, just outside of Montreal, was invaded by assailants. Duhamel was badly beaten and tied up. His WSOP bracelet, a high-end Rolex watch and an unspecified amount of cash were stolen.

Following tip offs from the public, two men and one woman were charged and a fourth man was arrested and questioned by the police. The men arrested were John Stephan Clark Lemay, Andre Perron and Anthony Bourque. However, the woman, who was the first to be arrested, was the most interesting person in the case. She was Duhamel’s ex-girlfriend, 20-year-old Bianca Rojas-Latraverse (in picture), who dated Duhamel a few months ago. She was with Duhamel during the 2011 WSOP Main Event. With her arrest it was confirmed that the attack was not random. Bianca was charged with five offences including conspiracy. Bianca was the only one of the four suspects Duhamel knew.

A few days ago Duhamel spoke to CJAD Radio about the attack. He said that the attackers had entered his home posing as parcel deliverymen and beat him up. Duhamel said, “I’ve played hockey all my life, so I’ve had some fights – but not one like this one.” Duhamel also expressed regret over entering into a relationship with Bianca, and said that he was not surprised about her involvement. Duhamel described his five month relationship with Bianca as “rocky” and said that it included a pregnancy scare. “There’s no relationship that can end on good terms, so of course it was bad, but it wasn’t bad, like, real bad,” Duhamel said.

The Rolex has been traced, but the cherished WSOP bracelet is yet to be found. Speaking about the bracelet Duhamel said, “It means everything. It was a realization of a dream to me to win the biggest, most prestigious tournament in the world. It’s kind of like a Stanley Cup ring for me.” Seth Palansky, a spokesman for WSOP, said that the bracelet can be replaced. “We reached out to Jonathan when this occurred to let him know we’ll be able to replace it if need be. We’re not concerned with that yet. We’re going to let the police continue their investigation.”

Duhamel was in the news recently for promoting the $1 million buy-in bracelet event that will be added in WSOP 2012. Earlier in 2011 he featured in one of the WSOP Classic Rematches.

When the Epic Poker League (EPL) took members it issued a card to each. The members of the poker community with the highest stature were given a 5 Year Card. The cards in decreasing order of ranking were 3 Year Card, 2 Year Card Category A and 2 Year Card Category B. Now the EPL has created the highest card, the lifetime player card, and conferred it to Doyle Brunson. This will make him automatically eligible to play all future EPL tournaments. Doyle has $6.1 million in lifetime tournament earnings and 10 WSOP gold bracelets, but the honor was not really meant just for that. EPL Commissioner Annie Duke said that this was an acknowledgement of the efforts pit in by Doyle over several decades to make poker popular and accessible.

In his inimitable style Doyle responded, “It’s unnecessary but I guess it’s nice to be remembered for what we went through to get poker to this point.” In an interview with The Associated Press, Doyle reminisced that at one time poker was looked down upon in Las Vegas. Then he and a group of card sharks known as the Texas Rounders came to Sin City and popularized Texas Hold‘em games at the Golden Nugget.

Earlier Doyle had been given one of the two year cards under league eligibility rules, which are weighed to emphasize recent success. Jeffery Pollack, executive chairman of FS+G that owns the EPL, said that Brunson’s contributions to poker are timeless, making him the game’s statesman. “The modern history of poker is Doyle’s life,” he added.

Doyle did not play in the EPL’s first two main events. Reading between the lines it is evident that the EPL goofed up in giving Doyle a low rated card and he was not amused. Now they have made good their error in the most suitable way. However, Doyle is not likely to play significantly more tournaments because of the lifetime card. He said, “As I’m getting older, these tournaments are getting too hard to come through. It’s probably not worth it to me anymore to really go on the tournament grind, so I don’t plan on playing a whole lot of tournaments the rest of my life. I much prefer to play cash games.”