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UIGEA Delayed Six Months

Poker players and industry members around the country are rejoicing after the announcement that the Treasury and Federal Reserve would be delaying the implementation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act regulations for no less than six months. The original deadline for the UIGEA was December 1st and would have forced banks to comply with regulations set by the act. A request for a delay was submitted by the PPA and a number of other associations including the National Thoroughbred Racing Association and American Greyhound Track Operators Association, which now approved pushes the deadline back to June 1st, 2010.

“The [Poker Players Alliance] is extremely pleased with the decision by the Federal Reserve and Treasury to grant the six month extension. This is a great victory for poker, but an even greater victory for advocates of good and fair public policy,” said PPA Chairman and former Senator Alfonse D’Amato. “These additional months are critical to provide legislators time to clarify UIGEA and pass legislation to license and regulate poker early next year. It is our hope that another extension would be granted should the deadline approach before these pieces of legislation can be passed.”

Players are hopeful that the delay will allow for new poker legislation to be heard, such as the hearing on December 3rd held by Rep. Barney Frank, which will start the process on two poker-related bills he introduced back in May. One bill seeks to legalize and regulate the online gaming industry, while the other asks the UIGEA deadline to be pushed back all the way to Dec. 1st, 2010.

“It shows signs from this administration that the UIGEA, as it is drafted, is not sound public policy and that it is worthy of further review,” said PPA Executive Director John Pappas. “This also puts the burden back on Congress to say, hey, we’ve delayed this, it’s up to you guys to clarify this law. It really puts Congress on notice to do something.”

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The Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Classic 2009 has arrived with a great schedule and tournaments as low as 0. From November 27 - December 16, tournaments will be running and will include Pot Limit Omaha, NL Texas Hold’em, HORSE, and Limit Hold’em (Eight or Better.) There will even be a seniors event open to anyone 50 years and older. Below is the schedule for the Five Diamond World Poker Classic 2009 held in Las Vegas at the Bellagio hotel:

November 27, 2009 NL Hold’em 12 p.m. 0 +

November 28, 2009 NL Hold’em 12 p.m. ,000 +

November 29, 2009 NL Hold’em 12 p.m. 0 +

November 30, 2009 NL Hold’em 12 p.m. ,000 +

December 1, 2009 Limit Omaha 8 or Better 12 p.m ,000 +

December 2, 2009 NL Hold’em 12 p.m. ,000 +

December 3, 2009 Pot Limit Omaha with Rebuys 12 p.m. ,000 +

December 4, 2009 NL Hold’em 12 p.m 0 +

December 5, 2009 NL Hold’em with Rebuys 12 p.m. ,500 +

December 6, 2009 Seniors NL Hold’em (3 Day) 12 p.m. ,500 +

December 7, 2009 NL Hold’em 12 p.m. ,000 +

December 8, 2009 HORSE (3 Day) 12 p.m. ,000 + 0

December 9, 2009 NL Hold’em 12 p.m. ,500 +

December 10, 2009 Pot Limit Omaha with Rebuys 12 p.m. ,000 + 0

December 11, 2009 NL Hold’em with Rebuys 12 p.m. ,000 +

December 12, 2009 NL Hold’em 12 p.m. ,000 + 0

December 12, 2009 Super Satellite - NL Hold’em 5 p.m. ,500 +

December 13, 2009 Super Satellite – NL Hold’em 12 p.m. ,500 +

December 13, 2009 Super Satellite – NL Hold’em 5 p.m. ,500 +

December 14, 2009 WPT Doyle Brunson Classic Day 1 ,000 + 0

December 14, 2009 Super Satellite – NL Hold’em 9 p.m. ,500 +

December 15, 2009 WPT Doyle Brunson Classic Day 2

December 16, 2009 WPT Doyle Brunson Classic Day 3

December 16, 2009 NL Hold’em 2 pm 0 +

December 17, 2009 WPT Doyle Brunson Classic Day 4

December 18, 2009 WPT Doyle Brunson Classic Day 5

December 19, 2009 TV Final Table 4 p.m.

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Scotty Nguyen, 1998 WSOP World Champion, was seen playing in the Five Diamond World Poker Classic Tuesday afternoon at the Bellagio Resort. A number of other poker professionals was in the crowd of 63 entrance for the ,500 Limit Omaha Eight or Better event.

Stop by the Bellagio and try your luck in the daily satellites for a cheap seat into one of the Five Diamond tournament events.

photo by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com Bellagio Tournament Director, Jack McClelland, counts down an all-in at the final table

photo by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com Tournament room overlooks the famous Bellagio dancing fountains

photo by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com WSOP bracelet holder James van Alstyne

Poker Strategies

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Here’s some rather unfortunate news. Binion’s, home to one of if not the most famous poker rooms in the world, has announced that they will be closing down the hotel side of their business due to the crummy Vegas economy. Binion’s was the birthplacle of the World Series of Poker and is where many of the legendary players of today got their poker careers started.

“This is a result of this brutal economy that has affected Las Vegas,” said Lisa Robinson, a spokesperson for the hotel. “We looked at every aspect of our operations, and the hotel rooms are no longer competitive in this market.”

Thankfully, it appears that the casino and the poker room will stay open with no sign that they’ll be closing anytime soon. The entire building, complete with hotel, opened up in downtown Las Vegas all the way back in 1951 and didn’t host the first ever WSOP until 19 years later in 1970. Every subsequent WSOP was held within the storied walls until both the hotel and the rights to the WSOP were bought up by Harrah’s Entertainment in 2004, with the WSOP then moved to the Rio to accommodate larger fields.

However, Binion’s is currently owned by TLC Casino Enterprises, which it acquired for million back in January 2008. Anyone that’s booked a reservation in one of the 365 rooms at Binion’s before December 14th will still be able to stay at the hotel, however afterwards all room requests will be forwarded to another TLC property, the Four Queens.

It really is a shame to see a piece of Binion’s go under, heck, even I got my poker start there, back when the poker room looked like you’d expect a card shark’s paradise to look like before the poker boom. You can still enjoy the best parts of Binion’s though, namely the card room, and I highly recommend doing so during your next trip to Vegas.

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Poker News and Tips

Think your bad beat story belongs in the book? This might not be as bad as the time you went all-in within ten minutes of hitting town and came in third after two one-outers caught a miraculous river and chopped up your entire play bank; but, it’s the biggest money bad beat. The spiral down lasted a year and cost Terrance Watanabe 7 million. The 52 years old Watanabe spent most of 2007 at Harrah’s Caesars Palace and Rio casinos drinking and gambling and losing enough money to buy a couple of hundred condos at CityCenter.

When his sister finally came to town and rescued Mr. Wanatabe from himself he had gone through almost 127 million dollars. Apparently, he still has millions but not nearly as many. He’s paid close to 2 million to Harrah’s, but, has now decided to renege on the remaining .7 million in markers. The law here in Las Vegas considers unpaid markers to be the same as a bad check and if you don’t pay you might be spending a few years in Nevada in a comped small room far away from the bright lights of the strip. In Mr. Watanabe’s case the stay could drag out to 28 years.

In his defense, Mr. Wanatabe filed a civil suit in Clark County District that seeks to place some of the responsibility for his record setting loss on Harrah’s. He is claiming he was supplied with alcohol, drugs, and encouraged to gamble in a drunken state for hours on end. Unfortunately for Mr. Watanabe, this line of reasoning hasn’t worked well with Nevada juries. After all, the casino didn’t make you drink the booze. His trial on the criminal charges is set for Summer 2010.

Read a detailed account of Mr. Watanabe’s bad beat story according to Alexandra Berzon for the Wall Street Journal.

Next time you’re in Las Vegas thinking about to go on tilt because some soccermom commandeered a case deuce to beat your quads!…just remember Mr. Watanabe’s Vegas story.

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For those lucky enough to make it to Melbourne for the Aussie Millions, the Crown Casino is a “home away from home” thanks to its impressive lineup of eateries, bars and nightclubs and entertainment venues.

The Crown has a little something for…

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The purchase of WPT was just the beginning for PartyGaming in a quest of becoming the biggest poker site in the world, again. The next step apparently is adding sports book to their supply, as the company has started merger talks with Austrian gambling company Bwin.

PartyGaming is set to welcome Bwin.

The merger would create a huge gambling company worth of £2 billion. Talks about the merger have been held on and off since the summer. If the two sides can agree a tie-up, the deal would be a merger of equals, as the value of both companies are about the same.

PartyGaming is currently offering poker and casino games. The merger, that is expected to be clarified early this week, of PartyGaming and Bwin would be logical, because PartyGaming is looking for new revenues from sports betting, something that Bwin is good at.

PartyGaming has been looking for expanding their business recently under CEO Jim Ryan. Before the UIGEA was set PartyGaming was estimated being worth of £5 billion, nearly 90% of its revenues coming from America. Closing their American operations lost them huge share of poker markets.

Everything is pointing to a fact that PartyGaming is preparing a return to US market. Mike Sexton, the WPT announcer and PartyPoker spokesperson told cardplayer.com that people at PartyPoker are sure UIGEA will be reversed and it will start a poker boom like six years ago, When Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP main event.

Source

Source

You just read Poker News from HighStakesNews.com

PartyGaming to merger with Bwin?

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This week marks the second installment of Team Pro Tuesdays on PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker site. Every Tuesday through December 29th, PokerStars sponsored pros will be hitting the virtual felts in earnest.

Team PokerStars Pro includes the reigning champion of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, Joe Cada, who became the youngest winner ever of the ,000 buy-in tournament in November. Cada shattered fellow Team PokerStars Pro member Peter Eastgate’s standing record by a full year, as the site boasts the last two WSOP Main Event champions. Chris Moneymaker, widely considered to be the man responsible for starting the modern poker boom, is also a card-carrying member of Team PokerStars Pro. Moneymaker took down the feature tournament in 2003 as a little-known accountant from Tennessee, defeating established pro Sammy Farha heads-up.

In 2004, Greg Raymer became poker’s newest star and Aussie Joe Hachem followed in 2005. Both are now sponsored by PokerStars and are benevolent ambassadors for the game. Text found on PokerStars’ website explains what players can expect as part of Team Pro Tuesdays: “On this day every week, scores of our pro players will be logging on and playing at the tables, covering everything from cash games to tournaments across a wide range of games and buy-in levels. You’ll be able to watch your favorite players in action and talk to them from the rail.”

PokerStars pros will take to the felts during two separate time blocks each Tuesday, from 12:00 to 15:00 ET and again from 19:00 to 22:00 ET. In order to figure out which pros are online, visit the “Team Pro” link at the bottom of the PokerStars lobby. You can also click “Requests” on the top menu bar and then hit “Find a Team PokerStars Player.” The concept of playing with the pros is similar to the main marketing message of rival online poker site Full Tilt, whose stable of players includes Howard Lederer, Gus Hansen, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan, the newest member of the team.

In addition to being able to play with pros in cash games, PokerStars is running a pair of Outlast the Pro tournaments. The first installment takes place at 13:00 ET on Tuesdays, while the second running issues its “Shuffle up and deal” command at 20:00 ET. Each tournament has a buy-in of along with ,000 in cash added to the prize pool. Players who remain in each tournament longer than every single one of the pros in the field will divvy up the ,000 in added funds. For example, if Cada were the last pro standing and knocked out in 83rd place, the remaining players would each pocket .20, or ,000 split 82 ways. The Outlast the Pro tournaments can be found by visiting “Tourney” and then “All” in the PokerStars lobby.

Other members of Team PokerStars Pro include “PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge” front man Daniel Negreanu, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, and Humberto Brenes. Its roster also includes top female pros like GoDaddy Girl Vanessa Rousso, Vicky Coren, Barry Greenstein, Chad Brown, Gavin Griffin, and Maridu Mayrinck, who was featured in this year’s WSOP Main Event coverage on cable station ESPN.

According to PokerScout.com, which keeps tabs on online poker room traffic, PokerStars is the largest site worldwide with a seven-day running average of 28,600 real money ring game players. During its peak hours, well over 40,000 cash game aficionados call the site home. It happily accepts customers from the United States.

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Unlike many Isildur1 sessions, which jump up to 0/,000, yesterday’s 1.5 hour session took place entirely at 0/0 Pot-Limit Omaha.

Over the 1,003 hands dealt, the rivals played 23 pots worth over 0k, the six largest all being awarded to Townsend.

The largest pot of the session, worth 7k, saw Isildur1 get it all in on the turn with top two, drawing stone cold dead against Towsend’s top set.

The largest pot won by Isildur1 came in at 5k. This hand saw both players pot and re-pot their way all in on the flop with Isildur1’s bottom set of sixes versus the open-ended straight draw of Townsend.

After bricking the turn, Townsend’s hopes of drawing out on the river were crushed by the case six, giving Isildur1 four of a kind and the pot.

The session ended with Isildur1 down over 2k, putting him down almost .4 million on the year.

Townsend is quickly becoming one of Isildur1’s most consistent opponents. Since their first session just two months ago, Townsend has booked 17,725 hands against Isildur1 with a total profit of over .5 million.

Just ahead of Townsend in both hands played, and money earned, sits Patrik Antonius at 22,230 hands, and a profit of .1 million, against the unknown Swede.

In the lead for hands played, and money lost, sits Tom Dwan with a whopping 45,172 hands, and over .5 million lost.

Below are three of the largest pots from yesterday’s session, you can find more hand replays in our MarketPulse section.

 

An unlucky turn for Isildur1.
 

 

Aces versus Kings.
 

 

Not that he needed it, but a nice river for the Swede.
 



Visit PokerListings.com

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Poker once again returns to the Bellagio with the today’s start of the World Poker Tour Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic. This yearly event draws some of poker’s biggest fields thanks to the hefty ,000 buy-in and it appears as…

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