Losers

Those players whose deep run in the prestigious tournament came to an end today included Sweden’s Per Linde in 57th ($130,997), UK’s Sebastian Ruthenberg in 55th ($130,997), Andrew Brokos in 53rd ($160,036), Canada’s Stefan Huber in 51st ($160,036), and David Bach in 45th ($196,174).

Having nursed a short stack for a few days  Erick Lindgren eventually saw his tournament come to an end after busting in 43rd ($196,174) and later commented:

“This is the Main Event. You never give up,” before adding, “You don’t play for 43rd place. I don’t know if I’m even for the World Series.”

Following suit was Tony Hachem in 37th ($196,174), John Esposito in 32nd ($242,636) and UK hope JP Kelly going out in 26th place ($302,005)

Also falling near the end of Day 7 was the golden couple of the Main Event, with David Sands eliminated in 30th and last woman standing Erika Moutinho in 29th for a payout of $242,636 apiece.

Winners

Day 8 action will resume with the blinds at 80k/160k with 20k antes, and leading the overnight winners is Anton Makievskyi, helped along by a massive 20 million pot played against Chris Moore.

Makievskyi (K-J) raised in early position and got a call from Moore (A-J), with both players then hitting the K-J-J flop, and all the chips moving to the centre of the table. Consequently Makievskyi ended the day on a 21.045 stack, while Moore finished short-stacked on just 3.04m.

Other players continuing to shine at the 2011 Main Event include Eoghan O’Dea (19.05m), Canada’s Khoa Nguyen (16.435m), Ben Lamb (14.69m), Phil Collins (13.80m), Ryan Lenagham (10.415m), Germany’s Pius Heinz (7.51m),  and Bryan Devonshire (6.19m).

Shorter stacks include Sam Barnhart (4.935m), UK’s Samuel Holden (4.74m), Lars Bonding (4.14m), and Chris Moore (3.04m).

 
The players are currently on an overnight rest, with the remaining 22 contenders then returning to battle it out for a place at the final table. The action will get underway at 12pm Las Vegas at the end of which we will finally have our 2011 WSOP Main Event November Niners.

Having lost his $150,000 stack 1,439 hands through the scheduled 2,500 hand session, Negreanu initially drew attention on his blog to the fact he was unlucky to have lost 12 out of 14 of the biggest pots on the night to Isildur1.

On his latest blog post Negreanu now acknowledges that he would have had to not only outplay Isildur1, but also out-luck him in order to have finished ahead at their first showdown, neither of which was the case. As Negreanu explains:

“Whatever happens next Sunday, whether I win or lose, the fact that Isildur1 is the better player won’t change. He is very tough to play against…The reason he won, aside from the lucky all ins/coolers, was that he figured me out pretty quickly and developed a counter strategy that left him protected for the most part.”

After making this sweeping statement, Negreanu then alluded to the fact he would have simply quit early was he merely playing a standard cash game against Isildur1 instead of a match.

The tendency for a person to want to play on endlessly against an opponent when they are getting run over has sunk many a player, according to Negreanu. The Canadian pro then says the psychological advantage a player gains when they are winning cannot be overestimated and so the losing player should have the “emotional stability and toughness” to run and fight another day.

“The true test of a poker player is how well he plays when things are going terribly…The best poker player in the world, Phil Ivey, routinely calls it quits early in sessions when things are going badly. It’s the exact opposite of what 99% of poker players do! Most players chase, and just want to get “unstuck,” which means they’ll often play for days when they are losing. That’s a terrible way to approach poker as a business and it’s buried plenty of people.”

Nevertheless, Negreanu hasn’t got the luxury of quitting during his upcoming Superstar Showdown Part 2, despite his admissions of the superiority of Isildur1′s heads-up cash play, However, Negreanu’s confidence would seem to be on the rise again having won $85,000 from Kangis, DuggerGerngy and Justin Bonomo over the past 24 hours and he is already relishing the prospect of enacting some measure of revenge on his 20 year-old Swedish opponent.

“If you want to rail, check my twitter feed as I’ll usually tweet when I’m playing. My twitter name is “RealKidPoker,” announced Negreanu.

The event was held at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, California and Day 1a saw four players book themselves a place through to Sunday’s nine man final table. Then on Day 1b of the competition, joining Jonathan Duhamel, Shane Schleger, Pat Walsh, Victor Ramdin and Alex Keating at the final table were John Smith, Joe Tehan, Matt Woodward and Ali Eslami.

After Victor Ramdin’s $500,000 win at the $5k Big Event a few days earlier, the Guyanan born pro would have felt disappointed to have been the first player eliminated in 9th for $48,000. Ramdin pushed all-in pre-flop with A-K only to be called by both Matt Woodward and Duhamel (Q-10), who won the hand with a pair of tens.

Team PokerStars Shane “Shaniac” Schleger then found himself out in 8th ($46,000) holding pocket tens to his opponent’s kings, followed soon after by Matt Woodward in 7th ($42,000) when his A-10 could not best John Smith’s K-J.

Joe Tehan holding Ad-10d then made a flush on a 10c-4d-3-8h-Kd board to see off Jonathan Duhamel (Ks-8s) in 6th ($58,000), while John Smith exited in 5th ($58,000) holding K-10 against Keating’s Ac-Qc.

As the pace of the eliminations began to quicken, Joe Tehan soon found himself out in 4th ($56,000) holding Kc-Qc to Walsh’s Ac-Kh and after Alex Keating exited in 3rd ($62,000), the heads-up phase of the tournament got underway.

Despite Walsh having a 4 to 1 chip advantage over Ali Eslami, it took around three hours before the final hand of the tournament was played with Walsh holding 9h-3s to Eslami’s Jd-7d. Eslami limped into the hand and the 9d-8d-5h flop then saw Walsh check-raising his opponent all in, who was pleased to make the call.

Unfortunately for Eslami, the As-3s turn and river failed to improve his promising draw and so he walked away with $56,000, while Pat Walsh was crowned the ESPN Bounty Shootout champion.

Walsh’s impressive  $241,700 pay-day included $40,000 for winning his Round 1 table, $171,700 for winning the final table, and $30,000 in bounties throughout the tournament.

These series of challenge matches versus Isildur1 will see different players put up $150k of their bankrolls across four tables of at least $50/$100 NLHE or PLO, with the winner over 2,500 hands keeping the profit plus at least $30,000.

Isaac “philivey2694” Haxton will kick the action off at 6 pm ET on Sunday, December 19th, but who exactly is Isaac Haxton?

The player nicknamed ‘The Lizard King’ confesses to being an avid gamer all his life starting from playing chess when he was just 4, to ‘Magic: The Gathering’ when he was 10 before eventually playing a poker home game with friends aged 18.

Haxton soon realised he was way better than the competition and in between studying computer science at University, he would also travel to the Turning Stone casino in New York before eventually turning his attention towards online poker.

After depositing $50 at Ultimate Bet, within one year he had soon progressed from $0.25/$0.50 to $3/$6 and then  $30/60 Limit games before his bankroll was close to $100k and he decided to quit college and turn pro.

If that wasn’t impressive enough, in 2007 at his first live tournament, Isaac Haxton placed 2nd at the $7,800 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure to give his bankroll a massive $861,789 boost and he has been riding high ever since.

Haxton even won another $1,168,565 after finishing 2nd at a special $40k WSOP NL event in 2009, and at present his earnings from live tournament is around $2,798,908.

However, it is at $25/50 to $100/$200 NLHE cash games where Isaac “Ike” Haxton now really focuses his efforts, and at Full Tilt he is showing a profit of $1,083,505 as “luvthewnba” and $178,695 at PokerStars as “philivey2694.”

One thing for sure is that the $150,000 SuperStar Showdown between Isidur1 and Haxton presents a mouth-watering prospect for poker fans everywhere and turning his attention to the upcoming match, Isaac Haxton commented:

“He is one of the best heads up no-limit players in the world, but I know what I need to do to beat him. I’m as confident as you can be going into a 2500-hand match against a top opponent.”

“I’ve played Isildur heads-up on six or more tables before, and I find in that situation he tends to make fewer tricky plays and concentrate more on just sticking to a game plan. I think that’s one of my strengths, so playing lots of tables tends to be good for me.”

The Final Nine List

When the bubble boy Brandon Steven was eliminated by Matthew Jarvis the final nine players fighting to be part of the WSOP final 2010 could be listed and named as the November Nine. They were as follows:

1.       Jonathan Duhamel, stack:  65,975,000

2.        John Dolan, stack:  46,250,000

3.        Joseph Cheong, stack:  23,525,000

4.        John Racener, stack:  19,050,000

5.        Matthew Jarvis, stack:  16,700,000

6.        Filippo Candio, stack:  16,400,000

7.        Michael Mizrachi, stack:  14,450,000

8.        Soi Nguyen, stack:  9,650,000

9.        Jason Senti, stack:  7,625,000

All of the players that didn’t reach the final two will still win around $1 million which isn’t a small prize sum and will certainly enhance their poker careers.

Easy or Hard Work

Jonathan Duhamel has the largest stack of chips from early Sunday till the end of the rounds. According to his opponent in the Final, John Racener, he had a much easier way to the final than Racener. Duhamel advanced his standing greatly by calling bluff by Joseph Cheong. A few hands after this he eliminated Cheong.

Cheong was truly one of the best players emerging from the games on Saturday but when Duhamel called his bluff it became his downfall. He showed very good attitude and said that he was very pleased with his results and happy with the $4 million they brought.

Michael Mizrachi ended in fifth place after losing his last chips when calling an all-in with a pair of Queens. He simply could not improve against Duhamel’s aces. Mizrachi said he hoped Racener would do well and Racener has a great chance for big money being part of the final duo.

The WSOP 2010 Final Two

John Racener has won more money and prestige during his career than Jonathan Duhamel but the final is not an easy one to call and it will have many viewers eager to see how it all ends. Racener is known for nerves of steel and perhaps his great experience will be what breaks Duhamel. Jonathan Duhamel on the other hand has been the most impressive player stack wise during the last stage of this WSOP 2010. If he continues in the same way there is nothing that can take this final from him. The winner will take home $8.94 million and the runner up is consoled by $5.55 million.

The news of the couple’s involvement initially gained ground after the previously single Scott Montgomery posted on his Facebook account, “Getting ready to celebrate my gf’s birthday. hope she likes my gift!”

That was all it took for TwoPlusTwo forum members to start speculating on who his new other half could be, and it wasn’t long before a photo of Scott and Annette looking like a cozy couple was posted to the forum.

This would also add further credence to an article written on pokernews recently, which refers to the Norwegian poker pro as “Montgomery’s girlfriend Annette Obrestad.”

Following all the speculation, Montgomery has now officially confirmed his romantic involvement with the 21 year old 2007 WSOPE Main Event Winner by updating the status on his Facebook account as “in a relationship with Annette Obrestad.”

The young couple are certainly two of the most talented young players on the poker scene at the momemt and boast over $7 million in live tournament cashes between them.

Both Full Tilt Poker pros, their poker romance is just one in a long line of relationships which have sprung up over the years from the green baize, and includes Marco Traniello and Jennifer Harman, Chip and Karina Jett, Erick Lindgren and Erica Schoenberg, and of course, Phil Laak and Jennifer Tilly.

Whoever said “Lucky at cards, unlucky in love.”

Presently down $830k for 2010, Gus got off to a flying start at the beginning of the year and was in profit $2.33 million in January before his results started to slide. Over the past few weeks alone Gus has managed to lose around $1.5 million to go firmly into the red and this pattern seems to have been repeated over and over during his time playing at Full Tilt.

In 2007, Gus Hansen was up $540k at one stage before finishing -$728k for the year. In 2008, he was in profit by almost $3 million before dropping to a loss of 619k. Once again, Gus was up around $3 million in 2009 before plunging to a staggering $7 million and now the same thing is happening all over again in 2010.
  
Amazingly enough, Hansen’s live tournament earnings are in excess of $7.5 million, and he has certainly made a ton of cash from his many business ventures including pokerchamps.com, poker forum and strategy website, ThePlayr.com, as well as releasing various instructional books and DVDs.

A big part of poker invloves fixing leaks in your game, but unfortunately for Gus he has been unable to plug the leak in either his live or online play and has had to endure financial problems as a result.

One group of people not complaining, though, are the other poker pros. Gus’s tendency to lose big at cash games has not gone unnoticed by his fellow card sharks and at one stage Phil“OMGClayAiken” Galfond famously remarked:

“To call Gus a fish is a little bit strong because he is a good player. But he is losing money. Again, I could be proven wrong, but he’s the reason that most of the games run right now.”

Income from Dragonfish, 888’s business to business operation, was down 13% compared to Q1 2009 at $10 million. Conversely, business to consumer operating income was up by 30% to $59 million, mostly due to good casino results and 888′s emerging offerings.

Total operating income from the company’s casino operation had risen 23% compared to last year to $33 million, while its emerging offerings had reached $14 million, representing a massive 203% increase.

888 Holdings plc is also in the enviable position of being debt free with cash and cash equivalents of around $93 million with $36 million of that figure representing liabilities to customers

Despite the reasonable Q1 results, the second quarter hasn’t started nearly as well for the Pacific Poker operators, and the daily average revenue for the first 25 days of the new quarter is already 13% lower than the first-quarter average.

Commenting on the mixed results, Gigi Levy, the Chief Executive Officer of the 888 said:

“While Q1 saw improvement on a year-on-year basis, B2C trading remains challenging across our product range, partly influenced by the seasonal pattern. Emerging Offering continues to out-perform the core products, and Dragonfish continues to win new deals, notably those in the newly regulated Italian market with bwin Italia and Gioco Digitale. However, revenue from new deals is yet to gain significant volume.”

“We believe that the right steps are being taken to counter the current challenges we face, and the board remains confident in 888′s strategy.”

Following the results being released, shares in 888 Holdings Public Limited Company continued to fall and dropped a further 2.13% to 91.80 pence on the LSE, having dropped 4.82% in yesterday’s trading.

The 27-year-old Daniel Tzvetkoff is alleged to have helped process over $500 million in transactions between February 2008 and March 2009, and when his company finally collapsed he was left with debts totalling over $80 million including $30 million owed to four online poker sites.

Despite being declared bankrupt, Tzvetkoff was still involved in managing a separate consulting and billing group offshore, and was in Las Vegas on a 10 day conference when he was spotted by several US online poker pros he owed money to. As a former workmate of Tzvetkoff explains:

“Daniel went to the US and got into the country, no problems, but I think him wandering around that conference sort of thumbing his nose at some of the people he owed large amounts of cash to caused them to get in touch with the FBI.”

Now Tzvetkoff  stands accused of violating America’s UIGEA law , by “disguising the transactions to the banks so that they would appear unrelated to gambling.”

As the DOJ goes on to explain: “Tzvetkoff and his co-conspirators created dozens of shell companies with names unrelated to gambling – complete with phony websites that made the companies seem legitimate – and represented to banks that the… transactions were on behalf of these companies.”

“On May 3, 2008, one of Tzvetkoff’s co-conspirators in an email told Tzvetkoff that he had hired programmers to develop ‘unique’ websites for the shell companies so that if someone was ‘checking the companies out there is absolutely no way to tie the companies together.’ Tzvetkoff responded: ‘This is all perfect!”

Daniel Tzvetkoff was once believed to have been worth $82 million, and was known back in his native Australia for his luxurious and lavish lifestyle.

However, things began to fall apart for him after ex-business partner Sam Sciacca tried to sue him for $100 million and Tzvetkoff has since been forced to sell off many personal assets including a Gold Coast mansion, a Brisbane nightclub and his black Lamborghini.

 If found guily Daniel Tzvetkoff could be facing up to 75 years in a US prison.

The ITPL is the brain child of Montel williams, who serves as the Commissioner and CEO of the series of Reality TV Poker Tournaments held in conjunction with the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. The lawsuit claims that on July 30th 2008, Guardian Gaming Ltd paid an initial payment of $300,000 to William’s ITPL and agreed to set up and operate an Internet gaming site associated with the ITPL, in return for 25% stake of the company.

However, by September 2008, ITPL/Williams decided to go with Playtech’s iPoker network, instead of Guardian Gaming and so terminated their agreement, and failed to return the money.

“Either Williams and ITPL did not intend to fulfill their contractual obligations to Guardian Š and/or Williams identified another company and concluded this other company could complete the tasks delegated to Guardian in the agreement on preferable terms,’’ the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit continues that despite the ITPL and Williams acknowledging Guardian’s entitlement to a refund, no money has been forthcoming. The upshot is that Guardian Gaming are claiming that at the time of the original agreement, the ITPL made representations “that they would use the initial investment in furtherance of the venture and/or that defendants would fulfill their obligations under the agreement.”

However, Guardian now allege that the “Defendants knew or believed that these representations were false or made them without sufficient foundation,” and concludes that the “Defendants made such representations with the intent to defraud and induce Guardian into paying the initial investment.”

Guardian Gaming are now pursuing damages, interest and legal costs, in addition to the return of their $300,000, and have filed the lawsuit at the Clark County District Court in Las Vegas.