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October 8: Poker Stars Sunday Million
The $200+15 Sunday Million at Poker Stars crested the 5500-player mark,
putting first place at $162,279. In true ironic fashion, the final table
featured seven of nine players from the United States.
Mr. Neverquit was knocked out in third to make the tournament heads-up between
Fenster and zach5500. Neverquit’s finish was notable because it was his
second prize of over $55,000 this month, after he finished sixth in Event #2
of the World Championship of Online Poker.
Fenster had almost a 2-1 advantage heads-up, and it took less than five
minutes for the deciding hand. On a K
T
8  flop, the
players kept raising the minimum until zach5500 was all-in. Fenster showed K
5 for top
pair, and zach5500 had nine outs to the flush with J
4. The spade
never came, and zach5500 had to settle for $88,126 and second place.
October 8: Party Poker Million falls short of guarantee
Party Poker’s announcement that it would end access to US players after the
expected October 13 signing of the UIGE legislation caused many players to
exit the site, even though they were still welcome as of October 8. Although
the prize pool was still large, it was also over $80,000 short of the
guaranteed million dollars, causing Party Poker yet another hit. To complete
the insult, the final table was completely uninteresting, as the final five
players chopped the prize pool, ending the tournament immediately. Since the
chip counts were relatively close, all five players received between $67,000
and $98,000.
October 8: Full Tilt Poker sets high-water mark
Full Tilt Poker gained some of Party Poker’s loss, drawing 1336 entrants to
its $250,000 guaranteed tournament, which starts at 1800 US Eastern time
(2200 GMT). When it was down to two, Gbecks (third in last week’s Party
Poker million) faced off with tajikrose. Tajikrose made it difficult for
Gbecks, often raising all-in with big overbets as the chip leader. Gbecks
was finally forced to take a stand, choosing Q
7 to do it
with. Tajikrose had an instant call with A
6 meaning
Gbecks’ outs to the hearts were no good. The ace on the flop and no miracle
meant that tajikrose took home first place and $58,784.
October 8: UltimateBet $200,000 Guaranteed
UltimateBet fell short of its $200,000 guarantee by 124 players, but this was
the highest attendance in recent weeks. Excellent online player MrSmokey1
finished fourth. The heads-up match had Ellen00001 with a 2-1 chip lead, but
MSUsFinest chipped away until finally taking the lead. Ellen00001 raised
preflop, and MSU made an enormous all-in overbet. Ellen called with KQ
offsuit, and flopped a queen, but was way behind to MSU’s flopped set of
sixes. MSUsFinest cashed $45,000 for the win.
October 8: Poker.com stays true to the red, white, and blue
Poker.com took a strong stand regarding US poker players. This small but
quickly growing poker site may just gain some friends with this strong
statement. In a press release, the company stated, “We just wanted to let
everyone know that the proposed legislation in the United States will have
little to no affect on the operations at Poker.com. We will not be stopping
US-based players from playing at Poker.com and all account balances are 100
percent safe and will always be readily accessibly. Our business is licensed
and regulated, perfectly legal under international law and we follow all
laws in the jurisdiction where our operations are based (Canada, the UK,
Netherlands Antilles, Australia). A lot of players seem to be choosing
Poker.com as their new site of choice, which is great news for everyone and
we look forward to the day when US politicians realize their errors and
decide to regulate one of their country’s favorite pastimes, playing poker
with their friends online.”
October 8: Poker player trading cards expected
Razor Entertainment has announced a series of trading cards to take advantage
of the demand for poker memorabilia in the wake of poker’s recent explosion
in popularity. Like baseball and football cards, the cards feature
photographs of the players on one side, with history and biographical
information on the other.
The series of 37 cards was made with some of the best technologies available
to the trading card market to produce extremely high quality. In a
statement, executive James Sullivan said, “This is a unique product that
will provide players with great exposure in several national retail chains.
With a premium quality product and excellent distribution channels, the
Razor poker trading card set is a wonderful opportunity for poker
professionals to become more recognizable to poker fans both domestically
and abroad.”
The cards will be sold at Wal-mart, Blockbuster, amazon.com, and Target, among
others. Notable pros include Scotty Nguyen, Mike Matusow, Phil Hellmuth,
Daniel Negreanu, and recent World Series of Poker Main Event top finishers
David Williams (second, 2004) and Chris Moneymaker (first, 2003).
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