Internet poker online

Two players on recent hot streaks are among the chip leaders after Day 1A of the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Bay 101 Shooting Star tournament. A total of 17 bounties took to the field on Day 1A, with 25 more expected today.

Greg “FBT” Mueller won two bracelets during the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP), coming out on top in the $10,000 World Championship of Limit Hold’em for $460,000 and a $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout for another $195,000. Moreover, he made a third final table, taking seventh place in the World Championship of Seven Card Stud for $53,000. All told, Mueller logged one of the most successful WSOP showings in history and is up to his winning ways once again in San Jose, California, the site of Bay 101.

Mueller sent Shooting Star and recent WPT Southern Poker Championship winner Hoyt Corkins out on Monday. The DoylesRoom pro was all-in before the flop with A-K, but Mueller, who is also a Shooting Star, picked up pocket aces. The board ran out Q-8-4-9-9 and Corkins signed over a commemorative shirt. Mueller also laid claim to the $5,000 cash bonus. The former hockey player has the second largest chip stack after Day 1A at 132,800, trailing only chip leader Vanna Tea’s 143,900.

Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko is the reigning WPT Championship winner and also took down the 2009 PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Main Event for $1.7 million. In 2008, Timoshenko found the winner’s circle of the Asian Poker Tour’s (APT) Macau Main Event for $500,000. Timoshenko, a Shooting Star, owned the fourth largest stack when play wrapped up for the night on Monday at 97,600. A total of 53 players remained of the 136 who entered.

Timoshenko dropped a portion of his stack late in the day. He led out for 6,900 into a pot of 10,000 on a board reading K-8-4-6-5. Team PokerStars Pro front man Daniel Negreanu made the call and turned over 5-4 of hearts for two pair. Timoshenko had K-J for top pair and was a victim of a less-than-stellar river card. The hand boosted Negreanu to 50,000 in chips, but he ended the day with just 19,600, the 48th largest stack.

The first Shooting Star to depart was T.J. Cloutier, who shoved on a flop of A-J-4 holding pocket queens. Wade Griffith held A-J in the hand for top two pair and Cloutier failed to improve on the turn or river. Griffith finished in 42nd place after Day 1A with a stack of 30,000 chips.

Besides Mueller, Timoshenko and Negreanu, the Shooting Stars who survived the day were Mike Matusow (39th place with 35,100), Freddy Deeb (41st place with 30,800), and Steve Brecher (51st place with 10,800). Here are the top 10 chip stacks after the first of two starting days at Bay 101:

1. Vanna Tea - 143,900
2. Greg Mueller - 132,800
3. Oddie Dardon - 105,500
4. Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko - 97,600
5. Joseph Elpayaa - 87,300
6. Scott Montgomery - 84,800
7. Chris “Fox” Wallace - 84,100
8. Bruce Kramer - 81,200
9. Daniel LaFrance - 79,400
10. Tyson Marks - 74,000

When play wrapped up for the day, the action was in Level 9, where the blinds were 300-600 with an ante of 75. No Shooting Star has ever won Bay 101 since it became part of the WPT in 2004.

As an added bonus, Tea pocketed a $10,000 cash prize for leading the pack after Day 1A; the leader after Day 1B will also collect $10,000. The cards hit the air at 10:45am PT this morning.

Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest WPT results.

More here:
Greg “FBT” Mueller, Yevgeniy Timoshenko Among WPT Bay 101 Day 1A Leaders

The first big session for Dwan came Saturday evening when he sat for 413 hands of heads-up $200/$400 Pot-Limit Omaha against Isildur1.

Dwan left the session up $81k, logging off for the night.

Eight hours later, before dawn on Sunday, Dwan sat for 360 hands of $300/$600 PLO against Patrik Antonius and PixKim.

By the end of that four-and-a-half-hour session, Dwan had massed over $624k in profit, the majority coming from the quickly floundering Antonius.

After the $81k loss to Dwan, Isildur1 went on a series of swings.

First he made back $79k of his losses, then dumped another $177,990 at $200/$400 Cap PLO.

He was soon back on the up-swing, however, making $64k from Cole South heads-up before meeting up with Dwan again, this time at a six-max $300/$600 PLO game.

The six-max game saw hours of furious action between Isildur1, Dwan, Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies, Hac “trex313″ Dang, Patrik Antonius and others.

And despite playing against some of the most prolific players in the world, Isidlur1 left after 1,689 hands with a profit of $517,223.

Dwan took a $229k loss at the same game, Sahamies nearly broke even losing just $10k, Dang made away with $119k and Patrik Antonius took a massive hit, losing over $874,000.

After breaking the six-max game, Isildur1 moved on to play a couple of cap games, losing $18k at $200/$400 Cap PLO and making around $90k from LarsLuzak at $500/$1,000 Cap No-Limit Hold’em.

The unknown Swede went on to make another $83k from Triko at $200/$400 PLO, and after just ten hands of heads-up $200/$400 PLO against Sahamies, called it quits.

By the end of the weekend Isildur1 had made $526,083, bringing his total profit for the year up to around $915,000.

Meanwhile, Dwan put in two more heads-up sessions and a couple small Cap PLO sessions before logging off.

His first heads-up match resulted in a $76k to LarsLuzak after 222 hands of $500/$1,000 Cap NLHE.

But Dwan turned it around in his final heads-up match of the weekend, taking another $306k from Antonius, this time over 344 hands of $300/$600 PLO.

All toll, Dwan finished the weekend with a massive profit of $856,489, bringing him up to around $1.7 million profit for the year so far.

Antonius came out of the weekend as the biggest loser by far, finishing stuck over $960k bringing his losses in 2010 up to $2.8 million in so far.

Below are three of the largest hands from the weekend, to see more head to MarketPulse.

ClubWPT qualifier Leron Washington took down the World Poker Tour (WPT) Celebrity Invitational, defeating a field of 567 players from all walks of life. He earned $100,000 for the win.

Washington hails from Huntington, West Virginia and is a boxer by trade. If the WPT is looking for a spokesperson for its subscription-based online poker room that Washington qualified through, he may be their man. Washington told new WPT Live Updates hostess Jacque following his win on Wednesday night, “It’s a dream come true. I’ve been waiting for this day a long time. It’s really being able to get out and try to showcase my talent and sit alongside some of the pros and celebs.”

Washington became the first ClubWPT qualifier to make a final table on the roving tournament series and entered the finale third on the leaderboard. Steve Elliott was the first elimination of the night. He called all-in after a raise pre-flop by Neev Baram and turned over K-Q. Baram showed K-10 and the flop came J-J-8, leaving Elliott in prime position for a double up. The turn was a queen, giving Baram extra outs. Sure enough, a bullet hit on the river to improve Baram to a straight, sending Elliott home in sixth place for $5,000.

Two-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Thor Hansen was sent packing in fifth place after moving all-in before the flop with A-6. Washington made the call with just 8-6 and spiked an eight on the flop. No help came for Hansen on the turn or river and the most decorated player at the final table was bumped in fifth place for $10,000. The Season 8 Celebrity Invitational marked Hansen’s first WPT final table.

Five hands later, Baram moved all-in under-the-gun with Q-10 and received a call from Sean Urban, who held A-K of diamonds. The flop fell 10-5-2 with two diamonds, pushing Baram out in front with top pair, but giving Urban a flush draw in addition to his two overcards. The turn was the nine of clubs, but Urban spiked an ace on the river to send Baram home. Fourth place in the invite-only WPT tournament was worth $15,000.

Absolute Poker pro and former “Real World: Las Vegas” star Trishelle Cannatella committed her chips with pocket queens on a board reading 8-7-5-5. Washington thought for several seconds before making the call with 6-7 for a pair of sevens and an open-ended straight draw. The river was a four, a dagger for Cannatella, as the card improved Washington to a straight. Cannatella took home $20,000, her first WPT cash. She was a guest on the UB.com sponsored poker news show “Poker2Nite” on Wednesday as well. The series airs on Versus.

Entering heads-up play, Washington held a massive 9:1 chip lead over Urban. However, putting Urban away was anything but easy. Urban doubled up twice in the first five hands of heads-up play to be down just 2:1 in chips. By hand #85 of the night, the two were nearly dead even and 15 pots later, Urban had taken the chip lead over the amateur. Washington finally broke through after calling all-in with K-5 on a board of K-J-10-J-2. Urban sheepishly showed Q-5 for a busted straight draw and, just like that, Washington was a 60:1 chip leader. The ClubWPT qualifier won the tournament on the very next hand.

Here were the payouts from the 2010 WPT Celebrity Invitational:

1st Place: Leron Washington - $100,000
2nd Place: Sean Urban - $50,000
3rd Place: Trishelle Cannatella - $20,000
4th Place: Neev Baram - $15,000
5th Place: Thor Hansen - $10,000
6th Place: Steven Elliott - $5,000

Today, the final table of the WPT L.A. Poker Classic will play out from the Commerce Casino. Andras Koroknai holds a commanding chip lead over the rest of the table, which includes Raymond Dolan, Tri Huynh, Gevork Kasabyan, Jean-Claude Moussa, and Michael Kamran. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest WPT coverage.

Read the original here:
Leron Washington Wins WPT Celebrity Invitational

The third episode of Season 6 of GSN’s “High Stakes Poker” aired on Sunday night at 8:00pm ET. Team PokerStars Pro member Jason Mercier joined the set and Daniel Negreanu pushed all-in, but ultimately chopped the pot.

Two players had gone broke in the first two episodes, as UB.com pro Phil Hellmuth and Andreas Hoivold each dropped $200,000. The latter’s seat remained empty as Sunday night’s “High Stakes Poker” kicked off, but Mercier soon joined the fray. “High Stakes Poker” announcer Gabe Kaplan commented on Mercier’s appearance: “He looks more like a swimmer to me than a poker player.”

While Mercier was busy stacking his pile of $100 bills, he picked up pocket twos and raised to $5,500. Tom “durrrr” Dwan came over the top to $19,200 with A-3 and Mercier folded. Curiosity began to build as to what Mercier had, with Eli Elezra laying 3:1 odds that the newcomer held a better hand than Dwan. Victory Poker pro Antonio Esfandiari and others at the table took Elezra up on his bet, with Mercier later admitting that he had pocket deuces, setting up what would have been a coin flip.

2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) November Nine member Phil Ivey tangled with Danish poker superstar Gus Hansen, who raised to $5,600 pre-flop with A-K. Ivey made the call with pocket eights and the flop came 5-J-J. Ivey check-called a $6,800 bet from Hansen to bring another five on the turn. Ivey once again check-called a bet from the Dane, this time $13,200, and a seven hit on the river. The action went check-check and Ivey scooped the $54,000 pot.

In the episode’s second largest pot, Hansen raised to $4,200 pre-flop with 6-4 of spades, Dwan made the call with A-6 of clubs, and Elezra came along with K-8 of hearts. With each player holding suited cards, the flop came K-9-3, giving Elezra top pair. He checked the action to Hansen, who bet $9,900. Dwan got out of the way and Elezra called to bring another three on the turn. Elezra check-called a bet of $25,500 and an ace hit on the river. Elezra once again checked the best hand, Hansen fired out a third bullet to the tune of $62,200, and Elezra insta-called.

The pot totaled $209,800 and after it panned out, Hansen sat down with “High Stakes Poker” floor reporter Kara Scott to relive the hand. On the failed triple barrel bluff, he explained, “I stuck to my plan, which from the beginning was okay, but in the end with the cards on the board was horrible.” Hansen left the table after the hand was over and did not return for the duration of the episode.

Then, it was Negreanu’s turn to take center stage. After being active throughout much of the hour-long show, he raised to $3,000 pre-flop with 9-7 of diamonds and Dwan made it $11,200 after picking up pocket queens. Ivey came along with pocket eights and Negreanu called. The flop came 4-9-J, giving Negreanu middle pair, and Dwan made an $18,200 continuation bet with his overpair. Ivey folded and Negreanu moved all-in for $88,400. Dwan quickly called and the pair agreed to run the board twice.

The first board filled out 2-J, giving Dwan half of the pot. On the second board, an ace hit the turn, but Negreanu spiked a five-outer on the river when a nine fell. The $212,200 pot, the largest of the night, was chopped as a result.

Two vignettes appeared during Sunday’s installment. “30 Seconds with Kara Scott” focused on the competitors’ most memorable winning sessions. Meanwhile, the PokerStars-sponsored “Did You Know” discussed the five-month marathon poker session between Johnny Moss and Nick “The Greek” Dandolos. Both were charter inductees into the Poker Hall of Fame.

Next week on “High Stakes Poker,” Dario Minieri gets aggressive and Negreanu stumps Elezra. The cash game franchise airs at 8:00pm ET on Sunday nights on GSN.

Read the original here:
Jason Mercier Joins High Stakes Poker Cast

For many in the poker world, the PokerStars North American Poker Tour (NAPT) stop at the Venetian has been their home base for the past week. While the Main Event wrapped up last night with Tom Marchese taking the championship, the $25,000 High Roller Bounty Shootout was in full swing and many top pros were a part of the action. The Tweets from those involved let the poker community know how they were doing while the tournament was in play.

Two UB.com pros let their fans know who they would be facing during the Shootout tournament. “Poker2Nite” host Joe Sebok seemed ready for action when he Tweeted, “my tbl for 25k tomorrow: Phil Laak/Justin Bonomo/David Williams/Joe Cassidy/Yevgeny Timoshenko/Tommy Vedes. lots of potential for fireworks.” Unfortunately for Sebok, he was unable to make a run at the Shootout table, where the eventual winner has to defeat his or her entire table to move on, and was knocked out early by Bonomo. “ZeeJustin” was eventually busted by Cassidy, who moved on to the final table by eliminating four of his six opponents.

Annie Duke was at the felt for the $25,000 Bounty Shootout and found it strange that all the ladies in the event were on the same table. “Of the 3 women entered into tomorrow’s $25K event 3 are at the same table. Weird,” Duke said in her Tweet. “I am playing with Jennifer Tilly and Vanessa Rousso.” Duke would have a strong run at the table, battling with Bellagio Cup V runner up Faraz “The-Toilet” Jaka for quite some time before succumbing. “The-Toilet” was responsible for knocking out all three ladies and top pro J.C. Tran on his way to the final table.

One player who tweeted his way to victory was 2010 World Poker Tour (WPT) Southern Poker Championship winner Hoyt Corkins. Corkins has been on a roll as of late and Tweeted on his opponents, “Phil Hellmuth and Greg Raymer at my table.” While Corkins didn’t tweet during the event, Hellmuth picked up the slack with running reports. “Doubled up to average stack blinds 300-600,” informed the “Poker Brat.” “I open 1700 on button w/ A-K, Hoyt shoves w/ 6-4 in BB for my last 13k, K-9-3-5, then 6, whew!” Hellmuth was quite critical of his play later in the event, however, Tweeting, “Bad laydown!! Bad reads 2day! JDuthie had 10h-9h when I mucked A-K pre-flop! I let them steal my blinds & made a stand w KJ when JD had AK.” Duthie would make a run at winning the table, but Corkins defeated him to move on to the final table.

Away from the Shootout, players were on the cash game tables, with Mike Matusow and Jean-Robert Bellande going to battle. Matusow sought out Bellande, Tweeting, “How is it that idiot @brokelivingjrb seems to be winning everyday? I have to go see what kind of SUPER IDIOTS he’s playing against.” Apparently “The Mouth” found Bellande and had a tough night on the felt. Bellande Tweeted later in the night, “@themouthmatusow is lecturing Eli after a brutal beat. Lol. “You play so f’n bad!” Eli giggling. He he. Poker is great.”

While not participating in any of the action in Las Vegas, Lacey Jones and “Hollywood” Dave Stann made notable Tweets this week. In a personal note to her Tweeps, Lacey commented, “Lacey fact: 1 year in Girl Scouts I sold more cookies than any other girl in Texas. I got 3 badges and bragging rights! Girl Scouts rock!” Stann made his way home from playing, but wasn’t particularly pleased.  “Hollywood” noted in his Tweet, “Thanks, 4 am Hollywood Park valet guy, for smoking so much g**d**n weed b4 getting my car that I’m driving home getting a contact high.”

Finally, offering up their knowledge in Tweet form was Poker Royalty’s top poker agent Brian Balsbaugh. Apparently in response to critiques of this year’s National Heads-Up Poker Championship lineup, Balsbaugh gave the poker community insight into the selection process when he Tweeted, “If U R wondering how players with razor thin poker achievements make NBC Head’s Up, it’s b/c their sponsor’s buy commercials.” Balsbaugh also had perhaps the scariest Tweet of the Week when he let his Tweeps know, “@Phil_Hellmuth told me he’d listen to a Playgirl offer “I’d get in best shape of my life, it might be fun.”

With the L.A. Poker Classic starting on Friday, the poker world should be hopping this weekend and the Tweets should be flowing. Poker News Daily continues to watch out for the top names in the game and gather their various thoughts. Poker News Daily is a part of the world of Twitter also, so be sure to add @pokernewsdaily for the latest information on the world of poker and the Twitter scene.

More here:
Poker In Twitter: NAPT Bounty Shootout, Matusow Versus Bellande, and Hellmuth in Playgirl

Day 2 of NAPT Venetian, the inaugural North American Poker Tour event, began with nearly 500 players, but fewer than 150 survived to bag chips at the end of the night. Andrew “LuckyChewy” Lichtenberger emerged from the pro-packed field as the man…

Read the original here:
PokerStars.net NAPT Venetian Day 2: Lichtenberger Takes Over

Although it had been over a month since the durrrr Challenge was active, the pair managed to log 2,112 hands against each other.

If Dwan and Antonius continue to play roughly 2,000 hands a month it’s likely there will finally be a conclusion to the Challenge before the end of 2010.

The first session of the year actually occurred late Wednesday night with the pair putting in 1,230 hands.

Despite the large number of hands Antonius was only able to make back $6k, leaving him close to $900k short of even.

The more exciting session of the Challenge happened very early this morning, and although it was only 882 hands long, Dwan managed to walk away with $209k.

The session was action packed with both players taking hundred thousand dollar swings.

At 1:31 a.m. ET Antonius won the second largest pot of the night worth $192,800. Just one minute later at 1:32 a.m. ET Dwan took down an almost identical pot on another table, his worth $192,830.

By the time the guys called it quits, Dwan’s $209k profit pushed his total lead in the challenge to $1,077,932. Although there are still over 18,000 hands left to be played, Antonius is going to need to catch a heater before long to put himself back in the running.

durrrr Challenge by the numbers:

• 260,476,997: Total amount wagered
• 1,077,932: Amount durrrr is ahead
• 1,000,000: Net worth needed to own fancy Dijon Ketchups
• 192,830: Biggest pot of the session
• 31,912: Hands played overall
• 7,212: Amount of rake made by Full Tilt from the Challenge
• 101: Hours played in the challenge
• 99: Problems Jay-Z claims to have
• 63: Percentage of challenge completed

Below are the three largest pots from the Challenge match. You can see more hands by heading to MarketPulse.

Technically Sahamies played two sessions yesterday. The first, at a six-max $300/$600 Pot-Limit Omaha table, lasted for only five hands.

In those five hands Sahamies managed to make over $77k against Cole South and rezzydezzy1.

After getting stacked on his third hand at the table rezzydezzy1 left leaving Sahamies and South alone to play heads up. Rather than play on the six-max table, the two high-stakes professionals moved their match to a heads up table of the same stake.

This session lasted for 49 minutes: 141 hands. Again it was Sahamies who took home the profit, making over $66k to put his total on the day up to $143k.

After a breaking for the night, South woke up this morning to play some $100/$200 Cap Pot-Limit Omaha. Unfortunately he was unable to turn a profit on this session either, posting a $35k loss.

Including his losses from last night, South is stuck for a total of $110k.

Mostly thanks to his quick loss to Sahamies at PLO, rezzydezy1 booked an $84k loss on the day over 648 hands.

Below you can find the three largest pots of the previous sessions, or you can head to MarketPulse to see some more.

The concept behind Last Man Standing is simple: Starting Feb. 1 make 7,500 Titan Points a day on the site’s cash tables and tournaments and you are in the running.

If you fail to make the required amount of points you are out of the competition.

The promotion will continue until only one player is able to outlast all his competition and officially become the Last Man Standing.

The winner will receive a $13,000 package to the 2010 WSOP Main Event including the $10,000 buy-in and $3,000 for for travel, accomodations and expenses.

Additional cash prizes will be awarded to other players based on their VIP level with some prizes available exclusively to lower level players. One of the categories includes a $5,000 first place prize.

In order to participate in the Last Man Standing promotion, players have to download the Titan Poker software and register an account before Feb. 1.

Visit PokerListings.com

More here:
Titan Sending Last Man Standing to WSOP

After another session of nose-bleed stakes 7-Game on Full Tilt last night, Dwan had earned himself almost $400k in profit, enough to put him into second place for the year’s biggest winners with almost $530k.

Hansen ground his way into being the second most profitable player of the night, earning over $383k for his efforts. This profit puts Hansen in first place overall for the year with $726k.

Richard Ashby came out of the session as the largest loser, down over $457k in his 2,315 hand session.

Despite playing more hands than any other player to make the lists, Cole South became the night’s second largest loser with over $264k in losses.

Fortunately for both Ashby and South, profits made earlier in the year help keep these players from getting too far sunk into the red.

One player who has struggled out of the gate has been Chau “La Key U” Giang.

Giang, known for his regular appearances in Bobby’s room, has been somewhat of a consistent loser since the beginning of the year. Adding the $136k he lost last night, Giang tops the biggest losers list with over $590k worth of losses on the year.

With the PCA through, and the weekend just getting under way, the high-stakes action is set to erupt on Full Tilt. Keep yourself posted to MarketPulse to stay on top of all the action.

Visit PokerListings.com

Read the original here:
Tom Dwan, Gus Hansen on Top