Cops

ANZPT Perth Day 1b: Levels 3-4 (blinds 150-300, ante 25)

3:45pm: Level up, blinds 150-300, ante 25

3:35pm: Benton’s blues

Aaron Benton’s rollercoaster ride through today continues. He just recalled to us a hand where he four-bet pocket queens preflop and continuation bet a king-high flop. His opponent made the call to force Benton to shut down on the turn.

Apparently the two exchanged some banter and Benton learned that his opponent had held ace-king.

“Why didn’t you just stick it in preflop?” Benton asked his opponent.

Whatever the reason, it saved Benton from possibly losing a coinflip for his tournament, as he still sits with 14,000.

3:20pm: That’s a bad beat

We love a bad beat. It’s what makes tournament poker exciting. It’s fun for everyone else, except for the poor sod who cops it. On this occasion that player was Alex Marbeck who was slapped across the face with a brutal one-outer.

Both Marbeck and Matt Carlsson flopped sets on the [9s][3d][jd] flop. Marbeck with jacks and Carlsson with nines. Unfortunately for Marbeck the [9d] appeared on the turn to give Carlsson quads! The river was the [3h] to eliminate Marbeck in brutal fashion and jump Carlsson up to 52,000.

3:10pm: Aston crushing

While the action out on the main gaming floor has been a little quiet recently, inside the main poker room Anthony Aston has been simply crushing. We’ve just observed his stack sitting at 105,000 which is already more than yesterday’s chip leader finished with!

Aston was kind enough to let us know a little about how he accumulated those chips.
“I got lucky,” said Aston modestly. “I turned two sets. One time, the other guy had already flopped a full house and then I made a bigger full house!”

Of course, Aston finished in 3rd place as the most recent ANZPT event in Sydney, and interestingly, he is currently finds himself sitting on the same table as a familiar face with ANZPT Sydney champion Gordon Huntly.

2:50pm: Penalty time

We just observed our first penalty of the day, and it’s a hefty one at that. The player was spotted texting at the table. Unfortunately that’s an automatic one orbit penalty after the rule was announced several times before play kicked off. Players can use their phones for music, but if you want to text, make sure you step away from the table!

2:45pm: Play resumes

Similar to yesterday, we lost a dozen players in the first two levels of play today. The only difference is that we have over twice as many players today!

The remaining 209 are back in action. With registration now closing, we should have confirmation of the total number of entrants, as well as prize pool information, for you shortly.

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Happy seventh anniversary to…us!

Seven years ago today, I pressed publish on the very first post of the PokerStars Blog. On that day in 2005, I’d been playing poker my whole life. I’d been blogging for six years. I’d been blogging about poker for almost as long. There was no reason to be nervous. And yet I was. As I sent the first PokerStars Blog story out into the ether, I wondered, “What is this going to turn into?” I had no way of knowing how big it would get.

Today, we here at the PokerStars Blog celebrate our seventh anniversary. In the seven years since that first post, we have grown from one guy with a notepad and a camera to an entire team of writers, photographers, and tech gurus that we like to think has no equal. How we got there is a road so winding, I don’t even remember all the turns. The long version of the story is told in a post I wrote last year chronicling our story for PokerStars 10th anniversary: How the PokerStars Blog got its start. If you’re interested in how we grew, that story tells it in a really big nutshell.

How we looked seven years ago

Today, there are more than a dozen PokerStars Blog outlets in just about any language you need. We have writers all over the globe who work tirelessly to bring you the best PokerStars online and live coverage there is. Our readership has grown exponentially since 2005 and we welcome millions of readers to this page every year.

How?

Well, I think there are a lot of reasons. First and foremost, PokerStars’ eye for and dedication to innovation has meant a great deal to the PokerStars Blog. There is no arena PokerStars enters that it doesn’t strive to be the best, and the PokerStars Blog is no exception. There is a top-down philosophy that mandates the people of the PokerStars Blog work to be the best at what we do. Despite our admitted and transparent bias toward PokerStars, we maintain the strictest of standards in our reporting efforts. We aim to not be a machine that spits out press releases. We actively work to offer you the most accurate, entertaining, and comprehensive poker reporting available (you can also read how that came about in this post. If our readership is any indication, we feel pretty confident we succeed most of the time.

Furthermore, over the years, we have all kept our eyes open on new innovations and technologies to help us better report the news. In the past few months, we have expanded our live coverage team such that we now can report all the hand-by-hand action while simultaneously providing the best color and features on tour. Here’s a look at a day in the life of a PokerStars live blogger.

It goes beyond that, however. All the philosophy in the world won’t matter if we don’t have the people to execute it. Fortunately, over the years, we’ve put together a staff of people who know how to report the news and tell good stories. A majority of the people who work for the PokerStars Blog were professional storytellers before they turned their focus to poker. Our staff is made up of former newspapermen, broadcasters, novelists, English professors, and top bloggers.

The result is what I consider to be the best team in the business turning out some of the most interesting stories around. In the end, we turn out hand-by-hand action of live events, in-depth features and interviews, and breaking news as it happens. Even when you don’t have time to read us here, we update the PokerStars Blog Twitter feed.

The blog team in Monaco

A few of the bloggers at the PCA

If you’re new to the PokerStars Blog or haven’t been able to read us daily, here are a few stories from the past few years that have stood out to me as representative of what we do and how we do it.

The long, lonely walk of Matt Affleck (by Howard Swains)

Slaying the EPT Monkey (by Simon Young)

Finding Isildur1: Viktor Blom cops to his secret identity (by Brad Willis)

Seventeen steps with Barry Greenstein (by Brad Willis)

The PokerStars Blog One Time Chip (by Howard Swains)

It got hot in here (by Stephen Bartley)

Drama with 30,000 chips (by Stephen Bartley)

How you can back Tom McEvoy for the Poker Hall of Fame (by Simon Young)

The real reason Stephen Bartley looks so odd (by Simon Young)

Safari so good (by Simon Young)

A public health message (by Brad Willis)

Perspective (by Brad Willis)

The Post-Modern American Dream (by Paul McGuire)

Cinderella (Wo)man by Kristin Bihr

Baptism by bloco (by Dave Behr)

The best thing I’ve ever seen on this tour (by Brad Willis)

There are many, many more that I could list here from the likes of Rick Dacey, Martin Harris, David Aydt, Jennifer Newell, Kevin Mathers, Marc Convey, and the long, long list of other writers who contribute here. They are people who put their hearts and souls into blogging for us, and we’re lucky to have them on our team.

So, today we celebrate our seventh anniversary. It’s a happy day for us, and we’re looking forward to many more years of making the PokerStars Blog even better.

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LAPT Grand Final: Baptism by bloco

You’ve seen those Japanese tsunami videos from last year, I’m sure. Onlookers watch in horror as walls of water come pouring into Japanese coastal villages and flow over, under, around and through anything that stands in their way.

What you don’t see in those videos, for very good reason, is anybody rushing to join the waves. But when a tsunami of people washed into the Vila Madalena neighborhood last night as a dozen of us were enjoying caipirinhas from the second-floor of a bar named Jose Menino, it was the only thing I could think to do.

“I’m going on a fact-finding mission,” I told fellow PokerStars blogger Sergio Prado. Then I slipped down the stairs and dove head-first into the wave.

There were no police barriers set up outside, no fences or barricades or wooden horses to prevent the slow-dancing mass of people – a bloco or block party named Vai Quem Que – from engulfing every bar, restaurant and storefront in the neighborhood. They absorbed everyone they touched, infusing newcomers with their pulse, energy and rhythm.

Right hip forward, shuffle. Left hip forward, shuffle.

That’s all there was to it. Shake your arms, shake your hips, shake your feet. Smile, laugh, drink and dance. Keep doing that all the way through the neighborhood.

It was surprising simplicity with a powerful intoxicating effect. In that mass of gyrating bodies, I found it impossible to be annoyed or agitated or uncomfortable. As a part of this Brazilian flash mob, I couldn’t stop smiling at everyone I saw. The crowd was happiness and joy.

I pressed against the flank of the wave, fighting the current and making my way halfway down the street. I passed women wearing masks. Women wearing tiaras. Women wearing masks and tiaras. Men with no shirts. Men with no shoes. People banging on drums. People blaring on trumpets. There was no structure to it, no reason. Come as you are and do what you will.

The pungent, sweet smell of marijuana drifted lazily through the crowd as the crowd drifted lazily through the street. A few revelers pulled a papier-mâché horse covered in compact discs, a plastic skeleton perched atop its back. Someone else pushed a shopping cart filled with buckets of some sort of clear liquid that I seriously doubt was water and passed cups out to anyone within reach. It all made sense in the way that none of it made a lick of sense.

A man with what I’m guessing was a police whistle sambaed right past me, splitting my eardrums with his thunderous whistle blasts. Nobody around him cared and neither did I. His whistling attracted a tiny dance circle that sambaed in place for a few moments before melting back into the crowd, a swirling eddy that popped to the surface of the wave and then was pushed back under by the wave’s relentless energy.

Where did it end, I wondered. I moved further down the street, searching for the tail of the human leviathan. Eventually I found it – two small and surprisingly cheerful motorcycle cops, their flashing red lights the only indication that they were attending the bloco in any official capacity. Two cops for a crowd of thousands. In my hometown New York that would seem laughably absurd.

I swam back towards Jose Menino, towards the bar where my friends and colleagues were still standing at a window, watching the bloco in amazement and snapping photos. I guess I should have been snapping photos as well, but I was too caught up in the sea of sambaing people. I had been baptized by their elation and infused with their giddy sense of merriment. Instead of taking photos, I did what seemed most natural.

I lifted an arm high over my head, waved at my friends, and then laughed when they pointed at me in total surprise.

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PCA 2012: Looking for your big break

Well done. You’ve made it unscathed through the first two levels of the PCA main event. You now have a 15 minute break. Ironically, you’re about to find out that the break can be more exhausting that actually playing as you compete with 700 other players to make the most of it.

First you’ll have to mill around the tables as everyone heads for the same door at the same time. There’s a lot to talk about in 15 minutes so catching up with friends between tables is commonplace. That’s if you’re not still involved in a hand, one of those intellectual battles lasting several minutes, dividing players at the table into those who stay and see what happens and those who leave, assuming everything will take care of itself.

As long as you’re not that well known you’ll then be free to leave. If you are the cameras will be after you. Like certain mammals that only come out at night, or traffic cops, TV crews emerge from out of nowhere at the breaks to pounce on unsuspecting players who really just need to pee. Ivan Demidov, still tired, was one. Sergio Garcia, a few feet away, was another. William Thorson, not in demand today, walked by smiling on his way outside.

The rotunda outside the tournament room, before the storm

If you’re like Thorson a cigarette is your main priority right now. Thorson has been here before and knows the shortest routes, so follow him. If not, try the doors along the corridor outside. One of them should open. Then, light up.

Their door back in is adjacent to the large bank of tables on which are stacked sandwiches, chafing dishes powered by Sterno, and buckets full of carbohydrates. It’s all yours, but only if you know how the system works, which some lining up for a meatball sub weren’t aware of.

First you decide want you want, then you go line up at the cashier’s desk, then you buy the required number of tickets worth a dollar each (exactly the same as the dollar you’re buying them with). Then you take your tickets to the food counter where someone will exchange these tickets for food. There’s a middle man in their somewhere but it’s a system we’ve grown accustomed to.

Next to the food counter is the alcoholic drinks counter, behind which a man is waiting for someone, anyone, to get thirsty in front of a bank of pretty bottles. None do. For now at least.

Other players rush in the direction of the bathroom. Felipe Ramos is one. Among the nicest guys in the game, Ramos reached out to touch fists with me, and I awkwardly wrapped my hand around his fist like we’d agreed on a game of Roshambo. I explained, pointing at my tie, that I don’t really do anything but an old-fashioned handshake. He replied, wearing a baseball cap and the trinkets of youth, that he can only really do fist pumps. We parted amicably, wishing each other happy new year.

The tournament room at the PCA

By now you’re running out of time. You’ve only got fifteen minutes and the line for the gents is getting longer. Then there’s the food. You’re not allowed to bring it back into the tournament room; you have to think about it, pay for it, collect it and eat it before they’ll let you back in. It rules out an appetizer.

Before you know it play has restarted. You’ve had your cigarette, your bladder is relieved, and you managed to eat a hotdog without getting ketchup on your shirt. Good job. See you at the next break.

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2011 PokerStars Year in Review

In all the years I’ve been writing the PokerStars Year in Review, I have never seen a year quite like 2011. Anyone with a true love for the game has spent the past twelve months on a roller coaster ride the likes of which we had never before experienced. Like a poker game itself, this year has seen its ups and downs. Now, as we prepare to close the books on 2011, it’s worth it to take a look back at the highlights from the year gone by.

In the face of what could’ve been a tough year, PokerStars and its players persevered and found success all over the world. Bumper live fields impressed the circuit rounders. Online players broke world records. PokerStars celebrated its tenth anniversary, and its loyal players celebrated in kind. Now we look forward to 2012, a year that already promises big live events, a brand new turbo online tournament series, and the final steps along the Road to 100 Billion.

Once again, thanks to you, the loyal PokerStars player and PokerStars Blog reader. You make our jobs fun, and you make PokerStars what it is. We wish you peace, success, and prosperity in 2012.

Happy New Year.

Previous years: 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005

Click the headlines to read the whole story

JANUARY

ISILDUR1 BEATS TONY G IN SUPERSTAR SHOWDOWN–Just a few days before he revealed his true identity once and for all, Isildur1 sent the notorious Tony G. on his bike in the first SuperStars Showdown of 2011.

VIKTOR BLOM COPS TO HIS SECRET IDENTITY–As part of his new life as a Team PokerStars Pro, Viktor Blom announced he was, indeed, Isildur1. The big reveal happened at the 2011 PCA. Afterward, Team Pro’s biggest 2011 signing spent the next year playing his SuperStar Showdowns and frequenting the nosebleed games.

Blom waves to the crowd during his unveiling

KATCHALOV DEFEATS NEGREANU IN SUPER HIGH ROLLER–For the first time, the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure held a $100,000 Super High Roller event. It drew 38 of the biggest names in high-dollar poker. Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu got heads up with Eugene Katchalov. That was as far as it went for Kid Poker. Katchalov came out on top for the $1.5 million win.

Eugene Katchalov after winning the Super High Roller

JONATHAN DUHAMEL JOINS TEAM POKERSTARS PRO–In what was probably an inevitability, 2010 WSOP champion Jonathan Duhamel officially announced he was joining the ranks of Team PokerStars Pro. Duhamel almost immediately went to EPT Deauville and won the High Roller event there for $200,000.

POKERSTARS UNVEILS HOME GAMES–Always at the forefront of new innovations, PokerStars used the first month of the year to reveal one of the biggest innovations in years. PokerStars Home Games was an immediate hit among players and became even more so after it was announced Lee Jones was returning to PokerStars to head up the effort.

ITALY WINS WORLD CUP OF POKER–With as much energy as any World Cup of Poker team before it, Team Italy won its first World Cup championship at Atlantis during the 2011 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

GALEN HALL WINS $2.3 MILLION AT 2011 PCA–Cerebral, reserved, and a student of the game, Galen Hall staged an historic comeback at the 2011 PCA main event final table to win $2.3 million. He defeated the biggest field in PCA history, one that saw 1,560 sign up to play. Hall was the biggest star of the 2011 festival, but he was joined on the winners’ podium by High Roller winner Will Molson, Ladies Event winner Kristin Bihr, and Bounty Shootout champ Andrew Chen. This year’s PCA also saw Chris Moneymaker make a deep run and nearly make the final table.

Galen Hall after winning 2011 PCA

BLOM DEFEATS CATES IN SUPERSTAR SHOWDOWN–Letting little time pass after beating Tony G., Viktor Blom resumed his SuperStar Showdowns and beat Daniel Cates for more than $50,000.

WBCOOP CROWNS BLOGGER CHAMPIONS–For the past five years, PokerStars celebrated its players who spent as much time writing about poker as playing it. That happened again in the World Blogger Championship of Online Poker.

LUCIEN COHEN WINS EPT DEAUVILLE–In a story for underdog lovers everywhere, Lucien Cohen astounded the field at EPT Deauville to win €880,000 and the main event championship.

Lucien Cohen after winning EPT Deauville

FEBRUARY

OCTAVIAN VOEGELE WINS ANZPT ADELAIDE–A year after placing third at the ANZPT Adelaide main event in Season 2, Octavian Voegele returned and finished the job, taking first place and winning nearly $150,000.

LIV BOEREE WINS SUNDAY WARM-UP–No one ever accused her of being just another pretty face. Liv Boeree took care of that with her EPT San Remo win. Just in case anybody forgot, Boeree took the opportunity to win a Sunday major.

TEAM ONLINE ANNOUNCES CLASS OF 2011–The were already bright stars among PokerStars’ online ranks, but in February, Team Online made it official when it named players like Dale Philip, Shane Schleger, and Andrew Brokos to the ranks of Team Online.

Team Online’s Shane Schleger

BLOM BEATS KATCHALOV IN SUPERSTAR SHOWDOWN–Still on his early 2011 heater, Viktor Blom took on Eugene Katchalov in the SuperStar Showdown series and beat him for more than $100,000.

GARETH WALKER WINS UKIPT NOTTINGHAM–More than 1,000 players showed up to UKIPT Nottingham, and Gareth Walker managed to outplay them all for the title and £109,000.

ALEX MANZANO WINS LAPT SAO PAULO–It was the first time the LAPT had visited Sao Paulo, and the Brazilians were looking for a chance to win their first LAPT title. Chilean Alex Manzano made sure that didn’t happen when he won the record-breaking LAPT main event.

BLOM TAKES ON QUALIFIER–Viktor “Isildur1″ Blom likes to spend most of his time playing against the people in the high stakes rooms. In February, he stepped down in stakes for an afternoon to give a qualifier a shot.

MICHAEL TURENIEC WINS EPT COPENHAGEN–One-time EPT main event runner-up Michael Tureniec could still taste the victory he missed in London. He settled that score with an EPT Copenhagen title.

Michael Tureniec

MARCH

ANDREW LI BECOMES FIRST 2011 SUPERNOVA ELITE–It seems to happen earlier every year. This year, Andrew Li broke the record for first Supernova Elite of the year by three weeks.

Andrew Li on his way to Supernova Elite stardom

SUNDAY MILLION BREAKS RECORD–Though it was a record that would only last for nine months, the Sunday Million’s fifth birthday broke all the event’s previous records with a prize pool worth $11,825,600. Luke “Bdbeatslayer” Vrabel won the title.

CHRIS MONEYMAKER GOES DEEP AT HEADS-UP CHAMPIONSHIP–Proving once again that he’s not some flash in the pan, Chris Moneymaker finishes runner-up at the NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship.

Chris Moneymaker

VICTOR RAMDIN WINS THE BIG EVENT–Heads up against then fellow Team PokerStars Pro Joe Hachem, PokerStars’ Victor Ramdin won half a million bucks at the Bike in Los Angeles.

Victor Ramdin

POKERSTARS REVEALS SUNDAY STORM–What was once known as The Sunday 1/4 Million got a new name: The Sunday Storm.

BLOM WINS ROUND 1 AGAINST NEGREANU–In the first of two SuperStar Showdown matches, Viktor Blom won $150,000 off Daniel Negreanu in fewer than 1,500 hands.

JOHNSON WINS FIRST EUREKA POKER TOUR EVENT–In March, PokerStars debuted the Eureka Poker Tour and saw its first champion Keith Johnson win €58,400.

FIGUEIREDO WINS LAPT CHILE–After Chile’s devastating earthquake, the LAPT was forced to take a break from hosting events there. In 2011, the LAPT made its return for Chile’s National Poker Championship.

POKERSTARS SIGNS KATCHALOV TO TEAM PRO–In a match made in heaven (and cemented at the PCA after a Super High Roller win) Team PokerStars Pro and Eugene Katchaov made it official.

GESHKENBEIN WINS EPT SNOWFEST–The EPT made its return to the Austrian Alps for one of the best poker vacations of the year. Vladimir Geshkenbein won the title.

Vladimir Geshkenbein

GRANT LEVY WINS ANZPT PERTH–Already an APPT champion, Grant Levy went to Perth, Australia as a PokerStars qualifier and won the ANZPT event there.

Grant Levy

NEGREANU GETS BLOM IN ROUND 2–After losing $150,000 to Viktor Blom in the first of two SuperStar Showdown matches, Daniel Negreanu broke Viktor Blom’s winning streak and beat the young gun for $26,500.

POGO650 WINS POKERSTARS 60 BILLIONTH HAND–In a year that would see more than a few big PokerStars milestones, March saw the 60 billionth hand come out. it was worth more than $100,000 to PokerStars player Pogo650.

APRIL

BLOM DROPS A FEW BLINDS TO PALMER, BUT WINS THEM BACK, AND MORE–In a highly-anticipated SuperStar Showdown match, Victor Blom played Scott Palmer in the first of two rounds. Blom lost, but only $5,245. In the next round, Blom came back to win more than $61,000.

WILINOFSKY WINS EPT BERLIN–In Season 8, the Germans would begin to dominate the EPT, but toward the end of Season 7, the EPT invaded Germany, and Canadian Ben Wilinofsky defeated Germany’s Maximilian Heinzelmann for the title and €825,000 first prize.

Ben Wilinofsky

LIN WINS MACAU MILLIONS–After battling though 1,329 people, the largest poker field in Asian history, Hung-sheng Lin won the Macau Millions in the PokerStars Macau Poker room.

SELBST WINS SECOND NAPT TITLE–In a stunning repeat performance, Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst traveled to Mohegan Sun for the NAPT (the site of her first NAPT title) and won the event again.

Vanessa Selbst after winning NAPT Mohegan Sun

MERCIER MATCHES SELBST WITH BACK-TO-BACK WIN–As if to say, “Oh, yeah, I can do that, too,” Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier followed up his 2010 NAPT Mohegan Sun victory with a second at the same venue in 2011.

Jason Mercier after his High Roller title

KANAAN WINS ANZPT SYDNEY–In a lighting-fast final table performance, Daniel Kanaan won the ANZPT event in Sydney, Australia.

HOMETOWN BOY DOES GOOD–When the Latin American Poker Tour made the trip to Lima, Peru, local player Kemai Ferri made sure the trophy didn’t leave town.

BLOM GIVES ANOTHER QUALIFIER A SHOT–After a bunch of high-profile matches, Viktor Blom gave an online qualifier a chance to win some big money. It worked out better for Blom.

TURBO TAKEDOWN RETIRES–After a great run that saw a lot of people win a lot of cool cars, the PokerStars Turbo Takedown played its last match and quietly left the PokerStars tournament schedule.

MAY

ELDER WINS EPT SAN REMO–Max Heinzelmann, fresh off his near-win at EPT Berlin, once again tried (and once again failed) to win a championship. Instead the title went to Englishman Rupert Elder for the €930,000 first prize.

Rupert Elder

ELKY WINS EPT MADRID HIGH ROLLER–Proving once again that there is simply no place in the world he can’t win, Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier won the EPT High Roller in Madrid for more than half a million euros.

ElkY after winning the High Roller event

SCOOP RETURNS, KELOPURO RIDES HIGH–The Spring Championship of Online Poker came back to PokerStars and finished with more than $43 million in prize money. In total, SCOOP hosted 114 events with more than 107,000 unique players, 403,378 buy-ins, and 156 countries. Riding high among the biggest winners was Sami Kelopuro who won the big-buy-in main event, while Anders Berg grabbed Player of the Series honors.

IVAN FREITEZ WINS EPT GRAND FINAL–For the first time in its seven-season history, the EPT moved its Grand Final to Madrid, Spain. There, Ivan Freitez put on an unorthodox display to win the title and €1.5 million.

Ivan Freitez after winning Grand Final

BRITO WINS EPT PLAYER OF THE YEAR–After a startling season-long performance, businessman Fernando Brito won the EPT Player of the Year award.

MERCIER WINS CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS–As if to prove he could win any event you put him in, Jason “When Will It End” Mercier won the EPT Champion of Champions event to close EPT Season 7.

RODRIGUEZ SCORES WINS ON EUREKA POKER TOUR–Just a couple of months after finishing runner up in Prague, Antonio Rodriguez won the Eureka Poker Tour’s event in Nova Gorica.

MATUSIK WINS ANZPT GOLD COAST–Chewing Gum Pete Matusik beat out a field of 245 players over four days to win the ANZPT Gold Coast main event.

UKIPT CORK GOES TO RAZAVI–Worth €71,000, the UKIPT Cork battle put Sam Razavi heads up against David O’Connor. After a two-hour man-on-man battle, Razavi came out on top.

JUNE

BRENES HITS 60 IN TWO WAYS–Humberto Brenes not only turned 60 years old this year, but he also finally crossed the mark for 60 career WSOP cashes.

KATCHALOV WINS FIRST WSOP BRACELET–Proving he is more than a hold’em guru, Team PokerStars Pro Eugene Katchalov won a seven-card stud bracelet for $122,000.

MAH WINS RED DRAGON–In another stellar Red Dragon main event at the Macau Poker Cup, Kwan Mah won the title and nearly a million Hong Kong dollars.

POKERSTARS AND PLAYERS DONATE NEARLY HALF-MILLION TO JAPAN RELIEF–After the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, PokerStars and its players donated nearly half a million dollars to the relief effort.

MONEYMAKER DEFEATS FARHA IN RE-MATCH–In a series of made-for-TV rematches, ESPN replayed a few of the heads-up matches from historic WSOP events. Among them was the Chris Moneymaker vs. Sammy Farha battle. Moneymaker, once again, emerged with the victory.

HUANG WINS ANZPT CANBERRA–After a long weekend of celebrating the Queen’s birthday in Australia, Sammy Huang found a way to call himself King of Canberra.

Huang in Canberra

ELKY COMPLETES TRIPLE CROWN, WINS WSOP BRACELET–ElkY needed only a WSOP bracelet to complete poker’s triple crown. He got it after a WSOP 7-card-stud championship win.

ElkY at the 2011 WSOP

BLOM TAKES CAO FOR $150,000–After a two-month layoff, Viktor Blom resumed his SuperStar showdowns to felt Rui Cao in fewer than 2,300 hands.

SINCLAIR RIDES ACES TO UKIPT NEWCASTLE WIN–Richard Sinclair became the first man from Scotland to win a UKIPT event, helped in part by getting dealt aces heads-up.

BRAZIL GETS ITS OWN POKER TOUR–After becoming one of players favorite stops on the LAPT, Brazil got its own circuit, the Brasil Poker Tour.

COSSETTE GETS ANOTHER PORSCHE–Bucking the trend of buying just one Porsche with FPP points, longtime PokerStars player Spencer Cossette bought a second Porsche.

Cossette with his two Porches

MERCIER WINS SECOND WSOP BRACELET–Jason Mercier continued to amaze in June by winning his second WSOP bracelet.

BIG GAME RETURNS FOR SEASON 2–After a successful inaugural season, the PokerStars Big Game returned to the small screen for another season of high-stakes action.

GREENBERG WINS IN BULGARIA–Israel’s Idan Greenberg took his lead at the start at the final day of the Eureka Poker Tour event in Bulgaria and used it to win the €55,000 first prize.

AKKARI WINS FIRST WSOP BRACELET–Fulfilling a career-long dream, Brazilian Team PokerStars Pro Andre Akkari won his first WSOP bracelet and $675,000.

Andre Akkari and his bracelet

JULY

BLOM TOPPLES TERKEN89 FOR $150,000–After winning eight of his ten previous matches, Viktor Blom notched another SuperStar Showdown win for $150,000.

LYKOV WINS WSOP BRACELET–After watching four other Team Pros win WSOP bracelets, Team PokerStars Pro Max Lykov won one of his own.

ROWSOME JOINS TEAM ONLINE–After years of being a loyal player and qualifier, Adrienne “talonchick” Rowsome joined Team PokerStars Online.

Adrienne Rowsome

POKERSTARS DEALS 65 BILLIONTH HAND–After letting its players know the Road to 100 Billion was now paved and open for travel, PokerStars dealt its 65 billionth hand to New Zealand’s “yllams.”

SUNDAY CUBED GETS MAJORS SPOT–In July, PokerStars launched its newest Sunday major, the Sunday Cubed.

AUGUST

JP KELLY GOES DEEP IN WSOP MAIN EVENT–Though he just missed the WSOP Main Event final table in July, Team Pro JP Kelly’s deep run in the WSOP Main Event was worth a lot of money and a great story. The title link will take you to Part One. You can find Part Two HERE.

BOXELL WINS APPT MELBOURNE–It was the first time the Asia Pacific Poker Tour had visited Melbourne, Australia, so it was only fitting that the title go to a future Australia Poker Hall of Famer, Leo Boxell.

Leo Boxell

PAGANO WINS IPT SAN REMO–After years of promoting poker in his home country of Italy, Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano won his first Italian Poker Tour event.

KAISER REIGNS AT EPT TALLINN–In the first event of EPT Season 8, 21-year-old Ronny Kaiser won the title.

Ronny Kaiser

DANNY MCDONAGH MAKES HALL OF FAME–Normally reserved for players, the Australian Poker Hall of Fame decided to induct its first administrator, Danny McDonagh, head of the APPT.

CANADA WINS AMERICAS CUP OF POKER–Just a year removed from winning the inaugural Americas Cup of Poker, Team Canada came back and did it again.

KOMAROMI WINS LAPT PUNTA DEL ESTE–Although the LAPT had been to Uruguay every season it existed, no one from Uruguay had ever won a title until Alex Komaromi did it in August.

Alex Komaromi and friends

PATRICK KAR KENG LEE WINS RED DRAGON–Singapore’s Patrick Kar Keng Lee took down the Macau Poker Cup Red Dragon event after winning a satellite in the PokerStars Macau poker room.

FINTAN GAVIN WINS UKIPT EDINBURGH–Irishman Fintan Gavin may well have been known for his conversational abilities, but his poker prowess seemed just as strong in Edinburgh when he won the UKIPT title there.

WORLD CUP OF POKER SETS FINAL TABLE–After a series of online playoffs, the PokerStars World Cup of Poker determined its seven finalists, all of which will fight for a title at the PCA.

BODIS WINS IN CROATIA–31-year-old entrepreneur Richard Bodis beat out 254 people to win the Eureka Poker Tour event in Croatia.

SCHREINER SHIPS THE SNOWFEST–Not only did he get to go on one of the best poker vacations in the world, but Marcel Schreiner won the title in Queenstown.

Marcel Schreiner

SEPTEMBER

MARTIN SCHLEICH WINS EPT BARCELONA–In what proved to be a record-setting main event in Barcelona, Martin Schleich triumphed over the field in Barcelona, Spain for the €850,000 first prize.

Martin Schleich

WCOOP HOSTS $47 MILLION IN EVENTS–Once again, WCOOP returned to the PokerStars world. Over the course of 62 events, WCOOP put up more than $47 million in prize pools. Among he biggest stars in the series was Joel Adam Gordon (aka 2FLY2TILT) who won the Player of the Series Award. Meanwhile, Thomas “Kallllle” Pedersen won the main event.

Thomas Pedersen, 2011 WCOOP main event winner

MICKEY PETERSEN JOINS TEAM ONLINE–In another late-year signing, PokerStars’ Team Online signed up the famed Mickey “mement_mori” Petersen.

ZANDVLIET WINS SECOND UKIPT TITLE–He had already done it once before. In September, Joeri Zandvliet won another UKIPT title. This time it happened in Dublin for €83,500.

VIVIAN IM JOINS TEAM POKERSTARS PRO–After winning APPT Cebu, Vivian Im seemed destined for greatness in Asia. It only made sense that she would hook up with Team PokerStars Pro.

GOSK WINS AT IBIZA–It’s always a party in Ibiza, but Grzegorz Gosk showed everyone how to party in style with his €92,000 win on the Estrellas Poker Tour.

LEE NELSON WINS IN MELBOURNE–He already had a reputation for big finishes.They didn’t give him that “Final Table” nickname for nothing. In Melbourne for the ANZPT, Lee Nelson did it again with a title-winning performance.

OCTOBER

SPINDLER WINS EPT LONDON–Benny Spindler set out to prove he could do well on his home continent, and prove it he did with a £750,000 win at EPT London. Meanwhile Philipp Gruissem won another EPT High Roller title.

Benny Spindler

JACK DRAKE WINS IN DARWIN–The ANZPT finished its third season in Darwin where Australia’s Jack Drake took home the championship.

KAN WINS MPCC TITLE–In a dominant performance the likes of which tourney vets hadn’t seen in some time, Raiden Kan won the Macau Poker Cup Championship.

MENENDEZ WINS LAPT COLOMBIA–For the first time in its four-season history, the LAPT traveled to Colombia where Julian Menendez took the title.

Julian Menendez

POKERSTARS LAUNCHES TIME TOURNEYS–In one of many improvements PokerStars made to its software during 2011, the company launched Time Tourneys in October and gave time-crunched players a chance to play tournaments whenever they like.

BARRY GREENSTEIN NAMED TO POKER HALL OF FAME–It was a long time coming, but team PokerStars Pro Barry Greenstein was finally voted into the Poker Hall of Fame.

PATEYCHUK WINS EPT SAN REMO–The EPT once again traveled to the always-popular San Remo stop where Andrey Pateychuk pulled off a sick runner-runner beat on Dimitar Dachev to win the title.

Andrey Pateychuk

NOVEMBER

POKERSTARS DEALS 70 BILLIONTH HAND–As PokerStars got ready to kick off its 10th Anniversay party, it dealt its 70 billionth hand to a man from Germany. The milestone earned the winner $73,380.

POKERSTARS BLOG LOOKS AT ITS BEGINNINGS–As part of the PokerStars 10th Anniversary celebration, the PokerStars Blog looked back at how it got its start.

HEINZ JOINS TEAM PRO—Does PokerStars know how to pick’em or what? Nine guys at the final table of the WSOP Main Event and PokerStars signs just one of them….and then this happened…

PIUS HEINZ WINS WSOP MAIN EVENT–Worth more than $8 million, the WSOP Main Event first prize went to the newly-dubbed Team PokerStars Pro.

Pius Heinz after winning WSOP Main Event

MARCUS HELLNER BECOMES POKERSTARS SPORTSTAR–As winter got ready to settle in over Europe, one of its Winter Olympics stars became part of the PokerStars family.

ANOTHER FREE PORSCHE–Just because it’s been happening for years doesn’t mean people aren’t still buying Porsches with their FPPs. This was the latest of those stories.

POKERSTARS MACAU ANNOUNCES ACOP–As poker continues to rampage across Asia, PokerStars Macau announced that it would host the Asia Championship of Poker in November of 2012.

ZIYARD WINS FIRST EPT LOUTRAKI–Season 8 of the EPT added Loutraki, Greece to the schedule. Zimnan Ziyard won the title.

Zimnan Ziyard

VELDHUIS KNOCKS OUT ELKY–A little sidebar between Lex Veldhuis and ElkY ended up with the Team PokerStars Pros in the ring together. It ended badly for ElkY.

Les Veldhuis in fighting mode

LEW WINS APPT MACAU–It was his first time in Asia, his first time playing an APPT event, and his first major live win, but PokerStars Team Online’s Randy Lew made it look easy when he took down APPT Macau.

Randy Lew

STASZKO JOINS TEAM POKERSTARS PRO–Not content to have only the winner of the WSOP Main Event on the roster, Team PokerStars Pro signed runner-up Martin Staszoko to its roster, too.

DECEMBER

POKERSTARS CELEBRATES 10TH ANNIVERSARY–After ten years of dealing billions of hands to millions of people, PokerStars threw a month-long anniversary party that was worth millions and millions of dollars. As the party rolled on, PokerStars released a 10th Anniversary magazine; broke the world record for the largest tournament with 200,000 players; awarded special milestone money for the winner of the 72 billionth hand; and hosted a giant Sunday Storm. The end of the month saw the biggest part of the celebration, a $10,000 High Roller event and the world’s richest online tournament and biggest-ever Sunday Million won by Kyle “First-Eagle” Weir.

Kyle Weir, winner of the 10th Anniversary Sunday Million

POKERSTARS INTRODUCES CORPORATE BLOG–Now it’s no longer just we pro bloggers who write here on the PokerStars Blog. In December, we introduced the Corporate Blog, with words from some of the top dogs at PokerStars.

FINGER BAGS PRAGUE—To cap off the 2011 portion of the EPT’s eighth season, Martin Finger became the third German to win an EPT title in Season 8.

Martin Finger

MERCIER WINS ANOTHER $700K–To cap off another amazing year, Jason Mercier won $700,000 at the Bellagio in a $100,000 buy-in High Roller event.

SELBST CAPS A MILLION DOLLAR YEAR–Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst proved for another year that she is among the best in the game. After a final table finish at the WPT Five Diamond, Selbst secured her second-straight million-dollar year.

POKERSTARS ESTABLISHES PLAYER TRUST FUND–In its on-going effort to protect its players funds in regulated markets, PokerStars established a fully independent trustee to oversee player funds.

POKERSTARS TURBO CHAMPIONSHIP OF ONLINE POKER–After wooing the online poker world with the World Championship of Online Poker and Spring Championship of Online Poker, PokerStars announced that in 2012 it will host the Turbo Championship of Online Poker, 50 turbo events that will give players a chance to win a true online championship in record time.

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Flashback: Exile On Main Street (2006)

By Pauly
San Francisco, CA

Editor’s Note: On the 5th anniversary of Bush 2.0 sealing online poker’s fate with the signing of the UIGEA, I want to share something I wrote five years ago. This appeared on Tao of Poker on 10/9/06.

* * *

“Just for grins I shoved a hot pepper up my ass while I was jerking off. Pretty hot, but not hot enough to not try it yourself.” – Daddy

I was 22 when Jerry Garcia died on August 9, 1995. I had the day off from work and went to see a rare weekday Yankees game with my buddy Jerry who was in town on summer vacation from law school. We got drunk, smoked a joint in stairwell in left field, and watched Cal Ripken smash two home runs as the Yankees lost.

After the game I stopped by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to meet up with my girlfriend at the time. That’s when I found out about the news of Jerry Garcia’s passing. Less then two months earlier, I met Jerry Garcia and shook his hand (which eleven years later still marks one of my Top 10 Moments of All Time along with getting a blowjob on the subway and finishing my first novel).

Some older hippies and Deadheads that I know said, “The 1960s officially ended when Jerry Garcia died.” For many fans the news was devastating. The music of the Grateful Dead was not just for teenagers. As they band evolved and got older, so too did the audience. The death of their icon and hero affected not just kids but former hippies who integrated into society. They had jobs, families, and mortgages and the day Jerry Garcia died marked a void for many of them.

The Grateful Dead were followed all around the world by it’s fervent fans. Some never left tour while others jumped on and off as the drove around the country checking out shows in different cities. When Jerry Garcia died, not only did the music stop but so did the essential purpose for many individuals. Their entire lives revolved around the Grateful Dead touring. That included not just fans, but also people who worked and earned a living in the Dead’s bubble such as roadies, management, and merchandise vendors. Most of the hippies following the Dead from city to city paid their way by vending in the parking lot. Most of them lived in their cars, vans, and VW buses and sold enough stuff to buy gas, food, and a ticket to the next show. When Jerry Garcia died, an entire subculture plunged into confusion. They never had conventional jobs and found themselves at a crossroads of uncertainty, confusion, and grief.

The immediate result for the passing of Jerry Garcia and the eventual break up of the Grateful Dead also meant that there was a void to be filled. Even Rolling Stone magazine printed up a list of bands that would take the torch from the Dead. In fact several of those bands benefited financially and commercially from Jerry Garcia’s death. Without the Dead to follow around, bands like Widespread Panic, Dave Matthews Band, and Phish eventually inherited the fans, the suits, and the hippie vendors hawking their wares in the parking lot of their concerts. Their careers were advanced by the death of Jerry Garica.

Even I took advantage of the nomadic lifestyle in the late 1990s. I spent most of 1999 following Phish all over North America seeing concerts in 19 different states and 26 different cities including two in Canada. I got by selling whatever I could in the parking lots to get by whether it was tickets, pharmies, or t-shirts. Even my girlfriend at the time sold hemp jewelry or veggie burritos in order to earn enough money to buy a ticket for that night’s show and have enough money left over to buy beer and gas so we can drive to the next city and repeat the process all over again.

In 2004 when Phish broke up, there was another void to be filled and several other bands benefited from the rabid subculture. Some hippies grew old and others cut their hair and got real jobs while a new crop of prep school kids or frat and sorority girls joined the mix to keep the monster going. They voraciously drink, ingest drugs, and will party to dawn. They love music and will travel thousands of miles to see a concert. Plus they’ll spend money… and money is what keeps the monster going.

Twenty years from now they’ll be some new band that kids will follow around religiously like I did with the Dead in college and Phish in my mid/late 20s. Why? Because that’s what some people are into. They want to escape from the bitter realities of the actual world and feel connected to something/someone even if it’s for a few hours.

I saw what happened to the hippie subculture in a post-death Jerry Garcia world and that’s the closest comparison that I can come up with the recent legislation that tweaks the legality of online poker. Within a few days of Party Poker announcing their pull out of the American market, other sites such as Full Tilt and Poker Stars said they’d stay. They’re filling the void and billions of dollars in rake and tournament fees will go into their bank accounts instead of Party Gaming.

Online poker is not dead. Yet. Even though the party got busted up, people still want a fix. Ever go to one of those huge suburban parties in high school and the entire place is jumping and you’re about to declare the festivities were epic enough to be awarded Party of the Year… and then the cops come and bust it up? Mostly everyone leaves and goes home, but a few diehards stay around and drink the rest of the keg. I’m gonna be one of those guys.

For the past week, I’ve read the collective narcissistic psychodramas on everyone’s blogs regarding the death of online poker and Black Monday or Black Friday. And depending on who your read, the future is dim and dark or bright and rosey. I think that the future falls somewhere in between. The news is not that bad, but it’s not good either.

The post-apocalyptic poker world will not have mutant kids with three eyes running around and Jesus Freaks jumping out of the bushes spraying Holy Water onto the faces of hedonists. I don’t think black helicopters will land in your cul de sac and the federales will whisk you away if they find you playing an SNG on Poker Stars and ship you in a secret CIA prison in Djibouti where they’ll fry your testicles with car batteries and rip out your fingernails with rusty pliers before they toss you into a 10 by 10 cell with a fingernailess zealot named Ahmed who has a tattoo of “Death to America” written in Farsi on his forehead.

Or maybe they will?

Poker players are gamblers at heart and some will take risks to maintain their fix. The world is filled with greedy people and they’ll be several ruthless companies who’ll flip the bird to the American courts and lawmakers that will take risks to gain access to the subculture of online poker players.

Then I look at a place like my hometown of New York City and try to figue out the future. Without online poker, the demand for new poker rooms and underground clubs will increase dramatically. Some daring entrepreneurs will open up new clubs and the players will come in droves. Whichever ethnic mafia running rooms is about to make a shitload of money in the Big Apple. Of course the police will have to get involved and spend time shutting down the rooms, just like cops in the 1920s busted up bathtub gins and speakeasies.

The right-wingers who were in favor of the anti-online poker legislation pulled out the terrorist card and said that online gambling sites can be a haven for terrorists to launder money. But by banning online poker, the NYPD will have to exhaust their already limited resources on busting up poker games rather than focusing on protecting our city from terrorists… which we’re severely under-prepared. Instead of cops breaking up terror cells, they’ll be wasting their time keeping my brother, F Train, and The Rooster out of poker clubs in Chinatown. By trying to make our nation safer… the suits in Washington made my city more vulnerable.

Politicians don’t care about the people. They only care about themselves. Same goes for corporations. If it comes down to a choice between you or them… they’ll cut the rope every time and let you fall to your death. That’s the way it is and that’s why I’ve lost my passion for politics. It’s not apathy but ultimately realizing that we don’t live in a true democracy and we don’t have freedom of choice but the illusion of freedom and choice. We can vote out the politicians currently in office, but they’ll be replaced with a new group of lying scumbags that will sell your kids to the highest bidder if it meant they’ll get another term in office.

That’s why I don’t see a revolutionary change happening in America. Not just with poker but with everything else surrounding the eroding civil liberties of Americans. Here’s my reasoning… my peers in Generation X and the kids born after me are spoiled, lazy, dumbass little shitheads. We’re overly selfish, hypersensitive, and too self-centered. We don’t have the vision or the passion to evoke a world wide change like the baby boomers did in the 1960s. The hippies were better educated and organized. They believed in a better way and a brighter future. They put themselves on the line and for a while, the people in power got spooked the fuck out.

Most of the Americans that I know are more concerned with watching TV and buying stuff rather than hitting the streets to protest en masse. Some might write up whiny diatribes on their blogs or write nasty letters to their congressman, but after their little rants they’ll never leave the couch or their cubicle to actually do something. We’re a nation of apathetic scared fatasses and we’re going to continue to let scrupulous politicians and multinational corporations dictate policy. Me included.

And the other reason I don’t think my generation can undertake a social change is because the hippies failed. Even John Lennon admitted, “Flower power did not work. We need to try something different.”

The 1960s saw the great minds, leaders, and visionaries trying to lead a charge against the political machines with millions of disgruntled citizens ready to make some changes. And in the end, it didn’t work. The Man won. Black and white images from the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago or Kent State in 1970 should be all the proof that you need to see that in the end The Man will do anything possible to stay in power, which includes beating and killing their own citizens.

After the hippies got their heads full of Owsley’s liquid sunshine bashed in a few times by the cops, they eventually stopped protesting. That’s when militant groups sprung up like the Blank Panthers. I’m waiting for a militant group of poker bloggers to form a united front and start fire bombing the campaign headquarters of major political figures but that will never happen. We can’t even get ten bloggers to agree on the same weekend to have a convention, let alone formulate any sort of social change and revolution.

I’ve traveled around the world enough and extensively throughout America to honestly say that this is an amazing country but our leaders are war mongering pimps selling our souls to suits in a boardroom somewhere. Sure there are places like Barcelona or Samui where I’d like to live for a while, but at some point I’d get homesick and want to return to America particularly New York City. Then again, I technically didn’t grow up in America as Spalding Gray explained, “New York City is a small island off the coast of America.”

As is, I’m an expatriate living in America. I finally understand the reference by The Rolling Stones… “exile on Main Street.”

Support indie writers by buying Pauly’s book Lost Vegas.

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Flashback: Strip Clubs with Grubby on Easter Sunday

By Pauly
Cusco, Peru

Grubby sent out a semi-cryptic tweet this morning which reminded me of an event that happened on Easter Sunday six years ago in 2005. I was in Vegas for March Madness and had just locked up my first ever WSOP assignment with Poker Prof and Flipchip. To celebrate, Grubby and I headed out to a few strip clubs, not really aware of the fact that Easter Sunday would be one of the worst days of the year to hang out with strippers. We had to assume that a few were more religious than we had anticipated.

Anyway, this portion of Existentialist Conversations with Strippers got cut from the final draft of Lost Vegas, something that I was really bummed about, but I understood why my editor(s) felt that the subject matter was redundant.

So, let’s take a ride in the Tao of Poker time machine and head back to 2005…

Existentialist Conversations with Strippers, Part III

“I would believe only in a god who could dance.” – Nietzsche

We wandered past the credulous tourists and devoted gamblers onto the casino floor. I was staying in Vegas for another day but Senor had to get back to Rhode Island for work. Grubby agreed to drive Senor to the airport and we had about fifteen minutes to kill. Senor wanted to play Pai Gow Poker at some point during his trip. We never had the chance with all the time we spent at the Mandalay Bay’s sports book gambling on college basketball, or playing regular poker, and hanging out at strip clubs. We wasted a few minutes after we got slightly lost and stopped to ogle at all the hot college girls on spring break. We resumed our quest for a Pai Gow table and finally found one. The only problem… it was a $50 minimum table… when we were looking for a $5 or $10 table.

Caesar’s did not spread any low limit Pai Gow. There were six tables and half of them were empty. We walked over to one table where a pit boss was talking to the dealer. Grubby asked the suit if he could drop the minimum bet to $25 since we wanted to teach Senor how to play. We told him we were going to leave in five minutes to take him to the airport. The pit boss agreed. Our dealer Lee, a middle aged Korean woman, quickly explained the rules to Senor. We bought in for $100 each and got four green chips. I won the first few hands and pushed the rest. Senor won $75 in three hands and walked away after he tipped Lee $10. He won enough money for dinner and was satisfied with his first Pai Gow experience. Grubby and I played for a few more hands. I went up $100 then decided to walk away. Grubby was a winner too. On our way to the cashier’s window Senor mentioned, “You won yourself enough money to cover dinner and a few lap dances.”

Grubby drove Senor to the airport but we encountered traffic trying to get out of the labyrinth called Caesar’s parking garage. Grubby avoided the crowded Las Vegas Blvd. and drove down side streets en route to McCarran Airport. Grubby was officially a local and had been living in Vegas for three months. It felt cool to have a different perspective of a city that was so heavily populated with dipshit tourists and jaded locals working in the service industry. After we said good-bye to Senor, Grubby sped off in our quest to do a little strip club hopping. We had already hit up Sin a few days prior, which I loved — especially Jessina. Grubby suggested a handful of places. He and his sister, Grubette, had had a crazy night at Club Paradise a few nights earlier and he wanted to try a different place. We headed to the North part of the Strip and decided to check out Olympic Gardens.

As we drove up to the club, a Las Vegas Metro squad car sat out front with it’s doors wide open. An animated guy spoke very loudly to the two cops as they stood with their arms crossed.

“That doesn’t look promising,” I said.

We parked and walked inside. Grubby pointed out that the doors were wide open and how that was also another bad sign. We took a peek inside and it was empty. We didn’t even bother sitting down and walked right out. I could only imagine what might have gone down twenty minutes before we showed up. maybe we missed a good fight? Or an extremely drunk and frisky customer getting rowdy with the dancers?

We found our way to Treasures and the parking lot looked empty. That’s when I remembered that it was Easter Sunday night.

“It’s not like strippers are religious or anything,” Grubby explained on the walk to the entrance of the lavish strip club.

We paid the cover charge and made our way inside. It reminded me of a cross between an art museum and Anne Rice’s house in a weird fusion of Goth meets Italian Renaissance. A stage with funky lights and a stripper pole sat up front with winding stairs leading up to a balcony which wrapped around the room. If you removed all the smaller tables and booths along the walls, the strip club could have been a great venue for live music. We found a table and a few minutes passed before a waitress came over. I did not spot any available strippers. In the booth across from us, a bald accountant from Ohio happily sat with two strippers. They were laughing and sipping cocktails and the black girl erotically rubbed his chest and while the blonde girl applied more lipstick as we watched and a small wave of envy flashed over us.

“This is just like a regular bar. I’m being ignored,” Grubby said in a dejected tone.

“Easter Sunday,” I reassured him that it wasn’t us, just the fact that strippers were more religious than we anticipated.

Our waitress eventually arrived with our over-priced beers and I scanned the room for available strippers. One danced on the stage as bad Eastern European techno music blasted over the sound system in the near-empty room. A few dancers were scattered around and busy entertaining other guests. At Sin it seemed that strippers constantly walked around and offered their services for a dance. At Treasures, the most action we got was watching the bald Ohio guy get double teamed by the Silicone Twins.

That’s when Julie stumbled over.

Extremely wasted women are a turn off… unless they are completely passed out (Sorry, bad frat boy joke). She was so ripped to the tits drunk that she didn’t even bother using her stripper name and blurted out her real name. Julie then sprawled out on my lap and slurred, “Spank me!”

I obliged and she screamed again motioning towards Grubby, “Spank me!”

He spanked her and I followed up with another “whack.” I wondered if I could add that to my resume?

Special Skills: Knowledge of Java. I also speak three languages fluently, can make a bong out of any household item, and spank strippers.

How could I not get hired with those mad skills? Julie asked us if we wanted a dance. Grubby gave her a quick thumbs down and I reluctantly agreed. She sat up and waited until the next song. She slumped over me and I could smell the liquor on her breath. That’s when I uttered, “You know, Nietzsche died of syphilis.”

That comment went right over her head.

Out of the hundreds of strippers working that night, I was matched up with the Tara Reid of strippers. The new song began and she took off her top and began her tipsy lap dance. A couple of times she lost her balance and slipped off my lap. I caught her each time and was worried that if I dropped her, one of the bouncers would rush over and kick me in the junk. It was a horrible experience and I pissed away $20 on half-assed grope from a soused stripper. Normally, a half-naked woman grinding away to Rick James’ Give It To Me Baby is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I wasn’t aroused by Drunk Julie and couldn’t wait for our moment to end. Our four minutes together was like ordering a bowl of soup and having it served cold with a dozen cockroaches floating around in there and glazed with both a urine and semen sample.

We walked out of the strip club and passed the bouncers. I shrugged my shoulders and looked up into the desert sky. I smiled because I found myself on the bitter end of karmic payback for attending a strip club on Easter Sunday.

* * *
Thus end our Tao of Poker flashback. Oh, and Happy Easter to Grubby!

Download PokerStars for 2011 WSOP Satellites. Support indie writers by buying Pauly’s book Lost Vegas.

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ANZPT Perth Day 3: Levels 15 & 16 (blinds 2,500-5,000, ante 500)

2:20pm: Cheong eliminated

Kyle Cheong has become the first player to head to the cashier after Grant Levy delivered the knockout blow.

Cheong opened to 10,000 before Levy made it 27,000 to play. Cheong moved all in and Levy made the call with [qh][qc] to find himself up against Cheong’s [ah][kc]. The board bricked out [8c][3c][9h][7h][2d] to eliminate Cheong in 24th place for a collect of $4,550 as Levy is now up to a commanding 400,000.

2:10pm: Boom for Levy

Grant Levy and Kyle Cheong were just involved in an intense hand that took almost ten minutes to complete, with each player taking their time over their decisions and putting the maximum psychological pressure on their opponent.

Levy opened with a raise to 10,000 before Cheong three-bet to 25,000. Levy made the call and they saw a flop of [ad][7s][as]. Levy led out with a bet of 22,000 and Cheong made the call as the [qs] hit the turn.

Again Levy fired with a second barrel worth 36,000 with Cheong calling as the [3d] completed the board on the river. Levy considered his options before checking as Cheong decided to give it up as he checked behind. Levy sheepishly opened [5s][5d] but Cheong couldn’t better it as his cards went into the muck.

“Boom!” shouted Levy as he raked in a huge pot to move up to 280,000. Cheong is down to 120,000.

Grant Levy booms his way back into contention

2:00pm: Any more diamonds?

Mile Krstanoski was on the extreme short stack of the field but he’s just found a double up thanks to a handy river against Team PokerStars Pro Tony Hachem.

Krstanoski moved all in for his last 31,500 with [6d][6s] as Hachem made the call holding [ah][qc]. Hachem connected with the [jd][qd][7s] flop but the [9d] turn and [3d] river, left Krstanoski with the only diamond for a flush to collect the pot and double to around 65,000.

“Any more diamonds dealer?” barked Hachem as he slips to 140,000.

1:40pm: Level up, blinds 2,500-5,000, ante 500

1:35pm: Bang, bang, we’re in the money!

Two eliminations in rapid succession have seen us jump into the money with Taner Ates, and our last female player, Trish Dewy, the two unfortunate players who’ll be heading home with nothing but a story to tell.

Ates was first to go after his last chips were in on the river on a board of [qh][qs][qc][7c][3h] holding [th][tc] but he ran into Liam O’Rourke’s [ad][ac].

Moments later, Dewy open shoved her last 35,000 or so from the cutoff with [tc][td] but Patrick Kearns made the call with [jh][js]. Dewy sat motionless as the board was revealed [7s][kc][6d][as][4h] as she unfortunately becomes our bubble girl.

With that, the final 24 players are all in the money!

1:30pm: Bustany busts with kings

We’ve just lost another player as Alan Bustany got frisky with his [kc][ks] on a flop of [as][4h][3h]. His opponent was Chris Ngatoa who fired 14,000 before Bustany check-raised all in. Ngatoa made the call with [ac][qs] as a disgusted Bustany stood from his chair.

The turn was the [2h] to bring the possibility of a straight on board, but the river was the [ts] to leave Bustany to head for the exit.

1:20pm: Rossiter rivered

Jeff Rossiter has been eliminated in 28th place after his pocket sixes were rivered by the [as][9c] of Kyle Cheong. The first four cards landed safely [3h][3s][jd][4c] but and ace from space [ac] on the river gave Cheong the pot and saw Rossiter exit the poker room.

The tournament clock has now been paused as the players break a table to form the final three tables of play.

1:15pm: A couple more doubles

Peter Parsons has doubled up after making a big call on the turn on a board of [qd][jd][5c][8c]. His opponent was Richard Lancaster who moved in holding [ks][qs] but Parsons was in front with his [ad][qh]. The river was the [2d] as Parsons doubled to 190,000.

Moments later, Vekso Zmukic and Ricky Kroesen went to war on a flop of [ad][ts][9s]. Kroesen tabled [tc][th] for middle set but Zmukic stood tall and slammed his [ah][ac] down on the felt. The turn was the [9h] and river the [2c] to give the local a big double up to 180,000. Kroesen is down to 195,000.

1:00pm: Great call, bad result for Garrett

Jeff Garrett has been bundled out of the tournament in a huge clash with Ted Nguyen. Garrett made a great call for his tournament life on a board of [7c][jc][7h][2c] holding [qc][qs] but Nguyen held [kc][jh] and rivered a bigger flush when the [6c] spiked on the river.
Garrett is gone as Nguyen is now up to 280,000.

Ted Nguyen is looking in good shape for another ANZPT cash

At the same time on a nearby table we lost Rodney Bohan after his flopped two pair ran into an opponent’s set of sevens. We’re down to 28 players and one more elimination away from our final three tables.

12:50m: Two down; Levy cops penalty

As Robert Jackson and Chris Pereira have become the first casualties of the day, Grant Levy has been slapped with a severe penalty.

Levy has been texting updates back home, and stood away from the table to do so, but the rule in Burswood states that players must be outside of the rail to use their mobile phone. It’s a rule that has been announced every day, and Levy was aware of it, but it slipped his mind as he was standing inside the rail to text. For the indiscretion, Levy was slapped with a one orbit penalty, which is a huge blow for him at this stage of the tournament.

12:45pm: Kearns doubles

Early on day three in Adelaide the action was fast and furious as the bubble was burst in rapid fashion. Here in Perth, the short stacks are fighting hard as Patrick Kearns is the latest to double up.

Kearns was all in with [ah][qs] against the [th][td] of Jeff Garrett and connected with the board of [7c][kh][ac][kc][4s]. He doubles to around 70,000 to grab a little breathing room from the blinds.

12:35pm: Early double for Bohan

Rodney Bohan is the first player all in on Day 3 and he’s also the first to double up! He pushed his last 50,000 chips with [6s][6c] as Jeff Rossiter made the call with [8d][8h].
Bohan was on the verge of elimination until the [ah][9d][6h][2s][th] board gave him a set for the double up to six figures. Rossiter is now short with about 50,000.

12:30pm: It’s go time!

The players have taken their seats as Tony Hachem was given the “Shuffle up and Deal” honours. Day 3 is underway!

Preparation is the key to success

It’s another stunning Perth Autumn day and thankfully we managed to roll out of bed early enough this morning to soak up a few rays. The facilities at the Burswood Entertainment Complex and the adjacent Intercontinental Hotel are second to none, and nothing beats a poolside breakfast, a dip in one of the outdoor pools and a relaxing bathe in the hot tub. Not only is it a great way to prepare for a long day behind the keyboard, but it was the preparation of choice for a number of our remaining 32 players on Day 3 of the PokerStars.net ANZPT Perth Main Event.

Tony Hachem and Ricky Kroesen were just a couple of those who were getting their dose of Vitamin D in the Perth sunshine this morning, as players ensure that solid preparation and mental conditioning become a vital part of their tournament success.

They’ll need to be well prepared – its going to be a crucial day of poker. They first need to navigate their way into the money and then push towards a final table berth. For Hachem, he’s done it all before as the defending champion, but no-one values their chips more than the Team PokerStars Pro. For others, like chip leader Aaron Lim, there will be a measure of uncertainty about what might lay ahead, but Lim has demonstrated an innocent confidence that will be sure to carry him far in this tournament.

Our field is packed, with Levy, Zmukic, Gorr, Rossiter, Lancaster, Chevalier, O’Rourke, Marsters and Rosen, just a handful of the talented players who are still in the mix for the title.

Our remaining 32 players will be trickling into the Burswood Poker Room shortly as Day 3 of the PokerStars.net ANZPT Perth Main Event kicks off in a few minutes time. Stay tuned!

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Isildur1 and Daniel Cates have a date

If you didn’t see this coming, you probably care more about “Dancing with the Stars” than you do online poker. PokerStars has just announced Viktor “Isildur1″ Blom’s next SuperStar Showdown opponent, none other than Daniel Cates.

Whether you know Cates by his PokerStars screen name “‘w00ki3z” or another name that makes him sound like he comes from a rainforest, you know Cates as one of online poker’s biggest winners of 2010 (according to some published reports, in the neighborhood of $5.5 million in winnings last year).

Now we know why Blom is smiling so big.

The match is coming up this Sunday at 5:30pm ET. Blom and Cates are scheduled to play 2,500 hands across four no-limit hold’em tables at $50/$100 stakes.

Since PokerStars launched the SuperStar Showdown, Blom has shown a minor profit. He lost around $40,000 in the first match with Isaac Haxton, but then won around $44,000 in the game against Tony G.

Since that time, Blom has stepped out of the shadows and copped to his real identity. Though it’s sure Cates already knew who Isildur1 was, this will be the first time they have faced off on PokerStars in such a public setting.

So, tune in Sunday night for all the action. Or, if you need to watch “Dancing with the Stars” on TiVo with the wife, tune in Monday morning for a full recap of the game.

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Looming Municipal Debt Crisis the Key to Online Poker Legalization?

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA

If online poker has a shot at legalization in the next 12-24 months, it’s not going to be on a federal level spearheaded by Barney Frank or Harry Reid. Rather, if online poker has a legitimate shot at legality, it’s going to be because your state is flat broke.

In the parlance of our poker times, almost 80% of the states in the union are broke dicks like Eskimo Clark. Here’s why:

1. States are crippled with budgetary woes after spending more than their tax revenues can generate. If states cannot refinance their debt quickly or come to an agreement with their unions, they will be screwing the proverbial pooch.

2. Collectively, our states are sitting on a ticking time bomb with underfunded pensions in excess of a $3 trillion dollars. How deep of a hole is your state? This state-by-state interactive map of underfunded pension plans will show you some startling numbers.

3. Due to the budgetary crunch, states will have to cut back on providing funding to municipalities. As a result, many towns and even some of America’s biggest cities (Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Miami, not to mention smaller cities like Detroit and Oakland) will default on their debt obligations, that were once considered low risk investments, but now approaching junk status, especially in California. The city of Vallejo, CA was the first city to declare bankruptcy. The bad news is that the CEO of JP Morgan said that he expects more municipalities to go bankrupt in the immediate future.

4. The domino effect of the muni debt defaults will eventually ripple into the financial sector. At this moment, munis took a pounding last quarter for their worst performance since 1994. Over on the muni bond fund side of the equation, there has been a mass exodus and sell off. If cities go busto, then banks guaranteeing muni bonds with letters of credit will incur a catastrophic hit. Individual investors of bonds will be not be paid back because they will be at the back of a line of hordes of other creditors. Mutual funds that were vested in munis will also take a nose dive.

5. Unlike the sub-prime mortgage fiasco in 2008, do not expect the Fed to bail out the states. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke clearly stated: NO BAILOUTS. The Fed only helps banks. If anything, they will most likely bail out any banks that got caught in the cross fire, but they certainly won’t help the fledgling states. And don’t think a Republican Congress, sprinkled with Tea Party members, are going to come to the rescue. State bailouts are not the GOP’s thing either.

With all of the impending doom laid out on the table for you, there’s a glimmer of hope that states might turn to online poker legalization and regulation as a solution to dig themselves out of an apocalyptic budget crisis. Don’t get me wrong, the states’ budgetary problems are ginormous and way too complicated to think that flipping the switch on online poker will easily fix everything. A few million dollars a year in tax revenue siphoned from online poker is just putting a band-aid onto a gaping gunshot wood.

However, if some states are simply unaware of the severity of the situation, or if they have gotten so desperate that they don’t know what to do, then maybe…just maybe…online poker would look like a plausible and immediate solution to bridge a budget gap. Just last year, the state of Colorado helped balanced their budget using $9 million in revenues derived from medicinal marijuana. It makes sense that broke states will possibly explore the marijuana route and some form of legalized online gambling. In fact, the two states that have taken the first steps to legalize poker on a state basis are New Jersey and California. It’s not a coincidence because those states are about to be swallowed up by their own debts.

California supposedly has over $500 billion in underfunded pensions and they are staring down the barrel of a $19 billion budget deficit. When Prop 19 failed to pass last November, any chances of marijuana legalization went up in smoke. California is currently a medicinal marijuana state (a law that has been on the books since 1994), but even the marijuana-related sales tax revenue generated was not enough to make a difference.

Even the city of Los Angeles is on the verge of economic collapse. The police have gone from a law-enforcing organization to a revenue generator. Cops were told to write more tickets instead of allocating their time to fighting real crime. How bad is it in Hollyweird? If you’re caught jaywalking, you will get slapped with a $191 ticket.

California desperately needs legalization of both marijuana and online poker in order to make a dent in their deficit. In the months after marijuana legalization was defeated, California politicians considered the possibility of legal online poker. That’s the good news. The poker industry’s biggest hurdle in California is the tribal gaming conglomerate, who is obviously opposed to opening up the state to online poker operators (especially European-based gaming companies).

New Jersey is in a horrendous financial situation (crushed by the real estate bubble, loss of thousands of jobs, ballooning budget, lower tax revenues), that’s why they ushered in medicinal marijuana and the state legislature approved of an internet gaming bill. NJ really doesn’t have a choice but to consider those two possibilities: weed and online poker.

And how bad off is the city of Chicago? In 2008, in order to generate income to plug a budget hole, the city sold off their parking meters to a group of investors from Abu Dhabi. Yes, for a mere $1.1 billion lump sum, the oil-rich Arabs now control the parking meters in Chicago for 75 years. What was the first thing that happened? A widespread increase in parking fees across the city.

Illinois is one of the most troubled states in the country. They recently hiked taxes in order to improve their state’s muni bond credit rating in a desperate attempt to make their bonds more attractive to investors. But as the saying goes, “You can put as much lipstick you want on a pig…it’s still going to be a pig.”

Although Business Week says that the muni debt fears are “overblown”, the reality probably lies somewhere in between nirvana and Hades. It seems improbable that every state will default on their debt, but then again the CEO of JP Morgan warned the public that municipal bankruptcies are imminent.

With other states scrambling to refinance their debt, a few of them might have no other alternative but to legalize online poker. Otherwise, if local and state services get shut down, and retirees all of a sudden see their checks bouncing, expect mass uprisings and anarchy.

There’s an interesting twist to this saga. Right now, a bill is quietly being introduced into Congress that will allow states to declare bankruptcy. Only cities and towns can seek protection under bankruptcy laws, but that might change within a few weeks. Cash-scrapped Congress is secretly in favor of the new bill permitting states to declare bankruptcy, because then Congress won’t have to buckle under pressure from their angry constituents to bail out the states.

I’m not the only one who thinks that state bankruptcy is a bad idea. As Kid Dynamite explained in a recent post titled Fix the Underlying Problem, any solutions that the states are exploring only fix past problems and fail to address future woes along with the cause of the problem in the bigger picture.

I don’t see anything good that could come out of busto states getting bankruptcy protection. For one, you can kiss any hopes of legal online poker goodbye because states won’t have to worry about raising cash overnight. At the same time, state bankruptcies will disrupt the daily lives of hard working Americans. If you or a family member is a teacher or fireman who has a state pension or if you own muni bonds for a state and that state declares bankruptcy, then you’ll have to stand in the back of the never ending line with the rest of unsecured creditors. In short, it’s like being one of Eskimo Clark’s backers — I doubt they’ll get paid.

The future is grim no matter how you look at it. That’s why there’s very little chatter in the media about the looming municipal debt crisis. It’s sort of like an asteroid ready to crash into Earth — it’s much easier to be the ostrich with its head buried in the ground, and let everyone go about their daily lives, rather than clue them in on the reality of the situation and that the end of the world could be right around the corner. The major players involved (governors, state comptrollers, and treasurers) are scrambling around like speedfreaks trying to figure out how to dig themselves out of a black hole. They started slashing their budgets left and right, but then what? If they can’t come up with a quick (and long term) solution, then it’s inevitable that the masses will finally revolt.

No body wants blood spilled on the streets. Depending on where you live and how desperate your politicians are, online poker might become a savior to your state. If one courageous state pulls the trigger, expect more insolvent states to jump on the online poker bandwagon. That’s why you should be paying close attention to the state bankruptcy bill that’s being introduced to Congress in the upcoming weeks. Also, keep tabs on the muni debt crises in three of the largest states in the union: California, Illinois, and New Jersey. These are the battle ground states for the future of the poker industry. If legal online poker can sneak into the mix via these atrociously broke states, then you can expect a few other cash-strapped states to follow suit.

Who would have thunk that poker might gain a step up on the legalization front because your state’s comptroller failed to balance the budget and re-fund underfunded pensions? If that one-outer hits, well, you heard it here first.

Photo Credits: “Eat the Art” courtesy of Banksy; Anarchy courtesy of MatrixPhotos

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