WSOP UPDATE

(06/17/09)

CHAN CAN'T.  Johnny Chan doesn't win 11th bracelet.  We could just rerun that headline after every event, but this is in reference to the heads up tournament he went deep in.  Seems like every time we talk about a name pro going deep, (but not named Phil Ivey and merely named as opposed to those anonymous professionals), they bust out shortly thereafter.

We were going to do an update about Shannon Shorr and Bryan Micon crushing a $1500 buy-in and we double check and they are both busted.  So now all we have to do is think about it.  We don't even have to post it.  It's almost like only one guy gets to win these things.  Still, congrats to Shorr and Micron who made it to 5th and 4th of a HORSE Event.  They seem to be from opposite sides of the spectrum maybe there is a buddy flick in there.  Speaking of movies...

COSTA RICA ONLINE GAMBLING FLICK TO STAR LEONARDO DiCAPRIO.  The guys who wrote Rounders are turning their sights to the online... sites.  Expect veiled references to the Absolute(ly Cheating You) Poker Scandal.  We can see the pitch now,  Blow meets Magic the Gathering meets the Firm meets Shade meets bad sequel of your choice that's not technically a sequel but we all know it is... ie Charles in Charge.  Speaking of sequels why not just get Matt Damon and Ed Norton and make it an honest to goodness sequel.

Here's our pitch:  Worm worms his way into a online site's strip mall in Costa Rica's offices, where he coincidentally is hiding out after trying to tap into hole camera feeds.  He is about to get....  To read the rest head over to DINE ON THE WHALES.

SUGGESTIONS FOR WHO'S WHO?  Darryll Fish and Jason Mercier will be on the next update.  Mercier has a blog here.  Wonder if we can get Fish to come on board at GCP to share his thoughts as he tries to make it in Vegas.  Any other suggestions?  As always email:  Wild Bill.  

Also, on the same note, we are sorting out some prospective new bloggers.  If you have any suggestions or are interested hit the same email address.  We should let everybody know in a couple of weeks or so, so if we haven't gotten back to you yet, we will.

WSOP UPDATE

(06/15/09)

PHIL IVEY PROP BET MADNESS CONTINUES AFTER HE WINS ANOTHER BRACELET.  Rumor has it Ivey (pictured with a gaggle of Greenstein's exes?) let a lot of his fellow pros out of their prop bets for bracelet number six by rolling it over into higher stakes if he were to win another bracelet this WSOP.  He just did.  Some sites suggested Ivey raked in over 12 million for his first bracelet if he hadn't rolled it over--one can only guess how much his seventh bracelet earned him.  One thing is certain the Craps pit bosses will have to up their limits soon in a lot of casinos. 

KAI CASHES AND OTHER TEAM GCP NEWS IN VEGAS.  Kai Landry gets on the board with his first WSOP cash in the shootout event.  Monkey blogs about late night swims with Liv Boeree (possibly pictured at right, okay that's probably not her even if google images sez it is) and trying to talk Jen Harman into going to Sapphire at THE POKER MONKEY.  Jena gives a trip report that touts the cash game and disappointment in the donkaments.  Read it in JENA'S POKER DIARY  and see BJ Nemeth's photos of Liv (for real) and Jena here.  Also Southpaw Rounder and the Honest Player have been there the past week, we look forward to their stories.

JOHNNY CHAN IS TWO HEADS UP MATCHES AWAY FROM BRACELET 11.  The 10k Heads Up World Championship offers a first place prize of 625k.  Dustin Woolf and John Duthie are two of the more---albeit marginally---well known names also alive.

HUNGRY LIKE DE WOLFE.  Roland De Wolfe bested Bret Richie and Scott Clement in the 5k PLO Hi-Low split 8 or or Better to add to his pack of awards.  EPT title?  Check.  WPT title?  Check.  WSOP bracelet?  Check.   Gavin Griffin is the only other player to accomplish this feat.  Unfortunately no confirmation if Roland was sporting internet sensation Wolf T-Shirt.  Though, there is heavy speculation merely having a wolfy name got him the bracelet.  You don't need a lobo name to play pot limit omaha to learn how  try online omaha poker.

VEGAS SUN SHINES LIGHT ON CASH FREEZE.  Toxic assets move over, the poker economy is all about frozen assets.  The Sun goes in depth into the plight of players funds getting coolered here.

POKER UPDATE

(06/12/09)

DARRYL "DFISH" FISH CONTINUES ON A MASSIVE HEATER IN 2009:  Fish is currently at 260k in chips several hours into Day 2 in event 24. he came into Day 2 as one of the top chip leaders, and is primed to make a run at the Final Table. This would make Fish's 5th WSOP cash...so far. Fish's 2009 heater consist of the following live events:

40th World Series of Poker 2009
Event #20 - WSOP Pot Limit Hold'em 41st $3,983 Jun 9, 2009

40th World Series of Poker 2009
Event #15 - WSOP No Limit Hold'em 25th $21,026 Jun 6, 2009

40th World Series of Poker 2009
Event #4 - WSOP No Limit Hold'em 369th $2,434 Jun 3, 2009

40th World Series of Poker 2009
Event #9 - WSOP No Limit Hold'em Six Handed 72nd $4,062 Jun 3, 2009

California State Poker Championships
No Limit Hold'em Championship 8th $28,251 May 22, 2009

Southern Poker Championship / WPT Event Season 7
Event #12 - No Limit Hold'em 19th $3,676 Jan 10, 2009

LOCAL BAYOU BOY JEREMY "THECHEMIST83' GAUBERT SNAPS OFF ANOTHER SWEET ONLINE SCORE:  Jeremy picks up a cool 26k for 1st place in the Absolute Poker $100k Guarantee $500+30
that had 194 entrants - $100,000 paid out to 27 spots. It may look like there was an overlay, but the $30.00 juice  to AP actually made AP a little cash. When hes not killing the tournament circuit live and online, you can find Jeremy backing many online regulars at his backing site you can visit HERE. If you have some decent cashes...fill out the form and you never know...you may wind up in the mtt-backing stable.

WSOP QUICK UPDATE

(06/09/09)

JEFFREY LISANDRO WHO DID IN FACT PAY HIS ANTES WINS BRACELET.  Lisandro wins the 1.5k Seven Card Stud event.  This is Lisandro's second bracelet and his second in stud.  His Heads up opponent Rod Pardey was seeking his third in stud but came up just short.  Nick Frangos finished in third and John Juanda fifth.  Jason Mercier notched another cash, so did Dutch Boyd, Miami John Cernuto, and blast from the past Sam Grizzle..

LOOKING FOR STARS?  The 10k World Championship of Omaha Hi/LO 8 or Better is loaded with poker names.  Annie Duke is near the top of the leader board.  Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, and Daniel Negreanu are in the thick of things hoping to get to the money and add a final table to their stats.  At this writing 7 away from the money.

JONATHAN LITTLE'S NEW SITE.  One of the Gulf Coast's best players, Little with almost 4 million in live winnings, has revamped his web presence. Thumbs up on the format.  Check it out here.  Plenty of time for Little to dispense some fiery justice and take down a bracelet this year.

FISH CASHES AGAIN.  No not Freddie Ellis, but Darryll Fish who won 21k in the 5k No Limit Hold 'em Tournament.  Monkey's pal Christian 'Da_Professional' Iacobellis took 9th for 66k.    Thomas "Thunder" Keller and Mike Sowers went out in 3rd and 4th.

DARIO MINIERI MARRIED?  There is a rumor, and a picture or two, floating around Facebook and the forums that seems to at least put him and his "bride" at a chapel.  The rumor is the nuptials took place at a Vegas landmark Britney Spears style.  Even worse some suggest he's known his new wife less than a week.  If true, congrats to Dario, (pictured with past girlfriend Isabelle Mercier--Dario is wearing the scarf).    

WSOP QUICK UPDATE

(06/08/09)

BRUNSONS DON'T WIN BRACELET.  Nor Allie Prescott (monkey blogs about it in his latest post).  Ville Wahlbeck took it down for 492k (his second final table of the week).  David Chiu finished second.  Mark Gregorich 4th, Huck Seed 5th, Todd Brunson 8th, Doyle 15th.

PHIL IVEY'S PROP BETS WERE $12 MILLION?  BJ Nemeth on Tao of Poker is reporting that here (see Saturday, June 06 entry). 

LEE WATKINSON GRIPES ABOUT A LOOPHOLE.   Registered, unregister, reregister, what's the meaning of this?  Read here.

NEGREANU PLACES SECOND.  Brock Parker overcame a huge chip disadvantage and carried his momentum to a win.  Lots of turn cards paid him off and frustrated Negreanu. 

RIGHT NOW, (10:00 pm CST ) DANIEL NEGREANU WITH MASSIVE CHIP LEAD, THREE HANDED VYING FOR ANOTHER BRACELET

(06/07/09)

ACTUALLY THE ARE ON BREAK,BUT IN ABOUT 10 MINUTES THEY'LL BE BACK.  Follow the live action here.  Yes you can watch it:  live video.

POKER VIDEO NOT VIDEO POKER UPDATE AND ONLINE ACTION AND WSOP NEWS... PROBABLY WOULD HAVE BEEN EASIER TO SAY GENERAL POKER NEWS UPDATE

(06/07/09)

JASON MERCIER ON VIDEO.  Like the Ivey video before him, we've got video of Mercier right before he crushed his final table and captured his bracelet.  The Fort Lauderdale youngster seems just as calm, cool and collected as Ivey did.  That's a good thing.  Course Mercier probably didn't win as much in his bracelets prop bets.

By the way, on Poker Road Radio they said Ivey in his very next event was trying to double his wagers that he'd win another bracelet this year.  As Joe Seebok said, "Just take a moment to enjoy this one."  To watch the Poker Road Ivey video and the Pokernews Mercier video head to DINE ON THE WHALES.

THE EARLY WSOP.  More video:  Amarillo Slim came up with the idea of the freezeout?  Johnny Moss, maybe a fish?  Pokernews has all that and more.  Watch an interesting nine minutes of history here.

PHIL HELLMUTH WILL NOT WIN HIS NEXT BRACELET IN 2K EVENT.   Late last night he called all in with pocket sixes.  The small blind pushed with J10, Phil the big blind liked the flop as it came Q37.  Jim Geary in the small blind liked the K hitting the turn and giving him 8 more outs.  He hit one when an A fell on the river giving him a runner, runner pot, a speech from Phil and the elimination of a dangerous opponent.

TEXAS DOLLY MIGHT WIN HIS NEXT BRACELET IN THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP MIXED EVENT.  18 players remain with Doyle (pictured in the Cowboy hat... and by the way, is this what the inside of Doyle's Room looks like?) in the top 10 of chips.  Huck Seed is the chip leader with 645k, ALLIE PRESCOT is in between the Brunsons which is a good thing as far as chip counts go and a bad thing in the backseat of a Ford Fiesta on a cross country road trip.  Todd Brunson has 374.5k worth of chips in 5th.  Allie 357k at 6th, and ol' Doyle 335k in 9th.    Michael Binger is on fumes in 16th with 132k in chips.

TRYING TO WITHDRAW MONEY FROM POKERSTARS OR FULL TILT?   Pokerati says it may not be so easy any more.  Problems in transferring money have finally hit the big U.S. Sites.   Read Dan M's story here.

WSOP QUICK UPDATE

(06/06/09)

JASON MERCIER ON FIRE.  This Gulf Coaster, and Fort Lauderdale kid (23), has already won one bracelet this year and is currently going deep in a 2k No Limit Hold'Em event.  He won his bracelet in the 1.5k PLO event.  We'll get this guy up on the who's who as soon as we can.  UPDATE:  BUSTO

TYLER SMITH IN THE MONEY.  Tyler, like Mercier, is deep in the 2k No Limit Hold'em Event.  At this writing there are 68 players left.  Smith at 154k is just behind Hellmuth at 202k, and Mercier at 222k.  UPDATE:  SMITH BUSTO TOO.  The chipleader is Peter Rho with 403k.  Tom McEnvoy, giddy with his little red corvette, his Captain Tom Franklin beard, and outlasting collaborator TJ Cloutier is hanging around with the short stack but in the money.  Franklin and Cloutier both just busted in the money.  A pat on the back for both old timers.

MANNY MINAYA FINISHES 6TH IN EVENT 9.  Minaya is from Tampa, Bay Florida.  He joins fellow Floridian Jaime Rosen in the money.  Rosen ended up 16th, and pocketed a little over 10k in the Event 10 PLHE/O tournament.   

GO BIG RED.  Cornel Cipan is at the final table of event 10.  Once the chip leader he's now the short stack.  Cimpan, is from League City Texas, you'll remember him winning the WPT Tournament in February for almost 1.7 million.   Another monster from a Gulf Coast state who'll be on the who's who soon enough.

THE POKER MONKEY CASHES AGAIN.  We know Will was disappointed with the way his Venetian tournament ended but one day, some day, the luck ITM will go his way and not the guys that are destined for his donkey barn.  Keep your head up Monkey!

WSOP QUICK UPDATE

(06/05/09)

PHIL IVEY WINS BRACELET.  The Event 8 $2,500 NL 2-7 Lowball concluded with Ivey besting John Monette three and half hours after they started playing heads-up.  Ivey (pictured multi-tabling) pocketed 96k and a 2009 bracelet; his sixth.  Even better it's rumored he also wins about 3 million in prop bets.  This is a great result for a player who cut his teeth playing live poker but is now more known for craps rolls and online play.  Wild Bill has a video from Poker Road of Ivey right before the final table.  And maybe even better, video of the scooter race between Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim.  Yes, you read that right.  Scooter race between Brunson and Slim.

WANNA LEARN HOW TO PLAY PLO?  This game is sweeping the world, tired of two hole cards?  Double them!  If you don't know what we are talking about and think it's a game that's got something to do with Yassar Arafat, you'd be wrong and you need some online omaha poker tips.  Go get 'em here. 

STEVE SUNG WINS BRACELET.  Saw a little bit of this final table over on Bluff's website.  Sung got short and poured on the aggression to best Dan Heimiller and others.

MARK WILDS AND DARRYLL FISH CASH.  Two Gulf Coasters go deep in the Six Handed No Limit Hold'em Event 9.  Both won a little over 4k.  Wilds' (pictured) catalogue of cashing just got incrementally longer.  We think this is Wilds 15h WSOP cash.  Fish also cashed in event 4 and these are his first WSOP cashes.  We expect many more from the talented youngster from Cape Coral, FL.

WSOP QUICK UPDATE

(06/02/09)

TOM MCEVOY WINS CHAMPION CUP.  When Wild Bill started playing poker he read a book McEvoy and TJ Cloutier wrote together.  Knew McEvoy had won a main event but he really hadn't done anything else and so his insight was kind of irrelevant.  How times have changed.  Amazing what a Corvette will do for an older man.  Robert Varkonyi finished second.  At no point in the tournament was he the favorite.

THE 1k DONKAMENT GOT TO TEN HANDED... AND THEY KEPT PLAYING.  Phil Hellmuth wasn't the short stack.  Dan Heimiller, who quietly goes about his business cashing in tournaments, is the chip leader.  He looks like a principal but plays like an internet kid.

STRIP POKER AT THE ROUND TABLES OF EXCALIBUR.  Guinevere will be your first dancer.  Ever played poker at Excalibur?  No? You are not alone.  It's a bit like playing on your computer, without the ability to surf the web, watch TV, or play in your underwear.  In an effort to get somebody to play poker on their computers the Excalibur is starting a Strip Poker tournament, where a player busts out means a dancer takes off clothes.  Playing in your underwear is probably even more frowned upon but if you like looking at other people in underwear you might get the chance.  "Player down, Panties too!"  Pokerati has more here.

WSOP QUICK UPDATE

(2:00 am-ish 06/02/09)

ROBERT VARKONYI AND TOM MCEVOY PLAYING HEADS UP IN CHAMPIONS CUP.  Action Dan Harrington out in third.  McEvoy with almost a 3 to 1 chip lead.  Jim Bechtel 4th.  Carlos Mortenson 5th, Huck Seed, 6th, Berry Johnston 7th, Doyle Brunson 8th, Peter Eastgate 9th, and Phill Hellmuth 10th.  Hellmuth played one hand on the final table.

CAPTAIN TOM BUSTED IN STIMULUS 1k DONKAMENT.  120 left.  Notables:  JC Tran sitting on 230k, Seve Sung 155.5k, and Lee Watkinson 80k.

SHORR AND GRAHAM DOING WELL IN POT LIMIT OMAHA (EVENT 5).  Matt Graham has 57k and Shorr 43k.  112 remain out of 809 entrants.  Jason Mercier current chip leader.

WSOP UPDATE (06/01/09)

...QUIZ TIME

THE RUSKIES ARE COMING, ARE HERE, OR LIVE NEXT DOOR?  Time to meet the neighbors.  Last year we said the Ruskies were coming.  After Ivan Demidov's performance at the WSOPE we said they were here.  Now they are getting comfortable and forgetting to return the tools they've borrowed. 

Vitaly Lunkin beat one of the greatest fields ever assembled to win his second WSOP bracelet.  Interneter Isaac Haxton, who loves the WNBA, came in second.  This is despite Haxton knocking Greg Raymer out three handed, when Raymer arguably overplayed a pair of fives (Haxton had a pocket pair of nines), to enter heads up play with a commanding chip lead.

Lunkin hit an early straight and Haxton called a big bet to even things up a bit.  Three hours later the Ruskie won the whole thing. Ironically, he held American Airlines.   Lunkin won 1.89 million and Haxton had to settle for 1.16 million.

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU BUST OUT OF THE 40K AFTER A DEEP RUN AS A MAIN EVENT CHAMPION?  You bust out quickly in a freeroll.  Raymer hurried over to the champions tournament and overshoved (arguably) again, this time with A9.  Carlos Mortenson called with AK, and Raymer managed to bust out of two prestigious tournaments within 15 minutes of one another.  Raymer still gets 774k for his trouble and a picture with the other main event champions.  Chris Moneymaker bubbled the money in the 40k and then only let Jaime Gold beat him to the valet in the invite only.  Other recent champions Hachem and Jerry Yang also went out on day 1.  Peter Eastgate made it to day 2. 

WHAT CARRIES A BIGGER STIGMA IN POKER, BEING ACCUSED OF BEING A PEDOPHILE OR BEING ACCUSED OF BEING A CHEAT?   Neither one is proven.  The victim, a relative, dropped the charges in the pedophile case, and in the theft/cheating case no formal charges have been made.  The answer is cheating.  Russ Hamilton, worth his weight in silver bullion and in other things, was persona non gratia whereas Amarillo Slim, who always seemed to be embroiled in something played his free-roll.  Slim didn't make it to day two.  For those living under a rock, Russ Hamilton is the accused thief and Slim the once accused pedophile, and having a poker player accused as a pedophile was a black-eye for pedophiles everywhere. 

WHEN DO YOU PLAY DOWN TO TEN INSTEAD OF NINE?  As we've learned in years past it's when Phil Hellmuth is tenth in chips and a short stack.  ESPN loves them some Hellmuth and they'll make it a 10 handed final table if they have to just to get some.  Phil will be sipping some final table Cristal again, as the Champion Cup will be a10 handed one.  And yes, Phil is the shorty... again.

WHO SHOULD YOU BE ROOTING FOR AT THE CHAMPION CUP?  Robert Varkoyni is universally regarded as a bad main event champion and he could probably use the 1970 Corvette.  He's been needing to replace his 1969 Chevelle.  We love underdogs and at that table the underdog is easy to spot.  It's Varkoyni.  We once saw him in a $65 satellite and it was just as easy to spot. 

Or go with Doyle Brunson, who is fourth in chips wtih 20k, because he's Doyle Brunson.  Carlos Mortenson is the big stack with 42k, followed by Tom McEvoy at 31k, Jim Bechtel 30k, Brunson, Dan Harrington at 19.9k, Eastgate at 18.4k, Huck Seed 15.4k, Varkonyi at 13.4k, Berry Johnstone at 7.6k, and Phil Hellmuth at 1,125k,   You don't think Phil nursed his short stack to get some airtime do ya?

CAN YOU SUE A CASINO IF YOUR FENG SHUI IS BAD?  Yes.  They may even offer to settle for a couple of hundred grand.  The big question is, if you refuse the settlement can you win your court case?  Details here.  Oh yeah, they tell you what Feng Shui is too.

WHO IS THE LAST CHAMPION TO GO BACK TO BACK?  No Feng Shui issues for this guy.  For those that got it right, Thank you it's Thang Luu.  In 2007 he finished second in the 1.5k Omaha Hi/Lo.  In '08 he won it.  This year, he won it again.  It's like Chan at the Main Event except in reverse.  Chan went 1st, 1st, and 2nd in '87-'89.  Two ladies Susie Isaacs and Nani Dollison accomplished the same feat in between Chan and Luu.

WSOP UPDATE (05/31/09)

40K ALL STAR OR DEEP POCKETS TOURNAMENT:

HE'S BACK AND SO ARE THE GLASSES.  Greg "Fossilman" Raymer is near the top of the leaderboard at the final table.  He's also got a invite only tournament today  which he is either going to miss or get blinded out of.  Let's see bracelet and 40k final table or vintage 1970 Corvette freeroll.  Which one will he chose?   Raymer late last night weathered losing with AA twice and chopping with them and Ted Forrest's own AA.  He also got his QQ run down.  Main Event Champions can't ask for luck but had those hands held, Raymer would be dwarfing the table... chipstack wise.

KEITH LEHR "JET" TAKES 11TH PLACE IN THE 40K EVENT TAKING HOME OVER 170K: Keith played his heart out and got it in on a flip holding AQ vs Greg Raymers JJ...and he couldn't improve. It would have been cool to see him make the final table,,,  maybe we could have seen him do something crazy for TV...  ike tap a glass bottle on his glass eye when he's in the middle of a huge hand.  Word has it he likes to get in peoples heads by doing zanny things with his glass eye.  Wonder if anybody said, "Don't tap the glass eye."

NOT A MONEYMAKER.  Raymer's Pokerstars comrade, Chris Moneymaker busted out just before the money.  He managed to stay near the top of the chipstacks until the very end when he quickly went from penthouse to the outhouse.  We were rooting for him, it was a tough end to a great run.

NOAH SCHWARTZ, GULF COASTER, ON 40K FINAL TABLE.  Who is Noah?  Go to our Who's Who to find out.  You know, the guy who looks like McLovin.  Schwartz is one of many internet pros still alive.  In fact two+two, (nothing to do with animals on Noah's ark, but a lot to do with messageboard posters on his bandwagon), is in a tizzy about their own awesomeness at this years world series.  Go to the MTT thread to see their own POBs (pats on back--this definition for POB is relevant later).

THE DONKULUS* UPDATE:

LOCKDOWNTEX CONTINUES HEATER AT 1k BUY-IN EVENT.  Justin "Lockdowntex" Allen is in 6th place after day 1A sitting at 72k. The kid has been on fire lately winning the ME at Harrahs last year and then final tabling the ME several weeks ago in New Orleans.

DFISH TOP TEN OF THE DONKULUS* TOURNAMENT AFTER DAY 1A.  (*Tao of Poker dubbed the 1k stimulus donkament:  THE DONKULUS---makes sense).  I guess day 1b will be REDONKULUS.  Anyway, Daryll Fish, fresh off his California cash is running hot again.  One big hand, he lost AA to AA (when KK folded preflop) and the board gave his opponent a flush.  KK had him covered and hit a K so he would have come in third on the hand and been sent packing if KK had stayed in the hand.  After that freeroll he rallied.  Keep it up Fish.  Many other Gulf Coasters alive.

PAT ON BACK TO CAPTAIN TOM.  The Gulf Coast's own "Captain" Tom Franklin is sitting with around 60k to round out the Gulf Coast update. We're going to give ole Captain Tom a pass here as we should write something witty about his infamous incident where he was brutalized on message boards years ago...  Nah...  we're going to pass here and just give the Captain a POB.

WSOP UPDATE (05/30/09)

DAY 1 IS OVER IN THE 40K EVENT: Looks like there are several Gulf Coast Area players still shooting for this coveted gold bracelet and the 1.9 million that will come along with it. This update will focus on the players from the Gulf Coast area.

MONEYMAKER SITTING AT 2ND IN CHIPS: The man that started it all is sitting in 2nd place in chips right now with over 800k. We are going to go ahead and adopt Tunica/Memphis into our coverage...as hey...Mississippi is a Gulf Coast State. It would be something of a story if he were able to pull this one off...I wonder who will be the victim of the 2nd "Bluff of the Century?". There is still a long way to go yet.

KEITH LEHR "JET" GOES FOR HIS 2ND WSOP BRACELET: GeneD was in Bossier City, La this past week and noticed that Keith wasn't in the weekly 25-50 game on Wednesday at the Eldorado...that's because he had bigger fish to fry. Lehr sits with a little over 200k going into day 2 up from the starting stacks of 120k, and he also was the person to send last years Main Event champion, Peter Eastgate, to the rail. Lehr won his first bracelet in 2003 in a $3000.00 buy in Pot-Limit Hold-em event where he bested Chris "Jesus" Ferguson for the title. E-dog was also at that FT as well as Devilfish and Slidell, La's Fred Berger.

OTHER NOTABLES FROM THE COAST:

Alex Jacob from Florida has 357,000...Jason Mercier also of Florida has 331,000...Josh Arieh of Atlanta, Ga sitting at 339,000...Chance Walker of Dallas, TX has 174,000...Hoyt Corkins of Alabama has 104,000...David Benefield of Fort Worth, TX is at 70,000.

WSOP UPDATE (1:00 a.m.-ish 05/29/09)

BRIEF ANNOUNCEMENT AND ALMOST AS BRIEF APPEARANCE.  Peter Eastgate said, "Shuffle up and deal" to start off the tournament.  Last years main event champion got the honors today.  Then he got busted early in the 40k.  Also, busted were the fellow young guns that were featured on High Stakes Poker this year:  Tom Dwan and Dario Minieri.  Maybe a jinx?  Or maybe elves are just running bad this year.

40k GETS MORE THAN 200 BUT FIRST GETS LESS AS A RESULT OF IT.  Pokerati points out that the last two sign-ups will actually cost the winner money.  Read here for the weird math.  The last sign up was Phil Hellmuth who quickly built up a stack only to bluff off most of his chips late.

AREA PRO AND N.O. WINNERS WOES:  Kido Pham ran his AK into AJ.  Both flopped an Ace.  He got it all in, and a jack appeared on the turn--ouch.  N.O. Circuit Main Eventers and Deep Runners Dwyte Pilgrim and Shaun Deeb were early eliminations.   Michael Binger also learned nothing in the big easy and was an early railbird.  Jean Gaspard is still alive though.

THE LITTLE AND THE SHORRT OF IT.  Jonathan Little also out early.  The fact he's not listed on any of the chip counts as Fiery Justice and so many of his internet peers still are identified by their online i.d.s is probably a testament to how well regarded the kid is.  Shannon Shorr is hanging on...  short on chips.

MONEYMAKER AMONG EARLY CHIPLEADERS.  Michael DeMichele won a huge late pot to take an early lead.  Please check out his new look on Wicked Chops.  We have to wonder, did he lose a prop bet?  Moneymaker is not too far behind hanging around Justin Bonomo, Ted Forrest, Alex Jacob, and Isaac Haxton near the top of the leaderboard. 

SHOUT OUT TO MIN CASH BY ONLINE PLAYER "RO-RO" AT THE TURNING STONE IN NEW YORK.  It's one of the only places all those internet whiz kids under 21 can play live.  Sure he faced a slew of 3 and 4 bets by kids that looked barely out of their tweens.

WSOP UPDATE (05/28/09)

SCHEDULE UPDATES.  Guess what, we are merging our tournament schedule on the coast with the handy dandy little Tournament Calendar we put up yesterday.  We've already got some tournaments up there.  TDs get us your schedule and we'll update them too.

WSOP STARTED WITH PHIL HELLMUTH DOING THE SHUFFLE UP AND DEAL HONORS.  Obama was in town today and the best they could come up with was Phil Hellmuth? 

RUSS HAMILTON HANGS OVER MEDIA ROW?  No, it's not Mike Matasow's wish fulfillment it's signage.  Wicked Chops has the pic here.  Word is Russ will not be asked to play in the special champions of the main event tournament this year.  And we are fine with that, so why is there a giant picture of him hanging over the room taunting all the people he stole from?

BLUFF MAGAZINE RANKS STU UNGAR THIRD BEST MAIN EVENT CHAMPION EVER.  Seems there could be some debate about that.  He did win the Main Event three times (as well the now defunct SuperBowl of Poker).  Bluff on Stu here. 

40K BUY-IN EVENT STARTS TODAY.  Unfortunately, not enough backers and stakers to get TK in but we heard there are a couple guys from the coast that made it in.  We'll be following their progress.  Very excited about this event.

WORLD OF GAMBLING UPDATE(05/27/09)

WORLD SERIES OF POKER SCHEDULE.  It has started today and here is the schedule for the complete set of events.  And here is a handy dandy handy dandy little Tournament Calendar for all the Las Vegas Events in one place.  Start planning your trip now.

WSOP STARTS TODAY WITH A DEALERS TOURNAMENT.  The PokerBat has another dumb idea.  Make the pros deal to the dealers and offer up a Main Event seat to the Pro that deals best.  Read here for more.  If DaRock was playing we know he'd be a favorite.

A BLACK-EYE FOR MURDERERS EVERYWHERE.  Turns out this murderer was also a poker player.  Even worse his murdering might have been motivated by poker debts (or just being a dumbass in all regards).  He pled not guilty to murder, no word if he'll own up to being a fascist dictator-esque poker player like Annie Duke, though.  Read more here.  Or don't, this is the dbag who killed his parents for his inheritance. 

Of note, investigators say this guy, whose day job was real estate investor, was deep in debt.  The press seems to tie his debt to his second career as professional poker player...  which makes complete sense because it's not like too many real estate investors aren't in debt these days anyway (sarcasm).  Just like the Craigslist killer let's wait until the authorities authenticate poker debt as the motive and not just debt.

ESPN AND FAMOUS BLOGGERS RELEASE THEIR FANTASY PICKS FOR THIS YEARS WSOP.  First things first, is there such thing as a famous poker blogger?  Second things second, we like Daniel Negreanu's strategy in picking players.  Problem is we heard he's not normally good at picking these things.   Oh you want to see the list to form your own opinion?   Go to ESPN for Andrew Feldman's story.   GCP.Net might do a draft of our own soon.  Might, as in I might bake a cake tonight.  I'd like to eat one, but I probably won't do the baking. 

Glad to see locals done good, Shannon Shorr and Jonathan Little were picked.  In a private debate between the owners of GCP, harkening back to Shorr's snub at the NBC Heads-up Championship, this selection is noteworthy.  These so called experts didn't even pick Layne Flack despite his six bracelets which kind of validates one of the owner's opinion regarding the two.  Although, these guys are just opinionated bloggers too (albeit famous bloggers).  Shorr was picked in the top 24.  However, Chops of Wicked Chops did admit to picking him as much for his porn star nickname as his abilities.  So Shorr's pick probably means nothing.  But since the owner who is opinion is validated is writing this update, we'll say his pick in this fantasy draft does in fact prove he is one of the top 64 players in the world (...  even if it doesn't).  And Layne's nonpick means he's not one of the top 64 players in the world (... even if it doesn't).   

NOT SINCE ANNIE DUKE WAS A NAZI DAY... have we gotten so much feedback about an update.  Okay, we won't mess up a Saints name again.  It's Jeremy Shockey not Jason.  Honest Player and Reid G had the funnier responses, Chickenman_Pluck_U the least funny.  Thanks to all for keeping us on our toes.  And chickenman we have removed our heads from our own backsides, finished sometime around noon.  And no it did not require a specialist.

WORLD OF GAMBLING UPDATE(05/26/09)

IT'S A SLOW NEW DAY SO LET KEEP THINGS LIGHT.  Without much poker to focus on, with the start of the WSOP imminent, let's look at other things to gamble on in the news.  Word of warning there may be a subtle "ad"ish link in here too.  And by subtle we mean obvious.

YES FOLKS, IT'S ALL FUN AND GAMES UNTIL SOMEONE GETS HERPES.  Beer Pong is a game Doyle Brunson and other poker pros have played for charity.  Michael Phelps when he got busted for bong smoking was getting hustled on the beer pong table too.  One of the owners of this site when in his "Super" persona in college used to throw his car keys on the table vs. an opponents $20 in a version of beer pong.  Little did any of them know it cause herpes.  Or it doesn't.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Beer Pong Herpes Outbreak
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LONGEST CRAPS ROLL EVER!  They actually keep track of this and in AC a lady just set the Worlds Record.  She rolled four hours and 18 minutes.  154 rolls.  She beat the previous record by one hour and 12 minutes, which was set in Vegas 20 years ago.  Read here for more.

If you've never played craps or been to an online casino, you might want to try out the game there first.  When you play online casino you can wager much smaller amounts than you have to in a brick and mortar casino.  The games are also easier to learn when you play casino online.  Craps, blackjack, roulette and poker can all be learned for free at a casino online.

DIABETTING!  Gamble on one guys blood sugar levels.  Not joking.  Degens your latest addiction is here.

TIME TO GO TO REHAB.   Irony of ironies, Jason Shockey (okay, JEREMY SHOCKEY, not some mutant combo of ex-Gmen Jason Sehorn and Jeremy Shockey) passes out at Rehab.  TMZ has pictures and video of the Saint feeling it.  Dehydration is the official story.   Doesn't he know you are supposed to drink copious amounts of water when pill popping at a rave/club he is too old for.  See the pixels here.  Time to rethink the over/under of Saints wins this year too?

CORRECTION.  We fixed it down below but DFish did not win almost first place money for coming in 9th.  No he won $28,251 instead of $238,251.  Thanks to our attentive reader who pointed that out. Yes, we said reader.  Thanks mom.

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!   ODDS AND ENDS (05/25/09)

A BIG THANK YOU TO ALL OF ARMED FORCES.  Sorry, Air Force, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, Merchant Marines, Border Patrol, and others for using the army green, but thanks to all of ya'll for your service.  Now go ATVing with some girls in bikinis.

MEMORIAL DAY MEANS SUMMER IS UPON US AND THAT MEANS BASEBALL..  If you are not close to baseball park, the only thing that keeps Major League baseball interesting during its decade long seasons is to put a wager down.  Lots of fun going to a ball game but not so much watching it on TBS.  We don't endorse sports betting (we don't disapprove of it either) but until football starts you might like to make your life more interesting by taking a wager or two on baseball.  Our only advice is not to bet on a tie.. 

FISH FINISHED 8TH.  Great job Darryl!   He pocketed $28,251 for his deep run at the California State Poker Championship.  Daniel Alaei finished 6th for $50,852.  Shane Rose wins the $327,714 first place prize besting Mario Esequerra in heads up play.  Matt Affleck and Ian Kim were third and fourth respectively.  No word on how Ben or Casey Affleck did, but the Aflac duck did cash.

POT CONTROL!  No it's not a Janet Jackson/Grateful Dead collaboration it's Brandon Jarrett's thoughts on PLO live tournaments.  Fresh off his final table in New Orleans, read his BLOG for more.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE!  Jason Lipscomb aka Juicy is back and he thinks Jack Effel deserves some recognition for the structures of the WSOP Circuit Events.  Read Juicey's thoughts here.

SHOUT OUT TO TEX.  Hey, just a heads up we are thinking about you.  Get well soon, and start beating up on the lunchboxes, donkfish, and donknuts even sooner!

CALIFORNIA STATE POKER CHAMPIONSHIP MAIN EVENT(05/24/09)

DARRYLL "DFish" FISH AT FINAL TABLE:

Las Vegas transplant and former Gulf Coaster makes it to the Final Table with 205k. The blinds are at 1k/3k/6k, and he is coming into the FT tied with another player as the 7th/8th in chips . I spoke to Fish last week and he had mentioned maybe heading to the Commerce to play in the Cali State Poker Championship...glad he decided to go. From what Matt Savage is saying on 2+2...Daniel Alaei is the "beast" that their all trying to deal with as he is sitting in the 2nd spot with over 500k. Matt comments about how several players were happy to have Daniel moved from their table as he was making some sick reads...THREAD HERE.

RUMOR CONTROL...IRS WATCHING GCP.Net???

It seems that Wild Bill and GeneD have been asked by several players about the IRS watching GCP.Net????  That would be a negative... funny how rumors spread;  there must have been some sort of a miscommunication/misperception as we think the IRS would have more important places to go to try to bust poker players for taxes on their winnings than here at GCP.Net. 

The story is that GeneD and his wife Julie were nailed for a score in 2007 by the IRS where they didn't receive a 10-99 from the Palms Casino in Vegas. Well, The Palms sure as hell remembered to send the info to the IRS. GeneD and Julie had forgotten about the winnings and have since settled up with the IRS.  GeneD was explaining to some players at a table recently about how he had to make a spreadsheet and make copies of all his tournament receipts from 2007 to send to the IRS to off-set the score...  Moral of the story...keep all your tournament receipts...  But don't sweat the IRS monitoring our site.

WORLD OF POKER UPDATE (05/22/09)

DURRRR CHALLENGED.  The hole gets deeper as Durrrr slips further behind Patrik Antonius.  With 30% of the Challenge completed Durrrr still has over 35k hands to come back.  The challenge thus far has taken 184 hours to play.  Antonius is $424,631 ahead.

LACTOSE IRREVERENCE.  Kai Landry fresh of his second tournament win, explains the vital role of a dairy product.  Read more at YOU'RE ENTERING A WORLD OF PAIN.

ANNIE DUKE TO HOST "SUCKING OUT ON THE RIVERS."  No it's not a plastic surgery exposition, it's a charity poker tournament to be hosted by Frank Marino, a Joan Rivers impersonator.  Additionally 20 other Joan Rivers impersonators will be playing in the event with bounties on their head.  May 27th at the Hard Rock Poker Lounge buy $200 with rebuys.

DA_PROFESSIONAL WINS THREE TOURNAMENTS ON FULLTILT ON ONE DAY.  On Sunday, the guy won the $200k rebuy for $71k, the 75k rebuy for $32k , and the 85k rebuy for $41k.  With fields of 540, 932, and 466 he had one hell of heater.  Total profit almost 144k.  

ESPN TV SCHEDULE RELEASED FOR WSOP.  Most events will be broadcast online either at Bluffmagazine.com on or ESPN360.com.  4 Events will get the ESPN television treatment.  Schedule here.

WORLD SERIES OF POKER UPDATE (05/21/09)

WSOP CIRCUIT EVENT CENTRAL:

JEAN GASPARD WINS THE WSOP CIRCUIT MAIN EVENT.  Okay maybe he didn't technically win it on the table, but he still won it via a chop between the top three players.  Gaspard continued his hot run from day two and chewed up the final table.

The final table was the culmination of a great player friendly tournament.  The structure rewarded better players and in many events the last men standing were the most deserving.  If I might make one more suggestion perhaps a little softening on the later rounds.  I know tournaments have to end but down to two tables in the $340 buy-in suddenly became a bit of a shove fest.  No harm in letting one or two tables go on for three to four more hours and not doubling the blinds WPT style.

Still, our congratulations to Tournament Director Steve Frezer for a terrific event.  Kurt, Bob, Phil and all the floor people did a first rate job.  Also, thanks to Nolan Dalla for recognizing the GCP bloggers in his write up of the events.  Anyway, let's get to yesterday's action.

On the first hand Gaspard cracked GCP favorite Dan Walsh's pocket Aces, by rivering a straight and that set a tone for the final table.  Next up, Gaspard rivered a full house to beat Kurt Scheer's turned nut flush. 

Kenny Milam, another GCP favorite, and a local player from the New Orleans area, got eliminated next when his Ace rag didn't improve when Billy Kopp played table patrolman with KK.  Justin "LockdownTex" Allen won the Winter Bayou Challenge a few short months ago, but his hopes of repeating were dashed when his AJ suited was called by Gaspard's pocket 4s. 

A story writing itself was the run of Anita Vasquez and Dan Walsh, the last and second to last players to sign up for the Main Event.  Vasquez won the very last single table satellite and made the most of it.  She shoved with Ace rag and got called down by two players with pocket pairs in the mood to check it down.  Christopher held KK to take the pot.

Walsh's story ended shortly thereafter when he shoved over the top of Ken Christopher.  Unfortunately, Walsh's 10s were way behind and Christopher's pocket Aces held.  Great run Dan!

Steven McCoy, three hours later, was the last player eliminated when Ken Christopher's AJ connected with two more Aces on the flop.   Then the chop discussions lasted through the break and the players came back with this breakdown:  

Gaspard took the ring, the Main Event buy-in + 1k in travel expenses, and $161,175,  Kopp got $123,837 and Ken Christopher $111,097.   Had they played it out 1st would have paid:  $211,722, 2nd: 127,832, and 3rd: $81,892.  Anybody else thinking the math doesn't quite work out?  Pokernews and Pokerpages have great write-ups.

WORLD SERIES OF POKER UPDATE (05/20/09)

WSOP CIRCUIT EVENT CENTRAL:

DAN WALSH AMASSES CHIPS IN THE WSOP CIRCUIT MAIN EVENT.  Dan eliminated Shaun Deeb as his rockets held vs. Deeb's preflop shove with AQ.  A couple of hands earlier Walsh flopped a set of threes vs. Deeb's AA to double up.

TEN HANDED CHIP COUNTS.  Jean Gaspard: 680,000, Billy Kopp $640,000, Dan "The Man" Walsh $570,000, Kenny Milam $385,000, Justin "LockdownTex" Allen $252,000, Kenneth Christopher $240,000, Kurt Scheer $130,000, Steven McCoy $190,000, Anita Vasquez $160,000, and Richard Kirsch hanging on with $90,000.  Once one more player is eliminated they'll stop play until tomorrow (or depending when you read this later today).

DREAM TEAM POKER COMING TO THE WORLD SERIES.  First they announced the made for TV special, inviting only past Main Event champions and now this.  It's in early July.  GCP may have to put a team or two together for this.  Taking applications now. Go here for more details.

WORLD OF POKER UPDATE (05/19/09)

WSOP CIRCUIT EVENT CENTRAL:

DAN WALSH COMING BACK IN THE MAIN EVENT.    With under 30 players left, Dan has steadily grown his stack.  Doubling up with a set of two against Shaun Deeb, he's also knocked out last years champ Nick Ceci and dragged a flurry of pots.  All this for a guy that was debating whether or not to buy in through most of level one. 

Shaun Deeb, Dwyte Pilgrim, and Matt Brady are all near the top of the leaderboard.  Wild Bill has a small recap of yesterday's action at DINE ON THE WHALES.

WILDER STYLE WINS LADY'S EVENT FOR LISA WILDER.  Demure secretary from Mobile, AL or secret poker shark?  Lisa Wilder has a wild side and a ladies championship to go with it.  She bested Annette Martin of Denham Springs, LA, Tabitha Michel an American from the United States, Sue "Molson" Tolson from Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Amee Dave of New Orleans, and Trish Marks of Covington, LA at the final table.  Wilder won over 14k.

JASON GLADDEN TAKES SECOND IN POT LIMIT OMAHA EVENT.   Brent Keller of Horsham, PA won 14.5k for first, Gladden of Ocean Springs, MS won 8.7k for second and Thomas Randack of Wylie, TX won 5.8k for third.  With only 30 players only the top three got paid in the 1k buy-in. Love Shack Dave Gafford of Denham Springs also won a ring in event 17.

HEY JERKY, I'M SPONSORING YOU.  Jack Link's Beef Jerky is now the presenting sponsor of the WSOP.  A much better table food than Tiffany Michelle's cheese fries.

WORLD OF POKER UPDATE (05/17/09)

WSOP CIRCUIT EVENT CENTRAL:

EVENT 8:  Local Pro from Mobile, Al ...Ryan Lenaghan (Pic) snaps off over 7k in the $550 PLO event

EVENT 11:  Bobby "Spider" Henderson makes his first major score for over 4k

EVENT 13:  The 1k NLH event had a nice turnout with GCP'sd own Poker Money taking 6th for over 12k...next out was Dave "Loveshack Dave" Gafford from Baton Rouge, La going out 7th for over 10k...Mrs. Judy Rhodes from Houma, La takes home $3800 for 14th

EVENT 14: The PLO H_L/8 was taken down by Gulfport, MS native Keith Ezykowich (pic) for over $7800

EVENT 15:  There was a nice turnout for last Friday's $340 NL event and GCP's Kai "Cobra Kai" Landry gets first place and another circuit ring although its our understanding that there was a chop negotiated...Clint Schafer takes over 7k back to Baton Rouge for 6th place...GCP co-owner  "Wild Bill" takes 12th and $2100...The other co-owner of GCP...Gene "GeneD" Dudek brings up the rear with a 50th place finish for a min-cash. GeneD went out on a brutal beat to Mark Wilds you may read about in his blog to the right.

WORLD OF POKER UPDATE (05/15/09)

WSOP CIRCUIT EVENT CENTRAL:

ALEX WOOD CRUISES TO SECOND IN EVENT 10.  Alex, seen regularly in the Harrahs poker room banked over 11k, for his effort.  John "The Melon" Lallo of Fort Myers, FL took first and the 18.5k that went with it. 

Joining them were Scott Frost of Houston, TX, Aaron Cole of Mandeville, LA, Michael Hallen of Katy TX, Chris Hildebrandt of Slidell, LA, Curtis Terry of Metairie, LA and Kristopher Smithson of Arlington, TX who all made the final table.  It was like a Texas-Louisiana border war.  Blogger Kai Landry added another cash to his resume.

MIKE RAIMON BEATS "THE DANCER " TO WIN EVENT 9.  Raimon of Bradenton, FL beat John "The Dancer" Riola of Biloxi, MS in heads-up to finish of the six handed tournament.  1st and 2nd paid 24k and 15k.  TK Miles (picutred) finished 4th.  We will have a feature on TK soon.   Michael Anderson, Chris Morrison, and Johnathan Holsenback all of Texas also made the top 10. 

 OTHER NEWS.... 

THE WSOP IS NIGH.  A preview of the first half of the Series offerings at Bet & Win Poker.

HIGHSTAKES POKER EPISODE 11 AVAILABLE ONLINE.  Watch the action on your computer right now, right here. 

TOP 10 MAIN EVENT CHAMPIONS.  Gold, Varokoni, Yang, you know the usuals.  One blog's opinion:.  You probably will disagree.   Do so here.

VANESSA RUOSSO IS POKER'S LADY GAGA?  The PokerBat seems to think so right here.

WORLD OF POKER UPDATE (05/13/09)

OLD NEWS....  JOAN RIVERS WINS CELEBRITY APPRENTICE.  Annie Duke slowrolled in finale.  Local Matt Graham got two seconds of airtime in the finale as part of Annie's friends (or UB sponsered players).  Wild Bill's update here.

GCP GEAR IS HERE!  Here are some photos.  Get your hoodies and hats now.  Want to thank the Mighty Mac in Atlanta, and Ray and Byron from Houma for all the work they did in finalizing a very rough logo idea into something we think ended up being pretty cool.  We have your gear fellas.  For the rest of you readers, if you enjoy the site and want to help support it, by a ton of gear and give it to everybody you know!

WSOP CIRCUIT EVENT CENTRAL:

GCP BLOGGERS PAD THEIR STATS.  Monkey, Kai, Southpaw Rounder (twice), and the Honest Player all have cashes already.  Mene Gene goes into detail here.

NANCY BIRNBAUM BEATS THE FELLAS.  In event three of the New Orleans Circuit Event, Birnbaum pocketed 51k.  Tyler Smith had yet another final table coming in third.  Larry Price, who came in second in the fall's Main Event, took 6th.  Todd Wood of New Orleans finished second for 26k.

PATRICK D. PEERCY WINS 7.8K IN POT LIMIT OMAHA EVENT 4.  Preston Derden of Houston, TX 2nd (4.3k);   Corrie Wunstel of Baton Rouge 3rd (2.4k), Joe Nieten San Antonio, TX 4th (1.7k),  Preston Derde of Houston, TX 5th (1.5k),  Wayne LeBlanc of New Orleans 6th (1.3k), Elliot Howze of Pine Grove, LA 7th (1.09k),  Ali Jafari 8th and Thomas Pullens of Picayune, MS 9th.

FROM THE OUTHOUSE TO THE WHITE HOUSE, THE POOR HOUSE TO THE BIG HOUSE, JESSE JACKSON BEATS THE HOUSE IN EVENT 5.  He won 20k.  Joe Pepe of Slidell (10k), D.D. Winninger of Birmingham, AL (6.2k), John Sulilvan of Brunswick, OH (4.9k), and Chris Chevalier of Shreveport, LA (3.7k) completed the top 5.  Bobby Toye  and Matt Culberson of New Orleans added to their resumes with top 10 finishes.  Daniel Jimenez and Elisa Hourani joined them.

NL STRUCTURE and BAYOU POKER CHALLENGE SCHEDULE 

 WSOP CIRCUIT UPDATE AND MORE (05/10/09)

 PARTIAL UPDATE AS WE DON'T HAVE OFFICIAL RESULTS YET, BUT STACKED 2ND DAY FOR FRIENDS OF GCP OF THE FIRST $340 NOONER:

Well...Well...Well...sweat action is what we had...and sweating is what we did. 36 people returned on day 2 of the first nooner, and GCP's own Poker Monkey was in the top 5 in chips. Other notables...Jacob "Nocko" Naquin, Dan "Big Dan" Walsh, Timmy "Thomkat17" Thompson, Baron Whipple, Marshall Brown. Nocko and Big Dan make the final table with Nocko busting in 9th ...and Big Dan running KK into AA for 6th and a cool $7.5k. This on the heels of BD's great showing in the Beau ME.

When we left yesterday, Tom "Spoon" Witherspoon (pic) had a dominant chip lead with 3 players left in the 5pm Limit Omaha HI/LO-8. I saw that he was being vey patient, and I doubt if anyone caught him...but we all know how crazy this came can be.

WSOP CIRCUIT UPDATE AND MORE (05/08/09)

TODAY'S HARRAHS NEW ORLEANS CIRCUIT ACTION:

• NOON NO LIMIT                   $340  

• 5 PM  LIMIT OMAHA H/L   $340

• MEGA SAT                            $550

• 9 PM NO LIMIT                    $200

HIGH STAKES POKER UP.  The latest installment is online, you can watch it here.

COUPLE OF ANGLE SHOOTERS SUE OVER BAD BEAT JACKPOT IN LOS ANGELES.  Apparently, some numbskull said no purchase necessary in the marketing.  They point out to be eligible for the bad beat you do have to make a purchase.  Read more here. 

THINK THAT LAWSUIT IS WEIRD?  An Abbeville, LA woman is suing Wal-Mart because of a Nutria named Norman that ran up on her in the store.  Apparently, the employees knew about the small beaver with a rat tail looking creature, they did name it Norm afterall, and failed to warn the customers.  Read the details here.

DURRRR CHALLENGE UPDATE.  With 25% of the Hands played the kid is down over 400k to Patrik Antonius.  Read the update.

CELEBRITY APPRENTICE UPDATE.  It's Joan Rivers vs. Annie Duke in the finals.  Rivers toned down her rhetoric recently and said Duke may not be Hitler but she is the Bernie Madoff of poker.  As one of the faces of UB, there seems to be some sort of rationale for that insult. 

Though, it's hard to say Duke was the one who bilked people for millions, so hard nobody is saying it.  Maybe Rivers is doing her research though, in preparation for the finale this Sunday.  Wild Bill finally did last Sunday's recap check out DINE ON THE WHALES for more. 

BRANDON JARRET NOMINATED FOR POKER HUNK OF THE YEAR ON FACEBOOK.    Really?  People think that guy on the left is "hunky?"  Congrats Brandon.  To keep up, befriend (or friend?) us there.  We are Gcp Net.  If somebody starts a Poker Nutria of the year you might see some of the rest of us nominated for something.

ELKY  IS SICKO, NEGREANU IS EVERYWHERE UPDATE (05/07/09)

BETRAND "ELKY" GROSPELIER WINS WPT PLAYER OF THE YEAR.  He needed his performance in the WPT Championship to do it and he got the result by making the Championship final table.  

ELKY BREAKS SIT 'N GO RECORD.  Playing 62 tables for a profit of $23.60 in one hour Elky beat the old record by... we are not sure how much.  Nor are we sure why it's a record.  What we do know it's impressive he was able to log a profit despite timing out multiple times and that was one of the requirements of the "record."  Since it was a Pokerstars stunt you decide.  More here.

NEGREANU A MUTANT CARD PLAYER OPPONENT.  If he were an X-man he'd see into people's souls but his weakness would be his self-destructive desire to call just to see if he was right again.  Danny boy in the Wolverine movie is shown playing the Mutant Gambit aka Remy LeBeau in a New Orleans card game.  Unlike any ESPN telecast he did not have a speaking part.

CAMEOS DON'T STOP THERE FOR KID POKER.  He's also seen, shocker, playing poker in the new Katy Perry video.  Who's she?  She's pictured, and you may have heard she kissed a girl, she runs hot and cold, thinks ur so gay and is waking up in Vegas.   Here's the video.

 ONLINE HEADACHES UPDATE (05/06/09)

 STARS HAS MAJOR SOFTWARE "GLITCH" AND CANCELS EVERY MTT TOURNEY ON THE SITE...IN MID-STREAM. Talk about "Software Glitches"...how about your playing deep in a MTT with over 1000 people in it...1st place is over 3k...your in for $25.00 and sitting in 11th place with 32 people left....and Shazzam...Stars crashes.

That's what happened to a friend of GCP Monday night. He's been there for close to 6 hours and cruising right along...and all of a sudden the tournament freezes with a "Tournament Paused" message????? after a few minutes, our hero starts looking at other MTT's ...they all are paused. Then a message comes on saying they are on a "5 Minute Break"...and then a message saying "Tournament Cancelled".

Our hero did receive an email paying him by what the chip stacks were but.... WTF???. I feel they should have paid everyone first place money...its not like they can't afford it. Hopefully, we will get a copy of the said email...stay tuned.

 ONLINE HEADACHES UPDATE (05/04/09)

EVENT ONE IS JUST DAYS AWAY...

SORRY FOLKS WE HAD A SMALL SOFTWARE GLITCH.  Or, we could be honest and admit is was user error on one our parts (look left), and we lost some of our content from the last couple of days but we'll have it back up here in no time.  Honesty is the best policy?  Bah.  It was a software glitch.

HARRAHS NOW IN FAVOR OF ONLINE GAMBLING BILL.  For a while the brick and mortar casinos (as well as the NFL---for reasons only Roger Goodell knows) were anti-online gambling, but Harrahs is now backing the bill to be introduced by Barney Frank today.   Remember that guy they hired away from party poker, that they kind of denied hiring?  Yeah.  It's all adding up now.  Expect to see a WSOP poker site mixing it up with Full Tilt and 'Stars if this legislation gets passed.

Bloomberg, not just the mayor of New York, has the details here.  You want to try some online poker?  Do you too like to live dangerously?  Hmmm...  In Europe and other civilized parts of the world sites like this are completely legal.  Get with the program Congress.

BEFRIEND US ON FACEBOOK.  Make us feel loved and wanted.  Embarrass GCP NET (our facebook entity) with old high school pictures of the website, when the website tried drinking for the first time and vomited 1s and 0s all night.  Or shower us with photos from your trip to visit your long lost cousins in Kentucky.    We are probably going to set up some live updates for the New Orleans circuit event. 

WSOP CIRCUIT UPDATE FROM SIN CITY (5/2/09)

NEW ORLEANS NATIVE MATT " MATTG1983" GRAHAM TAKES 5TH: The recent UB signee keeps burning it up in the poker world with a 5th place finish in the WSOP Main Event at Caesars Palace in Vegas for a cool 56k. He went up against several known pros, and came in behind Men the Master (3rd)...Grinder (2nd)... and the eventual winner ZeeJustin Bonomo. I heard Matt's roommate Fish (See pic below in previous update) flew down for Jazz Fest this weekend...Maybe they both will come down for the New Orleans event starting next week.

PRO BLOGS UPDATE (4/29/09)

SHANNON SHORR BLOGS ABOUT THE WPT.  Glad to see a good guy get a taste of the big time.  Shorr's thoughts: 

My finish was worth $408,550. I guess going into the final table it would be hard not to sign for a 5th place finish given that I was so short. I'll recap the final table in this entry, and I'll try to put together a recap of my entire WPT Championship later this week.

Read the rest here...

DARRYLL "DFISH" FISH WINS 81K.  The Coast's own "Fish" overcame a more than 3 to 1 chip deficit to win the big money.  On the final hand his pocket 10s held up against "losebigpots" pocket 8s.  Read Pokernews' write up here.

ITS BRUNSON!  Doyle tells Joan Rivers that his last name is Brunson.  And his apologies for not calling back 40 years ago.  Read his blog here.

ANTONIUS UP 160k in DURRRR CHALLENGE.  They are about 25% done.  While DURRRR has won more hands Antonius has won more money.  Patrik won almost 75k in their last session.  Pokerkingblog has the details here.

TWO BLONDS/SWINE FLU UPDATE (4/28/09)

THE BIG STORY WE ARE OBSESSED WITH THIS WEEK IS SWINE FLU:  We wish it was Ali Larter in the movie Obsessed?  Which apparently is a bad rip-off of Fatal Attraction.  What's that got to do do with poker?  USA Today called the detective poker-faced.  Was that Lady GaGa's definition or the standard one? 

Alright you got us, a slow news day indeed, back to swine flu... Already sporting events and very public engagements have been canceled.  Anybody ever get a case of casino flu?  If this gets worse what will this do to the Harrahs Circuit event.  Can't think of a worse petri dish than the unwashed chips and cards flung on their tables daily.  That's a grim thought.  Let's just admire Ali Larter instead.  She may be the cure for Swine Flu.

CELEBRITY APPRENTICE UPDATE:  Brandi Roderick is a nazi too?  If Annie Duke is Hitler and she's her follower she must be a nazi also right?  Brandi is pictured with her nazi cohort Annie Duke on either side of Melissa Rivers (below).  We believe that is Joan Rivers on the lower left or it could be the face of Swine Flu. 

Joan Rivers went on a tear this week.  She also upped the ante on her insults of Annie first calling out 666 as her sign, and then ripping poker players and the game in general.  Watch the explosive board room finale on DINE ON THE WHALES.

HARVARD SAYS ONLINE GAMBLING ADDICTION IS OVERBLOWN.  Apparently they've done a study following gambler's activity and most people are fairly moderate in the rate the gamble.  They actually tracked real gamblers  instead of just taking their word for it.;  Read more here.

WSOP CIRCUIT EVENT UPDATE  NEW ORLEANS "BAYOU POKER CHALLENGE" (4/26/09)

YEVGENIY TIMOSHENKO SNAPS OF THE WPT CHAMPIONSHIP:  Nothing like hitting your 1 (one) outer to propel you to the WPT Championship. Must be nice "shooting the moon" on National TV being a 97% dog...and getting there. I wonder if he was standing up screaming at the dealer, "ONE TIME BABY...ONE TIME!!!"    ...I guess we will see when it airs.  Shannon went out 5th and Scotty 6th.  So much for our storylines.

BAYOU POKER CLASSIC: Word got out that Monkey was able to get a copy of the structure for the Bayou Poker Classic. We have got several emails asking us if we have it, and would we post it up. You can click on either link below to download the docs.

NL STRUCTURE:  We think its better then the last event where Juicey was forced to use it even though there was overwhelming complaints. He fought the good fight for us though.

BAYOU POKER CHALLENGE SCHEDULE:  Keep in mind that this is still preliminary as we have already been told that some of these events may have morphed some since this has been circulating.

SCOTTY NGUYEN AND SHANNON SHORR MAKE TV TABLE (04/24/09)

YEVGENIY TIMOSHENKO CHIP LEADER.  Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier is also alive and continuing his incredible hot streak.  Elky has 5,955,000, Nguyen 3,725,000, Shorr is the short stack with 1,130,000,  Timoshenko has 13,300,000.  Christian Harder with 7,425,000 and Ran Azor with 2,525,000 complete the final table.  Shorr's final table appearance may be brief with blinds and antes at 15,000/60,000/120,000.

Go here for Cardplayer's interview with Shannon while there were just 9 playing for the 6 final table spots.

YOU BET YOUR LIFE.  Doyle bet his life without a disease.  He just wants to beat old age.  That's not a bet.  This guy got a cancer death sentence, bet on himself and is still living.  Read here for more.

DOES PHIL HELLMUTH FEEL THREATENED POKER UPDATES (04/24/09)

SCOTTY NGUYEN GOING FOR THE TRIPLE CROWN.  Sure the World Poker Open, The SuperBowl of Poker, the NBC Heads-Up Championship, the Trump Taj Mahal U.S. Open and other tournaments come and go but right now, the three most important tournaments are arguably the WPT World Championship (25k buy-in), the WSOP Horse Championship (50k buy-in), and the WSOP Main Event.  Two men have won two out of three: Carlos Mortenson (Main Event and WPT) and Scotty Nguyen (Main Event and Horse).

Thing is... Scotty is in first place of the WPT Championship with 10 players remaining.  Gavin Griffin and Pokerstars would tell you the triple crown is an entirely different thing but you'd be hard pressed to say winning a bracelet in the WSOP, and tournaments in the EPT and WPT is as impressive as winning their championships.

Sure Phil Hellmuth has won a ton of bracelets (or eleven) but Scotty is about to climb a mountain-top nobody else has even gotten within walking distance.  Factor in his recent DEEP main event run and Scotty is putting together a good few years in the biggest live tournaments in the world.   Course in that main event he went out right around this level despite being the one time chip-leader so anything can still happen.   

SHANNON SHORR WINS HE GETS AN NBC INVITE?  He only has to beat 9 other people.  At this moment he's 5th in chips.  We had an internal debate on GCP about this editorial with most thinking our writer was wrong (read here).  Maybe... he wasn't.

HARMON GETS DONE DIRTY

"After unknown action, Yevgeniy Timoshenko moves all-in preflop with 102 of hearts.  Jennifer Harman calls all in with a short stack showing AA."  (WPT Blog) Harman went out in 11th place. 

BTW WE ARE KEEPING THE BLUE THROUGH THE WEEKEND.  Who cares if Earth Day's color is green.  There is more water on earth than there are Irish people.  Who cares if that last sentence doesn't make sense.  Oh and those Harrahs structures we promised.  Give us another day or so.

ANOTHER BLACK-EYE FOR CRAIGSLIST... SORRY, FOR POKER UPDATES (04/23/09)

HAPPY EARTH DAY.  In honor of Earth Day we hugged the planet.  And made some things blue.  And ignored the smugness of Prius owners.  Happy Earth Day Earth you are our favorite planet to live on.

CRAIGSLIST KILLER A CALL STATION AT FOXWOODS.  Early reports have him deep in gambling debt and killing to fund it.  Not the first time, we've heard this tale.  More details from Gambling911 about poker-degen related crime here.  2+2ers speculate, if he is one of theirs, here. 

Apparently, in high school he bequeathed his "poker-playing skills to Andy Finley, so he won't lose his dad's house."  Andy Finley had no comment on whether or not giving back Markoff's poker skills could have averted the crime spree.  Likely, a bad, bad story for poker.

Markoff was arrested speeding toward Foxwoods with a suitcase full of $1000.  Wonder if he was carrying it in quarters.  Strange he needed a suitcase for $1000. 

SHANNON SHORR HAS WON THE BATTLE OF THE SS BLOGGERS AT THE WPT.  Other alliterative SS names with blogs, Shaniac, and Steve Sung (blog alleged but too lazy to use google search function on this very site) have been bounced.  Sung made the money for 40k.  Sung busted out just before Phil Ivy and just after Boris Becker. 

With 28 players left Shannon Shorr who is angling for an invite to next year's NBC Heads-Up championship is just over the average chip count.  Scotty Nguyen, Freddy Deeb, Jeff Madsen, Nenad Medic, Jennifer Harman, David Grey, and Chris Ferguson are some notables with chips at the time of this posting. 

For the younger readers Eugene Katchalov (who is first with 4 million in chips), Steve Billirakis, Blake Cahail and Jeff Madsen are still alive.  In related news Jeff Madsen is still alive and covers all demographics.

WE WILL POST THE HARRAHS CIRCUIT EVENT STRUCTURES UP HERE TOMORROW. 

ALL KINDS OF POKER UPDATES (04/21/09)

JOAN RIVERS APOLOGIZES FOR HITLER COMMENT.  Yesterday, perhaps red-faced from comparing Duke to the Fuhrer, Rivers via Twitter retracted her insult.  She thought it was a little too harsh to Hitler.  Yes, you read that right (see Gambling 911).  Now Duke is even angrier about it...  see her interview on the front page of Wicked Chops (from the WPT site).  Though, you'd have to think this time Rivers was clearly joking.  Duke also addresses the BJ remark.  While at Wicked Chops see Layne Flack at his finest.  Only need to watch five seconds of that clip.

TOM BRADY'S WIFE WINS A MILLION BETTING ON SOCCER.  She bets on Milan.  Fortunately for Tommie, she doesn't have eyes for David Beckham, she bets on Inter Milan not AC Milan (Beckham's current team).  Bundchen as you may or not know, or care about is Brazilian and they know their soccer.  How long until she's starts handicapping the NiFfLe?  Once she starts how long until it turns into a segment on Fox Football?  I predict when her looks fail her and she and Brady are enjoying retirement.  Looks failing her probably will be round about 60. 

OR.. maybe a redux of the Wayne Gretsky scandal?  Maybe his wife was betting on hockey?  If you want to bet soccer, which is so easy apparently even a supermodel can do it start sports betting now.  It's not a leak.  Really it isn't.

NEW ORLEANS OWN FRED BERGER TOP 6 OF WPT MONEY LEADERS AT END OF DAY 2!   Get em' Fred!  Steve Sung leads the alliterative SS's with 529k.    Shannon Shorr is in the thick of things with 275k.  Boris Boom-Boom Becker is right behind with 250k.  Matt Graham was near the top of the leader board early but has fallen below chip average to 167k. 

Shaniac and Stewart Scott (not the guy with the funky eyes from ESPN) are also still alive in the SS battle.  Scott Seiver not so lucky.  Jonathan Little is also on the rail, but Waco kid Jarred Hamby is still alive.

FOR THE RECORD WE DO NOT LIKE NAZIS POKER UPDATE (04/20/09)

ANNIE DUKE IS MODERN DAY HITLER.  At least that's what Joan Rivers kind of thinks.  Wild Bill's wrap up is up.  Look left.

SS AT THE WPT.  Day 1A of the WPT has finished and battle of the SS poker bloggers, Shane Schlager is 11th in chips. His counterpart SS, Shannon Shorr, is doing well on Day 1B.   Sam Stein is still alive too.  Does he have a blog? 

Other players of note, Jonathan Little is sitting on 97,600, Johnny Chan is second in chips with 291k and online pro Shaun Deeb is 4th with almost 270k.  Andy Bloch, in anticipation of his cameo on Celebrity Apprentice is at 208k.

BORIS BLITZES DAY TWO.  Boris Becker, rumored to be a pro poker player, was near the top of the leader before his pocket Van Brauns were bested by Justin Smith's pocket 10s.  And no, we don't think all Germans all Nazis.  Just the Gingers (j/k  Boom-Boom).

GULF COAST POKER UPDATE (04/19/09)

BEAU RIVAGE ROLLS OUT NEW POKER PROMOTIONS

We are going to go ahead and show some "love" to Ken Lambert/Johnny G. and their poker teams over at the Beau and post up their recent poker promos...maybe we can get some love back in return. The Beau is running 2 (two) new poker promos that rolled out on Tea Party day...I mean Tax day...4/15/09.

MVP: The first one is called the MVP promo for grinders where 20 of the finest gulfcoast grinders will be awarded 20k based on hour played. My understanding is that there are multiple sessions where you can suck up some FREE cabbage for just grinding the cash games...you can read the official flyer here...MVP Promo

SUPER STACK FREEROLL:  For the players that play the donkaments...they have a point system set up where you can earn points to play in a 10k freeroll. There are multiple sessions here as well which translates into multiple freerolls...again you can read the official flyer here...Super Stack Freerolls

Please be sure to tell Johnny/Ken and the rest of the poker crew at he Beau that you saw it here...on gulfcoastpoker.net

CELEBRITY POKER UPDATE  (04/16/09)

THE ANSWER IS YOU CAN'T GAMBLE HERE.  Apparently, Allen Iverson likes to gamble, apparently he loses a good bit, and apparently he's a bad loser.  After throwing too many cards at dealers and other players he's been banned from Detroit's casinos.   Chris Paul and Tony Parker are nothing but gentlemen when spotted at a poker table.  Coincidence or not that the Detroit Pistons have also decided to muck the Answer.  Read the Detroit News here.

EPT WILL HOST THEIR OWN ANTE UP FOR AFRICA EVENT.  The event has featured stars such as Ben Affleck, Adam Sandler, Matt Damon, Ray Romano, Pokeraffishinados: Don Cheadle and Shannon Elizabeth.   It's a 4K (Euros) buy-in event.  No word if real celebrities will be there.  Maybe George from Seinfeld?  For more information go to Cardplayer.

SPEAKING OF EUROPE, THE WSOP-E SCHEDULE HAS BEEN RELEASED.  Read all about it here.

SPEAKING OF DON CHEADLE WATCH HIM BATTLE THE BEST SUNDAY.  NBC will air the next installment of the Heads Up Poker Championship on Sunday.  Sorry we didn't give you a heads up for last week's episode.

ULTIMATE POKER UPDATE  (04/15/09)

MATT GRAHAM, NEW ORLEANS NATIVE, SIGNS WITH ULTIMATE BET.  Congrats on the sponsorship... but Matt, you might want to look up Russ Hamilton or google superuser scandal.  Read the news at Pokerpages.

ANNIE DUKE CATFIGHTS WITH EVERY FEMALE BODY.  There isn't a female left that hasn't felt her wrath.   In the latest installment of Celebrity Apprentice update by Wild Bill at DINE ON THE WHALES.  One of the girls who takes Annie to task is Ivanka Trump (pictured).

FLORIDA HOUSE OFFERS VERY POKER FRIENDLY LEGISLATION.  The senate version of the bill isn't quite as nice but let's stick to the good.  Upping maximum bets and buy-ins is a good start for Florida and that's what they are considering.   As always, contact your local Congressman.

SINCE IT'S AN ULTIMATE BET THEMED DAY HAVE TO LOOK AT PHILLY'S BLOG.  Guy name drops Tony Parker and Eva Longoria (no need for last names for him) like a wannabe.  Nobody here would do that would they?  Anyway, read Phil's Blog here.  Did we mention Celebrity Apprentice teases a Hellmuth appearance to work against Annie Duke?  Well, if he's there next week, we'll let you know.

WORLD OF POKER UPDATE  (04/14/09)

KAI LANDRY's LATEST BLOG POST IS UP:  Cobra Kai unleashes his venom here.  Enjoy but bring a sense of humor.

DIKSHIT'S STRATEGY TO HIDE GAMBLERS FROM THE U.S.  Interesting story about PartyGaming's attempts to hide their American clients from the U.S. Government.  This article sounds like they went above and beyond what the other companies are doing and gives a little insight into why they recently settled with the U.S. government. 

Still doesn't explain why Dikshit, personally paid off the U.S. more than his company did but it does show that PartyGaming had more to answer for than k.

DURRRR CHALLENGE UPDATE.  Over 10,000 hands have been played between Tom Dwan and Patrick Antonious.  That's 20% of the 50,000 hands in the challenge, that math is for our feel based players.  Poker-king has the details here.

SPRING BREAK RESULTS (04/13/09)

SPRING BREAK POKER CLASSIC MAIN EVENT CHAMPION WILLIAM SINEATH... Sineath is from Valdosta, GA.  Dan Walsh took 7th for 14.5k, Mark Eddleman came in 5th for 20k, Leo Boothe of  Ferriday, LA pocketed 23k for 4th, David Diaz of Bartlett, TN won 34k for 3rd, Nicholas Vita of Walls, MS 55k for 2nd. 

OTHER CHAMPIONS AND RESULTS:  Mark Eddleman bested a loaded final table that included Mark Wilds (6th) and Rodney Shows (2nd) in the 1k No Limit Hold 'Em Event 14. 

Will Souther came in 5th in the 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or better.  Walter Worsham of Augusta, GA took first for a little over 2k.

Eric Kaplan of Biloxi, MS won Event 15 No Limit Hold 'Em.  He pocketed 9k for his efforts.  He bested Kee Ng (8th, 1k) of Wego, LA, Bradley Sanders (5th 1.8k) of Baton Rouge, and Nekoda Foster (2nd 4.9k) of Florence, MS.  this is Kaplan's 7th cash and his first 1st place finish.

Travis Smith of Mount Hermon, LA won 32k for first place in the $500 buy-in Event 12.  It was a table chock full of Gulf Coasters.  Charles Ritchie (Pensacola, FL 2nd 17.8k), Brian Delatte (Terrytown, LA 3rd 9.8k),  Thomas Culberson (New Orleans 4th 7,8k) "Lake" Garner (Hattiesburg, MS 5th 5.8k), William Cunningham (Conroe, TX 6th 5k), Bryan Lanoix (Baton Rouge, LA 7th 4k), and Ed Bridges (Spanish Fort, AL 8th 3k).

DIDN'T GET A CHANCE TO SCRATCH YOUR ITCHY PALM BY PLAYING A POKER TOURNAMENT THIS WEEK?  Time to head online and play poker tournaments there.  Yes, there is no better online poker tournament to play than the online poker tournaments that are playing right now.  Play poker tournaments... right now, I mean it, right this very minute you can play.  Go here, and I won't mention an online poker tournament again.  That didn't count.

GULF COAST NEWS UPDATES (04/09/09)

SPRING BREAK MAIN EVENT FINAL TABLE SET... Kind of... With a restart today there are 11 left.  10 get paid.  Dan Walsh and Mark Eddelman (pictured) have made the last 10. 

Mark has been on fire since November 08.   He's amassed four final tables, already got one victory this Classic, and killing it all over the coast with cashes at the WSOP Circuit in New Orleans, the Beau Rivage WPT (Jan 09), Tunica WSOP (Feb 09), Council bluffs, and the Cherokee Casino.  Mark is breaking out in a big way.

BUSY BLOGGERS AND SITE NEWS.  We'll put up more details as they come about the main event.  We'll also get Mark onto our Who's Who page in the next set of updates.  But now for some site news.  First our bloggers have been busy.

Monkey's main event chronicle is here: THE POKER MONKEY.  The Honest player, Gene D and Reid also update their blogs with Beau results.

Kai Landry promises to makes his triumphant and venomous return, and we will get him a slot on the sides when he does. Also, Jena Delk will be joining Kai there too, but for now her blog is here.  Look for them on the columns roster soon.

Poker coach Virge may need a life coach as he puts chips before chicks:  THE LONELY ROAD.  And the  Southpaw Rounder is going to Vegas and has a seat in the WSOP.

GCP GEAR:  We are excited as our new logo should be done soon and we can actually get some gear that we've long been promising.  Thanks to the Honest Player for introducing us to Byron who has a great concept and a cool idea.  Hoping to debut the stuff by the New Orleans event.  Incidentally, Monkey forwarded us the structure and we'll get it posted this weekend.

POKER NEWS UPDATES (04/06/09)

LOOKING TO GAMBLE ON THE MADNESS?  Ty Lawson of UNC got some casino time before the national semi-finals at the casinos in Michigan, and left a little richer.  Apparently, Coach Roy Williams has to roll bad on the craps table if his team is to win on the hard-court.  Seems like the Heels are the gamblers even if many are calling them a safe bet. 

SCOOP ON POKERSTARS A SUCCESS.  Forget the small numbers at Foxwoods or the relatively small turnout at the Beau.  There's still a lot of money in circulation on the virtual felt.  Read here for high turnout at the online tournament details. 

POKER POTENTIAL:  Nat Arem has a great post detailing what he thinks are the characteristics a successful poker player must embody.  He doesn't mention smart but we have a feeling that doesn't need to be stated... we have that feeling because we are smart.  Nat is found here.

MEGA-SATELLITES FOR THE BEAU MAIN EVENT ON TUESDAY.  We'll see you there. 

  SPRING BREAK POKER CLASSIC TAKE 2...UPDATES (04/04/09)

GULF COASTERS BURNING UP THE BEAU :

EVENT 1: Clint Schafer came out of the box with a win in the first event for a cool 30k. Looks like he has his own webpage now at www.clintschafer.net. Although he is from Baton Rouge, "LOUISIANA"...not Baton Rouge, Los Angeles. I am assuming that his page was built by Europeans...not Cajuns. Congrats Clint!!!!  Other Gulf Coast Notables...John Riola (7k) and Eric Sievers (5k) got 4th and 5th respectfully.

EVENT 2: Jacob Markowitz of Biloxi gets 2nd for over 10k...Joe Hebert of Metarie got 6th for close to 3k..  GCP's own Will "Poker Monkey" Souther takes home over 2k for 7th...Baton Rouge's Raoul Robert takes home a little over 1k for 9th.

EVENT 5: Baton Rouge's Do Choung takes 2nd place for over 6k...Jimmy Daniel of P'cola takes home over 2k for 5th.

EVENT 6: Mark Wilds wins (See Below)...Baton Rouge's Lars Carlsen picks up $600 for 9th.

EVENT 7: Soheil Pourmhr from Kaplan, La wins the Omaha H/L for over 6k...Tommy Lashley of Carencro, La gets $844 for 7th...Eric Kaplan of Biloxi gets 8th for $675...Greg Dennis from Mobile, Al brings up the rear with $506.

Dr. Del Walker of Houma, La also cashed in the 7th event taking 6th for over 1k.

Dr. Del also made the final table in the 9th event (Half NLHE/Half PLO) with Baton Rouge's own David Weinstein. I happen to be sweating David when Dr. Del walked away from the table at 2nd in chips with 6 people remaining...with 3 short stacks...to go home because he had an important wedding to go to. I tried to get prop action that he would get 3rd place until he told the table he would agree to "Any Chop...at any Time"

2009 5 STAR WORLD POKER CLASSIC (04/03/09)

JONATHAN "FIERYJUSTICE" LITTLE SNAPS OFF THE FIRST EVENT  Jonathan Little of P'cola Florida picks up another 1st place live finish pocketing over 27k. It was a "Spade Club" event so their werent any other notables in the money.

SPRING BREAK POKER CLASSIC  (04/03/09)

RESULTS?  Where are they?  On two levels, not much to report from the GCP bloggers.  Wild Bill tells you why he's a donkey, Reid G and Monkey have one final table each under their belt.  What about the rest of the world... the guys actually putting up results? 

Well, we've been too busy playing to get them up here but they are coming.  We saw Mark Wilds won another event.  Another one...  this guy's good.  So he gets the front page picture.

The Beau hasn't sent us the pdfs or the spreadsheets of their winners but GeneD has a stack of the hard copies he's going to get up on the site maybe this weekend.  So, we'll fill ya'll in on all the locals making a splash then.

Anybody got any updates before then feel free to email Wild Bill.

SPRING BREAK?  We need some shot girls with whistles and bottles of Tequila, Cancun Style.  The Beau should embrace the Spring Break aspect of the tournament.  Let's get some college kids in here, maybe put some radio advertising on the Panama City airwaves and/or shuttle some folks in with a few buy-ins to their name with the promise of a wet t-shirt contest and some photos of the Rounders girls to entice them to play.  Numbers are down?  Let's make it a day trip for the entire student body population of the SEC who are a couple of hours away.  Just a thought.

NEW BLOGGER COMING.  Jena Delk who did well in the last main event at the Beau, see Who's Who for details, will be added to site soon as well.  Soon as we take a break from playing on focus on updating.  We are glad to add a lady's perspective to the game.  If you are interested in blogging, feel free to email Wild Bill and we'll get you the hook up.

WANNA GO TO VENICE?   Bwin poker is still hosting qualifiers for their sponsored WPT stop in Venice.  Never been to Italy, the only canals you know are the ones that bordered by a highway in New Orleans?  Go see a city that floats year round.  Fore details visit http://www.bwinpokerblog.com/.

GULF COAST POKER NEWS UPDATE (03/31/09)

CELEBRITY APPRENTICE UPDATE.  Wild Bill breaks it down on Dine on the Whales.  Annie Duke stays under the radar and Dennis Rodman pounds the cocktails like they are going out of style.

TOURNAMENT CONFUSION THIS SATURDAY AT THE BEAU.  Is it a $340 buy-in or $550 buy-in? The Beau's site said $340.  Cardplayer says $550.  The guy on the phone at the poker room said.. $550.  We're going with $550.

HUCK SEED A MILER?  Doyle Brunson one too?  Read some more crazy Huck prop bets on Doyle's blog here.

GULF COAST POKER NEWS UPDATE (03/30/09)

CLINT SHAFER WINS EVENT 1 AT THE BEAU.  Congrats to Eric Sievers for another great showing and a final table to boot.  More details to come.

GOLD IS TEAM PLAYER.  I thought you had top top.  I had top top.  Gold's team ACED takes first place in Team Poker event.  Read more here.

GREG RAYMER GIVING ADVICE.  Fossilman himself is launching another virtual poker training site.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  ProPlayLive is the latest way to learn from the pros.  You want bracelets?  This site has a ton of them.

NEW EMBOSSED CARDS MAKE THEIR DEBUT.   Easier to shuffle and last longer.  Plus the cards don't stick together.  Wonder when Playboy will go embossed?  Read more here.

REAL GULF COAST POKER NEWS UPDATE (03/28/09)

NO LIMIT POKER IN FLORIDA?  The Sun Sentinel looks at the new gambling proposal before the Florida Senate.  The focus is on two words "No Limit."  Read more here.

WANT SOME STOCK TIPS?  This guy looks at it through a poker perspective.  Why not?  Read here.  If we were to use an analogy of poker to the stock market we'd compare it to a 3-6 table at the Beau during a Hurricane.

TEAM POKER?  Not kicking a guy under the table, but real, legal team poker.  Dream Team Poker has sold out their first event.  Play starts Saturday March 28th.  Now, you friends might actually care about your bad beat story.  Of course you tilt off all your chips you got some 'splaining to do.  For details on playing poker as a team game, go here.  Sounds fun, when do we get to try it out on the coast?  Wonder if Wild Bill would be the Christian Laettner of the Dream Team or Charles Barkley?  Hmmmm.

TEXAS POKER PLAYERS WANT TO PAY TAXES.  Well, we knew those Texans are quick to part with a buck, at least when they roll into Coushatta, why not give some to the government too.  Actually they want to pay taxes if and only if they can play poker legally.   Read the Dallas News Story here.

"LADIES NIGHT " LOOSELY POKER NEWS UPDATE (03/27/09)

POKER FACE SONG BY LADY GAGA SOARS TO NUMBER 1 ON SOME CHART.  Lady Gaga's ode to "bluffin' with her muffin" will finally give some positive press to poker.   Or just a ton of gay men. 

MATH IS IDIOTIC.  Barry Greenstein recently on High Stakes Poker gave a shout out to his internet fans by repeating his son Joe Seebok's phrase "Math is Idiotic."  Danica McKeller, formerly Winnie on the Wonder Years, and now a rich math chick penning books on math such as Math Doesn't Suck might beg to differ.

 If you want a lesson on pot odds she'd be a great teacher and probably a lock to be a future Celebrity Apprentice contestant. Speaking of which...

ANNIE DUKE IS STILL ON CELEBRITY APPRENTICE SELLING WEDDING DRESSES.  Danica McKeller was just married so could have bought one.  Kathy Liebert as mentioned yesterday probably not.  Somehow we missed the show and didn't TiVO it. 

However, Annie blogs and blogs and blogs and blogs about the last episoder.  She's a "trouper," 

Want to read it?  Go here but fair warning you might want to pop an Adderol before trying her version of War and Peace.   It's titled "Changing Gears" which we are sure is a poker analogy but the recap of the show is longer than the show itself so we never made it in far enough for Annie to tie it all together.

POKER NEWS UPDATE (03/24/09)

KATHY LIEBERT IS BRIDESMAID AGAIN.  Second place is like kissing your sister or maybe that is tying.  Whatever 2nd place correlates to, it's the best kind of action Liebert is getting these days as she came in second at the Bay 101 Shooting Stars tournament.  Steve Brecher, who plays a poker player on tv.  He's been seen as extra #1 on Phil Hellmuth's WSOP table, extra #2 on Shaniac's AC table, and in the background of a lot hands.  He won the event no word yet if that will translate into a speaking role.

DURRR CHALLENGE vs. DOYLE CHALLENGE.  Doyle Brunson has jumped on board poker's latest trend by offering his very own challenge.  Not sure it will draw as many railbirds as Dwans because he's offering it in stud, badugi, and 5 card draw.  Read Doyle's blog here for more.

In Durrrr's more glamorous challenge Patrick Antonius has seized the lead by over 100k.  The last session was halted due to internet connections problems.  Don't these guys make their livings on the Internet?

POKER NEWS UPDATE (03/19/09)

MARCH MADNESS IS BUT AN HOUR AWAY.  Wild Bill may do a little live blogging today.  Won't be quite as much as last year but feel free to tune in from work as he watches the first day unfold.

DEEP STACK EXTRAVAGANZA EXPANDING TO 89 TABLES.  Going to Vegas for the World Series?  You'll have some options as the DSE at the Venetian will run concurrently with the World Series.  Events will range from $225 to the $5,000 main event.  They are also expanding the number of tables expecting an even bigger turnout.

STARS SHOT.  Most of the stars who are the bounty targets in the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars tournament have been taken out.  Kathy Liebert is a big target that remains as she is in the top 10 of chips. 

She is joined by three other players Hoyt Corkins (pictured), Joe Seebok, and Paul Wasica as the bounties still alive.  Only 36 remain in the field with Mike Kamran the chipleader.

VANESSA ROUSSO 'ART OF POKER 'LECTURE SERIES TO TAKE FLORIDA BY STORM.  Rousso teaches game theory, Sun Tzu's Art of War as it applies to poker, and poker strategy.  Palm Beach Kennel Club, Jacksonville Kennel Club, and Pompano Beach's Isle Casino to play host.  Go here for more detail.

POKER NEWS FROM ALL AROUND THE WORLD UPDATE (03/17/09)

DURRR CHALLENGE UPDATE.  Durrrr and Patrick Antonius are 1/10th done their challenge.  They have plans to play more today.  So I guess it isn't fading away.  Still at the rate they are going Patrick is going to look like Doyle Brunson by the time they're done and Tom Dwan might even be able to legallly buy a beer.  Read more here.

LAYNE FLACK RESPONDS TO BAD FLACK.  The guys at Wicked Chops steered us to this video.  They don't like Layne, it seems.  He gets close to Amanda Leatherman (too close?) to let know about his DUI.  He drops in that he drives a Corvette and likes to drive fast.  There must be an old photo of him with a mullet a gold chain and a car with a bra on it.  Send it in to us if you find it.  Enjoy the video here.

DON CHEADLE TALKS ABOUT OUT PLAYING PHIL IVY AND DAVID THE DRAON PHAM.   Okay maybe he doesn't go quite that far.  Still when he says "I will take the toughest guys, because it's just like when you run against a better runner as a sprinter, you get faster."  You have to admit he kind of hints at it.  Read Cardplayer's interview here.

OH YEAH... HAPPY, ST. PATRICKS DAY, MAY ALL YOUR CLOVERS BE FOUR LEAVES.

POKER NEWS UPDATE (03/16/09)

ANNIE DUKE "A PIECE OF GARBAGE".  So sayeth Joan Rivers.  Wicked Chops has video of the Today Show incident here.  We haven't watched the latest Celebrity Apprentice but it's Tivoed somewhere and once we catch up we'll do our weekly review.  Uh oh, watch out for the ad below...

RUNNING BAD IN POKER, BLACKJACK THE CURE?  Why not try a little online blackjack.  Cards not going right, they hit their draws you hit blanks, maybe it's time to win with Ace Jack for once.  Play blackjack online and leave the poker agony behind.  When you think it's time to toss your laptop in the pool because a superuser is correctly calling with bottom pair, it's time to give online blackjack a try.

PHIL IVY UP A PALTRY 1.8 MILLION IN MARCH.  Should give him a roll to lose on insane march madness bets.  Phil "OMGClayAiken" Galfond is second most proftiable with 402k.  Yes, Ivy has made four times as much as the next guy in 15 days.  Poker king has more here.

PHIL HELLMUTH ON TILT.  If you enjoy Philly getting angry you might want to read this.  Even the biggest pros can bleed money during a bad session and want to destroy their laptops.  Good thing Phil is going to call UB security to get to the bottom of his losses.  Wonder if he thought about playing online blackjack.

HEAD TO HEAD FEUDS SIMMER (03/13/09)

IF ONLY THE SS BLOGGERS COULD SIT DOWN ON VIDEO TO SETTLE THEIR BEEF.  Maybe it would be as compelling and awkward as this one.  John Stewart and Jim Cramer go to toe-to-toe with the Daily Show ambushing the host of Mad Money with unexpected old footage.

 Stewart wins the fight.  Still, you gotta feel like there are other targets for Stewart to go after in the financial collapse--even if you see his point about CNBC.  How about putting a face to Bears Stern or AIG for people to hate rather than feud with blatherer and fomenter Cramer. 

THE DURRR CHALLENGE FIZZLING OUT?  It's been a bad new year for the kid, and there hasn't been much activity on the heads-up challenge of late.  PokerKing speculates it's almost over, here.

GREG RAYMER VS. THE U.S. GOVERNMENT.  Fox Business News seemed friendly to the poker platform.  Pokerati has some video up here.

GCP.NET VS. KAI LANDRY LINKS.  Is it fixed yet?  Let's see if this one works for his final installment about his win in Tunica.

MILEY CYRUS TO "RUIN" RADIOHEAD.  Apparently she's miffed because they didn't make time to meet her.  Wonder if she gives two bits if she doesn't make time to meet her thousands of fans and they might be just as disappointed.  What's this got to do about poker?  Nothing.  But it's a feud between a pubescent and 30 somethings which is funny. 

Also, the theme today is about feuds.  John Stewart and Jim Cramer don't have much to do with poker either.  The best is her proclamation to "ruin" Radiohead.  Of course she will, because her fans are the same ones listening to brit-alt-syntho rock.  Read more here.

SS FEUD UPDATE AND COMEDY OF OUR ERRORS (03/12/09)

BATTLE OF THE SS BLOGGERS CONTINUES.  Shannon Shorr fires back on long 2+2 thread, here, and Shane Schleger goes to video.  By the way, word of warning don't become a topic of debate on 2+2 as you will get eviscerated personally by some guy harboring a grudge from when you felted him years ago.  Both Shorr and Schleger's haters have come out of the woodwork and been heavy on the venom. 

KAI LANDRY'S WIN AT TUNICA CONCLUDES.  Read the ending to his funny tale one.  Spoiler alert:  he wins.  

CORRECTION TK'S REBUY WIN WAS ON FULLTILT NOT STARS.

CORRECTION:  GOT WORD FROM A READER IN ATLANTA, ONLINE PLAYER RO-RO, WE MISREPORTED (AGAIN). Turns out the Cherokee casino in South Carolina never had table games.  So no poker dealers were replaced by the tables.  The tables were simply added as an alternative revenue maker.  Still, while it's nice poker is expanding we'd rather it be done with live dealers.

IF YOU CAN HANDLE ALL OF OUR GOOFS, FRIEND US ON FACEBOOK.  Our name is GCP NET.  You can also become a follower of some our blogs on there like Brandon's, Monkey's and Wild Bill's. 

WANNA WIN A TRIP TO THE ALPS?  Bwin poker has a prize package worth 8k going on right now. It includes first class accommodations in a resort right in the mountains. Check out PokerBat's blog for more details or http://www.bwinpokerblog.com/.

POKER ON A COMPUTER NEWS (03/10/09)

ELECTRONIC POKER TABLES A SIGN OF THE TIMES?  We hope not, but another casino, Harrah's Cherokee Casino, is replacing staff with a poker robot/computer.  Why play online when you can play online in a casino?  Saw Harrah's New Orleans added a pay-for-use internet connection "computer" that looks almost like a slot machine.  Of course one can only imagine if they'd let you play online poker there.  Read more about the dealer-less tables right chere.

TK MILES WINS THE $150 RE-BUY EVENT ON POKERSTARS FOR ~74k.  We haven't heard from TK (pictured) in a little bit.  Though we've seen him near the Hornets bench on TV.  Great to see he's pulled down another score.

MORE CHIPS, MORE LEVELS AT THE WSOP!  Tournament Director Jack Effel made the call.  We can only hope, as he advised New Orleans Harrahs for their next event, they add some play to those shovefests too.  Cardplayer has the story here.

HOUSTON ONLINE ROUDER Z8ELDRED SCOOPS ABSOLUTE POKER'S BAD BEAT JACKPOT FOR $212,546.  His jack high straight flush lost to a king high straight flush.  This super player, but not a super-user, has also taken first in Absolute's December 200k guaranteed No Limit Hold 'Em tournament.

POKER NEWS THE WORLD OVER (03/09/09)

GO DADDY PITCHWOMAN VANESSA ROUSSO WENT DEEEEEEEEP IN THE HEADS-UP CHAMPIONSHIP.  Spoiler alert...  If you want to know results highlight the next bit... if not, don't.  And by highlight, we don't mean take a highlighter to the screen.  Use your mouse...

-Rousso fell in the finals to Huck Seed.    Sammy Farha and Live "Superuser" Elky also made the semi-finals.  Rousso improbably bested Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivy, Paul Wasicka (2007 champion), Daniel Negreanu, and Bertrand Grospellier before falling to Huckleberry.

-Also, Layne Flack was arrested for DUI and no showed.  Shannon Shorr did not get his seat.  David Oppenheim did.  Despite, the jailing Flack claims his BAC was 0.0.  Andrew Robl claims they were downing tequila shots on his blog.  Then the story disappeared with no explanation.  Weird.

POKERSTARS SIGNED ITS 20 MILLIONTH ACCOUNT USER.  Two comments:  1.  Wonder if Russ Hamilton and his cronies get that the key to making money as an online casino is volume of users, and then the need for superusers is pretty minimal.  2.  With that figure in mind, just remember as bad as you are running odds are someone else somewhere else is running worse.

ANNIE DUKE SURVIVES ANOTHER WEEK ON SURVIVOR... OR CELEBRITY APPRENTICE.  Jean Robert Bellande is just an average Survivorist and she's a celebrity?  Hmmm.  Wonder if any of the other "celebrities"- and I use that word only because NBC does-recognized her.  Though she has to edge out "I hold a briefcase on Deal or no Deal" chick in terms of vaguely knowing who she is when she enters a room.   

Duke got through by the "Shin of Her Teeth" to quote the SNL skit that aired before the show.  Making a mistake and deciding to write the copy instead of letting award winning professional writer Joan Rivers do so, Annie's team won and she didn't have to face Trump's wrath for making a glaring error that he could use as an excuse to boot her.  Wild Bill will put up a blog post about this later.  In short, Duke still the annoying table captain for her team and still there.

KAI LANDRY'S THIRD BLOG UPDATE IS UP.  Read the gory details here.

IVY AND DURRRR PLAYING HIGH-STAKES HEADS-UP.  Ivy sent Dwan further into debt for the year, and now is up 1 million on the year after winning over 300k in their battle.  Have to think this is a bad strategy for Dwan to let Ivy practice his four screen heads-up play in advance of the Durrrr Challenge.  The edge he'd start with on the guy is lessened every time he plays him.  And these results indicate there isn't that much of an edge at all.

BATTLE OF THE SS POKER BLOGGERS (03/05/09)

WELL, IT'S ONE-SIDED RIGHT NOW, AS SHANE SCHLEGER HAS CALLED SHANNON SHORR DELUSIONAL.  Have to say we are on Shannon's side of things, and not just because he's from the Gulf Coast.  What's the back-story?  Essentially Shannon, on his blog, said he thought he was unfairly passed over in the selection process for the heads-up tournament on NBC. 

Shane responded Shannon was delusional, here.  We are sensationalizing it a bit, because Shane also writes that he thinks Shannon is a great guy and makes it clear he is attacking the sentiment and not the person.

Let's examine the sentiment a little more closely more...

WE'LL GET SOME OTHER GOODIES UP LATER TONIGHT. Several of our bloggers like Monkey and Brandon have updated and we'll get those snippets up soon.

THE COASTAL POKER NEWS UPDATE (03/04/09)

BEAU RIVAGE STARTING THEIR MEGA SATELLITES FOR THE SPRING BREAK POKER CLASSIC.  They completed one last Sunday and in two weeks will be hosting another.  The main event is a $2,600 buy-in.  The satellites are $270 + $30.

PART II OF KAI LANDRY'S WINNING TOURNAMENT RUN.   Take a gander right chere.  Kai gets into it with Joe Dirt, pictured with family on left--funny.

ESPN PREVIEWS THE NBC HEADS-UP EVENT. The guys from Tao of Pauley,  Wicked Chops, Pokerati, and other media gurus weigh in.  Read more here.

LAFAYETTE POKER PLAYER EVADES TAXES ON A BIG SCALE AND ONLINE PLAYERS  FACING NEW TAX SCRUTINY.   Two stories one link.

INTERNATIONAL POKER NEWS UPDATE (03/03/09)

NEW BLOGGER ON HIS WAY.  We are excited Kai Landry, whose win in Tunica was so nice we posted it twice, will be joining Team GCP.  We will have his blog up soon once we set him up with something.  In the meantime, you can read part I of his Tunica run right chere (link fixed).  Kai has a great sense of humor and really draws you into the tournament run.  Very entertaining.

PATRICK ANTONIUS HITS AND RUN DURRR FOR $9,500.  Kidding about the hit and run part.  They played 30 minutes last night and Patrick cut into his $150,000 deficit in the 226 hands of action.  Over $23 million has been wagered back and forth between the two so far. 

WANNA WIN A TRIP TO THE ALPS?  Bwin poker has a prize package worth 8k going on right now. It includes first class accommodations in a resort right in the mountains. Check out PokerBat's blog for more details or http://www.bwinpokerblog.com/.

CELEBRITY POKER NEWS UPDATE (03/02/09)

LAPC CELEBRITY TOURNAMENT LACKS DAMON, AFFLECK, AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN.  Did have William Hung though.  Ali Nejad seventhboked the final table.  Jack Haley, Riki Lake, Benji Madden, Daniel Baldwin, Jose Canseco, Derek Hough (Shannon Elisabeth's boyfriend and former Dancing with the Not Quite A Stars partner), and Kristy Swanson all made appearances.  That roster certainly puts into question the celebrity aspect of the event as even Celebrity Apprentice had more star power than that one.  Speaking of...

ANNIE DUKE IS WHITE OMAROSA.  And because she is bringing more mainstream attention to our game than anybody else, we will be covering her on Celebrity Apprentice until Donald kicks her to the curb.

We used to have a theory that there were two successful strategies on the Apprentice.  One win on your merits.  Two advance as a far as possible by being the drama queen or king of the show, neither the Donald nor Survivor guy Mark Burnett want to castaway the entertaining sizzle catfight at any moment characters, and then hope to luck box your way to the title by performing well at the end or having your opponent screw up. 

Andrew Dice Clay getting the boot was a bit of a shocker.  Probably bland as a 1000 pushups a day Herschel Walker should have been flagged for boring the viewer and sent home.  So our theory may be flawed although he merited sticking around by performance.  Oh, and surprised to say this; Tom Green, he's our dark-horse.  We just hope he drops in on mom and dad at 2 in the morning one more time (Bam Majera should thank him for his MTV show which was based on Green's bit). 

Wild Bill has more thoughts on his blog:  DINE ON THE WHALES.

SUPERUSER SCANDAL BREWING AT FULLTILT? (03/01/09)

DUSTIN "NEVERWIN" WOOLF DEMANDS HAND HISTORIES FOR "TEXASLIMITKING".

 Neverwin in his blog brings up some interesting facts about this account on FTP, and is demanding hand histories to analyze. They have already found players that had hand histories for TLK where he lost 3-4 hands out of 117. TLK is alleged to have won millions upon millions and then "Vanished into Thin Air".

At one time Antonious thought something was fishy...purchased a new computer...then the TLK would not play him. Whether you like Neverwin or not...approve of his substance abuse or not...he makes some good points in his blog over at Neverwinpoker.com

WEST COAST POKER UPDATE (02/28/09)

 JAIME GOLD GIVES POKER LESSONS TO FORMER ESCORT IN THE NAME OF CHARITY.  Evil-doer Phil Hellmuth eliminates the VH1 Sober-House star to prevent Norman Chad from meeting his 11th wife at this years WSOP.  Read more here.

CORNEL ANDREW CIMPAN (NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH CORNELL FIJI) WINS THE LAPC.  Mike Sowers finished in third.  Jesus Ferguson first eliminated from his first TV table. 

ESKIMO CLARK NOT DEAD.  Spotted in Reno looking for backers.  Read the facts here.

POKER ROAD RADIO REPORTS TEDDY "ICEMAN" MONROE WELCHES ON DEAL.  Ali Nejad in a recent podcast of Pokerroad, available on iTunes, said the L.A. Poker room was aflutter with the news.

LAPC UPDATE (02/27/09)

JESUS MAKES HIS FIRST EVER (WPT) FINAL TABLE.  Makes a remark about the fishes and the loaves.  Teddy Iceman Monroe and Nick Schulman micro-cash for $51,114 each.  Peter "Nordberg" Feldman goes out in 14th for $57,796.   Blake Cahail was the TV bubble boy but won $180,403 for his trouble. 

Jesus is nursing a short stack, with former WPT winner Chris Karagulleyan the big boy.  Mike Sowers is also at the table. 

LATE BREAKING; JESUS IS OUT.

IS IT SUNDAY? (THE END OF THE) WORLD POKER NEWS UPDATE (02/25/09)

NBC HEADS UP CHALLENGERS RELEASED.  Michael Phelps according to Wicked Chops was all set to play, and the French were praying for an Elky-Phelps clash to even the score for the relay loss, but apparently Vegas is off limits for the fish-man.  Not so for Scott Fischman, Jaime Gold, Clonie Gowen, and about 54 other name poker players.  Doyle, Johnny, the Phils, and local boy done good Jonathan Little are all in the mix.  Past champions are all back including Jesus Ferguson who runs like Jesus (pictured quickly making a decision) in these things.

JESUS!  Chris Ferguson (pictured above praying... to himself?) is leading the LA Poker Classic.  Kind of a Good News (Bible) Bad News thing.  Good news is he's the day 4 leader (day 4? said like Chuck Norris saying "two months?" in an unpopular infomercial).  Bad news is all the other end of day leaders Danny Boy, Magician and Kofi Farkye are watching from the rail.  Not to mention the end of days leaders Jim Jones, David Koresh, and the testicle taking Hale-Bop dude that are watching from the rail in the sky. 

MILWAUKEE'S BEST TO BRING THE BEAST BACK TO THE WORLD SERIES.  The beast most notably locked up Chris Ferguson (pictured above thinking about cold placse) in a refrigerator to offer poker advice in a commercial.  Not too many mainstream products that have used poker icons that way.  So do your part and drink more beast light.  Source:  Pokerati.

SPEAKING OF ADVERTISING...  There is no truth in poker advertising.  Good piece on misleading your customers at the table at the Bet and Win Poker Blog here.

THE WORLD OF POKER NEWS UPDATE (02/24/09)

DURRR AND ANTONIUS SWING BACK AND FORTH.  In Dwan's heads up challenge, the two have alternated being up after the close of each session.  Right now Durr, after the third session, is up almost 150k.  They've played 4,000 out of th

e 50,000 hands.   On Day 1, Dwan took a $135,000 lead.  On day two he extended that to the biggest differential so far to $171,000.  Then Patrick came battling back to end the session up $56,000. 

ANTONIO ESFANDIARI IS A CHIP LEADER IN THE LAPC BUT DISAPEARS BELOW THE AVERAGE.  In a huge field, that surely indicates the demise of poker, a lot of big names are busted. Hoyt Corkins, Chris Ferguson and a couple others are hanging tough, to give the WPT a glimmer of hope for some name recognition at the final table.

LA POKER CLASSIC UPDATE (02/20/09)

NEW ORLEANS OWN MATT  "MATTG1983" GRAHAM  TAKES 5TH PLACE IN THE H.O.R.S.E EVENT 

Matt Graham takes home over 65k from the final table of the 10k H.O.R.S.E event at the LAPC. Eventual Co-Champion Scotty Nguyen stayed off the sauce but taunted Graham on his bust out hand. Hey Scotty...Its Mardi Gras down here ...so if you visit, promise to leave us some alcohol.

COUSHATTA UPDATES 

GCP bloggers Monkey and Brandon J. still alive in the Main Event. Both felt like they hand travelled back in time when they landed in Kinder, La. It certainly wasn't a young crowd.

Phil Ivey spotted at the Crap Table. Seems Wild Bill, without realizing it, walked right past Ivey at a crap table Wednesday Night as he had with over 1 mil in play on the Crap table. Word had it he spanked Tunica for over 600k...and they pissed him off. He decides to head to Kinder, La of all places...and donated over 400k back to the Indians...allegedly

THE WORLD OF POKER NEWS UPDATE (02/18/09)

BILOXI NATIVE SNAPS OFF THE  HARRAH'S TUNICA 5K MAIN EVENT 

William "Kai" Landry of Biloxi took back to the Gulf Coast over 180k for his first place finish in the Main Event at Harrah's in Tunica. We heard that they had a great turnout this go round in Tunica with rumors circulating that there were no rooms to be had in that "bustling town" of Tunics MS...and it was even cold as hell. They had ice hanging off the soybeans from miles around. Congrats Kai!!!!

COUSHATTA HAS THEIR 7 CLAN TOURNAMENT STARTING TODAY. 

Coushatta Casino and Resort in Kinder, La is having their 7Clan Poker tournament starting today. The Main Event starts on Friday and is a 4 day event. Todays event is a $200 buy in (No Antes). Tommorows event is a $300 buy in (No Antes) and the Main Event is a $1000 buy in. You can find the structures on Coushatta's webpage here...Coushatta Structures

THE WORLD OF POKER NEWS UPDATE (02/17/09)

BRANDON JARRETT ADDED TO THE GCP ROSTER.  Brandon's accomplishments in the last six months are as good as anybody's.  Jarrett has won over 140k in 8 cashes.  That's two first place finishes and six top tens--in six months.  Jarrett is from Cartersville, GA and he only started player cash poker in 2007.  He started playing tournaments in 2008.   In his blog he offers a peek into the mind of a guy on a heater to start his career.  Find out what he's doing right and what the rest of us are doing wrong.  Brandon's blog can be found here.  Welcome to Team GCP Brandon!

ONLY OPTIMISTS WIN AT POKER?  Apparently this hypnotist hasn't met Mike Matasow.  Though in defense of optimism he has said he's played better since becoming a positive thinker.  Read more about becoming a winning poker player through a positive attitude supplied by a hypnotist here.

HALF THE PLAYERS PLAYING ONLINE DON'T TRUST ONLINE POKER SITES.  20% said they had a lot of doubts about poker sites, and 31% said they had no trust in online poker sites at all.  Wait, we're an online poker site (of sorts) half of you don't trust us?  That stings.  Read more here.  No word on whether or not poker players trust hypnotists.

PERSIAN (?)GULF COAST POKER.  Poker clubs are popping up all over Saudi Arabia.  Free for fun games are a gateway to anti-Islamic real money games.  Persian Gulf Coast Poker... that might just work.  Look for our sister site coming soon.  For more details about the lengths people will go to to play poker go here.  And no it's not about players in Washington state.

PLAYBOY COVER-GIRL, AND NEWLY NUDE FORMER DANITY KANE DIVA, AUBREY O'DAY AND DAVID WILLIAMS RUMORED TO BE FRIENDLY.  Jenny Woo of Gambling 911 confuses us here.   Something to do with Williams being a Magic the Gathering player. 

POT COMMITTED:  POKER PRO ARRESTED IN MICHAEL PHELPS BONG CASE.  Gambling 911 says Zacher "Carter" Smith an online pro who won more than a million dollars last year was one of 8 arrested by South Carolina police.  One rumor states he was on a popular poker message board saying the computer in the background of the infamous photo was his.   That was before 5-0 came knocking.   More on the story here.

AMERICAN POKER NEWS UPDATE (02/16/09)

AUSTIN MARTIN TAKES DOWN 2ND IN POT LIMIT HOLD 'EM TOURNAMENT AT THE OKLAHOMA STATE CHAMPIONSHIP.  He promises all the details in his blog finale this week.  Yes, he's leaving us as a blogger.  However, he  promises at least one new blogger to represent Austin and Texas going forward.  Congrats on the score Martin.

POKERSTARS SETTING RECORDS THIS PAST WEEKEND.  In celebration of their 25 billionth hand they will (have) award(ed) the winner of the hand 100k cash, WPT, WSOP, and EPT prize packages.  Also, a WCOOP main event ticket.  Pokerking has the details here.

COLORADO RULES POKER A GAME OF SKILL.  For details on that case check out Cardplayer's article here.  Seems to be +ev to contest poker in court with the game of skill rationale.  Apparently, unlike South Carolina there was no video of Danny Negreanu to prove the point.

COUSHATTA IS HOSTING THE 7 CLANS POKER CUP IN KINDER, LOUISIANA THIS WEEK.  We'll be following a couple players in action there.  Check back for updates.

ONLINE POKER NEWS UPDATE (02/14/09)

SEXTON AND POKER HAVE OUR DAY IN COURT.  Sexton tells Pokerlistings the day was a good one and the judge is convinced poker is a game of skill.  Video of Daniel Negreanu's expertise were exhibit A in why poker is a game of skill.  No word yet if the state is going to film the drunk at the casino that can't lose and use that as proof of luck.  Read the complete article and interview here.

JAIME GOLD GETS SECOND RECORD WINDFALL.  MSNBC is reporting Jaime Gold has signed the most lucrative contract in the history of poker.  Supposedly the deal is worth at least 8 figures.  Also, Gold's buy-ins will be comped for the forseeable future.  No word if he will divert from his strategy of telling his opponents exactly what he holds.  Read more here.

ONLINE POKER NEWS UPDATE (02/13/09)

DURRR CHALLENGE ABOUT TO BEGIN.  Full Tilt has readied the virtual felt and four tables are awaiting Durrr and Patrick Antonius to start it off.  Durrr after a miserable January has been coming back in February and Antonius is the one who has been lagging in the w column of late.

JENNIFER HARMON WANTS YOUR KIDNEYS.  Or she wants you thinking about them, and donating money to a kidney charity by playing poker.  Howard Lederer and Andy Bloch will be there lending a hand.  Read the details here.  They are soliciting casinos to send teams of ten, even though it's an individual event.

PICKING ON PEOPLE.  Being a bully isn't just for seven year olds and video game players, or for the guy in the office that steals food from the fridge and eats it in front of the victim.  Pick a target and apply blunt force.  Read more here .

WEAK DAY OF NEWS IN POKERLAND UPDATE (02/12/09)

RUOSSO GETS HOMETOWN PRESS.  Check out South Florida's Gambling blog here.  Not too much to add to the Ruosso story but check out the weird angle the photographer got her posing with pocket rockets.

JAIME GOLD THE FACE OF ACED POKER.  The Aced Face?  Anyway, Gold has now signed up with a website.  No news on whether or not a third party got screwed over in the deal.  This article also mentions his clients as James Gandolfini, Jimmy Fallon, Donnie Walberg, and Roger Lodge.  Read more here.

MIKE SEXTON WILL BE AN EXPERT WITNESS IN SOUTH CAROLINA POKER TRIAL.  It's been a good year for poker in the courts and in the legislatures in a lot of states, and Sexton hopes that his name recognition and expertise will convince the judge that poker is indeed a game of skill.  Cardplayer has more here.

GODADDY HEADS-UP ACTION SPONSOR.  GoDaddy.com will be the big sponsor for NBC's National Heads-up Poker Championship.  What will Danica Patrick do next to hurt her public image?  Find out in between poker action.

WANNA WIN A TRIP TO THE ALPS?  Bwin poker has a prize package worth 8k going on right now. It includes first class accommodations in a resort right in the mountains. Check out PokerBat's blog for more details or http://www.bwinpokerblog.com/.

 ROUSSO SWIMS, PHELPS GAMBLES, RUSS THE ULTIMATE TAX EVADER AND HEARTLAND POKER TOUR UPDATE (02/11/09)

VANESSA RUOSSO SWIMS STANDING UP?    Pokerstars paid for her to be in the swimsuit issue but it's money well spent.  She looks great.  It's possible cover girl Bar Rafaeli may also swim standing up, see your newsstand for details.

MIKE PHELPS WHY DIDN'T YOU DROP BY MY FRAT PARTY?  Wicked Chops has all the details of him losing 2 large on a beer pong table.  Wonder if it was before the bong or afterward.  Me thinks someone got hustled.  Good thing he didn't bring any of his gold medals.  Go to Wicked Chops now.  Also, the guy that owned the bong tried to sell it on eBay for 100k and shortly thereafter was arrested for drug related charges.  Smart.

RUSS HAMILTON IN THE CROSS-HAIRS OF THE IRS?  Poker players pay your taxes.  Thieves that steal millions of dollars from poker players pay your taxes.  Get 'em Uncle Sam!  Pokerati spread the rumor first here and did a much better headline then we came up with.

TAKE YOUR LAYOFF AND SHOVE IT.  Sean Sannikone about to be laid off from his job wins127k in Heartland Poker Tour Main Event.  If he went on a craps bender that would be even more tragic.  The Downstream Casino, which hopefully isn't named after its water source, in Oklahoma hosted the tour. 

POKER BLOGS UPDATE (02/09/09)

WHAT SOAP DOES TEXAS DOLLY WATCH?  Reruns of Dallas.  The savvy Texas Gambler with an eye for pushing over weak opponents and exploiting any edge he got has to to like J.R. Ewing right?  Of course.  Wonder who is the Cliffie Barnes to Dolly's J.R.  Andy Beal maybe?  Who knows... Doyle Brunson's blog here.

DANNY BOY DENIES HE'S BROKE.  Negreanu says Pokernews column must have been a joke.  More importantly, and tragically his mother just suffered a stroke read his ordeal here.

SHANNON SHORR GOES TO CIRCUIT CITY.  Sounds ho-hum?  Well for all the wannabe ballers out there see how a guy with his head screwed on right lives.  There is a reason he is so successful on the felt.  Read his blog here.

POKER AFTER DARK TO FEATURE REAL GENUISES.  We are wondering if there will be a Val Kilmer, or that smarmy reporter from Die Hard, cameo.  Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Bill Chen, Brandon Adams, and Jimmy Warren are all smart guys and playing each other.  David Sklansky is also playing.  Just kidding David.  Thought the graduate degrees that are on the table will represent a significant amount of wasted time and study.  Maybe Sklansky is the smartest? 

 POKER AND BUSINESS UPDATE (02/09/09)

ANNIE DUKE THE NEXT CELEBRITY APPRENTICE?  Maybe because word is she makes it pretty far in the competition.  Who is her competition?  Dennis Rodman, Joan Rivers, Herschel Walker, Tom Green, Clint Black and Andrew Dice Clay to name a few.  We wonder if she'll take her shoes off and sit on her feet in the board room too?  Read about the Donald's latest crew here.

MADOFF INVESTORS INCLUDE BRACELET WINNER.  Lyle Berman a multiple bracelet winner, former owner of the Stratosphere and currently CEO of a firm that owns five casinos.  Berman is not commenting on just how much he invested with Madoff.  Berman was last seen at the 2008  WSOP when he took fifth in the H.O.R.S.E.  World Championship. 

BROKE WORLD OF POKER UPDATE (02/07/09)

NEGREANU AND GREENSTEIN ARE BROKE?  So says Pokernews.  They assert Negreanu's low-stakes personal challenge where he is trying to turn $10 into a $100,000 (I think one of us tried that) is actually an excuse for him hiding from the higher-stakes games he has been getting beaten up in.  As a pokerstars rep he has to play a set amount of hours and Danny Boy is doing so at the micro-stakes. 

One question we have to ask, if he's broke, and not digging through the cushions looking for change broke, wouldn't he be playing stakes he could actually win money at.  Proof of Greenstein being broke is even less convincing or non-existent.  Check out the article here.

WINNERS IN 2008, LOSERS IN 2009?  The four most profitable players last year, Phil Ivy, Phil Galfond, Tom Dwan and Di Dang all started the new year off on a downswing.  Phil Galfond aka "OMGClayAiken" lost $627k, Di Dang aka "Urindager" lost $840k, Tom Dwan aka "durrr" lost $3.25 million in January.  Durrr pictured right is on one heck of a downswing, yes, 3.25 million in one month.  He hasn't even begun his challenge yet. 

Good news is two of his potential challengers are also enduring down swings as Phil Ivy aka Phil Ivy lost $973k and David Benyamine lost $682k.  Meanwhile Patrick Antonius, much it courtesy of Durrr won $2,79 million.   Read the details on PokerKing here.

WALLSTREET TITAN, SCROOGE AND MUCK DUCKS UPDATE (02/06/09)

POKER PLAYER  RESPONSIBLE FOR DEUTSCHE BANK INVESTMENT COLLAPSE.  Boaz Weinstein hired World Series Main Event cashee, played blackjack with parts of the M.I.T. Blackjack team, played in a $100 buy-in weekly poker tournament on the trading floor, and won a Maserati at a tournament hosted by a unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.  Seemed really busy trading.  Makes you wonder why everybody's home games are getting busted except for the ones advertiz in the Wall Street Journal.  Here's a link to the story.

MEANWHILE NON-WALL STREET DROWNING IN BONUSES SCROOGE MCDUCK STYLE HOME GAME PLAYERS KEEP HAVING NON-INVITED GUESTS CRASHING THEIR GAMES.  Where is it legal to host a home game?  Read here.  Where is it kind of not legal?  House in Georgia  just got busted, so too a club in Pennsylvania.  

MUCKDUCKS, PROBABLY NOT RELATED TO SCROOGE MCDUCK WON THE FTOPS XI EVENT 1.  No word if he plans to swim in his winnings.  Full Tilt owner Howard Lederer busted out in 697th place good for a $326.30 payday.  The rich get richer.

GULF COAST UPDATE (02/05/09)

"COBRA" KAI LANDRY OF BILOXI WINS WSOP-TUNICA CIRCUIT EVENT.  Landry's only previous cash was also at this years circuit event.   That combined with his $183,974 win gives him just a little over $184,000 in lifetime winnings.  Cobra Kai kicked David Dao to the curb in heads up action when he turned broadway.

WHO'S WHO UPDATED.  Jena Delk (pictured below), BJ McBrayer, Mark Wilds and more have been added to the roster.  If  you or someone you know is worthy please send Wild Bill a heads up with your photo and a brief list of accomplishments.

GCP WILL BE ON THE RADIO FRIDAY.  We'll be on 1190am WBSL, simulcast in Baton Rouge on 1590 am.   Look for us at the end of the hour.  Show is from 3 to 4. 

 Might be a recurring segment.   Listen in, we've been told we've got faces for radio so we should be perfect for the gig.

NATIONWIDE POKER UPDATE (02/04/09)

NEW CHAIRMAN OF WPA SITTING PRETTY WITH 117,100.  When Captain Tom Franklin is in the mix everybody's backs are against the wall.  Gavin Smith (148,600), Kathy Liebert (51,700), and Jordan Morgan (84,700) are the name players still remaining.  Kai Landry of Biloxi, MS has one of the bigger stacks with 206,700.

WE ARE NOT THE ONLY BAD POKER WRITERS.  Looking at Alfonse D'Amato's Roll Call article, the poker imagery is flying "even Barack Obama can agree that tax increases to pay for his agenda won't reveal the winning hand" and "left billions in potential tax revenue on the virtual poker table."   We take our turns with the message-board no-no of bad poker clichés but Alfonse's appeal to Congress to me is a little too cute for it's own good.  For his big finish D'Amato gives us some lessons in governing through poker:

"Obama is purported to be a skillful poker player, an expertise that should be an unwritten job requirement for all would-be U.S. presidents.  Poker teaches you patience, and it trains you to calculate the odds and avoid unnecessary risks.  If Obama applies his poker skills to his job in the White House, he will reject politically unpopular and economically untenable tax increases and look seriously at other potential revenue streams like Internet poker."

And he can't resist one more cliché: "No matter how you cut the deck, regulation is the answer." 

--ugh, that's worse then our Jim Morrison bit below.

 WANT TO GIVE A SHOUT OUT TO BRIAN HEPTINSTALL WHO WRITES THE FLOPPIN' ACES COLUMN FOR AL.COM.  Brian was nice enough to forward some pics to us which we'll be posting in our Who's Who in the next couple of days.  Jena Delk and BJ McBrayer, are two of the players we'll be getting up there soon.  Had a great discussion with Brian about many things poker related and have enjoyed reading Brian's coverage of the game the last year or so.  Check out his blog here.

EVERYBODY IS A PRO POKER PLAYER THESE DAYS UPDATE (02/03/09)

JIM MORRISON, PROFESSIONAL POKER PLAYER GETS SHOWN THE DOOR OF TAO.  Also, Jim was told it was The End of his night and got his ass kicked by security (not Hells Angels),  When the Music (was) Over Jim Morrison  won a lawsuit for his trouble.  L.A. women can read about it in the LA TIMES.  People are strange but Morrison made sure to Tell All the People he wouldn't be back.  Did we overdo that or what?  Though we skipped the Light My Fire reference... or did we.

PPA CHAIRMAN ALFONSE D'AMATO SCRIBES PRO ONLINE POKER ARTICLE IN CAPITOL HILL PUBLICATION ROLL CALL.   He hits all the good points.  Tax revenues, American money going abroad, Americans at risk in an unregulated industry, and even calls out Barack's penchant for playing poker.

POKER AND THE SUPERBOWL (02/02/09)

COUPLE BETS COST OF WEDDING ON SUPERBOWL.  He's a "poker-player" and a Steelers fan.  She's a Cardinals fan.  He's a good gambler, yet he gave his wife the points instead of betting straight up.  He lost.  Their wedding will be in Catalina (home of the F*#@ing Catlalina Wine Mixer).  Read the gory details here.

You want to make some legal football prop bets?  Got a better head on your shoulders than the schlub in Arizona who gave his wife the points?  Going to have to wait til August for football, but in the meantime there are plenty of options on soccer, basketball, and more.  Check out the options at bwin's sportsbook or play a little poker or try out their casino here.

ROONEY WIN SIXTH STEELER SUPERBOWL BUT STIFFS POKER DEALERS.  His family's poker room at the West Palm Beach Kennel Club, apparently distributed dealer tips to more than just poker dealers.  Read more here.

FUTURE POKER PRO MICHAEL PHELPS DRAGS POT.  Sorry, not much of a poker story but  Olympian Phelps was pictured with a bong at a party in South Carolina, home of Hootie and the Blowfish, which might be tangentially relevant if say Phelps was pictured doing coke... but he wasn't.

MORE PROP BETS AND POKER JARGON UPDATE (01/31/09)

JUST WHAT POKER NEEDS MORE VOCAB.  Were you frustrated or flushstraighted, did you suffer a chipwreck?  Check out pokerpages for a few new words here.

SPEAKING OF PROP BETS.  Pokernews has the top 10 prop bets.  Huck Seed in an Ocean, Vegus vegan eating a cheeseburger, living in Iowa for a month, and driving a golf ball a mile.  Read it here.

LIFE PROP BET AND POKER UPDATE (01/29/09)

DOYLE BRUNSON BETS HIS LIFE.  From Doyle's blog:  "Some clown who produces the" Blend Celebrity Bucket List," put the 100 most likely celebs to die in 2009.  Guess who he had at #16?  That's right, me" ... "he said it was a 10% chance I would die.  I would like to lay 10-1".  Turns out the clown contacted Doyle and put up 1k to Doyle's 10k that he would die this year. 

DOYLE WANTS TO HAVE HIS CAKE AND EAT IT TOO.  Not only does he want to continue living through the year he wants to get paid for it.  In the meantime, as he rides out the 11 remaining months to get the 1k (it's actually going to charity), his site Doyle's room has joined the Cake Network.  So now, other dumb Americans can wager with Doyle and lose.

CAPTAIN TOM NEW CHAIRMAN OF WORLD POKER ASSOCIATION.    The WPA aims to standardize universal guidelines for running a tournament.  Captain Tom (pictured not mentoring a young stripper) is joined by name players Michael Binger and Joe Hachem who were elected non-voting ambassadors.  What is a non-voting ambassador? 

ALSO, A SITE NOTE WE'LL BE UPDATING OUR WHO'S WHO OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS.

GLOBAL POKER UPDATE (01/28/09)

ONLINE POKER WITH REAL DEALERS, REAL PLAYERS AND LIVE FEEL.  Get your webcams ready.  Porn always the innovator and online poker never far behind.  Here is the real threat to a brick and mortar casino.  Go to a table at your desktop.  These guys are responsible... read about it here.  Pretty soon they'll start delivering pizzas and you'll never have to leave your house.

MONTELL WILLIAMS TO DEBUT NEW REALITY POKER SHOW.  Maybe it will follow an emmy-winning out of work talk show host as he amasses a huge chip stack at the WSOP Main Event only to spew it in a couple of hours.  Or would that be a rerun?  Details here.  The show is rumored to utilize online satellite tournaments and will use team poker.  Kids today might recognize Montell selling Barack Obama coin sets on TV.

POKER AROUND THE WORLD UPDATE (01/27/09)

EASTGATE, DEMIDOV, ELKY AND LUSKE WIN THE EUROPEAN POKER AWARDS.  Eastgate:  best tournament performance.  Demidov:  top newcomer aka Rookie of the Year, Elky:  best Euro player; and Luske:  Lifetime Achievement Award.  Wonder if Phil Hellmuth is pissed he wasn't nominated for anything.

THE COMPLETE WORLD SERIES OF POKER SCHEDULE IS UP.   Okay, Wildbill is a man of his word.  Read the highlights over on his blog or read the detailed version here.

POKER AROUND THE GLOBE UPDATE (01/26/09)

BOOYAH!  COOLER THAN THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PILLOW STEWART SCOTT WINS THE AUSSIE MILLIONS.   Chris Berman not sighted, nor Kenny Mayne, or Reece Davis, but Stewart Scott, lazy eye and all won the Aussie Millions.  Wait, a second the Sportscenter guy spells it Stuart?  Oh, well Stew-art Scott, a poker player won the Aussie Millions.  Anette Obrestad busted early.

FRIEND OF GCP, DAVID SPICER TAKES THIRD IN THE ACADIANA POKER SERIES.    Sure it became a shovefest as the nearly 500 players at the Cajun Dome had to be whittled to just 1 in three hours, but Spicer proved he can shove with the best of them, pocketing 2k for his trouble.  First place won 10k and the United Way had a big day as the Series raised a bunch for the charity.  Once again a great event and a great job done by all involved.

2008:  A LOOK BACK.  A good retrospective of the past year in poker.  Did you forget that the folks at Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet cheated their customers?  Anyway, go here for more.

AN INTERVIEW WITH SEINFELD'S JASON ALEXANDER  (01/22/09)

EXCLUSIVE (FAKE) INTERVIEW WITH JASON ALEXANDER...

THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE SUMMER OF GEORGE!  Jason Alexander is now sponsored by Pokerstars.  Thinking they didn't have enough short, balding portly men that could NOT play poker on their roster they signed Jason.  Wild Bill sat down with Jason and had this interview:

JA:  Oh you're here.

GCP:  Yes. surprised?

JA:  I don't think I've ever been to an appointment in my life where I wanted the other guy to show up.

GCP.  Okay.  Well, first off congratulations, many successful players strive to get the type of sponsorship deal you've just landed with Pokerstars.  With you newfound fame how will that change your strategy of going out early and often in tournaments?

JA:  Well, I will still bust early, that's a given, but I do I have a couple of strategies at the table.  To make sure nobody capitalizes on the genius that was my final table experience on Celebrity Poker...

GCP:  Weren't they one table tournaments?

JA:  You say one table, I say final table.  Anyway, as I was saying,  I will introduce myself not as George... er... Jason Alexander but Art, Art Van De Lay.  I will throw them off the scent of my genius even further by saying I am either an Architect or an Importer/Exporter. 

GCP:  Isn't that George's bit from Seinfeld?

To read GCP's complete interview with George... uh... Jason quotes go here.

AUSSIE MILLIONS MAIN EVENT UPDATE (01/22/09)

IT'S ANNETTE'S WORLD WE ARE JUST LIVING IN IT.  Baby Poker Goddess Annette Obrestad is once again just behind the chip-leader at the Aussie Millions.  With 28 left she's sitting at 807,000.  Rajkumar Ramakrishnan has 840,000, Christian Heich 880,000 for second and Michael Tureniec is first at 1,072,000. 

WHO WILL SAY AUSSIE, AUSSIE, AUSSIE NOW? The fans want to say Oy, Oy, Oy, but player-cheerleader Joe "Pass me the Salty" Hachem was eliminated late yesterday.  Perhaps, someone will inspire them to chant Oy vey, Oy vey, Oy vey, however David Singer is not in the field.  Hachem jo

+ins fellow main event champion Scotty Nguyen on the rail.  Clonie Gowen, Patrick Antonius, and Noah "Don't Call Me McLovin" Schwartz (pictured) also got felted. 

HAVE YOU HEARD OF ANYBODY ELSE STILL ALIVE WITH CHIPS?  Maybe you know Atlantic City TV table Joe Cassidy or Main Event short stack Kelly Kim.  If so, then yes, if not, then probably not.  After that it's a bit like going to someone from out of town's wedding.  Vaguely familiar people and names, but do you really know them or just think you do.  Cardplayer has chip counts here.  Let us know if there are any hot bridesmaids we should recognize--especially the online variety.

WORLD OF POKER UPDATE  (01/21/09)

IF THE BUY-IN IS OVER 10k YOU DO NOT WANT DAVID STEICKE AT YOUR TABLE... WHO?  David Steicke outlasted John Juanda, JC Tran and a host of other deep bankrolled stars in the Aussie Millions high roller event.   He's making a habit of it. Read more here.

THE WORLD SERIES OF POKER - EUROPE TO AIR ON ESPN FEB. 1.    Oddly, this is the tournament Ivan Demidov went deep in, while he was on break at the WSOP Main Event.  Won't ruin the outcome for you.

ALSO SOUTHPAW ROUNDER CONTINUES TO RUN HOT ONLINE.  He just took down another big score. Hopefully, he'll put up some hand analysis on his blog so we can sweat him after the fact.  Pobody's Nerfect did just that here..

POKER NEWS UPDATE  (01/20/09)

SOUTHERN POKER CHAMPIONSHIP...

TYLER SMITH FINISHES 5th WINNING 134K.  Tyler got it all in with AK suited vs.  Allen Carter's pocket queens.  The winner of the hand would double up to mount a challenge to chip leader at the time Soheil Shamseddin. Unfortunately, Tyler lost this coin flip.

ALLEN CARTER ALL-IN PROPELS HIM TO WIN.  After dispatching Smith, Carter watched the old pro Hilbert Shirey hit the rail and then knocked out Shamseddin.  That left him heads up with Bobby Suer.  Two to one in chips Carter was a big dog vs. Suer's AK of clubs holding A4 o/s.  One wheel later and the tournament was over.

VANESSA RUOSSO BUBBLES EVERYTHING.  She did the SI swimsuit issue photo suit and bubbled the magazine.  Then she was the last person knocked out before the TV table.  (Pictured with fiancée Chad Brown)  Good news is Pokerstars will put her in a bathing suit for an advertisement in the S.I. issue.  But it's kind of like an after thought. 

Like if the WPT films her bubbling the TV table, she makes the broadcast but she's not ON the broadcast it's not really IN the swimsuit issue.  Course I know a guy who claims three girls in Playboy, but two were in a girls of a arbitrary college conference and one was in an advertisement.  That doesn't count right?  Chad Brown can't brag to Layne Flack about marrying a swimsuit issue model now can he?

MORE...

DAVID ANDERSEN WINS DEAD MONEY TOURNAMENT.  Reports out of New Orleans are vague but it appears Beagle Breeder Andersen bested 9 other players to win a 5k seat at this years WSOP.

WANNA WIN A TRIP TO THE ALPS?  Bwin poker has a prize package worth 8k going on right now. It includes first class accommodations in a resort right in the mountains. Check out PokerBat's blog for more details or http://www.bwinpokerblog.com/.

POKER NEWS UPDATE  (01/16/09)

SOUTHERN POKER CHAMPIONSHIP...

WE'RE IN THE MONEY!  A slew of locals including Tyler Smith, Jena Delk, Toby Tatum, Bobby Keller, and Dell Harville, have all survived long enough to make the top 27 and the money. 

DELK IN 6th  WITH 508k.  Earlier she sent Gavin Smith to the rail when her KQ bested his pocket AAs.  Yes, he setted up and she made broadway on the river.  Now she's in the thick of things.  Let's go Jena.

SMITH NOW SECOND IN CHIPS.  695k in front of him.  Pokerpages is listing him from Smithdale right now.  So maybe he really isn't from Smithsville, MS as we earlier asserted.  Still he's a guy  named Smith from a place named Smithsomething.  Yeah, we are making a lot out of a little, like a guy named Phil from Philadelphia or Jones from Jonestown.

SOUTHERN POKER CHAMPIONSHIP UPDATE  (01/15/09)

SOUTHERN POKER CHAMPIONSHIP...

SMITH FROM SMITHSVILLE IN FIRST.   Tyler Smith who really is from Smithsville, MS is the chip-leader at this very moment.   This probably will change, but for now he's sitting on a stack of about 375,000.  Smith is one of 65 players remaining. 

BEAU UPS THE BOUNTY.  Kudos to the Beau who kicked in about 24k to insure first place will win a cool million.  Actually, the prize for first also included a 25k entry to the WPT Championship that was not in the 976k total... so the winner was really already pocketing over a million.  Still, they wanted an even million to first which is a good thing.

BRANDON CANTU TILTS TIFFANY MICHELLE.  In one of the most discussed hands of the tournament, they got into a "I'm the Bigger Maniac" challenge raising and reraising with KdJd and 67 o/s.  Cantu made trips and Tiff flopped four to her flush.  All the money went to the middle.  "Hot Chips" got real hot, steaming over Cantu's holding.  (Thanks to Eric Sievers who saw it go down and gave us the heads up).

LADIES NIGHT?  Hot Chips isn't the only player left in the field without a Y chromosone.  Local Jena Delk is at 90k and one of the players we are rooting for, keep it up Jena.  Vanessa Ruosso just announced she'll be doing the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and is sitting with 75k (while her future hubby Chad Brown is trying to drum up some high stakes cash action).  Cyclona Gowen is still in the mix.  Esther Taylor was the chip leader at one point and is still alive at 98k. 

COWBOY WITHOUT A HAT.  Alabama cowboy Hoyt Corkins was spotted without his trademark headgear.  Wonder if it too was stolen.  He's wearing a Doyle's Room baseball cap right now.

WORLD OF POKER UPDATE  (01/14/09)

SOUTHERN POKER CHAMPIONSHIP UPDATE.  Wanted to cover a little more indepth Brandon Jarret's week at the Beau.  After final tabling and chopping his first ever live PLO event, Jarret netted 40k.  This was his second final table on the week.  He also crushed the 10/25 NLH game winning another 55k there.  A 30k pot, which he scooped, made up the lion share of his profit. Good trip for a guy running really hot right now.  He left over 100k richer than he came.  Any other side game action or news tips?  Email: wildbill.

HOW ABOUT SOME MORE WINNERS? 

LADIES LEAVE YOUR MAN AT HOME, THE CLUB IS FULL OF BALLERS AND THEIR POCKETS FULL GROWN.  In event 11,  ladies no limit holdem Renee Willis of Philadelphia bested the estrogen rich field of locals.  Debbie LaVigne (Fairhope, AL), Hilry Shirey (Haines City, FL), Paula Halata Houston, TX), Donna Murray (Gautier, MS), Vicki Campbell (Pensacola, FL), and Phylis Blanton (Dallas, TX) finished, in order, 2nd through 7th.  There were exactly zero men in the money?  Wonder if there were any men in the field?

SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND.  Jordan Smith aka scarface 79, got the title in event 12 the 1k buy-in NLH tournament.  Three handed facing an all-in player holding A8, Smith showed an A and his little friend... a king for a dominating holding that held.  At heads up he and Otis Anderson chopped and Smith got the bracelet and the first place glory. 

NO WAY JOSE.   Jose Torres of Cooper City, FLA bested his neighbor of nearby Hollywood, FLA Jacobo Fernandez in the Pot Limit Omaha championship winning 95k.  Only 5 players cashed in event 13, with two of them living a couple of miles from one another.  Hollywood Florida, is the Tobacco Road of Pot Limit Omaha

GO big DADDY GO.  Bill Blanda added another notch to his impressive tournament resume with another first place finish, this one in the prestigious HORSE tournament event 14.  Blanda won 35k and beat name pro Michael Binger heads up for the title.

WORLD OF POKER UPDATE  (01/13/09)

ERIC LINDGREN APPEARS ON THE COAST AND CASHES IN POT LIMIT OMAHA AT THE BEAU.  It was Brent Carter that took down the event (#10) and won nearly 80k.  It was a rebuy event and 351 of them later it was one of the bigger paydays so far.  And only 18 people split the cash.  Steve Wagner of Dallas, Texas, Brandon Jarrett (see who's who), Jose Torres of Cooper City, FL, Tony Hatley of Mobile, and Todd LeBlanc of Beaumont, TX also made the top 10.

7 CARD STUD BILL BOSTICK WINS EVENT #5.  Former Bayou Classic winner Walter Chambers had a cash, so too Art Young of Biloxi, MS.  Bostick pocketed 12k after beating a field of 85. 

ALLEN GREEN GRABS 28k in CASH IN EVENT #6.  180 runners gave it their all but the Weston Florida native came out on top.  Bobby Toye of New Orleans added to his event 3 cash giving him 10k in winnings at the Beau.  For Toye third was an unfamiliar place as his first three cashes were all first place finishes.  Poker is easy right?

THOMAS PULLENS PUSHES HIS WAY TO A 33K SCORE. In Omaha HI/LO 8 or better that drew a crowd of 210, event 8 had a prize pool of over 100k. Pullens is from Picayune, MS and is a part time poker dealer.

SOUTHERN POKER CHAMPIONSHIP UPDATE  (01/09/08)

LONGHORN HOOKED ON POKER WINS EVENT 4.  Michael Benvenuti, originally of California, and now a Texas student beat Ron Feske of Folsom, LA to win 63k in the $1000 + $70 No Limit Hold'em event. 

 Fesk picked up around 35k for his second place finish.  Gabe Costner (pictured) finished in 6th place and got a good start to the new year with his first cash.

LONG RUMORED AND FINALLY REALIZED AN HONEST PLAYER COMES TO GCP.NET.    Blogger "The Honest Player" has joined the roster.  He's got a unique take.  Hopefully, the quick results of Matt Bryant will be duplicated by the Honest Player.

WORLD OF POKER NEWS UPDATE  (01/08/08)

TENTATIVE HARRAHS STRUCTURES UP ON TD JASON LIPSCOMBS BLOG.  Get your input now or forever hold your piece.  Please use the comments section of his blog.  Or email WildBill and we'll get them to Jason.

DURRR ISSUES CHALLENGE PUTTING UP HIS 1.5 MILLION TO ANYBODY'S 500k.  Well anybody except Phil Galfond.  Already the line starts with David Benyamine, followed by Patrick Antonius, and Phil Ivy.   Here are the terms:  4 tables, minimum of $200/$400 no limit/pot limit omaha, and the winner keeps the profit from the heads up marathon, 50,000 hands minimum, plus the 1.5 million or 500k.  Go to Bluff Magazine for more.  

SOUTH CAROLINA TO DECIDE IF POKER IS A GAME OF SKILL OR CHANCE.  Cardplayer's Bob Pajich has the details here.  Friday the 13th (of Febuary) 5 men in South Carolina will attempt to defend themselves, after their high stakes home game was raided by police, arguing that poker is a game of skill and should not be a part of an old state law condemning gambling games of chance that uses cards or dice. 

SOUTHERN POKER CHAMPIONSHIP UPDATE  (01/08/08)

MARK WILDS POCKETS 50K FOR FIRST IN THE THIRD EVENT.  It was an all star field as Jeff Tims, Brandon Jarrett, BJ McBrayer (pictured), and Joe Bueche (a noted cash game specialist) all cashed.  409 players started the tournament but it was the Biloxi man from practically next door to the Beau that won the top prize, a bracelet, and entry into the 10k Main Event.   Wilds now has won over 700k in lifetime earnings.

Bloggers Monkey and Matt Bryant went deep in the second chance tournament.  Read Monkey's recap of their run and his thoughts on McBrayer at THE POKER MONKEY.

GULF COAST UPDATE  (01/06/08)

SOUTHERN POKER CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS.  Congrats to Dan Clemente of Hernando, MS who won the $500 buy-in event number 2.  He got 65k and a bracelet and a seat in the Main Event.  Also, congrats to Ronnie George who also won about 65k, a bracelet and a seat in the main event.  George beat over 1000 players in the $300 event number one.

Interestingly enough Chuck "He doesn't do push-ups he pushes the Earth down" Norris and Eskimo Clark both had in the money finishes.  No it wasn't really Walker Texas Ranger but it was the Eskimo.

This was Clarke's biggest ITM finish in 2 years.  For a guy with 2.5 million in career earnings and three WSOP bracelets it's good to see him going deep again.

POKER BLOGGERS UPDATE  (01/04/08)

BEAU RIVAGE WELCOMED MONKEY BACK FOR THE SOUTHERN POKER CHAMPIONSHIP.  Read his thoughts at  THE POKER MONKEY  Also Congrats to him and Squirrel for their future little Squirrel-Monkey or is it Monkey-Squirrel?  Also, Virge has a great post on playing the deep stack at THE LONELY ROAD.  And folks please take advantage of Jason Lipscomb's request for input on the next Harrahs tournament structure on his blog:  JUICEY POKER.  We are bringing you a great opportunity to be heard.  Use the comments section on his blog.

TJ CLOUTIER GOT SOME AIR TIME IN ONE OF MONKEY'S PREVIOUS BLOGS AND NOW TJ'S BLOGGING ABOUT THE SAME EVENT.   Turns out not only did he get a bad case of Montezuma's Revenge he's getting a little klutzy these days.  Craps dealers beware.  Read TJ's take here.  Wonder if anyone will take TJ to task for name dropping?

SHANNON SHORR SHARES HIS THOUGHTS ABOUT HIS WEEKEND IN NEW ORLEANS.  Tough break for Shorr's Tide as "Two Utes" beat southern justice again.  Sadly no Herman Munster sighting.  (My cousin Vinny references for those that rode the short bus).  Anyway, Shannon's blog is here.

GULF COAST UPDATE  (01/02/08)

BEAU RIVAGE'S SOUTHERN POKER CHAMPIONSHIP STARTS TODAY.   15 Events including Seven Card Stud, Stud 8 or better, Omaha 8 or better, Pot Limit Omaha w/ rebuy, 5k Pot Limit Omaha w/out rebuy, HORSE, and of course No Limit Texas Holdem:  a lot of it.  There is a10k Main Event on Wednesday the 14th, several 500 +50,  and a 1k +70 event.  Complete schedule here. 

GULF COAST STATE POLITICIANS REPORT CARD IN POKER FRIENDLINESS.  Charlie Melancon gets an A, Donald Cazayoux gets an A (but not re-elected), everybody else in Louisiana not so much.  David Vitter, Rodney Alexander and Charles Boustany get Fs.  In Mississippi Travis Childers and Bennie Thompson get As, Gene Taylor a B.  Some good news... everybody in Florida that got an A got re-elected. 

Alabama unfortunately got no better than a D.  That's right not a single member of Congress from Alabama got better than a D.  Spencer Bachus got an F minus.  This site is run by the Poker Players Alliance,  and has links for you to write to your congressmen.  Check it out here.

HAPPY NEW YEARS GCP POKER BLOG UPDATE  (01/01/08)

WILD BILL CONTINUES HIS COMPARISON OF TODAY'S POKER STARS TO 80s WRESTLERS.   WWF is the WSOP?WPT is the WCW?  Chris Moneymaker is Goldberg?  It makes sense (kind of) read it here: DINE ON THE WHALES.

MATT BRYANT CRUISES TO FIRST PLACE IN FULL TILT TOURNAMENT FOR OVER 9K.  He was nice enough to blog about it.  Read his tourney recap here.  And also, give him a nice welcome as he's a new blogger.  We've promised we'd add him to the fold for some time but now we fully have, and now you can find POBODY'S NERFECT in our columns section every day.

WANNA WIN A TRIP TO THE ALPS?  bwin poker has a prize package worth 8k going on right now. It includes first class accommodations in a resort right in the mountains. Check out PokerBat's blog for more details or http://www.bwinpokerblog.com/.

WANT BETTER STRUCTURES AT HARRAHS MAY TOURNAMENT?  Juice is taking requests.  Let him know your thoughts and your preferences.  Click over to his blog JUICEY POKER and be heard.

ALSO, OUR THOUGHTS GO OUT TO THE TILTIN' TEXAN WHO IS RECOVERING FROM A SMALL OPERATION.  Tiltin' we look forward to seeing you up and around soon!

POKER-WRESTLING UPDATE  (12/31/08)

HAPPY NEW YEARS, WILD BILL COMPARES TODAY'S POKER STARS TO 80s WRESTLERS.   Ever imagined Greg Raymer in a wrestling bib?  We haven't either, but shave his head and King Kong Bundy might be a pretty good body double. 

You glad Eskimo Clark doesn't wear overalls?  Some of his former table mates probably are.  The same can't be said for Hill Billy Jim.  Read:  DINE ON THE WHALES for more.

POKER USA UPDATE  (12/30/08)

PHIL HELLMUTH SPEAKS OUT ON SECOND ULTIMATE FIASCO AND IS QUICKLY REBUTTED BY ONLINE COMMUNITY.  Gambling 911 has a good story on the ongoing saga.  Phil gives his perception of what happened and 2+2 forums remain up in arms about the hand.  For more info:  Gambling 911.

PENSACOLA REAL ESTATE BROKER GAMBLES ON POKER CRAZE.  If you live in the Panhandle's biggest city you now have a place to go for all your poker needs.  The Royal Flush which sells gaming supplies, tables and more.  It even offers Texas Hold'em classes.  Go here for more info:  Pensacola News Journal.  If you are interested in ordering poker tables by mail don't forget to check out our Sponsor Dingers Outdoors for your poker table, pool tables, and of course pools and spas.

POKER AFTER DARK LATEST SEASON DEBUTS WITH CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR PROS.  Mike Matusow, Allen Cunningham (or clever pig or smart breakfast meat or whatever his nickname is),  David Williams, Lee Watikinson, Andy Black and Dewey Tomko (two Main Event 2nd Place finishes) are the second fiddles playing for first.  More Nets vs. Vets episodes to come.  Set your DVRs people, 2nd best poker show on TV.

WORLD OF POKER UPDATE  (12/26/08)

BINIONS ON THE STRIP NO LONGER AN ONION WHEN IT COMES TO POKER ROOMS.  They've remodeled and come out of the stone age.  Don't know if their dealers have gotten any younger but 10 new tables, 11 plasma TVs and an atmosphere worthy of the birthplace of Poker is now what you'll find when you visit the original home of the World Series of Poker.  Check out PokerBat's blog for more.

ULTIMATE STORM CONTINUES, TOKWIRO MAKES A STATEMENT ABOUT ULTIMATE BET'S ULTIMATE USER.  In it Phil Hellmuth finally speaks out on the issue and says, "The only time in my life where I've had one pair beat three of a kind is when I made a big bluff in a poker tournament, and now because of a software malfunction in online poker....  Sometimes these things happen on the internet (WTF !!!!!).  The important thing here is that I continue to have a ton of trust in UB's software and new management team. (That's the important thing, that Phil trusts the people that made an error... in his favor)." 

-Phil also once said: "If there wasn't luck involved I'd win every hand (hmmm)."

POKER NEWS UPDATE  (12/24/08)

CRAZY COINCIDENCE/GLITCH JUST SO HAPPENS IT HAPPENED TO PHIL HELLMUTH, NOTHING TO SEE HERE, PLEASE IGNORE THE HOLE IN THE BOAT, PLEASE IGNORE THE WATER AROUND OUR ANKLES, NOTHING TO SEE HERE, DO NOT JUMP OUT OF THE BOAT, NOTHING TO GLUG, GLUG.  Paul Legget's blog explains it all for Ultimate Bet.  He also explains all the wonkiness that followed this up, when a series of other glitches randomly rewarded pots to other people.

Seemed like this idea for an explanation had already been floated on Two + Two a couple of days ago.  Almost like somebody was testing their story.  Random crazy glitch or not... this story is redonkulous.  Legget's blog here:   http://blog.ultimatebet.com/2008/12/update-on-recent-software-issues/

POKER NEWS UPDATE  (12/22/08)

ULTIMATE BRAT PHIL HELLMUTH AWARDED POT WHEN HE DIDN'T WIN HAND.  Crazines ensues.  Two + Two Forum is in a tizzy, with one poster suggesting that perhaps the cheating software for Absolute Poker interacted poorly with the cheating software for Ultimate Bet when the two merged into one platform.  Paul Legget of Ultimate Bet blogged about the freak event without mentioning the name of Phil Hellmuth being involved. 

Basically, DOUBLEBALLER was playing PHILHELLMUTH heads up.  On a board with JKK29 with no flush, Double Baller's KQ "lost" to Phil's mighty 102 holding.  Phil got the pot. More certainly to come.  Brings a different meaning to the quote, "If luck wasn't involved I'd win them all."

CHINO RHEEM WINS WPT BELLAGIO EVENT NAMED IN HONOR OF DOYLE BRUNSON ALSO CALLED 5 STAR CLASSIC OR SOMETHING, ANYWAY ITS ABSURDLY LONG NAME, BUT RHEEM WON IT.  Alabama Cowboy Hoyt Corkins came in 6th for over 200k.  Rheem won a million and a half.  Speculation is rampant that the win might have actually covered all his poker debts when combined with his WSOP Main Event final table winnings.

POKER NEWS UPDATE  (12/18/08)

FOR THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS CHECK OUT THE BLOGS, POKER IS WAR OR DINE ON THE WHALES FOR ANY NEWS UPDATES.

CAPTAIN TOM CASHES IN THE WPT BELLAGIO EVENT BUT IS OUT.   Benjamin Straate is the chip leader but an all star cast of pros are in the hunt.  Mike Matusow, Robert Mizrachi, Chino Rheem, and poker woman of the year (sorry Hot Chips) Clonie Gowen.  Don't forget in Clonie's lawsuit against Full Tilt Matusow has been named as a defendant, that could make for some real interesting table talk as you know Matusow won't ignore the elephant sitting on the table.

HELL IS FREEZING OVER.  First in snowed in New Orleans and now it's snowing in Vegas.  Vegas is paradise right?  That's what we are told, though what happens in paradise stays in paradise.   Well, for a few tourists out there at the end of a 5 day bender bleeding cash at the tables, and nightspots it can be hell.  And, now, they are watching it freeze over.  Of course, for those having better weeks, they are humming along to Bing Crosby in their mind and enjoying the snow on all the neon.

POKER NEWS UPDATE  (12/17/08)

A DIKSHIT TO SETTLE WITH US GOVERNMENT OVER ONLINE POKER CHARGES.  Dikshit is not to be confused with the guys involved in running Ultimate Bet or Absolute Poker though they were called many things similar.   Indian businessman Anurag Dikshit, one of the youngest billionaires in the world, with one of the worst possible last names for his children at American schools and a co-founder of PartyGaming is going to pay a mere $300 million to the US Government. 

DEFEND YOUR BIG BLIND AT YOUR OWN PERIL.  Daniel Negreanu's blog gives some tips on defending your big blind and like most of his small ball strategy advises playing possum.  Great strategy until you get rivered time and time again (wild bill editorializing a bit, I discuss this further on my blog to your left).  Read Kid Poker's thoughts here at the Houston Chronicle.

CHINO RHEEM IN SECOND AT THE DOYLE BRUNSON WORLD POKER FIVE STAR CLASSIC AT THE BELLAGIO.  Fifty-Five players left for Chino to outlast as he seeks to legitimize his deep run at the main event.  For more info check out www.worldpokertour.com.

WHO'S WHO UPDATE  (12/16/08)

BRANDON JARRETT  OF CARTERSVILLE GEORGIA HAS BEEN TEARING IT UP THIS YEAR.  When we say year we mean since August.  With five cashes and two first place finishes he has exploded unto the tournament circuit.  Jarrett won the IP Classic main event and started off the year right (again, by year we mean since August) with a first place finish at the Gulf Coast Poker championship. His career earnings (all this year, and by year we mean the last four months) total over 100k.   Definitely a worthy addition to the Who's Who on the Gulf Coast.

SPEAKING OF BRANDON, ANOTHER LOCAL HAVING A GREAT YEAR IS BJ MCBRAYER OF TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA.  With eight cashes this year including a second place in an event won by Cycalona Gowen (below)  and final tabled by Brandon (above).  We'd like to add BJ to the Who's Who but need a picture.  BJ you out there?  Send a pic to Wild Bill if you want in.

WE ARE ALSO ADDING GCP BLOGGER REID GILBERT TO THE WHO'S WHO LIST.  He's got a great blog and tons of helpful advice for WIld Bill's pitiful game so we have to put him up there.  Reid strangely enough also shared a final table with Brandon this year at the IP Main Event.

GLOBAL POKER NEWS (12/15/08)

PLAINTIFF CYCALONA GOWEN A CHIP LEADER AT THE WPT.  Locked into a lawsuit with FullTilt, Clonie Gowen has also been busy playing poker this year.  No longer deemed worthy enough to be the female face of FT she's responded just like any other free agent in a contract year.  Yes, career numbers.  Likely another site would want to sign her...  except for the fact she's suing the old site. 

Seven cashes, two first place finishes, nearly 700k of her just short of a million dollar career earnings, all have come this year.  That doesn't count her succes on Poker After Dark where she holds the recrod fro most first place finishes.  Seems like this would be the right time to hire her, not fire her.

LOCAL CHIP COUNTS AT WPT.  Jonathan Little is below average with just over 100k in chips.  Captain Tom Franklin is well below average with just short of 50k in chips.

WORLD OF POKER NEWS (12/13/08)

GULF COASTERS MATT GRAHAM  AND SHANNON SHORR GO DEEP IN DOYLE BRUNSON FIVE DIAMOND WORLD POKER CLASSIC 5 K EVENT.   Actually Matt Graham did more than go deep he added to his win total with a first place finish for $320k.  Shorr finished 15th.

UP FOR SOME FUN DOWN UNDER?  BWIN POKER  is offering a 100k prize pool with the top two places winning Aussie Millions packages worth $18,000 in Melbourne Australia.   For more details on their Big Bounty promotion go here:  https://poker.bwin.com/public.aspx?aid=19788 

JUSTIN ALLEN WINS HARRAHS NEW ORLEANS "WINTER BAYOU POKER CHALLENGE" MAIN EVENT  (12/11/08)

THE 21 YEAR OLD DALLAS TEXAS NATIVE  BEAT LARRY PRICE OF TERRYTOWN LA, IN HEADS UP PLAY.  This is Allen's third cash since October.  His final hand was pocket 99s which best Allen's Q4 offsuit. 

Larry Price is a regular in the New Orleans casinos.  This is second cash this year and he'll be smiling as he deposits $83,053 for finishing second.  He started heads up play as the leader but on the first hand his A2 o/s ran into Justin's pokcet 8s when they both got it all in preflop.  From there he faced a tremendous challenge which he could not overcome.

Matt Culberson finished in 3rd place good for $48,855, while Jeremy Gaubert was sixth.  Another couple of names familiar to the site ;Jenna Delk, the last woman standing went out in 35th one spot before Clint Schafer.

HARRAHS NEW ORLEANS "WINTER BAYOU POKER CHALLENGE" UPDATE  (12/08/08)

THE MAIN EVENT IS ABOUT TO SHUFFLE UP AND DEAL.   The prelims are all over but we have the last of the winners here. 

Bob Crawford (pictured) of Houston, Texas, outlasted a field of 177 and won $55,627.  Ray Zeringue of Houma, LA and James Arruebarrena of New Orleans finished 4th and 5th respectively.  This was Crawford's first cash and since most tournaments pay the guys that comes in first place, you can figure out it was also his first first place finish.

Trish Macks, of Mandeville, smacked down the Ladies final table winning $7102.   She beat an all gulf coast final 5 including Nacy Decuers of New Orleans, Joanna of Ketch of Katy, TX, Peggy Ledman of Gallatin, TN (okay that's a bit of a stretch) and Judy Rhodes of Houma, LA.  113 women entered the $200 buy-in event.

HARRAHS NEW ORLEANS "WINTER BAYOU POKER CHALLENGE" UPDATE  (12/07/08)

DR. PRACTICES PATIENCE AND HOWZER IS SEVEN CARD STUD.

In the $300 7 Card Stud event Eliot D. Howzer of Pine Grove, LA beat 47 opponents to win $5,892.  Charles Wood Moore of Dallas Texas finished 4th for $1,310 and Kell Bosargg of Denham Springs, LA just made the money in 5th.

The Doctor was in fine form in event six $500 buy-in.  Dr. Mark Burtman (pictured) billed the field $33,058 for coming in first.  It's his 18th cash in Live Tournaments.  Casey Troell of Kingwood Texas finished second for $18,182.  Kevin Kaylor of Houston also made the final table.  Mark Edelman represented the home of  Pig Sooey, Fayetteville, Arkansas with a 5th place finished.  Bill Hobbs (New Iberia) popped up in sixth place and Stanley Seelig of Metairie, LA was 7th.

HARRAHS NEW ORLEANS "WINTER BAYOU POKER CHALLENGE" UPDATE  (12/06/08)

LIPPY NEW YORKER STEALS FROM THE COAST AND GRINNING KATZ OF TEXAS REFUSES CHOP.

In the second $300 event;  "Lippy" an interloper from Brooklyn New York, won $15,934.  Adam Lippert bested three Texans at his final table, 2nd place Mo Arani (Dallas) 3rd place K. Steve Irwin (Gonzalez), and 4th place Dennis Crowley (Pearland).  Andrew Morrison of Hattiesburg, MS came in 7th, followed by Ameed Saelm of New Orleans, Kris Kent of Biloxi, and Ron Jeandron of Gretna.  Just outside the final table was Tampa pro George Bronstein (pictured).

The first $500 event was won by Mark S. Katz of Bellaire Texas.  Mark played for the ring turning down numerous chops despite being short stacked.  He won $29,385.  Mark Wilds of Biloxi finished third for his second cash of the week.  Chester Gwin of Houston finished fourth.  Don Yaughn of Fort Valley, GA, came in 5th just ahead of Robert Samson of Paquemine, LA.  Direct from our Who's Who page  Rodney Shows AKA Coach got another final table finishing 8th.  Peng Zheng of Metairie, was 10th.

HARRAHS NEW ORLEANS "WINTER BAYOU POKER CHALLENGE" UPDATE  (12/05/08)

WAITER COOPER AND PRO O'CONNER GIVE THE GULF COAST TWO FIRST PLACES.

In the $200 event;  Kevin Cooper, a waiter from Lafayette, LA took home a mammoth tip of $11,504.  His final table included Biloxi pro Mark Wilds (pictured), who had multiple cashes this year,  Herb Bollinger of New Orleans, Benjamin Davis and Janice Randall of Metairie, and Joe Phelps of Diamondhead MS.

In the first $300 event, Luke O'Conner of Bay St. Louis, MS won $16,499.  He beat an all Gulf Coast table including three Baton Rouge players, Thomas Boone, Devin Jarreau and Wendell Welch.  BJ McBrayer of Tuscaloosa, AL continued his mini heater with a 6th place finish.  Texas got a sweat with Jason Mann (San Antonio) and Chris Gonzalez (Houston) going deep.  Dino Tedesco of Metairie, and Jonathan Greer of Harvy, LA rounded out the top 9.  10th place was Robert Mayfield, of Lafitte, LA. 

LOCAL PLAYER ONLINE UPDATE (12/04/08)

NICK "THE GREEK" GELLEPIS FROM TALLAHASSEE, FL MAKES A NICE SCORE ONLINE FOR CLOSE TO 18K.    Nick Gellepis that plays under the online name of "MVP OF LIFE" made a huge score recently in the "Daily 80k" on Stars that has a buy-in of $55.00. Nick took home a litle over 16k.

t seems that Nick has been doing the grind online lately and working it up...and doing a hell of a job at that. Word has it that he was heads up with USCPhildo who is known in the online circles as a top notch player. Way to Go Nick!!!!!!  Keep it up Buddy.

HARRAHS NEW ORLEANS "WINTER BAYOU POKER CHALLENGE" STARTS   (12/03/08)

HARRAHS BRINGS THE WSOP CIRCUIT EVENT BACK TO NEW ORLEANS AGAIN .   We are all over this with almost every blog updated.  Course as we are playing so much fewer updates to be given.  We'll have more coverage soon. You can get all the details from "Juicey's" blog below left. he has also put up the structure for the "Mega" event that they are running this Sunday that will allow players to get a jump start on collecting tourney chips. See Juicey's blog form more details and drop him some questions in the comments section.

COAST to COAST to COAST UPDATE (11/24/08)

TIM "RAISING CAJUN" HEBERT, FINISHES 4th. He had the misfortune of running his pocket Aces into his opponents A6 preflop. 66x Ouch!  Great job Tim.

ULTIMATE BET PLAYER HEARTS13 GOES ON A MEGA RUSH.  Dude wins the bad beat jackpot at the smallest of the micro stakes and instead of grinding a level or two over that jumps into the deep end of the pool and continues his heater vs. name pros like Prahlad Friedman.  And is still winning Hmmm... Cinderella stories bring a lot of publicity.  Ultimate Bet is in dire need of some positive publicity.  Hmmm...  PokerKing has the details here.

WALL STREET DESPITE ALL THE DOOM AND GLOOM STILL HAS TIME TO PLAY SOME CARDS FOR THE LITTLE GUY.  A nice article on Bloomberg.com, first cited by Wicked Chops, does a piece on the good guys in the 1k suits, who aren't afraid to ante up for a good cause.  Basically the cause is one where they mentor the underprivileged and help them find a job.  Sure the unemployed underprivileged used to be the guys that worked in the cubicle next to them but it is still an example of poker doing good.  It's also one of your only chances to read Bloomberg.com for some good news, which is a rarity these days, here.

GCP BLOGGERS MONKEY AND REID G CASH FOR OVER 2k ON DIFFERENT SIDES OF THE COUNTRY.  Check out Reid's succes at the Beau on his blog;  IF YOU'RE TOO CAREFUL and Monkey's score in his blog; THE POKER MONKEY.

LOCAL PLAYER UPDATE (11/20/08)

TIM "RAISING CAJUN" HEBERT GOES DEEP IN MEGA STACK MAIN EVENT AT CAESARS PALACE.   No word if he likes deep dish pizza or deep emo music or if swims in the deep end, but the guy certainly does go deep.  Thanks to the Tiltin' Texan for the heads up that Hebert final tabled the 1k buy-in  Main Event last night.  Texan, your commission of one GCP hoodie has been paid.  Final results for the event not posted yet but we will let you know how deep Hebert went.  This is the third cash in Las Vegas for Hebert in the last week.  He already has a 4th and a 11th place finish.

JONATHAN LITTLE DISHES TO CARDPLAYER AFTER HIS WPT TITLE WIN :   In his own, third person words, "Jonathan Little nits it up when he has to. Of course, he also lag-tards it up when it’s necessary, as well..."  Go to Card Player for the rest of the interview.

SHANNON SHORR GETS THROWN DOWN A WELL ON 2+2 FORUMS... KIND OF.  He answers all kinds of questions and reveals what was the biggest ace he ever rivered in his life. For the complete and near exhaustive Q and A go to The Well at 2+2. 

SCANDAL UPDATES (11/18/08)

CYCALONA GOWEN, YES CYCALONA IS HER REAL NAME, SUES FULL TILT FOR THE ONE PER CENT OWNERSHIP STAKE SHE CLAIMS THEY PROMISED HER YEARS AGO.  This suit is a mess.  Message boards are claiming Cycalona is a meth head (we do not) and burning all her bridges to make a little cash now that times are tough.  She did just win a tournament in Tunica, so times aren't that tough.  However, Full Tilt just dropped her.

 In her suit, she says Full Tilt is worth billions and she just wants what is owed to her.  Apparently, all the reps of Full Tilt only have verbal contracts.  Her being dropped as a representative is close to impossible because she is an owner.  This could be bad news for poker as these things tend to unearth a good bit about these pseudo-legal companies that may not want to come to light. Course Full Tilt is in between a rock and a nit, they settle and who knows how many Full Tilt "owners" come out of the wood work.  I've worn Full Tilt gear in a tournament--does that make me a 1%er?

GATOR HOOPSTER A FISH.  Nick Calathes, a Florida Gator basketball star, ran up $600 in online poker debt.  The NCAA is not taking action.  They only care about sports-betting.  Online poker is okay by them.   One of the only times the NCAA has been ahead of the curve.

TAXES  AIN'T THEY A B***H(11/16/08)

PETER EASTGATE OWES DENMARK 6.6 MILLION OF HIS 9.2 MILLION DOLLAR PRIZE, AIN'T THAT A  ...   All told governments are owed almost half of the WSOP prize pool of 32 million with players on the hook for 14 million or so.  Read www.taxabletalk.com for more details. 

Eastgate apparently recently moved to the UK.  Maybe to get out of the disgusting tax rate the Danes put on gambling winnings.  45% of the first 4 million Kronas won, and after that 75%.  Yes... 75%.  How can Denmark be the happiest place on the Earth if anything you win there you have to give 3/4s to the government.

 In the UK, Eastgate would owe nothing on his winnings, however, it is unlikely the Danish version of the IRS will accept the move as anything but an attempt to get out of paying his taxes.  Should he pay Denmark everything he owes, he'd move down the takehome pay-ladder considerably.