Poker News

PokerStars Announces 2010 Nordic Poker Awards

The Nordic Poker Awards, previously the Scandinavian Poker Awards, will celebrate the best players from Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden on Feb. 15 – the day before EPT Copenhagen begins.

This year there are 30 nominees from across the four Nordic countries.

Some of the notable players to be nominated include Peter Eastgate, Patrik Antonius, Ville Wahlbeck, Dag Martin Mikkelsen, Ilari Sahamies, Jens Kyllonen and Erik Sagstrom.

The categories for 2010 include Best Live Tournament Player, Best Performance, Best Online Player and Rookie of the Year.

Award winners will be chosen by a public vote.

All EPT players are invited to the awards ceremony, which will be held at Park Café in Copenhagen at 8 p.m.

Check the PokerStars website for the complete list of nominees.

UB Poker Event Tops Record Books

The Deepstack No-Limit Hold’em Six-Max tournament drew 628 players, creating a prize pool of $1.57 million – the richest in UB’s 10-year history.

Online player SEBBAU was the biggest winner taking down the tournament and the $330,900 that came attached to first place.

Celebrated UB player DOOSHDOTCOM1 also made an appearance at the final table but ended up finishing in fifth for $86,350.

"Despite going out just before the money in UBOC 8, the tournament still left me with an incredible feeling as we ended up building the richest prize pool in the history of UB," said Joe Sebok.

"I think it sets the tone for what I think will be the best UBOC ever for our players. 2010 is just the beginning of great things to come for UB and our community."

Team UB was out in full force with Phil Hellmuth, Sebok and Liv Boeree all playing the tournament.

Boeree was the only UB pro to cash, coming in 42^nd place for $6,280.

UBOC 4 continues all week with the $1 million-guaranteed $1,050 buy-in main event scheduled for this Sunday.

Click here to learn more about the UBOC schedule or sign up for an account.

Schwartz Joins Premier League IV Lineup

 “I can’t wait to get to Vegas and crush the field in the PartyPoker.com Premier League,” said Schwartz.

Schwartz will join the already announced Phil Hellmuth, J.C. Tran, Yevgeniy Timoshenko and Roland De Wolfe in the $100,000 buy-in tournament. This is the first time the shootout-style event has been held in Vegas.

Despite the number of skilled poker players, Schwartz likes his chances in the event.

“For sure there are some big names playing but I have to be a huge favorite,” he said. “They need to know that I’m coming with my sharky hat and it’s gonna be a whole week of soul owning from Full Flush.

Schwartz made a name for himself playing online as Full Flush on Full Tilt Poker and beating some of the best online players, including Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond for over a million.

He was perhaps most well-known for his tirades where he would refer to Dwan as “durrrr-balls” and the entire online high stakes community as “OMGweNerds” in the chatbox.

He made the final table of another well-known PartyPoker tournament last year – the World Open V – but was eventually ousted in fourth when his A-T failed against Austrian qualifier Jan Veit’s K-J.

According to PartyPoker officials they were reluctant to add the controversial young player.

“We did a lot of soul searching rather than soul owning before deciding to invite Luke into the Premier League,” said a PartyPoker spokesperson. “The fact is that he is a great player and he will certainly ignite the line-up and we haven’t even completed it yet.”

More players will be announced to the Premier League IV in the coming weeks.

Jeff Garza Spits On Bryn Kenney at PokerStars Caribbean Adventure

Harrison Gimbel was crowned the champion of the 2010 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event in the Bahamas more than a week ago, but the event is still stirring up chatter due to an incident involving two of the game's high-stakes online players that occurred during a $5,000 side tournament. According to sources that were close by, Jeff "ActionJeff" Garza spat on Bryn Kenney while Kenney was still playing in the tournament at the luxurious Atlantis resort.

News of the skirmish first broke in a thread on popular online forum PocketFives.com. Jordan "scarface_79" Smith began the topic, posting, "How is there not a thread on this?" Several others then stepped in and described what they saw and heard relating to the conflict.

"I was sitting at the next table over I think," said Jon “xxjondxx" Delong, who placed 22nd in a $1,500 event at the PCA. "Wasn't too exciting, just heard the dealer yell security and saying that someone spit in someone's face and saw someone who I guess was [Action Jeff] walking out of the room."

Shawn "jordankickz" Busse was also in the Bahamas while the conflict took place. "I didn't really see what provoked this nor did anybody else that I talked to," Busse said, "but Jeff just walked up to him and spit in his face then they started shoving each other before Jeff just quickly walked away once security was called."

The incident was merely speculation until Garza posted his side of the story on PocketFives.com and TwoPlusTwo.com.

"Bryn and I have personal issues unrelated to him multi-accounting dealing with large amounts of money," Garza said. "I was just ready to drop it and take the hit for making the mistake of dealing with a scumbag. My hate was reignited real strong when I kept hearing about him talking behind my back."

"I walked away after busting the $5K and Bryn was in my path," he continued. "He made eye contact with me as I was walking away, I gave him a [expletive] you and he smirks at me. I walked up to him and said something along the lines of 'don't look at me you thieving piece of [expletive]' and nudge him with my shoulder. At this point security gets called. He said something along the lines of, 'if I wasn't playing poker, give me one good reason...'

"So I gave him that good reason. And let's be clear here: No, it didn't miss, and yeah, it was right in his face, and it was a lot because I'd been putting down some water at the table."

Kenney was under fire following the 2009 PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Main Event after suspicions arose about Kenney multi-accounting under the name "Udon Wannit," who took second place in the tournament for $1,286,400.00. Kenney later confirmed that the account belonged to his brother, who was normally a low-stakes tournament player, which sparked debate among high-stakes regulars.

Garza's issues with Kenney date to a backing arrangement that they had in which Kenney ended the deal and owed Garza money. The two exchanged words in the thread on TwoPlusTwo, with Kenney backing up both the spitting incident and the money he owed to Garza.

"The only thing I did wrong was when he was in like $60K makeup I was losing a lot during the series and the $12K or whatever I owed him I couldn't give him right then since I was getting killed. Nothing else I have ever done to him was even close to in the wrong," Kenney wrote.

Garza concluded his take on the subject with the following post on PocketFives: "Bryn's my enemy and I have no respect for [him] and wanted to show it. I shoulda just knocked his ass out, but he refuses to fight and attacking someone when they turn their back is a bitch move."

Gus Hansen Reaches $1.3 Million

After realizing he couldn’t beat the best online players in the world at Pot-Limit Omaha or No-Limit Hold’em, Gus Hansen started 2010 by moving to 7-Game, hoping his years of mixed-game experience would be enough to give him back an edge.

It appears to be working after yet another winning session for the Danish pro. His latest $560k came yesterday with $169k of it from C-PLO and the remaining $391k from 7-Game.

Hansen wasn’t the only player to have a big day though. Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies took top honors on 7-Game, crushing the tables for over $513k, well ahead of Cole South who made $302k at the same time.

Di “Urindanger” Dang earned over $313k exclusively from C-PLO, but played a massive 6,202 hands to do it.

The biggest loser on the day is a relatively unknown player named PixKim. Although it hasn’t been 100% confirmed it appears PixKim is a Finnish pro by the name of Jari Komulainen. Through a combination of C-PLO and 7-Game PixKim managed to lose over $609k.

Two other players with notable losses on the day include Brian Hastings ($285k) and Tom “durrrr” Dwan ($245k).

Here are the three largest C-PLO pots of the day. You can see more of the action over on MarketPulse.

Poker News in Brief: Jan. 11-17, 2010

But there was plenty of poker news that didn’t make the front page of PokerListings.com, and as part of our ongoing Poker News in Brief feature, we’ve compiled a list below.

This week we’ll take a look at Gavin Smith crushing Canadian tournaments, the HPT going to Vegas, a dominant online player quitting poker and more:

Two Final Tables for Smith at Fallsview

Canadian Gavin Smith was dominant at the 2010 Fallsview Poker Classic in Niagara Falls this week.

Fresh off a plane from the Bahamas, Smith outlasted 275 players to win $188,743 in the $2,500 event and then three days later finished fourth in the $5,000 main event.

Smith has historically done very well at tournaments in Canada. In 2008, he finished second at the Fallsview-hosted WPT North American Poker Championship for $542,129. He also made the final table of the 2008 Canadian Open Poker Championship in Calgary the same year.

Heartland Poker Tour Heads to Vegas

The Heartland Poker Tour kicked off its sixth season at Red Rock Resort and Casino in Las Vegas this week.

It was just the second time the lower buy-in poker tour has made a stop in Las Vegas, as it usually sticks to venues in Midwest. In the past, the tour has hosted tournaments in Indiana, Colorado, Minnesota, New York, Michigan and Iowa.

The $1,100 buy-in event drew poker pros Dennis Phillips, Layne Flack, John Vorhaus and Tiffany Michelle.

The final table of the tournament is scheduled to play out later today.

Jonas "Nebuchad" Danielsson Quits Poker

Online grinder Jonas “Nebuchad” Danielsson, perhaps most well-known for making a verbal slip at the 2008 Scandinavian Poker Awards, has apparently decided to leave poker for the time being.

Danielsson made the announcement on his blog where he wrote that his passion for poker was gone and he was looking forward to experiencing new things. He did not mention how long his self-imposed retirement would last.

The young Swedish pro started playing poker full time in 2005 and in roughly five years of playing made over $3 million in profit.

Danielsson won Online Player of the Year at the Scandinavian Poker Awards in 2008, but was better remembered for accidentally referring to King Nebuchadnezzar as the first king to “deal with the Jewish problem” when explaining the origin of his screen name to host Daniel Negreanu.

English is not Danielson’s first language and he explained afterwards he was deeply sorry about the miscommunication.

Tennis Star John Isner Plays Poker

Apparently Boris Becker isn’t the only tennis celebrity that enjoys playing a little poker.

The New Zealand Herald reported this week that American John Isner can often be found at the poker table when he’s not playing tennis.

The 6’9 giant was making headlines all week in Auckland at the Heineken Open and even pulled off an upset against top seeded Spanish player Tommy Robredo.

Isner joins the aforementioned Becker as well as former tennis world #1 Yvegeny Kafelnikov as tennis players who are also poker enthusiasts.

Borgata Announces 2010 Winter Poker Open

The Borgata in Atlantic City released a schedule for its fifth annual Borgata Winter Poker Open this week.

The tournament series will take place Jan. 20-Feb. 5 with 16 events in a wide range of poker variants including No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha, Seven-Card Stud and more.

The $3,500 buy-in main event is scheduled for Jan. 31-Feb. 5 and it will offer a guaranteed prize pool of $2 million.

The Borgata Winter Open used to be a part of the World Poker Tour and in the past crowned champions like Michael Mizrachi, Gavin Griffin and John Hennigan.

Visit the Borgata website for the complete schedule.

Poker News in Brief: Jan. 11-17, 2010

But there was plenty of poker news that didn’t make the front page of PokerListings.com, and as part of our ongoing Poker News in Brief feature, we’ve compiled a list below.

This week we’ll take a look at Gavin Smith crushing Canadian tournaments, the HPT going to Vegas, a dominant online player quitting poker and more:

Two Final Tables for Smith at Fallsview

Canadian Gavin Smith was dominant at the 2010 Fallsview Poker Classic in Niagara Falls this week.

Fresh off a plane from the Bahamas, Smith outlasted 275 players to win $188,743 in the $2,500 event and then three days later finished fourth in the $5,000 main event.

Smith has historically done very well at tournaments in Canada. In 2008, he finished second at the Fallsview-hosted WPT North American Poker Championship for $542,129. He also made the final table of the 2008 Canadian Open Poker Championship in Calgary the same year.

Heartland Poker Tour Heads to Vegas

The Heartland Poker Tour kicked off its sixth season at Red Rock Resort and Casino in Las Vegas this week.

It was just the second time the lower buy-in poker tour has made a stop in Las Vegas, as it usually sticks to venues in Midwest. In the past, the tour has hosted tournaments in Indiana, Colorado, Minnesota, New York, Michigan and Iowa.

The $1,100 buy-in event drew poker pros Dennis Phillips, Layne Flack, John Vorhaus and Tiffany Michelle.

The final table of the tournament is scheduled to play out later today.

Jonas "Nebuchad" Danielsson Quits Poker

Online grinder Jonas “Nebuchad” Danielsson, perhaps most well-known for making a verbal slip at the 2008 Scandinavian Poker Awards, has apparently decided to leave poker for the time being.

Danielsson made the announcement on his blog where he wrote that his passion for poker was gone and he was looking forward to experiencing new things. He did not mention how long his self-imposed retirement would last.

The young Swedish pro started playing poker full time in 2005 and in roughly five years of playing made over $3 million in profit.

Danielsson won Online Player of the Year at the Scandinavian Poker Awards in 2008, but was better remembered for accidentally referring to King Nebuchadnezzar as the first king to “deal with the Jewish problem” when explaining the origin of his screen name to host Daniel Negreanu.

English is not Danielson’s first language and he explained afterwards he was deeply sorry about the miscommunication.

Tennis Star John Isner Plays Poker

Apparently Boris Becker isn’t the only tennis celebrity that enjoys playing a little poker.

The New Zealand Herald reported this week that American John Isner can often be found at the poker table when he’s not playing tennis.

The 6’9 giant was making headlines all week in Auckland at the Heineken Open and even pulled off an upset against top seeded Spanish player Tommy Robredo.

Isner joins the aforementioned Becker as well as former tennis world #1 Yvegeny Kafelnikov as tennis players who are also poker enthusiasts.

Borgata Announces 2010 Winter Poker Open

The Borgata in Atlantic City released a schedule for its fifth annual Borgata Winter Poker Open this week.

The tournament series will take place Jan. 20-Feb. 5 with 16 events in a wide range of poker variants including No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha, Seven-Card Stud and more.

The $3,500 buy-in main event is scheduled for Jan. 31-Feb. 5 and it will offer a guaranteed prize pool of $2 million.

The Borgata Winter Open used to be a part of the World Poker Tour and in the past crowned champions like Michael Mizrachi, Gavin Griffin and John Hennigan.

Visit the Borgata website for the complete schedule.

Jonas “Nebuchad” Danielsson Announces Retirement From Poker

On Friday, a top European online poker professional announced that he would quit playing poker, citing fatigue and a depleted bankroll as the reasons.

Swedish professional Jonas “Nebuchad” Danielsson, in a rambling blog post issued last week, stated (in a rough translation from the original Swedish), “The fire and passion I had for poker is now complete. It's like a bonfire that burned all night and now (it) hisses in the morning.” Citing an inability to sleep and the desire to experience other things in life, Danielsson says that the decision to quit playing poker has been brewing in his mind for the past two years; only now did the time feel right for his retirement.

In addition to the physical desire to stop playing, “Nebuchad” also states in the blog that he couldn’t do what most players do when faced with a depleted bankroll. There were “hints,” he says, from his fellow players that he should step down in levels and attempt to rebuild, which Danielsson pushed aside for two reasons. First, Jonas writes, “It would not change my financial situation. I should not have to work harder in my life, if I play my cards right.”

The second reason demonstrates one of the pitfalls of all players, whether they play at high-stakes or micro-stakes: “Secondly, going from top to bottom anywhere on the table and the risk of going out is too much for my vanity psyche. Without exaggerating, I would find it hard to look people in the eye.” Ego is something that all players have to face at some point in their poker playing lifetimes.

“Nebuchad” continues with a couple of memories that made him one of the top online players in the world. He discusses his legendary battles against Patrik Antonius, including a breakdown of a few hands, and remembers the moments quite fondly. “I can’t describe the feeling I had in poker (that day),” Jonas recalls.

In a down moment for his poker career, Danielsson recaps what should have been one of the top moments in his life. In 2008 during the Scandinavian Poker Awards, Jonas won the best online player award and accepted it from top professional Daniel Negreanu. When Negreanu asked him what his screen name meant, “Nebuchad” responded with a statement that implied that he disliked members of the Jewish faith. It was a statement that was taken out of context and, since that time, Danielsson has stated he meant no disrespect of the Jewish people and that he was highly nervous during the awards ceremony.

In a thread on the TwoPlusTwo forums, the common belief is that the Swede will be back at some point. The poster "mumrik" writes, “(From his blog post), it doesn’t seem like he has given up the thought of playing poker completely.” "GiantWalleye" agrees and cites his own experience: “I played fulltime back in 04-06, got bored and got a job. (I) realized I didn't like working and was back to playing fulltime by ‘08. He will be back.”

In his live playing career, Danielsson had been suffering from a downswing. According to the HendonMob database, “Nebuchad” did not cash in a live event in 2009 and only took in approximately $190,000 over his four-year live career. Jonas cashed in three events during the 2008 World Series of Poker (WSOP) and earned his best live cash, a third place in the Swedish Poker Championships for $67,658, early in the year. The earnings from his online cash games, however, are said to have Danielsson well off. At some point, the desire for the game could potentially bring “Nebuchad” back from the grave.

UB, Absolute Revamp Leaderboard

The new system will reward players with bankrolls of all sizes and the overall multi-table tournament leaderboard will award more Aruba Poker Classic and World  Series of Poker seats than ever before.

“We’ve revamped our leaderboard system to make it more accessible for all players, so that everyone has a fairer chance to win in a big way,” explained Annie Duke, UB.com’s cardroom consultant.

“UB and Absolute Poker continue to be a top choice for the world’s best poker players and a magnet for a growing number of young, emerging poker guns.”

The 2010 overall tournament leaderboard winner will receive a prize package that includes a $10,000 WSOP seat, a $5,500 entry into the Aruba Poker Classic plus $4,500 in tournament dollars.

The top 50 players on the MTT leaderboard will be invited to participate in an exclusive tournament giving first through third place a full $8,500 Aruba Poker Classic package and fourth and fifth place a $5,500 main event entry.

CEREUS also took the time to announce that online player PISCATO77 had secured the 2009 title after 12 months of hard work.

The 51-year-old Wyoming resident received $10,000 for his efforts.

“I have cashed at a few live tourneys including the WSOP and WPT, but my proudest accomplishment to date is the 2009 UB yearly leaderboard,” he said.

“I love the camaraderie amongst the UB players, their tournament structure is the best on the web, and I’ll be back at the UB tables trying for back-to-back tournament leaderboard wins in 2010.”

Online Rounders Dominate PCA Final

The chip leader going in will be the same man who led the final 24, Ryan “g0lfa” D’Angelo.

An online pro for the past six years, D’Angelo has two PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker titles on his resume, but his live experience also includes a third-place finish at a World Series of Poker $2k event in 2008.

Considering the more than 750 online qualifiers at the event and the wealth of online players in the field, D’Angelo said the 2010 PCA has played a lot more like an online MTT than your typical live tournament.

“In a lot of other tournaments you can’t get away with raise sizes like you would online,” he said. “Here it plays pretty much like an online tournament. A lot of three-betting and cold four-betting. I really haven’t taken part in that though. I guess I’m not as crazy as some of these younger Internet kids here who just spit fire and get in there with nothing.”

Thanks to the flopped queen he used to crack EPT Founder John Duthie’s aces and rake a ten-million-chip pot, another online pro will come into Monday’s final eight second in chips.

Morton, Illinois’ Ty Reiman has almost $1 million in online earnings and actually won the first live tournament he ever played at the Heartland Poker Tour’s Turning Stone $1k in 2007.

Like D’Angelo, he feels the PCA has played much like an online tournament so far.

“I really don’t feel like it’s that different from any other online tournament,” he said. “Maybe it’s just because that queen hasn’t really set in yet.”

Fellow U.S. online regulars Tom Koral, Harrison Gimbel, Benjamin Zamani and Zachary Goldberg join PokerStars qualifier Aage Floenes Ravn from Norway in rounding out the final eight.

But it’s 2009 WSOPE champ and CardPlayer publisher Barry Shulman who will come into the final table third in chips and on the hottest streak of his poker career.

The suddenly resurgent Shulman won a WSOP bracelet in 2001 before most of these players had even heard of poker.

Now, despite being the least experienced player when it comes to the online style, he appears to have adapted.

“Historically I play better against better players,” he explained. “(The WSOPE) was the toughest field I’ve ever played with. It was impossible to find people just dumping off chips. Here is a whole different story, because it’s such an aggressive situation.

“My own play was actually the same, but this was different because they just play so differently. There is so much action versus what I saw in London.”

The action could slow down when the final table begins, however, as the online players adapt a strategy similar to playing Sit & Go’s.

“I tend to play final tables like a Sit & Go,” said D’Angelo. “I just like to see what everyone is doing, try and feel everybody out and play a solid game. Once the blinds get higher that’s when we start moving chips.”

“The table is really good,” added Reiman. “There are a lot of online players who I’ve played with. I’m just going to try and play my game, not get into too many big pots and let the smaller stacks dwindle out. Then, once we’re four-handed or five handed, we go to battle.”

To follow all the action and see who takes down the 2010 PCA and its $2.2 million first-place prize, tune in to PokerListings’ Live Updates beginning at 12 p.m ET Monday.

Doyle Brunson’s Elite Team Struck Gold in 2009

Doyle Brunson is the Godfather of Poker and one of the greatest living legends in the game, but to represent his poker site, he is carefully choosing a team of 10 poker pros under the age of 25, which will be known as the Brunson 10. So far, only five have been headhunted: Chris "moorman1" Moorman, Alec "traheho" Torelli, Dani "ansky" Stern, Zachary "CrazyZachary" Clark and Amit "amak316" Makhija.

The first three players picked were Makhija, Torelli, and Clark. Twenty-two year-old Torelli, known as a consistent cash game winner and dedicated triathlete, held his ground in 2009 with nearly $800,000 in live tournament winnings. Makhija, a University of Minnesota graduate, was chosen for the Brunson 10 for his multi-table tournament (MTT) skills and he did not disappoint. Besides finishing in 26th place in the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic for a cool $28,569, he also made the top 10 in several other important poker tournaments.

Clark is the nephew of the late Chip Reese and he certainly has poker in his blood. At the young age of 24, he has nearly $2 million in career earnings and shows no signs of slowing down. In 2009, he cashed in nearly 50 online poker tournaments and made the top 10 in 15 of them, exceptionally consistent results for such a young player.

Next to be recruited for the Brunson 10 was Moorman, a young British player to be reckoned with on the online felts. Moorman had a spectacular 2009, ranking fourth in both CardPlayer’s and Bluff’s Online Player of the Year rankings for consistent five-figure wins. Moorman was also honored with the number spot in the PocketFives.com Yearly leaderboard for 2009. Brunson was spot on when he said about recruiting Moorman: “Moorman reminds me a lot of me, except for the British accent. He’s a poker natural, a legend in the making, and that’s why I’ve handpicked him to be the next member of the Brunson 10.”

The last member recruited for the half-complete Brunson 10 was Stern. One of the stars of the G4 online poker reality series “Two Months, Two Million," Stern was showered with praise by Brunson when he entered the elite team: “I’ve seen Ansky play on TV, I’ve seen him play online, and I’ve seen him talk poker like someone who’s been playing for decades. Dani ‘Ansky’ Stern is the future of this game and I’m proud to have him on my team.” Doyle will be even prouder now that Stern brought in the single largest cash of the team, when his final table skills in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) $40,000 buy-in commemorative event in 2009 netted him $548,315.

Brunson is still searching for the remaining five members of the Brunson 10 and will choose two more players after those. He explains: “We are going to find the remaining five spots that are open sometime in 2010. Then, we will choose two women to make it the Brunson 10/2 in honor of my name hand.” Judging by last year’s results, the Brunson 10-2 is set to be the crème de la crème of poker in 2010.

Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt Joins DragTheBar.com

Poker training site DragTheBar.com announced Friday that renowned online player and instructor Dusty “Leatherass9” Schmidt has joined the company as a lead instructor. Schmidt will make poker videos and actively participate in the site’s member forums, according to DragTheBar.com CEO and professional poker player Hunter Bick.

“Dusty is one of the top mid-to-high-stakes players in the world, period”, Bick said. “He’s played so many hands at such a high win rate that his depth is simply unmatched. But as good a player as he is, he’s an even better instructor. It’s unusual to find someone who can do both. We don’t want our site to just have good poker players as coaches – they must be well spoken and great teachers too. Dusty embodies those qualities better than anyone.”

Schmidt, 28, joins DragTheBar.com after spending three years as a lead instructor for StoxPoker. Schmidt joined the site as a member and gradually worked his way into a role as co-owner and instructor. He resigned from the company last week due to “irreconcilable differences.”

On the felts, Schmidt has earned more than $3 million during his five-year career, logging nearly seven million hands over 10,000 hours. In 2007, Schmidt achieved PokerStars’ SuperNova Elite status in just eight months while playing high-stakes cash games. He posted the world’s highest win rate in both $5/$10 No Limit and $10/$20 No Limit in 2007 and 2008. In a four-month period between November 2007 and February 2008, Schmidt won in excess of $600,000 playing high-stakes cash games. Today, he can be found playing as high as $25/$50 No Limit online, often as many as 20 tables at a time.

“I couldn’t be more excited about coming to DragTheBar.com”, Schmidt said. “I was feeling as though I was getting away from my teaching roots a little bit and this allows me to do what I love and do best. The relationship just feels really, really good. They support my interests, and in turn I’m looking forward to watching this site become the finest in the world in very short order. I can’t wait to get involved with their members and watch them improve as poker players.”

Schmidt becomes the 11th coach at DragTheBar.com, a roster that includes some of the world’s top online-poker players, including Jeremy “ChipSteela” Menard and Ian “IggyMcFy” Gordon. The site offers affordable memberships and its poker-training videos are compatible with iPods and other mp3 players.

On top of coaching and playing, Schmidt recently released his top-selling book, Treat Your Poker Like a Business. The book focuses on teaching players how to develop a professional approach to the game, both on and off the felts. He provides readers advice on a range of subjects from winning strategies and profitable times to play to software and record keeping.

“Poker has done a tremendous amount for me in terms of the independence and quality of life I’m able to experience now”, Schmidt says. “I like to think that I have something to offer all poker players, from those who view it as recreational to aspiring pros who want to turn the game into something more serious than a hobby.”

Big Field Poker at the PCA

But according to at least one player who has weaved his way through some big numbers before, big-field poker requires big strategy changes.

“There’s a different approach because it’s a longer tournament,” said Jeff Madsen, who managed to best a similar-sized field of 1,579 to win his first of two World Series of Poker bracelets in 2006.

“The style of just trying to double early and get chips really fast isn’t as effective. You may have chips early, but you still have to get through a few more days. You have to be more patient. You want to survive and get much deeper before you start playing huge pots and taking big risks. Otherwise you are never going to see a Day 3.”

Kevin Saul, who managed an eighth-place finish at the 2009 PCA, says you might be aware of it but you simply can’t think about the massive field size when you sit down at any tournament table.

“You only sit with eight people at a time, so for me, it’s just normal poker until the field dwindles,” he said. “I just care about my chip stack and what everyone has at my table. I don’t really worry about what’s going on in the tournament as a whole.”

The PCA presents a different picture from the average big-field event, considering roughly half of the 1,500-plus players have qualified online. Saul says he certainly adjusts his strategy to account for that.

“You can follow the real satellite qualifiers,” he explained. “I mean, I won a satellite, but I would have bought in anyway. Then you have the other people who wouldn’t have bought in. They probably satellited into a satellite and took a few steps to get there and you spot them and try to apply pressure to them.”

Madsen says he does the same thing.

“These guys are good, but a lot of them don’t have much live-tournament experience and they’re used to playing a lot of hands and playing really fast,” he said. “In that respect I’ll probably play a little tighter. They may be looking to push me around or play bigger pots, because online players tend to do that, so I’ll usually just play a little tighter and wait for things to come to me more.

“Especially because I don’t know these players and I don’t really know their style, I’ll take a little time to get to know the players at my table first.”

In the end, Madsen says even the biggest fields get pared down to size and you simply have to play your game and stick to your reads.

“You really can’t look at the whole tournament from the beginning or else it’s overwhelming,” the Full Tilt pro said. “You have to take it one hand at a time. No matter how big the field is, in a couple of days, it’s still going to get down to the money. So yeah, you take it one hand at a time and try not to think about how many people are in the tournament right from the start.”

To see how Madsen and Saul fare against the massive field this time around, and follow all the action from the 2010 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, tune in to PokerListings’ Live Updates.

High-Stakes in 2010: A Slow Start

After making over $8.9 million to earn the title as the year’s top earner, Patrik Antonius has been taking a break from the online high-stakes world. How long of a break he plans to take is unknown, but chances are you’ll see him back at the tables sooner rather than later.

As of this morning, Richard Ashby sits as the largest online earner of the year so far with just over $221k.

But in a virtual tie for first sits Brian Hastings with $220k. Hastings, who made an astounding $4.2 million in a single session against Isildur1 near the end of last year, could very well become one of the most prolific online players in 2010 considering the roll he's starting with.

Just like in 2009, Gus Hansen started off his year in the black, having earned almost $160k since New Year's Eve.

It won’t be surprising to see Hansen attempt to add to his profits while splashing around at the nose-bleed 7-Game tables over the next couple of months.

The two more players to have earned over $100k on the year are Di “Urindanger” Dang and geoff7878.

Topping the list as the year’s largest loser is Andrew “Browndog19” Brown with almost $300k in losses. In second place sits a relatively unknown player named bixiu, down $262k.

Other notable players to make the top 10 list for losses include Rafi “howisitfeellike” Amit (-$157k), Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies (-$107k), DIN_FRU; rumored to be Erik Sagstrom (-$94k), Eli Elezra (-$82k) and Cole South (-$78k).

With both Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan down in the Caribbean for the PCA, it might be a few more days before we see any real baller action online.

Below you can find three of the largest hands of the year, to see more hands from this year and last, head to MarketPulse.

$17 Million On the Line in Upcoming FTOPS XV

Set to run Feb. 10-Feb. 21, the series will offer $17 million in guaranteed prize pools with events in a number of poker variants including No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, Razz, H.O.R.S.E., 7-Game and Seven-Card Stud.

Notable events include the two-day $2 million guaranteed No-Limit Hold’em tournament on Feb. 20 and the $2.5 million FTOPS XV main event on Feb. 21.

Full Tilt will also offer Knockout, Turbo, Rebuy, Heads-Up and Cashout events in No-Limit Hold’em.

Hosts for the events have yet to be announced.

Players who can’t afford the FTOPS buy-ins will have the opportunity to take part in MiniFTOPS XV, which takes place just one month later from March 10-March 21.

Every FTOPS event will have a MiniFTOPS equivalent at 1/10^th the buy-in. MiniFTOPS XV will offer a prize pool of $6 million.

Full Tilt started the FTOPS in 2006 with a combined prize pool of $1 million. Since then the online series has blossomed into one of the busiest in the world with hundreds of winners crowned and main events with multi-million dollar prize pools.

The last FTOPS proved to be a memorable one as David Pham, Greg “FBT” Mueller and Chris “Genius28” Lee all won titles while online player zhivago2 outlasted 5,470 players in the main event to win $418,839.

For more information or to sign up check out Full Tilt here.

Steve “gboro780? Gross Wins CardPlayer Online Player of the Year

As 2009 came to a close, popular poker publication CardPlayer announced its Online Player of the Year (OPOY) award. The winner was New Jersey pro Steve "gboro780" Gross, who became the third honoree of the prestigious award, joining Alex "AJKHoosier1" Kamberis (2008) and Isaac "westmenloAA" Baron (2007).

Gross earned $1,216,413 playing online across the major sites in 2009 to accrue 10,188 points, the highest total since the CardPlayer OPOY rankings began in 2007. He started the year off strong, with a second-place finish in a $500 event on Full Tilt for $126,506 on January 18. In February, Gross won a $300 Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) event for $275,000.

Then in April, during the first-ever PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP), Gross found himself heads up in the $3,000 Mixed Hold’em event with Aussie superstar James "Andy McLeod" Obst. The confrontation was one of the most memorable of 2009, with McLeod coming out on top to claim the $184,000 first prize; Gross walked away with $128,000 for his runner-up finish.

Gross won 21 tournaments in 2009, but it was a fourth-place finish on Wednesday, December 30 that clinched the OPOY award. The result came in the $100 rebuy on Full Tilt, earning him more than $12,000 in his final cash of the year. Without any qualifying tournaments left on the schedule for the rest of the field to catch him, Gross wrapped up the title.

The OPOY runner-up was David "SirSands" Sands (9,420 points), who made a valiant push toward the top of the leaderboard in December. He won the Full Tilt $100 rebuy for $47,275 on December 20th and then a week later took down the $200 rebuy on PokerStars for $43,952. Sands' biggest score of the year came in May, when he claimed victory of FTOPS Event #10, a $300 No Limit Hold 'em tournament, for $259,440. While he came up short in the CardPlayer race, Sands' fantastic December helped him vault all the way up to number two on the PocketFives.com Tournament Rankings in the site's first update of 2010. DoylesRoom Brunson 10 member Chris "moorman1" Moorman holds the number one spot.

Thayer "THAY3R" Rasmussen (9,100 points), Moorman (8,464), Shaun "TedsFishFry" Deeb (8,290), Joe "hoodini10" Udine (8,052), Jeremiah "Believer82" Vinsant (7,994), Jonathan "shipitobv" DeLong (7,926), Casey "bigdogpckt5s" Jarzabek (7,776), and Dan "djk123" Kelly (7,724) rounded out the top 10 of the OPOY rankings. Kelly's $1,409,090 in earnings was the second most of 2009, trailing only Yevgeniy "Jovial Gent" Timoshenko, who won the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Main Event for $1,715,200. Kelly took fourth place in that tournament for $643,200.00.

In order to qualify for the CardPlayer OPOY rankings, players must enter tournaments with an average buy-in of at least $100, have a field of at least 100 players, and a prize pool of at least $100,000.

Chris Moorman (moorman1) Wins PocketFives.com Yearly PLB Title

DoylesRoom sponsored pro Chris "moorman1" Moorman stormed through the competition in 2009, capturing the Yearly PocketFives.com Leaderboard (PLB) title. In addition, he claimed the Monthly PLB for December, his second of 2009.

Moorman’s claim to fame during the year came in August, when the British online poker pro chopped a Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) $322 No Limit Hold’em with Rebuys event for $204,000. His second largest cash to date on the virtual felts came in April, as Moorman made the final table of a PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) event for $113,000. In February, Moorman was in the winner’s circle of the PokerStars $100 Rebuy for a cool $88,000.

Moorman was a beacon of consistency throughout 2009. In the first Online Poker Rankings update on PocketFives.com, which occurred on January 7th, Moorman sat at number two worldwide. Three weeks later, the youngster overtook Alex “AJKHoosier1” Kamberis for the Rankings’ top spot, a position that he held until February 25th. On that date, Steve “gboro780” Gross, CardPlayer’s Online Player of the Year winner for 2009, ascended to the top of the PocketFives.com Rankings, pushing Moorman back to second worldwide.

Gross had a stranglehold on the top spot in the Rankings until August 12th, when Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb overtook him. Deeb, of course, announced in mid-November that he was retiring from tournaments due to burnout. On September 23rd, Moorman was back on top in the same month that he officially became a member of the Brunson 10, the group of online poker players handpicked by Doyle Brunson to represent DoylesRoom. Moorman held the top spot in September for a week until the 30th, when Gross once again led the way.

On November 25th, Dan “djk123” Kelly stole the top spot from Gross just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. Moorman then ascended to the head of the class on December 30th, with the next Rankings update to be released on Wednesday, January 6th. The Rankings encompass tournaments with at least 100 entrants and prize pools of $1,000 or more. Each event must have a buy-in of at least $1 and only scheduled tournaments are tracked. Only non-satellite tournaments with real money buy-ins are counted across some of the world’s largest online poker sites like Absolute Poker, Betfair, Bodog, Cake Poker, Carbon Poker, Full Tilt, PartyPoker, PokerStars, Titan Poker, and UB.com.

On the PocketFives.com Yearly PLB for 2009, Moorman logged 20,850 points, comfortably edging out Kelly, who netted 18,606. Moorman’s largest score was 716 points, whereas Kelly’s single greatest PLB tally was double that. Gross took third on the Yearly PLB for 2009. Here were the final results:

1. Chris “moorman1” Moorman – 20,850.97
2. Dan “djk123” Kelly – 18,606.93
3. Steve “gboro780” Gross – 18,472.42
4. Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb – 18,061.15
5. Tony “D1rtyR1v3r” Nardi – 17,616.29
6. Kevin “ImaLuckSac” MacPhee – 17,514.48
7. David “Doc Sands” Sands – 17,354.60
8. Jeremy “daisyxoxo” Fitzpatrick – 17,167.12
9. Felipe “improved” Montenegro – 17,134.04
10. Ben “NeverScaredB” Wilinofsky – 16,323.68

Moorman finished fourth on both CardPlayer’s and Bluff’s Online Player of the Year leaderboards for 2009. He joined the Brunson 10 in September, becoming the fourth member of a talented group of players that already included Amit “amak316” Makhija, Zachary “CrazyZachary” Clark, and Alec “traheho” Torelli. In November during final table play of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, the Brunson 10 welcomed “2 Months, $2 Million” cast member Dani “ansky” Stern to its ranks. Stern was the youngest personality to appear on the G4 online poker reality show.

DoylesRoom happily accepts customers from the United States as a member of the Cake Poker Network. Other site pros include Todd Brunson, Hoyt Corkins, and “The Mad Genius of Poker” Mike Caro.

Moorman Takes Online Honors

The Brit, who plays under the screen name Moorman1, was ranked #1 worldwide on PocketFives’ list of online tournament players.

His online tournament wins in 2009 included $28,000 in a $65k Guarantee and $88,166 in a Daily $100 Rebuy in February, $39,750 in a $150k Guarantee in March and $52,950 in a Daily $100 Rebuy in September.

But in addition to online tournament scores, the PocketFives ranking system also incorporates a polling system to determine the top ranked players.

The PocketFives’ community, chock full of some of the best online players in the world, were asked to select the players that they believe will be successful in the future based on past performances and Moorman’s name came up often enough to push him into the #1 ranking.

He was also ranked fourth in both the CardPlayer and Bluff Magazine Online Player of the Year rankings in 2009.

Moorman has over $1.7 million in lifetime tournament earnings, including nine career titles and 148 cashes.

Belgium to Enact Laws Nationalizing Online Poker

Defying an order from the European Union (EU), Belgium has enacted laws that could have it become the next nation to nationalize online poker operations. It follows a similar stance towards online poker in Italy.

A recent article in De Standaard, one of Belgium’s newspapers, stated that the coming year would bring laws regarding the country’s stance towards online poker. The new regulations would purportedly nationalize the operations of online poker rooms by preventing outside companies, such as PartyPoker, PokerStars, and Full Tilt Poker, from being able to court Belgians. Online poker rooms would have to set up a separate operation that would be licensed by the Belgian government and located inside of the country, much like what Italy has done with its online poker operations.

This defies an order from the EU that was issued in June 2009. After receiving details on Belgium’s plans for online poker regulation from its government in March of last year, the EU decided that the plan violated several areas of the free trade treaty that all 27 member nations had signed. Some of the violations included requiring the operators of online gaming and poker sites to be based in Belgium, limitation of available licenses, criminal prosecution of customers who play on non-sanctioned sites, and restriction of services from outside nations. At the time, Belgium was also looking to use ISP blocking software to prohibit its citizens from playing on other licensed EU sites.

The EU has shown an inconsistency when it comes to nationalization plans. It allowed Italy to nationalize its online gaming operations, presumably for taxation and gaming regulatory purposes, but has disallowed other countries like Belgium and France. It also has been unable to come to an accord on the online gaming question among its own Member Nations, leading many countries to attempt to nationalize online poker for tax revenues in lean fiscal times. The government of Belgium also states that many of the online poker sites in existence have “ties to organized crime” and, as such, the need for the nationalization is necessary.

The online community is responding to this issue in many of the popular online forums. On TwoPlusTwo, a ten-page thread has developed with players are debating the issue. Part of the reason for its popularity is that one of the top online players in the game today, “Chiren80,” hails from Belgium and the proposed legislation would, in effect, remove him from international action with the threat of possible arrest.

Some of the discussion on TwoPlusTwo inaccurately says that the nationalized sites would still be part of the global network, much like different skins of poker rooms operate. This is not true; the nationalization of sites requires the online poker room to dedicate servers and operations to that nation alone, as PokerStars has done with its PokerStars.it site. With that operation, only Italians can play on the site and there are stringent rules that govern play.

The nationalization trend is, in some players’ minds, becoming a worrisome trend. “Nationalization of gambling environments and…the separation of player pools are real dangers for professional poker players in small European countries,” comments “Droschopf.” Another poster, “Sjors,” states, “I'm fine with regulating but don't cut off the world. Playing against people on the other side of the globe and having traffic around the clock is what makes online poker great.”

With the Belgian laws signed into effect, there is a great deal of pressure on the EU to formalize an agreement on online gaming and poker for the continent. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest.

Poker News in Brief: Dec. 28-Jan. 2, 2010

Essentially it was pretty quiet in the poker world.

Despite the lack of news there were still a few stories that didn’t make the front page and as part of our ongoing Poker News in Brief feature we’ve compiled them below.

This week we’ll take a look at a rising online star, UB.com making a deal with an NHL team, a huge payout on the International Poker Network and more.

UB.net Signs Deal With Calgary Flames

UB.net is getting put on ice.

The company announced this week it has inked a deal with the NHL’s Calgary Flames that will see the UB.net logo displayed on Pengrowth Saddledome’s boards throughout the month of January.

A tilt with the Toronto Maple Leafs on Jan. 2, 2010, will mark the debut of the advertisement for the free poker site.

To celebrate the Calgary collaboration, UB.net is giving away four pairs of tickets to the Flames and Ottawa Senators’ game on March 11.

To qualify players can participate in one of the eight daily UB.net online satellite tournaments with the top 100 players from each qualifier winning a seat into the Sunday main event scheduled for 15:00 ET.

Each main event will award two tickets to the Flames and Senators and $1,000 cash for travel expenses.

The promotion is open to Canadian and U.S. players. Check the UB.com website for more information.

XBLINK Closes In On $1 Million

In the spirit of Isildur1 and Martonas, UB.com has its own run-up story in the form of online player XBLINK.

According to PokerListings’ Online Poker Stars section XBLINK has made $741,864 playing No-Limit Hold’em in the past two months and consistently ranks in the top 10 biggest pots on UB.com.

What’s even more impressive is that TwoPlusTwo forum member 89blist outed himself as the aforementioned XBLINK and said it all started with an $11 tournament for the last of his bankroll.

XBLINK said he won the tournament and then went on the mother of all heaters, complete with some questionable bankroll decisions. He's no Martonas or Isildur1 but poker fans are starting to take notice.

SC Attorney General Appeals Poker Case

South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster has launched an appeal against a Judge’s decision to overturn a conviction of five Mount Pleasant poker players.

The incident occurred back in 2006, when the five players were arrested for taking part in a home game.

Circuit Judge R. Markley Dennis threw out the case saying that Hold’em in a private residence does not violate the state’s gambling laws. He went on to say that poker was clearly a skill game.

Now McMaster says that it’s irrelevant whether skill or luck is involved and that it was the legislature’s goal to ban all gaming for any amount of money in designated locations.

No timetable has been set for when the case will be heard.

IPN Awards €507,144 Jackpot

The International Poker Network, which is home to BetClic and PokerHeaven, awarded a €507,144 bad beat jackpot this week.

Online player 72osRocks! Saw his quad kings get cracked by Nogis22’s Royal Flush, which was enough to earn the entire table a huge payday.

72osRocks earned €177,500, Nogis22 picked up €88,750 while the other three players at the table each pocketed €29,583.

Despite the recent payout, the bad beat jackpot on BetClic and IPN is already back up to €146,469 as of mid-week. For more information check the BetClic website.

The Top Winners and Losers of 2009

Below are summaries of the top five money earners, and top five losers of the year, including a month-by-month graph of their results.

To see more stats and hand replays from throughout the year, head to MarketPulse.

Patrik Antonius

It only makes sense to have the year’s top earner at the top of the list, so without further ado, we bring you the 2009 story of Patrik Antonius.

Patrik Antonius just might have hit the life jackpot. He was at one-time a model and tennis pro, before becoming one of the most respected, and feared, poker players in the world. He made the list of the top 10 top profit earners in 2007 under the username FinddaGrind with over $1.3 million earned.

In 2008, he made another $1.3 million, this time as part of Team Full Tilt.

This January Antonius made over $2 million and never dropped below that point. His year was filled with million dollar swings, but in the end, the Finnish pro always found a way to come out good.

On top of being the most profitable player on the year, Antonius was also busy breaking the records for the largest pots ever played online. Despite all of his profits, Antonius has fallen behind in the durrrr Challenge and needs to make close to $1 million in the second half to have a chance.

However, he finished 2009 as the top earner with a massive profit of over $8.9 million.

Phil Ivey

This year Phil Ivey has done exactly what Phil Ivey does every year: Win. In 2008, Ivey was the top online earner with over $7.3 million in profit. In 2007 he was the third largest earner with $1.9 million and this year he ends in second place with $6.3 million.

His story is the same every year: Any players, any game, any stakes. He’ll sit, and most of the time he’ll win. But even Ivey isn’t immune to the swings, starting off the year in the red he had to spend a couple of months getting back to even.

After an $800k loss in May, it was pretty much profit from that point on. Add these winnings to his two WSOP bracelets, Main Event final table appearance and prop bets won, and you have one hell of a good looking year.

Brian Hastings

CardRunners pro Brian Hastings has had one of the most interesting years out of anyone online. He started the year with a backing deal for playing the nose-bleed stakes against Gus Hansen.

Even with Hansen bleeding chips for months, Hastings struggled to get even for the majority of the year, finally showing a profit come August.

Come the end of November, it started to look as though Hastings would be having a positive year, but nothing too spectacular, or worth talking about. That was until he sat down with Isildur1 for possibly the biggest session in online poker history.

By the end of the single session with the game’s most explosive player, Hastings had made $4.2 million in profit; effectively ending Isildur1’s run at Full Tilt’s high-stakes tables.

The win was steeped in controversy when information came to light that Hastings, along with two fellow CardRunners pros Brian Townsend and Cole South, merged their hand history databases together to allow for an in-depth study of Isildur1’s heads up game.

For the full scoop on this controversy, head to: Full Tilt Suspends Brian Townsend.

theASHMAN103

Ashton “theASHMAN103” Griffin is only 20 years old, and began playing poker seriously in high-school. His downfall has always been bankroll management and tilt issues.

After a series of massive swings he went broke right at the beginning of the year, but Griffin finally got his head in the right spot coming in to April of 2009 when he was forced to get a stake to get back in the game.

Thanks to winning a prop bet for making $500k playing nothing higher than $25/$50 No-Limit immediately before the event was set to start, Griffin was able to enter into the $25k heads-up shootout, which he went on to win for another $500k.

Griffin’s heater continued over the next two months going from broke to the fifth most profitable player on the year. To read a full interview with Griffin about his heater, and life in poker, head to: Ashman103: The Interview Transcript.

Ilari Sahamies

Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies is one of the most well-known and entertaining online players in the world. Above all else he seems to have a love for gambling with sick amounts of money.

For a few days, Sahamies had convinced a few of the nosebleed players to convert the $500/$1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha tables into $3,000/$9,000. Along with all the massive flips Sahamies played over the year, it’s safe to say he is the biggest gambler at the tables.

But despite his love for gambling, Ziigmund is still one of the most profitable players in the world. The occasional swing aside, Ziigmund’s graph is mostly un-eventful, hovering around the $2-$3 million mark for the majority of the year.

It wasn’t until Ziigmund set his sights on Isildur1 that his graph took a violent swing upwards. After taking a few million from the unknown player, Ziigmund finished his year up an impressive $3.2 million.

Isildur1

True identity still unknown, Isildur1 showed up on the poker scene Sept. 16. He splashed around in medium to high-stakes for about a month before starting to take shots in the nosebleed games.

The true story of Isildur1 started on Nov. 7 when he began his first serious upswing by crushing well known players like Haseeb Qureshi and UgotaBanana. After these wins, Isildur1 seemed fearless, willing to play anyone at any stakes.

Soon Isildur1 set his sights on Tom “durrrr” Dwan and over the next three days he absolutely destroyed him for over $4 million. At his highest point on Nov. 15^, Isildur1 sat with over $5 million in profit, only to lose it all, mostly to Ivey and Antonius, by the 21^st.

After making another quick run back up to almost $3 million in just one week, Isildur1 began his largest downswing.

It was during the downswing where Isildur1 shattered all the records for the largest pots of all time. He first broke the record with an $878k pot versus Patrik Antonius, only to break that record a few days later losing the first pot worth over a million at $1,356,947. 

Mostly a result of losing over $4.2 million in a single session to Brian Hastings, Isildur1 saw his roll get almost entirely crushed, sitting down over $2 million for the remainder of the month.

With his only hands being played at the medium stakes tables, it appears at this point as if Isildur1’s run at the highest stakes games online is through.

David Benyamine

In 2008, David Benyamine was the sixth most profitable online player in the world. He finished the year having made almost $3 million profit and had snagged himself one of the most beautiful girls in poker, Erica Schoenberg.

At the very end of 2008, Full Tilt Poker dropped Benyamine as a red-name pro. As a result, he began 2009 playing under the username “MR B 2 U SON”. He played under that username until July of 2009 when his Team Full Tilt status was re-instated.

At the time of the username switch, Benyamine was down $731,128 on the year. Things continued to get worse for the French pro as he struggled throughout 2009, finishing down $2.9 million. To top it all off, many sources have reported an end to his relationship with Schoenberg.

All in all, 2009 might just have been the worst year in Benyamine’s career.

LarsLuzak

Sami “LarsLuzak” Kelopuro is a 22-year-old Finnish poker pro who showed up on the high-stakes scene in 2007. He made over a million dollars in both 2007 and 2008, plus a rumored large profit from $250/$500 No-Limit sessions played on Betfair poker.

Despite hopes of cementing his name as one of the top players in the world, 2009 turned out to be a complete disaster for Kelopuro.

Starting the year with an $810k loss, Kelopuro was almost able to grind his way back to even in February before beginning a landslide of losses.

At no point in 2009 did Kelopuro show a profit, despite his continued efforts at the games highest stakes. After reaching nearly $4 million in losses on the year, Kelopuro disappeared from the high-stakes games, sparking rumors of a busted bankroll.

With a laundry list of impressive results from both cash games and tournaments, it’s safe to assume the poker world will hear more from Kelopuro in 2010.

Tom “durrrr” Dwan

Tom Dwan has to be considerd one of the most entertaining poker players in the world. As a result, there has been more time spent talking about Dwan in 2009 than any other online player.

His year began by losing over $4 million in the first two months, only to grind back up to over $1.4 million in profit just four months later. However, the massive swings were only one of Dwan’s many stories on the year.

The first came with the introduction of the durrrr Challenge. After almost two months of speculation and rumors, Patrik Antonius stepped up as the first competitor, and the challenge was underway.

After a short period of consistent play between the two competitors, the Challenge took a hiatus as both players chose to focus on busting a new fish splashing around at the highest stake tables available.

It didn’t take Dwan, and the rest of the online regulars, long to bust a new fish calling himself Martonas, and the challenge seemed as if it would resume.

But it wasn’t long before another new face showed up on the scene and began stirring the pot. Luke “fullflush1” Schwartz proved to be as strong at the table as he was mouthy, focusing the majority of his insults at Dwan, including the now infamous “cork it durrrrballs”.

Schwartz successfully made over $700k at the tables before cashing out, and buying a house with his profits.

The next big story for Dwan came with the third unknown player to splash around in the big game. Unfortunately for Dwan, this player, Isildur1, would end up taking him for over $5 million, before giving it all away to everyone else.

Shortly after losing the majority of his online roll, Dwan became the newest member of Team Full Tilt, and began grinding his way back towards even. By the end of 2009 Dwan had brought himself back to -$4.3 million from his November low point of -$6.8 million.

On the bright side, he is ahead in the durrrr Challenge by over $937k.

Gus Hansen

This year’s story for Gus Hansen is simple: He made $3 million in the first month, mostly off Tom Dwan, then proceeded to lose almost exclusively for the remainder of the year. Although there were months in which he showed a profit, Hansen’s graph on the year is anything but encouraging.

Due to his consistent negative results, Hansen has become one of the most popular online players amongst the other regular high-stakes grinders. As he explained in an interview with PokerListings, the high-stakes games on Full Tilt simply follow him from table to table.

As a result, Hansen chose to play almost exclusively 7-Game for the remainder of the year, at times killing absolutely all high-stakes action for all other variants.

For a look into high-stakes, and how some of the other players in the game view Hansen, head to: State of the High Stakes Poker Nation.

Eric Baldwin Joins UB

The signing comes just days after Baldwin secured CardPlayer’s Player of the Year honors with 6,994 POY points and $1.5 million in tournament winnings including a WSOP bracelet in 2009.

So far this year, UB has signed Joe Sebok, Billy Kopp, Brandon Cantu and Liv Boeree.

“I am eager to be a part of UB’s new brand direction,” said Baldwin. “I carefully weighed my sponsorship opportunities over the last couple months and after meeting with UB officials and the Team UB pros, it’s very clear that UB is the perfect fit.”

Baldwin has only been playing poker for a few years, but in that time he has built a reputation as an extremely talented player at both live and online tournaments.

He has already recorded victories at the WSOP, the Venetian Deep Stack and the WPT Five Diamond series.

Baldwin has also won a number of major online tournaments including the Full Tilt Sunday $750k Guaranteed, the Bodog $100k guaranteed and PokerStars Super Tuesday.

In total, Baldwin has amassed over $2.6 million in tournament winnings.

“Eric Baldwin isn’t just a new UB.com pro, he is UB,” said Annie Duke, UB’s cardroom consultant. “Eric loves the game more than anything else in the world, he plays to win, and he’s respected for his passion at the tables. We really couldn’t be more ecstatic to have the Player of the Year on our team.”

You will be able to find Baldwin on UB tables under the username "eric_baldwin." Online players at UB can use the site’s buddy list feature to find out where he is playing at any time of the day.

Full Tilt Suspends Brian Townsend

The allegations, which claimed Cole South, Brian Hastings and Townsend colluded to cheat Isildur1 out of millions, began almost immediately after Brian Hastings’ one-day $4.2 million dollar win against the unknown Swede.

The first public comments made by any of the accused came from an ESPN.com interview with Hastings and Townsend after Hastings’ big win.

According to Hastings, the three players worked together to understand and find weaknesses in Isildur1’s game.

"Honestly, I give most of the credit to Brian Townsend here. I mean, Brian is honestly the hardest worker I know in poker,” Hastings told ESPN.

“He analyzed a database of heads-up hands that Isildur1 had played and constructed ranges of what Isildur1 was doing in certain spots. The three of us discussed a ton of hands and the reports that Brian made, so I'm very thankful to him and to Cole as well."

When it comes to sharing hands and information on opposing players, Full Tilt’s terms and conditions are very clear:

“Full Tilt Poker defines an unfair advantage as a user accessing or compiling information on other players beyond that which the user has personally observed through his or her own game play” (from item #8 of the Full Tilt T&C).

Townsend has taken full responsibility for the infraction, and through his blog clearly explained exactly what his infraction consisted of.

“I had about 20k hands of play on Isildur and I acquired another 30k hands” wrote Townsend.

“Of the three I was the sole one to break the T&C of Full Tilt. The three of us never shared hands where mucked hands were shown besides a few hands I posted on weaktight.org, and in fact all the information I received could be taken from watching the game.”

In layman’s terms, Townsend combined his own showdown hand histories with another 30,000 hands from South and Hastings to run definitive reports and queries on Isildur1’s game, allowing detailed strategic discussions between Hastings, South and himself, which directly led to Hastings having the successful session he did.

"At that level, to be successful, you really have to take advantage of the little things," Hastings told ESPN. "They can help make the difference. That's why [analysis and discussion] is so important."

The actual breach of Full Tilt’s T&C’s is considered a relatively small one, which the majority of serious online players are assumed to commit daily using software or websites to acquire or view hand histories from hands they were not specifically a part of. These histories do not share any private information and can be found through multiple sources, including PokerListings' own MarketPulse section.

As a result, Full Tilt decided to suspend Townsend’s Red Pro status on the site for a period of 30 days. It is assumed that during this suspension Townsend will no longer receive any of the benefits or rewards from being a Red Pro, potentially costing the online pro thousands of dollars.

As for the allegations of collusion, ghosting and multi-accounting, Townsend denies all claims.

“Cole, Hastings and I live about 3000 miles from each other," he wrote. "I have never played on Brian H's or Cole S's account.

When it comes to the issue of conglomerating hand histories, Townsend said that is simply not what happened.

"I analyzed the database I put together, and the three of us chatted about my analysis, and optimal strategy against Isildur," he wrote. "Any discussion we had occurred away from the table when we were not playing a session.”

Townsend was first suspended by Full Tilt for six months in 2008 after he admitted to moving down in stakes and playing under a secondary username "Stellarnebula".

He at no time played under mulitple usernames at the same table, but it is against the site's terms and conditions to have more than one active account at any time.

As of the time of publication Townsend ($1.5 mil), South ($210k) and Hastings ($3.8 mil) have taken a combined total of over $5.6 million from Isildur1.

As a result, Isildur1 currently sits with over $2.6 million in losses on the year, and appears to have either lost his roll or spirit. The Swede's last session came Sunday, resulting in a $25k loss from games as low as $10/$20 Pot-Limit Omaha.

Poker News in Brief: Dec. 14-20, 2009

There were a few other big poker stories with Harrah’s releasing the official 2010 WSOP schedule and Mangas Gaming acquiring Everest Poker but for the most part the poker world has started to get quiet as the lead up to Christmas begins.

Fortunately there are always a few stories that don’t make the front page here at PokerListings and we compile them for you every week in our ongoing Poker News in Brief feature.

This week we’ll look at a PokerListings player winning a trip to Australia, another World Series of Poker Circuit winner, the Aria Poker Room opening its doors and more.

PokerListings Player Wins PartyPoker Aussie Millions Package

PokerListings player gimeyoursbr capitalized on an exclusive PartyPoker freeroll in a big way last week.

The 35-year-old Brazilian won a $15,000 package to the biggest tournament in the Southern Hemisphere – the 2010 Aussie Millions.

“I will try my best and see where it takes me,” he said after winning. “I am very excited about getting to know Melbourne and the nearby cities but once I am playing at the Aussie Millions I will be 100% concentrated on it.”

gimeyoursbr has been playing poker professionally for three years now and once hit the jackpot on PartyPoker for a large score. Suffice to say he’s a fan of the site.

“They are pretty good and getting big again,” he said. “That is terrific.”

PartyPoker is making a huge push to send players to the Aussie Millions this year with more than 27 packages already awarded.

Chris Klodnicki wins WSOPC Harrah’s AC

Poker pro Chris Klodnicki finally found the tournament victory he’d been looking for at the 2009 World Series of Poker Circuit Harrah’s Atlantic City main event this week.

Klodnicki outlasted 194 players to win $215,915 and a WSOPC ring.

“I feel great,” said Klodnicki. “I was having a pretty off year and this ended the year on a great note. I was starting to lose my confidence and this picked it up a lot.”

Noted online player Kyle Bowker finished in second place for $128,357.

Outside of a Borgata side event win, Kodnicki’s list of career cashes is full of second place and third place finishes. Klodnicki is perhaps most well known for coming in 12^th place in the 2008 WSOP Main Event for nearly $600,000.

Aria Poker Room Opens

Poker players have yet another place to frequent in Las Vegas as the multi-billion CityCenter development opened its doors for business this week.

The 61-story ARIA holds the development’s casino and poker room. The poker room offers 24 tables complete with a closed off high limits room. Players will find limits of $1-3, $2-5, $5-10 on a daily basis although the room will spread higher ones based on demand.

Other hotels at CityCenter include the 400-room Mandarin Oriental resort and the upscale non-gaming hotel Vdara with Harman boutique hotel opening late next year.

Bonus Blizzard coming to Pacific Poker

Pacific Poker is giving its players a reason to be jolly over the Christmas season.

The online room will be running its “Bonus Blizzard” promotion during certain hours from Dec. 16-22.

If players are at the Pacific Poker tables during the right hours they could potentially receive a bonus of $8 all the way up to $888 just for being there.

Players can keep an eye out for Bonus Blizzards in a countdown timer in the main lobby. There’s no limit to the amount of bonuses that players can win and players who are multi-tabling will have an even better chance at taking home a hefty bonus.

PartyPoker Introduces $25/$50 PLO Table

PartyPoker launched a $25/$50 Pot-Limit Omaha table this week in an effort to kick-start the high stakes games on the site.

The gamble seems to have paid off as the room has since added several other high limit tables to keep up with player's requests.

“Demand meant we recently introduced a new $25/$50 Pot Limit Omaha table but since then we have had to open up more tables for high stakes action,” said a PartyPoker spokesperson.

“We used to have big limit games but this is the biggest game we have had at PartyPoker.com for a long time. The high stakes action has picked up.”

UB.com Set to Run Bubble Buster Promo

Players who make the money in UB.com’s upcoming Ultimate Bet Online Championship 4 will have the opportunity to win up to $1 million in extra cash.

As part of the Bubble Buster promotion any player that cashes at least twice in UBOC 4 will have shot at winning anything from a seat in a $10,000 freeroll all the way up to a $1 million cash giveaway to a player who makes 11 cashes in UBOC 4.

With over $4 million guaranteed, UBOC 4 is the biggest online tournament series available on UB.com. The series will run Jan. 20-31 with the $1 million guaranteed $1,050 buy-in main event is scheduled for Jan. 31.

PKR Teams Up with Nuts and Loaded

PKR poker announced a partnership with IPC Media, publisher of mainstream UK men’s magazines Nuts and Loaded, this week.

Players on PKR poker will now have the option of playing their favorite games while being surrounded by images of women in the popular magazines.

Players will also have the opportunity to customize their avatars with Nuts or Loaded t-shirts.

Meanwhile magazine readers will benefit from poker trips from Team PKR Pro as well as trip reports from high stakes tournaments around the globe.

"We think that the collaboration with IPC Media is a perfect matchup of brands,” said PKR marketing director Simon Prodger. “Nuts and Loaded readers are spot on for us, and by having branded environments within our game, we offer them a unique poker experience."

Newhizzle Rocks PokerStars Sunday Million

Newhouse earned $245,897 for his efforts in online poker's biggest weekly tournament. The field generated an overall prize pool of $1.6 million and the top 1,260 finishers were paid.

The tournament drew a number of notable players including Chris Moneymaker, Amit “AMAK316” Makhija and Daniel “amichaiKK” Makowsky.

With 50 players remaining both Khan and Newhouse established themselves as the dominant players and would trade the chip lead several times leading up to the final table.

Neither player would carry the chip lead into the final nine, however, as online player rockyone123 held 28 million chips when the final table began. Newhouse was close behind with 19 million and Khan had dropped all the way down to six million chips.

Khan would bust early when he made an ill-timed shove with pocket jacks against rockyone123’s pocket kings. The kings held and the Team PokerStars Pro was out in eighth.

The strong play in the early stages of the final table would earn rockyone123 a spot in heads-up against Newhouse.

However, Newhouse had accumulated 57 million chips to rockeyone123’s 26 million by the time heads-up began.

In the end, Heads-up would only last one hand as Newhouse got it all-in with pocket jacks and rockeyone123 called with A-T. The jacks held and that was enough to secure Newhouse his first Sunday Million title.

Newhouse is best known  for winning the WPT Borgata Poker Open for $1.5 million in 2006.

The Chapel Hill, North Carolina, resident joins an elite crew of Sunday Million winners that includes Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Isaac Baron, Matt “ch0ppy” Kay and Eric “Rizen” Lynch.

Here are the complete final table payouts:

1. Newhizzle - $245,897
2. rockyone123 - $179,697
3. Raindrops_69 - $125,370
4. DeuceBuster - $83,580
5. dyplo - $66,864
6. tryones - $50,148
7. dylanmarks25 - $33,432
8. Hevad Khan - $18,387
9. Stev0L_ - $12,954

Poker News in Brief: Dec. 7-13, 2009

PokerListings was there for all the breaking news, but there were also a number of items that didn’t warrant a position on the front page.

Fortunately, as part of our ongoing Poker News in Brief feature, we’ve compiled a list of the lesser-known stories below.

This week we’ll look at Mark “Pegasus” Smith winning his fourth WSOPC title, Vanessa Rousso in a prominent men’s magazine, the main event of ECOOP V and more.

Fourth WSOPC Title for Mark “Pegasus” Smith

Mark “Pegasus” Smith made history this week by winning his fourth World Series of Poker Circuit title, tying him with Men “The Master” Nguyen for the most in circuit history.

Smith outlasted 566 players to win first place in the 2009 WSOPC Harrah’s Atlantic City $340 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em event. He took down $34,649 for his efforts.

The victory is especially impressive considering the 57-year-old Georgetown, Kentucky, resident only started playing No-Limit Hold’em four years ago.

“Five years ago I had never even heard of No-Limit Hold’em,” he said after winning.

Smith now has five final tables at five different stops on the World Series Circuit over the last year. His last victory on the circuit came just last month during the WSOPC Horseshoe Indiana event.

PokerListings Players Cash at ECOOP V

The European Championship of Online Poker V was held on the iPoker Network last Sunday.

Online player Shevmouse outlasted 1,050 players to take down the first-place prize of $331,065, but there were also several PokerListings players who made the money.

Playing on CD Poker, LUDOVC finished in 103^rd place for $1,891 while XxspeedskaterxX finished 118^th for $1,891. Finally, William Hill player zzz219 made $1,734 for coming in 128^th.

The total ECOOP V series awarded over $5.5 million over 14 tournaments in 14 days.

Vanessa Rousso Appears in Hustler

Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Rousso has made yet another mainstream media appearance – this time in Hustler Magazine.

Rousso was featured in an article called Poker Queen Shows Her Hand in which she shared some of her poker secrets. She did not appear nude in the magazine.

It’s been a successful year for Rousso, who finished runner-up in the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship, got signed by GoDaddy.com, appeared in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and won the PokerStars EPT Monte Carlo High Roller event for $749,467.

She currently sits fourth on the women's all-time live tournament earnings list with $2.3 million.

Haitao Wu Crowned GUKPT Champion of Champions

Haitao Wu won the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour’s final event of the year at the G Casino in Luton this week.

The Dundee, Scotland, resident overcame a field of 125 players to claim a first-place prize of £25,000 at the GUKPT Champion of Champions tournament.

The 30-year-old won his way into the tournament through a £500 side event on the London stop on the tour.

Wu, who often plays poker with his wife Kerry, was ecstatic after the win.

“Kerry has been very supportive, looking after our beautiful daughters when I have been playing,” he said. “We will have a great Christmas now and will be visiting China early next year, when my parents will meet (our daughters) for the first time.”

The 2010 GUKPT will begin with a £1,000 buy-in event in Bolton on Jan. 22.

New PokerStars Team Pro Tuesdays

PokerStars started a new promo on Tuesday where players will be actively rooting against members of Team PokerStars Pro.

Team Pro Tuesday will include two Outlast the Pros events where PokerStars will add $1,000 to the prize pool.

The $1,000 will be split between the players who manage to outlast every member of Team PokerStars Pro playing in that particular event.

“That makes for some interesting side rooting,” said Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu.

“If you are one of the big stacks, you’re obviously hoping that the pros stay alive as long as possible so that you can get a bigger piece of the pie. If you are a short stack, then you want to see the pros go broke!” 

Joe Cada Meets with More than 10 Lawmakers on Capitol Hill Visit

As the newest ambassador of the game, 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champion Joe Cada met with more than 10 Congressmen on Capitol Hill on Monday in a visit sponsored by the Poker Players Alliance (PPA).

Cada could be found speaking with Representative Linda Sanchez (D-CA), Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Representative Allen Boyd (D-FL), Representative Kendrick Meek (D-FL), Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN), Representative Candice Miller (R-MI), Representative Joe Barton (R-TX), Representative Dean Heller (R-NV), Representative Gary Peters (D-MI), Representative Shelley Berkley (D-NV), and Senator Carl Levin (D-MI). Cada hails from Michigan and met with his two Senators and local Representative throughout the whirlwind one-day affair.

PPA Executive Director John Pappas told Poker News Daily, “There were a number of really good visits with lawmakers like Joe Barton and Linda Sanchez, who are avid poker players, so they got to talk a little poker and a little policy. Throughout the day, he probably met another half-dozen members of Congress.” Congressman Heller brought Cada onto the floor of the House of Representatives during a vote, giving the youngster a unique opportunity to witness the democratic process first-hand.

On Capitol Hill, Cada and his entourage bumped into Senator John Ensign (R-NV) and had a five-minute long conversation. Ensign serves as the counterpart to Harry Reid (D-NV), the current Senate Majority Leader. On Cada’s parade around Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, Pappas commented, “He doesn’t have the recognition that other pros we bring do, but he's just becoming a face on the scene. He was great from our perspective. He wasn't here to do the hard sell on public policy; he was here to give a good face to poker and tell his story.”

Cada became the youngest WSOP Main Event winner ever at age 21 in November, eclipsing Peter Eastgate’s standing record by one year. Cada and Eastgate are both card-carrying members of Team PokerStars Pro, which also includes other World Champions like Chris Moneymaker (2003), Greg Raymer (2004), and Australian Joe Hachem (2005). A bevy of news outlets met with Cada during the day, including Politico, The Hill, and Roll Call, popular Capitol Hill publications.

On the future of Cada’s relationship with the PPA, Pappas told Poker News Daily, “When we do fly-ins and other events, we want to be able to work with him and have him be a face for us in Washington, D.C. We'd love for him to continue to promote the PPA to the poker playing community, particularly to the younger online players who look up to Joe. He recognizes the importance of what we’re doing.” Cada’s post-WSOP Main Event media appearances have included the “Late Show with David Letterman” and ESPN’s “SportsCenter.” He’s also featured on the current cover of Bluff Magazine.

Next up for Cada is a trip to Las Vegas, where he will donate a two-hour training session to the prize pool of the All In For CP charity poker tournament, which will be held at the Hard Rock. Cada told Poker News Daily, "The PPA really treated me like a champion and made my stay very enjoyable. It was awesome meeting various politicians, especially the ones from Michigan. I placed third in John Pappas' home game, which was a huge cash for me of $110. I'm looking forward to supporting the PPA in the fight. Next stop: Bellagio."

Next up for the PPA is a push to pass legislation to legalize and regulate online poker in the United States. Pappas revealed, “We've built a lot of momentum at the end of the year and anticipate a Committee vote on HR 2267 in late January or early February. Right now, we're focusing on the targets we need to get this legislation through.” HR 2267, proposed by Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA), provides a framework for online gaming companies to solicit U.S. customers. It boasts 63 co-sponsors.

Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest headlines from Capitol Hill.

Bernard Lee Recaps the 2009 WSOP Main Event Final Table

It was certainly a memorable World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event final table.  From Doyle Brunson announcing “Shuffle up and deal” to Joe Cada putting on the coveted bracelet, I was present in the Penn and Teller Theater to cover all of the festivities for ESPN Inside Deal.

Sadly, I could not play in the World Poker Tour (WPT) World Poker Finals Main Event at Foxwoods Resort and Casino.  The event has had significant personal meaning.  Not only did I have consecutive runs in the Main Event dating back to 2004, I also entered the 2009 World Poker Finals with three preliminary titles in the last three years ($5,000 in 2006, $2,000 in 2007, and $600 shootout in 2008).  I gave myself an opportunity to make it four in a row by making the final table of the $1,500 event, but I came up a little short, finishing in eighth place.  Oh well, I guess I will try to start another streak next year.

Nevertheless, the 2009 November Nine definitely had its share of memorable moments.  Right after the final table, I shared my thoughts with my radio show audience during my WSOP final table wrap-up, which lasted about three hours.  Guests included 2009 November Niners Darvin Moon, Steven Begleiter, and Kevin Schaffel, as well as recent Poker Hall of Fame inductee Mike Sexton, PokerNewsDaily.com’s own Dan Cypra, and Heartland Poker Tour announcer Fred Bevill.

The week after, I also produced an audio blog of the WSOP Main Event final table from start to finish.  Some of the interviews even included talks with players during the breaks to hear how they felt they were playing at the time.  If you would like to hear these shows or any past interviews with any member of the November Nine, you can download the podcast of “The Bernard Lee Poker Show” via iTunes or visit RoundersRadio.com.

Of course, congratulations to Joe Cada.  A year after Peter Eastgate broke Phil Hellmuth’s 19 year-old record for youngest WSOP Main Event champion, the 21-year old online player from Shelby Township, Michigan rewrote history once again by winning the $8.5 million first prize and the 2009 WSOP Main Event bracelet.  Cada went on a media blitz after his victory that included a ringside seat at a WWE event, appearances on several ESPN shows, and topped off with an interview with David Letterman.  I hope he continues to be a true poker ambassador during his reign.  Congratulations once again to our new WSOP Main Event Champion, Joe Cada.

Looking back, here are some of my additional thoughts about the WSOP final table:

1) Slow Early Play:  Based on the prize structure, I was surprised at how slow the play was at the beginning.  With the money difference between ninth and eighth only being $37,000 and the next jump being only $104,000, many analysts expected the short stacks to push early.  With players needing to finish in fourth place or better to at least double their guaranteed $1.26 million, I was even amazed that it took 59 hands to eliminate our first player.  However, after James Akenhead (ninth) and Kevin Schaffel (eighth) were eliminated, it took over 100 hands to dismiss Ivey from the final table in seventh place.

2) Atmosphere:  Unable to attend the inaugural November Nine last year, I previously heard all of the stories about the crowd excitement and noise.  This year, I got to experience it first-hand and it definitely did not disappoint.  Inside the Rio’s Penn and Teller Theater, the packed house was truly deafening and involved from hand one.

3) The Best Fans:  Many of the players brought their own cheering sections:

a. Schaffel: His fans wore white shirts that read “Schaffel up and Deal”
b. Moon: His family and friends had cut out faces of Darvin and shirts that read “Bad Moon Rising”
c. Saout: His cheering section wore France’s home team colors and chanted like soccer (or football as they say in Europe) fans
d. Ivey: The entire audience was cheering for him

However, the best fans were, without a question, Joe Cada’s gang.  Although there was a fight among their group, the majority of Cada’s group never let their guy down.  They cheered with every hand, sometimes even when he lost a hand.  One time, his group reacted so loudly that I was confused, thinking that he might have actually won the hand.  They really kept his spirits up and never let him give up.

4) Worst Bad Beat:  This year’s final table may be known as the Year of the Bad Beat.  Amazingly, every player eliminated from eighth place to third had the lead pre-flop and lost.  Here are a couple of the worst ones:

a. Schaffel versus Buchman:  Schaffel’s Ah-Ac got cracked by Buchman’s Kh-Kc when Buchman flopped a king and turned quads to eliminate Schaffel in eighth place.

b. Ivey versus Moon:  Pre-flop Ivey (Ac-Ks) had Moon (Ad-Qs) dominated, but Moon flopped a Qd.  Ivey could not catch up and was eliminated in seventh place, deflating his fans and the room in general.

However, the worst beat had to be when Cada shoved all-in versus Antoine Saout on the very first hand of three-handed play.  Saout’s Qs-Qh was poised to eliminate Cada’s 2s-2c; however, a 9s-7s-2d flop destroyed Saout’s hopes of the WSOP Main Event title.

5) Emerging Poker Star: Besides Cada, the one player that surprised many people was Antoine Saout.  An unknown player before the 2009 WSOP, this online qualifier final tabled the WSOP Europe Main Event final table prior to the November Nine.  Then, the second short stack ended up finishing in third place and could have been playing heads-up versus Moon.  Had Cada not flopped a set (see #4 above), the Frenchman would have brought a 110:70 million chip lead to the mono-a-mono battle.

For a limited time only (until December 25th), all PokerNewsDaily.com readers are invited to a special pre-holiday sale.  Click Here to receive a 20% discount for ordering my books, The Final Table, Volume I and II.  Both books make perfect holiday gifts for all poker fans.

Finally, in the coming weeks, “The Bernard Lee Poker Show” will interview two champions: 2009 WSOP Europe Main Event champion Barry Shulman and the Godfather of Poker himself, two-time WSOP Main Event champion Doyle Brunson.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful holiday season.

Since finishing 13th in the 2005 WSOP Main Event, Bernard Lee has cashed in numerous tournaments, capturing three titles and earning over $1.35 million.  He is the host of ESPN’s poker show, ESPN Inside Deal.  He is a columnist for the Boston Herald and ESPN.com and the radio host of “The Bernard Lee Poker Show.”  Listen every Tuesday night from 7:00pm ET to 8:00pm ET on 1510 AM in Massachusetts and also on 1510thezone.com and RoundersRadio.com.  The show is replayed several times during the week and also available on podcast. Visit BernardLeePoker.com for the latest news regarding Lee.

Chess Prodigy Checkmates EPT

At eight years old, Canadian Jeff Sarwer won the Under 10 World Youth Chess Championship in Puerto Rico.

By the time he was nine, he was travelling around North America taking on 40 players at a time in a series of simultaneous chess demonstrations, playing the world’s best speed chess hustlers in New York’s Washington Square and earning himself a lifetime membership in the revered Manhattan Chess Club.

He quickly became a darling of the media, was pegged by Grand Masters as a future World Champion and even became the inspiration for a character in the famed poker film Searching For Bobby Fischer.

But it all came to a crashing halt.

His father pulled him out of chess and the alternative lifestyle he had them living, including refusing to enroll Sarwer and his sister in school and having them sleep in the car as they travelled around, came under intense scrutiny.

Canadian authorities soon removed Sarwer and his sister from their father’s care, but they ran away to be reunited with him, spending the better part of the next 20 years in anonymity, traveling around Europe under a cloud of secrecy.

“I had a pretty tough childhood,” Sarwer said. “My father was quite controlling. But he was a really interesting character and there are a lot of good sides to him as well. As an adult I’ve just called it a wash and moved on with my life.”

In 2007 he resurfaced on the chess scene entering a tournament in Poland, where he now lives.

However, the 31-year-old was soon bitten by the poker bug.

“I’ve always loved poker as a game,” he said. “It has gotten so popular over the last couple of years it just finally grabbed me as well. Poker is all over TV, all my friends play. So I just figured let’s get into this, it’s a fun game.”

Sarwer read Harrington on Hold 'em by 1995 WSOP Main Event champion Dan Harrington and headed for Prague to play in the PokerStars European Poker Tour’s annual Czech Republic stop last year.

“I really knew nothing but the basics,” he said. “But I did manage to cash, so that was good for my confidence.”

The €7,000 he earned for a 54th place finish was just the start. By February of this year he had managed to make the final table at the European Masters of Poker event in Tallinn, finishing third for €29,760.

He booked a few small cashes in lower buy-in events across Europe and then this October, things really seemed to click as he absolutely dominated play at EPT Warsaw before busting tenth.

But Sarwer would not have to wait long for a real breakthrough.

Just a few weeks later he made the final table at EPT Vilamoura, finishing third for €156,170.

“I’ve developed and I think I just started to realize exactly what’s going on here,” he explained. “All I needed was a few good conversations with some really good players in order to get my game there.

“My confidence has always been up there. I believe in admitting I’m wrong when I’m wrong, but genuine confidence, I have that from chess and from life.”

When it comes to poker, it appears his chess background has given Sarwer a lot more than confidence. He believes there are several parallels between the two games.

“There are a lot of similarities and a lot of things that are different,” he said. “The things that are similar include having to pay attention, gather information and think a few moves ahead about what types of moves people will do, what your opponent is feeling and what he’s thinking. All that stuff is a little bit like chess.

“Certainly at a Master level, or a decent level of chess, there is a lot of meta game and that transfers over to poker for me.”

And while Sarwer’s poker experience is still quite limited, he has already grasped that the game is infinitely more intricate than it appears on the surface.

“In chess you can see things on the surface, look three or four moves deep, and eventually you are going to lose when someone traps you into something less obvious,” he said. “It’s the same with poker. You can just play ABC and not pay attention to what’s happening at the table and somebody is eventually going to catch you.”

While experience and a willingness to learn from others have played a big role in Sarwer’s recent success, he also attributes it to a newfound aggression.

“I’ve really opened up and become quite an aggressive player,” he said. “A lot of chess players tend to be a bit nittier and more technical. I just don’t happen to play that way right now because it’s not in my character.”

After an up and down day on the EPT Prague felt Thursday, Sarwer eventually busted, ending his string of deep finishes on the EPT.

But despite business commitments in Poland and the fact he claims he’s still just a “poker hobbyist” and not a professional player, it appears his new found love for the game will keep him coming back.

“I’ve made a lot of good friends amongst the online players,” he said. “They have that rare combination of being sharp, analytical and fun. The top poker players all seem to have that and I have a lot in common with that mindset.

“I love hanging around them. I’m nowhere near the top yet and I suppose it’s still too early to tell if I’ll make it there, but we’ll see.”

PokerStars EPT Prague continues with Day 3 Friday. For comprehensive coverage from the Czech Republic, tune into PokerListings’ Live Updates.

Online Poker Player ChicagoJoey Cracks 24 Hour Hand Record

Breaking a record that was only set a week ago, online poker player “ChicagoJoey” crushed the mark for most hands played during a 24-hour period and made some nice cash on the side to boot.

Back on November 25th, Russian online player “innerpsy” set the record for most hands played in a 24-hour period at a little over 40,000. This spurred other online grinders to try to top his record. It wasn’t until TwoPlusTwo poster ChicagoJoey, who plays online under the moniker “joeingram1,” announced his challenge on November 29th that the significance of the record became apparent.

In a thread, ChicagoJoey laid out the rules for his challenge and booked action on whether he could complete 50,000 hands within a 24-hour period. In addition to playing the required number of hands, ChicagoJoey also stated that he would have to show a profit for the session or he would lose all of his side bets. Only the hands ChicagoJoey played at the No Limit Hold’em or Pot Limit Hold’em stakes of $0.10/$0.25 would be counted towards the record and to ensure that it was him that was playing the entire time, the session was broadcast over the internet through a web cam.

Side betting action was laid at 2.5:1 that ChicagoJoey could actually pull off the trick and many posters on TwoPlusTwo took him up on it. By the time the wagering had ended, 26 people had bet against ChicagoJoey, with stakes ranging from $100 to $1,000. All totaled, ChicagoJoey was risking $13,180 to win $32,950 – in addition to the stakes at the tables – if he could pull off the feat.

Players debated on the forum whether ChicagoJoey could actually complete the task at hand and even put up side bets of their own outside of the action that ChicagoJoey was booking. The current record holder at that time, innerpsy, even showed up to comment prior to the action, saying to ChicagoJoey, “Beat: Playing this amount of tables of nl25 with 10ptbb/100 you still have lower $/hour than me runnin breakeven. Just joking, gl dude… I might be one of the few people who really realize how difficult it would be.”

On Monday at slightly past Noon, ChicagoJoey began the 24-hour grind and in the early going, the situation wasn’t looking good. After approximately 1,200 hands, ChicagoJoey was in the red, but he slowly began to grind his way back towards even. After approximately 5,000 hands, ChicagoJoey was able to get back into the black and never looked back from that point. After 12 hours of action, he was at just under 30,000 hands and showing a $375 profit from his play.

The railbirds at PokerStars, where all of the action took place and who verified all action, came to realize that ChicagoJoey was going to put innerpsy’s record out the door less than a week after it was set. The magic moment came after 20 hours and two minutes, when ChicagoJoey cracked the 50,000 hand mark and was ahead $850.35, sealing the new world record and roughly $33,000 in side action. ChicagoJoey continued on for another 470 hands before ending his marathon session up slightly over $800 over a 21-hour period.

ChicagoJoey, who is known in the online world as a strong online grinder, has now entered into a rare pantheon along with innerpsy and another online poker legend, Chiren. There is already a potential challenge from ChicagoJoey to battle against Chiren, who once booked one million hands in a month. As of this time, there has been no reply.

Many poker players haven’t played 50,000 hands in their lives, let alone in one day. Poker News Daily would like to extend congratulations to ChicagoJoey for setting the new 24-hour record, showing a profit from the session and his side bets and making the record one that will be difficult to eclipse.