ANZPT Adelaide: Day 1B, level 3 (blinds 100-200)

3.45pm: Gen Y is coming through

The local poker ranks are in a good state judging from the entry list for the PokerStars.net ANZPT Adelaide Main Event. It's pretty rare to have a local event without the "old guard" strongly represented but there's not an Australian Poker Hall of Famer in sight.

Winner of The Poker Star, Amanda De Cesare, is attracting her share of attention today

Instead, it's the new generation of players who are putting their stamp on the ANZPT, with the likes of 2007 APPT Macau High Roller champion Eric Assadourian, 2009 APPT Grand Final winner Aaron Benton and emerging talent like Julian and Hugh Cohen, Dean Nyberg and Amanda De Cesare who are taking centre stage today.

3.15pm: Familiar name near the top of the count

PokerStars.net Team Australia Pro Eric Assadourian is on a flyer having won a couple of big pots before the first break of the day. Assadourian first eliminated an opponent when he flopped quads on a board of Q-2-2-X-X holding pocket twos, then crippled another player when he got his money into the middle on a flop that read 9-6-4 with pocket aces, much to the horror of his adversary who tabled pocket kings! As a result of his rush, Assadourian is now on 56,500 in chips, but Mike Watson is still the man to catch, having reached the 70,000-chip mark after only two levels of today's flight.

3pm: Southern summer beats northern winter

Yesterday it was double trouble with twins, but in today's Day 1B flight, it's the North American invasion, with Americans Tony Dunst and Andrew Lichtenberger, as well as Canada's Mike sirwatts Watson all taking their seats.

The trio flew over together from Melbourne after playing the Aussie Millions - Watson (who won the 2010 Aussie Millions $1000 NLHE event) and Dunst (who runner-up in the ANZPT Adelaide Main Event to Karl Krautschneider) both played in last year's event, but for Lichtenberger, this is his first time in the City of Churches.

Mike Watson has enjoyed a relaxing, and profitable, trip to Australia

"I had a couple of extra days before I flew out, so I thought I'd come here and play some tournaments," Lichtenberger said. "Adelaide is a lot like my hometown; it's very suburban and not too much going on, but I like it here."

Lichtenberger has already built his stack up to 34,500 in chips, having just eliminated Australia's Dean Nyberg after flopping a set holding pocket tens against Nyberg's pocket queens. However Watson has shot up to the top of the chip counts with more than 60,000 in chips after crippling an opponent and then eliminating another opponent when he made a full house with pocket queens on a board of Q-[7s] [9s] [as]-7 against the opponent's [qs] [js].

"It's a lot better than the winter in Toronto," Watson said. "I usually stay down here for a couple of weeks after the Aussie Millions to get some sun and have a bit of fun hanging with friends, but I enjoy playing the tournaments here as well."

? Compiled by Sean Callander and Landon Blackhall

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ANZPT Adelaide: Day 1B, level 2 (blinds 75-150)

2.20pm: Poker Zone proving popular

Poker players can be a cynical bunch, so we've been thrilled to hear so many glowing reports about the Adelaide Casino experience during the Poker.net ANZPT Adelaide tournament series.

Friendly and professional dealers, clear and concise rulings from the floor plus quick and efficient food and beverage service are just some of the ticks of approval we've heard from players so far.

Adelaide might not have a Harbour Bridge or a Great Barrier Reef, but service and quality of experience cut plenty of mustard when it comes to players making a choice of tournaments on an increasingly packed calendar.

2pm: Quads again, and again, and ...

A roar has just split the air at the far end of the Poker Zone with Andrew adgee Jeffreys leading the cheer as players on table 10 celebrated the eighth set of quads so far today. That means they're averaging quads every 10 minutes. Just when you think you've seen everything in poker!

Andrew Jeffreys: Might be a while before he sees quads again!

1.45pm: 65 players take Main Event Field to 138

A few more notables have taken their seats today to take the day 1B total to 65 - Julian Cohen's brother Hugh is here (both are PokerStars Qualifiers), along with Tim English and Pana Flourentzou, who finished an impressive 11th in last year's APPT Grand Final in Sydney.

The action is slow and steady in the Adelaide Casino Poker Zone, but a heated conversation has struck up on Eric Assadourian's table: the subject of Anthony Gunning's elimination. Despite telling us he had pocket nines, one of Assadourian's tablemates said that if Gunning did hold that hand, he would have turned them up to confirm the cooler instead of mucking his hand after Assadourian tabled pocket fives for quads.

"I don't believe for a second that he had pocket nines," the PokerStars.net Team Australia Pro said. "He could have had anything - he had played every pot in the first 10 minutes of the day. He didn't show any aggression until the river on that hand, so I reckon he had 9-8 suited at best."

? Compiled by Sean Callander and Landon Blackhall

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El Diablo

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA


Why should I have sympathy for the devil?

What has that fucker ever done for me? Well, except get me laid, wasted, and led through a maze of debauchery, so much so, that I have enough stories to fill up four books and material for a few screenplays and an HBO mini-series. When I listen to the devil, I always get caught up in the most awful scenario possible. How bad? Imagine getting stuck in an elevator for 48 hours with Ted Kennedy but there's not any booze... or imagine a bad acid trip where you have to drive a busload of humorless Nazis and rabid political pundits through rush hour crosstown traffic and the only thing on the radio is the polka station. That's what happens when you hang out with the devil on a good day.

When you walk the straight line and follow the choir of angels into heaven, you find inner peace and eternal salvation. But isn't that.... dare I say... boring? I always pictured heaven sort of like having Easter Sunday brunch at Tavern on the Green with your grandparents. Everyone is well dressed, the culinary choices are delectable, but the conversation seems too stifled and everyone around you is stiff as shit.

Hell is a whorehouse in Tijuana with cockroaches crawling over piss-warm beers, hookers older than Joan Rivers, Coldplay screeching on the jukebox, a midget eating a jar of pickled eggs, and a bandito in the corner fondling a butcher knife.

That's the beauty about life. Someone might find Tavern on the Green as a personal hell, while others hope to God that heaven is a brothel south of the border.

Who knows for sure? That's why you play the game. Why waste time and energy worrying about the big questions in life? What's the point?

We're born. We live. We die.

We do a lot of stupid shit in the middle and blow most of our slave wages on useless material crap. But that's the point. It's what you do with the little time you have that makes life worth living. Money isn't the root of all happiness, but it can buy you a lot of stuff to make you feel happy. And for some people, that's good enough.

If you're not a complete degenerate gambler, or a fucked up head case who is addicted to losing, or a lonely soul looking for conversation... then you play poker to make money. That's the point, right? To win enough money so we can keep playing more poker tomorrow. Next week. Next month. Next year. The good players can deposit $500 to a single site and run that up to hundreds of thousands of dollars while never having to reload. The shitty players get stuck digging into their personal wealth and savings to fund their poker hobby. Let's face it, if you're constantly losing at poker and don't blink twice to reload your bankroll, then poker is just another expensive hobby like hang gliding or golf. Those are the fuckers that I want to play against. Dotcom millionaires. Japanese industrialists. Trust fund kids. Son of a sheik. Heir to the Spork fortune. Colombian cocaine traffickers. Old school Texas oilmen. They are all white whales.

Did you know that Isildur is Swedish for whale? Maybe it's not. Babelfish is so unreliable these days.

I heard a story about a guy who lost his entire sporting goods business because of gambling debts. Wait, maybe that was a plot line out of a Sopranos episode? Who cares. Regardless, go to any GA meeting and you'll find some schmuck in tears who admits that he lacks have self-control. You wanna be cruel? Wait for him to get out of his meeting and ask him to flip coins for $100. He can't say no. That's why drug dealers hang out in parking lots of AA and NA meetings -- to drum up new business.

It's a fuckin' cruel reality that given the chance, any degenerate gambler would run up his spouse's credit card in order to make one more bet to get unstuck. Life longer losers roll away their rent money or have no qualms about fleecing Little Johnnie's college fund that grandma had set up. I say go for it. Bet it all on black. College is overrated these days. Why the fuck do you want to drop a quarter of a million to send Little Johnnie to Stanford where he'll end up a fascist frat boy with a penchant for date raping coeds snookered on Jell-O shots, or worse, he'll become a hash-toking-commie-pinko-eco-freak-tree-hugger?

Or how about this.... stake Little Johnnie at the tables. To hell with being a Little League coach or a Soccer Mom. How about teaching Little Johnnie how to play a wrap in PLO8 instead of trying to hit a curve ball? Online poker is a far more lucrative and a more exciting adventure than wasting money on an investment in one's education. Why send your kid to private school when you can send him to public school and fund his online poker account instead?

Right now, Swedish children as young as eight years old are sitting on seven figure bankrolls. These kids are fuckin' hellcats, sort of like Children of the Corn except with messier hair and designer sunglasses. How many 2nd grade drop outs do you know who have Swiss bank accounts?


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.

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ANZPT Adelaide: Day 1B, level 1 (blinds 50-100)

1.15pm: Quad-tastic start for Assadourian

PokerStars.net Team Australia Pro Eric Assadourian is off to a fantastic start and is already up to around 37,000 in chips after he claimed the first elimination of the day. We caught the action on a board that read [5h] [8s] [9c] [3d] [5s] between Assadourian and Anthony Gunning. He moved the last of his stack into the middle on the river, but Assadourian snap-called, tabling [5d] [5c] for quads! Gunning had mucked his hand, but told us on his way out that he'd made a full house with pocket nines - ouch.

PokerStars.net Team Australia Pro Eric Assadourian claimed the first scalp of day 1B

1pm: Assadourian, Watson highlight 1B field

PokerStars.net Team Australia Pro Eric Assadourian has taken his seat in today's flight, along with PokerStars Sponsored players Amanda De Cesare (winner of Australian reality television show The Poker Star) and 2009 PokerStars.net APPT Grand Final champion Aaron azzabentonaces Benton.

Popular Aussie young gun Andrew adgee Jeffreys is here, along with in-form duo Julian Cohen and Jackie Glazier, 2008 WPT Bellagio Cup champion Mike sirwatts Watson and local State of Origin representatives Fred and Sam Chaptini.

Dean dinjho Nyberg is also here today, looking to capitalise on his great performance in last year's ANZPT Adelaide series, which culminated in a victory in the $450 No Limit Hold'em preliminary event and a fifth place finish in the ANZPT Adelaide Main Event.

However Nyberg will have a fight on his hands today, as he's drawn onto table seven with fellow Aussie Tom Grigg and Americans Andrew Lichtenberger (18th in the 2009 WSOP Main Event) and Tony bond18 Dunst!

12.30pm: Time for the second innings

Welcome to day 1B of the PokerStars.net ANZPT Adelaide Main Event from Adelaide Casino. It's been another magnificent morning in the South Australian state capital, perfect for a stroll through the parkland that surrounds the city on all four sides.

Heading north across the River Torrens takes you through the main sporting precinct of the city, which includes Adelaide Oval and the Memorial Drive tennis complex.

But for a sporting tragic, the must-see is the statue of Sir Donald Bradman in Creswell Garden next to the Adelaide Oval. Arguably the most famous Australian of all, Bradman is to the game of cricket what Pele is to football.

Sir Donald Bradman is immortalised in Creswell Garden, just to the north of Adelaide's CBD

He lived in the same modest Adelaide suburban home for much of his life and contributed more than 40 years to South Australian cricket as an administrator. However, it's his batting record that earned him a spot in the annals of cricket history, with a career average of 99.94 - apologies to readers from non-cricketing nations, we're not even going to begin to explain cricket to you!

Sportsmen of a different ilk have started to file into the Adelaide Casino Poker Zone for day 1B of the $3000 buy-in Main Event, which will be under way in the next few minutes.

? Compiled by Sean Callander and Landon Blackhall

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MasterCard no good for Online Poker Deposits
[Digg]

MasterCard no good for Online Poker Deposits

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/do-or-die-poker/~3/W2GDImw57Lg/MasterCard_no_good_
for_Online_Poker_Deposits

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ESPN WSOPE Main Event Broadcast

ESPN WSOPE Main Event Broadcast

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/do-or-die-poker/~3/KeCPemo8_gA/

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EPT Berlin makes it easier to buy in

Remember the days when, if you wanted to go see a concert, you had to go stand in line or even camp out overnight to get tickets? These days, standing in line is passé. When you want tickets, you sit at your computer and pound on the keys until you have the seats you want.

Now, remember the days when you had to go down to a casino to buy into a tournament? Well, as far as EPT Berlin is concerned, those days are now a thing of the past, too.

PokerStars and Spielbank Berlin just inked a deal with Hekticket, one of Germany's leading online ticket sites. Now, anyone who wants to buy in can do so online with their credit card or a bank wire.

If you've not yet heard, the folks in Germany are building a brand new glass palace like the one you see above. That's where EPT Berlin expects to host the biggest professional poker tournament ever held in Germany. The event will run March 2-7, 2010. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 players are expected to show up, including 120 people who qualified on PokerStars.

To use the Hekticket service, simple head on over to http://tinyurl.com/ept-hekticket or call +49 30 230 99347 Monday to Friday 10am-5pm and 10am-4pm on Saturdays. The service is available in both English and German.

We'll see you in Germany.

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Online poker is not the only form of online
gambling

It has been a while since poker has become very popular online. Much has happened and changed since the online poker boom that occured between 2001 and 2005. For instance, more and more people have become part of the online poker show and as a result, more online poker sites have opened their virtual rooms to fill the need and give players the opportunity to play poker online, in the comfort of their own homes.

Obviously, online poker is not the only form of online gambling. There are many other ways that you can gamble online. Most probably, you have heard of at least some of them. Perhaps you have already tried them out too. If so, then you can tell me about your experience in the comments below if you wish.

Before I go and tell you about some of the gambling forms that are available on the internet, let me get back to online poker for a second.

Back then when I started with online poker (it was somewhere in year 2006), the poker was still on horizon. The number of online poker players was much lower than it is today. Ofcourse, some of them have already been playing as professional back then, but that number was much lower than it is today.

The same goes for online poker rooms. Some of them have been alive and kicking already. As I can recall, the biggest and most popular among them in that time was PartyPoker. The rest of the poker sites were very small in terms of market share and the number of online poker players that they attracted.

But as the time went on, the big PartyPoker lost its market share to other competitors such as PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. Perhaps cutting off players from United States of America had something to do with it?

To get back to other forms of online gambling: Online gambling sites have also been involved in a boom of their own. They have grown in number as well as in popularity among the players. This trend was noticed by many poker rooms as well. Many of them have complemented their online poker tables with online casino tables (PartyPoker is one example of that).In addition, poker players (and others) were now given an opportunity to try games like slots machines, blackjack, roullete, craps and video poker that were previously only available offline or in the real world.

I am going to let you decide for your yourself whether online gambling is a good thing or not, whether it is profitable or not (I can only tell you about poker: It is profitable if you have the necessary skills).

Me personally, I do not gamble a lot. Perhaps once or twice a year, so I am not really experienced in such things. But I did find a nice online casino gambling guide, which has lots of interesting information on online gambling in case you need it.

As always, make sure to stay in touch with me and good luck at the poker tables!

This is a post from: online poker guide - scatmann.net

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ANZPT Adelaide: Da Silva is da man on day 1A

The opening day of the PokerStars.net Australia New Zealand Poker Tour (ANZPT) has concluded with 40 of the 73 starters progressing to day two in the ANZPT Adelaide Main Event.

On a blisteringly hot Adelaide day, the best players from across the region chilled out in the Adelaide Casino Poker Zone where the day 1A field included a pair of PokerStars.net Team Australia Pros (Emad Tahtouh and Grant Levy, both of who were eliminated) along with defending ANZPT Adelaide champion Karl Krautschneider and top online performers Jonathan Karamalikis and Ben Delaney.

After seven one-hour levels, PokerStars Qualifier Bruno Da Silva finished atop the chip count with 85,275. Incredibly, two sets of twins lie inside the top 10 - Da Silva's brother Nuno (65,650) plus the Butcher boys Tod (76,775) and Ben (70,600).

ANZPT Adelaide day 1A chip leader Bruno Da Silva

ANZPT Queenstown runner-up Andrew Hinrichsen finished third overall on 71,175 with other notables to advance including Raemin Alexander (70,950), Jonathan Karamalikis (67,425), Matthew Pearson (45,725), Peter Aristidou (44,525), Daniel Neilson (44,400), Ben Delaney (33,600) and Steve Topakas (13,500).

Play continues tomorrow from 12.30pm local time (2am GMT) with day 1B of the PokerStars.net ANZPT Adelaide Main Event. On such a glorious summer's evening, a plate of seafood and a couple of Coopers by one of Adelaide's beaches sounds just the ticket. See you tomorrow.

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Bernard Lee Gets Sponsored by Foxwoods Casino

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA


Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut just announced a sponsorship deal with Bernard Lee, pro and co-host of ESPN's Inside Deal. That means when you see Bernard Lee playing in a live event, he'll be sporting a shirt and/or hat with the Foxwoods logo. In addition, he'll be the acting as the official spokesperson for the poker room. Lee has been a regular player at Foxwoods since its opening in 1992.

Bernard Lee first made waves on ESPN during his deep run in the 2005 Main Event. Since then, he's done one of the better jobs at capitalizing on his initial "fifteen minutes of fame." He became a columnist at the Boston Herald and for ESPN.com. In addition to the Inside Deal, Lee also hosts his own show on Boston AM radio.

Interesting business decision from the Pequots, who are the Native American tribe who own Foxwoods. When Mohegan Sun closed the doors to their poker room in September of 2004, Foxwoods instantly controlled a monopoly on poker in New England. They didn't have to do anything marketing wise because the players came to them. They had zero competition until Mohegan Sun re-opened their poker room after a four year hiatus. And just recently, Mohegan Sun inked a deal to host a event on the newly formed PokerStars.net NAPT. Foxwoods had to come up with a creative way to market their room -- which is how the Bernard Lee sponsorship fell into place.

In a day when online poker rooms are constantly battling each other to sponsor pros (both live and online), it's rare to see a brick and mortar room sponsor a player. Scotty Nguyen and Cherokee Casino quickly comes to mind, but aside from Scotty, I can't think of any other players who are backed by a land-based casino. Foxwoods signing Bernard Lee to a sponsorship deal sets a precedent, so expect to see other casinos follow suit. This opens up the market to a slew of potential partnerships.

Will Harrah's, the Bellagio, or the Borgata eventually sponsor players? And which pros will strike gold with B&M casino sponsorships? I guess we'll have to wait and see.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.

Read The Full Article:
http://taopoker.blogspot.com/2010/02/bernard-lee-gets-sponsored-by-foxwoods.html

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