Everybody knows California is broke. Is that why they are looking to the state’s million strong online poker players as potential tax revenue? The proposed bill would bring legislation to the world of online poker for Californians and (as proponents argue) make the game safer. Of course, it will give this troubled state economy a much needed boost.
The proposed bill (Bill SB 1485) is being held up by numerous dissenters including the Morongo Band of Mission Indians. Many Native Americans in California feel the bill will encroach on their tribal profits. As many tribes rely heavily on the poker economy, competition could jeopardize health and human services programs on Californian reservations.
Some of the details of the bill in its current form include legal prosecution for those who try and play poker on illegal websites, 20 percent of gross poker income being turned over to the state, all poker players being 21 or older and the [...]

I love taking the results of the 2010 WSOP Main Event and viewing it as the poker Olympics. The WSOP site calls it the world rankings but I see it more as the number of gold medals each nation has so far and who look to take home the title of best nation. Or should I say nation with the best poker players?
Well, here are the results and rankings as researched on the WSOP home page.

COUNTRY
RANKING
BRACELETS
PRIZE MONEY

America
1
32
$67,680,685

Canada
2
4
$6,897,918

United Kingdom
3
5
$5,783,278

Russia
4
1
$3,085,894

Germany
5
0
$1,732,629

France
6
1
$1,352,211

Hungary
7
2
$912,030

Sweden
8
0
$631,627

New Zealand
9
1
$629,056

Brazil
10
0
$621,846

It’s interesting that America has the most high ranked poker players. I mean it’s not like we have more people than the Chinese or more game playing history than the Europeans. Could having Sin City in your back yard really make that much of a difference? Or is it more likely professional poker is both encouraged and promoted in America as something to aspire to, a chance at a lucrative career and of course, getting to play [...]

The holiday is almost here and online poker always enjoys its busiest day on the Fourth of July. The summer holiday celebrates independence, freedom and for many, the world of online poker. Here’s a heads up on the promotions and specials offered by the major online casinos this 4th of July weekend.

PokerNews $1500 freeroll: Begins July 4. Apply before midnight June 30, 2010 Absolute Poker First Deposit Match up to $1200.
PokerNews $1500 freeroll: Begins July 4. Apply before midnight June 30, 2010 Ultimate Bet Poker First Deposit Match up to $1200.
Party Poker $200 freeroll: Begins July 4. Need 50 party points to register.
Noble Poker $250 freeroll: Begins July 5.  Need Bankrollmob account registration.
Carbon Poker $First deposit freeroll: Begins July 5.
Carbon Poker $100 freeroll: Begins July 4. Must be a Green VIP.
Carbon Poker $1000 freeroll: Begins July 4. Must be a Gold VIP.
Carbon poker $250 freeroll: Begins July 4. Must be a Bronze VIP.
Absolute Poker $1,500 [...]

I’m all in favor of the fans getting a say in the poker line up. The game of poker is so all about chance and skill that opinion doesn’t usually come into play. But for some of us, the professional poker players are celebrities in their own right, people that got famous for something other than looking pretty, being rich or being able to act or sing. Players are known by their skill and their fans are well aware of those abilities.
So when it was decided that the fans would vote for the players in this year’s WSOP Tournament of Champions to take place on June 27, 28 and July 4th. It’s the only time the fans have a say and the fans have certainly spoken.
Thousands upon thousands of votes were cast and the results as publish on the WSOP home page are as follows:

1
PHIL IVEY

2
DANIEL NEGREANU

3
DOYLE BRUNSON

4
PHIL HELLMUTH

5
CHRIS FERGUSON

6
ALLEN CUNNINGHAM

7
JOHNNY CHAN

8
SCOTTY NGUYEN

9
BARRY GREENSTEIN

10
JOHN JUANDA

11
ERIK [...]

Whether you are a Brit, an American, a Canadian, South American or European, your home country has brought home a bracelet and an event win at the 2010 WSOP tournament in Las Vegas. We’re just over half way through the poker playing event of the year so it seems prudent to have a look at the stats. Basically, let’s see which country leads in wins and who the top players of the tournament are so far.

EVENT NUMBER
WINNER
NATIVE COUNTRY

1
Hoai Pham
United States

2
Michael Mizrachi
United States

3
Aadam Daya
Canada

4
Michael Chow
United States

5
Praz Bansi
United Kingdom

6
Joshua Tieman
United States

7
Peter Gelencser
Hungary

8
Pascal LeFrancois
Canada

9
James Dempsey
United Kingdom

10
Men Nguyen
United States

11
Simon Watt
New Zealand

12
Matthew Matros
United States

13
Steven Gee
United States

14
Yan Chen
United States

15
Frank Kassela
United States

16
Carter Phillips
United States

17
Jason Dewitt
United States

18
Eric Buchman
United States

19
David Baker
United States

20
John Barch
United States

21
Richard Ashby
United Kingdom

22
Vanessa Hellebuyck
France

23
Dutch Boyd
United States

24
Jeffrey Tebben
United States

25
Sammy Farha
United States

26
William Haydon
United States

27
David Warga
United States

28
Miguel Proulx
Canada

29
Matt Keikoan
United States

30
Mike Ellis
United Kingdom

31
Konstantin Puchkov
Russia

32
Jeffrey Papola
United States

33
Jose-Luis Velador
United States

34
Harold Angle
United States

Clearly the United States holds the most gold medals or bracelets as [...]

After three days of play the women’s championship with over a thousand entrants comes to an end. Vanessa Hellebuyck won the heads up game against early chip leader Sidsel Boesen after seven hands of play and a pair of fives. This was Hellebuyck’s first bracelet and the first WSOP bracelet among French females. The winner goes back to her native land with over $192,000 in prize money.
Here’s the top ten placers for the ladies final as reported by highstakesnews.com:
1 Vanessa Hellebuyck   $192,132
2 Sidsel Boesen   $118,897
3 Timmi Derosa   $74,389
4 Allison Whalen   $53,994
5 Kami Chisholm   $39,860
6 Holly Hodge   $29,880
7 La Sengphet   $22,728
8 Bonnie Overfield   $17,520
9 Loren Watterworth   $13,688
10 Ronit Chamani   $10,833
Besides men entering the tournament to make a point, some professional female players boycotting, those who chose to participant seemed to have a great time. For a while it looked like La Sengphet would win doing well [...]

The event began on Friday June 11 and as I write this is still taking place. The championship had a friendly $1,000 buy in seeing a massive 1,054 entrants. Here’s a little background on some of the bigger names playing this four day girls only event.
Kami Chisolm: professional poker player from San Francisco, CA, Chisolm has six cash finishes and two first place finishes at the start of the event. From all accounts and sources, Chisolm has only been playing professionally for two years. As of this blog writing, she has made it to the final table of the Ladies’ event.
Sidsel Boesen: This Danish player has two cash finishes and one first place win to her name. Like Chisolm she only seems to have joined the professional ranks in the last few years.
Bonnie Overfield: 32 year old Overfield hails from Washington State and has yet to finish first in the professional events. She does have [...]

It’s the second full week of play at the WSOP 2010 main event and we still have five more weeks of professional poker playing to enjoy. I’ll get right to this week’s results.
The week started event 16 or No Limit Hold’em six handed with a three day schedule and a $1,500 buy in.  Over 1,600 players took part with Carter Philips of North Carolina taking home the first place win. Samuel Gerber of Switzerland came in second and Craig Bergeron of Michigan coming home third. It’s always nice to hear that some money is going to the car making state right?
Event 17 began Tuesday and consisted of a $5,000 buy in for a game of good old fashioned no limits. It was Jason Dewitt that pocketed the $818,959 in first place earnings and Sam Trickett of England who took home the half million dollar second place finish. Jeff Williams of Georgia took home a healthy [...]

It was quite a week in poker history for the first full week of the WSOP 2010 poker tournament. Here’s a run down of the results.
Praz Bansi from London, England took event 5’s No limit Hold ‘em tournament win home with a pretty new bracelet and over half a million in earnings. Vincent Jacques, the Canadian came in second and Alaska native Calvin Kordus came in third.
The three day No Limit Hold’em  Shootout started on Tuesday and lasted for three days. Maximum number of players was set at 2,000. The $5,000 buy in didn’t stop 358 from participating. This one went to the Americans with Joshua Tieman of Chicago, IL taking home the win with a total of $441,692.000 in his pocket. Second and third place went to the Brits with Neil Channing and Stuart Rutter placing respectively.
Event 7 was the 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball had a $2,500 buy in and had Americans (aka the [...]

This week saw the beginning games of the 2010 WSOP main event and as I write this on Sunday evening we are already into Event four of the most prestigious tournament around. With 57 bracelets to distribute, this is only the beginning. Here’s a recap of the action so far.
Friday was opening day and say 722 players sat down for the beginning of the $500 casino employee No limit Hold ‘Em tournament. By the close of action that first day there were only 53 that made it into the second day of play. 2008 winner Jonathan Kotula was one of my favorites and was in the high chip count with Kent Washington who was in first. Washington was far ahead of the others and looked good going back into battle. In the end it was Hoai Pham and his pocket Aces that took home the bracelet as his heads up opponent Arthur Vea lost it [...]