Poker News Round-up

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Poker News Round-up: Week #15

By Adam Noone, 13/04/2007

A massive field of 708 runners kicked off the Irish Open on Good Friday ensuring that the prize pool exceeded the 2 million Euros guaranteed by Paddy Power. Indeed this was the largest field ever to assemble for a tournament in Europe, each player coughing up 3,300 Euros to enter the main event. Many famous names had made their way to Dublin for the tournament including former WSOP main event champions and it was one of them, Carlos Mortenson, who was first to bust out when his aces were cracked just eleven minutes into the four day event.

Having won the Irish Masters EPT event last October, Roland de Wolfe seemed intent on making it a second win in Dublin as he pummelled his way to the final table, although his was only the small stack as play restarted on day four. Canadian Sorel Mizzi, well known amongst the online community as Imper1um, had a monster chip lead but could not convert it to a win as he exited in third place. The Irish unsurprisingly have an excellent record in this tournament and whilst the two previous winners had come from the Republic, on this occasion it was Northern Ireland being represented when the final heads up battle commenced between Marty Smyth and the seemingly indomitable Englishman Roland de Wolfe. The luck of the Irish was combined with some strong play by Smyth as he took first place for 650,000 Euros ($868,000) although there had been suggestions that a deal had been made prior to this.

It was stated in this column a couple of weeks ago that J C Tran was running hot at the moment, and since then he has done it again. This time he has taken first place in a $3,000 no limit hold’em event at the Five Star World Poker Classic at the Bellagio for another $272,000. Following on from his first and second places at WPT events in February and March, his total tournament cashes for the past 12 months now exceed $3 million. With two $5,000 events and a massive $25,000 buy in main event yet to come at the Five Star festival, Tran looks a decent bet to be further adding to that total before the month is out.

Party Poker was once the busiest online poker site around but took a massive hit in October last year when the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was signed into law. At the time it seemed uncertain if Party had any future at all in the online poker market as it decided to exclude American players. Traffic on the site dropped dramatically, as did its share price. Other sites similarly affected such as Paradise Poker and Doyle’s Room never recovered but Party was wise enough to find a new role for itself. By broadening the product base to cover other offerings such as bingo and backgammon, Party was able to stay alive whilst it focussed on new markets outside America. Since then, rather like Rocky Balboa or Hulk Hogan, Party has hauled itself from the canvas and grown stronger whilst those around it take their turn to suffer. When Neteller withdrew from the US, leading sites such as Pokerstars and Full Tilt experienced a significant decline in number of active players. Party has actually been getting busier during the same period, to the point where the number of players at cash tables is now comparable to early October ‘06 before the UIGEA was passed.

Further proof of their restoration to power came this week as Harrah’s announced a partnership and that Party Poker are set to sponsor the World Series Of Poker Europe. The first WSOP Europe begins in September and if Party were to run online satellites, the three events planned so far could become massive, particularly the £10,000 no limit hold’em. Watch out for further news on this one.

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