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Poker News Round-up: Week #42Hello, hello, it’s good to be back as Gary Glitter once sang. Whilst any comparison between Glitter and myself should extend no further than that one line of his song, it is indeed good to be back in overcast Britain in front of the old laptop. There’s only so much lounging around the pool that’s fun before the desire to check raise a Scandinavian in the early hours of the morning takes over. These days you can’t read a paper or turn on the tv without hearing gloomy tales of the credit crunch and failing economies, so an important question at the moment is how much poker will suffer as a result of people generally having less disposable income. Well, it appears that we might be starting to see the first effects of global financial difficulties as Duplicate Poker has gone under, claiming that “caught in the middle of the global financial situation the company is not able to continue to provide service. We are a small victim of the global financial crisis.” It might equally be due to poor management or the fact that it was simply not quite enough of a good idea to survive and the recession is a handy scapegoat. However this will probably make other sites sit up and take notice nevertheless.  The Death Star-like Foxwoods casino Also feeling the pinch is Foxwoods Casino Resort in Ledyard, Connecticut. The largest casino in the USA has only recently completed extensive refurbishments and expansions including a larger poker room but is now having to lay staff off. Around 700 employees will be made redundant, with the casino blaming the weak economy. Michael Thomas, council chairman for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation which employs Foxwoods workers, said “although it has taken a few months, the recession's impact can now be clearly seen in our industry. Unfortunately, the time has arrived when we must face the difficult decision and align our payroll costs with current revenue levels.” So it seems the industry may well be starting to suffer, but on the whole poker has been a pretty resilient business. In the face of powerful opposition from the Senate and the introduction of the UIGEA, online poker is still going strong – where there’s a will there’s a way it would seem. And Guy Laliberte is still a long way from being busto so whilst he’s around games will always run. After the excitement of the WSOP Europe and EPT London you might expect there to be a lull in the action before next month’s WSOP main event final table, but big buy in events seem to be taking place almost every week these days for those ready to travel the world in pursuit of the latest million dollar payday. Most recently 454 players made their way to Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort in Ontario for the WPT main event with a buy in of 10,000 Canadian dollars (about $8400 US.) Having recently aced the Borgata WPT event Vivek Rajkumar for a while looked a good bet to make it a stunning double, leading the field of 27 into day four. His tournament came to an end though when his pocket aces turned out to be no good against Marc Karam’s flopped flush and Rajkumar exited in 16th place. Karam was able to progress to the final table where he was joined by four fellow Canadians on their home turf and Kathy Liebert from the USA.  The currently sober Gavin Smith Local regular at the casino Glen Witmer entered the final table as chip leader and just kept building his stack with several eliminations to put him in a strong position when he faced off against Gavin Smith for the heads up battle. Smith appeared ready to play a patient game hoping that his greater experience would prove valuable, but as so often happens it all came down to a race when all the chips went in pre-flop. Smith’s was looking good against Witmer’s until the river when the ace from space popped up to dash his hopes. All week Smith had been telling people that if nobody stuck a bad beat on him he would win this tournament, but it was not to be as Witmer claimed the title. The retired local adds over $1.2 million Canadian to his pension fund, whilst Smith is left to reflect on what might have been. To make matters worse he can’t even go and drown his sorrows as he is currently involved in a prop bet which requires him to not touch a drop of alcohol for six months if he is to win. This was a good turnout for the WPT event and having the local hero defeating the sponsored pro for the title makes for good publicity but it will take more than this for the WPT’s fortunes to turn around. The share price continues to languish below the one dollar mark which means that it is in danger of being de-listed from the Nasdaq. A new chief financial officer has just been brought in but the man who built MySpace.com, Thomas Flahie, has a tall order in front of him to turn things around in these turbulent times on the stock exchange. Meanwhile the kerfuffle in Kentucky continues as the appeal judge has upheld the ruling that poker related domain names can be seized within the state, giving site owners thirty days to block access to their sites in Kentucky. Now the likes of Pokerstars and Full Tilt must provide evidence that they have installed the capability to block access from anybody seeking to reach their sites based in Kentucky. Those of us based here in the UK can count ourselves fortunate that when it comes to gambling our government at least seems to have a reasonable understanding of the social implications. Whilst silly ideas like making happy hour illegal still somehow get beyond the phase where you expect the original proponent to wink and reveal that they were only jesting, we are at least left to play a game of poker like grown ups. And speaking of which, it is time for another UK tour event with the GUKPT stopping in Thanet. Men Of Kent will be aware of the concept that Thanet is actually a collection of several towns and villages, whilst Kentish Men and beyond have been scratching their heads and wondering where on Earth it is. Despite any confusion over its location, so far the attendance seems to be pretty good so someone will be walking away with a decent prize by the end of the weekend. Further details to follow next week.
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