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Poker News Round-up: Week #15In 2006 the New England Poker Classic became the Foxwoods Poker Classic as the World Poker Tour added another event to its schedule during the height of the poker boom. Three years ago there were 431 entrants for this event and in 2007, despite the passing of the UIGEA, there were still 415 players in attendance. Since then it has been all downhill for the tournament and this week the field size was just 60% of what it was back in 2006 - only 259 players registered for the $10,000 event. WPT attendances have been in decline across the board in recent years but that doesn’t really seem to reflect the state of poker in general – the opposite is happening with the EPT which is seeing increasing attendances with every season, and the WSOP is still drawing in huge numbers of players. What appears to be happening is that with everybody trying to get in on the action the American market became flooded with a surfeit of big buy in events and now, thanks to the UIGEA and a faltering economy, some are falling by the wayside. At this time of year in 2006 there had been ten tournaments in the USA with a buy in of $10,000 or more, compared to just six so far in 2009. If it is a case of survival of the fittest then Foxwoods might well struggle to stay on the map for top class poker in future as it’s incredibly unpopular with many pros. Consider some of these recent comments:
 Foxwoods winner Vadim Trincher Daniel Negreanu is also boycotting Foxwoods altogether after a dispute over the money paid to him when he cashed in the World Poker Finals last November. Despite all this they did manage to get a tournament together, although some amendments had to be made to stretch the tournament out until the film crew was due to arrive on day six for the final table. That final started off five handed after a double elimination brought day five’s play to a close, leaving Vadim Trincher with a significant chip lead to take forward. Amnon Filippi then eliminated the other three finalists to go up against fellow New Yorker Trincher with a small lead, but the hands seemed to dry up for him at the end. Eventually calling all in with a weak top pair on a flop of Js 5s 5d Filippi would have been pleased to find that he was actually ahead, but it didn’t take long for Trincher’s flush draw to overtake him when another spade appeared on the turn. With no further help for Filippi on the river Trincher became the Foxwoods Poker Classic champion, collecting $731,079 for doing so. That now brings the regular season of the WPT’s seventh year to a close, leaving just the grand final at Bellagio at which Trincher and his fellow WPT champions will get seats to test themselves once more against the very best in the world in the $25,000 championship event. Not so long ago Party Poker founder Anurag Dikshit agreed to hand over $300 million to the US Department of Justice due to the activity of his poker site within the American market up to 2006. Now this week it has been the turn of parent company Party Gaming to cough up after agreeing on a non-prosecution settlement with the US Attorney’s Office as long as Party crossed their palm with $105 million. Despite the enormous sum involved it makes a lot of sense according to chief executive officer Jim Ryan who said “The resolution of our position with the US authorities marks an important day for PartyGaming. It has been a long and complex process but we have reached an amicable solution with the USAO that makes commercial sense for our business and is in the best interests of shareholders. We are now well-placed to seize organic as well as strategic opportunities that previously were beyond our reach.” By the sounds of it there is a fair amount of optimism amongst PartyGaming chiefs that the lucrative American market could soon re-open to them, and they are certainly not alone in that belief. Barney Frank, chairman of the US House Financial Services Committee and campaigner for the rights of online poker players, has been sounding very upbeat in an interview with congressional newspaper The Hill. He says that a bill to license and regulate online poker known as the Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act will be introduced “definitely in April” once Congress return from the Easter break. So is the end really nigh for the UIGEA? It isn’t the first time we’ve heard bullish comments from senior figures about how change is imminent, but it does seem that there is genuine cause for optimism right now.  Stinko_Mikko Despite the efforts of the Republicans online poker is of course still going strong which is just as well for Nick Rainey who is currently writing himself into the record books on Full Tilt Poker. Since March 18th Rainey has been sleeping for five hours a day, resting for one hour and frantically playing hundreds of sit and goes for the remaining eighteen in his bid to set a world record for the most games played in a month. Inside nineteen days he had beaten the previous record of 10,351, and whilst his regular ROI has understandably dropped during that time he has still managed to show a profit in order to also claim money he has invested in side bets on this. He is still clicking away as Stinko_Mikko pretty much any time you look on Full Tilt at the moment as he works towards his target of 16,000 for the month, and whilst his hand is probably deforming into an RSI riddled claw more and more with every day he can at least say he is a world record holder. As Roy Castle used to tell us – dedication’s what you need.
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