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Poker News Round-up: Week #29 The November Nine So, after two full weeks of dealing out cards for the one same tournament at last we have a final table or so called November Nine for the WSOP main event. It was questionable how much of a success last year’s delayed finale was for anyone not squeezing every last drop of profit from the event i.e. ESPN and Harrah’s, but the concept might work a little better for this year’s line up of players. The process of hyping up November’s conclusion to the world championship event might be made easier by what looks to be one of the most accomplished final tables for many years, boasting a total of seven WSOP bracelets between them. That statistic is a little skewed in favour of one particular player, but there should still be plenty of interest in those not called Phil Ivey. Take for instance the logger from Maryland who holds a commanding chip lead but won’t be wearing any site’s patch as he says he has no interest in having any commercial obligations to anyone. Or the Cardplayer editor who says he will throw the bracelet in the bin if he wins in protest at his magazine’s treatment over WSOP media rights. Harrah’s won’t have been too impressed with those comments by Jeff Shulman but the potential PR nightmare that might ensue gives the rest of us an extra player to root for if only for the sake of a little schadenfreude. Also in the mix is young English pro James Akenhead who has made the final despite numerous setbacks on the way including running kings into aces within minutes of sitting down for the final day’s play. He will be the shortest stack when play resumes but just being there will surely go a long way to making up for the way he just missed out on a bracelet last year in horrible fashion to Grant Hinkle.  Player of the year Jeff Lisandro The crowd favourite across most of the poker playing world will be Phil Ivey, but seeing as he has the joint lowest number of hold’em bracelets out of all nine players it’s unlikely he will be able to muster up any sort of serious challenge. If he does manage to finish at least seventh though that will be good enough to seal number one spot on the tournament all time money list (although being Phil Ivey there is every chance that he’ll win a WPT or something in the meantime.) Determining the best poker player in the world is generally something of a fuzzy debate, but what we’ve seen this summer leaves little room to argue that at the moment it’s not Phil Ivey. That said, he will definitely not be the WSOP player of the year for 2009 even if he does win the main event. That accolade will go to Jeff Lisandro for his excellent performances in stud games which saw him collect an amazing three bracelets. One final note for now on this year’s WSOP is that Scotty Nguyen’s target of $4,000,000 if he wasn’t to give up playing poker for good was not reached. It was always an ambitious goal but the deficit of $3,966,322 makes rather embarrassing reading for the self styled prince of poker. Numbers at the WSOP main event were said to have been affected by the recent seizure of funds from payment processors in June, and whilst companies such as Account Services Corporation had little choice but to comply with the Department of Justice ruling at the time they are not taking it lying down. ASC has applied to a federal judge to order the return of the funds totalling around $14 million, claiming that the DoJ has acted with “callous disregard for constitutional rights.” Of course it is in ASC’s interests as a business to have this ruling overturned but they do also make a pretty good job of campaigning for poker players’ rights in general in a 40 page document which argues for poker to be treated as a game of skill. It’s nice to see someone standing up to these ridiculous money seizures and ASC’s actions have rightly been recognised by the Poker Players’ Alliance who say that they also intend to become involved in this action. There was some interesting news this week regarding the future of internet poker when Goldman Sachs issued notice to investors that it believes online poker and casino betting is set to become properly regulated and taxed in the USA. Although acknowledging that change will not be taking place quickly, consultants identified the gambling industry as a potential investment opportunity as they “believe it is logical to assume that the US market will eventually regulate – given the potential implications for US tax take if nothing else.” Interesting stuff, perhaps given extra merit when you consider that Goldman Sachs is thought to be pretty close to the Obama administration and was the largest single contributor to his election campaign funds. In the meantime things remain rather muddied for the online scene but that hasn’t stopped Full Tilt launching an ambitious world record attempt as part of their fifth birthday celebrations. On Sunday 19th July they will be hosting a tournament which they hope will set a new record for the most entrants in one event, with the aim being to get 50,000 runners. There will be added money thrown in by Full Tilt meaning that whoever manages to finish on top of the monster field will be getting a return of 9000 times the buy in for a $5 investment which will bump the ROI up nicely on Sharkscope. So if you fancy being part of a world record attempt set aside around thirty hours of Sunday/Monday and get over to Full Tilt or check out this link for more details.
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