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Poker News Round-up: Week #43Earlier on this year Anurag Dikshit agreed to pay the US Department Of Justice over $300 million in fines over Party Poker’s acceptance of American customers up to 2006 without really putting up too much of a fight. It’s an amount none of us can really identify with losing from the bank account but it might seem reasonable that he would be keen to start rebuilding the Dikshit millions following this massive hit to his finances. That doesn’t actually seem to be the case at all though according to reports this week. All of Dikshit’s shares in PartyGaming (representing 28% of the company) are to be sold off, but he will not be benefitting from a single penny of the proceeds. An initial £187 million worth have already been sold with about half as much again due up for sale soon. All of the money from those two sales will be passed to the Kusuma Trust – a charity which provides financial support and education to children in India, Britain and Gibraltar. Doyle Brunson had some harsh words for Dikshit earlier in the year when he effectively bought a peaceful life for himself, including a painstakingly unoriginal joke about his name, but it seems that if he has money coming out of his ears he may as well just pay up rather than spend years fighting the authorities. Besides which, Brunson might have been a little more grateful to the man who co-founded Party Poker which was at the forefront of the poker boom earlier in the decade. Without internet poker popularising the game there may never have been an Andy Beal or Guy Laliberte to pad the old pension fund. Following on from Ross Boatman’s win at the WPT Marrakech high roller tournament last week there was no such fortune for UK players in the €4,500 main event, in which none of the 54 paid places were occupied by players from these shores. With demand exceeding the initial cap of 350 players extra tables were found to accommodate an eventual total of 416, many of whom seemed to have made the journey from France. In fact over half the total prize money ended up going back to France despite a very flat payout structure, with only Poker Million runner up Eoghan O’Dea able to come between the French and a clean sweep at the top. O’Dea finished in second after getting his chips in with top pair when heads up against Christophe Savary’s straight draw, but the turn quickly gave Savary a lock and a new champion was crowned. As winner of the biggest tournament Africa has ever hosted he collects €379,014.  Markus Sippe wins in Dublin It might have been a much larger field yet if many other French players hadn’t decided to spend their holiday weekend travelling to Ireland for the Boylepoker International Poker Open which was running simultaneously in Dublin. An affordable $225 entry plus $25,000 added to the pool by organisers resulted in the biggest tournament ever held outside of the WSOP as 1400 took their seats at the Regency Hotel. As well as added money there were bounties up for grabs, although in order to be indentifiable the targeted players did have to suffer the ignominy of having to wear Sunderland shirts throughout the tournament. A strong showing from the host nation saw plenty of Irish representation at the final table although it was a German who walked away with top prize. Markus Sippe saw off the challenge of Jay Renehan to win $62,250, but despite taking first place claimed that he wanted to return next year and do even better – German perfectionism at its finest. The result of such a popular tournament in Ireland was that the latest leg of the GUKPT saw just 132 players stump up the £1,000 for the Thanet main event, down over 40% on last year’s attendance. Still, there was the opportunity to add chips to the starting stack of anyone due to appear at the champion of champions event later in the year so many of the tour’s usual faces were present. That included James Akenhead who added another cash to his resume as he completes his preparations before heading back to Vegas for the WSOP main event final table.  A thrilled Darren Annis celebrates Leading the way going into the final table was Darren Annis, although that lead had been lost by the time he got heads up against Jaffacake Jeff Kimber - a former winner of the world heads up championship. There’s nothing that experience can do to combat a timely suck out with a dominated hand though and a large slice of luck on the river restored the big stack to Annis. Soon afterwards Kimber called Annis’ all in bet and mucked without showing as Annis revealed his Broadway straight to finish matters off. After winning a satellite in the host casino to gain entry, a highly successful spin up results in a win of £41,900 for the Kent man who in somewhat bullish mood afterwards claimed that there is nobody better than him in Europe when he is playing well. Final tables at WSOP main event, WSOPE main event and Poker Million this year alone would suggest that a better case could be made for one of the other competitors in this event, but some people’s poker game feeds off their own confidence so perhaps this is not such a bad approach to take. Events to look forward to next week include the EPT Warsaw which is currently underway plus the $15,000 WPT main event at Bellagio’s Festa Al Largo. An unusual decision by tournament director Jack McClelland will allow late registration in this up until the ninth level on day two, so it will interesting to see just how many desperadoes fancy buying in for 37 big blinds with some money cobbled together at the last minute.
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