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Poker News Round-up: Week #29Continuing a trend that has been running since Robert Varkonyi won in 2002, the WSOP main event has again been won by a player previously unknown to most observers. Since then Varkonyi, along with Chris Moneymaker and Jamie Gold, has struggled to post decent tournament results, whilst Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem have proved themselves worthy champions with some very creditable performances. New champion Jerry Yang had not made the money in a tournament of any note until he claimed the biggest prize of all this week, and whether he will eventually be regarded as a Varkonyi or a Hachem is of course impossible to say. He does already have some doubters though after one or two speculative plays at the final table, but Yang had decided that the way to win this was to play aggressively and as it happened his strategy paid dividends for the man from Laos.  Jerry Yang Yang took his seat at the final table as the second shortest stack, but started accumulating chips immediately by winning the first two hands, then early on put Lee Childs to the test for his tournament life when Childs held pocket queens on a 7 high unpaired flop. Childs folded, Yang picked up a huge pot, and shortly afterwards acquired the chip lead which he would never relinquish. By the time he had eliminated Philip Hilm and Lee Childs, Yang had half the chips in play and from that point on he had the stack to apply pressure to the others and know that even if he took a hit and doubled someone up he would still hold the lead. That sort of mentality enabled him to boss the table and Yang ended up knocking out all but one of the other finalists. The one who did not leave at the hands of Jerry Yang was Englishman Jon Kalmar, known as Skalie online. Kalmar started off with one of the better stacks at the final table, but seemed to struggle to pick up any big hands until he ended up racing his big slick all in pre-flop against South African Raymond Rahme’s pocket jacks. Rahme’s hand held up and Kalmar exited in fifth place for $1.255 million. Although this does rank as the biggest WSOP win in dollars by an Englishman, Julian Gardner’s $1.1 million for his second place in 2002 was worth more when converted to sterling due to a very different exchange rate five years ago. Had Kalmar managed to double up against Rahme, he would only have needed to hang on for a near certain fourth place finish which would have given him the record tournament cash of all time for a Briton, but John Duthie’s Bob Beamon like effort in the original Poker Million still holds firm.  Jon Kalmar With Kalmar out, Yang once again set about relieving his opponents of their chips and although he took a few hits along the way, Yang’s stack was big enough to see him through to claim the $8.25 million first prize. Even if it does turn out to be the only big tournament result he ever picks up, Jerry Yang’s life will certainly have been changed forever such are the huge lottery like wins on offer these days, not to mention the money he will pick up from endorsements. Meanwhile over at the Bellagio, a $10,000 WPT event was the highlight of the Bellagio Cup III festival which had been running for over a month. The fiercely aggressive online player Kevin Saul aka BeLOWaBOVe had amassed a huge stack of chips going into the final table. That aggression was nearly his undoing as he lost close to half his stack inside the first ten hands of the final, the majority of it going on a bluff with just a gutshot to back it up when up against pocket aces. Saul managed to regain his composure though and eventually beat Mike Matusow heads up to claim a sizeable first prize of $1.3 million. The saga of Neteller’s frozen funds and investigation by the FBI amongst others seems to be finally drawing to a conclusion which will release funds back to customers. July 13th had previously been given to customers as the target date for them to be re-united with the money that had been seized following an investigation by the US attorney’s office. That date came and went though, and whilst an announcement was made that Neteller would be removed from the FTSE index, the $60 million or so that American customers were hoping to see returned was not released. Co-founders Steven Lawrence and John Lefebvre have both now pleaded guilty to a variety of charges stemming from their involvement in the company, although at the time of their arrest, the two had nothing to do with Neteller. They both face up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000 and will have to pay a portion of the money the government is seeking from their former company. Sentencing for both men takes place in October. So now all 55 events of the WSOP are complete, the Rio is not the centre of the poker world for another year (although there was a rumour doing the rounds in Vegas that the WSOP won’t actually be at the Rio next year) but the tournament schedule rolls on elsewhere. The EPT season four begins in August, the WPT never actually seems to even take a break, and the inaugural WSOP Europe will arrive in September. Time to start playing those satellites again.
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