Poker News Round-up

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Poker News Round-up: Week #18

By Adam Noone, 04/05/2007

It was mentioned here last week that there was a possibility of the WPT championship event providing the first ever dual winner of the two most prestigious poker tournaments in the world, and that is exactly what happened when former world champion Carlos Mortensen took first place at the Bellagio last Saturday.

Kirk Morrison proved to be one of Daniel Negreanu’s more successful staking ventures as he tore through the final table, eliminating every other player until only him and Mortensen remained. Unsurprisingly then it was Morrison who held the chip lead but Mortensen is a fearsome heads up player and clearly has the experience of the big occasions. It is questionable how much that experience was worth though by the end as the blinds and antes had risen so high that on the final hand there was around 10% of the total chips in play in the middle before a card was dealt. It is a common criticism that the game becomes a crapshoot at WPT final tables and it seems a little strange that a big tournament like this is allowed to conclude in such a way. Mortensen was behind when all the money went in but hit a jack on the turn to eliminate Morrison and take the title.

Carlos Mortensen is the last World Series main event winner to have been a recognised professional player before the event itself, and when he won it in 2001 he had already taken first place at the Shooting Stars event at Bay 101 (now an event on the WPT calendar.) Since then he has picked up another WSOP bracelet at limit hold’em, and his latest cash for nearly $4 million means that he is now up to seventh on the all time money list with total tournament earnings of $8.4 million.

Quite some achievement for Mortensen then, but according to the North Carolina Court Of Appeals he has merely been lucky. The court ruled in a case that was appealed to it by a proprietor who wanted to open a poker club, and ultimately found that poker is a game of chance rather than skill. Despite a welter of evidence confirming the skill element in poker, the court decided that the evidence provided by the state was more convincing. That took the form of a lone witness from the state’s alcohol law enforcement department, who claimed that he himself had been playing poker for forty years and that during that time luck seemed to ultimately prevail in the game. He specifically noted a hand that he watched on television that had a 91% chance to win lose to a hand than only had a 9% chance to win. Conclusive evidence indeed.

Meanwhile over here in Europe, the EPT has decided to increase the buy-in for all events on the tour, with the exception of the grand final. Events for season three were either €4,000 or €5,000 buy-ins but when season four kicks off in Barcelona the standard entry will be €8,000. Last month the EPT final in Monte Carlo attracted a record field of 706 players, creating a prize pool of €6,636,400, and an extra day had to be added to satisfy demand for places. The rationale behind the increase shows that the EPT is continually growing in stature. Concerned about having fields that are too large for most European casinos to accommodate, the EPT decided to increase the buy-in to protect the integrity of each event while avoiding the hassle for players of having three or four separate day ones.

This weekend sees the Grand Prix de Paris take place at the Aviation Club who in all likelihood will not have to worry about getting too many entrants. Whilst there should be a few big names taking part in the €10,000 main event, it will be interesting to see what effect being dropped from the World Poker Tour has on the event.

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