In the Casino de Marrakech this Saturday there were 137 people, with about the same amount of different languages, playing professional poker. The time had come for day 1A of the €4,250 + €750 Main Event of WPT Marrakech which was presented by the veterans Chilipoker.
The tournament’s two official languages are English and French, which most information also was given in. However, the universal language of poker needs no translation, as they say… Bets and raises are the same things regardless of what you choose to call them.
During the day, only 51 players managed to stay in the game. It was Germany’s Sebastian Homann that wore the halo that night, with almost 333 000 chips. Nicolas Levi, with almost 288 000 chips were the runner-up.
It is always fun to watch these initial games, not only because of their outcomes, but also because you can feel the atmosphere through the screen; the tension, the suspense, the hopes and the defeats.
Something quite extraordinary has happened within gambling, the last weeks. A bill that would regulate online poker has actually passed through a legislative branch in the US. The senate in New Jersey passed the bill of Internet gambling by a 29-5 margin last Monday.
“New Jersey is very serious about this,” Joe Brennan Jr. said, who is the chairman of the Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association. The association has been responsible for the lobbying efforts that the industry has made in New Jersey. “They want to be the capital of this industry in the U.S. and have the resources to make a legitimate claim to be the home for this industry beyond being the first ones to pass a law.”
Before it could become a part of the law, the bill has to go through the New Jersey Assembly and be signed by Governor Chris Christie. But it is still a big step on a long way!
The Full Tilt Poker high-stakes tables have a lot of spotlights on them these days. This weekend, they had a bit of a different feel than they usually do. Patrik Antonius became the big winner of the weekend, and Jared Bleznick must’ve also had a good time. They were both having a couple of profitable days, while online players “IHateJuice” and “luckexpress10” weren’t as pleased with how things went down.
Antonius was up almost $ 1 000 000 since Fri, and he got a lot of them by playing poor “IHateJuice”. They played a lot against each other, and Antonius were the one benefiting from it. Several of their combats were at the level of 2 000 dollars and 4000 dollars.
Antonius might be celebrating now, but both he and the man behind “IHateJuice” would do well to remember that things can change quickly in the world of online poker…
The World Series of Poker is coming up soon, and it is eagerly awaited to say the least. A new poker room has opened, with the classy name of WSOP.com Poker, which we really have high hopes for. Who could do poker online better than the World Series of Poker masters? Hopefully we won’t get disappointed.
More than anything, we hope and assume that it will be possible to win seats to the main event in this new poker room. It would be surprising to many, if that wasn’t to become an option at one point or another. The WSOP 2011 seems more glimmering than ever!
PokerNews – the parent of all poker news sites there are – is also hosting two freerolls (exclusive, 1 000 dollars) with WSOP.com Poker. Since PokerNews is the home of the live updates from WSOP, it shouldn’t be bad. Next freeroll is coming up November 30th, and after that there will be one in December as well. The prize pool of 1000 dollars will be distributed according to the standard payout structure from WSOP.com.
The famous “Durrr challenge” was resumed between Tom Dwan and Daniel Cates this Friday, in a 2 120 hand session. The pots were huge and the swings big, but in the end of the day the money didn’t actually move around that much – it was an even game.
Once Tom Dwan finally won, it was only by a margin of 13 000 dollars. Even though that may not have caused too much applauding, it was still a good day for Dwan, since he was down 212 000 dollars to Daniel Cates after just a little bit more than 450 hands.
It was not until late in the game that Dwan started getting lucky (or using his skill – reader’s choice). On the 1 913th hand, Cates managed to do what all people would hope for at that point – pull out in front by more then 90 000 dollars. However, the lead that he gained then, was overshadowed by the following two hundred hands…
I take this oppurtunity to post a clip of a classic heads up between Tom Dwan and Phil Helmuth:
I have been playing online poker for a couple of years now but I’m not that good that I can quit my day job. So while a practice my skills I decided to start this blog about interesting developments in the world of poker. Feel free to contact me if you have any interesting new or subjects related to poker.
