The Nightly Turbo: Phil Ivey Will Teach You to Play, EPT Announces Champion of Champions Event, and More
It was a busy day here at PokerNews HQ. There were so many news stories circulating, we weren't sure how we were going to fit them all into one article. For those of you wishing you could get poker lessons from the legendary Phil Ivey, that might not be a dream much longer - maybe. We'll tell you what we know, give you some information on the EPT Champion of Champions event, and much more in tonight's Nightly Turbo.
In Case You Missed It
Playing against good players and playing against recreational players requires different strategies. In our latest strategy article, Mike Ziemba discusses value betting against recreational players.
Zynga held its first PokerCon over the weekend in Las Vegas. In the latest PokerNews Podcast, the PokerNews Team discusses the event and cougars playing poker. If that's not weird enough, Justin Bieber also becomes a topic. For more, check out the PokerNews Podcast with Andy Bloch.
There has been quite the buzz on the poker forums regarding the "Portuguese Poker Prodigy." He has finally revealed himself as José "Girah" Macedo and here's a look at how Macedo established himself as an online poker player.
I'd Like to Teach the World...to Win...
If you didn't have the 1971 Coca-Cola commercial in your head, you do now. This has nothing to do with that. While we were Twitter stalking perusing TwoPlusTwo, we stumbled across www.philivey.com.
Our initial thought was that Phil Ivey had someone create a Web page for him that would be just like any other celebrity's page, complete with a biography, blog, tweets, etc. What we were shocked to find, was that it wasn't that. In fact, we were met with Ivey's intense stare and some boding music. After a fancy graphic of the world spun into the center of the screen, the words, "Now I'm going to teach the whole world to win at poker," popped up. That's it.
We wish we knew more. We'd like to state on the record however, that if Ivey's teaching, we're in. Until there's more news on this, you can find us working on our Ivey stare.
EPT Champion of Champions
The PokerStars European Poker Tour has announced the first EPT Champion of Champions tournament. It will take place at the end of season seven, the day after the Grand Final Main Event final table in Madrid. The invitational event will pit the EPT Main Event winners from seasons one through seven against each other in a special freeroll, for a chance to win up to €50,000 worth of EPT season eight event buy-ins.
There are four different EPT Passports up for grabs for the top four finishers. First place will receive a Passport valued at €50,000, second place will receive €25,000, third place will get €15,000, and fourth place will take home a Passport worth €10,000.
In all, 70 players will get this opportunity, including Noah Boeken for winning EPT Copenhagen in season one, Patrik Antonius for winning the Baden Classic in season two, Jason Mercier for taking down EPT San Remo in season four, and Liv Boeree who won EPT San Remo in season six.
The event kicks off on May 13 at the Casino Gran Madrid, and will be filmed for a future television broadcast, and streamed on PokerStars.tv.
For more, head on over to the European Poker Tour's website.
PokerListings Buys Cake Poker
PokerNews can confirm that PokerListings.com has purchased the Cake Poker Network. The deal, that sees the poker affiliate and media site take over ownership on the online poker network, and is close to being finalized.
The Cake Poker Network includes Victory Poker, Unabomber Poker, and OnlyPoker, among other online poker sites. DoylesRoom and LockPoker left the network last year, and Lee Jones, who was the card-room manager for Cake Poker, left last year, as well. The network came under fire in 2010 when PokerTableRatings discovered a security flaw that was similar to the one found on the Cereus Network.
Quite the Katch
Eugene Katchalov has joined Team PokerStars Pro. The 29-year-old pro will begin sporting the PokerStars patch at the Russian Poker Series in Kyiv, which kicks off March 26 and runs through April 3.
“I feel very fortunate in having the opportunity to represent PokerStars. It is the largest and, in my opinion, the best-run poker site in the world, with a great team of pros. I look forward to continuing my great run in poker and helping PokerStars successfully expand and evolve within the ever-changing world of poker," Katchalov said.
Earlier this year, Katchalov won the $100,000 Super High Roller event at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and just a few days later at PCA, he finished in second place in the $10,000 High Roller Six-Max event. He has a total of $6,104,132 in career tournament winnings.
“Eugene has always flown under the radar, but among his peers, his game is well respected and he is considered one of the best in the world, both in tournaments and cash games. I’m thrilled to see Eugene as part of the team. He’s a great guy and an excellent poker ambassador," Daniel Negreanu said.
Want to take Katchalov on at the tables? Sign up for a PokerStars account today.
Snowball Dodgeball
What better way to take out your frustrations from the poker table than by playing a friendly game of snowball dodgeball? Laura Cornelius got together with some of Team PokerStars' pros and decided to pit them against one another. Check out the video below for the winner, and Fatima Moreira de Melo turning into a bear.
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