The Nightly Turbo: Mizrachi Teams With Breeder's Cup, AGCC Reviews FTP Mess, and More
If we've learned anything about poker players over the years, it's that most won't shy away from a charity tournament. Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi is the latest to organize a charity poker event, teaming up with the Breeder's Cup to benefit The V Foundation. Also in this edition of the Nightly Turbo, the AGCC is reviewing how it handled the Full Tilt Poker debacle, DoylesRoom has been bought out, and more.
In Case You Missed It
Phil Hellmuth went deep in yet another World Series of Poker event this week. In our latest Five Thoughts piece, we discuss whether Hellmuth has what it takes to catch Ben Lamb in the Player of the Year race.
How badly is the online poker petition lagging? It seems more people are interested in aliens than in poker.
Roberto Romanello entered Tuesday within reach of obtaining poker's Triple Crown. Read about it in our World Series of Poker Europe recap.
The WSOP Circuit has a new champion! Robert Castoire won the Horseshoe Southern Indiana Main Event, denying Mark "Pegasus" Smith of his sixth circuit ring.
Looking for a book to help advance your poker game? Check out our book review of Phil Gordon's Little Gold Book.
The Grinder And The Breeder's Cup
Former November Niner Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi has joined forces with the Breeder's Cup to host the First Annual Breeders’ Cup Celebrity Invitational.
The event, presented by the The Deepstacks Poker Tour, will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 2 at the Horseshoe Southern Indiana. Among the notables expected to participate are Mike “The Mouth” Matusow and2010 WSOP Main Event runner-upJohn Racener, as well as NBA players Brian Cardinal, Jermaine Taylor and Carl Landry.
Team DeepStacks Pros expected in attendance include Robert Mizrachi, Justin “Boosted J” Smith, Randal “Randallin” Flowers, Karina Jett, Tristan “Cre8ive” Wade and Team Pokerstars Pro David Williams.
The $230 buy-in charity tournament features unlimited $100 rebuys and one $100 optional add-on, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the Breeders’ Cup official charity,The V Foundation.
“Poker and horse racing are a natural fit as there’s action, excitement and high stakes in both,” Mizrachi said. “I’m really excited to host this event and to help connect the horse racing and poker communities.”
To register for the event or for more information, visit the Deepstacks website.
AGCC To Review Full Tilt Poker Debacle
The Alderney Gaming Control Commission wants to make sure similar blunders made by Full Tilt Poker never go unnoticed again. The AGCC says it will hold a review following the scandal involving the embattled online poker site, which still owes an estimated $330 million to customers.
The commission told the BBC this week that Full Tilt Poker continuously reported funds that were not available because of several problems with payment processors. Rather than audit the online poker site itself, the AGCC had trusted the numbers reported by Full Tilt's accounting department to be accurate.
Andre Wilsenach, the executive director of the AGCC, said in the BBC article that the organization intends to learn from its experiences: "We will certainly review our processes in the light of this particular experience and we might introduce changes if we find that there's things that we could do better from our side."
Read the full article at the BBC website.
CalShark.com Launches Worldwide
A California coalition of tribes and card rooms pushing for the legalization of online poker unveiled a free-play Internet poker site on Monday. TheCalifornia Online Poker Association (COPA), an organization consisting of 60 California tribal governments and card clubs, launched CalShark.com as its entry into the world of online gambling.
COPA is largely backed by theMorongo Band of Mission Indians and the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians near San Bernardino. The Commerce Casino and Bicycle Casino have also signed on as partners.
CalShark.com offers a variety of games to registered users from around the world. The site accepts no deposits and no credit cards and says it is for "instructional and entertainment purposes only."
“CalShark.com has features that most other online poker sites do not have including a no download/flash version to play on,” said Pierre Wuu, Director of Online Operations at COPA. “Our system allows the players to stay engaged, earn chips and be extremely interactive with other players and friends.”
California's hopes of an intrastate online poker bill passing in 2011 were quashed before the legislative year ended in September, but two separate bills might be considered in Jan. 2012 when the legislative year begins. COPA has been placing ads in support of online poker legislation, and the launching of an online site is another step in the right direction.
For more information, check out the CalShark.com press release.
GG DoylesRoom
DoylesRoom is no more. Nearly five months after Doyle Brunson terminated the contract with his namesake online poker site, Americas CardRoom acquired DoylesRoom as part of its relaunch into the online poker world.
America's CardRoom was one of the original online poker sites in the early 2000s and reentered the market on the Yahatay Network last month. With the acquisition of Doyles Room, Americas CardRoom acquired the rights to the player and affiliate database, the DoylesRoom staff, and its new software.
"We're very excited with the acquisition of DoylesRoom and the resulting expansion of the Americas CardRoom brand," said an Americas CardRoom representative. "DoylesRoom's new software that's proving to be a player favorite coupled with their recent success in serving US players made the company attractive for a takeover."
The full press release can be found at Casino City Times.
Online Poker Traffic Update
The online poker traffic numbers from last week have been released. PokerScout.com reports a modest 0.1 percent increase across the board, with eight of the top 10 sites seeing traffic bumps from the previous week.
PokerStars retained its stranglehold on the top overall spot in the rankings despite a traffic slip of 8 percent, but PokerScout reports the fall may be due to a tracking error. PartyPoker saw a rise of more than 7 percent, further increasing its margin over the iPoker Network for second place. 888poker and the OnGame Network rounded out the top five.
As for year-over-year numbers, PokerScout's ACES indicator reports that online poker traffic (with the exception of Italy) has decreased by 34 percent in the last year. The Cake Network has seen a 23 percent drop over the past year, while 888poker (up 107 percent) and Bodog (up 54 percent) have seen significant increases since October 2010.
Check out the complete online poker traffic report at PokerScout.com.
WSOP on ESPN
ESPN’s coverage of the2011 World Series of Poker continues Tuesday night with two premier episodes covering Day 7 of the Main Event. Last week's broadcast ended with 57 players left, including Erick Lindgren, Phil Collins, Ben Lamb, and poker couple Dave “Doc” Sands and Erika Moutinho.
Here's a look at a teaser of tonight's coverage:
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