November 28 2011, Brett Collson
The long Thanksgiving weekend is behind us, and we hope you (and your credit card) survived the second “Black Friday” of 2011. Plenty happened during the holiday weekend, including a settlement in Tobey Maguire’s Hollywood poker lawsuit, the retirement announcement of Congressman Barney Frank, and a new champion crowned at the World Poker Tour. We’ll cover those stories and more in the Nightly Turbo.
In Case You Missed It
John Stolzmann won the World Poker Tour World Poker Open in 2005 for $1.49 million. What has he been up to since? We caught up with Stolzmann to find out in the latest edition of Where Are They Now.
How did the Sunday Majors play out on PokerStars? Who took home the biggest win? Find out in the Sunday Briefing.
Phil Collins is coming off a fifth-place finish at the World Series of Poker Main Event. We asked him about some of his favorite hobbies away from the table in the latest Off The Felt piece.
When did Team PokerStars Pro André Akkari get his big break in poker? Find out that and more in the second part of Seat Open with André Akkari.
Tobey Maguire Settles Hollywood Poker Lawsuit
Earlier this year, Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire was one of 22 people sued for their winnings in a high-stakes Hollywood poker game organized by a criminal Beverly Hills hedge fund manager. On Nov. 22, Maguire reportedly agreed to an $80,000 settlement with a bankruptcy trustee who is trying to recoup more than $30 million in lost funds, the Associated Press reported on Monday.
Maguire was being sued for more than $300,000 for winnings he earned from the invitation-only games organized by businessman Bradley Ruderman, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence for running a Ponzi scheme to pay off debts. Ruderman operated a wire-fraud and investment-adviser fraud scheme that lost investors $25 million, and then allegedly lost another $5.2 million in the high-stakes cash games trying to win the money back.
According to the Associated Press, 14 of the 22 people sued have agreed to settlements in their cases. Former High Stakes Poker host Gabe Kaplan also agreed to pay $26,900 after he was sued to try to recoup nearly $63,000 in winnings, according to the AP report. All of the money recouped will be used to repay the victims of Ruderman’s Ponzi scheme.
Read the full Associated Press story at the Washington Post.
Barney Frank To Step Down
On Monday, Barney Frank (D-Mass.) announced that he will not return to Congress for a 17th term in 2012. Frank, one of the major political advocates for the legalization of online poker, cited changes to the new congressional map as a major factor in his decision to step down.
“I was planning to run again, and then the congressional redistricting came,” Frank, 71, said at a press conference in his hometown of Newton, Mass.
During his time with the House Financial Services Committee, Frank has introduced several bills pushing for online poker legislation in the U.S. In his most recent venture, Frank served as a sponsor for Congressman John Campbell’s Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act (H.R.1174). The proposed bill was referred to the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security in June, but no action has been taken since.
Frank also recently testified on behalf of Internet poker at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing. He has arguably been the biggest driving force behind the legalization of online poker since the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was passed in 2006.
Read more about Frank’s retirement announcement at the Wall Street Journal.
Mohamed Ali Houssam Wins WPT Marrakech
Mohamed Ali Houssam bested a field of 246 players to win the “3,000 World Poker Tour event in Marrakech over the weekend. Houssam, playing in his home country of Morocco, entered the final day as the chip leader and emerged as the champion to collect $267,011 and his first WPT title.
The nine-handed final was stacked with well-known pros, including Team PokerStars Pros Jonathan Duhamel, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Arnaud Mattern. Grospellier (eighth place) and Duhamel (seventh place) hit the rail early, and Mattern was eliminated in fourth place when his ace-eight couldn’t improve against the pocket sevens of Maksim Martinov.
Martinov was sent packing in third place after taking a brutal beat to Toufik Ourini, setting up a heads-up match between Houssam and Ourini for the title. The two players began with nearly identical stacks, but Houssam secured the win by flopping a set of eights against Toufik’s top pair on the final hand of the tournament. With the victory, Houssam also received a $25,000 seat into the WPT World Championship at Bellagio in May.
Final Table Payouts
