November 10 2011, Brett Collson

Is Kim Jong-Il a feared poker player? Which two-time Olympic gold medalist is the newest member of Team PokerStars? We tackle those questions and more in this edition of the Nightly Turbo.

In Case You Missed It

Pius Heinz is poker’s new world champion. How is he feeling after Tuesday night’s marathon finale? PokerNews caught up with Heinz to find out.

Randal Flowers has two titles on the World Poker Tour, so he knows a thing or two about no-limit hold’em. Flowers discussed bluffing preflop in the latest Strategy with Kristy podcast.

Thinking about moving out of the United States to continue playing online poker? PokerNews’ Chad Holloway spoke with Shaun Deeb and Jonathan Aguiar about Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and what it has to offer poker players.

The Global Poker Index released its rankings as of Nov. 7. Erik Seidel hung on to the top spot, but Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier is gaining ground.

Greg Raymer Testifies in Poker Case

According to an article in The Virginian-Pilot, 2004 World Series of Poker Main Event champ Greg Raymer was in a circuit courtroom on Tuesday as the star witness in a court challenge that sought to make poker halls legal in Virginia.

Raymer was called on by the Poker Players Alliance to help prove the case of Charles Daniels, whose poker hall in Portsmouth was closed down in 2010 by Portsmouth’s commonwealth attorney Earle C. Mobley.

In front of Judge Thomas Shadrick, Raymer made a 15-minute demonstration showing that poker requires a high degree of skill. As such, Daniels’ attorneys argued that poker didn’t fall under the state’s illegal gambling laws in which an outcome is “uncertain or a matter of chance.”

Unfortunately for Daniels, Judge Shadrick was unmoved by his team’s testimony and ruled in favor of Mobley. According to the article, Shadrick “conceded that poker involves skill, but the evidence also showed that, while better players will win more over time, the outcome of each hand is still uncertain.” After the ruling, Daniels said he hadn’t decided whether to appeal.

Get the full story at The Virginian-Pilot.

Gold Medalist Joins PokerStars

Pius Heinz isn’t the only world champion to join Team PokerStars this month. Sweden’s Marcus Hellner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in cross-country skiing, was announced as the newest member of Team PokerStars SportStars on Thursday. Hellner will represent PokerStars at live events and play on the site under the screen name “M.Hellner.”

At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Hellner won gold in the 30km Cross-Country Pursuit event and the 4x10km Relay event. His dominance in the sport continued this year when he won gold in the Men’s Sprint event at the Nordic World Ski Championships.

Hellner took his first crack at the 2010 World Series of Poker where he competed in a three-part challenge against fellow Olympic cross-country skier Peter Northug. The two men battled it out in a head-up-hold’em match, a last-longer in the WSOP Main Event, and a roller-ski race outside the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. We even captured the race on video:

Hellner joins the likes of tennis star Boris Becker, field hockey player Fatima Moreira de Melo, and race car driver Gualter Salles as members of Team PokerStars SportStar.

Read more about Hellner at PokerStars.com.

New CEO at Betfair

Betfair’s search for a new chief executive is officially over. The online betting group announced Thursday that Paddy Power COO Breon Corcoran has resigned from his post in order take over as the CEO of Betfair in August next year.

Corcoran, 40, helped found Paddy Power 10 years ago and played an integral role in the company’s transition to online gambling. He was appointed to COO in August 2010 after spending the rest of his time there leading its non-retail and development divisions.

Corcoran will replace current Betfair CEO David Yu, who informed the company this summer that he will not renew his contract that expires next October. Yu has spent six years at the CEO at the company but has watched the company’s stock take a nosedive since it was listed in October.

“Betfair’s unique technology provides the company with a fantastic position in the online gaming industry and I believe it has a bright future ahead of it,” Corcoran said in a statement.

“I am very pleased to have the opportunity to lead the company and look forward to working closely with the Betfair team to grow the business further.”

The press release from Betfair can be found at Reuters.com.

Who Will Be at the PartyPoker.com Premier League?

PartyPoker.com and Matchroom Sport have announced the 12-player lineup for the upcoming PartyPoker.com Premier League Poker Mixed Game Championship. The $25,000 buy-in invitation-only event will take place from Nov. 13 through Nov. 17 at the Playboy Club London in Mayfair. Sky Sports will broadcast the show in the U.K., and the shows will then be distributed internationally.

The 12 players will be tested in three disciplines of poker – no-limit hold’em, pot-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha – and divided into two groups as follows:

Read more about the PartyPoker.com Premier League Poker Mixed Game Championship right here at PokerNews.com.

Kim Jong-Il: Poker Shark?

Political artist Nadia Khuzika painted a unique piece that caught our eye this week. The painting is of North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Il enjoying the finer things in life, holding a cigar and a glass of whiskey in front of a poker table. The text (written in Korean) reads “Viva Las Vegas.”

We’ll let the artist explain: “This propaganda painting represents the real Kim Jong-Il the rest of the world doesn’t get to see in the news. He might be fighting imperialist America, but he still craves some of the more wholesome aspects of American culture such as Elvis and the fine Tennessee whiskey of Jack Daniel’s.”

Khuzika’s boyfriend, whom she says is a professional poker player, posed for the picture pretending to be Kim Jong-Il. She writes that she’s also heard rumors that Kim Jong-Il is a very good poker player.

If you like this piece, more of Nadia’s work can be found at www.nadiakhuzina.com.

Meet the Hall of Famers

Barry Greenstein and Linda Johnson were inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame on Tuesday. PokerNews’ Kristy Arnett spoke with both after the ceremony.

Are you following PokerNews on Twitter? Like us on Facebook while you’re at it, and sign up for the newsletter. You know you want to.

Follow Brett Collson on Twitter – @brettcollson

November 10 2011, Donnie Peters

On Tuesday night, the newest member of Team PokerStars Pro, Pius Heinz, had his name ringing aloud in the confines of the Penn & Teller Theater at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino after he shipped the World Series of Poker Main Event and $8,715,638. We all know winners like to party, but Heinz was right back to work the following day answering the many of questions from the media. PokerNews was able to sit down with Heinz to discuss his run to glory. Here’s part one of the interview.

Pius, first off, have you slept yet?

Ah. [Laughs]. I did sleep, three hours, about.

Well that seems good enough. First off, let’s discuss the hiatus between July and November. We know you won a side event at EPT Barcelona. Could you talk us through how you felt the hiatus went, if you played a lot of poker and how you were preparing?

Yeah. For the most part, I just tried to relax and not think about it too much. I went to Barcelona and had a bit of fun there. I won a side event, which is always nice, and it’s always good for your confidence to win an event.

Other than that, I honestly didn’t do too much to prepare. I did a couple coaching sessions with Mike McDonald ["Timex"], who basically helped me about the ICM part of the game and the math aspect at a huge final table like that. But this is almost all I did when it came to strategy because I was so confident in my game and knew I could play really, really well and really good poker. I just thought that I was going to keep doing what I’ve been doing and it worked out.

It took you a little bit to finally win a hand on Sunday. Were you getting nervous or worried at all about things not going your way at the beginning?

I didn’t get nervous. I just got frustrated because I never made a hand, basically. I rarely had a hand. I did have aces two times, but other than that, I never made a hand. Especially post flop, I just could not flop top pair – ever.

And Martin [Staszko], I think, flopped good hands a lot of the time. So this was really, really tough for me. I just tried to not worry about it and play my game; play as well as I can and hope the cards eventually go my way.

Were you surprised at the pace of the final table or was it something you expected?

Yeah, kind of. It went reasonably fast. Once we got to 400K/800K, we had, I think, four or five stacks that were 20 big [blinds] or less. So then it’s almost like a turbo at this point. So then you’re going to expect people to bust really fast because people are going to have to start open-jamming and all these things. Overall, it went pretty quick. Especially three-handed play obviously went really, really quickly.

Did you use the 15-minute delay at all during the final table? Were your friends watching it and relaying you information?

Yeah, yeah they did.

What are some big moments that stick out in your mind? 

On Sunday, definitely the queens hand against Eoghan [O'Dea] where he put me in a really tough spot, I thought. I’ve read some about people giving their opinions on the hand, and I think that everybody’s basically dead wrong about it because I don’t think queens is an easy get in there. If you think about what his value range is, I’m crushed by that. It’s not a spot where you usually expect a player to barrel you a lot because my hand kind of looks face up and a lot of people don’t ever expect you to ever fold a hand like two queens there.

When you moved in with those two queens, did you expect him to call?

No. Well, I was hoping he would not call. Let’s just say I just cannot call the turn, and evaluate the river. That’s just not an option at this point because there’s way too much money in there. But yeah, I know that if he were to say ‘call’ immediately I would be crushed, so I was really happy when he did not snap-call.

Has everything sunk in yet?

[Laughs] No.

Not only are you are the first player from Germany to win the WSOP Main Event, you were the first player from Germany to make the Main Event final table. What was the reaction of your country leading up to the final table?

People were definitely interested in me. I had a lot of media requests, interview requests and all of that. I think now that I won, people are just going crazy over there. I’ve heard from friends who are getting called up by the media wanting to talk about me and all of that, so I think it’s going to be crazy.

Do you think this could ignite a poker boom in Germany?

I think the chance that this is going to start a poker boom in Germany is pretty good.

Winning the WSOP Main Event, you obviously have big shoes to fill by taking the title and becoming poker’s ambassador. Last year, Jonathan Duhamel, who is a fellow Team Pro at PokerStars, did a great job with all of that. How do you think you’re going to be able to handle everything?

I’m just going to wait and see how it goes. This is all really knew for me. I’m not used to that. It’s definitely going to take me a while to get used to everything. I’m just going to try to represent poker and PokerStars, who I’m really proud to be part of the team, as well as I can, and just be a great ambassador for poker for the most part.

Speaking of PokerStars, before the final table you signed as a Team Pro for Germany and you joined the likes of fellow Team Pros Chris Moneymaker, Joe Hachem, Joe Cada and Jonathan Duhamel as recent WSOP Main Event champions. Also, Daniel Negreanu and Barry Greenstein. How does it feel to be in this sort of company?

I’m really honored to be part of PokerStars, of the PokerStars team. I just think PokerStars is the best company in the industry by far, the most reliable, the most safe, the best people working there. I’m really, really happy to be working with the best.

What are you most looking forward to for the future? What are your plans?

Honestly, the thing I’m looking forward to the most right now is just going to EPT Prague and playing poker again. Also, not doing too much media as I consider myself a poker player and not a famous guy or anything. I’m just looking forward to playing again, basically.

The big question on everyone’s mind is how you’re going to reward yourself with the money.

I don’t know yet. I haven’t made too many plans about it because leading up to the event, I didn’t want to think about it too much, because I didn’t even know how much I was going to win anyways.

It’s better not to get ahead of yourself.

Yeah, just tried not to worry about it. I don’t know yet, especially for my family. They have a couple wishes where I can maybe help with some, so this is something I’m definitely going to do. For myself, I’m honestly not sure yet. I’m definitely not going to buy something ridiculous.

Do you plan on playing bigger buy-in tournaments like the $100,000 and $250,000 events around the world? Are those up your alley at all or are you going to stick to the $10,000 ones?

I don’t know yet. I think $10Ks seem about right for now. I mean $250K on one tournament is just pretty sick.

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Follow Donnie Peters on Twitter – @Donnie_Peters