July 20 2012, Brett Collson
If you’re looking for Friday’s top poker stories to get your weekend started off right, then you’ve come to the right place. In this edition of the Nightly Turbo, we’re covering the South Point Casino’s big plans in Nevada, the latest winners from PokerStars’ MicroMillions II, and more.
In Case You Missed It
How was the high-stakes action at the PokerStars tables this week? Read the Online Railbird Report to find out the week’s biggest winners and losers.
The Race Is On
The South Point Casino is poised to launch the first licensed real-money online poker site in the United States.
The casino, which created a free-to-play site last October, is set to meet with the Gaming Control Board next month to discuss recommendation for an operating license in Nevada. If approved, South Point will seek final license approval from the Nevada Gaming Commission.
South Point owner and CEO Michael Gaughan told eGaming Review that a real-money online poker site would be ready to launch as early as September. Gaughan says his gaming platform has already been approved by an independent testing laboratory, meaning it can go live as soon as it is licensed to do so.
“We’re finishing up our second wave of testing and so far no problems,” Gaughan told eGamng Review. “I may not be the biggest or the best but hopefully I’ll have a head start by two or three months.”
Last month, slot machine suppliers IGT and Bally Technologies became the first companies to receive licenses to act as service providers for Internet poker operators. However, it could take up to six months for their technology to be tested by the board and the state. The providers also need to wait on partnering casinos to receive license approval from the NGC.
Read more about South Point Poker at eGR North America.
Small Buy-ins, Huge Prizes
We’re nearing the finish line of the PokerStars MicroMillions II tournament series. Through Thursday, more than 875,000 entrants participated in the first 72 events, with more than $4 million handed out over eight days.
Only 28 events remained going into Friday, which means Team PokerStars Pro Andre Coimbra is nearing the completion of his challenge. Coimbra played in all 72 events through Thursday, cashing in 16 of them for $318.68 – all while sleeping for about four hours per day. Coimbra has been updating his progress in a daily video diary:
Here’s a look at Thursday’s MicroMillions II winners.
PokerScout Tracks Play Money
For years, PokerScout.com has been tracking the real-money traffic of online poker sites around the globe. But this week, the popular site began following the most active play-money online poker sites.
Not surprisingly, Zynga topped the list by a wide margin. The social gaming giant boasts nearly 30 million users per month, and PokerScout reported an average of 120,400 players per day over the past week. Zynga has expressed an interest in real-online gambling once it is legalized in the U.S., but for now Zynga Poker remains the leader among the free offerings.
As of Friday afternoon, PokerStars was second with 24,800 average daily users. PartyPoker, 888Poker and the Merge Gaming Network rounded out the top five, respectively.
Here’s a look at the play-money sites being tracked by PokerScout:
RankSite7-Day Average
| 1 |
Zynga Poker |
120,400 |
| 2 |
PokerStars |
24,800 |
| 3 |
PartyPoker |
2,500 |
| 4 |
888Poker |
1,100 |
| 5 |
Merge Gaming Network |
320 |
| 6 |
ClubWPT |
300 |
| 7 |
Ongame Network |
270 |
| 8 |
iPoker Network |
140 |
| 9 |
Microgaming Network |
67 |
Check out the latest traffic rankings at PokerScout.com.
PokerStars Macau Expands
PokerStars has announced two new events to be included in 2012 Asia Player of the Year season. The Macau Poker Cup Championship will take place from September 7 through 16, and the inaugural APPT: Asia Championship of Poker is scheduled for Oct. 26 through Nov. 11. Both events will take place at the Grand Waldo Entertainment Complex.
The Macau Poker Cup Championship is the annual finale for Asia’s premier poker series and will feature a HKD $20,000 buy-in Main Event that has a HKD $4.5 million guarantee. Meanwhile, the much anticipated APPT: Asia Championship of Poker (ACOP) will feature a HKD $100,000 buy-in Main Event with a massive HKD $10,000,000 guarantee. The 17-day poker festival will have 18 official Asia Player of the Year events, including a HKD $25,000 buy-in ACOP Warm-up (HKD $5,000,000 guarantee) and a HKD $250,000 buy-in High Roller event.
“ACOP is the next evolution of tournaments in Asia,” said Danny McDonagh, director of live operations for Asia-Pacific. “This is an exciting step towards reaching the success of major international tournaments like the PCA, EPT, and WSOP.”
Here’s a look at the remaining PokerStars Macau schedule for 2012:
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2012
Jul 19
July 19 2012, Elaine Chaivarlis
In Case You Missed It
Jason Mercier has already given us a peek at his life before poker, but what about his journey to becoming a professional poker player? Find out all about it in the latest video from the Seat Open series.
The top two spots on the Global Poker Index didn’t change from last week, but the player in third moved up five spots thanks to a WSOP Main Event finish. Who is it? Check out this week’s Global Poker Index to find out.
Throughout the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event, Onnit held a Last Sticker Standing promotion, where the winner would win $5,000. Who pocketed the cash? Here’s a look at the details along with an interview with the winner.
High Stakes Cash Games on PartyPoker?
They gone.
On Thursday, PokerNews obtained a statement from PartyPoker regarding the removal of its high-stakes cash games.
“We have removed some of our super high stake games, this decision has been taken to make improvements to our poker ecology and in our players best interests. We believe this change will improve the action at our tables and is in the best interest of the poker room as a whole.”
The cash games that have been removed include all no-limit and pot-limit games with blinds of $10/$20 and higher, and fixed limit games with blinds of $50/$100 and higher.
If you want to find out more, head on over to UK.PokerNews.com.
Thursday’s PokerStars MicroMillions Update
The PokerStars MicroMillions II is in the home stretch. The online tournament series is scheduled to end on Sunday. Through Day 7, over $4 million has been paid out to players and there have been 807,430 entries.
And yes, Team PokerStars Online member Andre Coimbra is still working through his challenge of playing all 100 MicroMillions II events. According to the PokerStars Blog, Coimbra has slept 31 hours and 10 minutes, and has $296.23 in tournament earnings. Here’s his latest video diary.
Here’s a look at the 2012 PokersStars MicroMillions II winners through Event #65.
Einhorn and Frankenberger Play Poker for Charity
On Tuesday night, Andy Frankenberger and Big One for One Drop third-place finisher David Einhorn were among the attendees at the REACH Take’Em to School Poker Tournament in Manhattan.
REACH is a nonprofit foundation that helps students in underserved New York City schools get into college. REACH offers free Advanced Placement prep courses to students from 30 different schools to help them take AP courses and AP exams. According to BusinessInsider.com, almost 19,000 students have attended the REACH workshops.
According to BusinessWeek, the tournament was sold out three weeks before the event. Hedge fund managers and bankers were among the attendees who ponied up the $1,000 buy-in for the event. JD Capital Management LLC CEO David Rogers emerged as the winner, and Greenlight Capital Inc. analyst David Tepperman came in second.
BusinessInsider.com attended the event, and we must say, that’s one fancily-dressed poker tournament. Maybe we should be taking notes.
Doyle Updates Us on His Summer
After more than a month, Doyle Brunson has graced us with another blog. We can’t blame him for the wait, he’s “on the best heater” that he’s had in years. We’d probably do the same thing, but we’re not really familiar with “heaters” except for the kind that keep you warm in the winter, so on we go, writing away.
In his blog, Brunson tells us that the WSOP was “pretty uneventful,” that he didn’t really get into the bracelet race, and thinks the “tournaments are for younger players.”
He also says that Vanessa Selbst “is not only the best female player in the world, she is one of the top players, male or female.”
Brunson then reflects on his lost scooters (three scooters lost, all during the WSOP) and an interesting turn of events that occurred at the Bellagio one night.
“Some kid that looked like he might not be old enough to be in the casino walked into Bobby’s Room. He looked at all the cash and large denomination chips then turned back and walked to the door as if he was leaving. He made a quick spin and came back to our game and looked directly at me. He then looked again at the money, turned and went out the door where several players at a different game heard him say, ‘I’m going to come back with a gun and take that money.’”
Brunson being the old-school poker player that he is said that he told security if they let him get his gun from his car, he’d stay and keep playing. “I didn’t like the idea of being a sitting duck for some nut case,” Brunson wrote. (No, they didn’t let him get his gun.)
Read about the Bellagio encounter and the rest of Brunson’s summer in his blog on DoyleBrunson.com.
Hitler Reacts to 2012 WSOP Main Event Final Table
We know the “Hitler Reacts” meme is a little old, but that doesn’t mean old things can’t be funny – take Betty White for example. We’re not going to give you any details for the following video, the title says it all. Our only request is that you should watch it. Seriously.
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