Alex Rodriguez’s appetite for poker has created problems for him in the past. He’s facing more scrutiny this week involving a charity poker tournament from 2006. We’ll bring you that story, plus the latest on Zynga’s real-money online gaming plans, in this edition of the Nightly Turbo.

In Case You Missed It:

Online poker was legalized in New Jersey on Tuesday. When will the state have real-money games up and running? Matthew Kredell spoke with Sen. Ray Lesniak to find out.

Day 3 of the World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic wrapped up on Monday. 2012 Octo-Niner Jeremy Ausmus was the only player to eclipse the 1 million-chip mark.

CardRunners instructor Daniel “Markuis” Marks is a heads-up no-limit hold’em specialist. In his latest free training video, Marks discusses meta game, adjusting pot-to-stack ratios versus habitual three-bettors, making reads, and more.

Jonathan Tamayo won the 2012-13 World Series of Poker Circuit Palm Beach Kennel Club Main Event early Tuesday morning. Get the full recap here at PokerNews.com.

Web-based show Game Theory has become quite popular during its first three weeks of airing. Chad Holloway spoke with director Aidin Nakjai to find out more about the show.

A-Rod’s Error

In 2006, New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez teamed up with celebrities for a charity poker tournament to raise money for the Boys & Girls Club of Miami. The event, dubbed the 2nd Annual Dewar’s 12 Hold’em Poker Tournament, attracted a who’s who of A-list artists and athletes, including Michael Jordan, Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, Lenny Kravitz, Vin Diesel, and Gary Sheffield. Phil Hellmuth was even invited to emcee and offer poker tips to the tournament’s 300 guests.

All proceeds from the tournament went to the A-Rod Family Foundation. When it was all said and done, the event raised more than $400,000 toward Rodriguez’s charitable foundation. It was deemed an incredible success.

But questions are now being raised about whether money raised in that event actually went where it was supposed to go.

According to a report by the Boston Globe, Rodriguez’s foundation only donated 1% of the money it raised from the poker tournament. The Globe reported that the foundation used the money to make a $5,000 donation to the Shawn Carter Scholarship Fund and a $90 donation to a Little League team in Miami. The rest? Your guess is as good as ours.

On top of that, the Globe reports that A-Rod’s foundation stopped submitting mandatory financial reports to the IRS later that year. Thus, it was stripped of its tax-exempt status.

Apparently, Rodriguez isn’t the only athlete to fall short on charitable promises. Read the full Boston Globe story for more.

Zynga’s Picus Addresses Real-Money Gaming

During a Morgan Stanley conference in San Francisco on Monday, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus discussed his intentions to launch real-money gaming in both the United Kingdom and the U.S. Although Pincus didn’t provide much new information regarding the company’s real-money gaming plans, he said that the company will offer something different from most gambling sites by focusing on making social gambling games.

“We’re not the company to win the hardcore real-money gamers,” Pincus said. “But we think we are for the mass market audience.”

The hype of real-money gambling stemmed from Zynga’s deal with U.K.-based poker company bwin.party Digital Entertainment last October. The deal will see the two companies launch real-money games such as poker, slots, roulette, and blackjack in the first half of 2013.

According to allthingsd.com, ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino are expected to launch in the U.K. by the end of June. Additional platforms are expected to launch during the first half of the year.

While Zynga’s plans in the U.K. move forward, the company has also begun the process of getting licensed as an operator in Nevada. As of Tuesday, only Nevada, Delaware, and New Jersey had approved some form of online gaming in the U.S., but others like California could soon follow suit. Zynga’s headquarters are located in San Francisco.

Despite the company’s ambition and partnerships, not all has gone smoothly for Zynga during the past year. The company announced on Monday that it was cutting about 30 employees and closing or consolidating offices in Baltimore, New York, and Texas. Baltimore was home to a game studio that focused on CityVille2, which is now shutting down because of poor performance. The company will also be closing Texas offices in McKinney and downtown Austin, but employees in those offices will be given the opportunity to relocate to Dallas and North Austin.

CNET.com has more.

Road to 100 Billion

PokerStars is about to hit another milestone en route to its “Road to 100 Billion” promotion. On Tuesday, the world’s leading poker site began the countdown to its 95 billionth hand. To celebrate the momentous occasion, PokerStars will be giving away up to $1 million in prizes!

More than 300 players will cash in on the promotion, with prizes being awarded to players dealt into every one millionth hand from 94,700,000,000 to 95,000,000,000. The winner of the Mega Milestone hand will collect at least $20,000, so if you’re playing in a regular ring game next week make sure that you keep an eye on the lobby for the real-time count on the number of hands dealt.

In November, PokerStars player “m1sspiggy” was the lucky winner of the 90 Billionth Hand promotion. At a six-handed $1/$2 no-limit hold’em table, “m1sspiggy” and five other players moved all-in preflop for a shot at the milestone prize, and the flopped two pair of “m1sspiggy” was good enough to win the $1,220 main pot, plus another $66,380 for winning the promotion. The other five players split $162,150, with each receiving at least $14,000.

“m1sspiggy” won the 90 Billionth Hand promotion

For more information on the 95 Billionth Hand promotion, check out PokerStars.com.

EPT Grand Final Schedule

PokerStars recently announced the details for the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final. The EPT’s end-of-season finale will take place at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel and Resort in Monaco May 6 through 15, offering a range of side events and – for the first time – live cash games.

This year’s series will have a total of 50 events including the “100,000 Super High Roller, the “25,000 High Roller, the “10,300 High Roller Turbo, and a “1,000 buy-in event with a “500,000 guaranteed. As you may recall from last year, Dan Smith turned the EPT Grand Final side events into his own personal playground, winning three “5,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournaments for more than $488,000.

The series will close with the flagship “10,600 Main Event. Last year, Mohsin Charania added his name to a prestigious list of EPT Grand Final Main Event winners by beating Lucille Cailly heads-up for the $1,782,343.

For a look at the schedule, check out europeanpokertour.com.

Edible Poker Table

Chicago Bulls forward Richard “Rip” Hamilton celebrated his 35th birthday this past weekend. Apparently, the basketball star is a big poker fan, so his friends had this awesome cake made for him:

The four figures playing poker represent Hamilton during his playing days with the UConn Huskies, Washington Wizards, Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls. According to Hamilton, his mini depictions were even edible.

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Did you miss any of the day’s top poker stories? Well, you’ve come to the right place to get caught up. In this edition of the Nightly Turbo, we’re bringing you Phil Galfond’s huge cash-game wins at Full Tilt Poker, a new online poker bill in California, and more.

In Case You Missed It:

Calvin Anderson had an incredible Sunday on the virtual felts. Check out his results and more in the Sunday Briefing.

Did you miss Sunday’s World Poker Tour coverage on FSN? Read our WPT recap to get caught up.

Day 2 of the 2012-13 World Series of Poker Circuit Palm Beach Kennel Club Main Event came to a close Sunday evening. David Grandieri led the way with 30 players remaining.

Can poker players in the U.S. still expect a federal online poker bill to be passed? Matthew Kredell spoke with PPA Executive Director John Pappas about the recent optimistic comments made by Frank Fahrenkopf.

How did poker pro Jay Tan get her start in poker? Find out in the latest edition of Seat Open.

The World Poker Tour 2013 L.A. Poker Classic continued on Sunday at the Commerce Casino. Get the full Day 2 recap right here at PokerNews.com.

Galfond Makes His Weekend Count

After losing $630,000 at the high-stakes tables on Full Tilt Poker last Wednesday, Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond bounced back Saturday by booking a massive win and pushing his profits above $660,000 for the week.

Galfond began Saturday playing a heads-up 2-7 triple draw against Viktor “Isildur” Blom, and after only 20 minutes he had snatched $142,000 from his Swedish friend in just over 30 hands. Galfond then went on to win an additional $160,000 playing triple draw playing against Patrik “FinddaGrind” Antonius, “patpatpanda,” and Phil “Polarizing” Ivey, bringing his winnings to more than $300,000 for the day.

Later on, Galfond put in a five-hour session and won four of the five tables he played, adding another $185,000 to his daily total. His success over the weekend followed an impressive $362,000 win at the 2-7 tables on Thursday. Galfond is up more than $1.8 million this year, making him online poker’s top earner so far in 2013.

Blom spent more than six weeks as the year’s biggest online winner, but his recent cold stretch continued Saturday when he lost $450,000 playing fixed-limit Omaha hi/lo after already losing $238,000 at triple draw earlier in the day. After taking another huge hit, Blom was spotted playing lower stakes on Sunday and Monday, presumably looking to rebuild his bankroll.

Blom dropped down in stakes Monday, playing $200/400 limit 2-7 triple draw. He was playing as high as $1,500/3,000 last week

HighStakesDB.com has more.

Another Online Poker Bill in California

As the largest state in the U.S., California presents a very compelling market for legalized online poker. And with Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey ramping up efforts to launch their own platforms, the Golden State doesn’t want to fall too far behind.

On Friday, State Senator Lou Correa introduced SB 678, also known as the Authorization and Regulation of Internet Poker and Consumer Protection Act of 2013. The measure would authorize the operation of real-money Internet poker within the borders California.

Correa’s bill would require the California Gambling Control Commission to establish a regulatory framework for the licensure of eligible operators to run an Internet poker site. The bill would prohibit interstate compacts for now, but California and its 38 million residents would undoubtedly establish the best model for intrastate online poker liquidity in the U.S.

California now has two online poker bills in the legislature. In December, Sen. Roderick Wright reintroduced a poker-only online gambling bill. SB 51 is very similar to Wright’s SB 1463, which failed to gain any momentum last year before the legislative session ended in August. Wright hopes his latest measure will be heard later this year.

View SB 678 in its entirety at leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.

Rafa’s Last Longer

Team PokerStars SportStar Rafael Nadal hit the virtual felts over the weekend to participate in the PokerStars $11 Sunday Storm. The tournament attracted more than 43,000 entries, including Nadal and friend Joan Suasi, both of whom were looking to claim a share of the $300,000 guaranteed prize pool.

(c/o PokerStars Blog)

After studying and improving their poker game over the last several weeks, Nadal and Suasi upped the ante in the Sunday Storm by agreeing to a last-longer competition. Nadal shared the wager with his Twitter followers last week:

Nadal got off to a fast start in the tournament after making quads, and he was even kind enough to post the hand on the PokerStars BOOM! Replayer:

Eventually, though, Nadal’s stack dwindled down to five big blinds, and he got his remaining chips in with against . He was ahead before the flop, but the board brought a queen to end Rafa’s tournament. While Nadal did finish in the top half of the field, his friend Suasi won the last longer.

Read more about the bet at the PokerStars Blog.

Full Tilt Poker’s New Schedule

Beginning Feb. 25, poker players will be able to find an exciting new tournament schedule at Full Tilt Poker. The world’s second-largest online poker room is now offering prize pool guarantees on every single tournament, becoming the first and only online site to provide such an offer to its customers.

The new schedule will offer at least one guaranteed tournament every ten minutes and up to 225 guaranteed cash tournaments every single day. That includes up to 30 Rush tournaments, 20 multi-entry events, 15 re-entry tournaments, and eight multi-chance tournaments.

“From Rush tournaments to multi-entry events, Full Tilt Poker has always been the market leader in providing players with a huge range of diverse and innovative tournaments,” said Sarne Lightman, head of marketing at Full Tilt Poker.

“Full Tilt Poker’s scheduled tournaments already offer round-the-clock action every day of the week with a wide range of buy-ins and guaranteed prize pools to choose from,” Lightman continued. “The new schedule is another market first offering our players the only fully guaranteed schedule of any online site.”

During March, FTP will guarantee more than $25 million in tournament prize pools and will feature a range of satellites allowing players to enter the larger events like the daily $150 buy-in Tyrannosaurus Rex at 15:00 ET.

Players can also look forward to a new tournament lobby that will make it easier to find the tournaments they are interested playing.

The full tournament schedule (with some hilariously-named events) can be found at FullTiltPoker.com.

Schedule Change for PPC Aruba

The DeepStacks Poker Tour Players Poker Championship at Aruba is still on tap for 2013, but the series has been pushed to this fall. Tournament organizers announced this week that PPC Aruba is now scheduled for Oct. 2 through 9 at the Radisson Aruba Resort, Casino & Spa.

The same exciting schedule includes eight events, highlighted by the $2,500 buy-in Main Event which features a $200,000 guaranteed prize pool. The tournament has commitments in place from DeepStacks Pros Michael Mizrachi, Mike Matasow and Tristan Wade, and the final table will be live streamed online via DeepStacks.com and DeepStacks360.com.

The Radisson Aruba Casino will begin running PPC Aruba satellites in May during the newly announced 2013 PPC South America Poker Classic. The series will run May 4 through 9, 2013.

“Players Poker Championship is very excited about the new series schedule and dates that will benefit players from the United States to South America,” said Bryan Oulton, co-commissioner of the PPC. “Not to mention, the addition of the 2013 PPC South America Poker Classic will add a second exciting stop in Aruba.”

For more, visit PPCAruba.com.

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