November 14 2011, Josh Bell

This week in the PartyPoker Weekly, the World Poker Tour hits the Bellagio, learn how to dominate the world, Tony G discusses his competition in the Premier League, and more!

World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic

The first World Poker Tour event was played at the Bellagio and was called the Five Diamond World Poker Classic. The tournament was a huge success and helped John Juanda, Freddy Deeb, Scotty Nguyen and eventual champion Gus Hansen become stars. It has been almost 10 years since that event and since then, the Five Diamond World Poker Classic has continued to be one of the most prestigious tournaments of the year.

The Five Diamond World Poker Classic returns to the world famous Bellagio from Dec. 6 to Dec. 11 and as usual, PartyPoker is the best place to win a WPT tournament package.

Five Diamond World Poker Classic $14,000 Tournament Package

• $10,300 Main Event buy-in
• 7 nights’ accommodation in the luxurious Bellagio hotel
• $2,000 spending money

Last year, Antonio Esfandiari was crowned champion of the Five Diamond, taking home a massive $870,000 when he bested the 437-player field. Join Esfandiari at the felt this December at the Five Diamond World Poker Classic.

Make sure you head to PartyPoker now and win your way to the Bellagio. There will be at least one $14,000 package guaranteed every Sunday and plenty of qualifiers for that event throughout the week.

Tony G Talks Premier League

The lineup for the PartyPoker.com Premier League Poker Mixed Game Championship was announced last week and of course, Tony G had something to say about each and every one of his opponents.

A full rundown of what was said can be found on Tony G’s Blog, but we thought we would pick some of our favorites.

Matt Gianetti: “He’s good but not as good as Martin Zasko. Hellmuth loves him too much, he talked about him every second in the live stream at WPT Malta. I’m not sure that’s a good thing Matt.”

Andrew Feldman: “He used to be a paper boy – I gave him his break in TV poker. Don’t try and bum hunt me online at 4 a.m. in the morning Andrew.”

Sorel Mizzi: “Is he cut from the top or bottom of the pack? He could do with the guiding hand of Tony G.”

The Premier League is set to take place from Nov. 13 through Nov. 17 and we expect to hear from Tony G after the event on his PartyPoker blog.

Time for World Domination

The World Domination promotion is back at PartyPoker and it is set to be one of the most exciting promotions run this year.

Taking place from Nov. 7 to Dec. 31, the World Domination promotion is offering players huge cash prizes, just for earning Party Points. The best part about the promotion is that players can take over the world – one city at a time.

Every time a player earns 10 Party Points, they will be randomly awarded one of 72 different cities from all the corners of the world. Most cities will come with an instant award of cash or freeroll seats, but players are encouraged to conquer entire countries and continents in order to win the biggest prizes.

To achieve Total World Domination, players must conquer each of the 72 unique cities. If they do, they’ll win $100,000. Head to PartyPoker now and start conquering cities!

Start Your Bankroll for Free

Because of the special relationship between PokerNews and PartyPoker, you can be the recipient of a very generous free $50 poker bankroll.

Claiming your free bankroll is easy. All you need to do is sign up for a PartyPoker account through PokerNews and you will get an immediate free credit of $25 into your account. Now all you need to do is earn 200 PartyPoints and you will receive an additional $25!

To receive your free bankroll, head to our Free $50 No Deposit Page and use the bonus code “PN50Free” as outlined in the walkthrough guide.

If you experience any problems with this or any of our promotions, please contact our Ticketed Promo Support System.

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August 11 2011, Cory Dowd

Day 2 of the inaugural Epic Poker League Main Event is in the books. The tournament played its way down to the final 18 competitors on Wednesday night. While that officially takes the field into the money, more importantly perhaps, is that everyone remaining has locked up points towards the end-of-the-season freeroll where $1 million will be up for grabs.

Sam Trickett continues his fantastic 2011 and will enter Day 3 with 1.032 million in chips — good enough for the lead after almost a full 13 levels of play. At the end of the day, Trickett, along with the other 17 players, decided to take $17,340 from the second place payout and give it to the winner, so they are now fighting for an even $1,000,000 up top.

The tournament began with 63 players Wednesday, but eliminations started early and came often. Dwyte Pilgrim, Dan Shak, Vanessa Selbst, Sorel Mizzi, Phil Laak and Daniel Alaei were some of the casualties during Level 1. As play continued, the field lost Chad Brown, Shannon Shorr, Mike Sexton, John Racener and Justin Young. Antonio Esfandiari made a play early in the day against Chino Rheem when he overbet the pot on a flop by moving all-in for nearly 150,000, despite the pot having only reached about 30,000 to that point. Rheem called and Esfandiari’s held on against Rheem’s . He too, however, could not make it through Day 2.

After the dinner break, play got increasingly tense as the possibility of cashing in the very first EPL event became more and more real. Ben Lamb, Tom Marchese and Nam Le all got within a table of making the history books, but fell short. Brian Rast was busted by Jason Mercier near the end of the day as well, in a hand he won’t soon forget. Creating a pot of over 600,000, he moved all-in on a board of with , but was drawing dead against Mercier’s .

The most unfortunate player of the day was Matt Graham who found himself exit squarely on the bubble. He limped from the small blind before Rheem jammed from the big blind. Graham called off his final 142,500 with and found himself ahead and dominating against Rheem’s . On the turn, however, Rheem made the nut flush when the board ran out .

While Graham was understandably unhappy about his elimination, it brought a quiet smile to 18 faces around the room as they began bagging up their chips for Thursday. It should also be noted that of the eight players that owned temporary cards via entry from the Pro/Am, two still remain, Dan Fleyshman and Brandon Meyers. You can find out the entire list of players still remaining in the event and relive the action from Day 2 on our Live Reporting pages.

Top Five Chip Counts

The field for the Main Event was strong with the top talent from across the world showing up to test their skills against the best of the best. The action has been sharp, the pots lively and the entertainment vast. Day 3 will be sure to continue right along with those trends so be sure to check back here Thursday at 1200 PDT (2000 BST) when, as always, PokerNews will have as much action as you can take as we play our way down to the final table!

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