May 29 2012, Rich Ryan

It’s finally here. After weeks and weeks of anticipation, the 2012 World Series of Poker is once again in full swing. For the 13th year in a row, the WSOP opened with the $500 Casino Employees Event, which attracted 732 runners, creating a prize pool of $329,400. On Monday, Chiab “Chip” Saechao emerged victorious, and became the first bracelet winner of 2012.

While Saechao was battling at the final table, all eyes were on the first open event of the 2012 WSOP; Event 2: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em. Dozens of familiar faces were spread over three rooms in the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, but there was one player sitting in the Tan section of the Amazon Room who drew everybody’s attention.

1. Phil Ivey is back

One year ago, during the $25,000 Heads-Up Championship, Phil Ivey shocked the world. He announced through his Facebook account that he was going to boycott the 2011 WSOP, and that he had filed a lawsuit against Tiltware.

I am deeply disappointed and embarrassed that Full Tilt players have not been paid money they are owed. I am equally embarrassed that as a result many players cannot compete in tournaments and have suffered economic harm.

I am not playing in the World Series of Poker as I do not believe it is fair that I compete when others cannot. I am doing everything I can to seek a solution to the problem as quickly as possible.

The news was jaw dropping to say the least. One of the most popular players in the game (and arguably the best player in the game) wasn’t going to play in the biggest and most important tournament series in the world. Rumors swirled about where Ivey actually was during the summer. A few reliable individuals said that he was in Ireland at some point, attempting to single-handedly broker a deal between Tiltware and potential buyers. If this is true, his attempts were obviously unsuccessful – we’re still waiting for someone to purchase FTP’s assets and finally pay the players.

The WSOP moved on without Ivey, and it took a week or two, but we finally let go of the issue, until the Main Event arrived.

Ivey owns the Main Event. He’s finished 23rd or higher four times in the last decade, including a 10th-place finish in 2003 ($82,700), and a seventh-place in 2009 ($1,404,014). Assuming that Ivey has played the Main Event every year since turning 21 in 1997, his ROI is over 1200%. Despite these mind-blowing numbers however, Ivey did not enter the 2011 Main Event.

When the WSOP concluded, Ivey was still nowhere to be found, until the 2011 PokerStars.net APPT Macau rolled around in November. He entered quietly, and he busted quietly, but his return sparked an argument within the poker community – by playing this event, was Phil Ivey being true to his word?

APPT Macau was not a WSOP-sponsored event, but Ivey was still playing when “others cannot,” and some people took offense to this. It’s nearly impossible to blame him for both FTP and Groupe Bernard Tapie’s mistakes however. GBT had an opportunity to end this mess and resurrect FTP, but their plan was allegedly flawed, and the Department of Justice would not accept it. Ivey is one of the two or three most well-known Team FTP players however, so it’s easy to deflect blame to him rather than some suit we’ve never seen before.

Following APPT Macau, Ivey made appearances at the Aussie Millions, the L.A. Poker Classic, and the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final. It was clear that he would return to the WSOP in 2012, but for how many events? During the 25K Fantasy auction draft on Saturday, PokerNews’ Remko Rinkema asked Daniel Negreanu about Ivey, and how many events he’d be playing. Negreanu didn’t give a direct answer, but he did tell Rinkema that he and Ivey were willing to bet anyone that one of them would win a bracelet in 2012. He also said that they had already booked some big action.

Even still, when Ivey sat down in the Tan section of the Amazon Room yesterday for Event #2, I was more excited than I should’ve been. He’s back. The most feared poker player in the world is back. The eight-time bracelet winner (watch your heels, Phil Hellmuth) is back. The man who’s number three on the all-time money list is back.

Phil Ivey is back, and he returned to play a measly $1,500 no-limit hold’em tournament. That smells like a large schedule to me.

2. Auction Recap

The folks over at QuadJacks did a nice job covering Negreanu’s 25K Fantasy auction on Saturday. Some of the participants did a nice job as well, while others made a few costly mistakes. For starters, both Team Sorel Mizzi and Team Robert Mizrachi still have money to spend. Mizzi and Mizrachi saved $7 and $9 respectively, and unfortunately the money doesn’t carry over to next year. Instead of drafting Alex Kuzmin, who went for an ungodly $23, Mizzi could’ve possibly picked up George Lind III who went for $30. And, instead of spending $7 on Mike Matusow, Mizrachi could’ve spent some of his savings and snagged Michael Binger who only went for $10.

Both Team Brian Hastings and Team Daniel Negreanu had the right strategy going into the action – spend most of your money on two great players, and fill out the rest of your team with cheaper players with a lot of upside. Unfortunately, both Negreanu and Hastings filled their teams with too many players who can only play hold’em at an elite level, limiting the amount of volume they can put in. Also, Alexander Kostritsyn just had a child, so he may miss the WSOP in its entirety. At a glance, my favorite teams are Team Jason Mercier and Team Eugene Katchalov. They’re both filled with guys who can play every game, including hidden gems like Chris Genius28 Lee ($1), John D’Agostino ($5), and Abe Mosseri ($3). I’d be willing to take 4:1 that one of those two teams ends up winning to the top prize of over $100,000

3. Casey Jarzabek vs. John Kim

On Monday, during the first few levels of Event #2, John Kim caused a stir when he tweeted the following about Casey “bigdogpckt5s” Jarzabek:

I contacted Jarzabek, and he informed me that Kim’s reporting of the “QQ<AA” hand was incorrect.

“The board was K88xx, and the king saved me from going broke,” he told me. “I also don’t take backing or sell pieces on TwoPlusTwo. The aces to queens hand wasn’t my actual bust out hand, but I considered it my bust out because it was for most of my chips. I guess it was misleading, but it wasn’t my intention. I essentially busted when I lost 1,500 to 1,200 chips with the nut flush draw.”

He later made light of the situation, tweeting this:

Jarzabek has only posted on TwoPlusTwo six times, and his last activity came on Nov. 18, 2011. So, unless he posts under another alias, he doesn’t have any shares listed in the marketplace.

There was an issue with Owais Ahmed in April when he allegedly lied about a hand from the World Poker Tour Hollywood Poker Open Main Event. Ahmed said that he busted with aces against king-queen, while another poster said it was against a set of deuces. Ahmed refutes this claim. This situation is different, because Ahmed is reporting his bust out hand directly to players who have invested in him, whereas Jarzabek simply tweeted the results. Had Jarzabeck had his own thread in TwoPlusTwo and (allegedly) misreported his hand, then that’s a bigger issue.

The Kim vs. Jarzabek drama will never be solved – it’s a simple case of he said, she said – and unfortunately for Jarzabek (if he’s telling the truth) he won’t shake this for a few weeks, because everybody knows that the poker community loves a good witch hunt.

4. Brutal commentating?

During the $100,000 World Poker Tour World Championship final table, commentators Tony Dunst, Dan O’Brien, and Olivier Busquet were brutally honest – as they always are. They were unafraid to pick apart the players at the table, including the eventual winner Tom Marchese, and some players took offense to this.

The best players in the world don’t always take the standard line – if they did, then they wouldn’t be special – but is it OK to chastise them when they stray from norm? Well, there’s a fine line between mixing it up and making mistakes. Any player can go back and say that they were trying to be creative by taking an unorthodox line, when really they were just spewing.

However, you have to give credit where credit is due. Dunst, O’Brien, and Busquet were especially crushing Juanda, but all he does is win. Since 2004, Juanda has had five, million-dollar years, including 2008 where he won over $2.4 million. He may not always do what’s “standard,” but his results speak for themselves. And isn’t that what’s great about poker? Obviously there are situations where math-based thinking trumps “feel” entirely, but there are also times where creativity and heart can separate great players from good ones.

Commentators should be critical, and they should speak openly about how they feel and what they would do if they were at the table, but there are times when you have to give the players the benefit of the doubt. This is true especially for a player like Juanda, who has over $12 million in career tournament earnings.

5. Hellmuth loses a crown

Kristy Arnett caught up with Phil Hellmuth during Event 2 on Monday, and apparently the Poker Brat needs to head to the dentist.

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August 03 2011, Elaine Chaivarlis

The buzz on Wednesday surrounded Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez. It had nothing to do with his return to workouts after knee surgery or his love for Cameron Diaz, but everything to do with his appearances at underground poker games. We’ll give you the scoop on that, what you won’t be seeing on PocketFives anymore, and more.

In Case You Missed It

Players in the U.S. who once made their bread and butter online are turning to live poker to continue making a living. Brian Hastings is one of those players, and in our latest strategy piece, he recounts a pot-limit Omaha hand he played at the Bellagio.

Coverage of the 2011 World Series of Poker aired on ESPN Tuesday night. If you missed it, you missed the intense heads-up battles between Yevgeniy Timoshenko and Eric Froehlich and Jake Cody and Gus Hansen in the $25,000 Heads-Up Championship.

Day 1b of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Tallinn attracted 190 players. Oscar Lima not only finished in the chip lead for Day 1b, but he finished as the overall chip leader going into Day 2.

*Above photo courtesy of Forbes.com

Not Just a Baseball Player

Alex Rodriguez could be in some hot water. According to RadarOnline.com and Star, the Yankees third baseman, allegedly participated in underground poker games after being warned by Major League Baseball to stay away from them.

ESPN New York’s Wallace Matthews spoke with an MLB executive who said: “We’re talking to people involved in the investigation and we’re taking this very seriously. Because he had been warned about this before, I would say a possible suspension would be very much in play.”

The games, which were organized by Molly Bloom, who also organized the high-stakes games Tobey Maguire has been associated with, were hosted in Beverly Hills at the mansion of record-label owner Cody Leibel.

Poker pro Dan Bilzerian spoke to Star about the game, saying, “Molly ran one game at Cody’s mansion. [One player] got all coked up. Everyone had to chase Cody down for the money, and he later paid me a sum and gave me a watch but stiffed me for $100,000.”

According to RadarOnline.com, Rodriguez tried to distance himself from the drama. That game wasn’t the only one Rodriguez allegedly attended. RadarOnline.com is reporting that the slugger allegedly set up his own high-stakes game in Miami with the help of Bloom.

There’s plenty more about A-Rod’s relationship with Bloom and how much he lost at RadarOnline.com.

No More U.S. Ads

If you’re a frequent PocketFiver, then you might notice that things look a little different on the website. PocketFives issued a statement Tuesday regarding the “state of affairs in online poker.” The owners of the site have decided to cease promoting any rake-based U.S.-facing poker rooms.

“I’d like to be clear that this should not be taken as a denouncement of any U.S.-facing room specifically, nor as a statement regarding the trustworthiness of the rooms that have decided to continue offering their services to U.S. players. We at P5s have a great deal of respect for a number of these companies and the individuals behind them. That said, after seeing all the issues Full Tilt and UB/AP have had returning player funds, combined with the current difficulty in payouts for the sites that continue to serve U.S. players, we can’t in good faith continue to recommend playing real money games,” wrote Adam Small.

For those of you in the U.S. who are looking to relocate, Small added that he and his team would be launching a service to help players relocate to countries where they will be able to continue to play online poker.

Read the entire statement at PocketFives.com.

PokerStars EPT Sponsor

The PokerStars European Poker Tour has secured its third major business partnership for its eighth season. Payment provider, Skrill will become the official payment-provider sponsor of Season 8 of the EPT.

“Skrill is delighted to join the European Poker Tour as its official payment provider sponsor. Now in its eighth season, the EPT has grown to become one of the largest and most lucrative poker tours in the world. Our headline sponsorship promises to deal a winning hand when it comes to strengthening our position as the leading digital wallet and bankroll management option among the world’s poker players,” said Nikolai Riesenkampff, co-CEO of Skrill Holdings.

Skrill Holdings operates Moneybookers.com, one of the largest payment processors in Europe. Skrill representatives will be on site at the EPT events helping players register for accounts.

“The European Poker Tour operates in more countries and markets than any other tour in the world, and it’s wonderful that companies with global aspirations, like Skrill, recognise the opportunity we provide them to reach new customers in meaningful ways,” said Jeffrey Haas, Global Poker Tours Limited managing director.

The press release has more.

Epic Logo Policy

There was certainly plenty of chatter surrounding the Epic Poker League’s logo policy that was released on Tuesday. According to the policy, players are allowed “up to four logos or promotional patches for a single sponsor, distributed across a combination of four of the following five areas of the body: chest, back, hat, shoulder, arm.” Players and league members are also allowed to wear any other logos or promotional patches of additional sponsors as long as the two instances don’t occur on the same area of the body.

There are size restrictions on the logos and once television taping starts, you will not be allowed to change patches for that day. Players are also restricted from wearing patches associated with tobacco products, hard alcohol, handguns, x-rated material, illegal gaming products, and more.

There’s plenty more to the logo policy and if you want to read up on it, head on over to EpicPoker.com for the PDF.

Sick Life

On Tuesday, Huckleberry Seed tweeted, “Internet poker is down in the US, but I’m still pressing buttons!” And then accompanied it with this photo:

If you think your eyes are deceiving you, they aren’t. It really does say $670,665.60, and yes, that is a poker machine. He went on to tweet that he was playing $500 per hand and had put around $50,000 in the machine over six hours before he hit the jackpot.

Think Grinding is Torture?

Sarah Grant may be in Tallinn, Estonia, for the PokerStars European Poker Tour, but she found some time to escape the tournament to check out the torture museum. So the next time you think that bad beat was torture, just remember this….

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