August 06 2012, Brett Collson

We’ve written all about the effect PokerStars is having on former players at Full Tilt Poker. But who else was affected greatly by last week’s deal? We’ll cover that story and more in this edition of the Nightly Turbo.

In Case You Missed It

How did Team PokerStars Pro Eugene Katchalov get his start in poker? Find out that and more in the latest edition of Seat Open.

Day 2 of the World Poker Tour Cyprus Main Event concluded on Monday. With just 53 players remaining, Sam El Sayed leads the way.

How did the Sunday Majors play out on PokerStars? Who took down the biggest score? Find out in the Sunday Briefing.

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

It’s been a while, but Daniel Negreanu finally released another Weekly Rant on Monday. For Daniel’s take on the PokerStars/FTP deal, the conclusion of the WSOP, and more, check out The Muck.

Poker’s Savior

When PokerStars completed a deal to purchase Full Tilt Poker’s assets last week, thousands of poker players around the world rejoiced upon learning that they would be refunded the money in their accounts. But there were more people affected by the announcement than just the players.

The Irish Examiner reports that 200 employees at Full Tilt Poker’s Dublin headquarters had their jobs saved when the deal went through. Pocket Kings, Full Tilt Poker’s parent company, had laid off more than 450 staffers after the company had its operating license removed by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission last year. The employees kept on by Pocket Kings will be retained by PokerStars to help re-launch Full Tilt Poker as a separate brand in the coming months.

“It’s too early to begin disclosing many details about our strategic plans for Full Tilt, but our first order of business is to re-open the site, pay back all of the players and begin rebuilding Full Tilt’s reputation,” said Eric Hollreiser, head of corporate communications for PokerStars. “Going forward, we will operate Full Tilt as a separate brand, giving players another leading and trusted platform to enjoy the game.”

Hollreiser said in a statement last week that Full Tilt Poker’s headquarters will remain in Dublin, but regulatory oversight will be transferred to the Isle of Man.

Read more at the Irish Examiner.

Poker Players in the Mainstream

If you don’t follow Michael Phelps on Twitter, you missed some amusing tweets over the weekend. After clinching his record-setting 18th and 19th career medals in London, Phelps sent thanks to several of his Twitter followers, many of which were poker players.

USA Today even ranked the “top 15 members of the most decorated Olympic Twitter list of all-time.” Making the list were President Barack Obama, professional skateboarder and snowboarder Shaun White, former Heisman Trophy winner Desmond Howard, and poker pros Matt Stout, Josh Brikis, Jen Harman and Christian Harder. Here’s a look at some of his tweets.

Check out the full list at USAToday.com.

Bodog Pulling Out of 20 Countries

Bodog Poker players from 20 nations will no longer be allowed to play on the site effective Sept. 1, 2012.

In the past week, Bodog’s customer support team has sent emails to the affected players advising them to empty their accounts by Aug. 31. According to a company spokesperson, Bodog will be pulling out of the following nations: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Israel, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.

The decision is part of Bodog’s plan to concentrate on its strengths and weaknesses in the market. The brand recently sold the Bodog Poker Network to its Asia-facing arm, Bodog88, seeking to benefit from the gaming industry’s massive growth in Asia.

“The Bodog brand is known for its high level of customer service & spreading ourselves too thinly to try and cover a huge amount of smaller markets was proving logistically difficult,” Bodog said in a statement on Monday. “Bodog.co.uk will concentrate on growing existing markets.”

Read more right here at PokerNews.com.

Poker Loses Another Champ

Norman Boulus, a former World Series of Poker bracelet winner from Augusta, Ga., passed away on Sunday after losing a battle with pneumonia. He was 77.

Boulos was an entrepreneur who won the $1,500 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo event at the 1990 WSOP. Boulos bested a final table that included Johnny Moss, Mike Sexton and Huck Seed to collect $108,600. His only other cash at the WSOP came in the 1999 $2,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo 8 or Better event, where he took 10th place for $6,375.

Boulos touched the lives of many kids over the years. He owned and operated a video game hall called Norman’s Electric Galaxy in Augusta which kept many area kids out of trouble, according to his family.

Boulos’ death comes more than a week after another former WSOP champ, Ryan Young, was killed in a car accident.

To read more about Boulos, check out the story at the Augusta Chronicle.

WPT Regional Series Hits Florida

While the World Poker Tour is going strong in Cyprus, the WPT Regional Series is close to crowning a winner in Florida. The STAX Poker Lounge Summer Heat Series Main Event kicked off on Friday with a $440 buy-in tournament that attracted 944 entrants, all of which were playing for a top prize of $90,501.

After two starting days, only 191 players advanced to Day 2 with the top 90 spots getting paid. The money bubble burst on Sunday afternoon, and when the day came to a close only 14 players were alive going into Monday’s final day.

Here’s a look at the players still in contention going into Day 3:

Follow the progress of the WPT Regional event in Florida at the Stax Poker Twitter page.

Golf is Just Not Her Thing

PokerNews hostess Lynn Gilmartin travels to some of the world’s most exotic destinations to cover poker tournaments. But as you’ll see in her recent video from Cyprus, she doesn’t hit the golf courses very often.

Get all the latest PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook today!

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December 10 2011, Eric Ramsey

Saturday was the final day of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Prague, and the requisite eight players returned to the felt to play down to a champion. What looked like a short day turned into a bit of a long one, but in the end, Martin Finger was the man left standing alone with all the chips in play, the Shamballa bracelet, and the shiny EPT trophy.

The first order of business on Day 5 was to knock out the last 31 minutes of the previous level left over from the night before. During those opening orbits, Mads Wissing was sent to the rail as the first elimination of the day. Wissing was very short on chips entering the final table, and he made a late-position shove with . He couldn’t sneak the raise through. Guillem Usero woke up with right next door, and Wissing could not catch up on the board. He was sent off in eighth place with a consolation prize of “66,700.

Andreas Wiese lost most of his stack in the second level of the day after losing a race against Usero. Wiese was unable to fully recover after his run in with Usero. After doubling his short stack once, Wiese got his money in with against Martin Finger’s with a chance at another double. It didn’t go well for him, though, and the dealer ran out a board to eliminate the Wiese in seventh place (“90,000).

When the table was reduced to six, Ari “BodogAri” Engel was riding the shortest stack, and he was the next to fall. Like Wiese before him, Engel did manage one crucial double before dropping down to zero just a few minutes later. It was that was responsible for his demise, and Finger’s was never in trouble on the board. Engel, who’s made more than $2.5 million online, notched his largest live cash (“125,000) in his first EPT event.

Denys Drobyna made it through the next break before being relieved of his last 15 big blinds. The ace-rags were going around for the short stacks, and looked plenty good enough for Drobyna to go with. Unfortunately for him, David Boyaciyan woke up with right next to him, and Drobyna never had a chance. The board ran , and Drobyna was forced to settle for “160,000 and a fifth-place finish.

Usero had an up-and-down day, but he was mostly trending in the right direction until his elimination in fourth place. He had been stagnant around 20 big blinds when he pushed in with . Ace-rag strikes again. Finger woke up with . Usero managed to find a flush draw on a suited flop, but the turn and river bricked to seal his fate. Fourth place was worth “205,000, though, the first career six-figure score for the 21-year-old.

France’s Nicolas Levi might have been the odds-on favorite heading into the day with his second-place stack. During the first partial level of the day, though, Levi was crippled in a massive cooler against David Boyaciyan. On a flop, the two men got it all-in with more than a third of the chips in play. Levi had flopped bottom two with , but he was drawing practically dead when Boyaciyan snapped him off with .

Levi’s stack was reduced by about two-thirds, and he did well to keep his head above water until three-handed play. That’s as far as his run went. He shoved with on his final hand, and he even managed to hit a pair on the flop. Finger’s had a ton of outs, however, and the on the turn was enough to send Levi on his way with a “270,000 consolation prize.

That left Finger and Boyaciyan heads up for the trophy, and the latter was facing more than a 2:1 chip deficit. They decided to chop it up with Finger taking “620,000 and Boyaciyan “535,000, and they left the remaining “100,000 on the table for the champ. Usually a chop tends to hasten the conclusion of a tournament, but that was not the case for the two finalists.

Boyaciyan chipped away at his opponent with methodical timing, and Finger began to struggle to win pots. After hours of battling, the Boyaciyan actually pipped into the chip lead, but his advantage lasted only a few hands. In one of the biggest hands of the day, Finger made a big shove on the turn to fold his opponent and regain a commanding chip lead, and the war was over just as short time later.

On the last hand, Boyaciyan got his money in with pocket tens flipping against , and a pair of cowboys on the flop put the trophy in Finger’s hand. It’s the third victory for the Germans in this eighth season of the EPT, and it’s Martin Finger that they’re toasting to tonight.

2011 EPT Prague Results

That wraps up the coverage from Prague and the first half of the EPT8 Season. Next stop: Paradise. The tour is headed to the Bahamas for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and we’ll be forced to escape winter’s grasp and head down to the islands for ten days in the tropics. In the meantime, you should follow us on Twitter to keep up with bits of poker news from all the world around.

Follow Eric Ramsey on Twitter – @Eric_Ramsey