August 15 2011, Elaine Chaivarlis

A winner was crowned at UKIPT Edinburgh over the weekend. If you were wondering who can add “champion” to their name, we’ve got those results for you. On top of that, we’re going to tell you what Harry Reid and Gary Loveman recently said about online poker legislation. Keep reading for all of the top poker news stories of the day.

In Case You Missed It

Over the weekend, Kristy Arnett went over to the Palms Casino to check out the inaugural Epic Poker League event. She caught up with Matt Savage and some players to get their thoughts on the event for the latest edition of the Sin City Series.

The biggest online poker tournaments of the week are played on Sunday and this week, four players pocketed over $100,000. The Sunday Briefing has the results, including a look at Owen Crowe’s Sunday Warm-Up win.

Last week, NBC aired the second week of Poker After Dark’s $100,000 Cash Game. If you missed it, check out the recap of all the high-stakes action.

The inaugural Epic Poker League Main Event crowned a champion over the weekend. With the event coming to a close, we decided to get players’ reactions and their thoughts on EPL’s future.

UKIPT Edinburgh

Last week, the seventh stop on PokerStars’ UK & Ireland Poker Tour rolled into Edinburgh, Scotland. The £500 + £60 buy-in event attracted 519 players, creating a £251,715 prize pool, breaking the £200,000 guarantee.

Chris Moneymaker made it across the pond to Scotland for the event, and joined Liv Boeree, David Vamplew, Neil Channing, Jesse May, Jude Ainsworth, and JP Kelly on the felts at The Corn Exchange.

Vamplew is the only one of the above who finished in the top 63, taking home a payday. He finished 34th, good for £1,120.

Fintan Gavin bested the field to take home the UKIPT trophy and £61,500 first-place prize. He took on Andrew Hawksby and about two hours into heads-up play, the winner was crowned.

According to the PokerStars Blog, in the final hand, Gavin called a 160,000 raise from Hawksby and the flop fell . Gavin check-raised all-in with and was called by Hawksby with . The turn and river both blanked for Hawksby, eliminating him in second place.

UKIPT Edinburgh Final Table Results

You can find a full report from UKIPT Edinburgh at PokerStarsBlog.com.

Online Poker Legislation

Howard Stutz, a reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, tweeted over the weekend, “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tells R-J staff Internet poker legislation ‘will get done.’ Reid: ‘I-poker ‘will be good for Nevada.’”

In addition to this, the Financial Times spoke with Gary Loveman, chief executive of Caesars Entertainment.

“The authorities cracked down on the illegal offshore providers, but that’s left a vacuum for people like us to be able to legally offer this service.

“I do believe there is a will in Congress to correct this …. we ought to clean up the regulatory and policing environment and that’s what we’re seeking.

“First, it creates the appropriate legal and enforcement environment where the game is being provided fairly by regulated entities that are known to the American authorities.

“Second, there’s a lot of job creation associated with this; we could provide thousands of American jobs if given the right to do so and there [also] would be the benefit of tax revenues,” Loveman told FT.com.

The Financial Times has a video interview with Loveman at FT.com.

Bad Beat on Hunger

The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City teamed up with Cabot Creamery Cooperative to host the “Put a Bad Beat on Hunger” charity poker tournament. The event benefits the Community FoodBank in New Jersey.

The $260 + $40 buy-in event, hosted by Bernard Lee, kicks off on August 21 with the goal of raising funds and generating awareness for the FoodBank. Players who are eliminated in the first eight levels of the event are allowed to re-enter. The winner of the event will receive a seat to the WPT Borgata Poker Open Championship, which begins Sept. 18.

Find tournament details at TheBorgata.com.

Guinness Time

The Delaware Park Poker Room wants to set a Guiness World Record. Sponsored by Red Bull, WIP Sports Radio, and Mobius New Media, the poker room is attempting to hold the longest continuous poker tournament. It gets under way August 20 at noon and is supposed to run for over 36 hours.

The $500 buy-in poker tournament has a guaranteed prize pool of $100,000 and will be broadcast live online. It has a 350-player cap on it, but alternates will be seated as seats become available. The player who outlasts the field will take home at least $24,000. Not too shabby for a bit of sleep deprivation.

Read the press release for more.

Hey Kid!

How long can you keep “kid” in your nickname? Until your 30? 50? Until you quit feeling like a kid? ESPN set out to answer the question, “How long can Kid Poker be Kid Poker?” Find out what Daniel Negreanu himself, Tom Dwan, Antonio Esfandiari, and more had to say about Kid Poker’s nickname.

Follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news.

August 12 2011, Elaine Chaivarlis

If you’re looking for the right amount of poker information to send you into the weekend, then you’ve come to the right place. In tonight’s Nightly Turbo we’ll tell you about Full Tilt Poker’s and its potential investors, the new spot the World Poker Tour is headed in Season X, and more.

In Case You Missed It

The final table of the first Epic Poker League Main Event was set Thursday. It’s a stacked final table with Hasan Habib leading the way. Jason Mercier and Erik Seidel are still in the hunt and could cause some shakeups in next week’s Global Poker Index.

Three players banked over $100,000 in the online high-stakes games this week. David Eldar came away with the biggest win of the week and you can read about it in the Online Railbird Report.

It’s vacation time for members of Congress, and that means they’re headed back to their home districts. It’s the best time to contact your representatives to discuss online poker legislation and meet with them face-to-face.

Between a cheating scandal, a car theft, and a major event kicking off for the first time, you can say it’s been quite an interesting week. Here are our Five Thoughts.

Potential Investors?

Canadian-poker.ca issued a press release stating that Full Tilt Poker may be close to reaching a deal with potential investors. Leon Daniels, a spokesman for Canadian-poker.ca, stated that 888poker, Bwin.Party, and Playtech could potentially each be the “unknown investors.”

“I’ve mentioned before why companies like 888 would be interested in purchasing Full Tilt Poker. 888 has one of the biggest online poker rooms in the world, and they lost many players to the illegally operated Full Tilt. Now that Full Tilt is no longer active in the Canadian market, it makes sense that 888, a stable and reliable company, would take the opportunity to win back players in Canada, even if it means having to take responsibility for Full Tilt’s infamous debts,” Daniels said.

He doesn’t believe PokerStars could be part of that group. ”I don’t believe PokerStars, formerly a huge presence in the online poker world, is a potential investor. Black Friday and subsequent investigations seem to have PokerStars’ hands full at the moment. While they’re faring better than Full Tilt by far, they still have to deal with the authorities,” he said.

Is he just stirring the pot? It seems like that to us. Read the press release for more.

New Stop on the WPT

The World Poker Tour threw us a curveball while we were writing the Turbo by sending a late-day press release. So of course, we couldn’t let you begin your weekend without the news of a new stop on Season X of the WPT.

The WPT’s three-year agreement with Parx Casino in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, will see a televised Main Event take place in 2012, as well as three WPT Regional Events.

“We have put an emphasis on finding the right partners for expansion. Parx was an immediate target for WPT and have been wonderful business partners in getting this deal done,” said WPT President Adam Pliska. “The ability to crown a WPT champion in a town that has recently seen the Flyers in the Stanley Cup, the Eagles in the Super Bowl and the Phillies win the World Series will be tremendous for both Parx and WPT.”

The date of the 2012 WPT Parx event will be released later this year.

Check out the entire WorldPokerTour Season X schedule at WorldPokerTour.com.

Google + Zynga Poker

Google+ is trying to get Facebookers to convert. The new social networking site launched a platform that includes popular games like Zynga Poker and Angry Birds. Google+ will offer 16 games from third-party developers.

In a press release issued by Zynga in March, we learned that Zynga Poker attracts an average of 38 million users a month, and that at any given moment, 400,000 players are logged on handing out bad beats. At the moment, Zynga Poker is available on Facebook, Yahoo!, and MySpace, but will soon roll out to Google+.

We’re sure a few of you U.S. players have pacified your online poker bug by signing up for Zynga Poker. Don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone.

The Wall Street Journal has more.

In 140 Characters

Some days we read tweets and think, “Our readers would probably like to know that,” but the news bite is only 140 characters long. Instead of separating them into their own sections, we’ve compiled them all right here.

Phil Hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth): Can U believe Major League Baseball investigators called me about a guy that PLAYED in a poker game: understand it’s 100% legal to PLAY?!?

Sick of athletes, politicians, and actors being persecuted for playing in poker games when it is 100% legal for them to play!! Sick of LIES!

• Buzzer Blog (@buzzerblog): High Stakes Poker on GSN lost its Saturday 10pm slot. Million Dollar Password is taking it.
• Poker Royalty (@Poker_Royalty): Happy to announce @Poker_Royalty client @LeoMargets has signed a sponsorship deal to become newest member of the Lock Poker PRO ELITE team.

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