Tue, 01/25/2011 – 01:36 – PokerPages Staff

PCA Main Event
With an apparently insurmountable chip advantage before him, victory looked virtually done and dusted for Chris Oliver at the start of the PCA Main Event.  He arrived at the final table with control over no fewer than 40 per cent of the chips and it’s only fair to congratulate him on his solid and intelligent play throughout most of the event.  He looked unstoppable for much of the day, relentlessly increasing his chip stack and blithely laying waste to the other players, who fell like bowling pins in his wildly confident path.  But just when everyone thought this “Run-Good” would see him take down the first prize, he was blind-sided by Galen Hall.  Stunningly, after nine hours of play, Galen took minutes to decimate Chris’s apparently impregnable 37 million chip lead into a disastrous 10 million chip disadvantage.  After just thirty minutes, the demolition job was done and Galen Hall became the new PCA Main Event Champion.

Hall had some tricky moments, like when he folded a straight to Oliver’s full house.  But his fortunes began to change when he found himself holding a bottom-two pair (A-2) on an A-4-2 board.  He was able to double through and, suddenly, Oliver found himself eye to eye with an extremely dangerous adversary.

PCA High Roller Tournament Winner Emerges
The PCA High Roller poker tournament saw a stunning win over a massive field of 158 players by Canadian poker pro Will Molson after three grueling days of pitched battle.  This was surely one of the toughest fields to win upon if not in poker history, then at least for a very long time.  2011 saw the largest High Roller tournament in history with Molson’s first-prize win amounting to over $1 million.

Will Molson nearly made it to the top in the High Roller tournament for two successive years, finishing runner up to French poker-meister Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier in 2009 and to William Reynolds in 2010.  2011 has seen him finally claim the crown he’s come so close to owning in the recent past.

Viktor ‘Isildur1′ Blom and the Swedish Tax Man
Another poker pro is drawing publicity this week – and not for his poker successes.  Viktor Blom, who revealed himself to be the Scandinavian mystery man ‘Isildur1′ earlier this month, is in a little hot water with the taxman in his native Sweden.  That’s according to the Swedish newspaper “Dagens Inustri,” anyway.

The Swedish tax authority was apparently alerted to his status as high-earning poker pro thanks to his activities on Full Tilt Poker.  It may indeed, have been in order to keep under the radar of his home country’s tax authority that Blom maintained his hidden identity for so long: Swedish tax law requires a cut from all pots – not just the money won – played at any site which operates outside the European Union.  A spokesman for the Swedish tax authority claims that Full Tilt Poker, which is based in Ireland, is classified as a site beyond the confines of the European Union, and as ‘Isildur1′ gambled around $4.5 billion during his brief stint there, his back taxes are estimated at around $149 million!  The young Swede currently lives in London; with a tax bill of this magnitude facing him in Sweden, he’s probably unlikely to make a visit home in the foreseeable future.

2011 January 13, Lynn Gilmartin

The Southern Hemisphere’s biggest tournament series has begun with the $1,100 Opening Event kick-starting the 2011 Aussie Millions on Thursday night. I absolutely love being at the Aussie Millions, not only because it’s in my home town of Melbourne, but also because there is so much hype around it, and that hype continues to linger in the Crown Poker Room once the cards are in the air. Perhaps it’s because the Australian Open is on at the same time, creating the craziest vibe in Melbourne, or because the Aussie Millions events team is run by women, so it’s got that feminine “Midas Touch,” or of course, because one of the best Tournament Directors in the world, Jonno Pittock, runs the show. Who knows, but I do know that I have an absolute ball every year and so do all the players who attend.

In celebration for the kickoff, I’m taking you on a look back at the highlights of 2010. A prime example of the hype inside the Crown Poker Room during the Aussie Millions is Day 1 of the Main Event, and the following video shows you why. No other poker tournament (that I’ve been to) puts on a concert to announce shuffle-up-and-deal!

Phil Ivey’s second place finish in the $100k Challenge saw him top the all-time money list. Despite being teased with the title that Dan Shak then won, he was obviously still in good spirits with his achievement when I caught up with him after the event. With this being my first interview with this great man, you can pretty much see my heart beating at triple speed.

Each year sees the Main Event play on Australia Day, so I escaped the confines of the Poker Room for a few hours and headed to St Kilda Beach for some sunshine with my fellow Aussies to give you a taste of a “True Blue” celebration.

While speaking of “True Blue,” the Australian’s of the PokerNews Team took the American’s for a cricket match and barbecue on our day off, so we took this opportunity to introduce our hard-working team who don’t usually show their face on the videos.

If you don’t religiously read Elaine Chaivarlis’ Nightly Turbo, then you’re losing at life. If you must be convinced, then listen to your favorite poker players instead!

The PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be in the Crown Poker Room everyday until 30th January, so stay right here on PokerNews.com for all of our live updates and videos, and while you’re railing the Aussie Millions action, get your poker fix on Full Tilt Poker.