Posts Tagged ‘John Juanda’

PokerStars to open World’s Biggest Branded Poker Room in Macau

Friday, February 22nd, 2013

Over the past few months, PokerStars has been making some major forays into the land-based gaming world. First, they worked out a deal to buy the Atlantic Club Casino in Atlantic City; then they announced plans to build a branded poker room in London. And now Stars has announced that they’ll build the world’s largest branded poker room in Macau.

The room will be built at the City of Dreams Casino, which is located on the world-famous Cotai Strip. “PokerStars Live at the City of Dreams” will offer cash games, daily tournaments and 13 permanent poker tables. The venue will be spacious enough to add extra tables when needed and host major events like the Asia Championship of Poker, Macau Poker Cup series, Macau Millions and the Asia-Pacific Poker Tour Macau.

Danny McDonagh, who’s the PokerStars Director of Live Operations for Asia-Pacific, discussed the new poker room by stating:

The PokerStars online brand drives more traffic to live poker events than any other. Players know that PokerStars is synonymous with integrity and high quality. That makes this collaboration a natural fit because City of Dreams has been at the forefront in providing the most innovative and premium gaming experience that is second to none in Macau.

Macau is already one of the world’s biggest destinations for live poker games. And now that PokerStars will be building a branded room at the City of Dreams, the Macau poker scene only figures to get bigger.

Some of the famous poker pros who commonly travel to Macau include Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, John Juana and Andrew Robl. Combine these action-hungry players with the Asian businessmen who regularly play in these high stakes games, and you can see why Macau features some of the biggest pots in the world.

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What the Lederer Files have taught us about Howard

Friday, September 21st, 2012

Howard Lederer is currently in the process of doing a big interview with PokerNews that centers on his involvement in Full Tilt Poker’s demise. The seven-hour interview is called “The Lederer Files,” and it’s supposed to give Howard an opportunity to explain his actions. But with The Lederer Files over halfway finished, all we’ve gotten so far are the ramblings and accusations of a sociopath.

Rather than accept responsibility for his actions, Howard chose to deflect blame on others such as Ray Bitar. He said that Bitar was severely underqualified to serve as Full Tilt’s CEO and too incompetent as well.

Lederer also took aim at Phil Ivey by saying his lawsuit ruined any chance to sell FTP. Howard’s exact quote was, “He wasn’t speaking out for anybody except himself. He had a moral obligation to the poker community to do everything he could to, at the very least, not damage the company he had greatly profited from – the lawsuit was absurd.”

The onslaught of blame didn’t end here though because Lederer also brought all of the poker pros who took loans from FTP into the matter. He specifically identified Ivey, John Juanda and Erick Lindgren by saying that these players were unwilling to pay millions in loans back to Full Tilt. He said, “We got a lot of resistance. As of the end of May 2011, the only member who paid back what he owed the company was me. I owed the company $700,000 and I paid it in late May.”

What a surprise that Lederer would take this opportunity to say that only he repaid the loan. Of course, it’s a lot easier to do so when you’ve taken well over $40 million from the site – much of which came from player deposits. This being said, it’s no wonder why the US government wants around $40 million back from Howard through a civil suit.

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Poker Hall of Fame, EPT San Remo Updates

Friday, October 28th, 2011

There are some big updates in the poker world to report dealing with the Poker Hall of Fame and 2011 EPT San Remo tournament.  First off, Barry Greenstein and Linda Johnson were inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame yesterday.

Barry Greenstein was a virtual lock after looking at the nominees, which included Annie Duke, Huck Seed, Tom McEvoy, Jack McClelland, Jennifer Harman-Traniello, John Juanda, Marcel Luske and Scotty Nguyen. Greenstein, who is called the Robin Hood of Poker for his charity work, got into the Hall via his $7.5 million in live tournament cashes and two WPT titles. In addition to this, Greenstein is a regular in the high stakes poker world.

Linda Johnson’s resume includes being a driving force in starting the World Poker Tour, and starting CardPlayer Magazine mostly by herself. She is also a solid poker player with over $342,000 in winnings and a WSOP bracelet – though this played much less of a factor in her Poker Hall of Fame induction.

As for the 2011 EPT San Remo, the tournament was won by an unheralded player by the name of Andrey Pateychuk. The Russian player, who had just $46k in live tournament cashes before this victory, added another €680,000 ($965k) to his poker earnings after beating Dimitar Danchev heads-up.

When the two players were the only ones remaining on the EPT San Remo final table, they decided to split €1.2 million of the leftover prize money, and play for the other €80,000. After a couple of hours of play, the two players were still near-even until Pateychuk went all-in with 6-7 unsuited. Danchev called with 9-T unsuited and flopped top pair with 9’s; unfortunately for him, the next two cards gave Pateychuk a runner-runner straight, and he won the hand.

With very few chips left, Danchev was quickly eliminated, which gave Andrey Pateychuk the victory.

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2011 WSOPE Main Event sets Record

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

Nobody’s going to mistake the WSOPE Main Event for the WSOP Main Event quite yet, but it’s definitely getting bigger. For evidence of this fact, you need look no farther than the fact that the 2011 WSOPE Main Event set the official attendance and prize pool record.

There were 593 players willing to ante up the €10,000 + €400 buy-in, and almost €5.7 million total will be paid out to the top 64 players. It’s definitely worth mentioning that the 2011 WSOPE Main Event winner will be walking away with a €1.4 million prize.

Looking back through history, nobody has managed to win this much money in the WSOPE Main Event. In fact, the biggest winner that we’ve seen in the tournament is Norwegian poker pro Annette Obrestad, who won the inaugural WSOPE ME in 2007, which netted her a predetermined €1 million. Since Obrestad’s victory, John Juanda is the next closest winner in terms of money since he earned €868,800 for taking down the 2008 WSOPE Main Event.

So who is bound to be the biggest winner in WSOPE history? Currently, little known American Elio Fox will headline the WSOPE final table since he’s got the most chips at 3.9 million. Just behind Fox in second place is UK poker sensation Jake Cody, who has 2.7 million chips. Cody is probably the most famous poker player on the final table – at least currently – since he won the $25,000 NLHE Heads-Up Championship at the 2011 WSOP, and earned Player of the Year honors at the 2011 British Poker Awards.

Another big name on this final table is Chris Moormon who, along with countryman Jake Cody, has had his fair share of success in the poker world. In any case, it will be interesting to see how the final table plays out, and who earns the title.

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Phil Hellmuth misses Bracelet #12 Again in Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo Championship

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

Earlier in the month, all-time WSOP bracelet leader Phil Hellmuth was going for bracelet #12 in the 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship. Unfortunately for Hellmuth, he narrowly missed out on a chance to extend his lead after John Juanda trounced him heads-up. However, the poker gods gave Hellmuth yet another shot at glory on the final table of the Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo Championship.

The star-studded final table featured the Poker Brat, John Racener, Ted Forrest, David Benyamine and Ali Eslami. But Hellmuth was able to work his way through this stellar lineup, and into a heads-up match with Eric Rodawig. Interestingly enough though, it was the unheralded Rodawig who walked away with the bracelet when everything was over with.

The big story here is obviously the fact that Hellmuth finished runner-up for the second time in this WSOP. And for a guy who’s on a four-year bracelet drought, this isn’t good news. On the other hand, it’s not like he had a chip advantage going into the heads-up match since Rodawig led nearly 3-1. Plus the Poker Brat is leading the WSOP Player of the Year standings, which is encouraging.

Before we make this whole post about Hellmuth, the bracelet win is huge for Eric Rodawig, who has just three live tournament cashes in his career. Before winning the Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo Championship, Rodawig didn’t really have any significant tournaments titles. With the big cash here, Rodawig now has $485k in career winnings.

Here is a look at the final table results from the Seven Cards Stud Hi-Lo Championship:

1. Eric Rodawig – $442,183
2. Phil Hellmuth – $273,233
3. John Racener – $171,122
4. Ted Forrest – $123,904
5. David Benyamine – $96,836
6. Mikhail Savinov – $77,222
7. Joe Tehan – $62,710
8. Ali Eslami – $51,750
9. Antony Lellouche – $43,317

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Who Will Be WSOP 2010 Player Of The Year?

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

As the World Series Of Poker tournament progresses things are heating up and the question on every player’s mind is, who is going to win the race for WSOP 2010 Player Of The Year? Each year, players are ranked based on their cumulative measure of performance and the player that comes out on top receives the Player Of The Year Title.

This year, Frank Kassela and John Juanda are currently tied for first place in the rankings, with 225 points each. Kassela has won two bracelets so far and Juanda has not won any, however his cash wins have given him a top spot on the leader board.

Juanda says that if he wins Poker Player Of The Year “it will make me feel a bit better about not winning a bracelet. But every year I go without a bracelet, it’s disappointing.” Kassela says that he has “been playing in a ton of events since [he] won the last one, just because [he] knew [he] had a decent chance at Player of the Year.” It’s a close race, and if either player wants to go home with the title they will have to up their game, compete in a lot of events and either win or place in the top with cash wins.

The current standings for Poker Player Of The Year are as follows:

John Juanda – 225 points

Frank Kassela – 225 points

Vladimir Schemelev – 210 points

Dan Heimiller – 200 points

Michael Mizrachi – 190 points

Men Nguyen – 180 points

Richard Ashby – 180 points

Jeffrey Papola – 180 points

James Dempsey – 180 points

Allen Kessler – 175 points

David Chiu – 170 points

David Baker – 170 points

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