Poker & CasinoGambling news

Back in Sydney again after a weeklong break back home in Tweed Heads. Had a good poker week and have managed to pick up $40k playing tournaments online. This time my first stop was the Triple M radio breakfast show.

I start to get used to it but it could still me slightly intimidating with these fast talking radio pro’s. Triple M focused on the blokey approach and the running theme was “Are you a real man if you don’t play poker?” My answer to this would probably be no.

I don’t really trust a guy who tells me he have never played poker.  Would you?

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Our Australiasian Ambassador Stewart Scott has been playing bounty tournaments at PartyPoker.com for entry to the Aussie Millions.  Here’s Stewart’s update on his progress.

After exchanging bad beat stories for a couple of hours it’s time for some poker action. I play the $50 side event with a $640 Aussie Millions ticket as bounty on my head and also have a longest lasting $50 beer money side bet with Party manager Henrik. Everyone and I mean everyone wants to take me on to get the bounty.

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One of the great things about playing poker online is the opportunity it presents for the mere mortal to mix it with the great and the good of the poker world.

Over the past month we have been running a series of satellite tournaments offering the chance to win a seat at the Aussie Millions, the most prestigious tournament Down Under and one of the biggest in the world.

Yesterday saw the culmination of the race to win free entry with two Super-Satellite tournaments, one for Australia and New Zealand and one for the rest of the world.  In total twenty-seven people will be making their way to Melbourne in January hoping to emulate PartyPoker.com ambassador Stewart Scott and take home the estimated AUS$2.5m ($2.3m or £1.4m) first prize.

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PartyPoker is sending 27 poker players to the Aussie Millions final event in January 2010. These players were qualified after beating the rest of the field in the final AussieMillions qualifier on Sunday.

We have got in touch with the players to get their thoughts on the qualifier and their expectations for the final event in Australia.  Read carlton_hahn’s interesting warm up to the final qualifier and how kavinda111 made it to the Aussie Millions final event without depositing.

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Ian Frazer has been at the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond Classic this week.  Read on to see how the PartyPoker ambassador has progressed in the first two days at the Bellagio and a curious appearance from a hungover Devilfish!

At the bottom of the post we have another edition of Ian’s video tutorial series.

WPT Bellagio Las Vegas Day 1

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Back in November our grassroots ambassador Ian Frazer and his good friend Debbie Styles hosted a bounty tournament at PartyPoker.com with $150 going to the players who knocked out either of the two.

Here’s Debbie’s review of the tournament.

Talk about an adrenalin pumping, edge of your seat moment prior to the game commencing. With five minutes to go and only 14 players seated, my eyes could not believe what I was seeing. The seats started filling one after another, the hype was awesome. 45 players finally took the Stylsey Challenge, with loose, erratic online poker.

With Ian Frazer low stack early having the pressure of decision making, he became a casualty very early in the challenge. I guess us being the bounties with $150 on our heads, we became targets with myself being eliminated shortly after.

Whilst I was railing for the remainder of the challenge I witnessed some awesome play and decision making, made by these players. Fantastic effort by Brooke for placing 2nd, all the plaudits go to  Chris for taking down the 1st “Stylsey Challenge” at PartyPoker.com. So it is one up to the Brits, but I’m sure one of us Aussies will take down the next one. I’m looking forward to the next “Stylseys Challange”. BRING IT ON!!!!!!!

The next tournament will be played on the 27th of December, perfect for all of you with a Christmas hangover.  This time the bounty stakes have been raised.  Whoever knocks out either Ian or Debbie will get a free pass to the next $300K Guaranteed tournament worth $215 and the eventual winner will also get free entry on top of the first prize.

Head over to the PartyPoker facebook fan page for full details (you will need to login before you can add yourself to the event).  And don’t forget to add yourself as a fan so you can keep up to date with future exclusive tournaments.

FRAZER’S POKER TIPS

To help you get your game in order before the action kicks off Ian has produced a series of video tutorials.  We will be presenting them on the blog every Thursday running up to the big day.  To start things off Ian discusses the danger of overplaying big hole cards in the early stages of a poker tournament.

Keep his thoughts in mind when you face him at the poker table and you could well be the one to claim his scalp!

The Champ Meets the Local Champ

Positioned just between Sydney and Canberra, Goulburn is mainly known for its maximum security prison. Today the prison takes the backseat when the NPL state final has managed to attract 562 action thirsty poker players to fight it out for the $31,500 prize pool with a $12,000 Aussie Millions package on top.

Personally I got a terrible start to the day. Summer dust storms in Australia have a tendency to impact air traffic and my flight to Sydney was 2 hours late. I finally managed to make it to Sydney and was picked up by PartyPoker’s Territorial Manager Henrik Nilsson.

Being late we immediately got on the road and started to go through the speech I’m supposed to do. I think I’m good with people one on one, but talking in front of an audience takes me out of my comfort zone.

I read my script to Henrik and spent the rest of the drive practicing my speech, in the end I think it came out ok. I have been so fortunate winning the Aussie Millions so I wanted to give something back to the poker community and decided at the last minute to give any player that signs up through my account within the next 48 hours a $25 free no deposit bonus.

Shuffle Up And Deal

After a quick catch up with organiser Simon Watts and NPL CEO Richard O’Neill I got right into the poker action playing the first tourney with a $70 bounty on my head. This is different from what I’m used to, it’s self dealt and everyone is trying to take you out. For me, playing a lot online and with dealers playing live, I was nervous dealing and managed a misdeal the first two times.  My cards were cold and I spent the first 30 min folding.

The only hand I played was with 9-10 off. Everyone limped and I completed in the small blind, big blind checks. Flop A53 rainbow and I decide to lead out with 550 bet into a 300 pot! (?). This sounds silly but truth to be told I mixed up the colours of the chips and got it wrong. I was supposed to bet 150 which make sense to anyone who knows anything about poker. People started giggling at my rookie mistake but the bet got the job done. This is quality poker folks!

Obama Eat Your Heart Out

After an hour it’s time for the first break and I’m entering the stage to deliver my speech, applause and 562 pairs of eyes are looking at me. I finish my speech and later found out that half the room couldn’t hear it due to the sound being too low. I think I did alright and feel like one step closer to a speech that will rival Obama. Well maybe not, but at least Kevin 07.

After the break I’m back in action. My cold streak continues and I’m starting to get frustrated. After been forced to fold a few hands I’m in desperate need to double up and fancy my chances on A2 of clubs from early position. The action gets folded around to the big blind that makes the call with Q8. Not too shabby, roughly 60/40 in my favour. Flop Q89 no clubs and I’m heading for the rails.

Last Hand Before the Rails

I’m comforting myself with a drink and exchange a few bad beat stories with the locals. I must say it’s great to be at a grassroots poker event like this. The action is good, the players are friendly and the atmosphere is more relaxed than the big pro tournaments.

The Party Girls Doing the Rounds

I will play my second tournament for the night and then go back to my room to prep myself for my own Stewart Scott Aussie Millions Highroller Invitational (quite a mouthful) online tourney on Party Poker tomorrow evening at 19:00. It’s a $270 buy in with a $12,000 GTD. This is important to me because all my Aussie poker mates will play it and I want to do well.
Over and out from Goulburn
Stewart Scott

Happy Winner with the Party Ladies

The recent WSOP Main Event final was not only a memorable day for it’s youngest ever champion Joe Cada, during the closing stages the legendary Mike Sexton, PartyPoker’s global ambassador, was inducted into the prestigious WSOP Poker Hall Of Fame.

As well as many years successfully playing the poker circuit Mike was also instrumental in the explosion of poker across the world in recent years.

Sexton needs little introduction and is unarguably one of the most respected figures in the game. As the face and voice of the World Poker Tour and holder of a WSOP bracelet, Mike is truly one of the games pioneers. Sexton is in the top ten for the most cashes at the World Series of Poker and is instantly recognizable to all poker enthusiasts.

Regarded as ‘The Ambassador of Poker,’ for years Mike advocated corporate involvement with poker to take the game he loves into the mainstream.

Notably, Sexton also won the first $10k buy-in NL hold’em championship event at Foxwoods World Poker Finals in 1992 and in 2000 was the first American to win the championship event at the Euro Finals of Poker in Paris, which at the time was the biggest event in Europe. Through his role with the World Poker Tour Mike brought the game to millions around the world.

In 2006 Sexton won the Tournament of Champions at the World Series of Poker, a concept he had originally created. He donated $500,000 of his winnings to charity and has since become a co-founder of www.pokergives.org, which encourages players to make charitable donations.

You see, it’s not only Mike’s tremendous success at the poker table that has made him one of the most respected players on the poker circuit.  In a world of brash, trash talking young guns Sexton remains a class apart.  It is testament to the great man that he still commands such respect in a game notorious for its individualism and rivalry.

Mike recently made the trip to London for the World Open V in his role as PartyPoker.com global ambassador and it was great to witness the younger generations eager to spend some time with him.  Whether they wanted to talk over some strategy ideas or just say how much his contribution to the poker boom gave them the opportunity and inspiration to take up this great game of ours Mike always had time for them.

And I guess that says it all about Mike, no matter how much success he’s had he always has time for anybody that needs his advice and he’s certainly been a great ambassador for PartyPoker.com over the years, helping us to grow from a minnow to today where we stand as  one of the world’s biggest online poker rooms.

Here’s a clip from Mike’s Hall Of Fame induction courtesy of our friends over at clubwpt.com.

We have now released an updated version of the PartyPoker client. This release will bring a wide range of enhancements and improvements.

Stacking Console (Beta)

The most exciting addition to the client is the stacking console feature. This experimental new feature allows players to navigate through tables that are stacked on top of each other via a special console.

It is currently in Beta version and we are taking this opportunity to gain feedback from players before its full launch.

The main features are:

• Table list with relative position and timer alerts

• Concise and clear hand history

• Details of the players still in the hand and in their order to act allowing for quick positional assessment and previous action overlay

• Active console table with embedded action buttons

• Tables requiring attention, based on the time to act, clearly displayed

• Toggle between two tables with our previous table button.

You can find out all the details of our Stacking console on our website.

Tournament Synchronised Breaks

We will begin phasing in synchronised tournament breaks where tournaments will break for 5 minutes at 55 minutes to the hour. This will help players who play in multiple tournaments simultaneously by providing that valuable break every hour across all tournaments. This will help MT players as they will get a 5 minute break every single hour from ALL sites allowing players to play across sites.

Please note, synchronised breaks will not happen in the following instances:

• If Turbo tournaments haven’t yet passed the first two blind levels

• If the tournament hasn’t yet passed the first blind level

• If tournaments are running but still open for registration

For more details visit our synchronized breaks page

Player Statistics Overhaul

We have updated our statistics to allow you to track your performance in more detail. Statistics will now be offered per all game types, including Hi-Lo variations, and will also be persistent across multiple client sessions.

Tournament Late Registration Change

PartyPoker.com is now enhancing late registration. We will now offer some tournaments with late registration up to 6 levels into the tournament with late registration remaining open even if some players have been knocked out.

Un-registration end time for Tournaments

A field named ‘Un-registration ends’ has been added under the “Tournament Info” section displayed on the right hand side of the main lobby. This field will display the time left for Un-registration from the selected tournament.

MTCT Registration from Website

It was already possible to view the available tournaments at partypoker.com but it will now be possible to register for these tournaments online without having to open the client.

Thanks to all those that have made suggestions through the 2+2 forum and contacted us privately with your recommended improvements.

After an incredible eleven hour session Dane Albert ‘ireadyoursoul’ Iversen was the last man standing in the PartyPoker Monthly Million.  Iversen took home a cool $200,000 for his troubles after fighting his way through a field of over 1500 players.

Play got under way at 12:45 EST with 1573 hopefuls sitting down each having paid the $600 + $40 buy-in to the marquee poker tournament at PartyPoker.com.

200 places paid out

The championship blind structure ensured this was a tactical and tense tourney but it was not until we got down to the paid places starting at 200th place that the action really started to hot up.

H7517 was the unlucky bubble boy as his pair of tens was called by OldBettrHand, who stayed true to his name holding pocket rockets.  Each player was now guaranteed at least a $1300 pay day but only one man would take the  Monthly Million glory.

Following in the footsteps of recent winners and fellow countrymen Brian ‘Halfrek’ and Mads Wissing, Iversen took down the biggest regular tournament prize at PartyPoker after a short but explosive heads-up battle with shadydog1111.

Overcards win against the pocket pair

The final hand saw both players all-in pre-flop with Iversen holding Ac, Kd and shadydog111 the slight favourite with pocket 4s.  As is often the case a heads-up tussle was decided by an overcards against a pocket pair race.

Despite being the underdog ireadyoursoul hit his ace on the first card and maintained his lead through to the river as the board landed Ad 7h Qh 7d Jd.  Shadydog111 was left to console himself with an admiral second place finish and the not so inconsiderable sum of $110,000.

PartyPoker Monthly Million Top 10

Screen Name            Win Amount(USD)
ireadursoul                             200,000.00
shadydog111                         110,000.00
tottigoal10                               69,000.00
Pikkemand999                         54,500.00
ernesto_777                            46,000.00
Ivanskyvol                               34,500.00
Trunkmanie                              26,500.00
zeksymashine                          17,500.00
BODYROXER                             13,500.00
Maxim25                                    9,500.00

The PartyPoker.com Monthly Million takes place on the first Sunday of every month.  Satellite tournaments run throughout the month starting from as little as $1.  You can find the entry route to suit you over at partypoker.com and then register for that tourney with our new tournament schedule that lets you register online rather than through the poker lobby.

Image by Pokernyhederne