Yorky Pud

Well EPT Prague is over and done with and I am back on home soil and back to normal life. For the past seven days I have worked like a trooper and saw Roberto Romanello take down the Main Event for a cool €640,000.

When I covered EPT Barcelona, the final table was eight completely unknown players and when Kent Lundmark won it nobody batted an eyelid, we were mainly just happy to get away earlier than expected! This time though was different as we had Roberto to follow, someone who could bring home the bacon for the UK and when he did it was amazing. I remember standing there and watching him lift the trophy and was overjoyed for him. You could tell be his reaction that he wanted the win so badly and he actually deserved it too. The vast majority of people who work the EPT know Roberto much better than I do and none of them had a dry eye, it was quite the spectacle.

Anyway, Roberto said that he wanted everyone to celebrate with him and had an open bar at the Hilton's rooftop bar “Cloud 9,” which I took advantage of. When he made an appearance he was greeted with a load of cheering, clapping and seemed genuinely overwhelmed by it all. I got to speak to him for quite a while about poker and life and he was such a nice guy, I am delighted he won. Less said about my hangover the following day or the fact I get into bed full clothed, including shoes and coat, but it was good fun!

I'm not sure when the next EPT I will get to work but the feedback from the people there has been positive and I would be very surprised if both Lee Davy and myself didn't get a couple apiece during 2011. I've really enjoyed my time with the PokerNews crew and I think I have picked up some writing skills that will improve me. Also, getting to watch some of Europe's best players live has been very eye opening and I feel my own game has improved, but I need actually log some hands to prove that point!

Apart from the hangover, the travelling home was a complete bitch, with me being delayed at the airport for more than three hours then the plane was flying into a strong headwind which slowed us down, so by the time I got back to my car it was almost midnight and I was meant to land at about 1835. I'm feeling it today because I slept really badly, probably not helped by the Red Bulls I drank on the way home to keep me awake and out of a ditch! I'll be fine and dandy once I have had a decent kip and ready to face the world again.

I have to do my Christmas shopping tomorrow as I've not bought anything so I will be getting up early doors, getting a bunch of work done and head out into the freezing cold to buy some presents. I did the food shopping today and that wasn't too bad but I am not looking forward to going into the centre of town, not at all but I have to otherwise nobody will be getting anything.

Right, going to leave it there for now as I need a poo. I'll probably do some sort of recap about Prague and what I thought about it in the next day or too and then get back to letting you know how fishy I am at the tables. Until then, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

I feel great today, which is amazing considering how rough I felt all day yesterday, and before you ask I wasn't ill through ale, though it probably contributed in some way.

For over a week I've been really struggling with a cold, and since arriving in Prague it has got worse. Twelve to 14 hour days, coupled with crap eating habits, a couple of drinks late at night and the constant air conditioning basically dehydrated me like you wouldn't believe. I'm surprised my piss didn't come out like snot. I felt so crap yesterday that I didn't go for an Italian meal last night with the team, instead I slunk off and had an early night, one with plenty of water and it worked as I'm feeling it today!

The last couple of days in the poker room have been hectic, almost 400 players turned up for Day 1b, including a whole host of “stars” if that's what you would call them. I guess they are stars in our little world but outside the confines of the casino they are just men, and a few women, walking around with the rest of the world. Anyway, a big deal is made of getting the overnight chipleader's photo and all day we hovered around Roberto Romanello and a couple of relatively unknown guys who had stacks of chips in front of them, but when the official chip counts came in there was some dude who had completely eclipsed them all and we didn't have a clue who he was. Some bloke called Dirk Richter had apparently got it all in late on with AA vs KK vs 99 and stacked both players to end on almost 300,000 chips, 100,000 more than Romanello. Oops! I guess these kind of occurrences are rare but still frustrating nonetheless.

Today should be a good day to report on a poker tournament as there are plenty of people to rail. Toby Lewis, Laurence Houghton and Roberto Romanello are ones I will be watching closely if just because they are British. There are 94 players remaining and only 80 get paid so it should be emotional early doors! The plan is to play down to 24 today, which they better hurry up and do as the PokerStars Christmas part is tonight and it's an open bar from 2000 until 0100 so it would be rude not to partake in the consumption of free alcoholic beverages!

Before I go I thought I'd let you know that the hotel is putting me on life tilt, as is sparking mineral water, seriously WTF is that all about. I've never had sparkling mineral water before and I never will again. It's like someone has sucked all the flavour out of some pop and all you are left with is some chemically-tasting water, it's really ****. Oh and the hotel, there are six, yes six lifts in the foyer but they are a pisstake. You press the button to call one and the lift furthest from you arrives so you hightail it over to it and get there just as the door closes. You press the button again and expect it to open the door but the lift has gone and another one opens behind you at the opposite side of the room! Rinse and repeat. I was there for 15 minutes today running around like a right dickhead trying to get in the lift before I managed to get in one. It was worth it though as it took me to the floor where they supply you with plates of dog knobs and solid bacon so all is well in the world again.

Right, Main Event is about to kick off so I will leave it there. As always, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

Well Day 1a of EPT Prague is in the bag and as I type this we are on the 75 minute dinner break of Day 1b. There are no television crews for some reason so everyone gets a dinner break. I ate a chicken and mushroom Pot Noodle in mine so I could type this rambling nonsense!

I was ill all day yesterday, not beer-sick, actually ill. I had about six turds, I say turds but when they look and feel like a McDonalds milkshake then you can't really count them as that. Also, when on the plane in my left ear wouldn't pop so it felt like I was deaf. It popped properly mid afternoon but then everytime I swallowed it was like a stuck drain in the side of my head and no fun at all. Add to that the heavy head cold and I was rough.

The tournament itself was pretty **** if I am honest, but despite it being boring, the 13-hours went very quickly. It was boring mainly because there were very few big named pros taking part in the 191-strong field but compare that to today where 372 players started and it reads like a who's who of European poker. Only four hours to go and I can go chill out and have a beer in my room.

I almost crapped my pants today when I checked my bank as I thought I had been hacked! Over £600 missing from my current account caused a major panic but apparently this is normal for Hilton hotels in that they take a deposit in case you just piss off without paying for the stuff you use. The geezer at reception says they don't take the money, rather put a block on your account so it should be "refunded" instantly when I check out. Can you imagine trying to explain to the Mrs that you were in Prague and had somehow lost £600-£650 on a card transaction. She'd chop my knob off.

Talking of knobs, WTF is it with non-UK countries not understanding the basic sausage? Sausages are great, in fact if I was forced to choose a meat product for the rest of my life then the humble sausage would be my selection. If you had to tell someone how to make a sausage you would tell them to use almost all meat ( I won't buy any that are under 85% meat if I can help it), make them between 1.5 to two fingers thick, around six inches long and viola, decent sausage. The sausages I've had at breakfast resemble dogs dicks. Not the hairy bit but the "lipstick" they stick out when overly excited. Small, thin, weird texture (this is the sausage BTW) and down right strange.

I actually thought I'd found a good sausage yesterday evening as Dana, Jen, Chris, Mantas and myself went to a Czech restaurant for lunch. I had jalapeños peppers in a cheese batter for a starter and beef goulash with dumplins garnished with a grilled sausage. How on Earth do you garnish with a sausage? I discovered that by garnishing they simply meant they laid a sausage on top of it. The beef and sauce was gorgeous by low and behold the sausage was rank. It looked like a standard sausage in every respect until I bit into it. At this point I discovered it was orange, yes orange and about 85% gristle. For a split second I thought the chef had lost a finger. I ate it anyway, I'm fat, a fat potential cannibal.

Whilst I am ranting about meat products could someone email the Hitlon, Prague and tell them how to cook bacon. Now I am all for well done meat, especially of the bacon variety but blow torching the bugger is out of order. You can't cut it at all otherwise you risk it shattering and piercing your or your neighbour's eye. I never thought I would need safety glasses or suffer shrapnel injuries from a bit of cooked pig, but you live and learn.

Right fishes, the players are heading back and there are 263 of the chip riffling knobs. Better get back and report on the action. Until next time, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

Hello there boys and girls and anything else in between, Pud here on another European Poker Tour stop, this time in the beautiful city of Prague in the Czech Republic. As was the idea in Barcelona I want to try and blog everyday about things that I've seen etc but knowing how hard we have to work I have cunningly called this Part 1 instead of Day 1 so I can get away with not updating! Mwah ha ha ha ha ha!

The preparation for travel was not the best as I thought it may be a good idea to drink a ton of Carling on Saturday night! I woke up fresh as a daisy but lager makes me fart and crap like there is no tomorrow but after excreting a few hundred meters cubed of methane, eating six sausages and drinking three coffees I was ready for the off.

As usual the drive down was deadly boring, although it went very quickly as I found The Beatles Anthology in my glovebox, well the second part of it anyway. I forgot how much I love these guys, I would give anything to be able to go back in time and go to one of their gigs. Anyway, when I got to the carpark, which was a bargain £17.99 for 8 days, some rather portly woman comes bounding over shouting something about a jump! I'm like, WTF fatty, jog on and get yourself a cake but it turns out her car wouldn't start and she wanted me to jump start it! Jump starting it didn't work so me and her chap tried to bump start it but all that did was pull my calf, get me massively out of breath and sweaty! I told them to phone the AA and did one.

It was the first time I had flown out of Terminal 3 at Manchester, a terminal that is obviously reserved for retards and people going to crap places. The "duty free" shops are minimal, the places to buy food and drink are cack and you get 30 minutes free wifi! Notice how I put "duty free" in inverted commas? Well that's because it doesn't exist really. Spiritis, **** etc are dead cheap if flying out of the EU but not if you're staying inside. Even pretending you don't know Prague is in the EU as it doesn't use the Euro doesn't cut it with the staff, although some extremely camp fella (think that knobhead who does the dancing from Pineapple Studios or whatever) rubbed my hand and tried selling me some perfume so all wasn't lost.

Eventually, after losing a buyin to the biggest fish heads up, my gate was opened, Gate 3D. I half expected some stupid frigging glasses to wear. Whilst walking around to the "gate," notice that is in inverted commas too more later, the only plane I could see was one with propellers! Seriously, WTF? Are they even legal anymore? We finally got to the "gate" which is basically a sliding door where you walk out onto the runway, to our plane, or cigar tube as it is now known.

I am not joking, it was tiny. Apparently Boeing 737 planes are big, well they must have shrunk the inside because I could hardly fit my arse in the seat! Yes I am carrying a bit of timber but Jesus. I had to do some weird body contortionist shizzle to get my bag under my seat. I actually laughed when they said familiarise yourself with the brace position as the only thing I would be able to do would be to bow my head slightly! Yeah that'll keep me safe when we crash into the ground at 500mph from 40,000 feet.

The flight itself went quick, despite some Czech kid, around 4 years old, screaming his knob off for the last half hour. Surely you should be allowed to punch children in the face when you are on a flight. I love kids, not in an Ian Huntley kind of way, but control the little sods when there are 200 of you sat on each others knee in some weird and kinky "all pile on" situation.

One of the reasons Prague is so popular is the cheap ale. I remember 16 of us drinking for several hours and it costing us bugger all. However, Pudding has an in-built sensor to get ripped off, problem is I don't sense it until the ripping ff has happened. I arranged to meet Dana, a fellow blogger, at the airport so we could share a taxi. After waiting for around an hour I decided to get a beer, just as she and Steve the PokerStars photographer came into arrivals. The bird behind the counter gave me a receipt that said 145 Czech Koruna which means feck all until you realise it is informing me my beer is costing me £5.37. I asked if I was paying for the entire bar but sarcasm from a Yorkshireman doesn't go down too well and she told me I was only paying for myself!

The hotel is very nice on the outside an in the fantastic lobby (will try snap some pics) but the rooms are nothing like what I had in Barcelona. Still 20x better than the Travel Lodge me and the Mrs would stay in. Internet is meant to be £13 a day with the PokerStars discount but I tried my best to get it for nothing, which didn't work. Then was informed that it is highly illegal for hotel staff to accept bribes when I tried to pay the woman on the phone £30 for the seven night's stay. However, I may have got the net for free by finding a hidden purchase option, though I need to check with reception what is showing on my account otherwise I may be paying a ton of cash and not knowing it, and they already have my bank card details!

Right, well I'll leave it there for now. Just run a bath so going to jump in it and wash my sweaty fat bits. Already ironed my clothes for the week like the little bitch that I am. All I have to do now is eat one of the Pot Noodles I brought with me. Karl Pilkington eat your heart out!

As always, thanks for reading and best of look at the tables!

Apart from short stackers, which most sites have acted to eradicate, the one type of player I simply cannot stand is rakeback pros, or valueback pros as they would have to be called on the Ongame Network. However, this past week I have become one of these cancers.

I withdrew my bankroll before I went to EPT Barcelona, simply because I did not know what sort of expenses I would incur whilst out in sunny Spain. Since my return I have not put any money back on, simply because it is too near Christmas and I am covering EPT Prague next week. I still had a little bit of dosh knocking around on the Betfair site so when I received an email reminding me that my account still had 30% rakeback (valueback now) and was offered a no-deposit bonus, I decided to try and run the cash up to something more meaningful.

With the amount of money I had online it was basically pointless playing cash games so I started to register for some of the Double Or Nothing SNG with the turbo format. Whilst the 10% rake basically makes them unbeatable in the long run, the fact I get 300% rakeback and the bonus clears at 62.5% rakeback when cleared through tournaments, meaning I am getting 92.5% rakeback from these games! All I had to do was break even and I would be laughing.

Not only did I breakeven but I was actually in profit for the first 20 or so games but since then it has gone downhill rapidly. I have played a total of 202 games so far, with an ITM of 52.5% but an ROI of -4.6%, meaning I have lost $102 exactly. However, I have cleared $110 worth of bonuses and when I get my rakeback payment next Thursday I will be seeing a nice deposit of at least $60, probably a lot more as there is still a week to play. Surely this is wrong, that someone can lose and lose quite heavily but still win due to bonuses etc?

My figures are slightly lop sided though as I have only had three cashes in the last 14 games, which makes my results look even worse. According to the various stats on Holdem manager I should be winning with an ROI of exactly 2.0% or in monetary terms, I should be $146 better off! Sorry to any followers on Twitter this past week, I have been like a broken record moaning about bad beats. I hate myself for being a bonus **** but even if I continue to lose at this current rate I am still going to make almost $0.42 per game, so playing a couple of thousand of them whilst I work etc is really going to add up! Sad but true!

Since I have been playing on Betfair Poker I thought I might as well give my own opinions on the software. Although they pay the majority of my wages, I always try to be honest about anything to do with Betfair, even if at times that can be saying something negative about them. The new software got plenty of pelters when we first switched over and the Ongame network's software has received bad press across the board. However, I honestly think that the majority of players who have slagged it off have never actually played on it! Yes it is clunky, no you can't have a preferred seat in tournaments, there are no waiting lists or search function but it does what it is meant to do and that is deal cards and let you play poker. I am sure the developers can and will add a few more features such as auto top-up etc in the coming months, but for now it does a job.

I'm not sure how much I'll get to play next week as I have just been informed that the internet costs £20 per DAY at my hotel for EPT Prague and whilst I have a code that knocks off 40% of that, it is still a frigging ripoff to say the least. I won't pay it on principle, daylight robbery to say the very least.

As always, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

On Sunday I will be jetting off to the historical country of Prague in order to report on EPT Prague for PokerNews, the second European Poker Tour I will have covered, after being part of the team that covered EPT Barcelona. It will be the second time I have being in Prague, though this time should be completely different from the last time I graced the place with my presence!

My first trip to Prague was around five years ago when a 14-16 strong group of lads went on a stag do their in the middle of a massive freeze. We all went there dressed as Elvis Pressley, complete with jump suit, wigs and over the top jewellery but we soon ditched them when we landed and were informed it was minus 22! Yes, really!

As you can probably imagine the long weekend was simply nuts, we were all continually ball-bagged but we had a great time. There were dozens of highlights including dressing the stag up in the most horrific drag outfit bought from Oxfam and the locals loving him and grabbing his arse etc! Another was when Big Kevn and Ivan were arguing over who's football team had the biggest average attendance. Kev supports Leeds whilst Ivan is an Ipswich fan. At the time Leeds had a much larger average attendance but someone made a fake phone call home and said it was Ipswich who had the better average gate so as a forfeit Big Kev had to strip off to his shoes and run up the middle of the Prague high street!

One low point was getting lost in Prague and wondering around the streets in ridiculously low temperatures in a tracksuit top and pair of jeans and not finding the apartment for about three hours! Thae same night that happened I also fell asleep on the bog and as a result ended up with my first arse grape so I will always be reminded of the stag do!

This time around I will be staying in the Hilton, which is away from the touristy part of town and also much more luxurious than the shared room we were all in last time! I'm hoping that, like Barcelona, we have the internet thrown in otherwise the robbing sods want aroun £20 per day for it from what I hear. They can quite frankly go and do things to themselves if they think I'm parting with that amount of cash for a few hours net access. I'll simply write up all my work and use the internet at the tournament venue!

Lee Davy, who keeps an excellent blog that can be found here, is not going on this trip, instead I will be working with Dana (who was in Barcelona) and Jen Mason who is a very accomplished writer with work published all over the place. I really enjoyed EPT Barcelona despite the very long hours and I am really looking forward to this tournament too, though I will be staying away from copious amounts of ale like the last time I was here.

Internet permitting, I'll try do some sort of daily blog and I keep saying it but I'll try do a video blog too. I'm trying to figure out how to record from my webcam but if that fails I can always record directly onto YouTube. Until next time, thanks for reading and good luck at the tables.

Antonio Esfandiari turned 32 years old yesterday and in the early hours of this morning he bagged himself his best birthday present yet, the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic title and the $870,124 that comes with it. Esfandiari, known to millions as “The Magician,” defeated Andrew “good2cu” Robl heads up to win his second World Poker Tour title.

After a couple of technical hiccups from the television crews filming the six handed final table, the tournament restarted shortly after 1600 Las Vegas time and less than ten minutes later they had already lost a player. Ted Lawson started the day as the shortest stack and by quite a margin, so it was no surprise he was the first man out of the door. Seeing Vanessa Rousso raise to 225,000 from under the gun, Lawson moved all-in from middle position for his remaining 615,000 chips holding a pair of black nines. The action folded back to Rousso, who quickly called and turned over a much better hand, pocket queens. The Js-9d-2c flop looked like doubling up Lawson but the Qs on the turn meant he was drawing to a single out. That out failed to show up on the river and he was busted in sixth place, worth $126,693.

Next to join him on the rail, though not for another three hours, was Kirk Morrison. With blinds now at 50,000/100,000/10,000a, John Racener, of November Nine fame, made it 225,000 to play from the cutoff and both Morrison on the button and Robl in the small blind made the call. The Ah-Th-5c flop saw Robl and Racener check, Morrison bet 225,000 and Robl check-raise to 550,000. Racener got out of the way but Morrison stayed in the hand to see the 9s arrive on the turn. After a brief pause, Robl moved all in and Morrison made the call, showing AsJh for a pair of aces, well behind the set of fives of Robl, so far behind that he was actually drawing dead. The Ts on the river completed the hand and just before Morrison left to pick up his $168,924 for his fifth place finish, he jokingly shouted “rebuy!”

John Racener's tournament came to an abrupt end 25 hands later when he opted to move all in preflop for his last 1,005,000 with Qc8c only to find Esfandiari sitting in the small blind with KcQh and in the mood to gamble. The gamble paid off right away as he paired his king on a Kh-6c-3s flop and when the turn and river were the 7h and 8h respectively, Racener was eliminated and the tournament down to its final three players.

Chip counts three handed

Seat 1: Antonio Esfandiari: 5,660,000
Seat 2: Vanessa Rousso: 2,790,000
Seat 3: Andrew Robl: 9,205,000

Due to being deep stacked, the three-handed section of the tournament lasted close to four hours but on hand number 123, Rousso lost her stack and the play went heads up. With the blinds now severely biting into the players' stacks at a huge 100,000/200,000/20,000a, Rousso moved all in for a total of 1,950,000 from the button. Robl got out of the way but Esfandiari made the call in the big blind and showed AcQs. Rousso looked dejected as she flipped over Qh2h, a massive underdog in the hand. The five community cards came out 7d-6h-5c-3s-8s and “The Magician's” ace-high was good enough to end Rousso's dreams of being the first female WPT Champion.

Going into heads up, Robl held a 9,500,000 to 8,155,000 chip lead over his opponent but that did not stop Esfandiari from going on the attack from the word go. He gradually chipped away at Robl's stack, managing first to even things up and then take the lead, sitting on 10,000,000 chips. However, Robl fought back to completely reverse the chip counts, before Estfandiari followed suit and retook the lead!

The on hand 181 of the final table, and the 58th of heads up, Esfandiari raised to 800,000 preflop, Robl checked his cards and moved all in and Esfandiari made the call. The latter turned over KcJd, whilst Robl revealed QdTc, which needed to improve to keep the contest alive. The Ad-Kd-6d flop gave Esfandiari top pair but also “good2cu” a diamond flush draw. The 6c on the turn failed to alter anything and when the 5s peeled off on the river, Esfandiari had won ever chip in play and was the new WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic Champion! Robl picked up $549,003 for coming second, whilst the $870,124 Esfandiari won for his first place finish takes him to an impressive $4,508,117 in live tournament winnings.

Esfandiari's win puts in company such as Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein and Erick Lindgren on two WPT titles and just one away from joining Gus Hansen and Carlos Mortensen on three apiece. Can he make it a hattrick of titles at the next stop on the World Poker Tour, the Southern Poker Championship in Biloxi, Mississippi on January 23.

Vanessa Rousso is looking to become the first-ever World Poker Tour Main Event Champion as she leads the final table of six at the 2010 WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic.

Fifteen players returned to the Bellagio and after nine hours of play, they had been whittle down to the final table of six players, and what a final table it is. With no fewer than three WSOP winners, a WPT title and over $19,000,000 in live tournament winnings between them, it promises to be one of the most exciting encounters in the modern game.

Danny Fuhs was the day's first casualty, choosing 5s7s to move all in with from the button for a little over ten big blinds. It looked as if he was going to pick up the much needed blinds and antes but he did not bank on Rousso waking up, and calling, with AhKd in the big blind. The final board ran out 6d-3s-2c-9d-9s, and Rousso's ace-high was the best hand, leaving Fuhs to pick up the $42,231 awarded to 15th place.

Over the next four hours the players gradually headed for the rail one by one. Charles Caris will go down in the WPT record books as being the 14th place finisher, whilst online phenom Amit “amak316” Makhija busted out in 13th at the hands of Rousso. Chris DeMaci's 12th place finish was also at the hands of “Lady Mavrick” and when Antonio Esfandiari dispatched Luis Velador in 11th spot, the remaining ten players were all moved to an unofficial final table.

It took 23 hands of this table for ten to become nine, when Sorel Mizzi got extremely lucky against Ray Dehkharghani to send him to the rail. With the board reading Ac-Js-9c and facing an all-in bet, Mizzi went deep into the tank for more than six minutes, eventually calling the clock on himself! He finally made the call with KsJh but was in a whole world of pain as his opponent turned over AsTc for top pair. The 4s on the turn kept Mizzi well behind but the Jc on the river gave him trip jacks and the best hand.

Mizzi's luck ran out though shortly after when he got into a raising war preflop with Miss Rousso, which resulted in the Mizzi being all in and at risk. His pocket queens, however strong, were not as strong as the pocket kings of Rousso and when no queen appeared on the board, the young Canadian was eliminated in ninth place, just short of his first WPT final table finish.

Andrew “Lucky Chewy” Lichtenberger, an online cash game genius, was next to leave the table when became ye another victim for the running hot Rousso. The money went in on a a flop reading As-Td-6s, with Lichtenberger holding AcQd but he was well behind the Ah6h that Rousso had called preflop with and now made two pair. The turn and river came the 4c and 9c respectively and as Lichtenberger left the table, Rousso stacked up what amounted to 6,000,000 chips!

An hour later and the final table was set, as Kia Mohajeri was busted out in seventh place. Ted Lawson raised to 225,000 from the cutoff with the blinds at 25,000/50,000/5,000a, Mohajeri moved all in from the button but John Racener, who finished fifth at this year's WSOP Main Event, re-shoved, causing Lawson to fold. The AhQs of Mohajeri was good enough to play for his remaining chips but it was dominated by Racener's AsKd. The five community cards came out 6c-6h-2h-9c-Ts and as Mohajeri went to pick up his $97,131, the tournament was paused until 1600 Las Vegas time, when the players will come back and play for the title and the $870,124 on offer for first place.

Seat 1: Antonio Esfandiari: 2,105,000
Seat 2: Vanessa Rousso: 5,830,000
Seat 3: Ted Lawson: 635,000
Seat 4: John Racener: 3,235,000
Seat 5: Kirk Morrison: 2650,000
Seat 6: Andrew Robl: 3,210,000

Back in 2006 internet gambling, especially online poker, looked as if it had changed forever with the passing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006 in the United States of America.

The UIGEA was passed into American law and it made it illegal for American banks and financial institutions to process payments from American citizens. Whilst a handful of rebellious online poker sites continued to offer their services to American customers, the vast majority did the only thing they could do and that is to act within the law and prevent American players from using their sites.

This obviously had a massive knock-on effect on the entire online poker world, with some of the smaller sites and networks going out of business, some being forced to merge with other companies but ultimately it was the customer who lost out as decreased revenue from the massive base of American players meant less operating funds for sites, which in turn meant less money for promotions and bonuses.

Congressman Barney Frank has been lobbying for internet gambling to be legalised, licensed, regulated and even taxed in the US, and his bill HR-2267: Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act gave the framework on how to do this. At time of writing, HR 2267 has been passed as a bill and is still waiting to be made into a law, with no definite date on when it will be heard by the house.

However, a law could be passed that will licence, regulate and legalise online poker within the next week! Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been working behind the scenes to get the Internet Poker Act signed into law and it could happen as early as next week. Reid's act was meant to be made public by the end of this week but someone leaked the document to the Las Vegas Review Journal and they published it in its entirety.

The bill is a real mixed bag with both some very good points and some horrifically bad ones, especially if you are a professional poker player in the US. The bill, which looks as if it will be attached to the back of another bill that is almost guaranteed to be signed into law (much like the UIGEA was with the SAFE Port Act), shows that online poker sites would have to obtain a licence and that by doing s they would pay 20% tax on all deposits made by players each month. This would mean that even the sites that have gone against the UIGEA would be allowed to offer their services to American clients.

There is a big but though and that is that these sites would have to have a “reboot” period of no less than 15 months where they simply could not offer services to American customers. This would mean that many online poker professionals currently based in the United States of America would have to either be out of a job for 15 months or move to another country entirely! The move is meant to offer sites a level playing field as those who have American facing operation currently have a huge advantage over those who do not.

John Pappas, the executive director of the Poker Players Alliance, had this to say about the 15 month blackout period, “It doesn't make sense for the player or the industry," Pappas said. "I don't know why any new entrants into Internet gaming would want to come into an industry that has been decimated, or the players have all moved to truly unregulated sites, sites with no interest of ever being licensed. They might never win those players back to regulated sites. If someone is interested in operating an Internet gaming site, I'd think they would like to see a much smoother transition.”

Stay tuned for any further developments on what could be the most important couple of weeks in online poker history.

Fifty-four players returned to the Fontana Lounge at the luxurious Bellagio for Day 4 of the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Star Diamond World Poker Classic, each guaranteed $13,725 in prize money. Ten hours later all but 15 players had been eliminated and the minimum they will all walk away with now is $42,231. Antonio Esfandiari started the day as chip leader and ended the day in the same vein, extending his lead from 300,000 to almost 800,000 chips.

The first elimination only took a few minutes and when the dust had settled it was Michael Kucinski who was the first player to head for the rail. With blinds at 2,500/5,000/500a, Kucinski opened the betting from middle position to 13,500 and when the action folded to Andrew Robl in the small blind he raised to 100,000. This was enough to put the big blind and Kucinski all in. he big blind folded but Kucinski made the call before turning over AcKc, which was up against the JcJd of Robl. The final board ran out 9s-8s-4s-4c-Js and Robl increased his stack to 345,000.

A large number of notable players were eliminated over the next few hours, including celebrated author David Sklansky, Dan Shak, Allen Kessler and Jonathan Little. Though it was the man who busted out in 18th place that was arguably the biggest name of all. With blinds now 6,000/12,000/2,000a Vanessa Rousso bet 40,000 from the cutoff, Doyle Brunson then moved all in for 245,000. Kia Mohajeri called in the big blind, forcing Rousso to muck her hand face up, 7d6d. Esfandiari wished Brunson good luck and as he turned over AcJs it was obvious he needed plenty as Mohajeri held AdKc. The 9h-6s-6c flop failed to alter anything, neither did the 5h on the turn and when the 4s fell on the river it was game over for the 10-time WSOP bracelet winner and the tournament's namesake. As he left the tournament area to pick up the $33,785 awarded for 18th place, Brunson received a rapturous round of applause.

At around quarter past ten Las Vegas time, the tournament directors signalled that play would end for the day, with the 15 surviving players returning to the Bellagio at 1200 to play down to the final table of six. The title hopefuls will be playing in the Bellagio poker room as the television crews are building the final table set in the Fontana Lounge.

Leading the way is Esfandiari who now has 2,680,000 chips in front of him, followed in second place by November Nine member John Racener on 1,900,000. Andrew Robl's 1,750,000 stack is enough for third place, whilst Kia Mohajeri finds himself in fourth place with 1,694,000 chips remaining. The table draws have not been officially made yet but the chip counts of the remaining players are as follows:

1.) Antonio Esfandiari: 2,680,000
2.) John Racener: 1,900,000
3.) Andrew Robl: 1,750,000
4.) Kia Mohajeri: 1,694,000
5.) Kirk Morrison: 1,545,000
6.) Luis Velador: 1,423,000
7.) Sorel Mizzi: 1,380,000
8.) Ray Dehkharghani: 1,148,000
9.) Andrew “Lucky Chewy” Lichtenberger: 915,000
10.) Vanessa Rousso: 888,000
11.) Chris DeMaci: 801,000
12.) Amit “amak16” Makhija: 756,000
13.) Ted Lawson: 400,000
14.) Danny Fuhs: 247,000
15.) Charles Caris: 125,000