Poker News

The disturbing news that a young student was killing girls by contacting them through CraigsList was quite disturbing. To think that someone would do this is almost unimaginable. Then the bombshell dropped that shook the movement for legalizing online gaming, specifically poker. He was robbing and killing these girls to pay off gambling debts.

By no means is this meant to belittle the suffering of these girls and their families. It is just to bring to light the difficulties that now face the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) in their quest to get support behind their movement of legalizing gambling in the United States on the Internet.

The PPA has reportedly earmarked about $3,000,000 for lobbying efforts to gain support for their bill. Now you have to honestly ask yourself what politician would associate themselves with such a bill that will surely be twisted into condoning this type of behavior. The argument will be made that if this young man was not able to gamble, these murders may have never have happened.

Issues like this will continue to plague the movement to legalize poker and gambling online. The odd thing is that things like this happen that are related to alcohol and TV violence, yet neither of those is ever even thought about being distinguished. It is a shame that these horrible murders will be turned into some other than what they are, the horrible acts of an individual who lacks self control.

All in all, almost 1,200 players would sit down on Poker Room for the “shuffle up and deal” call, falling just short of the 1,300+ that showed up for The Poker Stars Caribbean Adventure. However, the 1,178 entries was the most ever for an EPT event. The online poker players once again showed up in force with well over 200 entries having been gained that way. In addition to the internet players, the field was rich with big names looking to take down a huge payday.

It is becoming tougher and tougher for big name Poker Players to succeed in these large fields as they always have a target on their head. No-name players have no qualms about putting their stack up for grabs against a pro just to be the person who took the out and gain their 15 minutes of fame on television during the airing of the tournament. Greg Raymer was the early victim this time around as yet another WSOP Champion falls on the first day of a major event.

At the end of day one, the board was littered with names that only friends and family would be able to recognize. There were still some professionals left, but it was the grinders and internet players that were making their marl Dragan Galic went to bed on the opening night with a comfortable lead of almost 30,000 chips and a stack of 107,800. Not a bad day of work.

Day 1b seemed to have a lot more star power in it and the chips were flying. With a prize pool of €5,713,000 and the first place winner becoming an instant millionaire, the amateurs and pros alike were slinging their chips in hopes of getting the early stack and play dominating poker.

One player of prominence that this backfired on was the infamous Poker Stars player, Dario Minieri. You may remember him for the WSOP as the flamboyant youngster that wore the large sunglasses and scarf at all the events. He also gained prominence for earning enough points on PS to cash them in for a car. He chose the wrong time to get aggressive as he moved all in with AQ and stood face to face with AA.

After two day ones, there were 469 players remaining for what looks to be a very lively tournament. The massive chip count of Dragan Galic held up to the second session, but second place overall was captured by Ljubomir Josipovic with 83,200. A few days from now, we will have yet another millionaire poker player. It would be no surprise to see a teenage internet player hoist yet another championship.

The results from the first ever epidemiological analysis of the actual gaming behavior evidenced by a large sample of 3,445 online poker players over the span of 2 years are about to be published. The study was conducted by the Division on Addictions, Cambridge Health Alliance, a Harvard Medical School teaching affiliate. This collaboration reflects the longstanding partnership with bwin, the world’s leading online gaming provider.

The partnership between bwin and the Division on Addictions was established in 2005 to provide a scientific basis for the assessment of conspicuous gaming behavior and its consequences for responsible gaming. Two key findings beginning to emerge from the research initiative are:

1) The myth of online gaming as a powerful seductive force has been empirically refuted. Online gaming has no greater problem potential than offline gaming.

2) Responsible gaming measures show effect.

The current research, which analyzes the behavior of  Poker players over the course of two years, is the world’s largest longitudinal and the first ever epidemiological study of its kind.

Individuals exhibit rational behavior

“In this research we provide additional evidence in support of our previous research showing that most subscribers who gamble on the Internet do so moderately. In fact, correlation analyses indicated that as Percent Lost increased, Duration, Total Gambling Sessions, and Total Amount Wagered all decreased, suggesting that individuals moderated their behavior based on their wins and their losses – exhibiting “rational” betting behavior.” says Howard Shaffer, PH.D., Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School, Director, Division on Addictions, The Cambridge Health Alliance, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School.

• The average age of the cohort (sample) was 27.9 years and almost 95% were male. The typical Poker player was an active poker player for a median duration of six and a half months and participated in a median of one poker session every three days. The median Euros per session gambled was €13 and the median cost of playing poker was €1.80 per session.

• The gaming behaviors of the most involved poker players show that this group, representing 5% of all players, was active for a duration of 18.5 months and participated in ten sessions per week.

• This 5% subgroup had a smaller percentage lost than the sample majority, suggesting that skill is a factor in poker play and that players are able to improve their performance compared with chance.

• When examining the most involved poker players who devoted more time and money to this activity, the study found that like the rest of the sample, they reduced Euros per session and reduced Total Wagered as Percent Loss increased.

“In our intention to replace speculation with scientific evidence, this study takes us a big step closer towards understanding the behavior of online poker players. Ultimately we are interested in developing algorithms capable of identifying behavioral patterns or identifying risk patterns associated with disordered gaming.” says Manfred Bodner, Co-CEO of bwin.

Swedish professional outlasts 699 others in Europe’s most prestigious tournament

Christer Johansson today won the Paddy Power Poker Irish Open Poker, winning a first prize of €600,000. The 39-year old Swede is a well-known online cash game specialist who plays unPower Pokerder the handle ‘sendmemore’. Johansson triumphed over a professional-heavy field of 700 players, including such stars as Dan Harrington, Jamie Gold, Phil Laak, Marty Smyth, Ciaran O’Leary and Neil Channing.

TV presenter and former model Kara Scott finished in second place, taking home €312,600, with Andrew Pantling receiving €205,200 for third place and Antanas Gueorguiev winning €163,300 for finishing fourth. Lee Brooke-Pearce (€130,600), William Kassouf (€100,800), Bradley Verburg (€74,600), Andy Bradley (€56,000) and Irishman Philip Baker (€37,400) finished in fifth through ninth places respectively.

Sixteenth place finisher Marcel Koch became paddypowerpoker.com’s €100,000 Sole Survivor by outlasting more than one hundred other paddypowerpoker.com online qualifiers, winning a prize package worth €100,000.

The tournament began on Friday, April 10th and featured a total prizepool of €2,240,000. The buy-in for the tournament was €3,500 and 72 players made the money. A live webcast and comprehensive updates were available throughout the weekend on the official Irish Open blog, with the tournament scheduled for broadcast on TG4 (Ireland) and ITV4 (UK) during May and June.

Follow the action from Ireland’s premier poker event

Paddy Power Poker today announces that the Irish Open will be broadcast live via web stream. Coverage will begin at the start of play at 2pm on Friday, April 10th and will conclude with the presentation of the champion’s trophy on Monday, April 13th.

The live stream will be accessible via the Irish Open website and official blog page and viewer interaction with the commentators will be possible via Twitter.

Additionally, Paddy Power Poker will offer live fixed odds betting on the colour of the flop cards seen.

“Our live stream is another ‘first’ for the paddypowerpoker.com Irish Open” said Eric Booth, Head of Poker for paddypowerpoker.com. “Those viewing from home will be able to follow the action from Dublin in real time while playing in one of our Irish Open Online tournaments! Our live stream and dedicated team of bloggers will ensure that this year’s Irish Open will be easier to follow than ever before; online visitors will know what’s happening as soon as those playing do!”