News, Reviews And Interviews From Around The Poker World

PPA Weighs In on Intrastate Poker Efforts
Several States Consider Online Poker Regulation
By Stephen A. Murphy

California. Florida. Massachusetts. New Jersey. Iowa.

This might not have been the terrain upon which the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) expected itself to be fighting, but it’s where the battles have been taking place, as several state governments are considering regulating the online poker industry within their borders.

Hungry for additional revenue in these difficult financial times, a number of state legislatures have held preliminary hearings on the financial benefits that a regulated online poker market would bring to their states.

California alone is facing a $20 billion deficit, and has been forced to cut numerous state programs in the past year. For states that are struggling to piece together their annual budgets, the potential revenue that online poker regulation offers is increasingly intriguing to elected officials who don’t want to have to cut additional programs.

Since its founding in 2005, the PPA, which now has 1.2 million members in the U.S., has devoted much of its resources to the federal level. But while efforts in Washington, D.C., have progressed slowly, the financial situations of these states have put intrastate online poker at the forefront of the debate.

Intrastate online poker is a regulated market authorized by an individual U.S. state. Players who compete in an intrastate market could theoretically play against opponents who reside outside their specific state, but they would be subject to the rules and regulations of the state. No U.S. state has yet enacted such a system, but the tides appear to be turning.

In February alone, state legislatures in California, Florida, Iowa, New Jersey, and Massachusetts discussed the topic of online poker. The PPA testified before several of these hearings, saying that states could indeed make a good amount of money through regulation, but cautioned them regarding how they might offer online poker.

“Let me be clear. We support licensing and regulation. We think it’s achievable,” said PPA Executive Director John Pappas, at a February hearing in Florida. “Our preference is to do it at the federal level, but if we are going to go down to the state level like you guys are contemplating here [in Florida] and like they’re contemplating in California, competition has to be key.”

The PPA wants to make sure that players will still be able to compete on current online poker sites, like PokerStars and Full Tilt, and that they will still be able to compete against players not within their own state.

Pappas believes that states would be able to make more money through licensing fees if they allow an open market, and says that individual states would have a tough time creating critical mass if they did not allow their constituents to play against players in other areas.

NAPT Venetian Attracts Nearly 900 Players
New Tour Proves to be a Huge Draw
By Stephen A. Murphy and Julio Rodriguez

All eyes were on the Venetian poker room in Las Vegas in late February to see how the new PokerStars.net North American Poker Tour would fare. The result? The NAPT is shaping up to be the biggest and most successful poker tour that the U.S. has ever seen.

A grand total of 872 players showed up for what is serving as the championship event of the Deep-Stack Extravaganza. The field was so large that the day began with an announcement from Venetian officials that all cash games had to be stopped in order to accommodate all of the entrants. With a capacity of 890, the first stop of the NAPT came dangerously close to having to take alternates.

With a $5,000 buy-in, the prize pool reached an astounding $4,017,740. A total of 128 players made the money, earning a minimum of $7,232. Tom “kingsofcards” Marchese took home top honors and $827,648 for winning the title.

It was obvious that NAPT officials and players were thrilled with the
success of the NAPT’s first major tournament.

“The NAPT is clear evidence that poker is not dead in the U.S.” said Team PokerStars pro Daniel Negreanu. “Far from it. There were so many fans at the Venetian, it reminded me of the poker boom at its peak.”

In addition to the NAPT Venetian main event, the tournament series also included a $25,000 shootout bounty tournament that attracted several of the biggest names in the game, and a celebrity charity event, which benefited a Las Vegas food drive charity. Ashton “theASHMAN103” Griffin won the bounty tournament, collecting a total of $560,000 for his win and the players he knocked out.

The bounty shootout tournament and the NAPT Venetian main event will be broadcast on ESPN2, starting on April 19. The network will also film the NAPT Mohegan Sun tournament, which takes place April 7-11, for a future broadcast.

At press time, additional stops had not been announced for the new tour, but PokerStars’ head of global events Jeffrey Haas said that players could expect at least two more tournament series in 2010. Their locations are expected to be announced around the time of the NAPT Mohegan Sun event.

Chris Moore Wins L.A. Poker Classic $10,000 Heads-Up Championship
Faces Off With Vivek Rajkumar in Finals for Second Year in a Row
By Ryan Lucchesi

Do you believe in miracles? Well, you would have to if you thought this could happen. Chris Moore and Vivek Rajkumar faced off for the second year in a row in the finals of the 2010 L.A. Poker Classic $10,000 heads-up no-limit hold’em championship at Commerce Casino.

This year, the event attracted 39 players, down from 111 in 2009.

Rajkumar lost one match on his path to the finals, while Moore lost none, so Rajkumar was faced with the task of beating Moore twice for the title.

Last year, Rajkumar came from behind and defeated Moore two times in a row to win the event. This year, Moore was eager to win the first match between the two in the finals of the double-elimination tournament.

“If I didn’t shut the door early this time, I think the pressure would have built up and I would have been nervous if I had to play another one, thinking, here we go again,” said Moore, who also defeated Erick Lindgren, Scott Fischman, Frank Kassela, Anthony Guetti, and Aaron Jones on his way to the title.

In the end, Moore won the first match of the finals to take home the tournament title and first-place prize money of $152,200, while Rajkumar banked $76,100 for second place.

PokerStars Sunday Million Winner Earns More Than $1.1 Million
Largest Payday Ever for Site’s Flagship Event
By Stephen A. Murphy

In February, PokerStars decided to celebrate a major milestone — its 40-billionth hand dealt.

The site ran a number of promotions — giving away nearly $780,000 in milestone hands in its cash games — but one particular promotion stood out in a very big way.

PokerStars guaranteed a $4 million prize pool for its weekly $215 poker tournament, the Sunday Million. At that guarantee, it would already become the largest prize pool ever in the history of that popular event.

But even PokerStars must have been surprised when an incredible 36,169 players showed up to play in the tournament on Feb. 21, creating a prize pool of more than $7.2 million. “RichieRichZH,” from Zurich, Switzerland, was the big winner — collecting $1,141,510 after the players at the final table could not agree to a chop. The second-place finisher, “lankeshwar,” and the third-place finisher, “petinvest7,” earned $754,774 and $506,366, respectively. Not bad for a $215 investment.

The prize pool was the fourth-largest in online poker history — behind only the main events of the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker of the past three years.