Reviews, News, and Interviews From Around the Poker World

Full Tilt’s Jeff Madsen Wins at Borgata
The Borgata Winter Open $3,000 no-limit hold’em championship in Atlantic City, USA in early February attracted 766 players and it was two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Jeff Madsen who took down the title.

The final table payouts were:
1. Jeff Madsen $625,006
2. Sirous Jamshidi $367,794
3. David Marchese $190,027
4. Barkley Hamilton $165,508
5. Nick Kamen $140,988
6. Al Grimes $116,468
7. David Fox $91,949
8. Ross Mallor $67,429
9. Chan Pelton $49,039
10. Matt Matros $31,876

Armed Robbers Target Berlin Poker Game
Poker players got a lot more drama than usual at the European Poker Tour Berlin in March when four masked and armed robbers targeted the €5,000 buy-in main event on day 4.

The robbery made mainstream media headlines around the world having been captured on video and camera by many of the patrons attending the game.

Despite this, at the time of writing, the police say the perpetrators were still at large, however they were hopeful of catching them.

Police union chief Rainer Wendt said in a TV interview that it was “clearly not the work of professionals. The way they were armed and behaved, as well as the mountain of evidence they left behind, already indicates that the police will quickly identify them.”

He also said the gang had plumbed “new depths of stupidity to carry out such a raid in front of running surveillance cameras.”

The police said the bandits made off with a “low six-digit figure” from the Grand Hyatt hotel at Potsdammer Platz.

Poker for the Homeless Raises €20,000
The PaddyPowerPoker.com Poker for the Homeless March Madness II weekend held at Dublin’s newly renovated Jackpot Club in mid-March proved a roaring success raising close to €20,000 across the two days’ play.

Numbers for the Friday night €100 freezeout were up from 93 to 97 (€1,940 raised for charity) with a further €1,430 raised by Phil Baker and his horse auction at the Cheltenham Festival preview — Eddie Walsh from The Loft poker club in Naas donated his winnings from the auction.

Sunday saw a strong turnout of 104 for the team event which raised €1,040, while individual and corporate donations exceeded €7,000 over the weekend.

Ambassador for the fundraising festival, Padraig Parkinson, said, “To beat last year’s total of €10,000 in the current economic climate shows that Irish poker players have real heart. Thanks to everyone who played, worked at, supported, and donated. With some donations still to come in, we’re confident we’ll surpass €20,000 for the weekend and will publish the accounts online just after the Irish Open.”

The Poker Show Live Returns
Online poker radio show, The Poker Show Live, sponsored by Boylepoker.com, is back for its third season.

Continuing as it started, the line-up for this season is no less than spectacular. The first shows were prerecorded at the Premier League IV in Las Vegas and feature a full review of the event from Jesse May, interviews with Luke “Full Flush” Schwartz and the event’s champ David Benyamine (See feature this issue).

A full archive of interviews, recent and upcoming shows can be found at Boylepoker.com and ThePokerShowLive.com. They can also be downloaded as podcasts from iTunes.

Mind Over Matter
The International Poker Federation issued a statement in March saying that rumours of its formal acceptance into the International Mind Sports Association were “premature”.

The IPF says that despite rumours sweeping the Internet, “We are not there yet.”

The statement went on to say it was, “Planning to apply to become a member of both Sportaccord and the International Mind Sports Association

The IPF will attend the April 2010 Sportaccord Congress in Dubai as an observer and will subsequently present its full membership application in 2011.

The IPF was inaugurated in mid-2009 with the aim of freeing poker from “the cruel and unfair restraints of gambling legislation across the globe”.

World-renowned poker author Anthony Holden is the president of the organization.

Fake Tann Flushed From Facebook
When users of Facebook, the social networking site, began receiving requests from who they thought was well-known poker player Willie Tann for a loan of various small amounts of money for his poker accounts, suspicion arose.

The topic became a hot one across many poker forums where fellow players discussed their interactions with the Tann impersonator. Many deleted the fake Tann from their friend lists before the account was deleted.

Hendon Mobster Joe Beevers expressed how he was once the victim of such an act, as did Vicky Coren, who said there are or were two fake accounts using her name on the network.

One upside from the fake Tann account was the debate generated around the issues of account protection and identity theft in the poker community.

Card Player Editor Wins Unibet Open
Card Player Netherlands editor Anthon-Pieter Wink topped the 460-strong field in March’s Unibet Open in Budapest, lifting the top prize of €170,000 at the €1,650 buy-in main event.

The final table payouts were:
1. Anthon-Pieter Wink €172,500
2. Peder Skaj €110,400
3. Joachim Buch €74,175
4. Maksim Tyurin €53,475
5. Klaus Nielsen €41,400
6. Danny Dabbagh €28,290
7. Nils Ral €21,045
8. Zsombor Gall €14,835
9. Christian Kall €12,075
10. Mitrovic Hrvoje €8,970

The next Unibet Open takes place at Golden Sands near Varna, Bulgaria from Jun. 3 to 6, 2010.

World Poker Tour Hits Europe
World Poker Tour and Casino Barcelona have confirmed that the WPT Spanish Championship will be held in the Catalan capital on May 17 and 18, 2010.

The main event will have a buy-in of €3,200 + €300, and previous winners of the event, first held in 2007, are Markus Lehmann, Casper Hansen, and Mark Randal Flowers.

Hot on the heels of the WPT Spanish Championship announcement was the news that the Tour was hitting Bucharest, Romania for the first time from March 27 to April 2, 2010. The $4,750 buy-in event was sponsored by Gamebookers.

Other European WPT events will be held this season in Paris and Venice.

Betfair Poker Sponsors Amateur Tour
BetfairPoker.com has announced its sponsorship of the A_mateur Poker Association and Tour (APAT)_ season 4, which will comprise 28 low buy-in live poker festivals in the UK and Ireland and three in Europe.

The online poker site will host exclusive online qualifiers for all APAT events, as well as the APAT online championships and league fixtures.

It will also bring added value to the tour in the form of 33 seats to Grosvenor UK Poker Tour main events, 23 seats to_ APAT Professional_ events, and two £20,000 sponsorship packages for the best amateur and professional players at the end of the season.
The APAT kicked off in Swansea, Wales on March 20, 2010.