Posted by PokerPop on 29th January 2012

Before the 2012 Aussie Millions, Oliver Speidel was a little known grinder whose main claim to fame was winning the 2011 Manny Pacquiao World Poker Event ($50,045). But all that’s changed in a big way after Speidel captured the Aussie Millions Main Event title along with the A$1,600,000 first place prize.

When final table play began, Speidel was sitting behind Bjorn Di in second place in the chip count. However, Li’s misfortunes along with Speidel’s dominating play propelled him to the final table lead. By the time it was down to just the Aussie and his head-up opponent, Kenneth Wong, Speidel had already built up a 4-1 chip lead. Wong was never able to make a dent in this lead either, and the tournament was over 20 minutes later.

Following the tourney, Oliver Speidel couldn’t believe he won the 2012 Aussie Millions Main Event as he said, “Words can’t describe it. I’ve just been incredibly lucky this week.” He continued by adding, “It’s almost a joke to me really how lucky I’ve been this week. It keeps amazing me and now to win it all, I don’t know. I don’t know what to say really.”

What’s interesting is that Speidel is now the fourth straight Aussie to win the Main Event title dating back to Stewart Scott in 2009. And no one is more happy about this than Speidel himself who added the aforementioned $1.6 million AUD to his career winnings. The 26-year-old now has $1.97 million USD in poker tournament earnings, which ranks him 6th all-time among Australians (just ahead of Scott).

Some of his other highlights include a $1k side event win at the 2011 Aussie Millions ($99.5k), finishing second in a 2012 Aussie Millions $1k side event ($25.5k), and winning the aforementioned Manny Pacquiao tournament in the Philippines.

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Posted by PokerPop on 28th January 2012

As if Phil Galfond’s unparalleled Pot-Limit Omaha ability hadn’t already gained him enough attention throughout the years, the American also made national news for installing a slide in his $3.14 million New York City condo. Unfortunately, Galfond isn’t getting much use out of the slide these days because he lives in Canada. And seeing as how he has two mortgages on the condo, Galfond is looking to sell the property within the coming months.

The high stakes poker pro discussed the sale by saying, “I’m selling my place in New York because I don’t know when I’m going to be able to live there full-time again. And it’s pretty expensive. I have a mortgage….two mortgages technically because it’s two apartments.”

He continued by saying, “I’m not living there, nobody’s living there. And I considered renting it out, but I don’t really like the idea of someone in my space if I’m gonna be back there. And I realize that I don’t really know if I’m gonna be back there.”

Galfond continued to discuss the sale by saying that if he wants to live in New York again, he can always find another place. He also added that the sale of his $3.14m condo will be featured on the Home & Garden TV show Selling New York. No date has been specified on when the apartments will be shown on Selling New York since they’re still filming the segment.

While not the primary motivation behind selling the condo, it’s worth mentioning that Galfond has been struggling in PLO games as of late. The Maryland native has lost over $580,000 playing online poker in January, and he’ll be looking to get back on track in future months.

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Posted by PokerPop on 24th January 2012

While those inside of the Las Vegas Bellagio were busy watching James Dempsey win the 2011 WPT Five Diamond Poker Classic along with $821,612, those outside of the Bellagio were busy gawking at the WPT Royal Flush Girls during their photo shoot.

The super hot poker babes did their shoot in early December when they weren’t occupied with greeting fans and taking pictures during the Five Diamond Poker Classic event. And we must say that the results were certainly excellent judging from the video clip seen below.

If you’re not already checking out the video, you should note that Carbon Poker sometimes offers WPT satellites for upcoming events. By playing in the WPT Satellites, you can take a shot at earning a prize package that will cover your tournament buy-in, along with travel expenses and hotel accommodations. Considering the fact that many WPT poker tournaments offer multi-million dollar prize pools, these prize packages are definitely worth playing for!

Getting back to the subject at hand, here is a look at the six WPT Royal Flush Girls posing for the lucky photographers:

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Posted by PokerPop on 24th January 2012

It appears as if Jamie Gold has joined the ranks of the poker coaching elite since he’s charging $1,000 per hourly session. The 2006 WSOP Main Event champion has a sign posted somewhere in the Tropicana Las Vegas that gives players details on how they can retain his pricey poker coaching services at the Jamie Gold Poker Room.

People in the poker community have already started in with the jokes on how Gold’s actual playing ability may not be in line with the fees he’s charging. But to me, the funniest part of this story is the sign used to promote his services.

Pokerati, which originally reported this news, made light of the sign by writing, “Really … $1k an hour? I mean that’s not quite Carrot Top money, and supposedly Gold’s already had five students pony up … but jeesh … you’d think at that rate they could at least afford a nicer sign!”

Indeed the sign does look like something that would be posted outside of a high school bake sale. In any case though, it looks like Jamie Gold is continuing to find ways to make money with the game of poker. And as Pokerati alluded to, he supposedly has five people in line for coaching sessions already.

Since winning the 2006 WSOP Main Event along with $12 million, Gold has continued to put his stamp on the game of poker through appearances and having the Tropicana’s Jamie Gold Poker Room named after him. The Malibu, California native has $12,242,748 in live poker tournament earnings, which ranks him 5th on the all-time winnings list.

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Posted by PokerPop on 22nd January 2012

The Australian Poker Hall of Fame saw some new players inducted as David Gorr and Jason Gray were honored at the 2012 Aussie Millions. These two met the qualifying standards for the APHOF, which include being a resident of Australia or New Zealand, demonstrating long-term commitment to the game, and displaying excellence on the poker tables.

As for Gorr, he is best known for winning the 2011 Aussie Millions Main Event along with $1,978,044. Aside from this big win, Gorr has played in numerous poker tournaments across Australia, and has cashed in 34 tournaments throughout his career.

After being inducted into the APHOF Gorr said, “Well, first of all, I didn’t know I was going to be inducted. I found out five minutes before. They said stay around, you need to be up at the front. I’m really honored and humbled that they have chosen me.”

He continued his speech by saying, “I’ve been in poker a long time, that’s true, and I was the 1996 Adelaide Champion, but it took another 15 years for me to win a tournament, so you can see the stamina you need to hang around and hopefully win a tournament. It’s fantastic, it will be interesting to see what my wife says when I get home.”

In regards to Jason Gray, he has been playing poker since 1992, and has earned $1,158,553 in live poker tournament winnings. His crowning achievement came in the 2008 APPT Sydney – Big Game Poker Championships, where he finished second in the Main Event and earned $300,000.

Since being created in 2009, the Australian Poker Hall of Fame has inducted some pretty prestigious players including Joe Hachem, Tony G, Lee Nelson, Jeffrey Lisandro and Billy “The Croc” Argyros. This being the case, both Gorr and Gray are joining an elite class of Australian poker players.

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Posted by PokerPop on 19th January 2012

For 14 years, we’ve patiently awaited the release of the best (only good) poker movie of all-time, Rounders. Unfortunately, the IMDB.com page for Rounders 2 says that the movie won’t be ready for its previously scheduled release date of 2012, but rather 2014 now. But what’s a couple more years after waiting almost one and a half decades?

At least we can only hope it will be two more years because there’s been some questionable statements coming from The Weinstein Company, which is the producer of Rounders 2. Owner Henry Weinstein was quoted as saying, “It’s become much more of a theatrical business because the movie has to work in theaters. There’s no second chance….I never make sequels but it’s something I’d like to revisit.”

This definitely contradicts what he originally said when planning the sequel after stating, “I’m entertaining the idea of doing a Rounders sequel because there’s a side of the story that we haven’t told. I want to do it because there’s something that we didn’t say.”

Going back to Weinstein’s comments about movies having to work in theaters, his main fear is that Rounders 2 will be just like the original – a mediocre box office performer that excelled in DVD sales. Unfortunately, with all of the online piracy out there, DVD sales have fallen considerably, so The Weinstein Company would have little to fall back on if Rounders 2 didn’t do well in the theaters.

One good thing worth mentioning in all of this is that Matt Damon and Edward Norton are expected to come back as we mentioned before. Damon played “Mike McDermott,” who was embarking on a WSOP trip when Rounders left off. Norton, or “Worm” in the movie, was still in New York City, but it’d only be logical if they met back up in a sequel. Initial plans also claimed that Leonardo DiCaprio would be in the Rounders sequel, but we’ll have to see how that pans out.

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Posted by PokerPop on 12th January 2012

After a fairly successful inaugural year, the Epic Poker League has suddenly found itself a new suitor in Pinnacle Entertainment. Apparently, Pinnacle has been in talks with Jeffrey Pollack and the Palms Casino about purchasing the Epic Poker League. While little is known about the potential deal, it’s supposed to be finished within 60 days – assuming the deal does get completed.

This is certainly news to most people since the EPL appeared to be doing much better than expected. But according to Wicked Chops Poker, the suspected reason for why the poker league pushed both their fourth event and $1 million freeroll back to TBA April/May dates is that they’re having some financial difficulties. The Epic Poker League, on the other hand, claims that it’s because players were asking that the events be pushed back.

In any case, it sounds like Pinnacle Entertainment is pretty serious about adding the EPL to their list of assets. Currently they own casinos in Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada and Ohio.

Apparently, some of the top brass at Pinnacle used to work with Jeffrey Pollack at Harrah’s Entertainment, which is a big reason why this potential deal has arisen. More specifically, Pinnacle marketing director Ginny Shanks helped Pollack run the WSOP, and also worked with him at Harrah’s Entertainment.

Assuming this deal did go through, it would be interesting to see where where the loud-mouthed EPL Commissioner Annie Duke would end up. She’s constantly been touting the league and herself through papers and interviews whenever the chance arises – much to the annoyance of most of the poker community. Of course, before anything happens with Duke or anyone else, we’ll need to see a deal go through first.

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Posted by PokerPop on 11th January 2012

A couple of years ago, Gus Hansen was the laughing stock of the poker world after losing over $5 million in online poker games. Now Hansen is one of the most feared players in both online and live poker. And he recently put his live poker skills on display in the Macau high stakes action that’s currently happening.

Hansen rolled into Macau a few days ago, and has already made a big impact at the tables. According to Poker Portal Asia, the Great Dane was up HKD $2 million (approx. US $258,000) during the session he was playing.

Also, it looks like Hansen may be blowing off the 2012 Aussie Millions to play in Macau, which is interesting because he won the Aussie Millions Main Event in ’07 along with $1,192,919. Of course, it’s hard to pass up the chance to make over $250k in a single cash game session!

It’s also worth mentioning that Hansen wasn’t the only star poker player in Macau this past weekend since John Juanda, Andrew Robl and Phil Ivey were also in town to play these juicy cash games.

It’s interesting that Ivey hasn’t let his recent divorce drama stand in the way of him and the Macau high stakes poker games. His wife is still in the process of fighting for more spousal support checks worth $180k a month.

Going back to the Macau games, Robl is an interesting story in all of this two because, a couple of weeks ago, he made $2 million during a session, only to lose it all in the same session. Of course, judging by how successful some of the other big-name cash game players have been in Macau, it’s likely that Robl has worked back towards that $2m in profit.

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Posted by PokerPop on 10th January 2012

Poker player Tiffany Michelle hasn’t spent a whole lot of time on the felt recently, but she’s definitely keeping busy. In fact, Michelle will appear on Season 3 of the Food Network show “Worst Cooks in America.”

If you’ve never seen this show, the idea is that 16 awful cooks are given two weeks to shape up their culinary skills. Of course this is a reality show, so most of the 16 wannabe cooks won’t survive the entire two weeks. And only two contestants will be around on the final episode to compete for a $25,000 winner’s prize.

As for Michelle, we don’t know much about her cooking background, or if she’ll be coached by Anne Burrell or Bobby Flay. However, we do know that she’s got plenty of reality TV experience since she appeared on the “Amazing Race” alongside fellow poker player Maria Ho. The pair actually made a pretty good run on the show before being eliminated on the seventh episode of Amazing Race 15; they finished 6th out of 12 teams.

Aside from her reality TV background, Michelle is an accomplished actor who’s appeared on several notable shows including “LA Ink,” “ER” and the “World Series of Blackjack.”

As for her association to the poker world, Michelle was arguably the most popular female player in 2008 after being the Last Woman Standing in the WSOP Main Event. Her 17th place finish earned her a $334,534 check, and plenty of recognition in the poker world.

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Posted by PokerPop on 4th January 2012

If you pay much attention to the NFL, you’ve no doubt heard American football quarterback Tim Tebow’s name mentioned a time or two. The golden boy took Denver from a dismal 1-4 record, to the top of the AFC West division and a playoff berth. Apparently, Tebow has become so popular that nefarious people are using his name to promote their alleged poker tournaments.

Our story begins with somebody under the twitter name “BigMoneyPoker” tweeting numerous poker pros with the following message:

BigMoneyPoker Amy Sandoval
@basebaldy Plz RT to show your support tebow playing poker for @AmericanCancer charity before the coloradopokerchampionship.com main event!

The first red flag about the Colorado Poker Championship is that, when you visit the website’s front page, you’re seeing the one and only page. Now I’m not saying this immediately means it’s a phony poker event, but definitely something to think about. Furthermore, the NFL is pretty leery about their players competing in charity poker tournaments, and devout religious fanatic Tim Tebow doesn’t exactly seem like the first person to go against the grain here.

In addition to this, it should be mentioned that the BigMoneyPoker twitter account is listed under Amy Sandoval, who’s supposedly a philanthropist, model, cheerleader, charity promoter and poker player – what a catch! Unfortunately, it’s questionable as to whether or not Sandoval really exists since she has never been on the poker radar in the past, and is spamming people like crazy. Plus her picture shows one of those slutty-girl-on-bed poses that people often use when they set up a fake Facebook or twitter account.

When you add it all together, I doubt you’ll see Tim Tebow showing up for the Colorado Poker Championship. Furthermore, it’s questionable what you really will find when you arrive at the supposed location of this mysterious poker event.

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