PartyPoker Weekly: Oktoberfest Freeroll and Looking for Cows with Tony G
Oktoberfest Freeroll
We have already told you about the amazing packages PartyPoker VIPs can win to the legendary German beer festival, Oktoberfest. There is now another way to win one of two further exclusive packages to the event.
Either make your first deposit or collect 25 PartyPoints between August 15 and September 15, and you can win your place in an exclusive freeroll on September 18. The top two players will each claim an Oktoberfest package while there’s also a $1,000 prize pool available to players who finish high enough.
Tony G looking for the Professor and a Cow
Tony G has been really touched this week at the news that Yvonne the cow has become a big star in Germany after escaping from a farm. Hunters have permission to shoot her, but Tony is among the many campaigners stepping in to try and save her:
================
The Weekly Turbo: Lesniak Tries Again, Full Tilt Poker Lawsuit, and More
That's what New Jersey state Sen. Raymond Lesniak is doing. Rather than giving up after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vetoed his bill for intrastate online gaming, Lesniak is planning on reintroducing it.
"Both industries are dying a slow death and they need the additional revenues that online gaming will provide for them," Lesniak said of Atlantic City casinos and horse racing.
The state senator says that online gaming would create 1,900 new jobs and tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue. According to reports, one reason Gov. Christie vetoed the bill was because he was worried that Internet cafes would pop up around the state and exploit it.
In the new version of the bill Lesniak said, "They will be strictly prohibited from doing that."
According to NJ1015.com, the bill will be reintroduced on August 25.
================
The Online Railbird Report: Blom, Galfond, & Sahamies Win Big
We'll admit that the high-stakes online action has been spotty over the past few months, but we can honestly say the past week was likely the best since the events of Black Friday. The games were good, big-name pros were in action, and money was changing hands. All the ingredients were there for one heck of a week!
As it happened, the biggest winners of the week were a plethora of notable players. Viktor “Isildur1” Blom topped the list with $482,065 in profits after playing 9,095 spread across 100 sessions. Close behind was Phil “MrSweets28” Galfond, who won $410,235 throughout 84 sessions comprising 7,655 hands. Rounding out the top three was a familiar face, Ilari “Ilari FIN” Sahamies, who put in 4,620 hands across 45 sessions to bank $315,470.
Likewise, the names on the loser’s side ought to be familiar to most railbirds. Davin “mTw-DaviN” Georgi ended up the biggest loser after dropping $423,650 in 64 sessions of 5,285 hands and Ben “Sauce123” Sulsky was close behind losing $346,023 in 43 sessions made up of 3,835 hands. Rui "PepperoniF" Cao seemed to put in the most volume, playing 13,304 hands spread across 103 sessions, but he still lost $104,684, making him the sixth biggest loser of the week.
================
Epic Poker Standards & Conduct Committee Puts Chino Rheem on Probation
Last week, the Epic Poker League held its inaugural $20,000 Main Event at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas. The tournament attracted 137 players and created a prize pool of $3,085,200 with a smooth $1,000,000 reserved for first. That prize was captured by former November Niner David “Chino” Rheem, who was making headlines of his own outside the EPL.
As we reported shortly before the conclusion of EPL’s first Main Event, Rheem had come under fire in the poker community when he was called out by Will Molson in the TwoPlusTwo forums as being a scammer and welsher. Molson’s sentiments were soon echoed by other poker pros such as Ben Lamb, Tom Dwan, and Joseph Cheong, tarnishing Rheem’s reputation in the process. While Rheem did go on to win the event, it may have been too little, too late.
Apparently, Rheem did not take home $1,000,000 because he was backed for 70 percent (many in the forums speculate by Rheem’s One Drop hat that his backer was the founder of that charity, Guy Laliberté) and 10 percent was reserved for charity (as part of the staking agreement). That left Rheem with 20 percent, perhaps less because it was rumored he had swapped 8 to 10 percent with another participant in the tournament. If that were true, Rheem would have earned $120,000 for his win.
