2009 WSOP Main Event winner Joe Cada won 2018 WSOPEvent #3: $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em SHOOTOUT for $226,218, defeating a field of 363 entries to win the third gold bracelet of his career.
“It’s tough to win any no-limit event,” he told the WSOP. “You have to get really lucky and I ran really well. There were points in the tournament where I could’ve easily been on the sidelines.”
“There’s a much different dynamic at the final table than while playing through the tournament,” said Cada, about his ability to survive slow stretches and up winning three straight shootout rounds. “I just stayed patient and hopefully [would get] a rush of cards at the end, when the blinds were big.” That’s indeed how it played out, with Cada coming out on top in huge pots against both Phillips and McKeehen, who between them held the lead for most of the final day’s action.
In the hand against Phillips that essentially decided the event, Cada paused just for a beat or two before calling Phillips’ all-in shove. “I knew it was a call,” he said, “playing so many heads-ups and so many simulations. The stakes were high. I wanted to give it a couple of seconds. It was for over thirty big blinds, it was a big pot, but ultimately I knew it was a call.”
Final Table Results of WSOP Event #3: $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em SHOOTOUT:
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is the field of dreams for poker players.
Each summer, thousands of poker players — recreational weekend warriors, hardcore grinders, and well-bankrolled pros — descend on Las Vegas as temps creep up towards the three-digit mark. There, for seven weeks of juicy cash games and tournaments that pay out life-changing money, the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino becomes home.
The first wave of players file into the Rio’s conference center in late May. By the time the Colossus — a bracelet event that’s historically attracted more than 22,000 entries — begins, the wide hallways that lead from one event room to another start to become a sea of humanity.
Buy, Buy, Buy
Anytime you have a captive audience with a very targeted set of interests, you’re going to have vendors hoping to make bank on that demographic. And the WSOP is no exception. Year after year, everyone from those hawking sunglasses that hide your dilated pupils to every sort of cell phone accessory salespeople are at the ready, as eager to make a deal as a cake maker at a bridal conference.
As you walk down the Rio convention center halls on your way to play poker — and with every bathroom or food break that necessitates another stroll down the same — not always friendly salespeople, who desperately need to sell enough products to justify their company’s expensive monthly kiosk rental fee, will ask you the same genre of question you now hear in any major mall as you pass handcream and hair clip vendors.
“Do you need a new cell phone charger case?” is a frequently heard attempt to get you to stop, drop some cash, and roll over for a sale. We didn’t, so no sale today, buddy, sorry.
By Saturday evening, the pushy sales guys asked me that question for what had to be the 15th time in a week. On tilt from a rough cash game session, I decided it was my turn to be a nuisance, so I took my camera out and snapped a photo of them.
Celebrity Central
Next to a free swag bag worth $25K at the Oscars, there’s nothing your average syndicated buyout Hollywood A-list TV and film actors like more than to blow off some of their ridiculously bloated bankrolls at the World Series of Poker. Sports stars are no different: there are only so many homes in the Holmby Hills hood of Hollywood that one person can occupy.
There are actors who show up pretty much every year, like Everybody Loves Raymond‘s Ray Romano and his series sidekick and avid poker player, Brad Garret. Olympic icon Michael Phelps and film actor Kevin Pollak are also comeback kids when it comes to making time for the WSOP most years.
On Saturday, as I was checking out some of the action, I bumped into (literally) James Woods, actor and unabashedly politically conservative tweeter. The coke-snorting villain in one of my all-time favorite movies, Casino, Woods was gracious enough to pose for a picture after he finished a banana on his way back to the table in Event #8, $2,500 Mixed Triple Draw Lowball.
“Got to get that nutrition,” he said with a smile.
After officially retiring from acting in 2017, Woods has devoted much of his time to poker and now competes in numerous WSOP events each year.
Besides thespians and sports stars, poker royalty like Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, and Jason Mercier are often spottable walking down the lengthy Rio corridors: after all, they make millions playing the game, but they ultimately have to get up and use the bathroom and eat, just like the rest of us.
Where to Find the Action
There are three main tournament event and cash play rooms, all massive in size. The Pavilion (below) is mostly used for cash games and daily deep stack tournaments. Most bracelet events take place in the Brazilia or Amazon, which may be a familiar sight to ESPN’s TV fans.
The well-lit featured table — which will host many of the 78 bracelet event final tables in 2018 — is located inside the Amazon room. Limited seating is available, free of charge, for fans to rail the action in person.
For those who like to watch in general, guests are free to roam the tournament rooms, as long as they remain in designated areas (if you don’t, a multitude of security guards are at the ready to stop you). Even if you can’t afford to buy into an event (or simply don’t want to), the World Series of Poker offers a unique and exciting fan experience.
Just dodge the cell phone case salespeople, and you can expect to have a fascinating time to talk about when you return to your non-Vegas life.
PokerStars has set a new record for their online slots payouts, as a PokerStars Casino player hit a progressive jackpot on the Millionaires Island game worth more than $3 million.
This win by a player known as “Anchor72” marked the eighth slots payout for PokerStars north of $1 million in the past 18 months.
Millionaires Island and two other internally developed slots are responsible for creating all eight of the new online slots millionaires.
Seven-Figure Wins
The jackpot Anchor72 hit on Thursday set a record — it was the biggest ever for a game developed by pokerstars jackpot ever on Stars. After spinning in the right combination on Millionaires Island, the slots fan scooped $3,047,961, which is the biggest win from the operator’s exclusive games.
In 2018, PokerStars has created three millionaires, with the largest win in March, when zafujohn banked $3.3 million from a non-exclusive slot, Mega Fortune.
As well as congratulating the latest Millionaire’s Island winner, PokerStars Casino Managing Director Bo Wänghammar was quick to state that he wants to see more of the same in the future.
“We’re focused on introducing more new, innovative and exciting games which allow us to create more winning moments for our customers and add to the twelve millionaires we have already made,” Wänghammar said in an press release.
Poker Takes Backseat
The comment from the senior executive comes at a time when poker’s dominance at PokerStars is starting to fade. In its Q1 report for 2018, The Stars Group announced a 23.8 percent improvement in year-on-year revenue.
Although poker rake for the period was up by 2.3 percent, casino and sports betting showed the most promise. Revenue for these two verticals grew a combined 55 percent, and now account for 34.2 percent of overall earnings.
Looking back over the last two years, poker’s contribution has steadily declined. In Q2 of 2017, the total contribution was 66.5 percent, down from 75.5 percent the previous year.
For players concerned that PokerStars is edging more towards a casino and sports betting site, this trend could be a concern. While the Q1 report shows there has been some crosspollination that’s helped poker revenue improve, the evidence suggests it will play a less significant role in the future.
As noted by Wänghammar, this will lead to more innovations in the casinos space, which should mean more seven-figure slots winners in the coming years.
For players, increased activity in the casino sector could result in more liquidity and bigger poker guarantees. However, it’s equally possible that the increased focus on non-poker products will lead to a decrease in action and value for the company’s core asset.
The Venetian® has taken its popular DeepStack summer poker tournament series to a whole new level for 2018. From now until July 29 the series will see a total of 150 events with more than $31 million in guaranteed prize pools.
New for 2018 is the fact the events taking place from today until July 6 will be hosted in the Sands Hall G Convention Center, with the rest of the tournaments taking place in The Venetian Poker Room.
Sure to raise the bar in terms of player comforts, the 2018 DeepStack Championship Poker Series highlights include a player’s lounge with projection screens, couches and high-top tables, 103 tournament tables, a designated final table area with stadium-style seating, and ride-share drop-off steps from the entrance.
With such an expansive schedule, the DeepStack Championship Poker Series has something for everyone with a variety of options and formats including bounty, turbo, multi-day, and single-day tournaments. Game options include no-limit hold’em, pot-limit Omaha, and limit Omaha eight-or-better, as well as others. Tournament buy-ins begin as low as $200 and top out at $5,000 with nearly every buy-in imaginable in between, ensuring there are affordable and exciting options for every type of player.
Players can also participate in three different national poker tours inside The Venetian: The Mid-States Poker Tour, featuring a $1,100 buy-in and a $3.5 million guarantee, June 3-8, a second MSPT with a $1,600 buy-in and a $3 million guarantee, and of course the Card Player Poker Tour, with a $5,000 buy-in and a $2 million guarantee, July 14-19.
Some of the DeepStack Championship Poker Series most exciting events:
June 3-8: $1,100 Mid-Stakes Poker Tour Event ($3.5 million guarantee)
June 7-July 1: $400 NightStack with eight starting flights, Day 2 July 1 ($1 million guarantee)
June 12-14: $600 Seniors Event ($600,000 guarantee)
June 18-22: $1,600 Mid-States Poker Tour Event ($3 million guarantee)
June 28-29: $1,600 No-Limit Hold’em Bounty ($700,000 guarantee)
June 30-July 3: $600 No-Limit Hold’em Monster Stack ($750,000 guarantee)
July 5-8, July 9-12: $1,100 Summer Saver I & II ($1 million guarantee each)
July 14-19: $5,000 Card Player Poker Tour Event ($2 million guarantee)
July 24-29: $400 No-Limit Hold’em Closer ($400,000 guarantee)
This incredible tournament series, coupled with the famous hospitality and amenities of The Venetian, is the can’t-miss poker event of the year. Visit the series homepage for more information.
Jordan Hufty waited 15 years for what happened on Thursday evening at the Rio. He accomplished his poker dream by winning a World Series of Poker bracelet in the $565 Casino Employees event.
The Las Vegas poker dealer and supervisor defeated a field of 566 entries to earn $61,909 and what he’s been dreaming about since 2003.
“I’ve thought about winning a bracelet about every day of my life for the past 15 years,” said Hufty. “So, to actually have it come through today is pretty special.”
Originally from Michigan, Hufty moved out to Las Vegas about five years ago with two of his friends from college. They came out to the desert with poker on their minds and success as their goals. They were both on his rail when the final card was dealt and Hufty became the latest WSOP bracelet winner.
After the final card hit the felt and Hufty locked up a win, he was overcome with emotion. He took a few moments to shed a few tears of joy, embrace his friends and take in the moment.
“There’s not even words for it,” said Hufty. “Whenever you build something up like that for so long, and like especially something, where so much of it is out of your control. Even if you do everything completely perfect, there is still a reasonable chance that you don’t ever come through and get a bracelet. For me to do that and be able to capitalize on that, it’s huge.”
While Hufty credited a ton of study of the game as the main reason for his success on Thursday, he knew that he wouldn’t have gotten that work ethic without meeting his eventual Las Vegas roommates.
“Two people that I definitely want to thank are the two guys on my rail here,” said Hufty. “100 percent I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t meet those two guys right here. They are definitely the biggest influence on my game over the last four or five years, ever since I moved out to Vegas with them.
“When I met these guys, my poker game and my study habits and stuff started to slack a bit. Then, I moved to college and met these two guys. For the first time, I met people that I thought were significantly better than me. That was able to motivate me, and obviously, once I got back into [studying] the game, they were really big into it too.”
Before Thursday’s score, Hufty only recorded two previous live tournament cashes, for less than $2,000 combined. He isn’t a fish by any means, with most of his tournament experience coming online, but he has plenty of experience in high stakes poker, just on the other side of it.
Hufty dealt on old episodes of ‘Poker After Dark’ as well as dealing and flooring some of the highest stakes games in Las Vegas. Having that experience under his belt, he felt right at home playing for all the proverbial marbles on poker’s biggest stage.
“It didn’t feel so out of place to me,” said Hufty. “This is the first time I’ve played on a table like this with the lights, and the people watching, and reporting. I don’t know if it’s from my experience in being around poker for higher amounts of money, but I felt comfortable coming in today. I thought I would feel slightly more out of place coming in.”
With 15 years of poker experience and now a bracelet to his name, it would be easy for Hufty to relax and bask in his accomplishment. Poker is what drives Hufty, though. It doesn’t seem like he’s going to take some time off any time soon and will just continue to push himself to get better.
“Passion is a weird thing,” said Hufty. “I’m not really passionate about a whole lot of stuff and to find something that I actually care about, it doesn’t come very often. Once I found something I really, truly enjoyed and realized that there is a way to make money at that, it’s just a never-ending hunger. The fire is just as strong now as it was two days ago before I bought into this.”
The second and final day of what was the first event on the schedule got underway at noon with 13 players remaining. Just 30 minutes into the day, they were down to 10 players, with Hufty taking his seat at the final table second in chips.
Once they were at one table, however, Hufty took over. He scored a double knockout to eliminate Brad Helm in 10th place and Jason Pepper in ninth when Hufty’s pocket kings got all in preflop against Pepper’s ace-king and Helm’s ace-seven suited.
That moved Hufty into the chip lead. A lead that he never relinquished.
“Yeah, I came in with a pretty good feel for my table,” said Hufty. “I’d been playing with the same group for a while last night and felt pretty confident coming in.”
He had the best hand in his previous confrontation, but Hufty sent Skyler Yeaton home in eighth place after he spiked a three-outer. Yeaton found the last of his chips in the middle preflop with ace-queen against Hufty’s ace-four.
Yeaton’s rail started shouting for a four, not realizing it was Hufty who needed the four, and unfortunately for Yeaton, they got what they asked for. Hufty spiked a four on the flop and Yeaton never improved enough to stay alive.
Thomas Yenowine lost a flip with ace-king against Sanders’ pocket deuces to leave the tournament with six players. Tom Booker was eliminated by Zachary Seymour in sixth place and then Hufty got back to work.
He moved over the million-chip mark during six-handed play and then eliminated Won Kim in fifth place with his ace-king against Kim’s ace-eight. Just a few minutes later, Hufty eliminated Seymour in fourth place when he won a flip with ace-jack suited against Seymour’s pocket nines.
Three-handed play lasted for about an hour before Kate Kopp fell in third, running into the buzzsaw that was Hufty. Kopp moved all in on the button for about 13 big blinds with , but ran into Hufty’s pocket aces in the big blind.
About three hours into the day, the final 13 players were down to heads-up play. Hufty held a nearly 2-to-1 chip lead. Sanders didn’t roll over, however, and over the next 40 hands, pulled back to nearly even with Hufty.
“That heads-up battle, we started off super deep, so it took a long longer than I thought,” said Hufty. “But any time you start 70 plus big blinds deep in a heads-up match with hour levels, that can definitely happen.”
Hufty never let Sanders take the lead and pulled away again, opening a 3-to-1 lead over another 50 hands. After nearly five hours of heads-up play, which was most of the day’s action, Hufty finished off Sanders when his king-queen bested Sanders’ pocket threes.
Final table results:
1st: Jordan Hufty – $61,909
2nd: Jodie Sanders – $38,246
3rd: Kate Kopp – $26,250
4th: Zachary Seymour – $18,332
5th: Won Kim – $13,031
6th: Thomas Booker – $9,432
7th: Thomas Yenowine – $6,953
8th: Skyler Yeaton – $5,222
9th: Jason Pepper – $3,998
The Finnish national betting agency, Veikkaus Oy, eliminated a total of 129 jobs after co-determination negotiations were brought to an end at the beginning of the week.
Veikkaus is currently fully-owned by the country’s Government, which has allowed to impose a legal monopoly on the Finnish lotteries and sports bettingoperations. According to information released by the company itself, Veikkaus has about 2 million regular customers, while approximately 400,000 people use its services every week.
The company, which is currently operated by the Ministry of Education of Finland, was established in 1940 as a result of the joined efforts of the Finnish Workers’ Sports Federation and the Football Association of Finland. Following the decision to start offering the national lottery, Veikkaus gained increasing popularity among local citizens, with approximately 70% of the Finnish people taking part in these services.
For the time being, it is the Ministry of Education which allocates the proceedsgenerated from the state-owned company and distributes them to various art and science projects, as well as to amateur sports. Back in 2010, Veikkaus provided the Ministry with approximately half a billion Euros to be shared with other national organizations. Gambling regulation, however, is regulated by Finland’s Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Co-determination talks started at the beginning of April between representatives of the employees and the company management. At the beginning of the talks the company said that up to 140 employees were at risk of losing their jobs.
Finns Are the Biggest Gamblers in Europe, Survey Says
Despite the fact that Veikkaus holds the monopoly over sports betting and lotteries in the country and the gambling sector is regulated by local authorities, Finland has been among the biggest spenders in terms of gambling. According to a recent survey, local citizens rank fourth among the biggest gamblers on a global scale, with around €2 billion spent on an annual basis on various games of chance.
A 2015 report issued by the National Institute for Health and Welfare, Finnish people were the ones who wagered the most in Europe, with approximately 80% of the country’s population gambling every year.
As mentioned above, the local gambling sector is directly controlled by the Government through a monopoly controlled by the national betting agency Veikkaus. Apart from the profit brought by the company to government ministries, Vekkaus also brings over €200 million in taxes to the Finnish Government budget.
Earlier in May, Veikkaus Oy has terminated a large number of customers’ accounts due to clarification of certain bank account policies. The exact number of accounts closed has not been disclosed by the state-owned agency, but according to media reports they amounted to approximately 30,000.
This spring, Veikkaus has contacted its customers in order to inform them for the bank account policies, with the players being reached by e-mail, letters and text messages. All players were asked to make sure that the bank account used was in line with the terms of use of the national agency.
The 49th annual World Series of Poker has crowned its first champion of the year: Elio Fox. The 2011 WSOP Europe main event champion defeated a field of 243 entries in the 2018 WSOP$10,000 turbo bounty no-limit hold’em event, taking home his second gold bracelet, the $393,693 first-place prize and an unknown amount of $3,000 bounties that he won along the way.
“I’m really happy about this one because I haven’t won a live poker tournament in a really, really long time, so it feels good,” Fox told WSOP reporters in the early morning hours. “And I think the first one was just such a shock that I wasn’t really that excited about it in the moment, but I’m really happy about it now. It’s a great way to kick off a summer.”
“It was a big field and I think just doing turbos is great because I think it’s good for non-professional players because they can finish an event quickly,” Fox said of the new tournament. “I think the bounty turbo format appears a lot online, so, I’ve definitely played it a lot. I think it’s a great addition to the World Series of Poker schedule.”
This event kicked off at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 30th. It was scheduled to only last one day, with 20 minute blind levels helping to force the action. The turnout of 243 players built a $2,284,200 prize pool that was ultimately awarded to the top 37 finishers.
Plenty of big names made the money in this event, including Name Le (26th – $11,950), Daniel Strelitz (20th – $11,950), Kenny Hallaert (19th – $11,950), John Racener (16th – $14,300), Justin Young (13th – $17,458), Eric Blair (11th – $21,734), Bryn Kenney (10th – $21,734), 2009 WSOPmain event champ Joe Cada (9th – $27,582), Alex Foxen (5th – $63,042) and two-time bracelet winner Paul Volpe (3rd – $169,195).
In the end it came down to a heads-up showdown between Fox and Adam Adler. Fox took roughly a 7-to-1 chip lead into the final battle after eliminating Volpe in third place. Adler mounted an impressive comeback, quickly doubling up and then keeping the pressure on until he had taken the lead. Fox was able to regain control by the time the final hand arose. The chips got in with Fox holding the 22 against Adler’s A10. The board ran out 65326 to give Fox the full house and the pot. Adler was eliminated in second place, taking home $243,323.
Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded in this event:
Justin Bonomo has emerged victorious against an ultra-elite field in the $300,000 Super High Roller Bowl, defeating a field of 48 total entries to capture the championship ring and career-best $5 million. As a result of this win, Justin Bonomo has reached into third place on the all-time money list, including his career live tournament earnings of $31,927,630.
Bonomo said, “The all-time money list is definitely not a clear ranking of the best player in the world right now, but it still means a lot.”
Only just over two months after Bonomo won the Super High Roller Bowl China, which had a buy-in of about $250,000, for $4.8 million. So far in 2018, winning six titles and cashing for more than $13.8 million along the way, he has made a total of 13 final.
It doesn’t feel like real life. It feels like I can’t lose… I almost said no matter what I do, but the truth is, I have really been trying my hardest and playing my A-game non-stop,” Bonomo said. “The Super High Roller Bowl is definitely the most prestigious tournament of the year, so this has to be the biggest win of my career.
Official Final Table Results of 2018 Super High Roller Bowl:-
Position
Player
Country
Prize
1
Justin Bonomo
United States
$5,000,000
2
Daniel Negreanu
Canada
$3,000,000
3
Jason Koon
United States
$2,100,000
4
Mikita Badziakouski
Belarus
$1,600,000
5
Christoph Vogelsang
Germany
$1,200,000
6
Nick Petrangelo
United States
$900,000
The final day Mikita Badziakouski started as the chip leader, with Bonomo and Negreanu essentially tied for second place.
Bonomo had a huge lead of about 4-1 chip lead against Daniel Negreanu, but “Kid Poker” got all-in on a flop of 9Heart Suit7Heart Suit6Diamond Suit holding the 8Club Suit7Diamond Suit, only to find that he had run into the 9Spade Suit9Diamond Suit of Bonomo. The turn brought the KSpade Suit and the river the 6Spade Suit, giving Bonomo a full house to earn him the pot and the title. Negreanu took home $3 million as the runner-up, bringing his lifetime earnings to more than $38.3. This was the second-largest score of his career.
Phil Ivey is a living poker legend. The 41-year-old professional player is widely thought of as one of the game’s best all-around players, with impressive results in the highest stakes cash games in the world both online and live, as well as a nearly unrivaled live tournament resume. Without further ado, here are five facts you need to know about Phil Ivey.
Los Angeles may be the capital of live poker around the world and Macau may host the biggest high-stakes poker games on the planet, but when the World Series of Poker rolls into town nothing can beat the action in Las Vegas.
While all eyes will be concentrated on the WSOP poker bracelets awarded at the Rio for the annual summer series, there will still be lots of poker tournaments spread out throughout town at the other major poker rooms both on and off the strip.
Exactly how many, you ask? About 500! That’s approximately even more than 7 tournaments each day and which does not include more hundreds daily tournament options that aren’t part of an official series. So just how does one keep an eye on everything going on this summer? Players can get all updates on the pokernews.com and wsop.com including buy-in details, guarantees and blind structures.
If you make a plan to stay in Las Vegas and don’t know what to play, check out the Las Vegas Poker Tournament Schedule on cardplayer.com to stay informed on what’s going on in the poker world.
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