The 2019 Aussie Millions $100,000 AUD ($72,799 USD) Obstacle no-limit hold ’em extremely high-stakes gambler event drew a total of 42 access, the third-largest area in case’s 14-year background. The strong turnover constructed a prize swimming pool equal to $2,963,520 USD, which was awarded to the top 6 finishers.

In the end, the largest share was granted to Cary Katz, who earned $1,066,867 USD for his 19th online tournament title. The American business person as well as founder of Online poker GO currently has $18,463,931 in life time live tournament earnings, enough to see him climb into 25th place on poker’s all-time money list.

AU$100,000 Challenge Final Table Results

Katz made his way to the unofficial final table of nine players in fourth chip position, with Germany’s Johannes Becker as the runaway chip leader with more
than double the next largest stack. Katz and Becker got involved in a massive preflop confrontation not long after the final table was set, with Katz four-betting all-in holding KHeart SuitKClub Suit and Becker calling with the ASpade SuitAClub Suit. Katz was on the wrong side of the sick cooler but managed to spike a king on the flop to win the hand and double into the lead.

Alex Foxen was the last player eliminated outside of the money. He three-bet shoved for 12 big blinds with the ASpade Suit2Heart Suit over the top of the button raise of Becker, who called with pocket eights. Neither player improved and Foxen was sent to the rail empty-handed.

Kristen Bicknell was the next to go, with her ADiamond Suit2Diamond Suit losing to the KSpade SuitQHeart Suit of Rainer Kempe. The two-time WSOP bracelet winner took home $207,446 USD as the sixth-place finisher.

Katz won a preflop race to knock British poker pro Jack Salter out in fifth place ($237,082 USD). Katz’s AClub SuitQSpade Suit outran Salter’s pocket eights, making two pair on the flop and holding from there.

Despite having knocked out Bicknell, Rainer Kempe ended up as the fourth-place finisher. His ADiamond SuitQDiamond Suit could not outrun the pocket kings of fellow German Abraham Passet, and Kempe was sent to the rial with $325,987 USD. This was already his fifth final-table finish of 2019, with three titles won along the way. With 2,754 Player of the Year points and $2,123,802 in year-to-date earnings, Kempe currently sits in fourth place on the POY leaderboard.

Johannes Becker picked up pocket queens and called the all-in of Passet during three-handed action. Passet’s ADiamond Suit10Heart Suit was in trouble, and though he paired his ten on the river, it was not enough to win him the pot and he was awarded $444,528 USD as the third-place finisher.

Becker chipped up to 3,895,000 after that hand but was still well behind Katz’s 6,605,000. Becker closed the gap a bit early in the heads-up match, but Katz was able to regain control after making a straight against Becker’s two pair. By the time the final hand arose Katz had built roughly a 17-to-1 chip advantage. He moved all-in from the button with the 9Heart Suit9Diamond Suit and Becker called for his last 6 big blinds or so with the KClub Suit2Club Suit. The board ran out 8Spade Suit8Diamond Suit5Spade Suit2Heart SuitJClub Suit and Katz’s nines held up to earn him the pot and the title. Becker took home $681,610 USD as the runner up.

The recent ring winner in the World Series of Poker Circuit is Kyle Cartwright, who has actually removed the Tunica Main Event for $198,451! This first place finish adds another ring to his already stacked resume, currently having eight in complete, with nearly $1,750,000 in career WSOP cash money. He will certainly also be securing a 2019 Global Casino Championship seat, on top of all that chilly tough cash.

An overall of 639 access collaborated for the Tunica main event, as well as just 8 of the enrollment slips offered, made it to Day 3. Cartwright began the day third on the leader board, yet managed to start piling chips early in the day, winning pot after pot, a little each time. He really took off after getting rid of Damjan Radanov during a blind on blind hand, taking down the pot with a greater kicker for his ace.

Cartwright played aggressive small-ball poker through the majority of the day, constantly getting in with the most effective of it and folding when he had the worst. He made an extremely marginal quantity of errors, as well as even those were offseted by his reading capacity that was on complete display, during the final day of this event.

The win meant a lot for Carwright, “I’ve been travelling now for a while, so anytime you get a win, i mean they are so hard to win, these tournaments”. This is his 72nd cash, eighth ring, and fourth main event victory, but there was still room for one more first for Cartwright, “This is the first time she (His Mom) has watched me play live poker, It was great having my family here!”

The Arlington,TN, native took second in the Main Event at Harrah’s Cherokee (North Carolina), in November and just earlier this week finished as the runner-up in the $600 Big Blind Ante, here in Tunica. ” Man, I am feeling great! I was on a string of seconds there for a minute, and its nice to get a win”

A single person that he seemed to have actually a continued reading was Steve Klein, catching him in multiple hands with a minimum of a few fingers in the cookie container. The initial two days of the tournament apparently were not rather as very easy having fun versus Klein states Cartwright,” That man heads-up guy, he owned me for two days directly I could not beat him! So i believed without a doubt in the final hand that was a flip, that he for sure would certainly get it, yet somehow i came through and won”

Klein would out up a heated fight with Cartwright for as lengthy as possible, yet eventually would need to find an area to increase up. The minute came and the two were all in on a traditional flip, sailboats for Klein as well as ace 10 for Cartwright. Klein handled to discolor the very first four cards to hit the board, however as so many before him, he would fall to the unavoidable river card, and also Cartwright would certainly be crowned the current circuit main event champ.

The event started on Friday, getting hold of 243 access on Day 1A. Cartwright would be the biggest pile of the 30 that bagged by the end of the night. The second starting trip drew in 396 access as well as Johnny Landreth emerged as the Day 1B huge stack of the 77 that advanced, in addition to the general leader heading right into Day 2. The 2nd day played 10, 60-minute levels of play, before tagging and also landing for the last day. Just 8 returned for the final day, as well as it was Jim Naifeh leading the way. After four degrees of play, only two remained, and also it would take two hours for Cartwright to remove Klein for his eighth ring.

That covers it up for the January drop in Tunica of the 2018-19 WSOP circuit period. There will be a second stop in Tunica, beginning April 25 till May 6, and as constantly will certainly have a large turn out of gamers.

Official Final Table Results:

1st – Kyle Cartwright – $198,451
2nd – Steve Klein – $122,802
3rd – Johnny Landreth – $90,071
4th – Jim Naifeh – $66,982
5th – Darren Martin – $50,486
6th – Damjan Radanov – $38,559
7th – Jon Bennett – $29,836
8th – Joseph Hebert – $23,389
9th – Michael Sanders – $14,928

Recently, Phil Hellmuth has cut down on his schedule of live poker tournaments played beyond the World Series of Poker. The all-time leader in WSOP bracelets had actually moneyed in just one live tourney since winning his record-furthering 15th win at the series in the $5,000 turbo no-limit hold ’em event on July 11, 2018.

Hellmuth damaged the drought and got his 2019 off to a strong begin by taking down the Borgata Winter Poker Open $1,590 no-limit hold’em heads-up event. The ‘poker Brat’ beat an area of 64 entries in event to gain $37,248.

Hellmuth virtually really did not make it to the finals. As reported on the Borgata Winter Poker Open blog, Hellmuth was linked 1-1, and down to just 3,700 to Ryan Hall, who had 26,300 at his high-point in the choosing match. Hellmuth was able to fight back from that big deficiency, however, to establish a final-round face-off with Joseph Cappello, whom had beat World Poker Tour champion as well as online heads-up sit-n-go legend Olivier Busquet.

Hellmuth took the first match in the best-of-three showdown, getting all-in on a 10Heart Suit7Heart Suit5Spade Suit9Club Suit board with the 10Club Suit9Diamond Suit for two pair. Cappello had 10Diamond Suit6Heart Suit and was in need of help heading into the river. The 5Heart Suit secured the first match for Hellmuth.

The second match saw Cappello build a 2:1 lead before Hellmuth was able to mount a comeback. By the time the final hand arose Cappello was down to just a handful of big blinds. He moved all-in with the QHeart Suit7Heart Suit and Hellmuth called with the KHeart Suit9Club Suit. The board came down JDiamond SuitJClub Suit4Spade SuitASpade Suit3Club Suit and Hellmuth’s high card earned him the pot and the title. Cappello was awarded $18,624 as the second-place finisher.

Hellmuth took to Twitter to celebrate the win and the fact that he was able to take a break in between matches to enter day 1A of the World Poker Tour main event at the series and run up an 88,500 stack.

Final Table Results

Ukrainian poker player Denys Shafikov signed up with last evening the special club of WPT Main Event champs after coming through a 503-strong field to take down the WPT Russia RUB198,000 Main Event.

The gamer claimed roughly $255,259 in prize money and the tournament trophy. Shafikov was thus crowned the victor of the first-ever WPT Russia. The major poker series spent the initial days of the year at Casino Sochi in the Russian city of Sochi, bringing high quality texas hold’em action to among Russia’s most popular poker destinations.

As mentioned above, the Main Event drew 503 entries who generated a prize pool of $1,358,200. It took seven days of action for the winner to be determined. The tournament was capped yesterday at the host casino with the six-handed final table.

As discussed above, the Centerpiece attracted 503 access who generated a reward swimming pool of $1,358,200. It took 7 days of activity for the victor to be determined. The tournament was capped yesterday at the host gambling establishment with the six-handed final table.

Shafikov entered that ending stage of the competition as the chip leader as well as totally bulldozed his means with the final table to at some point catch the prize and also the coming with top payout.

Shafikov held 5.335 million in chips at the beginning of the final day of play. He was well in advance of the remaining players, with Aleksey Gortikov being his closest rival at the time with 3.36 million. Yauhen Kontush with 2.66 million completed top three of the pre-final table chip counts graph.

Mikhail Galitskiy with 1.98 million, Oleg Pavlyuchuk with 1 million, and Nikolay Fal with 785,000 were the other 3 gamers to make it right into the finale.

Final Table Action

Shafikov had already built a solid advantage over his opponents by the start of the final table and he only extended the existing gap as action progressed during the last day of the tournament.

The player was responsible for three of the five final table eliminations, busting Galitskiy in 5th place and Fal in 4th place. Pavlyuchuk was the player to leave the tournament in 6th place early into Sunday action.

By the time the field was whittled down to just the final three, Shafikov had a controlling stack and dominated action. Kontush exited the race in third place to leave it to Shafikov and Gortikov to battle it out for the title and the first-place prize.

The two-handed match began with the eventual champion holding a massive advantage over his final opponent. However, Gortikov fought fiercely to narrow that gap and be able to attack the title. The duel lasted more than 60 hands during which chips swung back and forth, but Shafikov never really lost his foothold.

On what turned out to be the final hand in play, Shafikov raised from the button with pocket nines and Gortikov moved all in with [Ac][7c]. Shafikov called to see the board deliver [Ks][3h][2d][9s][4h] and earn him the title and the first-place prize. Gortikov had to settle for the $171,236 second-place prize.

From Russia all the way to Atlantic City, attention is now on the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open and its $3,500 Main Event which kicked off on Sunday.

Better late than never, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City has joined the New Jersey sports betting party. Property officials confirmed Saturday the start of a “soft-play” testing of equipment and systems for the provision of wagering services.

The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement gave the Boardwalk property the green light to commence the required testing period late on Friday, news outlets report.

Hard Rock now accepts bets on the HardRockSports.com website. Bettors who are located within New Jersey’s borders are able to wager on different sports, including football, basketball, hockey, and baseball. The property is preparing its equipment and system for full start of sports gambling operations ahead of next Sunday’s Super Bowl. Hard Rock also hopes to launch its physical sportsbook before the February 3 game that will see the Los Angeles Rams go head to head with the New England Patriots.

Property officials told media outlets that an announcement regarding the in-person sports betting facility at the casino should be expected in the coming days.

Hard Rock is probably the last Atlantic City casino to go live with sports betting. Of the city’s nine operational casinos, Hard Rock and Caesars were the only ones to lag behind and not launch wagering services shortly after the practice became legal in New Jersey. It is believed that Caesars does not plan to start sports betting operations as its gamblers can easily wager at its sister Boardwalk property Bally’s.

Betting Goes Live with a Minor Oopsie!

Although Hard Rock actually commenced online betting operations on Saturday, the first indication that something was going on came Friday night when a press release by its betting partner Gaming Innovation Group announcing the launch of their jointly operated betting website was mistakenly released ahead of time. The Malta-headquartered online gambling group will also power Hard Rock’s physical sportsbook.

Hard Rock is joining a booming betting market that handled more than $1.2 billion in wagers in the period between mid-June, when New Jersey’s first sportsbooks opened doors, and December 31, 2018. The state’s operational sportsbooks and digital betting operations generated revenue of a little over $94 million during that period.

New Jersey was the second state to go live with sports betting following the May 2018 SCOTUS decision that struck down a federal ban on the activity, being outpaced only by Delaware, which launched full-scale wagering services a couple of weeks after the landmark Supreme Court ruling. Five other states have jumped on the betting bandwagon since then and several more are expected to join in in the coming months.

Hard Rock was one of two casino resorts to open doors on the Atlantic City Boardwalk last summer, the other one being Ocean Resort Casino. Florida gaming and hospitality giant Hard Rock International bought the former Trump Taj Mahal in the spring 2017 and invested more than $500 million to transform it into what it is now.

The property managed to establish itself quite quickly as a major player in the New Jersey gambling space, unlike its rival Ocean, which has lagged behind its Boardwalk rivals since day one. News emerged earlier this month that the underperforming property, formerly known as Revel, was sold to a yet-to-be-revealed owner.

More million-dollar pots are on their way and Jason Koon will be leading the way as an ambassador for the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series.

A breakout star on the tour in 2018, Koon has parlayed his four Triton Super High Roller Series final tables into a place on the team. Acting as a figurehead for the emerging brand, the American pro will help raise awareness of poker in Asia.

In tandem with helping to make poker a mainstream activity in countries such as China, Koon will act as a bridge between western high rollers and their Asian counterparts.

Western Ways Win Over Triton Poker Regulars

During his time at the tables in 2018, the Partypoker representative won the affections of Macau’s notoriously elusive businessman. Opting to run a closed shop where only a select few are invited to play, the organizers have often been wary of outsiders.

But by giving as much action as good-natured table talk, the American struck up a rapport with Triton regulars such as Paul Phua.

These relationship have since earned Koon entry to every Triton Poker tournament and cash game in 2019. Moreover, his role as ambassador will open the door for others like him.

Prior to the Triton Super High Roller Series going live in 2015, cash games in Macau were steeped in mystery. Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan and Patrik Antonius were among a handful of westerners invited to play.

Fast-forward to 2018 and the games have not only opened up to more players but made compelling viewing for poker fans. From Dwan losing a $2.35 million pot (see video above) to Koon scooping $2.26 million, the games have captured the community’s imagination.

With the proverbial cat out of the bag, the Asian tour is set to return. Kicking off on March 2 inside the Marriot Resort Landing Casino, Jeju Island, the first event will feature six high stakes tournaments.

Another round of high stakes cash games is also scheduled to take place with Koon likely to be one of the main players fighting for seven-figure pots.

Jason Koon Continues to Impress

For the young America, becoming part of the Triton Poker team is yet another feather in his cap. As well as representing Partypoker, Koon was recently drafted by the Poker Alliance.

Working alongside Daniel Negreanu and Maria Ho, Koon is part of the lobbyist group’s Advisory Board. Helping the fight for regulated poker in the US, the Advisory Board now has a greater significance following the recent Department of Justice (DOJ) opinion on the Wire Act.

For Koon, representing three different organizations is not only a testament to his rise to prominence but a chance to affect real change for the poker community.

An alleged illegal gambling operation positioned in North Phoenix metro was closed down by the Arizona Department of Gaming.

According to a press release of the Department of gaming, a couple of days earlier, police robbed as well as looked Toso’s Sports Bar and Grill and Real Poker in Phoenix in an activity commissioned by the Arizona Department of Gaming. The raid warrant came as a result of a seven-month-long examination of the Division under suspicions that unlawful betting procedure has actually been happening at the above mentioned area.

As seen on a flier offered by investigators, business, located near the I-17 and Union Hills Drive, has been promoting itself as a gambling and also social club which solutions were supplied to “members only”.

As exposed by authorities, the supposedly prohibited gambling equipments were taken by police officers together with the proceeds. Additionally, numerous suspects can also encounter fees of a class-five felony crime, which might consist of illegal control of a gambling center, promotion as well as taking advantage of gambling activities, in addition to illegal ownership of a gaming device.

The seized illegal gambling devices and wagering earnings are to be submitted as proof to the pending costs at the state Attorney general of the United States’s Workplace.

Arizona Department of Gaming Ensures Gaming Compacts Are Not Violated

The Arizona Division of Gaming’s acting supervisor James Ashley stated in a news release that the Department continues to be concentrated on appropriate guideline of the local gambling sector, safeguarding the general public and making certain that the Video gaming Compacts tattooed between the state and the regional Indian tribesare complied with.

Mr. Ashley even more shared that business owners who are discovered to be offering illegal gambling tasks in their premises will certainly deal with criminal examination and can be stripped of their alcohol as well as various other service running licenses.

For time now, betting advocates have actually been attempting to broaden the state’s governing structure regarding betting. Nevertheless, for the time being, these attempts face the strong opposition of Arizona’s gaming people that have elevated their voices versus the recommended adjustments, declaring they violate their video gaming compacts with the state. Under the deal, the local Indian tribes are provided with the prerogative to operate as well as provide casino-style betting in return to a share of their betting earnings.

At the end of 2018, a piece of regulation was submitted by a state legislator for the 2019 legislative session, with the costs seeking to expand lawful gaming operations in Arizona by lifting the ban on state-run Keno. According to the enroller of the proposed costs, the gaming growth would assist the state obtain more cash for its coffers without always elevating tax obligations.

Formerly, another expense seeking to legalize Keno stopped working after the Navajo Nation opposed, saying that the recommended piece of regulations breached its pc gaming portable with the state.

It looks like it’s game on in the partypoker/PokerStars battle for top dog in the online world, PokerStars announcing a cut-price Sunday Millions buy-in as they attempt to drag players back from their rivals!

By: Andrew Burnett

The Sunday Millions on PokerStars has become something of an institution for players and the Red Spade site alike, but now the buy-in has been cut from $215 to just $109, with the guarantee remaining at $1million.

The past year or two has seen partypoker offering amazing online tournaments and live events to rival the best out there, and it was probably only a matter of time before PokerStars had to indulge in a ‘supermarket wars’-style approach – the Sunday Million action perhaps the first blow.

With the buy-in change being permanent, the poker community is abuzz with excitement at what this will mean for players – and the site – with PokerStars needing to draw in 10,000 players to meet their guarantee.

Questions are already being asked about whether the top prizes will remain the same or not (usually $100k+ to the winner) or whether a flatter payout structure will appear.

Since its inception 13 years ago, the $215 has been the go-to Sunday biggie for many of the world’s leading online players, and a ton of regs and recs alike.

However, with partypoker breathing down their necks with their own Super Sunday special and a never-ending supply of other series’ for players to jump into at the weekend, it seems that PokerStars have decided to up the ante a little.

The Sunday Million will still be the only tournament offering a weekly $1million guarantee – and PokerStars will be taking an extra bit of rake from the newly-designed buy-in if they hit their targets – but they’ll have to hope the permanent nature is reflected in players permanently turning out in huge numbers.

With some of the prestige value gone – or perhaps diluted – by the unexpected changes to the Sunday Million, that may not be as easy as it looks on paper.