Chris Fuchs, an IT sales specialist by day, topped the behemoth field of the WSOP Circuit Horseshoe Hammond Opening Event for his debut gold ring from the series and a hefty first-place prize of $124,385.

Fuchs has been playing poker recreationally for over a decade now. And the player played the Horseshoe Hammond stop for a fifth straight year. He told WSOP staff after his triumph in the series that he had not planned to take part in the upcoming Main Event but, encouraged by his success in the opening event, he decided to take a shot at the $1,700 buy-in tournament that is set to take place over the weekend.

The opening event at Horseshoe Hammond once again drew a massive field. As many as 2,563 entries registered into the tournament. They created a prize pool of $845,790, easily beating the $777,777 guarantee. The top 272 spots got paid, min-cashes starting from $294.

The event featured five starting flights and a second, and final, day of play. Day 2 of the tournament was played on Sunday. Only 220 survivors returned to the host casino that day to play down to a champion. And it did not take long before the unofficial final table of ten was set.

Final Table and Heads-Up

Fuchs was the chip leader at the time with a massive advantage of 4 million over his nearest rival. The player had 9.63 million at the start of the final table. Nicholas Cikulin was ranking second in the temporary leaderboard at that point with 5.235 million in chips.

Fuchs pretty much maintained his advantage over the course of final table play. The player told WSOP staff that he had run pretty well throughout that closing stage with good cards coming his way all the time. And indeed, the player performed extremely well and took advantage of what he was offered at the table to eventually emerge victorious and be crown as the champion of the first tournament on the schedule of this year’s WSOP Circuit Horseshoe Hammond.

The winner eventually faced James Gregg for their final heads-up match. Gregg, a New Berlin, Wisconsin resident, was too vying for his first gold ring from the series. However, the piece was not meant for him this time. The player was defeated by Fuchs to collect $77,362 for his runner-up finish.

As mentioned earlier, Fuchs will be seen next weekend when the Main Event will be taking place. The tournament is scheduled to kick off Friday, October 19 with the first of its two starting flights. It will feature a guaranteed prize pool of $1 million, but it is yet to be seen whether it will be surpassed.

In a poker crossover event unlike anything we’ve previously seen, the poker savants will battle each other with an assist from a pair of chess specialists, with all of it to be streamed on Twitch this Sunday.

The event is called PokerStars Play Chess, and while it will be chess in the traditional sense, the matches themselves will be anything but typical. Negreanu and Boeree will be the ones playing, but they’ll be getting heavy hand from the masters.

Talk to the Hand?

The live-streamed matches will be played “hand and brain” style, with the chess experts acting as the brain and the poker masters executing with their hands.

There’s a twist, though. The “brain” can only tell the “hand” which piece to move, not where it should be moved. And they’ll be under the gun, too. Each match in the five-game affair will feature a 10-minute clock, and if the “hand” doesn’t act within 30 seconds, they’re on their own — the “brain” can no longer help once time’s up.

The other chess master will be international master and director of content at Chess.com, Daniel Rensch.

“As by far the worst poker player in the event, I’m just glad we’re playing chess,” Rensch said.

The ringer here may be Negreanu, who took up the game with a gusto in 2018.

Might be too late in life, and probably not advisable going into SHRB and WSOP next month, but somehow I’ve become addicted to Chess.

I’m horrible at it, but I find it fun to really suck at something and get better.

— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) April 23, 2018

Boeree doesn’t have the same level of chess experience, but she’s known as a master strategist. Her strategic approach to all things in life has been featured in a pair of 2018 Ted Talks.

30k Platinum Pass at Stake

The event is a promotion built around the $25,000 PokerStars Players Championship in the Bahamas in early January.

The online poker operator has been handing out $30,000 “Platinum Passes” to the tournament (for entry fee plus travel expenses) via a series of promotions. Negreanu awarded one to a lucky fan for producing the most inspirational video.

Someone will walk away with another pass during Sunday’s stream. PokerStars put out a challenge to the public to come up with a new game that mixes elements of strategy and luck from both poker and chess.

Entries have been whittled down to six, and while we don’t know anything about the games yet, the details of each variant will be revealed during the matches.

The winner will walk away with a Platinum Pass and will be butting their poker skills to the test in the Caribbean come the new year.

Poker events occurring  at King’s Casino have confirmed their generous payouts remain among one of the most eye-catching ones in Europe. This is particularly real now that the World Series of Poker has its Europe version in full swing, the temperature level is  increasing many thanks to the ten WSOP Gold Bracelets on offer.

No surprise this poker festival is among the extremely valued across the international poker scene, as it has the capability to attract a few of the most renown names on a global scale. This Tuesday saw the official end of WSOP Circuit poker festival, getting rid of the way for more action. Back-to-back celebrations are not a new occurrence at King’s Casino, Rozvadov, and this usual technique is used by the WSOP festivals organizers too.

Gold Bracelets Galore at King’s Casino

Since the WSOP Gold Bracelet is taken into consideration one of the most renowned piece of jewelry in the poker field, Rozvadov is one of the unique areas of Europe at the moment. There are 10 of those glossy first-place prizes which await their brand-new owners to claim them over the span of the following couple of weeks.

The initial occasion which would certainly give them this chance is the WSOPE Event #1 Colossus. This very first event includes an appealing guaranteed prize pool of €1,000,000, which can be gone beyond over the period of the several beginning trips giving enrollment home windows. Buy-in for those curious about signing up for the initial beginning trip of this occasion totals up to €505. There would certainly be 8 of those, covering right to Saturday and also giving sufficient chances for thousands of players to claim their seats.

Sunday is set to bring the second Bracelet event of this festival – WSOPE No-Limit Hold’em 6-Max Deepstack proceeding till Tuesday. This type of poker tournament is among the most beloved for players across the globe, but especially for local enthusiasts often preferring it over other events. Buy-in for it would amount to some €1,515, whereas the guaranteed prize pool reaches €200,000. Organizers and casino management prognoses interest levels toward this second Bracelet event would lead to an even larger overall prize pool.

Generous Cash Payouts Await Top Players

Monster Stack events are another all-time favorite, transforming next Thursday into a monstrous opportunity for a windfall. The fifth WSOP Bracelet would be given away at the end of the WSOPE Monster Stackfeaturing a €1,010 buy-in and a €500,000 guaranteed prize pool. Participants would have the chance to enter the event through a total of three flights, ultimately fighting for the top positions on Sunday Day 2.

There would be one very special event intertwining King’s very own poker tournaments with WSOP’s distinctive events – the WSOPE King’s Trophy Event which does not feature a Bracelet for the eventual champion, but remains a temptation nevertheless. Coming with a €1,000,000 GTD, as well as a mandatory buy-in of €2,250, this particular congregation has a lot on offer. Players would be able to utilize two flights in addition to Day 2 and Day 3 to make it to some of the largest cash payouts.

Furthermore, just like in every poker festival there would also be a Main Event which would have the 10th and last WSOPE Gold Bracelet on offer. A spectacular guaranteed prize pool estimating to €5,000,000 is prepared for this event. Upcoming weeks are set to bring gradually more exciting poker opportunities to Europe’s heart.

According to a report by Poker Industry Pro, a group of poker players who have accounts on French poker site Winamax are suing the online gambling operator, saying that the company “failed to protect the integrity and transparency of its gaming operations” following an investigation into the possible use of bots on the website.

Six players initiated the legal action, with 16 players in total joining the lawsuit before registration in the collective action was closed. The six players who initiated the lawsuit were suing for damages ranging from €10,000 ($11,500) to €50,000 ($57,500) each.

Suspicions First Raised Last Fall

Questions about the presence of bots on Winamax go back to at least November 2017. At that time, a poster by the name of Dontsaycat wrote about the issue on the TwoPlusTwo.com forums, complaining about a player with the screenname Twopandas who was competing at €100 ($115) Expresso tables – the Winamax equivalent of PokerStars’ Spin & Go games.

In their post, Dontsaycat said that he believed Twopandas was “clearly” a bot that was playing game theory optimal (GTO) strategies.

“He is playing 12 hours a day, every day, 8 tabling and chatting on tables like he is on pool drinking cocktails,” the post read. “Now seeing that Winamax was not punishing him, he added other players with the same bot, who are playing in different hours than him and together they are owning totally the rankings of promotions and the tables.”

Several other players chimed in on that post over the next few months, saying that they had also played against Twopandas and had the same suspicions. In June, Maxime Lemaitre – posting under the name “batmax” – went a step further, posting detailed analysis of play by Twopandas and another account, VictoriaMo, both of which he strongly believed were either using apps to assist their play or, more likely, were simply bots.

“I hope that the community will prove to you that we will not accept your umpteenth post claiming that ‘you have carried out tests,’ Lemaitre wrote, according to an English translation of his post by Google Translate. “I am asking you for an inquiry. The community demands an investigation.”

Winamax Investigation Finds One Account Guilty

In response, Winamax invited both players to play in front of their employees at the company’s offices in Paris. While Twopandas declined the offer, VictoriaMo did in fact play 400 sit-and-go tournaments at Winamax. VictoriaMo was ultimately exonerated by the poker room, while Twopandas was found guilty.

That meant that VictoriaMo was allowed to keep their winnings, while Twopandas was not. Both players had their accounts suspended, due to what Winamax called a “general climate of mistrust” surrounding them.

Winamax then said they would compensate players who felt they were cheated in the incident. However, the company never specified the exact formula they would be using to determine how much was owed to each individual player, and many users felt the response was inadequate.

That led six players, including Lemaitre, to initiate a lawsuit. It is unknown how much Winamax has paid to players so far, or how much more they could owe in damages if the lawsuit is successful.

Winamax.fr is one of the largest online poker rooms in the world. It sits in fifth place in PokerScout.com’s traffic rankings, averaging 1,300 cash game players at any given time.

Casino plan promises $1.5 billion in contributions for Southwest Virginia

A prominent Virginia family foundation formally opposed the proposed construction of a $150-million casino resort in the city of Bristol. Casino-style gambling is currently prohibited in the state, and the group has historically opposed any attempts for gambling expansion over the years.

In an emailed statement to local news outlet the Bristol Herald Courier, Victoria Cobb, President of The Family Foundation of Virginia, said that the organization is condemning the proposed project and all other efforts that involve expansion of gambling in the state.

Back in September, local businessmen Jim McGlothlin and Clyde Stacy announced plans to convert the vacant Bristol Mall into a resort that will feature a casino, hotel, and conference center, among other facilities.

In a letter to the Bristol Herald Courier from earlier this week, Ms. Cobb said a casino in Bristol will only bring “addiction, poverty, higher crime, prostitution, sex trafficking, drugs, diminished poverty values, etc.”

The letter went on to read that with a debt of $125 million and a declining population, the city has become “the perfect prey” for the two businessmen.

Last month, the Bristol City Council voted to give its support to the project, if the Virginia General Assembly amends the state’s current gambling laws to allow casino-style gambling.

Response from Developers

In a written statement, the team behind the Bristol Resort and Casino plan said that the property will create multiple jobs and much-needed revenue for the city and will annually bring millions of tourists.

Developers said that the resort will generate more than 5,200 “good jobs” within the first seven years of operation. In previous comments on the anticipated benefits from the construction of the property, it has been pointed out that it is expected to generate $26.8 million in annual tax revenue for the host community. The economic impact for the Southwest Virginia region is expected to reach $1.5 billion by year seven of the casino resort’s operation.

The team behind the scheme said earlier this week that they are well aware of the fact that the opening of casino may result in an increase in crime due to high volume of visitors the venue is expected to handle. However, it pointed out that the gaming facility will only represent a tiny portion of the whole resort and that it will be located in a separate building where it could not be accessed by children.

Casino promoters also said that they will police diligently issues involving drug use or prostitution and will provide people suffering from or at risk of developing gambling addiction with counseling services.

As mentioned earlier, it is now up to the Virginia Legislature to decide whether casino-style gambling should be authorized on the state’s territory. Lawmakers have struck down previous gambling expansion efforts, but the major economic impact the Bristol project promises could change their minds this time. Legislators are set to convene for their next session in January.