Online Poker News

The unofficial players’ championship is now down to just 19 players and Russian Vitaly Lunkin the winner of the 2009 WSOP $40k fortieth anniversary tournament is holding an overnight lead. Rising to the top of the leader board following four levels of play Sunday and following his second place finish in the PLO World Championship, he sits poised to make his third final table of this summer.

Meanwhile top pros Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein, Doyle Brunson as well as the H.O.R.S.E champion of 2008 Scotty Nguyen hit the buffers today. A late charge by Lunkin, who also won a bracelet in 2008, forced Erik “The Salmon” Sagstrom into second place after leading for much of the day. Play continues today, so watch this space for more news on this the unofficial players’ championship.

As you would expect there are many years of history involved in the current World Series of Poker, and the 2009 events will commemorate its 40th anniversary. As always the WSOP continues to be the leader in poker tournaments, as each year it grows and seems to accumulate more prestige, higher attendance, and greater notoriety, it’s the biggest poker stage in the world.

The 40th WSOP kicked off on May 27 and will continue with play ceasing during the Main Event on July 14th featuring a grand total of 57 bracelet events, a Champions Invitational, a celebrity-filled “Ante Up for Africa” charity tournament together with a poker bonanza of gaming and poker related products and services. During the coming seven weeks of tournaments, you will experience a summer of must not miss events for all poker players around the world. Get on board today at your online poker room.

Voting for the Poker Hall of Fame is open until July 2nd and the online poker site Party Poker has begun lobbying for its ambassador, World Poker Tour Host Mike Sexton, to be among those considered. Nominations are open to the general public and if you are interested just submit the name of your chosen nominee plus up to 250 words describing why they should be the newest Poker Hall of Fame member.

The system works during the World Series of Poker Main Event, when Harrah’s officials will announce the names of the top 10 nominees, which will in turn be voted on by the 16 living Hall of Fame members. Certain select media members also receive voting rights and in order to be enshrined, a player must accrue 75% of the vote. Access the Poker Hall of Fame and vote now.

When the 2008 World Series of Poker, H.O.R.S.E final started the player’s stacks looked like this…

Erick Lindgren $3,680,000.00
Scotty Nguyen $3,535,000.00
Barry Greenstein $1,955,000.00
Matt Glantz $1,445,000.00
Lyle Berman $1,430,000.00
Huck Seed $1,200,000.00
Michael DeMichele $905,000.00
Patrick Bueno $695,000.00

From the start, rate of play was steady due to the large stacks and deliberate play; eliminations came slow and steady with 20 to 30 hands between knockouts. When it came to the final four, six hours past while Glantz in 4th and Lindgren 3rd were eliminated.
When it came to the final two Nguyen had a 4 to 1 chip lead over DeMichele and soon put his stack to use and after ten hands eliminated his final opponent. The final hand looked like this:

Michael DeMichele & Scotty Nguyen &

Flop , &

Turn

River

Scotty Nguyen can now call himself the world best poker player until 2009 WSOP HORSE Final and took home $1,989,120 as well as his 5th WSOP bracelet and the Chip Reese Trophy.

But all is not well with the WSOP HORSE Final as Scotty Nguyen conduct during the game has caused a raised eyebrow or two. It’s even been said that the final broadcast on ESPN was an uneasy moment for tournament poker, as Nguyen time after time badgered, harassed and taunted his opponents violating a number of the WSOP’s rules, the embarrassing part is that none of the tournament officials took action on reprimanding his conduct.
This has now got the attention of the World Poke Association (WPA) who are now pushing to have uniform standards with clear cut rulings that are enforced in all circumstances during games and if there are no officials around to enforce these rules that the dealer should also be responsible for laying down the law. All in all the WPA state that “all members need to abide by the WPA Code of Ethics. And we need to eliminate the gray areas to have our game recognized as a professional sporting competition.”