Hello and welcome to the Weekly Recap on Poker News Daily. This week, we congratulate Dan Harrington and Erik Seidel on entering the Poker Hall of Fame, witness an implausible twenty-three way chop in a live tournament, and more. I’m your host, Sean Gibson.
The Poker Hall of Fame Class of two thousand ten was announced this week. Nineteen ninety-five World Series of Poker Main Event champ Dan Harrington and eight-time bracelet winner Erik Seidel will be enshrined during a ceremony on November eighth at the Rio in Las Vegas. Harrington’s back-to-back runs in the two thousand three and two thousand four Main Events and valuable contributions to poker literature earned him one of the Hall of Fame spots. Seidel is a favorite of the poker industry and may be best remembered for his runner-up finish to Johnny Chan in the nineteen eighty-eight WSOP Main Event.
It’s not every day you see a twenty-three-way chop in a live poker tournament. The unlikely deal happened in a four hundred dollar No Limit Hold’em Deep Stack event held during the Foxwoods World Poker Finals this week. John Agelakis ultimately came away with the win, earning a commemorative leather jacket, a championship trophy, and twelve thousand dollars in cash. That was just nineteen percent more than the 23rd place finisher received and only eleven dollars more than second place. The winner of the tournament WOULD have taken home over $68,000, meaning that the deal resulted in the top prize being shaved by over eighty percent.
On Monday night, a brand new week of the PokerStars-sponsored “Big Game” kicked off on FOX. The newest cycle featured Elizabeth Houston as the “Loose Cannon.” Houston ended Monday’s kickoff episode up eighteen thousand dollars in large part due to taking down a major pot with pocket aces. There was a total of one point two million dollars on the table to start with, the most in “Big Game” history. Daniel Negreanu ended Monday’s “Big Game” episode up over a hundred thousand dollars and the big loser of the night was David “Viffer” Peat, who lost seventy-seven thousand. If you missed any of the “Big Game,” go to TheBigGame.PokerStars.net.
Dutch Boyd is being sued by TwoPlusTwo Interactive for “cyber squatting,” which means owning a website that intends to profit off a trademark belonging to someone else. In a post on TwoPlusTwo last week, site owner Mason Malmuth gave an update:
“TwoPlusTwo sued Boyd for cyber squatting, trademark infringement, and other claims after Boyd registered the domain name TwoPlusTwoPoker.com. The complaint was only served on Boyd after his numerous refusals to negotiate with TwoPlusTwo in good faith.”
The conflict started last year and it is still unclear whether Boyd profited from the disputed domain name. The lawsuit now moves into the discovery phase.
This November, the World Poker Tour will once again head to the historic and picturesque city of Marrakech, Morocco for its second ever poker tournament in the North African country. Co-sponsored by Chili Poker and the WPT, the event will begin on November 20th with a five hundred Euro Deep Stack tourney. Chili Poker pro Liz Lieu will attend this event along with Irish pro Andy Black and EPT champions Sandra Naujoks and Liv Boeree. The Main Event of the 2010 WPT Marrakech will be a five thousand Euro No Limit Hold’em tournament that will begin on November twenty-seventh. Since this is an official WPT stop, the victor will earn the bracelet awarded to all WPT champions along with a $25,000 seat to the 2011 Championship event at the Bellagio in April.
Mixed Martial Arts legend Randy Couture will host the third annual “Operation All In” charity poker tournament and auction fundraiser at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas on October thirtieth. The tournament and auction will benefit the Xtreme Couture G.I. Foundation, which honors the veterans of America’s armed forces. Confirmed attendants include MMA fighters Couture, Tyson Griffin, and John Alessio along with poker pros like Howard Lederer, Lacey Jones, and Matt Savage. The buy-in for the tournament is $225 with hundred dollar rebuys. The event will also feature auctions offering MMA memorabilia and dinner and a one-hour personal MMA lesson with Couture.
These were the top poker news this week. Don’t miss us next Friday for another executive recap of the week in poker. May the flop be with you.