PND presents our weekly news update of all the top poker headlines for the week of October 4th through the 8th.
Hello, I’m Sean Gibson and welcome to the Poker News Daily Weekly Update!
On Monday night, 23 year-old Brit David Vamplew took down the European Poker Tour’s London Main Event for 900,000 Pounds, which works out to nearly one and a half million dollars. And for extra bragging rights, he defeated Full Tilt Poker pro John Juanda, who cashed for the second straight year. Juanda was chip leader during most of the final table, but Vamplew managed to cripple him through several hands. The decisive hand had Juanda all in pre-flop with King-Deuce suited and knocked out by Vamplew’s Ace-Three. Prior to Monday, Vamplew’s largest live cash was a meager … SIX thousand dollars. Well done, David!
The eighteenth edition of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series, or FTOPS, will kick off on November 10th. Once again, Full Tilt Poker will host 34 FTOPS tournaments, culminating in a six hundred and forty-dollar buy-in Main Event on November twenty-first that will shell out at least three million dollars. All told, Full Tilt is guaranteeing over nineteen million dollars in this installment of FTOPS. During FTOPS seventeen, which ran throughout the month of August, over 4,500 players turned out for the kickoff event, creating a prize pool approaching one million bucks. Brent Roberts was the champion of the first tournament and pulled down one hundred and sixty four thousand dollars.
Today, UB.com poker pro Joe Sebok rappelled down fifty-one stories at the Masquerade Tower at the Rio Las Vegas to raise money for Special Olympics Nevada. The Over the Edge fundraiser allows participants to rappel fifty-one stories in exchange for raising a minimum of one thousand dollars for charity. Another poker celebrity who showed interest in the cause is adult star and UB celebrity Samantha Ryan. This year, the Over the Edge event has raised nearly forty thousand dollars.
Bodog announced that it has signed an advertising deal with the LA Galaxy of Major League Soccer, led by world recognized superstars David Beckham and Landon Donovan. The agreement gives Bodog.net additional exposure through ad placements on the LA Galaxy’s stadium. Ed Pownall, Global PR Director at BodogBrand.com, declared:
“Both the LA Galaxy and Bodog brands are recognized around the globe, making this partnership not only mutually beneficial, but a perfect synergy across the United States and beyond.”
The Galaxy are in their 15th season in the MLS and coming off a runner-up finish in the two thousand and nine MLS Cup, losing on penalty kicks to Real Salt Lake.
WELL – Want a Caribbean poker holiday? Ya, who wouldn’t! Each Sunday this month, Doyle’s Room will be awarding valuable prize packages for the Punta Cana Poker Classic, which will be held at the Hard Rock Cafe and Casino in the Dominican Republic. The Classic will take place Wednesday, November tenth through Sunday, November fourteenth in the popular resort city on the eastern tip of the Caribbean nation. Doyle Brunson WILL be there, as will many of the site’s top pros.
After a pretty poor run at the EPT London, Tom Dwan is back in style. According to HighStakesDB.com, Dwan hit the tables against Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies on Sunday night at Full Tilt Poker. They were playing at the nosebleed stakes of five hundred – one thousand Pot Limit Omaha. Sahamies dropped a grand total of over one point two MILLION dollars in roughly one thousand hands against Dwan. Counting his action against “Ziigmund” and other play, “durrrr” finished off the night with over one and a half million dollars in profit.
Well, these were the top poker headlines this week. Don’t miss us next Friday for another executive recap of the week in Poker. I’m Sean Gibson and all of us at Poker News Daily wish you a great poker week!