Poker

Quarter of a million dollars. If you woke up tomorrow with a quarter of a mil in your account what would you do with it? That's approximately how much first place paid out in SCOOP Event #22-M. A mere $215 investment netted the winner a shade under $250,000 for demonstrating their no-limit prowess. What can you do with $250,000? You can buy Starbucks twice a day every day for the next 68 years. Or you can go see the new Star Trek movie 16,500 times. Or you can buy 12.5 Mini Coopers (Okay, a half of a car is impossible, so let's just call it 11 regular Mini Coopers and 1 tricked-out Mini Cooper with all the luxuries that would rival the first class seating on British Airways). Poland's T3G3S survived a gritty two-day event and faded a field of 8,308 players in order to win Event #22-M and take home a whopping first-place prize of $249,244.70. it was not an easy task, especially at a final table that featured two failed attempts at negotiating a deal. It seemed like it would never end, but when the dust finally settled, T3G3S was the only player left standing. Sunday evenings are always the biggest day of the week for tournament grinders. SCOOP Event #22-M $215 NL, which started on Sunday, attracted 8,308 runners. They boosted the prize pool to over $1,661,600, which smashed the $1 million guarantee. The top 1,080 places paid out. Several notables cashed in this event including PokerStars Team Pros Jan Heitman (358th), Liv Boeree (451st), VictorRamdin (765th), Toni Judet (779th), and Marcin "Goral" Horecki (946th). Familiar faces among Team PokerStars Online who cashed included nkeyno (286th),IDOLLS (532nd), Mysters_Y (709th), and talonchick (799th), Event #22-M was scheduled as a two-day event. Day 1 ended with 106 players remaining. Germany's donkno2 held the overall lead with a shade over 3 million. Rounding out the Top 5 in chips were iGashik (2.26 million), superkid-bam (2.23 million), cal42688 (2.07 million), and mariicida (2.06 million). On Day 2, with 18 players remaining on the final two tables, lissi stinkt from Germany jumped out with the lead and amassed a stack worth 8.7 million, but lissi stinkt fizzled out in 13th place. That's when Lady Skadi stepped up as the leader. Action went hand for-hand with ten remaining. The final nine were finally set after kwintenkvg bubbled off the final table in tenth place with [Ad][9h] losing to morrisondk's [As][Jd]. Event #22-M Final Table - Chip Counts: Seat 1: erickie (1,974,596) Seat 2: vinifenomeno (2,452,900) Seat 3: GreaWW (5,223,102) Seat 4: T3G3S (17,909,772) Seat 5: cwbpokerclub (4,984,540) Seat 6: mariivida (10,989,584) Seat 7: Lady Skadi (19,128,022) Seat 8: morrisondk (15,561,176) Seat 9: TiltAttack (4,856,308) The final table commenced during Level 44 with blinds at 125K/250K and a 31,250 ante. Lady Skadi sat on the biggest stack with 19.1 million. The shortstack, erickie, was way behind with 1.9 million. erickie eliminated in 9th place On the first hand of the final table, we saw our first elimination. Short-stacked erickie open-shoved for 1,880,846, and T3G3S called. Cooler time. T3G3S trailed with [Jd][Js] against erickie's [Ad][As]. The board ran out [Ks][Jh][6h][9c][6s]. T3G3S flopped a set of Jacks and rivered a full house. T3G3S snapped off Aces and won the pot. Horrible bad beat for erickie after losing with Aces like that. The first person to exit the final table was erickie, who earned $12,877.40 for ninth place. TiltAttack eliminated in 8th place With 8 to go, we saw another quickie elimination. cwbpokerclub min-raised to 500,000, TiltAttack shoved for 1,309,658, and cwbpokerclub called. TiltAttack and [Ad][7s] failed to hold up against cwbpokerclub's [Kd][Qh] when the board ran out [K][Tc][4d][4s][8h]. cwbpokerclub won the pot with two pair, and TiltAttack was knocked out in eighth place, which paid out $19,939.20. GreaWW eliminated in 7th place Another short-stack bombed it all-in preflop. T3G3S min-raised to 600,000. GreaWW sho

These higher buy-in events among the others in the Spring Championship of Online Poker series usually attract top performers thus tough fields, and Event #21-H -- a two-day $2,100 no-limit hold'em event -- was no exception. Lots of top players came out, many went deep, and in the end it was 4rebmun topping them all after a two-way chop with Ben "NeverScaredB" Wilinofsky. Ultimately 902 entered this one, creating a huge $1,804,000 prize pool and thus easily exceeding the $1 million guarantee. The top 108 finishers made the cash, after after making that two-handed deal both 4rebmun and Wilinofsky walked away with more than $275,000 apiece. Here's how it all played out. Day 1: 902 to 53 It would take more than nine-and-a-half hours to play down to 108 and to the money, at which point Mr. Ingenious sat at the top of the counts with nearly 400,000 followed by mjw006 with about 256,000 and calvin7v with just over 253,000. Soon after the bubble burst, Team Online member Pro Isaac "IkeHaxton" Haxton was eliminated as the only red spade sporter to cash, finishing in 102nd place for a $3,788.40 payday. They'd play about two more hours after that on Day 1, with Mr.Ingenious continuing to maintain the chip lead and in fact build a huge gap with the rest of the field before play concluded. A total of 53 players made it through to Monday's second day of play. Here's a look at how the top of the leaderboard appeared overnight: 1. Mr.Ingenious (Germany) -- 737,724 2. Magardan (Germany) -- 313,980 3. Aku1206 (Finland) -- 306,299 4. callmemanu (United Kingdom) -- 290,364 5. JackRich (United Kingdom) -- 284,885 6. Aduobe4 (United Kingdom) -- 277,867 7. hulinada (Russia) -- 277,774 8. calvin7v (Finland) -- 249,452 9. Ben "NeverScaredB" Wilinofsky (Canada) -- 248,477 10. bebaimis777 (Lithuania) -- 235,273 Day 2: 53 to 1 After two hours of play on Monday the field was trimmed further down to 22 players, with Mr.Ingenious having slipped back to the middle of the pack while callmemanu pushed out in front followed by Ben "NeverScaredB" Wilinofsky in second position. Among those hitting the rail during those first couple of hours were Eric "jakz101" Crain (35th, $7,576.80), Richard "nutsinho" Lyndaker (40th, $6,674.80), Andrey "Kroko-dill" Zaichenko (50th, $5,953.20), and David "Betudontbet" Emmons (51st, $5,953.20). About a half-hour later they were down to 18 players gathered around two tables, with callmemanu still on top as the only one of them with more than 1 million chips. It would take another two hours to play down to a final nine, with bebaimis777 moving out in front of everyone to grab the chip lead with more than 1.65 million. Giuseppe "Ansgar2000" Pantaleo (18th), lenico1 (17th), and PetjeXL (16th) each earned $12,267.20 for their finishes. obiedman (15th), start-of-day-2 leader Mr.Ingenious (14th), and theoryofart (13th) took away $15,875.20 apiece. And deamon10 (12th), Magardan (11th), and JackRich (10th) each got back $19,483.20 worth of the prize pool for their efforts. The final table was underway. Seat 1: Ben "NeverScaredB" Wilinofsky (Canada) -- 1,017,093 Seat 2: VbV1990 (Russia) -- 1,309,292 Seat 3: Dimitar "KuuL" Danchev (Bulgaria) -- 508,206 Seat 4: callmemanu (United Kingdom) -- 935,406 Seat 5: Chris "ImDaNuts" Oliver (Costa Rica) -- 1,359,600 Seat 6: Aku1206 (Finland) -- 898,773 Seat 7: Matthew "mjw006" Wakeman (Australia) -- 764,094 Seat 8: 4rebmun (Canada) -- 573,662 Seat 9: bebaimis777 (Lithuania) -- 1,653,874 While bebaimis777 held the chip lead to start the final table, Chris "ImDaNuts" Oliver had battled his way to second position among the final nine after starting Day 2 in 53rd place out of 53 players. Oliver was continuing what has already been a stellar SCOOP series that has included three other final tables. Oliver finished ninth in Event #2-H ($2,100 NLHE), finished third in Event #6-H ($1,050 NL Draw 2x Chance), and took sixth in Event #12-M ($215 2-7 Draw). Aku120

Event #22-L was pretty big. The online nature of online poker makes it easy to dismiss how large the fields are. What would take multiple Day 1s and hundreds of thousands of square feet with carpet, air-conditioning and cocktail service is reduced to a single number called "Entrants." The number of entrants for Event #22-L was 25,172. That's nearly four times last year's WSOP Main Event and just 17 bodies short of filling the Red Bull Arena in New Jersey to maximum capacity. The player to outlast the virtual stadium of players was nuds400. Aside from outlasting the 25,172 players and taking the largest chunk of the $617,972.60 prize pool, nuds400 was a rock during two final table deals. nuds400 started with the lead, eliminated several players and was steadily in charge most of the final table. hartwith tried to negotiate some money from nuds400 during two deal attempts, but neither would go through. Here's how it went down. The final table Seat 1: Borritoo -- 23,322,114 Seat 2: sr. quijito -- 12,136,350 Seat 3: elayu23 -- 22,314,230 Seat 4: nuds400 -- 58,469,355 Seat 5: maiorov_163 -- 24,348,842 Seat 6: ReeBroHan -- 24,366,435 Seat 7: hartwith -- 42,328,826 Seat 8: monk419 -- 16,097,166 Seat 9: Ezbn91 -- 28,336,682 No buds for nuds400 Final tables aren't places to make friends. You're there to eliminate, and that's what nuds400 started to do. The final table started with 600K/1.2M blinds, a 150K ante and our final table short stack, sr. quijito, was down to 7 million in just a few hands. sr. quijito went all-in for 7,168,350 from the button and nuds400 called from the big blind. nuds400 turned over [ac][3c] and sr. quijito showed [qd][jc] for his tournament life. The [5c][2c][qc] all but ended things for sr. quijito. nuds400 flopped the nut flush and sr. quijito was in need of a full house or quads. The [ks] on the turn ended any chance of that happening and sr. quijito was eliminated in 9th place, earning $3,707.83. nuds400 was in the lead with about 70 million and then got another final table knockout. An orbit after sr. quijito's elimination, nuds400 raised to 2.4 million from the button and maiorov_163 moved all-in for 17,298,842 from the small blind. nuds400 called and we had another showdown. maiorov_163 turned over [ad][3h] while nuds400 showed two jacks, [jd][jh]. The [jc][7c][6s][4d][qc] board gave nuds400 another jack and another elimination. maiorob_163 was eliminated in 8th place for $5,561.75. nuds400 was in the lead with more than 80 million but then doubled a few players up. RSS readers please click through to play Sharing nuds400's final table monopoly was over. hartwith took the lead and Borritoo got the next elimination. Blinds were up to 700K/1.4M with a 175K ante and Borritoo raised to 2.8 milliion. nuds400 re-raised to 5.4 million and monk419 moved all-in for 19,972,166. Borritoo called and showed [kh][kc] to monk419's [qs][qh]. It was a tough cooler for monk419 who got no help from the [ad][9c][5d][7h][9h] board. monk419 was eliminated in 7th place and earned $8,682.51. hartwith's lead then grew even more. Blinds were up to 800K/1.6M with a 200K ante, hartwith raised to 3.2 million from the cutoff and Ezbn91 called from the button. The blinds folded and the random number generator graced players with a [10d][qh][5s] flop. hartwith bet 3.3 million and Ezbn91 called, bringing an [ac] on the turn. hartwith check-called a 6.4 million bet and the [5d] fell on the river. Both players checked and Ezbn91 mucked when hartwith showed [qs][jd]. Ezbn91 was down to 10 million while harwith's lead grew to 101 million. Ezbn91 then doubled up against Borritoo. Ezbn91 moved all-in from the small blind and Borritoo called from the big. Borritoo called with [ad][4d] and Ezbn91 showed [qs][10c]. The board came [2c][8c][8d][jc][5c] and the river flush doubled Ezbn91 up to 27 million. More down The sharing was over and the cutting board was back. The hand after Ezbn91's double up, ela

Tournament poker does not require that the winner of a tournament be the player who knocks out the most opponents. It simply requires that the winner be the person who acquires all of the chips. Luciano S.H proved that in SCOOP 2013 Event 21-M, $215 NLHE, by letting a Romanian opponent notch almost all of the knockouts at the final table. Then, staring down an almost 3-to-1 chip deficit, Luciano S.H played inspired poker to claw all the way back to a SCOOP championship. Event 21-M was a two-day affair. None of the Team PokerStars Pros or PokerStars Team Online players made Day 2. The Team Pros were led into the money by João "jomane" Nunes, who ran the deepest but bowed out in 319th place ($519.64). Joining Nunes on the right side of the 765-player money bubble were Dag Palovic (547th) and Christophe de Meulder (670th). The 69 Day 1 survivors reassembled at 11am PokerStars time on Monday to play out the rest of the tournament, each having guaranteed himself or herself $1,771.50 in prize money. Almost $185,000 was waiting at the end for the winner. McMang, fanaticbluff and mendezoo started Day 2 at the top of the counts. fanaticbluff would bubble the final table on a flip when pocket 8s got outflopped by [ac][tc], but McMang -- a 2010 SCOOP winner -- and mendezoo were still in the hunt for the top prize when the tournament collapsed to its final table of nine. Seat 1: koivu18 (3407568 in chips) Seat 2: Mr.Buster (5582460 in chips) Seat 3: kingroler (9852832 in chips) Seat 4: t8ofDiamonds (4134542 in chips) Seat 5: HochuBablo (5822187 in chips) Seat 6: McMang (2676854 in chips) Seat 7: mendezoo (11416795 in chips) Seat 8: CAPOH0GG1N (7921184 in chips) Seat 9: Luciano S.H (8235578 in chips) Level 40: blinds 60k-120k, ante 15k Average: 6.5 million (54 BBs) Slow and steady After starting Day 2 3rd in chips, mendezoo brought the chip lead to the final table, but at roughly 70 big blinds, it was a vulnerable chip lead. McMang was the shortest stack at the table but could afford some patience with about 15 big blinds. Patience, in fact, was the name of the game in the first 75 minutes of the final table. In that time, CAPOH0GG1N took over the chip lead from mendezoo and not a single player busted. CAPOH0GG1N climbed as high as 20 million in chips, more than double the stack of 2nd-place player kingroler. It only got better for CAPOH0GG1N. With one minute left in the 125k-250k level, CAPOH0GG1N opened pre-flop from the button to 4.5 million, enough to cover both blinds. Big blind koivu18 called all in for 1.78 million with pocket 7s but was out-flipped by CAPOH0GG1N's [ks][9d] when both a king and a nine flopped. After 75 minutes, the final table was finally down to eight players. Blinds moved up to 150k-300k, putting pressure on almost all of the remaining players. From second position, McMang squeezed out [qc][js] and moved all in for 2.45 million. That raise made it all the way to the small blind, where kingroler was waiting to roll over kings. Those kings held up to send McMang to the rail in 8th place. It was as if the floodgates had been opened; t8ofDiamonds followed McMang out of the tournament a few hands later. t8ofDiamonds was eliminated by CAPOH0GG1N after being crippled by HochuBablo when HochuBablo's [as][8s] spiked a river 8 to overtake t8ofDiamonds' [ad][ks]. That hand left t8ofDiamonds with just 494k. From there the end was a mere formality. CAPOH0GG1N continued to extend the chip lead, building as high as 25 million, while the other five players seemed to just pass the chips back and forth amongst themselves. Blinds increased to 200k-400k, dropping the average stack of 9.84 million to about 25 big blinds. No player except CAPOH0GG1N exceeded that average. While the shorter stacks tried desperately to hang on, CAPOH0GG1N was a relentless bully. Time and again CAPOH0GG1N made massive pre-flop raises and re-raises, putting opponents to the test for all of their chips. None seemed inclined to meas

This was the type of SCOOP table that the finalists will talk about for years; albeit with a degree of legend. Maybe one day they'll re-unite to talk about it with 20 years of hindsight, their families having brought them to this unlikely reunion, begging them to let it go. "For God's sake Granddad, not again." Some final tables are defined by play, others by a lack of it. This one however, won by German player OptionNz in about an hour and 40 minutes, will be defined by those 40 minutes, all of which were spent in the throes of a deal for the best share of the guarantee defying prize pool of $581,663.15. Seat 1 - OptionNz, 93,268,887 Seat 2 - IMmaxValuee, 13, 697773 Seat 3 - DtownDevil20, 20,937,630 Seat 4 - Run Bad King, 14049015 Seat 5 - palingboer1, 4915152 Seat 6 - melchis4774, 7271872 Seat 7 - NicoBKK, 29779919 Seat 8 - serj_kh, 11981789 Seat 9 - Sun*RMC, 38927963 It came about when five-handed. First though melchis4774 departed in ninth place running ace-king into DtownDevil20's flush. Five minutes later palingboer1 ran ace-jack into DtownDevil20's set of sevens, heading for the rail, with IMmaxValuee following a minute later having found the same ace-jack and running it into the aces of Run Bad King. SCOOP 21-L final table That left six, led by OptionNz, who by now had pushed his stack up into nine figures. It would be 12 more minutes before DtownDevil20, who had been in the ascendant, filled the next vacancy. Crippled with kings against Run Bad King's ace-jack (that hand had a lot to answer for), he was soon ditched when his ace was out-kicked. The Deal It had started in high spirits. OptionNz, the massive leader, who had won a 65 million chip coup ten-handed, proposed they look at some numbers, like a time-share salesmen just giving the curious customers an idea of what they could have, no obligation. First they had to all press "deal" at the same time, the magic icon in the corner of the screen only visible to those who have reached such an exalted state. It's not as easy as it sounds, so they played several "one more hands" before stopping. Run Bad King, who had won an addition seven million in this short phase of confusion, kept reminding everyone to press the deal button. Serj_kh, the plucky short stack, who had been the scrappy terrier up to now, biting ankles and doubling up three times, kept typing "+1", which was taken to mean one more hand. But after the second time people ignored him and he relented. There also seemed to be some confusion over the word "deal", which, inconvenient as it is, has two meanings at a time like this. Still dealing And so it began, with OptionNz with nearly half the chips in play. Now all they needed was tournament host Mickey "mememt_mori" Petersen to show some numbers. But nobody could find him, presumably he was off mement mori-ing somewhere behind a laptop screen. Instead the moderator arrived to send some numbers through - $53,000 to OptionNz with $6,000 left to play for. NicoBKK said that was a joke. "Option takes nearly all 1st position," said NicoBKK. "Let's play." There's always something satisfying about a player refusing to deal, a flash of the heroic, combined with a streak of recklessness. OptionNz: 51.5k NicoBKK: 50? It's a freeroll for you. Common dude (sic). Then Run Bad King got involved. Having been looking over the numbers he suddenly realised he was getting screwed. "I'm only getting 10k better than Serj!" It was a painful, if honest statement. Poor serj_kh, the table whipping boy, whose efforts to double up and then keep playing were reminiscent of the team halfwit who just wants to play ball. OptionNz: It's fair. NicoBKK: You lose a flip, then what? Still the deal Run Bad King, still using serj_kh to make his point, said that OptionNz had double that of him, but he would get 20k more. He decided to bargain. "I want 38k" he said ($6,000 more), and asked for an equity chop. OptionNz countered that he would take 50,000. "Last call, or

Miss this morning's chance to get a Rainbow Dice collectible? Here's another opportunity--you've got ONE HOUR (until 2PM PST) to get it! (Note if you got it this morning you can't get it again today.) http://zynga.tm/pHw

The Borgata Poker Room will celebrate the Memorial Day Weekend with special tournament action throughout the holiday. Borgata will hold one-day tournaments Saturday through Monday, May 25 - 27.Saturday, May 25 - 11am$500 + $60 + $100 Black Chip BountyNo Limit Hold'em (Re-Entry) Sunday, May 26 - 11am$350 + $50 Big Stack No Limit Hold'em (Re-Entry)Monday, May 27 - 11am$150 + $30 + $100 Black Chip BountyNo Limit Hold'em (Re-Entry)Saturday and Sunday's events start players at 20,000 in tournament chips. Monday's event starts players at 15K. Registration starts at 9am the day of each tournament.Where better to spend the holiday weekend than at Borgata?

For the last year I've been trying hard to improve my online cash games. I'd always played cash games before I got into tournaments, but when I started having tournament success I stopped playing them for a while. When I got back to them I kind of felt stuck. The things I used to do didn't work anymore. Poker is constantly evolving. Adaptation to those changes will prevent that you get stuck, is not necessarily about watching this or that training site video; reading X or Y strategy forums; discussing hands with friends; all of that is very important of course but in my opinion the main thing should be recognizing at all times that learning is a long way to go. Being real about what you think you know will help you to improve faster, accepting the fact that even when you think you are good, most likely you are not when you compare your level or knowledge, creativity, poker theory, mental strenght, tilt control, against the top players in the world. It's been a lot of hard work but with a few adjustments here and there I feel like I'm making good progress. My tilt level has improved dramatically, mainly because I'm more conscious about it. I feel really good about that one because it's not an easy thing to accomplish, after improving in that area I think I can improve in other areas faster now. It simply gives you confidence and a better judgement when analyzing your game and looking for mistakes/leaks. Something that has helped me a lot with that is non-poker related. For the last few years I've been reading a lot about science in general. It all started when I got very interested in astrophysics; I've been following a few scientists that I admire and learning from them since then- their podcasts or books or science forums. I've even been taking some online classes at coursera.org about neuroscience, physics, math, etc. I think that constantly learning about and through the scientific method has helped my mind to look at poker in a calmer way, in a much more rational way. I think of the math of the poker more now without worrying about results. Results can be calculated across the long term. As long as you're making the right decisions in the short term, it doesn't matter if you get a bad beat or lose against a very low percentage hand. We have all heard that one, but do you really apply it to your game at all times? I mean, yes you probably make (or at least you think you do) the right decision when playing poker, but, will you a 100% accept the fact that whatever happens next is completely out of your control?. Accepting 1. that poker is a game of %s, variance, winning/losing streaks, etc. and 2. that you should be having fun when playing it, will help you realizing if poker is something that you should be doing or not. It´s important to be honest with ourselves about that. If the answer to that question is not a rotund YES maybe you should be doing something that you really enjoy instead. Playing fewer tables definitely helps tilt control as well. When you're playing a lot of tables, you can't pay as much attention to your decisions. Because of that you may not realize until later that you are making mistakes. That's what would happen with me. I would review the sessions after I was finished, see the hands I played and the way that I played them, and spot mistakes based on tilt problems, attention level, theory/strategy leaks, etc. It's not that I knew at the time precisely that I was tilting or playing a hand poorly. Yet because I was playing so many tables I would kind of forget what I was doing at each table. Speaking of my mental game, now that I'm playing fewer tables at once I am 100% observant of my emotional state while I'm playing. Yes, I sometimes still feel a small sense of frustration because of a hand that happened or a huge bad beat. The difference now is that being more observant prevents me from reacting badly. I'm still going to have reactions once in a while - We are all human beings, aft

Any suggestions for a future 3-Bet, please drop a note in the comments and let us know. Today in the 3-Bet we find Annie Duke fueling her haters’ fire with a statement about the Ultimate Bet tapes, a judge in Atlantic City putting the final nail (maybe) in PokerStars’ bid to buy the Atlantic Club and Sam Trickett living out his boyhood dreams at Old Trafford. 1) Annie Duke on UB Tapes: Sorry I Ever Worked With Them #whenwillitend   We reported on Phil Hellmuth’s statement about the leaked UB tapes last week and now Hellmuth’s main co-pilot in UB sponsorship, Annie Duke, has delivered her own statement via Facebook this weekend. It’s filled with the expected denial/abhorrence of the cheating although it didn't take long into her statement for a major discrepancy to materialize. From her statement: “Listening to the leaked audio that describes an elaborate attempt by some of UltimateBet.com’s founders, including Russ Hamilton and Greg Pierson, to cover up cheating reminds me once again how much I regret having been associated with the people that were involved in this conspiracy. “The release of this audio has spurred accusations and I want to make it clear that I have never used a tool on a delay or otherwise that gave me or anyone else access to hole cards for use during real money play nor was I aware that such a tool existed until the scandal broke.“ Only problem, detractors have pointed out, is that stands in contrast to her very own tweet about seeing hole cards last week: This delayed viewing was made this public during those broadcasts and is standard practice for WSOP commentators for live events also. — Annie Duke (@AnnieDuke) May 12, 2013 Read the full statement from Duke here; more from her detractors here. 2) New Jersey Judge Rules in Favor of Atlantic Club Speaking of ongoing poker sagas, the bid by PokerStars to buy the brick-and-mortar Atlantic Club Casino in Atlantic City looks likes it's finally squashed for good. Maybe. Atlantic Club deal off again.   After the announced deal dragged out while New Jersey considered and re-considered its legal stance of online gambling legislation, The Atlantic Club used an April 26 "drop dead" clause to pull out of the sale altogether. This didn't sit well with PokerStars, who initiated legal action shortly after to re-open its bid. A contentious back-and-forth over PokerStars’ owner Isai Scheinberg’s “criminal past” later, a judge in New Jersey has backed the AC in its pulling of the plug. According to John Brennan on the NorthJersey.com blog, the judge held up the “drop dead” decision on Friday and said it was within the casino’s rights to scuttle the deal. Net result for PokerStars? No casino in Atlantic City and $11m spent on floating the troubled casino during the negotiations, apparently. Not one to give up easily, as we've seen, PokerStars still might not give up the fight according to a Tweet from Eric Hollreiser, Head of Corporate Communications: RE TODAY'S NJ HEARING: We are reviewing today's ruling. We remain committed to New Jersey and tocontributing to its economy. — Eric Hollreiser (@erichollreiser) May 17, 2013 More on the deal here. 3) Trickett Suits Up, Scores at Old Trafford You know that age-old story of a boy who has aspirations of football stardom, makes his way up the semo-pro ranks, gets injured, picks up poker, grinds up the ranks of that a bit, gets backed by a multi-millionaire sportsbetting kingpin, cracks a big score, steps up stakes and wins three seven-figure titles in a year, comes second in the richest poker tournament ever for $10m, plays in the highest-stakes games in the world, gets engaged to his super hot long-term girlfriend and then last weekend gets his name on the back of his favorite football team (which also happens to be one of the greatest in the world) and lives out his lifelong dream of scoring on the pitch at Old Trafford? Oh, that’s only ever happened to Sam Trickett in the history of the