Action definitely heated up during this past week among the Player of the Year leaders.  Dave Mandt scored a victory in the Spring Poker Classic Main Event which was also his 2nd final table in a $1,000 event in 2 months.  Typically that would be enough to have him well on top of the POY leaderboard except that Jason Seitz final tabled the same two events and won the MSPT – Running Aces.  Seitz also won a SPC preliminary event.

Kye Longtin and Peixin Liu continue to lead the state in the number of cashes at 6.  Longtin won a SPC preliminary event for his 6th.  3 Putts has been climbing the board as of late too and has recorded 5 cashes.

This last week for the first time Running Aces ran their Spring Poker Classic which consisted of a series of events from Wednesday thru Saturday and concluded with the $1,100, 2-day Main Event that began Saturday evening.

The Main Event drew 109 entrants (including rebuys).

On Sunday night the pot was eventually chopped 4-ways with your chip leader and winner being David Mandt.  This is Mandt’s first win in an $1,100 major  tournament though he has been in the mix and final tabled many times in large tourneys, including a recent MSPT Final Table in February, also at Running Aces.

Mandt also received the Running Aces Movado watch.  Congrats!!

MSPT – Running Aces Champion Jason Seitz was also seen deep again.  He finished 5th in the SPC Main Event for $8K and also won a Spring Poker Classic event earlier in the week. 

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By Nathan Vardi (The Jungle)

http://blogs.forbes.com/nathanvardi/2011/03/25/billionaire-steve-wynn-makes-big-online-poker-bet-with-pokerstars/?partner=fbwall

In a dramatic move that will forever change the online poker landscape, billionaire Steve Wynn has announced he is joining up with PokerStars, the world’s biggest online gaming company, to establish a strategic relationship that aims to regulate online poker in the U.S.

“We are convinced that the lack of regulation of Internet gaming within the US must change,” said Wynn, chief executive of Las Vegas casino company Wynn Resorts, in a statement. “We must recognize that this activity is occurring and that law enforcement does not have the tools to stop it.”

PokerStars and Wynn Resorts plan to work together to secure the passage of federal legislation that will regulate online poker in the U.S. with an eye toward setting up a joint venture, PokerStarsWynn.com, that will offer for-money online poker play in the U.S.

For the last few years, PokerStars, based in the Isle of Man, has dominated the U.S. market, building a hugely profitable business while operating in the shadow of the law. The U.S. Justice Department has for years taken the position that facilitating for-money online poker violates U.S. law, making no distinction between sports betting—clearly illegal— and poker play. But PokerStars says it has received legal opinions from several U.S law firms stating it is not violating U.S. law and the feds have never challenged this position.

PokerStars is run by Isai Scheinberg, a former IBM programmer, and his son Mark Scheinberg, although the company hired a chief executive in recent months. “We have long supported the enactment of local regulatory regimes that protect consumers and provide valuable tax revenues and jobs,” Mark Scheinberg said in a statement. “PokerStars is closely regulated in many European countries and it has been endorsing the adoption of the same approach in the United States for years.”

Late last year the online poker industry almost managed to squeeze through legislation that would have regulated online poker in the U.S. after the casino companies in Las Vegas decided to back the effort, tired of sitting on the sidelines and watching companies like PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker earn hundreds of millions of dollars annually from the large U.S. market. The effort, however, could not overcome opposition from some powerful Republican lawmakers.

Now, Wynn has decided to boldly attach his name and credibility to online poker in return for securing an association with the leading online poker brand. By inking this deal, PokerStars is not only getting a powerful ally, it is also making a preemptive end-run around efforts from lawmakers or business interests to exclude offshore online poker companies that have operated in the U.S. in recent years from any regulated U.S. marketplace.

Still, Wynn is entering into a deal with a company that has played a massive cat-and-mouse game with federal law enforcement. Unwilling to confront the actual online poker companies in court, the Justice Department has tried instead to cut off the financial lifeline of the online poker business by going after the financial firms that process the industry’s payments.

In the summer of 2008, for example, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan froze some $34 million owed to poker players from PokerStars and Full Tilt, after which both companies refunded their customers.  PokerStars says these kind of asset seizures have always involved payment processors that were acting in a non-transparent manner and hiding information from the company. The feds got a new tool in this battle when a 2006 law that targets online gaming payment processors came into full effect last year.

But no law enforcement or legislative effort has put a dent in the demand for online poker play in the U.S. that involves financial bets. State lawmakers in places like New Jersey have recently promoted regulated online poker play within their state borders, drooling over potentially rich tax revenues. Now Steve Wynn has upped the ante.

I don’t think I ever considered just how disgusting the poker table can be.  I did, however, witness something a few nights ago that made me contemplate the very close quarters at the table and the very easy transfer of grossness from one person to another.

An older gentleman was involved in a hand.  It had become clear that although the man was very kind, he was also quite uninhibited, particularly regarding his phloemy cough.  He also seemed to have poor eyesight, as he always brought the cards up to his face to see his hand.  You can see where this is going… Before making a decision about his play, he brought his cards to his face, and proceeded to cough right into them.  Then he folded.

That’s gross.  There’s a good chance I held those very cards in my hands moments later.  The automatic shuffler should also act as a card-washing machine.  Poker players are not exactly notorious for health and cleanliness, putting in twenty-hour sessions without a shower, new shirt or single vegetable…

ALSO, FOR ANY READERS WHO ENJOY MY BLOGS, PLEASE CHECK OUT MY NEW WEBSITE, A PERSONAL BLOG SITE:

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April 1 / 7 PM:  $140 Step 3 Qualifying Tournament (1 in 10 players win a seat to the $1,100 MSPT Main Event on April 9)

April 2 / 11 AM:  $115 1st Saturday Tournament (Start with 6,000 in chips, $10 staff bonus for an additional 2,000 chips)

BAD BEAT (TUESDAYS & THURSDAYS) / 7 PM

$50 buy-in / 4,000  chips, $5 staff bonus / 2,000 chips

Lose with the selected hand of the tournament and receive part of the house-funded Bad Beat

SHOOTOUT (SATURDAYS) / 3 PM

$60 buy-in / 4,000  chips, $5 staff bonus / 2,000 chips

Final two players from every table make the money

SUNDAYS / 3 PM

$35 single re-buy tournament

$20 re-buy can be used anytime

I was playing 8-16 late one night, and our table had become short-handed.  There were only five of us.  Typically I enjoy playing short, as I feel I do a good job making the necessary adjustments for a smaller game, and that my opponents generally do not.  Aggression becomes all the more vital at a short-handed table, as there will be fewer players in each pot and fewer monster hands to contend with.  Raising pre-flop and continuation-betting to win the small pots is a very profitable strategy.  Passive players get run-over at the short-handed games.

During this session, however, I was universally bricking.  I would raise with A-8 of clubs and the flop would be K-Q-3, all red.  I would raise with K-Q and the flop would be A-7-4.  I would three-bet with 7-7 and the flop would be K-Q-J.  And, of course, my opponent had an unfoldable piece of the board every time.  It was becoming excrutiating!  To add vexation to my vexation, one fortunate soul was winning every single pot we played.  We must’ve gotten heads-up eight times in forty-five minutes.  He won all eight pots.  This statistic is frustrating in itself, but the man seemed to be altogether oblivious to his incredible fortune.  There’s something particularly irritating about a man who, against all probability, wins 85% of the pots and yet doesn’t appear satisfied, appreciative, or at minimum, aware.  He’s focused on the 15% of pots he’s losing. Hey, bro, I haven’t won one of the last twenty-eight pots!

We continued playing five-handed with similar results until something peculiar happened: all four of my opponents got up from the table at the same time.  They made some vague allusion to a five-minute break as they all walked away at once.  I was left alone at the table.  It was so strange!  I realize that if I had been winning, and as a result, in a better mood, this wouldn’t have irritated me as much.  Because, however, it was 1am the night before I worked, I was icy-cold, stuck a rack, and losing to a sociopathic luckbox, I was very annoyed.  I sat there awkwardly alone for ten minutes before one of the four players returned.  And of course, he didn’t want to play heads-up.  I just racked up and went home.

I wonder, though, what the responsibility of the casino is in this scenario.  There is a third-man walking rule, of course, which is intended to keep enough players in the game to maintain cards in the air.  But once all players have ignored this rule and left the table, what can be done?  Furthermore, when one player returns and I’m ready to play, does this player now have the right to say he doesn’t want to?  If there is one player at an open table ready to play, and there are seated players unwilling to play, does the game break?  Am I allowed to move to another game?  Maybe a game with seven or eight players?  I don’t know these rules, as I’ve never confronted this situation before.  Does anybody have any insight?

ALSO, FOR ANY READERS WHO ENJOY MY BLOGS, PLEASE CHECK OUT MY NEW WEBSITE, A PERSONAL BLOG SITE:

WWW.JAYMIND.COM

LOCATION: Running Aces Harness Park, Columbus, MN

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23

Noon – Bounty Tournament

$100 Bounty + $100+$25

6 pm – Second Chance $100+$15

 THURSDAY, MARCH 24

10:30 am  – Ante Tourney $50+$10

2 pm – Qualifier $220+$20

6 pm – Second Chance $100+$15

FRIDAY, MARCH 25

Noon – No Limit Tourney $500+$50

3 pm – Qualifier $220+$20

6 pm – Second Chance $100+$15

SATURDAY, MARCH 26

9:30 am – Turbo Tourney $50+$10

1 pm – Qualifier $220+$20

5 pm – Main Event $1,000+$100

SUNDAY, MARCH 27

Noon – Final Table

8:00 PM Update:  In an unsurprising event, Jeremy Dresch captures his 3rd HPT title.  Dresch has made it a habit dominating HPT fields, this time pocketing $47K.  Congrats!

At last count yesterday evening 164 players entered the HPT at Shooting Star event.  They played down to the money last night which is the final 30.  They resume play this morning.  Notable players still in the hunt:  Jeremy Dresch (as usual), previous HPT Champion Matt Alexander and MSPT Champion Ray “StingRay” Bendijo. 

In 2010 the HPT made two stops at Shooting star.  In October Brandon Dosch from Fargo, ND out played a field of 143 players.  He took home 40K and a seat to the HPT Championship Open.   

In March Matt Alexander from Robbinsdale, MN was the main event champion.  Taking first place out of 172 players and cashing 48K.