Bookies cleaning up on Eurovision song contest

William Hill have already taken nearly £100,000 on the Eurovision Song Contest and fully expect to take £1 million by the time the show has finished on Saturday 14th May, sparking an industry wide turnover of £10 million. France are the current favourites with Hills at 11/4, while the UK are the 11/2 second favourites. Both countries already represent a five figure loss for Hills with 10 days still to go until the big event.“Eurovision gets more and more popular every year with punters and this year we are looking at our first ever million pound turnover,” said Hill’s spokesman Joe Crilly.One Hill’s punter in Ireland has placed the biggest Eurovision bet so far, staking €1,000 on Ireland at 20/1.William Hill Eurovision Odds:

Outright: 11/4 France; 11/2 UK; 7/1 Estonia; 8/1 Azerbaijan; 9/1 Hungary; 12/1 Bosnia Herzegovina; 12/1 Sweden; 16/1 Russia; 16/1 Germany; 20/1 Ireland; 20/1 Norway; 25/1 Turkey; 25/1 Denmark; 33/1 Finland; 40/1 Italy; 50/1 BAR.


2011 WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic

Winner James Dempsey – Brighton UK, outlasted a 413 field of talented tournament players at the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond $10,000 buy-in event. The final table included, 2010 amateur November Niner Soi Nguyen-Santa Ana Ca, who went heads up with Dempsey -Brighton UK, the reigning champ Antonio Esfandiari- Las Vegas, WSOP-bracelet winner Vanessa Selbst- New Haven CT, who was looking to add a women for a first ever WPT title, young tournament player from N.Y. Andrew Lichtenberger, and Vitor Coelho from Tampa Fl. who took 4th in the WPT Jacksonville. 1st: James Dempsey $821,612 (includes $25,500 WPT World Championship seat) 2nd: Soi Nguyen $517,478 3rd: Vanessa Selbst $338,351 4th: Andrew Lichtenberger $218,933 5th: Vitor Coelho $159,224 6th: Antonio Esfandiari $119,418 Press Release JAMES DEMPSEY WINS THE DOYLE BRUNSON FIVE DIAMOND WORLD POKER CLASSIC AT BELLAGIO IN LAS VEGAS Stacked WPT Final Table Featured Defending Champion Antonio Esfandiari and Vanessa Selbst Twitter: @WorldPokerTour Facebook.com/WorldPokerTour Las Vegas (December 12, 2011) As one of the worlds most prestigious poker events, the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic once again attracted the biggest players in the game. 413 runners, including nearly 40 WPT Champions Club members, created a prizepool of more than $4 million. A week of phenomenal action at Bellagio led to an impressive final table featuring Vanessa Selbst and defending champion Antonio The Magician Esfandiari. However, only one player could claim victory in this historic tournament and in the end, James Dempsey triumphed over the talented field to etch his name on the WPT Champions Cup. Day 1 commemorated the tenth edition of the first event ever on the World Poker Tour as Mike Sexton, Vince Van Patten, Kimberly Lansing, the Royal Flush Girls and Tournament Director Jack McClelland celebrated this legacy before announcing Shuffle Up and Deal. The most famous names in poker including Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Phil Hellmuth and the tournaments namesake Doyle Brunson turned out in force as players registered through the opening eight levels. The money bubble burst during the middle of Day 3, and by the end of the day, five WPT Champions had hit the rail, including Will The Thrill Failla (93rd $11,942) who picked up 50 more points to extend his lead for WPT Season X Player of the Year. WPT Raw Deal Analyst Tony Dunst made his first deep run at a WPT Main Event, busting late on Day 4 (18th $31,845) to eventual champion James Dempsey. WPT Season IX Ones to Watch William Reynolds (13th $39,806) and WPT Season VIII World Champion David Williams (10th $47,767) couldnt survive the final playdown day, and when Soi Nguyen knocked out Larry Wells (7th $91,554), the WPT final table was set. In World Poker Tour history, no player has ever won the same event twice, let alone in consecutive seasons, but defending champion Antonio Esfandiari nearly pulled off this heroic feat. During the WPT final table, The Magician came out swinging, and moved all-in on just the tenth hand. While Esfandiaris Ah10s had James Dempseys Ad4h dominated, an unlucky Four on the turn eliminated The Magician in sixth place. The action had begun at a feverish pace and did not let up. Two hands later, Soi Nguyen busted Vitor Coelho in a three-way pot involving Vanessa Selbst. Vitor not only picked up $159,224 for his fifth place finish, but also 900 WPT Player of the Year points to push him into 2nd in the Season X POY race. Vanessa Selbst was looking to become the first woman to win an open WPT Main Event, and soon after Coelhos elimination, Selbst doubled through WPT Season IX Ones to Watch Andrew LuckyChewy Lichtenberger. Once again, only two hands later Soi Nguyen eliminated another challenger as his pocket nines held up against Lichtenbergers pocket eights. Three-handed play did not last long. Just fifteen minutes after LuckyChewy hit the rail, Vanessa Selbst would fall to Dempsey, ending her bid to make WPT history. To get his name onto the Cup, James Dempsey had to overcome a strong challenge from Soi Nguyen. The two players entered heads up play nearly even as both held slightly over $8 million in chips. Nguyen went up early and maintained the lead during a stretch of back and forth action. However, after doubling up, Dempseys KhQc held up against Nguyens KcJd as Dempsey made a straight on the river. James Dempsey claims $821,612 for the win, in addition to receiving the Tiffany and Co. WPT Champions Award, the WPT Champions Trophy, and entry into the WPT Champions Club. Final Table Standings 1st James Dempsey $821,612 2nd Soi Nguyen $517,478 3rd Vanessa Selbst $338,351 4th Andrew Lichtenberger $218,933 5th Vitor Coelho $159,224 6th Antonio Esfandiari $119,418 Player of the Year Standings 1st Will Failla 1,650 2nd Vitor Coelho 1,500 3rd James Dempsey 1,400 3rd Bobby Oboodi 1,400 5th Vanessa Selbst 1,300 6th Soi Nguyen 1,250 7th Andrey Pateychuk 1,200 7th Jin Hwang 1,200 7th Matt Waxman 1,200 10th Daniel Buzgon 1,150 The final WPT Main Event of 2011 kicks-off tomorrow from Italy. WPT Venice runs from December 13 18 at Casino di Venezia. The 3,300 re-entry tournament is poised to attract a strong turnout of local and well-known professionals. Coming up in 2012, WPT Season X will feature many of pokers biggest events. WPT returns in February to Commerce Casino for the world-renowned Los Angeles Poker Classic. In March, Season X visits San Jose, CA for the popular Bay 101 Shooting Star. April will become a milestone month for Florida poker, as WPT arrives for back-to-back televised Main Events the second-ever Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown and the debut WPT tournament in the brand new Jacksonville Poker Room. WPT Season X concludes in May with the WPT World Championship at Bellagio in Las Vegas. WPT Media Contact: Max Sloan About World Poker Tour World Poker Tour (WPT) is the premier name in internationally televised gaming and entertainment with brand presence in land-based tournaments, television, online and mobile. Leading innovation in the sport of poker since 2002, WPT ignited the global poker boom with the creation of a unique television show based on a series of high stakes poker tournaments. WPT has broadcast globally in over 150 countries and territories and is currently airing the ninth season on FSN in the United States. Season X of WPT is sponsored by ClubWPT.com, a unique online membership site which offers inside access to the WPT as well as a sweepstakes-based poker club and is available in 35 states across the U.S. WPT participates in strategic brand license, partnership and sponsorship opportunities. WPT Enterprises Inc. is a subsidiary of bwin.party digital entertainment plc. For more information, go to WorldPokerTour.com.


Wendeen H. Eolis Continues Breaking Online Poker News

Ace investigative reporter, Wendeen H. Eolis, has once again returned from the quagmire that is online poker with another breaking story.  This time shes the first to tell the world that PokerStars CEO Gabriel Campos Woslovsky would be leaving the troubled online poker company after a two year hitch.

Read all the details of this latest turn of events in Eolis article, Poker stars Too Big to Hide Internal News, now appearing on Poker Player Newspaper.  Use this handy direct link listed above to go to the latest must read chapter of whats happening in the online poker, yet another clue in the online poker players dilemma, “Wheres my money and will I ever get it back?”

If you missed the first installment of the Gabi Campos Departure, Poker stars CEO Gabi Campos is off the Grid: A Parade of Unsung Departures, click the link.  


Learning to multi-table is important

 I think that too many people in poker fall for the hype that is in the game at this time. This then means that they end up playing the wrong form of poker. I believe that too many people are playing six max poker when they should really be playing full ring. If you lack skills as a poker player then you really should be reducing the number of hands that you play and not increasing them. The vast majority of people who attempt to play poker are not psychologically cut out to play the game or they simply haven’t got enough time to study the game in depth. Also if they have personality flaws linked to point number one then that can represent a very formidable obstacle to overcome.

So if these players want to make more money then they should do so by playing less hands and not more hands. You can only do this by playing full ring where you are correctly folding a far greater percentage of your hands and in many cases then 90% is close to being correct. When you play full ring then multi-tabling is far easier. You can play ten tables pretty easily in full ring and still have time for doing other stuff. This is especially the case if you have a style of play that reduces the number of flops that you see. This is what multi-tabling is all about because if you can successfully multi-table then you will dramatically add to your bottom line. Let us look at a hand where you could be playing ten tables all at once and it is folded around to the cut-off who raises to $1.75 in NL50.

You have Jc-10c on the button and now you have to decide what to do with the hand. If you were playing a single table then calling the raise is more of an option than if you are playing ten tables and I will explain why. If you call then unless one of the blinds re-raises then you are forced into playing post flop poker. This may be optimal if you have good reads on your opponent but you will often have to face marginal decisions on the post flop rounds. Let’s say that the flop comes Q-10-5 and your opponent c-bets. You call and the turn card is the 4c and they barrel again. You only have second pair with a mediocre kicker and now you don’t really know what to do. You are going to be spending time here trying to collate data but playing so many tables means that other tricky decisions may be happening elsewhere.

The more tables that you play then the more of these situations that you will face! So getting back to the previous hand then if I were playing 10-12 tables then I would be more apt to either fold or three bet this rather than just call. I think that this style of play is more conducive to playing more tables when your decision making processes are simpler. When you three bet to say $6 then you are simplifying the hand even though your risk-reward ratio isn’t great. With only $2.50 in the pot and you raising to $6 then you are doing several things with the hand. Firstly you are looking to win an immediate $2.50 and that is a very good result. But secondly you are speculating as well that you can win the hand by using the combined power of your hand strength and your position to perhaps win a huge pot.

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Edoardo Alescio Wins WPT Venice

When most people think about their first live tournament cash, they have fond memories of a low buy-in tournament, probably at their local casino, when they were able to just eek out a profit.  Its an exciting time, even if the cash is so tiny that the cost of food and drink that night makes the player a net loser.  Now imagine how Edoardo Alescio must feel.  He scored his first ever live tournament cash this weekend, not in some $60 shove fest, but in the €3,000 World Poker Tour (WPT) Venice Main Event.  By World Poker Tour standards, it was rather small with just 213 players registering, but its still the World Poker Tour and Alescio is now €175,000 richer.

Edoardo Alescio entered the six-handed final table in second place with 1,714,000 chips.  There was a clear divide between the haves and have nots at the table, with three players over a million chips (Michele Caroli led the way with over 2 million) and three players at half a million or under.  Here were the chip counts to start the day:

Michele Caroli 2,097,000 Edoardo Alescio 1,714,000 Andrea Benelli 1,143,000 Steve ODwyer 501,000 Alex Dovzhenko 480,000 Andrea Dato 461,000

Alescio started quickly, winning the first pot and taking a one million chip lead in less than an hour.  It was American Steve ODwyer who took the first pelt, though, eliminating Alex Dovzhenko in a race: ODwyers A-K outflopped Dovzhenkos 9-9.  Dovzhenko was out in 6th place, while ODwyer was right back in the match with a million chips.

That cushion lasted less than an hour, as in what would be a preview of a face-off wed see a lot of later, Alescio knocked him back down to near his final table starting stack.  Alescio continued to soar, growing his chip stack to over 3 million in the first two hours of play.  It looked like it would be a short day for all involved.

There was no quit in ODwyer, though.  Despite sinking lower, he kept up the fight, doubling up once through Andrea Benelli and then making a big move in a three-way hand.  Benelli moved all-in for his last 76,000 chips with K-T, ODwyer called with a dominated Q-T, and Michele Caroli called from the big blind with K-3.  The flop of 9-8-2 kept Benelli in the lead, but the turn was not so happy, as a Queen shifted the power to ODwyer.  Another Queen on the river sealed Benellis fate and he was gone in 5th place, while ODwyer climbed up to 1,743,000.

Just a few hands later, Andrea Dato moved all-in pre-flop for 249,000 with K-9 and ODwyer called with A-4.  Neither player improved through the river, which meant that Dato, the chip leader after Day 1A, was eliminated in 4th place and ODwyer moved into the chip lead.

From there, ODwyer looked like he was going to run away with the tournament, just like it appeared that Alescio would earlier.  His two Italian opponents couldnt make any good moves, both attempting big bluffs at exactly the wrong time.  They kept sinking while ODwyer kept rising.  Eventually, Alescio need to just start shoving, something he did in an astounding eight of ten hands at one point, and in none of those instances was he called.

Finally, about six hours after the start of the final table, Alescio was looked up on an all-in.  He committed all his chips pre-flop with A-Q and Caroli made the call with A-J (considering the hand and Alescios shoving frequency, it was a good play, just bad timing).  The community cards were all blanks and Caroli hit the rail in 3rd place.

It was down to the decorated ODwyer versus the devoid-of-live-cashes Alescio, with ODwyer holding about a 3-to-1 chip lead.  Put your money on ODwyer, right?  Not so fast.

ODwyer got it up to around a 5 million to 1 million chip lead, but then Alescio went on a tear.  He picked up about 600,000 in two hands combined by – what else – moving all-in pre-flop.  He then picked up another quarter million before taking down what was probably the most important pot of the tournament.  With the board reading Q-9-4-7 with two diamonds, ODwyer bet and Alescio went all-in, holding 6-7 of diamonds.  ODwyer made the call with Q-T, giving him top pair versus Alescios third pair and flush draw.  The river made Alescios flush, allowing him to double up to just over 4 million and regain the chip lead for the first time in hours.

He extended his lead over the next few hands before finally putting the nail in ODwyers poker coffin.  ODwyer was all-in pre-flop with A-7 and Alescio called him with pocket 5s.  The dealer laid out one of those yeeeaaahhh….nooooooo! flops, as he gave ODwyer a 7, but at the same time put down a 5 to give Alescio a set.  ODwyer couldnt get lucky after that and Edoardo Alescio had made his first live cash, just a little thing called the WPT Venice championship.

WPT Venice – Final Table Results

1.    Edoardo Alescio €175,000 2.    Steve ODwyer €95,530 3.    Michele Caroli €66,090 4.    Andrea Dato – €43,170 5.    Andrea Benelli €34,245 6.    Alex Dovzhenko €27,035

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