Fantastic Casino Glen

The latest news in online poker circles is that an amendment to legalize online poker in the United States is likely to be attached to the upcoming Payroll Tax Extension legislation. It was reported that Nevada Governor Sandoval called the top executives of casinos to inform them of the agreement between Senate Majority Leader Democrat Harry Reid and Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl for adding online poker to the payroll tax bill. It was public knowledge that these two powerful Senators had been in discussion over the past few months over the development of draft legislation that would add more clarity to the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA). The objective was that poker be defined as a game of skill and therefore be exempted from the purview of the UIGEA.

If this actually happens it will be just one more step towards American players playing poker at online websites licensed by an American regulatory authority without fears of being ripped off by unscrupulous operators or of the Department of Justice impounding the poker site’s bank accounts. Therefore celebrations at this stage are premature. There is no guarantee that the Payroll Tax Extension bill will pass over the next few weeks. Though, experts say that the chance of this happening right now appears to be better than 50%. If online poker is no longer covered by the UIGEA, it will be a big relief because the Department of Justice has already opined that the Wire Act will no longer be applied to online poker.

Online poker players will never forget that Kyl (in picture) was the co-author of the UIGEA. The UIGEA specifically exempts horse racing and state lotteries. Kyl had stated in an interview that there was a need to look at each online gambling vertical individually with respect to the UIGEA and that is what he would be doing. He also said that Reid had supporters in Nevada who wanted to deal with online poker and that is why the two of them were talking. If this effort succeeds then possibly the online poker community may forget the hardships that Kyl has wrought on them since 2006.

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.  

It’s like we’ve said time and time again, we don’t like to make flat-out statements about how good poker players are. Poker’s a complicated game, and even after years and years of winning, millions of hands played, the farthest we’ll go is to say someone be good at poker.

This week we’re bestowing that dubious honor on Isaac Haxton.

Interestingly it was the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure that first brought Haxton to our attention, and it’s the PCA that put him on our radar today.

The first entry on Haxton’s tournament record is an $861,789 runner-up finish in the 2007 PCA main event.

Since then he’s earned roughly $2.7 million playing live poker tournaments and he’s looking to build on that big-time today in the Bahamas as he leads the final 16 in the $100,000 buy-in Super High Roller event.

The Backstory

When you find players excelling in poker at a young age more often than not they excelled at other mental athletics as well. Such was the case for young Isaac Haxton.

Born in New York and raised in Syracuse, Haxton was the son of an English professor and started playing chess at four years of age.

Haxton was too cool for school, or at least the fifth grade.  

Like some sort of Tenenbaum replicant Haxton skipped the fifth grade and was absorbed by Magic: The Gathering by age ten. Swept up in the wave of MTG players making the switch to poker, Haxton was making trips to the Turning Stone Casino in New York as a high-school senior. It wasn’t long after that he found online poker.

Haxton started winning and, using the knack for gaming excellence he had acquired early on, applied himself to poker in a big way.

The Evidence

Isaax Haxton has been providing evidence that he might be good at poker for years, starting chiefly with the aforementioned $861k PCA score five years ago.

As  we reported all those years ago, Haxton ran extremely bad to have transferred his winnings from his PokerStars account to Neteller. That’s because the day after the funds hit his Neteller account, the online payment processor’s funds were seized by the Department of Justice and its owners arrested.

It took many months for Haxton to recoup the money, but luckily for him he went on to earn another $214,000 before the end of 2007. That mini-heater included a final table at the WSOP, and extended straight into 2008 with four more World Series cashes and a six-figure payday at the EPT London High Roller event.

Haxton’s biggest score to date came at the 2009 WSOP when he finished second to Vitaly Lunkin in the $40,000 40^th Anniversary event. Haxton earned $1,168,568.

In 2010 Haxton fared well with two more six-figure finishes, winning a $2,500 Venetian Deep Stack event and finishing ninth in the $25k WSOP Six-Max Championship.

His most recent windfall before today’s PCA Super High Roller came in the way of a third-place finish in the $100,000 buy-in event at the Bellagio’s Five Diamond series in Las Vegas. That result earned him $581,806.

And now we treat you to the photo reel of Isaax Haxton we’ve compiled over the years.

Haxton used to have long hair, like really long.   Looking very Jim Morrison at the 2007 WSOP.   2008 and the hair remains.   2009 was the first time we saw Haxton 2.0   After a while it just started to look normal.   One year ago in the Bahamas.  

Black Friday has left more than the US online poker industry thrashing around in its wake, with a number of televised poker show left decimated by the government crackdown on online poker back in April.  Another victim (albeit on a lesser scale) has been US poker tours: The PokerStars North American Poker Tour folded, and established tournament series such as the WSOP Circuit, World Poker Tour and Heartland Poker Tour have seen their attendance numbers become extremely inconsistent to put it nicely.

So imagine my surprise over the past week as I open one press release after another on the creation or launch of a new poker league. Most of the new leagues are taking the Heartland Poker Tour approach and keeping the buy-ins manageable -even the WPT has dropped some of its Championship tournaments down to a $3,500 buy-in, a far cry from the $10,000 to $15,000 buy-ins the tour boasted just a few years ago.

So is their room in the US tournament market for the Deepstacks Poker Tour (partnered with the online poker training site Deepstacks University); the recently launched Card Player Magazines Native American Casino Poker Tour; or the Bluff Magazine Mid-Stakes Poker Tour?

Most of the top young talent on the US poker scene has pulled up their stakes and gone to Europe so they can continue to participate in major poker tournaments AND still play online poker. Yes, the established, big-name, Las Vegas Poker Pros are still here, but they dont come out for $1,000 buy-in events, and many wont even travel for a WPT tournament at this stage in their careers (Many of them skip the Epic Poker League $20,000 events that are held right in their backyard).

I think the real question will be: Which of these poker tours -the WSOPC, HPT, NACPT, the BLUFF MSPT, or the Deepstacks Poker Tour (partnered with PokerNews) will capture the hearts and minds of the casual poker player, or separate themselves from the rest of the pack? I simply cant imagine more than three of these tours criss-crossing the country.

The WSOPC is more than likely not going anywhere thanks to its brand, and association with Harrahs casinos around the country.

The HPT is the original model and was recently purchased by Epic Poker League parent company FS+G; with great television exposure the HPT (along with the WSOPC) will likely remain the minor league system of the World Poker Tour and WSOP.

Both the BLUFF MSPT and the Card Player NACPT offer players some exposure through their media outlets, as well as the Deepstacks Poker Tour which has partnered with PokerNews.com. Our only metric at this point on the power of PokerNews, BLUFF or Card Players exposure is the recently concluded inaugural NACPT tournament (a $1,000 event) that saw only an ok turnout, as 324 players took to the felt in Choctaw, Oklahoma. I think everyone on the poker world understands that prize-pools of $300,000 simply do not capture the publics attention.

Ive always believed that unless first-place is $1 million or more people really dont pay the tournament all that much heed -although a $1,000 tournament outside of Vegas that hits a $1 million total prize-pool would definitely be appealing. One only has to recall the $2+ million paydays WPT winners were pocketing a few years ago to understand the publics lack of enthusiasm for the current crop of televised poker tournaments.