Poker Blog

Full Tilt Poker teams with Fertitta Interactive

The team of Fertitta Interactive and Full Tilt Poker partnered last year in an agreement to work together to legalize online poker rooms. The partnership is expected to be announced Thursday. This is the second pairing of a traditional brick and mortar casino and an online mega giant poker room to be announced in a week.
The unification of the companies proves new tactics are needed in the effort to regulate online poker. The argument from the poker rooms, the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) and poker players around the country is that poker is a game of skill. This exempts poker from the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA).
Currently, Wynn Resorts Ltd. and PokerStars are lobbying in the state of Nevada for legislation that would make an online poker room available to Nevada residents. The partnership is encouraging lawmakers to license, regulate and tax online poker rooms.
Should this and other measures like this pass, the federal government will be forced to reevaluate the status of poker with regard to the law.

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Daniel Negreanu Makes Epic Comeback to Win Vs Isildur1 in Superstar Showdown

Last weekend, Daniel Negreanu dropped $150,000 to Viktor Blom in the PokerStars Superstar Showdown. The match did not even go 1,500 hands and Negreanu vowed to come back with a fresh $150,000 to take another crack at Isildur1. The rematch between the two kicked off on Sunday afternoon on Pokerstars.

Daniel had made it very public that he planned to practice all week on Pokerstars in anticipation of the matchup with Blom. Early on in the match, it looked like that Negreanu’s hard work was going to be for naught as Isildur1 took the early lead. Blom was running hot against Negreanu and steadily built that lead until he was up over $110,000 at around the 1,500 hand mark.

Many fans were beginning to question whether Negreanu should even be in this matchup as the match moved down to just three tables. This looked to be a repeat of last week until Daniel started going on a bit of a run. In the series of around 158 hand, that all changed as Negreanu put on a massive run. He cut the deficit from $110,000 to just a mere $7,800. Most of this was done on the combination of big poker hands and a bit of good fortune. For example, a huge pot between the two players saw Daniel flop two pair with 7-8, and Isildur1 flop the nut straight. Unfortunately for Blom, Daniel caught a full house on the turn and when Blom shoved, Daniel stacked him.

Isildur1 hung onto his lead until about 348 hands left when Negreanu was sitting with over a $9,100 lead. Negreanu was indeed running well, but it was clear at this point that Isildur1 was pressing. For example, Isildur1 shoved pre-flop in a pot against Negreanu with A-Q after Negreanu four-bet. Negreanu called with queens and the hand held.

Isildur1 was able to retake the lead with about 258 hands left, but that lead went back to Negreanu in a huge set over set hand. The flop had both a ten and a four on it when Isildur1 decided to move all-in with his flopped set of fours. Daniel made the easy call after flopping a set of tens. The case four did not hit the board and Daniel looked in control.

With about 14 hands left to play, Negreanu had an $8,800 lead. The railbird were clamoring for Negreanu to fold to a win. Negreanu even said that he could do, but he would not. Daniel stayed true to his word as he got involved in a couple of all-in pots at the end and managed to win them both with pocket aces and pocket queens.

The final hand total for the match was 2,502 and Daniel Negreanu made a fantastic comeback to win the rematch by $26,500. This loss drops Isildur1 to 5-2 in the Superstar Showdown Challenge. His only other loss was in the very first match against Isaac Haxton. Between the two challenges, Isildur1 is up $123,500 over Negreanu.

The next matchup for this challenge was announced at the conclusion of the match. Next Sunday, Scott Palmer screen name urnotindanger will take on Isildur1 over a two week period and a total of 5,000 hands. The matchup between these two should be a hard fought one as Palmer is looking to avenge some recent losses online.

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The first match of the “Challenge durrrr” promotion kicked off on Sunday with Tom Dwan screen name durrrr facing off against Full Tilt qualifier inorej in four heads-up PL Omaha Sit-N-Go tournaments. If inorej won a match against durrrr, he would get $25,000. Two matches would win in $50,000. If he could take down three out of the four matches, he would get a hefty sum of $150,000. Finally, if inorej could somehow shock the world and take down all four Sit-N-Go events against durrrr, he would win the grand prize of $1.5 Million.

Sadly, it did not take long before we would find out that inorej would not take down the grand prize. In the very first match, inorej was down to just 2,235 and after raising to 90, durrrr raised to 270. Inorej then four-bet to 810 and durrrr made the call. With just 1,425 left, inorej shoved on a flop of Js-8d-5c. Durrrr made the call and inorej found himself in bad shape. He had Kd-Kc-7d-2d for a pair of kings while durrr held Qd-Jd-Jh-10d for top set and a straight draw. The turn and river missed both players and the first match went to durrrr.

Unfortunately, the 2nd match did not end much differently. The final hand of this match saw inorej down to just 2,910 of his initial stack of 6,000. He and durrrr got into a raising war pre-flop that resulted in inorej being all-in with Ah-Kh-9s-8s. Durrrr was holding Ac-Ad-6d-4h and had the lead. The flop fell Qc-Qh-2h to leave durrrr in the lead, but now inorej had outs to a flush. The turn 4d helped neither player and the river Kd was useless to inorej. As a result, durrrr was up 2-0 in the challenge match, and fans were wondering if inorej could even pull of a single match victory.

After the end of the 2nd match, it took quite a while before we had another all-in. Inorej lead in Match 3 by a considerable margin at one point, but durrrr retook the lead after catching the nut flush. From that point, it was all durrrr, all the time. Finally, inorej was down to just 1,200 in chip and decided to put them in with Kd-Qd-Qh-9c. He was actually in decent shape against durrrr, who held Ah-3h-5c-10s. The flop quickly put durrrr in the lead when it fell Ac-4c-9h. The 2c on the turn gave durrrr a wheel and the nuts. Durrrr moved up to 3-0 in the match and inorej had just one more shot to take down $25,000.

The final match of this challenge was never saw either play with a dominate lead. Both had held slight leads, and that was the case in the final hand with durrrr up 6,838 to 5,162 of inorej. Durrrr three-bet to 900 pre-flop and the two saw a flop of 4h-4d-4h. Durrrr bet out 800 and inorej called. The turn then fell the case four and durrrr bet out 1,140. Inorej made the call to see the river of the 7s. Durrrr then moved all-in, and inorej called with his last 2,322. Durrr showed As-Ad-5d-2h and inorej mucked his hand.

With that final victory, durrrr sweeps the first match of the challenge durrrr promotion. To say that inorej “got durrred” was a bit of an understatement. Unfortunately for him, he had to win a match in order to take away any cash. Unlike isildur1’s challenge against DodgyFish72, durrrr actually tried to play a great game and proved to players around the world that you better have game if you want to challenge durrrr.

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Eugene Katachalov Photo

Name: Eugene Katachalov
Alias: MyRabbiFoo and E.Katachalov
Age: 30
Date of Birth: February 21, 1981
Born in: Kiev, Ukraine
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY, USA
Born in the Ukraine, his family moved to Brooklyn, New York, USA when Eugene was 10 years old. In order to ease the transition, Eugene was enrolled into a Russian speaking Jewish school with his cousin. Although he was age appropriate for the 5th grade, he entered into the 7th, and struggled for a time to adjust. Two years later, his parents enrolled him into public school which enabled him to reenter the 7th grade with other children his age. He flourished there.

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