Poker Blog

Noah Stephens-Davidowitz or NoahSD on Two Plus Two has released partial data of Phil Ivey and David Benyamine’s debts to Full Tilt Poker. It is not exactly stated in the article on SubjectPoker.com who the source is from Full Tilt Poker, but the evidence seems real. It is data from notes on their poker accounts and may not include payments made offline.

NoahSD reports:
Early in the data, Phil Ivey’s account was frequently debited directly for some, though not all, of the money that he was loaned there. For example, Ivey borrowed $3 million in six $500,000 installments spread throughout July and August 2009. He then repaid $1 million on October 29th, borrowed another $500,000 on November 13th, and then made two separate $1 million repayments on November 20th and 22nd respectively.4 Ivey’s results on the datamining site HighstakesDB suggest that he earned approximately $5 million in cash games on Full Tilt Poker in October and November of 2009, so this success may be the reason that he repaid. (Ivey went on to borrow $1 million on November 29th.)

However, this pattern stops. The last repayment in our data (for $1 million) happened in the spring of 2010, but after this date, Ivey received eight additional loans, ending in January 2011 and totalling $3,215,000, bringing the total difference between loans and repayments in our data to $6,215,000.5 It is of course possible that Ivey repaid some or all of this debt off of the site, but Tiltware’s reference to a “large sum that he owes the site” and Ivey’s historical pattern of repaying through his account suggest that he did indeed owe the site money as recently as June 1st.

So it is possible that Ivey still owed the site $6,215,000. This was reported (but not with exact figures) when Full Tilt Poker made a statement a few months back after Phil Ivey filed lawsuit against them:

Full Tilt Poker responded to Phil Ivey’s lawsuit:
“Contrary to his sanctimonious public statements, Phil Ivey’s meritless lawsuit is about helping just one player – himself. In an effort to further enrich himself at the expense of others, Mr. Ivey appears to have timed his lawsuit to thwart pending deals with several parties that would put money back in players’ pockets. In fact, Mr. Ivey has been invited — and has declined — to take actions that could assist the company in these efforts, including paying back a large sum of money he owes the site. Tiltware doubts Mr. Ivey’s frivolous and self-serving lawsuit will ever get to court. But if it does, the company looks forward to presenting facts demonstrating that Mr. Ivey is putting his own narrow financial interests ahead of the players he professes to help.”

Phil Ivey playing craps image from Pocket Fives
“Mr. Ivey has been invited — and has declined — to take actions that could assist the company in these efforts, including paying back a large sum of money he owes the site.”

David Benyamine

In addition to Phil Ivey owing the company money, David Benyamine also had substantial loans from Full Tilt Poker:

In 2008, David Benyamine apparently owed Full Tilt Poker money, and at least some of this debt was being repaid directly from his salary, wages, and bonuses. This is quite clear from the notes on his FTP account. He received many payments from Full Tilt during this time period directly into his account, and almost all of them were taken out of the account on the same day with the note “for a loan collection.”7

In 2008, Benyamine received directly to his account a $15,000 per month base salary, roughly $12,000 more per month on average from rakeback and hourly wages, roughly $4,000 per month in logo bonuses and other marketing bonuses, and roughly $10,000 per month in other payments. So, assuming that our sample is typical, his annual earnings sent directly to his FTP account were roughly $500,000 at the time. (It is of course likely that he received money off of the site as well.) However, it appears that almost all of this was going directly back to the site to repay Benyamine’s debt.

As of right now all real money poker play in USA and abroad is closed on Full Tilt Poker. There was a leak over a month ago that the site was sold to a European investor, but this seems less likely now.

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The $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship kicked off this afternoon at the 2010 World Series of Poker. The $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. Event has essentially received a face-lift with the format changing to an 8-game format. In addition, the final table of the event will be solely NL Holdem, just as it was for the 2006 Event.

This year’s event kicked off with an introduction by Jack Effel, the Tournament Director for the World Series of Poker. It soon became evident that this introduction would become a tribute to Chip Reese, the winner of the first $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event in 2006. Effel spoke a few words about the event’s format and the trophy and then recognized the past champions one by one.

The defending champion, David Bach, was asked to come up and say a few words. Bach gave a few positive words about Reese. He stated that he really didn’t know him, but always heard great things about him. After Bach’s brief statement, Effel then turned the floor over to long time close friend, Doyle Brunson. Brunson stated that Reese was “simply the best” and then presented a tribute video of Reese to the crowd. The video started with a interview with Reese and continued by replaying a tribute given to Reese during the broadcast of the 2008 WSOP. It was a very emotional tribute and one could see on Brunson’s face that he truly misses his friend.

After the tribute, Jack Effel went over a few more rules and then gave the microphone back to Brunson to utter the immortal words in poker, “Shuffle Up and Deal.” Players started play with 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball and betting of 800 and 1,600. Each player started with 150,000 chips.

Tom Dwan in 2010 WSOP Players Championship

Phil Ivey in 2010 WSOP Players Championship

The field indeed is a start studded field. Among those playing in the event are Phil Ivey, David Benyamine, Tom Dwan screen name durrrr, Jennifer Harman, Daniel Negreanu, Doyle Brunson, Dario Minieri, Eli Elezra, Ted Lawson, Phil Hellmuth, Todd Brunson, Carlos Mortensen, David Bach, Michael Binger, Jeff Lisandro, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, Chad Brown, Josh Arieh, Steve Zolotow, Tony G, Gus Hansen, Chau Giang, David Chiu, and Scotty Nguyen. Harman appears to be the only woman playing in the event.

Levels are 90 minutes long and players will play six levels tonight. Dan Shak has actually already been eliminated. He was knocked out during PLO after flopping a set. He had no redraw and ran into a flopped straight with a flush redraw. 116 players entered the event and 115 remain. Four days remain in this $50,000 Player’s Championship. Stay tuned as we bring you coverage from this event.

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The super high limit games were ocne again in full effect as three of the biggest named pros in the business sat down and played the big mixed game. The $2000/$4000 7-Game went off with three of the Full Tilt Poker Red Pros sitting at two different tables. Patrik Antonius, Richard Ashby, and David Benyamine went head to head and all had stacks on both tables and the first hand we picked up was a hand between David Benyamine and Richard Ashby, and it was taken down by Benyamine, who took the pot of nearly $30,000 on the river when Ashby laid his hand down.

The next hand occured in the No Limit Hold ‘Em round. Patrik Antonius made a min raise on the button, and Richard Ashby moved all in out of the big blind. Antonius didn’t take very long to make the call, showing Ace Queen, but Ashby’s two kings held up and took down the pot.

Antonius took some of the money Beyamine took of Ashby when he made a bet of over $20,000 on the river.

The next pot came in the Limit Omaha H/L stage of the game, and took place between David Benyamine and Richard Ashby. Ashby bet the whole way, and got the call the entire time from Benyamine. Ashby’s straight qualified for the high and low, giving him the pot.

A bet on the turn was good enough for Benyamine to take down a big three way pot in the Limit Hold ‘Em round when both Antonius and Ashby made the fold on the turn in the following hand.

On the very next hand of Limit Hold ‘Em, Benyamine made another bet, this time on the river, and got Richard Ashby off his hand, winning another pot of over $30,000 in this hand.

Chopped pots usually don’t gain players much of a profit, but a monster pot brewed in the following hand, and although Patrik Antonius and David Benyamine split the pot, they both profited over $10,000 of Richard AShby’s money.

Patrik Antonius made a huge call on the end in the following hand, to win a pot of worth of over $40,000 from David Benyamine.

The next hand, which took place during the Razz level, saw Richard Ashby triple up through both Patrik Antonius and David Benyamine, tripling him to over $50,000.

Ashby continued his upswing when he took the following pot, worth over $30,000, from David Benyamine.

To what should come to no surprise, Richard Ashby took down our final hand of the evening, making a bet of $4000 and getting Patrik Antonius to lay down his hand, and ship the $30,000 pot to Ashby. On the night, Ashby grinded his way from a short stack to a stack of over $100,000 on one table, and accumulated a stack of over $80,000 on the other table, making him the clear winner on the night.

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Of all the tournaments of the year, the NBC Heads Up Tournament may be one of the funnest events of the year. In a sixty-four player field similar to NCAA’s March Madness, sixty four of the best online players in the world gathered at Caesars in Vegas to determine the best heads up no limit player of the year. At the selection party the night before the poker tournament, players are seeded and put against an opponent for advancement into the round of thirty-two. Many interesting match ups were seen in the first round of the tournament. Interesting matchups in the first round included PokerStars pros Daniel Negreanu vs. Chris Moneymaker, Mike Matusow vs. Dario Minieri, Full Tilt poker originals Erik Lindgren vs. Howard Lederer, and two online high stakes regulars David Benyamine vs. Gus Hansen. As it turned out, Negreanu beat Moneymaker, Minieri beat Negreanu, Lindgren defeated the professor, and Hansen beat Benyamine. Other notable first round finishes included Vannessa Rousso defeating Doyle Brunson, Peter Eastgate over Andy Bloch, and actor Brad Garrett advancing over Annie Duke.
Rousso had her work cut out for her in round two, however, being matched up with Phil Ivey. First round survivors Daniel Negreanu and Dario Minieri were matched up. Gus Hansen was paired up with one of the only men to cash in the tournament four years in a row, Huck Seed. Another interesting note took place, as the winners of the Hellmuth / Ishbia match would play the winner of the Tom Dwan / Barry Greenstein would play, leaving the door open for a possible rematch between hot NBC heads up rivals Tom Dwan and Phill Hellmuth. Rousso went through her second legend by eliminating Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu beat internet phenom Minieri, the Great Dane was eliminated by Huck Seed, and in an almost prophetic way, Phil Hellmuth beat qualifier Ishbia, as well as ‘durrrr‘ beating Greenstein, meaning the two would have a showdown in the sweet sixteen. Other sweet sixteen qualifiers were Paul Wasicka, Scotty Nguyen, John Juanda, online stud Bertrand ‘Elky’ Grospellier, David Williams, Erik Lindren, John Phan, Sam Farha, Kenny Tran, David Oppenheim, and Glen Chorny.
Rousso did it a gain with another impressive performance over Paul Wasicka. Daniel Negreanu showed up to his match dressed up as his opponent, Scotty Nguyen, and defeated his opposition, leaving Rousso next up in the elite eight. Grospellier and Juanda showed down in a marathon, where ‘Elky’ advanced to play the winner of the Hellmuth/Dwan showdown. The bout ended early when, on a board of A-J-5-9-9, all the money got in the middle. Dwan revealed K-9 for three of a kind, only to be trumped by Hellmuth’s 9-5 for a full house. Although all of the sweet sixteen took home $25,000 compared to the $20,000 entry, Dwan must not have been happy with his exit. David Williams defeated Erik Lindgren and Sam Farha bested John Phan to pair up against each other in the round of eight. David Oppenheim, who was added to the tournament the day of the first day when Layne Flack no showed, advanced to an improbable round of eight appearance by defeating World Series Heads Up Champion Kenny Tran. Oppenheim was matched with Huck Seed, who defeated Glen Chorny.
Vanessa Rousso was the talk of the tournament before she won a match with her signing with GoDaddy.com to be a new face of the website, one of the first non-poker related sponsorships for a poker player. She continued her heater in the tournament defeating yet another legend in Daniel Negreanu. Rousso would be paired up with the winner of the ‘Elky’/Hellmuth match. While Phil Hellmuth is in record for both the shortest NBC match as well as winning the tournament, he broke one of his own records here. On the second hand, Hellmuth picked up pocked queens and was trumped by Bertrand Grospellier ’s Aces for the new quickest match in NBC heads up history. On the other side of the bracket, David Williams was bested by Sammy Farha, who would play Huck Seed after he defeated underdog story David Oppenheim.

Huck Seed

The final four were set, and Grospellier, possibly the hottest player in poker today, took an early lead over Rousso. However, through tough play and two double ups, Rousso took the lead and finished ‘ElKy’ off when her pocket sevens trumped his K-6. On the other side, Huck Seed and Sam Farha went longer than any match in the tournament. After Farha had a dominated chip lead of 10:1, before Seed grinded back to a normal stack. With an average stack of only eight big blinds, the players got it all in when Sam Farha had A-K off vs. Seed’s 10-8 suited. Seed made a flush and earned a spot in the best 2-3 finals. In a post match interview, Seed said he felt comfortable with Rousso and never felt too worried. He beat Rousso in the first two matches, earning a $500,000 prize and his first NBC Heads up win. Seed, amazingly, has cashed all five years of the tournament, is the winningest player in tournament history, and will be the heads up champion for a year. Seed made an interesting comment on who was his toughest opponent of the entire tournament: Sam Farha. Another good year at the NBC Heads Up led to upsets, underdogs, and yet a dominating heads up player who won a $5,000 Heads Up tournament in Canada just last year taking the crown at Caesers: Huck Seed is your champion.

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