Poker Blog

After months of buildup and anticipation, the Epic Poker League ’s first Main Event kicked off on Tuesday from the Palms Casino and Resort in Las Vegas, NV. A total of 137 players turned out for this first $20,000 buy-in rake free Main Event. This was just over half of the players qualified for Season 1. Unlike the Professional Poker Tour, the Epic Poker League is not a freeroll.

Per the league’s design, the field in this Main Event was a who’s who of poker. Among the players in the field on Day 1 of the EPL Main Event were Allen Kessler, Isaac Haxton, Eric Baldwin, Michael Mizrachi, Barry Greenstein, Phil Hellmuth, Carlos Mortensen, Robert Mizrachi, Allen Cunningham, Gavin Griffin, Dwyte Pilgrim, Mike Sexton, Erik Seidel, and Ben Lamb.

When registration closed for the event, the prize pool was announced for this first ever Main Event. A total of 18 players will be paid in this event with 18th getting $43,190 and the winner taking home $982,660.

At the end of the day, the leaderboard was giving players flashbacks of the 2011 WSOP. Eugene Katchalov finished Day 1 with the chip lead with 356,300. Ben Lamb continues his dominance this year and finished Day 1 with 287,200. The only multi-bracelet winner this year, Brian Rast, finished with 260,500. Antonio Esfandiari and Noah Schwartz finished the day as the only other players to move over the 200k chip mark.

Over half of the field was eliminated on Day 1, leaving 63 players returning for Day 2 action. By the dinner break, that field had been cut in half, leaving just 30 players in the field. By the dinner break, Brian Rast had moved into the chip lead with 460k, followed by Katchalov in 2nd place. Dan Fleyshman has been making a strong run in this Main Event. He won his seat in the Pro-Am Event that awards Main Event seats to the final table. Fleyshman currently sits 3rd in chips. Sam Trickett, Jason Mercier, and Noah Schwartz are all in the top 10 in chips on Day 2.

The Epic Poker League has aspirations of making itself in “The PGA of Professional Poker.” Players can only play in the Main Event if they meet the league’s qualification guidelines or final table the Pro-Am event. (Pro-Am exemptions are for a single Main Event tournament only.) Qualifications are based on live tournament play and have a strict set of guidelines for each card. Online poker stats do not count, so you will not be seeing players like Sean Deeb or Tom Dwan in the Epic Poker League anytime soon. And you won’t see any players who play free online poker on Zynga and all of a sudden buy into a professional real money poker event.

There will be four tournament series held at the Palms between now and February and players in the Main Event will be attempting to earn a seat into the League Championship on February 13th. The top 27 money winners in the Main Event tournaments will compete in the League Championship freeroll where the top 6 players will split a prize pool of $1 Million. First place will win $500,000 and the League Championship title.

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Prior to being Attorney General for the United States, Eric Holder was a lobbyist for Covington & Burling and represented the NFL. Besides Caesars Entertainment Group, the NFL was online poker’s biggest enemy. Here is background from Washington Post:

A recent lobbyist for the National Football League who now works at the White House is playing a controversial role in the Bush administration’s last-minute effort to implement a ban on many forms of Internet gambling before the end of the president’s term, according to congressional and administration sources.

“He appropriately sought and received clearance from ethics officers to be able to work on this rule,” Perino said, adding, “I know our ethics officers to be professionals who know the law and the guidelines inside out.” She said last night that she could not immediately reach the officers to learn their reasoning in this case.

Eric Holder specifically was retained by the National Football League to represent them for Michael Vick – read this from Wall Street Journal:

Meanwhile, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell (not a lawyer) appointed Eric Holder to oversee the NFL’s review of the dogfighting charges against Vick. Holder (pictured, right) is a former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration and now a partner at D.C.’s Covington & Burling, the league’s outside counsel. Paul Tagliabue, the NFL’s longtime commissioner, is a former Covington partner.

Paul Tagliabue was a partner at Covington & Burling and was Eric Holder’s superior. William Wichterman, Martin Gold (Marty Gold), Jeff Miller, Paul Tagliabue, and Eric Holder have all represented the NFL at the firm Covington & Burling. Wichterman and the NFL were under investigation: From Jim Makos site
The NFL was under investigation in November for having lobbied against internet gambling. William Wichterman had been brought into question after he disclosed his “potential conflict of interest” in influencing the Bush administration to enforce more regulations with the UIGEA.

Paul Tagliabue was also commissioner of the National Football League and roommates with Lamar Alexander senator in Tennessee where Bill Frist was a Senator.

Bernie Parrish is the most outspoken critic of Eric Holder and warned of the conflict of interests before the appointment by Obama. See his article here:
Eric Holder Covington & Burling lawfirm partner and frequent employee of the NFL has been named Attorney General. Pres Elect Barrack Obama is assembling a branch of jock sniffers who are waiting to do the bidding of their professional sports idols and celebrities. In what amounts to another qid pro quo Obama made a deal with Holder to name him Attorney General if Holder could deliver Pittsburgh Steeler’s owner Dan Rooney’s endorsement and financial backing. Holder delivered Rooney through his NFL connection through his Covington & Burling ties. But there is more since Aon Consulting/Aon Corporation owner by Chicago Bears owners Patrick Ryan and Andrew McKenna are in danger of being prosecuted for conflicts of interest for also being actuary through Aon for being their employees NFL Player Retirement Plan’s costing those employees $100 of millions of dollars with cooked actuarial analysis that lowered their own and the other NFL owners employer contributions to that plan.

Retired NFL players complaints about this illegal cooked employer employee retirement plan relationship to the DOJ and the DOL have been stone walled by Bush appointees with both those federal agencies. President Bush’s first cousin Jim Pierce is Managing Director of Aon Corporation. Holder’s lawfirm Covington & Burling has already been retained and are implementing this Holder, Attorney General circumvention of federal law white collar crime defense of Aon. Coincidentally Holder’s specialty at Covington & Burling is defending high profile white collar criminals like Merck or Chiquita Banana or the NFL or Aon Corporation.

I’m preparing Part 3 of my series of articles on why the DOJ illegally seized the top 3 online poker domains. After watching Eric Holder make comments about online poker to the oversight committee, I felt it necessary to put this article about the NFL and Eric Holder out before part 2 was done. By commenting on the “appropriateness” of the seizures he violated ethics. He cannot be involved or oversee the matter regarding online poker or gambling in any way since he worked as a lobbyist representing the NFL.

Read more about the Domain Seizures here:
Domain Seizures PART 1

Domain Seizures Addendum

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Hines Ward with Polamalu Wig

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Sometimes I just have to post something that isn’t about poker… Check out this amazing Japanese baseball catch by Spiderman Masato Akamatsu :

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