Poker-Bug Poker News

The first contestant who will be competing for the $2 million grand prize on "Calvin Ayre Wild Card Poker II" was selected this past Saturday and will soon be joined by 11 other millionaire hopefuls.  

The lucky Bodog poker player won his way onto the show by beating out a field of 150 players in the final tournament of the "Calvin Ayre Wild Card Poker II" online series. The tournament featured the top five finishers from 30 qualifying events held at Bodog.com over the past 10 weeks. While first place earned the coveted spot on the show, the remaining top five from the finals didn’t walk away empty-handed as they received prizes ranging from a trip for two to Antigua to a custom Bodog Poker Table and a Flat Screen TV.

The other 11 remaining cast members for "Calvin Ayre Wild Card Poker II" will all be selected from an online reality TV audition process going on right now at Bodog.com. Hopefuls have until this Sunday, May 6 to either submit a one-minute video or upload a photo for a shot to become one of the 12 contestants on the show that combines aspects of Texas Holdem poker with everyday life and features the largest payout in reality TV history - $2 million. 

The twelve contestants chosen will be whisked away on an all expenses paid trip to beautiful British Columbia, Canada, where they will compete against one another in a number of poker infused lifestyle challenges. Only one of the lucky 12 contestants will be crowned the champion of "Calvin Ayre Wild Card Poker II" and awarded the record-breaking $2 million grand prize. The deadline to audition for one of the 11 remaining spots is this Sunday, May 6.

Filming for Calvin Ayre Wild Card Poker II begins in summer 2007 and will air on a major television network in the fall.

Online poker player  "addrock" took home the $25,000 first-place prize yesterday in Bodog’s Sunday $100k Guaranteed online poker tournament. Battling through a field of more than 800 players, "addrock" made it to the final table in good position and took the chip lead with four players left after eliminating noted Internet poker pro Mario “PwnasaurusX” Silvestri, who received $5,400 for his 5th place finish.  

"addrock" was able to hold onto onto the top spot until just before heads-up play when "zabadguy" took the lead after sending "TheNogre" home in third-place ($9,000). The hand gave "zabadguy" an almost 2-to-1 chip advantage over "addrock", but that would not last long. During the 15 minutes of heads-up play the two traded the lead until "addrock" was able to get all of "zabadguy"’s poker chips in the middle pre-flop and hit a top pair to take the tournament.

The win will help "addrock" move up the TLB and a few more could give him the opportunity to have his face on the cover of the UK magazine Online Poker Pro. One of the top ten players on the yearly TLB will be selected by Bodog on May 15 for this opportunity to be featured in the July edition of the magazine.

Poker pro Carlos Mortensen won the World Poker Tour Championship and the $3.97 million that went with it. (AP Images)

 

Carlos "El Matador" Mortensen put his name in the poker history books by winning the Season V WPT World Championship this past Friday at the Bellagio in Las Vegas and becoming first person to win both the World Series of Poker Main Event (in 2001) and the WPT’s championship event.

Also for the history books is Mortensen’s $3.97 million cash prize, the largest in the tour’s history. The pay is also the fourth-largest first place cash in poker history with only the previous three WSOP Main Event champions, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem and Jamie Gold, having won more for their titles.

After battling through the 639-player field and coming back from just a million in chips when down to four players, the 35-year-old poker pro who moved from Spain to Las Vegas in the 1990s found himself going into heads-up play against past WSOP bracelet winner Kirk Morrison with a slight chip disadvantage. It was an epic heads-up battle between the two, but in the end Mortensen showed why he is considered one of the best heads-up players in the world by walking away with the title.

The win puts his career tournament winnings at almost $8.5 million that translates to seventh on the All-Time Money List and second on the WPT All-Time list, just barely behind Canadian Daniel Negreanu.

Here are the final places and payouts:

1. Carlos Mortensen $3,970,415

2. Kirk Morrison $2,011,135

3. Paul Lee $1,082,920

4.Guy Laliberte $696,220

5. Tim Phan $464,110

6. Mike Wattel $309,405  

In October of this year, the World Poker Tour will head to Mortensen’s home country of Spain for the first time.  The event is being held at Casino Barcelona as part of the sixth season of the show and Bodog is offering players a unique opportunity to be part of this momentous occasion.

The "Player’s Choice" qualifiers will give winner’s the opportunity to choose to use their prize packages to participate in a WPT or WSOP tournament, as well as other events that become available. Satellites are going on daily in the Bodog online poker room for as little as a dollar, so head over to Bodog.com and get in on the action.

Barry Carter exclusively reviews the new book by Matthew Hilger and Ian Taylor. "The Poker Mindset: Essential Attitudes for Poker Success", could be the second most important poker book you read accordingly to it's authors.

To The Top! Join the UK Poker News Caribbean Poker Cruise Freeroll on Ladbrokes Poker now and you will have the bargain of the century! Player numbers are very restricted yet there is a 10-Day $5,500 Caribbean Cruise Ticket going begging!

888 Holdings plc, owner of Pacific Poker, has delivered a strong financial performance in 2006 despite the major disruption caused by the US gambling law changes that caused 888 to withdraw from the US market, its erstwhile major source of revenues.

The matador of Spanish poker, Carlos Mortensen, has made poker history by being the first man to claim both a WPT Championship title to go along with a WSOP Championship. It was back in 2002 that Mortensen won the WSOP Main Event.

Guy Laliberté, the richest man in Canada, is about to get even richer at the World Poker Tour. (AP Images)

 

He’s the richest man in Canada, a billionaire businessman and the co-founder of "Cirque du Soleil," and today he is one of the final six poker players left competing for the $3.97 million first prize at the WPT World Championship.  In only his third tournament after picking up the game 16 months ago, Guy Laliberté has shown at the poker tables this week the same focus he’s used to develop his Cirque entertainment empire, outlasting more than 630 poker players to begin play today at the TV final table with the third most poker chips ($4,690,000).

Laliberté, 47, started with cash games at the Bellagio and got to know some of the high-stakes players who frequent the poker room and learned by watching them play. He took that knowledge and entered a $2,500 super-satellite at the Bellagio earlier this month to win his seat into the WPT World Championship.

Now, after playing through a tough 639 person field, Laliberte still has an uphill climb if he hopes to take home first place against a table of accomplished poker pros, including experienced tournament player Paul Lee, who took his Day 4 chip lead and parlayed it into a dominating lead after Day 5. Lee now holds more than a third of the chips in play at $11.83 million.

Sitting approximately 5 million chips behind him in second place is Carlos "The Matador" Mortensen ($6.5 million), who is looking to become the first player to ever win both the WSOP Main Event (in 2001) and the WPT World Championship.

Here are the full chip counts with the rest of the final table:

1. Paul Lee - $11,828,000

2. Carlos Mortensen - $6,501,000

3. Guy Laliberte - $4,690,000

4. Kirk Morrison - $4,194,000

5. Mike Wattel - $2,887,000

6. Tim Phan - $2,162,000

The final table will begin at 5pm PST today and will go until the winner is awarded the $3.97 million first-place prize.

The hugely successful Everest Poker European Cup returns once again this year. In 2006 Everest Poker sent 100 amateur players to Barcelona to fight it out over a €50,000 prize pool. This year things are getting even bigger!

UK-based "I-play", a provider of mobile entertainment products, has announced that it has moved decisively into the poker arena with the signature of one of the world's great poker players, Daniel Negreanu, to endorse its poker products.