Poker-Bug Poker News

Zak Penn’s hotly anticipated poker movie "The Grand" is looking promising. (AP Images)

 

The latest project from writer/director/producer Zak Penn, The Grand, debuts this Friday at the Tribeca Film Festival and tickets have already sold out in advance making it one of the most talked about films of the festival. While Penn is known for his comic book-to-movie success with films like X2, The Fantastic Four and X-Men: The Last Stand, his newest movie involves neither mutants nor stretchable body parts, at least not intentionally.

The Grand is a poker movie and probably more so than any other movie about the game, including the major-studio release Lucky You that hits screens nationwide on May 4th.  Following in the vein of Christopher Guest’s genre-defining Spinal Tap and drawing comparisons to the cult classic Best in Show, Penn has created a poker "mockumentary" that relies on live poker action and the actual play of the actors.

Filming began with a basic 35-page plot outline and a few specific lines that Penn wanted to include, and the rest was left to improvisation, even the poker.  The WSOP-style tournament scenes are not set up or staged; the actors were just told to play the game and let the chips fall as they may while the cameras rolled.

"Basically, one of the original concepts, and it’s even in the treatment, is it says that I don’t know who’s going to win, because the six people who make it to the final table will play for real in character and whoever wins will win in the movie," said Penn in an interview with ComingSoon.net.

"One of the most interesting things I’ve been involved with in a movie is actually filming a live tournament where people are in character, because the actors really wanted to win and there was a tremendous amount of stress in the room like there would be from a regular tournament, but it was fictional, so it was just a very weird experience."

The actors to which he is referring are a mixture of stars who have poker experience and some who had to learn how to play on set. The cast includes Shannon Elizabeth, David Cross and Cheryl Hines, who have all appeared on Bravo’s "Celebrity Poker Showdon," and Gabe Kaplan who is a popular poker player and TV commentator. Rounding out the cast are Richard Kind (ex-"Spin City"), Chris Parnell (ex-"SNL") and Woody Harrelson (ex-"Larry Flynt").

European Poker and World Poker Tour winner, Roland de Wolfe has been installed as red hot favourite for the Party Poker World Open which takes place at Three Mills Studios in London this week.

Poker pro Phil Ivey is among the pros who survived Day3 of the WPT World Championship. (AP Images)

 

Day 2 of the WPT World Championship started Monday with 479 players hoping to survive five more blind levels and inch ever closer to capturing the $3.97 million first place payout. Unfortunately, for all but 218 players that dream would die as they hit the rail.

The attrition started as soon as the first blind level of the day did as players dropped at an average rate of one per minute. Poker pros that succumbed to this early frenzy included Victor Ramdin, Gavin Smith, Team Bodog member David Williams, Todd Brunson, and JJ Liu.

While more than 250 poker players would end up being eliminated over the course of the day, some of the biggest names in poker showed why they are just that. Topping the leaderboard at the finish of play with 535,000 in chips is previous WPT champion Roland de Wolfe who is coming off a second-place finish at the Irish Poker Open earlier this month.

Just behind him is ten-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, stacked at 528,100. While WSOP events seem to come easily to the "Poker Brat", a win on the WPT has eluded him thus far and no doubt he’ll be looking to add to his title collection at the most prestigious event on tour.

Rounding out the top three is Internet phenom Sorel Mizzi who is better known in the online poker world as "imper1um". The 21-year-old Canadian is looking to extend his brick and mortar tournament success after his third-place finish at the Irish Poker Open.

Other noted pros that survived Day 3 include 2006 WSOP M.E. runner-up and NBC National Heads-Up Poker champion Paul Wasicka, Patrik Antonius, Carlos Mortensen and Phil Ivey. The online poker community is also making a strong showing with James "KrazyKanuck" Worth, Dustin "NeverWin" Woolf and Justin "zeejustin" Bonomo all with more than the average stack of 147,000.

Dubbed by PokerNews.com as "The Poker Fairy", Day 1 chipleader Anna Wrobleski continued her improbable run finishing just outsider of the top ten but stacked with the other pros within striking distance of getting back to that top spot.

Stay tuned to the Bodog Beat for more updates on the WPT World Championship at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Head over to Bodog.com and get into an online poker satellite for as little as a dollar to take a shot at winning a $12,000 WPT/WSOP prize package.

When a man is in form, he is in form! What else can you say about Roland de Wolfe, the UK's pre-eminent poker player at this time? Fresh from his runners-up finish at the Irish Open, De Wolfe is leading the world's best in Las Vegas

Born in the wrong era? Today, university students have poker on a plate with thriving societies offering cheap and sociable poker. Now, to top it off, Ladbrokes Poker is offering a riotous student-only cruise to Amsterdam!

As the poker world focused in on the WPT World Championship at the Bellagio this weekend, online poker players at Bodog focused in on the Sunday $100,00 Guaranteed tournament and its $25,000 first place prize while one Bodog player in particular had his hands full with a heads-up match against the seemingly unbeatable Josh Arieh.

The online poker tournament attracted a field of 791 players, generating a generous overlay and making the tournament an exceptional value for all who satellited their way in on the cheap or paid the $100+9 buy-in. The final table of the tournament was a roller-coaster affair that saw the field quickly narrow from nine to three in just over 20 minutes, then go through at least five lead changes during three-way play and finish with a heads-up match that lasted only five hands.

Here are the complete final table places and payouts:

1) SirSands - $25,000

2) ROBERT PAULSON - $14,300

3) Chris Saxton - $9,200

4) Poker Machine - $6,900

5) Hoop Deville - $5,500

6) BigB1r - $4,500

7) cryogenicman - $3,500

8) juancito888 - $2,500

9) kdk175 - $1,600

Earlier in the weekend, Bodog tracked down a busy Josh Arieh who graciously took time out of his preparations for the WPT World Championship to play a weekly TLB heads-up match.  Unfortunately, "FPpoker4", TLB winner for April 9-15, probably wishes that Arieh hadn’t as he became the latest victim of the red-hot Bodog pro.

Arieh extended his TLB heads-up win streak to 7, raised next week’s jackpot to $7,000 and improved his all-time record to 28 wins and 12 losses.

Head to Bodog Poker to take advantage of the multitude of opportunities available to increase your bankroll including the chance to win a $12,000 WSOP prize package.

Bodog pro Josh Arieh is one of several poker pros going into Day2 at the WPT.

 

The World Poker Tour World Championship got underway this weekend at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, and with 639 entrants paying the steep $25,000 buy-in, a record cash purse of $15,495,750 has been set aside with an amazing $3,970,415 going to the first place finisher and $2,011,135 to second. Even third place will walk away an instant millionaire when the televised tournament ends on April 27. With its record-setting prize pool, the WPT World Championship has now become the richest poker tournament outside of the World Series of Poker Main Event.

After two flights of Day 1, the unknown amateur poker player who first made a name for herself last week by winning the $3,000 buy-in event at the Bellagio Five-Star is becoming a little more familiar. Anna Wroblewski plowed through the Day 1a field on Saturday to become the first player to break the 100k chip mark and then the 200k mark. The pint-sized player finished the day as the chipleader stacked at 211,325.

Not giving her much time to rest on her laurels, Day 1b on Sunday saw several poker pros with much more name recognition take a run at Wroblewski’s lead, with Sammy Farha coming the closest by finishing the day stacked at 210,700.

Heading into Day 2 today, the red and black of Team Bodog is still well represented. After his deep run at the European Poker Tour, Bodog’s Josh Arieh is gunning for stateside success and will start the second day stacked at 93,325, comfortably above the average stack of 66,701. Alan "BodogAri" Engel, who recently won an event at the 2007 WSOP Circuit Tournament-Caesars Atlantic City, is also stacked above average at 85,475 while Team Bodog’s David Williams is still in the hunt with more than enough chips (36,025) to make a run on Day 2.

In all, 479 players survived their respective Day 1 flights including noted pros Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, JC Tran, Joe Hachem, Joe Sebok, Gavin Smith, Phil Hellmuth, Hoyt Corkins, Carlos Mortensen and Doyle Brunson. Play resumes today at 12 noon EST.

Have you ever dreamed of playing poker while your cards are dealt to you by some of the most outrageously attractive glamour models? Dream no more….you can win a seat playing poker in Sweden on the Purple Lounge Swedish Poker Tour.

One amateur online poker player will go from Bodog.com’s Tournament Leader Board to the Cover of Online Poker Pro Magazine this July.

 

Thanks to Bodog Poker, you don’t have to be a famous poker player to grace the cover of a major poker magazine. This May, Bodog.com will pick one of its players from its yearly Tournament Leader Board to grace the cover of the July issue of Online Poker Pro Magazine and be the subject of a 3-page cover feature in the popular UK-based poker magazine.

Starting this week and until Sunday, May 13, players have the opportunity to play their way into the top ten spots of theYearly Leader Board rankings.

On May 15, Bodog will pick one lucky winner from the top ten spots to be featured in the July edition of Online Poker Pro magazine. As one of ‘Bodog’s best’ online poker players, he or she will have the opportunity to grace the cover of the magazine along with a 3-page interview.

Go to the Bodog Poker Room now to play your way up the Tournament Leader Board. Bodog Poker guarantees $3.5 million in tournament poker prize money each month, including its big Sunday $100k guaranteed tournament and the new Sunday $50k guaranteed held every Sunday at 1 pm EST. Visit the Bodog Poker Schedule to find the tournament that’s right for you.

The talks that have been ongoing between two of the largest gaming, betting and online poker companies, 888 Holdings plc and Ladbrokes plc, about a possible merger of operations, have been discontinued.