Slow week at the nosebleeds but big news away from the tables
Poker documentary 'KidPoker' about the charismatic Daniel Negreanu premiered to great reviews this week at the Toronto International Film Festival this week
While it's been a slow week at the highstakes tables at PokerStars, there has still been plenty going on in the poker world at large.
The action was at a minimum this week with Daniel "w00ki3z." Cates ending the last seven days as the biggest winner, earning $94.9k across the week, with the vast majority of his winnings coming from leaderboard topping performances either end of the week. Last Monday he won $59.3k at the 8-Game tables, and yesterday he topped the leaderboard with a meagre $28.9k, this time at the PLO tables against Ilari FIN and Sauce123. Ilari was actually the weeks second biggest winner turning a $74.8k profit. The biggest winner of the week at PokerStars, however, did not come from the nosebleed tables as Canadian player "Koovoon" became the 7th player to hit the $1m jackpot in a $100 spin and go last Monday.
Away from the nosebleeds there has been a growing movement on the forums and on twitter among disgruntled poker players to partake in a 3 day "strike" against PokerStars in protest of the proposed changes to the sites popular VIP programme. The strike was intitiated among the Russian poker community and is set to start tomorrow morning and last for 72 hours. One of the most high profile poker players to champion the strike action is Dani "Ansky451/supernova9" Stern. Anyone wanting a bit more detail on why the players are so against the proposed changes should watch Stern's podcast with JoeIngram1 and then to learn more about the proposed strike you can watch the follow up podcast here.
In other news, Phil Ivey may yet have a successful day in the British courts as a judge has ruled that he can indeed appeal against last year's high court ruling in his $12m edge-sorting case he brought against Crockford's casino in Mayfair, London. Crockford's refused to pay Ivey the £7.8m he had won at punto-banco, claiming he had effectively cheated the casino by using his (or rather his playing partner's) ability to identify the value of cards on certain flawed decks of cards to gain an unfair advantage. Although the judge at the time said he believed Ivey to be an honest man who didn't believe he had been cheating - he nonetheless ruled in the casinos favour.
However, the appeal gives Ivey fresh hope, especially as the judge who granted the appeal said that Ivey had "a real prospect of success".
The other big news this week was the premiere of the much anticipated PokerStars produced "Kid Poker" movie at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film, charting the life of argualy the world's most famous poker player Daniel Negreanu, was met with rave reviews from players and critics alike.