December 24, 2007
It’s December 24th, 2007, and Christmas is literally upon us! Just wanted to say that I hope everyone in the state of Arizona and anywhere else around the globe has a great holiday season and a very safe new year! Not much more to add to it, lol — although I would like to say it’s been a crazy year, and I hope that the site can really hit its full potential very soon. Those who have followed and supported me and the site since it was introduced a few months ago have been really great, and I really do think we’ve got some good things in place that could really help AZGambler.com one of the best local web sites in Arizona!
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December 22, 2007
I was chatting with one of our resident pros Brandon last night and he told me about a new game that recently opened up at Fort McDowell. It’s a $30-$60 Mixed game that runs on Wednesdays and Friday at 5 pm. Although the game doesn’t fill up regularly, it still gets some pretty juicy action even with just 5 or 6 players. If you’re looking to test your bankroll and your skills against some semi-decent competition (well, not THAT decent from what Brandon told me, lol), then this might be one of the games you’re looking for.
You can visit Fort McDowell’s website for more information on their poker room, special promotions, as well as game limits and selections.
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December 22, 2007
Online search giants Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft have agreed to settle with the United States Department of Justice over allegations that they “aided and abetted” illegal gambling companies and web sites by allowing them to advertise on their sites.
Although the “Big 3” have prohibited gambling advertisements since 2004, the D.O.J. was unrelenting in their pursuit of financial penalties. Even though the Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft didn’t admit publicly to the charges that they were accused of, they also did not contest them either.
Under the settlement, all three companies will pay a total of $31.5 million, with most of the fines going to charitable organizations, anti-gambling ad campaigns, and of course the U.S. government.
Microsoft paid the most out of the settlement, forking over $21 million alone. Yahoo had the 2nd biggest penalty, shelling out $7.5 million. And Google rounded out the fines by paying out $3 million. These financial penalties paint a clear picture on how the United States government will be treating American companies who choose to promote or advertise online gambling sites.
U.S. District Attorney Catherine Hanaway, who was the lead council on behalf of the D.O.J. during November’s House Judiciary Hearing on online gambling, is also the person responsible for bringing forth this most recent lawsuit against Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. It is unclear whether her future agenda will stop here, or if there are more lawsuits coming against other companies who are performing the same practices in the United States.
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December 21, 2007
The 2007 WPT Doyle Brunson Classic featured one of the largest prizepools in the history of tournament poker outside the WSOP Main Event and WPT Championship. In fact, after 664 contestants plunked down $15,000 to buy in to the event, the prize pool would exceed $9.6 million alone - all the whole generating a first place prize of almost $2.5 million! The televised final table lineup would include a variety of both live veterans and online upstarts:
David “Devilfish” Ulliot, Ryan Daut, Ken Rosen, Ted Kearly, Jordan Rich, and Eugene Katchalov.
Action was fast-paced and dramatic throughout the entire final table taping, with Ryan Daut going out on the very first hand when his A J bricked out against Ted Kearly’s pocket 8’s. Jordan Rich would then run his pocket Jacks into the pocket Aces of Eugene Katchalov, going out in 5th place shortly after Daut exited the tournament.
From there on out, the young Katchalov steamrolled over the remainder of the competition, subsequently knocking out Ken Rosen and David Ulliot in 4th and 3rd place, respectively. He would take a commanding chiplead heads up against Jordan Rich, and it wouldn’t be long before a new champion would be crowned.
Katchalov had over $16 million in chips against the roughly $3.7 million in chips Rich had in front of him. It would only take 8 hands for the championship to conclude, with Eugene Katchalov hitting 2 pair with his J T versus the one pair of Jordan Rich’s K J on the final hand. The landmark win not only earned Katchalov the $2.4 million first-place prize and a $25k WPT Championship seat, but he was also apart of the FASTEST WPT final table on record. It took only 53 hands of play before the TV final table was shot and wrapped up!
*photo courtesy of CardPlayer.com
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December 20, 2007
My buddy John is hosting a special freeroll tournament over at Full Tilt Poker this weekend, with first prize being one of the hottest-selling items this holiday season — A NINTENDO WII!!! That’s right, he’s actually going to give one of you poor poker degenerates a chance to win one of the most sought-after consoles out there right now…and all you have to do is visit his site at NichePoker and simply sign up for his RSS feed to his site.
It’s quick and easy, and you’ll get updated news from one of the coolest new gambling sites on the web. In addition, you can check out the AZG Forums for more information — oh and did I mention John is putting a bounty on my head??? This should be something really fun to be apart of, so please check out the info immediately to get your ticket in!
Remember, the tournament will be at held at Full Tilt Poker on December 22nd, so mark it on your calendar immediately!
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December 20, 2007
SHIP has once again caught fire just at the right time. Fresh off a first-place finish earlier in the week in a similar $33 tournament, our resident pot-smoking poker fiend was at it again — this time taking 2nd place in the morning version of the $33 MTT on PokerStars. He refused a chop heads up with the lead…obviously a downfall on Stars for some reason (especially when you have the chip lead, lol), and was eventually donkstruck multiple times to take home a piddly payday of almost $2,000. All in a day’s work regardless. Congrats bro.
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December 16, 2007
I changed the theme up a little bit so it was a little more friendly on the eyes and easier to read. I need to fix some of the plugins, but for the most part this is a cool looking design. I love its simplicity and I’m looking forward to posting more in the future. There’s not so much to write about this other than how cool I think it is…lol. So enjoy!
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December 14, 2007
The infamous Mitchell Report was released yesterday by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell. The 20-month investigation dug deep into baseball’s dark past in regards to illegal steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. Over 80 players were implicated in the released document, including now-uncertain future Hall of Fame locks Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds. Commissioner Bud Selig called this a time to act…and that baseball “will act” on the findings.
Being a huge baseball fan myself, this report really doesn’t surprise me after 2005 Congressional hearings in which 2 of my favorite sluggers, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, completely refused to acknowledge their role in taking steroids during their careers. This report confirmed a lot of what many people, fans, and purists of the game already thought — that steroids is more of a widespread issue than we all originally thought.
I was watching Mike and Mike on ESPN this morning, and Arizona Senator John McCain chimed in on the entire situation. The sports enthusiast was quoted as saying that the “integrity of the game has been compromised,” and that he hopes baseball gets “serious about the penalties — and serious about steroids.” McCain went on to say he was most surprised and “disappointed” by the addition of Roger Clemens on the Mitchell Report. Inside officials that McCain has spoken to on this issue have also said that steroids are a bigger problem than what the general public may know right now.
It is unclear whether Senator John McCain will dedicate a lot of his future political work into developing some type of government doping agency to study and regulate the problem of steroids in sports in general - not just baseball.
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December 13, 2007
Well, actually its been launched (lol) — I just decided to change the name of the blog from Arizona Poker Information to “Gambling and Poker News” instead. I figure since I’m not gonna be able to find too many local gambling stories to talk about on a daily basis, the best thing to do is just update everyone with what’s going on in the industry from around the world instead. It’ll make for an interesting read and will help get more exposure to the site.
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December 12, 2007
Yea I’m a complete and utter moron. I was reading through my site and learning how to use some neat-o, spifferific (haha at the word, eh) programs and realized that the “image verification” that my Forums use was not working right in ANY browser. Which means that for the last few weeks, if people wanted to join the Forums — well…they couldn’t anyways! LOL. The bug is now fixed…so if you had experienced any issues joining before, please feel free to do so now.
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