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I’m guessing/hoping you’ll see some type of ‘shot clock’ incorporated by the WPT for Season 13.

“Read: Mike Sexton – The ‘Shot Clock’ Is On The Way!

But is it a good idea? Bluff Magazine EIC Lance Bradley guest writes over at ESPN and thinks that the solution to time wasting tankers is NOT a shot clock, but something that’s already in place:

The problem of excessive tanking isn’t a new one. There is already a way to handle these players: Call the clock. The problem lies in the fact that calling the clock has a stigma attached to it. Do it against somebody you’re in a hand with and you’re seen as a jerk for not letting your opponent think his options through. It’s “unsportsmanlike,” in some eyes. Call the clock on somebody at your table when you’re not in the hand and you’re going to spend the rest of the day dodging daggers from the player you called the clock on.

Read: Should poker have a shot clock?

In the new editorial, Bradley lays out the foundation for why a shot clock may be great for those big name pros, but perhaps it’s just another barrier of entry for those who want to take a shot at a big buy-in. The pressure of playing in large events like the WPT would be compounded with the multi-level game of dealing with time in massive spots.

Poker is a game of making decisions; that’s part of its appeal. But there has been growing discussion in the past year about making sure that the experience players — in particular, recreational players — have is a great one and free of anything that will cause them to consider not coming back. The shot clock idea creates more pressure points for pros to take advantage of and could leave amateurs with a pretty sour taste in their mouths.

Bradley sets up a situation, not far fetched by any stretch, and then shows how and why a shot clock may not be the answer, but the time tested (and likely original) solution to tanking of calling the clock should be revisited by players as something that’s not, well, a dick move.

When Deputy Deanna Torres arrived she found the roommate’s brother outside who told her that his brother had been hit in the head with a Corona bottle and was “bleeding heavily.” He then warned her not to go in solo as people were “acting crazy.”

Two more deputies arrived on the scene, Garrett Test and Danielle Malone, and the trio entered the house to find shattered bottles and a trail of blood leading to the blood soaked victim. The victim was taken to the hospital while Vargas was hauled away in cuffs…likely facing a multiple round penalty.

Read: Sherrif’s Blog – Poker game leads to beer bottle attack

Yesterday, the initial list of heavy hitters putting up the massive buy-in was released and 23 of the 56 allotted seats were taken. The two biggest names NOT on the list were Daniel Negreanu and 13-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth. While we expect both to be on the list at some point, Daniel let the world know today that he’ll be there. No word yet from Hellmuth.

Who else do you expect to show up on that list that’s not already there? (Tweet @F5Poker)

Obviously he is entitled to attend but I wouldn’t welcome him. Personally, people like him, and especially Howard Lederer, have disgraced themselves and I’m not personally satisfied with the answers they’ve given about what happened at Full Tilt.

Jesse goes on to say that while he’d rather turn his back on Ferguson than awkwardly shake his hand, he wouldn’t go so far as to outright ban him. When asked if Ferguson should be allowed to play May replied:

I don’t see why not. I don’t think they are the only two pariahs in the poker world, and legally they haven’t been charged or convicted with anything.

Lee Davy on the other hand servers as both the jury to May’s interview but also his own opinionated judge and executioner – making the case for having the WSOP, EPT and WPT all place bans on the pair.

They have betrayed the trust of the entire poker community and have set our industry back 20 years. They are responsible for the ruin of thousands of people’s lives and, so far, have yet to admit to any wrongdoing other than “mismanaging” a business.

Perhaps Davy got a little worked up – setting back 20 years may be hyperbole. while “the ruin of thousands of people’s lives” is a bit strong...but yea, Ferguson and Lederer did more than “mess up big time” for sure. So what would Davy ultimately have happen?

There is no way that Ferguson should be allowed to play at the WSOP. His sheer presence will produce enough emotion to create a whirlwind of problems for players and the WSOP alike.

Imagine the outcry should Ferguson take his seat and get punched on the bridge of his nose by a player whose life was ruined by his inept decision making. A player who would then be subsequently banned by the WSOP whilst a blood-stained Ferguson would be able to check, raise and fold?
bq. This cannot be allowed to happen.

What’s your take? Ban these guys for life, give them a sentence or live and let live? Either way, there’s a chance we’ll find out how the poker community will handle this soon enough.

Want to get the full picture from May and Davy’s perspective? Check out Is it Time to Ban Chris Ferguson and Howard Lederer For Good?

Now, from his home in New Zealand, he’s facing extradition to the U.S. and possible copyright infringement charges that his massively popular site cost those rights holders somewhere in the range of half-a-billion dollars. So, Kim Dotcom is used to playing for high stakes and apparently, he likes it.

At least his associates in this photo, one of which is his own personal Barack Obama look-a-like (as well his NZ Prime Minister John Key stand-in), were smart enough to makes sure if they were going to play with him, they play with him in person. He’s probably really good at online poker.

The internet community is looking to see how this hand against the US & New Zealand Governments are going to play out as well.

Chris Hall over at the PokerStarsBlog writes that it the number of runners is going to land somewhere in the 1400-1500 range, making it the biggest poker tournament Eureka has ever run. A record 457 players, showed up for Day 1a (the most Eureka has ever had for a Day 1) and there looks to be almost twice that sitting down for Day 1b with time left to register (as of this writing).

Great photo of the main playing area

All of this bodes well for the outlook of the EPT Vienna Main Event which gets underway on Sunday.

According to an interview Cates conducted with Cardplayer, Blom (like everyone) owes Cates some cash. $100k to be exact.

Well, I was kind of tilted at the point. It’s not really a secret that he owes me some money. He owes me like a little over $100,000, but he’s been making some small payments here and there. He’s going to give it back to me, it seems, but it’s taking some time and it’s a little frustrating. He has borrowed money before on multiple occasions and paid back for those.

Cates on Blom’s skill level:

I mean, he is one of the only high-stakes players who doesn’t user Poker Tracker, study the game, or run simulations and things like that. He’s really an anomaly in that way. He knows what he’s doing apparently. He like copies off what he sees from other people.

Are there hard feelings?

Yeah, it was kind of funny. I thought he was drunk. He was being all emotional afterward and stuff. Yeah, we made up.

It’s a solid interview with a candid Cates that you should take a moment or two and check out courtesy of Brian Pempus over at Cardplayer. (Just don’t click on their Lock Poker links!)

Boeree, a professional poker player, is but one of four different mind bending on-air specialists. The show will also include hypnotist Lewis Le Val, slight of hand expert Pete Wardell and, from The Real Hustle, Alexis Conran.

Sarah T. Davies, VP of Development over at Discovery has this to say about it:

The Mind Control Freaks is an exciting new series for us which plays in a new space for Discovery Channel. We’ve been exploring the reinvention and fusion of genres with a lot of success – and The Mind Control Freaks is set to take that to the next level as we blur the lines between science, psychology and trickery in an all-new format. We can’t wait to see how audiences react to this thought-provoking and entertaining series.

The season is set to air in April and looks to be 10 30-minute episodes.

So, can Liv Boeree control people with her mind (and looks)? If you haven’t seen this classic clip of her mental manipulation, then enjoy.

So, what advice would Tran give to those who are up and coming: “...pick up more hands.”

Here he sits down with WPT Tournament Director Matt Savage after the dust has settled and the “California Swing” is put to bed.

The Sacramento Kings superfan karmically held a king in his hand as he claimed the over $300k first place prize and took his victory photo with pocket kings for good measure.

Here’s the rest of the finishes from the Final Table:

1. JC Tran – $302,750
2. Preston Harwell – $200,030
3. Quoc Pham – $127,140
4. Mimi Luu – $100,240
5. Benjamin Zamani – $80,130
6. Ken Jorgensen – $60,180

In fact, we are concerned that an even more damaging scandal than one involving underage players could emerge, and that it will tarnish and even ruin the game. What worries us is well-organized teams of cheaters using hidden technology to steal from novice players now that Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware have gone live with legalized Internet poker.

All scary stuff, right? They seem to be concerned that the game, if not tested correctly, can be permanently damaged. The piece zeros in on the problem of collusion – people chatting or using “cell phones” or the well-defined “hacker technology” to cheat people out of their hard earned money.

Hey, this is a real concern for sure.

It is disturbing that the industry, regulators and organizations purporting to protect the interests of players have not addressed the issue, despite their claims that the game is safe. Rather than being comforted by the industry touting that there have been zero problems in Europe, New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada, we find that analysis less than credible. A more realistic view is that collusion and cheating are indeed occurring but going undetected.

Wait, WHO finds that less than credible? You two?

That’s right it’s these two guys who want more testing and that sounds like it could be a legitimate request. There should be no limit to the lengths to which we’ll go for consumer safety.

But why are these the guys calling for it? Why now? Oh…here it is:

Realistic tests of the Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey online-poker regulations should be conducted. But David Rebuck, director of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, did not even respond to a letter we sent offering to stress-test New Jersey’s real-money poker websites.

That’s right folks. They want the job. The Op-Ed, no matter how legit a claim in wanting consumer safety, is really them calling out the fact that they offered to do the job – probably for money, right? – in an open letter and were snubbed. So, while it’s a concern, they opted to write another open letter, this time as an Op-Ed, where they blame the industry for not choosing their security stress test solution in order to apply more pressure.

They call out David Rebuck, by name, in hopes that you will read this and get his office phones ringing asking him why he didn’t allow Byers and his team to put the industry through the paces.

Maybe they do have the best collusion detecting system on the planet. Who knows? But they definitely have a poor strategy for getting the right people to take them seriously. An open letter followed up by an accusatory Op-Ed is not likely to ingratiate themselves to those in charge of online poker security. Not many people respond well to being called out in public.

If you are interested in what Tomko and Byers are selling, check out their website: UndetectableLaundering.com

The newest member of Team U, Danielle “dmoongirl” Andersen posted this shot footage of teammate and at no time frontman for Genesis, Phil Collins shaking his Chris Moneymaker in the non-dance friendly confines of strip casino O’Sheas.

Update: danobrienpoker gets to keep his 'O' and uscphildo earned one #PhilOCollins #MovesLikeJagger http://t.co/VJJk5hTqUc

All’s well that ends well though as by all accounts, the three shook off their collective hangovers and survived the Irish holiday.

Here’s a list of all the seats spoken for – no take backs.

1. Antonio Esfandiari
2. Guy Laliberté
3. Bobby Baldwin
4. David Einhorn
5. Phil Galfond
6. Philipp Gruissem
7. Phil Ivey
8. Jason Mercier
9. Paul Newey
10. Bill Perkins
11. Vivek Rajkumar
12. Brian Rast
13. Andrew Robl
14. Erik Seidel
15. Brandon Steven
16. Sam Trickett
17. Noah Schwartz
18. Anonymous Businessman
19. Anonymous Businessman
20. Anonymous Businessman
21. Aria Resort Satellite Seat
22. Bellagio Resort Satellite Seat
23. World Series of Poker Satellite Seat

• Copies/pasted from the WSOP website – the full press release you can read right here.

All 17 of the committed named players played in the 2012 event. The WSOP has stated that they will strictly enforce the new 56-seat cap so start selling pieces of yourself right away!

In case you hadn’t heard, it was just a few days ago that Galfond and Blom tangled over at the nosebleed tables of Full Tilt Poker. According to HighStakesDB, the pair 4-tabled at the $300/$600 PLO tables for almost 12 hours where Blom ran hot and closed out the session having taken $883k profit off of Galfond.

While anyone would sweat a downswing of that magnitude, it’s likely that Galfond is still going to have a roof over his head tonight as, according to his results chart, he’s still roughly a $7 million dollar online winner to date despite his $1.2 million dollar 2014 deficit.

So how will Galfond get back on track? Bluff Magazine editor Lance Bradley has an idea…

Ready to go! The EPT Vienna Poker Festival is about to begin. Today we kick off with Day 1a of the the €1,100 Eureka Main Event.

The last time the EPT came to Vienna, 578 runner participated generating a prizepool worth over $4 million. Daniel Negreanu took 4th place and German student Michael Eiler nabbed the €700,000 ($976,712) first place prize.

For all the info on EPT Vienna, visit the EPT Homepage right here.

Here’s one for all the oldies out there:

Maybe you want to ask him about this:

According to Donnie Peters over PokerNews these new flipaments work like this. Right off the bat everyone is forced, no matter the cards they are dealt, to go all in. Nine players, blind shove and the winner moves on. So picture 9 tables of 9 players all shipping it on the first hand and then the 9 players that win each of their tables, combine to a single table – all of whom are in the money – and play a standard style tournament to climb the money ladder.

It’s being framed as no more wading through the early parts of a tournament, no more grinding to the cash. It’s a win-and-your-in situation in which volume will be key.

Sarne Lightman, the head of marketing for FTP, talked to (or emailed with) PokerNews and had this to say:

The time saving of a Flipout is obvious, but a bit less obvious is what happens after the flip round. You’ll be in the money of a potentially large tournament and nobody has actually played a hand yet. This means the average skill level when you hit the money will be the same as the average skill level at the start of the tournament, which is very different from a standard tournament.

So, is your head spinning yet? The luck and variance factor is going to be incredibly high up top as you are going to lose that flip way more times then you are going to win. So when you do win, you are going to really need to make the most of it.

The only real downside to Flipouts that I can think of is how often you won’t make it past the flip round. If I was playing these, and I’m sad I can’t, I’d probably drop down a couple of stake levels and just play a bunch of them until I made it through.

To get you hooked though, FTP is holding a 4-day Flipout Festival starting on March 21 where they will add $25k over the course of 100+ tournaments.

Wait! You mean the talented San Francisco 49er receiver that Seattle Seahawks Richard Sherman clowned on in the NFC Championship game this past year is top 10 in chips and headed for a WPT Final Table?

Psyche! Fun loving Tournament Director Matt Savage is, once again crying wolf and trolling the world as there is a Michael Crabtree still in the tournament, but alas:

Don’t let that stop you from following poker’s Michael Crabtree and the rest of the field of 24 as they play down to a final table today starting at 12:00pm PST.

With my boys and Chino backstage at David Guetta #brokefamily #brokebackstage

Jean-Robert Bellande snapped the photo with that carefully phrased caption which spawned lurkers to wonder if that implies that Chino actually isn’t one his “his boys.”

Oh Yea! Oh Yea!

Liv Boeree delivers a motivational message for those hoping to hit it big in the latest #MicroMillions.

Wait, what!? You’re not familiar with the epic Bing Blang Blaow reference or video? Well, just your luck – it’s real and it’s fabulous.

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Bonus material: Liv Boeree is rapping with the side pony which was an early trademark for UK rapper Lady Sovereign. Here’s her biggest hit (probably):

This weekend Mike Leah amazingly won TWO World Series of Poker Circuit rings in a 24 hour period. From the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles, Leah entered and bulldozed Event #9, a $580 NLHE tourney, for just a shade under $17k.

Having destroyed the Event #9 final table in under 3 hours, Leah didn’t waste any time celebrating. He jumped into Event #10, quickly went busto, and then entered right into Event #11, a $365 NLHE Turbo.

No mystery on what happened next: Leah took that Turbo down for another $15.4k and his 2nd WSOP Circuit ring in under 24 hours.

With his back-to-*almost*-back victories Leah has the “Casino Champion” title on lock down and will be given a seat into the 2014 WSOP National Championship. For the full rundown on Mike Leah’s two ring circus, check out the WSOP Circuit Blog.

Still, the man who is generally considered responsible for the poker boom found himself on a heater and, according to PokerNews, accumulated over half the chips in play at the start of the final table.

Chris also did the dirty work and was responsible for the elimination of 7 of his final 9 opponents, including his heads up opponent Frank Wyville who walked with $22,395 for his 2nd place finish. For his part, while it’s not the $2.5 million score he walked with for his championship run in 2003, Moneymaker made just over $36k for his victory this weekend plus another minor title to add to his resume.

With an almost $1.5 million dollar prize pool, the winner of the inaugural Rolling Thunder event will take home just over $302k while those who sneak into the cash (54 players paid) will roughly double their cash at $6770 for a mincash.

While some of the top tier players like Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, Will “The Thrill” Failla and Jonathan Little have gone busto, there are still plenty of notable players headed into Day 2 with healthy chip stacks.

Joe Serock leads the way, but is followed closely by WPT Champions Andy Frankenberger, Mohsin Charania, Scott Clements, Scotty Nguyen, Nam Le and Brandon Cantu. Big names like Jason Koon, Jeff Madsen, Allen Kessler, Pat Lyons, Amir Lehavot, Candice Collins, and LAPC Final Tablist Michael Rocco are still in the hunt.

No word on if this nice lady is still in.

Action picks back up today at 12:00pm PST when the two days combine and it’s expect that the 190 returning players (combined fields) will play down into the money. For all the action, check out the World Poker Tour Live Updates page.

Kara Scott, Charles Chattha, PartyPoker Pro Jamie Kerstetter, Roberto Romanello and new Everest Poker ambassador Sam Trickett each take turns reading a half-hearted “mean”, but moreso confusing, tweet for the very first time while on air. Seeing as how none of the tweets are really so offensive, the pros take it in stride, laugh it off and show that while perhaps they are serious on the felt, they have a good sense of humor about themselves away from the tables.