PokerWorks

Poker News Nuggets are presented on PokerWorks each week to give readers a glance at some of the big news stories in and around the poker industry. From international poker tournaments to player prop bets, from political happenings to sponsorship deals, game enthusiasts can stay informed with these weekly tidbits of information.

What They’re Playing

EPT Tallinn:  It was the much-anticipated kickoff to Season 7 of the PokerStars-sponsored European Poker Tour, and the Swissotel in Tallinn, Estonia was the locale. The turnout for the tournament was impressive despite its newness to the tour, as 420 players registered for the Main Event and created a prize pool of €1,596,000. After the top 56 players were paid and the final table arrived on August 16, all eyes were on Arnaud Mattern to do what no other player had done before - win his second EPT title. But the cards didn’t cooperate and he was eliminated in third place, while Kevin Stani went on to beat Konstantin Bilyauer in the heads-up match to take the EPT Tallinn title, along with the trophy and €400,000 in cash.

UBOC:  The fifth installment of the UB Online Championship, better known as UBOC5, kicked off on Wednesday, August 18 with a variety of tournaments and buy-ins on the schedule. The 12-day series was set to begin with a $300 + $20 bounty no-limit hold’em tournament and a $250 + $17 pot-limit hold’em/Omaha mix, and hosts Joe Sebok and Bryan Devonshire, respectively, were hosting the events. Through August 29, there would be 20 tournaments in all, culminating in the Championship NLHE “monster stack” event with a $1000 + $50 buy-in and $1 million guarantee.

Who’s Playing

Mickey Petersen:  Most players in the online poker world know him as “mement_mori,” but in real life, he is Mickey Petersen. And after years of significant poker accomplishments, such as his recent FTOPS XVII win on Full Tilt Poker for his second FTOPS victory in total, he joins the ranks of the training professionals at CardRunners. With his status as the leader of the Bluff Online Player of the Year race and number five ranking in all of online poker on Pocket Fives, Petersen not only joined CardRunners as a coach but already taped his first training video of his play in a $109 rebuy tournament.

Joe Sebok:  When Joe Sebok took on the role of sponsored pro and media and operations consultant at UB Poker in September of 2009, he understood that repairing the UB name and defending his choice would be a long, arduous task. And after nearly a year with the company, Sebok has participated in numerous investigations to try to bring more information about the UB scandal to light, as well as urge executives like Tokwiro COO Paul Leggett to be more available and forthcoming to the poker community. With the release of new information by Wicked Chops Poker regarding names associated with the scandal, Sebok has closed the book on his investigative responsibilities for the time being, noting that he has taken it as far as possible and hopes people will be satisfied with the results. His latest blog post explains his position.

Where They’re Playing

Federal courts:  It seems that the United States government won again, this time against a pair of payment processing companies that agreed to settle a lawsuit by paying millions of dollars. It started in June of 2009 when the government ordered tens of millions of dollars in funds transfers to online poker websites seized by several banks, and though sites like PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker made it up to their customers, those funds were rarely discussed since. But recently it came to light that $13.3 million of that money was in transit via Allied Wallet and Allied Systems, payment processing companies owned by Ahmad Khawaja. In agreement that the money was part of an “illegal gambling business,” Khawaja forfeited the funds in a civil court forfeiture process.