Poker News

NINE' LINEUP DETERMINED
Action at this summer's World Series of Poker concluded when the main event's final nine survivors were determined. The November Nine will return to the Rio in Las Vegas this fall to decide the winner of the $8,546,435 first prize, with each of the nine players already guaranteed a million-dollar payday. The dominating chip leader entering the final is Darvin Moon at 59 million in chips, with Eric Buchman (35 million) and Steven Begleiter (30 million) his nearest challengers. However, all eyes will be on Phil Ivey who struggled through to the final table in seventh place (9.765 million) after being short-stacked in the hours before the final nine were determined. These players will be joined by James Akenhead, Jeff Shulman, Kevin Schaffel, Joe Cada and Antoine Saout in November.

LISANDRO CLINCHES 2009 WSOP PLAYER OF THE YEAR HONORS
Jeffrey Lisandro's feat of winning three bracelets in a single series was too much for his opponents to overcome in the 2009 World Series of Poker's Player of the Year chase. Lisandro's only serious challenger entering the main event was Ville Wahlbeck, who won one bracelet amid an impressive run of final-table finishes during the series, but when Wahlbeck was eliminated early in the main event, the honor went to Lisandro, who topped the board with 355 points. It was the second deep run at the PoY title for Lisandro, who lost a tight duel in 2007 to Tom Schneider.

RUSSIA BANS POKER FROM APPROVED SPORTS, MOSCOW EPT EVENT MOVED
Russian authorities reversed themselves on the topic of poker, overturning a 2007 ruling that poker was a sport. The new ruling relegated poker to the class of gambling entertainments, which are in the process of being relegated to four distinct gambling economic zones spread across Russia. None of the four zones, however, are near Russia's major metropolitan centers, and the uncertainty over the ability to host large-scale events forced the European Poker Tour to move its planned August Russian Poker Open, slated for Moscow, to a new site in Kiev, Ukraine. A separate entity, the Russian Poker Tour, is believed to have gone on indefinite hiatus.

PPA NATIONAL POKER WEEK SEEKS LEGISLATIVE SUPPORT
The mid-July National Poker Week orchestrated by the Poker Player Alliance continued its efforts to build support for pro-poker legislation at the federal level. The PPA brought dozens of state representatives and big-name poker players to Washington D.C. to meet directly with roughly 100 Congressmen. The PPA also presented President Obama with a petition of roughly 380,000 poker players seeking proper regulation of the game at the federal level, and organized a fundraiser which, along with a separate PPA donation, raised some $35,000 for wounded American veterans.

POKERSTARS BESTS FULL TILT IN TWIN GUINNESS RECORD ATTEMPTS In a battle of the big online sites, PokerStars and Full Tilt both launched an assault on the previous record for players participating in a paid-as opposed to a freeroll-online tourney. PokerStars held the old mark following a 2008 event that drew 35,000 players. This time around, Full Tilt's try drew 50,000 players, but was preemptively eclipsed by a last minute tourney at PokerStars that attracted 65,000 runners. The new mark awaits Guinness Book of World Records certification.

UNITED STATES, EUROPEAN UNION TO REOPEN ONLINE GAMBLING NEGOTIATIONS
The on-again, off-again talks between the European Union and the United States over online gambling resumed recently with a round of discussions in Washington D.C. The two economic giants remain at odds over the United States' implementation of the UIGEA-which the EU asserts violates its World Trade Organization commitments-and the continued possibility of "retroactive prosecution" by hardline, independent, US Department of Justice officials against EU-based online firms. No resolution is likely to be reached in the near future, though the replacement of Bush administration officials in the US Trade Representative's office likely heralds at least a more open discussion of the topics at hand.

Haley Hintze is the Editor-in-Chief of PokerNews.com, a leading portal for news from the world of poker.