All of the poker tournaments that we hear about are the successful ones that run without any hitches and pay the winners their money as expected.  We don’t hear about the poker tournaments that went wrong or the ones that were so disorganized that they had to be scrapped.  So if you’ve never heard of a poker tournament such as this then here’s your chance because there was recently a poker tourney that absolutely collapsed out in Las Vegas.

Sludikoff Gaming Inc. in (Las Vegas) was hired by Hall of Fame World Poker Championship LLC to run a poker tournament for them where athletes and celebrities would compete on teams and try to advance to the final round where they would compete for $1 million.  Sludikoff Gaming Inc. was paid $10,000 a month to work on the tournament and get it up and running.

The problem came when the owners of Sludikoff felt they were being taken advantage of by Hall of Fame WPC LLC because they said the company was trying to profit too much off of them without further compensation.  What has ensued since then is an ugly lawsuit where Sludikoff Gaming is seeking extra compensation for the mishap.  Hall of Fame has countersued them in a defamation suit since then.

After this big mess, it definitely appears that the poker tournament will no longer happen and it also appears that these two companies will be locked in a long legal battle.  Luckily, we don’t have to hear about poker tournaments falling apart like this too often and there are plenty other ones for us to play in.

The poker world was buzzing after the World Series of Poker released its 2009 schedule with some major changes included.  Among the biggest changes was the fact that there will no longer be any rebuy events in the WSOP since people have argued that such tournaments only judge how big a person’s wallet is rather than their skill level.  Another huge change is that there are two more events added to the WSOP bringing the total amount of tournaments to 57; the biggest addition is definitely the $40,000 buy-in tourney to commemorate the 40th year of the WSOP. 

These changes have already sparked plenty of debate among players since some favor the changes and others dislike them.  Daniel Negreanu is definitely one fan of the $40K event since he has lobbied for more high buy-in events in the WSOP.  He believes the high buy-ins increase the chances of a skilled pro winning the event.  Greg Raymer also thinks that the $40K buy-in tourney should be a success and thinks it will return if this is the case as he said, “If the event is a success, why would Harrah’s not repeat it?

However, Raymer is not a fan of the rebuys being taken out of the WSOP since he stated, “I don’t see any real purpose in eliminating the rebuy tournaments.  To be honest, the people that complain about them the most have a very clueless understanding of what poker is about.  The purpose is not to win a tournament; the purpose is to make money.”

I definitely agree with Raymer in that the rebuy events shouldn’t be taken out of the WSOP.  In my opinion, having a few rebuy events out of the 57 tournaments offered is not such a bad thing since it creates a lot more variety.  And as far as the argument goes about rebuys only showing who has the bigger wallet, I think the $40K and $50K H.O.R.S.E. are only doing the same thing.  The only thing these pricey tournaments do is keep all of the good online pros out of them while giving the top pros a clear shot at winning the gold bracelet.  I guess we’ll see in the next few years whether or not the WSOP will decide to move away from rebuys and keep adding high buy-in tournaments.

The World Series of Poker Europe is fully underway with the Main Event going on and there is much excitement in the poker air.  Thousands of players have shown up in London and it has been a good event for the WSOP’s namesake.  Things are going especially well since a star player in Daniel Negreanu is leading the field after three full days.  In addition to this great storyline, Negreanu has a $200,000 prop bet going with Phil Ivey that he will win either a WSOP bracelet (which is already out) or a WSOPE bracelet (he’s down to his last chance).

Going beyond just the Daniel Negreanu thing, people may also notice that John Juanda, online star Justin “BoostedJ” Smith, Mike Matusow, Andy Bloch, and Erik Seidel are near the top of the leaderboards too.  But while there are plenty of good storylines going on, I have to wonder if the World Series of Poker Europe is really coming into its own or if it is just an expansion event trying to capitalize off of the popularity of a big name.

Now the WSOPE has definitely drawn some people to its now four tournament and one Doyle Brunson vs. Annette Obrestad one-on-one matchup extravaganza.  However, I’m really wondering how much bigger things will get.  Will it just be a failed experiment by Harrah’s to further expand their already popular event? 

I hope not but I also am not sure how long it will take for people to really catch the WSOPE fever.  After all, the 1,000,000 Pound top prize for the winner has already been trimmed down to 868,000 Pounds and I’m hoping that the future doesn’t see it falling any farther.  But even more so, I’m hoping that the WSOPE doesn’t end as badly as another European expansion where the NFL tried to extend their power into the continent with the NFL Europe.  Then again, I don’t think there’s any fear about that since nothing can go as badly as the NFL Europe did.

If you guys haven’t heard all new players that signs up through RakeBrain to Full Tilt Poker in September and earn 1 Full Tilt Point will get automatic entry to the $5000 freeroll. RakeBrain happens to be one of the leaders in rakeback providers these days. Rakeback works a lot like a poker bonus, with the important difference that it’s a promotion that never ends; you sign up through a third-party affiliate who receives a commission for recruiting new players to the poker rooms. However, instead of holding on to the commission, the affiliate passes on to you in the form of rakeback.

Most rakeback offers range between 25% and 35%, so it might pay off to look around for the best rakeback promotions. At Full Tilt, however, the maximum allowed rakeback is 27%. Right now the most beneficial place to sign up for rakeback at Full Tilt is Rakebrain.com, since you get access to an exclusive $5,000 freeroll that will be held in mid October. Existing RakeBrain players only need to earn 400 points to qualify. Unfortunately, players who already have a real-money account at Full Tilt are not eligible for this promotion. So just my advice go out there and take advantage of this and maybe you end up the winner of the freeroll.

I’ve heard a lot about players in the past who have poker backers.  Basically what happens here is that the backers will put up some money for another player’s buy-in and possibly hotel room (or players) as something of an investment.  There are different arrangements depending on who the backer is but in the end, the backers always expect more in return than they give (hence the investment idea).

These backers can come in the form of major players or as just companies that invest in different interests and they almost always take some kind of huge cut from a big cash the player makes.  In addition to taking a cut, sometimes the backers will even want past money they put up for the player back as well.  Over the weekend I actually had the chance to talk to one of these backed players and get a little more insight into the backer world.

He said that he was backed by a company out of New York and had made some cashes during the WSOP this year and had cashed in some previous major tournaments as well.  However, he also said that he found himself almost 120K in debt to these backers before the WSOP and has had to win a lot of that money back.  With his WSOP cashes and mostly through online play, he has cut that debt down to about 15K but all of this has me wondering about something.

Why doesn’t he play exclusively online?  It seems as if he makes a lot more money that way and he won’t have some outstanding debt owed to a backing company either.  Sure he won’t get to travel to all the cool places that he does under the backing company as he’d be pretty busy playing online most of the time but eventually he’ll earn enough money to do what he wants anyways.  

In the end though, it’s his decision and it would be hard to give up all that traveling to different cities and countries to focus exclusively online.