He is yet to win an event but Phil Hellmuth’s consistency at reaching the final table is paying off. He heads up the WSOP Player-of-the-Year leaderboard in front of bracelet winning players. Sam Stein is in second place and only trails Hellmuth by eight points.

John Juanda may have beaten Hellmuth for a win in the $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Championship but two second place finishes for the The Poker Brat mean that he is ahead of Juanda, who is in third, by nearly 64 points.

Further down the list, Brit Jake Cody is in eighth place after winning the $25k Heads-Up Championship early in the World Series. Betrand “ElkY” Grospellier’s victory in the 10k Seven-Card-Stud Championship means that he is currently in eleventh.

Submitted by Max Roberts

The 24-year-old Floridian poker pro outlasted a field of 507 players in the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Six-Max event to take down $619,575 and a second WSOP bracelet early Thursday morning.

“This bracelet feels way better than the first one,” he said.

As expected the $5k PLO attracted one of the most talent-heavy fields of the 2011 WSOP and Mercier had to cut through a final table that included big name pros David Chiu and Michael McDonald.

Mercier then had to beat fellow Floridian Hans Winzeler to secure his second bracelet.

Although he had the rail whipped into a frenzy Mercier was calm after winning and talked about what it meant to be one of the fastest rising stars in the poker world.

“It’s important to me that everyone knows I’m one of the best,” he said. “I feel like I’m getting to that level.”

Since busting on to the poker scene in 2008, Mercier has put together one of the most impressive runs in the history of the game.

To date Mercier has won EPT San Remo, EPT London High Roller, a $1,500 WSOP PLO event, NAPT Mohegan Sun Bounty Shootout, NAPT Uncasville High Roller and now the $5,000 WSOP PLO event. He also placed fourth in the 2009 WSOPE Main Event.

He now has over $6.3 million in live tournament earnings since 2008, which is more than most respected poker pros will earn in their lifetime.

This victory was particularly meaningful for Mercier as two weeks ago he watched his close friend Allen Bari win his first WSOP bracelet.

“I was super excited about Allen’s final table,” he said. “When he won that was one of the biggest rushes I’ve ever experienced.”

One might expect Mercier has earned a couple days off with his momentous victory but he mentioned he’s planning on playing tomorrow.

“I’m just trying to play as many WSOP events as I can so I can win as many bracelets as possible,” he said.

The 2011 WSOP continues through July 19. For comprehensive coverage live from Las Vegas check PokerListings’ Live Updates brought to you by PartyPoker.

This article deals with the latter.

Welcome to this week’s WSOP In and Out List.

WSOP In List – June 11-17

Geriatri-donks: In

Old people who play poker are in this week because they managed to assemble the biggest one-day field in WSOP tournament history.

The $1,000 Seniors Championship attracted 3,752 players, filling the room with the chatter of early-bird specials and making the many bathrooms here at the Rio all but inaccessible.

Well over half a million dollars is on the line for first place. We can only imagine the kind of pimped-out Rascal you could get with that much scratch. (Scratch was slang for money in the olden days.)

Daniel Negreanu: In

Kid Poker is in this week for taking one step towards the edgier, more dangerous persona we’d like him to adopt.

Negreanu has always been a little too nice, a little too non-confrontational.

Yesterday he lost a big pot deep in the $10k Limit event and exploded, smashing his Dr. Dre Beats headphones into pieces on the ground and knocking his chair over in the process.

Keep it up Daniel. We know there’s a hellraiser hidden somewhere underneath that innocent Canadian exterior.

Triple Crown Winners: In

With ElkY’s victory earlier this week we’ve had two Triple Crown Winners already at this year’s WSOP.

That’s half of the four total Triple Crowns that have ever been won!

For those of you who may not know, to earn Poker’s Triple Crown you must have victories in main events on the EPT and the WPT, as well as a WSOP bracelet.

ElkY joined Jake Cody as the two owners of that prestigious title so far this summer.

WSOP Out List – June 11-17

Folding Aces Pre-Flop: Out

Really Brandon? This is the guy you want to play tennis against?

 

Folding bullets before the flop has never been in but we heard a story from the Seniors event today that forced us to include it on this week’s Out List.

A player was reportedly facing a raise, a three-bet and a four-bet shove and decided to muck his pocket aces, explaining to the table that he knew he was up against aces and kings, and therefore had no outs should a king hit the board.

As it turns out the hand played out exactly as he had predicted, with aces getting cracked by pocket kings.

But thinking like that is results oriented, not to mention just dumb. Our number one tip is to never fold aces pre-flop.

Brandon Adams: Out

Brandon Adams has been placed on this week’s Out List for ever thinking he could beat the great Patrik Antonius at anything, let along tennis.

Earlier this week Adams put up $30k against PA’s $295,000 on a best of three tennis match here in Las Vegas.

The fact that Antonius was a competitive tennis player and works out twice a day is beside the point. Have you seen him in a pair of tennis shorts?

PA demolished Adams and threw his $30k on the pile.

Vancouver: Out

It pains me to put Vancouver on the Out List this week, seeing as how I live there, but the city has brought it on itself.

With the exception of our two Stanley Cup losses, and one failed Guns and Roses concert, I’ve never been embarrassed about hailing from Vancouver.

C’mon guys, we’re trying to have a civilization here.

PKR.com is spreading its social wings and taking over four of the summer’s biggest music festivals. The PKR Social: Summer of Music brings PKR players together to experience PKR’s famous hospitality.

Daniel Grant, Community Manager commented, ‘PKR Socials have been a great success since their introduction earlier this year and we look forward to introducing the PKR Social concept to France and Sweden.

Players can get their hands on tickets from just £21 which includes complimentary drinks during the day. The four festivals are:

Hard Rock Calling – London, Hyde Park, 24-26 June

Main Square Festival – Arras, France, 1-3 July

Popaganda – Stockholm, Sweden, 26-27 August

The Berlin Festival – Berlin, Germany, 9-10 September

If you want to book your place, email PKRSocial@PKR.com

For more poker news, strategies and competitions, subscribe to Poker Player magazine.

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Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond

Galfond played a total of 1,459 hands last night, the majority recorded in a 6-Max $300/$600 PLO session against Rui Cao, URnotINdanger2, skjervoy, gavz101, Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Gus Hansen.

It was stiff competition, even for Galfond, but the Maryland-native seemed to be a step ahead of everyone.
In one of his biggest hands of the night Galfond flopped a set of aces and then rivered quad aces to scoop a $134k monster from gavz101.

Galfond would go on to play several enormous $300/$600 heads-up PLO sessions against old rival Gus Hansen.
Although the Great Dane has given Galfond fits this year, the tides finally turned last night and Galfond raked in over $250k from Hansen.

When the smoke had cleared and Galfond decided to finally call it quits for the night he had earned $346k. Galfond was the biggest winner in March and is now up nearly $1 million in online poker in 2011.

Galfond wasn’t the only player to have a memorable night as Frenchman Rui Cao pulled in $299k.
Cao has been streaky in 2011, to say the least, but he’s finally in the black with approximately $50k in profit.
Scott “URnotINdanger2” Palmer also had a fantastic night, earning $185k on his Full Tilt account and another $76k on his PokerStars “urnotindangr” account.

Meanwhile the normally solid Andreas “skjervoy” Torbergsen had a disastrous evening. The Norwegian lost $241k, which takes his 2011 earnings down to $550k.
It appears Gus Hansen is finally starting to cool down as the Team Full Tilt Pro lost $238k last night. He’s still up $3.5 million this year.

Some of the other big losers last night were NoParasan (-$158k), gavz101 (-$70k) and Tom “durrrr” Dwan (-$62k).
It was pretty much par for the course as far as Dwan was concerned. He’s lost over $2 million online this year.

Article Source: Pokerlistings.com

WPT Vienna champ Dmitry Gromov.

Although the €447,840 first-place prize marked his biggest career score, Gromov is no stranger to the winner’s circle, having posted a first-place finish at the PokerStars Russian Poker Series Kiev Grand Final last December for $201,363 and at the 2010 Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza III in Las Vegas last July for $316,759.

He now has well over $1 million in career live tournament earnings.

WPT Vienna drew 555 Players creating a €1,776,000 prizepool and breaking the record for entrants in a European WPT event set at WPT Amneville last November.

Although Gromov came into the final holding the chip lead, 24-year-old Italian Alessio Isaia’s name was on the marquee, having booked a win at WPT Venice for €380,000 and finished runner-up on the Malta leg of the PokerStars Italian Poker Tour for €80,000 last month.

Isaia could do no better than seventh place as Gromov held the lead throughout and beat fellow Russian Maksim Kolosov heads-up in just five hands.

The World Poker Tour now moves on to Bratislava where the €2,500+€220 main event begins Wednesday at the Golden Vegas Casino. Less than an hour from Vienna, organizers are running a free shuttle to the casino.

Article Source: Pokerlistings.com

We’re less than a week into the 2011 World Series of Poker and already we could be looking at our first British winner of the year. Jake Cody is a WSOP rookie, but that hasn’t stopped the WPT, EPT and recent SCOOP champ from grinding his way to the semi-finals of the revamped $25k Heads-Up Championship.

With a Triple Crown now in his sights, Cody must fight off none other than the Gus ‘The Great Dane’ Hansen to be in with a shout of his first bracelet and the $851,192 prize, with all four remaining players already guaranteed $283,966 a piece.

Hansen has been in blistering form over recent weeks, and with a Heads-Up title already to his name following success at last year’s WSOPE, 2011’s most bankable high-stakes player will be keen to a WSOP another bracelet to his already impressive resume.

Of the two players, Hansen’s had arguably the tougher route to the semi-final, seeing off big names like Tom Dwan, Jason Mercier and Daniel Alaei.

The winner of his Cody vs. Hansen will face the winner of the second semi-final between Yevgeniy Timoshenko and Eric Froehlich this weekend.

For all your WSOP updates, check out our Twitter page @PokerPlayerUK

For more poker news, strategies and competitions, subscribe to Poker Player magazine.

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With more than $2m in tournament winnings, a WSOP bracelet and six long years in the game, it’s surprising that Scott Seiver is still a name many of you will have never heard of. Well, scratch that. This weekend the Las Vegas native bagged his first WPT title and the $1,618,334 first prize in a dramatic WPT Championship.

Before the first cards were even dealt, the $10,000 buy-in event was mired in controversy, as alleged cheat Ali Tekintamgac was allowed to take his seat. Pros reacted furiously to Tekintamgac’s presence, arguing that organisers should have banned him over his actions at Partouche Poker Tour late last year.

But once the anger had subsided, Seiver went on to record his second major victory since 2008’s WSOP $5k event after one of the toughest WPT final tables of this year.

Seiver found himself up against big names Justin Young and PCA Main Event winner Galen Hall, but it was three-time bracelet winner Farzad Bonyadi who almost pipped him to the $1,618,344 first prize.

Once Hall had bowed out in third place, Seiver held a commanding lead over Bonyadi, ending the competition 41 hands in. When a Ks on the turn gave both players a piece of a Tc-6d-2s-Qc board, Bonyadi check-raised all-in with Q-10 for two pair, only for Seiver to show J-9 for a wining straight.

The final table payouts were as follows:

1 Scott Seiver $1,618,344
2 Farzad Bonyadi $1,061,900
3 Galen Hall $589,355
4 Roger Teska $371,665
5 Tony Gargano $278,749
6 Justin Young $225,654

For more poker news, strategies and competitions, subscribe to Poker Player magazine.

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WSOP bracelet holders Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott, Alan Smurfit and Dan Harrington have joined EPT winners Julian Thew and Roberto Romanello in confirming their attendance.

Football legend Tony Cascarino and Snooker World Champion Ken Doherty are also planning to play, alongside previous Irish Open winners Marty Smyth and Neil Channing.

The €3200+€300 Irish Open will take place April 22-25 in the Burlington Hotel, Dublin.

Article Source: Pokerlistings.com

Coming of a big start to 2011 where he final tabled The Big Event at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles and cashed in the both the NAPT Mohegan Sun main event and Bounty Shootout, Von Kriegenbergh came into the final table with close to twice the chips of anyone near him.

Although he fell out of the lead in a lengthy three-handed battle with three-time WPT finalist Curt Kohlberg and Floridian Justin Zaki, he cracked Zaki’s aces in a miracle hand to double up and came back to win it all heads-up against the veteran Kohlberg.

Von Kriegenbergh collected $1,122,340 for the win, dwarfing his career best score of $140k earned with a fourth-place finish in The Big Event.

“My success is clearly 100 per cent attributed to luck,” said Von Kriegenbergh. “Im just very lucky. I have good karma and the cards just fell my way.”

A total of 433 players entered the WPT’s first ever event in the state of Florida, creating a $4,156,800 prizepool.

Next up for the WPT is the season ending WPT World Championship May 14- 20 at Bellagio in Las Vegas.

Here’s how the final table finished up in Florida:

1. Taylor Von Kriegenbergh – $1,122,340
2. Curt Kohlberg – $586,109
3. Justin Zaki – $415,680
4. Abbey Daniels – $286,819
5. Allen Bari – $211,997
6. Tommy Vedes – $166,272