Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Laak, Jeff Gross

For its official international launch, Dans le Carré International is offering you some exclusive content. Congratulations to the team for managing a full interview with this crazy bunch of talented players that are @Antonio Esfandiari, @Phil Laak and @Jeffrey Gross 

They talk about Death, Dreams and the One Drop, plus plenty of topics and laughs for you on RankingHero!

British Poker Award for Best International Player

The BluffEurope British Poker Awards ceremony will take place on March 3rd at the Hippodrome Casino in London's West End. Who do you think will be voted Best International Player?

@David 'Bakes' Baker 

@Daniel Kelly 

@Viktor "isildur1" Blom

@Daniel Negreanu 

@Marvin Rettenmaier 

Watch Your Chips This Weekend

This year, in the space of two months we’ve had several big poker chip stories - the counterfeit chips introduced at the #BorgataWinterOpen2014 by @Christian Lusardi and later found clogging the pipes at his hotel, a couple who introduced fake chips at Maryland Live! Casino in Maryland, and the @Chan Pelton scandal at WSOP in Florida.

Unlike the occasional Las Vegas casino heists involving hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars, this time it is all about a single chip. Moreover the thief in question stole it from himself.

The chip was of T25,000 denomination and the thief was the winner of a World Series of Poker No Limit Texas Hold’em event at the Palm Beach Kennel Club in South Florida. Confronted by casino staff who had checked the video surveillance, Chan returned the chip and explained he had wanted to keep it as a souvenir. Yet, he is suspected of intending to use it in the Main Event. Chan Pelton has since been stripped of his title, has forfeited the prize money, and has been banned fro Caesars properties.

Pelton is a seasoned poker player with about $250,000 in live tournament winnings. He told SouthFlorida.com, “I’m literally shell-shocked. This is my livelihood,” and is reportedly going to sue WSOP.

Chip thefts occur more often in movies than in real life. At least judging from what comes out in the media - though tweets such as this one: “Don't be naive. There's cheating in EVERY tourney!” seem to suggest otherwise.

In any case, casinos rarely take responsibility for missing chips so make sure you keep an eye on your bills and chips at all times. If you have to leave the table, count your stack before you leave and after you return. A post in a twoplustwo thread on the topic even recommends taking a picture of the stack with one’s phone. One easy precaution is to place the small denomination chips on top of the big ones (and we can only wish you lots of those :)

My Poker Scene of the Week

Poker lessons from Brad Pitt and George Clooney:

Watch out for the 'all reds' showdown ;)

L.A. Poker Classic Main Event Starts Saturday

The 60-event L.A. Poker Classic series is drawing closer to its culmination - the televised $10,000 WPT NLTH 6-day championship starts on Saturday.

As the $10,000 Main Event approaches, the LAPC hashtag is getting hotter on Twitter. Already the list of eminent pros who have checked in from the @Commerce Casino includes the likes of @Phil Hellmuth, @Joe Hachem, and @Marvin Rettenmaier.

The #LAPC2014 series includes a broad range of limits, games, and buy-ins. It started on Jan. 17 with a $75 buy-in Facebook Exclusive Tournament (must "like" Commerce Casino on Facebook to qualify to play). The 51 events since the opening included a $1600 buy-in Playboy Poker Tournament (which ended with a six-way deal at the final table), a $570 Open Face Chinese Poker Tournament, and a $350 Ladies Championship, to mention just a few.

Photo: http://www.lapcnews.com/

Last night @Marvin Rettenmaier played the Jerry Stensrud NLHT final table. Some of us watched him on http://www.lapcnews.com/p/live-video-stream.html as he finished 4th with a 10♠ 10♥  all-in that didn’t hold up against 9♣ 9♦.

Full LAPC coverage 

Watch LAPC events live

Refunds Refuel Hopes for a Brighter Future of US Online Poker

@Daniel Cates-Jungleman was one very happy - if still incredulous - young man yesterday. Just like thousands of other Full Tilt Poker players in the U.S. who were badly hit by #BlackFriday. Now finally some 30,000 of them are about to get their money back - a total of $82 million at this stage. The Twitter and Facebook feeds have been full of 'weeees' and 'oh hayyys' by people who have received their email notices from GCG (Garden City Group was the U.S. desginated claims administrator) with the amount of their payment.

"..Petitioners who have been approved for payment in the first round of distributions and whose bank account information has passed the preliminary testing process will be sent an email notice on Monday, February 24 or Tuesday, February 25 with the amount of their payment. The first round of payments is scheduled to be issued on Friday, February 28."

The deadline to submit petitions for remission was November 16, 2013. While the process is still open, "there is no guarantee that late-filed Petitions will be accepted".

At this stage, refund checks will NOT be issued to: the players who filed objections regarding their balance as established by the GCG nor to those identified as Full Tilt pros and affiliates.

One thing is certain, the long-awaited payments will have an impact far beyond the estimated 30,000 beneficiaries: they would boost Americans’ confidence in the newly regulated online poker market and help the industry gain credibility and good will as it continues its struggle for legalisation in other states of America.

Phil Ivey Back From a Well-Deserved Holiday

@Phil Ivey took a short holiday in South Africa recently, after the WPT #Alpha8Johannesburg, and if ever there was a well-deserved vacation, that must certainly be it.

A few weeks ago, when the whole industry was buzzing that Phil Ivey was supposedly broke, he made a fantastic performance at the #AussieMillions250K challenge and recorded his biggest score ever – $3.7 million. And as if that wasn’t enough he set another record by becoming the first two-time winner of the 250K Challenge.

The 100K and 250K events drew a lot of criticism because of the allowed reentries and the mind-boggling amounts spent by the high-rollers who fired bullet after bullet, which some have argued is ruining the game and its public perception. In the 250K Challenge the reentry craze  brought the number of entries to an unprecedented 46 and the prize pool to be shared among 6 players to nearly AU$ 12 million!

Even in this respect Phil Ivey has come out victorious - he was not among the players to fire multiple bullets and made it through with a single entry. The @Aussie Millions 250K Challenge showed Phil on top of his game and reminded the world of poker why he is widely considered the best player in history.

 Phil Ivey on Twitter: "I've been enjoying a Real vacation here #southafrica" 

Now that he's back fresh and rested from his holiday, with his bankroll replenished, we must be in for some awesome Ivey moments!..