Poker in the News — Weekly Round-up for August 17, 2018

By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated Aug 17, 2018

Malaysian Ace Wins $1.13 Million In Russian High Roller Competition

Ivan Leow bests a roster of top international players to claim victory in the PartyPokerLIVE-hosted Triton Poker Super High Roller in Sochi, Russia

A total field of 29 entries (20 unique players and nine re-entries) ponied up the RUB 6,000,000 buy-in this week for the PartyPokerLIVE-hosted Triton Poker Super High Roller in Sochi, Russia, where Malaysian ace Ivan Leow (38) emerged victorious to claim the US$1.13 million main prize.

Among those competing were internationally respected names like Phil Ivey, Timothy Adams, Richard Yong, Dietrich Fast, Patrik Antonius, Manig Loeser, Paul Phua, Philipp Gruissem, Niall Farrell, Koray Aldemir, and Timofey Kuznetsov.

Just four would cash from a prize pool of over US$2.6 million.

Leow displayed his typically aggressive style of play in the early stages but busted and immediately re-entered, continuing his onslaught to end in the heads up against Germany’s Abraham Passet.

The two battled for over an hour with the lead changing at times, before Leow was finally able to eliminate the German player, sending Passet to the exit and a second-placing pay-day of $740,880.

The win represented another step in Leow’s remarkable run of wins this year which has seen him make five 6-figure pay-days, including a million dollar reward in the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series Jeju, Korea (see previous InfoPowa report).

Other final table cashes went to Wai Leong Chan ($472,500) and Manig Loeser ($283,500).

Singapore Poker Pro Wins Appt Manila Main Event

$243,324 pay-day for Wilson Lim

It’s been a profitable weekend for Singapore poker pro Wilson Lim, who took down the Asia Pacific Poker Tour Manila main event in the Philippines, besting a field of 1,364 to earn the main prize of $243,324 and a PokerStars Platinum Pass worth $30,000.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Lim, who started final table action as the short stack but managed to recover and fight his way into the heads up with Chinese ace Yuan Chao Li, who had dominated final table action for much of the final day and looked like the man to beat.

Li took his aggressive playing style into the heads up but was met by a spirited response from Lim as the two fought it out for the big money. In the end Lim was able to stay in front long enough to eliminate a tough opponent, sending Li home with a well-earned runner up prize of $149,334.

Online Poker Site Reports DDoS Attack

Americas Cardroom not the only target

Recent posts on Twitter have indicated that Americas Cardroom was not the only online poker site attacked by DDoS hackers this week (see previous InfoPowa report).

Very little detail is currently available but it appears that:

On August 9 PartyPoker advised players: “Apologies for the technical difficulties, we are working to rectify, the site has been targeted with a DDoS attack from third parties. We hope to resume normal business very soon and will keep you updated. Thank you for your patience.”

UPDATE

After at first claiming disruptions to its tournaments were due to “technical issues” PokerStars has acknowledged on social media that it was also impacted by DDoS assaults in the same general timeframe as Party Poker and ACR.

The three operators were each targeted in the attacks within the space of just over a week, starting August 5.

French Online Poker Reportedly In Good Shape

Latest ARJEL quarterly indicates continued growth

For the sixth quarter running French online poker operators have reported growth in revenues, the French regulator ARJEL notes in posting its Q2-2018 numbers.

ARJEL sees the continued growth as a positive sign for a once-troubled sector that saw an initial 22 operators dwindle to just five in the first four years of regulated and highly taxed activity.

Winamax, PokerStars France, PartyPoker France, Bwin France and PMU France continue to operate.

The regulator says that both first and second quarter revenues this year are the highest since 2013.

ARJEL’s H1-2018 figures show online poker revenues up 6 percent year-on-year at Euro 129 million, with cash game revenue up 14 percent and tournament revenue 12 percent better than a year earlier.

The regulator reported that in the second quarter sports betting ruled, with wagers soaring 61 percent year-on-year at just over Euro 1 billion, mainly due to World Cup football action. Revenue from betting hit Euro 181 million – a rise of more than two thirds.

Football was the most popular sport, recording 59 percent of all bets as the number of weekly active sports punters rose 75 percent to 527,000 thanks to promotional incentives awarded during World Cup (Euro 22 million).

ARJEL reported that wagers on horseracing also grew, up 5 percent y-o-y in Q2 to reach Euro 250 million, generating revenue up 6 percent at Euro 61 million.

Poker cash game wagers rose 9 percent in Q2, reaching Euro 925 million, whilst tournament entry fees rose 10 percent to Euro 525 million. Overall Q2 poker revenue rose just 2 percent despite an increase in players of 8 percent to 246,000.

Filatov The Victor In Live Millions Russia Main Event

US$ 887,000 pay-day for PartyPoker ambassador

PartyPoker ambassador Anatoly Filatov has added the rouble equivalent of US$ 887,000 to his US$ 2.1 million in career earnings after winning the US$ 4,700 buy-in PartyPoker Live Millions Russia Main Event in Sochi this week.

The event attracted a field of 916 players which distilled to a final table comprising seven Russians, one Belarusian and Malaysian poker pro Chin Wei Lim.

Filatov left his run very late, only breaking out of the low stacks on Day 4 of the competition, when just three tables remained. However, once in gear he powered through the survivors to end up in the heads up against fellow Russian pro Gor Kazaryan, with the duo evenly matched.

For the next 80 minutes the two battled it out, with the lead changing several times before Filatov was able to hold onto it and ultimately eliminate Kazaryan at second for US$ 576,030,

Other final table cashes included:

Andrey Malyshev $394,802
Viktor Khodorenko $265,860
Alexey Melnikov $177,240
Gleb Tremzin $124,068
Mikhail Galitskiy $88,620
Konstantin Uspenskii $62,034

Pokerstars Announces New Galactic Series

Designed to serve players in shared liquidity nations France, Spaion and Portugal

In a move to provide tournament action for players in the shared liquidity pool comprising France, Spain and Portugal, PokerStars has announced that it is to invest Euro 15 million in guarantees for its new Galactic Series.

French, Italian and Portuguese players were denied access to top tournaments like WCOOP for legal reasons, and the new series of 186 events is designed to address the issue. Satellites to the first feature events started this week on the .fr, .es, and .pt platforms.

The schedule for the series consists of only NL Hold´em and PL Omaha tournaments, and the series kicks off on August 26, running through to September 13.

There will be some overlap with PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker, which runs September 2 to 17.

Brian Cullingworth

Infopowa news was a staple of Casinomeister’s news from 2000 until 2019. Brian Cullingworth was the main writer, contributor, and was one of the most knowledgeable persons I have ever known involved in the online casino industry.

We first met in January 2001 at the ICE in London where I observed him going booth to booth interviewing online casino, software, and licensing jurisdiction representatives. Brian was also heavily involved with our forum as “Jetset“, he was involved as an informal consultant to eCOGRA, the OPA, and was a player advocate who assisted countless aggrieved players with his connections to industry folks. He also published “Casino Cautions” via Infopowa news for quite a number of years. These can be found in our news archives.

His passing in February 2019 was a dark day for us. He will be forever missed.


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