Poker News in Brief: Sept. 21-27

The 2009 WSOPE is in full swing this week with J.P. Kelly, Erik Cajelais and Jani Vilmunen all taking down gold bracelets.

But despite the focus on London there was even more going in the poker world with Jamie Gold having more legal troubles and Yevgeniy Timoshenko taking down yet another major tournament by winning the WCOOP Main Event.

Of course there's always even more going on behind the scenes that doesn't necessarily make it to the front page of PokerListings.com. Fortunately, as part of our ongoing Poker News in Brief feature we've collected a list of those stories below.

This week we'll take a look at the death of a Las Vegas legend, Phil Hellmuth taking a shot at the WSOP, PokerStars potentially adding an online division to their team and poker in politics.

Wyden pulls online gaming amendment

It didn't take long for Senator Ron Wyden to change his mind about a possible amendment that would have seen legalized online gambling revenues go towards healthcare reform in the U.S.

Barely one week after proposing the amendment, Wyden opted to pull it from the table deciding he didn't want to add another controversial issue to the healthcare debate.

Wyden's bill had already gained support from Rep. Jim McDermott, Rep. Barney Frank and Internet gambling advocacy groups like the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative.

Bob Stupak in 2007.

Las Vegas Icon Bob Stupak dies at 67

Bob Stupak, builder of the Stratosphere and a WSOP bracelet winner, died at Desert Springs Hospital on Thursday after a long battle with leukemia.

Stupak was one of the earliest visionaries in Las Vegas and was also responsible for creating Las Vegas world in 1974.

"Bob Stupak was a true visionary and he will be sorely missed," said a statement from the Stratosphere.

Puggy Pearson taught Stupak to play poker and in 1989, Stupak won a WSOP bracelet in the $5,000 Deuce-to-Seven event. Stupak also made the final table of the 2003 WPT's L.A. Poker Classic and put in an appearance on the GSN series High Stakes Poker.

Phil Hellmuth takes shot at WSOP

Phil Hellmuth is arguably the WSOP's most successful player with 11 bracelets, but the UltimateBet pro is hinting he might not play the series if Harrah's opens its own online poker room.

In an appearance on the Hardcore Poker Show, Hellmuth mentioned he thought there was a potential battle brewing between Harrah's and established online rooms like UltimateBet, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker.

Hellmuth went on to say that if Harrah's decided to restrict competing poker room logos from its competitions there was a possibility that all the players from the major sites would form their own WSOP-style event.

Isn't ElkY an online pro team by himself?

PokerStars adding Online Pro division?

It appears that PokerStars will be adding a primarily online section of its Team Pro roster.

The employee that runs the official PokerStars twitter account tweeted the following Friday:

"Team PokerStars Online Pro is a new branch of our team who'll be playing mainly online not live. Anyone will be able to apply in due course."

Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu re-Tweeted the message.

PokerStars already has some very respectable online players with Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Jason "treysfull21" Mercier and Hevad "RaiNKhaN" Khan all in the Team PokerStars Pro fold.

Bobb Barr speaks out on Internet Gambling

Former House Representative Bob Barr is the latest public figure to comment on the state of online gambling in his Atlanta Journal-Constitution column - the Barr Code.

Barr mentioned that the potentially revenue generated from legalizing, regulating and taxing online poker was becoming harder for the government to ignore.

Barr went on to say it was very likely that Barney Frank's pro-online gambling bill would go before a hearing this fall.

Earlier this year, conservative columnist George Will wrote in his Washington Post column that he supported the legalization of online poker.

Harrah's extends contract with IMG Sports & Entertainment

Harrah's Interactive Entertainment and IMG Sports & Entertainment announced a four-year contract extension for global representation of the WSOP property this week.

According to the agreement, IMG will continue to use its international network to help establish the brand in areas beyond Las Vegas and London.

"We are looking to emphasize the 'World' in World Series of Poker as our vision of the brand extends beyond the annual events in Las Vegas and London," said Mitch Garber, CEO of Harrah's Interactive Entertainment.

"By tapping the global reach and expertise of IMG, we are confident that together we can take the brand to new levels on the international stage through new international bracelet events and other WSOP licensed poker events."

IMG has worked with the WSOP since 2005 and helped attract corporate sponsors like Jack Link's, Hershey's and Planters.