Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2008

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Year in Review: Return to the norm in August

The Razor continued his strong run in 2008 with a WPT Legends of Poker win.

By Jason Kirk

This is the eighth in a 12-part series taking a month-by-month look at what happened with poker in 2008. The series will publish every other day until the end of the year, covering the major happenings from all corners of the poker industry.

After the yearly World Series of Poker-induced coma, tournament poker action came trickling back all around the globe - and online - in August.

Tournaments

FTOPS IX

For the third time in 2008, Full Tilt Poker opened up the tournament floodgates, and online poker players responded by making the Full Tilt Online Poker Series IX the most successful iteration of the series yet.

A total of 46,925 entrants built a combined prize pool of $17,446,400 over the 25 events that encompassed the FTOPS IX. Eight of the events, including the Main Event, fell just short of the number of players needed to surpass the guarantee and saw Full Tilt chip in the difference.

Yuval "yuvee04" Bronshtein looked like he might make a run for the FTOPS Most Valuable Player award when he scooped back-to-back events. Online star Kevin "GetPWN3d" Saul earned the MVP honor, though, thanks primarily to final tables in events 12 and 17 and a 10th-place finish in Event 16.

The ninth FTOPS wrapped up with 4,880 players taking to the virtual felt to contest the Main Event. Player dubbeemin conquered the field for a healthy payday of $432,400.

WPT Legends of Poker

After winning two WSOP bracelets, nearly winning the WSOP Player of the Year, and making two World Poker Tour TV tables, it would have been excusable for John Phan to take it easy for the rest of 2008. Instead, "The Razor" sliced up the 373-player-strong field at the 2008 Legends of Poker main event and took home the $1,091,428 top prize.

Just as impressive at this year's Legends of Poker was Men "The Master" Nguyen. He won two preliminary events at the festival en route to claiming Player of the Year honors.

APT Macau

The Chinese island of Macau played host to the first of three major events within a month when the Asian Poker Tour came to town in the last week of August.

Ukrainian-born U.S. resident Yevgeniy Timoshenko came out tops from a field of 257, which fell 43 players short of matching the $1.5 million guaranteed prize pool. Timoshenko took home a solid $500,000 for his final-table performance.

LAPT Punta del Este

The Latin American Poker Tour wrapped up Season 1 in the seaside Uruguayan resort of Punta del Este with a field of 351 players vying for the third and final LAPT title of the season.

In the end it was Spain's Jose Miguel Espinar who emerged victorious over a final table featuring the likes of Alex Brenes and 2008 WSOP bracelet winner Alexandre Gomes. Espinar delivered several suck-outs, including A-J vs. AA against Argentina's Juan Jose Perez, on the way to the $241,735 first prize.

Industry

PartyPoker turns seven

Online poker is still a relatively young industry, so it's worth noting that PartyPoker celebrated its seventh anniversary in August. Once the world's largest poker room, PartyPoker has changed direction and lost ground to PokerStars since abandoning the U.S. market in the wake of the UIGEA.

It still remains one of the most successful poker rooms on the Internet, a fact confirmed when it announced a $22.7 million profit for the first half of 2008. That marked a $75 million upward swing from the same half-year in 2007.

PKR celebrates second anniversary

Industry newcomer PKR might not have been around the block as many times as PartyPoker, but it has enjoyed considerable success during its first two years in operation.

The 3-D poker room passed the two-million-user mark just after its second anniversary, surpassing more established sites like Ladbrokes, Cryptologic and Betfair along the way to becoming the second-fastest-growing online poker room.

WPT bleeds cash - again; faces NASDAQ delisting

World Poker Tour Enterprises announced in August that it had once again lost money during the second quarter of 2008. Steve Lipscomb's brainchild lost a total of $3.9 million in Q2, down from a loss of $3.3 million in the same quarter of 2007.

The continued poor performance of WPTE led to its stock price dipping below the $1 per share threshold required to maintain listing on the NASDAQ index, which triggered a letter from NASDAQ giving the company 180 days to regain compliance or face delisting.

Harrah's profits down

The WPT's parent company wasn't the only poker-related venture to weather economic troubles in August. Harrah's announced that its second-quarter revenues for 2008 were down 3.7% from the year before and that 2007 profits had turned into 2008 losses.

"The first half of the year presented us with the most turbulent economic conditions the casino-entertainment industry has faced in years," said Gary Loveman, the chairman, president and CEO of Harrah's.

"Customer visitation fell in the second quarter as consumers coped with higher fuel costs, declining asset values, the impact of widespread flooding in the Midwest and other financial challenges."

Legal Issues

U.S., EU online gambling talks delayed

EU talks delayed by U.S.

A year of U.S. trade troubles stemming from the UIGEA continued in August when the U.S. Trade Representative delayed scheduled talks with the European Union over online gambling.

At the time, U.S. officials gave neither a reason for the delay nor a date for resumption of talks with EU officials investigating whether UIGEA was discriminatory against offshore gambling operators.

U.K. gambling commission report

While the American government dealt with the ramifications of its antigambling policies, the U.K. government took a look at its own acceptance of online gambling.

The results of the U.K. Gambling Commission's study showed that the flood of online gambling addiction feared by social conservatives had yet to manifest itself; 8.8% of respondents reported participating in at least one form of remote gambling in the previous month, a figure unchanged from the commission's 2007 study.

Poker players respond to GOP antigambling platform

With the pivotal U.S. presidential election approaching, the Republican Party decided to include language attacking online gambling in its 2008 party platform. Poker players were outraged by such an attack and responded with their opinions on the GOP's official platform Web site.

The Fossilman takes his poker and his politics quite seriously.

"My point is simple. Is the Republican Party no longer the party of personal freedom and individual responsibility? Why has this party, that used to protect my rights, now become the party that wants to create a Nanny-state? Stay away from issues of personal liberty, except to remove old laws that restrict these liberties," wrote former WSOP Main Event champ Greg Raymer.

Other posters decried the legality of online gambling on lotteries and horse racing while poker was not protected and asked the GOP to push for regulation of the multibillion-dollar industry. Some posters even warned the Republicans that they felt strongly enough about protecting online poker to consider becoming single-issue voters.

After the outcry, GOP platform crafters removed the offending language from the document, but it was reinserted after pressure was exerted by social conservatives.

Related Articles:

• Year in Review: July sees WSOP cliffhanger
• Year in Review: Pro victories mark 2008 WSOP
• Year in Review: Final-table delay confirmed
• Year in Review: Seidel finally wins WPT title
• Year in Review: Tourney, legal action heat up
• Year in Review: Ivey, Black rack up big wins
• Year in Review: ElkY pounds PCA in Jan.

 

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