The PokerListings Daily 3-Bet is a stacked Rolodex, a quick call or two and an A-List table to share at the afternoon poker news People's Choice Awards.
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Today in the 3-Bet we find Phil Ivey not going down without a fight, Phil Hellmuth makes a cool friend and Bill Perkins shows some amazing generosity.
1) "We Gamble Regardless"
We knew Phil Ivey wouldn't go down (or pay $15m) without a fight.
Not giving it up easy.
Things were looking a bit grim last week when the Borgata filed a $15.5m repayment claim against Ivey from the now infamous "edge-sorting sessions" of 2012 when he and his partner, Cheng Yin Sun, won $9.6m.
The $15.5m number came from the original winnings plus interest, "expected winnings" for the casino and repayment of comps.
Ivey's team had 20 days to respond and it now has, saying the legal basis Borgata used, a 2012 case involving 14 players at the Golden Nugget, is inapplicable.
In that case the punters realized a deck of cards wasn't being shuffled and won 41 straight hands with increased bets; Ivey's team says that's a whole different ballgame.
Not only did Ivey not break any rules and regulations, as a previous judge ruled, but edge sorting only 'provides information for betting purposes' and 'doesn't change the percentage of the winning hands to any extent.'
As his partner Sun put it, "we gamble regardless, because I can't be accurate all the time, you know."
2) Jim Harbaugh's Cool Friends
Phil Hellmuth gets mentioned in dozens of mainstream press articles about poker, naturally - typically for his petulant behavior at the tables or his string of WSOP bracelets.
It's not too often he's referred to as someone's "cool friend," though. Especially if that friend is former Stanford/49ers and current Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh.
Harbaugh has drawn a lot of ink over the past few years and mostly, like Phil, for his unconventional but successful methodologies.
ESPN's latest feature on Harbaugh centers around his eclectic and "cool" circle of friends - of which Hellmuth has been since the Stanford days.
Not only has Phil bent Jim's ear on poker hands and tell reading, the articles says, he's got Harbaugh using poker analogies in his press conferences. Which is actually pretty awesome.
While you might debate just how 'cool' it is to hang with Hellmuth he's in pretty good company on this list with Michael Jordan, Nascar champ Brad Keselowski, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan and Pulitzer-winning photographer David Turnley, among others.
3) Perkins Gives Out 13 Packages to Bahamas Championship
How much fun is Bill Perkins?
Generous and fun.
If you've followed the High Roller scene lately you'll know Perkins as a regular in the biggest events around the world and pals in particular of Antonio Esfandiari, Brian Rast and Jeff Gross.
His propensity for high-stakes props bets among that crew is well known including the epic Esfandiari DQ for peeing-under-the-table lunge affair at last year's PCA.
A hedge funder with a seemingly bottomless bankroll Perkins has plunged into the poker world wholeheartedly and, as a surprise pick in the GPL draft, even helped the Berlin Bears roll to the GPL finals in Las Vegas.
He's a blast to watch play, whatever the format, and has even taken to streaming live on his own Thirst Lounge Twitch channel.
It's always worth a watch and it was even more so for 13 lucky subscribers the other day when he randomly drew their names and gave them full 2017 PokerStars Bahamas Championship packages.
You read that right; 13 main event buy-ins plus hotel/flights just for following his Twitch stream. That's just cool. He even already upped the stakes with a prop bet on whether they'll make a profit or not.
Who knows what he'll come up with next!
