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Poker continues to gain ground on Capitol Hill! On Monday, Gambling Compliance reported some excellent news (click here, subscription required) in an article entitled Reid Says DoJ Opinion Gives Congress Incentive for Internet Poker Bill.

The article quotes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) as follows: “It [the Department of Justice’s clarification of its interpretation of the scope of the Wire Act as not including online poker] (will) give us an incentive to get something done. We cannot have a series of laws around the country related to [Internet] gaming, I know a lot about gaming. I’m a former chairman of the Nevada [Gaming] Commission, and I think it’s very important that we have a national law.” The article further states that Sen. Reid has confirmed that he is negotiating with Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) on a federal online poker bill bill!

When articles like this goes public, lawmakers always look at public reaction. So, let’s all do our part and tell both that we wish for them to push forward with appropriate online poker legislation! Fortunately, we can do this quickly and easily.

Take Action

1. Let’s send Senators Reid and Kyl prewritten, editable tweets requesting action on poker legislation. They are HERE and HERE.
2. Please be sure to visit the PPA Take Action page.

Interviews

PPA comes before poker media to take on the tough questions as often as possible. I hope you will find these interesting and informative. This past week’s interviews focused on the Justice Department’s Wire Act decision and its impact on Capitol Hill momentum.

Recent appearances:

• OnTilt Radio: Poker Advocacy with Rich Muny, with guest PPA Board Member Linda Johnson (1/16/2012) (listen here).
• Short Stacked Radio: I come on at time point 1:29:55 (1/10/12) (listen here).
• Short Stacked Radio: I come on at time point 1:31:05 (1/3/12) (listen here).
• Website: Poker Advocacy with Rich Muny, with webcast archive (here)

Thank you for your continued support!

This is Pokerati’s new Las Vegas poker room column, and I’m the hired hack on the beat.

As a journalist who recently emigrated from the other side of the Mississippi River to divide his time writing and grinding in Las Vegas, the poker capital of the world, I hear a lot of buzz around town. Much of it is just noise, sometimes it’s early rumblings of actual news, and occasionally it’s just really good FYI for Vegas live-poker-room regs.

We hope to have a little bit of everything here for you. Some of the topics I’m looking to explore:

* Just about every casino has a daily tournament — some just half a sit-n-go while others play like a mini-multitable bracelet event. Where can you get the most play for your buy-in? And what’s really going on with the juice?

* Different rooms have different rules. Some, like Tropicana’s Jamie Gold Room, are throwing many of the standards out the window. Which rooms have the strictest rules? Aria, for instance, has a rule against talking to gain information in a heads-up pot. Why?

* More and more casinos are offering rakeback-type promotions. The “get paid to play” trend sweeping through town varies from place to place. What rooms have the best deals? Is it possible to be a live rakeback grinder? What kind of players do these promos attract? What are the upcoming promotions to look out for?

* How should you go about finding the best action, or any action? Is it Venetian’s updated online list of cash games or Bellagio’s Twitter feed? What should you do to get a seat at the juiciest table in the house? Where should you be playing on a Friday night? Can you find a good game on a Monday?

Whether you play everyday or visit Vegas once a year, I’m here to keep you informed about what’s happening in the games around town. Whether you’re a tournament grinder, cash game specialist, or maybe even just a live-poker bonus whore, we’ll scope out the action. We’re at the table right beside floor managers, dealers, locals and tourists, and we can’t help chatting it up.

Las Vegas is a 24-7 poker hot spot like no other — what happens here sets standards around the world —  and we want to help you maximize your time on the felt.

Some familiar faces and new looks in the mix … er … mixed martial arts.

One of my favorite charity tourneys of the year is this Saturday — Operation: All In … Randy Couture’s  poker tournament and charity auction benefitting his Xtreme Couture GI Foundation. It’s hosted by Karina Jett, so you can expect her usual brand of fun and band of Full Tilt Red Pro expats … and because RC caters to a more MMA than pokery crowd for <s>douchetastic!</s>rather unique table interaction. And with a reasonable buy-in ($220 w $100 rebuys), you stand to get a fair share of genuine tourists, too.

The winner gets $10k in cold American cash this year, too … no fancy qualifiers for some future maybe-cool event. And though I haven’t personally looked into how legit Randy Couture’s foundation is, I do get a sense he takes the effort kinda personally and isn’t going to let the funds raised here get squandered en route to the beneficiaries. For many of these true US fighters, the war isn’t over just because soldiers are starting to come home.

It’s been an interesting relationship in Vegas between mixed martial arts and poker over the past 12 or so years … the state of which will be on display in the form of tax-deductible feelgood poker this weekend at the Golden Nugget.

Read below for official deets on what’s going down.

MMA Star Randy “The Natural” Couture Hosts 
Charity Poker Tournament at the Golden Nugget
“Operation All In” to raise money for Xtreme Couture G.I. Foundation

LAS VEGAS – Mixed Martial Arts legend Randy “The Natural” Couture will host his fourth annual “Operation All In” poker tournament and charity auction benefiting the Xtreme Couture G.I. Foundation at the Golden Nugget Las Vegas, Saturday, Jan. 14 starting at 2 p.m.

This event, held in The Grand events center, is open to the public and will feature a celebrity charity poker tournament, live and silent auctions, autograph sessions with photo opportunities and raffle prizes while giving back to injured troops.

“Operation All In” will welcome professional celebrity poker players and stars from the MMA world and Hollywood to play alongside the public in its charity poker tournament, where several great prizes will be awarded along with the grand prize of $10,000 cash. The buy-in for “Operation All In” at the Golden Nugget is $220 with $100 multi re-buys.

MMA fighters confirmed to attend include Randy Couture, Clay Guida, Cung Le, John Alessio, Martin Kampmann, Jay Hieron, John Gunderson, Brad Tavares, Tyson Griffin, Ryan Couture and Frank Trigg. Celebrities will also partake in the action, and those confirmed to attend include David Zayas, Shanna Moakler, JJ Lui, TJ Lavin and Lon Maccaren from ESPN. Other fighters and poker pros are expected to confirm attendance as the event nears.

Ultimate Fighting Champion Couture, a veteran himself of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, started the Xtreme Couture G.I. Foundation to raise money and awareness for troops wounded in action and their families. After visiting with amputees at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Couture was brought to tears seeing the young men and women who had given their all for freedom, young heroes who now have to go through life’s challenges with devastating physical and emotional injuries. The Xtreme Couture G.I. Foundation goal is to help these brave men and women fulfill any of their unmet needs as they return back to civilian life.

A highlight of the event will be both the silent auction, with an amazing array of MMA memorabilia up for grabs, and the live auction which includes some items donated personally by Couture, such as dinner with the fighter and a one-hour personal MMA lesson. In addition to Couture, other MMA fighters will be on hand throughout the evening for photos and autographs with tournament players and fans.

“Operation All In” is sponsored by the contributions of its great supporters including Microtech, Oakley, Xtreme Couture MMA, Deepstacks, Lord Griffon, Clear Channel & Golden Nugget.

Seats are limited, so reserve your spot today by stopping by or calling the Golden Nugget Poker Room at (800) 777-4658, ext. 8164 or locally (702) 386-8383, or emailing poker@goldennugget.com to pre-register. Players will also be able to register for the tournament at the event. For more information visit www.xcgif.org.  or www.goldennugget.com.

# # #

ABOUT GOLDEN NUGGET LAS VEGAS

Winner of the AAA Four Diamond Award consecutively since 1977, the Golden Nugget Las Vegas is the most luxurious resort on the Fremont Street Experience, and consistently receives critical acclaim for exceeding customer expectations. The Golden Nugget now offers more than 2,400 deluxe guestrooms and suites; a high-energy casino featuring the most popular slot and video poker machines, table games, race and sports book, and poker room; nightly entertainment with master impressionist and comedian Gordie Brown; world-class restaurants such as Grotto Italian Ristorante and Vic & Anthony’s Steakhouse; a luxury spa and salon; and The Tank, a year-round outdoor swimming pool complete with a 200,000-gallon, live shark aquarium and the new H20 poolside lounge. Since 2005, the Golden Nugget Las Vegas has made more than $180 million in upgrades, renovations and expansions under Landry’s Inc, introducing first-class accommodations, exquisite dining options and fun-filled entertainment venues. In late 2009, the Golden Nugget Las Vegas unveiled its newest addition, Rush Tower. This $150-million hotel tower added nearly 500 new guestrooms and suites to the property, brought Las Vegas it’s first Chart House Restaurant and introduced a beautiful new pool, the Hideout, as well as expanded the gaming. Hotel reservations and additional information are available by calling 800-634-3454 or by visiting online at www.goldennugget.com.

ABOUT XTREME COUTURE GI FOUNDATION
The Xtreme Couture GI Foundation, a 501 (c) 3 non-profit corporation, was founded by Randy Couture to honor the veterans of America’s armed forces. The foundation was especially formed to raise money and awareness for those wounded in action and their families. To date, more than 24,000 U.S. troops have been wounded in the war against terrorism, which doesn’t include the many more suffering the mental effects. The Xtreme Couture GI Foundation goal is to help these brave men and women fulfill any of their unmet needs as they return back to civilian life. Visit http://www.xtremecouturegifoundation.org/ for more information.

It was announced this morning that the Epic Poker League, in the midst of their inaugural season of action, has secured international broadcast rights for their programming with the preeminent poker broadcaster in Europe, The Poker Channel.

The partnership between the EPL and The Poker Channel will allow the league’s 70 hours of recorded for television tournaments to be broadcast to approximately 30 million satellite and cable homes throughout the European continent. The EPL will make its debut in Europe on The Poker Channel beginning on January 15 (check local listings for exact times) over such networks as Sky in the United Kingdom, Martens in Germany and Canal Digital in Finland. In the United States, the EPL has already secured broadcast rights on the cable channel Velocity and on the regular airwaves on CBS.

Both sides are thrilled to bring the EPL events to a new audience overseas. “Expanding our television coverage into Europe is a step forward for building a global fan base for Epic Poker,” stated Katherine Kowal, the Vice President of League Operations and Programming for the ownership behind the EPL, Federated Sports & Gaming. “Poker Channel Europe, with quality distribution and broad reach, will help us introduce our content to a very important market and audience.”

“With the incredible success of Epic Poker League’s first three events and high quality production, they are a great partner for the Poker Channel,” echoed Chris White, the Director of Business Development for The Poker Channel’s owners, Gaming Media Group. “We’re proud to bring this unique format featuring the world’s best players to millions of Poker Channel viewers.”

Two of the three EPL tournaments have already been fully broadcast in the United States. The inaugural event, a $20,000 Six Handed No Limit Hold’em tournament, brought out 137 of the biggest players in the game. In the end, poker professional David “Chino” Rheem was able to vanquish veteran Erik Seidel to take down a $1 million first place prize. That final table also included such notable names as Jason Mercier, Hasan Habib, Gavin Smith and Huck Seed.

The second tournament, a $20,000 Eight Handed No Limit Hold’em tournament, was highly competitive despite only drawing a field of 97 players. Seidel became the first player to make two final tables on the burgeoning professional circuit, eventually finishing fourth, while “young gun” Mike McDonald emerged as the champion over David Steicke and Fabrice Soulier.

The third tournament, a $20,000 “Mix-Max” No Limit Hold’em event, has yet to hit the airwaves. In the best two of three heads up final (and the longest final table in the EPL’s young history), Chris Klodnicki eventually defeated Andrew Lichtenberger for the crown. Joe Tehan, Michael Mizrachi and Scott Clements also made the final table action.

The third EPL event is set for broadcast in the United States beginning in February. Velocity will have three hours of the early action on three consecutive Friday evenings in February (the 10th, 17th and the 24th), while CBS will broadcast an hour of the tournament on February 26.

The fourth tournament on the EPL schedule, which was supposed to have been played in February, has been postponed until later in the spring due to the plethora of tournaments internationally early in 2012, and the League Championship event, featuring the top 27 points earners from the first four tournaments, will occur after the rescheduled fourth event.

The Poker Channel’s addition of the EPL continues to make them the “worldwide leader” when it comes to televised poker events. Already broadcasting such programming as “High Stakes Poker,” the World Series of Poker, the European Poker Tour and the World Poker Tour, the Epic Poker League seems like a natural extension of their already popular poker offerings.

A few years from now, when South Americans look back on what they consider the watershed moments for the rise of poker on this Southern Hemisphere continent, someone will invariably point to the 2011 PokerStars.net Latin American Poker Tour’s Colombian National Poker Championship. It was a smaller buy-in event — only $1,100 instead of the usual $2,300 — and was scheduled for three days instead of the typical four. Both of those figures may have represented caution on the part of tour officials. After all, who could say how Colombians would react to the first big buy-in poker to take place in their home country?

A photo of the rail in Hour 14 of the marathon Day 3 should answer that question:

That’s getting ahead of things though. Day 3 — the final day of the event — started with 28 players in the field, a result of the tournament selling out both of its 330-player Day 1 flights. With alternates there were squeezed in on Day 1b, the total size of the field grew to 681 players. It was the largest field in LAPT history.

Big stacks were curiously absent to start Day 3. The largest stack in the room had roughly 70 big blinds to start, and the average stack was about 30. That number continued to shrink as the day went on, even as the field consolidated. The absence of big stacks meant that nobody was really driving the action. The short stacks were content to sit back as long as they could.

But blinds do go up every hour here on the LAPT, and so players busted. It took four levels — and two simultaneous eliminations on the final table bubble — to go from 28 Day 3 starters down to a final table off five Colombians, two Ecuadorians, an Argentian and an Australian:

Seat 1: John Jairo (415,000)
Seat 2: Stuart McDonald (1,235,000)
Seat 3: Jonathan Monsalves (2,495,000)
Seat 4: Julian Menendez (735,000)
Seat 5: Victor Forero (2,045,000)
Seat 6: Rafael Pardo (660,000)
Seat 7: Jessica Bedoya (290,000)
Seat 8: Alexis Gomez (910,000)
Seat 9: Jonathan Markovitz (1,150,000)

Play was very, very cautious at the final table, so much so that, with six players left, the average stack was only 16 big blinds and the biggest stack, Stuart McDonald, had just 26 big blinds. The final six players started talking about a deal. It took them 45 minutes to hammer it out, but in the end they were all reasonably happy with what they would receive.

However, 28 million pesos were set aside for the winner. The tournament still had to be played out. So, armed with as much coffee as we’ve consumed in the last three days, the tournament marched on.

At the end, it was Julian Menendez heads up against Jonathan Monsalves. Menendez had been in this position recently. During the 2011 WCOOP, he final tabled Event #21, $215 No-Limit Hold’em. Despite coming into the final table second in chips, he finished in 8th place, earning $20,361 — his biggest online payday ever. Now he can add a live tournament title to his poker resume.

Hometown pride being what it is, it’s probably safe to say that most of the gallery was there to cheer on the five Colombians who made the final table — and were rotting against Menendez in favor of Jonathan Monsalves. But at the end of a 14-hour day, it was Menendez who cradled the winner’s trophy. Despite being Argentinian, you can be sure that the rail applauded his accomplishment all the same.

I said it on Day 1 and I’ll repeat it now. In the weeks leading up to this event, almost every friend who I told that I was going to Colombia made some kind of quip about cocaine. In four days here, I learned that the country is about a lot more than cocaine. And even if it were only about coffee and poker, that’d be more than enough for me.