From business and legal announcements to tournament schedules and poker shows, the global poker space saw many new inclusions and announcements last week. At one hand, PokerStars announced the dates of its official USA re-launch while at the other hand, Maharashtra Government started receiving proposals for casino in the territory. WSOP announced the schedule of its 47th annual series and a new televised poker show got underway. Meanwhile, the first draft day of the inaugural Global Poker league was held where 12 team managers picked their team members.
Tournament Round Up
The tournament action continued with IPC in Goa and MPC 24 at PokerStars LIVE, City of Dreams, Macau. Mukesh Surana won the 30K Main Event of IPC Feb’16 for Rs 11.70 Lacs in top prize. He outpayed a field of 196 runners and beat Aditya Agarwal heads up to clinch the victory. Sangeeth Mohan won the 60K High Roller for Rs 14.1 Lacs after a heads up deal with Aditya Sushnat who bagged Rs 11.5 Lacs in runner-up place.
The 24th edition of Macau Poker Cup which started on 19th February completed 8 events including the Baby Dragon last week. Kwok Chun Lai won the Baby Dragon beating 346 players for the top prize of HK$421,398. In other side events, India’s Shiva Phani Kumar Kapavarapu won the $4,000 NLH 6-max event and HK$121,466 in the top prize. The Red Dragon Main Event started on Sunday with 205 players in the Flight Day 1A.
Online Railbird
Online felt saw the return of Adda52 Millions this Sunday which Bad_Ass won outplaying the online field of 103 players. He won Rs 3 Lacs in top prize while monish1965 finshed in the runner-up place bagging Rs 1.9 Lacs.
buzzzbeee85, poker4rush and riddle1888 were among the top Indian players in PokerStars tournament last week. buzzzbeee85 finished runner-up in the $109 NL Hold’em [Turbo], $7.5K Gtd bagging $1,758 while poker4rush placed 4th in the Bounty Builder $8.80, $35K Gtd – Guarantee Boost for $1,189. riddle1888 won his 4th online tourney earning $1,226 for the top spot in $5.10 NL Hold’em [Hyper-Turbo], $5K Gtd.
Top Poker Stories of the Week
Bigger Starting Stacks, 15% Places Paid, 8 New Events – 2016 WSOP Schedule Announced
WSOP announced the complete schedule for its 2016 series to be held at Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. World’s biggest and also the richest poker series starts on 31st May this year with 69 bracelets up for grab. WSOP officials have brought several interesting changes this year including a flatter payout and bigger stacks in tournaments. The start time of the tournaments has also been tweaked and a tag team event has been introduced after 33 years. Read the complete announcement and 2016 WSOP Schedule here.
Maharashtra Government Receives Two Proposals for Casino Assuring Rs 1000+ Crore Tax Revenues
The Maharashtra government is considering implementation of the Maharashtra Casinos (Control & Tax) Act, 1976 (Act No. XXXI of 1976), a four-decade old legislation that was put in the cold storage even though it was passed by the legislative assembly and approved by the Governor. Two companies – Sol Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. and SGT Sports Gaming Pvt. Ltd. have sent proposals to the state government to obtain license of casino and set up gaming and sports betting centers. Read the full report here.
PokerStars Returning To USA Finally; New Jersey Launch on March 21, 2016
After a long legal battle with the American authorities, the world’s biggest poker site is finally going to re-launch its operation in USA. PokerStars will launch its offering of online poker and online casino from 21st March at a separate website – www.pokerstarsnj.com. Read the complete new here.
A New Televised Poker Show – ‘The Final Table’ by Rush Street Productions
Poker Night in America is one of the most popular poker shows of all-time and the creator of the show are back with another televised show named “The Final Table”. With new features like time-bank chips and a shot-clock element, the poker show has started telecasting from 25th February. The legendary poke player and the world record holder of maximum WSOP bracelets, Phil Helmuth is be on the commentator panel of this show accompanied by Jason Somerville. Read the full detail of the show here.
GPL Inaugural Season Draft
Out of more than 200 players available for draft in the first season of Global Poker League, the 12 team managers picked 48 players in total on Thursday. The draft event was live streamed on Twitch which received 195,000 unique viewers. Mustapha Kanit was the first player to be picked out of all the draftable players. Max Pescatori, manager of the Rome Emperors got the first opportunity to choose players and he selected Kanit. Here are the 12 rosters with draft order:
| Rome Emperors | Max Pescatori | Montreal Nationals | Marc-Andre Ladouceur | |
| 1 | Mustapha Kanit | 1 | Mike McDonald | |
| 2 | Dario Sammartino | 2 | Martin Jacobson | |
| 3 | Timothy Adams | 3 | Pascal LeFrancois | |
| 4 | Walter Treccarichi | 4 | Xuan Liu | |
| New York Rounders | Bryn Kenney | San Francisco Rush | Faraz Jaka | |
| 1 | Jason Mercier | 1 | Phil Galfond | |
| 2 | Tom Marchese | 2 | Tony Gregg | |
| 3 | Kevin MacPhee | 3 | Kitty Kuo | |
| 4 | Jason Wheeler | 4 | Anton Wigg | |
| Las Vegas Moneymakers | Chris Moneymaker | Sao Paulo Metropolitans | Andre Akkari | |
| 1 | Anthony Zinno | 1 | Darren Elias | |
| 2 | Jonathan Duhamel | 2 | Byron Kaverman | |
| 3 | Jake Cody | 3 | Thiago Nishijima | |
| 4 | Jonathan Little | 4 | Joao Pires Simao | |
| London Royals | Liv Boeree | Moscow Wolverines | Anatoly Filatov | |
| 1 | Igor Kurganov | 1 | Dzmitry Urbanovich | |
| 2 | Vanessa Selbst | 2 | Vladimir Troyanovskiy | |
| 3 | Chris Moorman | 3 | Andrey Pateychuk | |
| 4 | Justin Bonomo | 4 | Sergey Lebedev | |
| LA Sunset | Maria Ho | Berlin Bears | Philipp Gruissem | |
| 1 | Fedor Holz | 1 | Brian Rast | |
| 2 | Olivier Busquet | 2 | Sorel Mizzi | |
| 3 | Eugene Katchalov | 3 | Dominik Nitsche | |
| 4 | Chance Kornuth | 4 | Jeff Gross | |
| Paris Aviators | Fabrice Soulier | Hong Kong Stars | Celina Lin | |
| 1 | Bertrand Grospellier | 1 | Weiyi Zhang | |
| 2 | Davidi Kitai | 2 | Raiden Kan | |
| 3 | George Danzer | 3 | Dong Guo | |
| 4 | Mike Leah | 4 | Bryan Huang | |