the gist:  We have our first 100 million dollar loser from online poker.  That person is Anurag Dikshit.  He admitted guilt that Party Poker was not obeying the law when they were operating in the United States BEFORE the UIGEA was signed. A lot of people are making a lot of assumptions that are wrong when they suggest that this is a move for Party Poker to operate in the U. S. again.  The rumor is that these guys were software developers, they lucked into poker and made a gazillion dollars.  They would rather not feel like criminals as they travel the world so paying this money is better than that feeling.  There is no other agenda for this.

Reuters article

the gist: Clonie is suing Howard and a number of other poker players involved at Full Tilt Poker for 40 million dollars. So when they showed up at the same table of the WPT Doyle Brunson event the whole poker world grabbed their popcorn to see what ugliness would ensue. Sadly none did. Though Clonie is one of the chipleaders.

Chip counts from Poker Pages

the gist: he has over $188,000, other notables are Clonie Gowen, Kido Pham and Nenad Medic.

Chips Counts from PokerPages

the gist: when you real life “drunk dial” an ESPN event you likely are not a great individual.  I wrote about this incident around WSOP time.  Now Layne is spouting off about how Doyle could have bought a World Series of Poker seat.  This all comes from a WSOP bracelet that Doyle won as a mixed event with only 14 couples in it.  Layne is suggesting it should not count.  Doyle is suggesting he could non surgically offer it to Layne’s rectum.

Doyle’s Blog

the gist:  WSOP winner Peter Eastgate will bring his baby face along with runner up Ivan Demidov.  Tom Dwan and Ilari Sahamies will represent the onliners.  And everyone’s favorite co-creator of the Simpson’s, Sam Simon, will even make an appearance.  I expect this will be a fairly interesting year to watch.

Yet another PR release from Cardplayer

the gist: with only a few weeks left Phil Ivey and Tom “Durrrr” Dwan are fighting for (figurative) online title. Both having won close to 3 million. Of course the question should be raised whether MarketPulse has correct data and does that include all games. But what fun would that be?

Poker Listings article

the gist: Every month there is a new thread on 2+2 for High Stakes Action.  Recently there has been a lot of $500-$1000.  Definitely worth checking out.

High Stakes Hands for December from 2+2

instead of a gist I will paste the relevant action:

“Clonie has been at more of these charity events–that I do–than anyone else. After Cantu went broke with 8-6 off suit, he got up to quit. But Clonie took the microphone and said, “I will rebuy you Brandon, but then we have to have a last longer bet where the loser gets tased by the winner!” Cantu reluctantly agreed to the bet. Now I was already needling Cantu about playing too fast, and now he was all in with Q-3 off suit (rebuy!), then Q-3 off suit (another rebuy), then J-3 suited (he actually had the best hand and jack high won the pot), of course I announced each of his all ins while I needled him about playing too fast! Then suddenly, he was all in again in a three way pot, and Cantu had A-A! He won the pot and took the chip lead! Clonie was so bummed out that she stopped talking entirely! After the rebuy it was Cantu with $70,000 and Clonie with $15,000. Still, hours passed after that as the whole room watched the battle. We taped the sound of a Taser and played it over the microphone! We had people testify on the mic what it was like to be tased! When we hit the final fourteen, Clonie was all in, Cantu called her with A-7, and “Too Tall” was in there as well, the cards came off: Ah-Js-Jd-4h-10h, and Clonie showed down the Jh-9h! Brandon looked sick to his stomach! They were now about even in chips. Finally, Cantu went broke on the bubble, and Clonie will Tase him at the Bellagio, and we will invite poker players to watch it, and play the video on youtube.com, cardplayer.com, and bluff.com!”

This is from Phil Hellmuth’s blog at CardPlayer.com.

the gist: they thought that it was unfair that it was not brought up that the cheated players were made whole by the new people in charge.  The article also points out that they sued Excapsa (Old UB) and won a $15 million settlement.  They also are said to be going after Russ Hamilton in any way they can.

Article from PokerPages

the gist: This article is a must read and there really is no “gist” for what they are saying, it is interesting insight on how “up and coming” young players think and what makes them the best.