The Kevmath Report - #6

Thanks for reading this week’s slightly delayed issue of The Kevmath Report. I’ll start with an apology to those eagerly anticipating this week’s newsletter. As many already know, I’ll be writing the next few editions from Las Vegas as the 2021 World Series of Poker is less than 24 hours away when you reading these words. You don’t leave the confines of your home for the first time in a long while and you get a little too excited to see something besides the same four walls. There’s a busy schedule coming up now through November 23rd and will do my utmost to get things back on schedule.

2021 WSOP Starts Tomorrow, Who’s Excited?

Preparations are continuing into today at the Rio as this year’s World Series of Poker official open their doors to the public at 9:00 am September 30 with a triple-header of bracelet events starting with the $500 Casino Employees Event at 11:00 am. The debut of the $25,000 HORSE is next at 3:00pm followed by the $1,000 COVID-19 Relief Charity Tournament at 6:00pm.

If you’re fortunate enough to spectate (all players and spectators must be fully vaccinated) you’ll notice a few immediate changes in the hallways. The most notable being the lack of the ‘phone charger guys’ offering their products to anyone in the corridor, replaced by a T-Mobile booth for your cellular service and supply needs.

Tournament tables are placed in only three rooms this year: Amazon, Brasilia, and Pavilion. The Miranda room, usually reserved for Day 1 mixed-game events, is home to the Caesars Sportsbook lounge. Players can place their wagers and sweat the action during breaks. The three rooms with poker tables have additional big screens all with NFL Sunday Ticket included making your Sundays that much better.

I’ve had an advanced look at the poker table felts, and keen observers will note they’re a darker shade of green this year, maybe to highlight some new sponsors. Velo Nicotine Patches are this year’s sponsor of the WSOP Player of the Year Leaderboard. They’re offering $50,000 - $25,000 for an overall leaderboard and $25,000 for No-Limit Tournaments only.

The King’s Poker Lounge is back for another year of high-stakes cash game action. Players wanting to practice their flipping skills can partake in 1-table flipaments for a seat into the October 10th $1,000 NL Flip & Go sponsored by GGPoker. More information via Twitter from me @Kevmath and I’ll do most of the @WSOP tweets now through November 23 (fingers crossed).

Lookin’ Good Bobby

Every* WSOP Main Event champion gets a banner in either the Amazon or Pavillion Room. Once in a while, the banners get an update and that appears to be what happened for Bobby Baldwin’s banner.

*Sorry Stoyan

Buy a Piece of Daniel Negreanu on PocketFives

The yearly discussion of players selling action at a marked-up price happened a little later in the year thanks to the delayed WSOP. Daniel Negreanu continues his tradition of selling pieces of his action to interested parties at zero markup, this time using PocketFives as his conduit for handling the transactions. Negreanu is the most notable player appearing in the newly created marketplace for players looking to sell or buy action of their favorite players.

Michael Addamo Leads Super High Roller Bowl VI Final Table

A week after sweeping the final two events of the PokerGO Tour Poker Masters series and winning the Purple Jacket, Michael Addamo leads the five remaining players in the $300,000 Super High Roller Bowl VI in the PokerGO Studio. The smallest field in SHRB history - 21 players - means only the top 3 places are paid with $3,402,000 going to the eventual winner. Addamo is joined by Justin Bonomo, Sean Winter, Alex Foxen and Chris Brewer. If Bonomo wins, he’ll pass Bryn Kenney on the all-time tournament earnings list. Catch every hand of the final day on PokerGo at 4pm ET/1pm Vegas time with Ali Nejad and Nick Schulman bringing you the action.

PokerStars Settles With Kentucky

Last week, PokerStars threw in the towel in their 10-plus year legal battle with the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s claims of recovering residents’ money lost gambling based on a statute from the late 1700’s and agreed to pay $300,000,000 to finally settle the dispute.

Phil Galfond Starts YouTube Channel

Last Friday, Phil Galfond debuted his YouTube channel Friday with a video discussing how to deal with downswings and his ways of getting through them. Considering his undefeated streak in the Galfond Challenge, it looks like he’s handling them just fine.

In Other News…

The Netherlands government has ordered PokerStars to leave the country by November 1 for a ‘cooling off’ period as part of the country’s efforts to regulate the online gambling market.

Several poker photographers were upset at poker-themed artwork ‘creator’ PokerPaint for stealing their copyrighted works.

Rob Yong announced today on Twitter that his Dusk Till Dawn Poker Room will have a soft reopening on October 1.

Massachusett’s MGM Springfield casino is making efforts to bring back their poker room in the near future.

Giorgiy Skhulukhiya cruises to victory in the partypoker MILLIONS North Cyprus $5,300 Main Event. Steve O’Dwyer and Timur Ercan were triumphant in the MILLIONS High Roller Events.

Sasha Sabbaghian wins the RunGood Poker Series Main Event at Thunder Valley.

Jason Dennis goes into overtime to win the Colorado State Poker Championship at Bally’s Black Hawk.

The World Poker Tour DeepStacks series debuts at Choctaw Durant in November.

Team PokerNews offers their predictions for this year’s WSOP.

My interview with GPI/THM’s Anthony Charter discussing the WSOP.

Lon McEachern and Norman Chad are the latest guests on the #HU4ROLLS podcast.

Trivia

The last player to win a live WSOP bracelet that was completely held inside the Rio was the 2019 Main Event winner - Hossein Ensan - finally defeating Dario Sammartino in the early morning hours of July 17, 2019. Unfortunately, no one came up with the answer (sad face).