This Week in Poker: Babies are the New Bracelet Bet

Topics: Epic Poker League, This Week in Poker, Global Poker Index, GPI Player of the Year

To paraphrase Matthew Broderick and Ferris Bueller, poker moves pretty fast. This Week in Poker is prepared to move just as fast. Last week’s big news was about Phil Ivey’s return to poker and the new World Series of Poker schedule. The big news this week spans the globe – France, Atlantic City, Italy, Las Vegas, South Florida – but includes two developments close to home: the new Global Poker Index Player of the Year standings and the debut this Friday of Epic Poker’s Mix-Max Championship on Velocity. These newest stories fit like jigsaw-puzzle pieces with last week’s news.

Ivey, Baby

If Phil Ivey does indeed return to the World Series of Poker this summer after a one-year exile, he will encounter a changed world. The new WSOP schedule looks the same to weekend warriors and better to devoted hobbyists and working pros. But in the Rio’s high-rent district, the luxury-camper community that springs up behind the Amazon Room, there are fewer super-high buy-in events and more competition (due to lower buy-ins) in many mixed and limit games.

What will Rip Van Ivey find after a year of slumber? Babies. Just as Madonna has become the antidote for risqué Super Bowl performances, tournament poker has gone gaga for babies. When you watch Epic’s first Mix-Max broadcast on Velocity Friday night, in addition to one of the year’s most exciting TV hands and the treat of watching Michael Mizrachi, Jason Mercier, and David Williams in close-quarters combat, you’ll also see some hard livin’ poker players turning to domesticity. David Williams flaunts his beautiful daughter Liliana. Joe Tehan and his wife Lisa have a baby on the way. Jason Mercier bought a house and is engaged – can a handful of great-running children be far behind?

Speaking of babies … the Global Poker Index has given birth to the GPI Player of the Year standings. In the first week at POY#1, is the fastest moving man in poker, Jonathan Duhamel. Jason Koon, who’s already rung the bell three times in 2012 – twice at the PCA, once at Aussie Millions – is POY#2. (Phil Ivey debuts at POY#81.) As you would expect, all the TWiP newsmakers, at least this early in the year, made the list.

Atlantic City

Some of the most concentrated action last week took place at the Borgata Winter Poker Open, where two of the best short-handed tournament players in the world found themselves in each other’s way. Jeff Papola (POY#107) and Brock Parker (POY#34) tangled at the final table of the $3,300 Main Event. Parker won a pair of 6-handed WSOP bracelets in one week in 2009; Papola went 2nd-1st in one week of 6-handed WSOP events in 2010 and finished 3rd in one in 2011.

Jeff got the better of the exchange, crippling Brock, who soon busted in seventh place. Parker, however, also won the $2,150 NLHE Bounty just a few days prior, so he still picked up over $150,000 for the week.

Past trends are no guarantee of future results, but Jeff Papola is establishing himself as a world-class closer. He finished second at the Borgata (Joshua Mancuso won it) but look at his results from the seven big final tables he’s made since 2008:

7th-9th: 1
4th-6th: 0
3rd: 3
2nd: 2
1st: 1

Deauville

The other major action last week was at EPT Deauville. Vadim Kursevich (GPI#79/POY#26) won the €5,000 Main Event, which drew 889 entries. Kursevich is officially on a tear: last April he finished third at EPT Berlin and in September he won the €5,000 PLO Omaha Cup at WPT Rendez-vous a Paris. Old friend Luca Pagano (POY#9) finished seventh.

A lot of the usual suspects made money in France. Just one week after I outed Shannon Shorr for the most-stamped passport in poker, he finished third in the €1,000 NLHE Bounty. He’s cashed in five countries since October. If it wasn’t for the EU adopting a common currency, the inside of his wallet would look like a bus-station yellow pages. Nacho Barbero won the €1,000 PLO, putting him in contention with Shannon for some kind of round-the-world prop bet. Barbero has cashed on three continents in 2012.

Serial performers at Deauville included Ruben Visser (POY#3/GPI#78), who won the €1,000 NLHE Random Bounty and finished runner-up in the €10,000 NLHE; Samuel Chartier (POY#4/GPI#32), who finished sixth in €1,500 NLHE and 4th in €10,000 NLHE; and Mikhail Lakhitov (POY#32/GPI#67), who cashed in the Main Event and finished seventh in the €10,000 NLHE.

Oleksii

I’ve never met Oleksii Kovalchuk (GPI#57) but I have to be losing more sleep over it than him. He won the IPT San Remo Main Event to continue his amazing run of success. His first-ever cash was in Kiev exactly one year ago, a victory in a $2,500 Russian Poker Tour Main Event. Since then, he has won a bracelet ($2,500 NLHE 6-Handed), an IPT event (Nova Gorica), finished third on the Partouche Poker Tour, and now won again on the IPT. It doesn’t take a math genius to know we’ll see him on the Season 2 Epic Poker League Roster. The only reason his GPI ranking is as low as GPI#57 is that he’s fading two years of results to everyone else in the Index.

Ongoing and Upcoming

WPT Venice Grand Prix’s €4,500 Main Event started on Monday and concludes February 10. WPT’s Seminole Hard Rock Lucky Hearts $3,500 Main Event starts February 10 and ends, of course, on Valentine’s Day. Heartland Poker Tour kicks off its eighth season with its $1,500 Daytona Beach Main Event February 11-13. WSOP Circuit Tunica’s $1,650 Main Event runs February 11-12.

After that, expect to see the biggest poker names play the U.S. events in late February and early March: Palazzo Deep Stack I, Los Angeles Poker Classic, Bay 101 Shooting Stars. Of course, for the European players who don’t like the long-haul flights or the tax burdens of victory, there is plenty still happening in Europe. Anywhere tournament players have money, TWiP will keep current.