2009 World Series of Poker – Event #2 – 40th Annual No Limit Hold’Em

The 2009 World Series of Poker is underway in Las Vegas, Nevada at the RIO, with the second event which was the 40th Annual No Limit Hold’Em now completed. There are 57 scheduled events in the lineup, but what makes this one so intriguing is that it’s a high stakes game of poker which attracted the best players from everywhere. Out of the 201 players who paid $40,000 USD per seat, many came from the United Kingdom, Russia and parts of Europe to participate. Seen in the field were players like David “Devilfish” Ulliott, Neil Channing, John Duthie, Peter Gould, Nicolas Levi, Bruno Fitoussi, Bertrand Grospellier, Jeffrey Lisandro, Ivan Demidov, Peter Eastgate, Kirill Gerasimov and Vitaly Lunkin. First place provided a $1,891,012 USD payday out of a $7,718,400 prize pool that would be divided up between the top 27 finishers. The size of the pool shattered the record for the largest non-main event prize pool in WSOP history. All players received 120,000 chips to start with during this 4 day event.

Day 1 began with 2008 Main Event champion Peter Eastgate from Denmark giving the order to shuffle up and deal. One of the early busts was Per Magnus Ummer who was beaten down to 2,300 chips before losing to the full house (5’s/10’s) of Hasan Habib. Later on, in a hand between Canadians Douglas Lee and Daniel Negreanu, it was Negreanu who went to the rail after meeting the set of 3’s held by Lee. It got rough even for Peter Eastgate who was finished after his all-in move lost to the set of Jacks held by Charles Lehr. Ludovic Lacay from France was losing, but got back in the game with a full house (6’s/2’s) resulting in a 130,000 chip stack in front of him. Ivan Demidov of Russia also ended his chance for this bracelet after his pocket J’s lost to the paired Aces of Noah Schwartz. Also joining the list of the fallen were Dario Mineri, David Benyamine, Gavin Smith and Alexander Veldhuis from the Netherlands. But some who made the cut for Day 2 included a bearded Andrew Black from Ireland, british poker players David Ulliott, Christopher Moorman and Neil Channing, chip leader Bruno Fitoussi from France (812,500), Vitaly Lunkin along with Kirill Gerasimov both from Russia. In total there were 89 that would take seats for the next round.

The second day had Bill Chen bust in the first 10 minutes of play courtesy of Mark Seif. Later on, John Duthie from London lost out to Frank Kassela. Duthie looked good with pocket 10’s to the pocket 8’s of Kassela until another 8 came on the turn ending Duthie’s chance for a bracelet. He was followed by David “Devilfish” Ulliott who had his pocket K’s crushed by a set of 7’s, Christopher Moorman from the UK and Bruno Fitoussi from France who started the day off as chip leader but ran into many bad situations and lost lots of chips. Canadian player Terrance Chan also ran into bad luck, losing his last chips to the two pair (10’s and A’s) belonging to Emil Patel. But Neil Channing remained in the row after taking out top players like Kenny Tran as did Sorel Mizzi of Canada who got a big boost in chips after taking out Phil Ivey. Main Event champion Greg Raymer steamrolled his way through opposition to finish the day with 2,287,000 chips. Unfortunately, Chris Moneymaker after building up his stack to over 1.1 million, ended up losing everything and was eliminated from the event. So after 8 1/2 hours of play, it was time to bag chips for the 24 players that remained.

Day 3 had the goal of playing down to the last 9 players for the final table. Action started at 2:00 pm, and so did the eliminations. Within the first 5 minutes Andrew Robl finished in 23rd losing to the paired A’s of Greg Raymer. Soon after, Neil Channing ended his quest for the bracelet in 20th place taking home $71,858 for his efforts. Neil was under the gun when he pushed 258,000 chips to the middle holding A 5, but lost to the paired K’s of Issac Haxton. Andrew Black pocketed the cash for 19th place when his two pair (A’s and J’s) lost to a larger two pair (A’s and K’s) belonging to Dani Stern. Brian Rast went out in 14th place after meeting the quad 5’s held by Vitaly Lunkin from Russia. It finally whittled down to having Tony G leaving in 10th place after losing to the paired 10’s of Vitaly Lunkin. Also, to give credit where credit is due, Greg Raymer received pocket A’s three times and pocket Q’s once, had them all cracked and still ended up with 3,345,000 chips for the final table. We will see who becomes champion.

Day 4 will have the final table filmed by ESPN, so keep that in mind as this event should not be missed. Action started at 3:00 pm, continuing at level 25 with blinds at $40,000/$80,000 and an ante of $10,000. First to leave in 9th place was Ted Forrest as his hand was beaten by the pocket 3’s of Noah Schwartz. Soon after, Noah was busted in 8th courtesy of the pocket A’s that belonged to Greg Raymer. The magic came back to Raymer as he doubled up through Issac Haxton ending with a stack of over 5.5 million chips. Most of the play for the first two hours did not see a flop, so boldness and good cards generally got the blinds and antes. But eventually action did come back as Lex Veldhuis finished in 7th, losing to Greg Raymer who held pocket K’s. In 6th place was Alec Torelli, beaten by the 10 kicker of Issac Haxton. Then it became Justin Bonomo’s turn to say goodbye as his all-in move with pocket J’s was met by the pocket A’s of Haxton. Haxton then received another Ace on the river for a set, sending Bonomo to the rail in 5th. Dani Stern picked up the cash for a 4th place finish after losing to the Ace high hand of Issac Haxton. Next one out was Greg Raymer in 3rd who received a standing ovation from the crowd for his performance. What happened is after a number of raises and re-raises from both Haxton and Raymer, Raymer moved all-in with 8,105,000 and was called by Haxton who barely had him covered. Raymer produced pocket 5’s, but Haxton produced pocket 9’s which ended up giving Haxton the higher two pair by the river (9’s and 3’s) and the win.

At the beginning of the heads up Haxton had 16,495,000 chips verses Vitaly Lunkin with 7,520,000. Action continued at level 29 with blinds at $90,000/$180,000 with a $20,000 ante. Lunkin then proceeded to win 3 million with a 10 high straight, then another 3 million a few minutes later. Over time with the precision of a surgeon, Lunkin took huge portions of Haxton’s stack. Then the winning hand takes place. After a flop of Qd 10d 8d, Lunkin went all-in and Haxton called with 5,635,000 in his stack. Lunkin turned over pocket A’s and Haxton showed 3d 8c. Turn card was a 7c and the river a Ks, giving an incredible victory to Vitaly Lunkin! His friends ran from the stands and wrapped him in a Russian flag to celebrate. Congratulations to Vitaly Lunkin.

3 Varieties Of Coin Collecting Auctions – Advantages And Disadvantages

If you happen to be a coin collector and want to either purchase or buy the coins the best place to go is via the coin bidding or the coin auctions.
The auctions for coin provide a good option to get the coins that have good values. These auctions of the coin are the place where you can get the rare coins and these Coins are purchased by the party who bids for the highest value.
These auctions are also regulated by some rules and regulation. These rules and regulations are for both the bidder and the seller and they both must adhere to the set rules and procedure.
Usually the coin collecting auctions fall under three types of categories. They are the following:
1. Mail bidding auctions
In this type of the auction the seller advertises his coin through the mail and also publishes the coin auction via mail. This has numerous advantages particularly for those who want to be in the bid but cannot be physically present. In this type of auction generally the seller has the catalogs which they send to the prospective buyers. The catalogs contain the pictures and descriptions of the items to be sold. Many a times it also contains the initial bid amount and also other relevant information.
The seller has the mailing list of the prospective bidders and also the list of past buyers and the brochures and the catalogs are send to all these potential bidders.
2. Auctions through Phones
These types of auction as the name suggest are conducted over the phone. Similar to the bidding by mail the phone auctions also is guided by the set of rules.
Once the bid which is highest is identified that coin or item goes to that bidder.There may be some cases where the wining bidder may re-negotiate the price but still the rules of non disclosure of the previous bid remains intact.
3. Online Coin Auction
This type of bidding option is quite popular as the seller can see the coin for the bid. There is greater interaction between the seller and buyer as the seller can quickly get in touch with the buyer and give some important information.However there is a drawback of online bidding. Here the buyer can be duped into believing that what is being shown to the buyer is actually what he will get which may not be the case.
But apart from all these, the auctions mentioned above can get you the coins of your choice. The only thing you should care is the budget you want to allocate for coin collection.

Make Money Off Your Gambling Hobby With Affiliate Programs

When a hobby makes you spend a substantial portion of your time and money, you start wishing it would pay you back. If you are a poker player who is feeling this way, there is good news for you – affiliate marketing lets you exploit your knowledge of poker for revenue.

Affiliate marketing, to put it in highly simplified language, allows the “affiliate” or “publisher” to use his website to generate revenue from a “merchant”. This is done by allowing ads related to certain topics to be placed on the affiliate’s site, and revenue is generated when a certain action is taken through those ads – either clicking through to the merchant’s homepage, or making a purchase. Money is best made through affiliate marketing if the content on the affiliate site is written to make readers take the required action through the affiliate link.

In order to make readers click on ads, you need two things –

1. Readers.

2. Incentive.

To generate readers, also called “traffic” in internet marketing parlance, the best thing to do is to lure them with useful content. For hopeful cardsharps, the best thing to do is to offer news, anecdotes, tips and tricks through regularly updated blogs.

Affiliate marketing is mostly done through blogs. For a blog that shows its owner’s love for gambling at first glance, you can avail of the free gambling templates that some sites provide. These templates are designed specifically so that you can install them on blogging platforms like Blogger and WordPress with one click. They may also help the template makers generate revenue through ads placed on the template. Also, helping their affiliates create a more authentic-looking page works out well for the merchant in the long run, so the freebie generates profits all around.

Be careful while selecting casino affiliate programs, since a number of rogue affiliates who have popped up on the web will try to exploit your effort for fraudulent purposes. There are directories of approved and popular affiliates that you can check out online, and pick out the one that suits your purposes best.

A good affiliate program will offer regular payouts and good affiliate support. The amount of the payout depends upon the program as well as the affiliate, as more conversions lead to more revenue. To generate conversions, the best method is to ask directly. If a particular online casino offers you revenue for asking people to avail its services, your job is to tell people to avail of those services by clicking on your affiliate link. Developing reader loyalty is a great idea here, so that if your readers decide to avail of your advertised products some time after reading your blog, they will return to your page and click the link there instead of going directly to the sales link (which gives you a big zero for your effort).

Together, casino affiliate programs and free casino templates are a potent moneymaking combination for a cardsharp. With some time and luck, soon your gambling habit will fund itself almost completely.

Buying Paintings: Futurism

A 20th century art movement with its’ roots in Italian and Russian beginnings, Futurism is said to have largely began with the writing of a 1907 essay on music by the Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni, and explored every medium of art to convey its’ meanings.  The Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was the first to produce an article in which was summed up the major principles that became the Manifesto of Futurism in 1909.  It included the passionate loathing of ideas from the past, and with that enmity of political and artistic traditions, espoused a love for speed and technology.
The philosophy of Futurism regarded the car, the plane, and the industrial town as legendary of the technological triumph of mankind over nature.  With Marinetti at the helm, a few artists of the time introduced the tenets of the philosophy to the visual arts, and represented the movement in its’ first phase in 1910.  The Russian Futurists were fascinated with dynamism and the restlessness of modern urban life, purposefully seeking to provoke controversy and attract attention to their works through insulting reviews of the static art of the past, and the circle of Russian Futurists were predominantly literary as opposed to being overtly artistic.
Cubo-Futurism was a school of Russian Futurism formulated in 1913, and many of the works incorporated Cubism’s usage of angular forms combined with the Futurist predisposition for dynamism.  The Futurist painter Kazimir Malevich was the artist to develop the style, but dismissed it for the inception of the artistic style known as Suprematism, that focused upon the fundamental geometric shapes as a form of non-objective art.  Suprematism grew around Malevich, with most prominent works being produced between 1915 and 1918, but the movement had halted for the most part by 1934 in Stalinist Russia.
Though at one point, those Russian poets and artists that considered themselves Futurists had collaborated on works such a Futurist opera, but the Russian movement broke down from persecution for their belief in free thought with the start of the Stalinist age.  Italian Futurists were strongly linked with the early fascists in the hope for modernizing the society and economy in the 1920s through to the 1930s, and Marinetti founded the Futurist Political Party in early 1918, which was later absorbed into Benito Mussolini’s National Fascist Party.
As tensions grew within the various artistic faces that considered themselves Futurists, many Futurists became associated with fascism which later translated into Futurist architecture being born, and interesting examples of this style can be found today even though many Futurist architects were at odds in the fascist taste for Roman imperial patterns.  Futurism has even influenced many other 20th century art movements such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Art Deco styles.  Futurism as a movement is considered extinct for the most part with the death of Marinetti in 1944.
As Futurism gave way to the actual future of things, the ideals of the artistic movement have remained significant in Western culture through the expressions of the commercial cinema and culture, and can even be as an influence in modern Japanese anime and cinema.  The Cyberpunk genre of films and books owe much to the Futurist tenets, and the movement has even spawned Neo-Futurism, a style of theatre at utilizes on Futurism’s focuses to create a new form of theatre.  Much of Futurism’s inspiration came from the previous movement of Cubism, that involved such famed artists as Pablo Picasso and Paul Cezanne, and created much of the basis for Futurism through its’ philosophy.

Swords of the American Revolution

Swords have been part of the American landscape since before the colonies declared their independence from Great Britain in 1776. Previous to this period, the British government supplied swords and other arms to its American colonies as a way to defend against the French. These weapons remained in good enough condition for the colonies to use them against England at the outbreak of the American Revolution. The first swords used in America were generally described as being forged in 1742, as they were first shown in the British book on military regalia called “Representation of Clothing of His Majesty’s Forces”, which was printed in the same year.

There were several variations of English swords used at the beginning of the war, including the 1751 British Infantry sword, so called because it was first depicted in a painting of that date. Most of the early English swords were single-edged, slightly curved, and had a false edge that ran about 6-7 inches back from the tip. The hilt of these swords were made of brass, and the grip was generally cast with a spiral pattern, although some examples found had wooden grips wrapped with wire. These swords remained popular with the American troops for several years.

When France entered the war on the side of the colonies, some swords came with them. Although nowhere near the quantity as the British, these swords did make an appearance, but were generally reserved for sergeant’s use for the duration of the war, and also several years after. These swords had a short, curved blade with a single edge, and included a false edge that extended down the blade about 5 inches. The grip, pommel, and capstan were cast in one piece.

Swords forged in Germany found widespread use in the war, especially those forged in the famous Solingen district. These swords had a straight blade and a double edge, allowing for its wielders to attack in a variety of different ways. The grips were fashioned from very smooth wood, and were generally covered with leather or another variety of animal hide.

During the American Revolution, soldiers ranging from militiamen all the way to commanding generals wielded swords. While there were as many as 75 colonial smiths such as Philadelphia’s Samuel Alexander and John Fitch of Trenton, NJ, it was more common for the colonists to use swords that were crafted by more experienced European swordsmiths at this time in America’s history, both because of their quality and their widespread availability.