05 Feb 12

Daily Rewind - Subject: Poker No More, Robbie Williams Poker, GSOP Result

In today's Daily Rewind we hear about the closure of Subject: Poker, check out the latest poker site to hit the market and get the result from the GSOP Salzburg event. All that plus a high stakes round-up and another Daily Signoff.

Subject: Poker Downs its Pens

It became one of the most important news resources in the wake of Black Friday and broke a number of important stories, including: FTP's French investors, the AGCC falsely reporting the amount seized by the DOJ and the revelation that Chris Ferguson had a string of secret FTP bank accounts.

Founded on the principle of independence by Noah "NoahSD" Stephens-Davidowitz and Thomas Bakker, the pair are now creating their own security consulting company and closing the doors on Subject:Poker.

In a final article written on the site, "NoahSD" stated: "Thomas Bakker and I are starting a poker security consulting company. As a result, I can no longer guarantee my independence as editor-in-chief. Subject: Poker's founding principle is independence, so it would be inappropriate for me to continue Subject: Poker."

In addition to this "Diamond Flush" has created her own site called Diamond Flush Poker which will attempt to follow in the footsteps of S:P.

The closure of the site will undoubtedly be a loss to the poker community, but their investigative efforts in the past will continue to influence how the poker media operates for a long while to come.

For now S:P will remain online with the donations link staying active to help with running costs.

Take That Online Poker

Over the years a number of celebrities have jumped on the poker bandwagon, but few have gone as far as to open their own poker site.

That looks set to change this year as Take That star Robbie Williams is preparing to launch: 'The Robbie Williams Poker Community'.

Although the main aim of the site is to offer fun games to its members, there will also be the provision for real money gambling.

While many Robbie fans will no doubt by ecstatic by the singer's latest move, anti-gambling campaigners in the UK have reacted negatively to the new site.

British MP Tessa Munt has said that Robbie should know all about addiction owing to a previous dependency on prescription drugs.

She also added: "I'm outraged by this. It directly targets his fans, including children. The money he makes should go to addiction charities."

A spokesman for Robbiewillaimspoker.com moved to defend the site, saying: "Our main focus is not money."

Thomas Hammers the Competition

He entered yesterday's GSOP Salzburg final table with a commanding chip lead and despite an early setback German player Thomas Butzhammer took down the event.

The young player didn't let the early drop in chips faze him and once the action reached 5 players he won what would become a tournament defining pot against Manfred Ronacher.

The coup saw almost half the chips in play slide across to Butzhammer and make him virtually untouchable.

With momentum on his side, Butzhammer went on to eliminate the rest of the field and dispatch with Markus Jenisch in rapid fashion when the pair got all their chips in the middle. Butzhammer held the pre-flop advantage with A-Q against Jenisch's K-Q.

That dynamic didn't change and in the blink of an eye Butzhammer scooped all the chips on the table, along with the €62,760 first place prize as well as a $5,000 seat in the GSOP Grand Final in April.

For more on information on the event as a whole, and for exclsuive videos visit WPT Poker Magazine.

High Stakes News

"patpatman" hit a virtual speed bump yesterday, dropping $118,735 in just 504 hands. The anonymous player has been crushing the high stakes games in recent weeks but that all came to an end yesterday. "Flying Smile" was the next biggest loser of the day, subtracting a total of $48,330 from their bankroll.

At the other end of the spectrum, UK based pro "Kanu7" had a storming day in front of his computer. By the time he logged off he'd scooped an impressive $118,391, almost double of his nearest rival "AdvancedFear" who netted $64,792.

Daily Signoff

YouTube's auto-suggestion feature can often throw up some interesting poker moments and whilst surfing today we were reminded of this interesting hand from Daniel Negreanu.

Taking place at the 2006 WSOP, Daniel's table chat correctly established his opponent was weak; so weak in fact that Daniel found a call with T-7. Very funny stuff.