24 Jan 12

Daily Rewind: Ivey at Aussie Millions, Manic Online Action, Negreanu and Ho?

In today's Daily Rewind we bring you news of Ivey's return to the top of tournament chip counts and his difficulties with Australian dealers. Plus, the Royal Flush Girls and some ridiculous high stakes action.

The Daily Rewind is your one-stop-shop for a sharp review of the day in poker. Join us here for a mix of the latest news and a more irreverent insight into the poker world. Today we bring the following stories to you:

I come from a land Down Under

With Day 1C of the Aussie Millions Main Event concluded, the final numbers are in. 317 players entered Day 1C, so the total field has been brought to 657 and the prize pool is a cool AU$6,570,000. One of the chip leaders heading into Day 2? None other than Phil Ivey himself. You can read all about it here.

To string bet or not to string bet?

On his way to topping the chip counts on Day 1C, it seems that Phil Ivey got himself in trouble with the dealers at the Aussie Millions Main Event. With the board reading , Ivey had bet 4,000 using two piles of four 500 chips.

As Ivey dropped each pile rapidly after the other, the dealer ruled this a string bet and it was declared as 2,000. Ivey called the floor and after some debate, this ruling was upheld.

Phil Ivey has a penchant for string bets, according to Australian dealers.

The floorman must have thought his job was done, for this hand at least. Not so - after Ivey's opponent raised the 2,000 (not 4,000) bet to 6,000; Ivey put in a 3-bet to 13,100. His opponent put all the chips in the pot and they tabled their hands - for Ivey against the nuts, .

Ivey couldn't bink the river, but then it was discovered that his opponent had 16,100, i.e. 3,000 more than Ivey had bet. Once again, the floor was called and ruled that because Ivey's intention was to put his opponent all-in, he should pay the extra 3,000.

Ivey countered that if his intention was to bet 4,000 and not 2,000, the first bet should not have been declared a string bet. After around 15 minutes of debate, the situation was resolved and the bet of 13,100 stood. A senior tournament director of the Aussie Millions stated these situations would be cleared up if players simply verbalised their actions.

Royal Flush Girls' bikini shoot

How's that for an eye-grabbing headline?

The Royal Flush Girls in bikinis. Just because.

Yes, even though we have some downtime between the inaugural WPT Ireland and WPT Venice Grand Prix, the boys in charge of the World Poker Tour haven't been slacking off. You have to promote the brand, so the cameramen and directors at the WPT assembled the Royal Flush Girls in bikinis for a photoshoot.

It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it. Check out the behind-the-scenes video below:

High stakes corner

There is a lot of high stakes action to report in both the live and online arena, with Daniel Smith winning the $100,000 Challenge in Melbourne being one of the highlights.

British tournament grinder and EPT champion Toby "810ofclubs" Lewis managed to net himself another "COOP" to go with his 2011 WCOOP title. He won the Turbo Championship of Online Poker's $55 Knockout (Event #16), beating a field of over 12,000 players to claim a $68,676.14 first prize.

Toby Lewis - back in the winners' circle

However, that pales in comparison to the action at the PokerStars Omaha tables, where Viktor "Isildur1" Blom, Ilari "Ilari_FIN" Sahamies and PokerStrategy.com's own Jens "JensKyllonen" Kyllonen have been battling.

Of course, Isildur1 was at the centre of the action and in fact he's been at the tables practically non-stop for the past 36 hours. At the time of writing, he is currently engaged with Jens Kyllonen and Ilari Sahamies and is a near-$600,000 winner for the past 24 hours. Jens Kyllonen is still up $150,000 but that figure is of course subject to change.

The unfortunate victim of the day was Phil "MrSweets28" Galfond. He managed to run over half a million dollars under All-in EV to lose... well, a picture says a thousand words:

"If today were opposite day," tweeted Phil Galfond, "that would be cool."

Daily Signoff

Daniel Negreanu has something of a history of dating beautiful women (see Krisztina Polgár, Amanda Leatherman) and if the latest rumours at TwoPlusTwo are to be believed, Negreanu is allegedly dating fellow poker pro Maria Ho.

While this is unconfirmed, we thought Negreanu's latest photobombing effort was worth a place as the Daily Signoff. Hell, at least he's not making out with Phil Galfond again.