In total eight monks, members of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, were filmed by a ninth monk sitting on the floor drinking, smoking and playing poker. The footage from the camera was somehow leaked to a South Korean media outlet, who then broadcast the video to the nation.

According to a former chief priest of the monk order, more than one billion won, that is $865,000, exchanged hands during the 13-hour poker session; news that has hit the 15 million followers of the Jogye order hard. Not only is gambling an illegal activity outside of the confines of casinos in South Korea but it is also extremely likely that the money being gambled came from the kind donations of the order’s followers.

The president of the Jogye order, Ja-seung, apologised for the action of the eight poker playing monks in an official statement. “We deeply apologize for the behavior of several monks in our order. The monks who have caused public concern are currently being investigated and will be punished according to Buddhist regulations as soon as the truth is verified by the prosecution.”

Since the scandal broke details of other behaviour not generally associated with Buddhist minks has been alleged including respected monks regularly drinking and gambling and one apparently paying for sex in a “room salon” south of the country’s capital, Seoul. The man who is alleged to have paid for the services of a prostitute, Seong-ho, was kicked out of the order during 2011 due to a number of accounts of “bad behaviour” that included violence and continually spreading baseless rumours

The Big One For OneDrop is the brainchild of multi-billionaire Guy Laliberte and the organisers of the WSOP. As mentioned, the tournament costs a staggering $1,000,000 to enter but $111,111 of each buy-in goes directly to the OneDrop charity, a charity that specialises in providing fresh water to those who do noto have a clean water supply.

Despite the astronomical buy-in the event has almost sold out! Entries are strictly capped at 48 and at time of writing there were 40 confirmed players who had each wired the required money to participate in this historic event; the last two players to sign-up being Britain’s Sam Trickett and Andrew “good2cu” Robl.

Trickett recently parted company with his sponsor, Titan Poker, and has revealed that he will be sporting the patches of Matchbook when he takes his seat in The Big One. Matchbook are a betting exchange that one of Trickett’s close friends, the former WSOP Europe champion, James Bord is heavily involved in. Bord himself is not listed to play but he is believed to have a significant percentage of any winnings Trickett helps himself to and with an estimated first place prize of $15,000,000 that could turn out to be a huge sum of money for Bord.

Robl has also stated, through Twitter, that he will be playing too. He wrote, “Excited to play poker for big money and help charity by playing the $1,000,000 tournament for @ONEDROPdotorg at the WSOP this summer.” Robl made his fortune in online cash games as a youngster and although he has been out of the limelight of late – mainly due to Black Friday – he is certainly a formidable opponent and none of the other 39 players will relish playing against him; especially for such high stakes.

One young man who has been spending a lot of time in Macau of late is Tom Dwan, better-known to the masses as the alias he chose on the now-stricken Full Tilt Poker, “durrrr.” Dwan recently participated in the PartyPoker Premier League in Vienna, Austria but the very minute he busted out of the televised Main Event he headed back to his hotel room, packed his bags and jetted back to Macau. The following hand shows why he was so eager to jump on a flight back to the new poker haven.

Reports are sketchy due to the private nature of the ultra high-stakes games being played but by all accounts Dwan and a number of extremely wealthy businessmen were playing at the StarWorld Hotel’s Poker King Club where the game had blinds of HKD$10,000/HKD$20,000 (USD $1,300/$2,600). Dwan and a Chinese businessman entered a raising war on an ace-ten-deuce flop with the Chinese businessman holding ace-deuce and Dwan ace-ten. The turn and river bricked out and Dwan scooped what is a reported HKD$30,000,000 or approximately $3,800,000; more than many people will ever earn in their entire lifetimes. Must be nice as the internet kids say!

With pots like this being relatively common and the fact the stakes sometimes play as high as HKD$30,000/HKD$60,000 (USD $3,850/$7,700) it is difficult seeing when and why Dwan will leave these games any time soon. Once the upcoming 2012 World Series of Poker has been completed we will probably see Dwan joined by the likes of Britain’s Sam Trickett, Andrew “good2cu” Robl and arguably the best poker player in the world, Phil Ivey.

Blom’s SCOOP got off to an absolute flying start in just the second event on the schedule; the No Limit Hold’em $1,000,000 guaranteed tournament. Blom, along with 8,239 others, paid the $215 entry fee in the “Medium” category creating a prize pool of $1,648,000 and a first place prize of $247,200. it was a first place prize that would be wiring its way to the bank account of Blom because he was the man who won all of the chips in play in the two-day event, defeating RaisingRay91 of Canada heads-up to claim the title.

Then last night Blom was in action again after reaching the second day’s play in the $530 rebuy six-max action hour event. Here he had to contend with online poker superstars such as eisenhower1, Ronny 1-ronnyr3” Kaiser, Jorj95 and Dani “supernova9” Stern and a whole host of others; each of them vying for the $160,000 winner’s prize.

Whilst any of the names mentioned would have been a worthy champion it was Blom who once again walked away with the lion’s share of the spoils, coming from behind to defeat Ruxandescu of Romania heads-up to scoop, pardon the pun, the win.

These two latest wins cap off what has been an extraordinary run of form in tournaments for the man better-known for his high stakes heads-up cash prowess. At the start of the year Blom took down the $100,000 Super High Roller event at the PCA for $1,254,000 and has since finished second in the €5,000 heads-up tournament at EPT Deauville, seventh in the €10,000 8-Max High Roller at EPT Berlin and seventh in the very same €10,000 High Roller being played at the EPT Grand Final.

The Lock Poker CEO, Jennifer Larson, said in a press release, “We are very excited at the prospect of driving the product, marketing and overall vision of the network. It is a dream come true. Merge was a great stepping stone for us but we have outgrown them. We really need to forge our own path to continued success. The only way to do this is to stay true to our core philosophy: partnering our players.”

Lock Poker’s players are believed to account for up to 40% of the Merge Network’s entire traffic figures so losing them will be a hammer blow to them and their immediate plans for the future. Lock Poker and Merge clashed last month when the latter prevented Lock Poker from running the Lock Poker-only LockOps tournament series that would have seen 33-events take place with $2,000,000 in guaranteed prize pools. Merge had initially agreed to allow the series to run but then pulled the plug on April 23 without any real clarification as to why that was the case.

Players who currently play on the Merge version of Lock Poker will be able to download the new software from May 31 and will be prompted to do so if they log into their accounts on that day or any date thereafter. Once they have downloaded the new software they will find their account balances, VIP benefits and player rewards in their cashier so the transition should be very smooth indeed.

Lock Poker currently sponsors a large stable of well-known professional players including Melanie Weisner, recent Irish Open champion Kevin Vandersmissen, the winningest online tournament player of all time in Chris Moorman and the newest addition Annette Obrestad. At present none of these players have made any comment to the proposed changes.

A few years ago Shawn Cunix was watching poker on television with his son when he remarked that it looked fun and that he wanted to give it a try. His son commented that Cunix did not have the time needed to become one of the best players in the world so Cunix set out to prove him wrong.

Yesterday Cunix joined an elite group of players who have won a World Poker Tour title when he took down the WPT Jacksonville BestBet Open for a cool $400,600 and whilst he may not be considered to be as good as the likes of Phil Ivey at the moment, he could probably lay claim to being one of the best amateur players in the world; especially as he has almost $1,200,000 in live tournament winnings to his name.

Cunix started the one-on-one battle with his last remaining opponents, James Calderaro, trailing by 5,610,000 to 3,970,000 chips but he never gave up. First he drew level with Calderaro, then he pushed in front only for Calderaro to stage a comeback of his own; it really was a superb heads-up match and should make excellent viewing when it is broadcast in the USA then around Europe later in the year.

By the time the last hand was played Cunix had not only re-taken the chip lead but had put some serious distance between himself and his opponent, leading him by 8,100,000 to 1,480,000 chips. On the 154th hand of the six-handed final table and with the blinds at 50,000/100,000/10,000a Cunix put Calderaro all-in whilst holding pocket threes and Calderaro made the call with Jd10d creating the common coinflip scenario. The dealer burned a card before putting out the 7s-5h-3d flop, gifting Cunix a set of threes and leaving Calderaro drawing very thinly indeed. He did pick up some outs when the 9c landed on the turn but the 6d on the river was no help at all and he was eliminated in second place.

Cunix’s $400,600 first place prize includes a $25,500 entry to the WPT World Championship that takes place this month and it would be a great story if he could go all the way in that event too.

WPT Jacksonville Final table Results

1st: Shawn Cunix – $400,600
2nd: James Calderaro – $236,560
3rd: Darren Elias – $147,850
4th: Daniel Buzgon – $94,624
5th: Tony Dunst – $66,532
6th: Will Failla – $54,704

The €50,000 Sunday HeadHunter Tournament at Poker Heaven on 29th April was won by ‘directArde’ who took home a total prize of €7827.77, including a first prize of €7149.60, and an additional €678.17 for the 16 bounty’s on the other players in the tournament that ‘ directArde ‘ knocked out. The tournament provided great value for all participants with an overlay of €8800 on the guaranteed prizepool. The €50,000 Sunday HeadHunter tournament takes place every Sunday at 18:00 GMT on Poker Heaven and players can qualify through satellites every day.

Crown Melbourne attracts approximately 18 million local, interstate and international visitors each year. It is one of the largest entertainment complexes in the world and is the home of the renowned ‘Aussie Millions Poker Championship’ along with the largest poker room outside North America.
“This exciting partnership brings together two industry leaders, and two strong brands, to create a premier poker event in this region,” said Crown Melbourne’s Chief Executive Officer, Greg Hawkins.
“Our agreement firmly aligns with our objective of attracting the very best local and international players, all vying for a coveted WSOP bracelet. We are incredibly proud of what we have achieved with the Aussie Millions and look forward to featuring WSOP Asia Pacific on our poker calendar in April 2013.”

The agreement marks the first time the WSOP is exporting its prestigious tournament series to Australia, and marks just the second expansion of the 42-year-old brand, after the advent of WSOP Europe in 2007. To date, WSOP gold bracelets have only been awarded in Las Vegas (1970-2011), London (2007-2010) and France (2011). Crown’s agreement with the WSOP includes provisions for international television production of the event and is expected to be shown globally on ESPN.

Legions of locals have been swept up in the Australian poker boom that was ignited when Melbournian and Crown ambassador Joe Hachem became the 2005 World Series of Poker Champion, scooping up $7.5 million in prize money for his efforts.
“It’s thrilling to think the World Series of Poker is coming to Australian soil,” said Joe Hachem. “I know first-hand what a life-changing moment winning the WSOP gold bracelet was and how it served as a catalyst for the growth of poker in Australia and Asia. It will be a dream come true to host a worldwide poker event such as this at Crown. I can’t wait.”
Crown’s CEO Greg Hawkins further added, “This initiative will provide Crown with significant exposure in Asia, Europe and America, and forms an integral part of Crown’s global marketing strategy to attract further international visitors to Australia and Crown Melbourne.”

The complete schedule and dates are expected to be announced later this year.

Charania, 27, from Chicago, Illinois, beat fellow qualifier Lucille Cailly heads-up to take the title. Cailly, 29, from Paris, was the first woman ever to make the final of the EPT Grand Final and took €1,050,000 for her runner-up finish.

Today’s final also featured Italian Poker Tour San Remo champion Sergio Castelluccio (4th for €400,000) and EPT Warsaw finalist Clayton Mozdzen (7th for €185,000).

As well as his cash prize, Charania received a bracelet worth €25,000. He also secured a seat in tomorrow’s EPT Tournament of Champions €100,000 free-roll. A total of 40 EPT champions are set to play.

Charania took up poker while studying finance at the University of Illinois. Since then he’s won over $3.5 million playing online, including a SCOOP side event victory in 2010, and just over $500,000 in live events. Today’s victory gives him by far his biggest live result. He said: “I feel great. This is my first trophy – I don’t think they give you these when you win a tournament online. I’ve spent two months playing poker in Europe and this is only the second time I’ve made the antes.” Charania, who his seat in a €33 re-buy satellite on PokerStars, beat Cailly when his QQ stood up against the French pro’s AK. The pair were among 160 players who won their seat to the event online on PokerStars.

A total of 665 players from 54 countries competed in this season’s EPT Grand Final Main Event creating a total prize pool of €6,650,000. A total of 97 players were paid; EPT Prague champion Martin Finger and American Andrew Badecker went out at the same time on the bubble so shared the €15,000 prize for 96th place between them.

Among those to make the money were Justin Bonomo, who won the €100,000 Super High Roller at the start of the Grand Final for €1,640,000, plus Team PokerStars Pros Matthias De Meulder, Richard Toth, Sandra Naujoks, Angel Guillen, Pierre Neuville, Max Martinez and Nacho Barbero.

The €10,000 Main Event was one of 37 tournaments taking place at Le Sporting Casino in Monaco as part of the eighth EPT Grand Final “Festival of Poker”, from April 23 to May 1. Season 8 has taken players all over Europe, as well as to the Bahamas in January for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

In other EPT Grand Final side events, Team PokerStars Pro Vicky Coren beat Melanie Weisner to take down the €5,000 NL Heads-Up event (the first-ever all-female EPT final); German player Khiem Nguyen won the €1k PLO side event for €43,700, thus securing his EPT Omaha Player of the Year title at tomorrow night’s Awards ceremony; American Daniel Smith won both the €5,000 NL and €5,000 NL Turbo side events for combined winnings of €412,150 and German pro Marvin Rettenmaier won the €2,000 NL event for €118,330. The €25,000 High Roller is now in the money with Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu, Philipp Gruissem and Phil Ivey vying to take the chip lead through to tomorrow’s final table.

Last week news spread that the poker and prop bet legend’s health had taken a severe turn for the worst and he had been admitted to a respite care home where he would ultimately see out his last days. Preston’s family confirmed the sad news of his death by releasing a brief statement that read:

“We hope everyone will remember our beloved Amarillo Slim for all the positive things he did for poker and to popularise his favourite game – Texas Hold’em.”

Preston was a very colourful character who was also one of poker’s first World Champions; having won the 1972 World Series of Poker Main Event. He went on to win another three gold bracelets, one in 1974 in a $1,000 No Limit Hold’em event, 1985 when he won a $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event and his fourth and final bracelet was won in 1990 when he took down another $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event.

Although a very talented poker player in his day, Preston was renowned for his prop betting skills and the lengths he would go to ensure he won the bet. Legend has it that he practised playing pool with a broom handle for three years before he used his new found skills to take on a champion pool player and relieve him of his money. Other legendary bets include moving road signs so he could make a bets based on time and distance and taking on former Wimbledon champion Bobby Riggs at high stakes pingpong in a match where Riggs used paddles and Preston cooking skillets!

Many would describe Amarillo Slim as a hustler and rightly so too but it was something he loved doing to bring people down a peg or two. He said in his autobiography, “If there’s anything I’ll argue about, I’ll either bet on it or shut up. And since it’s not very becoming for a cowboy to be arguing, I’ve made a few wagers in my day. But in my humble opinion, I’m no ordinary hustler. You see, neighbour, I never go looking for a sucker. I look for a champion and make a sucker out of him.”

Amarillo Slim, December 31, 1928 – April 29, 2012.