Top News – Duhamel and Selbst Win November 9s

Just four letters W-S-O-P say it all – the Worlds Series and the new champion is definitely the biggest news of the week. A 23-year old Canadian Jonathan Duhamel outplayed the rest of the November Niners and scored the most prestigious poker title of them all – the WSOP Main Event golden bracelet, plus $8.9 million in cash. The victory must have been even sweeter for Duhamel as he became first Canadian player to win the World Series. Another player to score big in a 'November Nine' competition was Vanessa Selbst, a recent winner of NAPT Mohegan Sun won another title in one of the biggest poker events in France – the Partouche Poker Tour. The first place cash was not as big as the one going into Duhamel's account, but still impressive – €1,300,000.

Jonathan Duhamel – 2010 WSOP Champion

Poker must be the best job in the world – that's what comes to mind seeing a 23-year old college dropout getting richer by almost 9 million bucks just for playing cards. A little $10,000 entry fee investment and a 7,319-player competition, how hard can it be? Much harder than you might think. Winning the world's biggest live poker tournament is as easy as climbing mount Everest, or even harder, no one can say for sure, however, what's definite is that it's really really hard, Jonathan Duhamel can tell you that.

The 2010 World Series of Poker started in late May and ended in November – 6 month-long poker tournament of 57 events finished on Monday crowning it's new champion. “This means so much to me, I'm the happiest guy on the earth right now,” said Duhamel. “I am very happy to be the first Canadian. It's an honor for me and it's great for Canada.”

Duhamel was the chip leader coming into the final table, hence not the main favorite – no chip leader has stuck to his pile through the whole final table since 2006 Jamie Gold's win. That was the argument, plus some others including Duhamel's lack of big live tournament experience. However, the young Canadian proved otherwise and won the title of a lifetime – the WSOP Main Event. A Team PokerStars member beat his heads-up opponent John Racener in just 42 hands which might not seem such a big challenge considering that he had a 6-to-1 chip lead before the start of the 1-on-1 battle. Racener got rewarded with a runner-up prize of 5 and a half million bucks, which should cover up a bit for the big loss.

“WON THE BRACELET!!! Great match with Racener, amazing opponent! Thanks to all in Canada & around the world for all the support!” was Duhamel's Twitter post after the victory.

These are the 2010 WSOP Main Event standings after the final table:

1. Jonathan Duhamel – $8,944,310
2. John Racener – $5,545,955
3. Joseph Cheong – $4,130,049
4. Filippo Candio – $3,092,545
5. Michael Mizrachi – $2,332,992
6. John Dolan – $1,772,959
7. Jason Senti – $1,356,720
8. Matthew Jarvis – $1,045,743
9. Soi Nguyen – $811,823

And here's a short post-final video from our friends @ PokerNews live reporting team:

Vanessa Selbst's 2nd – Partouche Poker Tour

Vanessa Selbst is definitely the most successful female poker player of 2010 – she won her first big tournament of the year back in April by scoring at the PokerStars.net NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event for $750,000 cash and now she's done it again. The Partouche Poker Tour title and €1,300,000 in first-place money put Selbst into the #3 spot in the all-time money list for female players with $3,765,824 in carrier tournament winnings.

The Partouche Poker Tour started back in September, and like the WSOP put it's final table on hold until November, which immediately caught the name of November Nine. However, the tournament didn't go as smooth as it was supposed to because of one final tablist being accused of fraud and suspended from the tournament. It was proved that Ali Tekintamgac, who won the WPT Barcelona Main Event earlier this year and was 4th in chips before the play was stopped in September was cheating and therefore disqualified from the final table.

After reviewing the video footage, tournament directors have discovered that Tekintamgac was using the help of “fake bloggers/reporters”, who would look at his opponents hole cards and use hand signals to indicate hands. This is not the first time Tekintamgac has been accused of cheating, he was also suspended from the EPT Tallin event back in August after being suspected of fraud. So the PPT final table, which should have consisted of nine players was reduced to eight, Tekintamgac's chips were removed from the game and the €110,300 ninth-place prize was either to be divided among the players or given to charity.

Selbst was the chip leader from the beginning of the play, with 3 of the opponents very close behind, which meant the play could easily go either way. However, the only woman at the PPT final table was too strong for any of the guys and was the one to win the title along with the first-place cash prize of almost 1 and a half million Euros. Including her 2008 WSOP $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event win and the 2010 NAPT Mohegan Sun title, Selbst became one of the most successful female poker players in the history and now ranks 3rd in the top female players' list.

These are the Partouche Poker Tour final table results:

1. Vanessa Selbst - €1,300,000
2. Raphael Kroll - €800,000
3. Fabrice Soulier - €500,000
4. Tommi Etelapera - €360,000
5. Ibrahim Raouf - €300,000
6. Soren Konsgaard - €240,000
7. Cyril André - €187,500
8. Tobias Reinkemeier - €130,700

Liz Leu and ChiliPoker Coming to US

All poker fans (and probably thousands of other people) love Liz Leu – one of the sexiest (or maybe the sexiest) and the most beautiful players around is also the representative of the online poker site Chilipoker and the good news is that they're both coming to US. Yes, at the time when only a few poker sites are strong enough to resist the online gaming legislation and still provide US players with online poker, Chili is joining the battle on the online poker's side by launching a new site for the American players. The start date is not yet announced, but it should be in the early 2011 which means that US citizens will very soon also be able to take Liz Leu to the online poker tables.

“We are very excited about this new dimension to our business,” Alexandre Dreyfus, CEO of Chilipoker said. “Our economies of scale will help this be a strong mechanism for further growth and it will help fill the void that exists in markets where online gaming is restricted and consumers want to play poker. In markets where we operate online gaming, this new product will provide consumers with more choice.”

Full Tilt out of Washington

However, there are some bad new for US players a well, especially for those in Washington. Just a month after PokerStars announcing their retreat from the Washington State, their opponents from Full Tilt Poker did the same thing. This comes as a result of a recent Washington State court ruling on online poker which makes the activity illegal and prohibits the state residents from playing poker online.

However, Full Tilt reassured their users that their real money funds will still be available for usage in other states should they wish to employ them in real money play. The nonresidents of Washington State will also be banned from real money gaming while they're visiting the state. The only way to access Full Tilt Poker games in Washington is now through the play money site.

And this is all we had for you this time, log on to OnlinePoker10 next week for more of the poker's top news.

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