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Jason Somerville has become one of poker’s most visible players over the last few years. His poker career goes back to 2004, a time when online poker was still in its infancy.

Since then he has won a World Series of Poker bracelet, founded a poker training site and become the most popular poker streamer on Twitch. On top of all that, he’s now a PokerStars ambassador and is giving away a PokerStars Platinum Pass worth $30,000.

Platinum Pass provides the chance of a huge win

The Platinum Pass gives its holders a trip to the Bahamas, a stay at the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island, and a seat in what PokerStars describes as “the richest $25,000 poker tournament in history.”

PokerStars is adding $9 million to the prize pool, including an extra $1 million for the winner. The event will run from January 6 to January 10, 2019.

Many of the PokerStars ambassadors have been given Platinum Passes to give away for free in ways that will help promote online poker. Fellow Twitch streamers Jaime Staples, Lex Veldhuis, Fintan and Spraggy have passes to give away, and Chris Moneymaker is handing out nine to the winners of each main event in the Moneymaker PSPC Tour.

Somerville is full of enthusiasm for the project. He believes the Platinum Pass Adventure is a truly “amazing” promotion, an incredible way for PokerStars to “give back to the players.”

He thinks the event will have the same atmosphere as the WSOP Main Event. “There’ll be so many amazing story lines coming out of this it’s going to be really sick.”

Each ambassador is finding their own way to hand out their passes, and Somerville has decided that he wants to offer his to “the next great Twitch poker streamer.”

The opt-in period for players to participate in the competition ends Friday, July 27. Players can enter by sending their name, twitch page, country of origin and a short paragraph about themselves to [email protected]. Once the opt in period has ended the contest will run for four months and the winner will be chosen on November 15.

Somerville’s success on Twitch took hard work

Somerville has tremendous personal charisma, and a fund of anecdotes which he shares with his Twitch audience while streaming. However, he denied that he was a natural for the role.

“I don’t consider myself a natural. I had to work really hard. As I did poker videos I learned and gradually got better. If I hadn’t had all the years playing and developing a library of stories [it would be so good].

Somerville is full of praise for Twitch:

“So much more engagement than YouTube or TV. Twitch has been incredibly supportive of poker.”

He described the early days when much of his audience was unfamiliar with online poker.

“It was great to play the tour guide for Twitch chat, but so many times when I’d go off live there’d be nobody streaming.”

That was his motivation to launch runitup247. In partnership with PokerStars, Somerville’s new channel offers 24/7 streaming of high quality premium poker content. The project naturally aligns PokerStars and Somerville’s interests:

“We’re here to grow the game, we have to be on every platform.”

His plan to offer a Platinum Pass to a Twitch poker streamer is aimed directly at encouraging more novices to stream their play on Twitch to help promote the game.

On Justin Bonomo and Joe Cada

In the first half of 2018, Justin Bonomo has had what is probably the best run of any poker player in history. He won the Super High Roller Bowl, a bracelet in the WSOP $10,000 Heads-Up Championship, several of the $25,000 High Rollers at the Aria, and to cap it all, took down the Big One for One Drop for a prize of $10 million.

Bonomo has now edged out Daniel Negreanu at the top of the all-time winning list, having added just shy of $25 million in tournament winnings since the beginning of 2018.

Somerville was full of admiration for his friend’s achievement:

“I’ve known Justin for a long time, always an honourable guy, always working on his game and he always had insights other people didn’t have.”

Joe Cada has also done brilliantly at this year’s WSOP. He won the Main Event in 2009, and managed a second Main Event final table this year, when he finished fifth. After a day’s break, he then took down the $1,500 Closer event to win his fourth WSOP bracelet.

Somerville commented:

“I have a lot of respect for him as a human and very happy to see his success this year, amazing success. It’s been an insane run, a testament to his skill. He was always a good player, even before he won the Main. To make another deep run underscores the fact that it was not just luck the first time.”

Poker in the US has a bright future

Back in 2015, Somerville took part in the Let California Play! PokerStars Pro Tour. Along with Chris Moneymaker, Daniel Negreanu, Vanessa Selbst and Liv Boeree, the celebrity players toured California card rooms to help get online poker legalized in California.

I asked Somerville if he would be taking part in any more efforts to spread legalization.

“I have a long history of promoting regulation. I hope to do more to bring regulation to the states. I think the liberalization of sports betting will really go a long way towards getting poker legalized. If you can bet on sports but not play online poker, that makes no sense.”

He is optimistic but counsels that the process will take some time:

“Poker in the US has been through some tough times, but we just need to change some laws. effect change where we can and stay patient.”

The post A Chat With Jason Somerville: Twitch, Platinum Passes, And The Future Of US Poker appeared first on .

The 17th season of the World Poker Tour starts on July 21. This season presents new changes across the landscape of the tour with all televised final tables taking place at Esports Arena Las Vegas. Those events aren’t scheduled until the second half of the season in 2019. Other changes are part of all WPT events including the big blind ante, Action Clock, and a few new stops along the way.

Using key numbers as a metric, US Poker previews the first half of the WPT calendar.

$5,000

A new stop appears on the map to kick off the North American (and partially European) road trip. For the first time ever, the WPT travels to Gardens Casino in Hawaiian Gardens, Calif. for the $5,000 buy-in WPT Gardens Poker Festival. There is no guarantee on the event but Gardens is adding a $250,000 sweetener to the prize pool along with an SLC Mercedes Roadster to first place.

The event starts on July 21 and wraps up with a live-streamed final table on July 26.

1

That is the number of players paying an ante in each hand this season of the WPT. Executive Director of the WPT, Matt Savage, alluded to the introduction of the big blind ante during Season XVI and the format is here to stay across all events in Season XVII.

“One of the changes we might be most excited about is the move to the big blind ante format for the WPT Main Tour, starting with WPT Gardens this month,” Savage said. “We’ve worked with our casino partners to fine-tune the WPT tournament structure to best fit the big blind ante format, including 40,000 starting chips.

Savage notes player feedback played a large role in the final decision to implement the big blind ante across all Main Tour stops.

A player forum at the Bellagio last December during the Five Diamond Poker Classic proved critical in deciding to use the big blind ante over the button ante utilized by partypokerLIVE.

All WPT Main Tour stops in Season XVII use the starting stack of 40,000 along with the one-in-eight payout structure developed by Savage. In past seasons, properties used their own payout system to calculate players paid and first-place total often leading to a lopsided prize pool.

30

The second full season of the 30-second WPT Action Clock starts when cards are in the air on July 21. There is one change made to the Action Clock from a year ago to accommodate for large field events, usually in Borgata and Seminole Hard Rock.

Instead of all fields receiving four Action Clock chips when one table away from the money, one additional time extension chip will be given for every 20 additional places paid above 80.

“One piece of feedback we received from players during our regular player summit was that they’d like more time extension chips in events that have larger fields,” Savage stated. “In the larger events, the Action Clock is implemented earlier than others, so there are more players to get through and more time extensions would be welcomed.”

$15,000

Player of the Year proves to be an exciting point of conversation for the entire WPT season. Art Papazyan held off a late charge from Joe McKeehen to win himself the Hublot-sponsored title and the watch to partner his honor.

Season XVII offers prizes to the top-three finishers in the standings with some rakeback included.

Per Savage, the Hublot WPT Player of the Year earns $15,000 in WPT tournament buy-in credits for any global WPT event along with the Hublot timepiece and complimentary accommodations for all Main Tour stops.

Second place in the standings receives $7,500 in buy-in credits and third-place takes in $2,500.

9

Esports Arena Las Vegas is not in effect until 2019 but the decision to move all televised final tables away from the host casino looms over Season XVII. Eight Main Tour events along with the Tournament of Champions were confirmed to be penciled in per VP of Global Tour Management, Angelica Hael.

The guessing game begins for the eight events to be included. Events like the Borgata Winter Poker Open and L.A. Poker Classic are locks to be chosen. The WPT is likely to announce the full list toward the end of the year.

Savage remarked that he is aware of the skepticism from players but remains optimistic about the change being able to grow the WPT and allow Esports Arena Las Vegas to be the number-one venue in poker.

“We’re looking to raise the level of televised events and the experience we provide to our players. We understand the change may have sparked a sense of uneasiness from some of our players, but there is plenty to be excited for. Each televised final table will come with an increased spotlight and players who reach a final table will receive a true superstar VIP experience in Las Vegas, the global home of poker.”

Lead image courtesy of World Poker Tour/Flickr

The post Five Numbers To Know For World Poker Tour Season XVII appeared first on .

Poker pro Justin Bonomo is having the kind of year that could render him responsible for the demise of big buy-in high roller events altogether. Unless the ego of those losing millions playing in the events won’t let them give up the dream that they could be next.

He got a win in the $300,000 buy-in 2018 Super High Roller Bowl as the 2018 World Series of Poker kicked off. Then another in the $1 million buy-in The Big One for One Drop as the 2018 WSOP came to a close.

In fact, Bonomo has earned an unprecedented $24,945,435 playing poker tournaments in 2018 so far. He’s now poker’s all-time leading money winner with $42,979,591 in career tournament earnings.

Bonomo won $15 million in the prestigious Super High Roller Bowl and Big One for One Drop tournaments alone. His other seven-figure scores this year include:

• $1,077,800 for finishing second in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100,000 buy-in Super High Roller
• $4,823,077 for winning the HKD $2 million buy-in Super High Roller Bowl China in Macau

Plus, among his many six-figure scores this year are final table finishes or wins in another dozen events with buy-ins of $25,000 or more.

Killing it in high rollers

It’s no exaggeration to say Bonomo is killing it in high rollers. But is he actually killing high rollers? Has he had so much success that other players have decided they have no chance to compete?

Entry numbers are certainly down.

The WSOP claimed 30 players were confirmed to play in the $1 million buy-in The Big One for One Drop this year. However, only 27 showed up. In comparison, the first ever Big One for One Drop drew 48 entries in 2012. The event was held again in 2014 and drew 42 players.

That January PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100,000 Super High Roller event he finished second in drew 48 entries, down from 58 in 2016.

To be fair, German high roller phenom Fedor Holz is probably more responsible for the downward trend. It’s no coincidence he finished runner-up to Bonomo in The Big One for One Drop this year.

In 2016, Holz cashed for $16.4 million in tournaments, the majority of which were of the high roller variety. Holz has a stable of other German pros he reportedly swaps with. They were so dominant in high roller events, they forced the rest of the high roller community to rethink their strategy. For some, that obviously meant dropping out of the scene compeletely.

Being even bigger, the year Bonomo is having could very well have a similar effect.

A zero-sum game

The fact is, poker is more or less a zero-sum game. That means all $24,945,435 won by Bonomo this year has been lost by other players.

Can the high roller scene really sustain itself if just one or two players are winning all the money? Logic would dictate it can’t. In fact, it would dictate most losing players will ultimately drop out of the scene if current trends continue.

Fewer players will mean smaller prize pools. Eventually, even players like Bonomo and Holz will realize the amount of money risked isn’t worth the reward.

However, just as it did in the wake of Holz’ magnificent 2016, logic may prove to have very little do with what high-stakes tournament players are doing. Most are driven by ego instead.

Even though their money may still be there, the number of entries coming in high rollers from people outside of pro poker circles has plummeted since 2016. However, there’s still a group of professional players throwing good money after bad trying to match what Fedor pulled off.

Now that Bonomo has done him one better, will the ego of the average high roller allow them to give up the dream that they could be next?

Lead image courtesy of Tomas Stacha/PokerStars

The post Justin Bonomo: Killing It In High Rollers Or Just Killing Them Altogether? appeared first on .

MGM National Harbor opened a second level in its casino. The new space, which opened on July 16, cost the company $48 million to renovate into its desired shape.

The new area increases the property’s gaming space by 38,000 square feet. Several new features are now available to patrons at the casino, including an expanded poker room.

In fact, moving poker operations upstairs was the major focus of the renovation. According to company management, demand at the property for table games has wildly exceeded expectations.

“We had a rough second floor that was not being utilized, and the intent was that if we saw the demand from our customers, we would have the ability to expand to that second floor,” said President and COO Melonie Johnson, speaking to the Washington Business Journal.

The new poker room increases the number of available tables to 46. Also, the new room features two tables expressly built for high-limit play.

The property will now use the former poker room space to increase its number of table games and slot machines. Other features in the expansion include:

• 285 new video lottery terminals
• A 700-square-foot terrace that overlooks the National Harbor and the Potomac
• The Race Book, a 24-screen off-track parlor for betting on horse races
• Snacks, a fast-casual restaurant that serves pizza, Asian food, buffalo wings, and other favorites

MGM National Harbor has been wildly successful in a short time

This expansion is somewhat surprising, considering that its parent property opened for business a mere 18 months ago. However, the demand at the Baltimore-area casino has been quite high.

In fact, the property is the highest-grossing property in the state. Year-to-date, the property has earned revenue in excess of $343 million on its video lottery terminals and table games.

That figure exceeds its nearest competitor, Live! Casino & Hotel, by almost $60 million. In terms of revenue, MGM National Harbor owns nearly 40% of market share in Maryland.

Its June 2018 revenue was just under $60 million. That figure was 18% higher than the same time period in 2017.

So, it’s not hard to understand that the casino needs more space.

Maryland is fairly new to the casino game

MGM National Harbor is the newest of Maryland’s six casinos. It is the second-largest facility after Live! in terms of machines and table games.

The first casino to open in Maryland was Hollywood Casino Perryville. That property opened its doors in September 2010.

Since then, it and its five competitors have created an industry with yearly revenues exceeding $1.6 billion. Last year, as part of those revenues, MGM National Harbor injected over $170 million into Maryland’s Education Trust Fund.

Armed with this new space, that number is set to be much higher.

Photo by Ritu Manoj Jethani / Shutterstock.com

The post 18 Months In And MGM National Harbor Already Needed An Expansion appeared first on Play USA.