WSOP $50,000 Players Championship: Michael Mizrachi Leads after Day 3

Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi is currently chip leader with an impressive 1.48 million in chips going into Day 4 of the Player’s Championship at the 2010 World Series of Poker. There are just 21 players left in the event which continues tomorrow at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Vladimir Schmelev isn’t far behind Mizrachi taking 1.43 million chips into the next day of the event.

Notables such as Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, Barry Greenstein, Scotty Nguyen, Scott Clements, Scott Siever, Jeffrey Lisandro and the defending HORSE champion David Bach were eliminated during the six levels of poker played during Day 3 of the event.

High Stakes Tables Slow as Isildur1 Drops Down

It’s that time of the year again. The WSOP is almost upon us and unless you’ve already claimed your seat online then time is running out to bag your place in “the big dance”.

The WSOP, it seems, often has a knock-on effect of slowing down the action at the nose bleed stakes online. While players are busy preparing their travel, accommodation and playing one of the many online satellite qualifiers the high stakes tables see less action.

In the last week, players have struggled to notch up any significant profits. Only Phil Ivey has posted a chunky positive by adding $580k to his bankroll.

Phil Ivey puts Las Vegas Home up for Sale

2010 has been an interesting year for Phil Ivey so far. Following the break up of his marriage, the high stakes pro’ has notched up the usual impressive tournament results, including a 2nd place at the Aussie Million in January worth $553,776.

Ivey has also taken on a bizarre vegetarian prop bet worth $1 million alongside continuing to be one of the most feared plays on the high stakes tables at Full Tilt Poker.

Now it seems Ivey has his sights set on a new home after putting up his Las Vegas mansion for sale. The asking price? A cool $1.995 million according to the Los Angeles Times.

Ted Forrest’s Weight Loss Prop Bet

Everybody likes a ridiculous poker player prop bet and we, here at Poker News Headlines, are no different. Earlier this year we reported on Phil Ivey’s $1 million vegetarian prop bet (so far so good on the no eating meat front for Ivey) and now we’ve got news of another million dollar bet between two high profile players who enjoy a punt.

Step forward Ted Forrest and Mike “The Mouth” Matusow. Forrest, who currently weighs in at 188lbs, has until July 15th this year to tip the scale at just 139lbs. That’s almost 50lbs in a little over 2 months.

Patrik Antonius Back in Profit for 2010

2010 has been a rough year for pretty boy poker player, Patrik Antonius. The Finnish high stakes star has struggled up until lately and his profit/loss column was showing a worrying $3.6 million downswing not so long ago.

Things are looking a lot bright for Antonius today, though. After a red hot run of form in April he has turned his loss around into an $86,000 profit for the year so far. It took thr Finn just over 27,000 hands to turn things around. A remarkable achievement even for the high stakes played at over on Full Tilt Poker – Antonius’ online home.

Durrrr Rubishes Townsend Challenge Rumours

The Durrrr Challenge has been running for some time now and, so far, the only challenger to Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan has been Patrik Antonius. Dwan and Antonius have been slowly but surely working their way through the challenge and rumours have been circulating that Brian Townsend will be the next to take on the high stakes poker genius.

Bluff Magazine ran a story which stated; “Dwan says his goal for the match against Townsend – the starting day for which is still being worked out, while parameters such as buy-ins, number of hands, choice of games, etc. are staying the same – is simple: Make the action fast, exciting, and get the buzz going once again about the Durrrr Challenge.”

EPT Monte Carlo – Simon Munz Leads Day 1a

The EPT in Monte Carlo started yesterday with the cream of European and world poker making their way to the most prestigious location on the tour.

A buy in of €10,000 + €600 didn’t stop 351 players from taking their searts and, after nine hours of high octane play, only 175 made it through to Day 2.

Simon Munz from Germany ended the day as the chip leader with Sweden’s Chris Bjorin hot on his heels.

The “big” names didn’t fare too well, though, with Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, Phil Laak, Erik Seidel and Jennifer Tilly all sent for an early bath.

WPT Championship Day 1 – Ivey and Benyamine in Contention

While most poker tournament fans have their attention focused on San Remo, Italy for the latest European Poker Tour event, the WPT Championship at the Bellagio in Las Vegas seems to have slipped under the radar.

The $25,000 buy-in event has also been ignored, to a degree, by most of the poker playing world too. Although low European player numbers may be down to the Icelandic ash cloud covering most of Europe and grounding flights right now. Around 200 players are expected to take part and, perhaps unsurprisingly for a big buy-in event, most of the names on the chip count list are very familiar!

Jordan Morgan Leads NAPT Mohegan into Day 3

The NAPT Mohegan enters it’s third day later today with Jordan Morgan leading the chip counts after an outstanding day at the felt yesterday.

Morgan took to his seat with 55,400 chips at the start of the day but by the time the chips were bagged up after another long day, he was sitting pretty with over 700,000 and a healthy lead.

The $5,000 NAPT buy-in has proven a real success for sponsors PokerStars. The biggest online poker room has sent a good number of players to the event via their great value qualifying tournaments and the, relatively, low $5,000 buy-in saw many pro’s buy-in directly.