American Poker News

WSOP 2011 Updates

When it’s all over we’ll bring you the comprehensive results list but this year has already been notable for several reasons.

Firstly the young British players have been doing all the right things. As of Thursday 16th June, Jake Cody, Matt Perrins and Darren Woods had all walked off with bracelets and many of the final tables had British representation.

Cody won the big early event, the $25,000 Heads Up No Limit Hold’em , beating Yevgeniy Timoshenko to scoop $850,000 and the WSOP bracelet. Matt Perrins then won Event #9, the $1500 2-7 Draw Lowball, apparently a poker variant he’d never played before. Perhaps surprised to still be in the competition at the end of the first day, he took the opportunity to research some strategy that evening before coming back to win the event and $100,000 the next day. Fellow Brit Chris Bjorin came second.

Darren Woods is the third success story, claiming victory in event #19, $2500 Six Handed

Darren Woods

Limit Hold’em. He blitzed through the 354 strong field to claim the bracelet and just over $200,000, beating Stephanie Nguyen into second place.

Whether it makes a difference or not, the British and other non-Americans can also spend their spare time at whichever online poker room takes their fancy. Nothing illegal about it for them, whereas the American players have to amuse themselves in some other fashion - the events of Black Friday and Blue Monday having put an end to online poker in the U.S. for the moment at least.

Sponsors logos have also been something of a talking point at the Rio All Suite Hotel & Casino this year. Originally this year’s competition would have seen a logo-less competition due to the various issues of legality surrounding various sponsors but that seems to have gone by the wayside. Most of the talk seems to be about Full Tilt Poker and whether it’s ethically correct to carry the logo. Full Tilt has been at the centre of most complaints due to its seeming lack of ability to refund U.S. facing players following the seizure (and subsequent return) of its URLs.

Some Full Tilt Pros are shunning the patches but others are sticking with their employer for now - innocent until proven guilty is a phrase that has been heard several times around the Rio this year.

Tags: british invasion, darren woods, full tilt, hold'em, jake cody, logos, lowball, matt perrins, patches, wsop 2011 news, wsop updates