Negreanu will play host to a maximum of 18 players, each of whom will pay $15,000 to take part in the weekend. The guests will spend much of the weekend at the Venetian, where the poker instruction will take place, and sidelights during the weekend include a barbecue at Negreanu’s Las Vegas house and a VIP night on the town, like a high-stakes poker pro.

“I’m very
excited to offer poker players an immersive weekend of poker where I can give individual attention to each player’s game,” Negreanu stated. “The fact that the weekend is limited to 18 players will guarantee that I can work with each and every player and improve their game dramatically.”

The instruction part of the weekend includes Negreanu leading the group through seminars designed to teach both strategy and tactics. Negreanu will assess and seek to improve each player’s poker skills and performance during the weekend’s instruction. Seminar topics include pot odds, implied odds, bluffing, reading opponents, tournament and cash-game strategies, and online poker strategies. The final day includes an 18-player tourney where the learned concepts are put into play.

More information is available at weekendwithdaniel.com.

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Plenty of Australian poker stars were in the field, including ‘Aussie’ Sarah Bilney, Lee ‘Final Table’ Nelson, Billy ‘The Croc’ Argyros, and Graeme ‘Kiwi G’ Putt, who made the final table of Event #3, the mixed Stud tournament. Grant Levy, the winner of the APPT Grand Final Event in Sydney, made his first appearance of the 2008 Aussie Millions, as did PokerNews’ own Tony ‘G’ Guoga.

The rebuy period was typically fast and wild with Fricke taking advantage of the loose action with an early double-up. Anna Wroblewski needed all the rebuys she could find when she ran into several rough hands early. “I’ve lost with A-Q four times, and A-K twice!” exclaimed Anna. By the end of the rebuy period, the prize pool for the $1,000 buy-in tournament had swelled to $526,000, with a first-place prize of $168,320.

After the rebuy period ended, play returned to a more normal pace, and players began heading to the rail in fairly short order. Among the early eliminations were Kenna James, Nelson, Gary Benson and Karib Karib. 52 players remained at the dinner break, with Brandon Schaefer, Bilney and Sol Bergren busting soon after dinner.

Field’s exit came in the early evening, just short of the money bubble. Wroblewski raised from early position and found callers in Michael Russell and David Steicke. Field re-raised, and Wroblewski and Russell got out of the way as Steicke called for the rest of his chips with . Field tabled , and lost the race when the board came down .

APPT Macau High Rollers tournament winner Eric Assadourian was the bubble boy when he got his last few chips in with against Emmanuel Seal’s pocket fours. Assadourian became an extreme short stack in the tournament after running into Michael Russell’s pocket aces, and went to the rail when Seal’s fours held up to burst the bubble, leaving the final 18 players in the money. 14 of those players made it to the end of day, including Wroblewski and Kevin Saul, but the chip lead belonged to Tony Dunst when the action concluded. Dunst picked up a big pot on the last hand of the day to send Daniel Zink to the rail and take the chip lead. The final chip counts looked like this as players bagged up their stacks for the night, with these 14 players fighting for the winner’s share of the purse when action resumes on Wednesday:

Tony Dunst – 138,200
Dane Lomas – 110,700
Kevin Saul – 83,300
Julian Powell – 75,000
David Bach – 63,800
Emmanuel Seal – 48,700
Robert Wang – 48,200
David Steicke – 47,300
Michael Pedley – 44,200
Anna Wroblewski – 39,700
Erich Kollmann – 30,600
Larry Karambis – 27,200
Rayan Nathan – 17,500
Christine Klecz – 13,100

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A Bloomberg report quoted German government spokesperson Eric Braum as follows, regarding the 13 states whose ratification had been finalized: “That’s the required majority and we expect to have all the rest coming in by New Year’s Eve.”

The new law bans all Web-based gambling or brokering of all wagering and betting games over the Internet,
specifically including the placement of bets with companies located in other countries. Also included is a ban on advertising for any form of Internet gambling, and one of the rules in the new law even allows the German states to order ISPs [Internet Service Providers] to block access to sites offering online gambling and to block money transfers to the same sites.

Whether or not the draconian measures will hold up against the inevitable legal challenges remains to be seen. Four of the German states are already subject to a European Union action filed in October by Austrian online bookmaker bWin, and another European site, Tipp24 plans to file an immediate action against the new rules. In a December 19th statement issued immediately after the German states’ votes, Tipp24 proclaimed that it viewed the new rules “as clearly contrary to law and will sue for its rights if necessary.” Politicians opposing the action orchestrated by Germany’s controlling Hesse party also vow to fight the action.

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These settlements are not the first time media companies have settled with the US relative to online gambling advertising. In 2003, the Disney Channel forfeited millions of advertising dollars associated with dot-com online gambling companies. In 2006, The Sporting News agreed to a $7.2 million settlement with the DOJ relative to their print, web, and radio gambling advertisements.

The recent deal with the three internet companies was announced by Catherine Hanaway, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. Hanaway is fast becoming the Department of Justice’s poster girl in its battle against online gambling. Hanaway represented the DOJ during last month’s House Judiciary Hearing on Online Gambling. It was also Hanaway’s office that settled a civil case against BetOnSports last year whereby the company agreed to stop accepting bets from US residents.

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