The Monday Minute recaps the big stories in poker in the last week and the important upcoming events. This week, The Bellagio Changes its tune, 2 new Poker TV Shows, and your too old for poker at 20, but too young at 77?

The Monday Minute

  • Two new poker television shows have been announced by the biggest online poker rooms.  Pokerstars.com announced last week plans for a program entitled “The Big Game” while Full Tilt Poker revealed its own show “The Poker Lounge.”  The Pokerstars show will run qualifiers for a “Loose Cannon” (another term for a random qualifier for the program), which began on March 26th, and will run through June 25th.  The game will be a $100k minimum buy in cash game, pitting “The Loose Cannon” against PokerStars biggest pro’s, highlighted by Daniel Negreanu.  Check out the full scoop here : http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/promotions/thebiggame/
  • Full Tilt’s “The Poker Lounge” will be shot in London, England and run for 10 episodes beginning on June 21st on NBC.  5 Full Tilt Pro’s will compete for a $20,000 buy in with 1 online qualifier, where the winner will end up with all of the cash.   To learn how to win your ticket onto the show, check out the Full Tilt announcement here: http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/the-poker-lounge
  • The World Poker Tour World Poker Classic finally listened to the players, and changed their tournament structure.  Originally slated to be a series of ALL re-buy events, the Bellagio has changed its tune and offered 5 $1k buy-in  NLHE Tournaments, 4 $500 NLHE Tournaments, 2 $1k Pot-Limit Omaha re-buy events, and a $5,000 NLHE Event.  Bellagio Tournament Director Jack McClelland was quoted as saying “The players still like the re-buy tournaments but with the bad economy, they can’t afford to purchase multiple re-buys as much.  We decided to modify the schedule and leave the re-buys in for those who like them, and we also went back to more traditional single buy-in $500 and $1,000 tournaments.”  Great job by Jack and the Bellagio in listening to the poker community.
  • It’s not often that “retirement” is a word used by a 20-year-old, but it’s also not common for a 20-year-old to have more than $2.6 Million in LIVE career tournament poker winnings either.  Canadian Full Tilt Pro, Mike “Timex” McDonald, announced on April 1st in his blog on Card Runners (http://blogs.cardrunners.com/Timex/where-to-go-from-here ) that he’s giving up on poker for the time being.  In a very well thought out piece, Mike goes on to explain that he’s earned as much money as he’d ever need to establish his future endeavors, and aims to be a more well rounded person.  As such, he’s planning on taking time away from the grind of studying poker, and focusing on going back to school.  Plenty of speculation is running through the poker industry, but it appears as though McDonald is simply burned out, and needs to recharge his batteries.  He goes on to say that he doesn’t rule out a return to the game, and given that he’s yet to take his stab at the World Series of Poker, it would surprise very few to see McDonald back in action at the felt at some point in the future.
  • If 20 is the new age to retire, then is 77 the right age to start?  Such is the case for the Owner of the Los Angeles Lakers, Jerry Buss.  A longtime fan of the game of poker and an avid tournament and cash game player, Buss has made the decision to step away from his ownership role as the Lakers maestro, leaving the reigns to one of the most glorified franchises in the history of professional sports in the good care of his children.  In his ESPN interview (http://sports.espn.go.com/losangeles/nba/news/story?id=4990899) Buss tells Steve Springer that he is “Exactly where I want to be.” And “I now have the time to pursue another profession.   I’m going to become a professional poker player. “  Buss is a regular in the Los Angeles poker circles, and commonly found at either the LA Local card clubs and casinos, or the nearby Indian Gaming locations.

Upcoming Events

The Sixth Annual Bad Beat on Cancer Texas Hold’em Poker Tournament will be held on Tuesday, May 4th 2010, in the East Hall of Union Station in Washington D.C.  Prevent Cancer Board member, professional poker player, and commentator Phil Gordon will once again host the tournament.  Phil and Rafe Furst founded Bad Beat on Cancer at the 2003 World Series of Poker, and since its inception the initiative has raised more than $3 million for cancer prevention research, education, and community outreach.  Other professional players scheduled to attend include Andy Bloch, Lee Childs, Annie Duke, Howard Lederer, Rafe Furst, and Jena Delk

This year’s tournament will be hosted by the Honorable Alfonse D’Amato (http://www.aldamato.org/) of Poker Players Alliance (http://theppa.org/),  and the tournaments 2008 winner, Tom Goldstein of Akin Gump.   The tournament sports a $500 buy-in, and is open to all players.  For information on how to register or become a sponsor for this event, contact Linda Chastain at linda.chastain@preventcancer.org.

Finally, this week begins Week 2 of the World Series of Poker $2,000 Guarantee hosted by the Twitter Poker Tour on Full Tilt Poker. Week 1 saw 8 entries into Sunday’s Step 2, with CPRPoker (@cprpoker) emerging as the victor, and becoming the first TPT Member into the Grand Finale.   Join the TPT for your chance at competing for a bracelett in the 2010 World Series of Poker with a new tournament every day, with buy-ins as low as just $2.  For more information, visit the TPT WSOP Page here. Make sure to grab your piece in the $2000 in guarantees.