Barry Greenstein and Linda Johnson have been named as this year’s inductees to the Poker Hall of Fame.

Johnson

Johnson is only the second woman to be voted into the hall joining Barbara Enright.

Johnson was nicknamed the “First Lady of Poker,” and is known as much for her play as being an ambassador and promoter of the game. She was the publisher of Card Player Magazine for eight years in the 90s and has written three books on the game.

Greenstein is known as the “Robin Hood of Poker,” and has reportedly given more than $3 million of his earnings to charity.

You can get a nice rundown on their careers at wsop.com.

Greenstein

The other nominees this year, decided by popular vote, were: Annie Duke, Jennifer Harman Traniello, John Juanda, Marcel Luske, Jack McClelland, Tom McEvoy, Scotty Nguyen and Huck Seed.

Greenstein and Johnson will be officially inducted on Tuesday, November 8 at the Rio All-Suite® Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas just prior to the start of the final playing session of the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event Championship.

Regular tournament action again this weekend, so here’s a rundown on the bad beat jackpots.

Shana Hiatt

The Borgata’s bad beat jackpot had a hit early in the week on its small bad beat, knocking $50K off the total. It’s climbed back up to $318,429 going into today, keeping it as the highest jackpot in the city.

The hit came Monday, Oct. 24, on a $2-$5 No Limit table.

Marcus Bower of South Williamsport, Pa., had his quad 4’s beaten by a straight flush from Kien Ping Kwan of Atlantic City.

Bower took home $20K, Kwan won the pot plus an additional $10K, and the  seven other players at the table divided up the remaining $20K.

The current jackpot is still high enough to leave the small bad beat jackpot topped out at $50,000.

The Tropicana’s jackpot is next highest at $271,585 going in today’s play. The Caesars Entertainment combined jackpot has climbed back to $167,992 and The Taj Mahal’s jackpot is at about $96,000.

Snow could begin piling up in a lot of those new Pennsylvania casino areas this weekend, but A.C.’s probably just looking at a little rain.

Just a thought grinders.

Well, it’s another bad day for the Atlantic City market as the oft-delayed Aqueduct racino finally opens today, adding New York to the long list of competing casino states for the city.

And in another bad sign, it seems the whole place is automated, with 4,525 video slot machines and 475 electronic games. It’s the dealer-less automated games that are the most troubling.

It’s bad enough we lost all the slots jobs several years back when the machines all went to credits and vouchers. Now dealers livelihoods are on the line.

Let’s hope gamblers draw a line in the sand and insist on actual cards on their tables and grow suspicious of computer-generated deals. But they probably won’t.

It should be noted that The Tropicana wants these electronic games as well when it moves gambling into The Quarter.

Anyway, for more on Genting’s Resorts World New York Casino, (even the Resorts name is ripping us off), here’s a good rundown from The Star Ledger.

Childs

From time to time, Atlantic City has seen some special poker education classes come through town, from WPT boot camps to WSOP academy sessions.

But the latest is a more private enterprise from three known poker pros, Lee Childs, Jason Young and Josh Brikis.

All three are regular A.C. players, most notably showing up at Borgata events, and have about $3 million in tournament winnings between them.

So it stands to reason they’ll be holding their one-day academy, Nov. 15, at The Borgata during the inaugural Borgata Fall Open. Though not exactly partnered with the Borgata, the casino is helping to promote the class, which will be held in the Borgata’s Studio 3 meeting room.

Brikis

Dubbed “Inside the Minds,” the class costs $500 and runs from 10am-6pm.

Childs describes the class on the Borgata poker blog as:

“Our sessions are designed for players of all skill levels. Whether you have only been playing for a couple of years or you have been grinding tournaments for some time now, we will have tips and strategies that will take your game to a higher level.

“Being able to kick off our inaugural training session during the Borgata Fall Poker Open is a win for all of us.

Young

“I know that the three of us are going to have some amazing runs based on the preparation we are making for training others, and I also know that there are people that are going to attend our session that will make some runs that they wouldn’t have if they didn’t attend.”

For information on the class you can go to the Borgata’s Blog or the Inside the Minds Facebook page.

The World Series of Poker Circuit makes a couple of important stops in Atlantic City each year — Caesars in March and Harrah’s Resort in December — and it also has its final event in Las Vegas. But somehow, the biggest stop on the tour has become the Horseshoe Hammond in Hammond Indiana.

The Hammond Horseshoe

The casino is just a 40-minute drive from Chicago, a massive player base to draw from, and has become the circuit’s attendance champ.

Consider that the first tournament of the Hammond circuit stop, which was held Oct. 13 to 24, attracted 3,001 players, an obvious circuit event record. No tournament in Atlantic City has even come near that big a crowd since I’ve been blogging.

In March, the Caesars circuit event drew 742 for the first tournament and the Harrah’s Event last December drew 1,181. Even this year’s Borgata Open, which drew more that 1,700 for its opening event, is dwarfed by the Hammond figure.

Still, no event can maintain those figures through all the events. For the championship main event of the Hammond stop, however, another record was set as 1,615 turned out, creating a $2.3 million prize pool.

Robert Chow of Germantown Il. was the champ winning $393,548, by far his biggest win ever. By comparision, last year’s main event winner at Harrah’s won about $118K.

Hopefully, this year’s Harrah’s circuit event, Dec. 1-12, will at least put up a fight.

For a nice rundown on the Hammond event, go to ESPN’s poker blog.

Meanwhile, there some good news for those hoping to see online poker legalized in the U.S. A bill to do just that appears to be gaining traction after a House subcommittee held hearings on the bill Tuesday. Here’s a nice rundown of that story.

The Taj Mahal will once again play host to the National Deaf Poker Tour on Friday, Nov. 4 and Saturday, Nov. 6.  Interpreters will be on hand to help sign between players and dealers

The National Deaf Poker Tour (NDPT) was founded in 2006.  The mission was to find the best deaf poker players and match them against each other in hopes that someone will represent the NDPT on the big stage at WSOP, WPT, USPC or other major poker tournaments.  Although some deaf players have cashed in on these tournaments, no one has “hit it big” yet.

Players will also be invited to attend an exclusive closed screening of the motion picture movie, The Hammer.  Screenings are at 4pm and 7pm on Friday, November 4 and 5pm and 9pm on Saturday, November 5.

The Hammer is a true story about Matt Hamill, a deaf UFC fighter. The film is about the first deaf wrestler’s journey to win a National Collegiate Championship. Raised among those with the ability to hear, Matt finds himself no less an outsider amidst the deaf community. But through sheer determination, he turns what could be a disability into an asset and in the process serves as an inspiration for both those who can hear and those who cannot.

Here’s the schedule for events:

OK, minor correction. Actor and comedian Brad Garrett played the Borgata’s Music Box last Friday, and while in town he decided to take in some poker action before the show.

So that clears that up.

Anyway, Garrett, who has been a comedic highlight during the  coverage of several World Series of Poker main events he’s played over the last few years, brought his usual charisma to the Borgata Poker Room and the casino snapped some pics.

All we know about the visit is that he drew a crowd after going all in and winning on his first hand. And if he did it on the unsuited 10, 3 he’s showing in the pic below, he’s a lucky bastard.

Not sure exactly what Hold’em game he was playing, but he also ate at SeaBlue, if that helps.

Anyway, here are a couple of shots.

We don’t usually cover the poker table games on casino floors, but there’s no question the games are super popular and make casinos a lot more money than their traditional poker rooms.

And now they’ve produced a million dollar jackpot winner.

Caesars Entertainment recently introduced a Three Card Poker 6 Card Bonus™ at its three-card poker tables. Basically, to win the $1 million jackpot, you have to hit a six-card super royal (to the nine). And it has to be in diamonds.

I know what you’re saying. How can you get a six-card hand in three-card poker? Simple, you combine your three cards with the dealer’s three cards. This scheme actually pays for lesser hands (see below), but the six-card diamond royal wins the $1 million.

You also have to make all the bets, including pair plus, and kick in on the six card bet. So at a $5 minimum that’s $15.

I have to admit, when I heard about this I thought it would never hit. But just as the 38 Special bad beat jackpot hit at the Trop, the six-card diamond flush came out for a player Sunday evening (Oct. 23) at Harrah’s Resort and the million was paid out. (more…)

The only thing on the schedule for this weekend is regular tournament action, which is listed on the side of the page through The Poker Atlas.

Lacey Jones

That leaves the bad beat jackpots, which haven’t quite recovered from the slew of hits last week.

Still, the one jackpot that didn’t hit, The Borgata’s, is at a hefty $329,639. In case you’re new, remember The Borgata has two jackpots. The small jackpot comes with a minimum hand of quad deuces to quad nines and has topped out at $50K. The main jackpot has a quad 10s minimum.

The Tropicana’s jackpot is at $256,830. The jackpot reset high after its $542K hit last week.

The Caesars Entertainment combined bad beat jackpot — in play at all four Caesars properties, Bally’s, Showboat, Harrah’s and Caesars — is at $135,000 going into today, and actually picked up about $30K through the week.

Finally, The Taj Mahal bad beat jackpot is at $76,000.

It’s a bye week for Eagles and Giant fans, so you might as well play a little grinders.

Here’s the schedule for the satellite and secondary tournaments for the Borgata Fall Open, Nov. 9-23.

Satellites for the $1 Million guaranteed prize pool, $2,500 + $200 buy-in, Fall Open Championship (Nov. 20-23) start Nov. 17.

Also, eight bounty tournaments are scheduled along with three on the main event schedule.

You can get that schedule here.