It’s a very busy weekend at the city’s poker rooms with the World Series of Poker circuit events continuing at Harrah’s Resort, The Borgata kicking off its December mini-series and three of the city’s bad beats at around a quarter of a million dollars or more.

Let’s start with the WSOP Circuit. Event 5, an Omaha 8 or better tournament started today and will continue tomorrow.

Sunday, however, Event 6, the circuit’s main tournament (not to be confused with the $10,000 regional championship Dec. 18, which by the way, we’re back to saying is a non-ring event) gets underway Sunday at 11am.

Under the circuit’s reorganization this year, all circuit events have the same $1,500 + $150 main event.

Also, we’ve figured out why some of the prize pool numbers have been a little wonky in the early results we’ve received. Along with the entry fee, an about 3 percent vig is being taken from the pools to pay staff. While that’s not unheard of, it’s a little unusual for a major A.C. tournament.

It’s also printed on the structure sheets, but we’re kind of slow.

Such fees are usually employed when tournaments have long structures and therefore more hands and more work for dealers. The event will be played over three days, but the 3 percent fee is being applied to all circuit events.

In that spirit, the structure of the event will be at the bottom of the post.

Annie Duke

Meanwhile, poker pro Annie Dukes is scheduled to appear at the circuit event tonight at 6pm with an open Q&A session at 8pm. Saturday, she’s scheduled to play in the poker room at about 11am. There are also non-ring events and satellites all weekend. You can get the full schedule here.

The Borgata’s mini-series also got underway today with a $500 + $60  No Limit tournament and a $200 + $30 No Limit tourney at 7pm. Events are also scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. You can get the full schedule here.

As for the bad beats, The Tropicana’s bad beat, sometimes overlooked by players, has climbed to about $267,000. The Caesars Entertainment bad beat — in play at Harrah’s Resort, Caesars, Bally’s and Showboat — has climbed to $268,000 and The Borgata’s full bad beat is at $228,000. The Taj Mahal bad beat is at $85,000.

Like we said. Busy weekend in the city.

Here’s the WSOP Main Event structure:

Annie Duke will be appearing at Harrah’s Resort during its World Series of Poker circuit event, which starts Saturday. This is at least Duke’s third appearance in the city supporting the WSOP circuit events (maybe more, if we’ve lost count).

Duke will arrive on Friday, December 10 with an appearance at the WSOP Tourney at 6pm. She’ll have an open Q&A session around 8pm.

On Saturday, December 11, Duke will be playing in the Harrah’s Resort Poker room starting at 11am. Those events usually involve Duke playing in cash games with poker room guests, not in an actual circuit event.

But then again, she can probably do whatever she wants.

Annie Duke will be at Harrah’s tomorrow (Sat. Sept. 25) to help promote the $200,000 Harrah’s Poker Open, which got underway Thursday. OK, it was a little overshadowed by the Borgata Open Championship, which went to Dwyte Pilgrim Thursday, but hey, it’s a competitive town.

Annie Duke

Duke will participate in a VIP poker tournament in Harrah’s poker room and is making kind of a late night of it.

First up is a Q&A session followed by a photo session at 9:45pm in the 3rd Floor Ballroom of Harrah’s. She will begin playing in the tournament with invited guests at 10pm.

Saturday is also the day of the biggest event at the Harrah’s open, a $100,000 guaranteed, $300 + $40 No Limit Deepstack event running Saturday and Sunday. It starts 11am Sat.

You can get the full schedule here.

It’s also possible that Pilgrim will be in the house this weekend. In interviews after his big win, he said he was going to play some tournaments at Harrah’s Friday.

This isn’t great news, really. He’s kind of hot.

As for the bad beats, Harrah’s combined bad beat (Showboat, Caesars, Harrah’s, Bally’s) is starting to get impressive at $284,132. Remember, anyone playing in a Harrah’s room when it hits gets a piece.

The Borgata’s high jackpot, quad 10s or better, is at about $175,000 and the low jackpot (quad deuces to nines) is at $43,521. The Trop’s bad beat was at about $125,000 (as of Wednesday) and The Taj was at $107,087.

Harrah’s has announced a September $200,000 Harrah’s Resort Poker Open which will feature an appearance by poker pro Annie Duke.

Duke, you may have heard, has been caught up lately in a bitter feud with Daniel Negreanu over some pretty nasty comments the Canadian pro recently made about her.

The Harrah’s open runs from Sept. 23 to 27 and features five tournaments with guaranteed prize pools. The biggest is a $100,000 guaranteed, $300 + $40 No Limit Deepstack event Sept. 25 to 26.

The schedule is below.

Duke at Harrah's in May

One thought did come to our devious little minds, however. The Borgata Open, a World Poker Tour stop, runs from Sept. 8 to 23. It’s unlikely that Duke, who has a promotional tie-in with Harrah’s and World Series of Poker events, would play the WPT event. But Negreanu? Who knows?

Duke’s appearance schedule hasn’t been announced and admittedly it’s a longshot, (the two tournaments only overlap one day, the 23rd), but there’s a slim chance the two might be in the city at the same time.

Ok, very slim. But it’s interesting to think about.

Here’s the Harrah’s Resort Poker Open schedule:

Sept. 23^RD Thu.              11 AM                        Event 1

$125+$25 No-Limit Hold’ Em 1-day

$15,000 Guarantee

3 PM                                                $125+$25 2^ND Chance Cash

7 PM                                                $68+$12 Deep Stack Satellite

Sept. 24th Fri.                          11 AM                        Event 2

$200+$30 No-Limit Hold’ Em 1-day

$30,000 Guarantee

3 PM                                                $125+$25 Cash

7 PM                                                $68+$12 Deep Stack Satellite

Sept. 25th  Sat.                          11 AM                        Event 3

$300 + $40 NL Deep Stack  2-days

$100,000 Guarantee

3 PM                                                $125+$25 Cash

7 PM                                                $125+$25 Cash

Sept. 26th  Sun.                          11 AM                        Event 4

$200+$30 No-Limit Hold’ Em 1-day

$40,000 Guarantee

3 PM                                                $125+$25 Cash

7 PM                                                $125+$25 Cash

Sept. 27th  Mon.              11 AM                        Event 5

$125+$25 No-Limit Hold’ Em 1-day

$15,000 Guarantee

3 PM                                                $125+$25 Cash

7 PM                                                $125+$25 Cash

Daniel Negreanu crossed a serious line recently when he referred to fellow pro Annie Duke by one of the worst possible terms to refer to a woman. Yes, he popped out the F***ing C**nt phrase while criticizing Duke in a recent interview with Poker Player.Co UK.

Negreanu

Negreanu lit into Duke for comments she made about a number of male players who crashed the World Series of Poker ladies tournaments this year. Several players, including Shaun Deeb who wore a dress, were protesting that an exclusive ladies-only event awards a bracelet. They were able to play, however, because Nevada law doesn’t allow discrimination.

The funny thing is, Negreanu was defending the ladies-only concept and criticizing Duke for supporting the men who crashed the tournament.

According to gambling9111.com, which has a nice rundown, the comments went like this:

“What irked me is men playing, using tampons as card protectors, and Shaun Deeb wearing a dress. I like Shaun Deeb, though. He’s a good kid – I think he was just misinformed.

But then Annie Duke sticks her nose out and says, ‘Good for you, men, standing up for sexual equality.’ What a load of baloney! They are not standing up for sexual equality. Then she made some points in her blog that she thinks this event should be abolished, and I’m thinking, there are 1,000 women who love to play poker with each other, and don’t want to have to deal with guys burping, farting and using tampon card protectors and stuff like that.

‘What irked me is that this woman has the audacity on her website to call herself ‘the best female poker player in the world’. So on one side of the coin she’s fighting for, ‘Oh, we’re all equal, there shouldn’t be any gender thing,’ but when appropriate she decides to call herself the best female poker player in the world.

‘So I’m like ‘how offensive are you, you f***ing c***? You want to say you’re speaking for women, yet you claim superiority over all of them.’

Duke

Duke did reply, although to a fan, on Twitter.

“Thank you for the support. I was certainly shocked at the language myself. I welcome criticism but not abuse.”

Both Negreaneu and Duke have their share of detractors and fans and the ladies-only event has caused a lot of controversy this year.

But Negreanu should be smart enough to figure out that you can’t defend female players and use a shocking, misogynistic slur at the same time – and on camera.

His message is lost and only the slur remains.

Annie Duke

While Annie Duke was making appearances at Harrah’s Resort this weekend, poker players around the country were watching her score a major win on NBC’s National Heads-up Poker Championship against Eric Seidel. The $500,000 win actually came in March, but was shown on NBC Sunday. Duke won the final hand when her pocket 9s held up against ace-deuce.

In our recent talk with Duke, she says the win was a bit of a vindication for her since she doesn’t play as many tournaments as other pros, instead focusing on her family and charity work.

“The thing is that I play so much less poker than my peers,” Duke says. “And while I understand what the balance of my life is, and why I focus on other things like my children and my charity work, sometimes I hear the whispers of ‘She’s not really a poker player,’ or ‘She’s not good and she hasn’t been playing.’

“So to be able to pick off that particular tournament — because the heads-up format takes a lot of skill, and it’s a really big tournament — It’s just nice because you sort of feel like, ‘So there. Look I can still play.”

She also pointed out that she recently had a 19^th place finish at a tournament at the Commerce Casino in California which attracted more than 700 players. She feels the two strong showings prove she’s still on her game.

“It says, look, I really am playing well,” she says. “And I deserve to win this and I do take the game seriously. Poker is still a centerpiece of my life and I do care whether I’m good at it.”

Not sure who’s saying she isn’t good, but we’re with you Annie.

Phil Ivey

In another headline, Phil Ivey — who we always like to keep track of because of his A.C. roots — now has a poker room named after him at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. If you want to play there, however, you better bring some cash. The Associated Press reports the room is a one-table, high-limit room.

“I come from nothing, and now I’m here… I never thought there would be a poker room named after me. I never thought poker would be televised … I was just a kid who had a passion for poker, and I’m very grateful for my life,” Ivey told PokerNews. “No one has any idea how much this means to me.”

The room was opened this weekend with a $1 million, invitation only freeroll tournament.

You think you get busy at your job? Just be thankful you don’t have to answer the phone at the Taj Mahal poker desk right now as the casino’s bad beat jackpot has hit $441,815 (as of about 3pm Friday, May 21).

“The phone is ringing every two minutes,” says Tom Gitto, poker room manager for the Taj. “’What’s the bad beat at?’ ‘Has it hit?’ ‘Can you make sure it doesn’t hit until we get there?’ As if we have any control over it. It’s been funny, but it’s also brought a lot of excitement into the room.

“This is the highest we’ve ever had the jackpot go,” says Gitto. “I think the next highest was the last one we had at about $314,000. So we haven’t been getting that many hits lately. I can tell you the room is going to be jumping this weekend and we should have all the tables going.”

Considering that the Taj has a 70-table room, that means either the jackpot will continue to grow fast, or hit really soon.

“We still have a lot of tables where we offer seven card stud,” Gitto says. “And we have a lot of Omaha tables. The bad beat is only on Texas Hold’em and those players, regular players, are all jumping to the Hold’em tables. At this rate, we may go all Hold’em.”

The minimum hand for the bad beat at the Taj is any four of a kind. The record for a bad beat jackpot in A.C. is $553,000 set at Caesars in January.

Also, bad beat jackpots at Caesars and Bally’s were at about $224,000 and $237,000 respectively going into Friday’s play.

Along with the bad beats, a couple of major tournaments are on tap for the weekend at Harrah’s and The Borgata (more after the jump). (more…)

Duke

We saved a little of our interview with Annie Duke for today just to celebrate her appearance tonight (May 21) and tomorrow in the Harrah’s poker room.

Duke, as we noted in the interview, spends a lot of time teaching poker and we asked her what are the most important points she tries to get across to players. The answer: position is everything and bluffing, well, just don’t fall in love with it.

“I think a lot of players don’t really value position properly,” says Duke.  “And particularly nowadays you see a lot of people play a lot of goofy hands right up front. I try to drive home just how big a disadvantage it is to be out of position on a poker hand.”

But Duke was much more pointed about players who over rely on bluffing.

“I talk about what bluffing is and when it’s appropriate,” she says. “Because I think right now bluffing is overused and generally badly executed. And that’s a really disastrous combination. If you do it too often and not well, that’s pretty bad.

“One of the things that people don’t realize is that the hands you choose to play are intricately linked to bluffing,” Duke continued. “Because when you choose to play a hand, you’re actually at that moment setting your bluffing frequency. Meaning that clearly the worse the hand, the more likely you’ll have to bluff to win.

“So if you choose to play a hand like seven, six of hearts, chances are on the flop, if you want to win that pot, you’re going to have to bluff most of the time. Where if you play pocket aces, you never have to bluff. So you have a lot of control over your bluffing frequency.

“You should only play bad hands in situations where you can bluff effectively,” she says. “Because that’s probably what you’re going to end up doing. But what people think about with those hands is making the straights and flushes, but you should actually be thinking about making nothing, because that’s what’s most likely to happen.”

Duke appears tonight in the Harrah’s room at 6pm with a Q&A session with the public scheduled for 8 pm. Saturday, Duke will be playing in the poker room at 11am. Her appearances are to promote the WSOP super satellite event at the casino going on through May 27.

Anyone in the Harrah’s Resort poker room this Saturday morning (May 22) is going to be faced with an interesting choice. They could either play in a $2,000 + $150 Deep Stack Main Event that includes a $10,000 seat at the World Series of Poker Main Event in July to the winner.

Or, they can play against Annie Duke in a regular game starting at 11am.

Duke will be appearing at the Harrah’s WSOP super satellite event Friday and Saturday including her appearance in the poker room Saturday where she’ll play the public (but not in the Deepstack event).

Friday, she’s scheduled to appear at 6pm in the poker room to make some welcoming remarks and at 8pm she’ll hold a Q and A session with fans.

“Harrah’s, of course is the World Series of Poker and that’s a big part of who I am as a player and what I’m associated with,” Duke tells AC Weekly. “I’m really happy to be supporting Harrah’s and especially to be supporting their super satellites for the main event. I love trying to help grow poker and I think Harrah’s is one of the keystones in that.”

For Duke, who has played most of career in Las Vegas and on the West Coast, this will be a rare appearance in A.C.

“I haven’t played Atlantic City that much,” she says. “I know I did play a World Poker Tour event at Borgata before and I’ve played at the Taj Mahal I think, but really not that much.

“I just don’t get East very often,” Duke says. “Even Foxwoods, I think I’ve only played once. It’s just with four children I have to pick and choose and because I live on the West Coast in L.A., going East to play poker isn’t a choice I can make very often. So I think that’s something that makes these appearances really cool, because people don’t see me there that much.”

Look for more from our interview with Duke in the AC Weekly poker lowdown.

For a schedule of the Harrah’s satellite event, go here.

Annie Duke

Not totally sure how this will work out exactly, buy players in the May 22, $2,150 Deep Stack Event — part of the World Series of Poker satellite event at Harrah’s Resort from May 12-27 — could find themselves playing next to top pro Annie Duke.

Duke is scheduled to appear at the casino May 21 and 22 and a little of her itinerary has come down to us. But as you’ll see, it isn’t completely nailed down yet.

On the 21^st, Duke will make an appearance at 6pm in the Harrah’s poker room and make a few remarks. She’ll then hold a question and answer session at 8pm somewhere at Harrah’s, we just don’t know where.

After that, she’ll attend a VIP Meet and Greet, which is invitation only, and again, we don’t know where it will be (so if you’re looking to crash, sorry).

Saturday the 22^nd, she’s scheduled to play (not sure when) in the poker room. That big deep stack event starts at 11am — by the way, the winner gets a seat at The WSOP Main Event at The Rio in Las Vegas — and a $140 satellite for the May 27 main WSOP satellite event ($1035 + $65) starts at 7pm. Then again a special game could also be staged for Duke.

Duke’s appearance at the casino is being heavily promoted and the Harrah’s satellite event is on of the last WSOP satellites being played before the World Series itself starts May 28 in Vegas.

We’ll keep you posted as we learn more.