A little bit of scandal is rocking the poker world as the reigning Borgata East Coast Champion Sorel Mizzi has been accused of cheating by John Racener, who has also been known to frequent A.C. poker tables.

Mizzi at the East Coast Championship

Mizzi has strenuously denied he cheated during a hand of Chinese poker at the PokerStars Caribbean adventure in January and is basically calling Racener a liar.

The accusation came at the 2+2 forums when Shaun Deeb, saying he was recounting a story from Racener, claimed Racener saw Mizzi dealing off the bottom of the deck. Racener later confirmed the story.

Mizzi calls the accusations “absurd” in his own post to the forum.

It’s all kind of complicated, but you can read a good account at parttimepoker.com.

Anyway, Mizzi won the Borgata’s first East Coast Championship at its inaugural spring open in April. He was Bluff magazine’s player of the year for 2010.

Racener made the final table of the WSOP main event last year, and has been a regular in A.C. scoring some of his biggest cashes (after the WSOP main event) at WSOP circuit events and Borgata events in the city.

Here’s some tidbits from the poker world to start off 2011.

An Australian casino is using a unique and very pokery defense as it faces charges it served a poker patron 42 beers in a 17-hour stretch. The casino says they were fooled by the guy’s poker face.

The Star City Casino in Sydney is in trouble for continuously serving a drunk patron, about five beers every two hours, until the table finally closed. As in most casino jurisdictions, casinos are barred from letting intoxicated people gamble.

But the casino maintains that as a poker player, the unnamed patron really disguised his intoxication well.

“The nature of poker is that players tend to be …very controlled in their facial expressions and body movements,” said Star City, in a leaked letter to Sydney’s Casino Liquor and Gaming Control Authority, as reported by The Daily Telegraph. “This level of control means that many of the visible signs that a person…is affected by alcohol may be minimized.”

The Authority has still fined the casino $10,000, though that fine has reportedly been reduced. Three workers who served the man have been fired.

Mizzi at the East Coast Championship

In another story, Sorel Mizzi has been named poker player of the year by Bluff Magazine. Mizzi, you may remember, had a win in Atlantic City at The Borgata Spring Open East Coast Championship for about $170,000. Mizzi split with second place finisher Chris Klodnicki (which means he probably took home less than the $170K), but took the official title.

Mizzi also had a third place at The Aussie Millions event, good for $659,000, a $159,000 cash in the WPT Paris event and an $88,000 cash at the Foxwoods World Poker finals, among other wins.

He out-pointed Tom Marchese to win the magazine’s title.

And finally, New Jersey’s bid to start intra-state online gambling — which means online poker— is scheduled to go before the state Assembly Thursday. We’ll keep you updated.

Mizzi with Borgata bracelet

There’s a nice interview today with Sorel Mizzi at Cardplayer.com. Mizzi last month won the East Coast Championship at The Borgata, part of The Borgata Spring Open, and officially collected $170,313. We say officially because it was later reported that he and runner-up Chris Klodnicki actually reached a deal, splitting about $130,000 apiece between them, and then played out the tournament for bragging rights.

Still, Mizzi got the bracelet and adds to an already impressive $1.26 million he’s won in tournaments this year. Mizzi is currently in second place for Cardplayer’s Player of the Year behind Thomas Marchese.

Mizzi has been a real force in online poker for a few years, but says this about his growing success in live tournaments:

“I’m really starting to get the hang of live poker. I have become more confident in my game, and I tackle situations a lot differently than I used to, and I guess my results have shown that those changes were good changes.”

Go here for the full interview