The Week Ahead in Poker: August 9th

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Here’s what to watch for across the pokerverse for the week starting July 26th, 2010.

Poker On TV

After the preliminaries of the Players Championship and the Tournament of Champions were aired, the main event of the World Series of Poker takes center stage on ESPN. In fact, the rest of the ESPN coverage is dedicated to the main event, from now until November, when the final table will be played.

First up is the first two “day ones” out of a total of four. Defending champ Joe Cada and Mike Matusow are among the players you’ll see on the featured table. You can watch a preview below:

Away from the Tables

There’s not going to be any actual movement on H.R. 2267, a bill in the U.S. Congress that would legalize and regulate online poker. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing going on behind the scenes. The bill will continue to try to pick up momentum. While the bill appears to have a good chance to get through the House of Representatives, with Rep. Barney Frank pushing the bill, its future in the Senate is less certain.

The biggest hurdle could be majority leader Harry Reid (Nevada). If he and the land-based Nevada casinos don’t want the bill to go anywhere, chances are it’s not going anywhere. But the casinos have signaled that they want to get into the online poker and gambling business, and Reid could turn into a proponent of the bill. Regardless, a fellow Nevada legislator had this to say to the Reno Gazette-Journal: “He’s the linchpin,” Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said. “He will be the decider when it comes to Internet gaming.” Will the bill pick up more support while it’s waiting for the next step? Stay tuned to find out.

At CardRunners

The CardRunners Video Challenge is happening now – you can watch the five finalist’s videos for free.

Upcoming this week on our favorite training site: verneer talks low stakes NL, Marshall28 moves up to 200 NL in a LeakFinder video, Markius walks you through low-stakes NL heads up and doughnutz chips in a LHE video.

That takes you through the middle of the week; on Thursday, LearnedfromTV continues his excellent PLO Postflop Theory video series, and DamnRinger helps you work on beating regs. Lefty2506 talks higher stakes PLO on Friday and the week winds down with a podcast discussing HR 2267, a SNG vid from Sippin_Criss and, as always, Count the Zeros with Wiggins and Caby.

Get started on your free CardRunners membership today.

Live Tournaments

In the U.S., there’s the Pokerstars.com Empire State Hold’em Championships at Turning Stone in New York. The series starts on Monday and runs through August 22. The main event, with a buy-in of $2,500, starts on Saturday and is scheduled to run five days. The European Poker Tour visits Estonia, for an event in Tallinn, with a buy-in 4,250 Euros on Wednesday. Also on Wednesday is the Australia New Zealand Poker Tour in Brisbane, with a buy-in of 2,500 Australian dollars.

On the Virtual Felt

FTOPS XVII continues at Full Tilt Poker, with a week of tournament action on tap. It all culminates with the $640 buy-in main event on Sunday, which has a guaranteed prize pool of $3 million. Other highlights of the week include a $322 no-limit hold’em 6-max tournament with $1M guaranteed on Wednesday; a $2,100 two-day NLH tourney that starts on Saturday, with $2M guaranteed; and a $256 NLH knockout tourney with $1M guaranteed on Sunday.

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