Oscars And Poker Both Make History At The Same Time!

In a post that still holds worthless share options once worth millions 10 years on - we are happy to bring you news not just of, erm, stuff which happens - but the very building blocks of history itself. Yes, dear Melted Felt readers, there is more to news than writing stuff down that makes people exclaim 'You can't write that!"... and last weekend's historical moments were a case in point!

Not only did Kathy Bungelow become the first female win the best picture vote at the 2010 academy award - presented my Sesame Street's Oscar - but a female player also made poker history, by actually winning something...

Yes, dear Melted Felt readers - when cutie-pie Annie Duke scooped that last sensational pot in the National Heads up poker championship those washing-up softened hands she threw into the air marked the very first time a female player had won anything in poker on US soil, ever.

Oddly enough even the World Series ladies event has never been won by a female player. Though there is still a major legal dispute concerning whether 'Milly' the winner of the 2001 event is as female as 'she' claimed. With a definite 5-o-clock shadow by the end of the final table, prominent adams-apple, muscular hairy legs and tendency to relexly answer to the name 'Dave' we have our doubts...

So, congratualations to sweet Annie, who is apparently very kind to kittens and loves to knit when not shopping for new shoes or reading Ubuntu Poker . We are going to make a bold prediction, dear readers, yes - Melted Felt will put it's proverbial neck on the line and state that we think this is just the start, and that there will be not just one, but two female victors in big poker tournaments this decade... though we are pretty sure it will not be in ladies events.

MF

P1ss Poor People Rejoyce As Mini-FTOPs XV Starts!

People with fvck all money the world over are rubbing their germ-ridden filthy sweaty hands together today, dear Melted Felt readers, as the Full Tilt Online Poker Series Mini Version gets underway. With buy-ins only 1/10th of those of the normal FTOPs this has caused much joy among the large population of slightly damp-smelling, flea-ridden poor people who lurk in gutters near you!

Even the most degenerate crystal-meth addicts are will have wide grins full of the rotten stumps of their teeth as they barely scrape together $20 for an entry into the 6-max no-limit holdem event, this features final table prizes big enough to stop them having to streetwalk for at least a couple of months...

In the interests of cutting-edge poker journalism from the coal-face of gritty reality [FFS Mark, its a fvucking satire blog you n0nce - Ed] we tracked down a selection of extremely poor people to bring you the low-down on their hopes, dreams and aspirations in the coming mini-FTOPS...

First we spoke to Brian 29, an unemployed construction worker from Alabama. Brian has not worked since 2007, lost his home and wife when he could no longer afford the monthly finance on either and now spend his days boring anyone who will listen to tears with tales of a global financial conspiracy. After borrowing twelve dollars from his 7 year old daughter while she was at school, Brian was really looking forward to the Mini FTOPS knockout event - until he realized he had sold his computer to pay for his addiction to cheap brandy, oops.

Next to the UK, where poor as pants 14 year old Simon has pooled his entire years freeroll winnings to proudly join the ranks of the p1ss-poor by playing a $3 satellite to the $22 7-game event. Keyboard-hardman Simon has already posted long questions about cashing out on 12 different forums without using a single capital-letter - and also replied to other people's threads concerning the ins-and-outs of tax reporting and the poker pro lifestyle. He is really looking forward to calling as many opponents as possible 'retards' and lecturing them on the finer points of strategy.

Finally, we went to Africa, where we spoke to 'Jum' - even though most of her family has been mutilated with machettes and then burned alive in a remote Sudanise village, and her one remaining daughter despearately needed treatment for chronic diarreah and malnutrition - the international aid agencies had given Jum access to a solar-powered laptop so she would be able to play the mini-FTOPS Pot-limit Omaha (with rebuys).Explaining how she loved to play double-suited rundowns in position against a raise, Jum explained how the synchronised breaks would come in really handy for a quick burial if her daughter died during the event itself...

So, poor people, being considerably richer than you we will not be lowering ourselves to join you unwashed scumbags in the Mini events themselves, though we do wish you the best of luck at the tables and look forward to welcoming the eventual winners in the world of normal people...

MF

Berlin Poker Game Robbery - A Roundup Of The Roundups

In a news item that has nothing to do with making your enemies drink a quart of castor-oil, we bring you coverage of a daring robbey straight out of the big book of daring robberies today - dear Melted Felt readers - concerning the European Poker Tour Berlin event being robbed for the tune of $1.1 million!

Instead of dwelling on how the robbers knew that the secret password to get past security was 'Ich Bin Ein Berliner', or speculate on whether this was really an appropriate way for pokerstars to make poker more exciting after FullTilt's 'Rush' - we bring you coverage of the coverage... showing how different news organisations and poker communities are keeping you up to date with the shocking developments.

CNN: "Shock As Berlin Poker Game Robbed" - Get the full story after this fvucking long advert break, preview of next week's shows, another long advert break, world headlines, weather and another long advert break...

German News Daily: "Greeks Revert To Desparate Measures To Avoid Paying Off Own Defecit"

Yahoo! : Card Game Robbed For Over $1 Million In Berlin... Click Here To Find Out Which Game...

2+2 Forums: "2 Robbers Outside And 4 Inside With 2 Automatic Weapons, 4 Fvck-off Big Knives And 3 Grenades Not Considered The Optimal Value-Extracting Line For Casino Robberies "

Pocked Fives: "It Really P1sses Me Off When Some Retard With, Like Zero Scores Man, Scores $1.1 Million, Just Look At Their Sharkscope Graphs, Lucky Fvcking Fish, Its Not Fair, Retard"

PokerNews: EPT Berlin Robbed 2 Weeks Ago - $5k freeroll, $10k Freeroll + Points Chase - Money Lost.

Well, all very exciting - we are just relieved the ladies event had to be cancelled really... well, would you want to be the member of staff who had to assess whether they were really, erm, 'ladies' or not (2 posts down dear occasional readers....).

Anyway, if you would like the opportunity to win a seat in a future European Poker tour event in which the prize pool has not yet been robbed we can recommend the SNG planet guide to the
Best EPT Satellite Qualifiers!

MF

Poker Player In 'Dropping Tiger Woods' Sensation

In a news item that completely refuses to shake John Terry's hand, we can today bring you news of the latest devastating blow to the career of the former clean-behind-the-ears-nice-boy of the sporting world - Tiger Woods.

As if getting dropped by firms such as Nike, Accenture and Gatoraid were not enough, Melted Felt can sensationally reveal that the Tiger has now been dropped by Phil Ivey too. Yes, dear readers, the poker playing legend has now officially asked his fans to stop referring to him as the 'Tiger Woods of Poker'... and has set a 4-week deadline for being known as 'The Poker Player Formerly Known As The Tiger Woods of Poker' just to be crystal clear...

Ivey had carried the 'Tiger' tag for many years after some 3rd rate journalist or other noticed they shared a broadly similar skin-tone, basketball shaped heads and, erm, were both good at, erm, something sporting-ish. However, with the latest revalations - particularly about Woods' poor ability to avoid trees when driving - Ivey has decided it is time to seek a new comparison in the sporting world.

So, dear readers, we leave it to you to come up with some suggestions, the 'Magic Johnson of poker' does not really fit for someone only 5 feet tall... the 'Babe Ruth of the felt' has a ring to it, but people are just not called 'Babe' these days... we tried the international 'Micheal Schumacher of Poker' but somehow both chalk and cheese keep popping into our head at the same time...

So, answers in a comment please: Phil Ivey is the _________ _______ of Poker.

We'll award the winner a sealion of their choice from any zoo in the fuvking world, or maybe we won't.

MF

Political Storm As Germans Invent Word For 'Fold'

In a news item more crunchy than an Orca trainer, we today bring you news of a political and intellectual poker storm which is raging in Germany!

When professor Klaus Von Saurkraut invented a previously missing word in the German language, it caused some poker confusion. 'Folden' which can be directly translated as 'To Fold' is just not something Germanic poker players were used to... getting their heads round the concept took a while with crys of, 'Ja-vol Ich Call Anyway', and 'Raisen, Nicht Folden' heard on the virtual tables for weeks...

While it slowly sank in that Folding was, in fact, sometimes a good strategy - a separate scandal started to brew. Should Folden be a Der, Die or a Das?? After all, the Gemans like to sort things nicely into categories of Masculine, Feminine, and Neutral...

We spoke to Helmut Autobahn, an avid poker fan from Berlin. After explaining that it was a special clause in the new constitution after reunification with the East which actually mandates that German Poker players open mini-raise every fvcking hand, Helmut shed some light on the Folden debate. "On ze face of it you might think folden is a more effeminate action, what with giving in to the masterful and all powerful act of, um, raising", began Helmut between sips of Weissbier, "Yet, ze German ladies are often 220 pounds, hairy and build like giant pit-bull terriers chewing on wasps (and zat is ze pretty ones, ja)- so we did not vish to offend them by using ze prefix 'Die'"

Helmut then explained how the all powerful Unions were preventing them using 'Der', due to the role of 'Folder' being part of the auto construction process - a job mandating that wages get tripled every year and workers retire at 33 with index linked lifetime final salary pensions...

Which left the neutral Das Folden, well, don't suppose it really matters - I mean it is not like German players are actually going to use this technique any time soon now, is it...

MF

Italian Online Romeo Celebrates As He Scores AIM Id of Dave, 47.

Shoot, it got to Wednesday and I did not manage a MF entry yet dear readers, hmmmmm, wonder if anyone would really notice if I just bought one back from 2008? Na, probably not!

Italian American online poker romeo Antonio from New York had never been shy about his love of the ladies. In a coup even significant for the 19 year-old 'ladies man' Antonio yesterday managed (Melted Felt can exclusively report), through smooth talking and natural charm, to obtain the AIM Id of Dave 47, a redundant bearded truck manufacturer from Detriot.

Dave, screen name Sheleebaby3, used the picture of a 14 year old girl found on one of his favorite teen-chat websites - apparently to avoid value bets being more than 1/3rd of the pot.

When Antonio complimented his good looks in the chat-box and then continued by saying a succession of nice things about his play at the tables - Dave / Shelee could not help but become somewhat flattered. When Antonio started getting to more personal matters it was inevitable that AIM Ids would be swapped.

We could not reach Dave yesterday as he was busy hanging around his local school with a pair of binoculars. However Melted Felt understand that the Greyhound bus tickets have already been purchased... Antonio will bring his good looks and fantastic white smile... while Dave is planning to stock up on KY Jelly....

MF

Rapid Fire Friday

Time for another rapid round up of the weeks poker news, Dear Melted Felt readers, before you spend the entire weekend drinking to numb the pain of your banal existences... Of course, this week has been dominated by the big 2 poker sites once again, with a record number of bad-beats recorded in last Sunday’s million and the FTOPs on as well… in other news:

- Barack Obama met the Dalai Lama to discuss the increasing amount of Chinese short-stackers in micro buy-in No-Limit Holdem games. The Dalai blamed this squarely on that obstinate bunch of Reds loosely known as the Chinese government. This restricted Obama’s response, since they not only produce all that cool plastic sh1t that Americans love, but have a fvck off big arsenal of nuclear weapons too… after considering mandating 50 BB minimums, Barak realized that he already banned gambling and so changed the subject of the discussion with the Dalai Lama to comparisons of popular hair-care products.

- Poker players on popular forums escalated the war of words this week, by insulting those players who went out of their way to find fish to play against. The all new ‘bumhunter’ insult is now open for use for any player who dares to actually attempt to maximize their profit instead of playing a giant leveling game with other regulars in an attempt to see who has the biggest e-pen1s. And you know how to lay claim to the biggest e-pen1s of all? Just accuse your opponents of overusing the term 'bumhunter'... hmmm, best ask Leathera55!

- Finally we bring you a tale of international intrigue, assassination and false-beards after a slow-roller was found dead in a hotel room in Dubai. Israel’s secret service Mosad have been implicated – however as with previous strange deaths of players who run down their time bank with the stone cold nuts when facing an all-in, the service has refused to either confirm or deny the accusations. British officials are meanwhile said to be furious that fake British passports were used in the assassination, claiming slowrolling may be rather irritating, but murdering slowrollers is just not cricket.

Until next week

MF

Pokerstars To Offer Accounts In Lao Kip?

You may know already, dear Melted Felt readers, that Pokerstars have started to allow play in many currencies other than the US Dollar. With accounts now available in Euros, British Pounds and some other odd currency only used by a small population of French-speaking Eskimos (Can-ad-ian Dullarys or something like that?), the population of the world no longer needs to divide the pot size by 0.78412 to decide how much calling that bet really costs in terms of the number of curries you could buy with the money.

Far from accusing Stars of using the switch to increase their rake, we will today focus on rumors (started by us, here, erm now) of plans which will make even the smallest stakes grinder feel like a real pro. Yes readers the Peoples Republic Of Laos may be a beautiful as sleepy backwater of Asia complete with French-colonial buildings and the most chilled communist dictatorship on the planet - but it may also hold the currency for your new Pokerstars account.

With an exchange rate of more than 8500-to-1 this is the ideal currency for small stakes grinders to feel like they have hit the big time - instead of playing at 5c / 10c you will now be at a nominal 400 / 800 table - when that river bet goes in for what would have been your stack in a $50 game you can be shipping almost half a million into the middle... like a Durrrr after a paticularly spicy Thai red curry.

Since you are not actually allowed to take the Kip currency out of Laos, we are wondering exactly how the mechanics of this new option will work... but what the hell, who you trying to kid that you are actually ever going to withdraw, huh?

MF

PS: Thanks to Rich for accidentially giving us the idea for this one!

Pokerstars Offer Valentines Night Screen-Name Change

In an exclusive so made-up you'll actually be ever-so slightly scared when you find out that the authors of this blog do not use drugs, dear Melted Felt readers, we bring you a story that is all hearts, flowers, chocolates, cards, romantic candle-lit dinners and, erm, poker.

Yes, Titan may be looking to crown the king and the queen of hearts on the 14th of Feb, many players will shrug, stick out their bottom lips, and take their loved ones for a nice dinner before pretending that they still enjoy sex all these years and 25 pounds later... though there is a certain demographic who are suffering out there - and it is Stars who came up with the oh-so-perfect solution!

Since so many players would like to give the illusion that they are balla in various poker forums and communities worldwide, but are really broke, ugly, unfit, have bad skin and often stink of damp - Stars will enable changes in screen name between 8pm and 2am on valentines night!

This way skinny pale poker players whose only experience of women come from p0rn sites can pretend how p1ssed they are at having to break their poker schedule to take out that awsomely hot blonde on forums - while really playing their regular games. Once 2am comes and they revert back to their normal player Ids they have the perfect opportunity to brag about how great the sex was and say how pleased they are that she fell asleep after the 4th time... enabling the player to get back to the tables.

An insider told us that online poker players who wish to brag to their peers in exactly this way could actually make u 98.2% of the player population - making the special promo well worth the charges for the new code.

Well, we are off for a candle-lit dinner with the Melted Felt Mole on Sunday - can't wait.

MF