Nestola started the day just off the lead with about 440,000 in chips but more than quadrupled his stack over the course of the day to buid a solid advantage over Negreanu and the rest of the final eight.

He’ll start tomorrow with 1.89 million in chips – about 600k more than Chilean Carlos Ibarra in second with 1.29 million.

With a steady string of live cashes to his credit and about $120k in career earnings, Nestola will be looking to smash his previous best cash of around $20k.

In the way will be poker icon Negreanu, who became the first player to earn a final-table spot on the the major PokerStars tours — the LAPT, APPT and EPT.

Negreanu bagged up 702,000 to end the day in fifth overall, but he’s still likely the odds-on favorite to claim the title tomorrow.

Latin America Well Represented in Final Eight

Appropriately for the Latin American Poker Tour Grand Final, a well-rounded field of Latin American players fills up the rest of the final eight.

Venezuelan Gasperino Nicolas will hit the final table third in chips with 1,190,00.

Ecuadorian Jonathan Makovitz, the 8th-place finisher at LAPT Columbia, now has another final table under his belt and will begin in fourth with 991,000.

After the Canadian Negreanu in fifth, Argentinian Juan Gonzalez is sixth with 548,000 and Chilean Felipe Morbiducci seventh with 347,000.

Brazilian Vitor Torres will be the short stack at 273,000.

Overnight chip leader Caio Cesar Pimenta, a feared online player with $3.4 million in career earnings, couldn’t keep his stack together today and ended up busting in 12th place.

American Josh Ewing was the final-table bubble boy, going out in ninth. Humberto Brenes, the short stack coming into the day, went out in 23rd.

Final Eight Battling for Just Under $200k

All remaining players have assured themselves at least R26,340 with R324,600 ($189,492 USD) reserved for first.

The final eight and their chip counts:

1. Daniele Nestola — 1,892,000
2. Carlos Ibarra — 1,297,000
3. Gasperino Nicolas — 1,190,000
4. Jonathan Markovits — 991,000
5. Daniel Negreanu — 702,000
6. Juan Gonzalez — 548,000
7. Felipe Morbiducci — 347,000
8. Vitor Torres — 273,000

Today on the In List we’ve got one lucky man who knows it’s better to hit a slot jackpot than bink a small tournament, along with a well-known high-stakes pro who isn’t afraid to get out of his comfort zone with big money on the line.

On the Outs is another high-stakes challenge that sounds great but will never happen, and our hopes for federal online poker legislation in the US this year.

Poker’s In List: February 12-19,2012
Hitting a $250k Slots Jackpot on the Break from a $560 Poker Tournament: IN
This story comes by way of Eric Baldwin who’s been playing the latest Deep Stack Extravaganza at the Venetian in Las Vegas.
Apparently a player in a $560 tournament was on break, and nailed a quarter-million dollar slot jackpot!

Baldwin is faring pretty well himself, having won a $350 Deep Stack event for $10,041 last Tuesday.

Poker’s Out List: February 12-19,2012

High-Stakes Online Challenges that Never Work: OUT

We’ve been burned before (cough, durrrr Challenge) so when people start throwing around ideas like a $50k buy-in high-stakes heads-up cash game world championship we get anxious.

Sure, we’d love to believe that the world’s best high-stakes online cash players would battle it out round-robin style at $50/$100 heads-up tables on the internet.

We’d be overjoyed to think that elite pros like Dan Cates, Justin Bonomo, Ben Sulsky and Isaac Haxton would be in on it.

It would be awesome to believe something like that was even possible but as we’ve seen from much simpler challenges, poker players suck at sticking to schedules.

So yeah, we’ll believe it when we see it.

The idea was introduced in a new thread on Two Plus Two so head over there to see the full discussion.

The US government has a reputation for moving slowly (really slowly … like Eskimo Clarke in the Vegas sun slowly) so it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that online poker regulation won’t be solved overnight.

But according to one Wall Street analyst, it’s a safe bet we won’t be seeing regulation at the federal level until at least 2013.

The Las Vegas Review Journal ran quotes from Macquarie Securities gaming analyst Chad Beynon, saying that if lawmakers were going to get it done this year they would have attached it to the recent payrtoll tax cut extension.

The good news for some Americans is that we could see online poker in the US in 2012, just at a state level.

Nevada and California are expected to the be the first.

Coming into the day as one of the chip leaders, Negreanu was in the middle of several big pots over the day and maxed out at 625,000 before slipping back to 398,000 to end the night.

That stack keeps him inside the top 10 heading into Day 3 and a leading candidate for a run at the eight-player final table.

Brazilian Caio Cesar Pimenta, a relative unknown in the live poker world but a dangerous online pro with over $3.4 million in career earnings including a win in the Sunday Million, will take the chip lead into Day 3 with 607,000.

Vincenzo Giannelli (538,000), Carlos Ibarra (479,000) Josh Ewing (460,000) and Vitor Torres (447,000) round out the top five.

Ewing, known as Haligon online, has over $580,000 in online earnings to go with another $250k+ live.

Outside of Negreanu, the only other «big name» player left in the field is Costa Rican Humberto Brenes, who will hit Day 3 as the short stack on just 51,000.

Fernandez, Fox, Barbero and Gazes Hit the Bricks

Several pros came into the day with chips and the hopes of making a move but instead will have plenty of time to hit the streets of Sao Paulo for Carnival.

Team PokerStars pros Leo Fernandez and Jose “Nacho” Barbero, 2011 WSOPE Main Event champ Elio Fox and veteran proBill Gazes all hit the rail.

Fox and Fernandez at least held on for a min-cash, leaving with 6,320 Brazilian Reals for their two days of work.

Players will be back in action at noon tomorrow for Day 3 and will be playing for a seat at the eight-handed final table.

All 24 have secured at least R$9,220 with R$324,600 the first-place prize.

The Top 10 and their chip counts below:

1. Caio Cesar Pimenta 607,000

2. Vincenzo Giannelli 538,000

3. Carlos Ibarra 479,000

4. Joshua Ewing 460,000

5. Vitor Torres 447,000

6. Daniel Nestola 443,000

7. Hugo Mora 414,000

8. Mayu Roca 412,000

9. Felipe Morbiducci 402,000

10. Daniel Negreanu 398,000

GSOP 8, which begins Feb. 26, 2012, will include a total of 18 events with buy-ins ranging from $50 all the way up to $4,900.

Of course bwin Poker will also be running a number of microstakes satellites and it’s possible to qualify for next to nothing. Check the bwin Poker lobby for information on qualifiers.

Some of the more interesting events in GSOP 8 include turbo, rebuy, deepstack, shorthanded and Pot-Limit Omaha variants.

It’s all leading up to the GSOP 8 Grand Slam on March 18. The Grand Slam will offer a guaranteed prizepool of $500,000 and is one of the biggest tournaments ever held on the network.

In GSOP 7, online player Sorry for u outlasted a field of 144 players to take down a first place prize of $169,435.

It’s not a bad time to sign up for a bwin Poker account as the site is currently running its Rookie Challenge promotion where new players have access to a daily $100 freeroll. It’s a good way to tune up your game before GSOP 8 rolls around.

Keep in mind that if you earn 100 Market Points you gain access to a $1,000 freeroll the next month. If you are somehow able to generate 75,000 points you’ll gain entry to an astounding $20,000 freeroll.

Players who sign up for bwin Poker through PokerListings currently receive a 100% bonus match up to $500.

Action kicked off in Sao Paulo on the same day as the legendary Carnival but 367 people skipped the party for at least one day to play some poker.

Notably stacking up a pile of chips in his first appearance in Brazil is PokerStars proDaniel Negreanu, who used a trick from Phil Hellmuth’s book to get his tournament started on the right foot.

Tweeting that he needed to sleep off a caipirinha hangover, Negreanu didn’t get down to the tournament until well into Level 3.

He made the most of his time at the felt, however, bagging up 121,700 after his seven levels of play to sit fourth overall heading into Day 2.

Fox, the 2011 WSOPE Main Event champ who doesn’t have a backer and funds his own buy-ins on the circuit, made his decision to go all the way to Brazil look good today.

Fox stacked up a solid 99,7000 in chips to sit seventh.

Brazilian Jean Double is the overnight chip leader with 189,400. He’s followed by Chilean Shaun Sheffield with 181,700.

Gasperino Loiacono is just ahead of Negreanu in third with 158,300 to start Day 2 tomorrow.

Nacho, Shark Still Alive, Katchalov Out

A who’s who of Latin Amercian pros were in the field today but not all will see another day of play.

Felipe Ramos (96,000), Humberto Brenes (79,000), Jose «Nacho» Barbero (38,000) and Leo Fernandez (37,000) all managed to bag up chips.

Fabrizio Gonzalez, Gualter Salles, Juan Manuel Pastor, Angel Guillen, Christian de Leon and Brazilian poker icon Andre Akkari weren’t so lucky.

Also notably hitting the rail today were Eugene Katchalov and PokerStars pro Fatima Moreira de Melo.

Just over 100 players will return tomorrow to play down towards the money at 48 and beyond.

The Israeli pro burned through 8,522 hands and topped the online cash game charts with $376,000 in profit.

It was an interesting week for high stakes as Viktor “Isildur1” Blom finally laid off the intense amount of volume he’s been generating lately on the site and Phil “MrSweets28” Galfond remains MIA since he’s currently in the United States.

It was a catastrophic week for Ilari “Ilari FIN” Sahamies who lost nearly $400k. On the bright side Sahamies was down over $1 million before he turned it around last year and ended up showing a $2+ million profit on the site.

Here’s a closer look at the biggest winners and losers over the last week:

Top 10 Biggest Winners This Week

It was hard to ignore Rafi Amit’s presence in online poker this week as he nearly doubled the profits of his closest competitor.

0Human0 stacked his way to $220k but was still a distance second to Amit.

Finnish pro Jens “Jeans89” Kyllonen continued his amazingly consistent play by winning $162,000.

Meanwhile U.K. pro Gavin “gavz101” Cochrane continued his tradition of starting the year hot by picking up $162k.

Last year Cochrane streaked his way to over $2 million in the first half of the year but then tailed off and finally finished with just over $1 million.

Outside of Swiss pro Ronny “1-ronnyr3” Kaiser, the rest of the top winners list was occupied by lesser-known players such as masoren and HC_68.

Here’s a complete look at the top 10 biggest winners this week:

1. Rafi “refaelamit” Amit: +$376,000
2. 0Human0: +$220,000
3. Masoren: +$210,000
4. Jens “Jeans89” Kyllonen: +$162,000
5. Gavin “gavz101” Cochrane: +$162,000
6. Bernard-bb: +158,000
7. Donthnrmepls: +$156,000
8. HC_68: +$139,000
9. MaiseE: +$133,000
10. 1-ronnyr3: +$124,000

Top 10 Biggest Losers This Week

It would take a fair amount of effort to literally burn money as fast as Ilari “Ilari FIN” Sahamies went through it this week.

The swingy Finn actually got off to a good start in the week with nearly $200k in profit but then went to lose over half a million, mostly in the $100/$200 6-Max PLO games on PokerStars.

Fellow high stakes pro Long90110 also had a fairly disastrous week losing a total of $238k. In the past there were rumors that the Long90110 account actually belonged to Tom Dwan.

If true, Dwan has lost over $727k on PokerStars since creating the account.

Some of the other notable losers this week include German Benny “toweliestar” Spindler who dropped $153k and frequent Isildur1-rival Sander “Berndsen12” Berndsen lost $98k.

Here’s a complete look at the top 10 biggest losers this week:

1. Ilari FIN: -$385,000
2. Long90110: -$238,000
3. Benny “toweliestar” Spindler: -$153,000
4. altiFC: -$151,000
5. RivalzZz: -$147,000
6. PepperoniF: -$144,000
7. mTw-DaviN: -$135,000
8. ChaoRen160: -$123,000
9. ZeeJustin: -$102,000
10. Berndsen12: -$98,000

Taking place at the Emerald Resort and Casino in South Africa February 21-26, the series consists of six WSOP ring events, including the main event. There will also be a charity event and a ladies tournament; however neither of those will award rings.

Five-time WSOP bracelet winner Scotty Nguyen will be the master of ceremonies.

“You know, the Prince has been all over the world baby, you name it: Australia, Asia, Europe, but this is my first time going to South Africa and I’m so excited to come out and share this great game we love with the players there, to get to know them and to just have a good time baby,” said Nguyen.

“Just make sure the people at the Emerald protect me from any lions and I promise you we’ll have a lot of fun baby!” kidded Scotty.

The series is highlighted by a $3,300 main event that will see two Day 1 flights.

The inaugural WSOP Africa main event in 2011 drew 188 players and awarded roughly $222,477 USD to champion Warren Zackey.

Zackey, a resident of Honeydew, a suburb of Johannesburg, made a deep run in the 2009 WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas, finishing 22^nd for $352,832.

American pro Maria Ho also made the final table of last year’s WSOP Africa main event, finishing sixth for $43k.

All six events at the 2012 WSOP Africa will be contended in Hold’em with buy-ins ranging from $300 all the way up to the $10,000 High Roller event.

The main event kicks off February 24^th. Keep an eye on PokerListings.com’s Poker News Section for updates.

The Finnish pro simply couldn’t get anything going in the 1,574 hands he played on PokerStars.

Sahamies stuck primarily to $100/$200 6-Max Pot-Limit Omaha and got into serious trouble on a table that included 1-ronnyr3, Bernard-bb, mickan1984, refaelamit and St1ckman.

In just 225 hands, Sahamies lost a total of $240k on that table alone.

Sahamies continued to lose in the $100/$200 6-Max games before finally switching to heads-up $50/$100 PLO against Isildur1 and Ben “milkybarkid” Grundy.

The swingy Finn didn’t find the redemption he was looking for and ended up losing another $50k before finally calling it a night.

Sahamies, who was the biggest winner in 2011, with $2 million in profit, has gotten off to a rocky start in 2011 and after being essentially stuck at $0 profit for some time is now over $500k in the hole.

Although Sahamies was by far the biggest loser last night, there were a few notable players who took tough beats.

Fellow Finn Jens “Jeans89” Kyllonen was the second biggest loser taking $94k in damage while frequent Isildur1 rival Sander “Berndsen12” Berndsen lost $57k.

The aforementioned Viktor “Isildur1” Blom lost $30k in a 952-hand session.

Meanwhile online player bernard-bb was the big dog last night as he scooped $162k, a good portion of which came directly from Sahamies.

The other notable winners included Benny “toweliestar” Spindler (+$143k), Gavin “gavz101” Cochrane (+$105k) and Rafi “refaelamit” Amit (+$82k).

Juttelstad, admittedly, did not begin the final table with the chip lead.  That honor went to Gigi Gagne, who came in with a big lead, but lost a huge pot early when she flopped two pair to Keith Ferrera’s top pair, got it all-in, then could only watch as Ferrera turned a bigger two pair to double through her.  Ferrera seemed to be the player to beat in the early goings of the six-handed final table, but he and Juttelstad clashed in a preflop raising war that saw Ferrera four-bet all-in with Q-J.  Juttelstad called with nines and fell behind in the hand when Ferrera spiked a jack on the flop, but Juttelstad managed to find a nine on the river to send one of the more seasoned players at the table home in sixth place.

Short stack Todd Jacobson exited in fifth place, but did manage to hold on through 180 hands of action.  Sharon Levin followed in fourth place a short while later when he took a stand with A3 only to run into Gagne’s AT.

Uri Kadosh, Gagne, and Juttelstad each spent time as a dominant chip leader at the final table, but when three-handed play began they were all relatively close in chips.  However, first Kadosh distanced himself from his competitors, then Juttelstad jumped out to the lead after doubling thru him.  Then Juttelstad dispatched with Kadosh by picking off Kadosh’s reraise all-in with J8 while holding AJ.

That left Juttelstad and Gagne who was on the precipice of making history as a female open event winner, but behind in the counts by a more than 3-1 margin.  Gagne put up a fight for around 30 hands, but ran into a cooler of a pot where she moved all-in holding 4-10 on a 532A board only to run into Juttelstad’s 4-6 which had flopped him a higher straight.

So, in addition to picking up the title, Juttelstad also prevented Gagne from making history, which is the second time in Season X that a man has defeated a woman heads-up for the title (the first time coming back at Malta last fall).

Juttelstad is the top finisher in the event, which drew 295 entries (around 40 of which were re-entries) and generated a prize pool of more than $950,000.  He will also be back in action at the WPT Championship at Bellagio in May.

Next week, the WPT heads to the Commerce Casino for the LA Poker Classic.  The $10,000 buy-in Main Event gets underway on February 24th.

Here are the final table results from the Lucky Hearts Poker Open Main Event:

1st: Matt Juttelstad – $268,444
2nd: Gigi Gagne – $158,194
3rd: Uri Kadosh – $105,463
4th: Sharon Levin – $73,344
5th: Todd Jacobson – $54,649
6th: Keith Ferrera – $42,185

“Tim and Jason are both great players and great people! I am very happy to welcome them,” says Jennifer Larson, CEO of Lock Poker.

“The goal is to create a global family that is diverse in skill, passion, poker and life.

«The initial vision I had for Lock is becoming a reality. Our partnership with the player gets stronger every day!”

Lee, a Florida native, has over $3 million in career online tournament winnings and $400k in live earnings highlighted by a third-place finish at EPT Villamoura in 2010.

He’s also a Deep Stacks Live instructor and was featured in the Time Magazine article “Attack of the Math Brats» last year.

West, from Los Altos, California, started as a limit holdem player in the Bay Area and began pursuing poker professionally about six years ago after winning a $150 buy in on PartyPoker for $40k.

West also has over $3 million in career online poker earnings and $1.6 million in live tournaments including a win in the 2011 Wynn Classic Main Event for over $300k.

“I wish I could put into words just how excited I am to be joining the Lock Poker team,” said Lee.

“It is an honor to be alongside the likes of Chris Moorman, Matt Stout, Jason Young and Melanie Weisner,” West added. “I am very excited to see what the future has in store.”

Lock Poker also recently added Pedro «pls3betme» Maia to the PRO ELITE team.