The new project ... unfolded: For the past month, I had the privilege to assist in the Flemish voice-overs for the UK poker show Poker Den: The Big Game, on Belgacom TV.
What's it about ?
The Poker Den is a show about a live 24-hour cash game. Players buy-in with their own money, and are free to rebuy or leave as they go broke. The first season, that was recorded in 2007, features players like Phil Hellmuth, Tony G, Juha Helppi, Roland de Wolfe and ... Dave "The Devilfish" Uliott.
Is it worth watching ?
Because this show was such a hit in the UK, two more seasons followed up until today. In contradiction to tournament poker, where you often see only the big pots and all-in moments, this show gives you a quite realistic view on the whole game. As there are 8 episodes of 1,5 hours (12 hours in total), you actually see 50% of all the action. Of course, pots where players just pick up the blinds are cut out, but you can really see that professional players vary their play A LOT depending on their position in relation to the blinds.
It's also great to see that the long hours are very demanding, and that this has an effect on the game and the performance of different players.
By now, the episodes should be available on Belgacom's video-on-demand platform. Please let me know what you think about the flemish comments.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
Cash in a big tournament => Monthly poker taxes ?
Disclaimer: this article represents my personal opinion and even a few speculations. I'm not a laywer, tax officer ... But I have spent quite some time with those guys. If you want rock solid advice from the right people, email me.
Due to the political turbulence, poker & related tax income law has changed little since the Fiscal Poker Seminar in August.
Apparently, for our northern neighbors, a different (horror) story is unfolding. It seems that the tax authority has really decided that income from poker is not subject to income-tax, but to a special gambling tax.
Only a theoretical decision ? They Wish.
Apperently the tax services have been browsing databases such as the Hendon Mob and other Tournament Results resources. As a consequence, all players who have been cashing in (live) tournaments, have received a gambling tax declaration form, with the message that they would be receiving one EVERY MONTH. Most recent example, Sijbrand Maal, received his forms only a few days after winning the Belgian Championship.
So how does this relate to Belgium ?
Little and a lot. Let's start with the part where Belgium and the Netherlands are totally different in certain aspects. First of all, games of chance are fully legalized & regulated in the Netherlands, with Holland Casino exploiting the games in the Netherlands. The Belgian Gaming law is a big construction of "exceptions" on the law that all gaming is illegal in Belgium. One of the exceptions is that the games of the national lottery don't fall under the gaming law. Another one is the exception for 9 class A casino's, where games can be exploited under strict regulation.
So the reason why it's very unlikely that we will have such a "gambling tax" in Belgium, is the same reason as why it's very unlikely that there will be a tenth casino etc.
So what's the alternative ?
The general opinion at the moment, is that Belgian tax authorities WILL consider poker income as professional income, for those players who structurally play and win. That's bad news in the sense that Belgian income tax and social security will amount for about 60% of the NETTO winnings.
Positive thing is that costs will be withdrawn from a BRUTO result, before getting to the NETTO result.
In any case, when the Belgian tax office decides to take a closer look at poker winnings, they will likely approach the subject as thorough as their northern colleagues.
Source
(post about the new project will follow SOON)
Due to the political turbulence, poker & related tax income law has changed little since the Fiscal Poker Seminar in August.
Apparently, for our northern neighbors, a different (horror) story is unfolding. It seems that the tax authority has really decided that income from poker is not subject to income-tax, but to a special gambling tax.
Only a theoretical decision ? They Wish.
Apperently the tax services have been browsing databases such as the Hendon Mob and other Tournament Results resources. As a consequence, all players who have been cashing in (live) tournaments, have received a gambling tax declaration form, with the message that they would be receiving one EVERY MONTH. Most recent example, Sijbrand Maal, received his forms only a few days after winning the Belgian Championship.
So how does this relate to Belgium ?
Little and a lot. Let's start with the part where Belgium and the Netherlands are totally different in certain aspects. First of all, games of chance are fully legalized & regulated in the Netherlands, with Holland Casino exploiting the games in the Netherlands. The Belgian Gaming law is a big construction of "exceptions" on the law that all gaming is illegal in Belgium. One of the exceptions is that the games of the national lottery don't fall under the gaming law. Another one is the exception for 9 class A casino's, where games can be exploited under strict regulation.
So the reason why it's very unlikely that we will have such a "gambling tax" in Belgium, is the same reason as why it's very unlikely that there will be a tenth casino etc.
So what's the alternative ?
The general opinion at the moment, is that Belgian tax authorities WILL consider poker income as professional income, for those players who structurally play and win. That's bad news in the sense that Belgian income tax and social security will amount for about 60% of the NETTO winnings.
Positive thing is that costs will be withdrawn from a BRUTO result, before getting to the NETTO result.
In any case, when the Belgian tax office decides to take a closer look at poker winnings, they will likely approach the subject as thorough as their northern colleagues.
Source
(post about the new project will follow SOON)
Thursday, December 18, 2008
The new project: going live on monday
After a long night of work tonight and another night coming up tomorrow, the new project is expected to go live on monday. Although we received some bad news as well.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
$5 million upswing in 50.000 hands
Boy, I wish this blogpost was about myself. No other than Tow "Durrr" Dwan has achieved this astonishing result.
On a high stakes poker blog you can find some graphs and statistics, showing who he won this money from.
Guesses are that a big share of his winnings come from Guy Laliberté, if he is indeed the player playing under the names patatino, lady marmelade, and Elmariachimacho.
Not a bad way for Durrr to close 2008.
On a high stakes poker blog you can find some graphs and statistics, showing who he won this money from.
Guesses are that a big share of his winnings come from Guy Laliberté, if he is indeed the player playing under the names patatino, lady marmelade, and Elmariachimacho.
Not a bad way for Durrr to close 2008.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Something new is brewing
A week after the poker tour, I'm picking up on a poker project that first seeded early this summer. Normally there will some public news about this before the end of the year.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Party's over =/
I got screwed big time...
Op gegeven moment had ik 580k chips, dus zo'n 20% van alle chips, met nog 13 man erin. Dan gebeurde deze sequentie van hands. Ik zit op BB met AJo, SB bet into mij. Ik raise en hij callt redelijk snel. Flop komt AQx met 2 hearts. Hij bet into mij, dus zag dat als vrij weak aangezien dat een flop is die zo goe als altijd gecbet wordt. Ik call. Turn komt nog een heart, die het board voor hem heel scary moet maken als hij me niet beat heeft. Pot is nu al 400k. Hij gaat all-in, dus ik heb easy fold.
Dan is er een shorty die net doublet via de big stack rechts van mij, hij heeft nu 190k, en pusht all-in op de CO. Dit is een overbet, aangezien de BB 10k was op dit moment, met 1000 ante. Ik denk dat hij dit niet zou doen met een echte premium hand, en denk dat met AJs mijn range wel aanzienlijk sterk staat tegen de range die hij daar pusht. Ik call en hij toont 55, en spiket al direct een 5 op de flop. Weer een 400k pot down the drain.
Om het af te maken had ik pocket 4's op de SB. Het is folded to me, en ik push met nog een stack van zo'n 170k over, blinds van 6000/12000. BB instacallt met KTs en vangt een flush. Byebye final table.
Het suckt, aangezien ik niet lang daarvoor 3x average stack had , maar uiteindelijk kan ik niet klagen aangezien ik niks heb betaald voor mijn ticket. Prijs voor 12de plaats was iets meer dan 5300 euro.
Op gegeven moment had ik 580k chips, dus zo'n 20% van alle chips, met nog 13 man erin. Dan gebeurde deze sequentie van hands. Ik zit op BB met AJo, SB bet into mij. Ik raise en hij callt redelijk snel. Flop komt AQx met 2 hearts. Hij bet into mij, dus zag dat als vrij weak aangezien dat een flop is die zo goe als altijd gecbet wordt. Ik call. Turn komt nog een heart, die het board voor hem heel scary moet maken als hij me niet beat heeft. Pot is nu al 400k. Hij gaat all-in, dus ik heb easy fold.
Dan is er een shorty die net doublet via de big stack rechts van mij, hij heeft nu 190k, en pusht all-in op de CO. Dit is een overbet, aangezien de BB 10k was op dit moment, met 1000 ante. Ik denk dat hij dit niet zou doen met een echte premium hand, en denk dat met AJs mijn range wel aanzienlijk sterk staat tegen de range die hij daar pusht. Ik call en hij toont 55, en spiket al direct een 5 op de flop. Weer een 400k pot down the drain.
Om het af te maken had ik pocket 4's op de SB. Het is folded to me, en ik push met nog een stack van zo'n 170k over, blinds van 6000/12000. BB instacallt met KTs en vangt een flush. Byebye final table.
Het suckt, aangezien ik niet lang daarvoor 3x average stack had , maar uiteindelijk kan ik niet klagen aangezien ik niks heb betaald voor mijn ticket. Prijs voor 12de plaats was iets meer dan 5300 euro.
PopKoRn in the money & skyrocketing !
While I was out for dinner, PopKoRn started skyrocketing and sending me good update after update.
20:53 - 50k, 64k average, everything still possible
23:31 - 120k with 27 players in game, 24 ITM.
00:10 - 195k
00:38 - 280k
00:56 - 343k with still 19 man in
According to Pokernews.nl, he's the current chipleader.
20:53 - 50k, 64k average, everything still possible
23:31 - 120k with 27 players in game, 24 ITM.
00:10 - 195k
00:38 - 280k
00:56 - 343k with still 19 man in
According to Pokernews.nl, he's the current chipleader.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
PopKoRn sinks further
Now around 30k, he's sinking further. Two other bigstacks at the table are giving him a hard time. With blinds at 800/1600, he still has a bit of room to breath, but without a double up, he'll be in push or fold mode soon enough.
Vandelay is up to 68k, Kenny at 33k and Apollo at 50k
Vandelay is up to 68k, Kenny at 33k and Apollo at 50k
First update of day 2 !
PopKoRn already had AK 4 times today ! Once, he ran into JJ, and another time into AA. He has dropped back to 40k.
Kenny is at 13k and Vandelay just won a big pot and is at 45k.
Kenny is at 13k and Vandelay just won a big pot and is at 45k.
Warsaw blog picks
Unibet has it's own blog about the UO event in Warsaw: http://www.unibetopen.com/category/warsaw-blog08
To avoid that you need to read everything about the last two days:
* Day 1A ended with 42 players, with chip leader Erik Dahl at 82,500 chips.
* Around 140 players started in day 1B.
* Sebastian Mortelmans (Chequeraise) got eliminated by Joris Springael (Complexion) in the first hand of day 1B. Kings versus Aces.
* With 67,500 chips, PopKoRn was the chip leader of day 1B. Some other belgian survivors of day 1B: Stefan Hendrickx in 4th place, Raymond Siepel in 17th, Gregg "Vandelay" Delforge in 29th place and Kenny Louagie, with around 11,000 chips, in 43rd place.
* Here's a picture of Kenny 'Cokeman' Louagie.
* Seating of Day 2: what a coincidence, Erik Dahl, chipleader of Day 1A and PopKoRn, chipleader of day 1B, are sitting RIGHT NEXT TO EACHOTHER on table 3. With Erik having position on PopKoRn. Vandelay is on table 6, Cokeman on table 1.
* First place will pay around 120.000 euro, second 66.000 euro, third place around 40.000 euro
PopKoRn in action
The Belgian Crew (without popkorn ??)
Fees, still smiling
To avoid that you need to read everything about the last two days:
* Day 1A ended with 42 players, with chip leader Erik Dahl at 82,500 chips.
* Around 140 players started in day 1B.
* Sebastian Mortelmans (Chequeraise) got eliminated by Joris Springael (Complexion) in the first hand of day 1B. Kings versus Aces.
* With 67,500 chips, PopKoRn was the chip leader of day 1B. Some other belgian survivors of day 1B: Stefan Hendrickx in 4th place, Raymond Siepel in 17th, Gregg "Vandelay" Delforge in 29th place and Kenny Louagie, with around 11,000 chips, in 43rd place.
* Here's a picture of Kenny 'Cokeman' Louagie.
* Seating of Day 2: what a coincidence, Erik Dahl, chipleader of Day 1A and PopKoRn, chipleader of day 1B, are sitting RIGHT NEXT TO EACHOTHER on table 3. With Erik having position on PopKoRn. Vandelay is on table 6, Cokeman on table 1.
* First place will pay around 120.000 euro, second 66.000 euro, third place around 40.000 euro
Unibet Open Day 1 Report
We started with 10k stack, and 13 Belgian guys, one of them being a journalist of Nieuwsblad.
It started off quite well for me, winning 2 moderate pots before the break, that gave me a well above average stack. From then on I gradually increased my stack, without too many variance. For some reason, people gave me a lot of respect at the start. I think it was because I was wearing my glasses (no sunglasses). I have trouble seeing the cards when I'm at the far end of the table, but I'm okay if I'm in the middle. But once I took those off, people didn't really give me that much respect anymore O_o. I must look more serious with my glasses on, I'm definately going to put them on tomorrow.
Sinterklaas and some Polish popstar were participating in the tournament. Sinterklaas busted really quickly, although I didn't see him play. In the last 20 minutes of the day, I was to the right of the popstar. It seems like he plays poker sometimes, although his game isn't top notch. The last few hands were quite crazy. This sequence of hands happened: I had 84s in the SB, there was a 2.5xBB raise, and there were lots of callers, so I called too. The flop gave me a flush draw and all low cards (and backdoor straight draw). The original raiser checked, Knot_Be, a belgian player bet something like the pot. I put the Belgian guy all-in, he called and showed JJ. I got openended straightdraw on the turn, and flush on the river. This gave me a stack of 85k that was probably somewhere close to the chiplead. Then I kept getting hands that were raisable, and I picked up a few pots without showing, so my image was hardcore crazy now, but I couldn't help the fact that I was getting good cards. Then I was in the SB, and it was folded to the popstar guy, and he made a really big raise of 4000. He had 25k in total. I put him all-in with my QJs, but he called with AK. I didn't win the flip, so I lost out on a chance for major chiplead here. After this hand I had AK myself on the button, but unfortunately I only got the blinds again.
Really intense last 30 minutes.
Eventually I have a stack of 67.600, on an avg stack of 32k, so I'm in really good shape for tomorrow. I have no idea about the other chipcounts. I'll post updates or call Ares so he can post updates tomorrow.
Other Belgians that are still in are Vandelay on an avg stack and Apollo on quite a healty stack of about my size if I'm not mistaken. I don't know about the others, I think chickenlal is still in too, on a really short stack.
It was cool that I was at the table for a whole while of a swedish guy nicknamed VinnieGans. People who grind on unibet 200 to 600NL will probably recognize this name since he's a solid regular there . I didn't get into pots with him, but he luckboxed himself into good shape for day2. TT > KK for most of his stack, all-in preflop. He's a cool guy and has skill, so it's not undeserved that he's still in.
Gta get some sleep now. I have a good feeling about the next day(s)
Friday, December 05, 2008
PopKoRn at 43k at the moment
no information on the hands or conditions, but he's wayyyy above average at the moment. Average at the dinner break was 13k.
Unibet Open - Dinner break
PopKoRn was around 28.000 in the dinner break. He was playing on the same table as Kulderzipken, who was at about 8000.
PopKoRn in the Unibet Open Warsaw - playing TODAY
By winning the Unibet rake race two weekends ago, PopKoRn won a package to play in the Unibet Open, now taking place in the Hyatt Regency hotel in Warsaw, Poland.
Many pokerclub.be players, such as fees, kulderzipken, complexion and cokeman are playing as well.
Players started off with 10.000 in chips, and PopKoRn is now cruising at 17.000.
Hopefully, we'll get some information and tasty hands lateron.
Goooooooooo Pokerbrothers :p
Many pokerclub.be players, such as fees, kulderzipken, complexion and cokeman are playing as well.
Players started off with 10.000 in chips, and PopKoRn is now cruising at 17.000.
Hopefully, we'll get some information and tasty hands lateron.
Goooooooooo Pokerbrothers :p
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
3 down - 1 to go (leuven poker tour)
The third tournament is finished. It went pretty well ... apart from the fact that I ripped my finger on a case of poker chips, RIGHT BEFORE I had to start dealing the final table.
Ah well ... the blood will evaporate from the felt sometime.
LPT has made the press !
Today, VETO has published an article on LPT in their paper. It's also available online here.
Click for the article
It's very funny to see how fast the bigger newspapers pick up on this, so soon after the article appeared. Het Laatste Nieuws came by tonight to take some pictures, and the story was covered by Belga as well.
De Morgen already covered it online, will be cool to see this in print tomorrow. Stupid that they used a picture from some other tournament
Click for the article
Het laatste nieuws (with same stupid picture)
Click for the article
Some dutch sites also cover it:
Click for the article
Click for the article
Also funny that they say that poker is a "new" hype in Leuven. Time to wake up and smell the fucking coffee ... Leuven is the poker capital of flanders. Period.
Kings of the pokertour ... Larske & Me
Ah well ... the blood will evaporate from the felt sometime.
LPT has made the press !
Today, VETO has published an article on LPT in their paper. It's also available online here.
Click for the article
It's very funny to see how fast the bigger newspapers pick up on this, so soon after the article appeared. Het Laatste Nieuws came by tonight to take some pictures, and the story was covered by Belga as well.
De Morgen already covered it online, will be cool to see this in print tomorrow. Stupid that they used a picture from some other tournament
Click for the article
Het laatste nieuws (with same stupid picture)
Click for the article
Some dutch sites also cover it:
Click for the article
Click for the article
Also funny that they say that poker is a "new" hype in Leuven. Time to wake up and smell the fucking coffee ... Leuven is the poker capital of flanders. Period.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
