Return of the Run-Good Challenge!

The PokerListings Run-Good Challenge is back, and this time it's personal! As Hollywood has taught us over and over again, sequels never miss. With that in mind we present to you RGC2 v.2.

Just like every sequel, the second run always surpasses the original, and that's exactly what we're going for here. With more big-name bloggers and a few guest pros along for the ride, getting a piece of the cash pie won't be easy for anyone.

Here at PokerListings we subscribe to that old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The four-event structure of RGC 1 worked like a charm so we're using it for a second time. Three prelims with $1,000 up for grabs in each, and one Grand Final with a whopping $2,500 on the table.

The only catch is that to get to the Final you must earn points in the first three events. Points are awarded on a reverse scale to the top nine spots. Nine points for first, one point for ninth and everything in between. The top nine performers get tickets to the big dance.

Myself and Dan Skolovy will be representing the mighty PL.com and we'll be doing our best to deprive our fellow bloggers of as much of the prize pool as possible marked cards lenses.

Since we work for the sponsor it just didn't seem right to keep the money. Well, it seemed all right to us, but apparently our bosses didn't feel the same. As a result any and all cash we take down will be rolled over to the next event, and in the case of the Grand Final, to the next RGC series.

Without further ado, I'd like to introduce the players.

David G. Schwartz	Change100
Liz Lieu	Dr. Pauly
Christina Lindley	Amy Calistri
Matt Stout	Spaceman
Jason Young	Poker Shrink
Craig Cunningham	Michele Lewis
LuckBox	Shortstacked Shamus
California Jen	Kid Dynamite
Benjo	Michalski
Chops

In addition to the core group of the poker blogging elite we had along for RGC1, you'll notice a few new notable names in the list.

As good as it gets.

Liz Lieu is no stranger to poker fans. A regular on the tournament circuit and a seasoned cash-game specialist, Liz has been on front covers and final tables all over the world infrared ink.

Christina Lindley should also be a familiar face, having been featured in such PL.com faves as Playboy and Maxim. She was featured on a certain magazine cover recently with FOPL Lacey Jones, which was more than enough to land her a seat in this series.

David G. Schwartz has been called "gaming's leading historian" and is the Director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Las Vegas. He has an awesome blog and we're looking forward to seeing how his game skills stack up.

Matt Stout is a well-known online professional who has had some great results on the live circuit in the last few years. Matt has written a blog here at PokerListings.com for some time, sharing with us an inside look at his tournament play and life as a traveling pro.

Jason Young was an unknown to us before he won a bracelet at the year's World Series of Poker. This year Jason is making a run at professional poker and will be blogging his progress right here at PokerListings.

J-Roc.

Everyone you see on the list above is worthy of investigation so check out their blogs for some of the best poker writing on the Web.

The first event is slated for Sunday, Nov. 23. We'll be posting more event details before the tournament and a recap right after so make sure to hit us back and follow along. The whole thing is going down on PokerStars so feel free to find us in the Special Tournaments tab and sweat a few hands.

If you don't already have a Stars account make sure to click through and lock one up.

Additionally, if you or someone you know has a poker blog we don't know about, drop us a line in the comments below to get involved. The blog has to be at least eight months old, have a dedicated following and be regularly updated. It's just that easy.

Ante Up for Africa Red Carpet and After-Party

The red carpet opening ceremonies for the Ante Up For Africa event was pure spectacle, the pinnacle of poker's existence as part of mainstream pop culture.

Media coverage for the event was overwhelming, with anywhere from 200-300 people on the floor, ranging from photographers, television camera operators, public relations specialists and reporters cheat poker.

Brad Garrett was the first celebrity to come out and he literally took more than 30 minutes to pose for every camera and talk to every reporter on the carpet.

Other celebs, like Ben Affleck, were over the whole thing about halfway through the carpet walk. Affleck ignored everyone on the second half of the carpet and made his way into the Amazon Room.

The official after-party for the event went down at Pure Nightclub inside Caesars Palace, and it was a much more subdued affair than the actual tournament.

The entire main room was roped off for the party, which featured Charles Barkley partying it up and two of poker biggest names getting a lot of attention easy cards tricks.

Barkley went up to the DJ booth at one point and gave a tribute speech about Michael Jackson, saying that the two were good friends, and making sure the DJ followed with a Jackson song.

On the other side of the club, a group of about 8-10 young women surrounded a booth that appeared to be the life of the party, with the females taking lots of pictures and generally having a good time.

At the center of the chaos? None other than poker bad boys Mike "The Mouth" Matusow and Phil Hellmuth.
-- Geoff Fisk

I'm the Next Loose Cannon on the PokerStars Big Game!

Playing high-stakes cash on television for potentially life-changing money isn't something we all get a chance to do. That's why we're so jealous of Courtney Gee.
The PokerStars Big Game is taping a brand new episode this week and Courtney is the Loose Cannon.
She's getting staked $100,000 to play against some of the best players in the world and she'll be blogging about it right here on PokerListings.com!
Read on for Courtney's first post and check back early next week for her trip report!
Hello, my name is Courtney Gee and I live in Vancouver, British Columbia. Tomorrow I’ll be traveling to Vegas to play in the PokerStars Big Game!
I'm 25 years old with a Science degree from the University of British Columbia. I learned to play juice cards poker when I was going to school around 5 years ago, and I used to always look forward to our home games.
I couldn't get enough of poker, actually, so I started playing online at PokerStars. I built my bankroll playing sit-n-go's, and since then it's been my favorite hobby.
I started to play poker more seriously last year after quitting my full time job. Having run a student painting business for 3 years while in university, I wasn't happy working for someone and I wanted to take some time to figure out what to do with my life. I got a part time writing job with a website and decided to spend my extra time playing poker.
I came across the Big Game concept when I was writing news articles for the website and was really intrigued by it.
I started playing the Round 1 satellites back in May and I remember being amazed at how difficult it was to win them! I don't know how many I played in total, but it was definitely a number in the (multiple) dozens before I finally won a Round 2 ticket. I busted my first attempt at Round 3 but made it after my second try.
About a week later I spent an entire day making my audition video with a friend. My theme for the video was my current goal in life: to avoid working another full time 9 to 5 job as an employee. After I submitted the video, it was a waiting game.
In total, I filled out a questionnaire, did a phone interview, and then did a video interview on Skype. Each time I made it to the next step in the selection process I was a little more surprised. Even though it was a long shot to be chosen as a Loose Cannon, it was exciting to think "I haven't been rejected yet - I still have a chance!"
It's been a rollercoaster ride since I found out that I made the show. I’m extremely excited and of course I am also nervous! I have been practicing my live game, thinking about strategy, and mentally preparing for the big day.
While I obviously would like to leave the game with a healthy profit, my biggest goal is to have fun and enjoy the experience. I never imagined that I would have an opportunity to play a cash game with such an elite group of juice cards players!
While all of the pros that play on this show are first class, every Cannon has his or her dream lineup. I think mine would include Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Laak, Doyle Brunson, and a rich businessman.
I'd like to play with Negreanu, Hellmuth, and Laak because they all love to talk at the table and I think it would be extremely entertaining. I would love to play with Brunson because he is just such a poker legend. And then of course the businessman could be the one to double me up!
I really enjoy tournament poker, and I would use my profit in the Big Game to play some high buy-in events. I haven't had the chance to travel much, so it would be a great opportunity to see the world.
If I can get lucky and run good at the right time, maybe I can make a name for myself and achieve that goal of never working another 9 to 5 job ever again!
Check back next week for the trip report from Courtney's Big Game experience!

Is It FTOPS Time Again? Already?

It's that time again, the time we wait literally weeks for, FTOPS!

Seriously ... I haven't done a timeline on it yet or anything, but I'm pretty sure that FullTilt is slowly closing the gap between the different FullTilt Online Poker Series at an ever increasing pace.

They probably won't stop until they're running one continuous FTOPS series. But hey, if they can keep the fields huge I'm not complaining trick cards!

My FTOPS hasn't been great so far, but it hasn't been terrible. I made a deep run in the $215+rebuys event, which is always one of my favorite FTOPS tournaments. I was one of the chip leaders for a decent portion of the tournament but ended up fizzling out not too long after we got into the money.

I also cashed in one other event of the series so far, the $500 6-max PLO. I ended up getting it in on a pretty standard Omaha post-flop flip, holding bottom set and a straight draw against top two with a flush draw, and cashing for barely more than the minimum.

This is just going to further my recent desire to improve my Omaha game through books and training videos, because I seem to go deep in a lot of PLO events even though I'm self-taught and relatively inexperienced.
I'm going to try to finish reading Hwang's book on the game before I play the $500 rebuy PLO prelim at the Bike next week. It'll be the only preliminary event I play leading up to the WPT Legends of Poker $10k.
Anyone with a sick memory or anyone who may be stalking me (you like em chunky?) will be saying to yourself, "Really? You're going back to the LOP after what happened to you last year?"
Season 7 on the WPT was not a fun one for me, highlighted by losing a couple of six figure pots deep in 10k events with A-A all in pre. However, the Bike tournament really took the cake.
In the first orbit of day 3 as we approached the money, I stacked off with A♦ A♣ against K♣ Q♠ on a A♠ J♠ T♠ flop. Still optimistic that the board would pair, I was in full sweat mode ... until the K♠ hit the turn and sent me out the door laughing.
Yea, laughing. I distinctly remember walking out the door cracking up at how sick it was, because what else could I do?
A couple guys from one of the other reporting sites saw me as I was getting to my car and asked, "What the hell happened Stout?" They looked at me a little confused as I laughed and told them, "Top set of aces vs a Royal, gg." I assume they thought I was delirious.
Anyway, I'm going back for that tournament with a vengeance. They're going to have to cooler me again if I'm not going deep because I've been staring at computer screens too much since the WSOP ended and I'm really anxious and ready to play some live poker infrared contactlenses. Big money, no whammies!!!
Speaking of big money, I think I'm going to play the $2,500 2-day FTOPS event tomorrow. It's a very tough field, but I usually limit myself to 3-4 tables and really pay close attention to it ... basically playing it more like a live tournament than a typical online donkament.
I've had some decent results in it, with two cashes and one bubble in it over the five times I've played it (they ran a $5k 6-max in its place for a while), but it's time for me to really go for the kill in this tournament.
After FTOPS and Legends in LA, I'll finally be leaving the West siiiiiiiide for the first time since I moved out here. As much as I REALLY love living out here, it's time for me to visit my homeland of New Jersey.
Even though they shrank one of my favorite WPT events down to a $3500 buy in, I'll be skanking around the Borgata for most of September just like the good ole days!
Then I'll be making a trip across the pond for the WSOP Europe Main Event and the EPT London event. Strangely enough, despite all the travel I've done I've never been to London ... or England or all for that matter.
I've decided that it's time to visit the motherland (well, one of the many, since I'm a European/Native American mutt), and a couple of huge tournaments laden with crazy Euros seems like good times.
Time to get some travel booked and get some rest for this $2500 ...
-- Matt Stout

Battle of Malta End of Day 1A Chip Counts

Day 1A of the PokerListings.com Battle of Malta is over. 67 players survived and we've got the chip counts right here luminous contactlenses.

Michael Agoutborde	135,500
Stevan Sudar	97,300
Peter Öttl	95,000
Alexander Lieff	91,400
Louis Salter	88,000
Gareth Edwards	85,000
Johan Linder	79,300
Marcus Zigaluris	79,000
Johan Nilsson	78,600
Thoma Panayiotis	78,000
Erik Hedenstierna	74,600
Nick Jakobsen	73,400
Erik Gjerde	72,900
Matti Kinnunen	72,600
Gaelle Baumann	72,000
Pieter Michael de Goede	70,500
Favaretto Martino	68,600
Cammisuci Flaviano	68,600
Steven van Zadelhoff	68,000
Davide Guerrasio	67,300
Lina Teuma	66,900
Joe Grech	65,700
Mattias Lundström	61,000
Joep Raemaekers	57,600
Björn Gustafsson	51,900
Daniel Cates	51,900
Hans Riisagen	51,700
Aladin Mrkaljevic	43,900
Jonas Broden	40,500
Dario Amorello	40,500
Aaron Vogelsang	39,300
John Stubbs	38,400
Tornau Kjartan	38,100
Cato Vonheim	36,600
Guiseppe Bellinghieri	36,100
Thomas Braun	35,800
Stefano Stefanacci	35,600
Johan Lilja	35,100
Rafa Contangulu	35,000
Per Erik Lindkvist	33,400
Negron Marc	31,900
Jack Salter	31,300
Giovanna Dimartino	30,500
Charlo Azzopardi	27,100
Bastien Lebel	26,500
Vaida Tudor	26,000
Pavel Mackevic	25,200
Andreas Barstad	23,800
Jordi Urlings	23,500
Thony Coomber	23,000
Gaikis Peteris	22,200
Thomas Steinbicker	22,000
Mikel Allende	21,600
Luca Ittiresu	21,400
Mads Bertelsen	20,500
Olle Sundin	20,300
Jean-Michel Porcq	20,000
Jacob Nielsen	19,700
Jorn Haaarsma	18,000
Joris Mourelon	17,800
Michael Cafiero	17,500
Laurent Turin	17,500
Chris Grech	15,500
Thomas Rewwer	13,000
Luigi Knoppers	9,900
Viktoria Lucenkova	9,100
Jeremy Perici Calascione	8,600

Uk Pro Chris Kiefert at Battle of Malta Final Table (Video)

Professional poker player Chris Kiefert is originally from Birmingham, England but recently moved to Malta to ply infrared marked cards his trade online.
Kiefert entered the first ever Battle of Malta and made it all the way to the final table before hitting the rail in 8th place for €4,600.
Kiefert speaks with BOM host Kara Scott before going bust and tells her about living in Malta and playing for a shot at the first BOM title.