A monstrous pot just went the way of Mika Paasonen on the feature table.

Patrick Bruel was the victim of the coldest of decks and, holding A-10, must have thought he was ahead on a flop of Q-10-10.

But there was some very suspicious checking and flat-calling through the streets, before Mika pushed and Patrick called on a blank turn. Paasonen had been exceptionally crafty with pocket queens for queens full and Bruel shipped towers of chips to the Finn.

On the outer tables, Mark Teltscher, the nemesis of Katja Thater, has continued to build. Meanwhile Cort Kibler Melby, an early leader in Barcelona, is out.

Updated chip counts will follow.

And so it ends for Team PokerStars in Barcelona.

Katja Thater, who had clung on and clung on late yesterday to end the night as the only Team PokerStars player to make the money, was always going to have to make a move early today.

But she must have been delighted when Mark Teltscher, the British player who triumphed in season two’s EPT London, put in a button raise when Thater had glanced down at pocket kings. She tossed in whatever extra she had and Teltscher showed queens.

You guessed it, though. I don’t even need to write it. Thater is on the rail.

Vultures and reporters share a lot in common — it would be difficult to contest that they’re not pretty much the same thing — and an innate attraction to carnage and carrion is probably their most pronounced similarity.

So it was that I, and nine or ten others, gathered around Ryan Jones’s table as the cards hit the air for the first time this morning. The United States player, who cashed in W-Dollars on PokerStars to buy his seat here, had the lowest chip stack of everyone, and was shaping up for a fairly certain first-round push.

And push he did when it was folded to him on the button. Ole Brandborg, in the big blind, insta-called. Brandborg has 10-10, Jones showed K-8 and there was much sharpening of talons and pencils.

But, behold, not only a king on the flop, but also an eight, leaving Brandborg looking for one of the two remaining tens to send Jones out. Neither materialised, and Jones lived to fight another few hands, at least.

Daniel Stern, another W-Dollars player, was not so fortunate. Despite holding the chip lead after day two, the American was also short-stacked coming into today and shoved from the big blind, over the top of a middle position raiser. Stern had K-Q, his opponent A-K and there were no miracles. Stern was first out today.

Following him hastily to the rail was Phil Starrs, from Scotland. The PokerStars player won his seat here when he took down an APAT event on the site. But his A-9d was beaten by the J-8d of Bjorn-Erik Glenne. All this was on TV as well.

So, within the first half hour, it’s two down, 48 to go until the final table. We’ll have all the details here.

Welcome back to the Gran Casino Barcelona for day three of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour.

There’s one thing on everyone’s minds today: money. And while it’s fair to say that the subject hasn’t exactly been too far from most minds for the preceding three days, this time it’s not a case of “what if” but rather “how much?”

The cash bubble burst late last night, meaning all 56 players who return today are already guaranteed a return on their investment, somewhere between €10,500 (for the first eight out), up to €1,170,700 for the last man, or woman, standing.

Ryan Jones, from the United States, is likely to be happy with anything. He’s bottom of the chip pile going into today. Meanwhile, Mohamad Kowssarie, from Sweden, is eyeing millionaire status. He starts today with 332,200 and the chip lead.

Everyone and anyone in the middle also has a significant chance to become a star. The television feature table has been assembled overnight and one table of players, of the remaining eight, will have their every move scrutinised by the millions in their living rooms.

There’s also a live webcast of the feature table, which can be viewed by clicking here.

Starting under the studio lights when play gets under way in the coming moments, is table seven, which features three PokerStars qualifiers — Phil Starrs, from Scotland, Adity Agarwal, from India, and Andriy Zaichenko, from Russia — as well as Patrick Bruel, the French actor/singer/poker player, and Bjorn Erik Glenne, who won this event last year.

Check back here for your words and watch the broadcast over there. Then scatter some sand around your feet and turn the central heating up and it’ll be practically as though you’re here.

With 11 Casinos, July Revenue Almost Breaks All-Time Record

Today marks the start of the Gulf Coast Poker Championship, a 10-event series at the Beau Rivage that’s capped by a $10,000 championship that will be filmed and broadcast by the World Poker Tour.

It also marks the two-year anniversary when an estimated 90 percent of Biloxi’s buildings were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Images of the barge-casinos that were washed ashore — their slot machines planted on the beach — were shown over and over on national news. It was just another example of how vicious the storm was.

On this same day last year, the Beau Rivage, which is an MGM/Mirage property, joined three other casinos that managed to open at the end of 2005. The new casinos marked the start of a frantic boom that saw another seven casinos open for business. The 11 casinos that operate in Biloxi and Gulfport are only two shy from the 13 that operated before the storm. There are plans to build at least four more casinos in the area in the coming years. Atlantic City, by comparison, also has 11.

The casino industry in Mississippi has recovered so completely that the gambling revenue for this July fell only $100,000 short of the record month of July, 2002, when Gulf Coast casinos brought in $266.3 million.

n the first seven months of 2007, Gulf Coast casinos have generated a gambling revenue of $1.7 billion.

One of the reasons for the boom is Katrina changed the way casinos could be built in Mississippi. Before the storm, the complexes had to be near the water, and the actual casino floor had to be a “riverboat,” which was always a moored barge. The hotels, if the casinos had them, were allowed to be land-based.

After the storm, casino owners convinced lawmakers that for the industry to return, they must be allowed to build on land. Casinos can now be built up to 800 feet onshore, allowing developers to go bigger.

The resurgence of the casino industry has put a fast track to the recovery of Biloxi. Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway has repeatedly told reporters that the casino industry is fueling the recovery of the area, as well as statewide, because state income from casino-generated taxes had already reached pre-Katrina levels.

The WPT Gulf Coast Poker Championship, which takes place so close to the anniversary of the horrible storm, will undoubtedly serve as a sort of way to show that the casino industry in the Gulf Coast is back. And it continues to grow.

Satellites to the Gulf Coast Poker Championship started today, and the full schedule kicks off tomorrow.

Source: Card Player