3-Bet: Fairplay Website Taken Offline, Uku Valner Wins MPNPT London Main Event & Lex Live 2 Schedule Out

3-Bet
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  • Namita Ghosh July 23, 2019
  • 3 Minutes Read

A week after the soft-launch of Fairplay, the anti-cheating initiative spearheaded by Dusk Till Dawn owner Rob Yong found itself in the middle of a controversy for allegedly using the logo of the U.K. Gambling Commission (UKGC) on its website without prior permission. In the midst of all this, the FairPlay website has been pulled down and currently shows a “Coming Soon” message to visitors.

London is fast gaining ground as a popular poker hub, and the Aspers Casino in London hosted the fifth edition of the MPN Poker Tour London £480 buy-in Main Event last week from July 18 – 21. Estonia’s Uku Valner, an online qualifier, championed the record field of 649 entries, taking home £50,000 in prize money.

The popular casino located in Stratford City London will next play host to the second edition of the Lex Live Festival. PokerStars and Lex Veldhuis have announced the schedule for Lex Live 2 that is slated to run from September 27 to October 6 and feature nine tournaments with buy-ins ranging from £50 – £230. The highlight of the series will be the £230 Main Event that will play out eight starting flights – double that of the inaugural Lex Live Spring Festival.

Fairplay Website Goes Offline After Controversy Over Unauthorized Use of UKGC Logo

Just a week after Dusk Till Dawn club owner Rob Yong soft-launched a new anti-cheating initiative called Fairplay the same has run into a little bit of controversy. Apparently, the Fairplay website was found using the official logo of the U.K. Gambling Commission (UKGC) without the latter’s consent, and this was first pointed out by Michael Josem in his blog post. Josem, who was formerly part of the PokerStars security team, was vitriolic in his attack against Fairplay, and called the use of UKGC’s logo an “alleged misappropriation.”

Rob Yong

He quoted a representative from UKGC as saying that they “do not regulate nor endorse this particular website,” adding that “We have no link to this website in any way.” Josem commented, “It appears that the so-called ‘FairPlay’ Initiative is trying to associate itself with the reputation of the British regulator, despite no approval from the Gambling Commission. This is akin to how fake soldiers steal the medals of military heroes. This ‘stolen valour’ can often go undetected without proper scrutiny.”

As per reports, not long after this controversy gained traction on social media, the Fairplay website was pulled down. For now, the site’s home page only displays the Fairplay logo with the notice: ‘Coming Soon.’

Fairplay has partypoker, bwinpoker, and Dusk Till Dawn poker club as initial operators and aims to bring together prominent stakeholders in the online poker and casino industry for fighting cheating, bots, and collusion.

Amid speculation that the wrongly placed logo could have been a mistake made by the website developer, Yong and partypoker LIVE president John Duthie who is a board member of Fairplay, are yet to come out with an official explanation on the incident.

Duthie is reported to have told Josem that “the site is in development and he and Yong will be consulting with Gambling Commission.”

This is not the best start for an initiative that is already treading an uphill climb. Several industry experts have pointed out that Fairplay’s stated goals may be challenging to achieve in the current regulatory environment. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that was enforced across the European Union (EU) last May limits how personal data can be utilized and shared and allows individuals to have their identifiable information removed on request.

Uku Valner Wins MPNPT London Main Event

The fifth edition of the MPN Poker Tour London Main Event ran from July 18 to 21 at the Aspers Casino and saw 649 hopefuls pay up the £480 buy-in to enter. While the tournament advertised a prize pool guarantee of £200,000, the record field helped collect £280,368 in the prize pool.

Prevailing over this large field following a three-day battle was Estonia’s Uku Valner, who beat Terry Simpson heads-up to win the title. “It’s my first cash in the Main Event! The atmosphere is very friendly – it’s competitive but always fun at the tables; it’s not like work – we always have a good time!” Valner said, after winning the event for a pay day worth £50,000.

Valner, who had won his seat in the event through an online qualifier, has also won a free trip to the October-slated MPNPT at the Battle of Malta for being the last player who qualified from Paf Poker standing in the event.

The top 80 finishers earned a min-cash of £700 and Day 3 began with 28 survivors. Tai Hoang (10th for £3,810) was the last elimination before the nine-handed final table was formed.

Spearheading the nine finalists were Nikolay Ponomarev (4,640,000), John Magnusson (3,470,000) and James Williams (3,120,000) while Valner was placed sixth in chips with 1,450,000.

Final Table Recap

Chris Da-Silva was the shortest stack when the final table began and earned a quick double-up to improve. However, the double up didn`t take him far as Silva was the first player out in ninth place.

James Williams, Gary Miller, and George Achillea all hit the rail in quick succession in places eighth to sixth.

Nikolaj Ponomarev busted in fifth place after his ace-king lost to Valner’s ace-queen with the latter hitting a runner-runner straight.

With David Rudling and John Magnusson joining the rail in fourth and third place respectively, the tournament came down to the heads-up play between Valner and Terry Simpson.

Valner was ahead with a two-to-one margin against the latter but found a resilient opponent in Simpson. The final pot of the tournament saw Simpson put the last of his chips in the middle with king-jack versus Valner’s ace-jack. The board favored Valner who won the tournament for his first-ever MPNPT cash!

Uku Valner wins MPNPT London Main Event

Final Table Results (GBP)

  1. Uku Valner – £50,000
  2. Terry Simpson – £37,538
  3. John Magnusson – £24,000
  4. David Rudling – £18,000
  5. Nikolaj Ponomarev – £13,000
  6. George Achillea – £10,600
  7. Gary Miller – £8,700
  8. James Williams – £6,900
  9. Chris Da-Silva – £5,200

Schedule For Lex Live 2 Festival Announced

PokerStars Ambassador Lex Veldhuis had in conjunction with PokerStars hosted his very own live poker festival, Lex Live Spring festival, at the Grand Casino de Namur, Belgium in March (27-31) this year. The inaugural series was a huge success and paved the way for PokerStars to announce the second edition of the series. Lex Live 2 is coming up in September at Aspers Casino in Stratford City from September 27 to October 6 and has nine tournaments on the schedule with buy-ins ranging from £40 to £230.

Headlining the series is the Main Event that has a buy-in of £230 and will run through the entire duration of the series. While the inaugural Lex Live Main Event featured four starting flights, this time the number of opening flights has been doubled to eight!

Running alongside the Main Event will be the other events like the 8 game, Six+, Big Bounty, PLO, Mini Big Bounty, FU Flip, Super Saturday Side, The Big Breeze, and Last Chance.

Lex Live 2 Schedule

DateTime (DST)Event Buy-InGuarantee
September 276 PMLex Live Main Event Flight 1£230£100,000
September 282 PMLex Live Main Event Flight 2£230£100,000
September 292 PMLex Live Main Event Flight 3£230£100,000
September 3011 AM8 Game£40
September 307 PMBig Bounty£100
October 111 AMSix+£50
October 17 PMPLO£100
October 211 AM Mini Big Bounty£50
October 26 PMLex Live Main Event Flight 4£230£100,000
October 311 PMFU Flip£40
October 31 PMLex Live Main Event Flight 5£230£100,000
October 36 PM Lex Live Main Event Flight 6£230£100,000
October 412 PMLex Live Main Event Flight 7£230£100,000
October 46 PMLex Live Main Event Flight 8 (Turbo)£230£100,000
October 51 PMLex Live Main Event Day 2
October 56 PMSuper Saturday Slide£100
October 612 PMLex Live Main Event Final Day
October 62 PMThe Big Freeze£150
October 66 PMLast Chance£50

PokerStars tweeted news of the festival on July 18.

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