While the big story of the day seemed to be the start of the World Series of Poker and the $25,000 Heads-Up Championship, the poker world was shocked by an announcement so stunning that it is sure to have a massive ripple effect throughout the entire poker community. Late Tuesday night, Phil Ivey, largely regarded as the best poker player in the world, broke his six-week long silence regarding the events of online poker’s Black Friday and the subsequent holding of player funds by Full Tilt Poker.
On his Facebook account, that Wicked Chops Poker has confirmed to be authentic, Ivey informed the poker world that he will not be playing this year’s WSOP, and that he has filed a lawsuit against Tiltware, the software and marketing company for Full Tilt.
Here is Ivey’s complete post on Facebook:
“For many years, I have been proud to call myself a poker player. This great sport has taken me to places I only imagined going and I have been blessed with much success. It is therefore with deep regret that I believe I am compelled to release the following statement.
I am deeply disappointed and embarrassed that Full Tilt players have not been paid money they are owed. I am equally embarrassed that as a result many players cannot compete in tournaments and have suffered economic harm.
I am not playing in the World Series of Poker as I do not believe it is fair that I compete when others cannot. I am doing everything I can to seek a solution to the problem as quickly as possible.
My name and reputation have been dragged through the mud, through the inactivity and indecision of others and on behalf of all poker players I refuse to remain silent any longer. I have electronically filed a lawsuit against Tiltware related to the unsettled player accounts. As I am sure the public can imagine, this was not an easy decision for me.
I wholeheartedly refuse to accept non-action as to repayment of players funds and I am angered that people who have supported me throughout my career have been treated so poorly.
I sincerely hope this statement will ignite those capable of resolving the problems into immediate action and would like to clarify that until a solution is reached that cements the security of all players, both US and International, I will, as I have for the last six weeks, dedicate the entirety of my time and efforts to finding a solution for those who have been wronged by the painfully slow process of repayment.”
This is a breaking story that the poker world is still reacting to. As always, PokerNews will be here to bring you all the latest developments as they happen.
With The Dark Knight, we got the first great Batman movie. With Spiderman 2, we got the first great Spiderman movie. We’re still waiting for the first great X-Men movie. Although the mutant Marvel heroes should be a more than adequate mine for motion-picture material, all five film adaptations have come up short. Bryan Singer’s X-Men was bold, but devoid of action. X2 gave us some thrilling sequences, but betrayed its ensemble cast. X3: The Last Stand was … directed by Brett Ratner. X-Men Origins: Wolverine had memory erasing bullets. Needless to say, the series was a fixer-upper by the time Matthew Vaughn was brought on board to helm X-Men: First Class.
If any franchise warranted rebooting, it was this one. Yet First Class fails in much the same way as its predecessors did (or should that be ‘sequels’, considering this one is a prequel?). Although the cast is excellent, and there are a number of nifty hero moments sorely lacking in the other features, the script feels slapdash and the direction shoddy. I had hoped Vaughn would breathe some life into this comic adaptation, as he did in the first half of the joyfully anarchic Kick-Ass. Instead, he falls back on the bad habits he picked up in the second half of that film, where he forgot he was making a razor sharp satire and spoof of cheesy, self-righteous comic book movies, and just made a cheesy, self-righteous comic book movie.
The year is 1962. Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is a laddish genius who can woo ladies and guzzle down a beer bong with equal aplomb. He’s also a telekinetic mutant, and has offered sanctuary to the blue-skinned shape shifter Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), promising her a better life by teaching her to look “normal” and helping her hide in plain sight. Although he’s not quite a self-hating mutant, he does have a soft spot for simple-minded humans. That’s more than can be said for Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), a Holocaust survivor on the hunt for the Nazi/ageless mutant Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) responsible for killing his mother and teaching him to harness his magnetic abilities (and I’m not just talking about the way he wears a turtleneck sweater – hi yo!). When Charles, Erik and Raven’s powers are noticed by the CIA, they are recruited to seek out more of “their kind” to bring an end to Shaw, who’s trying to start World War 3 by orchestrating the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Although the picture takes place in the shadow of those infamous thirteen days, there is no sense of impending doom, or even a ticking clock to keep the stakes high. This is not the intriguing alternateversion of events I had hoped to see; there are no stimulating ‘what if?’ scenarios to ponder like there was in Watchmen. Vaughn and co-writer Jane Goldman (working on a script by Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz) don’t even take advantage of the civil rights movement of the time. The plight of the X-Men has always been paralleled with that of the LGBT community, and although the ‘coming out of the closet’ analogies remain (“mutant and proud”, as they clumsily remind one another) it comes across without any of the poignancy seen in Singer’s first two pictures. Frankly, this film only feels like it takes place in the sixties because of all the cleavage being revealed by the female cast members.
Don’t get me wrong; it’s not without highlights. McAvoy and Fassbender are charming foils for one another. If only Vaughn had spent more time fleshing out their relationship, instead of introducing us to countless other mutants that we won’t even get to know long enough to care about. Lawrence is great as the soon-to-be-Mystique, and gives gravitas to a character that seemed to only be included in previous films because she was naked all the time. Nicholas Hoult is also solid as Beast/Hank McCoy, even though he’s given the lion’s share of terrible lines. The villains fare worse. Kevin Bacon seems to have officially transformed into Gary Cole (which isn’t as awesome as it sounds) and the less said about January Jones (as ice queen Emma Frost) the better.
Before you call me out on it, yes, it’s true, I did indeed give Wolverine a positive review back in 2009. It was a different time! Barack Obama had just become president! We were all filled with blind hope! I recognise my wrongs now, and see many of the same issues present once again in X-Men: First Class. The action sequences feel undercooked (the best one rips off the expert opening from X2); the tension is non-existent; the tone inconsistent. Vaughn hints that he’s aiming for an ‘Adam West’s Batman’ style X-Men film, but just when he starts to have a little fun, you can practically feel him pull back, lest he get too campy or weird. Or fun. At least slashfiction fans will find a veritable treasure trove of sequences featuring Fassbender and McAvoy to inspire some saucy material. At least until the inevitable sequel rolls around. Sixth times a charm?
MIAMI -- Dwyane Wade's night began with a hug for his mom. It ended with an embrace from LeBron James.
Nearby, Chris Bosh held up three fingers.
No explanation necessary. The Miami Heat are three wins from the reason why the Big Three came together in the first place.
James scored 24 points for his first win in five NBA finals games, Wade scored 15 of his 22 points in the second half and the Heat beat the Dallas Mavericks 92-84 in Game 1 of the title series on Tuesday night - holding the Western Conference champions to their lowest point total of the playoffs after a dominant defensive showing down the stretch.
"Feels good because it's the first game and we played well as a team," James said. "We've got a lot of work to do. ... That's one in the books. We're excited about this game. Tomorrow we prepare for Game 2, and I see ways we can get better."
Dirk Nowitzki scored 27 points - tearing a tendon in the middle finger on his left, non-shooting, hand during the game and revealing afterward that he'll likely wear a splint throughout the remainder of the series - and grabbed eight rebounds for Dallas, which got 16 points and 10 rebounds from Shawn Marion and 12 points from Jason Terry, most of those coming in an early flurry. It was Dallas' fifth straight loss to Miami in finals games, dating to the Heat rally for the 2006 crown.
Dallas held the Heat to 39 percent shooting, Miami's second-worst showing of the playoffs.
Problem was, the Mavericks shot 37 percent - by far, their worst night of the postseason offensively.
"You hold a team to 38 percent shooting and 92 points, for us, that's usually a victory," Marion said.
Sure enough, Dallas had been 7-2 when holding teams to those kind of numbers this season. Game 2 is Thursday in Miami.
"We're a veteran team," said Nowitzki, who had a postgame X-ray on the finger that was injured when he was stripping the ball from Bosh. "You can't get down with a loss. You've got to come back strong on Thursday. I've said it a couple times in this playoff run, if you're the road team, you're happy with a split. So we've got another opportunity on Thursday to get one. Obviously, we don't want to go home down 0-2."
Wade's 3-pointer with 3:06 left put the Heat up 82-73, then the largest lead of the game for either team. The Mavs shaved two points off it on the next possession when Nowitzki hit two free throws, but James gave the Heat their first double-digit lead of the finals a few seconds later.
He dribbled upcourt against Marion, crossed his dribble over and got clear for a dunk while being fouled. The free throw made it 85-75, and most in the sellout, white-clad crowd began standing in anticipation.
Even then, it wasn't over.
Nowitzki made two more free throws - he was 12 for 12 from the line for the game - with 1:36 left, cutting the Miami lead to six.
A momentary blip.
"They have two very good closers," Nowitzki said, "two of the best in the game."
Wade grabbed a key defensive rebound, dribbled away from three Dallas pursuers and found Bosh for a dunk with 1:08 left that restored the 10-point lead. Another dunk by James came with 38.6 seconds left, sealing the outcome.
"For me, going into the fourth quarter, it's winning time," James said.
Sure was, and the Heat fans knew it, breaking into their now-traditional tossing of their white seat covers.
"By and large, we've got to play better, just overall," said Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle, especially noting Miami's 16-6 edge in offensive rebounds.
Miami outrebounded Dallas 46-36, got a gritty effort on both ends from reserve Mike Miller - who left with his left arm in a sling, but insisted he would be fine - and reaped rewards again from another strong fourth-quarter finish by Wade and James.
"That's who they've been their entire careers," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.
Bosh scored 19 points and Mario Chalmers added 12 for the Heat. The Heat trailed by eight points early in the third quarter before pulling away, remaining unbeaten - now 9-0 - at home in these playoffs and snapping Dallas' five-game road postseason winning streak.
Dallas had 51 points after 26 minutes. The Mavericks scored 18 points in the next 18 minutes, 33 over the remainder of the game, as Miami's defense found another gear.
"That's kind of the way we've been winning games, of late," Wade said. "You've got stay with it. You can't get frustrated because the ball's not going in. There's other ways you can dominate the game and we was able to do that tonight. I thought we did a great job in the second half of rebounding the ball, limiting them to one shot as much as possible."
Take away the 2006 NBA finals, and Dallas came into Game 1 having beaten Miami 14 straight times. The only team that has lost to any team more times consecutively is Minnesota, which finished with the NBA's worst record this season. The Timberwolves have lost 16 straight to San Antonio and Portland, and 15 straight to the Los Angeles Lakers.
In the finals, it simply doesn't seem to matter.
"We'll play better. I'm very certain of that," Carlisle said. "We had some opportunities. Shots we normally make, they didn't go down. Look, it's a long series. We'll adjust."
Wade - the hero of that 2006 championship - found himself with a couple extra minutes before tipoff because of an unusually long delay after the starters were introduced. So he went looking for inspiration. He screamed at his teammates, "Don't say, 'I wish I woulda,'" in the huddle before they took the court, his way of telling them not to leave anything in the proverbial tank during this series.
And then he slowly trotted to the other end of the court, pointed to his mother Jolinda in a baseline seat and gave her a hug as many in the crowd roared. He usually blows her a pregame kiss. On Tuesday, that wouldn't suffice.
"We both said, 'Here we go. We're here again. We're back,'" Wade said.
Both teams expect to ride defense in this series, and that was made perfectly evident in the opening 12 minutes. The teams combined to take 35 shots in the first quarter - and made 10.
Dallas led 17-16 after the first quarter, which was the lowest two-team output in the first quarter of Game 1 of a finals in the shot clock era, according to STATS LLC. It tied the fourth-lowest total for any finals quarter since 1955, bettering only the 30 points by the Magic and Lakers in Game 2 in 2009, and the 31 posted by the Jazz and Bulls in 1998's Game 3 along with the Lakers and Celtics in 1969's Game 4.
Everyone was struggling, maybe a little because of nerves, and mostly to do with the defensive intensity on both ends. James was 3 for 6 in the first quarter, while the rest of the Heat were 3 for 15. Half of Dallas' four first-quarter baskets were 3-pointers by Jason Kidd, the team's 38-year-old point guard searching for his first NBA title.
And the Mavericks had one - that's right, one - 2-point basket in the game's first 15:49, with 10 of their first 18 field goal attempts coming from 3-point range.
"We really didn't play well at all tonight," Terry said. "First quarter, 17 points and third quarter, 17 - that's not our style of basketball. Give them credit. They disrupted our tempo and they finished at the end."
Dallas opened the third quarter by scoring seven quick points, all on jumpers, the burst ending with DeShawn Stevenson's 3-pointer with 10:03 remaining in the period - pushing the Mavericks' lead to 51-43 and silencing a building that was still refilling after halftime.
"He had three days to shoot that and we didn't get anybody near him," Spoelstra said.
That was quickly fixed, and the rest of the third was largely all Miami.
"For the most part, we think we had chances to get a hold of this game," Marion said. "And we let it get out of our hands."
The Heat outscored Dallas 22-10 in the remainder of the quarter. Wade started the rally - just as he did in a series-saving effort for Miami in Game 3 of the '06 finals, giving the memorable "Nah, I ain't going out like this" quote afterward - with two layups. And James beat the clock at the end of the period with an off-balance 3-pointer from near the Dallas bench for a 65-61 Miami lead.
"It's one game, and that's it," Spoelstra said. "We're already moving on."
NOTES: In his annual state-of-the-league address before Game 1 of the finals, NBA Commissioner David Stern was asked about a number of topics, including again about how James, Wade and Bosh all ended up in Miami last summer. "I don't consider it colluding," Stern said. ... James picked up two fouls in the first quarter, the fourth time that's happened in the playoffs. It happened four times in the entire regular season. ... In a scene reminiscent of the 2006 NBA finals, the first time Wade went to the foul line Tuesday night, Mavs owner Mark Cuban stood to argue that he traveled. ... Juwan Howard was guarding Kidd after a switch on a screen in the first half, odd only because both were top-five picks in the 1994 NBA draft.
MADRID — Canadian singer and poet Leonard Cohen won Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias literature award on Wednesday for a body of work of "immutable merit," the jury said.
The jury decided by majority vote to confer the 2011 award for letters on 77-year-old Cohen for his writings.
Cohen's writing "has influenced three generations of people worldwide through his creation of emotional imagery in which poetry and music are fused in an oeuvre of immutable merit," the jury said in a statement.
"The passing of time, sentimental relationships, the mystical traditions of the East and the West and life sung as an unending ballad make up a body of work associated with certain moments of decisive change at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century."
Cohen left music in the 1990s and spent years in a Buddhist monastery in California, where he became a monk and took the name Jikan, which means "silence."
But the musical and literary giant known for songs such as "So Long, Marianne," "Suzanne" and "First We Take Manhattan" returned to the stage in May 2008.
A couple of days ago I was thinking about the juxtaposition of Ascension day and Pentecost. One to commemorate the ascent of Jesus the other to remember the descent of the Holy Spirit. Ascension Day and Pentecost are closely linked. It was because Jesus ascended into heaven that the Holy Spirit could descend and fill us all. I thought that you might enjoy the prayer that my reflections inspired
Blake Lively wants you to know that nude photos that have surfaced of her - or someone who looks like her with a camera, naked, in front of a bathroom mirror - are "100 percent FAKE."
Her publicist issued a statement Tuesday evening in response to the photos posted on PerezHilton.com and other sites, as fans of the Gossip Girl actress dissected everything from the iPhone she's using to take the shots of herself to her hair color and length, to determine whether the photos are real and how old they might be.
Although Lively did have nude scenes in The Town and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, her rep says, "Blake Lively has never taken nude photos of herself."
Wayne, New Jersey adult-entertainment photographer Anton Fury managed to pick up something pretty special at a yard sale back in the 1980s: negatives of pictures showing singer and actress Marilyn Monroe before she became famous. Not knowing what to do with them or what they were worth, Fury stored them away for three decades.
It was only until about two months ago when watching an episode of Pawn Stars that Fury felt compelled to find out just where the pictures came from and, of course, how much they’re worth. The photographer contacted an auction house in California but was unable to get in contact with anyone about the photos.
He decided to contact one of the appraisers he had seen on Pawn Stars, and the appraiser pointed him to the direction of David W. Streets, a Beverly Hills art dealer and an expert in all things Hollywood. The photos are said to depict Monroe as a 24-year-old girl “just having fun.”
Streets told Fury that he believed the pictures were taken near the Hollywood Hills sometime around the 1950s, just before her rise to fame. Streets suggested that Fury contact a CNN reporter to bring the story out into the public in hopes of finding out more and, while his phone has been “ringing off the hook”, the origin of the photos remain a mystery.
