The Nightly Turbo: Ivey Leads ESPN Rankings, WPT National Madrid Champ Crowned, and More
The Big One for One Drop final table dominated headlines on Tuesday. What else was going on in the poker world? Well, Phil Ivey regained the top spot in ESPN's The Nuts rankings, a winner was crowned at the World Poker Tour National Series Madrid, and more.
In Case You Missed It
The Big One for One Drop played down to a final table on Monday night. Find out who returned Tuesday to play for the $18 million top prize in our Day 37 WSOP recap.
The Big One is obviously the big story on Tuesday. But what other tournaments are playing down to winners? Find out in the PokerNews What To Watch For.
How did the Sunday Majors play out on PokerStars? Who took down the biggest score? Find out in the Sunday Briefing.
How does Brett Richey balance his life as a rapper and poker pro? Find out in the latest edition of Seat Open.
Looking for a fun, behind-the-scenes perspective of life at the WSOP? All Mucked Up has daily stories from inside the Rio, so check it out!
Ivey Returns to #1
The latest edition of ESPN's The Nuts has been released. The monthly blog post ranks the best poker players in the world at the moment. The 10-person panel includes Elaine Chaivarlis, PokerNews' editor in chief; Don Peters, PokerNews' tournament reporting manager; and ESPN's Andrew Feldman, Gary Wise, and Bernard Lee, among others.
Phil Ivey returned to the top of the rankings after dazzling the poker world with five final tables in 13 days at the 2012 World Series of Poker. The panel gave a collective apology to Ivey for dropping him from the top spot, saying, "Welcome back, Phil. We're sorry to have doubted you."
Jason Mercier fell one spot to No. 2, but his time there may be limited. Michael Mizrachi and Phil Hellmuth, fresh off winning WSOP bracelets in June, climbed to No. 3 and No. 4 in this month's rankings and could continue to rise with a solid showing in the final stretch of the WSOP. Hellmuth reached the final table of the Big One for Big Drop; should he win the $18 million prize and his 13th bracelet on Tuesday, the panel could see enough reason to make him No. 1.
If you want to find out what the rest of the list looks, check it out at ESPN.com.
WPT National Series Madrid
The World Series of Poker wasn't the only series running this week. After four days of play at the World Poker Tour National Series Madrid, Peter Olsen outlasted a field of 166 to win €60,000 and his first WPT title.
The final table began with eight players and Olsen sitting fifth in chips. The leader going into the day was Raul Mestre, and after several hours it was Olsen and Mestre battling for the title. Mestre started heads-up play with the chip lead, but Olsen fought back and used a timely river card on the final hand of the match to claim the victory. Mestre was all in preflop with K♣J♣ against Olsen's K♥5♣, but the Q♠10♦4♣7♠5♠ board gave Olsen the come-from-behind win.
Here's a look at the results from the final table of the World Poker Tour National Series Madrid:
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Peter Olsen | €60,000 |
| 2 | Raul Mestre | €42,000 |
| 3 | Rosa Maria Isla | €27,000 |
| 4 | Alex Stevic | €20,000 |
| 5 | Manuel Sanchez | €15,000 |
| 6 | Cristian Mihu | €12,000 |
| 7 | Enrique Barroso | €10,000 |
| 8 | Robert Cazali | €8,000 |
For more on the event, visit PokerNews Spain.
Online Poker Traffic Report
PokerScout.com released its weekly online poker traffic rankings on Monday. The tracking site reported an overall increase of 1.5 percent, marking the first upturn worldwide in seven weeks.
PokerStars continues its stranglehold on the top spot in the rankings, averaging nearly 20,000 real-money cash-game players over seven days. The next highest total came from PartyPoker (2,700 players), barely edging out the iPoker Network (2,550) for second place. 888poker and Ongame rounded out the top five, respectively.
The Merge Gaming Network and Revolution Gaming continued their battle this week, with Merge maintaining a slight edge over its new rival. The two networks have been dueling for the 10th spot in the rankings since Lock Poker defected from Merge to form Revolution Gaming last month. According to PokerScout, the two rooms are separated by just 1 percent.
This week's year-over-year traffic numbers were affected greatly by Full Tilt Poker, which closed shop one year ago. According to PokerScout's ACES indicator, online poker traffic (excluding Italy) has decreased by 4 percent in the last year, compared to 18 percent last week. Among the biggest decliners since this time last year are the International Poker Network (down 49 percent) and PKR (down 32 percent).
Some of the biggest gainers since this time last year were Revolution Gaming (up 50%), Bodog/Bovada (up 21%) and 888poker (up 14%).
Read the full report at PokerScout.com.
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The Big Sandwich for One Drop
Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier was miscounting his chip stack on Day 2 of the Big One for One Drop. How did that happen? PokerNews' Sarah Grant caught up with Mercier, Jason Somerville, Dan O'Brien and Erica Holland to discuss his mistake.
Follow PokerNews on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news.
