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Today in the 3-Bet we find Phil Ivey carrying on unaffected by rumors of his financial demise, high-stakes poker pro Justin "BoostedJ" Smith sentenced to home confinement and probation and we send out a call for poker's best to solve a mysterious Internet puzzle.
1) Phil Ivey ... He Seems Fine
For a guy who supposedly "just went broke," Phil Ivey sure seems to be carrying on as if he's, well, still Phil ivey.
Which also of course means he's planning to play the 2014 Aussie Millions in Melbourne later this month. Guess he found a stake...
Good morning #cabo http://t.co/rr42LwI12J
— Phil Ivey (@philivey) January 10, 2014After all these years, I still love playing poker. Looking forward to the #2014AussieMillions later this month http://t.co/ZlYMfpfv0P
— Phil Ivey (@philivey) January 9, 20142) BoostedJ Gets Probation, Throws Snowballs with durrrr
According to Flushdraw.net high-stakes poker pro Justin "BoostedJ" Smith has now officially been sentenced for his role/guilty plea in the infamous Russian mob/sportbetting ring case. Says writer Haley Hintze:
"In the sentencing hearing on Monday for Smith, well known as “BoostedJ” in the poker community, presiding judge Jesse M. Furman sentenced Smith to two years probation, but with the special condition of an initial three-month period of home confinement, typically but not necessarily monitored by electronic ankle bracelet.
"Smith was also ordered to perform 200 hours of community service following the completion of his home confinement term. Smith had previously agreed to pay a fine of $500,000 as part of his sentencing. It is believed Smith will serve his home confinement in his LA-area residence."
Given that he was facing a possible five years in prison Smith, who reportedly set up online accounts the ring used to move money around, seems pretty happy with the decision:
Was granted the birthday wish I was hoping for.
— Justin Charles Smith (@BoostedJ) January 8, 2014It also seems the confinement portion of the sentence hasn't taken affect yet as he was tossing snowballs around at the airport with Tom Dwan just a few days ago:
Airport tarmac snowball fights with @TomDwan . Yes, that's a chunk of snow in the air flying at me. http://t.co/o6rqjv5Svd
— Justin Charles Smith (@BoostedJ) January 5, 20143) Paging Bill Chen: Cracking Cicada 3301
We're pretty late to the party on this one as we just heard about it yesterday via this fantastic Grantland article but this Cicada 3301 thing is pretty fascinating.
We won't pretend to understand the intricacies of this global encryption puzzle/scavenger hunt so it might be best to just go straight to the source link above or here and read about it.
It does, however, clearly say its mission is/was to find "highly intelligent individuals" which got us to thinking "This sounds a lot like something poker players might be good at/very much into."
And/or have already got into. Anybody out there know a poker pro who has followed the Cicada trail?
We might be biased but we would make a pretty hefty bet if there's someone out there who can solve it there's a high possibility he or she would come from the poker community.
Isaac Haxton? Bill Chen? Matt Matros? Barry Greenstein? Vanessa Selbst?
If anyone has a theory/knows of any poker pros into it (or, more likely, with a prop bet on it) let us know in the comments.
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