Weekly Flop: Bilzerian's Plea, Poker Bot Challenge, Jachtmann's Stolen WSOP Bracelet

Dan Bilzerian is still facing charges on possessing bomb-making materials. But his latest legal strategy has the high stakes poker player trying to cop a plea deal....Inventors of a poker bot named 'Cepheus' claim that their program is unbeatable in Limit Hold'em. And you can test your skills against the bot and see for yourself...Jan-Peter Jachtmann is the latest poker player to be victimized in a robbery, losing his WSOP gold bracelet through the crime. Find out about the big reward that Jachtmann is offering to get the bracelet back in this edition of the Weekly Flop.

Dan Bilzerian copping a plea?

Hopefully Dan Bilzerian's New Year's resolution was to stay out of legal trouble and avoid getting sued. The poker pro had a tumultuous end to 2014 when model Vanessa Castano accused him of kicking her in the face at a Miami nightclub. Just days afterward, he was arrested on bomb-related charges at the Los Angeles International Airport.

The Equalizer and Lone Survivor actor is now facing two counts of possessing bomb-making materials, which could land him in prison for up to six years. So rather than fight the charges, Bilzerian's lawyer is now talking with prosecutors about a lesser charge.
As the story goes, Bilzerian and his friend put 90 pounds worth of powdered explosive material into a water cooler. They then set the cooler in the cab of a tractor-trailer and drove it out to the Nevada desert just outside Las Vegas. It's here where they fired at the cooler from a distance, sending the cab into fiery oblivion.

Sounds like a rich playboy just having some harmless fun, right? Yeah, until you consider that nearby hikers complained about debris from the explosion flying over their heads. This certainly won't do anything for his chances of fighting the charges, so let's see if Bilzerian's plea deal helps.

Cepheus may have solved LHE, but players still want to challenge it

A team led by University of Alberta scientist Michael Bowling believes that they may have solved Limit Hold'em with their newest poker bot. Cepheus is the product of years' worth of research and over 1 billion Limit Hold'em hands. And while the poker bot may make some questionable moves here or there, the researchers claim that nobody can beat Cepheus over the long term.

"It’s just a tiny bit off," Bowling explains. "And that tiny bit is so small that even if you played a lifetime - 12 hours a day, 200 hands an hour for 70 years - you still wouldn't be able to tell it apart from having played a perfect game."

While Cepheus may indeed be the perfect heads-up LHE player, you don't roll out an unbeatable poker bot without expecting some challenges from players. That said, researchers have included a spot on the University of Alberta website where players can take on the bot (temporarily down at the moment). And if you're looking for some advice, you can also "Query the Bot" too.

Poker pro has bracelet stolen in "professional" robbery

Losing one's bankroll isn't the only danger that poker pros have to worry about. As Hoyt Corkins, Jonathan Duhamel, Scott Montgomery and Theo Jorgensen can attest to, there's also the possibility of being robbed as well.

2012 WSOP PLO champ Jan-Peter Jachtmann recently found this out the hard way after his home was broken into during the holidays. The Reinbek, Germany native had his WSOP gold bracelet, laptop and a "five-figure" sum of cash taken from his house. The one good thing here is that Jachtmann wasn't home, so he avoided being around for what police spokeswoman Sonja Kurts called a "professional robbery."

Jachtmann is hoping that he can find these professionals by offering a €20,000 reward for information leading to the perpetrators' arrests. Here are words from Jachtmann himself through a Facebook post he wrote after the robbery, "I was pretty down 2-3 days, shocked and speechless ... But now I'm feeling better and I will now try to find all these criminal bastards, and / or at least my bracelet recover!"