The Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) announced yesterday that the public hearing regarding Full Tilt Poker’s remote gambling license will be held on Monday, September 19th at 9:00am at the Riverbank Park Plaza Hotel in London.

The original hearing was held on Tuesday, July 26th with the purpose of allowing both the AGCC and Full Tilt to present any evidence in support or in opposition to Full Tilt’s suspended license.  In the end, not much actually happened and the public hearing was adjourned until what was supposed to be September 15th at the latest.

It appears that the wait for refunds from Full Tilt Poker will continue.  According to a press release issued by the former second largest online poker room in the world to news outlet Pokernews.com, talks with the mystery European investors have come to a close.

In the press release, Full Tilt stated that it is starting negotiations with other possible investors now that the exclusivity period with the previous potential partner is over.  While the end of those negotiations obviously means that no deal was reached, it does not mean that a deal won’t eventually be reached.  Of course, it is not good for Full Tilt customers that the poker room must now enter talks with other investors, as that just means that repayments are not likely to be coming any time soon, but as long as there are some sort of talks, that is at least a positive step.

Having trouble coming down from the World Series of Poker (WSOP) high?  Not to worry, as ESPN’s taped coverage of the 2011 WSOP begins tonight.  Two episodes will air every Tuesday night from today through November 8th, leading to the Worldwide Leader’s slogan, “Tuesday Night is Poker Night on ESPN.”

Unlike in previous years, tonight’s episodes do not represent the first televised broadcast of this summer’s World Series of Poker.  ESPN and ESPN2 aired more than 30 hours of play from the Main Event starting on Day 3, Thursday, July 14th, while ESPN3.com had even more.  The coverage was “semi-live,” trailing half an hour behind the live action.  Hole cards were shown on a limited basis at two “featured” tables; they were never shown if the hand did not reach a flop and were only shown when the hand ended if a flop was seen.  Commentary during the “semi-live” broadcasts was provided by Lon McEachern, Norman Chad, Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Hellmuth, David Tuchman, and Olivier Busquet.

Everyone knew where this road was headed, we just didn’t know who would get there.  Just 22 players entered play at the 2011 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event on Tuesday with a chance to make the final table and come hell or high water, the field was going to be narrowed to nine before the tournament was adjourned until the fall.  No more playing for a set number of levels.  We were going to get rid of 13 players if it took all night.  Fortunately, it didn’t take all night (so long as you were following the action in Las Vegas) and we now know the identities of this year’s November Nine.

Considering the increases in payouts at this stage of the game and the importance of advancing from Tuesday to November, one would have expected play to slow to a crawl as players became very careful not to bust out. Not so yesterday.  Even with a the usual breaks, a two hour dinner break, and an extra one hour break, the field was whittled to the final ten before 10:00pm Pacific time thanks to lots of three-betting, four-betting, and risky all-ins (Konstantinos Mamaliadis moved all-in with 8-2.  Granted, he was short, but still.  Yes, he lost that hand).