After a two-month process on WSOP.com, the public has made clear who they think should be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2010.
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After a two-month process on WSOP.com, the public has made clear who they think should be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2010.
It was a hectic week in the 2010 Online Player of the Year race, but with the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker starting on Sunday, you can be sure that it's going to get a lot crazier.
Pokersignupcodes.net, a leading online poker portal is offering exclusive poker bonus deals to online poker players.
That mysterious Telltale mashup game teased last week? Telltale laid its cards on the table, revealing ... Poker Night at the Inventory , the second "pilot" game from the adventure publisher, which brings Team Fortress 2 's Heavy, Penny Arcade's Tycho, Homestar Runner's Strong Bad, and Sam & Max 's Max together for a little good-natured gambling.
Gillard close to government Julia Gillard is two seats away from forming a minority government.
They represent close to 5 % of the population and are the third largest minority group in the country.
The Greater Los Angeles Area itself is almost 12% Asian American and one quick look inside local poker rooms like those at The Bicycle and Commerce Casino show an even bigger percentage checking, raising and pushing all in with regularity.
Asia itself is the world's most populated continent, and with approximately 4 billion people, online poker rooms have long looked at the area as the new frontier for gaming.
But as the powers of online poker look to expand East, of this there is little doubt: The Asian-American population is large, growing, poker is a big part of it and it’s getting even bigger.
So, when a 37-year-old Vietnamese-American Medical Supply company employee and amateur poker player from Orange County, California came out of nowhere to book a spot at the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event this summer, certain questions arose.
Could Soi Nguyen create a Chris-Moneymaker-style poker boom in the Asian-American community, the same way the Tennessee accountant did for the rest of America with his 2003 WSOP Main Event win?
“That’s exactly what I am,” Nguyen told PokerListings. “I’m the Asian Chris Moneymaker because I’m not a pro and I don’t really have that much experience.
“I’ve never really had a chance to play that much poker because I’ve been working. But I watched Chris Moneymaker win and I said, ‘Hey, I can do this.’
“Now, everybody I talk to is thinking about playing in the Main Event next year. They see that if I can do it, they can do it too.”
But the Moneymaker boom was born out of more than just his Main Event win. It was driven by online poker's marketing machine.
Moneymaker practically became a household name in the United States, easily recognized almost everywhere he went from the PokerStars TV commercials the site attacked the American market with in the weeks and months following his win.
Plus, a multi-tiered sponsorship deal kept him playing in big-time tournaments and in the public eye.
But Jerry Yang’s experience tells us an Asian-American winner may not get the same kind of push behind them.
Yang won the 2007 WSOP Main Event, and while his commitment to religion and charity work may have been a large part of the equation, he did not become the catalyst for any kind of tangible boom in Asian-American poker.
In fact, outside of a few major tournaments and some charity events, Yang spends most of his time these days running his new sushi restaurant in Merced, California.
All the major marketing plans, television commercials and lucrative sponsorship deals seemed to simply pass him by.
And Yang says he’s not the only one.
“I’d like to know why Asian players don’t get the big sponsorship deals?” Yang asked. “I really would like to know. Being a World Champion, I get that question all the time. Do you know why, because we would like to know and I don’t know the answer?
“I believe, in this country, that everything people do is fair and I hate to bring the race issue into this. I don’t think its racism, but at the same time, we need to figure out what it is. We have to find a way to work together and figure out what this is all about.”
Scotty Nguyen and Johnny Chan are both WSOP Main Event champions and two of the most recognizable names and faces in the game. Neither has a major sponsorship deal in place.
With more than $5 million in career tournament earnings and WPT Player of the Year title, back in 2007, J.C. Tran was among the hottest poker players on the circuit and widely considered one of the best tournament players on the planet.
Yet the Vietnamese-born and Sacramento-raised Tran was without a major sponsorship deal.
“I think it's mainly because I'm an Asian guy and it's tough to market an Asian guy. I mean, how many Asian guys do you see on TV?” he said in November of that year at a tournament in Lake Tahoe.
“It's kind of not fair that I don't get the recognition and endorsements I deserve and there are players out there who don't do half of what I do and they do.”
Tran said he was considering walking away from tournament poker if a major sponsorship deal did not come his way. Almost three years later, he still has no deal and is playing fewer tournaments than ever before.
As a poker agent and player manager, Eric Brewstein of No-Limit Management is tasked with negotiating sponsorship deals with online poker rooms on behalf of his players.
This summer, he brokered the deal between Full Tilt Poker and the second Asian-American at the 2010 WSOP final table - Student turned online poker pro Joseph “subiime” Cheong.
Brewstein said race was never a factor.
“He got his deal based on chip position, background, historic performance and his accomplishments in poker up to date,” Brewstein explained. “I just don’t think there’s a correlation.
“I know people, other players, who have told me the sites don’t think Asian players are marketable, but I’ve never heard it from anyone directly at the sites and I don’t believe it.”
Brewstein says players like Tran, Chan and Nguyen may be overvaluing themselves in dealings with the various online poker rooms and in the case of Yang; he simply didn’t have the right people around him pushing his agenda.
“Look at (2009 WSOP champ) Joe Cada,” he said. “He put himself in a camp with people that were going to drive that engine, a young, hungry agent willing to fight for him and the right kind of marketing people to attack the business with vigor and lofty plans. Did Jerry Jang do that? I don’t think he did.”
For his part, Nguyen has been too busy dealing with the fact he’s made the final table to make plans for what he’ll do should he win the world title and $8.9 million first-place prize this November.
Or if race will play a role in it at all.
“It is a big community and there are a lot of Asian people interested in poker,” he said. “I hope that my experience will benefit the Asian community in some way. I hope it really does shine the spotlight on the Asian community and I would love to see more Asian players get sponsorship deals.
“Obviously I’m being sponsored by Full Tilt and I hope more sponsorship deals come down the line for me and others. Some of my closest friends are well know Asian poker players like Nam Le and Tuan Le. Sooner or later they will get their due.
“We are a very close knit community, we all know each other. If one of us makes the final table we root for our teammates and when I say teammates, I mean any member of the Asian community.”
The Partouche Poker Tour Grand Final a 8,500 no-limit holda em tournament began today at the Palm Beach Casino in Cannes on the shores of the French Riviera.
Day 3 ended Thursday at the Palm Beach Casino in Mayfair with 18 players left and PartyPoker.it pro Giovanni Safina on top.
Safina, a 44-year lawyer from Palermo, finished third in the PartyPoker.com Premier League IV, cashing for $156,000 and winning a $100,000 Team PartyPoker.com contract after qualifying for the event online.
However, his run is just the lede. The real story is 21-year-old Swede Kristoffer Thorsson sitting third in chips.
Kristoffer won the Amsterdam Master Classics this past November for €636,120 and qualified online for WPT London, meaning that if he wins, he’s entitles a part of a $1 million bonus from PartyPoker.
Kristoffer would earn $500,000 and the other PartyPoker London qualifiers would share the other $500,000.
“There is still a long way to go but knowing about the extra $1 million payout has given me extra pressure,” he said. “I know the other players are desperate for me to win and I will be doing my best!”
While names like Erik Seidel, Phil Ivey and Huck Seed all dotted the leader board early in London, the final 18 is filled with a group of lesser known players.
Perhaps the most recognizable is 2010 EPT Deauville champ Jake Cody, who currently sits fourth in chips.
WPT London drew 171 players creating an £820,800 prize pool. A total of 16 places will be paid with £273,783 reserved for first.
Play resumes at 12 p.m. London time Friday. A winner will be crowned Saturday.
In the meantime, the £15,000 televised high rollers event starts Friday at 3 p.m., with registration open until 9.30 p.m.
"I’m pretty happy at the moment” he said. “This title means a lot to me.”
Banking the €467,836 first-place prize was no easy feat for the Southampton native, who overcame a final table that included EPT Season 1 Grand Final champion Rob Hollink, English football legend Teddy Sheringham and 2010 Aussie Millions runner-up Frederik Jensen.
Lewis, whose largest previous live cash was a final table appearance at PokerStars IPT Venice, actually moved into the lead taking a rather large pot off rising Swedish star Martin Jacobson on the tournament’s penultimate day, then beat the Swede heads-up to take the title.
“I was disappointed not to win IPT Venice, but this means even more,” he said. “It wasn’t easy - Martin was a very hard player to beat.”
A total of 384 players entered the €5,300 main event creating a prize pool of €1,862,400, making EPT Vilamoura the largest poker tournament ever held in Portugal.
Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano achieved a record-breaking 16th EPT cash in Vilamoura, busting in 52nd place for €7,263.
Next up for the PokerStars European Poker Tour is London and the first of Season 7’s major poker festivals. The main event runs Sept. 29- Oct. 4.
Below are the final table payouts for Vilamoura.
1. Toby Lewis €467,836 2. Martin Jacobson €297,985 3. Jason Lee €186,241 4. Sam Trickett €139,681 5. Teddy Sheringham €93,121 6. Frederik Jensen €74,496 7. Rob Hollink €55,872 8. Sergio Coutinho €37,248
The NSW government has welcomed Prime Minister Julia Gillard's promise to crack down on problem gambling, after she told the states to fit poker machines with devices that limit losses or risk a federal intervention.
All bets are off at Betcha.com, a Seattle-based online bookmaker that couldn't skirt the state's gambling laws by making it optional for losing bettors to pay off wagers.
THE Salvation Army says the deal between independent MP Andrew Wilkie and Prime Minister Julia Gillard to combat problem gambling is light on detail.
I was all fired up, couldn’t hardly wait for Hobby’s cruise to the French Riviera to get underway. I brought my two suitcases aboard and checked in with the Captain. “Hobby, I’ve stowed my gear. I know we don’t sail ‘til tomorrow, but what else can I do before we launch?”
2011 Poker Player Cruises are Set. Poker Player Cruises has scheduled the three cruises for 2011: The first is an eight night eastern Caribbean cruise, February 5-13 on Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas. The ship sails from Miami for Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas; Philipsburg, St. Maarten; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Labadee, Haiti; and returns to Miami.
In just a matter of days, PokerStars will be kicking off the ninth annual World Championship of Online Poker .
If you've spent any time at the poker tables recently or even watching poker on TV, then you might start shaking your head in agreement with this list.
Galway Advertiser, September 02, 2010. On Saturday September 25 gambling enthusiasts will have the opportunity to participate in a poker night in aid of the Simon Community, which will take place in surely the most novel setting ever for a poker game in Galway.
The latest step in the Greek government's attempts to regulate online gaming is, according to eGaming Review magazine, drafted legislation which will require Greek sports betting and online poker and casino providers to set up a server in their home country and open a Greece-based domain name.
Antonius, who is looking to rebound from an awful August that saw him lose over $800k on the online tables, played 413 hands of $2,000/$4,000 Limit Hold’em against deprimiert.
There was some luck involved, however. In one hand, deprimiert managed to hit trip sixes to scoop a $56,000 pot.
With the win, Antonius is now the biggest winner in the very early stages of September. There’s a good chance we’ll see that position change frequently as the month continues.
As for deprimiert, it was the second straight day that he’s accrued massive losses. Yesterday Phil Ivey had his way with deprimiert in the high stakes Limit games and drained him of $327k. Over the last two days deprimiert has lost over $600k.
Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond was the night’s second biggest winner with $213,863 in profit.
Most of Galfond’s winnings came from Dan “jungleman12” Cates in a mixture of $100/$200 No-Limit Hold’em and PLO. Perhaps Galfond should have issued a challenge of his own.
The durrrr Challenge tables were silent for a second straight day. Tom Dwan is perhaps still stinging from the fact he’s down nearly $700k to jungleman12 and trying to develop a new strategy.
Here’s a couple of the biggest pots from the Patrik Antonius/deprimiert session last night. Be sure to check out our online poker stats section for more information.
But as the 90 players who started the day were joined by a few late registrants to play down to the final 38 through five levels, it certainly didn’t end that way.
Ivey and Seidel found themselves on a table with Luke “FullFlush” Schwartz at the start of play inside the Palm Beach Casino in Mayfair.
But by the time play wrapped, the two legends had fallen and, although he’s short thanks to a late blow-up, Schwartz was the only of the three left in the hunt for the £273,783 first-place prize and WPT title.
PartyPoker Qualifier Giovanni Safina was also at the table and managed to hold his own and more, climbing steadily throughout the day and landing in the chip leaders chair by the time play closed.
Praz Bansi, Josh “JJProdigy” Fields, Richard Ashby and Huck Seed also remain in close contention.
WPT London drew 171 players creating an £820,800 prize pool. A total of16 places will be paid.
A winner will be crowned Saturday.
British players sit in the top three spots heading into the final table, with 20-year-old Toby Lewis from Southampton holding a slight lead over Nottingham’s Sam Trickett.
Both young players have spent the past few years making a name for themselves on the English poker scene, but the third Brit sitting in contention for the EPT Vilamoura title and €467,835 first-place prize is definitely better known for his prowess in another game.
Friend of PokerStars and England football legend Teddy Sheringham, who played for the National team and won almost every individual honor at the club level in stints with Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspurs among others, sits within striking distance of his countrymates at the top of the leaderboard.
Now, after a deep run in last year’s World Series of Poker Europe main event left him just shy of the final table there, Sheringham appears ready to be recognized as more than just a footballer on the felt.
While he’s the short stack, 2005 EPT Grand Final champ Rob Hollink will come in with a shot at a second EPT title. No one has ever won two.
The rest of the final table includes Swede Martin Jacobson, making his second EPT final eight, Jason “JaspudUF” Lee, a 25-year-old PokerStars qualifier from the United States, Portugal’s own Sergio Coutinho from nearby Oporto and Frederik Jensen, the 28-year-old Dane who burst onto the live tournament scene in January with a runner-up finish in the 2010 Aussie Millions main event.
A total of 384 players entered the €5,300 EPT Vilamoura Main Event. A winner will be crowned tonight.
Paducah police say a man admitted to stealing cash from a nightclub he worked at to play video poker.
Card Player documents some of the most talked-about hands in the poker world with Poker Hand Matchups .
The public nomination process for the 2010 Poker Hall of Fame is closed and the top 10 vote-getters have been announced, and that above picture of Phil Ivey probably indicates he's one of the ten.
Officers arrested eight people Tuesday night after breaking up an illegal poker game at a local bar.
A security guard stands at the entrance to Kabul Bank in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photograph: S Sabawoon/EPA Afghan authorities today attempted to prevent a potentially catastrophic run on the country's biggest bank after allegations of corruption and mismanagement led regulators to replace two of its top executives.
The operator of a local nonprofit school said to help troubled urban youth has pleaded guilty to a charge that he helped run an illegal poker room, the proceeds of which helped fund the mentoring.
Online poker players have been given the opportunity to hunt down and knock out the members of Team Titan, the professional poker team of Titanpoker.com in a series of bounty tournaments culminating in Heads Up clashes with the team during the month of November.
The Terms of the $500 Poker Challenge: Start with $500 and build your poker bankroll over a period of one year into a substantial bankroll. You may only play live games in casinos and poker rooms; no online or home games.
In business, location is critical for success, whether it is real estate or a doughnut shop. Playing poker seriously is, or can be, a business. So today’s column is about optimal locations for playing poker.
Day 3 has come to a close at the European Poker Tour Vilamoura a 5,000 no-limit holda em main event and there are just 24 players remaining from the original 384 players that entered the event.
Ivey waged all-out war on deprimiert as the pair played 451 hands of $2,000/$4,000 Limit Hold’em.
deprimiert, who is rumored to be a German Limit specialist, has been playing a lot of high stakes Limit Hold’em against Ivey and prior to last night was actually up $261,000.
Ivey seemed to figure him out last night, however, as the Team Full Tilt pro smashed his way to a $327k win.
It was the cherry on the cake for Ivey who had the best online poker record out of anyone in August with $2.06 million earned.
Other big winners during the month of August included Dan “jungleman12” Cates, who made $1.1 million (the majority from the durrrr Challenge), Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond ($904,413), Tom “durrrr” Dwan ($737,208) and harrington25 ($729,000).
The biggest loser shouldn’t come as a huge surprise as Gus “Great Dane” Hansen had an absolutely catastrophic August with nary a winning session. By the time the final dollar had been tabulated Hansen lost $2.8 million in the last month of summer.
Also finishing well in the red were NEKOTYAN (-$946,000), David Oppenheim (-$846,374) and Patrik Antonius (-$815,339).
Thanks to Phil Ivey’s exceptional August, he’s finally passed Tom Dwan as the biggest winner in 2010. Ivey has $3.8 million in profit while Dwan, feeling the pressure from Dan “jungleman12” Cates in the durrrr Challenge 2 is down to $3.7 million.
Here’s a couple of the biggest pots from the Phil Ivey/deprimiert battle last night. Be sure to check out our online poker stats section for more information.
Hinkle, who burst onto the live tournament scene with a deep run in the 2008 L.A. Poker Classic before winning a WSOP bracelet later that year, outlasted a field of 255 players in the $1,500 tournament to secure the $88,553 first-place prize.
Although he entered the final as the chip leader, collecting the cash, gold ring, $10,000 buy-in into next year’s WSOP main event and a seat in the million-dollar Circuit National Championship in Las Vegas next year was no easy task for the 24-year old chemical engineering and business finance student turned poker pro from Kansas City, Missouri.
The final table included no less than 2009 Circuit Player of the Year Dwyte Pilgrim, coming off a win in a $200 No-Limit Hold’em prelim in Iowa earlier in the series.
Pilgrim busted third for $39,531 when he ran top pair into a Hinkle straight.
The final day of the event started with 16 players and Pilgrim in the lead. But by the time 2005 WSOP Main Event 13th place finisher Bernard Lee had bubbled the final nine, Hinkle was in charge.
College roommates with 2007 WSOP bracelet winner James Mackey, Hinkle now has close to $1.2 million in career tournament earnings. His brother Grant Hinkle also won a WSOP bracelet in 2008.
With 255 players, WSOPC Council Bluffs had a $361,440 prize pool. Total entries for the entire series of events was 4,056, a 12% increase over the last Circuit series in Iowa.
Doug “Rico” Carli cashed for the 44th time on the WSOPC, extending his lead as the player with the most Circuit cashes. He now has twice as many as anyone else.
Here’s how the final table finished:
1. Blair Hinkle $88,553
2. Shiva Dudani $54,715
3. Dwyte Pilgrim $39,531
4. Matt Lawrence $29,092
5. Charles Moore $21,795
6. Jack Do $16,608
7. John Wakeen $12,867
8. Daniel Biddle $10,131
9. Kevin Calenzo $8,103
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Last updated:
September 04, 2010 09:17 AM
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