You don’t become a world-class poker player if you don’t like the action. Many big-name poker players have betting in their blood, and prop bets and sports betting often go hand in hand with players. Doyle Brunson claims to have lost millions on sports betting and golf. Gus Hansen is another notorious sports bettor who has dumped a large portion of his poker profit to the books.
Daniel Negreanu and his friends Eric Lingren and Gavin Smith spend their entire day dropping bets on just about anything that walks across their path. Prop bets (position bets) are played during cash games and can often move more money around than the poker game on the table.
These players have lots of money and are living the high-roller lifestyle. They live in a gaming environment, and one can understand why many players gamble at other games with their winnings.
Some of the best poker players in the world are out and only the strongest left in this tournament remain. Amir Vahedi is your chip leader…for now. Day 4 at the 2008 WPT Championship is now down to 17 players or two tables. Here are the players’ names and their chip counts:
Table 53
1. Kenny Tran - 1,442,000
2. Amir Vahedi - 3,907,000
3. Bryan Devonshire - 984,000
4. Jeff King - 1,903,000
5. Tommy Le - 1,950,000
6. Cory Carroll - 1,346,000
7. John Roveto - 556,000
8. Jeff Shulman - 473,000
Table 54
1. Karga Holt - 1,500,000
2. David Chiu - 1,742,000
3. Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan - 2,874,000
4. Andrew Black - 411,000
5. Gus Hansen - 2,929,000
6. David Tran - 2,543,000
7. Nick Binger - 701,000
8. Robert Mizrachi - 1,079,000
9. Michael Gracz - 1,674,000
If you had to pick a winner, who would it be?
Online poker rooms line up to sign the big-name players to their brand. Up-and-coming poker stars are signed to sponsorship deals long before they are famous. The latest big signings come from Betfair. They signed up Annette Obrestad last February, and now have signed online sensation Sorel Mizzi (aka Imper1um). The Canadian Mizzi had a great year in 2007 and was excited to join the Betfair professional team.
“Overall 2007 was a great year for me and by joining Betfair Poker in 2008 I’m getting in with a team which not only has a great reputation but more importantly, it’s going places,” said Mizzi. “With Betfair backing us, I reckon Annette and I have more than enough firepower to take down a few of the big names in tournament poker.”
Betfair hopes to dominate the tournament poker scene over the next decade with these two players on board.
Holding a comfortable 300K chip lead over the field, poker pro Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari is in a good position to take the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo. Online poker pro Isaac “westmenloAA” Baron, Johnyy Lodden, Joe Hachem, Luca Pagano and Raymond Rahme are also high up on the leader board.
Day 4 is currently underway and if it’s anything like Day 3, well…let’s just say things could get extremely interesting. According to the folks over at Pokerkingblog.com, “Salty” Joe Hachem got into a “thing” (i.e. a fight) with one of the other players. Here’s the scoop:
“Joe Hachem was involved in a hand with Peter Traply. On a board of A-6-J-A-3, Hachem bet out 80,000 and Traply called, showing A-10. Hachem tapped the table, said “nice call”, and mucked his hand. This is where things got heated.
Woody Deck, who was not involved in the hand, asked if he could see Hachem’s cards. Hachem objected, saying that he didn’t have to show because the winning hand had already been shown. The dealer agreed, and mucked Hachem’s cards. Deck, according to Pokernews, then asked Hachem if he was trying to angle shoot, and said ‘Don’t be an asshole.’”
If you’re on a budget and you want to concentrate on poker, dumping a bunch of your bankroll on hotel rooms is not the best way to spend your poker vacation.
In Atlantic City, the Tropicana has $79 rooms and tons of poker tournaments. The Trump Marina has $59 rooms on Monday and $89 rooms for the rest of the week. They have a poker room on the second floor, across from the House of Blues, that has lots of weekend traffic.
In Vegas, the early-week rates are less than a half (or even a quarter) of what they will be on the weekends. There are lots of cheap hotels downtown, like the Golden Nugget and Binion’s, which have great poker rooms.
A room on the Strip will cost you the most, but Planet Hollywood offers good deals on rooms. Places like the Rio, off the Strip, are often a cheaper option.
The Foxwoods Poker Classic went early into the morning of April 10th and it still wasn’t decided. The WPT $9,700 + $300 Championship event at the Foxwoods Resort Casino attracted 333 players playing for the $3,230,014 prize pool.
The Foxwoods Poker Classic got underway Sunday, March 24th with a $260 + $40 No Limit Hold’em Shootout. There are 10 preliminary events with buy-ins all the way up to $4,800 leading to the Championship, which began Friday, April 4th.
Three players remained: Erik Seidel, Andrew Barta and Robert Richardson. Each had around three million in chips and no one was really making any moves. It would be Seidel’s first WPT Championship if he can hold on to win. Andrew Barta has two previous cashes, one an 11th-place finish in a WPT event in 2005. Robert Richardson has no major cashes to his credit and would be considered the underdog to win it.
Despite the controversy surrounding his name, Jamie Gold’s big win at the 2006 World Series of Poker earned him a record-setting $12-million prize at the Main Event.
He may not be well-liked, he may not have tons of poker experience, but he does have a playing style all to his own. If you’ve seen him at the table then you know that Gold’s style is unique in that he has a knack for pressuring his opponents to playing their entire stack (especially when he’s playing position or last to bet) .
Anyway, enough about Jamie Gold. Here are your top 10 all-time money winners:
Jamie Gold - $12,161,719
Joe Hachem: $10,394,659
Daniel Negreanu: $9,450,425
Allen Cunningham: $9,079,706
T.J. Cloutier: $9,064,951
Phil Ivey: $8,949,083
Juan Carlos Mortensen: $8,339,895
Jerry Yang: $8,251,324
Phil Hellmuth Jr. $8,248,841
Erik Seidel: $7,480,553
For the complete list of money winners, check out this site.
For the fifth consecutive year the WSOP is returning to New Orleans for the Harrah’s New Orleans Bayou Poker Challenge. The event will take place from May 9-21, 2008 and will include 15 major tournaments and tons of satellite action. Harrah’s is also giving away 40 single-table satellite entries, free of charge, by random drawing. On April 1 any player inside the room can win a single-table satellite voucher and go on to take a seat in the main event valued at $5,150. There will also be 21 free super-satellite entries awarded. Players awarded these will get into a super satellite on April 27th.
In previous years the poker tournament has attracted poker superstars including Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Dan Harrington, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Gavin Smith, Phil Gordon, and many others. This year should attract even more of poker’s top stars, who will be gearing up for the WSOP the following month.
