5. Clonie Gowen is a blonde beauty who’s been making money playing poker since 2002. She has 27 cashes for almost $300,000 in career tournament earnings.
4. Cindy Violette is another blonde who has 18 cashes for nearly $700,000 in tournament earnings. She has a line of women’s clothing as well.
3. Jennifer Leigh has had three cashes for $45,000 worth of winnings, but she’s been in Playboy Magazine. Lots of hot; not so much in the way of poker credit thus far.
2. Evelyn Ng is an Asian beauty from Canada. She has 20 cashes for $270,000 in tournament winnings. The hottest pure poker pro on this list.
1. Shannon Elizabeth is a genuine movie starlet who has long been considered one of the hottest girls on the planet. She has nine cashes in the last two years, including a third-place finish at the 2007 NBC National Heads-up Championship.
Unknown amateurs have won the main event at the WSOP for the last five years. It only makes mathematical sense that an amateur would win it, as they far outnumber the professionals. Ever with the skill advantage that the professionals hold, they’re outnumbered at least 6 to 1 by the thousands of online satellite winners and wealthy amateur players.
But this year certainly has a pro feel to it, already producing seven big-name professionals winning bracelets. So far Erick Lindgren, Daniel Negreanu, Mike Matusow, Barry Greenstein, David Benyamine, Layne Flack and John Phan have taken home the gold in ‘08. There have also been a lot of other professionals that have made final tables.
If I had to pick a pro to win the main event, I’d pick David Pham. We haven’t heard from him yet this year, and he always makes his presence felt at every major poker tournament.
So far there have been five big-name professionals who have won bracelets in the 2008 WSOP: Matusow, Negreanu, Greenstein, Lindgren and Tran. There has also been a first-ever occurrence this year, as two brothers each won a bracelet in separate events. Grant and Blair Hinkle both got lucky – Grant in event #2 and Blair in event #23.
These are the other bracelet winners to date:
Event#
1. Nenad Medic
2. Grant Hinkle
3. David Singer
4. Erick Lindgren
5. Mike Banducci
6. Thang Luu
7. Matt Keikoan
8. Anthony Rivera
9. Rep Porter
10. Farzad ‘Freddy’ Rouhani
11. Philip Tom
12. Jimmy Shultz
13. Duncan Bell
14. Eric Brooks
15. Svetlana “Glum Girl” Gromenkova
16. Andrew Brown
17. Jason Young
18. Mike “the Mouth” Matusow
19. Vanessa Selbst
20. Daniel Negreanu
21. Scott Seiver
22. Jens Voertmann
23. Blair Hinkle
24. Max Pescatori
25. Kenny Tran
26. Barry Greenstein
Rakeback has become an important bonus feature for many online poker rooms. If you’re the type of player that wants cash as your VP bonus, rakeback is the way to go. Not every poker room will offer it, and only a couple of the big player sites have it. Most online poker rooms offer around 30% rakeback, and some will go as far as 50%. Sun Poker and Interpoker will give as much as 50% if your rake is big enough.
The big players that offer rakeback are Full Tilt Poker and Carbon Poker. Full Tilt will give you 27% and Carbon offers 30%. PKR is a 3-D poker room that will give you 30% of your rake back. Make sure you go over the rules of any poker room before you decide to play. Your rakeback percentage increases depending on how much you play at many of the sites.
Can you believe they’ve even got a Wii game?
The brother/sister act of Howard Lederer and Annie Duke is one of the most famous in poker. Lederer has been around poker for a long time, and he taught his sister to play a few years ago. They both have had success, with each winning millions of dollar individually in their careers.
If the two had to play each other you would have to give the edge to Lederer. He taught Annie all she knows, and his experience is far more extensive than hers. Anything could happen in a poker game, but I think Lederer would win more if they played numerous times.
Annie Duke can be pushed around if she suffers a beat or two, and tends to play like scared money late in games. Annie has a history of knocking out her brother in tournaments, but Howard may not have that killer instinct against his little sister that he normally does.
