Most professional poker players spend the lion’s share of their playing time in live games. The big-name tournament players are famous because of the television coverage of their live play. Lots of these players play online, but it’s not like the live tournament scene. Most celebrity poker players are sponsored by an online poker site. They wear the site’s logo in live events and play on the site for periodic promotions or whenever they want to.
Full Tilt Poker has professionals Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, John Juanda, Jennifer Harman, Phil Gordon, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Clonie Gowan, Andy Bloch, Mike Matusow, Gus Hansen and Allen Cunningham on their team.
PokerStars has Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, Barry Greenstein, Isabelle Mercier, Daniel Negreanu, Tom McEvoy, Victor Ramdin, Vanessa Rouso, and Humberto Brenes.
UltimateBet sponsors professionals Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, Jim Worth, Devin Porter and Annie Duke.
With more prominent tournaments scheduled for the next couple of months, which players should we expect to see in the latter stages of these events? With so many events in Europe and Canada, young Scandinavian poker prodigy Annette Obrestad will be able to play because of the 18-year-old age restriction.
Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi is always a dangerous tournament player and has had great success on the WPT. Daniel Negreanu is due to win an event; his last win came at Tunica in 2006.
The usual pro rank leaders are sure to be seen: J.C. Tran, Juan Carlos Mortensen, Nam Le and Gavin Griffin all seem to go deep into most of the events they play. Dan Harrington is one of the best tournament players of all time and if he decides to play in a lot of events he’ll surely end up in front of a camera at a final table.
With all the excitement behind the WSOPE, most of us expected a classic duel between some of poker’s best. It was no secret that many of the world’s top players made the trip to London, but the final table ended up being a group of locals. So why didn’t any big names make the final table?
Just because some the world’s best are there, it doesn’t mean that they will win. Not to mention the effect that travel and jet lag can have on a player. With only three events being played at the WSOPE, the North American players weren’t there long enough to get used to the time change.
That’s not an excuse; Europe (and the rest of the world) is producing great players. And let’s not forget that the number of pros at the tournament was still less than the average Vegas high-profile event.
Read an exclusive interview with Matt McCullough who lost to 18-year-old Annette Obrestad and placed third…and still walked away with close to US$800,000!!
Annette Obrestad from Norway has won the 2007 WSOPE main event. Never before has a female won such a prestigious championship, and many people are wondering if her success will attract more women to the game. The Norwegian poker prodigy has had a great deal of success online, and now she has already made her mark in the upper echelon of poker’s elite. Until now the game has been dominated by men and only a handful of women play professionally.
The impact this victory could have will depend on the promotion behind Obrestad. This will certainly help the poker boom currently going on in Europe; the same way Chris Moneymaker’s 2003 WSOP main event championship sparked the North American boom over four years ago. If Obrestad promotes herself in a manner that appeals to young women, the effect could be huge. It all depends on how her image is structured into the future, but is she plays her cards right it could mean women come flooding into the competitive ranks.
What do you think? Does this make poker a woman’s game? Drop me a line!!
Well it’s all over at the World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE), and a poker prodigy has had her coming-out party in London. Eighteen-year-old Scandinavian online poker prodigy Annette Obrestad stunned the world when she outlasted the world’s best players to win a million pounds ($2,013,102). She also broke two WSOP female tournament records held by Annie Duke; one for the most money ever won in an event by a female, and the other for the most WSOP winnings by a female.
The tournament was dominated by Europeans and most of the final table was from over there. No big-name players made the final table, but the “Great Dane” Gus Hansen went out in the No. 10 position, just before the last two tables formed the final one. He managed to take home over 41,000 pounds for his efforts. Both Annie Duke and Eric Lindgren made it into the top 25 for a good payday of over 30,000 pounds.
