I don’t think that women-only poker tournaments are anti-men. I know it’s kind of stupid that women have women-only events when people would be getting sued if there was a men-only event. The women-only events were created to increase the number of women playing the game because many women are less intimidated to play in women-only events, at least early in their career.
I think because of this – and a little bit because of tradition – there is reason enough to keep these events. They’re sort of a training camp or developmental league that women can play in until they decide to play in the open events. The best women players compete at the highest levels in the open events, and most top female players leave the female-only events to the new female players. They would rather play in the open events for the bigger and more prestigious prize pools.
David “The Dragon” Pham had 16 cashes in 2006, including six final tables and three wins. After a year like that, no one expected David to do what he did in 2007. Last year he improved to 17 cashes, 11 of them final tables, with four of them being wins. He won over $1.8M in tournament play, and was the CardPlayer Player of the Year for 2007.
David is a cousin to poker star Men “The Master” Nguyen. He came to the country as a refugee aboard a boat fleeing Vietnam when he was 17. His lifetime stats are as impressive as his 2007 stats, with over $7.2M in tournament earnings in the last seven years. Always a contender for Player of the Year, Pham won the prestigious award in 2000 as well. He has two WSOP bracelets and five WPT final tables, but has not won one yet.
1. The Bellagio is the home of poker and has any game at any limit, plus “Bobby’s Room”.
2. The Wynn is a new room that will also set up any game you want to play.
3. Caesars has an 8500 sq/ft main poker room and a 6000 sq/ft tournament room.
4. The Mirage has 30 tables with mostly hold’em action. Omaha and & 7-stud is limited.
5. MGM Grand poker has lots of tables and 22 of them are non-smoking.
6. The Venetian room is located right off the main entrance and has 39 tables.
7. Binions poker room is an historical landmark with over 70 tables.
8. Rio poker room is not the massive room we see at the WSOP, but it’s still a good room.
9. The Orleans poker room has a ton of tables and cheap tournaments.
10. The Palms has 10 tables in two different rooms.
1. David Pham won his second Player of the Year honor and $1.8M in earnings this year.
2. J.C. Tran was second in POY standings and earned $2.9M this year.
3. Jonathan Little earned $2.5M in tournament winnings including a WPT win in May.
4. Tom Schneider earned $733,589 including 2 WSOP bracelets in 2007.
5. Scott “BigRisky” Clements won over $2.2M and finished fourth in the POY standings.
6. Scotty Nguyen won over $800,000 and had seven final tables this year.
7. William “Bill” Edler won over $2.7M including a WSOP bracelet and a WPT championship.
8. David Fox won almost $700,000 including a WPT Finals event in November.
9. David “Devilfish” Ulliott has won over $1.2M this year including two WPT wins.
10. Jerry Yang won the WSOP main event and over $8M, he makes the list because he becomes the second-largest tournament prize winner in history.
According to the US Internet Movie Database, a movie focusing on the life of Thomas Austin Preston Jr., better known as Amarillo Slim, professional poker player and lifetime gambler, is in production.
The film is currently categorized as “in production,’ has been in development for some time now. Nicolas Cage, who will be playing the lead role of Amarillo Slim, is credited as a producer along with Braxton Pope.
Christopher Wilkinson, whose credits as screenwriter include “Nixon,” and “Ali,” both biopics, is adapting Amarillo’s book, “Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People: The Memoirs of the Greatest Gambler Who Ever Lived,” for the big screen.
Amarillo Slim, during his career has won a total of four WSOP bracelets (1972, 1974, 1985, 1990) and has won over $590,000 in tournament play. Slim was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1992.
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.
The top candidates for player of the year would have to be J.C. Tran, William “Bill” Edler, Jonathan Little and David Pham. They are at the top of just about every professional ranking list out there right now, all within a few hundred points of each other. Pham leads the CardPlayer Magazine standing with 5,410 points with 10 final tables. He is third on the PokerPage’s ProRank 1 list with 25,378 points.
J.C. Tran tops the ProRank 1 list (27,044 points) but is in fifth place (4,458 points) on CardPlayer’s. Bill Edler is second on PR 1 (25,446 point) and fourth on CP (4,777 points). Jonathan Little is fourth on PR 1 (24,477 points) and second on CP (5,272 points).
That makes the race for the best player up in the air at this point. There’s not many events left in the year, but my money is on J.C. Tran to win.
Two poker players that have gone bad are Mike “The Mouth” Matusow and Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott. Both have done time; Matusow for drugs and refusal to wear a wire, and Ulliott for robbery and assault. Matusow was in prison from September 2004 to April 2005. While he was in there he lost $250,000 that he had won in a WPT event on sports betting, and had to be staked once he got out of the clink.
Dave Ulliott was a real bad boy. He was a member of a safe-cracking team and spent time behind bars in England on numerous occasions. After a friend’s wife convinced him to go straight, he has become one of the best poker players in the world.
Both have changed their evil ways now and have learned from their wild ways. Both have won millions playing poker and don’t need to break any laws anymore.
Harvard Lawyer Charles Nelson is trying to get society to loosen up its legislation and opinion of the game of poker. Nelson argues that the game is a good learning tool for people to practice the skills of seeing things through other people’s point of view.
He has spoken out to loosen local Massachusetts regulations and has organized the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society. The society is growing and has other university chapters already. Nelson wants to show that poker is a game of skill and not just chance. He’s also lobbying against the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act, trying to separate poker from the other games of chance.
The response has been the same as always. Opposition to Nelson’s argument has heard this before. The Rev. Richard McGowan, a Boston College professor and gambling expert, said “The industry is always trying to argue that these are games, not gambling.”
