The TI Poker Room will be hosting a tournament to give away a seat in the $10,000 World Series of Poker Main Event. To qualify players must log as few as 20 hours of live play in the TI Poker Room (play must be in jackpot dropped games and you must be logged in with your Treasure Island Players Card). Qualifying period for the tournament starts at 12:01AM on Monday, May 25th and ends at 11:59PM on Sunday, June 28th. Tournament date TBD.
Players who qualify with 20 hours of play will receive 2,000 tournament chips and will earn 1,000 in extra tournament chips for each additional 10 hours of qualifying play. Another 5,000 in tournament chips is available for a $50 Staff Appreciation Fee on the day of the tournament. For more info contact the TI Poker Room at (702) 894-7291.
Treasure Island Las Vegas
3300 S. Las Vegas Blvd.,
Las Vegas, Nevada 89109
702-894-7111
Ahh, it seems like only yesterday 25 years ago that the Dallas Mavericks had to choose between Sam Perkins and Charles Barkley … (Hakeem Olajuwan, Sam Bowie, and Michael Jordan had all gone before them.)
This year I’ll be taking part in ESPN’s fantasy WSOP draft … so with that, I’ve got to pick some players, preferably those who will perform. Personally, I’ve got my eye on a Dallas girl named Sara Chau to surprise a lot of people … but since she will likely only be playing a few events (unless, of course, she makes a big score early), she wouldn’t be a great pick. At the same time, you know me … I’m not gonna go with the traditionals — Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, et al (though I do think Erick Lindgren would be a fine pick) — and I’d probably be too embarrassed to reveal my fanboy leanings for Clonie Gowen, Tom Schneider, and Gregg Merkow. Plus, really, no offense to those three, but they just don’t give me proper odds, ya know?
Anyhow, please share with me any thoughts or suggestions about players who seem to be on their game and ready to tear it up in the 2009 WSOP.
BTW, does anyone remember who the Mavs took with their second first-round pick in 1984? Terence Stansbury. (Highlight the white space for the answer.)
An appeals court reported lessened the jail sentences of two men convicted of throwing a 700-player shindig. From CP-Europe:
The men had the charges against them reduced from “serious illegal gambling†to “illegal gamblingâ€. The court ruled that because the game being played was Texas hold’em in a tournament format, the players own judgment was more important than the cards being dealt, effectively ruling that the game was one of skill and not luck.
A slightly different take from Pauly. I intellectually don’t agree with his boisterously pessimistic outlook, yet he seems to have a read on many in the poker world’s gut … from Tao of Poker:
God bless Ty Stewart for saving the WSOP. I mean, this guy should get Salesman of the Century Award for finding someone stupid enough to shell out millions of dollars to sponsor a stagnant product in an industry with a murky future.
Pope Benedict should make Ty a saint for providing the WSOP a secure financial future and also giving me and the rest of the derelicts in the poker media an endless amount of material to work with this year. As one of my Canadian colleagues noted, “Premium meat snacks at this year’s WSOP. The jokes, they write themselves.”
I haven’t seen a deal that bad since the Ruskies signed away Alaska in 1867 to Secretary of State William Seward for $7.2 million. If that Seward’s deal never happened, Sarah Palin would be speaking Russian.
Remember the good old days, when poker was in its boom period and the poker community was treated to shows such as Celebrity Poker Showdown, Hollywood Hold ‘Em, Hip-Hop Holdem, WPT’s Hollywood Home Game, etc. etc.? Celebrities playing poker makes its “comeback” with Sam’s Game — a new show on the digital channel that is also home to The Boy Nexxt Door, e-Rotic, and Show Us Your Wits.
The show features Simpson’s co-creator Sam Simon, along with comedians Artie Lange, Dave Attell, Norm McDonald and Jeffrey Ross. Also featured are Playboy personalities Brande Roderick, Deanna Brooks, Andrea Lowell, and Stacy Fuson; along with poker personalities as Phil Laak, Sam’s ex-wife Jennifer Tilly, and Jennifer “Jennicide” Leigh. The “action” takes place in Hugh Hefner’s villa at the Palms in Las Vegas, and Playboy TV has put up a few clips on Youtube as a preview for the shows debut June 11th. Above is the longest clip, featuring Artie and Norm in a big hand. The one thing that stands out right away is that I believe this is the first poker program to ever use a 4-color deck in the graphics.
Tales of a, er, stability-challenged(?) degen burning his bankroll down to $200(!) … but not before boozin’ it up at Vegas nightclubs … all in 140 characters or less.
How can you not wanna follow that, especially during the WSOP?
Nicole Sullivan’s Poker Skills Tested HollywoodPoker Celebrity Player Nicole Sullivan Challenged to a Head’s Up Game by a German Fan
A german fan! I won’t waste your time with the rest of the press release, but it did make me lol while shaking my head, because I had no idea who Nicole Sullivan was … yet it does deserve more ink that Mike Sexton faux challenge to Paris Hilton that may or may not have something to do with charity … But in this case … Nicole Sullivan … we’re talking the girl who played Holly the dog walker on King of Queens.
Durrr challenge Durrr shmallenge!
UPDATE: OK, I have to give you a little more because it’s funny … and I think I kinda get it now:
A gracious Nicole had this to say about the bout, “HollywoodPoker is the fix that a poker-loving mother of two needs. I put the little ones to bed, pour a glass of wine and have a little fun. Low stakes, high entertainment!â€
Nicole currently stars as Rita Clemens on Lifetime TV’s original sitcom Rita Rocks as an overworked wife and mother who forms a garage band in the middle of a full-blown identity crisis.
You can’t make this stuff up! Reminds me of the Chicken of the Sea ads on Celebrity Apprentice. And really, it’s hard to poo-poo any efforts to bring more wine-drinky moms into poker.
The WSOP continues to move in an Olympic-like direction … as they just added another non-bracelet exhibition event … Dream Team Poker. (Didn’t we talk about this on an episode of The Poker Beat? I seem to remember someone — me? — saying we should have non-bracelet, exhibition events at the WSOP … and someone else — BJ? Gary? — saying maybe, but we definitely won’t see it this year at the Series.) I could be wrong on my show recall … but regardless, July 12-13 will be another team poker event — this one a $500+60 x 3.
Bracelet or not, should prove to be a popular alternative to a $1,500 donkament or, from an individual perspective, one of the many $500 deep stack tourneys around town at the same time. The first 300 pre-registered teams get personalized jerseys, which sounds silly and unimportant, but really is a cool little touch.
I stumbled across this courtesy of High Stakes News. A Canadian by the name of Bo Fric didn’t exactly make a success out of his run as a professional poker player. In fact, he accumulated quite the debt in the process. But before leaving the game altogether, he put together a “poker bucket list,” which he plans to put into motion this summer at the WSOP, write about it, and film it all for a documentary. The list includes things like riding in a hot-air balloon with Sam Grizzle and doing yoga with Allen Cunningham. However…
There are three little problems:
1. I don’t know any of these people on a personal level and really don’t know how to begin.
2. I currently have a slight negative balance in my bank account, $30,000 in credit card debt, and less than $3,000 liquid cash.
3. I don’t know the first damn thing about writing a book.
Other problems? He has a young son and has chosen to mortgage his house, car, and other worldly possessions to carry out this project. Nevertheless, since he began airing his wishes on his website, Bo seems to have found sponsors like PokerRoad and the Canadian Poker Tour, making it seem like this has a chance of playing out before our WSOP-blurred eyes this summer. Could be interesting!
One of the things you will quickly notice about good players in any variation of poker is how they change their game depending on how many people are in the hand. That great aggressive no limit hold’em player who seems to batter you with bets every time you’re heads up in a pot will probably become a very different creature when they are playing in a four or five handed pot.
This is simply because the more people who are in a pot, the more combinations of hands there are out there, and the more likely it is that someone has a strong holding. As a result of this, you have to be much more careful about bluffing or semi bluffing in multi way pots – you will get played back at a great deal in these spots on the whole.
KevMath (the Snopes.com of Poker?) challenged my facts on the easy-to-prove number of eligible players for the WSOP Main Event Champions Invitational. I say there are 27, he says there are 25. So, going through the list … here’s who may or may not be playing:
There have been 39 main event bracelets.
Seven winners are deceased:
Johnny Moss ’70 ’71 ’74
Puggy Pearson ’73
Stu Ungar ’80 ’81 ’97
Hal Fowler ’79
Jack Strauss ’82
Jack Keller ‘84
Bill Smith ’85
That leaves 28 bracelets still in play … hmm … and two are repeat winners … so 26?
Those eligible:
(unconfirmed attendance in italics)
1.   Amarillo Slim ’72 2.   Sailor Roberts ’75 — also deceased
3.   Doyle Brunson ’76 ’77 4.   Bobby Baldwin ’78 – can’t make it
5.   Tom McEvoy ’83
6.   Berry Johnston ‘86
7.   Johnny Chan ’87 ’88
8.   Phil Hellmuth ’89 9.   Mansour Matloubi ’90
10.   Brad Daugherty ’91 11.   Hamid Dastmalchi ’92
12.   Jim Bechtel ‘93 13.   Russ Hamilton ’94 – snubbed
14.   Dan Harrington ’95
15.   Huck Seed ’96
16.   Scotty Nguyen ’98 17.   Noel Furlong ’99 18.   Chris Ferguson ’00
19.   Carlos Mortenson ’01
20.   Robert Varkonyi ’02
21.   Chris Moneymaker ’03
22.   Greg Raymer ’04
23.   Joe Hachem ’05
24.   Jamie Gold ’06
25.   Jerry Yang ’07
26.   Peter Eastgate ’08
OK, crap, math … KevMath … 25 it is.
So how do you call it? I guess we kinda split the difference? I’m considering both Hamilton and Baldwin as eligible, albeit expected no-shows.
CORRECTION: Sailor Roberts also deceased … OK, crap, Mathers wins.
One of the first “big” WSOP events will be the special, invitational Champions tourney … a non-bracelet freeroll for all previous main event champions, which will be one of only four televised ESPN events. This made-for-TV No-Limit Hold’em brouhaha — where players are competing for a shiny trophy and a red Corvette — should give the old-dog pros a chance to remind the 21st century WSOP millionaires who’s really boss … and the Varkonyis and Golds and Yangs a chance to say, “Hey, I didn’t just get lucky, Doyle Biznatch!”
27 players are eligible … and almost all have pre-registered. Bobby Baldwin ’78 has RSVP’d in the negative. But there’s one interesting name on the list of non-confirmeds* — well actually there’re five, but one of these is not like the others … in fact, as a member of the WSOP PAC, he’s probably on Jeffrey Pollack’s speed dial:
Mansour Maltoubi ’90
Hamid Dastmalchi ’92
Russ Hamilton ’94
Noel Furlong ’99
Chris Ferguson ’00
None of these are holdouts, from what we’re hearing … just MIA. (Though we’re not so sure the WSOP is looking that hard for Russ, because they could always give his invitation to Layne Flack.)
The WSOP almost slipped one by us … back in February we reported that Milwaukee’s Best Light had re-upped with the World Series, which was technically true … but our spin-detectors must have been low on batteries, because we totally woulda negatively re-spun the hedline to “WSOP Loses Top-Level Sponsorship” had we recognized that too was technically the case. Very clever, WSOP.
But now we know … the official new name of the biggest annual mass pilgrimage to the desert this side of Mecca is:
the World Series of Poker Presented by Jack Link’s Beef Jerky
Click the link and come up with your own funny pokery sayings that can fit in with Jack’s marketing message that dried beef snacks are a better alternative (from a mom’s perspective) than chips. From our perspective, we’re just happy to be able to provide you a link to a presenting sponsor that honors hirsuteness doesn’t require age verification first. (Hi kids, welcome to poker!)
Anyhow, always interesting and presumably good for the game when a new player sits down. We’ll be sure to let you know what they bring to the table. Click below for the well-crafted official details:
Leftover but good-for-viewing vid … PPA Executive Director John Pappas on CNBC … not just speaking on behalf of the latest Barney Frank legislation, but establishing the baseline for where discussion on these matters begins … it’s good to see the mainstream Wall Street press at least understanding the basics so they won’t have to waste their time filtering through the first line of crap the opposition throws their way:
Also … more online poker issues being laid out for the non-poker public in ESPN: The Magazine. And the Washington Post is letting people know that the American masses have spoken — directly to Barack Obama — and they want two things to get this country back on track: legal pot and legal online poker money transfers.
Watching this almost makes me wanna cry. Do you realize how close we were to turning Texas race tracks into full-fledged poker rooms? I don’t think you do! But alas, in the end we were killed by something akin to an inverse filibuster … and all in the same week that Annie Duke got slowrolled on Celebrity Apprentice …
In what is arguably nearly as compelling drama, in the above vid Rep. Jose Menendez delivers last rites to HB 222 — but not before being ridiculed and taunted with terrible poker metaphors (delivered in practically Corky-like fashion) from the representatives who were ready to lead the fight against this bill on the floor.
While Texas poker players pushing for fully legal Texas Hold’em did not get the House vote they were looking for, Menendez’s address does mark the first time the game was ever made a real issue in the Texas Legislature. Having achieved such footnote status in the historical almanac, the insinuation on where we go from here is that next time both sides should gear up for a full-on battle spirited debate over a bill looking to create California-style card rooms … in a year where the threat of a veto carries less weight, no less.
Kevmath: RT @boyand1: #AM250k Payouts are in: 1st gets $2m, 2nd $1.2m and 3rd 800k. 11 players lefts as both John Juanda and Sam Trickett have busted 8 minutes ago
JoeOE18: @Bruce_M_W NO! Ok, maybe. It isn't mine actually, so I have no control over whether you can play or not. But yes, in principle, I suppose. 15 hours ago
The TI Poker Room will be hosting a tournament to give away a seat in the $10,000 World Series of Poker Main Event. To qualify players must log as few as 20 hours of live play in the TI Poker Room (play must be in jackpot dropped games and you must be logged in with your Treasure Island Players Card). Qualifying period for the tournament starts at 12:01AM on Monday, May 25th and ends at 11:59PM on Sunday, June 28th. Tournament date TBD.
