Check it out … Phil Gordon (“dean” of the Full Tilt Academy) sits down with one of Isildur’s key opponents, Patrik Antonius, to discuss what’s really going on in these highest-stakes online games vs. the biggest mystery opponent of 2009/in history.
Part 1 is an 18-minute interview where they discuss the Isildur1 phenomenon, the advantages of playing anonymously, and other matters relevant to those risking six- and seven-figure sums against him.
CNBC Original Reported by CNBC’s Melissa Francis to Premiere on Wednesday, December 16th at 9PM ET/PT on CNBC
ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J., December 10, 2009-Beyond the Las Vegas strip there’s a thriving underworld of illegal gambling. It’s a multi-billion dollar business and millions of Americans are in on the action…
On Wednesday, December 16th at 9PM ET/PT, CNBC presents “CNBC Investigates: The Big Business of Illegal Gambling,” a CNBC Original reported by CNBC’s Melissa Francis that takes viewers inside this high-stakes business that brings some people immense wealth, while others pay the ultimate price.
This week, featuring Phil Hellmuth in studio for an interview, a preview of the WPT Doyle Brunson Classic at the Bellagio, Chino Rheem (the defending champion) discussing a key hand with Justin Young, and other stuff. As usual, parts 2 and 3 appear on the next page:
The charity poker season here in Vegas is in full holiday swing. And one of the bigger tournaments (celebrity-wise) is this Saturday — the second annual All In for CP at the Hard Rock. (More info here via Facebook.)
It has a $550 buy-in (with $200 rebuys through the first hour). Early RSVPs include the likes of Doyle Brunson and the usual crew of high-stakes Las Vegas charity-circuit rounders, along with Phil Laak, Sam Simon, Jennifer Tilly, and others. Here’s a video invitation from Tilly, with more details about the tournament itself.
This event is put on by everybody’s favorite omnipresent scooter-rider at the WSOP, Jacob Zalewski, and raises money for his One Step Closer Foundation’s fight to make life easier for Cerebral Palsey sufferers like Terrance, featured in the video below:
Everybody likes a sneak peak into high-roller hotel rooms … and this YouTube vid gives more than a glimpse of the Bruce Willis and Marilyn Monroe suites at Planet Hollywood. PHo’s poker room is under new management, btw, that seems to be working hard to bring good, friendly customer-servicey low-stakes action ever since their previous management team turned out to be a bunch of (alleged) crooks:
Back in the day, you know, like 2007, rooms like these — with amazing views, foosball, and a bidet — were reserved for people willing to pay a few thousand a night or gamble with 10s of thousands. Now, as 2009 comes to a (bittersweet?) close, such suites are being given away for free to semi-famous YouTube bloggers who know a guy who knows a guy who once worked at Best Buy and sold stereo equipment to a previous high-roller with leftover comp points.
Economy prediction: Bargain luxe + favors will be hot in 2010, too.
For the past two months, Phil Ivey, Durr, Gus Hansen, Patrik Antonius and the online phenom/enigma known as Isildur1 have been playing some of the most outrageous poker we’ve ever seen at what can only be described as nosebleed-level stakes.
The question is, with millions of dollars being shifted around each session – or hand, as the case may be – how much longer can they keep these remarkable games going without any fresh fish at the table? Our friend Bill Rini thinks the answer is not much longer.
His latest missive on BigGovernment.com is a good one that puts online poker restrictions in the context of the 18th Amendment. And while yeah-yeah, we all know (most of) this stuff already, check out the 87 (!) comments to see how this key audience is grappling with the notion of creating a bureaucracy in the name of less government intrusion.
More kids and poker, man … it was gonna be an issue anyhow, and Joe Cada’s WSOP win maybe made it even more so. I got an email from a student at Rollins University who’s doing a paper for his English Composition class on something that has indeed become if not a hot topic, a warmer than usual one on college campuses across the U.S.
Below are the questions Tyler in Winter Park, FL, sent me. While #1 is probably the hardest to answer — and ahh, the memories brought back by #2 — I think it’s interesting to see where his thinking is coming from … how the internet is obviously part of the issue, but not nearly all of it … and in general, the starting perception that gambling is a “problem”.
Questions
1.What is your profession?
2. Did you gamble in college?
3.How do you feel college administrations should address this problem? Do we need more awareness or intervention programs on campus?
4.Do you think this is a serious/risky problem for college students today? Why? Does the internet play a major role?
5. Can you comment on these areas of my argument
-Gambling can lead to addiction (colleges already educate on alcohol and drug addiction)
-Gambling can lead to risky behavior (financial problems, crime etc)
-Gambling can negatively affect academic progress
There was a little referendum this weekend that puts some more poker on the map in Darvin Moon Country …
Jefferson County, WV, approved “table games” — including blackjack, craps, roulette, three-card poker, and real poker — at the sure-to-be-renamed Charles Town Race and Slots. In fact, the poker room will likely open before the rest of the new-and-improved “racino” … with cards looking to get in the air by June 2010. The big cities likely to be feeding it players are Baltimore and Washington, DC.
Jefferson County had put the same issue to a vote in 2007 and it lost. Watch the commercial(s) below to see how one race track with a need for gambling was able to make a poker difference:
I’m guessing Mori Eskandani doesn’t know who Isildur1 is either?
While PAD generally makes solid stumble-upon viewing, it’s been a while since they’ve assembled such a unique game that should play as real what everyone’s been watching on their computer screens lately. Sounds like there should be a lot of interesting (big) hands … and you gotta wonder just how much at least four of these people really want to give up about their cash-game play under the watchful eye of the hole-card cam.
I also wonder: would they ever do a similar show with the game being Omaha? The biggest hands (in history) these days seem to be playing out mostly in PLO … but conventional poker wisdom says, supposedly, that non-Texas hold’em doesn’t play well on TV.
Hank Gilbert could become the most poker-friendly agricultural commissioner Texas has seen this century.
I gotta say, I was kinda tickled when Hank Gilbert, a Democratic candidate for Texas Governor, chose Pokerati as the place to first publish his op-ed in which he declared not only his staunch support for fully legal poker in Texas, but also expressed a commitment to making gambling a significant issue in the upcoming governor’s race.
But alas … from the also poker-friendly Kinky Friedman’s Facebook page:
Texans For Kinky 2010 Here: Hank Gilbert has stepped down from the Democratic Primary Governor’s race. We welcome all of Hank Gilbert’s supporters to join Texans for Kinky 2010. Together we can make power to the people a reality.
Turns out that Hank has decided to run for a more powerful position in Texas politics — agricultural commissioner. Here’s his website. And though the Hankster has thrown his support to Farouk Shami, here is Kinky Friedman’sbook-selling gubernatorial campaign website.
Check it out … the New York Times Book Review, as part of a holiday gift guide, have put out their “100 Notable Books of 2009“ … and making the list is Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker by Jim McManus.
Of those 100, 55 are non-fiction. Cowboys Full sits between ‘A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent’ by Robert Merry, and ‘Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression’ by Morris Dickstein. Granted, the list is alphabetical, but still …
Take a look at the excerpt the NYT ran last month — titled “Pokertician“. Considering all the good recent press poker has gotten from the likes of the Times, the Wall Street Journal, the National Journal, NPR, et al, you can see how McManus’ book — and his or his publisher’s attached promotional efforts, of course — has done more in 2009 to spread contemporary poker ideology to America’s liberal elitist intellectual set than any press release from PokerStars ever could.
(No offense, Matt, just sayin’ …)
Of course the NYT’s review of McManus’ book is hedlined the (“The Cheating Game“) … so maybe that’s a reminder that despite efforts that may seem to legitimize poker pursuits, the game still will always be thought of as … similar to dieting and matrimony? If so, that might explain why this tome — currently ranked in the Top 500 on Amazon — has apparently struck a chord with at least a few people who aren’t otherwise thinking ’bout poker.
You really should buy Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker by Jim McManus. No one’s paying us to say that, but Pokerati will earn at least $0.14 if you do.
Tournament ID: 121607994
Title: Justin Shronk Memorial Tourney
Game: NLHE
Buy-In: $5+$5
Starts: Sunday, December 6 at 18:00 server time (6 p.m. EST, 3 p.m PST)
Password: Justin Shronk
Half of the buyin goes towards the Justin Shronk Memorial Fund at the Temple University School of Communications And Theater (SCT).
The first thing that caught my eye when I saw the cover of the new issue of National Journal was the hand: Obama already has Jacks-or-better, but could also be drawing to an inside straight. Great artistic display of poker metaphor … and I can’t believe, after more than six years since Moneymaker, someone has finally posed a hand as something other than a royal flush. That in and of itself tells me the story’s gonna be good … as the editor clearly understands a little something about politics and poker.
randompoker: RT @MeanPokerDealer: I think it's SO cool how you guys loop the earbuds around your ears so they're hanging there all not in your ears and stuff. I hate you. 43 minutes ago
