The Second Coming of PartyPoker?

Sexton: Ever-gracious ambassador.

I\’m pretty sure you\’re gonna be hearing about Zynga for awhile … not just because I still have lots of pictures and audio to unload from Zynga\’s inaugural PokerCon at the Palms last weekend … but because, imho, as plenty of industry stalwarts seemed to recognize, this company that didn\’t even exist in 2006 (that oh-so-glorious year of Jamie-Gold-boom-and-UIGEA-bust) has something that every other big-idea \”revolutionary\” poker undertaking has lacked since, well, PartyPoker.

Have a listen to Hall-of-Famer Mike Sexton, invited to simply share his brand of poker lore while mingling with Zynga players, give his quick take on the relevance of this relatively small little event and the booming company behind it:

Mike Sexton at Zynga Pokercon 2011
[audio:http://old.pokerati.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/zynga-sexton.mp3|titles=zynga-sexton]

pic by Michele Lewis

Hellmuth: Party crasher?

Phil Hellmuth musta seen something more than just a $100k freeroll going on, too. Whether delivering a \”bonus\” to Pokercon attendees out of the kindness of his heart or just because his feelings were hurt for not being asked to take part in Zynga festivities, the \”poker brat\” slipped in as an uninvited (but presumably still welcome?) guest and revealed his presence at the Pokercon final table to a smattering of gasps and boos. When poker\’s self-proclaimed badboy tried to educate the fans that they were supposed to boo him, the nice Zynga people didn\’t exactly oblige — giving him instead a polite round of applause. You can tell, however, at least a few in the crowd understood the subtext of his unscripted exchange with host Ali Nejad — effectively trying to put PokerStars back in its (2nd) place.

Phil Hellmuth at Zynga Pokercon 2011
[audio:http://old.pokerati.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/zynga-hellmuth.mp3|titles=zynga-hellmuth]