A kinda cool shot of the Michael Mizrachi bustout press conference … on a day where seven, and later eight, poker players will think much about how close they came toward making a major step toward legendary status and the very most of the opportunity the poker gods put in front of them.
Few details, other than that I think you can now bet on horse racing there … as of a few minutes ago, or at least today. (No sports betting?)
My source is @CommerceCasino:
And awaaay they go!! The Racebook at Commerce Casino is now open!!
3 minutes ago from web
While we know sports betting and poker have gone hand in hand ever since Stu Ungar introduced the concept of winning millions playing cards and almost immediately losing it all on the Bengals, I’m not so sure there’s as much overlap between the horses and poker. Could be wrong … and still, the convergence of poker and horses is kinda what we were going for in Texas earlier this year, except we had horses first and were trying to add poker, as opposed to the other way around.
Today’s also the 45th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s death, we should probably note. JFK was a little before my time, of course, but Stu Ungar (1953-1998) … his tragic end actually played a significant role in piquing my interest in the professional game. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it at the time, but something about his obit caught my eye … age 45, “of as yet undetermined causes” … you might argue that he was the first rock star of poker — with triumphant on-stage performances and a self-inflicted final exit, a la Jimi Hendrix or Kurt Cobain.
I have this multi-drawer file I call Dead Story Office — not about the deceased, but full of notes and documents (from mostly pre-poker days) on stories that never quite came to fruition — and one of them: “World Series of Poker”. Though I didn’t quite see how it all came together (and in retrospect it couldn’t be more of an uh-duh observation) I was pretty sure Ungar had to be a major and fascinating character.
If you’ve got nothing better to do, click below to rummage through the manila folder where I’ve carried a guy I never knew with me through four homes and two external offices over the past 10 years:
Tomorrow (Saturday) will be the ten year anniversary of the death of Stu Ungar. The darkness got the best of him at the young age of 45, and he died of an apparent heart attack after years of drug abuse. Strange to think of the places his mind could have taken him if only…
I refer you to Poker Grump’s post on the anniversary for the summary and some current photos of the Oasis Motel (scene of death), like the one below.
First, important Pokerati news:
Tom Schneider made the final table of the $5,000 NL 2-7 KC Lowball w/rebuys final table. Per usual, this event has an impressive final table lineup (starting at 3pm):
Seat 1: Jeffrey Lisandro 461,000
Seat 2: Mike Matusow 520,000
Seat 3: Tom Schneider 162,000
Seat 4: Erick Lindgren 1,104,000
Seat 5: Barry Greenstein 541,000
Seat 6: Tony ‘G’ Guoga 394,000
Seat 7: David Benyamine 410,000
Here’s the payouts:
1 $ 537,862
2 $ 347,004
3 $ 225,552
4 $ 156,151
5 $ 104,101
6 $ 78,075
7 $ 58,990
Other action from yesterday and a preview of today after the jump:
This is a little bit of old news, but I just watched it for the first time, and thought some of you who also might not have seen it yet would be interested in Daniel Negreanu’s very thorough and sober analysis of the WSOP’s delayed main event final table:
In it he reminds even yours truly about how close the World Series was to going out of business in 2004. He’s right, of course, even though I had completely forgotten about that.
