Poker Blog & Poker Forum

Some poker tournaments are hardball poker, just as the WSOP Main Event, which is down to the Heads Up at the time of writing. Others are more social and holiday events like the Punta Cana Poker Classic 2010, which begins on November 10.

The social events have exotic locales, and nothing can be more exotic than the Moon Palace Hotel in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. The entire package costs only $2,000 and includes 4 nights in the five star hotel that will soon be part of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino franchise, airport hotel transfers, all inclusive premium food and beverages and the opening event “Dominican Night”. And it also includes the $1,000 + $100 buy-in to the main tournament, with $100,000 guaranteed and an estimated additional pot prize of another $100,000.

The celebrity brigade is headed by the grand daddy of poker, Doyle Brunson. When the event was announced he said, “I really like the idea that there’s going to be a great 5-star poker tournament in paradise this fall and I can’t wait to play in it and get some R&R with new friends and old. A lot of people are already excited about this event and hopefully next year Doyles Room will become the title sponsor of the tournament, increase the buy-in and prize pool a bit, and build it into a recurring event that the entire poker world looks forward to.” Doyle will be accompanied by his poker playing family and the members of Doyles Room who have won the packages through online tournaments.

But beyond doubt the celebrity who will stop the traffic in Punta Cana will be poker babe Jenny Woo. Jenny’s official tag line is that she is the Senior International Correspondent at Gambling911.com, but she is as much the subject of poker gossip as its creator. And as someone who has dated the likes of Vin Diesel, Dennis Rodman and David Navarro it is not difficult to imagine why. Jenny also has a Doyle Brunson connection. For two years in a row she has given him top billing in her list of the sexiest poker players. But when Doyle had his list of sexy poker players compiled through a vote system Jenny was conspicuous by her absence. She is as sexy as Lacey Jones and company, it is the poker part that she will need to work on.

Scotty Nguyen is known as “Prince of Poker”. He has a WSOP Main Event bracelet and is one of the nominees to the 2010 Poker Hall of Fame. More than any other poker professional, the Prince is conscious of his subjects, read as fans, and does not lose a single opportunity to interact with them. He regularly hosts live chats on his official web site and always has a few words to say to spectators watching from the rails. This year he gave WSOPE a miss and was seen playing a number of smaller tournaments just so that his fans would have a chance of their lifetimes playing with him. Making the announcement on Twitter in September, Nguyen had said in his unmistakable style, “Don’t forget baby! gonna skip wsope and instead travel for my fans baby!” The first event on Nguyen’s American tour was the T.J.Cloutier Classic on September 25 in Durant, Oklahoma at the Choctaw Casino. The presence of the Prince of Poker resulted in an enhanced field and was a good preparation for the casino’s first-ever WSOP Circuit Event in January 2011.

In November 2010, Nguyen will be teaming up with Heartland Poker Tour (HPT) for a few events. HPT Commentator Fred Bevill said, “We’re looking forward to introducing our players to a poker legend. Scotty has been entertaining us all on TV for years.” One of these will be at Meskwaki Bingo Casino Hotel in Tama, Iowa. The announcement has already resulted in a surge in the registrations. Then Nguyen will participate in a charity tournament to benefit Disabled American Veterans at Soaring Eagle Casino Resort in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. There the Prince will be joined by the two most charming poker babes in the industry, Tiffany Michelle and Maria Ho. The HPT release says about these two women celebrities, “The professional players gained crossover fame when they competed together on Amazing Race. They both claim the honor of being the last woman standing in the WSOP Main Event in back-to-back years.”

The only thing standing between the Prince of Poker and an induction to the Poker Hall of Fame is his rude behavior during the 2008 WSOP HORSE final table when he berated fellow poker professionals Erick Lindgren and Michael DeMichele. Wonder how long it takes for Nguyen to erase that from public memory.

Sometime back Poker Brat Phil Hellmuth has resolved to give up his overbearing ways and turn a new leaf. When he did not appear at this year’s Las Vegas WSOP Main Event in a fancy dress we thought he had taken his resolution seriously. However this reassessment proved to be short lived. Just before the London WSOPE Main Event Hellmuth Tweeted, “Today maybe my best entrance ever! Video soon: Red double decker bus, 16 membr big band, 11 models dressd like Lady Gaga singing Poker face!”

True to his word Leicester Square was given the full treatment of 11 scantily clad Lady Gaga look-alikes gyrating suggestively to the suggestive lyrics of Poker Face. Of all the double entendres in that hit number the best was “Cause I’m bluffin’ with my muffin”. After finishing their song and dance routine they dutifully lined up when a smug looking Hellmuth joined them and posed for photographs. Then all of them entered the Casino at the Empire.

The number 11 refers to the number of WSOP bracelets that Hellmuth has won. And he has been stuck at that number for a while. At the WSOPE 2007 Main Event he entered with 12 girls dressed up as London policewomen in anticipation of his winning the twelfth bracelet. This time it is a good thing he stuck to what he has because his exit from the Empire was as ignominious as his entry had been grand. He bust on Day 1A itself, being beaten by last woman standing at the 2008 WSOP Main Event, Leo Margets. The Poker Brat knows how to take it on the chin. He Tweeted, “WSOPE: good entrance, bad exit! People went GaGa for my entrance, but sadly I was eliminated Day 1. Made 2 costly mistakes. Now flying home”.

Meanwhile at the time of writing, the Main Event is heading to an exciting close. 22 players are still in the fray. The chip leader is Ronald Lee from the United States. Notable names include Viktor Bloom, Phil Ivey and Hoyt Corkins, all huddled at places 5, 6 and 7. This is Ivey’s great chance to wrap up his prop bet. Incidentally Gus Hansen won the Heads Up and his first bracelet earlier at WSOPE.

The WSOP Europe tournament, more popularly labeled WSOPE, is currently running at London. The action is taking place at the swanky Casino at the Empire in Leicester Square. The event that is underway is the No-Limit Hold’em High-Roller Heads-Up Championship. With a buy in of £10,000 this event attracted the biggest names in the poker world. In all 103 players registered. In the first round the field was brought down to 64 so that the heads up could progress systematically after that. Some of the top professional poker players to fall in the first two rounds included Sorel Mizzi, Tom Dwan, Frank Kassela, John Juanda, Phil Hellmuth, Jeffrey Lisandro, Mike Matusow and November Niners Michael Mizrachi, John Racener and Joseph Cheong.

At one time Phil Ivey was going strong. He was being tipped for his ninth WSOP bracelet having won his eighth at Las Vegas earlier this year. But this was not to be. Gus Hansen put an end to Ivey’s dream. Ivey however finished in the cash. Ivey has a  prop bet with Howard Lederer that he will win nine WSOP bracelets by 2011. He has one event left if he wants to win that bet in 2010 and that is the Main Event of WSOPE. If not next year is always there.

Daniel Negreanu made it to the last eight. Negreanu is one of the most high profile and visible poker players who stands on the basis of reputation with the likes of Phil Hellmuth and Doyle Brunson. However his WSOP bracelets tally, which stands at four, does not do justice to his stature. He had a very good chance of improving that tally but was just knocked out at the time of writing by Andrew Feldman in a marathon battle. Of late Negreanu seems to be losing stature as well with uncalled for bitching on colleagues.

The semi-final line up is as follows: Gus Hansen vs. Andrew Feldman and Jim Collopy vs. Ram Vaswani. This is what WSOP had to say about these four. “We’ve got our crazy Scandie in the form of Hansen, Collopy the online tournament specialist, Feldman representing the nosebleed online cash players, and Hendon Mobster Vaswani – the only one of our semi-finalists already in possession of a bracelet – representing for the old school live players.” The winner will get £288,409 and the even more coveted gold bracelet.

Full Tilt Poker is the online poker room where most of the high stakes action on the Internet takes place. HighstakesDB tracks the betting at Full Tilt Poker on a hand to hand basis and compiles the results into the biggest winners and losers every month.

Phil Ivey tops the list of winners for August 2010 with just over $2 million against his name, which is way ahead of the next poker professional at Full Tilt Poker. If things continue this way then Ivey can cross more than $20 million in life time winnings in September. For someone who started out only in October 2006 this is a huge feat. Ivey crossed the $5 million mark in September 2008, the $10 million mark in April 2009 and the $15 million mark in November 2009. And all this is at Full Tilt Poker only. The biggest single pot won by Ivey was of $832,940 in November 2009.

Numbers two and four on the August 2010 list are jungleman12, real name Dan Cates, and durrrr, real name Tom Dwan. Cates has won $1.1 million in August at Full Tilt Poker and Dwan has won $0.7 million. Cates and Dwan make an interesting combination because they have a challenge going between them, which is popularly called The Durrrr Challenge 2. The first challenge, between Dwan and Patrik Antonius, went into hibernation after 19 months of slow paced progress because Antonius is so far behind that he has no hope of catching up. Fortunately for poker fans the second Durrrr Challenge has started at a brisk pace and 10% of the slated number of games has already been completed. As things stand now, Dwan is down by half a million dollars but it is early days. Fans are hoping that this contest will not become one sided and slow down to a snail’s pace. Dwan started playing at Full Tilt Poker in November 2006, about the same time as Ivey. However Dwan has had a volatile life with maximum cumulative winnings at $8 million in April 2010. He is currently at $5 million.

The biggest loser in August 2010 is Gus Hansen at $2.9 million. Like someone at a poker forum remarked, Full Tilt Poker should change his password and forget to tell him.