Poker Blog & Poker Forum

Caroline Wozniacki (in picture) is 20 and hot and the number one ranked female tennis player in the world with a penchant for short skirts that leave nothing to the imagination. And she is dating poker professional Gus Hansen. Apart from their ages (Hansen is 37), they have a lot in common. Both are Danish. Caroline’s father was from Poland but migrated to Denmark after signing up for a Danish club football team. Both live in Monaco. And both have a tennis connection. Hansen was a local tennis champion in his younger days.

Despite Caroline’s number one status in tennis, Hansen is probably more popular in Denmark, especially with the girls. Hansen’s achievements at the poker tables are well known, but he was voted one of People Magazine’s 50 Sexiest Men in 2004. He was also voted the sexiest male poker player in Doyle Brunson’s list. Hansen is a strong believer in physical fitness and takes prop bets on personal athletic challenges. His boxing match against fellow poker professional Theo Jorgensen is still fresh in memory.

It is rumored that Hansen and Caroline first started seeing each other during the tennis Australian Open in 2010. Thereafter Hansen was a frequently spotted figure in the tennis circuit. The pairing became more apparent when the two spent last Christmas together in Thailand and it was fully out in the open during the 2011 Australian open. Hansen was seen seated in Caroline’s box during her quarter final win over Francesca Schiavone by an international television audience. Being in Australia at that time suits Hansen because it coincides with the Aussie Millions poker tournament, an event which he won in 2007. Those who follow Carorine’s Twitter will get frequent references to Hansen. At around the time of the Australian Open Caroline had Tweeted, “And also just met my good friend Gus Hansen (Poker player) and had a coffee .”

Going against the popular adage, Hansen has been lucky in love and in gambling. This period has been good to Hansen at the poker tables as well. In 2011 so far Hansen has won about $4.5 million in nosebleed action at the online poker room Full Tilt and is up over $6 million over the past six months.

Like any other entertainment and sporting celebrities professional poker players have a fan following. For various reasons the celebrities need to cultivate this fan following and see it grow. Larger fan followings can result in larger sponsorship deals. One way to reach out to fans is through a personal web site. Recently Phil Ivey launched his web site and this is an opportune time to check out what the web sites of the most popular poker professionals say.

Phil Ivey has known to be publicity shy and therefore, though he has been around a long time, has just set up a virtual home. However the web site, www.philivey.com, has nothing of substance as yet. It has a “Coming Soon” signboard placed across it. Ivey is known to be a cigar aficionado and has smoke billowing out from his name. The other message at the site is “Now I am going to teach the whole world to win at poker.” His fans will have to wait and see if that translates to free tips or paid lessons. The only functional feature is the link to Ivey’s Twitter account.

Phil Hellmuth has the biggest reach of all poker players. You can love him or hate him but cannot ignore him. Hellmuth’s web site has been laid out as a perfect celebrity web site with pages for biography, pictures, videos, blogs and tweets. All but the tweets are out of date. The unique aspect of Hellmuth’s web site is the virtual shop that sells his branded clothing range “Poker Brat” along with books and stuff.

The web sites of poker babes are more artistically done. Also they have more multi-faceted personalities, which make them more interesting. Liv Boeree’s web site describes her as poker player, TV presenter, guitarist and model. The pictures and videos are more personal than professional and this is a major plus point. Vanessa Rousso’s web site is laid out in a bohemian style and contains video blogs from the poker babe. Unfortunately the pictures are mostly the ones of Vanessa at the poker tables and not the glamorous ones that can be found elsewhere on the Internet (see picture).

With the popularity of Twitter the purpose of maintain a web site is defeated and most of these are in desperate need of an update.

Though Doyle Brunson is fondly acknowledged as the Godfather of Poker, and not without reason, he is less in the news because of poker and more because of his age and the sex that is on his mind. And he covered both in a Tweet he sent out last week. “Wish we could report Doyle died while taking off @liv_boeree thong with his teeth”. Liv Boeree is one of the most perfect examples of a Poker Babe with traffic stopping good looks and a sharp poker acumen. No wonder PokerStars.com described her as “one of the hottest properties on the world poker circuit”.

Doyle’s preoccupation with sex keeps on bursting into his blogs and Tweets every now and then. In October 2010 Doyle asked his Twitter fans to vote for the poker player they would most want to “make whoopee with”. The three poker babes most in demand were Elizabeth Shannon, Vanessa Rousso and Jennifer Tilly in that order. Liv only received an honorable mention. Clearly Doyle’s fans are not in synch with him. There was an anecdote that Doyle narrated in his blogs some years back. He said one night his wife suggested that they climb up to their bedroom to make love. And he replied that at his age he could either climb up or make love, but not both.

Doyle has perhaps read the news of his death more often than anyone else. No one knows how or why these rumors keep surfacing, but they do. Jenny Woo, the poker correspondent who has been covering Doyle professionally for a long time, says that the rumors tend to hit their peak sometime in May. Last May Doyle had to put out this message to reassure everyone that he was alive and kicking. “Every year about this time, some sicko feels the need to spread the news that I died. Doug Dalton was the first to call and I had several calls after that. I was tweeting on twitter and Howard Lederer spread the word that if I was dead, someone was twittering on my account. When I do die, hopefully years from now, everybody will have to check to see if it’s true.” Jenny gives Doyle another 20 years and may her words come true because Doyle Brunson is irreplaceable.

Tiffany Michelle, the brand ambassador of online poker room UB.com, hosted a charity poker tournament last week. After the event Tiffany blogged, “If you follow my blogs, Twitter and Facebook posts, you are well aware that I attend tons of celebrity charity tournaments but this was my first time ever “hosting” a charity tournament and putting my name behind an event.” The live tournament was held on March 3 at Hard Rock Casino in support of Victory Junction.

Tiffany is one poker babe who has excellent connections in the poker industry and managed to rope in many of her friends and colleagues. Some of the big names were C Thomas Howell, the sexy Natalie Getz (in picture with Tiffany), poker babe Trishelle Canatella, Jennifer Elise Cox, Dave Good, former MLB baseball pitcher Dave Stewart, adult film star Samantha Ryan, and Kovacs. The celebrities who made it to the final table were another poker babe Lacey Jones, Jeff Madsen, C Thomas Howell and Tiffany herself. Madsen won the charity poker event.

Victory Junction was founded Paul Newman and NASCAR driver Kyle Petty. The charity provides life changing experiences and camps, free-of-charge, for children with chronic medical conditions and serious illness. Kyle Petty co-hosted the charity tournament, which coincided with NASCAR week in Vegas. One of the celebrities at the event was NASCAR driver Ryan Newman. Ryan showed Tiffany a photograph of him strapped inside his cars and said, “This is me at the office”, which tickled her funny bone.

Tiffany described the general atmosphere of the event in her blog. “All in all, the cards were dealt, the drinks flowed, the players got to have some laughs and play poker with some of their favorite celebrities and we raised money for a beautiful cause. Even though the event wasn’t about me I was beyond flattered and humbled at the amount of friends and celebrity players who made it a point to attend the event, donate money to charity and support me with their presence.” She can add writing to the list of her fabulous assets. Tiffany pointed out that the Victoria Junction Charity Tournament was sponsored by Black Ace, the company that markets her line of clothing.

Facebook is the biggest social networking community. Most poker professionals, especially poker babes, have at least a presence on Facebook. And Zynga Poker is the third most popular game on Facebook. If you think that does not count for much digest this fact. At any given time there are more poker players on Zynga Poker than on PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker put together. Zynga Poker boasts of over 37 million monthly players. But it has never been taken seriously by the poker world because of its non-traditional format.

Zynga Poker is all set to change that perception. And the route that it has chosen is hosting a high profile live event. The announcement has been made and the countdown has begun. The event has been billed as PokerCon. What “Con” is has not been made clear, but it could be contest or conference or convention. PokerCon is scheduled for March 18 and 19 at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. The tickets go on sale from Friday February 11.

The invite to the event at the PokerCon web site reads “Become a poker legend at Zynga Poker’s inaugural fan event and tournament! With over 7 million players daily, Zynga Poker is THE largest online poker room. You’ve played our game online – now get ready to up the ante and experience Zynga Poker live and in-person!” The highlight of PokerCon is a Texas Hold‘em tournament with a guaranteed prize pool of over $100,000 in cash. The final table in the tournament will be joined by an unannounced list of celebrities, but the hype is that some really well know names are expected to participate. The participants will have an opportunity to learn winning strategies from world class poker professionals and will be able to network in person with fellow Zynga Poker fans. In all it will be one big celebration ending with an exclusive party.

Zynga Poker is making it easy for its members to get tickets. They can enter their e-mail addresses at the PokerCon web site and will be given VIP pre-sale access to ticket sales. The tickets are priced at $125, which covers all activities during the two-day convention.