Posts Tagged ‘high stakes poker’
Tom Dwan Playing High Stakes Poker in Macau
November 15th, 2010
Who has time for online poker when there are Chinese businessmen to play against?
If you’ve been waiting for Tom Dwan and Daniel Cates to get back to their Durrrr Challenge, you could end up waiting a long time for satisfaction now that Dwan has discovered the nosebleed-stakes cash games on the Chinese island of Macau.
Dwan was in town for the Asian Poker Tour event held at the City of Dreams casino, but a semi-private cash game populated by Chinese businessmen who enjoy taking on the world’s best poker players turned out to be the real draw for the young poker pro. Along with Phil Ivey, Chau Giang and John Juanda, Dwan sat in a no-limit hold’em game that internationally famed tournament director Matt Savage described in a 2+2 thread as “some of the biggest in history.” The game started with blinds of 5,000/10,000 Hong Kong Dollars (roughly $650/$1,300 in US dollars) before the American pros convinced their hosts to bump the blinds up to 10,000/20,000 HKD (roughly $1,300/$2,600 USD).
Savage posted a few short updates on the game, which started at the Hard Rock Hotel before moving to Starworld Casino. Then he sent a link to the thread to Tom Hall, the CEO of gambling industry business AsianLogic and an occasional player in the game himself. Hall, who personally invited Ivey and Dwan to Macau to play in the game, then began posting more details in the 2+2 thread.
“These ‘businessmen’ are generally involved in the gaming industry in some form, casino junkets, sports betting etc and instead of losing tens of millions playing baccarat every year discovered poker 2 years ago and have taken to it. Some have become very, very good. Obviously not to the level of Ivey and Tom, but can hold their own and they are fearless which makes them dangerous,” wrote Hall. “They like action and thats why people like Tom Dwan they find very fun to play against. The length of the sessions are also legendary with 20-30 hour sessions with a 6 hour break and then being repeated 4-5 times relatively common. Bluffing is highly respected (but don’t get caught – its expensive)!!”
Details on the actual gameplay from the weekend are a bit sparse, as you might expect, but it appears that Dwan started off down before winning a huge pot with A-K against Q-Q and T-T to find himself up $1.7 million USD early yesterday morning. Savage said at that point that Ivey was “back to even,” though Hall wrote late on Sunday night that Ivey was “apparently up large now.” He also wrote that Ted Forrest had turned up and that there two games are now running, one with 10,000/20,000 HKD blinds and another with 5,000/10,000 HKD blinds.
You can keep up with the latest news at the 2+2 High Stakes Poker in Macau thread.
GSN Announces Seventh Season of High Stakes Poker
October 25th, 2010
The most popular poker program on TV returns for another season.
GSN announced recently that it has ordered another season of High Stakes Poker. The show, which features the biggest names in poker duking it out with a minimum buy-in of $200,000, is the highest-rated program on the cable network, which is otherwise known for reruns of 1970s game shows like Match Game and Family Feud and keeping the career of Chuck Woolery alive with new shows like Lingo.
The network has confirmed that Gabe Kaplan will return as the show’s host for the seventh season. Also returning is Kara Scott, who joined the show last season and replaced former co-host AJ Benza. Scott’s segments received mixed reviews from the poker community last year, so hopefully the show’s producers will find a better way to use the beautiful and intelligent Scott instead of wasting her on silly interview segments.
Filming for the new season of High Stakes Poker will take place from November 18-20 this year, which is about the same time that the sixth season was filmed. The lineup has yet to be confirmed, though it’s hard to imagine the show taping a single minute without confirming that Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan and Patrik Antonius will be in the mix. Other regulars like Eli Elezra, Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein and high-stakes punching bag Phil Hellmuth are also likely to return.
There are no details yet on when the new season of High Stakes Poker will air, but if GSN holds to last year’s schedule we just might get our first peek at the new action in February 2011.
WSOP Circuit Coming to American TV on VERSUS
October 15th, 2010
VERSUS joins ESPN in the poker business with a new WSOP Circuit deal.
The World Series of Poker announced late yesterday that it has reached an agreement with cable network VERSUS to broadcast coverage of the WSOP Circuit beginning in June 2011.
VERSUS is perhaps best known in the U.S. for its coverage of the National Hockey League, though it also airs some college football and mixed martial arts programming, as well as coverage of the Tour de France. The network has never ventured into poker programming before, but it’ll have some help when it starts seeing flops: Poker PROductions, the company behind the broadcasts of WSOP Europe, High Stakes Poker and the National Heads-Up Poker Championship, will be producing the coverage for VERSUS.
“This is a big milestone for the industry,” said WSOP Vice President Ty Stewart. “We’re thrilled that one of the premier all-sports networks has recognized the brand power of the WSOP and decided to take the plunge into broadcasting our game.”
Jeff Goldberg, Vice President of Programming for VERSUS, was equally excited about the news. “We are very excited to present coverage of the World Series of Poker Circuit tour to a national audience of more than 75 million U.S. homes,” he said. “The WSOP tour is one of the most successful in the business and we knew it was a great opportunity for our first venture into poker tournament coverage.”
The announcement comes as the latest WSOP Circuit stop gets going at the Horseshoe Hammond casino in Hammond, Ind., just miles from Chicago. The first event held there last year was the largest poker tournament in the six-year history of the WSOP Circuit, attracting nearly 1,500 players, and the Hammond stop paid out more players than any other single stop in the rest of the WSOPC season.
The last tournament of this year’s stop in Hammond will be the first $10,000 Regional Championship event of the new season. All of the final tablists will receive automatic entry into the WSOPC National Championship next spring, and the tournament will also be the first aired on VERSUS when the new broadcast deal goes into effect next summer.
WSOP Main Event Down to 27 Players
July 17th, 2010
Joseph Cheong leads after Day 7 of the WSOP Main Event. (Photo: PokerNews)
The seventh day of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event began with 78 players still in contention, from short-stacked reality TV cast members to a number of highly accomplished poker pros with big stacks looking to fight their way to the November Nine. By the end of the day 51 of them had their tournament ended prematurely, leaving just 27 players in the hunt for the oldest, most prestigious title in poker.
Theo Jorgensen came in the with the chip lead and proceeded according to plan for much of the day, but on the last hand before the dinner break he ended up committing himself to an 11-out draw for a pot worth 19.3 million chips against Cuong Nguyen, who held K-J for top pair with a jack kicker. The turn and river didn’t help Jorgensen, leaving him with just 2.3 million with blinds at 40,000/80,000 and antes at 10,000. Jorgensen managed to bob and weave his way up one more pay jump to 30th place, earning $255,242.
Others who joined Jorgensen on the rail during Day 7 included his fellow former day-end chip leaders Tony Dunst (50th place, $168,556), David Assouline (44th, $206,395) and Evan Lamprea (46th, $168,556); High Stakes Poker regular David Benyamine (58th, $138,285); and 2009 Card Player Magazine Player of the Year Eric Baldwin (59th, $138,285). As for Twitterer extraordinaire/Survivor star Jean-Robert Bellande, he was the first player voted off the island on Day 7, finishing 78th ($94,942).
Holding the chip lead overnight is Joseph Cheong, who jumped out toward the front of the pack when he busted Lamprea holding T-T to the former chip leader’s A-J. He finished the day strong with 24,490,000 in chips and will be the main man to contend with when the tournament begins playing down to the final table. He’s closely trailed by Cuong Nguyen (23,100,000), with Pascal LeFrancois (15,780,000), Jason Senti (13,550,000) and Matthew Jarvis (13,300,000) rounding out the top five.
A number of established tournament pros still have a chance at the November Nine, too. John Racener is tops among them with 10,470,000 in chips. He’s joined by two-time WSOP bracelet winner Scott Clements (7,250,000), 2010 WSOP six-time casher David Baker (6,825,000), online pro Adam “Roothlus” Levy (4,745,000), 2006 WSOP Main Event 13th-place man William Thorson (3,680,000), and short-stacked 2000 WSOP Main Event final tablist Hasan Habib (1,510,000). And don’t forget Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi (6,300,000), the only man left who can tie Frank Kassela for 2010 WSOP Player of the Year.
Play begins at noon PT today and continues until this year’s November Nine have been determined, at which point the poker world will heave a long, tired sigh and try to sleep off its WSOP hangover.
WSOP: $10,000 Heads-Up World Championship Enters Day 2
June 19th, 2010
Phil Ivey is the marquee attraction in today’s $10,000 Heads-Up World Championship.
The World Series of Poker’s $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Heads-Up World Championship goes into its third round at the Rio today. The 256-player field has already been reduced to just 64, with known quantities like Michael Mizrachi, David Benyamine, J.C. Tran, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Justin Bonomo, Jeff Madsen, Greg Mueller, and November Niners Antoine Saout, Chino Rheem and Scott Montgomery already on the rail.
There are some interesting matchups on the schedule for the third round today. Phil Ivey takes on career $2.5 million man Kido Pham, former WPT Player of the Year Gavin Smith faces High Stakes Poker commentator Gabe Kaplan, online star Chris Moorman takes on Russian final table machine Vladimir Schmelev, and WPT Championship winner David Williams takes on LA Poker Classic heads-up champ Chris Moore. Other notables returning today include Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Josh Arieh, Antonio Esfandiari, Scott Clements, Faraz Jaka, Ashton Griffin, Alexander Kravchenko and Jordan Morgan.
This tournament has only been running at the WSOP since 2007, when it was introduced as the $5,000 World Championship. That tournament drew 392 entries and was criticized by many players because a large number of players were given byes in the first round thanks to the uneven number of participants. In the end former professional StarCraft player Daniel “Rekrul” Schreiber defeated Mark Muchnik in the final round to take home $425,594.
The event returned in 2008 with a $10,000 buy-in and drew more players than the previous year, with more players getting byes in the first round. The eventual champion was Kenny Tran, who beat Alec Torelli at the end to grab the $539,056 top prize. And in 2009 the WSOP finally put a 256-player cap on the event, which kept its $10,000 buy-in. Leo Wolpert defeated John Duthie in the finals, taking down $625,682 in the process.
The top prize for this year’s WSOP Heads-Up World Championship is $625,682. Everyone who wins their first match today will earn the minimum cash of $17,987. Action gets back underway in the Amazon Room at 3 p.m. PT today.
High Stakes Poker Season 6 Ends
May 10th, 2010
Why do they even bother playing against Tom Dwan?
Last night’s final episode of High Stakes Poker Season 6 saw the players at the table agree to bump the stakes up a notch for the end of the game, moving up to $500/$1,000 with a $300 ante at the suggestion of Lex Veldhuis, who replaced Mike Matusow in the lineup for the last session of the season. Once the $2,000 straddle was introduced Tom Dwan tried to bump the action up further to $1,000/$2,000 with a $500 ante, but nobody took the bait and the stakes stayed where they were.
Veldhuis came out firing, raising the first two hands of the session only to be knocked out quickly in each one. But soon he grabbed pots from Eli Elezra and Doyle Brunson, including a giant bluffcatcher against Brunson with a pair of deuces. “It’s the biggest call I’ve ever made money-wise,” Veldhuis told Kara Scott later. “I can’t really not go with my gut.” Going with his gut let Veldhuis erase the $100,000 hole he’d dug for himself at the beginning of Season 6 and end the game in the black.
Elezra, meanwhile, was the man who turned Tom Dwan’s session around from loser to winner, giving him a win in all three sessions for the season. The loose-aggressive Elezra had been the big winner in the episode before raising with Q-Q and getting four callers, including Dwan, who hit the 9-7-3 flop hard with 9-7. Elezra led out, Dwan raised, Elezra re-raised, and Dwan moved all-in; Elezra called out the exact hand Dwan was holding before mucking his queens. Dwan then cleaned out Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier on the next hand with a pocket pair of aces when ElkY couldn’t convince himself that Dwan actually had a hand for once.
Even without A.J. Benza involved and his replacement not really adding anything special, Season 6 of High Stakes Poker was a doozy. Daniel Negreanu got stacked three different times and even had an outburst or two, Phil Hellmuth lasted less than a single session before flaming out, and Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey demonstrated why they’re feared by everyone, cleaning out the table of most of its cash. Let’s hope that the next season of the show is already in the works.
New Vegetarian Prop Bet on Offer for Tom Dwan
April 15th, 2010
Tom Dwan has a new vegetarian prop bet offer on the table.
As everyone knows, the world’s top high stakes poker players are big fans of prop bets. The bet that has drawn more attention than any other in recent memory was the vegetarian prop bet that Tom Dwan gave to Phil Ivey, where Ivey couldn’t eat “anything that moves” for a year and in the end would be paid $1 million. It got a lot of attention thanks to being a central part of the conversation on the recent season of High Stakes Poker, but Ivey paid Dwan $150,000 to back out after just a few weeks. Now one poker player from Iowa is offering to take up Dwan’s million-dollar vegetarian prop bet, with a few twists.
Mikey Knuckles says that he’s willing to take all the same terms as Ivey’s original bet, with a few new ones thrown on top. In addition to going completely vegetarian for a year, he will lose 100 pounds in the same timeframe. If he loses either part of the bet, he loses the entire bet. If you think that sounds easy, consider that Mikey is a Kansas City Barbeque Society Certified BBQ Judge who, in addition to judging more than 25 barbecue contests in the last year, has eaten meats and dairy his entire life and never once considered a vegetarian lifestyle.
If Mikey wins, Tom Dwan would have to pay out $2 million – half for the weight-loss prop, and half for the vegetarian prop, with $1 million of that cash going to the Williamsburg, Iowa Public Library Fund. Meanwhile, if Mikey loses, he’ll have to work at the local McDonald’s (or any fast food restaurant that will hire him) and give up poker for the next year. As a 25-year veteran of local poker games, that would be a steep price for him to pay – though whether it’s worth the other guy putting up $2 million in cash is debatable.
The bet (full details here) is still just a proposition at this point, and in reality the chances of Dwan accepting it are slim to none. But wouldn’t it be cool if Dwan decided to go along with it? Then we’d have the drama we’d all hoped for when Ivey took the vegetarian prop bet in the first place.
Daniel Negreanu Tilts on High Stakes Poker
April 12th, 2010
Daniel Negreanu folds a winner and can’t hold back his frustration.
Season 6 of High Stakes Poker has turned the corner and is getting
ready to hit its final stretch, as last night’s episode saw the third and final lineup of players take to the table with a minimum $200,000.
David Benyamine, Doyle Brunson, Mike Matusow, and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier were the Season 6 newcomers at the table, th
ough all of them but ElkY have appeared on the show in the past. Eli Elezra returned after playing in the first Season 6 lineup but sitting out its second session. And Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan and
Daniel Negreanu all came back for their third session of the season.
Of the Season 6 newcomers, two were involved in the biggest pot of the night, with Benyamine winning the $265,500 monster while Brunson came out on the losing end. But the biggest story of that hand was Negreanu making the wrong decision and laying down a winner when Benyamine made a sly play.
In that hand, Negreanu opened in early position for $3,000 with Ts-9s, Brunson called with Qh-Qc, and Benyamine called in the small blind with 7s-5s. The flop came 9c-8s-3s and after Benyamine checked, Negreanu led out for $8,500 into $11,400. Brunson elected to flat-call and Benyamine stuck around as well. With $36,900 in the pot, the Qs fell on the turn and all three players decided to trap, checking the action.
The Ah on the river didn’t change anything. When Benyamine checked, Negreanu decided to bet out for $26,200. Brunson called, but then Benyamine went into the tank before check-raising to $101,200. Negreanu appeared immediately confused and frustrated, rolling his eyes, blinking quickly, shaking his head and pinching the bridge of his nose as he reconstructed the action in his head. Eventually he decided he must be behind and folded, only to see Brunson call with his set of queens and Benyamine turn over the smaller flush.
When Benyamine turned over his cards, the normally controlled Negreanu stood up and slammed him fist on the rail. “Damn it! Unbelievable!” he said. He continued to shake his head, obviously stunned by his misstep. He lost another pot shortly afterward with J-J when he played slowly out of position against Elezra and let him river a three-outer with A-9. This loss saw him more controlled than the previous one, but he still shook his head in disbelief and flipped his cards into the muck in disgust, muttering, “The way I run on this show…this is just sick, this is so sick.”
Phil Ivey Runs a Huge Bluff on High Stakes Poker
April 5th, 2010
Word of advice: don’t make moves against this man on High Stakes Poker.
Much like high-stakes online poker has been for the last year, Season 6 of High Stakes Poker on GSN has been all about Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey. The two have dominated every episode that’s been aired so far, adding some big hands to their personal highlight reels. And in last night’s episode, Ivey added another televised, top-notch bluff to the list of reasons why everyone fears him at the poker table.
The hand began with Dutch online star Lex Veldhuis under the gun posting a $1,600 straddle. Barry Greenstein decided to get involved, raising to $5,500 in early position with Qc-Td. Then Ivey silently stepped in with a reraise to $18,000 holding nothing more than 5s-2d. The action folded back around to Veldhuis, who read the situation well and decided his Kh-Jh was good enough to put in a four-bet worth $51,600. At least, it would have been a good read of the situation against any other opponent. But things have a habit of going a little funny when Ivey is involved.
Ivey immediately asked Veldhuis how much he had behind. After a quick count Veldhuis said he about $140,000 left. For the next ten seconds Ivey considered the situation, and announcer Gabe Kaplan opined that the world’s greatest poker player was putting on a show just so Greenstein wouldn’t know that he’d raised with complete air. But once that ten seconds was up Ivey did the unexpected and announced himself all-in. That put Veldhuis on the line for his entire $197,200 stack if he decided to make the call.
Veldhuis did exactly what you would expect given the situation – he looked palpably sick and gave a long exhale as he tossed his cards in the muck. “All these super-good spots keep coming up,” Veldhuis remarked. But as Kaplan noted in his commentary, there are no super-good spots when you’re up against Phil Ivey – especially if the venue is High Stakes Poker.
Big Misreads from Negreanu, Robl on High Stakes Poker
March 29th, 2010
Daniel Negreanu’s timing is off against Tom Dwan at the 6:09 mark.
The news has been all over the internet since the end of last week: Season 6 of High Stakes Poker is enjoying the series’ highest ratings of all-time. That’s mostly thanks to the presence of players like Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan in this season’s lineup – and not just because they’re willing to make $1 million vegetarian side bets. Their presence has upped the overall level of play to new HSP heights.
Episode 7 started off pretty slowly and looked like it might be a return to this season’s early, dull episodes, when the side bet talk was far more interesting than the action on the table. But two spectacular misreads at the end of the hour, one by High Stakes Poker newcomer Andrew Robl and the other by veteran Daniel Negreanu, made sitting through the early hands worthwhile.
Robl’s misstep came in the next-to-last pot of the show. Lex Veldhuis had straddled for $1,600 under the gun and Phil Ivey opened for $7,000 in middle position holding Kd-Td. Robl made the call behind Ivey with As-Qh, but when the action reached Patrik Antonius in the small blind the bet went up to $30,400 on account of the Finn’s Ah-Ac. Veldhuis and Ivey quickly mucked, but Robl thought it over for a while, even staring Antonius down at one point. “That glance is pretty useless. It’s like staring at Mount Rushmore an expecting Abraham Lincoln to blink,” noted host Gabe Kaplan. Robl eventually decided to shove for a total of $144,300. Antonius instacalled and even running it twice couldn’t get Robl half of his money back. He showed more heart than some of the other casualties on this season, immediately pulling out his bag and putting another $200K on the table.
Negreanu’s misread came against none other than Tom Dwan when the latter was under the gun with a $1,600 straddle in front of him. Negreanu raised holding Jd-8s and when the action returned to Dwan he found As-Kd and reraised to $23,600. “What are you doing there, sir?” asked Negreanu – and then he made the call to see a flop of Ah-Ad-Jh. Dwan immediately fired out $28,200 into a pot of $49,800, and Negreanu called. Dwan bet once again when the Kc turn gave him a full house, but this time Negreanu opted for a raise to $128,600. Dwan elected to just call and try to induce a bluff on the river, but Negreanu saved himself some cash when the Ts came and the $383,400 pot went to Dwan.
