Posts Tagged ‘joe cada’
WSOP: Theo Jorgensen, Michael Mizrachi Lead Main Event After Day 6
July 16th, 2010
WPT Grand Prix de Paris champ Theo Jorgensen leads the WSOP Main Event.
Only 78 players, a little more than one percent, remain of the original 7,319 who started playing the World Series of Poker Main Event way back on July 5th. One of the beautiful things about this particular tournament finding its way down to this size is that the sea of numbers from the beginning of the tournament turns into a slew of stories.
One of the biggest stories of the tournament so far found its ending during Day 6 when two-time Main Event winner Johnny Chan was knocked out in 156th place for $57,102. Chan’s run to become the third player in history to win the tournament three times hit a major obstacle when he ran his pocket kings into pocket aces, and the job was finished off when Chan moved all-in with pocket jacks only to once more find himself called down by pocket aces.
There are still plenty of tales to tell, though. Overnight chip leader and recent WPT Grand Prix de Paris champion Theo Jorgensen (8,450,000 in chips) once fought – and beat – fellow Dane and poker pro Gus Hansen in a boxing match. Second-place man Michael Mizrachi (7,725,000) has made his mark on the WSOP this summer, winning the $50,000 Poker Players Championship and making two other final tables for more than $1.68 million in earnings, the most of any player in 2010; he can tie Frank Kassela for Player of the Year only by winning this tournament.
John Racener (7,200,000) finished in third place at the WSOP Circuit Harrah’s Atlantic City main event just after his 21st birthday in December 2006, and then came back the next year and won the very same event for his first career tournament title. Alexander Kostritsyn (6,960,000) beat eight-time WSOP bracelet winner Erik Seidel heads-up to win the 2008 Aussie Millions main event in Melbourne and then won the $10,000 HORSE tournament there the following year. William Thorson (6,200,000) has won three live events in the last year and finished in 13th place at the 2006 WSOP Main Event.
Even in the lower half of the chip counts there are past accomplishments to tell about. Hasan Habib (1,165,000) made the WSOP Main Event final table with Jim McManus in 2000 and was immortalized in the professor’s poker classic Positively Fifth Street. Jeff Banghart (645,000) is a WSOP Circuit ring winner who took 41st in the 2007 WSOP Main Event. Jacobo Fernandez (705,000) made a run at WSOP Player of the Year back in 2008 when he cashed seven times, including two runner-up finishes and a third-place to boot. And Jean-Robert Bellande (700,000) was on Survivor.
Of course, the past is what happened before. The present – the task of determining who will succeed Joe Cada as the WSOP Main Event champion – is all that matters now, and it continues at the Rio at noon PT today.
WSOP: Tournament of Champions Begins Today
June 27th, 2010
Top vote-getter Phil Ivey will play in the TOC today at the Rio.
After months of build-up, the 2010 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions finally gets started today at noon. The $1 million freeroll featuring some of the game’s top players will play four levels beginning at 12 p.m. PT today. The remaining players will return on Monday at noon to play down to a final table, which will then be delayed until July 4th.
The field is a formidable one. Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Doyle Brunson, Allen Cunningham, Phil Hellmuth, Chris Ferguson, Johnny Chan, Scotty Nguyen, Barry Greenstein, Erik Seidel, Jennifer Harman, Huck Seed, Dan Harrington, T.J. Cloutier, Sammy Farha, Howard Lederer, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem and Antonio Esfandiari all made it into the tournament thanks to the public’s votes. Annie Duke, Mike Matusow and Mike Sexton all earned their seats as former Tournament of Champions winners. Joe Cada and Barry Shulman qualified for winning the 2009 WSOP and WSOP Europe main events, and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Andrew Barton won their way in through sponsor exemptions.
The Tournament of Champions is one of the handful of things other than the Main Event being filmed by ESPN this year, with the hopes that its stacked field will draw a bigger audience share than other non-Main Event episodes have in the last few years. The edited footage will be broadcast on the cable network in August, but ESPN3.com will stream the whole thing live beginning at 12 p.m. PT today.
The winner of the WSOP Tournament of Champions will take home $500,000.Runner -up gets $250,000, third place earns $100,000, and the rest of the players at the final table will bank $25,000 each.
Voting for WSOP Tournament of Champions Ends Tomorrow
June 14th, 2010
Annette Obrestad is hoping to get enough votes to play in the TOC.
When the World Series of Poker decided to resurrect the Tournament of Champions after a four-year layoff, the twist to get the public’s attention was that most of the table lineup would be determined by their votes. Now the deadline for having a say in the process is drawing near, so if you have a favorite eligible player it’s time to do your part in getting them into this one-of-a-kind $1,000,000 freeroll.
Seven of the 27 seats in the tournament are already locked up. The winners of past incarnations of the Tournament of Champions – Annie Duke, Mike Matusow and Mike Sexton – are all guaranteed spots in the tournament. The two reigning champions from the biggest WSOP tournaments of 2009 – Main Event champion Joe Cada and WSOP Europe Main Event winner Barry Shulman – also have their seats locked up. Top poker pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier won a special sit-and-go for non-bracelet winners to earn his seat, and 33-year-old Andrew Barton of the United Kingdom won his seat in an online competition.
The other 20 seats are still up for grabs, though. Top players like Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, Annette Obrestad, Joe Hachem, and Scotty Nguyen are among the top 50 vote-getters at the moment, as are some more surprising former bracelet winners like Alexander Kravchenko, Peter Smurfit, Eli Elezra and David Sklansky.
Voting for the 2010 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions is open through 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow night, June 15th. You can reach the ballot by going to the Tournament of Champions website. The final, official list of WSOP TOC participants is expected to be announced on June 17th.
Poker Reality TV Shows in the Works
April 21st, 2010
World champ Joe Cada is getting his own reality TV series.
Nothing sells on television these days better than reality shows. Whether it’s the Real Housewives or the Top Chefs or faded stars learning to dance, TV executives love them some reality. And as the hundreds of hours of programming on ESPN and other cable networks prove, TV audiences can’t get enough poker. Mix the two and you’ve got the makings of two upcoming reality TV shows.
The first is called 6th Street: Life After the River and features reigning world champion Joe Cada. Think HBO’s Entourage crossed with 2 Months, 2 Million and you’ve got the idea behind this series. There’s the November Nine, the win over Darvin Moon, the subsequent media circus, the girlfriend, the nightlife, and the friends who somehow find a way to hang on for the
ride as their buddy enjoys life as the youngest Main Event champion in World Series of Poker history. Plenty of drama there, no? Joe Cada and 6th Street will likely hit the small screen this fall.
The other poker reality series in the works right now has less star power, so it’s banking on the natural drama of unknowns trying to make a big score. The yet-to-be-named series is being produced by Headsup Entertainment, the company responsible for the popular Canadian Poker Tour. Between 12 and 16 contestants will be chosen from a casting call that will screen thousands of potential contestants, so this show is more American Idol than Kim Kardashian. Headsup is currently negotiating with sponsors and planning to have the series completed in time to air this fall.
Early Voting Strong for WSOP Tournament of Champions
March 18th, 2010
Prahlad Friedman wants your help to get a WSOP TOC invite.
The World Series of Poker recently announced that it would be bringing back the Tournament of Champions for 2010, this time as a 27-player invitational with most of the lineup determined by the public at large.
Some players like 2009 WSOP Main Event champ Joe Cada and former TOC winners Mike Sexton and Mike Matusow got automatic invitations to the event, but the remaining participants are being selected by a public vote. After the first day of voting the WSOP announced that more than 40,000 fans had already cast their votes. Now a number of players who are eligible to play in the tournament are now campaigning on Twitter and other social networks for a shot at the $1 million freeroll.
Prahlad Friedman, the rapping WSOP bracelet winner who simultaneously set off a firestorm of criticism and won over new fans in 2003 after using his bracelet win as an opportunity to launch into a tirade against the Iraq War, has been campaigning on social networks to get fans to vote him into the TOC. Among his supporters is Poker After Dark commentator Ali Nejad. Meanwhile Dr. Pauly at the popular poker blog Tao of Poker has launched an unlikely campaign to get three-time bracelet winner Paul “Eskimo” Clark into the TOC, one that has gathered some steam thanks to support from fans and other poker blogs like Pokerati.
Of course, the idea of public voting for the TOC hasn’t been without criticism from some of the poker community. Typical of the critics was PokerNews editor-in-chief Matthew Parvis, who wrote on Twitter, “I wish people would take the WSOP TOC voting seriously, and not turn this into a popularity contest. I guess i just wish everyone had the integrity of the WSOP and poker in mind, which i know is an impossible request.”
Votes can be cast only once, but poker fans have until June to help their favorite players get a shot at the million. If you haven’t had your say on the Tournament of Champions lineup yet, what are you waiting for? Head over to the WSOP’s TOC voting page and help a brother out.
Vote for your 2010 WSOP All-Stars
March 15th, 2010
Former Tournament of Champions winner Mike Matusow will be a WSOP All-Star. (photo courtesy of WSOP)
As we first reported a couple weeks ago, this year’s World Series of Poker festivities will include a 2010 WSOP All-Star game. The event will be an updated replacement for the Tournament of Champions, which ran from 2004-2006, before being cancelled.
That event was an invitational, but the new All-Star game comes with a nice democratic twist. Twenty of the twenty-seven participants in the tournament will be chosen by we, the people. Starting today, until June 15th at midnight, you can cruise on over to the WSOP site to vote for up to 20 players you’d like to see play. The only twist, and it’s a pretty big one, is that only past WSOP bracelet winners qualify.
Rounding out the 27 all-stars will be the past three Tournament of Champions winners – Annie Duke, Mike Matusow and Mike Sexton – as well as the most recent WSOP and WSOPE Main Event victors – Joe Cada and Barry Shulman. Finally, there will be two sponsor’s wild card exemptions, though we’ll have to wait a while to see who gets those.
The All-Star game will have a prize pool of $1 million up for grabs and will be televised on NBC on Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010. The actual event will start on Sunday, June 27th, where the 27 players will play until there’s just nine left. The final table will go on Sunday, July 4th.
Supermodel and World Champ Join Fox’s Million Dollar Challenge
December 10th, 2009
Supermodel Joanna Krup gets in the way (photo courtesy of FOX)
In news that is surprising to some, the new-ish FOX poker program Million Dollar Challenge is turning out to be a runaway hit. The first episode was the most watched poker show in history, with around 4 million viewers. Week 2 surpassed that with another couple million more tuning in. And this week, the appearance of Tito Ortiz and supermodel and Maxim’s Sexiest Swimsuit Model in the World, Joanna Krup, promises even more reason to tune in.
If you haven’t already watched it, the format works like this: the contestants, who are regular schlubs off the street (well, they have to qualify for the show by winning a tournament and then sending it a video) have to first play a celebrity opponent in heads-up play, in this case former UFC champ Ortiz, or Krup. If they can beat the celeb, they move on to a match against a poker pro. But it’s not quite as easy as you’d think to beat the celeb. Early reports suggest that both Ortiz and Krup have some poker chops. In fact, the supermodel has been playing for years, and entered the 2006 WSOP Main Event.
But assuming they can knock off their famous opponent, they then get to play a poker pro for $25,000. Also new this week, WSOP Main Event champ Joe Cada has been added to the stable of pros ready to get between contestants and their chance at glory. But if the player is able to knock off Joe Cada, or one of the other pros, they get a heads-up match against Daniel Negreanu for $100,000. Win that, and they get a seat at a final game with all the other $100,000 winners, and Negreanu again. And the winner of that match gets the million bucks. Easy, right?
If that all sounds interesting, or you just like the idea of watching Joanna Krup push chips around, then tune in to episode 3 this Sunday. It comes on right after FOX’s NFL action is done for the day.
BLUFF Magazine Readers Choice Awards
December 9th, 2009
Favorite Player of 2009 Nominee Daniel Negreanu.
If you’re a reader of BLUFF Magazine, there’s some news you might be interested in. No, they haven’t decided to start doing a swimsuit issue (which, given the average physique of us poker players, isn’t such a bad thing) but they did just release the nominees for their annual Readers Choice Awards. Besides the usual categories, they’ve added a couple new ones that are kinda fun.
Favorite player of 2009 nominees include: Phil Ivey, Jason Mercier, Daniel Negreanu and Bertrand Grospellier. You can also vote for your favorite TV poker show, Vegas poker room, poker twitterer and 2009 Favorite Poker Villain. Nominees for that esteemed category include Phil Helmuth, Mike Matusow, Mark Vos and Luke “__FullFlush1__” Schwartz.
And yes, there’s a category for Favorite Online Poker Site, and yes, Cake Poker is a nominee. Interestingly, Joe Cada doesn’t appear as a nominee in any category. I guess they didn’t have room for the category “Favorite Guy Who Won $8.5 million at an Age When I Was Making $6.50 an Hour as a Bus Boy”.
Voting is open right now, and you can take part by clicking here. The polls close on Friday, January 8th at midnight. Winners will be announced on BluffMagazine.com on January 28th and in the February issue of the print magazine.
Steven Begleiter Talks Poker on Bloomberg
November 24th, 2009
Steven Begleiter ponders his future in the game.
While 2009 WSOP Main Event champion Joe Cada has been on a publicity tear since his victory, not much has been heard from the other members of the November Nine. Well, Phil Ivey has been winning millions in high-stakes online poker action, but the other seven guys have been pretty quiet. Steven Begleiter, former Wall Streeter and sixth place finisher in the Main Event, recently came out of seclusion to discuss his poker future on Bloomberg.
Joining news hosts Mark Crumpton and Lori Rothman, Begleiter implied that he’s not going to give up his day job to devote his life to poker any time soon. He said that during the break awaiting the November final table, he played quite a few poker tournaments to help prepare himself. But now that that’s over, he’s “probably back to being a one tournament a year guy.” That, despite the fact that his final table appearance earned him approximately $1.6 million dollars for a few days work.
He also went on to say that many of the same traits that make a poker player great, would easy cross over to a job on Wall Street. He even said that if his former company Bear Stearns hadn’t exploded during the banking collapse, he’d probably have been trying to hire some of the players that he met during his WSOP run.
During the interview, it was pretty clear that Bloomberg News was interested in Begleiter more for his background, than out of a greater interest in poker. At least that was the impression given when one of the hosts mistakenly stated that the WSOP Main Event was a $10 million buy-in tournament. It seems that kind of mis-information runs in the Bloomberg family.
Joe Cada Wrestles With Newfound Fame
November 17th, 2009
Joe Cada Moves From the Poker Table to the Wrestling Ring
Ahhhhhh, the life of a WSOP Main Event champion. Just a few months ago, he was a mild-mannered, relatively obscure online poker player. And now, Joe Cada spends his days trying to decide what to do with his millions of dollars in winnings, and his nights making appearances on WWE Monday Night Raw and David Letterman.
Joe Cada showed up at Madison Square Gardens in New York City for last nights’ episode of Raw, along with a fledgling entourage consisting of agent Dan Frank, and fellow pro Dennis Phillips. Unfortunately for those who bet on someone other than him to win the WSOP, he didn’t actually get pummeled in the ring by any pro wrestlers. He stayed ringside, making only a brief appearance at the announcer’s table with his posse.
Tonight, he’ll be continuing his NYC tour of TV appearances with a slot on The Late Show With David Letterman. He’s the first poker pro to get an invite from Dave, since Annie Duke sat on his couch way back in 2004. The fact that he’s the only WSOP champ invited to appear on The Late Show seems like a clear sign of the growing popularity of the event, and the good job Cada has done promoting himself and the game.
