Posts Tagged ‘wsop’
Germany on the Board with Pius Heinz WSOP Victory
November 11th, 2011
Pius Heinz wins and then hugs his $8.7 million. (Image Courtesy Pokerlistings.com)
Zee Germans have scored! Yes, in a final hand Pius Heinz won the 2011 WSOP Main Event with Ace High after calling a pre-flop push from runner-up Martin Staszko. Staszko tabled T-7 suited and picked up a guthsot straight draw on the turn to add extra excitement to the final hand but it was not to be as Heinz’ high card held and instantly plopped $8.7 million into his pocket and a sweet piece of hardward on his wrist.
Staszko gets to weep into a pile of $5,433,086 for his second place finish.
Young poker players have staked their claim as the champions to beat with the last four WSOP Main Event winners being under 23 or younger when they won. Likewise, with Heinz winning, the dominant force of American poker players have had to sit on the sideline for three of the last four years.
Heinz takes away a pretty sweet comeback story to go along with his cash and bracelet. The new champ entered the final table seventh in chips but quickly turned the tables and held the chip lead with half of all the chips in play going into three-way action. Things evened out, however, after Staszko doubled up through and then eliminated third place finisher, Ben Lamb (2011 Player of the Year) in order to be roughly even in chips with Heinz.
The fact that the WSOP Final Table was broadcast semi-live did play a factor in Heinz’ victory as he stated that, “It was good to know that Martin just had a hand every time he made a big bet or a big raise because when you think you’re getting bluffed or outplayed it messes with your confidence. So when the rail tells you that Martin just had a hand every time then you’re thinking that you never did anything wrong and you’re lucky to still be in because I never called or bluffed him when he had a big hand.”
What do you think? Should the WSOP continue to show hole cards in the semi-live broadcast, or does it affect the game too much?
For those with a thirst for the details here is a complete account of the WSOP Final Table. For those looking to qualify for a live tournament themselves and get their own money hugging picture, check out the Cake Poker Aussie Millions qualifiers.
Every Hand of WSOP Final Table on ESPN3
October 19th, 2011
This year ESPN is offering an unprecedented look at the WSOP Final Table as it will air every single hand on ESPN3. Also new is the fact that the coverage will be virtually live with just a 15-minute delay.
ESPN senior director of programming, Doug White, stated that, “We had great success with our live WSOP Main Event shows this summer and this kind of unprecedented coverage of the Final Table on ESPN3 will allow fans to experience the culmination of the biggest event in poker.”
As far as showing hole cards goes, ESPN will not be showing every player’s cards, but just the players who bet into a pot or have any kind of effect on it.
WSOP Commentators will be as follows:
- WSOP Europe – Lon McEachern and Olivier Busquet
- WSOP Final Table – McEachern and David Tuchman
- WSOP Final Three – McEachern, Norman Chad and Antonio Esfandiari
If you’re not one of the November Nine (there must be about 7 billion of you out there), you can still qualify for a killer live tourney with our Aussie Millions satellites. Qualifiers run every day with the Final $250 + $18 Qualifier running at 5pm EST on the last Sunday of every month.
2010 November Nine Reuniting at Foxwoods
January 10th, 2011
Foxwoods is getting the band back together – and you’re invited to come along.
Normally it takes a stroke of luck to get more than one former WSOP Main Event finalist at the same poker table. Next month, though, all nine of last year’s finalists will reunite at the Foxwoods Resort Casino.
Last year’s November Nine – Jonathan Duhamel, John Racener, Joseph Cheong, Filippi Candio, Michael Mizrachi, John Dolan, Jason Senti, Matt Jarvis and Soi Nguyen – are being reassembled as part of Foxwoods’ Mega Stack Challenge XIX, which runs from February 4th to the 13th. They will all serve as hosts for the tournament series, but more interestingly, they will all play in a three-table reunion tournament against winners of a series of satellite tournaments to be held at the casino from January 11th to February 3rd. The reunion tournament is scheduled for February 8th in the newly opened Foxwoods tournament room.
“We are thrilled to host these poker superstars at Foxwoods and are proud to be a part of such a historic event,” said Terry Chiaradio, director of Poker Operations at Foxwoods. “We are pleased to be able to share this reunion of the 2010 November Nine with not only the Foxwoods players, but also the entire poker community.”
This isn’t the first time Foxwoods has welcomed members of the November Nine to its property for one of its signature tournament series. Duhamel, the reigning world champion, hosted the Mega Stack Challenge last fall, and 2009 WSOP Main Event runner-up Darvin Moon has also played host at the Connecticut casino’s tournament series in the past.
Tom Marchese Wins Card Player Player of the Year
December 24th, 2010
Merry Christmas, Mr. Player of the Year! (Photo: WJMedia.net)
With the last major tournament of the year now put to bed in Atlantic City, Card Player magazine has its 2010 Player of the Year: live tournament circuit rookie Tom “kingsofcards” Marchese.
Marchese’s year started off in style with his first-ever live tournament cash, a third-place finish at the Borgata Winter Open championship event. It didn’t give him any POY points, but it was good for $190,027. Then Marchese won the NAPT Venetian main event ($827,648), took fourth at the Wynn Classic ($73,356), took fourth at the EPT Grand Final High Roller event ($350,125) and finished sixth at the WSOP $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em World Championship ($123,364), all by the end of the summer.
From there Marchese upped the ante with final table appearances at EPT London (7th, $157,159), the WPT Foxwoods World Poker Finals (3rd, $211,759) and the NAPT Los Angeles Bounty Shootout (5th, $24,000) before closing out the year with a $45,958 win in a $1,000 rebuy tournament at Bellagio’s Five Diamond World Poker Classic. All told, his two titles and 11 final tables earned him more than $2.1 million in 2010.
The incredible year for Marchese overshadowed another impressive year from Dwyte Pilgrim, whose five titles (including the WPT Borgata Poker Open), 13 final tables and $1 million in earnings were good for second place on the Card Player POY list. The rest of the top five was made up of Borgata Spring Poker Open champ Sorel Mizzi, NAPT Mohegan Sun and Partouche Poker Tour winner Vanessa Selbst, and 2010 WSOP Main Event runner-up John Racener.
Tom Marchese joins some pretty select company as the Card Player Player of the Year. Past winners have included Michael Mizrachi, Eric Baldwin, Men “The Master” Nguyen, T.J. Cloutier, John Phan, David Pham and Daniel Negreanu.
Chris Bell Wins WSOP Circuit East Regional Championship
December 23rd, 2010
Chris Bell ended a career year in style in Atlantic City.
Chris Klodnicki walked into the final table of the WSOP Circuit East Regional Championship with the chip lead, and he eliminated three players from contention to find himself heads-up for a major tournament title in Atlantic City for the second year running. But in the end he had to settle for second place as one of the year’s great comeback stories continued for Chris Bell.
Bell entered the day just behind Klodnicki in chips and played a tight game for most of the final table, as evidenced by his knockouts of two different players while holding pocket queens. The key knockout was that of third-place finisher Ketan Pandya ($159,851), putting Bell slightly behind Klodnicki heading into the final matchup. After nearly an hour of back-and-forth over small pots, the two finally clashed on a 6-5-3 flop, with Klodnicki leading out with 6-4 for top pair and an open-ended straight draw and Bell moving all-in with 3-3 for a flopped set. Klodnicki eventually called, and the board failed to produce any of his outs, sending him home in second place ($221,452).
It’s been quite a year for Chris Bell, whose win in A.C. moves him over the $1 million mark in earnings for the year, a first in his eight-year poker career. He also moved over the $1 million mark for earnings in WSOP-related events with the win, as well as the $2.5 million mark for career earnings – not bad for a guy who admitted after his first bracelet win this summer that he nearly went broke from a bad run before this year began.
The WSOP Circuit Regional Championship final table was filmed and will air on the VERSUS network sometime in mid-2011.
Chris Klodnicki Leads WSOP Circuit Regional Championship
December 22nd, 2010
Philadelphia’s Chris Klodnicki seeks his second WSOPC title in Atlantic City later today.
The World Series of Poker Circuit Eastern Regional Championship being held at Harrah’s in Atlantic City has seen its field whittled down from a starting tally of 136 players to just nine. Now it’s time for the players to take their game in front of the cameras for everyone to see just what they’re really made of.
Leading the way when play resumes later today will be Chris Klodnicki, who holds 759,000 in chips and has had an incredible year on the WSOP Circuit. Klodnicki won the WSOPC Main Event in A.C. last December, took fourth place in the WSOPC Main Event at Caesars Atlantic City earlier this year, and finished 15th in this year’s Midwest Regional Championship at Horseshoe Hammond.
Right behind Klodnicki is Chris Bell with 706,000 in chips. Bell won his first WSOP bracelet this summer, and he is enjoying the single best year of his eight-year poker career with more than $650,000 in earnings so far. Other notables at the final table include two-time WPT final tablist Todd Terry (307,000) and reigning WPT Legends of Poker champ Andy Frankenberger (230,000). Just missing out on the final table was 10th-place finisher Matthew Waxman, who last week won the $1,600 WSOPC Main Event in Atlantic City for $117,797. The others who cashed but missed the final table were Beth Shak, Victor Ramdin, Brett Richey, Frank Calo and Eugene Katchalov, all of whom earned at least $21,600 for their efforts.
With the final table lineup now officially set, nine more players have booked their trips to Las Vegas in May for the WSOP Circuit National Championship. Regardless of where they finish, each of them is guaranteed $32,362 for this Regional Championship and a shot at the largest share of a $1 million prize pool at Caesars Palace next spring. In the meantime, though, they’ll all have their eyes on the $358,295 top prize that goes to the winner in A.C. later today.
Poker Reality Show Young Guns Coming in 2011
December 21st, 2010
More reality TV about online poker players could be coming to your cable box soon.
If you loved 2 Months, 2 Million but don’t want to wait for those guys to wrangle up another cable network to follow them around, you’ll want to keep your eyes peeled for a new show called Young Guns.
The show follows four online pros – Chris Jackson, Chris Sparks, Jarran Joshu and Seth Otterstad – as they live their lives in the world of professional poker. Sounds familiar, right? Pretty much, though the show’s approach does differ a bit from last year’s big poker reality show sensation. For instance, instead of living in Las Vegas during the World Series of Poker like 2M2M, the Young Guns play online poker in Los Angeles when the WSOP isn’t running. And instead of living in a posh, fully appointed Vegas condo, the Young Guns are living in a posh, fully appointed $7 million mansion owned by some dude named Chris Murphy, whose role is apparently “the guy who goes around annoying the hell out of the poker players by having a fit over everything they do.” Seriously, this guy missed his calling when he was born too late to play the square who tries to keep the cool cats from having a good time in a 1960s beach movie.
The show is really pretty standard stuff for reality TV about poker, and it looks interesting enough apart from the jerk landlord. You can check out the trailer for the show, which was apparently linked from Rounders 2 production house Miramax, at the top of this post. The producers are still searching for a network to air Young Guns but there’s a good chance the entire 13-episode run could be at your Tivo-ing fingertips sometime next year.
Antonio Esfandiari Makes Birthday Magic at Bellagio
December 10th, 2010
Imagine the birthday party those stacks of cash would buy in Vegas!
At Bellagio in Las Vegas, Antonio Esfandiari outlasted one of the toughest final table lineups in recent World Poker Tour history to grab his second WPT title at the Five Diamond World Poker Classic – and he did it on his birthday, no less.
The 32-year-old Esfandiari entered the final table second in chips behind Vanessa Rousso, who scored the day’s first knockout with Q-Q to Ted Lawson’s 9-9, busting Lawson in sixth place ($126,693). Andrew Robl stepped up next and sent Kirk Morrison home in fifth place ($168,924) when his 5-5 flopped a set against Morrison’s top pair with A-J. Then Esfandiari eliminated 2010 November Niner John Racener in fourth place ($232,271) with K-Q against Q-8 to set up a three-way battle for the top spot.
Robl and Rousso tangled again and again while Esfandiari sat back and waited for a good spot, with Robl getting the better of the confrontations. Eventually Rousso shoved all-in with Q-2, only to run into Esfandiari’s A-Q and hit the rail in third place ($358,964). The two remaining competitors traded the chip lead several times before Esfandiari’s K-J outlasted Robl’s Q-T, sending Robl to the payout cage to collect his $549,003 runner-up reward.
The $870,124 Bellagio win is the first tournament victory for Antonio Esfandiari since he beat the field in a $500 event at the Imperial Palace in Biloxi back in 2007. More importantly, it’s his first major victory since 2004, when he won both the WPT’s LA Poker Classic and his first WSOP bracelet in the $2,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em event. Those wins helped to catapult him into poker’s spotlight, where he’s managed to stay ever since. Only time will tell whether The Magician capitalizes on his recent success the way he did back in the day, but for now, at least, he’s enjoying the moment.
Breaking Down the Matt Affleck WSOP Bustout Hand
December 3rd, 2010
For some people, it aches just to look at this.
Without a doubt, Matt Affleck’s bustout hand at the 2010 WSOP Main Event was one of the single most dramatic moments captured by ESPN’s cameras since the network began devoting serious airtime to poker in 2003. In the latest edition of Card Player’s The Scoop, Affleck lets you savor the pain of that beat for yourself as he breaks down exactly what he was thinking from the time he was dealt those two aces until Jonathan Duhamel called with his two jacks on the turn.
It’s worth clarifying here that Affleck is a consummate pro and is obviously over the beat. Still, The Scoop’s hosts Adam Schoenfeld and Diego Cordovez walk through the hand with Affleck in such a detailed manner that everyone who watched it on ESPN gets the opportunity to relive the hand all over again from Affleck’s perspective. You might not necessarily feel like hiding your face in your hat or hurling your bottle of water in disgust at a trash can outside the Amazon Room, but your stomach will probably turn just a bit.
Interestingly, Affleck says that Duhamel later told him that he likely would have shipped his entire stack in pre-flop if Affleck had opted to raise Duhamel’s four-bet instead of simply calling it. The result obviously would have been the same, but thankfully for poker players everywhere Matt Affleck chose to call and gave us the kind of post-flop poker that we can actually talk about. Check out the video here.
New Poker Advice Book Called “Don’t Listen to Phil Hellmuth”
November 30th, 2010
Is this the face of a man you want giving you advice? Or anything else?
Phil Hellmuth may have more WSOP bracelets than anyone else, but that doesn’t mean he’s the most respected mind in the game. In fact, a lot of us whipper-snapper online poker types think of him as a bit of a dinosaur. The title of a new poker book by Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt seems to take that sentiment and run with it. It’s called: “Don’t Listen to Phil Hellmuth”, with a sub-title: “Correcting the 50 worst pieces of poker advice you ever heard.”
The author, Leatherass, is an online legend. In just over five years, he’s won more than $3 million playing live games and has, as he states, never had a losing month. He’s built a reputation for being a thinking man’s player who, again as he says, looks at poker as a business. And so what sort of advice fills his awesomely titled new poker advice book?
It’s all about correcting some of the advice you may have heard as you learned to play the game. And it’s not just Phil that’s dishing out the bad tips. He also points to other poker authors, TV commentators and various experts as being full of questionable wisdom. Each of the chapters seeks to correct a common poker misconception. A couple examples: “Misconception #7: Make all your preflop bets the same size”, “Misconception #27: If you have the best hand, raise!” and “Misconception #31: Always play your draws aggressively.”
As he mentions in the synopsis posted on his website, Leatherass admits that there’s some truth to a lot of those theories, but that the reality is that they’re all big misconceptions. And if you buy the book, you’ll get to see exactly why.
The 450-page book sells for $49.95 and can be pre-ordered on his website. The e-version will be sent on December 6th, with the hard-copies going out January 2nd.
