Amarillo Slim Preston, the world's greatest gambler announced the opening of his new website http://amarilloslim.org
Amarillo Slim Preston, the world's greatest gambler announced the opening of his new website http://amarilloslim.org . On his website, you will find news and events as well as information pertaining to the gambling legend. There is also a merchandise page where you can purchase exclusive Amarillo Slim merchandise such as autographs and other exclusive collectible items. Download poker wallpapers.
Also, he has just released a new Poker E-Book, All In: An E-guide To No Limit Texas Hold'em, by Amarillo Slim Preston with Brent Riley, this guide is full of tips to make you a winning poker player. The guide covers many aspects of no limit hold'em including odds and probabilities, starting hands, tells, discipline, as well as many other secrets as well as a few stories from the poker legend. Play $500 match poker bonus.
Amarillo Slim Preston is a true poker legend, member of five halls of fame, winner of five WSOP bracelets, including the WSOP Championship in 1972. Play online poker. Besides poker, he is also known as a world class billiard's player and one of the most publicized proposition gamblers in history, making him one of the most successful and recognizable gamblers the world has ever known. Stay tuned to our poker blog for latest updates.
The World Poker Store (PINKSHEETS: WPKS), a Nevada corporation with corporate offices in St. Paul, MN, recently opened offices in Fort Myers, Florida. These offices will support The Bar Poker League as well as gaming partner efforts in the Southeast. The company will also launch the league in Wisconsin this September as they expand tournament services and The Bar Poker League across the country. As part of the company's growth initiatives, offices in Minnesota, The Netherlands and now Florida will serve as headquarters for operations in their respective regions both domestic and overseas. "With brick and mortar retail stores, online poker sales, The Bar Poker League and Corporate Event and Fundraiser Tournament services offered in each market, we felt a need to open offices to support the multiple business models in each area. The expansion of the league to Wisconsin is a prime example of how our Minnesota offices will allow us to open throughout the Midwest and we expect similar impact in Europe and the Southeast region of the US," said Greg Needham, VP of Marketing and Business Development for The World Poker Store. "We are excited to launch the league in Wisconsin and look forward to adding more venues to The Bar Poker League tournament family," he added. Play route 66 poker.
With successful operations in Minnesota, Florida and coming soon to Wisconsin and 23 other Bar Poker legal states in the union, The World Poker Store's Bar Poker League continues to add new player members and open new venues for Free No-limit Texas hold 'em. Currently running over 100 poker tournaments per week, The Bar Poker League offers a live, face to face, poker experience to all walks of life at bars and restaurants where legal around the country and hosts a community of members at www.thebarpokerleague.com. With a focus on "bringing poker to the masses" and supporting non-profit organizations, The World Poker Store also partners with local charities and corporate groups to host professional Texas Hold 'em tournaments with the proceeds benefiting a variety of causes. Most notably, The Trent Tucker Celebrity Poker Tournament hosted annually in Minnesota at Canterbury Park with attendees from both the NBA and the Poker elite featuring Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Johnny Chan, Phil Hellmuth, Marcel Luske, Patrik Antonius and Hoyt Corkins to name a few with all proceeds going to benefit The Trent Tucker Youth Program. The World Poker Store Inc. also currently operates 2 retail locations in Minnesota at Southdale Center, Rosedale Center. Play $500 match poker bonus. The World Poker Store is the only brick and mortar retail outlet of its kind entirely devoted to poker, offering everything from Texas Hold 'em tables, Casino Quality Chips, DVDs, Books, Apparel and Tour Pro Collectibles. All products are also available online at www.theworldpokerstore.com.
This press release contains information that constitutes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any future results described within the forward-looking statements. Women poker players. The forward-looking information provided herein represents the Company's estimates as of the date of the press release, and subsequent events and developments may cause the Company's estimates to change. The Company specifically disclaims any obligation to update the forward-looking information in the future. Download poker wallpapers. Therefore, this forward-looking information should not be relied upon as representing the Company's estimates of its future financial performance as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.
The world’s record books were revised by PokerStars once again this week when the site’s Sunday Hundred Grand tournament’s player-cap was upped to 20,000 entrants and the event lured the maximum players allowed. That attendance made it the biggest real-money tournament (by number of entrants) in history. The tournament beat out its own record of 17,501 entrants that it set just a few weeks ago. The ultimate winner of the poker tournament, Lynna1, earned $20,000 for besting the monstrous field. That’s 1,818 times her $11 buy-in for the tournament.
PokerStars Sunday Million
Last night’s Sunday Million at PokerStars was the monthly $500 buy-in version of the event. The tournament lured 3,021 players & women poker players, which built a prize pool of $1,510,500 and offered a first-place prize of almost $264,000 (if no deal was made at the final table).
Final-table host Lee Jones speculated that the prize pool was the largest ever for the event. While this may be true of the $500 buy-in version of the tournament, the Sunday Million’s prize pool has surpassed this number four times previously: once when the buy-in was $1,000 ($1.712 million prize pool) and three times with its traditional $200 buy-in. Play online poker. The largest-ever prize pool for a Sunday Million was on May 20 of this year, when PokerStars celebrated its 10 billionth hand dealt by providing a $250,000 overlay for the event. The tournament had 10,894 entrants (which broke the world record for most entrants in a real money tournament at the time), which generated a prize pool of $2,428,800. Play $500 match poker bonus.
Former World Series of Poker champion Greg “FossilMan” Raymer made it deep in the event this Sunday before eventually going out in 42nd place in a hand that stirred the railbirds into heated debate. VuaXi`Tô’ (a short stack) raised to $63,000 preflop, with the big blind at $25,000, and sacker pushed all in for more than $1 million. FossilMan requested time on the button before calling all in for his last $700,000. VuaXi`Tô’ folded and sacker showed A-K suited. Fossilman was in the lead with pocket tens until the river brought a king. FossilMan won $4,532 for his finish. Download poker wallpapers.
The final table of the event featured notable Internet players fundmyaudi and Pehtoori. Both players had medium-sized stacks in the $2 million range when the big blind was $100,000. Plasticard came to the table as the chip leader with $8.4 million in chips compared to asdf2000 in second place with $5.1 million. Nazeehah66 was the short stack with just $906,000 and was, correspondingly, the first player to be eliminated. Stay tuned to our poker blog for latest updates.
"Basically, if the online (poker) sites were able to send the players like they did last year, we would have been well over 10,000 players & women poker players this year," Phil Gordon told USA Today.
Gordon served as the color analyst on ESPN's live pay-per-view telecast of this year's main event. Play route 66 poker.
"This isn't a down year when you take into account the regulatory climate. Every single sign I see says the game is growing in popularity. There are more people than ever that have played this game this year at the World Series of Poker. Play $500 match poker bonus.
The government action addressed by Gordon was the passage of the federal Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which prohibits banks and credit card companies from making U.S. customer payments to online poker sites for any type of gambling that is illegal under U.S. law including online poker.
Though this was the first decline in over a decade for the World Series of Poker, 2007 also marked the second biggest turnout. Gordon's comments imply that the new law has done little to stymie poker's growing popularity outside of cutting down in the numbers entering the WSOP. Download poker wallpapers.
This year's Main Event champion, 39-year-old Jerry Yang, walked off with over $8 million. The social worker from Temecula, Calif., said he took up poker only two years ago.
It doesn’t take long hanging out around poker players before you start to hear all the wild stories.
A staring contest for $2,000. A vegetarian eating a cheeseburger to win $10,000. A former champion attempting to stand in the ocean for 18 hours on a $50,000 dare.
You hear the stories and you laugh, but deep inside you know they’re probably true. After all, this is Las Vegas, and this is the world of poker. (Incidentally, each of the above wagers has been documented.)
But you also have to wonder about these people and how their minds work. Why can’t they just take their poker winnings and enjoy their success? Why risk losing some of it on silly sidebets, or even all of it in other gambling pursuits?
On Tuesday — or perhaps early Wednesday morning — one of nine remaining players will ride a wonderful combination of luck and skill to win the World Series of Poker’s main event. The winner will win $8.25 million, and the top five will all become millionaires. Even the ninth-place finisher will earn more than half a million dollars.
Such a windfall can be difficult to handle. Scotty Nguyen, the 1998 main event champion and beloved icon of the game, has admitted in past interviews to going broke at least 100 times earlier in his career, primarily because he struggled to control his gambling urges outside of poker. Play route 66 poker.
Not every poker player has such problems, but it’s not exactly rare, either. Such are the hazards of having fame and wealth beyond your dreams dumped into your lap in the blink of an eye. It’s not unlike winning the lottery, and there are plenty of stories of lottery winners ending up destitute not long after stumbling into fortune.
“It’s my understanding that a lot of lottery winners end up broke, and a lot of poker champions end up broke as well within a couple of years, unfortunately,” says Robert Varkonyi, who won $2 million when he bested British pro Julian Gardner to win the main event in 2002. “They don’t know how to save money, be a little conservative with some of the money, do some homework and find someone who you really trust.”
It can be difficult to adjust to such a life-changing amount of cash, especially if you are inclined to gamble in the first place, like many poker players & women poker pros are.
Varkonyi says he thinks many of the stories of crazy sidebets and outrageous behavior are exaggerated to foster images, but Australian poker pro Joe Hachem disagrees.
“Most of the stories are true,” says Hachem, who won the main event — and $7.5 million — in 2005. “In poker, we have a lot of people who are gamblers who happen to be good poker players. So they keep chasing and chasing and chasing until they get hurt.
“They’re never satisfied. The winning is not where they get the thrill. The losing is not where they get the thrill. It’s the actual chase that gives them the thrill.”
Hachem says he was fortunate not to have to battle such demons.
“I was blessed because I didn’t have any vices,” he says. “So I didn’t go out and gamble big, or go do drugs, or party. I’m married happily with four children, happy with my life. So the money went straight to pay off the mortgage. And I invested the rest for my kids and helped a lot of my family out.” Play $500 match poker bonus.
But the pitfalls of a major World Series victory go beyond the obvious lure of gambling, drugs, and debauchery. There is temptation to spend your wealth to upgrade your lifestyle. New wannabe friends suddenly materialize out of thin air. Complete strangers send letters requesting handouts.
“Sometimes (when) you get cash like that, people like to buy expensive cars and things of that nature, and in a year or year and a half it’s gone,” says Mike Moneymaker, whose son Chris won the main event in 2003 for a $2.5 million payday. “They just don’t know how to handle it.”
Moneymaker pointed out that his son owns a masters in accounting and wasn’t “one to throw his money away.” As for the hangers-on? Moneymaker says his son had to change his phone number twice, even though it was unlisted.
“He’s pretty good about screening that stuff out,” Mike Moneymaker says. “You always get people who write in with their sob stories. You know, ‘my husband’s on dialysis and he’s confined to a wheelchair and we can’t pay our bills.’ You get those letters all the time.
“It’s been a crazy three years, but (Chris) puts family first. And his friends. You can go through life and count your true friends on one hand.”
Jamie Gold discovered that lesson the hard way, finding himself in an uncomfortable position after winning $12 million in last year’s main event. Gold was sued by his friend Crispin Leyser, with Leyser claiming Gold had promised him half his winnings as part of a prearranged deal. Gold quickly settled the matter without going to court, but was dogged by negative publicity from the incident. Online poker.
“They knew it was a non-issue. I knew it was a non-issue,” Gold says. “Anyone on the inside with me knew there wasn’t really a lawsuit. They had filed it, it was a mistake, we were always going to split the money.”
Greg Raymer had a much more quiet experience with his big payday. He was working as an attorney for pharmaceutical research giant Pfizer when he banked $5 million for winning the main event in 2004. Raymer was so non-plussed by his poker success that he waited six days after his big win to resign from Pfizer, taking time to prepare his caseload for his successor. And three years later, he has yet to even have his cumbersome and uncomfortable championship bracelet properly sized.
“I don’t think I’ve changed significantly,” says Raymer, who has more than $5.7 million in career WSOP earnings. “I think you’re going to like me or dislike me just the same now vs. then. But I could be wrong and maybe I’m a little different and just don’t realize it.”
Raymer said it was his sudden celebrity, not the money, that was most difficult to deal with, particularly at the poker table. Fans wanted to know why he didn’t wear his trademark holographic sunglasses everywhere he went. Fellow players would ask for his autograph after eliminating him from a poker tournament. And suddenly, amateurs were targeting him with bluffs, just so they would have a story to tell their friends at home.
“They’ll even say ‘I just wanted to bluff you one time,’” Raymer says. “So not only do they win the money from you, they’re not going to make stupid bluffs in the future because now they’ve got their story. So that’s the downside.”
But according to Hachem, it is former amateurs like Raymer, Moneymaker, Varkonyi and Gold who have helped transform the game, inspiring others from normal walks of life to enter the playing ranks, and marginalizing the effect of poker’s seedier element.
“If you look back at the last four or five (champions), we’re not gamblers,” he says. “We’re poker players who won the World Series, and our family’s interest is more important. That’s the common theme.
“It’s great for poker, it’s great for us. If we get some degenerate who wins it and then goes and blows it all, it’s not gonna be real good.”
Hachem, a former chiropractor who had to give up his practice due to a blood disorder in his hands, has some strong advice for whoever takes down this year’s $8.25 million grand prize. He advises being patient. Take your time. Don’t buy anything right away. Put the money in a bank and let it sit while you come up with a plan. Download poker wallpapers.
“It’s all about ownership,” he says. “If you lock it up in a bank for six months, then you’ve got ownership of it, and it’s hard to just blow it away.”
And if all else fails, you can always place a call to Varkonyi for investment advice.
“I’m actually marketing a fund of hedge funds that has a fantastic risk-return profile, which we’ve invested in for many years,” he says, explaining that he puts a very limited amount of his money into poker. “We’ve had a large amount of our personal wealth grow over the years by investing in this fund.”
Varkonyi’s wife Olga, herself a poker player, puts her husband’s words into even simpler terms.
“Come to Bob,” she says with a laugh.
It sounds like sound advice. And a whole lot safer than standing in the ocean for 18 hours.
Big names, fast action and high attrition as major money is awarded
Friday saw the 337 survivors from the World Series of Poker Days 1 A through D, Days 2 A and B and Day 3 in the big payouts range and eager to get started in the Amazon Room at the Rio in Las Vegas.
Top of the leader board was the daring and aggressive 22 year old Italian Internet whizz kid Dario Minieri (Left) on 2 398 000, trailed by Jeff Weiss (1 533 000) Jon Kalmar (1 410 000) another Internet player Hevad Khan (1 319 000) Kenny Tran (1 175 000) Steven Jacobs (1 127 000) and a few others in the million chip league, including Gus Hansen.
On the first hand after the "Shuffle Up and Deal" call there were casualties, setting the tone for the hard, fast poker that characterised the day. Daniel Schleben immediately fell victim to Tuan Lam, and Eddie Ray Stutts was bundled out by Alex Michaels. Download poker wallpapers.
And in the first hour Robert Starkey took out Simpson's creator Sam Simon in position 329 for which he earned a good return of $39 445 on his $10 000 buy-in.
Big names were soon falling like leaves in autumn, including Darrell Gigabet Dicken, taken out by Jim Kasputis. By the end of the day two thirds of the field would have exited this year's main event, with three former World Champions among them. Play route 66 poker.
Robert Varkonyi, Carlos Mortensen and Berry Johnston all headed for the exit on Day 4, leaving Scotty Nguyen and Huck Seed still in the race for the $8.25 million main prize and the respect that goes with a WSOP main event winner's bracelet.
In the first 50 minutes of play there were 39 eliminations, whittling the field down to 298. Later in the contest, Spiderman actor Tobey Maguire was taken out shortly after being crippled by Donnacha O'Dea, leaving the main event in position 292 with a check for his efforts of $39 445. He left Godsmack singer Sully Erna as the sole remaining non-poker celebrity, but he too eventually succumbed in the 237th spot with $45 422. Women poker.
The visually impaired player Hal Lubarsky's luck ran out on Day 4, too - he was eliminated by Scott Freeman after surviving all the way through. Tournament director Nolan Dalla called the gutsy player up onto the podium as a gesture of respect for triumphing over some 6 000 sighted players during the tournament, and commented that the man was an inspiration.
Sadly, some of the quality Online poker players exited on Day 4, including Sorel 'Imper1um' Mizzi, eliminated by Ed Betlow.
The organisers used Day 4 to additionally set up the promised money-bubble sit-'n'-go, a consolation prize tournament for those who just missed cashing this year. Lee Dryer took the single-table poker tournament to win a $10 000 entry into the 2008 WSOP Main Event, plus a year's supply of Milwaukee's Best Light.
By the end of the busy day's play only 112 players remained, headed by the chip leader from Day 1B, Dag Martin Mikkelsen on 3 740 000 - a comfortable lead over the following closest opponents:
Charis Anastasiou 2 672 000 Richard Harris 2 662 000 Avi Cohen 2 392 000 Jeff Tunkel 2 323 000 Alex Kravchenko 2 274 000 Hevad Khan 2 200 000 Ryan Elson 2 137 000
Day 5 promises more of the same as the field is whittled down to 27 and some of the best known and respected names in international poker close in on seats at the final table and the $8.25 million main prize. Stay tuned to our poker blog for more updates.
Watch out for some of these names in action on Saturday in Day 5: Dario Minieri - the Italian top dog from Day 3 is a little trimmed but still in contention, 2007 WSOP bracelet winners Bill Edler and Alex Kravchenko, Gus Hansen, John Spadavecchia, Lee Watkinson, former champs Huck Seed and Scotty Nguyen, Kirk Morrison, Rep Porter, Evad 'Rain' Khan, Jeff 'Mr. Rain' Banghart, Julian Gardner, Cory Carroll, Humberto Brenes, Mikkel Madsen and Chad Brown.
The Quebec Gazette published a new law Wednesday that will legalize Texas Hold'em poker tournament in Quebec. Casinos will be able to start offering the variation of poker this fall when the law goes into effect.
Currently casinos are only able to offer card games played against the house such as Three-Card Poker and Caribbean Poker. The new law allows for games where the players are pitted against each other such as Texas Hold'em. Women poker.
Catherine Schellenber, Lac Leamy Casino spokeswoman, told CBC News that one of the reasons why the Lac Leamy Casino saw an $8 million drop in profits last year was because it can't offer Texas Hold'em. Play online poker.
She added that being able to now offer Texas Hold'em will put Quebec casinos on a level playing field with Ontario's large casinos as well. Play route 66 poker.
A representative from Loto-Quebec also said the casino it operates will probably begin offering Texas Hold'em this fall.
Amarillo Slim Preston, the world's greatest gambler announced the opening of his new website http://amarilloslim.org
