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.
Later this week, hundreds of the world’s best poker players will suffer through their worst day of 2007.
The worldwide Texas Hold ‘Em explosion has spawned thousands of tournaments paying out hundreds of millions of dollars annually, and a win at any of those events carries with it a certain amount of prestige in the poker community. But for most top pros and leading amateur players, only one tournament really matters. Play route 66 poker.
In the 30 or so years after the legendary “Amarillo Slim” Preston beat a handful of players to win the World Series of Poker at Binion’s Horseshoe Casino in downtown Las Vegas in 1972, the event grew steadily in popularity, stature and prize money. Since 2003, though, the WSOP Main Event — which begins Friday at the Rio Hotel and Casino and climaxes a month-long series of tournaments — has exploded into a national phenomenon. It has become so important, in fact, that virtually everyboy who’s anybody in the poker world admits that the day they’re eliminated from the Main Event is the low point of his or her year.
And, with thousands of amateur players now making the annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas each summer to try for the money and prestige that go with winning a World Series bracelet, the odds continue to mount against the pros, many of whom made names for themselves in the days when the WSOP was just a friendly little gathering of the world’s best players.
Although the national poker boom might have eventually happened anyway, Chris Moneymaker’s win in the 2003 Main Event was probably Ground Zero for the current explosion in Hold ‘Em’s popularity worldwide. A virtual unknown before his win over a field of less than 900 players four years ago, Moneymaker was the kind of Everyman who captured the imagination of the average poker player competing in a weekly home game and dreaming of someday knocking heads with heavyweights like Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan.
Moneymaker showed the poker world that those dreams could come true, and by the time he captured his record $2.5 million first prize, online poker was also starting to take off. Dr. Bruce VanHorn, a pathologist at Valley View Regional Hospital who was runner-up to Huck Seed in the 1996 Main Event, said the two events probably combined to make the World Series of Poker what it is today.
“That (2003) was the year a lot of people started qualifying over the internet,” said VanHorn, who competed in the Main Event nine times between 1996 and 2005. “They had a few qualifying tournaments on the internet before that, but not a lot of people were playing online poker.”
The year after Moneymaker’s win, more than 2,300 players competed in the Main Event, with another unknown, Greg Raymer, taking home a $5 million first prize, and in 2005 Australian Joseph Hachem beat an even bigger field to earn $7.5 million. Last year, Jamie Gold continued the parade of amateur winners, outlasting more than 8,000 other players and banking an eye-popping $12.5 million.
When the 2007 Main Event begins Friday, upwards of 10,000 players are expected, with a first prize estimated at $15 million, and VanHorn said this year’s winner — amateur or pro — can trace his big payday back to the aptly-named Moneymaker and his win in 2003.
“I think it was a combination of the fact that he had never won any money and internet poker exploding at the same time,” VanHorn said in explaining the increase in poker’s popularity since Moneymaker’s upset.
In the WSOP’s first quarter-century, the Main Event was dominated by America’s top pros, several of whom achieved legendary status.
Brunson, the “Godfather of Poker”
won back-to-back titles in 1976 and 1977 and, through a series of books, passed on some of his best secrets to the current generation of players; Stu Ungar, poker’s first young gun, won in 1980 and 1981, then, just over a year after making one of the most amazing comebacks in poker history to win the 1997 Main Event, he was found dead in a cheap Las Vegas motel room of heart failure brought on by years of drug abuse; Chan — who had a cameo role in the Matt Damon film “The Rounders” — won in 1987 and 1988 and finished second to Phil Helmuth in 1989; and current top pros Dan Harrington, Huck Seed, Scotty Nguyen and Carlos Mortensen all captured titles between 1990 and 2001.
But since Mortensen won six years ago, amateurs have dominated the main event. Robert Varkonyi, who, like Moneymaker, Raymer and Gold, has never won another major title, rode an unbelievable string of cards to the 2002 crown, and VanHorn predicted that, no matter how skilled the opposition is, the 2007 Main Event winner will, in the end, probably be the guy who, like Varkonyi, Moneymaker and Gold, has the poker gods on his side throughout the marathon poker tournament.
“You have to be EXTREMELY lucky to win now,” VanHorn said. “I almost think to win any tournament you have to draw out once or twice when you don’t have the best cards, and in that thing you have to go in with the worst hand three or four times and get lucky. There are just too many people to wade through.
“It doesn’t matter how good you are,” he added. “You have to catch some cards to get in position to win. If you don’t, you’re going to go out.”
VanHorn won’t compete at the Main Event for the second straight year, but he has already cashed at the WSOP twice in 2007, finishing sixth in a pot limit Hold ‘Em event (his stay at the final table in that tournament will be telecast on ESPN during tape-delayed coverage of the WSOP later this year) and 35th out of over 2,000 players & women poker players in a No Limit Hold ‘Em tournament last month. He said the World Series of Poker these days is a lot more than just the Main Event.
“They’ve probably added 40 or 50 tournaments (to the WSOP schedule) from when it was at Binion’s,” VanHorn said. “Back then, it was just 20 days of tournaments; now it’s 35 days, with two every day.”
Records Broken at Both PokerStars and UltimateBet
