If Tulsa, Okla., isn't currently a hotbed of Hold'em activity it will be Aug. 5, when female card sharks of the heartland converge at the Cherokee Casino for the Pro-Tour Poker. Online poker.
The Ladies Poker Association tournament is the first major event of its kind featuring a $550 buy-in and an expected crowd of more than 100.
While many ladies poker tournaments are passed over for lacking interesting money, in a press release organizer Linda Johnson - the so-called first lady of poker - is promising exciting prize pools and a seat at the World Poker Tour Ladies Night Invitational to the winner.
Registration opened July 1 and satellites to the event will play out every day until the Aug. 5 tournament.
"This is the first $550 buy-in event on the LPA tour," said Johnson in a statement. "There are a lot of serious women poker players in the heartland of America, so I'm hoping for a large number of entries."
Johnson will be attending the event, along with Jan Fisher - her business partner in Card Player Cruises.
Now in its first year, the LPA is still finding its footing as the organization strives to promote female poker players at a professional level. The association's first tournament was held March 17, bringing the LPA a little closer to the commitment of its founders, Crystal Osgood-Gray and Sherry Godfrey, who set out to recognize women rounders. Play $500 match poker bonus.
The LPA will be working alongside the Cherokee Casino in what the partners hope will be a major new tournament for these players. To find out more, visit the Ladies Poker Association Web site.
The Cherokee Casino, though not a world-renowned poker room, is at the forefront of the Oklahoma card scene. Its card room hosts 36 tables featuring a variety of games, and the casino has development plans to offer more services to its customers - in this case, particularly its female clients. Play route 66 poker.
"We are delighted to recognize the ladies in poker," said Rick O'Connell, the casino's director of poker and table games. "We have many distinguished women players."
Linda Johnson said she can't sing, can't dance and has no artistic ability. But she can "put the puzzle pieces together" in a poker game. And that's what she's been doing for 33 years.
Johnson, 53, was the second woman poker player in history to win a gold bracelet at the World Series of Poker. Now she plays about 30 hours a week and said she misses it. She's known as the first lady of poker.
The pro came to Gold Country Casino & Hotel Sunday to share some tricks of the trade. Accompanying her on stage were professional poker players Jan Fisher, Robert Williamson, Mike Sexton, "Cowboy" Kenna James and his wife, Marsha Waggoner.
"I would say everybody up there is a millionaire," said Harry Taylor, a friend of the pros and the casino's general manager. Play online poker.
Some of them have never had another job, he said. These are the pros that people watch on TV. Johnson is on every Wednesday night and always wears black.
"It's truly reality TV at its finest," said Sexton, the main commentator for the World Poker Tour. "It's high drama, it's electric and it's real."
Sexton, 59, has been playing poker since he was in the seventh grade and professionally for 30 years. He said he realized he was better than the average player when he consistently beat his friends in college.
Chico State University graduate David Shepler, 26, said he plays Texas hold 'em poker tournaments about twice a week and regularly beats his friends, but wouldn't quit his day job. He works at a bank, which he said helps him to manage his money. He said he enjoyed listening to the pros' advice.
"Play with no fear, and your opponents will fear you," Cowboy Kenna said from behind his sunglasses.
Shepler said he plays with sunglasses sometimes, not because he's trying to hide his emotions, but because it helps him focus.
The first lady of poker said she doesn't own sunglasses. But she had other advice.
"Poker should enhance your life, not be your life," Johnson said. Quit when you can't afford it. And sit in a seat with a passive, tight player on your left and a player that calls a lot of hands on your right, she added. Play route 66 poker.
"The first person to raise usually wins the hand," Fisher said.
While many players discussed winning, Waggoner talked about dealing with loss.
Have sex to ease the pain of losing, she heard from a friend.
After listening to the seminar, Shepler said he won't change his game much, but wants to play more aggressively when he has a strong hand.
"The more aggressive player wins most of the time," Sexton said.
"I play poker by the seat of my pants," Waggoner said, not by reading books.
The audience soaked up the advice because the pros said they would not help anyone out during the no-limit Texas hold 'em tournament that followed the seminar. The tournament with the pros was sold out, with 152 players signed up plus a waiting list. The entry fee was $200 and the prize pool was $25,000.
Each pro had a bounty during the tournament, which meant that every person who kicked one out would get $100. Larry Teague, 59, made that his goal. Download poker wallpapers.
The Oroville man has been playing Texas hold 'em about once a week for 10 years. People at the casino know him as T-bone. Last year he split a $4,500 win, his biggest one. But Teague said he doesn't do it for the money and doesn't sweat over a loss.
Teague said he's not superstitious, but he does keep one good luck charm. He uses a silver dollar from the 1800s as a card protector, an item that players place on top of their cards after each hand is dealt.
Most of the pros said they weren't superstitious either, except Johnson said she won't accept $50 bills because she thinks they're unlucky.
Sexton said several pros will sit in a lucky seat or refuse to play with an unlucky dealer, but Sexton compared dealers to a mail deliverers. Somebody wouldn't yell at a mail person who delivered a bill, so why yell at a dealer who delivered a bad hand, he said.
Poker involves some luck in the short term, but players who win in the long term have skill, Sexton said. Anyone who has the drive can play poker, but a natural instinct is needed to succeed at high levels.
Sexton won $1 million in the Tournament of Champions at the 2006 World Series of Poker and donated half of his post-tax winnings to charity.
Sexton works on the business side of poker now, but said he was never embarrassed to tell people he played poker for a living. He said he doesn't consider it gambling, and that people who work on commission or open a new business are gambling more than he is.
The pro also said that demographics don't matter in poker. Sexton is from Ohio, Waggoner hails from from Australia and Williamson resides in Arizona, but most of the bunch has moved to Las Vegas. People of all shapes, colors and social status can play the game. Play $500 match poker bonus.
"Everyone's equal on the green felt," he said.
But players compete and confidence prevails.
"The strong feast on the weak; It's like the law of the jungle," Sexton said. "It's sort of sad you're looking for the limping gazelle, but that's the way it is."
The online poker bookmaker Unibet is getting sued by ATG, a Swedish government-owned horse-betting company. ATG is accusing Unibet of stealing information from its horse racing database.
According to ATG, Unibet has been using information from the company's database without permission since 2000. The horse racing company claims to have contacted Unibet on the matter in 2004, but the two competitors never reached an agreement. Women poker players.
But now ATG is taking the matter to court, suing Unibet for $36 million. This sum is said to be 10% of the money that Unibet has made on horse betting since the company started to use the information from the database. Play $500 match poker bonus.
The cost for ATG to build the database was more than $30 million and the company claims that Unibet never would have been able to provide horse betting without the information in it.
A spokesperson for ATG says that they believe that they have a good chance to win in court in accordance with rulings in similar cases both in Sweden and the European Union. Stay tuned to our poker blog for more updates.
A year after poker was determined to be illegal gambling in Denmark, a municipal court judge in Lyngby has ruled that because the game has elements of skill it isn't illegal, according to the Copenhagen Post.
The ruling goes against the Justice Ministry decision by the legal affairs committee, and also acquits Frederik Hostrup, Danish Poker Association president, of charges of arranging illegal gambling events.
According to the Copenhagen Post, under Danish criminal law, games or competitions where the organizer attempts to achieve a commercial economic gain are considered illegal gambling. Online poker.
Horesta, a hotel and restaurant trade organization, had sued Hostrup on behalf of the nation's casinos because of the poker games his association organizes. Download poker wallpapers.
Henrik Hoffman, Hostrup's attorney, told Politiken newspaper that the ruling lends legitimacy to poker in Denmark, where its popularity has been on the rise in recent years.
He also remarked on how poker isn't just about betting money, it involves betting wisely, playing smart and not revealing to the other players & women poker players what you have and how you play.
"You can win in poker based on being clever enough to hide your strategy, even though you might have a fairly poor hand," he said in Politiken.
Prosecutors will have 14 days to decide if they will appeal the ruling. Stay tuned to our poker blog for more updates.
As a mother and card player, woman poker pro Jane Gold understands it's not the hand you're dealt that matters. It's how you play it.
That might be the best way to explain how she lasted longer in this year's World Series of Poker Main Event than her son, defending champion Jamie Gold.
"I love every minute of it," she said Monday.
That was hours before her son busted out of the tournament on his first day of play. She followed Tuesday, busting early in the second round of play.
Despite losing, this year's trip to Las Vegas has been special from the start. "Very bittersweet," she said.
"It's much more than I expected. This isn't real. I walk into the poker room, and there's a 20-foot picture of my son. You know what's really weird? I'm coming in and people are taking my picture, asking for my autograph. No, none of this is real.
"It's not real that my husband had ALS. It's not real that my son won the World Series of Poker."
But Jamie Gold did win last year, and Jane Gold describes that time last year as "the biggest highs and the biggest lows."
She was at home in New Jersey caring for her husband of 27 years, Robert Gold, who was suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease. As Jamie advanced through the main event, she said she couldn't resist joining him in Las Vegas.
"My husband said, 'Just go. This is something you don't want to miss,' " she said.
Father knows best, so she went. And as soon as Jamie won, mother and son called him. "There wasn't a dry eye in the place," she said. Play route 66 poker.
Robert Gold died in December. Jamie had taken off time from playing poker after his WSOP victory to spend time with his father and then with his mother. "He stayed with me a long time until I was ready to be alone," she said.
They were together again this month in Las Vegas after Jamie convinced her to enter the Main Event, despite the fact she never played Texas Hold'em. Jane Gold said her father was a "fabulous" gin player — he taught Jamie to count 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-jack-queen-king-ace — and learned poker and canasta from her mother.
"But this is a new game to me. At least I wasn't aware of this game," she said. "I just play friendly poker with a bunch of women, and I have an all men's game."
Jane Gold said it was all friendly Saturday, when she parlayed 20,000 chips into 42,100 by day's end and advanced in the largest live tournament in poker.
At one point she picked off a bluff by an opponent when an ace was on the board and she held pocket queens. She raked a pot worth about 5,000 in chips and then looked around for her son, who had been watching earlier. "Where's my baby to see this?" she said.
Oh, he was there, as at least one player noticed.
"One gentleman who was sitting next to me said, 'He's the mother, and you're child,' " Jane Gold said. "That's how he was supporting me and rooting for me."
Like mother, like son.
Missing in action
Jamie Gold is not the only big name bounced from this year's Main Event.
Others who have busted include former champions Greg Raymer (2004), Johnny Chan (1987-88), Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson (1976-77) and Phil Hellmuth (1989), the WSOP's all-time bracelet leader and the self-proclaimed world's greatest Texas Hold'em player. Play $500 match poker bonus.
Brunson and Chan are tied with 10 bracelets, trailing only Hellmuth's 11.
"It hurts, of course," Brunson said shortly after busting on the first day of play Friday, when his two pair of aces and queens was beaten by three queens. "It's the prestige of these tournaments, particularly this one, that everybody's concerned with. Everyone's trying to win bracelets a lot more than money."
The field remains filled with amateur players who took vacations to play against the game's biggest stars for a shot at overcoming staggering odds to win a staggering pot.
"When you play with this many people, you can't realistically think about winning," said Dave Fox of Coram, N.Y. "It's better odds than a lottery. Skill is involved, but there still is a tremendous amount of luck." Download poker wallpapers.
Table talk
Former NHL player Rick Tocchet, who awaits sentencing after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to promote gambling May 25, is one of the survivors from Sunday and Monday who will play in today's second round.
Millionaire winners play it tight at World Series of Poker
A million dollars just isn't what it used to be.
Among an unofficial second-day field of 1,546 players & women poker players at the World Series of Poker's main event Saturday were a handful who became millionaires by making it to the final table last year.
Many said they continued to play, but most hadn't quit their day jobs or spent money on expensive things.
Dan Nassif, a 34-year-old newspaper ad executive from St. Louis, said he kept working until March, when he left the corporate world to start a house renovation and restaurant business with partners.
This year marks only the second tournament he's played in since finishing ninth with a $1.6 million payday last year.
"My money's better off in the market than me playing poker with it," he said. "If I get knocked out early, I get knocked out early. If I make a good run, I make a good run. I'll see what happens." Women poker.
Douglas Kim, a 23-year-old financial consultant from New York, said he was playing in cash games but kept most of his $2.4 million in winnings from a seventh-place finish last year off the tables.
"It's all in investments and stuff like that," he said. He didn't even buy a Manhattan condo that he talked about after it suddenly became within reach last year. "Right now I'm renting. I'm looking at my options right now."
Rhett Butler, a 46-year-old insurance agent from Rockville, Md., said he still worked two hours a day selling policies to customers despite a fifth-place finish for $3.2 million last year.
He said he's won a few smaller poker tournaments over the year, and now plays cash games with stakes up to $50 and $100 in the blinds, perhaps twice a week.
As affordable as the $10,000 buy-in seems now, he still has promised friends back home a percentage of his winnings in exchange for helping with the entry fee. "Same deal," he said. "I have half and they have the rest."
Halfway through the opening rounds of the main event, the field has reached an unofficial 2,833 players, on pace to undershoot the record 8,773 who anted up last year, and threatening to trim millions off the prize pool. Online poker.
But even those who are flush from last year's largesse are playing their finances conservatively.
Richard Lee, a 56-year-old retired San Antonio businessman, said that he's still "feeling my way back into the game" after a sixth-place finish last year for $2.8 million, playing just a few tournaments and home games.
Even last year's winner Jamie Gold, who split up an undisclosed amount of his $12 million payday with Bruce Crispin Leyser after a brief court battle, said aside from some large gambling sessions on Game Show Network's televised High Stakes Poker show, he put most of his money in a safe place.
"I gave it to my mother," said the 37-year-old television producer, who hadn't started playing the main event yet. "I have enough to live, but I'm also very successful in my other business. So I didn't need that money to survive."
Second-place finisher Paul Wasicka, 26, who won $6.1 million at the main event last year, said he's looking to scale back the size of his part-time residence in Las Vegas, where he comes to make a living at the tables. Play $500 match poker bonus.
"It's life-changing, but it's not like you can retire," he said.
The THAY3R Steamroller Talks About His Amazing Month and Gives Insight Into the Differences Between Online and Live Play
Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen just about needs a permit for the kind of killing he’s been making playing poker recently. He’s always been universally renowned as one of the most solid online poker players out there, but recently he’s been aggressively tackling the major brick-and-mortar events, as well.
Rasmussen played in the Mandalay Bay Poker Championship, which ran from late May to early June and wound down just as the World Series of Poker lumbered in. He did quite well in the Mandalay Bay series by nearly anybody’s reckoning, taking down a preliminary event and then finishing in fourth place in the championship event series, for a combined $164,000.
He then went on to cash three times in the World Series before jumping back to play online poker in the quarterly $1,000 buy-in version of the PokerStars Sunday Million just last week. He outlasted 1,478 other entrants to eventually finish in fourth place ($88,000). All said, he’s earned well over $300,000 in tournaments, both live and online, in barely more than a month.
Card Player managed to stop the THAY3R steamroller for a quick interview during his break in the $5,000 shorthanded no-limit hold’em event at the World Series at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino. He gave us insight into his poker career, how his strategies differ between online and live play, and his chances in the Online Player of the Year race. All the while, players & women poker pros who were walking down the Rio’s hallway jumped in to offer him well-wishes and handshakes. (He seems to be quite a popular guy.)
Shawn Patrick Green: You’ve been playing in a ton of live events, lately. Are you playing a lot less online, then, as a result?
Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen: I graduated from college in April, and since then I’ve been able to travel a lot and play live. So, I’ve been playing mainly just live for the summer. I’ve have been playing a little bit online, but mostly live. Since the World Series started, I’ve basically been playing just at the World Series every day, but on days like Sunday I’ll still play online in all the big events.
SPG: Despite your increased attendance in live events, you’ve managed to score some big cashes online this summer. Most notably, you took fourth place in the quarterly $1,000 buy-in Sunday Million poker tournament just last Sunday. What are your thoughts on that final table?
TR: I was kind of disappointed with the result. I mean, for most of the tournament I was the chip leader and I was taking over the table and was playing really well. And then I basically got shortstacked at the final table and got fourth place. I’m happy with the score, but I felt like there was a good chance that I could have gotten more.
SPG: As far as the players at the table, was it a relatively tough final table?
TR: Actually, yeah. Most of the player’s I’d heard of before. Usually, the final tables have random people you don’t know, maybe one pro, but most of these guys were familiar names.
SPG: You were definitely up against a stacked final table. I’m not sure if you read the recap I wrote for the tournament, but that was actually the headline [click here to read that recap]. To even get fourth place there was pretty good.
TR: The person who won, mlagoo [Matt LaGarde], he’s a good friend of mine. We’ve stayed together on trips and stuff, and I was watching and rooting him on. He’s a really good player.
SPG: Do you do anything differently, that you notice, when you play online versus live?
TR: I think online you have to be a little bit tighter. You can’t be as aggressive or be involved in as many pots. When you play live, you can read players better and get a feel for the table a lot more easily. You can put opponents on hands a lot more easily, too. Online you kind of have to play a little more straightforwardly. You can still be tricky against people that you know, but, in general, you still kind of have to play regular, tight poker.
SPG: You had an awesome run at the Mandalay Bay Poker Championship that took place just before the World Series. How did that feel, knowing that the World Series was right around the corner?
TR: If felt really good. The Mandalay Bay had a really good structure and it was full of really good, famous players, so to do really well in it gave me a lot of confidence. I felt like I could play with all of the better players, and it made me really confident for the World Series.
SPG: You’ve cashed in three World Series events so far [see his results here], but you haven’t yet made a final table. Are you disappointed with the way things are going, or are you happy with your run, thus far?
TR: I’ve had three cashes, but I’m down a good amount for the World Series. So that’s disappointing, but it’s just unlucky. I’ve been in good shape in a bunch of tourneys and on track to make a good score, but it just hasn’t worked out.
SPG: But you’re happy with your play?
TR: I’m fine with my play, but the results haven’t come yet. But that’s what happens in poker, and I can’t complain after the last month I’ve had. Download poker wallpapers.
SPG: You’re currently 26th in the Online Player of the Year standings. How attainable do you think the top spot is from your current position? Do you have a game plan for getting there?
TR: I may get top 10 by the end of the year, but I know Imper1um [Sorel Mizzi] is way ahead; P0KERPR0 [James Campbell] is up there, too. There’re a lot of people with really big scores and I’m way behind, and if I’m going to be playing live a lot it will be hard. But Card Player only counts the major tourneys for points, and those are what I still play all of the time anyway, so it’s definitely possible.
SPG: How do you manage your poker winnings?
TR: I do a lot of investing. I plan on buying a house or condo, probably out here [Las Vegas], at the end of the Series. But I do pretty well with my investing. I’ve put quite a bit into stocks.
SPG: About how much from a big win would you put back into your poker bankroll, as opposed to investing?
TR: I try to keep a decent amount of money in poker. There’s not really a set rule that I have, but if I have a big score I’ll try to take a bunch offline [for investments], because before the big score I had plenty enough money to play in the big events, anyway.
SPG: And how much do you allocate to just pissing away and having fun or anything like that? Or don’t you?
TR: I don’t do it that much. I mean, probably not more than your normal poker player, but I’ll have fun every now and then.
SPG: What got you interested in poker, initially?
TR: I started playing in college with friends. My roommate and I would play for dish duty and things like that and then my friends started running a home game. I played there and I really liked it, so I started studying and reading up about it a lot and I got really interested and started playing a ton. Play $500 match poker bonus.
SPG: What kind of role do you ultimately see poker taking in your life?
TR: I think it will definitely be a big part of my life, especially early on. But it will always be a part of my life. For instance, I could see myself always playing in the World Series. But right now I play so much online and things like that, and I might not be into that kind of stuff as much later.
SPG: I know you’ve got to head back to the tournament, now. Thanks for taking the time for this interview, and good luck!
If Tulsa, Okla., isn't currently a hotbed of Hold'em activity it will be Aug. 5, when female card sharks of the heartland converge at the Cherokee Casino for the Pro-Tour Poker. Online poker.
