Posts Tagged ‘Johnny Chan’

Phil Hellmuth wins WSOPE Main Event

Friday, October 5th, 2012

Just yesterday, we discussed how Phil Hellmuth was leading the 2012 WSOPE Main Event final table. The truth is that we didn’t expect the Poker Brat to actually win – even with his experience and skill – because it seems like the final table chip leader is never a safe bet for some reason. But Hellmuth was able to finish the job and win the WSOPE Main Event along with €1,022,376 ($1.33 million).

The Poker Brat was quite humbled by his victory as he said, “I don’t say this often, but I am truly humbled by this. This is one of the most prestigious titles in poker and to get this one, it’s right up there with the (1989) World Championship.”

Hellmuth continued to reflect on the WSOPE win by saying, “I played the best poker of my life in this tournament. My game is constantly evolving. I tried some new things out that really worked this time. My game is never the same. You’ve got to constantly be improving, and that’s what I do.”

What’s truly impressive about Hellmuth is how he continues to make poker history, despite holding plenty of records already. His WSOPE victory makes him the only player to ever win both this tournament and the WSOP Main Event.

The Poker Brat also extended his gold bracelet record to 13, which means neither Doyle Brunson nor Johnny Chan will be catching him any time soon with their 10 bracelets. It’ll also be a long time before anybody even comes close to the 95 WSOP cashes that Hellmuth has accumulated in his career.

Once the 2012 WSOP Main Event concludes on October 30th, Phil will be adding a Player of the Year award to his lengthy list of accolades. All in all, this year was extremely kind to Hellmuth.

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WSOP $1 Million Buy-in to break Records

Friday, April 13th, 2012

What began as a vision several months ago has become reality since the WSOP $1 million buy-in tournament is definitely going to happen from July1st-3rd. Dubbed “The Big One for One Drop,” this tourney already has 30 players confirmed with some of the biggest names in poker having made a commitment.

But before we get into the confirmed players, it’s worth mentioning that this tournament is already guaranteed to set two records. First off, the WSOP $1 million buy-in tournament will feature the biggest buy-in ever; the previously largest tourney was the $250k Aussie Millions High Roller.

As for the second record, the 30 confirmed players and interesting prize pool distribution will see the winner walk away with almost $12.3 million of the prize pool. Assuming this happens as planned, it would easily beat the $12 million that Jamie Gold received for winning the 2006 WSOP Main Event.

With such a massive prize involved, it’s no wonder why the top names in poker will be entering this event. Some of those confirmed include Gus Hansen, Patrik Antonius, Erik Seidel, Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan, Tom Dwan, Tony G, Dan Shak, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Jonathan Duhamel.

In addition to this stellar lineup of players, there will also be some prominent businessmen joining the tourney. These guys include Guy Laliberté, Bobby Baldwin (former player too), Phil Ruffin, Andy Beal, Sean O’Donnell, Richard Yong, Paul Phua and Arnaud Mimran.

The Big One for One Drop will see 10% of the buy-ins go towards Laliberté’s One Drop foundation, while a little under $27 million is available for the actual tourney. We still have plenty of time before July 1st, so both the number of participants and prize money could grow before the tournament starts. But even if it stays the same, we’re still in for quite a special event come WSOP time!

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Macau Poker Pot Reportedly hits $13.8 Million

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

In case you haven’t heard yet, there are some enormous cash games going on in Macau right now. And the word enormous might even be an understatement after reports are coming out that one of the cash game pots was worth a reported $14 million!

APT owner Tom Hall has been the biggest source of rumors about the $14 million pot, which was won by an unknown player who was reportedly down over $12.6 million; Hall wrote the following about the big play:

Biggest hand I ever saw and arguably the craziest was a guy betting HK$28m (US$3.6) on the river into a HK$51m (US$6.55) pot with a gutshot straight draw against what turned out to be top set. He was down over HK$100m (US$12.8) at the time and hit it.

When you add up all of the money that Hall described, this equals around $13.75 million (or $13.8m just to round off). You can read about all of Tom Hall’s reports on the Macau high stakes poker games in this thread.

The action has been pretty intense all throughout the big games at Macau with Johnny Chan reportedly winning $1.41 million. In addition to this, Tom Dwan lost $2.6 million in one day, but came back to win $1.7m overall, and Andrew Robl was up $2 million – only to drop back down to even.

Apparently the games are pretty exclusive because Patrik Antonius was denied a seat at the big table. 2010 WSOPE Main Event champion James Bord tried to get him into the game, but Canadian billionaire Guy Laliberte refused because he thinks that Antonius is too nitty. Hall wrote about this by typing:

Confirmed that Patrik Antonius was not allowed into the game, James Bord (who was playing) tried to get him in but Guy Laliberte insisted no WAY. Antonius played ~US$640/US$1280 PLO instead with Andrew “good2cu” Robl and a few others.

Apparently, the rich businessmen who play in this game want lots of action, and people who bring their own money – as opposed to being staked.

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