Posts Tagged ‘live poker tournaments’

WSOP Champ Greg Merson – A Tale of Drugs and Redemption

Friday, November 2nd, 2012

By now pretty much the whole poker world has heard of Greg Merson’s 2012 WSOP Main Event victory. Following a 103-day break before final table play began, Merson dispatched his last eight opponents this week en route to the $8,531,853 first place prize. Thanks to his Main Event victory, the 24-year-old was also able to grab the 2012 WSOP Player of the Year award too.

But what many people may not know about Merson is that there’s more to this story than just some young poker player winning a big tournament. The Laurel, Maryland native was actually addicted to drugs just a short time ago before getting his life on track.

How to cope

As for how it all happened, Black Friday struck and hampered Merson’s ability to play on the biggest online poker sites. What ensued was a severe depression that had him wondering how he was going to continue making a living with the game. Merson eventually coped with his problems by turning to drugs, which is when he finally hit rock bottom.

Re-dedication

Luckily, Merson wouldn’t stay mired in this downward spiral forever. He turned to live poker tournaments in hopes of replacing the loss of online poker revenue. And he certainly accomplished this goal after winning the 2012 WSOP Event #57 (6-max Hold’em) tournament along with $1,136,197.

Of course, this was only a warm-up of what was yet to come since we now know that Merson also captured the Main Event title along with another $8.53 million. Thanks to these latest victories, he now has an impressive $9,851,557 in live tournament cashes. More importantly, he’s overcame the drug problems that he dealt with last year and looks on track to continue having an excellent poker career.

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Greg Raymer wins third HPT Title, proves Longevity

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

Winning the WSOP Main Event is by no means a recipe for long-term success. Jerry Yang, Jamie Gold and Robert Varkonyi are all prime examples of this point. However, there are also plenty of ME champions who have made a nice career out of poker including Greg Raymer.

The Raleigh, North Carolina native added yet another big accolade to his career by recently winning his third Heartland Poker Tour title. Raymer beat out a 185-player field to win HTP Altoona along with a $72,089 payout. He defeated Chad Lawson heads-up to secure the title, and you can see the complete final table results below:

1. Greg Raymer – $72,089
2. Chad Lawson – $41,771
3. Craig Casino – $26,275
4. Ben Stroh – $22,233
5. Ed Sinnett – $16,978
6. Josh Birkenbuel – $14,526

What’s truly impressive about Raymer’s HTP titles is that they’ve all come within the past few months. Before we continue discussing how great this accomplishment is, take a closer look at the three Heartland wins:

2012 HPT Route 66 – 1st place, $71,875
2012 HPT St. Louis – 1st place, $121,973
2012 HPT Altoona – 1st place, $72,089

After winning three HPT tournaments in a single year, Raymer becomes the only player to do so. In addition to this, he’s also the only person other than Jeremy Dresch to win three HPT events overall.

These wins are just the tip of the iceberg because Greg Raymer has truly proven the test of time by winning $7,285,094 in live poker tournaments. Some of the most notable tourney finishes in Raymer’s career include a third place effort in the 2009 40th Anniversary event ($775k), 25th place in the 2005 WSOP Main Event ($305k), and of course his 2004 WSOP Main Event victory ($5 million).

Besides his playing career, Raymer has gained considerable respect for his involvement with the Poker Players Alliance. Going further, he’s done a lot of fighting for players’ rights and is an adamant supporter of legal online poker. Hopefully all of his hard work in this department will pay off someday!

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David Einhorn discusses Psyche of a Billionaire Poker Player

Saturday, July 7th, 2012

Following his recent third place finish in the Big One for One Drop, David Einhorn has become one of the hottest stories in the poker world. The Greenlight Capitol hedge fund manager earned $4,352,000 for taking third place, and he donated the entire amount to the One Drop foundation.

Seeing as how Einhorn is an investor, you might think that he’s just some random billionaire who luckboxed his way into a good finish. However, the truth is that the New Yorker has become very good at relating poker to his investing business. Einhorn explained this by saying the following:

There’s some information you know, there’s some information you surmise, and then there’s the future which is the unknown information and you have a range of possible outcomes.

If you think about a poker hand that way, you have your cards, you have what you can surmise about whatever your opponents might have and then you have whatever cards might come on the board that are uncertain. So there’s a range, and you’re calculating through those three pieces of information.

And when you invest, it’s really the same. There are the things you know about a company or the world or whatnot, and there are things that you surmise — you don’t know, but you kind of assume –and then there’s the future, which is the range of possible events in the future. And then you think about how do those three things put together affect an investment, which isn’t all that different from how something might affect a poker hand.

As you can see, David Einhorn definitely seems to know more about poker than one would think. He uses his knowledge of investing to profile players and consider their range of hands.

Now one thing that many people may not realize is that this isn’t Einhorn’s first time around the block on the poker tables. He’s cashed in three other live poker tournaments – including an 18th place finish in the 2006 WSOP Main Event ($699,730).

In all, Einhorn has collected $5,107,352 in live tournament winnings, which ranks him 73rd on the all-time money list. And this isn’t bad at all for a guy who spends most of his life trading stocks!

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