Posts Tagged ‘WSOP’

Broke Dutch Boyd using Kickstarter to fund Poker Book

Sunday, March 17th, 2013

Just a few months ago, two-time WSOP champion Dutch Boyd was on Reddit.com talking about how he couldn’t find a regular job and was broke – despite earning over $2.1 million in live poker tournaments alone. Well little has changed since those days, but Boyd is trying to rectify the situation by writing a book.

Rather than getting a publisher for his work like many authors, Boyd is using the fundraising website Kickstarter.com to generate money. Dutch is trying to get $5,000 so he can self-publish the book, which is tentatively titled “Poker Tilt.”

Getting into the details of Boyd’s book, part of it is supposed to be an autobiography while the other part deals with poker strategy. He has also teamed up with a published author named Laurence Samuels, who’s probably on board to make sure the writing is good. Boyd discussed the project further on Kickstarter by writing:

After winning my first WSOP title, I was asked,  “What does winning a bracelet mean to you?” My answer: “Now If I ever go broke, I can always write a book.”

Well now that time has come.  So I’m setting out to write the greatest book ever. I’ve teamed up with published author Laurence Samuels to make sure this dream turns into a reality.

(continued later) If you’ve ever played poker, you are going to want this book. But even if you don’t play poker, there is going to be a lot in here that will be interesting to you. The things that make a poker player successful apply to all aspects of life. Plus, you’ll get to read an insider’s story of a world that is rarely exposed.

Just two days after posting the Kickstarter listing, Boyd has already drawn 23 backers and $1,135 in funding. He has 28 days to go to reach his $5k goal, or else all of the funding is returned. Those wanting to support Boyd’s project must pledge at least $1 to be considered a backer.

As mentioned before, Dutch Boyd has captured two WSOP bracelets and earned $2,122,906 in tournament winnings. Despite these accomplishments, Dutch is also loathed by many in the poker community. He ran an online poker room called PokerSpot, and when it failed in the early 2000′s, Boyd didn’t reimburse players for over $400,000 in deposits.

More recently, Boyd was sued by the popular forum TwoPlusTwo.com for cybersquatting; he used a domain name that was very similar to TwoPlusTwo without permission.

WSOP to name Event after Deceased Jerry Buss

Tuesday, February 19th, 2013

One of the biggest news stories from yesterday was that Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss passed away at the age of 80. He’d been battling cancer and was hospitalized last Thursday before dying on Monday. Because of Buss’ poker playing background, the World Series of Poker is in the process of naming a tournament after him.

As reported by TMZ, the WSOP wants to either name their Seven Card Stud Championship after Buss, or at least dedicate a trophy to him – much like the “Chip Reese Memorial Trophy” that goes to the $50k Players Championship winner. A WSOP rep told TMZ:

At the appropriate time, we will seek to ask the family to honor [Jerry's] legacy by possibly naming our WSOP Seven Card Stud Championship after him or awarding the victor a special perpetual trophy in his honor.

“We’re definitely going to miss seeing him … Even when the Lakers were playing in the NBA Finals, you could often find Dr. Buss playing his favorite game — Seven Card Stud — at the World Series of Poker.

As the above statement alludes to, Jerry Buss was very fond of playing high stakes Seven Card Stud cash games. He also experienced success in the Stud tournament scene after finishing third place in a 1991 WSOP Seven Card Stud event.

Later on in life, Buss got into lots of other tournaments and played from 1991 to 2011, when age and declining health convinced him to stop playing so much poker. None of Buss’ cashes were overly-large – with his biggest being worth $33,800 – but he did manage to accumulate $172,490 in winnings before passing away.

As a testament to how much Dr. Buss loved poker, he once skipped a Los Angeles Lakers NBA Championship parade to play poker at the Bicycle Casino, which was just 10 miles away. Taking everything here into account, it’s no wonder why the WSOP wants to name an event after him.

Daniel Negreanu picks well on Millionaire Matchmaker

Saturday, January 12th, 2013

A few weeks ago, we discussed how Daniel Negreanu was set to appear on the popular Bravo reality show “The Millionaire Matchmaker.” Well that day finally came as KidPoker sought out the advice of show host Patti Stangler in hopes of finding true love.

In the video introduction that he sent to Patti, Negreanu let her know that he’d dated a woman for four years, only to find out that “she’d been getting around” with other men. Because he was still hurt from this relationship, Stangler nicknamed him “Wounded Wally.”

Next up was an interesting trip to an astrologist, where the four-time WSOP champ learned that he wasn’t supposed to find his soulmate until at least 40 years old. The cosmic alignments must have been right in this case because Negreanu is 38 and still looking for that special lady.

After visiting the astrologist, Daniel went to a mixer that was set up by Stangler. The goal here was for Negreanu to meet a number of gorgeous women and find the one with an “Anna Farris” type of personality. He was eventually able to find one girl that met this ideal, and he took her on a date to Las Vegas.

The two seemed to hit it off right away as they checked out the set of a Vegas show and played blackjack. The latter actually led to the couple’s first kiss, and they only become more enamored with each other from here. Negreanu and his new blonde lover ended up spending a sexless night (at Patti’s request)  together at his Vegas house – thus sealing their perfect match. If you’re interested in seeing a few scenes from the episode, you can check out the video below:

Phil Ivey returns to Full Tilt Poker under New Name

Wednesday, December 12th, 2012

Following a long hiatus from the poker world, which coincided with Full Tilt Poker shutting down, Phil Ivey has been getting more and more involved in the game lately. First off, he returned to the 2012 WSOP and won five gold bracelets. Then he started a poker training website called IveyPoker. Now it appears as if he’s back to playing high stakes poker games on Full Tilt – only under a different name.

Ivey was previously a sponsored pro by the site and owned a stake in FTP. But now that he doesn’t have any contractual obligations with the poker room, he’s been grinding under the screen name “Polarizing.”

Apparently this started a few weeks ago when other high stakes players were sent an email stating how Ivey would be changing screen names with the Full Tilt relaunch – something that’s been acceptable given how the revamped FTP is owned by a totally different company.

Since his return, the eight-time WSOP champion has wasted no time in winning on the high stakes tables. Over the past couple of days, he’s collected $225k in profits while playing against some of the world’s top 2-7 Triple Draw players. His overall winnings this week are a bit lower at $114k, but still very good nonetheless.

Before Full Tilt Poker went offline in June, 2011, Phil Ivey was easily the greatest online player of all-time. He’d earned $19.24 million in profits, which is simply amazing when you consider that Patrik Antonius is a distant second with $11.84 million. Based on the hot start he’s gotten off to already since the FTP relaunch, we can only assume that Ivey will continue building on his record amount of profits – rather than suffering through major losses like fellow high stakes grinder Gus Hansen.

Theo Jorgensen is Latest Robbery in Poker Community

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012

One topic that we’ve discussed a few times in the past is how more and more poker players seem to be getting robbed these days. And the trend culminated last year with the grisly beating/robbery of 2010 WSOP Main Event champion Jonathan Duhamel.

Unfortunately, we witnessed another robbery that was just as grisly as Duhamel’s over the weekend. This time the victim was well-liked Danish grinder Theo Jorgensen, who had three masked criminals break into his Greve, Denmark home. They demanded money and the Dane forked over what amounted to $6,215 USD. However, the robbers were unhappy with this amount and one of them shot Jorgensen in the leg three times.

His wife, who’d witnessed the entire scene, called police immediately after the robbers took off. They arrived too late to catch the criminals, but Jorgensen was quickly driven to the hospital. He’s now recovering from the leg wounds and released the following Facebook message about the ordeal:

I know that the outsiders may have a mistaken idea of how much cash I have in my home. I have alarm systems installed, always so get cash lying as possible and generally taken my precautions. It has unfortunately proved not to be enough. I have it under (control) well, and right now I want to focus on taking care of my family, so we can get through this.

This is yet another unfortunate and scary robbery incident in the poker world. And we’d like to think that this would be the last poker robbery for a while. However, with the fame and perceived wealth that players like Jorgensen have, other grinders will likely be targeted in the future too.

Speaking of Jorgensen’s wealth, he’s collected $3,239,763 in live poker tournament cashes and has earned both WSOP and WPT titles. The Dane has also made millions of dollars playing both live and online cash games as well.

Sam Trickett signs with International Stadiums Poker Tour

Thursday, August 30th, 2012

The International Stadiums Poker Tour (ISPT) has been given the green light to run it’s much-discussed event at Wembley Stadium in London. The poker tournament will be held from May 31st to June 6th, 2013, the prize pool could reach an impressive €20 million, and 30,000 players are expected.

As for the latter, Sam Trickett will be doing his best to help reach this 30k figure since he’s signed on with ISPT. He’ll join Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi as an official ambassador for this organization. The Brit spoke about his signing by saying, “As a poker player, I have to be associated with such an enormous event. Being part of this tournament means being part of the history of poker.”

At only 26 years old, Sam Trickett is already one of the world’s most successful grinders, having earned the 2011 British Poker Award for UK’s Best Cash Player. Trickett is also a prolific tournament player who is ranked fourth all-tine in live winnings with $16,471,099. A large chunk of this amount recently came in the WSOP $1 million Big One for One Drop, where he collected $10,112,001 after finishing runner-up.

Trickett is now preparing to promote and play in the €600 buy-in ISPT Wembley Stadium online qualifiers; these satellites include a single rebuy and double add-on. It’s also worth mentioning that 1,000 players will be allowed to skip the initial online days and go straight to Day 3 (live) for €6,000.

ISPT Wembley is the brainchild of Groupe Bernard Tapie, and this event looks to destroy Europe’s old attendance record for a poker tournament (1,765). Even if just a fraction of the 30,000 players show up, the tourney should easily beat the record.

Michael Phelps eyeing Poker after 2012 Olympics

Sunday, August 5th, 2012

The 2012 Summer Olympics may still be raging on in London, but for Michael Phelps, the Olympics are over. He added four more gold medals and two silvers this year, which is a nice cap to what seems like the end of his career. So what’s next for the most decorated Olympic athlete in history?

Well it looks like he’s already planning his next move with poker. He’s dabbled in poker before, and now there are rumors of him preparing to hit the felt again. Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth are just two of the poker players who have been keeping Phelps company, and ever since the 2008 Olympics, it seems like the game has become one of his main hobbies. Since Phelps enjoys poker so much, it’s rumored that he wants to become more serious about playing in the future.

The New York Times revealed the swimmer’s future plans of focusing more on poker with the following:

An avid card player, Phelps said it would be cool to participate in the World Series of Poker. “My game is a little off right now,” he said, “so I’ll have to start improving it a little bit.”

Since he was a little preoccupied with training for the 2012 Summer Olympics this year, he wasn’t able to focus as much energy on playing poker. Not to worry though…there is always next year’s WSOP and with the swimming career being put on the back burner, he can finally focus on poker.

Michael Phelps will surely enjoy his time away from swimming by returning to as normal of a life as possible for the all-time Olympic gold medal record holder (18). He plans to go to NFL football games, have play dates with the likes of Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods.

Josh Arieh retires from Poker since it’s “Really Tough”

Saturday, July 14th, 2012

Josh Arieh has remained a well-known figure in the poker world ever since he finished third in the 2004 WSOP Main Event and collected $2.5 million. He’s also managed to win two WSOP gold bracelets (1999 and 2005), which has furthered his reputation as a strong tournament player. However, it appears that Arieh has decided to retire from poker – save for playing in the WSOP Main Event.

The 37-year-old dropped this news by telling PokerListings, “I’m not thinking about it, I am (retiring from poker). This is my last tournament until the next WSOP. To me, poker is not what it used to be.” He expanded on the reasoning behind quitting as he said, “Poker is really tough. Kids got so good. Instead of poolroom hustlers and gamblers it turned into freaking geniuses. Kids that are making 1600 on the SATs.”

So how serious is he about retiring from poker? Well the Atlanta resident commented on this by saying, “I’m willing to take any bet from anyone. I’m the action junkie, everyone knows that I love being in action and I’m a complete degenerate. I’m willing to take any bet that I don’t play another tournament after this until the $10k PLO at the WSOP next year.”

About the only way that Josh Arieh would return to poker full-time is if the United States fully legalized the game. After all, this would bring a lot of fresh, unskilled players into the fold and give pros like Arieh a bigger edge. He echoed this sentiment by saying, “If poker gets legalized in the U.S. there will be another boom. It would be great again. That would make it worth what we go through.” You can read the rest of Arieh’s comments on the matter here.

Besides his aforementioned accomplishments and $6 million in tournament winnings, Arieh is also known for representing Bodog and Full Tilt Poker in his career. However, without a sponsorship deal now, it’s likely that this helped contribute to his decision to quit playing poker.

Allyn Shulman wins WSOP Event #29 – Breaks Women’s Losing Streak

Tuesday, June 19th, 2012

Many people who’ve been following the 2012 WSOP are well aware that it’s been a while since a woman has won an open entry event. In fact, we haven’t seen a female open WSOP champion since Vanessa Selbst did it in 2008. However, Allyn Jaffrey Shulman finally ended the drought by winning the Event #29 Seniors Championship along with $603,713.

Before Shulman’s victory, it had been a lengthy 249 consecutive open WSOP tournaments without a female champion. Fortunately, we can now lay this talk to rest since the CardPlayer writer and lawyer won one for the ladies.

Following her victory, Shulman talked about the importance of women grabbing bracelet wins by saying, “I do think it’s important and I don’t think women have been given their due. I’m happy for myself, but I’m happy for all women that I won this, showing that any woman can win a poker tournament. I’d like to see more of them out there playing, feeling comfortable with going at it with the boys and winning.”

Aside from the fact that she became the first woman since ’08 to win an open WSOP tournament, Shulman also helped create some more history. Seeing as how her husband, Barry, and son, Jeff, also made final tables this year, they became the first family to put three members on a WSOP final table in the same year.

With Allyn’s bracelet, the Shulman family could make a claim for having poker’s best bloodline. Barry won the 2009 WSOPE Main Event, which netted him a $1,321,534 windfall. The same year, Jeff finished fifth in the 2009 WSOP Main Event and cashed for $1,953,452. As if these huge cashes aren’t enough to make the family wealthy, the Shulman’s have also made a very nice profit off of their CardPlayer Magazine business.

Tatjana Pasalic re-signs with Bodog Poker

Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

If you’re looking for somebody to be the face of your poker site – both figuratively and physically – there’s nobody better than Tatjana Pasalic. After all, Pasalic is one of the most beautiful women in the poker industry, and she’s also one of the most skilled reporters too. Following the re-signing, the 27-year-old tweeted about the deal with the following:

Very proud and happy to announce that I have renewed my @Bodog and @calvinayre.com contract. Bring on the party and more poker videos!

Now only did Pasalic tweet about renewing the contract with Bodog Poker, but she also made a statement by saying, “The WSOP is around the corner and I can confirm I will definitely be on that plane. I love working with Bodog and they seem to like me..here’s to another great year.”

Many players and fans enjoy her insightful interviews, and the Croatian babe’s accent certainly adds something to the equation as well. Of course, nobody’s going to accuse Pasalic of being the world’s best poker player – she has $5,937 in live poker tournament cashes. However, not every signing is purely based on tournament performance, and Pasalic is a great Bodog re-signing for a number of reasons, with the biggest being that she fits their Recreational Player Model.

As you many know, Bodog has dedicated themselves to recruiting recreational players. And if they’re trying to get amateur players to their site, having a pretty face like Tatjana Pasalic will definitely go a long ways towards making this happen.

If you’re wondering about Pasalic’s specific credentials, she has done reporting work for Party Poker, the WPT, and the TV show “Face The Game.” In addition to this, many people credit her with starting a poker boom in her native country of Croatia. She’s also done some modeling work, as you can see below: