Poker

On May 23, 2003, I was a television news reporter. I played online poker on the side. I'd already fallen in love with the movie Rounders. I played local home games regularly. I'd been to Vegas the year before and cut my teeth at the Bellagio. Two weeks earlier, a co-worker introduced me to Positively Fifth Street by Jim McManus. I spent nearly every rare moment of free time I had that spring playing poker, reading about poker, or thinking about poker. But on the morning of May 23, I had no idea how something that was happening in Las Vegas would change my life. How much would everything change? I'd end up writing poker stories that were crazier than Rounders. I'd play in games in casinos all over the world. I'd sit around with Jim McManus and talk about Positively Fifth Street. That's how much things changed because of May 23, 2003. That's how much changed because of this guy. Chris Moneymaker In the days before Twitter, the fastest way reporters got their outside news was via the Associated Press wire. My newsroom's fancy new software had an AP feed that came directly to our computers. That was where I first saw that a man named Moneymaker had won the biggest Main Event in history. That was ten years ago today, an historic Friday in Vegas that changed the lives of an uncountable number of people. Moneymaker's win struck me and my poker friends like it struck every other wannabe in the world. The restaurant accountant from Tennessee was just some guy. He wasn't a Brunson. He wasn't a Chan. He wasn't a star, but he was about to change our lives. There will be many retrospectives and re-told stories today. They're all worthy tales, and they all deserve their due. But today, I'm struck by a personal feeling of gratitude that I can't shake, and that's what this is about. *** So, why would I thank Chris? I stayed in TV news for another 18 months. My friends and I talked about Moneymaker. He was around our age, and he was the most unlikely of heroes in a game that we played. Our softball team was never going to walk into Fenway. Our disc golf games weren't going to land us in some disc golf version of The Masters. But our poker game...well, Chris Moneymaker gave us hope. I played poker as much as I could. I managed to win my first $10,000 tournament seat just a few weeks before I got the opportunity to start doing work for PokerStars (a seat I gave up for the privilege of doing what do today). PokerStars was exploding by that point in January 2005. It had put the last two World Champions into the WSOP. It was on its way to becoming the world's biggest online poker site. I gave up a career I'd been in for a decade to write about the people who were chasing...well, they were chasing my dream. I wasn't on the job long before then card room manager Lee Jones pulled me aside and laid it out for me. I don't remember his exact words, but in my head it sounded like this: "We're all here because of what Chris Moneymaker did." That may sound like dramatic hyperbole, and it probably discounts the role television and the hole card cameras played in the game's growth. Nevertheless, I feel comfortable that neither I nor most of the poker people I know would be where they are today if it weren't for Moneymaker making the choice to play that $39 satellite on PokerStars that put him in the WSOP Main Event. As always, Lee Jones was right. Our lives and the lives of many other people changed in an immeasurable way when Moneymaker finally took off his sunglasses and smiled ten years ago. *** I'll be honest. The first time I saw Chris was the morning of Day 1 of the 2005 PCA, and he didn't look especially good. He looked tired and a little worn out by the duties and obligations of being a world champion. I didn't ask him if I could write that--or even if it is true--but I don't think he would deny it. I only mention it to highlight the fact that playing the role of a hero when you don't have experience in the field can be

Some of poker's best known names from the west are looking east for a chance at winning big. PokerStars Macau recently announced the June 5 HK $1 Million (US $130k) buy-in GuangDong Ltd Asia Millions (GDAM) tournament at the City of Dreams casino. There was never any doubt that the regional super high rollers would show up. Now we can confirm the train from the western world is filling up. Players among the the early confirmations include Jonathan Duhamel, Isaac Haxton, Gus Hansen, Erik Seidel, Greg Merson, and Celina Lin. Organizers report they also have commitments from John Juanda, Joseph Cheong, Tony Gregg, Mike Watson, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Igor Kurganov, Tobias Reinkemeier, Aaron Lim, JC Alvarado, Devan Tang, and Nick Wong. Isaac Haxton among super high rollers headed to Macau They are part of a list of more than 50 people already signed up, an unprecedented number of pre-registrations for an event of this magnitude. At least one more will qualify for the main event this Sunday in a special satellite on PokerStars. The GDAM main event will be webcast live on PokerStars.TV June 5-7 beginning at 3pm HKT each day. GDAM SCHEDULE Tue, June 4 @ 3:00 PM - HK $250,000 GDAM Warm-Up Event Wed, June 5 @ 3:00 PM - HK $1M + 2R GDAM Main Event - Day 1 Thu, June 6 @ 3:00 PM - GDAM Main Event - Day 2 Fri, June 7 @ 3:00 PM - GDAM Main Event - Final Table Brad Willis is the PokerStars Head of Blogging

The U.S. pro outlasted 97 players in Event 30-H to win $45,377. It was his second PokerStars SCOOP title but he already has a record four WCOOP wins. As a sharp contrast fellow MTT grinder Randal “RandAllin” Flowers finally got his due by winning his first SCOOP in the $2,100 PLO ZOOM tournament. Some of the other notable players to make decent scores last night included Justin Bonomo and upstart online high-stakes player jama-dharma. Jude Ainsworth also final tabled the $1,050 NLHE event that also included Giuseppe “Ansgar2000” Pantaleo. Here’s a look at two of the most significant tables last night: Kelly Outlasts Bonomo to Win $2,100 Razz Dan Kelly busted ZeeJustin in sixth.   Dan Kelly proved his diversity by picking up a win in Event 30-H $2,100 Razz yesterday. It was Kelly’s second SCOOP but once you add his four WCOOP tables he’s up to six overall COOP victories. That’s second only to Shaun Deeb who has a total of seven COOP titles, with five in SCOOP. The final table in Event 30-H was no cakewalk, as Kelly had to deal with noted high-stakes pros Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo. Kelly came to play, however, and he eventually busted Bonomo in sixth place. Here’s a look at the final-table results: 1. Daniel "djk123" Kelly (Australia) - $45,377.50* 2. SebbyGl (Germany) - $43,377.50* 3. ShellyCalls (Australia) - $27,160.00 4. redeste (Russia) - $18,430.00 5. AceQuad (Mexico) - $13,580.00 6. Justin "ZeeJustin" Bonomo (Canada) - $10,185.00 7. villepn (Finland) - $8,245.00 8. blanconegro (Mexico) - $6,305.00 RandAllin Makes High and Medium PLO Zoom Final Tables Randal "RandALLin" Flowers   Randal “RandAllin” Flowers actually made two final tables yesterday as he finished ninth in Event 32-M $215 PLO Zoom for $3,061. Flowers improved his result substantially in the high-version of the same event as he won it outright for $127,608. The North Carolina native outlasted 312 players and a final table that included recent high-stakes upstart jama-dharma. Flowers then out-dueled heads-up opponent zwacke to claim the title. The German zwacke picked up $93,600 for his second place finish. Here’s a complete look at the final table:  1. Randal "RandALLin" Flowers (Mexico) $127,608.00 2. zwacke (Germany) $93,600.00 3. mahripeluri (Finland) $70,512.00 4. Bandano (Netherlands) $53,040.00 5. jama-dharma (Russia) $36,192.00 6. vindog03 (United Kingdom) $28,080.00 7. vegaspolotsk (Belarus) $21,840.00 8. kartt (Brazil) $15,600.00 9. greeno99 (United Kingdom) $11,856.00 Visit www.pokerlistings.com

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Do you know George Jorj95' Lind III? You should. Not only is he the first player to have crossed the monumental 10,000,000 VPP barrier, but the member of Team PokerStars Online is also contesting for the SCOOP 2013 leader board. Lind has racked up 15 cashes in the series so far including two 2nd place finishes, SCOOP #6-H and SCOOP #15-H (those two results alone are worth more than $50,000) and have helped him to 11th place If his name still isn't ringing any bells then we suggest you quickly apprise yourself of his bio page here. At the beginning of the month Lind challenged himself with a three-pronged goal: to make a million VPP in May while maintaining a pre-rakeback profit and lose ten pounds in weight at the same time. You can read his insane goal declaration at his personal blog. One mill in a month? Ain't no thang The challenge Moving into the final quarter of the challenge Lind has nailed two of the three goals, breaking 1 million VPP and losing 10 pounds, but the third is proving to be a little problematic right now. "Unfortunately i got crushed today, losing like $50k, now I'm only up $2k pre-rakeback on the month. Gonna be a sweat for this last goal!" - Jorj95's blog, 23 May Well, even two out of three ain't bad, but don't go betting against Jorj95. It's tight at the moment Free vacation! (with every 10,000,000 VPPs) You can have a free holiday. Yeah, PokerStars will give you travel, accommodation and spending money, just so long as you earn 10,000,000 VPPs. You can read about the incredible family holiday of a lifetime at Jorj95's personal blog (although it's Mrs George writing as the challenge is on!) It started in Japan here but you can read about the whole trip through the links below. Anchorage glacier bay Dutch Hrabour and Kodiak Kobe and Petropavlovsk While Japan can be a fairly alien environment it is made a lot easier thanks to Naoya 'nkeyno' Kihara stepping in as a makeshift guide and paper sumo opponent. Team Online on the town Apparently you have tap the table a lot... SCOOPing it up Lind really should have made it a four-handed challenge by throwing in a top ten SCOOP leaderboard finish into the mix. He'd be on for a sweat with that one, too. Lind is currently sat in 11th position with 305 points. SCOOP hero Shaun Deeb is, of course, at the top of the leader board with 410 points. Read about that here. Rick Dacey is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.

The second version of SCOOP's "Super Tuesday Special Edition" -- after last week's Event #8-H that ended in a five-way chop with Sobizzle21 claiming the watch -- played out once more this week, again as a two-day event. This time the event concluded with a three-way deal resulting in all three players earning close to $200K for their efforts, with Germany's OverTheTop43 coming away at the end with the chips and SCOOP watch. Day 1 The first day of Event #29-H kicked off much as another Super Tuesday, PokerStars' weekly $1,050 no-limit hold'em tournament, with cards going in the air at 17:00 ET. However in this case the field would be nearly three times as large as the Super Tuesday has been of late, with a whopping 1,534 players ultimately taking to the felt by the time late registration closed. That big group meant a prize pool of $1,534,000, well over the $1 million guarantee assigned to this one, with the top 171 finishers destined to divide those riches. The schedule called for 16 half-hour levels to be played on Day 1, and as it happened by the end of the night exactly 172 players remained -- that's right, they stopped squarely on the stone cold bubble. Three Team PokerStars Pros were among that group surviving the first day, with Ike Haxton in 16th position with double the average stack, Chris "Money800" Moneymaker in 35th, and Lex Veldhuis in 44th. Meanwhile, Ondrej "Vinkyy" Vinklarek of the Czech Republic ended the night out in front of everyone with more than 162,000. Here's how the top of the counts appeared overnight: 1. Ondrej "Vinkyy" Vinklarek (Czech Republic) -- 162,061 2. Jim "Mr_BigQueso" Collopy (Australia) -- 140,603 3. kikobicu (Brazil) -- 136,421 4. Elia001 (Russia) -- 129,733 5. OverTheTop43 (Germany) -- 129,770 6. petermurphy8 (United Kingdom) -- 127,844 7. FONBET_RULIT (Russia) -- 118,515 8. Denys "SantaZzz" Chufarin (Ukraine) -- 109,512 9. SlovakPsycho (Slovakia) -- 108,976 10. Steve "BetrThanPhil" Tripp (Canada) -- 104,671 Day 2 The surviving players reassembled at 17:00 ET on Wednesday to begin Level 17 and the process of finding a winner. They started with all 20 remaining tables playing hand-for-hand, and made it to the fourth hand before NhFy reraised-shoved for about 16 big blinds with [Ah][Kc] and got a single caller in PokerPetty00 who held [Qd][Qh]. The community cards came eight-high, and having failed to improve NhFy was the unlucky 172nd-place finisher, the last to go out prior to the cash. About 50 players followed NhFy to the rail during that first hour, then during the second Lex Veldhuis unfortunately met his end in 108th place ($2,914.60) after running [Qc][Qh] into kjunia's [As][Ah] in a blind-versus-blind confrontation. By the three-hour mark they'd whittled down to the final 64 players, with kikobicu and Ondrej "Vinkyy" Vinklarek still at the top of the counts with Grayson "gray31" Ramage in third position. Meanwhile, Team PokerStars Pro Ike Haxton had just hit the rail in 66th ($3,528.20) after becoming short-stacked before being finished off in a hand versus Varosky. That left just Chris "Money800" Moneymaker who sat with an average stack. Moneymaker, of course, was celebrating the eve of an important anniversary of not just in his poker career, but for poker, generally speaking. As most are remembering this week, it was May 23, 2003 when Moneymaker completed his magical Main Event run to win the title and $2.5 million prize. Chris "Money800" Moneymaker After getting off to a good start in the night's fourth hour, Moneymaker would climb into the top 10 in the counts as players continued to fall, with Németh "probirs" András (63rd, $3,835), Denys "SantaZzz" Chufarin (62nd, $3,845), and Jim "Mr_BigQueso" Collopy (50th, $4,141.80) among the eliminated. They pushed on past the five-hour mark for Day 2 as the field shrunk further to less than 40. Then with the blinds at 1,600/3,200, Victor "VibizSbrissa" Sbrissa raised to 6,785 from early position a

The WSOP is bringing back the Carnivale of Poker which ran from 1998-2000 and at one time held the role of being the second biggest poker event in the world. The 21-event series is scheduled to run on Mondays and Tuesdays during the 2013 WSOP...

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The structures at SCOOP 2013 are so deep and patient that when PokerStars puts a NLHE event on the schedule, they know that the event has to take place over two days. For SCOOP 2013 Event 29-M, $109 NLHE, it took almost a full 24 hours for Passagero-LM to claim the victory. Team PokerStars Pro Jose "Nacho" Barbero has played his fair share of SCOOP 2013 events. He was at it again in Event 29-M and made a respectably deep run, cashing for $573.43 by finishing in 100th place. He led Team Pros Jonathan Duhamel (400th, $213.73) and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospelier (645th, $177.24) to ITM finishes. It was after 1am server time when the final table began with these nine players: Seat 1: rounder3989 (4584432 in chips) Seat 2: dyng247 (591453 in chips) Seat 3: PutItAllYin (3512444 in chips) Seat 4: gardze_wami (3119272 in chips) Seat 5: dariepoker (3703514 in chips) Seat 6: What0ver9000 (1563200 in chips) Seat 7: holla@yoboy (1920518 in chips) Seat 8: beed2 (4870103 in chips) Seat 9: Passagero-LM (2200064 in chips) Level 46: blinds 30k-60k, ante 7500 Average: 2.9 million (48 BBs) The short stack, dyng247, was dying as the final table began, but tripled up, all in preflop, through rounder3989 and PutItAllYin by flopping a Broadway straight. Once that happened, everyone at the final table had at least 20 big blinds. They were going to play some poker. It would be almost an hour before dyng247, despite that early triple-up, would go out as the 9th-place finisher. dyng247, sitting on the button with a pair of 10s, three-bet shoved for 1.3 million after Passagero-LM opened for the minimum 160k with a pair of 8s. dyng247 was in great shape when Passagero-LM called, but not even a set of 10s would have been enough after two more 8s hit the board, [qh][8c][7s][8s][ad]. From there it was the dariepoker show, as dariepoker would seemingly be the only player to accumulate chips for the next half hour. By the time holla@yoboy open-shoved for 868k from under the gun with [qc][td], dariepoker had about 7.4 million chips. dariepoker was also dealt two 7s that hand and re-shoved. 7s held up to send holla@yoboy crashing out in 8th place. Two more players would hit the rail before the 3am break. gardze_wami lost a flip holding [as][ks] on what many would call an "action flop": That hand didn't eliminate gardze_wami, but it did set up gardze_wami to be eliminated a few hands later. PutItAllYin finished the chop by making [kc][9s] stand up against gardze_wami's [5c][7h]. The other player to be eliminated was What0ver9000, who had a very quiet final table. What0ver9000's fateful final hand saw the chips go in on a classic flip, as What0ver9000 3-bet shoved for 1.86 million with [ad][kd] and was called by Passagero-LM, who had open-raised with [qd][qc]. What0ver9000 flopped two pair, [kc][9c][ac], but Passagero-LM caught a fourth club on the river to make a flush and knock What0ver9000 out. The remaining five players played for five minutes after the 3am break before calling a halt to consider working out a deal. rounder3989, as the short stack, refused to consider a chip-chop deal, so the players requested ICM numbers and started working from there. The deal hit a sticking point when PutItAllYin, whose ICM number was $38,738, asked for $42,500. That wasn't going to fly but the players started bartering to see what might. beed2 and dariepoker, as big stacks, each agreed to kick $800 towards PutItAllYin, with Passagero-LM contributing another $500. Everyone agreed to that deal. All told it took 20 minutes to hammer out the deal, but when it was done only $6,000 remained to play for. The five players left didn't abandon all sanity and rationality and just fling the chips in, however. They continued to play patient poker, taking an hour to finish the rest of the tournament. Things gave way first for rounder3989, who tried making a huge bluff in a pot that rounder3989 had three-bet pre-flop. Passagero-LM called that pre-flop three-bet