Marcel “The Flying Dutchman” Lüske is one of the most recognizable poker pros today. He is best know for his trademark style of wearing his sunglasses upside down and for serenading his fellow players at the table. He also stands out for his dapper suits in an era when most players dress like they are going to the gym.
Despite being both well known and well like Marcel has never fullfilled his dream of winning a WSOP gold bracelet despite great success at the WSOP.
Lüske managed 14th place finish at the 2003 WSOP Main Event. He followed that up the next year with a 10th place finish in the 2004 WSOP Main Event. In 2004 Lüske took home $373,000 for his finish on the bubble of the final table.
His performance those two years are only rivaled by “Action” Dan Harrington who miraculously made the final table at the WSOP Main Event in both ‘03 and ‘04. Marcel has many cashes at the World Series as well. He came closest to a coveted gold bracelet in 2004 where he finished 2nd to Joe Awada in the $5K Seven card stud Event earning Marcel over $120,800.
The Flying Dutchman began 2007 with career tournament earnings in excess of 3 million dollars.
Phil Gordon is best known for being one of the hosts of Celebrity Poker Showdown. Before becoming a poker pro Gordon was one of the many dotcom millionaires. In 2001 Gordon entered his first The World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event. Call it beginners luck but he brought home 400k for his 4th place finish. He followed that up the next year by making two WSOP final tables. He finished in 6th place in the $2,000 Pot Limit hold ‘em event and he managed a third place finish in the $2,500 Omaha Hi/Lo Split WSOP event.
In 2005 Gordon had his highest WSOP finish by taking home third place in the $1,500 No Limit Shootout event. Despite his numerous final table finishes at the WSOP, he has yet to win a coveted gold bracelet. Gordon’s lifetime WSOP earnings are $641,073.
Phil Gordon has faired far better on the World Poker Tour. He made a final table at the 2002 Ultimate Bet Poker Classic by finishing in fith place. Gordon continued his WPT success in 2004 by winning The Bay 101 Shooting Stars WPT Tournament.
The biggest win of Gordon’s poker career came on Thanksgiving Day in 2006. Phil Gordon won the Full Tilt Championship at Red Rock, by defeating Roland De Wolfe heads-up. Gordon earned the biggest payday of his career by winning the $600,000 first place prize.
As of 2007, Phil Gordon’s has over 1.6 Million dollars in ive tournament winnings.
5 Best Pros Without a WSOP Bracelet: #5 Andy Bloch
Bodog Poker Review
Bodog started as an online casino in 1995. Poker was added in 2004. The Bodog poker site is one of the hottest rooms today and is growing very rapidly, thanks to great promotions and massive advertising. The player base is recruited through the sportsbook and casino, making a large portion of the players beginners and relatively easy to beat. The software offers nice graphics and functionality, is fast and has great playability. The functionality is good and offers some innovative functions, such as a three-in-one mode where three tables can be viewed and played in the same window. The games offered are all variations of Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, Seven-Card Stud, Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo, and Five-Card Stud. The games vary between No-Limit, Pot-Limit, and Fixed-Limit. Full-table games, short-handed, and heads-up tables are all available. The games are concentrated on No-Limit Hold’em, especially at the small and middle limits. One downside is that Horse tournaments range from extremely rare to non-existent on Bodog Poker. Horse is growing more and more popular, with several Horse events at this year’s World Series of Poker. This is a glaring gap on the Bodog Poker site.
Bodog Poker does offer plenty of tournaments and freerolls with great value. The traffic volume overall is in the higher segment of the industry. Real-money player statistics as of May 2007 show 4,100 ring-game players at peak hours, and 18,000 tournament players at peak hours.
No Bodog review would be complete without mentioning Bodog’s founder Calvin Ayre. Ayre, known for his hearty partying as much as his business empire, has held firm in the face of US law makers. Its nice to know that there is at least one guy out there who isn’t going to buckle under to the thugs in Washington. I just wish some of the other online poker rooms were as ballsy.
Overall Bodog Poker offers relatively loose games and great software that plays well and is fast. The software is updated frequently to ensure safety and stability, with little downtime as a result. Downsides include lack of a Mac client and limited multi-tabling.
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The holy grail for any professional poker player is a championship gold bracelet from the World Series of Poker. With the 2007 World Series of Poker less than a couple of weeks away, here are some great players still trying to win their first bracelet.
#5 Andy Bloch: Andy Bloch is perhaps best known for being an a member of the famous MIT Blackjack team which was featured in the book “Bringing Down the House.”
Bloch started on the road to his professional poker career in 1992 when he began entering some small $35 weekly tournaments. By 1993, Bloch earned a World Poker Finals tournaments. Unbelievably it was also the first time he ever played a no limit texas hold ‘em tournament.
In 1997 Bloch was just completing law school but he decided to skip the last week of classes to play in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event. Fortunately for both his soul and his pocket book Bloch ended up choosing poker over law. Bloch made two separate World Series of Poker Final Tables in 2001. His career launched into the stratosphere in 2002 when he won a seven card stud tournament and wnet on to make 2 WPT Final tables in the inaugural season of the World Poker Tour.
Last year brough Bloch is most impressive WSOP finish. He took second place to cash game pro Chip Reese in the big 50K HORSE tourney. Andy Bloch has lifetime tournament winnings of nearly 3 million dollars.
David Williams - Williams became a household name in the poker world after his runner up finish in the 2004 World Series of Poker. Williams earned a 3.5 million dollar pay day. He followed that up with a second place finish at the Borgata Open World Poker Tour where he earned nearly $600,000. Last year, Williams made his second World Poker Tour final table earning nearly 300k for his 4th place finish. In May 2006 Williams achieved another World Poker Tour final table, again finishing 4th. Williams has one World Series of Poker gold bracelet. At the 2006 WSOP Williams finished first in the $1,500 Seven card stud tournament. Williams is also a member of Calvin Ayre’s Team Bodog.
Paul Wasicka - Last years WSOP Main Event runner up has been on a hot streak. Wasicka has earned more than $1,000,000 since then with a WPT Final Table, a 12th place finish in the Aussie Millions, and his break through win at the National Heads Up Championship. Don’t be surprised if Wasicka takes home some gold bracelets at this years WSOP.
Carlos Mortenson - Carlos “the matador” Mortenson is best known for winning the Main Event at the 2001 World Series of Poker. His pay day was $1,500,000. Carlos also has had success on the World Poker Tour. In 2004, he won the WPT Doyle Brunson North American Poker Championship for another 1 million dollar pay day. Mortensen made poker history earlier this year by winning the Season Five World Poker Tour championship event for the biggest pay day of his career at nearly 4 million dollars. Not only was this Mortensons 2nd WPT title but he became the first player in history to win both the WPT championship and the WSOP main event.
How do you win $100,000 playing 2 penny limit hold’em? Justine0003, a nineteen
year-old Canadian student did that this weekend on Poker Stars.com. Justine was one of over 100 000 pokerheads on the Poker Stars.com tables this weekend, hoping they would be at the right time and in the right seat for the Ten billionth hand of online poker.
The march up to the big hand was impressive from the 9 billionth hand onward, with a series of rewards building excitement and interest at the tables, but the ultimate winner of the $100 000 set aside to mark the occasion turned out to be a nineteen year old Canadian student using the handle Justine0003…and she didn’t immediately realise that she was the luckiest player in cyberspace!
Playing six handed one cent/two cent Justine and her five fellow players must have caught their collective breath when their screens popped the message “Welcome to the biggest hand of 1¢/2¢ ever!” Four of the six went for it, the board ran out Aclubs-Kclubs-Tdiamonds-9clubs-8hearts, and the lucky Canadian tabled 3clubs-8cblubs for the flush and the $100k win.
The win didn’t immediately register with Justine0003. “It was a total fluke,” Justine said. “I didn’t even realize that it was the major big hand right away. I thought it was just another one leading up to it! I’m just really thankful and feel extremely lucky,” she said in the understatement of the day.
Justine, a social poker player for the last four years plans to spend the money on her education but will be blowing some of it on shopping, too.
The other players at the table, Rechargeable, inwooke, The_Moog, XTedForrestX and Ferius may have just missed the big one, but there was a hefty consolation prize of $10 000 for each to soften the disappointment.
Harrahs has released the new rules for the 2007 World Series of Poker. There are 93 listed. Some of the more notable rules are:
Rule 20, the Harrahs CYA Rule:
“20. Harrah’s is not responsible for injuries or losses arising or resulting from participation in the WSOP and is not liable for any acts or omissions by employees, whether negligent or willful, in the conduct of the WSOP, and is not liable in the event of any equipment or software malfunction. This includes, but is not limited to, any loss of any tournament chips players leave at playing tables during tournament play, except during authorized breaks.”
So if Harrah’s makes another mistake during a chip-up, you’re S.O.L.
The F-Bomb rule has been modified (Rule 27), so that penalties will incur if the F-bomb is directed at a player or staff; penalties MAY incur otherwise.
Rule 84 may make viewing this years series less interesting since you will see less gamesmanship of showing just a single hole card:
“84. At the end of a hand, if a player exposes one hole card, he or she must also show the other hole card if asked to do so by any player.”
The apparel rule has been a hot topic of discussion of late. It states that:
You can wear patches, or multiple patches; each patch must be no more than 6 square inches in size; patches can’t advertise any alcoholic beverages except for one’s made by Miller (rule 34(c)), can’t assist or promote illegal gambling (rule 34(d)); can’t advertise a dot.com gaming site that conducts business with US residents (rule 34(i)); and patches for dot net sites must have “.net” in as big type as the site name (rule 34(k)).
Warning to Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, excessive chatter can now be considered an ettiquette violation”
“Repeated etiquette violations such as touching another player’s cards or chips, delay of game and excessive chatter will result in penalties.”
And, finally, the “Who took away my Fossil” Rule:
“55. There will be no foreign objects on the table except for a maximum of one card cap. Card caps can be no larger than two (2) inches in diameter and no more than one-half (1/2) inch in depth.”
I’m just waiting for Harrah’s to come out with a tape measure to tell Greg Raymer that his fossil is too big or the 78 year old pround grandfather from Poughkeepsie that he can’t have the 4 pictures of his grandkids on the table.
You can see all the rules at the Harrahs World Series of Poker site.
Although the World Series of Poker does not start until June 1st and the Main Event does not start for nearly 2 months, the British online betting website Blue Square has already pulled some odds out, namely, which players will get the the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event this year.
According to the U.K. bookmaker, Phil Ivey (5 bracelets) has the best chance to reach the final 9 at the WSOP 2007 with odds 20/1. Daniel Negreanu (3 bracelets), Carlos Mortensen (2 bracelets) and Allen Cunningham (4 WSOP events bracelets) are following close behind with betting odds to reach the final at the World Series of Poker of 33/1. The worst odds are 500/1 given to Marco “Cashpoint” Camilleri.
Jennifer Harman is the favorite to be the woman with the highest finish at 8 to 1 followed by Kristy Gazes, Cindy Violette and Annie Duke at 12 to 1.
The American Gaming Association (AGA) has released a survey of the American gaming industry. The survey shows that Poker’s popularity has continued to grow as it has for the previous 4 years in both New Jersey and Nevada. The rate of poker growth has slowed a bit but it continues to rise.
Casino revenue in Nevada and New Jersey included $238.1 million in poker revenue in last year which represents a fifteen percent increase over the prior year. Despite the online gambling ban revenue rose a whopping 37 percent.
Overall revenue from gambling in brick and mortar casinos in the United States Grose 6.8 percent to a new record high of $32 and a half billion dollars last year accoring to the AGA survey.
The American Gaming Association survey gathered numbers from nearly 500 casinos in 11 U.S. states.
The survey found that those casinos had a tremendoous impact on local economies by employing a total of 366,197 people. This was an increase of a little more than 3% over 2005 employment numbers. Overall the casinos contributed over 5 billion dollars in gaming taxes to state and local governments a jump of 5 1/2%.
The AGA survey excluded the nearly 400 Native American casinos in the United States which all told have more than 700 poker rooms. In addition, the AGA study inidcates that there is strong revenue growth at the 36 “racinos” operated at horse and dog racing tracks in 11 U.S.
Long flights might just become last boring. One of the most popular online casinos, 888.com, announced that it plans to offer online casino action as part of in-flight entertainment packages on some airlines.
The new in-flight options will include many 888.com offerings including poker, blackjack, slots and roulette. 888.com plans to offer both play money and real money options depending on government regulations.
888.com has partnered with DTI Software for this venture. Canadian based DTI has experience in the In Flight Entertainment field. DTI works with many airlines including British Airways, Cathay-Pacific Airway and Singapore Air.
888.com CEO Gigi Levy is rightly excited by the prospects of this new market. “This venture represents a significant addition to our innovative ‘every game; everywhere offering, alongside our Internet and mobile proposition, that clearly attracts entertainment consumers in more places every day. By partnering with DTI, the clear IFE market leader, we are redefining interactive gaming in flights and expanding even further our global reach.”
“We took our time to make sure we would partner with the most recognized name and company in its field,” said DTI’s CEO Nicolas Belanger. He added: “The combination of 888.com expertise and know-how in online casino management and DTI Software’s world leading expertise in non-traditional operating platforms and IFE content ensures a winning premise for great products that will soon be available to the IFE industry.”
The long delayed poker movie “Lucky You” finally debuted but had the misfortune to open up against a mega-squel “Spider-Man 3″. Sadly this resulted in a debut that failed to average even $1,000 a screen. Lucky You grossed a mere $2,500,000 despite being shown on over 2,500 screens. The movie stars Drew Barrymore and Eric Bana. Critic reviews have been pretty awful and it appears the public agress.
Whoever said you can’t get something for nothing has probably never heard of a freeroll tournament. When playing this sort of tournament many players turn it in to an “all-in fest” with 3 or 4 people at each table going all in on the first few hands. The theory being that if you get lucky you can build an early big stack and if not it was free so who cares. This style of play represents a wasted opportunity in my opinion.
Play Poker Tournaments Online for Free
Freeroll Texas Holdem poker tournaments are a great way to prepare for the World Series of Poker. The fields at the World Series are huge. You can use freeroll tournaments to practice protecting your stack while eliminating other players. More importantly you can work on the most important trait a winning World Series performance requires, patience. You must learn when to just sit back and let players eliminate each other.
Freeroll tournaments are also a great way to practice different styles of play. One of the keys to winning poker is knowing how to “change gears”. During the early stages when everyone else is playing psycho aggressive sit back and wait for the right hand. Play super tight. Pick your spots during the middle levels. When bubble time arrives change gears and up your aggression level. Each of these styles are an important part of your arsenal. Use freeroll tournaments to hone those skills in this last month before The 2007 World Series of Poker.
The 2007 World Series of Poker is less than a month away. You can view the schedule here.
Can you believe that it is that time once again?
What will be the effect of the online gambling ban in the USA? Will online casino poker rooms attend the event, offering hospitality suites and free T-shirts? Will US authorities look to nab high-profile site operators like Doyle Brunson at the event? I have this horrible vision of Doyle being carted off in handcuffs.
Predictions of how big this years main event will be run the gamut from as low as 3,000 players to the over 10,000 being prepared for by Harrahs. If Harrahs is right the total prize pool would be over $100 million dollars!!!!
Who will be the next world champion? Will it be another no-name such as Moneymaker or Jamie Gold or a big-name pro like Daniel Negreanu?
I can’t wait. I have my hotel reservations all set for the tournament. If you still need a place to stay its not too late. Check out this WSOP FAQ for hotel info. I have been working on my game by playing a couple of times a week in my favorite bar league. Still don’t have my buy-in for the main event but plan on playing several satellites between now and then. Please comment if you can recommend any good satellites? I am pre-registered for Event #3, the $1,500 no-limit event on June 2.
The anti-online gambling nutjob Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona is back at it again criticizing Congressman Barney Frank for introducing legislation that would modify the UIGEA to allow regulated online poker.
Kyl also attacked the online poker sector, claiming that it encouraged gambling among the youth of America and citing the National Annenberg study of youthful gambling, which apparently claims that in recent years there has been a rising trend in online gambling that is significant and worrying.
Using the Arizona Office of Problem Gambling Youth Survey last year as a reference, online observers were quick to point out that that in a survey of more than 60 000 students in grades 8 through 12, the vast majority (92.4 percent) had never gambled on the Internet! And 30.6 percent respondents had played the lottery or scratch tickets, indicating that the most addictive form of gambling among Arizona’s youth is probably the states own lottery!
Congressmen Barney Frank has introduced the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act (IGREA) of 2007. The bill would exempt online poker from the recent congressional ban.
The proposed IGREA would establish a new regulatory framework to allow online poker sites to seek licensure and thereby be able to accept play from online players in the United States. The propsed regulatory framework would help to ensure against gambling by minors and seek to prevent fraud and problem gambling.
“The existing legislation is an inappropriate interference on the personal freedom of Americans and this interference should be undone,” said. Rep. Frank.
Last year, the House passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), which essentially banned all forms of online poker. THE UIGEA accomplished the ban by prohibitting finacial institutions from serving to fund player accounts.
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