Poker Guru Blog

With Everest Poker being featured in the latest David Guetta hit music video and PokerStars in Snoop Dogg's videoclip, could this be the next big thing in marketing online poker rooms? Well, UB poker believes so, with them also jumping into this latest way to target new potential customers by securing a placement in Ludacris latest videoclip, titled 'Sex Room'.

I don't think there is anybody on this planet who would like to break Terrence Watanabe's record of losing 204 million dollars in one single year. The American businessman was a regular visitor at the Harrah's Entertainment casinos in Las Vegas and is still more than 14 million dollars behind with his payments, which means that he could even be facing 28 years in prison.

52 year old Terrence Watanba from Nebraska took over Oriental Trading Company, his father's business in 1977, which is mostly dealing with party accessories and toys. The company's yearly income exceeded 300 million dollars, when Terrence sold it to Brentwood Associates in 2000. Although the buying price has been undisclosed, it is highly probable that Watanabe received enough money to secure a wealthy life for all his descendants.

However, the 52 year old workaholic couldn't bear having free time and first became the prisoner of alcohol, and then got addicted to gambling. As he regularly did these two free-time activities at the same time, he started losing huge sums of money, which means that the most his descendants can inherit will be his huge debts. According to the first reports by Harrah's Entertainment, he had lost 127 million dollars in Rio and Caesars Palace, but it later turned out that they had underestimated his losses, which truly add up to around $204 million. Watanabe is still unable to put together $14.75 million, which means he could be facing up to a 28-year sentence.

Watanabe's attorney attacks the casino's attitude, saying that his patient had intentionally been given prescription drugs and alcohol to keep him playing.
"They took advantage of his inebriation to defraud him out of tens of millions of dollars," O'Donnell said. "There was a concerted effort from the highest levels of management to keep him gambling. They targeted him and then took advantage of his vulnerabilities. He is the victim here."

Terrence Watanabe

A new era has begun, when it comes to trading firms scouting for new talent to add to their team of professional Wall Street traders. Giving up the old conventional ways of looking for new Wall Street recruits, firms are now switching the focus on poker skills rather than business experience or connections. This new phenomenon of trade companies hunting down poker pros does not come as a surprise to many. With most firms now acknowledging that a poker player lacks in-the-field experiences, they easily make up for it in their quick decision-making and their number-crunching abilities.

Phil Hellmuth, one of the most famous poker players in the world, hasn’t been able to win any live tournament since 2007, which is a rather uncomfortable experience for someone who already owns 11 WSOP bracelets. Phil’s self-esteem is still in the skies, though, as a recent interview proves this. Michael Kaplan visited Phil Hellmuth in his Palo Alto home, and this is where the poker pro paraphrased his rather self-conscious statement. He said he is still the best Hold'em player in the world, and, despite his series of failures, he is catching up with the ever-improving modern poker. (Experts say that the reason for Phil's lack of success might be that he cannot keep pace with the 'new generation' of hyperaggressive players that are willing to take all the risks needed to win.)

The new high stakes poker room of the Aria Resort & Casino has finally opened, and celebrated its launch with an invitational tournament offering a prize pool of one million dollars.

Poker pros, celebrities and rich entrepreneurs attended the grand opening ceremony of the Ivey Room this Saturday. Phil Ivey (after whom the room was named) gave an opening speech, and after that, all the people invited sat down to take part in the one million dollar guaranteed tournament. The players that made it to the final table took a share of the prize pool, and there was a special $100,000 prize offered for the player eliminating Phil himself. WPT winner David 'Chino' Rheem took the knockout bounty.

The final table decided to go for a deal and refrained from taking the game all the way to heads-up. The tournament winner was supposed to play heads-up with Phil Ivey for another $100,000. Larry Litton, the one with the biggest stack took the challenge, but didn't manage to take down the 7-time WSOP champion.

Phil Ivey and Larry Litton

Although at times the fluorescent lights can be too bright (some might say as bright as the sun), especially after a heavy night, there is a way to avoid this glare with the help of your sunglasses. No other event attracts so many interesting characters as poker. During my time spent participating in and broadcasting live tournaments, I have witnessed more and more players hiding behind their shades and blocking out sound with their headphones. The peak of all this would have to be when a player appears in the sweet combination of shades, a baseball cap, headphones and a hoodie...

This short post is meant to be a thread-starter, I am curious about your opinion on this newly rising tendency, and also what accessories you have at arm’s reach when playing poker.

I, personally, like to keep cool with a pair of Oakleys. This is mainly because of my lifestyle: I spend a lot of time in my room, and when it comes to going out, I tend to squint a lot in direct sunlight. My love for my sunglasses led me to try them at the poker tables, but I soon discovered it was more a disadvantage than an advantage. This was because poker rooms tend to be pretty dark already, and using the sunglasses made it a struggle to see what cards I was holding.

Phil Laak in full form and undercover

Success came to Lady Gaga with the popular single Pokerface, which dominated the music charts around the globe for weeks at end. Lady Gaga, well-known for her controversial clothing, make-up, attitude and the debate over her gender, is also, under all this, a talented musician.

This day and age, where we have computers and other electronic tools to help us improve our lifestyles, our voices and even our music, it is very easy for artists to put together catchy tunes and pop songs, even if the lyrics or the singer’s voice is pretty ordinary. This was clearly demonstrated, when Christopher Walken went on the BBC show 'Friday Night with Jonathan Ross' and read out the lyrics of Lady Gaga’s hit single Pokerface.

For those of you that haven't seen the Nike's 2010 World Cup "Write the Future" commercial, here it is. It really is quite amazing, full of hard tackles and tricks, visions of the future, celebrity cameo appearances, and a killer soundtrack. Enjoy!

The German PokerStars pro, Thomas ’Boku87’ Boekhoff managed to fulfil his challenge one month ahead of schedule by building a bankroll of $100,000 out of $5. The crazy multitable grinder who often plays up to 50 tables at once, started his challenge back in 2009, on the 15th June. Just this March, he managed to play an astonishing 4139 SNG-s, which calculated to 133 games per day, with his monthly earnings reaching $8,674.

Boku87 first announced on the 2+2 forum on the 19th May the following statement:
"challenge successfully completed
Will post screenshot of bankroll and graphs tomorrow"

Profit chart:

From time to time, we can see rewritten editions of the Hitler war movie. In this latest clip we can see Hitler talking about Isildur1 and how he is doing in the world of poker. Publishers of this new video have made it really hilarious this time, with the theme of Isildur1 owing Hitler large sums of money. Other poker celebrities including durrrr, Patrik Antonius and Phil Hellmuth also get a mention in the 4-minute clip, with fresh gossip and current poker situations of each star being reenacted.

Have fun and enjoy the new clip!

The American poker pro Phil ’Unabomber’ Laak has in his sights to break world record for the longest poker session, set by Paul Zimbler in 2009. The 2009 record set by Paul Zimbler took place at the WSOPE, where the British poker player played heads-up matches for 74 hours 20 minutes and 21 seconds. Paul had a convincing winrate (he won 102 matches out of 183), considering that he was playing straight for 74 hours and up against other poker pros like Mike Matusow and Phil Hellmuth.

WPT winner Phil Laak is planning to break Zimbler’s record, starting his never-ending session on the 2nd June, at the WSOP in the Bellagio Las Vegas.

A member of the 2+2 forum, Eponymous makes comics on a regular basis with the help of Photoshop. With his latest comic strip he has once again outdone himself. This new comic strip was inspired by the all-time classic ’The Godfather’ by Francis Ford Coppola and features the Full Tilt Poker team. Enjoy!

With music being the new hip-hop way to advertise products, Everest Poker is jumping on the band wagon like PokerStars has earlier already done so.

Everest Poker gets featured in the new hit single with David Guetta, Fergie, LMFAO, & Chris Willis. This brand new David Guetta video was published yesterday on YouTube and David Guetta's official website. The Everest Poker tables shown in the video clip are play money tables.

I wonder how much Everest Poker payed for the one second appereance.

The new Full Tilt Poker advertisment is here, and we can all witness Patrik Antonius's tremendously threatening monologue, which has a very Scandinavian taste and accent to it. The main point of the ad is that Patrik Antonius doesn't care how high you pile and stack your chips, as they all are going to end up in his hands in the end. This is probably a fair point, as it is almost for sure that he would be able to outwit most of the TV viewers, but the gloomy atmosphere of the ad is a bit surprising in my opinion. Of course, other stars like Tom Dwan and Chris Ferguson also appear in Patrik's company; I think, this thirty-second clip is definitely worth watching.

The Omaha wizard Ben 'Milkybarkid' Grundy shared with his fans in his latest blog entry that he is contemplating on accepting the 'durrrr challenge'. Ben Grundy stated in a 2009 interview and his blog that he had won more than eight million dollars in Pot Limit Omaha during his career. His bankroll would suit even the highest stakes, but he is rarely playing the nosebleed games. This might change, though, as he mentions on his blog that he might go up against durrrr and his challenge.

Screenshot of Ben Grundy's 11 worst sessions... with his profit still at $7,695,980.
WP Ben.

"Durrrr challenge. I've actually considered giving this a go.... the offer of $1.5 million if i beat him, compared to paying out $500,000 is really appealing. I'd definitely do it if i could sell a big enough percentage. I'd guess the worse case scenario would be losing $2 million ish, then having to pay up $500k. I'm way to much of a bankroll nit to take the chance of that kind of loss. It would be interesting, i'm not ruling it out under the right circumstances." - says Ben Grundy in his blog.