Poker Guru's blog

The Era of Teenage Poker Players

More and more students decide to try and make a living out of poker in the United States.

Although they are not old enough to enter a casino, nothing prevents them from playing online poker. This phenomenon has spread so widely that ABC News has also recently dealt with it in their Nightline news programme, in which they interviewed last year’s WSOP ME winner Joe Cada and teenage poker player Blaine Brount.

You can view the video below.

 

Neil Channing on Staking – Video Interview

I am sure a lot of you have heard about Neil Andrew Channing. He  is an professional poker player from London.
Neil became a truly well-known poker player when he won the Irish Poker Open in 2008. Channing has cashed 18 times at the WSOP, and his live career winnings accumulate to more than $1,900,000. Neils writes regularly for Bluff Europe Magazine. In 2009, he and fellow poker player Nick Persaud launched their own site, Black Belt Poker.

Neil is also known for staking a lot of players, like James Akenhead, for example. James has won cash in a lot of events in which Neil had percentages in the past few years, including a WSOP Main Event final table last year.

In the interview below, you can hear ‘the English Santa Claus of Poker’ talk about staking usually works, and the general concepts behind it. 

Poker Night at the Inventory

Always wanted to know what would it be like to play poker with The Heavy, Tycho, Max, and Strong Bad?

Well, I haven't. But seemingly Telltale Games thought that there are a lot of gamers out there who won't miss out a chance to bluff the Heavy Weapons Guy from Team Fortress 2 to see if they can survive his good friend Sasha, the minigun.

poker game

PartyPoker World Open VI Kicks Off Today

The Palm Beach Casino in Mayfair, London once again hosts the PartyPoker World Open. The $10,000 event, starting today on 6th September, is played by 48 poker pros and the winner will take $200,000 of the $480,000 total prize pool.

PartyPoker World Open VI

Starting stacks are three times bigger than last year in the eight-handed Heats and seven of the 48 players will be seated at the final table on 10th September. PartyPoker World Open V winner Phil Laak returns to defend his title from aspirants like Tom 'durrrr' Dwan, Neil Channing, Brandon Cantu, Huck Seed, Luke Schwartz, Annette Obrestad, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Jake Cody, Jennifer Tilly and Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott. “Last year was a wild roller coaster ride. This year, I am looking forward to coming back to defend my title – it is ideal that it comes straight off the back off the WPT London Poker Classic – hopefully I can win both,” Laak commented.

The Heats will be played from 6th to 9th September and Jesse May and Kara Scott will cover the happenings of the tourney.

Worst Poker Ads Ever

Ub.net seems to get into a new advertising campaign in which they are trying to reach players with a funny, new approach. The reasons, however, remain unclear why they must have chosen this awfully executed awful commercial with that awful CG Dog featuring those awful poker pro look-alikes acting out those awful lines. Really, when I watch this ad, I feel sorry for the actors and everybody involved in this trainwreck, and I definitely don't want to register a UB account because of the commercial.

How about you? You think they are funny? Or do you know worse?
Please let me know in the comments section below.

WSOP 2010 Main Event – ESPN Coverage Ep 7 & 8

ESPN’s coverage of the 2010 WSOP Main Event started to air on 10th August and continues to screen two episodes every Tuesday until 9th November, when the Finale will be broadcast. Eps 7 and 8 cover Main Event Day 2B, while 9 and 10 are airing tomorrow.

The event days present poker stars like Phil Ivey, Phil Laak, Doyle Brunson, Barry Greenstein and Dan Harrington.

Episode 7:

Play at the IPPA Championship Monte Carlo – For $250,000 Only!

In November 2010, the WSOP Main Event Final Table will not be the only event worth of your attention, as the International Poker Players Association (IPPA) Championship, the poker tournament with the biggest buy-in ever, will also take place at that time in Monte Carlo.

IPPA Championship

48 players are expected to cough up the $250,000 in Monte Carlo, all top dogs, of course. Entrees who have already registered are as follows: Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, Tom 'durrrr' Dwan, Michael and Robert Mizrachi, Huck Seed, Gus Hansen, Johnny Chan, Freddie Deeb, Tony G, Bruno Fitoussi, Allen Cunningham and John Hennigan.

What Makes a Successful Poker Player? Skills or Luck?

What does it take in order to win at poker? Is it enough if we just rely on luck or do we have to acquire knowledge and skills to build our bankroll? These are the questions I am going to try to answer and solve in this post.

1.    The outsiders’ opinion on poker

A majority of the general population solely believe that poker is a game of luck. They have a mystical image of poker portrayed as just another casino game. And they are right; they have no reason to think differently of a game that they are not familiar with and is housed in casinos.

Luck
Is poker a game of luck?

But in reality, this is definitely not what poker is about. There are multiple decisions to be made throughout the game, which at times can be easy or hard and all play an effect on our outcome. There is always a good, a bad and an even better decision that can be made and this is what determines the fate of our bankroll. On top of this, we must also consider the fact that when playing poker, we verse other opponents unlike other casino games where you verse the house (and we all know that the house always wins).

Barney Frank on Jay Leno’s The Tonight Show

Congressman Barney Frank discussed online gambling and personal liberty on Jay Leno’s The Tonight Show. Topics of their conversation included the income to be made by taxing a regulated online gambling market, the ways to limit it to children, etc. Issues like lottery and marijuana were brought as examples and Frank’s arguments revolved around adults who are to be allowed to do whatever they like at home. It was an intelligent debate between Leno and Frank, I recommend watching this 4 minutes long session of the show.

EPT Vilamoura: Toby Lewis Wins

The second stop of the EPT Season 7 was Vilamoura, Portugal. A total of 384 players have entered the tournament, including Daniel Negreanu, Kevin MacPhee, Arnaud Mattern, Antonio Esfandiari, Chris Moorman and JP Kelly, who even hosted the prize ceremony of the ’Fairways and Felts’ event during the tourney.

finalists Vilamoura 2010
The EPT7 Vilamoura Final Table

The finale yesterday eventually saw some British dominance both at the table and on the rail; the top three stacks were Toby Lewis, Sam Trickett and former soccer player Teddy Sheringham. The final table was as seen below.

EPT7 Vilamoura FT Stacks

Phil Galfond Analysing Durrrr Challenge 2

One of the central topics nowadays in the poker community, the Durrrr Challenge 2 has already offered a number of interesting hands, as we had hoped. These are the subjects of a video analysis from Phil ‘OMGClayAiken’ Galfond.

Galfond is, by the way, the only player durrrr excluded from participating in the challenge. He is among the top players on both FTP’s and PokerStars’ annual profit lists.

Jungleman is currently leading with a $692,400 profit after a little more than 6,800 hands from the 50,000 of the duel. I can’t wait to see how it goes for the next 43,000.

Watch Galfond’s analysis here. 

AK Poker Club - Italian Poker Network

It's commonly known between poker players that Italian players are quite weak at the game. Now it's your time to decide,  you can register to the AK Poker Club, which is swarming with Italian players.

ak poker

The AK Poker Club was founded in Italy when some local brick and mortar poker clubs decided to gather in an online network, so their players can play from their homes. I think the above information is enough for you to run and register to rob them of their cash.

Interview with Fatima Moreira de Melo at the EPT Vilamoura

The EPT Vilamoura is slowly drawing to an end, with the final table currently being played.

So far, the event has been full of surprises, one of these was the participation of many-many famous athletes.
Here is Fatima Moreira de Melo, for example. Fatima is a world-famous Dutch field hockey player, who has also been playing poker for more than a year now. Unfortunately, Fatima didn't make it to the final table this time. Nevertheless, you can now see a video interview with her, where she answers questions posed by her fans.

Teddy Sheringham, famous English football (soccer) player got more lucky than Fatima, and is currently playing the final table.

Ziigmund Dating Miss Finland?

According to Seiska, a Finnish yellow press-style magzine, Ilari ‘Ziigmund’ Sahamies and Miss Finland 2010, Viivi Pumpanen are dating.

If I had to describe Ziigmund, I would say the following: a millionaire, one of the best PLO players in the world, and an infamous womanizer. Seiska says he has strengthened his fame for being a striker by dating Viivi Pumpanen, Finland’s latest beauty queen.

Ziigmund party
ziigmund has always known how to party

The 22 year-old lady has won the title this year, and immediately became a tabloid target. She broke up with her bridegroom, Pezhman Ahmadi (successful entrepreneur) just a few months ago, and can now often be seen on the side of Ziggy, and their relationship seems quite intimate.
Although Pumpanen denies that there is anything more than friendship between them, the local media already handles them as a couple.

Let’s See the 2010 Poker Hall of Fame Nominees!

As I have mentioned in a previous post, the 2010 Nominees of the Poker Hall of Fame have been chosen by public voting. The ten-name list did not bring real surprises.
This is the second time that the nominees have been chosen by public voting. The list was made official yesterday.

Below you can view Mike Sexton’s induction into the Poker Hall of Fame from last year.

The 2010 Nominees are as follows:

Chris Ferguson
Barry Greenstein
Jennifer Harman
Dan Harrington
Phil Ivey
Linda Johnson
Tom McEvoy
Daniel Negreanu
Scotty Nguyen
Erik Seidel

Syndicate content