Poker Guru Blog

There has been an interesting conversation going on between Jose ‘Girah’ Macedo and Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan on Twitter. It would seem that the 18-year-old prodigy is to take on the challenge.

As I wrote earlier, 18 years old José ‘Girah’ Macedo is now a millionaire, thanks to his skills at poker; he got to the nosebleed stakes unbelievably fast, making his money from as little as a €30 deposit. He, usually referred to simply as the "Portuguese Poker Prodigy,” seems to feel it is time for him to face his hero, Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan.

Phil Ivey is tweeting again. He used to have a Twitter account since April, 2009, but he hasn't used it much. Now he posted that he's starting to use the service once again. He also posted some proof of his identity. Phil Ivey, many say the best poker player in the world today has not been very chatty on his twitter account, he posted on July 2010, which was followed by silence, up until February, 2011, when he posted: "I'm starting to tweet again. Stay tuned!"

He also posted a picture of him playing and watching TV in his living room saying:

As it appears, he is up to something big very soon; he tweeted: "After NBC Heads Up, I've been working hard on my latest endeavor with many of my top poker friends." We are not sure what he meant by that, but the fact that he just launched philivey.com can be somehow related to this tweet. The website only says "Coming Soon" yet, and the headline: "Now I'm going to teach the whole world to win at poker."

There's a new gun in town. The portuguese wonder kid, Jose Macedo, who turned €30 into millions has now stepped out of the darkness and talked to Bret Oliverio and Eric Bickel about his carreer on PokerStatic.com.

The 18-year-old Portuguese kid, Jose Macedo started playing poker in the Summer of 2009. From the play money tables he rocketed to the NL1000 limits in just 1,5 year. His dream was to buy a house in Hawaii, which he recently did. At first his identity wasn't known to the public, he was talked about on forums as the "Portuguese poker prodigy". On March 2 this year, he revealed himself as Jose Macedo, or 'Girah', his nick at some poker forums. However, his nick at the tables and the rooms at which he plays are not public.

For more, watch the interview below, in which he talks about everything: how he started to play poker, how he taught himself to play better, how he managed to buy the house of his dreams in Hawaii, and his future plans with poker. Fascinating interview, highly recommended!

High stakes pro Andrew ’good2cu’ Robl has latelya offered a cage fight challenge on his blog, scheduled during this year’s WSOP in Las Vegas. Hungarian poker pro ’d0npelo’ answers the call.

As I already reported, Andrew ‘good2cu’ Robl wrote in his latest blog entry that he had planned to challenge Sorel Mizzi for a cage fight during the WSOP, as a $50,000 prop bet. The Canadian turned the offer down eventually, but Robl did not give up: “If any beginning fighter wants to make a wager on a fight - let me know," he offered.

The pro trains at Sergio Penha's in Las Vegas, 3 or 4 times a week according to his account. Penha is the trainer of several well known MMA fighters, including Stephan Bonnar, Steve Cantwell and Anthony Njokuani. The news of his beginner trainee’s challenge circulated around the industry lightning fast and here already comes a guy from Hungary, ready to accept it.

Read this interview from Rakerace.com with ‘d0npelo’ below.

D0npelo

If you happen to a beginner MMA fighter and might want to beat Andrew Robl, and not in the poker sense, you might be in luck this time. The young pro blogged that he has been practicing "Jiu Justi" for some time and he takes challengers to fight him in a cage fight.

Andrew Robl is much better known for his cash game and live tournament result than his muscles, however, he looked much more buffed up in the newest episode of High Stakes Poker than before. In his most recent blog post entitled "The Easy Life", after mocking Sorel Mizzi a little, he offered a beginner MMA fighter the chance the fight him in the cage:

"I’ve been training MMA (mostly jiu justi) 3-4X times a week. I train at Sergio Penha's, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to train Jiu Justi in Vegas. Sergio is the Man! It’s humbling to be a beginner at something - and humility is something I’ve been trying to gain more of. The coolest thing is though is seeing the slow improvement everyday. I think learning new skills and constantly improving yourself is the key to happiness in life.

I was planning on doing a $50,000 cage fight with Sorel Mizzi come WSOP time - but Sorel backed out of the bet. He’s had enough problems recently without having to worry about my fists breaking his face. Sorel has always been a great guy in my experience - and I certainly hope the rumors about him aren’t true. If they are he made a huge mistake - and I only hope he makes amens and learns from the experience. If any beginning fighter wants to make a wager on a fight - let me know!" - Robl wrote.

In case you missed it, the most recent poker movie is about to be released on DVD. It has won numerous film festivals all over the United States, and was considered a huge success. If you haven't been able to see it yet, you can buy it from April 15 on DVD.

The picture is about an annual illegal poker championship in Scott County, Indiana. The film, which is a 'mockumentary' features various characters including an Amish farmer, a rude redneck, a preacher, a priest, a waitress, all contending for the first prize of the poker tournament.

Joe Boyd, director and star of the film stated: "We made a ridiculous movie on purpose. The poker community has been burnt by a series of unpopular, terrible movies over the last five years. I think people like this movie so much because it takes nothing seriously. It’s a complete silly farce. It’s like the movie Airplane…if Airplane was a fake documentary about poker."

The third part of the 7th season of High Stakes Poker has now been posted to YouTube by GSN; so there you have it, you I'm making your lives easier, you can watch it here. The new episode, though definitely not as good as the previous seasons, is packed with interesting hands again; Phil Ruffin, the owner of the Treasure Island is on a huge heat, even so that he eliminates one player. But who is that and how it happened? You will have to see for yourself.

I saw many insanely funny videos, sick hands and weird players, but this, I cannot get in terms with. This is something out of this world. Something unreal. Something that is only possible in Spain maybe? Enjoy, and if you have any idea what the hell the two guys must have been thinking on the river, tell me.

In this very interesting documentary with Randy 'nanonoko' Lew, one of the best online players today, he talks about  about how he started playing poker, how his video gaming helped him one of the top pros, and about his work ethic. It's quite an interesting piece, highly recommended.

Episode 2 of HSP7 has just aired and it is already available online, too. I saw in the comments that people complain about the new host Norm MacDonald; I agree he is somewhat monotonous. Still, action is pretty wild: in addition to a $108,000 and a $219,000 pot, the 43 minutes show also features an insane clash for more than $590,000. But I’m not going to spoil it for you, check it out instead. 

If you are not currently a follower of Rakerace.com, this is the time to seriously consider visiting and bookmarking it, since they have undergone a major overhaul. Many tiny new features and improvements can be found on the site, but the most important new feature is without doubt the forum. That's right, Rakerace.com now has a brand new forum, which is a great opportunity for the users of the site to discuss recent news, gossips, strategies, hands, bad beats, coaching offers and much more. General forums include a helpdesk to assist users in questions about Rakerace.com's services, and an interface for their novice visitors. You can also "like" the Facebook page of the site so you can get access to the articles via Facebook in your News Feed.

I strongly suggest you check the forum out and if you like it, participate, I think it's going to be great.

GSN decided to finally release the first episode of the 7th installment of their high stakes cash game show, High Stakes Poker. Contrary to the expectations, the first episode of the show wasn't bad at all. I mean I expected worse after all those really bad news that surfaced concerning the show. Think about Gabe Kaplan's "resignation', the Full Tilt pros' absence due to the new PokerStars sponsorship of the show and so on. Of course, without Kaplan and the Full Tilt pros it's less fun than the previous seasons, but it's still enjoyable, and the players and the editors managed to pack plenty of action into the 40 minutes of the first episode. Doyle Brunson, Vanessa Selbst, Barry Greenstein, Antonio Esfandiari and David Peat represent the poker pros, but there are also 3 recreational players at the table, Robert Croak, Phil Ruffin and Bill Klein. I'm interested in what you think about the video, please tell me below.

Tom 'durrrr' Dwan only logged 2,000 hands during last month, and considering that the guy usually plays much more online than that, it's quite obvious that he's back in Macau, making much more money at the live cash game tables than he possibly could online, most recently he won an insane $11,5 million pot.

Tom 'durrrr' Dwan

It is becoming common knowledge that high rollers such as Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Tom Dwan and Johnny Chan pass the time in Macau's StarWorld Casino playing with local businessmen; I wrote about them a few times already, but I need to tell you this, because this is sick: according to recent information, Tom 'durrrr' Dwan took down a $11,5 million pot.

The 3rd part of John ’JimmyLegs’ Wray’s and Jay ’Krantz’ Rosenkrantz’ highly popular animated series, The Micros is now available. The 10-minute episode is quite similar to the previous ones, however, the show seems to be less about micro-stakes grinders, the protagonists now go to the Aussie Millions, where some kinda unreal things happen to them. Anyway, see for yourself and enjoy!

In PokerStars' newest promotion, a small-limit version of the Superstar Showdown is available to which players can get admittance via online satellites. This version of the Superstar Showdown is the same as its bigger brother, except that PokerStars stakes the person winning the online qualifiers with $15,000 to play with.

Whatever amount the player has at the end of the 2,500 hand session, he is allowed to keep it. In addition, if one of the heads-up fighters manages to take all his opponent's money, he receives an extra $10,000.

Viktor 'Isildur1' Blom

Hungarian recreational poker player Attila 'Dodgyfish27' Gulcsik was lucky and clever enough to try himself out against the world-famous Team PokerStars Pro Viktor Blom, and took part in a very fierce battle. The match was not one of which you could judge the outcome, and in the end Isildur won the game by only one big blind. Although there was a point where Isildur1 was leading by more than $10,000, the Hungarian managed to pull himself together and come to almost even in the end, pocketing a very nice $14,990.