Poker From The Rail
a Poker Blog brought to you by Full Tilt Poker
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Phil Ivey stands for the U.S. National Anthem during his bracelet ceremony
(Photographer/GreasieWheels)
Just in case you were living under a rock away from the poker over the last week, Phil Ivey captured his 8th career WSOP bracelet in the $3,000 HORSE event over Bill Chen. It was an interesting spectacle with a different atmosphere than the “durrrr” final table a few ago, this final table was stuck our little corner of the Amazon Room without the fan fare or big stadium seating of the main stage.
Two days later Ivey returned to the Pavilion Room for his bracelet ceremony followed by wide open press conference. The picture about was taken by the official WSOP photographer (with creative credit going to B.J. Nemeth) and is something special. You can click the image for the full size picture, it should give you a small feel for the number of people who jammed into the room to see history. Ivey and WSOP TD Jack Effel were joined on stage by Jack Binion.
The rest of the week was full of drama, fun, and of course the continuing parade of Perry Friedman’s hats. You can find just some of our the pictures our very own HeatherB snapped over the last few days. Enjoy after the jump.
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Chris Ferguson, Donnie Vann, Howard Lederer, Huck Seed, Johnny Chan, Kristy Gazes, Mike Matusow, Perry Friedman, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Pictures of the Week, Scott Clements, Scott Montgomery, Tom Dwan, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
It was an oddly quiet week in the Rio this week with a few rare day with only one new event and some without a final table. That all changed as the week closed out when we found ourselves with 6 or 7 tournaments running at the same time. Richard Ashby became the second Full Tilt pro to win a bracelet at the 2010 WSOP and can be seen above collecting it from Tournament Director Jack Effel.
There was the always present controversy surrounding the annual Ladies Event but that didn’t stop them from coming in with a huge field. There were a few $10,000 Championship events which drew small, strong fields for the battle and big prizepool. During the Limit Hold’em Championship we had a few pros who were sweating the action during the Celtics/Lakers NBA Championship game, certainly with big money on the line. Mike Matusow is also pictured below sweating a prop bet with David Benyamine concerning the number of entrants.
After the jump you can find the rest of Heather B’s pictures from Week 3 at the 2010 World Series of Poker including a few new shots of the latest Perry Friedman “Parade of Hats”.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Annette Obrestad, Bloggers on the Rail, Cyndy Violette, David Benefield, David Benyamine, Erick Lindgren, Howard Lederer, Karina Jett, Lacey Jones, Mike Matusow, Nick Schulman, Perry Friedman, Phil Ivey, Pictures of the Week, Richard Ashby, Roland de Wolfe, Svetlana Gromenkova, Tom Dwan, WSOP
Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner, WSOP
Congratulations to our caption contest winners! There were a lot of good submissions; it was tough to pick just one for each.
Stay tuned for another caption contest this week…
Photo A:
While the dealer is looking away, Schoenberg uses her secret Jedi-Forces to switch cards.
– H311f14m3
Photo B:
“Hey Phil, go ahead and bust out so we can hit the Waffle House.”
– rgreen5150
Photo C:
Andy Bloch plays a peaceful game of Scrabble, most likely for a $100k prop bet.
– Ezyrider77
Tags: Andy Bloch, caption contest, Erica Schoenberg, Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Every year at the World Series of Poker you constantly hear stories about bizarre prop bets and the insane money changing hands. Weight loss bets, bracelet bets, last longer bets, you name it and these guys will bet on it. Word started popping up in the Pavilion Room and twitter about an offer made from Howard Lederer to Andy Bloch on the day of his 41st birthday. The details were tough to track down via the 140 character updates so we headed there to see for ourselves. Here’s what we found out.
We already knew it was Bloch’s birthday courtesy of the signs hanging in the lounge with baked goods from end to end. At some point during the $5,000 Shootout Event #6 Lederer approached Bloch with a generous offer. It wasn’t even a prop bet, just a nice freeroll. Lederer offered Bloch $25,000 if he could manage to choke down 24 cupcakes from that point until he either busted or won his Shootout table.
Bloch told the other players at the table, “Well, if I’m low on chips and you see me stuff the last cupcake in my mouth, you know I’m about to go all-in.” Bloch soon stalled at 6, prompting Lederer to extend the freeroll for the duration of Bloch’s stay at his table, offering $5k for 15 cupcakes, and another $5k for 20.
“At that point, you’d have to eat the last four,” a player at Bloch’s table said.
“Yeah, it’s almost $4k a cupcake at that point” Bloch replied.
A few tables away, we caught up with Lederer, who confirmed the rules for us, adding: “It’s the icing that gets you. That’s the key to the bet: that thick, gooey stuff…”
On our way out of the Pavilion, we stopped to wish Andy luck. He had just learned that there was a 90 minute dinner break after level 6. “I don’t think I’m going to eat any until then,” he said.
Update: At the end of it all, Bloch only downed 7 1/2 cupcakes before getting knocked out of the $5,000 Shootout.
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Andy Bloch, Bloggers on the Rail, Howard Lederer, Prop Bets, WSOP
Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner
In General Poker News:
Phil Ivey and Howard Lederer each donated $30k to attend a fundraiser with President Barack Obama Thursday night at the home of Palms owner George Maloof. No word on whether the two Full Tilt pros were able to convince the President to accept the Irish Poker Open’s invitation to play in their April event.
Tags: Chris Ferguson, durrrr, durrrr Challenge, Full Tilt Poker Academy, Gus Hansen, Howard Lederer, Isildur1, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Dan Shak defeated Phil Ivey in the Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge
Photo credit: PokerNews.com
It’s been a very busy week around the poker world and your not-so-humble blogger was in the middle of it a little. Live poker was raging across the planet with the WPT Southern Poker Championship, the Borgata Winter Open, Los Angeles Poker Classic, EPT Deauville, and the Aussie Millions. Online poker was dominated on Full Tilt by the raging success of Rush Poker, Big Money Sunday, and the start of Double Guarantee Week. A lot of money flying around.
The big news for Team Full Tilt occurred down in Australia in the $100,000 Challenge event which naturally drew the biggest names in the poker world. More than a third of the small elite field was composed of major members of Team Full Tilt including Chris Ferguson, Erick Lindgren, John Juanda, Erik Seidel, Gus Hansen, Tom “durrrr” Dwan, and Andrew Feldman. When the final table was assembled it included Phil Ivey and Howard Lederer looking for the $1,200,000 AUD first place money. In the end it was Dan Shak preventing Phil Ivey from adding more hardware to his collection, Ivey took home $600,000 AUD before flying home.
The online world continues to buzz about the introduction of Rush Poker. I am in the process of collecting the thoughts of players, bloggers, and writers on this new innovation but the approvals are shocking even for the jaded world of poker. John from the Collective not withstanding. The first big taste was finding an article from Gary Wise at ESPN.
One player, Michael “BraveJayhawk” Jenson, a non-FTP affiliated professional player, coach and sometimes-backer, declared this “the best software update since Party Poker went up to 100bbs and opened 2/4 NL and higher” on the twoplustwo forums. That was more than half a decade ago.
If you haven’t jumped into these tables, go ahead and give them a try. They are not for every player but you might enjoy it, the regular cash game tables will still be there.
The Big Money Sunday events went off without a hitch including the last “Big Little Tournament” with a turbo $250,000 Guarantee. The bustout rate once again amazed as the field was reduced from +30,000 to a winner in less than 4.5 hours, a fine example of the turbo format. Kevin “Wu_Wizard” MacPhee was probably the most well known online pro to take down a title this week in the Sunday Brawl. Kevin “GetPWN3D” Saul made the final table of the $200,000 Guarantee and Mark “MarkFSU1″ DeMasis has several deep runs. Friend of the blog Brian “ship_the_perc” Lemke went deep in the $750,000 and Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers nearly final tables the Sunday Mulligan.
That tournament provided the most railbird action as Evan “NEONPILS99″ Parkes seemed to have a beef with Sowers. After several mild barbs back and forth Parkes laid a classic internet beauty on the table.
NEONPILS99: god you should jus tbe shot in the face
The internet creates some very tough talkers from 1,000 of miles away. Sowers would get the upper hand on the virtual felt by finishing 13th after Parkes dusted off chips with a weak ace. Never a dull moment in poker.
You can find all the Big Money Sunday final table results after the jump.
Tags: AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Rush Poker
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Erik Cajelais at the 2009 World Series of Poker Europe" width="500" />
Things get quite bizarre around me when I find myself going a week’s length of time without serious internet access. I always have my trusty iPhone on my person in case immediate situations present themselves where I need access to a search engine for frivolous trivia answers, but it doesn’t give the outlet for my inter-words or a chance to follow along with things in the poker world. That was the situation I found myself over the last week when I left the grind of the Borgata Poker Open and took a little birthday time away in an island paradise.
So what has happened over the last few days that might be of interest to the casual fan of poker? Members of Team Full Tilt putting a big stamp on the World Series of Poker Europe and an FTP Heads Up grinder collects a WPT win after an huge comeback.
First out of the chute is the easy reporting duty since I was there in person. 1,018 players entered the 2009 WPT Borgata Poker Open Championship, they battled for 5 days until we finally found ourselves looking at a heads up match for the title. Olivier “livb112″ Busquet found himself looking at a massive underdog chip stack going up against blackjack specialist Jeremy Brown. Busquet makes his living tearing through $1,000 Heads Up SnG’s on Full Tilt Poker, booking over $1,500,000 in earnings. Brown’s claim to fame seemed to be chugging a beer per orbit and shots of Patrone with his friends. At one point Busquet was all in with his last 1,800,000 in chips versus the +30,000,000 of Brown, behind and turning lucky. Battle after battle, he eventually turned the tide and took down the title. It will certainly be one of the more interesting telecasts of the new season next spring. You can catch his victory interview with Amanda Leatherman here.
In the big news across the pond, we saw members of Team Full Tilt dominate the early WSOP-E events and making a run at the Main Event as we read/write this post. With just 4 total events during this London-based series, players did not have the luxury of warming up with a bunch of smaller events before jumping after a bracelet. The first event was a standard £1,000 buyin No Limit Hold’em tournament. While none of the Full Tilters ran huge in this starter event, we did have Markus Gloser and John Juanda make the money and Chris “Jesus” Ferguson just miss the final table in 15th.
Event #2 is where things became interesting. Just 158 players bought into the Mix Pot Limit Hold’em/Omaha for £2,500 with 18 players getting paid. Team Full Tilt member Vitaly Lunkin and “friend of the blog” Allie Prescott both made it into the money but could not get onto the final table. It was a talented final nine which included Howard Lederer, Hoyt Corkins, Chris Bjorin, Men “The Master” Nguyen, Ian Frazer and Erik Cajelais. In the end, Team Full Tilt had the first off the final table and the last man standing. Howard Lederer was eliminated in the 9th place while Erik Cajelais collects his first WSOP braclet to go along with his WPT Five Diamonds Classic title. Many of the players on the final day were also registered for Day 1 of the £5,000 PLO tournament and there seemed to be a lot of live multi-tabling going on.
Howard Lederer would not let his 9th place finish hamper his efforts in Event #3, £5,000 Pot Limit Omaha sure to attract the best European poker players around. 154 players were in the running to start Day 1 but only 18 would make the money and a chance at the bracelet. Tom “durrrr” Dwan has been known to play a few hands of PLO on occasion (tongue firmly in cheek) but he was unable to crack the final table coming in 14th. Nearly half of the final was composed of the red and white patches of Full Tilt with Robert Williamson III, Hendon Mobster Ross Boatman, Roberto Romanello and Howard Lederer in the last nine. Howard Lederer was poised to capture the second bracelet for FTP but was unable to overcome Jani Vilmunen to finish second. That is back-to-back final table finishes for “The Professor”.
James Akenhead at the 2009 World Series of Poker Europe" width="200" align="left" />The £10,000 No Limit Hold’em Main Event is will underway and there are just two tables left battling it out. John Juanda won the bracelet in 2008 but was unable to defend his title. James Akenhead has a fantastic chance to duplicate the feat by Ivan Demidov last year. Demidov was already set up as a member of the “November Nine” in the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event when he went to Europe and final tabled that Main Event. Akenhead will represent Full Tilt Poker later this year for the WSOP Main Event final table and is now sitting mid-field with 18 players remaining in the European Main Event.
Also looking to make a run at this final bracelet you can find poker legend Doyle Brunson, Hendon Mobster Ram Vaswani, Tony Cousineau, Matt Hawrilenko, Daniel Negreanu, and Jason Mercier. There are no soft spots left in this field. They continue to grind away and hopefully we’ll have just one more great story for Team Full Tilt before the series is complete.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Erik Cajelais, Howard Lederer, James Akenhead, John Juanda
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Another week has gone by at the 2009 World Series of Poker and things are starting to ramp up. Full Tilt was unable to add to it’s collection of WSOP bracelets but FTP blogger Michael Craig and pro Vitaly Lunkin both put in second place showings. The week started with the NHL Stanley Cup coming to the Amazon Room and ending with the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. kick off. The schedule was lighter than the first three weeks but there was plenty of action to capture.
I present to you the week in pictures from the Full Tilt angle.
The first is by far my favorite photo from the 2009 World Series of Poker. Photographer extraordinaire BJ Nemeth has been capturing some incredible images this year. This photo was taken from atop the bracelet ceremony stage as Phil Ivey picked up his 7th World Series of Poker bracelet. It illustrates the massive amount of players, fans, and media Ivey draws to any event. Click to enlarge and enjoy. More images after the jump.
Photo credit: BJ Nemeth
Tags: 2009 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Amanda Baker, Bloggers on the Rail, Chau Giang, Erick Lindgren, Erik Cajelais, Howard Lederer, Kristy Gazes, Phil Ivey, Pictures of the Week, Rafe Furst, Scott Clements, Steve Zolotow
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
And we’re back after a slight delay due to “technical difficulties” and ready to set off on the closing few weeks of the 2009 World Series of Poker. The big men in charge did us a favor with a relatively slow week but those days are not going to last very long. Yesterday started two small fields, the $5,000 NLHE Shootout and the $2,500 Mix Tournament, and today we only have the Seniors and Razz events.
There will be plenty to keep people hopping all day though, in addition to those two new events we have the continuation of a donakment, World Championship PLO, crazy Shootout format and the 8-game Mix event. Not much push-and-pray action today.
The $5,000 Shootout event drew 280 players making for an interesting format configuration. The players battled it out yesterday on full tables but 30 players return today to play five 6-handed tables. I can only assume that means tomorrow’s final table will be 5 players aiming for the bracelet. Quite a few Full Tilt pros are still alive on Day 2 but three are sitting at one table. Phil Ivey, Jennifer Harman, and Barny Boatman all drew table 59. Peter “Nordberg” Feldman and David “The Dragon” Pham* also have a chance to make the final table.
I believe yesterday was the first Pot Limit Omaha tournament of the year that played down to 3am without forming it’s final table. This tournament is the $10,000 World Championship event so the play was higher and the stacks much deeper. 5 of the returning players will be sporting Full Tilt logos and trying to bring another bracelet into the family. Markus Golser has a second place chip stack followed by Josh Arieh, Howard Lederer, Vitaly Lunkin, and Chau Giang.
There was plenty of action in Day 1 of the $2,500 Mix Game event. The 8-game tourament (H.O.R.S.E. plus No Limit Hold’em, Pot Limit Omaha and Deuce to Seven Lowball) drew 412 players with only 153 surviving through the 10 levels. Plenty of big names remain in the field with Andy Black and Jon “Pearljammer” Turner sporting top ten stacks.
The day will help me excercise my poker thesaurus with so many different variation floating around the Amazon and Brasilia rooms. I’ll keep the camera handy and the notepad ready to go.
Chip stacks for restarts after the jump:
Howard Lederer makes Day 3 of the Pot Limit Omaha World Championship
Tags: 2009 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Howard Lederer, Markus Golser, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
We’ve put another week of the 2009 World Series of Poker in the books with more craziness. The crowds continue to storm the hallways of the Amazon Room looking for a table and a chance. The crazies are starting to make their way onto the scene, pros and amateurs are mingling together with a common goal, chip runners stay busy 24 hours a day.
While all this is going on, the good folks at Image Masters continue to provide us with some great action shots during the tournaments. Every morning I receive pictures from the day before that I use to enhance the stories I try to bring the readers. I hope they’ve added to the experience.
Today I bring you some photos from Week 2 of the 2009 World Series of Poker without my ramblings. A small taste of what we have available, look for a full gallery coming in the next few days. All pictures courtesy of Image Masters.
Pictures after the jump, click to enlarge:
Tags: 2009 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Andy Black, Beth Shak, Bloggers on the Rail, David Chiu, Erica Schoenberg, Erik Seidel, Howard Lederer, Huck Seed, Jennifer Harman, John Cernuto, John Juanda, Katrina Jett, Perry Friedman, Phil Ivey, Pictures of the Week, Svetlana Gromenkova, WSOP
Most Popular Posts
- (none)
Authors
Blogroll
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
sweet!...Disclaimer
The opinions expressed by this blog and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of Full Tilt Poker. Full Tilt Poker is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the author of this blog nor any content contained herein.
