Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

Poker Player’s Aaron Been and Vanessa Rousso got into a little altercation yesterday in the $2500 No Limit Holdem (6-Person) event at the 2007 WSOP.  The problem started at the poker table when Rousso tried to slow play her hand and got caught when her opponent hit trip 10s.  After thinking it over for around 4 minutes, Rousso eventually laid the hand down.

The accounts of what happened next are up for debate as both players tell a slightly different side to the story, but essentially Aaron Been had to let Rousso know what he thought of how she played the hand.

According to Been, some of the things he said included, “that she misplayed every street and could not have played the hand worse. I probably said she played terribly as well. Guilty as charged.”

About 30 minutes later, Rousso was eliminated from the tournament.  The altercation did not end there.  According to Rousso, she “randomly ran into Aaron a few hours later in the hall of the Rio” with her boyfriend Chad Brown.

Brown demanded an apology from Been.  According to Been, “[Brown] wanted to fight but that didn’t seem like a good idea so i walked away”.

That was the end of the live altercation, but it has now been moved online over at 2+2 poker.  The two are arguing back and forth about what really happened.

Here is Vanessa Rousso’s account of the events.

Here is Aaron Been’s account of the events.

According to Highstakesdb.com, Gus Hansen is currently on an amazing run on the Omaha PL tables at Full Tilt Poker with no end in sight.  Gus had a $564,000 day today which brings up his June total to over $1.9 Million Dollars.

Here is one of his larger wins, where Hansen took down a $211K pot from Patrik Antonius.

To watch Gus play online, visit FullTiltPoker.com

It appears that Vinnie Vinh is back after going missing from the $1000NL Holdem event last week.  I was reading Pauly’s Tao of Poker blog where he mentioned that Vinh was spotted playing in the $1500 event.  He even posted a pic of him, compliments from PokerNews.com.  There is still no update on what happened to him, but at least he is alive and well.

David Sklansky has finally decided to explain his side of the story of getting involved with Brandi Hawbaker after the many crazy posts on 2+2.

Without further delay, here is David’s side of the story:

“I hate writing posts like this because it takes most of the fun out of things, but too much serious stuff is being said for me to ignore it.

Weeks or months after Brandi posts about TF, I’m alerted to the thread because of the large number of views. I skim a few posts and realize that there is no way I am going to go through them. But I make note of the fact that this Brandi girl is causing quite a stir.

About that time Chantel sees me in the Bellagio poker room and comes up to me and says something like “I’m starring on your forum”. I say “Oh, so you must be Brandi.” She didn’t take too kindly to that. I bring up this story to provide a witness to the fact that I wasn’t following the details of these dramas at all.

A few weeks later I notice the real Brandi. I still KNOW NOTHING about what is written by or about her except for some POB jokes. But I decide it would be funny if we stage a photo. Which we do. In return I’ll give her an hour or two of poker lessons.

She leaves town for a month. I still know nothing about the details of her exploits. Not even that she cashed in a 10K tournament. I have no clue about the Newhizzle story. No clue. But I do know that she is a hot commodity.

When she gets back to town she asks for more poker lessons. Since I had already met my obligations for the staged picture, I ask her to agree to mention those lessons in interviews. I give her a couple of hours focusing on theory rather than practice. Including some technical math. She assiduously took notes and insisted on answering difficult questions. I was impressed.

She appeared at the Mandalay Bay, was interviewed by Amanda on TV and said I was giving her daily lessons. Uh Oh. That wasn’t supposed to happen until AFTER she cashed. On the other hand she was constantly being sought out by reporters so it might be OK.

Next time I gave her a lesson I asked her to tell me about about the TF story since I never actually read it. She goes on for a half an hour. After which I say that she told me a story I’ve heard a thousand times. Guy stakes pretty girl with no strings attached. Later on hopes for strings. Does something to save face after being rejected. No big deal. Even if the story is true. “Get over it” I tell her. Back to a few more poker lessons where she continues to impress compared to most of my students. Still mainly theory. And I still know NOTHING of the Newhizzle story.

Now comes the Rio tournament. Oh baby! I’ve only given her four hours of lessons and almost none of it is about NLH (except for something about inducing bluffs which she did well on one hand.) So I really don’t deserve the credit she is prepared to give me. But I’ll take it considering all the attention she is getting. And I do that interview with her.

Meanwhile there are a few little incidents that bother me. Nothing big. But I tell her flat out that she has a histrionic personality and anger management issues. She argues at first but then agrees. I’m impressed again. I still don’t know about the 30K controversy. But I do know she is a little crazy. But not a lot crazy. I even know why, since she confided to me about her childhood.

I don’t give her money or stake her but I do advise her about staking arrangements. I have no romantic relationship with her although I suppose it would be quite possible I could fall for her if I wasn’t taken and there was not that age problem. Still she looks good for being 25.

It was only a few days ago that I heard about the 30K thing. I skim posts so thats why I didn’t realize it earlier. Had I known about it before, I would have done things differently. Controversial, sexy, nutty, naughty girls perfectly fit into my life and my business. Outright thieves do not. If I knew about this from the beginning, I would have investigated further and tried to fix things. Instead that is what I am doing now. If she was clearly an outright thief I would have certainly dropped her. And I would have never disrespected a fellow poker player by pumping her up without first at least getting his side of the story. Like I am doing now. And for those who didn’t see his post, Mark has said that he does not dissapprove of my association with her. He just says “Be careful”.

It is worth noting that even Mark isn’t claiming that she stole from him. He only claims she owes the money to him. He believes that she desperately tried to get even for him by playing higher and higher. He is more angry about how she treated him afterwards. She claims that she only lost at the beginning of the play and the end of the play. Maybe they could BOTH pass lie detector tests.

Brandi has potential, is quite smart and I believe has a good heart. She lashes out way too strongly when she believes she has been wronged. I think that has stopped. She plays some forms of poker better than you think she does. But not as good as she thinks she does.

Any other questions?”

You can continue reading the entire thread here.

Brian “sbrugby” Townsend and Full Tilt Poker player Perkyshmerky just had a $300/$600 session.  During the session sbrugby made a strange raise of $62K and ran into perkyshmerky’s Jacks.

After the hand the following was posted in the chat box:
perkyshmerky: misclick
perkyshmerky: ?
sbrugby: ya
sbrugby: sigh

I guess after winning over $2 Million in Vegas over the weekend, Brian can afford to make these kinds of mistakes.  If you are interested, here is the hand:

Full Tilt Poker Game #2649017191: Table Halbert (heads up) - $300/$600 - No Limit Hold’em - 17:23:33 ET - 2007/06/12
Seat 1: sbrugby ($68,699)
Seat 2: perkyshmerky ($152,787)
perkyshmerky posts the small blind of $300
sbrugby posts the big blind of $600
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
perkyshmerky raises to $1,800
sbrugby raises to $62,030
perkyshmerky has 15 seconds left to act
perkyshmerky has requested TIME
perkyshmerky raises to $122,260
sbrugby calls $6,669, and is all in
perkyshmerky shows [Jc Jh]
sbrugby shows [8s 6s]
Uncalled bet of $53,561 returned to perkyshmerky
*** FLOP *** [7d 5s 3d]
*** TURN *** [7d 5s 3d] [6c]
*** RIVER *** [7d 5s 3d 6c] [Qd]
perkyshmerky shows a pair of Jacks
sbrugby shows a pair of Sixes
perkyshmerky wins the pot ($137,397.50) with a pair of Jacks
sbrugby is sitting out
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $137,398 | Rake $0.50
Board: [7d 5s 3d 6c Qd]
Seat 1: sbrugby (big blind) showed [8s 6s] and lost with a pair of Sixes
Seat 2: perkyshmerky (small blind) showed [Jc Jh] and won ($137,397.50) with a pair of Jacks

Poker’s brat, Phil Hellmuth, has broken the 3-way tie for most WSOP (World Series of Poker) bracelets by winning his 11th today in the 2007 WSOP.

Hellmuth beat the field of 2628 at the $1500 No Limit holdem event today to make poker history.  To top it off, he also took home $637,324 for winning the event.

“This is an insult,” said Mike Matusow as he waited for Hellmuth. “This is bad for poker, it’s so bad for the game.”

Prior to the event Hellmuth was in a 3-way tie with Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan.  I guess this means that Hellmuth is now going to be even more cocky (see videos at bottom of the page) at the poker table.