Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

Back in 2006, if you thought major poker tournaments, automatically
World Poker Tour would come to mind.  They had big names, big prize
pools, and for a while there, the buy in for a WPT Tourney was as big
as the World Series of Poker.  This worked well for them in a lot of
ways.  It attracted big names, it got armatures playing on the same
table, and even made some armatures household names (the Mizrachi clan
comes to mind..Michael got his start on WPT).

But, in recent
years their WPT Championship has been hemorrhaging chips, and players. 
During their 5th season, the championship game had 600+ players
competing for a prize pool worth tens of millions of dollars.  Then in
2008, they saw a dip in players, but nothing concerning. 
However last year, there was only 300 players showing up for the
tourney.  Not only does the pageantry of the tournament suffer, but so
does the prize pool.  People who come to these tournaments for the
money took notice, and this year only 200 players showed up for the
tourney. 

Daniel Negreanu, who is attending the tournament,
commented to Poker Listings “The EPT and the NAPT, and anything
PokerStars does tour wise, kicks their ass. The thing that the WPT was
always way too foolish to understand, what completely destroyed their
model as a company, was not attaching themselves to online satellites.
They need to compete and get these events popular by running online
satellites. All the PokerStars tours work because of the satellites.”

When
Partypoker purchased WPT in 2009 they had intentions of adding online
satellites to the big tourneys, however most brick and mortar casino’s
in the USA are not legally allowed to accept online satellite money as
a buy-in to a tournament. 

For now it looks like the WPT will
have to abide by the rules of the land, and have to hope for a change
in the near future.  In the mean time it seems that the WPT has
tentatively scheduled a season 9 World Poker Tour Championship to take
place may 21-27th, but so close to the WSOP?  Not sure how that’ll
play…

I do love me some televised poker, and with the 2009 WSOP out of the way, the “November Nine” a distant memory and Christmas and New Years only a slight lingering hangover, World Poker Tour is set to televise their new season on Fox Sports Net starting January 24th at 11pm.  And for the first time it will be in HD.

While Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten are back commentating it’s unclear weather Amanda Leatherman will also be returning.  In July Steven Lipscomb (WPT President) stated to pokernewsdaily “My sense is that we won’t have a hostess in Season 8. Most of the things we did with the hostess in Season 6 and before we accomplished by holding a microphone in front of someone last year and it worked. We’re trying to make it more about poker.”

I’m personally not sure about this choice, as Shana Hiatt is one of my favourite memories of my introduction into poker, and, while the poker is great to focus on….having an ambassador and hell, some eye candy, can’t hurt either!

Season 8 will follow a similar format as all previous seasons, where it follows 13 final tables in two one hour episodes, which will be premièred Sunday nights through the winter season.  This seasons kick off episode is the $15,000 Bellagio Cup final table, and continues to different venues around the US. 

This years sponsor is one of the top 2 online card rooms FullTiltPoker.net

Will You be tuning in, or did you get your fill in November??

John "The Razor" Phan

The final table of the 2008 World Poker Tour Legends of Poker $10,000 no limit hold’em championship kicked off at 4 p.m. at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, California. Up for grabs was a first place prize worth $1,091,428 with every player ready to take it home. Of the final six players, five of them were at their first WPT final table ever, while John Phan was making a back-to-back appearance.

Here’s the chip stack going into Day 4:

Seat 1: Trong Nguyen — 980,000
Seat 2: Amit Makhija — 3,225,000
Seat 3: Paul Smith — 1,130,000
Seat 4: John Phan — 2,415,000
Seat 5: Zachary Clark — 2,025,000
Seat 6: Kyle Wilson — 1,425,000

The back and forth heads up battle between Amit Makhija and Phan that ultimately decided the winner of the top prize. Both players went through huge chip swings testing their mettle though each player doubled up during the heads up battle. After a grueling three and a half hours of heads up play, Phan emerged as the winner of his first WPT title. Phan is on fire, he has now made three of the last six WPT final tables and in between, he won two gold bracelets at the World Series of Poker. Phan also nailed down a huge lead in the Card Player Player of the Year race with the win.

Here are the highlights from the final table action:

Eliminated in 6th Place, Kyle Wilson – $176,035

John Phan raised to 160,000 and Zachary Clark re-raised to 560,000. Without hesitation, Kyle Wilson moved all in for his last 995,000 and the action folded back to Phan. After a few moments of thought, Phan decided to fold. Despite being priced in, Clark hesitated before calling and his doubt was confirmed when Wilson’s pocket kings were revealed. Clark did have a chance however with his A-J.

The flop came out with A-7-5 causing the crowd to groan at Wilson’s bad beat. The turn and river were no help when they came 5-3. With Wilson’s elimination in sixth place, Clark was now contending for the chip lead.

Another notable hand came when Trong Nguyen moved all in for 770,000 and Amit Makhija made the call. They both turned up their hands revealing:

Makhija: A-K
Nguyen: 6-6

Board: j-10-2-10-6

Nguyen doubled up and now held 1.3 million in chips.

Eliminated in 5th Place, Trong Nguyen – $211,245

Amit Makhija raised to 150,000 and Trong Nguyen called from the big blind. The flop came 7-7-2, prompting Nguyen to bet 300,000. Makhija made the call and the turn brought a 4. Nguyen then moved all in for 800,000. After thinking it over for a bit, Makhija called and showed 6-6. Nguyen was in bad shape with K-Q and the river offered no help when the 5 fell. Nguyen was eliminated in fifth place, taking home $211,245.

Eliminated in 4th Place, Paul Smith – $246,450

Paul Smith moved all in pre-flop from the small blind for 1,225,000 causing John Phan to take plenty of time to think it over. After 3 minutes, Smith called the clock and with the count down from the tournament director at under 10 seconds, Phan finally made the call. Both players slowed their hands:

Smith: A-7
Phan: 8-8

Board: 9-7-7-10-6

Phan was behind on the flop but came back strong to make a 10 high straight, winning the hand. Smith was eliminated in fourth place, taking home $246,450.

Eliminated in 3rd Place, Zachary Clark – $281,645

Zachary Clark moved all in pre-flop for 1,855,000 with Amit Makhija making the call. John Phan mucked and both players showed their cards:

Makhija: A-6
Clark: K-2

Board: 10-7-5-A-J

Clark was eliminated in third place taking home a healthy $281,645 and moving Makhija back into the chip lead.

Winner of the 2008 Legends of Poker, John Phan – $1,091,428

In the final hand of the tournament Amit Makhija moved all in and John Phan made the call. Makhija showed K-7 and Phan was hanging on with 3-3. The flop came Q-5-5 giving Makhija more outs to challenge Phan’s pair. The turn brought an A and leaving open the possibility of a Q to chop the pot. But the river was a 10, making Phan the winner of the 2008 Legends of Poker tournament.

Makhija earned $563,320 for his second place finish. Phan earned $1,091,428 and took an incredible lead of nearly 1,500 points in the CardPlayer Player of the Year race.

Final Table results:

1st Place: John Phan — $1,091,428
2nd Place: Amit Makhija — $563,320
3rd Place: Zachary Clark — $281,645
4th Place: Paul Smith — $246,450
5th Place: Trong Nguyen — $211,245
6th Place: Kyle Wilson — $176,035

After several tough days of poker, Michael “SirWatts” Watson came out on top as the winner of the 4th annual $15k Bellagio Cup. Wats faced a very tough final table, which included players like David Benyamine, Ralph Perry and John “The Razor” Pham.

SirWatts entered the final table with the largest chip stack and just 100,000 lead from David Benyamine. The two would go on to make it to the final two to play heads-up for the big prize. Benyamine held the early lead, but SirWatts doubled up after an all-in where Benyamine held QQ and Watson AK when he hit an Ace on the river.

On the final hand, Watson moved all-in with Q9. Benyamine made the call with a dominating K9, but Watson hit his queen on the flop to seal his tournament victory.

For the win, Watson took home $1,673,770, a WPT bracelet, a Bellagio bracelet, and entry into the Season VII WPT World Championship next April.

Here are the full final table results:

Final Table Results:

1st: Mike “SirWatts” Watson – $1,673,770
2nd: David Benyamine – $840,295
3rd: Luke Staudenmaier – $452,465
4th: Ralph Perry – $290,900
5th: John “The Razor” Phan – $193,915
6th: Gabe Thaler – $129,275

Here is Watson being interviewed after the win:

Was checking out the Cardplayer.com live updates and came accross this funny little blurb:

A hilarious moment developed later in the day when one of the few unknown players in the field took a seat at Table 12 and found himself facing a pretty tough lineup. Victor Ramdin, seated next to him, made the introductions, and named everyone at the table along with some of their poker accomplishments.

The player looked at the table in a shocked state of awe, and then quickly realized the bad beat he was dealt on the redraw.

Here are the top 10 players at the end of Day 2 of the WPT Championship at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada:

1. Robert Mizrachi – 523,200
2. Jayde Tran – 406,700
3. Eric Richards – 399,500
4. Bryan Devonshire – 393,400
5. Cory Carroll – 384,700
6. John Celii – 376,800
7. Carlos Mortensen – 371,600
8. Kenny Tran – 367,400
9. Michael Gracz – 364,800
10. Jonathan Kalmar – 333,900

The WPT has made it official today, Sabina Gadecki is out and Layla Keyleigh is in to host the 6th Season of the World Poker Tour (WPT).

Kayleigh will make her debut with the WPT today at the final table for the Mirage Poker Showdown.

“From the first casting interview with her, we knew Layla would be a great fit for Season 6,” said Robyn Moder, WPT Studios executive vice president.

“Not only does she have an impressive TV background hosting in the sports and entertainment world, but she is energetic, intelligent and strikingly beautiful – the perfect combination to engage WTP fans.”

Specializing in celebrity interviews, video game industry events, and pop culture trends, 23-year old Layla is already well-versed in television and media. Her vast resume includes being an on-air correspondent for Fox Sport’s “Best Damn Sports Show Period” and The Vegas Insider, as well as co-hosting G4’s Attack of the Show and hosting “The Feed” news segment.

WPT Season 6 episodes will begin airing in early 2008 as part of GSN’s Monday night casino lineup where the network has built a substantial following in the casino game genre. Season V currently airs every Wednesday night on the Travel Channel at 9PM Eastern/Pacific.

For more information, please visit World Poker Tour or Layla’s personal website.

Here is a great video of Layla where she was voted as #15 hottest woman on the web: