Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

Everyone’s favorite poker player, Mike Matusow, talks about his thoughts on the WSOP Final Table Delay. Mike thinks that the delay is a bad idea and basically just a cashgrab for the WSOP. One thing that he says that makes a lot of sense is that when those players make the final table they are really in the zone and playing the best poker of their life. By throwing a huge amount of time in between the game, they lose this “zone” and it suddenly becomes a completely different game. Anyway, here is the video of Mikey:

The WSOP is always full of suprises, and this is probably one of the biggest stories ever….

By now, everyone is familiar with Potripper (aka AP’s 7-Million Dollar Super-User), but I bet you didn’t really expect him to be a big story at the WSOP! Well, thanks to some great reporting by our good friend poker-prop, we have since learned that the winner of WSOP Event #11 was non other than Potripper’s (Scott Tom) own father Phil Tom!

Players’ discovered Tom’s true identity after a conversation with him and Full Tilt Poker’s Howard Lederer. Lederer asked him if he was any relation to Absolute Poker’s Scott Tom, to which Phil stupidly replied, “yes, I am his father”. I guess he doesn’t know how hated his son is by the poker community.

The best quotes came from the CardPlayer.com website where it stated an onlooker said:
“[Tom played] absolutely ideal poker” and “his raises and reraises worked so often, it was almost as if he could see everyone’s cards.” Funny enough Cardplayer.com made no mention of the relationship between Phil and Scott.

Scott won the $5,000 no-limit hold’em shootout after winning 3 consecutive sit n gos. Here are the rest of the results from the final table:

1st - Phil Tom - $477,990
2nd - Greg “FTB” Mueller - $298,638
3rd - Leo Wolpert - $187,812
4th - Sirous Jamshidi -$118,440
5th - Tim West - $63,450
6th - Thomas Roupe - $38,070

There were many pros in the field, but it was amateur poker player Grant Hinkle that managed to outlast the field of 3,929 players to win the 2008 WSOP $1500 NL Holdem Event.

Hinkle had never played a major event before this and never expected to actually win the thing.

“My goal coming in was just go as deep as I could,” Hinkle said. “After Day One, I was top-10 in chips and once I got there I started to think — how much money can I make and how far can I really go? I kept going and winning pots and I eventually got here.”

27-year-old Hinkle (a businessman from Kansas City, MO) didn’t intend on playing any other events, but after this huge cash he said he is gonna stick around and play the main event.

The tournament was the largest preliminary tournament and fourth longest tournament (53.5 hours) in WSOP history.

Here are the top 10 finishers in this event, plus their payouts:

1) Grant Hinkle - $831,462.00
2) James Akenhead - $520,219.00
3) Chris Ferguson - $388,287.00
4) Theo Tran - $327,148.00
5) Mike Ngo - $268,154.00
6) Aaron Coulthard - $211,841.00
7) Melvin Jones - $158,211.00
David Bach - $117,987.00
9) Joe Rutledge - $83,127.00
10) Jeff Wiedenhoeft - $52,021.00

There is still time left to qualify for the main event. This weekend, pokerstars (the largest online poker site) will be running a tournament where they will be putting up 200 packages for the main event (worth around $12,500), with only a $350 buy-in!

Also check out our 2008 WSOP Satellites page for other ways to there there!

The world’s largest poker site, Pokerstars.com, has announced that they plan on investing $12.5 Million for promotions related to this year’s World Series of Poker.

They plan to send a total of 1000 players to Las Vegas to compete for the biggest prize in poker - a WSOP Bracelet and a lot of cash!

Pokerstars WSOP Satellites

Players can qualify for the WSOP through a variety of different satellites starting from as low as $20 or 40 Frequent Player Points (FPPs). They have cash satellites, FPP satelittes and a series of step sit n go tournaments to get you to the WSOP.

The wsop steps are probably the easiest way to get there (starting at $7.50), here is a graphic of how they work:

Since 2002, Pokerstars has sent over 3,600 players to the WSOP, but this will be the most ever in one year. Prior to this year, last year Pokerstars sent 616 players which was the most ever, but this year will be almost DOUBLE that.

The current WSOP Schedule is set to begin on May 28, 2008 at the Rio All Suites Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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* WORLD SERIES OF POKER and WSOP are trademarks of Harrah’s License Company, LLC (”Harrah’s”). Harrah’s does not sponsor or endorse, and is not associated or affiliated with PokerStars.com or its products, services, promotions or tournaments.

The most well known name in poker may be going online. What plans could be in the sleeve of Harrah’s Entertainment for the World Series of Poker? Consider the obstacles they would have marketing to their primary market, the United States of America. Going online would violate the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) for US Players. So now what?

In the announcement Gary Thompson, spokesman, made it clear that Harrah’s would not cross the threshold into the online poker market “where there are any gray areas,” and the market and legal conditions need to be calculated ahead of any further steps toward the online poker market. 

Working the assumption that Harrah’s Entertainment takes the online poker world by storm by bringing the World Series of Poker Online, the United States would be cut out of the brand they helped give birth to. Thank you one more time UIGEA.
Additional markets that would be blocked out by the WSOP Online poker event would include Israel, France and Greece. Each one for different reasons, but solidly in the gray or off limit areas of the online poker market.