Day 1 in the 40k Good to Online Players

Many young guns who cut their teeth on internet poker sites had a great first day.   In fact, just before the action closed for the evening many guys with two names were atop the leader board.  Two names?  Yes, their live names and their online names written like this:  Kyle “krisqueen” Wilson.

Lex “RaSZi” Veldhuis, with one level to finish, is 85k away from chip leader Michael DeMichele.  DeMichele whose live performance in the U.S. Poker Open and coming in second to Scotty Nguyen at last year’s HORSE championship perhaps precludes him from needing his online poker name to identify him, but he’s certainly one of the young guns.  And he is as likely to play online poker as any of them.  Up to the minute chipcounts here.

Also at the top, Emil “whitelime” Patel, Mattew ‘adz124″ Marafioti, David “WhooooKidd” Baker, as well as Krisqueen.  Live poker is turning out to not be much different to when the play poker online.    Some other guys like Sorel Mizzi, Isaac Haxton, and Alex Jacob are also hanging around the top of the remaining 111 players.  They are probably just as recognizable with their unlisted internet monickers as the other players.

However, the old guard isn’t just going to roll over and die.  In fact, Doyle Brunson who is still alive and still alive in the tournament… despite rumors of the opposite earlier this week, is just one of Poker’s bigger names that is in contention.  Perhaps, the biggest name is the guy that brought all those kids at the top of the leaderboard into the game, and that’s Chris Moneymaker.

Well, they are rubbing elbows with the former accountant from Tennesssee right now as he is 5th in chips and with 100k of DeMichele (690k).  Another huge name lurking just behind is Phil Ivy, who is up to his teeth in bracelet prop bets, so him winning this event potentially would be the most lucrative win of any player in the field.

Some of the notable kid eliminations include Isaac ‘westmenloAA’ Baron, Steve ‘gboro80′ Gross, Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan, Christian Harder, and Shannon Shorr.  Of the old men, Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan, Chris Ferguson, and Barry Greenstein all are watching the action now instead of playing in it.

Big Bounty Winners

Recently the Big Bounty poker tournament was completed on bwin’s poker site.  790 players competed for the chance to win a trip to the World Series of Poker Main Event.  The online poker tournament would whittle the players down to the two seats that were on the line.   The packages are worth $17,000.  Considering the buy-in is $10,000 that’s a pretty sweet package.

Hours later, 780 who had signed up to play poker tournament had gotten the heave ho and the final table was set:   ananaas the big stack with 394k, fjvesa 2nd big stack with 378k, next tuhkimo99 with 297k,  in the thick of things duxy75 with 252k, iron man Iroman_1 with 218k,  forsberg1979 with 196k, Dorni with 191k in chips, Joesn10 and otarek around 180k, and last but not least x Rudy91 at 80k.

According to bwin’s poker blog the final table moved quickly.  Otarek a bwin, veteran of online poker tournaments got sent home in fifth place. Within a mere 10 minutes the combatants had eliminated seven of the players.  One of the three wouldn’t win the trip the other two would be heading to Las Vegas.   The chipleader remaind ananaas who now had 1.2 million.  With a little more than half that sat forsberg1979 on 765k.  Bringing up the rear fjvesa still was dangerous with 323k. 

fjvesa being dangerous didn’t last long.  He shoved his chips all in overtop of forsberg1979′s raise .  It didn’t take long for forsberg1979 to make the call.  Sadly for fjvesa his K2 was dominated by forsberg1979′s A2.   The board told a happy story for two players and a sad one for fjvesa because J♥8♦4♠Q♣9♥ brought no help.

Thus, the final table took about 22 minutes to decide the two package winners.   fjvesa won $7.4k and a $93+7 Bounty ticket for third place and the chance to play poker tournaments for another shot at the WSOP Main Event.   Side note forsberg 1979 won an additional 1.3k after he beat ananaas heads up.

The Top 10 Greatest World Series of Poker Main Event Champions

This is not a list of the Greatest Hold’em players ever… or the greatest tournament Hold’Em players ever… it’s a list of the greatest Main Event No Limit Hold’ EM Champions ever (texas hold’em rules).  Simply put, Phil Hellmuth and all his bracelets will not supercede multiple Main Event Bracelets.

Johnny Moss was rewarded one championship, the first, by vote.  He beat 6 other players in the voting.  His second championship, the second, he won but only had to best 5 other players.  His third, the fifth main event, he beat 15 other players.  He’s deducted points because of the size of the fields. 

Dolye Brunson’s two titles came in fields of 22 and 34 respective, which isn’t quite as impressive as Johnny Chan’s back to back title over fields of 152 and 167.  Chan’s second place finish the following year (to Phil Hellmuth) came in a 178 person field–what a run!   Doyle’s second place finish (to Stu Unger) was in a 73 person field.  Unger went back to back winning the next year over 75 people.  Unger’s third first place finish, is the most impressive of Champions’ multiple first places finishes 1st in 1997 (16 years after his second title) and beating a field of 312.

With that said… the top of the list are the multiple champions:

1.  Stu Unger:  beating the biggest field of any multiple champion and three titles.  Also won over an 18 year span.

2.  Johnny Chan:  Probably the most impressive three year run in terms of heads up finishes the WSOP Main Event will ever see.  Two titles.

3.  Dolye Brunson:  Back to Back and a second place.  Plus, he won two titles with 10-2.

4.  Johnny Moss:  Everybody touts what a world class player he is.  Even if the fields were thin back then, you’d imagine he could play with anybody.

ITM finishes are a secondary concern.  This is purely about championships.  In the event of a tie, it’s purely subjective to split the two.  Since, the rest of the title holders only hold one championship, let author bias run amock.  I’ll side more with the more recent champions, but my support my bias with field size trumping the older champions.  Want to disagree?  Here’s a list of all the champions to give you some fodder.

5.  Phil Hellmuth.  The poker brat just completed another deep run in the event with the numbers 10x and 100x some of the fields played before.

6.  Juan Carlos Mortenson.  Start the question marks now.  Add in his WPT Championship title and Mortenson is the only person to accomplish both.

7.  Scotty Nguyen.  The Poker Prince almost duplicated Mortenson’s feat this year, and thrived in the No Limit Hold ‘Em portion of the Horse Event to take that title down too.  Add in another deep run in a mammonth field and you have to give the poker prince credit.

8.  Puggy Pearson.  He took second in year two and three of the Main Event and took first in year four.  Granted the fields were 6,8, and 13 but thats an impressive run.

9.  Dan Harrington.  1995 Winner and also ran in the Moneymaker year (2003), AND in the following year with a MASSIVE field Harrington has succeeded where others haven’t.

10.  Peter Eastgate.  2008 he became the youngest champion ever.  Forget that he got slapped by the deck, most champions did too, he managed to show a calmness in the middle of the biggest moment he’d ever face.  The last youngest champion (Hellmuth) ever went on to a stellar career, and said nobody would surpass his record because the spectacle would be too big.  Well, it wasn’t for Eastgate, so while it’s like crowning a baby, we have faith he’ll be making poker headlines for a long time.

WPT Update

World Poker Tour news…

The WPT has name Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier it’s player of the year.  Elky edged John Phan for the award on the strength of his finish in the WPT championship.  His final table with Shannon Shorr, Scotty Nguyen, and winner Yvegniy Timoshenko was the difference.  Elky had a first, a third and 32nd place cash to give him the player of the year title.

Will they call the final card the Canal?  Like Amersterdam, Venice has plenty of canals and is now hom to the World Poker Tour.  The WPT will be in Venice for the first time. The main event will cost €4,000+€400.  In addition to the cash prize the main event champion will also be awarded with a $25,500 entry into the 2010 WPT Championship.  This is where Elky sealed his player of the year title, and Timoshenko came from the internet to announce his presence to the world.

hanks to a partnership with sponosr bwin, The World Poker Tour returns to the “World” part of its names and graces the shores of Italy.  If you are looking to watch the entire  event will be available to view by bwinon its Web-TV channel.  No word if bwin will be televising the secondary events or not.  The WPT will play in Venice’s famous Casino Di Venezia. For traveling European players this will be an easy jaunt from the recent EPT event in Monte Carlo.  If only all tournaments followed one another within such close distances.

The WPT will award a bracelet to the winner of the main event in Venice in the €4,000+€400 No Limit Hold’em tournament.  As mentioned, the swag also includes cash and an entry into the 2010 WPT Championship.  The event has multiple events taking place from May 6 to May 10.

Players looking to make the trip should be forewarned as both side events will be capped at 200 players.  These events include Tournament 1: a  €1,000+€100 NL Hold’em on May 9, while Tournament 2  will be €300+€30 NL Hold’em  on May 10.   So even if it’s an easy trip from the EPT, you’ll want to get there and register early.  Brush up on your poker strategy and see if you can still win a seat here.