As is common with poker television shows, the venues change. The South Point Casino will no longer be the home of Poker After Dark as NBC will be moving its production to downtown Las Vegas. The Golden Nugget, one of the oldest hotel and casinos in Las Vegas, will be home to Poker After Dark beginning with season five.
Season four of Poker After Dark started off with the Cash Game which featured a minimum $100,000 buy-in. The series continued its non-traditional start to season four with a Poker After Dark Heads-Up Championship between the previous winners of NBC’s National Heads-Up Championsip tournaments. Then season four of Poker After Dark went on a break due to NBC’s airing of the 2008 Summer Olympics.
I just checked my DVR schedule and it looks like it will be back this week but a repeat. Poker After Dark has had a regular rotation of hostesses over the past four seasons – I’m interested to know if Leeanne Tweeden will be back to serve as the hostess of Poker After Dark Season Five.
Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson, arguably the most recognizable face in poker, will be heading to Macau to play in the next stop on the Asian Poker Tour. For those who just happen to be in the area, Brunson will be participating in a book signing at the StarWorld Hotel on August 26 and 27 from 4:30 pm until 6:00 pm.
The APT Macau event begins on August 27 and runs through August 31 at the StarWorld Hotel and Casino in Macau, China. This is the biggest stop on the APT with a $5300 buy-in and a guaranteed prize pool of at least $1.5 million. Other popular poker players that have confirmed their attendance at the APT Macau include Todd Brunson (Doyle’s son), J.C. Tran and Nam Le.
From the official Asian Poker Tour website:
“The Asian Poker Tour (APT) is Asia’s biggest and original poker tour. The brand was recently acquired by Manila-based gaming company AsianLogic. Four events will be held in Asia for the 2008 season – APT Philippines, APT Macau, APT Korea, and APT Singapore. Next year, the Tour plans to increase this to a minimum total of six events. With the largest guaranteed prize pools in Asia, each tournament is set to attract live players as well as Internet players who will qualify via online satellites.”
I just finished watching the ESPN televised version of the 2008 WSOP $50k HORSE tournament and have to say that Scotty Nguyen’s behavior was despicable. Scotty Nguyen is known as the Prince of Poker and is usually a pretty easy-going guy (at least on the televised games I’ve seen). In the 2007 WSOP Main Event he was sitting pretty on the chip stack going into the two final tables and then fell from grace going out in 11th place. He handled that much more graciously than he handled himself in this year’s HORSE tournament.
The HORSE tourney has been named after Chip Reese who won the inaugural event in 2006. Chip Reese was a true poker ambassador and Doyle Brunson commented that he doesn’t recall ever hearing Reese raise his voice. To see the bickering and one-upmanship that occurred during the 2008 HORSE tourney is really not keeping with Reese’s legacy.
I don’t recall a time where I’ve ever heard so many bleeps due to cursing. Even when Phil Hellmuth has a blow-up after a bad beat, bad call or whatever gets his goat – the censor doesn’t have to go as crazy as he did during the two hours of the $50k HORSE event final table that was televised. Early on in the airing, he slow rolled trip 7s against Barry Greenstein. Totally uncalled for Scotty!
Whether Nguyen was complaining about a delay in getting his beer or being upset about a call another player made, he just got worse as the show went on. I know that he ended up winning but I was rather disappointed. Even Michael DeMichele, who started off the evening fist pumping his victories, acted better at the end.
I can’t image Nguyen looking back on this win and being proud of his self. If he is then I say that he needs to be dethroned of his Prince of Poker title because during that final table he was definitely not a Prince – more like the court jester.
The Excalibur Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas is the first Vegas resort to install automated poker tables in their poker room. Yes, that’s right ladies and gents; you can now go sit inside a poker room and peck away at a computer-generated poker screen to get your poker fix. As a result of this new addition, many of the dealers at the Excalibur have been given their walking papers.
Honestly, this makes no sense to me. If I want to play a bazillion hands per hour or play on a computer, I can do so from my home in my pajamas. Why would I bother going anywhere to do this? I read in a poker blog (forgive me, I have forgotten which one) that one player loved it because the other players at the table (those that fall under the title of fish) seemed to go all-in a lot more often than they would if they were playing with physical chips. So from that perspective, I can see the allure of the automated system.
However here is where my personal beef with the system comes in to play. When I go to a poker room to play poker, I do so for the live player aspect of it. I like to work on reading other players, pick up on some nuances, work to keep myself from going on-tilt, etc. If I’m behind a computer at a casino, sure I can see other players but people play differently with computer-generated cards than when they have cards and chips in front of them.
I really hope that this isn’t going to be the new trend. Las Vegas is my favorite destination vacation spot and if all of the card rooms go automated, I’m not sure I’ll have a reason to go.
Although the 2008 WSOP H.O.R.S.E. tournament is over, ESPN will be airing certain hands from the final table this coming Tuesday, August 19. For those that don’t want to wait until Tuesday to see how the final table played out, I’ve got the information you want.
The $50,000 buy-in tournament has been named after Chip Reese who many have stated was the best poker player. Unfortunately Reese is no longer with us but his legacy lives on in the WSOP H.O.R.S.E. tournament. There were 148 entrants which brought the prize pool up to a whopping $7.1 million with nearly $2 million going to the first place winner.
The top 16 places were paid with Doyle Brunson squeaking in to the payouts and going out in 16th. Andy Bloch went out in 15th, Daniel Negreanu in 13th, and Phil Ivey in 12th. The final table was a veritable who’s who of poker and here are the results:
1. Scotty Nguyen $1,989,120
2. Mike DeMichele $1,243,200
3. Erick Lindgren $781,440
4. Matt Glantz $568,320
5. Lyle Berman $444,000
6. Barry Greenstein $335,200
7. Huck Seed $284,160
8. Patrick Bueno $230,880
9. Ralph Perry $177,600
Las Vegas is known for some unique and sometimes over-the-top shows. The Venetian is capitalizing on the poker craze and will be launching a new show in the Fall called “The Real Deal.”
From the official Real Deal website:
“…an amazing opportunity for audience members to interact with a big name comedy host while actually playing against and alongside the world’s best professional poker players. With TimePlay Entertainment’s revolutionary, wireless, multi-player platform, interactive content and ultra-mobile touch-screen devices mounted to the seats of The Venetian Showroom, players will compete for points to win a huge range of prizes, including a chance to win a cool $1 million!”
Some of the players already lined up to participate in this unique show include Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson, Daniel Negreanu (PokerMom’s favorite player), Phil Hellmuth Jr., Eli Elezra, Antonio Esfandiari, Jennifer Harman, Phil Laak, Scotty Nguyen, Gavin Smith and Todd Brunson.
Now this is my kind of Vegas show. I have seen several of Guy Laliberte’s Cirque du Soleil productions as well as La Reve at the Wynn but a live poker show – right up my alley. Of course I don’t have a trip to Vegas planned in the Fall, maybe I’ve just found my reason to plan one.
So tonight I was reading through some of my favorite poker sites and came across a rather eye-opening article on Gambling911.com. I always knew that David Williams came off a bit cocky during the televised games that he’s played in but evidently he is just cocky in general.
Basically so and so from an internet forum named what and what saw David Williams get slapped across the face twice with the second time knocking him to the ground. Williams’ refutes the event and is offering up $10k if evidence can be produced showing that Williams was indeed slapped.
Okay that sounded rather benign. Typical celebrity gossip and Williams is a poker celebrity. However, the article went on to discuss a porn movie that Williams took part in. Woah…porn? Yup. Not just your standard man/woman porn but a foot fetish film with a “seasoned” actress. By seasoned I mean old as in somewhere in the 60s.
From the Gambling911.com article:
“…shows Williams (his middle name is Tony pronounced as “TOE-NEE”) sucking the toes of a purported “granny” but she also provides him with a most unusual foot rub - too graphic for further elaboration on this family website.”
Color this PokerMom surprised!
Eva Longoria Parker, Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, Phil Hellmuth, Amaury Nolasco, Sean Elliott, Leeann Tweeden and other celebrities will be in attendance at the first annual Tony & Eva Parker Celebrity Casino Night. The event will benefit the Eva’s Heroes foundation which works with individuals with developmental challenges.
The event will be held at Pedrotti’s North Wind Ranch in San Antonio, Texas. Dinner will be served at 6:00pm with the poker tournament starting at 6:30pm. Although the event is sold out, tickets to enter the poker tournament were only $300 per person.
In addition to the celebrities that planned to attend this event, the charity night is being sponsored by ultimatebet.com, H.E.B., the San Antonio Spurs and several other corporate sponsors. This isn’t just your typical charity poker tournament though. The winner of the event will receive a seat in the 2009 World Series of Poker. It doesn’t say if this is a seat in the $10,000 buy-in Main Event but regardless, the winner is likely there for the altruistic factor and not to gain entry to the WSOP.
Good luck to all!
Tonight’s WSOP event on ESPN is event number four, the $5,000 Mixed Hold’em tournament. With a total of 332 entrants, the final nine sat down early in June and Erick Lindgren was the last man standing winning his first ever WSOP bracelet.The final table was a who’s who of poker pros – in addition to Lindgren, Justin Bonomo, Andrew Robl, Roland De Wolf, David (Chino) Rheem, Howard Lederer, David Williams, Pat Pezzin and Isaac Haxton were featured at the final table.
Haxton was the first player out taking home a smooth $35k, not bad for a $5k investment. Although we know that Lindgren was in it for the bracelet, he also collected nearly $375k for his first-place finish. Lindgren now joins the ranks of bracelet winners. Lindgren had a fantastic series and ended up as the 2008 World Series of Poker Player of the Year with five cashes and a total of 245 POY points. He walked away from this year’s WSOP with over $1.3 million in cash!
The World Poker Tour is in full force with several events planned between now and the end of the year. In addition to the WPT Boot Camps, the WPT will be hosting two large WPT events in the months of August and September.
The Bicycle Casino Legends of Poker
Located in Bell Gardens, California, The Bicycle Casino will host the WPT’s Legends of Poker event from August 23-28, 2008. The buy-in for the No-Limit Hold’Em Championship is $9,800 + $200. If you don’t have $10,000 to plop down on an entry fee, you can participate in one of the mega super satellites. The WPT event will also be hosting a Ladies No-Limit Hold’Em tournament for a $500 + $45 buy-in.
The Borgata Poker Open
Atlantic city, New Jersey will be hosting the Borgata Poker Open from September 14-18, 2008. As with the August event, the championship tournament features a $10,000 total buy-in and several satellites. Other events throughout the five day tournament schedule include games starting at a $300 + $50 buy-in; a tournament for every poker player’s budget.
The WPT events are a great way for poker players around the United States to get a chance to play with some big name poker players from around the world.
