POKER UPDATE

08.30.10

CHILEAN MINERS CHECKING IN THE DARK.  Surviving on food rations and poker games trapped Chilean gold miners hope they will have enough mental and physical stimulation to make it through.  A daughter of one of the miners said, "It will be difficult, I'm sure, but I'm not worried about him.  I know he is happy and content down there because he is playing lots of Texas Holdem poker and cards.  It is good for his mind."  The question is how much in the hole will losers go by the end of four months.  There is no ATM down there, but then again they are in a gold mine, so their next Sit and go buy-in is just a pick axe away.   

MIDDLE TENNESSEE STATE QUARTERBACK TOOK A LOAN OUT FOR A POKER BANKROLL.  Dwight Dasher is learning that apparently, the NCAA frowns on this kind of thing.  The $1,500 loan was given to him by Oliver Donnell.  In short order, that money was lost in a local game or two.  Dasher rushed for 201 yards in the New Orleans Bowl against Southern Miss last year and is now in a dash of trouble.

DEVILFISH ULLIOT WRITES A BOOK.  David "Devilfish" Ulliot (devil fish pictured), not to be confused with Darryll Fish, has penned a book. His a man who describes his opponents as "pale as Dracula's feet," so he should be an entertaining and interesting author.  Devilfish, who once burglarized an auction house to steal a grandfather clock so he could play in the home game of an antiques dealer, is definitely an old school character.  Victoria Coren reviews his book here.

DURRRR CHALLENGE TWO BEGINS.  Durrrr already down over 500k after quickly playing over 10% of the challenge.  Daniel "Jungleman12" Cates started slowly then reversed fields and has been crushing Dwan ever since when the two play online poker.  Durrrr started hot and got up almost 250k after just short of 1000 hands. 

By 2000 hands they were battling near even.  Just short of 3500 hands after a large pot, Jungleman12 hasn't looked back.  The closest Durrrr got to even was down a little over 50k near the 5000 hand mark.  Since then he's lost almost 500k. 

2009 SOUTHERN POKER CHAMPIONSHIPS RESULTS

08.29.10

Yeah we said 2009.  With no 2010 results yet reported here's the first half of last year's tournament.  Enjoy a scroll down memory lane.

EVENT 1: BY GEORGE:  Ronnie George of Douglasville, GA won 65k for first.  Larry Alexander of Grand Bay, AL took second for almost 24k.  Tom Becnel of Belle Chase, LA won 18k for 4th. 

EVENT 2 :CHUCK NORRIS AND AN ESKIMO:  Dan Clemente of Hernando, MS won 65k for first but all eyes were on the Texas Ranger and an Eskimo from New Orleans.  Eskimo Clark took 5th for 14k.  Chuck Norris won 6th for 12k.  Chuck Norris was a welcome tablemate throughout the tournament because nothing escapes Chuck Norris, therefore he doesn't fart.  Jacob Tyler, Birmingham, AL 8th for almost 7k.

EVENT 3: WILD-ING OUT.  Mark Wilds did what he usually does and that's win an event.  He bagged 50k for first.  Paul Distefano of Plaquemine, LA took almost 17k for third.  Jack Miller of Pass Christian, MS won almost 9k for 6th.  And GCP got on the board as blogger Brandon Jarrett won a little over 5k for 8th.

EVENT 4: FESKE 2ND BEST.  Michael Benvenuti of California won 63k for first.  Ron Feske of Folsom, LA took second for 35k.  Gabe Costner won 9k for 6th.

EVENT 5: BOSS BOSTICK.  Bill Bostick of St. Clair, MI won 12k for first.  Art Young of Biloxi, MS took just shy of 3k for 5th.

EVENT 6: TOYE-ING AROUND.  GCP blogger Bobby Toye won almost 9k for 3rd.  "Detroit Al" Green of Florida (Detroit is in Florida?) won almost 30k for first.  Thuy "TD" Djedjos of Jackson, MS won a little over 5k for 5th.

EVENT 7: LOCALS MUSCLED OUT.  No locals made the final table as Russell "The Muscle" Salzer of NY, NY won 16k for first.  Yebin Guo of Brooklyn took silver for 9k. 

EVENT 8: PULLEN IN POTS.  Picayune Mississippi's Thomas "Eddy" Pullens won 33k for first place.  Annie Lu got on the final table for the ladies. 

EVENT 9: DO CALL ME BUDDY.  New Orleans, LA native Thomas "Buddy" Rouzan was the runner-up winning 36k.  Tony Lay of OK City, OK won 70k for first and felt okay about it.

ODDS AND ENDS IN POKER UPDATE

08.28.10

ANDREW FRANKENBERGER WINS WPT.  Despite having a last night of a item that should be on Man vs. Food, Frankenberger could also plays some poker.  He runner-runnered Jonathan Little and from there wielded his huge stack on to victory, despite the local villagers chasing him around with torches on the breaks.  Kyle Wilson finished second, Tom Lee third.  Jared Jaffee finished in 5th.  Frankenberger won 750k, Wilson 370k, Lee 174k. 

BLANCA GAMES ACQUIRES CEREUS POKER.  Seriously.  Though no changes will be made in terms of staff, day to day operations, or really anything?  Looks like Stuart Gordon will be the new CEO but beyond that it's same old same.  Shell corporation?

VICTORY POKER GOING TO CAKE.  They will join Doyle's Room, Unabomber Poker and some other sites.  Currently Victory is on the Everleaf network and will continue until September 1st.  The aforementioned Jonathan Little is a Victory Poker pro.

J. LITTLE 2ND IN CHIPS AT WPT BELL GARDENS UPDATE

08.25.10

JONATHAN LITTLE AT 1.314 MILLION.  Andrew Frankenberger chip leader at 1.958 million.  Two other players above 1 million.  Chip average is 770k.  Only 15 players left.  Everybody obviously already in the money.  Phil Collins yesterday's chip leader lost his golden (invisible) touch and busted.  So too Soi Nguyen, Allen Kessler, Erica Schoenberg, Joe Hachem, Tim Phan and Amit Makhija.  Tom Lee lurks as does a possible catalog of corny Motley Crue and Pam Anderson references.  A Little first place finish will tie him with Gus Hansen and Carlos Mortensen for most ever WPT titles with three.

DARRYLL FISH CASHES.   Fish was able to turn his short stack into a 19th place finish.  The payday was only a little double his buy-in and he just missed a pay jump, but a pay-out is a pay-out.  Great job Fish.  Fish got chomped by Frankenberger whose AK improved and bettered Fish's pocket jacks.

WPT BELL GARDENS AND ONLINE UPDATE

08.24.10

DARRYLL FISH AND JOHN LITTLE HOPE TO BECOME LEGENDS OF POKER.   60 left at the WPT tournament at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, California.  They are nearing the money bubble after 462 players signed up to play.  Jonathan Little is 11th in chips with 305k.  Erica Schoenberg isn't far behind at 245k (Erica Schoenberg?!?!?  Erick Lindgren's girl friend?  If you want to see more of Erica Schoenberg google Erica Schoenberg strip poker and you'll get an eyefull).  Joe Seebok and November Niner Soi Nguyen are also just above the chip count average of 193.5k.  Darryll Fish at 143k is hanging around. 

AGAINST ALL ODDS PHIL COLLINS CHIP-LEADER.  We could do the easy Phil Collins references but it's just not in the air tonight for us to be corny.  However, it is just another day in paradise for Collins who is sitting on a giant chip-stack of 898,00 (more than 300k more than second place Andrew Frankenberger).  Take a look at him now, he's been waiting on this moment all his life, and the young Collins is su-su-su-sure he has what it takes to win it all.  Easy Lover Tom(my) Lee is also in the tournament.  Luckily for you he's not the chip-leader.

MATT GRAHAM WINS 73K AND TRISHELLE CASHES.  After agreeing to a four way chop Graham is credit for 4th place in the Full Tilt 740k guarantee.  Trishelle Canatella hosted one of UB's tournaments the Sniper No Limit Hold'em Tournament in the UBOC and min-cashed in her own event. 

NOVEMBER NINER JOHN DOLAN UPDATE

08.20.10

DOLAN MAKES FINAL TABLE IN CYPRUS.  The Full Tilt Merit Cyprus High Roller freeze out.  Prize pool is 873k.  Top five spots pay, 9 left.  Those gone include Michael Mizrachi, Phil Ivey, Sorel Mizzi, Andrew Feldman and Carter Phillips.  Filippo Candio also joined the two November Niners (Grinder and Dolan) in the tournament but failed to not get frozen out.  Perica Bukara is the chip leader (951k), Ori Miller second (546k), and Dolan is third (455k).  Jon Turner, Andrew Feldman, David Benyamine and Carter Phillips are also at the table.  Here's a Pokernews video from after day 1.

POKER POLICE BLOTTER UPDATE

08.19.10

YOU AIN'T GOT SPIT:  Oh yeah?  One man in California, 52 year old Mesbah Khaffaji, had just that when he projectile spat his dinner at a dealer.  Khaffaji had been running bad and lost a couple of pots.  Had to be the dealers fault right?  He, shockingly, was arrested.  L.A. Times has the details.  If he had been playing at an online poker room all he would have done is dirtied his monitor, instead he got arrested.

LIKELY HOLLOWAY KILLER, A STONE COLD NUT, WHO PLAYED POKER NIGHT OF AND NIGHT AFTER HER MURDER.  Joran Van der Sloot was arrested in South America after busting out of a poker tournament and killing a local girl.  After that arrest a man in Philadelphia, Matthew Biebel, came forward with the tale he told the FBI when they were investigating the Natalie Holloway murder in Aruba.  On successive nights he got into confrontations with Van der Sloot at the poker table of an Aruba casino because Van der Sloot was talking to his friends in the native tongue of the island when mulling over big calls against Biebel.  Words were exchanged, the floor was called, and Biebel thought the kid a punk.

Prior to the arrest in South America Biebel thought that was all Van der Sloot was, because in his mind what young killer could possibly play poker as calmly as Van der Sloot did the night of the murder and the night after.   Now, he realizes how possible it was. Just goes to show, you never know who the idiot is across the table no matter what he appears to be.  Read the Philly Inquirer for more.

JUDGE RULES A CON ARTIST CAN AVOID JAIL BY PLAYING POKER.  We think this guys is a pretty good con artist.  While not quite ruling a man to be someone else's butler, this decision is head-scratching at best.  Samuel McMaster, a New Mexico stockbroker, bilked his clients to the tune of 444k.  The judge will allow him to skip jail time if he can earn 7500 a month playing poker.  He will be allowed to travel in conjunction to play the game. 

What happened to the 444k?  He lost it gambling.  And the judge is sending him to casinos to win it back?  Makes sense.  No pressure there either for McMaster to play his best, because if he whiffs for two months out of six he's headed to 12 years of hard time.

ONLINE POKER UPDATE

08.18.10

MCLEAN KARR STRIKES FOR 417k WINNING FTOPS EVENT.  The one time Gulf Coaster (by the way check out him and others on our updated WHO'S WHO page), beat IReadYrSoul and Shawn Buchanan to win event #29 of FTOPS. 

The 2k No Limit Hold'Em (ante from the start) Two-Day Event Six Max featured a number of well known players in a tough field.  Prahlad Friedman went out 7th and David Pham 17th.

FISH SHORT OF SHORR.  Two Gulf Coasters, blogger Shannon Shorr (you can find his blog to the left) and Darryll Fish finished in 7th and 8th, respectively, in the PokerStars Sunday 500.  Shorr won just under 17k and Fish a little over 11k.

ARCHIVES NOW MAKE SENSE.  We weren't just busy updating the Who's Who section this weekend, click around a bit and you'll see some improvements.  Incidentally, you can email Wild Bill or message us through facebook with stats and a pic if you think you are worthy of being on Who's Who.  What else did we do?  We also trolled through our archives and sorted them in a much easier to read format by date.  Click the ARCHIVES link to sniff around yours and our recent past.

KICK PHIL LAAK WHEN HE'S DOWN.  The Unabomber had a nasty ATV accident where he almost went blind with lacerations to his eye, broke his arm/elbow in multiple places, and received stitches.  We do not know if his vision was impeded by a hooded sweatshirt, but Unabomber poker is giving away a signed one in a freeroll on August 31st.

Whoever knocks out the Unabomber wins the hoodie.  Phil reports he has nothing to do but play online poker at home and cuddle with girlfriend Jennifer Tilly.  He reports she's better than percocet.  He might get injured more often.   By the way, Phil Laak (or a guy posing as Laak) has expressed his like for us on facebook, you should too.  Click the badge and express your like for us. 

ONE SICK DISEASE UPDATE

08.17.10

KEVIN EYSTER WINS EPT TALLINN HEADS UP TITLE:  You may know him better as 1$ickDisea$e.  He's from Lafayette, LA (now living in Denver) and relatively new to the live tournament circuit.  Why new?  Well, he's relatively new to adulthood.  He's younger than most having recently turned 21 (or will so this year) and as such has been playing tournaments in far flung places like Tallinn.  He's primed for a breakout after killing it online for the last few years.  With over a million in lifetime winnings we'd say he's off to a good start.

The final four included Vanessa Selbst on the other side of the bracket.  Eyster won but Selbst didn't.  Eyster beat Hungarian Vlademar Kwaysseri who beat Selbst.  The title paid 41k Euro.  That's approximate 3 million U.S... or maybe a little less.  Read a Google translated version here or learn Estonian and scrap the translation.

A DISEASE OF ANOTHER SORT:  Craigslist killer, Philip Markoff, 24, who gave a bad name to Craigslist killers everywhere by being a Foxwoods poker degen, killed himself in jail.  In a detail sure to not bring a tear to your eye, he killed himself on the day of what would have been his first wedding anniversary. 

A DISEASE AND COMPETITION OF YET ANOTHER SORT:  Man dies in the finals of world sauna championship in Finland.  This competition has been held 12 times with the competitors trying to outlast others in the heat and steam.   Shocking this ended in injury and even death.  The best part of this piece is where it says police are investigating the cause of his death.  Hypothermia?

POKER UPDATE

08.16.10

JACKPOT CITY: Local player and friend of GCP, Davey "Davey16" Bourg gets the high hand in the close to 1/4 million dollar jackpot at the Isle of Capri in Lake Charles last week. Davey had a straight flush and the loser had 4 of a kind (I think 9's) to sweep the big portion of the prize. Our hero walks away with around $65,000 (before Taxes)...and left with a backpack full of cash...we like that ...screw the checks...leave with the bricks.

ONLINE POKER NEWS.: We had a few gulfcoasters rack up some scores online recently:

Bryan "MaravichLSU" Lanoix makes a nice score on Absolute Poker last week with a $5700 score in the "Sniper $20k G". You will see Bryan Spotlighted in the "Online Zone" in the next GCP Magazine.

The Chemist83 makes 2 (two) scores last week for close to $21,000 total. He got 2nd in the $162 buy in "Nightly Hundred Grand" for $13,700. That 2nd place finish came on the heels of a $7200... 4th place finish a few days before in the $75k Guarantee on Absolute Poker

BEWARE OF THE HACKERS: Always beware before you ship people money on any of the sites from IM software as this software itself...can be hacked. Seems Darryll "DFish" Fish had his AIM account attacked last week. Good news is that Fish found out quick...contacted all his contacts...and the hacker didn't get very far...we just spoke to Fish (sick brag)...and all is good.

FLORIDA POKER AND MORE

08.12.10

MIKE THE MOUTH ADDS INJURY TO INSULT IN FLORIDA.  Mike Matusow, front fanny pack aficionado, at a Deep Stacks University gig in South Florida said, that in the Sunshine state "you're dealing with a lot of raw players, and they're terrible."  There seems to be a growing sentiment amongst the pros the waters are rife with fish in Florida because of the recent law changes to allow no limit play to buy-ins at the Florida poker tables. 

Is that true?  Doubtful considering how many good players there are from Florida--just look at the Main Event Final Table with three out of nine from Florida.

Problem is, Matusow didn't just talk a big game he walked it (for once).  Shortly after making those comments he bested 400 players at the Isle Casino & Racing in Pompano Beach tournament  The three day 1k buy-in tournament ended with Matusow winning more than 100k for first.

NFL NO LONGER AN OBSTACLE FOR ONLINE POKER LEGISLATION.  Problem is sports betting was thrown out of the online mix of things trying to get legit.  This keeps the billion dollar pockets of the NFL from lobbying to block the legislation but still means if you want to make a sports bet outside of Vegas and Delaware you have to make a dodgy phone call to an even dodgier guy with a name like Vinnie "No Nuts."

QUALITY JONATHAN LITTLE POKER COACHING ARTICLE.  Gulf Coast Poker Blogger (and another great player from Florida) Jonathan Little talks to PokerNews about a new project he's engaging in: building a bankroll by starting with $300 right here and here. 

FLORIDA IS GETTING THE WPT.  If you believe the Mouth that Florida is full of bad, bad, bad poker players (despite plenty of examples of the opposite like Jason Mercier, the Grinder et al) you should probably be heading to Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida in late April/early May of next year. 

ULTIMATE BET SUPER-USER CHEATING FALLOUT.  The latest in Wicked Chops excellent two (three?) part-er on the scandal.  Read here for more.

WORLD POKER OPEN UPDATE AND MORE

08.09.10

PARTY POKER - BWIN MERGE.  The Euros are coming.  First Anurag Dikshit paid off the U.S. Government, we get a pro poker bill through committee, and now the Euros are putting together a goliath poker site to take over our players and battle online poker rooms like Full Tilt.  We say competition is good and the more the merrier.  Want to learn more about Party's expansion efforts?  Read here.

DURRRR CHALLENGE NOT YET OVER, DESPITE MORE THAN A YEAR OF TRYING.  Wicked Chops has a post on the things that have transpired since the Durrrr Challenge began but what is really strange is the fact that he is already lining up his next victim (and by victim we mean opponent who will slowly grow old with Durrrr before finishing this off in a nursing home).  Who will be the lucky guy to race rascals with Durrrr 80 years from now when the next challenge is completed

Currently, slowly losing his good looks is Patrik Antonius.  One year and one half year later Durrrr is up by two million dollars with 80% of the play completed.   Of note Antonius wins about 3.1k per winning hand and Durrrr only 2.9k however our of the nearly 40k worth of hands Durrrr has won 2000 more.  Aggression wins.  Bet, bet, bet, and bet again.

YOU KNOW WHO ELSE LIKES TO BET, BET, BET, AND BET AGAIN?  Tyler Smith, the winner of the World Poker Open.  Monkey, at right, did a great write up the kid, and the destruction he brings to a poker table at that event, and we'd like to congratulate him again for another win.  The 152k will fatten Smith's bankroll. 

The final table had a few local names in the 91 player event.  Jeremy Drewery took second for 80k, Gene Fletcher third for 50k, Earl Barron Jr (Clarksdale, MS) 4th for 33k, Noel Marsh 5th for just under 20k, Captain Tom Franklin 6th for 25k, Kathy Lehne 7th for 21k, one of our favorites Kenny Milam 8th for 16k and Patrick Mahoney 9th for 12k.

CHRIS FERGUSON TRIES TO WIN HIS OWN TOURNAMENT IN FTOPS ACTION.  Jesus finished 5th in the FTOPS $300 buy-in.  He won 6k for his time.  The other 4,684 who played got to watch the host of the poker game outlast all but 4 of them until he ran his AQ into AA.

WORLD SERIES OF POKER MAIN EVENT AND MORE UPDATE

08.06.10

CAKE FOR HACKERS?  Seems like Cake Poker is undergoing some difficulties in their encryption, SSL protection, double blind redundancy, internet secur...  actually we have no idea what's wrong with Cake but it appears they have a "hole" that allows hackers to come in.  Much fear and hand-wringing going on among Cake players.  Then again the Internet may be cracking, Poker Bots are winning on Pokerstars read here, someone just took a ginzu knife to the GCP server (missed us?  Here's a GCP-esque post that was supposed to tide you over... that you might have missed), and someone named Sarah Connor has released a manifesto saying Skynet is sentient.

THIS GUY WAS A MURDERER?  Ron Fanelli who sported a devious handlebar moustache, dastardly slick backed hair, wore evil sunnies inside when not at a poker table, and went by the nickname "The Mad Yank," had an online handle "NewTeaBag," and started filthy threads like this at 2+2, shockingly is a murderer.  He killed, chopped up and stuffed the body parts of a Thai prostitute into a suitcase.   The former professional poker player cited his internet connection being down as one of the reasons he killed the prostitute.

GUY LIED ABOUT HIS HAND AT MAIN EVENT AND FEELS BAD ABOUT IT.  Second link to a 2+2 thread today, yay message boards as news sources!  Lionel Hutz expressed contrition about lying to a kid in a Kangol hat who said he folded bottom set to him.  Hutz had top set but said he had two pair.  Now, he wants the kid to know he made the right play.  This is a bit ridiculous and sounds like an Onion story, but we think its true and considering the blurb above about a guy chopping up prostitutes, let's celebrate some people with a conscious (sic) that play poker.

NOVEMBER NINE ODDS SET.  John Dolan, second in chips is second most likely to win, behind the guy first in chips. 

Seat 1: Jason Senti — 7,625,000 (25/1)
Seat 2: Joseph Cheong — 23,525,000 (6/1)
Seat 3: John Dolan — 46,250,000 (4.6/1)
Seat 4: Jonathan Duhamel — 65,975,000 (3.75/1)
Seat 5: Michael Mizrachi — 14,450,000 (7/1)
Seat 6: Matthew Jarvis — 16,700,000 (11.5/1)
Seat 7: John Racener — 19,050,000 (9.2/1)
Seat 8: Filippo Candio — 16,400,000 (16.5/1)
Seat 9: Soi Nguyen — 9,650,000 (18.5/1)

WORLD POKER OPEN UPDATE

08.02.10

9 LEFT IN MAIN EVENT:  "Well ...Well...Well...What have we here...Tyler Smith at another Final Table". Does this kid ever cool off???

Looks like we have 3 Gulf Coasters making a run at the cheese in Tunica with Tyler either the CL or 2nd in chips. He pretty much lead the way allthe way thru from what we here. The other 2 are Kenny "Trucker Kenny" Milam...and Captain Tom Franklin. (both pic at right). I know Kenny got a lot of feedback on that "cool ass" 70's shirt he was rockin...LOL

Seems Monkey made a nice run but came up just short of the FT/Money. The hand was described to me as below: (could be wrong)

Monkey raises and gets popped by Kenny...Monkey Flats...Board comes out 5-6-7 rainbow...Monkey jams...Kenny calls with J-J...Monk has 8-8 and bricks out.

OTHER POKER NEWS.  Tim "TK" Miles made a nice run at the Sunday Million yesterday when he decided to play online poker coming in somewhere around 40th for over $3k.

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES: We want to apologize to everyone about the updates as the technical difficulties we have been experiencing. Seems the server where we are housed spazzed out and the operating system became corrupt. Shout out to Pinnacle Computers in Houma for working diligently to get the server back up.

JOHN DOLAN A NOVEMBER NINER

07.21.10

THREE FROM FLORIDA LEFT.  It's cloud nine for the November Nine (*Brian Heptinstall) and the Gulf Coast has a rooting interest.  John Dolan, a winner of a Winter Bayou Classic tournament late last year and a Gulf Coast Poker Championship tournament, is now in contention to win the big one.  Dolan moved up to second in chips by a steely willingness to steal as the Final Table bubble neared.  That kind of fearlessness has him on everybody's radar.

Dolan got his start when he'd log on to play online poker  as a youngster, and he has been cleaning up in the live tournament game ever since.  Read his profile at this poker blog.

Also, Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi and John Racener both of Florida are still alive.  The Grinder was a massive chip leader at one point, almost lost it all and struggled and "grinded" all day to make it to the final nine.  Arguably, the only player to grind better was Dolan.

Gabe Costner had to settle for 35th spot and a quarter of a million pay day.  Costner at one point seized the chip lead, too, but then went cold at the worst possible time.   We will certainly have more on the November Nine in the coming days and weeks.  Congrats to John Dolan and all those rooting for him!