Wild Bill's
reflections on poker, sports, and issues
facing the Gulf Coast. Wild Bill is one
half of GCP, Plays, Coaches, and helps
run Gulf Coast Poker Tour.
Will
Souther is the Poker Monkey. Take a look
at his always entertaining views on the
tournament poker circuit, gambling and
life in general. The founder of
the Monkey Minions never sugarcoats it.
Nolan
Dalla.com is where you find the wit and
wisdom of one of the most well known
poker writers in the industry.
His home blog covers a wide range of
topics written with that singular Dalla
conviction.
Jonathan
Little an all time top tournament poker
earners, is from Pensacola and currently
operates a coaching site, which includes
his blogs and videos you can find it
here.
BEN
SAXTON is writing a poker book based on
the Gulf Coast scene. Here is an
archive of interviews and features of
poker players from all over but with a
spotlight mostly on our locals.
So... selections were based on
nominations on our Facebook page and some that were
previously selected. Just a spoilery heads up: they
will include a Chris, a Ruth, a Tyler, a Jo-Ella,
and a Stephen. Looking forward to the big
announcement with full names as soon as possible.
BAG WOW IS BACK:
-BagWow! is back.
Want a refresher on the BagWow? (Remember the
dates are a little off but you'll get the idea...)
The BagWow! format dominates the opening weekend.
This year it features a 100k Guarantee on a $250
buy-in. 5 Flights (Thursday 6 pm, Friday noon and
6pm, and Saturday 11am and 5pm).
Also, 1k bonus if you bag twice and a
3k bonus if you bag thrice... three times.
-A 5 seats ADDED (!!!) Mega Sunday 3/21 at 2pm to
get in the $600 Main Event the following weekend.
Probably the best live tournament poker deal in the
South.
-Multiple 20k+ Guarantees
-$600 100k Guarantee Main Event. Three flights:
Friday 4 pm, Saturday 11am and 5 pm.
NEWS, TWEETS AND LINKAGE:
-Lon McEachern tweeted out:
I would like to let our poker friends know that our colleague and pal @NormanChad is still recovering from some long-haul COVID-19 health issues thus preventing him from working on the upcoming @WSOP Main Event shows. We all wish him a full and healthy recovery.
Cardplayer did an interview with Lon recently
about becoming the voice of poker.
Most importantly, our thoughts like Lon's are with Norman.
Hope he gets on a path to
total wellness and we'll miss hearing him while we
cheer on Joe Hebert Sunday night on ESPN2.
If you are also a long hauler be on the look out for
some encouraging news that is circulating (a lot of
it anecdotal right now) about the first dose of the
vaccine helping to alleviate symptoms for a lot of
sufferers.
-NY Governor Andrew Cuomo accused of sexual
harrassment by a former member of his staff Lindsey
Boylan (pictured). She says she was the victim of
inappropriate touching, a kiss without consent, and
an offer to play strip poker. AP has the newshere.
-We missed this earlier but Chad Holloway at
PokerNews touts the poker documentary "Smile"
honoring the late Thor Hansen. Hansen is thought to
be the originator of one of poker's great quotes
after winning a big event.
An interviewer asked what's he was going to do with all the money.
Hansen: I'm going to pay off some people I owe.
Interviewer: What about the rest?
Hansen: Well... they are going to have to
wait.
NEWS:
SOCIAL MEDIA CONTEST:
Congrats to Tim Moore (pictured) for winning our
first contest and a seat into the $250 Opener. Tim
has run deep in the Main Event at Pearl River before
so we know he's got a chance to turn this freeroll
into a nice cash.
Currently, we are running our second contest where
the winner will be the player who guesses the player
that runs deepest in the Opener. If two (or more)
people select the same player a random drawing will
determine the winner. Look for the
picture of Peace Marvel on Twitter and Facebook to
enter a guess. The winner of that gets a seat into
the 50k Guarantee event.
Get your careful, calculated, educated pick on the
record... or take your best guess. Not many entries
so far, so you still got a great shot to win.
POKER
QUOTES:
TD Paul Dutsch--our podcast guest for February--has
been doing a daily post on his Facebook page of
poker quotes in the run up to Pearl River. There are
some good ones in there. He's got nuggets of
wisdoms and a lot of funny ones.
Here's some others gathered by
Calvin Ayre
focused on self-improvement.
ENTITLED?
A new study inidicates how you react to bad luck may
reveal how entitled you are. If every time you lose
you feel like it's bad luck? You might be entitled.
Do get angry and feel victimized? You might be
entitled.
Getting angry in response to bad luck usually only
happens to people that think they are entitled to
win. Interesting study highlight by Scientific
American. Go
here.
PEARL RIVER
MAIN EVENT EARLY SATTY:
Last time there was an overaly with two seats
guaranteed. You need to get there and get a
piece of that free money this Sunday. Not a bad idea
to start stockpiling seats--it is a reentry. Some of
you seem to use a lot of seats.
ALL THINGS
PEARL RIVER: SATTIES AND STRUCTURES COMING:
Be on the lookout for information on satellites
leading up to the twin 100k guarantees run in the
Poker Room of the Golden Moon Hotel at Pearl River
Resorts. We will post info when we have them.
Also, we will soon post structures for the Spring
Events in the link up top. Almost ready.
WIN YOUR WAY TO THE 100K:
We will be doing social media contests, as per
usual, in the lead up to this event on TWITTER
(@GCPNET), on Facebook and Instagram
(https://www.instagram.com/gcpnet/).
Our first contests ask for nominations for our
Celebrity Bounty event on Tuesday, March 23rd. Like,
follow, share and comment to earn an entry to a
random drawing for a seat in the 100k Guaranteed
Opener.
Look for the posts with this pic.
POKER LINKAGE:
-Hank Azaria is hosting a new home game TV show on
PokerStars.net's YouTube channel. Winnings go to
charities. Watch the first episode here:
-Bill Perkins, a hedge fund manager and poker player,
those guys aren't in the news right now, details meeting his best bud Dan (...Blizerian) through
poker over at the
Robb Report.
-Refugee from Afghanistan wins one of 2021 poker's
biggest tournaments. The
Miami Herald has the story
here about a player that not long ago was dealing
with loss of family in war torn Afghanistan,
immigration detention, and more hardships. Now
a poker champion.
-Chad Holloway's PokerNews piece on Mark Ellis
Cortez's win in the Lone Star Poker Series at
Champions Social in Houston, TX. Lots of familiar
names won secondary events including Logan Hewett in
the bounty event, Justin Brassieur who won TWO
events, and Schuyler Thornton. Go
here
.
Polk-Negreanu challenge almost wrapped up.
CalvinAyre.com
details where it stands and addresses some of the
controversies during the action.
PEARL RIVER POKER OPEN SPRING 2021 SCHEDULE *Pending
Choctaw Gaming Approval
PEARL RIVER
POKER OPEN
It's back. Live tournament poker a couple of hours
away from almost everywhere in the gulf south. With
more of everything.
More options: including a 1k Old School
Freezeout. Limited registration window and one
bullet per player. It won't be just the play making
you wonder if it's 1999 when you register this one.
Joe Saleh requested it and when the 2019 Gulf Coast
Poker Player of the Year Joe Saleh asks for a
tournament we have to listen.
More guarantees featuring the twin 100k Guarantees.
Opening weekend BagWow! format with bonuses for
bagging multiple flights. Second weekend the Main
Event.
More bounties in the Celebrity Bounty tournament? No
spoilers but the odds on favorite to be the 2020
Gulf Coast Player of the Year says he'll be there
and he'll be a bounty.
More in the prize pools: Monday's tournament bumped
up to a 50k Guarantee.
More dealers and more tables.
March 18 - 28. Full schedule to be released (very)
soon.
Watch this space and our social media for ways to
win your way into one of the events for free.
LOUISIANA,
THE BIRTHPLACE OF POKER, IS FOR POKER WINNERS:
JOE GEAUXS
AND DOES IT #FORLINDA
Joe Hebert of Metairie won the domestic 2020 WSOP
Main Event title and on January 3rd will fight the
Euro winner Damian Salas for the bracelet, the
banner, the glory and another 1 million dollars.
Pictures of Joe are by Jaime Thomson and courtesy of
PokerNews. Go
here for their terrific coverage of the
WSOP. And let's start with a big thank you to
Joe for wearing that patch on his wrist. So
glad a local supports a local business and vice
versa!
Joe earned over 1.5 million for his final table
victory. A table that played out as though there
were a guiding hand from beyond. There seemed to be
very little craziness, quite atypical for a WSOP
Main Event final table, and Joe won the heads up
battle in one hand.
Fitting for Joe he won with Ace-Queen. Joe dedicated
the tournament to his mom Linda who passed this
summer of a pulmonary embolism. The poker Ace
winning for his Queen #ForLinda. The
money went all in preflop. Joe started behind but we
had to know he was going to come back to win when we
saw the pocket queens of his opponent Ron Jenkins.
An Ace found the the board and left Jenkins with one
out that didn't come. Of course not, the
absent queen was behind Joe all along.
The final table started nearly as fast as heads up
play finished with Gershon Distenfeld falling to
Queens twice in the first six hands to get
eliminated. Yes, the championship dedicated
#ForLinda was bookended by Queens determining the
action. Eerie concidences maybe... or maybe if you
believe in that kind of thing an angel on Joe's
shoulder.
Jenkins won a little over a million for second.
Michael Cannon finished third. Ryan Hagerty finished
fourth. Tony Yuan fifth followed by maybe the most
active and aggressive player on the table Harrison
Dobin in sixth. A couple of tough spots had Shawn
Stroke bow out in seventh.
Prior to the final table Upeshka De Silva, suffered
the cruel fate of contracting Covid and per the
rules of the tournament had to forfeit his chips and
take 9th place money. Upeshka with ties to Houston,
TX was going for his fourth WSOP bracelet and
despite being 8th in chips was probably the one
player everybody was most concerned about.
Regarding the play, Joe made some conscious tactical
decisions on his plan for the final table that he
shared with us on the condition we not to write
about in our pre tournament
interview. Retrospectively, he did exactly
as he said he would and it worked out like he
thought it would. Many people thought as the
overwhelming chip leader he should come out pressing
and apply ICM pressure with the stiff payjumps.
Maybe on an ordinary final table but with these
opponents, many of them willfully ignoring ICM for
their own reasons, a slightly different strategy
that he applied worked. When it was time to flex his
stack--he did and it worked again.
We can't wait to see the ESPN broadcast as we
haven't discussed the hands with Joe yet. Maybe the
cards determined some of his play or maybe his play
determined much of the results. Will be a fun watch.
That will air in February, but more pressing matters
now. Joe plays Damian Salas on January 3rd and we'll
be clicking refresh on PokerNews like the poker
junkies we are during the heads up match. We know
ESPN hopes that heads up conflict takes more then
one hand. But if Joe wins it in the first hand
again, so be it--what will be will be!
VIRTUAL RAIL
AND RUNGOODGEAR:
If you want to join us on Joe's virtual rail we have
a thread on facebook where we are wishing him well
and we know he'll check it to see all his support
just before the Heads Up match. Please leave a
message or pic wishing him the best. Go to the
pinned post
here.
You'll notice the awesome shirts a lot of us are
wearing designed and made by
RunGoodGear.com.
Want to say thanks again to Tana Karn for allowing
GCP to be on the shoulder as we join them in
supporting our friend Joe in this epic run. Very
generous of RunGood as making fan shirts has become
their thing during the Main Event. Check out their
site there is some great poker gear on there.
CHRIS READ:
Another win for Louisiana as one of our own Chris
Read takes down the seniors event in a series at
private poker club in Georgia. Chris is now a
Georgia native but originally hails from Louisiana
and a devoted Saints fan. Believe she won a hunk of
silver for her play. We also think she has the best
looking mask in all of poker. She's pictured
with JJ Liu.
BERT FOS WINS:
Maybe it's just us but hard to open Facebook with
out seeing NOLA player Bert Fos and his giant check
greet us in an ad for an online site. Played
many times with Bert so happy to see it.
Well done for taking it down Bert. We always wonder
what happens to the giant checks? They go up in a
man cave?
Bert let us know...
JOE HEBERT
CHIP LEADER 2020 WSOP MAIN EVENT FINAL TABLE:
We've been sitting on an update for a little bit
until we had a chance to have an official interview
with Joe. The native of Metairie, LA went to Las
Vegas to play some of the online events this month
and won a satellite to the WSOP Main Event.
We didn't think there were too many locals playing
this year as they had to travel to Nevada or New
Jersey so it was a little off our radar.. When we
found out Hebert was 24 out of just 26 players left,
we immediately started sweating him on the PokerNews
twitch stream and he immediately started chipping up
(coincidence we think not).
What a run! So check out our
interview with Joe where we get deep into that
run and the special motivations he has in this crazy
year. He mentions several players from around the
region including Mike Lech of Arkansas, BJ McBrayer
of Alabama, Ben Thomas of Baton Rouge and all his
friends in NOLA and the Metairie bar scene.
Virtual rail will be wearing T-Shirts made by Tana
Karn and RunGoodGear to support Joe from afar.
As you can tell from the interview Joe is easy to
root for and we think it's about time somebody
brought the WSOP Main Event back to the birthplace
of poker. Many of us will be wearing these
sweet rail shirts made by Tana Karn and RunGoodGear.
Chipcounts from PokerNews:
Joseph "kolebear" Hebert 13,052,534
Shawn "shades927" Stroke 5,252,000
Ryan "Hagzzz021" Hagerty 5,071,572
Ye "YUAN365" Yuan 4,829,459
Michael "geNet1x_" Cannon 4,408,847
Gershon "jets613" Distenfeld 3,475,481
Ron "Samthedog76" Jenkins 2,476,746
Upeshka "gomezhamburg" De Silva 2,151,969
Harrison "Harrisond33" Dobin 1,581,392
Payouts for the U.S. final nine start at 98k and go
all the way up to 1.5 million. Second also will be a
millionaire. Sixth place on will earn more then
200k.
Texan Upeshka De Silva may only have 2.1 million in
chips but surely is the most accomplished player
left with three bracelets to his name. Joe did well
to bust some of the other elite pros including
Martin Zamani and Dan Zack just before the final
table.
The final table will play out December 28th. From
there the winner will then play the International
Bracket winner heads up for the bracelet and an
additional one million dollars. Argentinian Damian
Salas, who has another WSOP final table to his name,
already won the international tournament on GGPoker.
