Stout Wins?

My boy Matt "all in at 420" Stout took down his first 6 figure score recently. Winning the poker stars Sunday $500 buy in tourney for just over $100,000. Good on you. Not the 12 mil Jaime Gold took down in 06 WSOP but it will do.

The Borgata Winter Poker Open starts next week. This is the first BWPO without a televised final table. The main event of the series is a 3k buy in and they are guaranteeing a 2 million dollar prize pool. Didnt they learn the last time not to guarantee money? Jesus. Ray and Tab are great at what they do, but I am unsure about the EV on these guarantees.

I am happy to say they FINALLY added a pot limit omaha event to the schedule. I may even come out of semi-retirement to play it. I really have felt for a while that PLO is a next level game. People who have grown bored with Holdem but still love poker cant get enough of Omaha. For those of you who dont know the game: you get 4 cards instead of two. The board runs out just like it does in holdem. The other big difference is that you must use exactly two cards from you hand with 3 from the bpard to make your best 5 card hand. In holdem you can use 2,1 or none if need be. Try it if you havent yet. I think you will be hapy.

Good Luck,
Krusty

WPT: Another One Bites the Dust

It was annouced last week to almost noone's surprise that Borgata's Winter Poker Open to be held in January of 09 will not be part of the World Poker Tour. Borgata has two stops a year on the tour and they have now reduced it to one.

The long and the short of it is that the Worl Poker Tour is in trouble. Their business model is floundering. They moved from the travelchannel to the Game Show Network now to Fox Sports. These were all bad moves. Some may ask why is the WSOp so sucessful and WPT not. Easy, the WSOP sand ESPN shoot all of their programming in the same location over a few weeks of time. The WPT brings a crew around teh world and gets just two hours out of each trip.

They need to reduce the stops to 4 or 5 and add televised preliminary events. It is the only way it will suceed in the long run without them being but by Boyd or MGM.

In other notes. I have come across a company that is looking to sponsor upcoming poker players. Its called Reserve Vacations. They have a presense in Atlantic City and Las Vegas. Shoot me an email if you think you fit the bill.

till then.

DIAGF

Krusty

WSOP November 9 a Hit

The American poker world has been in a tailspin since the Unlawful Internet Gaming Act passed two years ago. Looking to stem the tide of this ESPN and Harrah's tried something new. The held the final table of the Main Event of the World Series of Poker till after the other episodes had aired on ESPN.

The main purpose of this was to minimize the number of people who knew the winner before the show aired last night. Not since Greg Raymer won in 2004 had I not know the winner before the final episode was shown. Trust me it makes a major difference. Here is what I liked:

Big Supporting Crowds- giving peoples friend 3 months notice on the final table allowed each player to have a large cheering section

Michael Buffer - when the action got heads up they brought out the 9 Million Dollars in cash that went to the winner. Then the had the worlds best announcer Michael Buffer introduce the two remaining players and did his "lets get ready to shuffle and deal"

Quality of Poker - Giving the players 3 months to bone up on poker made the final table less of a luckbox festival. Ivan Demidov played some of the best final table poker ever seen in the main event. Unfortunately it wasn't enough win as I van took down almost 6 million for second place.

Goodbye Poker Brat - Peter Eastgate the new great Dane of poker was the eventual winner as he combined high level poker with just enough lucksacking. Eastgate who is only 22 years old bested the record for the youngest player to take down the Main Event. This record had been held for almost 20 years by the poker brat himself Phil Helmuth. Sorry Phil, I guess the 10 other bracelets he won since then will have to comfort him.

Overall this was the best thing to happen to poker since the hole card cameras. Kudos to Harrahs, ESPN, Jefferey Pollack and whoever the nameless faceless person whose idea this was.

Krusty says HEY HEY

Poker Update November

Well fall is in full swing and poker is picking up a bit. ESPN just finished airing the last of the pretaped episodes of the WSOP Main event. The November Nine have been revealed to all of us. Soon we will see if Harrahs and ESPN's move to try to make this more of a "live" event. I hope so. Poker needs a shot in the arm.

Those of you who have been watching the march to the November Nine saw Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matasow make deep runs in the Main Event. We all know had either of these men made the final table the buzz would have benn extraordinary. This is the double edged sword of the "Moneymake Effect".

I have some rooting interests at the final table. I played extensively with Chino Rheem and Ylon Schwartz during my time out on tour. Had the final table happened the standard way it had in thep ast they would have been my top picks. The fact that the other 7 players have had 4 months to immerse themselves in poker the gap closes quickly.

In Atlantic City poker news. The US Poker Champions was recently held at the Trump Taj Mahal. And the real question is who the hell cares. This easily could have been the crown jewel of Atlantic City poker, instead they were down to just sixty some odd entries. Two years ago Atlantic City got tons of air time with the (12) one hour episodes on ESPN. That is a thing of the past.

Borgata is having $350k guarantee this month. These always sems to blow past the number. I can tell you that I dont think you will see them trying that 5 million gurantee anytime soon. That was a close one guys. They were a bad thunder storm away from having to post a having to post a big six figure number.

Looks like John Phan is on his way to CardPLayer Player of the Year in 2008. He should have won it in 2005 but Men the Master manipulated the system as he oft does to eek out a victory. Hope you get this one Razor. But dont lose sight of Betrand Grospellier. He is like Sacha Baron Cohen in Talladega Nights. I just hope they dont make out at the Bellagio in Dec where I am certain this thing will be determined.


Till then. Suck it

AJ

Chili Cheese Dog Takes Down Some Cash

Matt "Chili Cheese Dog" Glantz almost took down the biggest prelim event at the 2008 WSOP. He finished 4th in the $50,000 HORSE tournament. That was good for over $400,000 and combined with an earlier final table he eclipsed $600k for this World Series of Poker. Matt is a known face in the Atlantic City area playing the biggest rotation games in the high limit room at the Borgata. With that kind of scratch he can buy a shit load of chili cheese dogs.

Looks Eric "E-Dog" Lindgren is going to take down WSOP player of the year. E got his first bracelet this year and made two other final tables. Also of note "The Poker Brat" Phil Helmuth just missed his 12th WSOP bracelet finishing 4th in $1500 HORSE.

On the rumor side of things, looks like Phil Ivey is in for a majorly bad month. Phil bet very heavy on the Lakers in the NBA Finals and you know how that went. Additionally he made very large bets that he would win a WSOP bracelet. The word on the street is that Phil could lose as much as 6 million dollars if he fails to win the main event. Win or lose Phil is still the man, having honed his game right here in Atlantic City.

Die in a grease fire,
Krusty

World Series of Poker Past Half Way

The marathon that has become the world series of poker is now past the halfway point. They have handed out over 25 bracelets and the only person to take down more than one is John "The Razor" Phan. John is great fun to be around and is well known for having a few cocktails while participating in a poker tournament.

Locally speaking there hasn't been to much to report. Matt "Chili Cheese Dog" Glantz made a final table finishing 4th to just miss his first bracelet yet again. Svetlana Gromenkova who was a fixture in the card rooms at Borgata and the Taj Mahal took down the ladies event. Good on you kid. Matt "Allinat420" Stout just missed making his first WSOP final table by dropping out in 13th just 12 people from a half million dollar windfall. Sucker!

Overall the numbers for this year's event are about the same as they were last year. This big question is how many players will be entered into the 10k Main Event. Last year it was 60000 down from 8900 in 2006. The people over at Harrah's and ESPN have added a new twist to the Main Event this year. They are going to play down to the final table of 9 players on July 14th or so. Then they will stop play for 4 months to conclude the tournament in a pseudo live setting in November. The point is that basically everyone who is interested in poker knows who won the Main Event before it airs, so they want to create suspense and allow for more endorsement dollars to flow in. Who the fuck knows if it will work.

Nenad Takes It Down

Nenad Medic pro poekr player was the first to take down a gold bracelet at this years World Series of Poker. Over 700 player ponied up the $10000 buy in for the pot limit holdem championship. The final table included soem big names in the world of poker including Phil Laak, Patrik Antonius, Kathy Liebert and Mike Sexton. Also at the final table was Andy Bloch who recently finished as runner up to Chris "Jesus" Ferguson in the national heads up championship. Well they can start calling him Andy " The Bridesmaid" Bloch because again he took second in this event. The $400k+ win will do his bank balance wll but his ego must be bruised. This was the first bracelet for Medic who is best know for winning a World Poker Tour event at Foxwoods in 06.

Locals in action: Chris Reslock has yet to cash in an event. Matt "allinat20" Stout finished 300th in the huge 4000 person $1500 buy in. That got him 3k. No word on Nick Frangos. Ex Patriated Phil Ivey is the leade in the thousand rebuy restarting today.

The field sizes seem to be on par with what we saw for the 2007 WSOP. The big question is how many people will be in the $10k maine vent. There are also rumors swirling about a settlement between US DOJ and Party Poker opening the door for Party and others to return to US Operations. The whole thing is fucked and needs to be fixed.

Die in a grease fire.

Krusty