Tag: WSOP

shaun-deeb-wsop
The 2018 World Series of Poker (WSOP), Player of the Year Leaderboard, has a new mug sitting at the top of the rogue’s gallery.
“Shaun Deeb”.
The mixed-game specialist overtook fellow mixed-game supremo, John Hennigan, as the favourite to replace Chris “Please Forgive Me” Ferguson as the most consistent player at the most iconic festival in poker, after taking down Event #42: $25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed High Roller.
The event goes down as the most significant $25,000 buy-in Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) event in history, but the introduction of a single re-entry clause for the first time in the game’s short four-year history gave it a bunky over that particular wall.
Day 1 attracted 192 entrants.
101 remained, parachute intact, at the end of ten hours of play.
The man of the moment, Michael ‘The Grinder’ Mizrachi was one star that ran out of nuclear fuel on Day #1. Joining him was the three-time World Poker Tour (WPT) Champ, Anthony Zinno, and the man who last year won more live tournament dollars than anyone alive, Bryn Kenney.
Konstantin Beylin was the overnight leader.
Daniel Negreanu was third.
 
Day 2 Belongs to Ben Yu
By the end of registration, the total field size had increased to a record 230 entrants. 49 players bought-in twice, meaning the actual picture was 181 entrants, making it the second lowest unique field size in history, down 12% on last year’s record field size of 205 entrants.
After 14 levels of play, it was Ben Yu leading the way. The man who set the Triton Poker Tournament alight in Montenegro, Jason Koon, sat in second and Deeb was in third. Other contenders included the former WSOP Main Event Champion, Scotty Nguyen, Jason Mercier, Erik Seidel, and the defending champ, James Calderaro.
 
Day 3
Here is how the final table looked heading into the last day.

  1. Scotty Nguyen – 7,010,000
  2. James Calderaro – 6,445,000
  3. Shaun Deeb – 6,305,000
  4. Ben Yu – 4,775,000
  5. Jason Koon – 2,905,000
  6. Ryan Tosoc – 1,300,000

It was interesting to see Nguyen make the final table. This year, the former champ must have hired a publicist, because he landed two very public sponsorship deals: an online cryptocurrency poker room, and a company that creates shit that you smoke to get high.
Last year, Calderaro outlasted 205 entrants to win the $1.3m first prize, so it was a stunning success for him to make back-to-back final tables. Koon once again showed that if you give him a game, any game, he will beat it.
But neither Calderaro, Koon or a spliff smoking Nguyen could get within touching distance of the bracelet. The only two players to cast eyes on the sliver of gold were Ben Yu and Shaun Deeb.
Interestingly, the pair clashed in last year’s $10,000 Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Ball final, which Yu won.
But Deeb was unperturbed.
“I made a joke to him at the unofficial final table,” Deeb would later tell PokerNews. “I said we both missed the $10K 2-7, the event we got heads-up in last year. I go, ‘We might be able to do it again, another game I’m a favourite on you heads-up.’ Ben’s a great poker player, but I have so much experience playing mixed games longer.”

There wasn’t much separating these two concerning form.
Deeb was making money in his tenth event of the summer, appearing in his second final table. Yu had cashed in nine games and was also appearing in his second final table.
There was a degree of separation in the chip counts.
Once Yu had eliminated Nguyen in third place, he took an 18.1m v 10.6m chip lead into his heads-up clash with Deeb. Two hands into their little tete-a-tete and Deeb had evened things up. One hand later he took the lead. Another hand and he was a 21.3m v 7.4m leader, and then before he had a chance to create a few Leaning Towers of Pisa he had won.
Yu opened up with a pot-sized raise to 900,000, Deeb three-bet pot to 2.7m; Yu called. The dealer placed the lowly looking 5h4c2h onto the flop, Deeb bet pot to put Yu all-in, and Yu made the call.
On your backs gentlemen.
Deeb: AsAh9s8c
Yu: Jh6h6d5d
Deeb’s pocket aces were ahead, but Yu had plenty of outs, hoping for either a flush or straight draw. Neither came. Deeb had revenge, $1.4m and his third bracelet.


Here are the final table results:
Final Table Results

  1. Shaun Deeb – $1,402,683
  2. Ben Yu – $866,924
  3. Scotty Nguyen – $592,924
  4. James Calderaro – $414,134
  5. Jason Koon – $295,606
  6. Ryan Tosoc – $215,718

35 players made enough money to buy a medieval torture rack in this one including David Benjamin (7th), Jason Mercier (12th), Robert Mizrachi (15th), Craig Varnell (16th), Sam Soverel (24th), Mike Leah (25th), Erik Seidel (26th), Tom Marchese (29th) and Paul Volpe (32nd).
Deeb has now earned more than $5.5m playing live tournaments. It was his tenth career title. His previous best score was a million bucks, collected in a controversial $25,300 Mega Satellite for the 2012 Big One For One Drop when Deeb dumped his stack to Gus Hansen during heads-up because the Dane wanted the seat, and Deeb wanted to see if he could build a house out of one million tournament Lammers.
 
The History of the $25k Pot Limit Omaha High Roller
In 2015, 175 players created a $4,156,250 prize pool, and Anthony Zinno capped off an excellent summer with the win for $1,122,196.
In 2016, the field rose to 184 entrants, and the Finnish high stakes player, Jens Kyllönen took $1,127,035 from the $4,370,000 prize pool after an excellent win.
Then last year, James Calderaro earned $1,289,074 for besting a record field of 2015 entrants. The prize pool was $4,868,750.
 
Remaining WSOP High Roller Events
July 13-15 $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller.
July 15-18 The Big One For One Drop $1,000,000 No-Limit Hold’em.
So far, 30 players have paid a non-refundable deposit to appear in the 48-player cap event. Here are the names of the ones that aren’t shy at letting you know about it.

  1. Daniel Negreanu
  2. Antonio Esfandiari
  3. Christoph Vogelsang
  4. Bryn Kenney
  5. Nick Petrangelo
  6. Rainer Kempe
  7. Dominik Nitsche
  8. Steffen Sontheimer
  9. Jason Koon
  10. Phil Ivey
  11. Adrian Mateos
  12. Phil Hellmuth
  13. Rick Salomon
  14. Talal Shakerchi
  15. Leon Tsoukernik

nick-petrangelo
If poker was dance, the European Poker Tour (EPT), partypoker MILLIONS and Triton Poker would be crazy street dance style, body popping and head spinning.
The World Series of Poker (WSOP)?
Ballroom dancing.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s the most iconic poker festival in the world. Christmas Day, your birthday, your first visit from the tooth fairy, your first Easter egg and orgasm all rolled into one.
But they are a little behind the times.
More reactionary than visionary.
But like a hemorrhoid slowly making it’s way down to the anus after too hard a squeeze, they are getting there.
This year, the High Rollers will have five reasons to leave the cash tables to descend onto the tournament tables, and the first of the famous five is already in the bag.
The $100,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller (Single Re-Entry) has passed been and gone, handing out over $10m in prize money, including three seven-figure scores.
Day 1 saw a total of 97 entrants each pony up $100,000 (Daniel Negreanu coughed up $200,000), and the most recent bracelet winner Elio Fox led the way with 180 big blinds. Fox won the first bracelet of the series, his second all time, when he beat 243 entrants to capture the $393,693 first prize in the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Turbo Bounty event, beating Adam Adler, heads-up.
Players could still enter until the end of registration on Day 2. For the longest time it seemed the number would be 104, when at the last minute a certain Phil Ivey threw his hoodie into the ring to make it 105. All told that was $10,185,000 to dish out to 16 players with the top prize of $2,910,227 looking as appetising as lamb chops to a starving beaten down dog.
It would be a long day, with Nick Petrangelo emerging with the most significant stack of the final ten players. The Day 1 chip leader, Fox, was a bushy tail width away from Petrangelo; the Global Poker Index (GPI) #1 Stephen Chidwick was third, and the super-duper in-form Jason Koon was in fourth.
The officials took a chainsaw to Day 3 to carve another four players away from the field. Chris Moore fell in tenth spot when his 98hh button jam ran into the pocket aces of Andreas Eiler. Fedor Holz joined Moore in ninth spot when his pocket fives lost the battle of the middling pairs when Fox turned up with sixes. Adrian Mateos exited stage left in eighth place when his QJo lost out to the KT of Fox, and the final table came into existence when Koon’s K5o failed to beat the QJo of Bryn Kenney.
This is what the final table looked like:
Final Table
Seat 1: Andreas Eiler – 8,490,000 (42 bb)
Seat 2: Bryn Kenney – 10,200,000 (51 bb)
Seat 3: Nick Petrangelo – 12,200,000 (61 bb)
Seat 4: Elio Fox – 8,620,000 (43 bb)
Seat 5: Stephen Chidwick – 5,740,000 (29 bb)
Seat 6: Aymon Hata – 7,280,000 (36 bb)
Petrangelo began the day as the chip leader, and he quickly extended that lead when turning a flush in a pot against Fox who was determined to try his utmost to push Petrangelo off the pot after missing an open-ended straight draw. It didn’t work. Petrangelp didn’t budge and he moved over the 17m mark. Fox dropped down to 6.4m and Andreas Eiler became Petrangelo’s main threat with 11m.
The first player to lose his marbles was Chidwick. The World #1 opened to 2m on the button, Aymon Hata put him all-in from the small blind and Chidwick called. The UK-pro showed Q6ss, and Hata turned over the dominating AQo. Chidwick did turn a pair of sixes to give him hope, but Hate spiked an ace on the river to send the boy wonder home with $484,551 in his pocket.
Bryn Kenney was the next player to see his stack dwindle to a stick or shove size. The GGPoker pro put it in after Fox had raised from the cutoff, and two-time bracelet winner made the call. Kenney turned over pocket fours, and had the lead against Fox’s KJo until the king turned up on the river, crown and all, to send Kenney to the cash desk to pick up $646,927.
After Kenney’s departure the chip stacks looked a little like this:
Nick Petrangelo – 19.4m
Elio Fox 13m
Andreas Einer 11.7m
Aymon Hata 8.4m
Six hands after Fox killed Kenney, Andreas Eiler and Petrangelo tangled in a substantial pot that saw one of them take a chokehold on the competition, and the other left with thoughts of what might have been.
Petrangelo opened to 500,000 in position and Eiler defended the large. The dealer put out a JsJc6s flop, Eiler checked, Petrangelo made a 400,000 c-bet, and Eiler check-raised to 1.3m; Petrangelo called. The turn was the 4c and Eiler continued his aggression with a 2.2m bet and Petrangelo called once more. The river was the 7h, and this time Eiler applied the handbrake. Petrangelo had no such thought and moved all-in, Eiler took his hand off the brake and went tumbling over the cliff.
Petrangelo: 6d6c for a boat.
Eiler: KsJh for trip jacks.
Petrangelo moved up to 31.9m chips, three-times more than Fox and Hata.
It took one more hand to get to heads-up.
Hata opened to 550,000 from the button, and Petrangelo called from the big blind. The flop was Kc8c5d and both players checked. The turn was the 6s, Petrangelo bet 1.9m, and Hata called. The 9s appeared in fifth street and Petrangelo put Hata all-in. The call was made, and Petrangelo showed K7dd for the straight. Hata had top pair K3, and departed with $1,247,230 easily the best score of the German’s career.
 
Heads Up
Petrangelo – 39,660,000
Fox – 12,845,000
Fox started the faster of the two, picking up cards when he needed them, and it wasn’t long before the pair were neck and neck. Then Fox took the lead, and seemed to have Petrangelo rattled when he five-bet jammed holding J3dd, and Fox called with pocket fives, but a Jack on the flop and a they on the turn gave Petrangelo a vital double up because it was all over in the very next hand.
Petrangelp raised to 600,000, Fox three-bet to 900,000, Petrangelo four-bet to 1.8m, and Fox called. The flop rained down AsAh2c, and Fox check-raised to 3m after Petrangelo had made it 1.2m to play, and the call was made.
The turn was the 8d, Fox checked to Petrangelo who bet 4m, and Fox called. The river was the 3c, Fox checked for the second time, Petrangelo moved all-in and Fox called before turning over 5c2d for aces and deuces, and Petrangelo showed Q8o for aces and eights.
It was Petrangelo’s title, his second bracelet, and his most significant score to date, coming a week after finishing sixth in the Super High Roller Bowl (SHRB), a week that Petrangelo told PokerNews was ‘super intense’.
The win moves Petrangelo over the $14.6m mark in live tournament earnings. Fox had the consolation prize of $1.8m, and a place at the top of the WSOP Player of the Year (POY) leaderboard after his bracelet victory in Event #2.
Here are the final table results:
Final Table Results

  1. Nick Petrangelo – $2,910,227
  2. Elio Fox – $1,798,658
  3. Aymon Hata – $1,247,230
  4. Andreas Eiler – $886,793
  5. Bryn Kenney – $646,927
  6. Stephen Chidwick – $484,551

 
The Remaining High Roller Events
$50,000 Poker Player’s Championship.
$25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed High Roller.
$50,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller.
$1,000,000 No-Limit Hold’em The Big One for One Drop.

In the ninth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School recalls how an 18-year-old girl won £1 million

Annette Obrestadt was just 18 when she won the Main Event, and £1 million, at the first World Series of Poker Europe. It made her the youngest ever bracelet winner – so young, in fact, that it would be more than two years before she was legally allowed to play in Las Vegas. Coming four years after Chris Moneymaker turned $39 into $2.5m at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in 2003, this striking victory by a young woman over established pros such as Gus Hansen, who finished in tenth place, showed just how much Moneymaker’s win had changed the face of poker.
Moneymaker, more than anyone, was responsible for the boom in online poker. Obrestadt was very much an online player: she had already racked up $800,000 in MTT cashes before entering the WSOPE. In an interview directly after winning the title, Obrestadt summed up why the new breed of internet players were making waves in live play: “I’ve played thousands of tournaments online. Most professionals only play 60 or so live tournaments a year so I think I have an advantage there.”

Who is Annette Obrestadt?

Born in 1988, Annette Obrestadt began playing poker at the age of 15 – hence her screen name, “Annette_15”. While Chris Moneymaker spun up his poker fortune from $39, Obrestadt says she never invested any of her own money at all, building up her poker bankroll initially from freeroll tournaments.
Living in Norway, Obrestadt developed a highly aggressive playing style typical of many Scandinavian players: her other screen name is “The Huntress”. Blessed with a natural talent, she also experimented and worked hard at her poker strategy. She is famous for once winning a tournament playing “blind”, with her cards covered up. She did this to show “just how important it is to play position and to pay attention to the players at the table”.
Her win at the WSOPE was no fluke. Since then she has amassed nearly $4m in live tournament earnings, ranking her second amongst all Norwegian players, male or female.

How Annette Obrestadt crushed the World Series of Poker Europe

The 2007 WSOPE Main Event, held in London’s Casino at the Empire on Leicester Square, was the first time that official gold bracelets had been awarded outside Las Vegas (the WSOP has now expanded to Asia Pacific as well as Europe). Obrestadt worked hard for hers, building her stack up on the final table from just half that of the chip leader. The Scandinavian-heavy final nine made for a lot of aggressive action, but it was the final heads-up poker battle that really counted.
Obrestadt was pitted against John Tabatabai. Their single combat lasted for nearly as many hands as the rest of the final table put together. Finally, Obrestadt got the miracle flop that would clinch her victory: on a flop of 7-6-5, she pushed all-in with top set, while her opponent held two pair and needed runner-runner quads to survive.
With the legal age in Las Vegas being 21, it is likely that Obrestadt’s record as the youngest ever bracelet winner will stand forever.
 

Who is Annette Obrestadt? Poker player profile

  • Born in 1988, Annette Obrestadt started playing online poker at the age of 15, under the screen name “Annette_15”.
  • Before switching to live poker she had won $800,000 in online MTTs, winning one tournament with her cards covered up.
  • In winning the Main Event of the World Series of Poker Europe in 2007, Annette Obrestadt became the youngest ever bracelet winner.
  • Her first prize in the WSOPE was £1 million, and she now has nearly $4m in live poker tournament earnings.

Read the eighth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, and find out how an amateur turned a $39 online satellite into a $2.5m Main Event win
Or come back tomorrow for the last part in our WSOP series.

In the eighth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School recalls how an amateur turned a $39 online satellite into a $2.5m Main Event win

Of all the great moments in the history of the World Series of Poker (WSOP), the most transformative for the future of the game as a whole was surely Chris Moneymaker’s victory in 2003. It was a personification of the American Dream that anyone, regardless of their background, can make it big.
Chris Moneymaker entered a $39 online satellite tournament, which led to a $600 satellite, which won him a seat at the Main Event of the WSOP. That $39 investment was to net Chris Moneymaker a first prize of $2.5 million.
That year was also notable for ESPN expanding the coverage and hole-card cameras being introduced on the final table. This truly was the beginning of the internet-fuelled poker boom, with entries to the WSOP Main Event increasing tenfold from 839 in 2003 to 8,773 in 2006. Poker writers now refer to this as “the Moneymaker Effect”.

Who is Chris Moneymaker?

Can there ever have been a poker champion more aptly named than “Moneymaker”? It sounds like an online poker nickname, but in fact his German ancestors made coins, and chose “Moneymaker” as an Anglicisation of their surname “Nurmacher”.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Chris Moneymaker further lived up to his name by studying accounting at university, becoming a comptroller. He was just 27 when he entered the World Series of Poker Main Event. Amazingly, it was his first live poker tournament.
Even so, Chris Moneymaker played well enough on Day One to catch the eye of professional sports handicapper Lou Diamond, who prophetically tipped him as his “dark horse to win the whole tournament”.

Chris Moneymaker knocks out Phil Ivey to make the WSOP final table

Chris Moneymaker did have a stroke of luck to get to the final table. With 10 players left, and holding trip Queens with an Ace kicker, he called Phil Ivey’s all-in bet on the turn only to find himself facing down a full house. A lucky Ace came on the river to change the course of history – sending the amateur to the final table, and denying Phil Ivey his coveted world championship win.
Once there, Chris Moneymaker made up in courage what he lacked in experience. The final table got underway at 2pm, and became heads-up at 12.30am. Moneymaker was pitted against Sammy Farha, and by now had twice his stack. Over the next hour, however, the more experienced pro chipped away at the amateur’s stack until the two were nearly even.
It was then that Chris Moneymaker decided to make his stand.
Both men flopped a flush draw. Moneymaker’s spades were higher, with K7 to Farha’s Q9, but the 9-high flop gave Farha top pair. Both players checked. The turn gave Moneymaker an open-ended straight draw as well as his flush draw, so when Farha now bet out with 300,000, Moneymaker re-raised him to 800,000. Still with top pair and a (lesser) flush draw, Farha called, but he must have felt rattled.

Chris Moneymaker pulls off a historic bluff

The river was a red 3: no possible help to either man. But at this point, sensing weakness, Moneymaker made a huge all-in shove.
Farha tanked. Top pair is not usually a hand you can fold when heads-up. Then again, Moneymaker had bet his tournament life on this hand – would he do that on a bluff? And would an amateur be capable of such daring against a seasoned pro?
Farha eventually folded, leaving his stack fatally crippled at 1.8m to Moneymaker’s 6.6m, and the bluff entered the annals of poker history as one of the most audacious the WSOP has seen.

Who is Chris Moneymaker? Poker player profile

  • Born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1975, Chris Moneymaker was an accountant before turning to poker full-time
  • Moneymaker turned a $39 online satellite entry into a $2.5m win at the World Series of Poker Main Event in 2003
  • His autobiography is entitled Moneymaker: How an Amateur Poker Player Turned $40 into $2.5 Million at the World Series of Poker (2005)
  • The online poker boom that followed Chris Moneymaker’s WSOP victory has become known as “the Moneymaker Effect”

Why not go back and read part 7 of our 10 part WSOP series which is about only player to have won three Main Event championships. 
Or come back tomorrow for part 9.
 

In the seventh of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School explains how Stu “The Kid” Ungar battled drug addiction to become “The Comeback Kid”

There are many who would agree that Stu Ungar was quite simply the best natural poker player of all time. His prowess at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) certainly supports this view. He is the only player to have won three Main Event championships (apart from Johnny Moss, whose first victory was achieved by a vote of his peers, rather than winning a tournament).
When Stu Ungar reached the final table of the WSOP Main Event in 1997, poker fans flocked in such numbers to see if he could win a historic third title that, for the first and only time, the television table was placed in the middle of Fremont Street to allow everyone to crowd round.

Who was Stu Ungar?

Stu Ungar was a card-game prodigy with a photographic memory. His card-counting at blackjack was so good the casinos banned him, and at gin rummy he defeated the man previously renowned as the best player by 86 games to none. In poker he proved equally adept, winning the WSOP in 1980, aged 26, and then again in 1981.
Sadly, addiction got the better of him. In the 1990 Main Event, he was found unconscious from a drug overdose in his hotel on the third day. Even so, he had built up such a commanding stack that he reached the final table anyway: by the time he was blinded out he had placed ninth. In the 1992 WSOP, he sensationally busted out 1990 WSOP champion Mansour Matloubi in a $50,000 heads-up event when he hero-called Matloubi’s river bluff with just 10-high – he had correctly guessed his opponent had had a gutshot draw on the flop, with the board at 3-3-7-K-Q.

Stu Ungar makes the WSOP final table in 1997

Despite having earned an estimated $30 million in his career, Stu Ungar was penniless by the time of the 1997 WSOP. A fellow player staked him the $10,000 buy-in at the very last minute, just before registration closed.
Stu Ungar actually got off to a shaky start: he had been up for 24 hours trying to raise the money, and his tiredness showed. But from Day Two, Ungar put on a powerhouse demonstration of poker strategy and reads that has rarely been bettered. At one stage on Day Two he was seated with four former world champions: Bobby Baldwin, Berry Johnston, Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth. But Ungar was the only one of these men to make it to the final table, with a commanding chip stack that was double that of his nearest competitor.
He showed his mettle early on in the final table when he got the crowd favourite, Ron Stanley, to relinquish the best hand on a big pot when Ungar re-raised the turn and then bluffed the river with air. Even that bet was set up in advance: he had previously shown a hand in which he slow-played top pair, so he knew his bluff would seem plausible. Ungar just kept on swinging until he was left heads-up with more than four times John Strzemp’s stack.
The outcome was never really in doubt. Strzemp was knocked out within six hands.

Stu Ungar, “The Comeback Kid”

In 1980, when Stu Ungar won his first poker world championship, he was nicknamed “The Kid”. After overcoming his demons to win the title for a historic third time, 17 years later, the press dubbed him “The Comeback Kid”.
But though Ungar could win at cards, he couldn’t win his own personal war on drugs. He never could kick the habit for long, and he died the following year.
Stu Ungar himself put it best, when interviewed directly after his 1997 WSOP victory: “There’s nobody that can beat me playing cards. The only one that ever beat me was myself, my bad habits.” 

Who is Stu Ungar? Poker player profile

  • Stu Ungar made poker history when he first won back-to-back WSOP championships in 1980 and 1981, then won again in 1997
  • First nicknamed “The Kid”, he was thereafter known as “The Comeback Kid”
  • He is generally regarded as the finest poker and gin rummy player of all time
  • He had a photographic memory, which saw him banned from playing blackjack
  • Stu Ungar battled addiction for most of his adult life, and died in 1998 of a drug-related heart condition, aged 45

Read our last WSOP on the only one woman has ever reached the final table of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event.
Or come back tomorrow to read about Chris Moneymaker and the online poker boom.

In the sixth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School profiles the only woman to reach the final table at the World Series of Poker

Poker is a male-dominated world. Some estimates put the proportion of female players in live tournaments as low as 5%. There are many possible factors behind this, but the fact remains that only one woman has ever reached the final table of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event.
It’s for this reason that, although poker guru Dan Harrington won the WSOP championship in 1995, the most notable performance that year was arguably Barbara Enright’s.

Who is Barbara Enright?

When asked to name a female poker pro, you might immediately think of Annie Duke, Vanessa Selbst, or Liv Boeree. But to players of an older generation, Barbara Enright’s name would roll first off the tongue.
Barbara Enright started playing poker with her elder brother at the age of four, and began playing in poker rooms in the 1970s. It wasn’t long before she gave up her jobs as a hairstylist and cocktail waitress to turn pro. She was the first woman to be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame, in 2007, and the first to win first two, then three WSOP bracelets. And she is still the only woman to have reached the final table of the WSOP Main Event – though Annie Duke came close, finishing in tenth place in 2000.

Barbara Enright’s final table in 1995

With two WSOP bracelets already to her name, Barbara Enright qualified for the $10,000 buy-in WSOP Main Event through an online satellite that cost just $220 to enter. She asked a previous backer to stake her for 50%, but he declined – a decision that would cost him £57,000!
Enright fought her way through not just to the final table of nine, but to the television table of six. The competition was tough: the other five players were Chuck Thompson, Hamid Dastmalchi, Brent Carter and Howard Goldfarb, as well as Dan Harrington.
In the end, however, the poker gods decided it was not to be. It was not bad play that brought an end to Enright’s championship dream, but bad luck. She was knocked out in fifth place when her commanding pocket 8s were outdrawn by Carter’s meagre 6-3 suited, which flopped two pair.

Women Poker Player Magazine

The veteran poker commentator Mike Sexton has called Enright “the most dominating, relentless, aggressive woman on the tournament circuit”. The poker writer Al Moe has said she is “like a heavy rock on a steep hill”.
Inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame the same year as Phil Hellmuth, and made Editor-in-Chief of Women Poker Player Magazine, Enright continues to play to this day, 40 years after she began testing herself in the male-dominated cardroom environment. Her heavy rock is still rolling: in 2017 so far she has cashed in four tournaments, including the skill-testing $1,500 H.O.R.S.E. at the World Series of Poker.
 

Who is Barbara Enright? Poker player profile

  • Barbara Enright started playing poker at the age of four, and has played in cardrooms since the early 1970s
  • She has won three WSOP bracelets
  • She was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2007
  • Barbara Enright is the only woman ever to have reached the final table in the WSOP Main Event
  • Mike Sexton has called her “the most dominating, relentless, aggressive woman on the tournament circuit”

Read part 5 of our WSOP blogs on the youngest ever World Series of Poker champion.
Or come back tomorrow to read about when Stu Ungar wons a historic third world championship.

In the fifth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School recalls how a young Phil Hellmuth stopped “The Orient Express” in his tracks

The 1989 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event was meant to be the remarkable story of how Johnny Chan, aka “The Orient Express”, powered his way to an unbeatable third championship title in a row.
He might have got away with it, too, were it not for that pesky kid, Phil Hellmuth…

Who is Phil Hellmuth?

Do you even have to ask? With his gift for self-promotion, backed up by a natural talent sharpened by three decades of playing at the highest levels, Phil Hellmuth might just be the most famous of all poker players – perhaps matched only by Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey.
Where would poker be without Phil Hellmuth? In an age in which so many pros are quiet, reserved maths obsessives, Hellmuth is a uniquely colourful figure. His live reads are so well honed that he calls his intuitive style of play “White Magic”. His brashness earned him the nickname “Poker Brat”, one he has embraced as the title of his new autobiography. He has earned more WSOP bracelets than any other player (14 and counting). Nor is he shy of reminding players of that fact: in 2009 he arrived at the WSOP dressed as a Roman Emperor, carried aloft by muscular men and attended by a bevy of beauties.

The 1989 WSOP Main Event

And it all began at the 1989 World Series of Poker. The poker world was preparing to celebrate the incredible “three-peat” victory of Johnny Chan, who was gunning for his third championship title after winning back-to-back Main Events in 1987 and 1988. Instead, The Orient Express hit the buffers and Hellmuth became, at 24, the youngest ever poker world champion.
Phil Hellmuth had knocked out two players in a single hand to get heads-up with Johnny Chan, and so held about twice as many chips as the defending champion. It didn’t last long. Holding pocket 9s, Hellmuth made a sudden outsized bet, moving all-in pre-flop. Johnny Chan barely hesitated before calling the young upstart, and found himself a clear underdog with A7.
It was a victory no one could have predicted – except, strangely, the two finalists themselves. Only a year and half earlier Phil Hellmuth had reassessed his directionless life, and written down a list of goals. They included “Win the Main Event”. Before the tournament, he left a message on his answerphone saying, “You’re talking to the 1989 world champion of poker”.
As for Chan, he had said of Phil Hellmuth in an Esquire interview earlier that year, “That kid, when he learns to rein it in, he’s going to win the Main Event.” This is one time where Chan can’t have been happy to have been proved right.

Who is Phil Hellmuth? Poker player profile

  • Born in 1964, Phil Hellmuth was the youngest ever winner of the WSOP Main Event, in 1989, and holds a record 14 bracelets
  • Nicknamed “the Poker Brat” for his outbursts when he suffers a bad beat
  • Author of three influential books on poker strategy, and a new autobiography, Poker Brat: the Story of the World’s Greatest Poker Player
  • Famous for saying “If there was no luck I’d win every hand”
  • Phil Hellmuth’s grand entrances to the World Series of Poker include dressing as a US general, a Roman emperor, and a mixed martial arts fighter

Read the 4th part of our WSOP series about a winning Main Event hand from Johnny Chan that was immortalised in the movie Rounders.
Or come back tomorrow to check out the next part which profiles the only woman to reach the final table at the World Series of Poker.

In the fourth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School looks at a winning Main Event hand that was immortalised in the movie Rounders

One of the best loved and most authentic movies about poker is Rounders (1998). In the final hand, the young poker prodigy (played by Matt Damon) flops a straight, and decides to slow-play it. His bullying Russian opponent (John Malkovich) falls right into his trap, shoving all-in on the river. Matt Damon snap-calls with a smile.
“That son of beech!” explodes the Russian, slamming his cards down on the table. “He trap me!”
What you may not know is that the hand is based on Johnny Chan’s famous winning hand in the World Series of Poker (WSOP), ten years before.

Who is Johnny Chan?

Born in China in 1957, Johnny Chan emigrated with his parents to America in 1968. His parents expected him to follow them into the restaurant business, but he dropped out of studying hotel and restaurant management at 21 to move to Las Vegas with just $300 to his name.
In 1981, Johnny Chan earned the nickname “the Orient Express” for defeating all nine players at the final table of the 1981 America Cup poker tournament in under an hour. He became respected as one of the very finest players of the 1980s, and is still playing today. He is second equal in WSOP bracelets, with 10, and has cashed at the WSOP 45 times. 

Johnny Chan defends his WSOP title in 1988

Johnny Chan won the WSOP Main Event in 1987. For most players that would be accolade enough, but Chan was determined to repeat the feat in 1988.
On the final table, Chan ended up heads-up against Erik Seidel. Seidel is himself an excellent player who seems only to improve with age: he has won eight WSOP bracelets. But Chan’s strategy was to use his rival’s self-confidence and aggression against him, and he laid the perfect trap.
Holding J-9 suited, Chan flopped a straight. Seidel had no more than top pair with a weak kicker. Yet when Chan bet, Seidel re-raised. Resisting the temptation to raise again, Chan simply called, with a show of reluctance.
The turn card was a blank. Both men checked, Chan still trapping Seidel into a false sense of security. In those days, the hole cards were not shown to viewers until the turn. The commentator summed up the excitement at the reveal: “Erik Seidel cannot win this hand, and yet he doesn’t know it! Chan is trying to sucker him in!”
When the river card was also a blank, Seidel shoved all-in. Chan snap-called with the absolute nuts, and the rest is both poker and film history.
Amazingly, Johnny Chan ended up heads-up in the WSOP Main Event the next year as well. But the real star of that story is a 24-year-old Phil Hellmuth, who features in the next part in our series…

Who is Johnny Chan? Poker player profile

  • Born in China in 1957, Johnny Chan moved to America in 1968
  • Nicknamed “The Orient Express” after he demolished the final table of the 1981 America Cup poker tournament in under an hour
  • Along with Doyle Brunson and Phil Ivey, Johnny Chan holds 10 WSOP bracelets
  • His victory over Erik Seidel in the 1988 WSOP Main Event was immortalised in the film Rounders (1998), in which he also had a cameo role
  • Johnny Chan is famous for keeping an orange beside him at the poker table, supposedly to combat the smell of cigarettes

Read part 3 of our 10 part series on the greatest moment in WSOP history. The third part in our series explores how the tournament phrase “a chip and a chair” was born.
Come back tomorrow to find out how a young Phil Hellmuth stopped “The Orient Express” in his tracks.

In the third of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School explores how the tournament phrase “a chip and a chair” was born

You may have heard the poker expression, “as long as you’ve got a chip and a chair…” It means that no matter how few chips you have left in a poker tournament, you always have a chance. But you may not know that this saying was born at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in 1982.
It’s not just the greatest underdog story in poker, but it’s hard to think of a bigger comeback in any sport. It all starts with Jack “Treetop” Straus…

Who was Jack “Treetop” Straus?

Jack Straus, nicknamed “Treetop” due to his imposing 6’6″ frame, was one of the old-school “road gamblers” who would criss-cross Texas in search of a good game. With a fearlessly aggressive playing style, his speciality was heads-up poker, and when he played full ring he was never scared to get all his chips in.
Straus is known for one of the greatest bluffs in poker, during a high-stakes Texas Hold ‘Em cash game. Despite being dealt the worst starting hand in poker, 7-2, he bet out, and was rewarded with a flop of 7-3-3 for top pair. Of course he bet again, but his opponent re-raised him: surely a larger pocket pair.
Straus called anyway, and the turn was a 2. Three pair of course is not a poker hand, so this was no help to Straus, but nevertheless he fired out a huge bet. His opponent tanked. What could such a big bet mean? Trips? A house? Now came the speechplay.
“I’ll show you whichever one of my cards you choose if you give me $25,” said Straus.
His opponent couldn’t see the harm in gaining more information, and tossed over a $25 chip. He selected a card, and Straus turned it over: a 2. The genius of this move was that, whichever card his opponent selected, he would think that hole card was paired for a full house. After all, Straus couldn’t be betting big with just two pair, could he? The higher pocket pair reluctantly folded.

The 1982 WSOP Main Event

At the 1982 WSOP Main Event, Jack Straus put his creativity and aggression to good use. On day two, after he’d lost a big hand, he seemed to have been knocked out. But as he was standing up from the table he noticed a single 500 chip hidden under a napkin. It had not been included in Straus’s shove, and he hadn’t announced “all-in”, so he was allowed to sit back down and play.
The next hand was folded round to his big blind. He then doubled up his increased stack. Before long, he had the most chips at the table.
By the end of day two, Jack Straus had 90,000 chips. By the end of day three, he was chip leader with 341,500. Before long, Straus had single-handedly eliminated most of the final table until only he and Dewey Tomko were left.
Their heads-up contest lasted just ten minutes. Straus got it in good with A-10 against Tomko’s A-4. Tomko hit the 4 on the flop, but Straus triumphed when the 10 hit on the river, winning a then record payout of $520,000. And all from a single chip and a chair.

Who was Jack “Treetop” Straus? Poker player profile

  • In 1982, Jack Straus came back from a single chip to win the World Series of Poker, giving birth to the saying “a chip and a chair”
  • He was nicknamed “Treetop” on account of being six and half foot tall
  • One of the old-school “road gamblers”, Jack Straus once said: “If they had wanted you to hold on to money they’d have made it with handles”
  • A keen big-game hunter, Jack Straus wore a lion’s paw inscribed with the motto: “Better a day as a lion than one hundred years as a lamb”
  • In 1988, aged 58, Jack Straus died as he had lived, sitting at a high-stakes cash table, having suffered an aortic aneurysm

Read part 2 of our 10 part World Series of Poker mini series and discover how 10-2 or the ‘Doyle Brunson Hand’ got it’s name.
Or come back tomorrow for Johnny Chan’s winning hand that was immortalised in the movie ‘Rounders’.

In the second of a 10-part series, the Paul Phua Poker School recalls how 10-2 became the luckiest hand in World Series of Poker history

With the sheer number of hands that have been played during all the successive World Series of Poker (WSOP) tournaments, you would think that anything could happen. But of all the unlikely strokes of fortune over nearly 50 years of the WSOP, there cannot be anything to rival Doyle Brunson taking down the championship two years running – with the very same lucky hand!

Who is Doyle Brunson?

Doyle Brunson, nicknamed “Texas Dolly” or “The Godfather of Poker”, is one of the last of the old poker greats still standing – or at least sitting, since you’ll often see him in a motorised chair these days. He’s 83 years old, and has been plagued for most of that time by the bad knee that ended his youthful dream of becoming a professional basketball player.
Basketball’s loss is poker’s gain. Brunson has won 10 WSOP bracelets, and his poker strategy book Super/System, originally self-published in 1978, became the bible for a whole generation of poker players. In 2006, after Super/System 2 was published, Brunson was voted by Bluff Magazine the most influential force in the world of poker.

1976: Doyle Brunson wins the WSOP Main Event

In the 1976 WSOP Main Event, Doyle Brunson was heads-up with a player called Jesse Alto. Unlike Brunson, Alto was a keen amateur rather than a professional: his day job was as a car dealer. As a result, he had not fully learned to keep cool in tight spots, and Brunson said he was looking to exploit that weakness.
Jesse Alto bet out with A-J, an excellent starting hand when heads-up. Brunson called with 10-2 suited. The flop came A-J-10, giving Alto two pair. Brunson went all-in with the weaker hand, Alto of course called.
The story of the 1976 WSOP could have been about how an amateur car dealer bested the world’s top pros… but the poker gods decided otherwise. In one of the worst bad beats in Main Event history, Brunson caught runner-runner 2s on the turn and river to make a full house!

1977: Doyle Brunson wins the WSOP Main Event again – with the same hand!

They say lightning never strikes twice. Perhaps it does in Texas. The very next year, Doyle Brunson was defending his title heads-up against Gary “Bones” Berland when he looked down at 10-2 – again. Berland was dealt 8-5.
Yet again Brunson found himself behind when the flop of 10-8-5 gave him a pair, and his opponent two pair. Yet again, the 2 hit on the turn to give Brunson two pair, and this time he was ahead. When Berland pushed all-in, Brunson gladly called. Incredibly, Brunson yet again made a full house on the river when a 10 hit, and he was crowned world champion for the second year in a row.

The “Doyle Brunson hand”

There are many colourful names for different poker hands. Aces are nicknamed “bullets” or “pocket rockets”; pocket Kings are nicknamed “cowboys”; J-5 is known as “Jackson Five” or just “Motown”.
To this day, if you show 10-2, another player around the table is likely to nod wisely and say, “Ah, the ‘Doyle Brunson hand’”.

Who is Doyle Brunson? Poker player profile

  • Born in 1933, Doyle Brunson is nicknamed “Texas Dolly” or “the Godfather of Poker”
  • He is second equal in WSOP bracelets, with 10
  • He won back-to-back WSOP Main Events in 1976 and 1977
  • Doyle Brunson is the author of several books on poker including Super/System and Super/System 2

Read the first blog in our World Series of Poker mini series on how the World Series of Poker was born, and how “the Grand Old Man of Poker” earned his name.

Or come back tomorrow and read about how the tournament phrase “a chip and a chair” was born at the WSOP.