Most professional poker players spend the lion’s share of their playing time in live games. The big-name tournament players are famous because of the television coverage of their live play. Lots of these players play online, but it’s not like the live tournament scene. Most celebrity poker players are sponsored by an online poker site. They wear the site’s logo in live events and play on the site for periodic promotions or whenever they want to.
Full Tilt Poker has professionals Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, John Juanda, Jennifer Harman, Phil Gordon, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Clonie Gowan, Andy Bloch, Mike Matusow, Gus Hansen and Allen Cunningham on their team.
PokerStars has Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, Barry Greenstein, Isabelle Mercier, Daniel Negreanu, Tom McEvoy, Victor Ramdin, Vanessa Rouso, and Humberto Brenes.
UltimateBet sponsors professionals Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, Jim Worth, Devin Porter and Annie Duke.
The explosion in the popularity of poker the last few years has seen everything that can somehow be attached to the game marketed and sold. This includes books, games, calendars, cards and even poker camps.
It may seem like a novelty idea, but poker camps have become very popular and are big business recently. A number of professional poker players either run their own camp or are affiliated with one in some way. Howard Lederer helps run Poker Reality Camp, Camp Hellmuth is run by Phil Hellmuth and even Doyle Brunson got in on the act with his son Todd Brunson in the Super System Poker Camp. One of the most popular and well-known camps is the WPT Boot Camp run by the same people that produce the World Poker Tour.
With a wide range of admission fees (from as low as $1,500 to as high as $3,500 and up), is it worth shelling out the cash? It’s worth noting that anyone who thinks they can’t learn a few things from a poker pro is a fool, and deserves to keep making mistakes at the table. Internet message boards indicate that most poker players (novice or experts) find the camps well worth the time and money because of the close interaction with the pros and the close attention paid to skills that are actually helpful at the table. If you do have a couple extra grand, attending a poker camp may be a good investment to improve your game and win more cash.
The best head-to-head matches would come from players that like to talk and try and gain an edge with their words. When two guys like this match up head-to-head it can make for an entertaining show. One match I’d like to see would be Men “The Master” Nguyen against Phil Hellmuth. Men is good at semi-bluffing and masking any hand he may have. Phil Hellmuth’s ego and experience would surely walk into a trap or two, which would result in one Hellmuth tirade after another.
But the match that would be the most entertaining, as long as it doesn’t come to blows, would be Mike “The Mouth” Matusow and Tony “G” Guoga. These two guys are the most obnoxious players in the game. The lines and insults would be priceless, and I would even dole out pay-per-view money for this if it was a three out of five match.
When it comes to WSOP Bracelets there are five men at the top of the heap.
1. Phil Hellmuth has won 11 WSOP bracelets in only 18 years, all playing no-limit Texas hold’em. Phil claims that he gave away all of them besides the main event championship.
2. Doyle Brunson has 10 bracelets in seven different poker variations. His last was in 2005 and he’s a threat to win one every year.
3. Johnny Chan also has 10 bracelets to his credit. Like Doyle he has won bracelets in seven different variations of the game, and he won all of them in only 20 years.
4. Johnny Moss is right up there with nine bracelets of his own. He’s won them all playing either No limit Hold’em, Ace to Five Draw or Seven Card Stud.
5. Erik Seidel comes in fifth with eight. He has wins in six different poker variations.
There are two three-time WSOP main event winners. Only Johnny Moss (1970, 1971 and 1974) and Stu Unger (1981, 1982 and 1997) were able to achieve that feat. They both won it twice in a row, as did Doyle Brunson (1976 and 1977) and Johnny Chan (1987 and 1988).
Other big-name winners include Chris “Jesus” Ferguson (2000), Phil Hellmuth (1989), Dan Harrington (1995), Scotty Nguyen (1998), Huck Seed (1996), Robert Varkonyi (2002) and Carlo Mortensen (2001).
Recent winners have won huge amounts, with the biggest winner being Jamie Gold ($12 million) in 2006. In 2007, Jerry Yang won $8.25 million and Joseph Hachem pocketed $7.5 million in 2005. Chris Moneymaker (2003) set the poker world afire when he won the main event, and $2.5 million, after winning his way into the tournament via an online satellite tournament. Greg Raymer was the other big main event winner, winning $5 million in 2004, and almost won it again the next year in 2005.
The main event is underway at the Rio in Las Vegas as we speak, but the next Poker World Championship is still a long way and many hours at the tables from being crowned. The main event kicked off with Day 1A last Friday, but the final table won’t be played until Tuesday, July 17.
The first two days of the main event drew a combined 2,832 players, and with approximately 1,600 players expected to come out for Days 1C and 1D, the organizers are estimating a field of around 6,000 players, give or take a few. For those keeping score at home, that total would be down from 8,773 last year.
Before the hordes gathered for the main event, there were at least a few noteworthy bracelet winners over the last month at the Rio. One of the first bracelet winners at this year’s WSOP was Tom Schneider, who won Event 5, the $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha/7 Card Stud Hi/Lo tourney during the opening week. Schneider became the lone double-bracelet winner at this year’s 2007 WSOP three weeks later, when he was the last man standing in Event 46 , the $1,000 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo. Schneider also made another final table this year and pocketed a combined $416,829 in prize money, and won the 2007 WSOP Player of the Year Award.
The richest winner at the 2007 WSOP heading into the main event was Bill Edler. The poker pro won his first WSOP bracelet and $904,672 after winning Event 45, the $5,000 No Limit Short Handed. Edler barely topped Burt Boutin by just over $3,000. Boutin won Event 7, the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha, and cashed in two other events to pocket $901,456.
The win that had everyone talking was Phil Hellmuth’s record-setting 11th WSOP bracelet. Hellmuth passed Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan after achieving his 11th WSOP victory in Event 15, $1,500 No Limit Hold’em. Hellmuth has been his usual consistent self at this year’s WSOP, having made two final tables and cashing six times.
If you know anything about poker, you’ve heard of Phil “The Poker Brat” Hellmuth. His accomplishments in the game of Texas Hold’em are mind-boggling (he has accomplished very little playing other variations of the game), and he has taken “Poker Star” to a level only a couple of players can rival. His antics have made him a magnet for the cameras, and he has been involved in broadcasting and commentating on the game, as well as writing numerous poker books and DVD’s.
Hellmuth’s stats speak for themselves: WSOP Main Event Champion; 10 WSOP bracelets; over $8 million in tournament winnings; National Heads-Up Championship, and I could go on. He derailed the then two-time champion Johnny Chan in 1989 to win the main event at the age of 24, after dropping out of college to play poker fulltime.
It is estimated that Hellmuth has made as much as $400 million off of the tables with numerous endeavours, including three books, a couple of instructional poker videos, a sunglasses contract with Oakley, infomercials for Ultimate Bet.com, commenting appearances, and a line of clothing. It’s also rumoured that he will be on the next season of the “Surreal Life”.
What sets Hellmuth apart from other seasoned pros is his apparent inability to control his emotions in the face of adversity. His outbursts after suffering a beat are not only fun to watch, but can be brutal and childish. We all love to see him get outdrawn and then wing out for a few minutes. After one of these tantrums he coined the phrase, “If luck weren’t involved, I guess I’d win every one.”
How much of the “poker brat” is calculated? Some of it must be – if not, the guy really has some issues. You would think that he would realize by now that poker has a degree of losing included in the picture. I remember the first time I saw him. He was walking as fast as he could, and trying to get through the crowd of poker fans without having to stop and talk to anyone, or sign an autograph. A couple of people tried to get a picture with him but he just shrugged them off, with a slightly annoyed look on his face. If he is just acting like a spoiled baby, he should be given an Academy Award for his role-playing.
