Poker News

LAS VEGAS — Peter Eastgate, a 22-year-old from Denmark who wears his ball cap backwards, earned $9.1 million Tuesday when he became the youngest player to win the main event at the World Series of Poker. Perhaps most surprisingly, he kept his poker face even after his triumph.

As friends from Denmark jumped around and shouted in the seating area, Eastgate displayed hardly a hint of a smile while posing for photos in front of cash piled on the green felt table.

"I guess I haven't really realized how big this is," said Eastgate, who erased the youngest-winner record set by Phil Hellmuth at 24 in 1989.

"It will come in the next weeks or the next days. I will become very emotional at some point."

The main event began last July with 6,844 players. There was a 117-day recess after the field was cut to final nine. Eastgate finished off his last foe, 27-year-old Russian Ivan Demidov, at 5:33 a.m. ET.

The Russian was down to about 16.45 million chips. Eastgate had more than 120 million. Demidov went all in with two pairs (twos and fours).

Eastgate won the pot and the biggest prize in poker with a straight (ace through five).

Demidov was in a spot where he had to double up to stay competitive.

"I was lucky that he hit two pair. … It's kind of inevitable when that happens he's going all in," said Eastgate, whose final-table victory will be televised on tape by ESPN at 9 p.m. ET Tuesday.

Demidov, who earned second-place money of $5.8 million, said of the final hand: "I was just thinking he was bluffing. I read a few big bluffs at the wrong time."

Eastgate's friends wore t-shirts with the slogan, "It's in the stars." During final table play, they sang a boisterous song in support of the champion. It included the words "oooba, oooba, oooba." Eastgate says they made the song up.

Also in the seating area at the Rio hotel and casino were the winners' parents, Robert and Lise Eastgate.

Did Eastgate show anything in his childhood suggesting he'd excel in high-stakes poker?

"No way," said Robert. "He was straightforward in all aspects … studious, industrious."

The mother said he was a "very sensible" boy and that he liked mathematics.

"He calculated," said Lise.

Eastgate was asked if he especially liked sports or computer games growing up.

"I'm just a gambler," he said. "I like to gamble. The way I've learned to play poker is by putting a lot of hours into it."

He got interested in poker in high school. Instead of going to college, he opted to play online poker for money.

He said he was "fascinated" by poker and its "psychological aspects." And he was lured by the World Series.

Before the main event, his biggest pay day came when he won $46,714 at the 2007 Paddy Power Irish Open.

"You see the World Series on television, and you get fascinated by it, all the attention," Eastgate said. "It's the biggest tournament, the biggest in the world. I wanted to see how I could do."

The two-day final table play took 274 hands and 15 hours and 28 minutes play, surpassing the previous long of 14 hours and two minutes in 2005.
By Gary Mihoces

Categories: Poker Stories & News  

Poker, once nearly muscled off casino floors by gimmicky table games and flashy slot machines, is hotter than ever in Las Vegas, thanks to the game's popularity on TV.
Now the Venetian Resort Hotel & Casino will try to build on those winnings by staging "The Real Deal," an audience-participation show, in its Venetian Showroom. It was scheduled to begin last week.

The show combines the elements of a game show with comedy and celebrities, all revolving around the now-familiar poker game of Texas hold'em. Since this is Las Vegas, there are prizes, including the long-shot possibility for an audience member to win $1 million.
In "The Real Deal," the audience watches a 90-minute poker tournament featuring some of the best-known players, such as Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu.
(Read Negreanu's poker column Tuesdays inside Accent.)
About 10 pros have signed up.
Every audience member can play along because each theater seat is equipped with a wireless, handheld touch-screen device.
"People who come to Vegas want to play poker," Negreanu says, "but obviously they can't play in a big game with the likes of Doyle or Phil Hellmuth. But in this show, they actually can."
At the beginning of each show, six audience members are chosen at random to sit at the poker table onstage with two pros. Each audience member becomes the virtual ninth player, as every person in the theater is electronically dealt a hand on the handheld device to go along with the cards dealt onstage. Big-screen monitors help everyone keep track of the action.
Each audience member starts with 100,000 points and tries to increase his or her total, with an electronic leader board keeping track.
Near the end of the show, the surviving professional player and the final amateur from the original six are joined by the audience member who accumulated the most points. The three battle it out in a showdown.
"But you don't have to be a poker player to enjoy the show," says Merv Adelson, one of the show's creators, who once helped run Lorimar, the company that produced "Dallas" and other hit TV shows.
Adelson explains that audience members also can add to their point stacks by making simple bets, such as the suit of the next card or whether a poker pro can correctly guess whether anyone in a certain row is from, say, Pennsylvania — all on the handheld devices.
"The technology is what makes this show so amazing," he says.
Comedian Paul Rodriguez should produce some laughs as the show's host, but the poker pros are expected to ante up most of the entertainment.
"You get a guy like Scotty Nguyen, and to watch him work a room is absolutely amazing," says Negreanu, referring to the flamboyant player and five-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, nicknamed the Prince of Poker.
"The professionals can joke and needle each other and be more comfortable in a way that they can't when they're playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars," Negreanu says. "Plus, the audience will learn a little bit about the game as the players explain why they played a hand a certain way."
Audience members will get prizes — from logo merchandise to jewelry and plasma-screen TVs — at random and for playing performance.
At the end of each show, a $1 million jackpot will be up for grabs when selected audience members are dealt a royal flush.

Categories: Poker Stories & News  

Poker books go into great detail discussing the various strategies necessary to get to the final table of a tournament. However, not as much has been written about final table playing strategy.

Take What the Table Gives

This is a simple concept but one that can’t be overlooked. In fact, this philosophy applies not only to poker, but also to sports like football and basketball.

Sometimes, late in NFL games, the team protecting a lead will often go into a prevent defense, trying to defend against the long pass. Trying to throw a bomb against that type of coverage isn’t a very good idea. Instead, the opponent takes what the defense gives, and throws shorter passes while continuing to move the chains.

In the NBA, Kobe Bryant has the ability to blow right by players who guard him too closely. But, if someone lays off of him, he’ll just pull up and shoot a jump shot.

Pretend for a second you’re the Laker’s star, and the defense is playing tight and guarding the rim. Well, they’re giving you an open look at a 15-foot jumper! Would you try to drive the lane or take the easy shot?

I hope you said the easy shot.

At the final table of a poker tournament, you, too, must base your choices on how your opponents are playing -- in other words, what they’re giving you. If the table is playing passively, and everyone is waiting for others to get knocked out, that's your cue to drive the lane and play aggressively.

Conversely, if there are overly aggressive, wild players at your table, then the best course of action is to sit back and wait for them to pick each other off.

You cannot win a tournament when there are still nine players at the table. So, your goal in the early stages of final table play is to set yourself up for the short-handed battle to come.

Adjust

One of the most difficult challenges novices face at a final table is making the necessary adjustments for short-handed play.

During most tournaments, play is nine-handed all the way down to the final table. As you get down to six, five, or four players, though, the correct playing strategy will change dramatically.

It’s true that a player may succeed by waiting for premium starting cards on his way to the final table. However, if he continues playing that way short-handed, the blinds and antes will surely eat away at his stack.

Hands like A-7 offsuit, cards you wouldn't play in a nine-handed game, become raisers when play becomes short-handed. To stay afloat you need to win one set of blinds per round. If you’re playing four-handed, that means you need to pick up a pot one out of every four hands. If you fold A-7, you may not get a better chance for a while.

Play the Players and Your Stack

The cards become less important at the final table than they were in the early stages of a tournament. At the final table, shift your focus to determine who you can steal pots from and who you can trap. You’ve got to play the players.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to play the players when you don't have many chips. If you’re on the short stack, you'll be forced to sit back and wait for a good opportunity to either double up or to steal the blinds.

It’s a much rosier picture if you’re one of the bigger stacks at the final table. Now you have virtual free reign to attack and pressure your opponents. There’s no need to be reckless; the other players will be forced to respect your stack size since any hand they play could be their last.

So let’s review. Let the game come to you in the early stages. Make the necessary adjustments once play becomes short-handed. Finally, always be aware of your stack size in relation to the others.

If you focus on those three key elements, you'll often find yourself playing heads-up for the title.
By Daniel Negreanu

Categories: Poker Tips and Strategies  

In Week 4 of the World Series of Poker, the pros continue to dominate as they show the world the skill that exists in tournament play.
In the last week or so, young gun John Phan picked up his second bracelet of 2008, Layne "Back-to-Back" Flack won his sixth bracelet, Barry Greenstein won his third bracelet, top pro David Benyamine picked up his first bracelet in his third 2008 WSOP final table, Italian pros Dario Minieri and Max Pescatori picked up bracelets, Kenny Tran picked up a bracelet, longtime pro Mike Rocco won his first bracelet and longtime Dutch pro Rob Hollink won his first bracelet.

We now have more than 20 pros who have won events during the 2008 WSOP at the Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

Meanwhile, I have been shut out. We are entering the final week of the WSOP, and I'm so frustrated I can hardly stand it.

It was only last year that I smiled tolerantly as the other pros made excuses for not making final tables. They focused on excuses rather than improving their game. Then those same pros skipped valuable WSOP tournaments because they couldn't handle not winning or because they couldn't handle the constant pressure to play mistake-free poker. Many were psyched out because of subpar first-week results.

I once heard 18-time golf major champ Jack Nicklaus say, "In the majors, I went to the golf course with the idea of winning. I went to the course a week early to eliminate all my excuses for not winning. I let the other guys complain about the course conditions, like the speed of the greens or the thickness of the rough."

I love Nicklaus' philosophy, but now that I've had a subpar WSOP, I need to keep that "No excuses" philosophy at the forefront of my mind. My lack of success has me feeling down and out, and my results haven't been anywhere close to what I hoped for (at least two bracelets in 2008).

Still, I need to show up every day ready to play. I need to write off that I haven't been tearing it up.

The WSOP is long and grueling, with 55 poker tournaments that happen back-to-back-to-back over six weeks with sometimes two tournaments in one day. Ideally, you find a way to finish in the money (roughly the top 10% of the field), then you find a way to make a final table (generally the final nine players) and then you dig down deep and find a way to win a bracelet.

If you play great poker and get eliminated, then come back the next day and play great poker again.

The WSOP eventually rewards great poker, so my daily mantra is, "Play great poker, play great poker, play great poker." And I'm telling myself, "Phil, keep your head held up high. Show up, stand up, buck up under the pressure and the spotlight and be all that you can be."

Should I be feeling down and frustrated? I've been in the money twice this year. I did make one final table, and I still have the big three WSOP records: most cashes (65), most final tables (40) and most wins (11). Most important, we have the future to consider.

One more week of poker remains here at the WSOP. That's about seven more tournaments.

I entered the $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E tournament — a combination of Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Razz, Seven-card Stud and Stud Eight or Better — but I was eliminated early.

H.O.R.S.E. was designed to crown the world's greatest all-around poker player, and in 2006 it seemed to work when the late great David "Chip" Reese won it.

For many years, Chip was considered the best all-around poker player in the world, and his winning H.O.R.S.E. seemed to confirm his greatness.

Besides Chip winning it all, we had a star-studded final table that had a few of the guys who play in the biggest side games in the world every day, including Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson and Barry Greenstein.

However, there were some at that final table who had never even played some of the games before. In 2007, we had a few surprises at the final table as well.

A few surprises should be expected each year because the H.O.R.S.E tournament is limit poker, and in limit poker there is more luck than there is in no-limit poker, where you can bet any amount at anytime.

Still, when it comes to showing the world a great final table, H.O.R.S.E is as good as it gets. You can bet that there will be at least four known great players at the final table this time.

Looming large is the Main Event, which starts next Thursday. Just writing about the opportunities in the next few weeks makes me feel like running to the gym, losing this massive load of frustration, turning my attitude into a champion's attitude, playing perfect poker and winning another bracelet.
By Phil Hellmuth

Categories: Poker Stories & News  

Before the World Series of Poker began, Daniel Negreanu was looking to give anyone 5-1 odds that he'd win a bracelet this year.

Negreanu found a customer in fellow top pro Phil Ivey, although they settled on a different kind of bet: One pays the other $200,000 for each bracelet won.

So it's no surprise that Negreanu could be heard shouting "Me 1, Ivey 0" after winning Event No. 20 ($2,000 limit hold'em) by defeating Ugur Marangoz in heads-up play and outlasting 479 other players.

For Negreanu, it's his fourth career WSOP bracelet and already his third cash at this year's World Series. He'll pocket $204,874 to push his career tournament earnings to more than $9.7 million -- third most all-time behind past WSOP main event champions Jamie Gold and Joe Hachem.

And, he's one up on Ivey in one hefty prop bet.

Categories: Poker Stories & News