Posts Tagged ‘Las Vegas’
by Simon Dexter Thursday, July 31st, 2008
More than one player saw fit to complain about apparent last-minute amendments made to the tournament rules during the recent WSOP* in Las Vegas; indeed, several observers felt they were executed solely to accommodate higher-profile players. Conscious of this, professional poker players Marcel Luske and Michelle Lau have established the rather grand-sounding Federation Internationale de Poker Association (FIDPA), together with the International Poker Rules (IP Rules).
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by Simon Dexter Thursday, July 17th, 2008
Not long after the MC announced that players could take a 117-day break in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the question as to what would happen should one of the “November Nine” not make it back to Vegas arose. According to WSOP* commissioner Jeffrey Pollack, the answer is straight forward: their chips will be in play. “It’s the rule for every WSOP* event,” he said. “If you are late or you don’t show, your chips will be blinded off. That’s the rule.”
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by Simon Dexter Thursday, July 10th, 2008
Given what’s at stake (see below), the influence of showbiz was, rather predictably, never far away as this year’s WSOP* main event finally got under way last week.
Perhaps the grandest (or should that be conceited? Ed) entrance was made by Phil Hellmuth who arrived after three hours of play dressed as an army general with 11 stars on his helmet, equal to the record number of gold bracelets he has won at the WSOP*. He was flanked by 11 girls who marched in with him to ESPN’s “feature table”, naturally catching the cameras’ attention. Pretentious? Moi?
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by Simon Dexter Thursday, July 10th, 2008
Poker tournaments, especially the WSOP*, are one of the few games where an associated event can start on 3rd July, yet by 14th July, we will have only reached day seven.
Of course, the reason for this apparent miscount is due to the field size: there are four day ones and two day twos, a calendar-confusing arrangement designed to accommodate all contestants. And how those contestant numbers have grown this year – up by more than 7.6% to 6,844, compared with last year’s 6,358.
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by Simon Dexter Thursday, July 10th, 2008
They have most other things at the WSOP*, so why not a “Player of the Year”?
Well, of course they have this too. This year’s winner was 27-year-old Erick Lindgren who beat Justin Bonomo to win the ,000 no-limit hold ‘em event on 2nd June and who finished third in the ,000 H.O.R.S.E. event.
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by Simon Dexter Wednesday, June 25th, 2008
This year’s split WSOP* (the final table actually takes place in November) has prompted some bright sparks to suggest the re-introduction of a long-discarded protocol last used in 1970 whereby the final table players vote to decide who they believe should be world champion.
This might sound far-fetched, but the first WSOP*, held at Binion’s Horseshoe casino, was won by Johnny Moss (who also won the following year, collecting ,000).
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by Simon Dexter Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
We were so impressed with new Littlewoods Poker pro Michael Greco’s display of confidence when it came to winning an Oscar and a world title that we were almost persuaded to follow him Stateside. Apart from it being a pretty decent gig, we reckon he has a chance of following on from Jerry Yang last year who came in from left field and scooped .25 million. Unfortunately, head office refused our request for return business class flights to Nevada.
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by Simon Dexter Thursday, June 12th, 2008
We were delighted to see big Duncan Pumper Bell win in Vegas during the week and so too were WSOP* organisers who were equally pleased we were not witnessing the 40th world series, merely the 39th. You see, whenever ‘special’ anniversary dates are celebrated (20th, 25th, 30th, 40th etc) the WSOP* has a habit of adding one or two unique prizes to their sought-after bracelet. A number of these are planned for next year, but there were sighs of relief after the big man’s success; organisers were reportedly ‘delighted’ they were not offering any additional bounty which could have cost them a small fortune.
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by Simon Dexter Friday, May 30th, 2008
Las Vegas is famed for its virtually limitless supply of moderately-priced hotel rooms, but at this time of the year rates invariably surge as thousands of players, together with their families and sponsors, assemble for the WSOP*.
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by Simon Dexter Friday, May 9th, 2008
Even if visitors to bricks and mortar casinos find their chip stack decimated, they generally end up with a dollar or two’s worth of chips in their back pocket which, as many subsequently discover, is of little use when it comes to paying for a taxi fare. Nonetheless, frequent chip ‘collectors’ may be inclined to check whether they trousered anything by mistake when visiting the now defunct Showboat Casino, which operated in Las Vegas between 1954 and 2001.
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