Phil Ivy isn't the.................

Don Wassall

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Ivy is the only good black poker player of note, much like Tiger Woods is the only good black golfer, and as a result gets the "Tiger Woods treatment" during televised poker events. Tribesman Norman Chad in particular drools over him constantly.


With a straight face, Ivy is regularly called "charismatic." He has no personality at all, just sits there, emotionless. But the camera will zoom in on his lifeless expressions, or show him doing something as thrilling as eating an apple for 45 seconds straight. It's over the top, big surprise there.
 

JReb1

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Ivey doesn't impress me, he's WAY overrated because he's black. He's never won the WSOP and he routinely gets beat in all tournaments I've seen him in. I don't get why so MANY poker pro's go along with this obvious lie and say Ivey is the best. Phil Helmuth at least had the guts to question why so many people say Ivey is #1 when he doesn't win that much and also said he's done/is better than Ivey. PH may be a brat but it took balls to go against the Caste system, bravo!
smiley32.gif
 

DixieDestroyer

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"Texas Dolly" Doyle Brunson is the man. In addition to his poker prowess, ol' Doyle was an all-state basketball player in HS, ran a 4:43 mile (winning the 1950 Texas Interscholastic Track Meet).

All-State Texas basketball team, and practiced the one-mile run to keep in shape in the off-season. Although he was more interested in basketball than running, he entered the 1950 Texas Interscholastic Track Meet and won the one-mile event with a time of 4:43. Despite receiving offers from many colleges, he attended Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, because it was close to his home. The Minneapolis Lakers were interested in Brunson, but a injury ended his days of playing hoops.
 

white is right

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Yes Brunson is near crippled and limped with crutches and these days uses a cart to get around. I heard he got his leg crushed in an industrial accident. It's cards to say anybody is the best is being rather presumptuous. I do know the hottest run ever in the tournament's history is Chan's back to back run with a 2nd place finish for the near "threepeat". Also Stuey Unger(Jewish) has the most wins with 3. With the huge 8K fields Ivey will be lucky to win it once in his lifetime.
 

Don Wassall

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I believe a pro hasn't won the main event since "Jesus" Ferguson in 2000.
 

white is right

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No name pro won it again. A fairly big name pro came 5th this year. Here is the AP story about the mano a mano final from last night....Canadian Jonathan Duhamel, 23, Wins World Series Of Poker Title, $8.94M

2010/11/09 | Oskar Garcia, The Associated Press
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Duhamel looks up and smiles during play at the Final Table of the 2010 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. Photo credit Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images.
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Montrealer Could Become First Canadian To Win World Series Of Poker

Canadian poker professional Jonathan Duhamel won the World Series of Poker main event title and US$8.94 million on Monday night after keeping a stranglehold on his chips and pressuring his opponent.

The Montrealer took the last of Florida pro John Racener's chips in the no-limit Texas Hold 'em tournament with an ace high after 43 hands where Racener was no better than a 4-1 underdog in chips.

Duhamel, who becomes the first Canadian to win the title, pushed Racener all-in and the Floridian called with a suited king-eight of diamonds. But Duhamel had an unsuited ace-jack for the lead.

A flop of two fours and a nine helped neither player; and Racener didn't improve with a six on the turn and a five on the river.

"It's a dream come true right now," Duhamel told the crowd at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino as confetti fell from a theatre ceiling. "It's like the most beautiful day of my life."

"Come join the party," he said, flanked by some 200 friends and family who rooted him on while wearing Montreal Canadiens jerseys.

Duhamel, an online cash game player who said poker has been his primary income for about two years, had his third cash at this year's series.

But the money he won Monday night dwarfs the $43,000 he won after entering 17 earlier tournaments at the 57-event series this year.

"I love playing poker so much, so I mean I'm going to be playing all those big tournaments and try to make other big scores,"Â he said. "I'll be there next year in the World Series and try to do my best again."Â

Duhamel, who left the Universite du Quebec a Montreal during his second year studying finance, worked a series of odd jobs before playing poker full-time.

He said he played for $5 and $10 minimums before the series. Now he plans to play in the world's biggest tournaments â€" and buy Canadiens season tickets.

"I didn't expect that at all,"Â he said.

Racener won $5.55 million for second place, never finding real traction in the biggest heads-up card match of his life.

Racener said his only good hand was pocket queens and he didn't pick up anything besides that better than an ace-deuce.

"I could never get anything going," said Racener, 24, of Port Richey, Fla. "It was unfortunate and he played it well."

Duhamel came into the heads-up match with a significant chip lead and kept Racener from gaining much ground in a session that lasted just over an hour.

Duhamel had nearly 90 per cent of all the chips in play when players took a 10-minute break after 36 hands. The Boucherville, Que., native intensified the pressure after that, pushing all in on three straight hands and dropping Racener's stack to just above 16 million chips.

When Duhamel pushed again, Racener unsuccessfully tried to make a stand.

Racener doubled his chips 10 hands into the session, after Duhamel had whittled his stack early on. An 11-1 underdog in chips, Racener called Duhamel's all-in wager with pocket queens and they held against Duhamel's king-four. The hand came just after minimum bets rose and gave Racener 36.9 million chips â€" but he was back to his original stack less than 20 hands later.

Racener began the session a 6-1 underdog in chips, with just 26 big blinds in his stack at 30.75 million.

He spent most of the final table that started Saturday on the sidelines, watching as his opponents aggressively ate at each other's chip stacks. He didn't risk all his chips until he called a bluff by Filippo Candio with three queens, and doubled up twice more before watching as Duhamel withstood a high-pressure challenge from third-place finisher Joseph Cheong.

The hand brought Duhamel back where he started the final table â€" with a big chip lead.

Chips have no monetary value in the tournament, and Racener had to lose all his chips to be eliminated. The tournament started in July with 7,319 players paying $10,000 each to enter.

Edited by: white is right
 

Don Wassall

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It's becoming a young man's event, probably because it's such an endurance contest.
 

white is right

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There was a hand where the third place finisher seemed to blow up and IMO fatigue seemed to be a factor. The hand occurred at about 3am Pacific time and this was after the player had been playing for close to 12 hours less bathroom and meal breaks. That hand really determined the tournament.
 

Don Wassall

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The 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event is currently taking place, with the final table of nine players decided yesterday. The daily rag, always a big booster of the gambling industry in Vegas, has this headline across the top of Page One: "Diverse Group, One Cause: $8.71 Million."

"Diverse group" -- the final table must resemble a TV commercial then or a UN committee, right? Three Phil Ivey knockoffs, an Asian female, two White females, an hispanic, at least one obvious homosexual or "transgendered" individual, and maybe a couple of White men. Actually the final table consists of nine White men, all but two of them in their 20s. If this were a movie or tv show or advertisement of any kind, the usual suspects would be crying "racism" rather than "diversity." In this case, the "diversity" derives from six of the nine being from European countries rather than the U.S., similar to the "diversity" found in the NHL.

Interesting how the media can twist something so blatantly homogeneous into "diversity" when it suits their financial agenda.
 
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mattgianone

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I just wanted to say though I dont gamble much Poker itself is a game for degenerates. There is no skill in poker. Its a game of math and luck. Period! People love to think they can read other peoples " tells " when they are only right half the time. Gee your either right or wrong half the time. Yeah, theres a lot of skill there. I have no respect for professional poker players where they live in this fantasy world that they are actually skilled at something and most of them play in tournaments with money loaned from them by others. Diversity or not all poker players , even the few succesful ones are dillusional as most gamblers are as well.
 

Don Wassall

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There's plenty of skill to playing poker. Maybe it doesn't apply to you, but most of the time when people are complaining that a game or contest was decided solely by luck, it's because they aren't very good at it themselves.
 
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mattgianone

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I have never played Poker but as I said there is no skill in it. Its just math and luck. If you consider math a skill then yes its skilled but when it comes to reading tells that is pure fiction. I could have a bad hand and just start tapping my left hand on the table. I could have a good hand and tap my left and again. If I tap my left hand after every hand how would you know if I was bluffing or not? Maybe on a rare occasion someone always holds his breath after looking at a flop or something but its just luck. There is no skill in gambling. I guess some gamblers believe in the delsuion that they are skilled at something. Mostly not.
 

Don Wassall

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Poker is a game, not gambling per se. It can be played for free, but over the last decade it's become prominent through television as a big-time money spectacle.

I played a lot in my teen years and early 20s and did well in low-money games. Math is a factor, but the skill comes mainly in playing your own cards well. For example, it's a good strategic move to bluff on occasion, knowing that you will likely be called. You want your opponents to know that you bluff, because then they will be more likely to call when you have a really good hand you are raising on. Many poker players bluff rarely or not at all because they are too tight-fisted.

That's just one example of many that could be cited. There are professional poker players that make as much money as pro athletes in baseball, basketball, hockey and football. Is that solely because of pure luck? Not hardly.
 
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DixieDestroyer

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I used to be fair-plus at 5 card stud, draw & straight in my HS & college days. I rarely play now'a'days.
 

white is right

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Poker is a skill game but short term luck can make a marginal winner or even a marginal loser think they are better than they are. Over the long haul the better player will beat the weaker player. Also the popularity of some forms of poker have waned on the home game scene and the casino scene. All forms of stud are basically dieing because of Texas Holdem. If you ever venture into a casino in Vegas or other parts of the country 5 card stud is never played and 7 card stud is only played at the lowest levels and the highest. Also the low level stud games are generally populated by older players who remember when stud was the only game in town. At one time a near extinct game called Faro was the big game....
 

Don Wassall

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Big surprise -- the world of big-time poker is as greedy and corrupt as everything else in the United States of Greed:

Poker stars added to civil complaint against company

The government's continued crackdown on Internet poker ensnared two of the game's best-known superstars Tuesday while a federal prosecutor accused one website of being a "massive ponzi scheme," defrauding players of more than $443 million.

The U.S. Justice Department added poker professionals Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson as defendants in its civil money laundering complaint against online gaming company FullTilt Poker, saying the players and executives -- all members of the website's board of directors -- funneled money to their own accounts, rendering FullTilt insolvent.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, which filed the amended complaint, declined comment on whether the poker players could face criminal charges also. However, legal sources said the investigation is continuing. The crackdown on online poker cut off access to three of world's largest Internet gaming sites five months ago.

full article: http://www.lvrj.com/business/poker-...ivil-complaint-against-company-130210668.html
 
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