Category: Pro Poker Players

When you win a major poker event and pick up an extraordinary amount of money, you are going to feel on top of the world. It is only natural that your emotions are at a high and this may lead you to feeling invincible. You can only think that this is the only explanation for Ian Simpson, the 2013 Irish Open Champion, doing something so stupid as proposing to his girlfriend in the moments after his big win! Getting married is game over Ian, it all changes from here so perhaps it is best for him to go out on a high!

Of course we are only joking and we would like to wish Ian and his fiancée Emma all the very best for the future. Picking up €265,000 and a wife to be in one evening is certainly a memorable occasion and Monday the 1st of April is a night that Simpson will remember for all his life. In fact, he probably woke up on Tuesday morning wondering if it was all some form of elaborate April Fool’s hoax. That would be extremely cruel but unless thousands of people were also involved in the hoax, this is not the case.

Get the money and get the girl

There were 505 players gunning for the Irish Open Championship so it was quite an achievement by Simpson to win the event. It also showed a strong level of progress because in the 2012 Irish Open Championship, Simpson finished in fourth place. Being in the top 4 two years is a tremendous feat which should be celebrated in its own right but the main kudos will go towards coming out on top of the event.

There was one thing that Ian Simpson lost on Monday. Up until the final five players, Simpson was still the reigning Irish Open Paddy Power Poker Sole Survivor. This is the accolade that goes to the player that came through the Paddy Power Poker satellite qualifiers and lasted the longest in the tournament. Simpson won this title in 2012 and on day 1 of the Irish Open there were more than 150 players looking to go as far as they possibly could. One benefit of not being in the running for this prize was not having to wear the green jacket and backstage pass combination that signified these players.

It is unlikely that Simpson will lose too much sleep about not picking up that prize, not when so much else went his way on Monday night.

The snow and cold weather is still battering the UK and you would be forgiven for thinking that we were living January all over again as opposed to heading to the supposedly warmer embrace of April. It is enough to bring you down but then again, it could well be the inspiration for getting out of town and exploring what else the world has to offer.

This is often easier said than done but perhaps you could fit in with a break with a poplar poker tournament. After all, if you were able to get away from the miserable existence here and then come home with more money that you left with, the snow and cold of Britain may actually seem a bit more bearable. Even if you are unable to bag a tournament win and bring home the cash, you could well make yourself feel a whole lot better about what is going on.

Monday the 25th of March sees the WPT focus fall on the Venice Grand Prix. When it comes to play poker in glorious cities of the world, the sights and setting don’t come much better than Venice! If you ever get the opportunity to visit this wonderful Italian destination it is highly recommended but of course, the poker players that pitch up for the week ahead are hardly going there for the holiday benefits and sight-seeing.

If any UK or Irish poker player has the time to tweet about taking a gondola ride or the beauty of Venice, they have clearly been knocked out of the tournaments far too early. There will be plenty of time in the future to enjoy the majesty of Venice, for now, it is about the poker!

Great news for UK poker player

In other UK poker players, Sam Trickett has been named as one of the captains for the Caesars Cup competition that will be taking place at the World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific event in April. Sam will be captaining the European poker team as they square off against sides from America and the Asian Pacific region and a better choice of captain they would have struggled to find. After all, Trickett has won more than $13m in live tournaments over the years so he is clearly a poker player that knows what it takes to win at these major events. When you need to look towards your captain for support, this is exactly the sort of man you want in charge of your team.

The way that the event works is that two teams of five players each will be battling against each other is a variety of partner and heads up format games. A victory equals one point and as per usual, points win prizes.

There will be different poker styles like alternate action where team players pass cards back and forth between each other, a shared stack game and the singles heads up. Anything which adds a bit more excitement and drama to poker has to be a good thing and this event sounds as though it’ll be as fun to watch as it will be to play in.

The WSOP APAC starts on the 4th of April but the Main Event begins on April 11th. There will be five WSOP bracelets on offer so there is plenty to play for but a full list of attendees has not surfaced yet. However, given Kevin MacPhees Twitter fit and his desire to sell his credentials for the event, it may be safe to assume that the UK’s very own Liv Boeree will be in attendance.

Wherever you are looking to play poker this weekend, make sure that you wrap up warm!

It would be fair to say that there is a massive celebrity culture these days and there is a massive desire to know everything that is going in the lives of the rich and the famous. While there has been a level of adulation given over to big stars, the level of insight that people can get these days is scary. The media thrives on this and with Twitter; it even seems that some celebrities are keen to tell all about their life. As poker fans and players, we may be a bit more refined than that but many of us still love to hear the gossip about a big celebrity poker player.

The love life of Victoria Coren is well-known but much of this is down to the fact that she is a TV presenter and star in the UK and of course, she is married to David Mitchell, a familiar face to many. The couple who have done very well in keeping some semblance of a private life but anyone who witnessed their interaction on the recent BBC4 ‘Only Connect’ quiz for Comic Relief would know that they are a great double act.

It seems as though we know a lot more about the private lives of the female poker players and if you are a Twitter user, you will likely have learned a bit more about Liv Boeree than you did this time last week. It would be fair to say that Liv is a great looking woman but it is more important to acknowledge the fact that she is an excellent poker player and deserves all the praise and acclaim that she has rightly picked up in recent years.

Trouble occurs when famous people fall out

However, it turns out that her ex-boyfriend Kevin MacPhee was more than happy to spill the beans on their relationship now that they had split up again. Their first split took place during the summer and MacPhee pointed out that “the summer I had at the WSOP was the worst of my life” which he attributed to the fact that Liv broke up with him to hook up with US poker player Galen Hall.

This didn’t stop the couple getting back together but it seems as though MacPhee has been dumped again. This story was also told on Twitter with Liv supposedly enjoying a St Patrick’s Day break in Ireland and then coming back to dump Kevin once again. MacPhee has voiced his concerns about who Liv has been seeing which led to him being dumped but if he was expecting any sympathy from the online poker community it wasn’t quick in coming.

In fact, the general mood was one of delight that Liv appeared to be single again! MacPhee has since deleted the tweets moaning about her but he has posted a tweet asking of anyone wants to buy a WSOP-APAC package that he won from 888 Poker. Perhaps he feels giving Liv a wide berth for now is for the best.

Women have to stick together these days, especially when they are taking part in a male dominated environment. There are still plenty of men that stick to an old school belief that women have no business playing poker in the major tournaments but thankfully these opinions are dying down. They are still around but the outspoken and outdated opinions are becoming quieter as the weeks, months and years pass. The only thing that a poker player should be judged on is their talent but that is not quite the world we live in!

Anyway, it is always good to see a new female face in amongst the traditional faces and the established female poker players who know what the industry is like can usually be relied upon to keep an eye out for the new poker players. In the case of Victoria Coren, this will come easy to her because she comes across as being an absolutely delightful woman. Sure she takes no prisoners at the poker table but in her many TV performances, she comes as charming, witty and very intelligent, which you wouldn’t think if half of her poker opponents were dumped on mainstream television.

Beaten by the poker flush

Unsurprisingly, Victoria Coren was front and centre in the PokerStars London event and this turned out to be a great blessing for Leo Margets, the Spanish poker star. Leo is the newest recruit to the PokerStars team and she has found herself in front of the watching media and banks of TV cameras a lot in the past few days. She has handled all of this tremendously well but it seems as though she didn’t manage to handle the toilets in the Vic so well. Leo managed to get herself stuck in one of the toilets but thankfully Victoria Coren was able to come to her rescue and set her free.

It was good that Victoria was able to lend a poker hand to her team-mate and it may have been one of the most uncomfortable times that Leo has had a problem with a flush at a poker event! It just goes to show that even the brightest stars can have the most mundane problems at times but Leo managed to bounce back well and didn’t let the embarrassment affect her performance or impact at the poker table. The Main Event at the EPT London event is still on-going and the players are still taking part at their own convenience!

Rankings and career wins are statistics that are obviously important but sometimes they don’t get the praise and credit they deserve. For some people, the major tournaments are the be all and end all with nothing else mattering. Ideally, you would be looking to show your strength and power in all of these different aspects but that doesn’t mean to say that tournament rankings should be ignored or dismissed out of hand. The rankings for the UK and Ireland online tournament positions will definitely be something that are worth celebrating in the Moorman household.

This is because Chris Moorman, who goes by the title of Moorman1 is sitting at the top of the pile. His lead may be a mere 14.2 points over nearest challenger Rick Trigg, also known as “TheClaimer” but there have been a lot of great things happening for Moorman of late.

Closing in on 200 poker wins

Recent online victories have helped to push Moorman over the $9m level, which is supposedly something which has never been achieved before with online poker. Moorman recently ranked the 198th win of his career, which is a stunning achievement and it goes to show that rankings are based in real life and what a poker player actually achieves. There may be sometimes when you wonder how it all panned out but in this case, you can hardly find fault in what has been achieved by Chris Moorman.

There are a lot of other on fire players in the top rankings though so Moorman will need to be at the top of his game if he is looking to maintain his position. Rick Trigg has been clocking up a number of successful wins of late while the players in third and fourth, Christopher “NigDawG” Brammer and Sebastian “Seba29072” Saffari have also been showing they have the skills to pay the bills when it comes to poker.

While the poker community in the United Kingdom, both online and across the country in various tournaments and events, is a thriving one, it is fair to say that it brings people from all walks of life. Much like any group of people, there will be folk that you get on with in the group and there will be people that you are not too fond of. Whether this is down to personal taste and preferences or just taking a dislike to someone, it is fair to say that not all of the poker community is as harmonious as you would possibly like to think.

However, you can guarantee that the UK poker community will be shocked to hear the revelations that have surfaced from America about a well-known face and name from the UK poker circuit. Marcus Bebb-Jones was a familiar player to many in the Midlands poker circuit after he scooped thousands of pounds playing poker in the region.

Bebb-Jones and his then wife Sabrina ran a hotel in Colorado before Sabrina disappeared in September of 1997. Bebb-Jones would return to the UK and he was in his home country when the skull of his wife was found in Colorado in 2004. Bebb-Jones was arrested in 2009 while he was in Kidderminster and he was extradited back to the United States in 2011.

Bebb-Jones was due to stand trial for murder, which he initially pled not guilty to but he has now since struck a deal with the US prosecution team. Bebb-Jones has now admitted to killing his wife back in 1997 and then dumping her body in the national park of Colorado. Sentencing of Bebb-Jones will take place on the 1st of May and he is expected to receive a jail sentence of around 10 to 20 years.

Anyone looking to keep up to date with the current status of the poker community would be advised to stay in contact with the Global Poker Index (GPI). This is believed to be one of the most accurate ways to rank poker players and there is a special weighting towards recent tournaments and events.

According to the stats, and whether you want to believe them, sees Roberto Romanello still being listed as the top UK poker player. In more exciting terms, not only does this mean that Romanello can look down on all of the other poker players in the United Kingdom, it sees him listed as the 17th highest ranked poker player in the world. When you think about how many poker players there are in the world, this is a high accolade indeed!

In his time, Romanello has achieved some good success in the poker scene. He has won the European Poker Tour in Prague and the World Poker Tour in Bratislava so he knows all about being a poker winner.

UK riding high in the poker charts

With 12 US poker players above Romanello in the list, it is no shock to see the United States riding high on the list of poker players. Of the top 300 ranked poker players in the world, 141 come from the United States. When you consider the difficulties in playing online poker in the US, it is probably no surprise to see so many US poker players looking to play in the main events.

The United Kingdom were listed fourth with respect to the number of players listed in the top 300. The US top the bill and then France and Canada come next but with 18 poker players, the United Kingdom is well placed in the upper echelons of poker players.

As jaded online gamblers set their sights on those who have done them wrong, Erick Lindgren finds himself in the crosshairs. Multiple players and backers are slamming Lindgren, calling him a “degenerate… who never pays his debts”. The idea that someone else is holding onto money that rightfully belongs to another player has raised hackles the world over, ever since the Full Tilt scandal first hit the fan many months ago. Since that time, players and even the Group Bernard Tapie have been slinging accusations left and right, looking for an outlet for their rage, a likely scapegoat, or both.

Lindgren’s association with Full Tilt isn’t helping him clear his name. It seems that more often than not, players are willing to believe the worst about not only Lindgren, but the other players associated with the site as well. The root of the problem seems to be not that Lindgren has some problem paying off his debts in a timely manner (this has allegedly always been a problem with him), but rather that his steady source of income has dried up, and a player who once had $250,000 of income every month to balance out his losses now seems only to accumulate more debts.

According to posts over at 2+2 (you can read either the short version or the much more cumbersome long version), Lindgren has defaulted on several personal loans and debts accrued whlie placing bets on fantasy leagues, golf bets, and countless poker games. These debts range from as little as $2,800 on a fantasy league bet to well over $50,000. Those who have dealt with Lindgren and his debts in the past say that he never pays right away– it usually takes 5-6 months of aggressive pursuit before the poker star pays, but that things may be different now that Lindgren’s income source has dried up and he’s claiming to be flat broke. This, of course, begs three questions:

Why does anyone make bets with Lindgren, given his long-standing bad reputation?

Two main reasons: Lindgren is known as easy money in Fantasy Leagues, which means that players will risk having to wait indefinitely because they know that playing with him means free money in their pockets. Also, he’s historically paid off all his debts– eventually. The problem now is that people are starting to wait a little more than usual, and the Full Tilt scandal has rocked the foundation of trust in the poker community.

Why are we just hearing about this now?

Lindgren is in the news because of his associations with Full Tilt– that automatically makes him persona non grata in a community full of players who were burned by FTP and other poker sites after Black Friday. Unpaid debts speak to a much bigger point of contention– it’s not even about Lindgren or the other players, really, but about people who don’t have as much money being royally pissed off at people who do, especially when they’re not responsible with it.

If Lindgren is broke, how is he still playing in the LAPC and other poker tournaments?

That’s easy. Either he’s actually not broke and is lying to avoid playing his debts, or he has backers who are funding him with more loans until he hits a big pot and can start paying off debts Either way, it’s not a good situation for those who are owed money.

In addition to giving details on debts and repayment specific to Lindgren, the 2+2 forums also give a lot of insight into the present mindset of the poker community where debts (and professional players in general) are concerned. Players understand that Lindgren is just a symptom of a larger problem affecting the poker community. There’s a rallying cry that professional gamblers of any kind shouldn’t be trusted, given the incredibly unstable income and a history of volatile relationships with money that come about from rapidly toggling between having a great deal of it and then having next to nothing. As frustration with professional players grows, poker’s reputation and place worldwide grows a little more dicey– perhaps we haven’t yet seen the end of the tremendous Black Friday backlash after all.

Doyle Brunson has taken Daniel Negreanu to task for the Canadian player’s public tirade against Full Tilt Poker and its associated players, Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson. Negreanu made waves with his anger and wishes for violence against his repeated declarations of hostility. While Brunson doesn’t mention Negreanu by name in his blog at doylebrunson.com, he does make reference to some of Negreanu’s past comments (like his desire to hit certain FTP people in the groin with a baseball bat). Brunson said, “I don’t want to take a baseball bat and crush their grapes and I don’t want to keep them from rejoining the poker world. Where do you stop the level of responsibility? I don’t know, I only know all of the FT people were my friends and they still are.”

He blames Ray Bitar (but who doesn’t, at this point?), saying, “Ray Bitar for sure knew about the cover up and has to answer for his actions. You can believe or disbelieve the fact that Chris Ferguson and Howard Lederer knew about the problems. I know the majority of the poker world wants blood and believe they did know. I believe time will tell us the answer to that.” He also stated that he didn’t see any reason why Lederer or Ferguson should have been suspicious, because “if you were a stockholder, would you question the management of a company that was sending you hundreds of thousands of dollars each month? I doubt you would, I know I wouldn’t, I’d think life is good!”

Brunson’s statement has caused quite a bit of stir in the poker community, where players seem to have broken into two camps: the first says, “Come on, how could the players NOT have known what was going on with Full Tilt?” and the other says, “Maybe there’s a chance that the players didn’t know what was going on.” The poker community hasn’t seen a clearer line drawn between cynics and idealists in a long time. But really, what’s the truth about what happened? Negreanu cries fowl while Brunson says that it was all a misunderstanding– but when this misunderstanding cost a lot of players a lot of money, and they lose more and more hope of seeing those funds ever returned to them, it’s easy to see why so many people are not only anti-Full Tilt, but avidly anti- the players formerly associated with the sinking company.

It’s true, as it’s been said on various poker forums, that sometimes the details can just fly right on by when you’re delegating responsibility to someone else and trusting them completely. It’s also mostly true that Lederer, Ferguson, and the rest are poker players and not businessmen (although when you start to market yourself as a brand, there’s a certain amount of business-mindedness going on there). Yet other players have agreed with Brunson that no one would intentionally run a company into the ground (history tells us that this isn’t true at all when the people involved stand to gain loads of money in the process), and that the players probably just didn’t question the ridiculous sums of money that they were being given. If you started getting hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, you wouldn’t be even a little curious about the details? Really? Even if the only crime of which the FTP-associated players are guilty is gross negligence and a heavy dose of ignorance, doesn’t that still make them accountable?

We may never know exactly what went on behind closed doors at Full Tilt. It’s been almost a year since Black Friday, and we’re no closer now to answers than we were then. One thing is for certain, however– everyone has his or her own opinion about the matter, and the heated public discussions are just getting started.

No small number of fierce competitors were up for the 2012 Player of the Year title at the European Poker Awards– in fact, the competition has been deadly all around, with names of major players appearing in every category. Even though very few of the players could actually attend the EPAs this year because they were playing in the Aussie Millions (while the Paris location of the EPAs at the Aviation Club de France was convenient for any players hanging out in Europe between European Poker Tour events, it was a bit out of the way for those in Melbourne, playing in the largest tournament happening at the time), awards were still given out, usually to proxies who had been sent to the awards in the stead of their friends and fellow players.

Individual Poker Player Awards

Player of the Year: Sam Trickett

Sam Trickett took the Player of the Year title, snatching it away from fellow nominees Pius Heinz, Eugene Katchalov, Andrey Pateychuk, Jake Cody, and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier– all of whom one could argue are the best players of the last year. Trickett is an English specialist in high-stakes games (which explains why he was in Australia for the tourney there and had to send PokerStrategy blogger Barry Carter to pick up his award there), and his massive wins in last year’s Aussie Millions (first place in the 100,000 No Limit Hold’em, which brought a little over $1.5 million, and second in the 250,000 Super High Roller No Limit Hold’em, which added another $1.4 million to his bankroll) and the Partouche Poker Tour Main Event in Cannes (first place again for another $1.36 million) made him this year’s winner.

Best Tournament Performance: Pius Heinz

It would be a crime to send Pius Heinz away empty-handed after his WSOP Main Event win (after all, he took home $8.72 million dollars there). This German’s performance in the largest poker event of the year earned him the Best Tournament Performance title.

Rookie of the Year: Andrey Pateychuk

Pateychuk may not have taken Player of the Year, but he claimed the well-deserved Rookie of the Year title. With a strong and impressive run in the World Series of Poker Main Event, along with first place wins in the EPT San Remo and WPT Prague events (and a sixth place finish in the EPT Prague re-entry), saying that Pateychuk has had a good year is a massive understatement. It’s truly hard to believe that Pateychuk appeared on the poker scene only a year and a half ago, and it will be interesting to see where he goes from here.

Europe’s Leading Lady: Natalia Nikitina

Russia’s Natalia Nikitina beat out fellow nominees Liv Boeree and Victoria Coren of England, Nesrine Kourdourli and Barbara Martinez of France, and Cecilia Pescaglini of Italy. Pescaglini finished second in the World Poker Tour event in Malta in September, while Martinez took the WSOP Europe Ladies’ event in Cannes.

Internet Player of the Year: Ilari ‘Ilari FIN’ Sahamies

Ilari Sahamies took the Internet Player of the Year title away from Ireland’s Jude Ainsworth, Viktor Blom of Sweden, France’s Rui Cao, and England’s Chris Moorman.

Lifetime Achievement: Jesse May

American Jesse May was also up for the Poker Personality award, a title that fits him perfectly, because Jesse May has personality and he has it in spades. He’s been one of the fundamental voices of poker, appearing on television and tournaments as a commentator as well has having a past poker career. He’s frequently called “The Voice of Poker,” and this year, he is honored with the Lifetime Achievement award for his contributions to the game.

Rob Gardner Memorial Award for the Poker Personality of the Year: Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier

France’s Grospellier beat out two very vocal poker celebrities– Jessie May and Tony G– for the Poker Personality of the Year award. While the category was full of solid nominees, it seems almost like the EPAs were giving Grospellier a consolation prize for his loss in the Lifetime Achievement category, because while Grospellier is a poker icon, he’s not really known for his personality– at least not to the extent of several of the other nominees.

Winners were announced in two other EPA categories this year:

• Best European Event of the Year: WSOP Europe Cannes
• Poker Staff Person of the Year: Warren Lush (international public relations department at bwin.party)