Dreams of ‘Vegas’ in the Czech Republic
If you talk to anyone involved with organising a major poker festival — the likes of Hilda Bramley or James White of the European Poker Tour (EPT), for example — they’ll tell you that the actual poker...
View ArticleThe Rising Price Of Grassroots Poker
Ten years ago this summer, life got a little bit tougher for Chris Moneymaker. Until he went to Las Vegas in June 2003, he was just an ordinary dude with an awesome name. But ever since then, no one...
View ArticleIs There Such a Thing As Too Much Skill in Poker?
One of the age-old truisms of tournament poker is that anyone can win. If you give a donkey enough good cards, he can beat the best of them. Although nothing has changed about this central claim as...
View ArticleThe Million Euro Gamble
The EPT Grand Final had enough going on during its ten days to fill columns lasting from now until the end of the year. And although it will probably be politic to move on at some point, that time is...
View ArticleAll the way to Monaco and no main event? Makes sense
I overheard an interesting snippet of conversation last month at the EPT Grand Final in Monaco. One of the top American pros was leaving the Salle des Etoiles, where the tournament is held, having...
View ArticlePoker Heads East
For some very obvious reasons, the eyes of the poker world have been on Las Vegas for the past few weeks, where the 44th renewal of the World Series of Poker is drawing its customary buoyant fields....
View ArticleIgnore the critics: Cling on to the November Nine
We’ve entered a very specific couple of months in the modern poker calendar: the time when we all get together to complain about the November Nine concept at the World Series. It really is the most...
View ArticleKnow When To Walk Away, Know When To Run
Several years ago, I went to a memorial service in New York for the film director Robert Altman, where many of his friends and colleagues talked with fondness about the man and his career. An actor at...
View ArticleHappy talking? Speak for yourself
There has been a lot of talk in poker recently about manners at the table, particularly the importance of showing respect to new players and not deriding those who perhaps do not belong to an...
View ArticleFor the record: the importance of keeping score
I spent a few days over the past couple of weeks staring at a spreadsheet full of numbers. After my eyeballs stopped spinning and I untangled the wires of my abacus, some of my work produced the...
View ArticleLet the players play and the directors direct
There is nowhere quite like the world of poker for making mountains out of molehills, but the recent furore over the first card off the deck rule has been extreme even by established standards. The...
View ArticleWhy wait? Let’s make the Hall of Fame relevant again
It is Hall of Fame voting time again, and a select few poker watchers are presently being canvassed to decide whose portrait they wish to see hanged on the walls of World Series of Poker towers, beside...
View ArticleWhy a bracelet is still a bracelet
The World Series of Poker Europe is still, at time of writing, under way in a place called Enghien-les-Bains near Paris. Despite most of the pre-publicity stating that the tournament would be held in...
View ArticleAnother Missed Chance at the Poker Hall of Fame
Over the past couple of columns, I’ve been looking at two subjects: the Poker Hall of Fame and the American-centric obsession of the World Series. And now, with near-perfect synchronicity, the two come...
View ArticleSpoiler Warning: This column is about spoilers
And so poker has a new world champion. Last Wednesday morning in the Penn and Teller Theater at the Rio All Suites Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, a man named… wait. Are you actually sure you want to know...
View ArticleTis the season to be voting
I voted this week in the Bluff Reader’s Choice award, an annual poll that seeks to find the poker-watching public’s favourite players, moments, card-rooms and the like over the preceding 12...
View ArticleAnother Bric in poker’s wall
Talk to anyone involved with global marketing strategies, in any industry, and, provided you have matchsticks strong enough to prop open your eyelids, you’ll likely hear reference to the so-called...
View ArticlePlay the Dominik Panka Guessing Game
The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) is done for another year and, as is typical, there were sufficient plots and sub-plots running throughout the festival to fuel news, strategy and gossip...
View ArticleTaking refreshment in the Caribbean
I guess you can tell the significance of a story by how much coverage it gets. In which case, the yarn about Roger Teska boozing his way through the PCA must be more important than most. On the day my...
View ArticleHachem continues to tend the grave of Ambassadorial Age
It won’t have escaped many poker fans’ notice recently that Joe Hachem, the former World Champion, has declared the game to be dead. Curiously, he did this during a video interview from the Aussie...
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