Category Archives: Poker

Over the past few months, casino gaming has looked quite different depending on where you are in the United States. Some casinos are fully open for business at a smaller capacity while others are closed. When it comes to poker gaming, you may or may not have access to tables. In many states, poker has been lacking due to the high number of positive coronavirus cases. As people continue to test positive, the casinos have been unable to offer services that have a higher rate of social interaction. In Detroit, an announcement was just made that poker is coming back, with the MGM Grand the first to begin offering services again.

On Wednesday, the MGM Grand Detroit provided an email update to players, letting them know the poker room will be back in action this Friday. There will be capacity restrictions of course, due to the ongoing issues surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. The opening announcement comes just after the Michigan Gaming Control Board announced that the casinos could start offering this service once again.

In the email, poker operations manager Keith Frankel commented that it was his pleasure to announce the reopening of the poker room. As the venue reopens, the health and safety of guests and employees will be at the forefront of operations.

The poker room will offer five tables and each will be spaced out from the other. Only eight players can be seated at a table at one time. This is one less than the usual nine-handed tables. Each player will be separated from the others via dividers.

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The venue will be open 24-7 but will not offer food and beverage service. Right now in the state, regulations do not allow beverages or food to be consumed indoors. Players will have to wear masks at all times while in the poker room.

The staff members of the space will sanitize the plexiglass dividers of the tables often. The cards and chips will also be cleaned regularly. There will not be any tournaments on offer but the poker room will provide plenty of cash game action. There is also the bad beat jackpot which is at over $100,000 currently.

Detroit is home to three casinos: the MGM Grand, MotorCity, and Greektown. It is unclear as to when the remaining two casinos will start offering poker services again. In reports, the Greektown has said that it will open in a few weeks. Any attempts by news outlets to reach the MotorCity Casino have not been responded to.

Players will have to wait sometime still before all three casinos will be providing poker gaming. Hopefully, it wont be too long, but in the meantime, at least the MGM Grand will be in operation.

Online poker gaming should launch in the state sometime soon as well, which will give players an even more convenient way to play the game. It is expected that the online gambling industry will start in the state within the next few months, if not weeks.

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Poker Coming Back to Detroit This Week - USGamblingSites.com

A Cloyne woman who recently went back to the home of a neighbour she had attacked with a poker over two years ago banging at his door and shouting at him - was jailed yesterday.

Judge Sen Donnabhin imposed a 12-month sentence on Sheila OKeeffe with half of it suspended at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

Peter OFlynn, defence barrister, said the accused had spent the last two days in custody her first time in jail and she found it very difficult.

Garda Kieran Cotter said Sheila and Jason OKeeffe had been directed to stay away from the assaulted neighbour.

However, Sheila OKeeffe breached the order by turning up outside the victims door on Christmas week, banging at his door and shouting at him.

Mr OFlynn BL said she since moved out of Cloyne and went living in Watergrasshill. Her husband, Jason OKeeffe, from whom she recently broke up, left Cloyne to live in Rostellan, Midleton, barrister William Bulman said.

Judge Donnabhin imposed a fully suspended 12-month sentence on Jason OKeeffe.

Both parties previously pleaded guilty to assault causing harm when they were living at Spittal Street, Cloyne, County Cork.

They admitted assault causing harm to Henry OCallaghan.

Previously, Garda Kieran Cotter said the injured party told garda that he went out to his front door and that Jason OKeeffe punched him in the face, knocking him back onto his sofa. He continued the assault when the injured party was on the sofa, the guard said.

Garda Cotter said Sheila OKeeffe picked up Mr OCallaghans poker and struck him with it. The victim lost four teeth and sustained other injuries during the assaults.

During various adjournments of sentencing the defendants gathered various sums of compensation between them for the injured party. With the 500 brought to court by Jason OKeeffe yesterday, this came to a total of 4,200.

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Jail for woman who attacked neighbour with poker in Cork town - EchoLive.ie

The vision of an online poker site by Phil Galfond will turn two years old in 2021, and Run It Once Poker has released plenty of new features in the past twelve months. Furthermore, RIO has ramped up its promotions throughout the year and has seen a growth in the overall traffic.

We will take a look back at some of the more notable advancements for RIO in 2020, and then speculate on what we might see released this year.

A slate of generous promotions as part of the one-year anniversary brought the cash game traffic to levels not seen since the launch. At the same time, RIO founder Phil Galfond announced a Pot-Limit Omaha high stakes cash game challenge against VeniVidi1993.

Galfond was down by more than 900k but launched one of the greatest comebacks to come out on top in April 2020. The RIO founder subsequently accepted two further high stakes duels against Bill Perkins and Chance Kornuth.

In February 2020, Kevin Rabichow was announced as the first RIO ambassador. While no further ambassadors were revealed since, RIO continued the streamR program to reward players who stream their efforts on the site with additional rakeback of up to 100%.

Sign up to Run It Once today and enjoy up to 600 in deposit bonuses!

Mid-way through the year in June 2020, RIO announced the launch of additional weekly promotions to reward their active cash game players. The first two leadRboards gave away 25,000 in cash game prizes split over seven separate leaderboards.

It came as no surprise that the seven-day average of concurrent cash game players more than doubled and peaked at 187 on June 15. That very day, Phil Galfond confirmed on Twitter that the site hit a new record for total hands played in a day.

In August, the RIO client received several new features. The most interesting addition was the launch of the built-in HUD HeroIQ. Three major indicators for all players at the table are revealed including the VPIP (frequency of how often some one enters a pot), the PFR (preflop raise percentage); and how often they re-raise (3-bet).

The different player types were classified in the HUD and connected to the already existing dynamic avatars.

As far as visual improvements in the client are concerned, new features such as advanced window tiling, more table chat options and an all-in equity display were added.

RIO teased the implementation of an upcoming SNG format in October and once the testing was completed, the three-handed SNG Select came to life in the real money client early in November. Split into two options, it offers the Classic format with fixed payouts. In addition, an innovative lottery-style format dubbed Cub3d which also shares the liquidity of the entire SNG pool and provides several twists was introduced.

The Cub3d prize pool is randomized during the seating process and the first place prize is locked. Once the tournament is completed, the reward is only revealed to the winner. The top prize can be anything from two times the buy-in up to 1,500 times the buy-in, random glitch prizes to the runner-up or third-place finisher are also possible.

To celebrate the launch of SNG Select, RIO held a special 100k Cub3 Drop on November 12. A total of 100,000 in SNG tickets with bundles worth between 1 and 100 were awarded to all existing player accounts. All granted tickets were valid for seven days and new depositing players were also rewarded with 50 in SNG tickets thanks to the SNG Select Welcome Offer until the end of November.

Sign up to Run It Once today and enjoy up to 600 in deposit bonuses!

RIO was among the operators to temporarily suspend players from Germany due to the regulatory developments as of October 15. However, German customers were notified by email on December 2 of the expected reopening which then took effect mid-way through the month.

All verified German accounts prior to the reopening were awarded a welcome back gift of free SNG Select ticket bundles and new depositing German players until the end of December were awarded 50 in tickets on top.

Leading up to the most-festive days of the year, RIO ran the 12 Days of Christmas promotion from December 14 to December 25. Each day a new reward was granted and an additional raffle awarded 5,000 in prizes.

The various daily rewards included:

With the implementation of the SNG Select and the unique Cub3d jackpot variant, RIO has taken another step forward to create more traffic. Once the liquidity allows, the SNG format may very well get expanded further than just three players on each table. SNG tickets have been launched already, and that functionality could be easily replicated for use with cash games and potentially MTTs.

The next logical step for RIO would be the launch of multi-table tournaments, which is certainly in the pipeline already. Site founder Phil Galfond described the plans as distinct and innovative in his featured blog posts on the RIO website.

Whether or not any further mixed games such as Short Deck or draw games are considered remain to be seen. Galfond is a mixed game aficionado, but thus far, RIO only offers Holdem and Omaha in their real money client.

As far as an expansion of promotions, an increase of the value on a weekly or monthly basis is always an option. RIO was very generous in late 2020 by giving away additional value during their celebration of the SNG Select launch as well as the 12 Days of Christmas promotion. A prime spot for a big promotion would certainly seem to be the second anniversary of the launch on February 6.

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Run It Once Poker in 2020: Innovation, Promotions and Growth - Pokerfuse

Home Poker News WPT and WPTDeepStacks Start 2021 with Live Poker Plans

The World Poker Tour has had enough of this pandemic. The live tour has been almost completely on ice since the mandated shutdown of casinos around the world and travel and gathering prohibitions in March 2020.

Some casinos have been cautiously reopening recently, with poker rooms as the last to make the leap back into live games. Casinos like the Venetian in Las Vegas have been offering live poker since the summer and tournaments for several months. Some states issued mandates that kept casinos and poker rooms closed or too limited to offer poker, while other states (looking at you, Florida) took an anything-goes attitude months ago.

The Mid-States Poker Tour relaunched its 2020 tour in Iowa in August and then hosted two Main Event tournaments at the Venetian in Las Vegas in November.

While there is another surge of coronavirus cases raging across the United States, poker players want to play. The World Poker Tour is going to try to accommodate, starting later this month at the Venetian.

A few months ago, the World Poker dipped its toes into the international waters by hosting a WPT Japan tournament in August. Japan hadnt been hit by Covid-19 nearly as hard as many other countries. No top WPT executives traveled to the event, but they got the job done.

At the beginning of December, WPTDeepStacks hosted the WPTDS Johannesburg at the Emperors Palace Hotel Casino in South Africa. The festival of tournaments actually began on November 26, but the WPTDS Main Event ran from December 2-6. The results:

Event buy-in: R$15,000 (approximately US$1K)

Total entries: 260

Total prize pool: R$3,432,000 (approximately US$229,572)

Winner: Roy Bitton for R$808,000 (approximately US$54K)

WPTDeepStacks then went to Taiwan to host a festival at the Chinese Texas Holdem Poker Association (CTP) in Taipei City. The event was supposed to take place earlier in 2020 butwellpandemic.

The festival began on December 11 and culminated in a WPTDS Taiwan Main Event from December 15-21. Players could satellite in via Natural8, but there were also three starting days at the venue. Players were excited to get to the tables there, as shown in the results:

Event buy-in: TW$15,000 (approximately US$532)

Total entries: 526

Total prize pool: TW$6,888,000 (approximately US$244,386)

Winner: Huang Chyan Pu for TW$1,317,800 (approximately US$47K)

Meanwhile, the World Poker Tour hit the online tables in New Jersey with an event that served as a part of the Main Tour, complete with an official WPT Champions Club membership, Hublot watch, and name etched on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup. It was the WPT Online Poker Open, similar to the event held at the Borgata in Atlantic City in pre-pandemic times.

The Main Event ran from December 27-29 and offered a $1M guarantee. The results left the guarantee in the dust and produced a new WPT champion.

Event buy-in: $3,500

Total entries: 395

Total prize pool: $1,264,000

Winner: Soheb Porbanderwala for $239,820

On December 30, the World Poker Tour announced its return to the live tournament arena in the United States. The Main Tour will host a Season XVIII event WPT Venetian in March at the Venetian on the Las Vegas Strip. That will be a $5K buy-in with a $1.5M guarantee.

Prior to that, though, WPTDeepStacks will head to the Venetian even earlier. The WPTDS Venetian will offer a $1,600 buy-in event with a $500K guarantee. Play will start on January 29 and run through February 1. There will be a festival along with it, boasting of more than $500K in guarantees for the side events.

The choice to begin its foray back into the live tournament space was a tough one for the World Poker Tour. One of the major factors that contributed to the decision to bring the action to the Venetian was the casinos Venetian Clean Commitment. The entire resort implemented more than 800 initiatives pertaining to safety for patrons and staff. Some of those implemented in the poker room include:

Players must sanitize their hands before sitting down at any poker table.

The casino sanitizes chips, cards, shufflers, and plexiglass dividers regularly in the poker room.

Everyone in the entire resort must wear a face mask at all times.

Venetian Poker Room Tournament Director Tommy LaRosa expressed excitement for the WPT to return. He said that they have been working hard to deliver a familiar poker experience but in a Venetian Clean way.

WPT VP of Global Tour Management Angelica Hael echoed the excitement. We look forward to a great event in a safe playing environment thanks to the hard work from the Venetian team.

The World Poker Tour has more on the schedule.

As for the WPT Main Tour, it just revealed today that it is preparing for the WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open at the Seminole Hard Rock in Florida. That one will actually start its festival in little more than a week, on Thursday, January 14, though the Main Event wont begin until January 22.

The next event is actually the WPT Montreal, which is scheduled to take place online at PartyPoker for players outside of the United States. As for the live events, lets look at the schedule as it standswith poker players crossing their fingers:

WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open

Location: Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida

-Festival: January 14-26

-Main Event: $3,500 buy-in January 22-26 ($1M GTD, two starting flights)

WPTDeepStacks Venetian

-Location: Venetian Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada

-Festival: January 18-February 1

-Main Event: $1,600 buy-in January 29-February 1 ($500K GTD, two starting flights)

WPT Russia

-Location: Casino Sochi in Sochi, Russia

-Festival: February 19-28

-Main Event: February 24-28, buy-in to be determined

WPT Venetian

-Location: Venetian Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada

-Festival: details to be determined

-Main Event: $5K buy-in March 5-9 ($1.5M GTD, two starting flights)

WPTDeepStacks European Championship

-Location: Casino Barriere de Deauville in Deauville, France

-Festival: April 24-May 2

*All provisional, details to be determined and finalized

WPTDeepStacks Gold Coast

-Location: The Star Gold Coast in Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia

-Festival: April 23-May 3

-Main Event: $1,500 buy-in April 29-May 3 (details to be determined)

About Jennifer Newell

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WPT Readies for Live Poker in Las Vegas and Florida - LegalUSPokerSites.com

2020 was a career year for UK online crusher Conor 1_conor_b_1 Beresford who not only spent more than half the year as the #1-ranked player in the world but also earned more than enough PocketFives PLB points to run away as the 2020 Online Poker Player of the Year.

For years, Beresford had been considered one of the toughest online poker tournament players in the world, but in 2020 he cemented himself as one of the very best. He hit new heights by earning six six-figure scores, four of which are currently a part of his top-5 results. He also padded his poker resume with victories in high roller events as well as his first PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker title.

Beresfords year got off to a quick start when on January 30 he finished as the runner-up in the GGPoker $2,020 2020 Series Championship for what was easily a new career-high cash of $611,134. Although he settled for second in that spot, Beresford spent the rest of the year finding ways to take home the win in the face of huge paydays at major final tables.

For Beresford, those final tables often came with a title attached. He started his 2020 collection in March when he took down the partypoker POWERFEST Event #8 for $70,588. It was then that the online poker industry ramped up its offerings in light of the COVID-19 pandemic which meant more opportunities for players like Beresford.

On March 22, he picked up a win in the PokerStars High Rollers Week Kickoff Event ($5,200 NLHE) for $180,438. That fed right into back-to-back six-figure scores, the first of which took place during High Rollers 32 ($5,200 8-Max Main Event) for $378,205. That was closely followed by another huge win in High Rollers 39 ($10,300 NLHE) where Beresford defeated fellow UK pro Michael mczhang Ch Zhang heads up for $239,652. All three of those PokerStars High Rollers victories were good enough to enter Beresfords top-5 career results.

The highlights continued in April as Beresford walked away with the win in the GGPoker GSS #162-HR for $74,066. Then again in May when he picked up a PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker title with a win in Event 32-H ($530 NLHE) for $85,959.

It was only fitting that in the middle of his 29-week long run as the #1-ranked player in the world, Beresford took down his first PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker title for $162,674.

By the end of the year, Beresfords lifetime career cashes soared over $14.7 million in earnings and he accumulated 29,804 PLB points, more than 4,000 ahead of Brazils Brunno bbotteon Botteon who ended the year with 25,730 points.

Botteon had a well-documented incredible year in his own right highlighted by a second-place finish in the international leg of the World Series of Poker 2020 Main Event for a career-high score of $1,062,723. He also finished as the runner-up in the WSOP $25,000 Heads Up NLHE event on GGPoker for $622,300 as well as making an appearance at the final table of the WSOP $25,000 NLHE Poker Players Championship where he finished in sixth place for another $388,837.

In total, Botteon, who is currently the #1-ranked player in the world, earned 14 of his top 15 scores in 2020, seven of which were good for six-figures or more.

The current #2-ranked player, Ivan zufo16 Zufic also made a run at the Online Player of the Year title by accumulating 23,773 points. The largest score of his year came in August when he earned a WSOP gold bracelet in Event #63 ($500 Mini Main Event) and collected a career-high cash of $843,460.

After winning the PocketFives Yearly PLB title in both 2018* and 2019, Lena900 finished fourth in the 2020 race with 22,918 points. Lena900 started the year off as the #1-ranked player and held on to it for the better part of five months until Beresford assumed the top spot. Despite everything hes accomplished in his career, all of his titles, the online great managed to add even more last year. His yearly highlights included a win in the PokerStars Stadium Series for $230,435 which was the third-highest cash of his career plus two WCOOP titles.

In total, Lena900 has extended his lead on the Online All-Time Money List to more than $21.5 million.

Former #1-ranked Yuri Yuri Martins Dzivielevski finished in fifth place with 20,411 points on the back of his second career WSOP bracelet and three World Championship of Online Poker titles which included one in Event #48-H ($5,200, 8-Max PKO) for a total of $245,000.

* In previous years, players were awarded the title of PocketFives Yearly PLB winner. This title has been changed to PocketFives Online Player of the Year.

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Conor Beresford Wins 2020 Online Poker Player of the Year - PocketFives

Its taken over a decade, but Huck Seed is finally a member of the Poker Hall of Fame.

Just a few weeks ago, when the list if potential inductees was released, we ourselves favoured the induction of Las Vegas poker superstar, Main Event champion and prop bet legend Huckleberry Seed. Despite that, it didnt seem likely to happen. Others threw their weight behind the considerable talents of Lon McEachern and Norman Chad, for example. Plenty of other big names were up for nominations, too, such as Antonio Esfandiari and Mike Matusow. Sure, Chris Ferguson looked like an empty slot, but many other had high hopes.

In the end, however, Huck Seed made it into the Poker Hall of Fame during this strangest of years with an overwhelming voting advantage. Heres how the final vote stood, as confirmed by the World Series of Pokers announcement of Seeds induction.

Huck Seed (winner) 76 votes

Matt Savage 51 Votes

Isai Scheinberg 45 Votes

Eli Elezra 30 Votes

Antonio Esfandiari 23 Votes

Lon McEachern and Norman Chad 20 Votes

Ted Forrest 20 Votes

Mike Matusow 17 Votes

Patrik Antonius 15 Votes

Chris Ferguson 3 Votes

Without focusing too much on the lowest-ranked player on that list, which three voters thought that 2020 should be the year Chris Ferguson enters the Hall of Fame is beyond us. Havent poker fans and players suffered enough?

There are plenty of other surprises in that run-down. Matt Savages well-deserved votes that put him in second place were not foreseen from this side of the pond, but it is hugely encouraging that a man who has given so much to the industry will soon enter the Poker Hall of Fame, perhaps in 2021 if the committee decree that two players will enter. We can hope.

Elswhere, it was a shock that Patrik Antonius only received 15 votes, and Mike Matusow (17 votes) and Antonio Esfandiari (23 votes) can only feel marginally better about those numbers on hearing the news. With some mixed headlines in the past couple of years, strong showings for Isai Scheinberg (45 votes) and Eli Elezra (30 votes) confirm poker as one of the most generous and positive outlook industries.

Seed had this to say when asked for his thoughts on the award by the WSOP:

Hearing the news that I am being inducted into the poker hall of fame this year brought back memories of my early poker days, walking into the Binions Horseshoe, about to start a poker session, admiringall the poker hall of famers on the wall. It feels good to be included with all the poker legends that I once idolized and competed against over the years. Thank you everyone.

Theres no doubt that Seed is a truly worthy winner of the award, having not only won the 1996 WSOP Main Event, but dominated cash games and tournaments for many years. With four WSOP bracelets, a Tournament of Champions win and an NBC Heads-Up Championship victory all in his resum, the man with over $7.6 million in live winnings is a fitting addition to the 58 legends already ennobled with the honour.

With 30 of the 31 voters allocating their 10 votes each across the players and industry professionals, the voting system has again found the right member of poker history to enter the Hall of Fame.

We just hope this award comes ahead of a welcome return to the felt for one of pokers true legends in Huck Seed. After many years of spectacular performances, weve not seen him at the live felt for very much time in years. If that changes, 2021 really could be quite the year in prospect, as an in-form Huck Seed is television and poker box-office gold.

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Huck Seed inducted to Poker Hall of Fame - CalvinAyre.com

December 25, 2020Opinion

What does the upcoming year have in store for the poker world? After COVID-19 put us all on tilt in 2020, we can only hope for a more prosperous year, starting with the return of major live tournaments.

I made some predictions for 2020 a year ago, but I wont spend much time revisiting them, simply because most of our picks were based on live tournament play. Given that only a few major tournaments ran in 2020 due to COVID-19, theres really no point in rehashing the poker year that wasnt.

Instead, well move forward to what will hopefully be a better year for us all.

Regardless of your political affiliation and thoughts on the vaccine, its likely we wont see a return to normalcy in poker until the coronavirus is either defeated or, at least, barely existent. That is especially true for the pandemic in the US, given that most major tournaments take place in America.

The bad news is the virus is spreading like wildfire around the US and in other parts of the world. But, there is some hope in the months ahead, as a vaccine has been approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It will take some time to vaccinate the masses, and many people say theyll refuse to take it. However, experts project as many as 100 million Americans will get vaccinated by the end of March.

Assuming the vaccine is effective in stopping COVID-19, that means it wont be long before the virus slows down. That should be good news for live poker, as states will likely relax restrictions on businesses as soon as the coronavirus is no longer as serious of a threat.

While we should all be thankful a vaccine is on the way, we still dont know how many people will refuse to take the vaccine and how long it will take to vaccinate enough people to reach herd immunity. So, there are still reasons to wonder if the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas will be canceled for a second straight year.

Ill go the optimistic route and predict there will be a summer series, but turnout will be lower than normal. And if I were the one making the decisions, I would bump the series back a month to start in late June instead of late May. Why? Because I think May-June is pushing it a bit. One month extra could make a world of difference.

Remember, its going to take some time to distribute the vaccine. Until enough people are vaccinated, its hard to imagine events such as the WSOP running. But I do believe the series will run eventually in 2021. I just expect a lower turnout simply because there will still be certain individuals who arent quite ready to attend large gatherings.

We had very few major live tournaments to cover in 2020, so there isnt a true Global Poker Index Player of the Year winner. Assuming the live poker scene returns during much of 2021, the race for POY should be quite entertaining.

There are so many potential contenders as the high-roller scene is quite competitive these days. The usual suspects Alex Foxen, Stephen Chidwick, Justin Bonomo, Bryn Kenney, etc. will likely be in contention. Dont sleep on Timothy Adams and Kahle Burns, two players who were off to great starts in 2020 before COVID-19 struck. And Ali Imsirovic, if he puts in the volume, has as good of a shot at winning POY as anyone.

No one enjoys wearing a face mask to the poker table. I think I speak for most poker players who cant wait for the day in which masks will be a thing of the past. But I also think that were unlikely to see that glorious day come until 2022.

Even once the vaccine begins distribution, face masks will still be required in most states and in many businesses, including casinos. Im hopeful that by the time the WSOP rolls around, mask-wearing will be a thing of the past, but I dont expect that to happen.

My best guess is that masks will be required by all players at the 2021 World Series of Poker, and in most poker rooms around the country. Perhaps, by the end of the year, well have moved on from face coverings. I say perhaps because I dont want to get your hopes up.

Heads-up poker challenges were a huge hit in 2020. The Galfond Challenge drew some attention earlier in the year and now the Doug Polk versus Daniel Negreanu match is the talk of the poker community. But these intriguing battles are going to fizzle out eventually, likely in 2021.

Take the Galfond Challenge as the prime example. Phil Galfonds first match against VeniVidi1993 was quite entertaining. More than 20,000 viewers watched the final session, but then the poker community stopped tuning in to his next matches against ActionFreak and Chance Kornuth. Poker Twitter seems to be over the Galfond Challenge.

Polk and Negreanu lured us all in and the live-streams are hitting 20,000 viewers daily. Thats great news for poker, as it shows there is interest in the game. The problem is, there simply arent any other potential heads-up matches left that are nearly as intriguing as Polk vs. Negreanu, two long-time rivals with massive fan bases. And the increase in attention to these heads-up battles is also largely due to the lack of major live poker tournaments to follow in 2020.

Written by

Jon Sofen

Semi-pro poker player with 17 years experience on the felt and more than five years working as professional poker media.

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2021 Poker Predictions: Will COVID-19 Force a WSOP Cancellation? - CardsChat.com

Its been a busy year in poker for many players, but its hard to think of one who has been putting out content with the regularity and energy of Daniel Negreanu.

The 46-year-old, known as Kid Poker is a big fan of the Rocky movies, but he found himself up against the ropes across the 12,000 hands played in the first half of the challenge.

It all started so well for Negreanu as he took a six-figure lead in the live portion of the challenge, which constituted a fairly thin 200 hands, all broadcast on PokerGO. Master of the live arena, Kid Poker banked a decent profit, but Polk was always going to be fine with that given the next 24,800 potential hands would be at the felt where he is king.

Negreanu may have drawn first blood, but Polk got back into the match and was in the lead after a couple of online sessions. There was a min-revival for the Canadian, however, when he won 5th session by over $200,000 and took a surprise lead.

Polk was undeterred, though. After a dozen sessions, Negreanu being ahead was a distant memory, with Polk up almost $600,000 after a stunning 12th session where the American won by over $330,000 in just 684 hands of carnage at the felt.

While the technicalities of sidebets was questioned by Negreanu-bettor Bill Perkins in mid-November, by the middle of this month, we felt it only fair to critically analyse whether Negreanu could make a comeback or whether he might be better off quitting at half-time.

The latest session took place on December 23rd, where Doug Polk was a big winner again.

With the challenge likely to get ugly for Negreanu in the New Year it could already be much worse, with the Canadian poker legend and six-time WSOP bracelet winner having been down almost a million dollars a couple of thousand hands ago.

The start of a comeback or the reducing of arrears? It looks like the latter for now. For Doug Polk, he may need to hire a bigger truck to carry away the cash won if things carry on as they are, but if he takes his eyes off the road, he could easily head for a crash.

Expect some high-octane stuff once rivalries resume in January, with Daniel Negreanu heading into 2021 as a 16/1 underdog and Polk as an overwhelming, almost unbackable favourite.

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Poker Stories of the year: Negreanu and Polk's high stakes feud - CalvinAyre.com

Annie Duke

It is critical for anyone who is trading crypto to have the best research and information at their fingertips. However, that is not enough. You also need to be disciplined and thoughtful when it comes to trading, especially when the stakes get raised or the market sees some volatility.

Few in the world are more skilled at this than World Series Of Poker champion Annie Duke. Aside from holding one of the coveted gold bracelets given out to winners each year, she has also won the 2004 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions and the National Heads-Up Poker Championship in 2010.

Duke is also a highly-sought after speaker and consultant in the field of risk management for investors. Over her two decades of experience in this field, she has created a framework that can help everyone from quantitative hedge funds to passive investors understand the risk that comes with investing in volatile industries such as crypto and make tactical decisions without losing their long-term perspective. She also shares some great tips for deciding when you should press a position or strategically close it.

Excerpted from ForbesCryptoAsset & Blockchain Advisor. Subscribe now and save $300.

Forbes: Welcome Annie. Most people know you as being one of the most famous poker champions of all time. However, many are unaware of your prestigious academic background or years of experience as an advisor to some of the most successful investors in the world. Could you please share with us how you got into this industry?

Annie Duke: I started off my adult life at the University of Pennsylvania, doing five years of Ph.D. work in cognitive science. The only reason I didn't end up becoming a professor is because I got sick, right at the end of that. I needed to take a year off from school, and it was during that year off that I started playing poker. I fell in love with the game and did that pretty exclusively for about eight years. But then in 2002, I got asked by a hedge fund to speak to their traders about how poker might inform the way that they think about risk. I had been thinking about this connection implicitly, but this was the first time that I thought explicitly about the connection between cognitive science, behavioral psychology, behavioral economics and poker, which is a very real world, fast-paced, high stakes instantiation of the problems that these disciplines are trying to tackle. I ended up getting referred out from that original engagement in 2002 and started to give lots of talks, began consulting, and wrote several books on poker, behavioral economics and decision making. Ultimately in 2012, I rolled out of poker and made the consultant work much more full time and continued writing. Today, Im back at Penn doing research, so Ive kind of come full circle back into academics.

Forbes: How accurately do you think people assess their investing prowess? What are some of the biggest mental traps youve seen in the course of your career and research?

Duke: Many people do not assess themselves accurately, and when you look at most of the main cognitive biases, they mostly fall into the overoptimism category. As soon as you get into something that people feel like they know how to do and obviously, that would be true for investors, most people become overconfident. Theres something called a better than average effect. For example, if you ask people how good of a driver do they think they are in comparison to the population, something like 90% of people put themselves in the top half. It is the same thing with investors, most of whom are going to rate themselves more highly than they should. You also get the illusion where people think they have more control over their outcomes than they do.

The problem in both investing and poker is that there's a lot of uncertainty. The world is stochastic, that's one problemthat there's luck. And the other is that there's hidden information. Information can also reveal itself after the fact, too. Sometimes there's information that never reveals itself. That allows an untethering of the results from the actual skill that went into the decision. The point is that I can win, even though I do everything wrong. And I can lose, even though I do everything right. This creates a really huge problem, at least in the short run. It can become especially dangerous when we ascribe our good fortune entirely to skill, without accounting for luck.

Forbes: What are some of the best practices you recommend so that investors can structure the decision making process in a way that is regimented? Can you share anything that is particularly relevant for investors in crypto, which can be especially volatile?

Duke: That's really such a great question. Essentially, you want to do the advance work. Say I've got someone who is interested in bitcoin. When I'm making that investment, I want to understand why I think the investment is good and actually make that explicit. When it comes to something like investing in something that's highly volatile, such as crypto, this becomes really, really important. You need to be able to separate out what was due to luck and the assumptions that you went in with so you can circle back to them later. You also need to take a second step, which is to determine the conditions under which you would sell. Meaning, what would need to happen to tell you that your assumptions were wrong or this is no longer a good investment.

Forbes: Turning more directly to crypto, regardless of the models we build and metrics we use there will always be a degree of uncertainty. As much as we try, it is impossible to know everything. What is your advice for finding ways to feel comfortable in that position?

Duke: Right now we know less about crypto than something like tech stocks. But just to be clear, we also know less about tech stocks than we think we do. Thats the first thing you need to understand. The second thing you need to realize is that the higher degree of uncertainty, the less likely it is that your model is going to be perfectly accurate.

Under those circumstances you need to think about mitigating downside outcomes. This is critical because when you have less accuracy in your prediction models there is a higher probability of receiving an unpleasant outcome. This first way is to make sure you have a really good quitting strategy. So what do I mean by that? The higher the uncertainty, the more you should value liquidity. Stop-losses are another valuable tool.

On the flip side, you might want to change your mind in both directions, meaning under different circumstances you could want to press your position. Another useful strategy is spreading your bets, so that youre mitigating the chance that you are wrong about any single investment.

Forbes: As a way of grounding this discussion for the readers, can you walk us through the process of setting up and testing an investment assumption regarding crypto?

Duke: Sure. There are things happening at the Fed regarding interest rates that could cause you to change what you want to do. If Im buying bitcoin as a hedge against inflation, what I need to make explicit is that I believe inflation is imminent. What that does is make you look to see if inflation is actually on the near-term horizon or within the time period that I'm saying it would have to occur. Additionally, once I make this assumption explicit, I can also ask, what would have to be occurring in the world in the future that would make me want to change that assumption? Putting it all together, if you believe that inflation is going to rise in the next eight years to a level making it worthwhile to invest in bitcoin as a hedge, then you should also ask yourself what are the signals that could make me change my mind and not think that inflation was imminent or occur at a high enough level to justify investing in bitcoin for that reason alone?

By challenging your assumptions, it makes you look for signs in the future. And if bitcoin goes through the roof and inflation stays low, it stops you from taking credit for it. You should want to do it because it means that bitcoin won for a different reason than you thought it would.

Forbes: Since the pandemic hit there has been an explosion of online trading in the retail sector, which can be very addictive. While it is important to stay aware of what is happening in the market, everyone must find a balance so they do not become overwhelmed and make emotional trading decisions that could prove to be erroneous. Do you have any suggestions for the readers?

Duke: The best investors actually are reducing the attention they're paying in the short run, and the reason is that the way we make decisions is quite past-dependent. So when youre ticker watching, which is what you would call checking the price all the time, youre going to feel those momentary ups and downs. Theyre going to distort decisions you make in quite a bad way. In poker we call this a tilt. Now, obviously, in poker, you cannot not see your chips go down. But in investing, you can because you can just not check it. This is important because we know that there's going to be natural variances, and people tend to make better decisions when they arent checking it every single day. A better plan would be to decide what you will do if certain things happen in the world, such as a development at the Fed or reaching an up or down price barrier. If those things are not happening, do not even look at the price. Because its going to screw your decision making up, theres nothing good that will come from it. I promise you.

Forbes: Any final thoughts for the readers?

Duke: I would say just generally, sort of back to the beginning of the conversation, its really easy to fool ourselves into thinking that we know something more than we do. You should also be actively seeking information that proves you are wrong. It is easy to find people who agree with investing in bitcoin as a hedge against future inflation. What you should be doing is finding the smartest people you can find who say thats not true. That doesnt mean that investing in crypto isnt a good idea, even if an assumption isnt true. But you should want to find that out because thats what's going to help you be a better decision maker. The more that you're approaching your ideas about investment decisions from the standpoint of asking why this is wrong, the better off you're going to be.

Forbes: Thank you.

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Bitcoin And Crypto Trading Tips From Poker World Champion Annie Duke - Forbes

WhenBrent Hanks took on the role as PokerGOs Director of Programming, a good friend texted him with a congratulatory note and a warning.

You are going to make and lose a lot of friends because of this, the text read.

The job meant having some say in who was or wasnt invited to play on some of pokers most popular shows, including Poker After Dark and the recently relaunched High Stakes Poker.

Putting a lineup together for Poker After Dark, Hanks is often working with two variables: the first is a theme for the show while the second is, well, whos available. For High Stakes Poker, Hanks has the extremely enviable position of taking a backseat to Poker Hall of Famer, Mori Eskandani.

High Stakes Poker was a little different because that was pretty much going back to the man, the myth, the legend Mori and his connections to so many of the great players, Hanks said. Obviously Mori being able to network with Jean-Robert Bellande, and Tom Dwan especially, who has some connections to some fun players as well. So its like herding cats a lot of the time.

One of the key sponsors of the return of High Stakes Poker has been Poker King, an Asian-facing online poker site that has relationships with Dwan, Bellande, Nick Petrangelo, and Phil Ivey. That helped ensure that all of those players were part of the HSP cast this season. The nostalgic appeal of Dwan and Ivey, combined with the likes of Petrangelo, Jason Koon and a few new faces have helped forge a table dynamic that reminded many poker fans of the original incarnation of the show.

Finding on-air chemistry amongst six to eight randomly chosen poker players isnt easy, but Hanks has figured out that ensuring producers dont end up with those players buried in their hooded sweatshirts, too dialed in to the game to be talkative or entertaining once the TV lights go on.

A lot of the times you want to bring what you know is sort of maybe a game thats happening elsewhere, or these guys have a ton of history playing with each other and you bring that chemistry and you bring those lineups together, Hanks said, pointing to the times Phil Hellmuth has been the center of a show featuring a number of his friends from Silicon Valley. This game is amazing because they just rip on Phil. Like theyll pay him not to talk. Jason (Calcanis) and Chamath (Palihapitiya) are just so brutal with Phil Hellmuth. You dont really see that but you realize that thats what its like in their home game. Hes kind of the whipping boy.

The cast for the first episode of High Stakes Poker included Bellande, Dawn, Petrangelo, alongside HSP newcomers Bryn Kenney, Brandon Steven, Rick Salomon, and former major league baseball player Michael Schwimer. While poker fans will recognize Kenney, Steven, and even Salomon, it was the addition of Schwimer to the roster that got Hanks blood pumping.

I believe hes friends with Tom Dwan and that was the connection to the show, but he is special. That guy played so many hands. His comments, you couldnt tell if he was being genuine and he would say something like, Oh, thats a bad card and hed bet anyway, Hanks said. And everyone would just die laughing. Hed be up a million, hed be down a million. Yeah, wait till you see the next episode. Its crazy.

If poker fans who watched the first episode of the new season liked Schwimer, Hanks thinks theyre gonna love whats to come when some more new blood grabs an open seat.

Another guy that stood out for me, who you havent seen yet, thats going to be in the show is Jake Daniels. He is a recreational-slash-businessman-slash semi-pro. Hails out of Texas. He is electric when it comes to his play, Hanks said.

With the entire season already in the can and being voiced over by Gabe Kaplan and AJ Benza in Los Angeles, Hanks already has some ideas in mind for new players to add next season that might have been overlooked.

I think Garrett Adelstein was the biggest snub, and if I had my control of it, he would have played in the games, but obviously theres the politics involved, Hanks said. The reality is we had a huge list. When we film again, hopefully in March, which is the plan Im just going to fight for him. When I think of high stakes poker, I think of Garrett Adelstein, hes one of these modern players and I think that most people that are fans of the game would agree.

Another one of the challenges that Hanks and Eskandani face with every casting decision is making sure that not only is the PokerGo core audience going to be happy and want to tune in, but they also try to attract viewers who might not quite be poker diehards.

The key is getting outside. So its, can we target the hardcores? Yeah, were doing that. Were giving them the content that they love, Poker After Dark, High Stakes Poker, all the tournaments, obviously the World Series of Poker, Hanks said. But what else can we do to make sure that we get outside of that? And thats the difficulty, thats the trick that, unfortunately, were still trying to learn and solve every single day from the industry side.

That text message about making and losing friends comes in full view for Hanks when new shows air. Whether its a group of familiar faces or a new face or two, he always ends up hearing from one or two players, either privately or via social media, who are disappointed or even upset that they werent included. Hanks always has to ask them what including them in the show would have done for the metric that matters most, total viewers.

Youre the best player in the world. Thats how you make a living. Thats how you print money. No problem. But if you really care about your brand and if you really bitch about not being on shows, well then lets build, right?, Hanks said. I dont care if you want to be an introvert and you just want to print money and do your thing in poker. Im all about it. Have at it. You are the man. Awesome stuff. I just dont want to hear it when you say, Well, why cant I get on that show?

When Black Friday shut down the three busiest online poker sites in the United States, the first defence that poker industry advocates turned to was that poker was a game of skill. Hanks understood the thinking at the time, but as daily fantasy sports and most recently sports betting, have become accepted forms of gambling, Hanks thinks poker needs to lean into that side of the game to help build a more mainstream audience.

I dont see why poker should be any different. Its time to embrace gambling for what it is. Poker is gambling. And we should be allowed to say that without hushing and not saying the G word. And to me, I think were there. I think the industry is there, Hanks said. Were going to turn a corner and we should be sort of seen in the same light as daily fantasy or fantasy football or just sports betting in general. Is there an element of skill? Sure. But for the most part, this is gambling and you should have fun.

That belief is also something reflected in how Hanks puts lineups together for Poker After Dark and when he looks at the cast for this season of High Stakes Poker, he knows theyve got a hit on their hands thanks in large part to just how much gamble there is amongst the players.

Do I like it when youve got guys that are willing to mix it up, maybe gamble, do prop bets on the side, talk about that? Yeah, I think theres a culture there that is appealing, Hanks said .And I think the mainstream, the masses, really sort of resonate towards that as opposed to just so much of the solver study.

Read more here:

Chemistry Lessons: Building the Perfect High Stakes Poker Cast - PocketFives