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James Hipwell
The Chancer: Guy Laliberte
By James Hipwell
He has one of the biggest bankrolls in Las Vegas, so putting up the $500k needed for a High Stakes Poker buy-in will never be a problem for this 'poker player'...
There is a French-Canadian player who is so bad at poker he single-handedly pumped over $3.5 million into the poker economy in October alone...
The Chancer has been deeply impressed by a small French-Canadian fellow on High Stakes Poker recently. He might be small but the size of his cohones and bankroll put even the likes of the mighty Finnish stud muffin Patrik Antonius to shame.
I am talking about Guy Laliberté, who is the founder and chief executive officer of a circus troupe, although this is no ordinary troupe – it’s the Cirque du Soleil.
Laliberté hit the jackpot as far back as 1991 when casino magnate Steve Wynn decided he loved Cirque so much he brought it to Las Vegas. Today the group has five permanent shows in Sin City. One of them replaced Siegfried & Roy’s show at the Mirage last year after one-half of the double act (Roy, I... more...
The Chancer: Shout-Out To Annie Duke
22 November 2007 by James Hipwell
Annie Duke's testimony to the House Judiciary Committee reminds us she's no ditzy poker chick but a force of nature...
The Chancer first had the opportunity to meet Annie Duke back in May 2004 when he took a coach up to Newmarket with the world’s most famous woman poker player (sorry Annette_15 but you hadn’t been born yet) to see the 2,000 Guineas. Duke was, as she still is, sponsored by UltimateBet who were sponsoring the famous horse race. Annie even got to dish out the winner’s trophy to Hamdan Al Maktoum, the oil-rich owner of victorious colt Haafhd.I got to interview her in the sponsor’s box which had the best view of the Suffolk racecourse you could get. Annie explained that this was by no means her first trip to the racetrack and she even had a piece of a friend’s action in the Kentucky Derby, run at Churchill Downs on the same day as the Guineas.
“How... more...
The Chancer: Jamie Gold Comes Of Age
14 November 2007 by James Hipwell
In a new column called The Chancer, James Hipwell explains how the former world champ is proving to poker's elite that he can actually play the game we love...
They say all that glitters is not gold and where the 2006 WSOP main event champ is concerned that is certainly true – until now.Here was a bloke who turned up in Vegas in June 2006, ran over the main event for nearly a fortnight and took down $12,000,000, the biggest prize in poker history. But since his historic victory the industry has it he’s no good at the game – a gifted amateur, but still an amateur, said the game’s commentators.
The problem with Gold was also one of PR, presentation and image, something he is supposed to have known a little about having acted as a talent agent to the likes of James Gandolfini, Felicity Huffman and Lucy Liu. He might have helped to buff the career of The Sopranos boss, a desperate housewife and one of Charlie’s Angels but he couldn’t do the same for himself for shit!
Due largely to the lawsuit filed by British TV producer Crispin Leyser, who claimed that Gold had stiffed... more...
How Annette_15 Owned The WSOPE
By James Hipwell
How did Annette Obrestad aka "Annette_15" win the very first World Series Of Poker Europe main event? I saw her hole cards for most of Day 4 so can shed some light on it...
I spent a good deal of last week watching Annette_15 win the World Series of Poker Europe. As we all know she took down the tournament with that amazing last hand, her 7-7 dominating John Tabatabai’s 5-6, all-in on a 5-6-7 flop.But what you probably don’t know is how she got to the final table in the first place. Being part of the TV production team filming the event for SkySports later this year I could see her hole cards for all the time that she was playing on the TV table on Day 4 (Saturday) so I got a real insight into the poker mind and motivations of Europe’s hottest player.
We all know that Annette_15 is hyper-aggressive. You only have to read ‘Playing Against Annette_15’ by Poker Verdict’s David ‘thekid08’ Gross to know how she loves to put players to the test, constantly raising and re-raising in position with... more...
Want To Know How To Win At Online Poker?
By James Hipwell
The boffins at Nottingham Trent University have all the answers, says James Hipwell...
At last we now know what makes a winning online poker player.
The boffins at Nottingham Trent University, aided by Poker Verdict’s old friend Prof Leighton Vaughan Williams (The Prof), have published a report into the “attitudes and behaviours of Internet poker players”.
Compiled on behalf of something called eCOGRA (the e-Commerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance) it makes compelling reading and you can find it here.
Of the several hundred online poker players who responded to The Prof’s questions those who claimed to be winning players were those who:
* were less likely to chase losses.
* were more likely to play at more sites.
* were likely to listen to...
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Was This The Worst Bad Beat In History?
18 December 2006
Many are calling what happend to "alenli" on Monday morning the worst beat ever. Find out why...
You grind away for nearly 15 HOURS, you’re playing the poker of your life, you reach the Final Table of a tournament with 11,130 runners in it eventually finishing 4th – and what do you get? How about Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip.
That was the fate that befell a Swedish player called "alenli" on Monday morning after he finished on the bubble in PokerStars' freeroll offering three $12k packages to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA), a WPT event that starts in the Bahamas on 4 January.
With four left out of the 11,000 field alenli pushed the rest of his 2.1 million chips into the middle with A-Q. He was called by chip leader’s GGTDM’s K-J and when a Jack hit the board it was all over for the...
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Playing In Aruba (Part 2)
By James Hipwell
James Hipwell hit the ground running on the first day of the UltimateBet.com Aruba Classic. But what happened next?
Thursday came and just before midday the 240 survivors from the 647 starters collected their bagged up chips and got their seat allocation.
I was a relatively big stack on my table (with 40,000), probably third in chips, but luckily no big names on the table. The biggest stack on my table was a guy called Frank Sinopoli who was one of the tournament chip leaders with over 80,000. I knew him to be a very aggressive player and good mates with the actual chip leader, Michael ‘The Grinder’ Mizrachi, who had over 120,000 chips.
I made a mental note to myself not to let Sinopoli, who looked and sounded like a Miami wise guy, boss me around. However, the first time I was in the big blind he raises it four times. I look down at 7-2. What can I do but lay the cards down?
Re-raising at will
Next time round he does the same thing and I have something like 10-3. Once again I lay down the cards but resolve to... more...
Playing In Aruba (Part 1)
By James Hipwell
Introducing James 'Slicker66' Hipwell. This is my first blog for Poker Verdict and it is about playing in my first big tournament - the UltimateBet.com Poker Classic in Aruba...
First a bit of background. My interest in poker started when, coming home late from the boozer one night, I turned on the TV and saw one of the tournaments in Series Two of the World Poker Tour being played out. From memory I think Gus Hansen won but I didn’t have a clue who he was back then. From that point on I was glued and wanted to learn more about the game, and would always tune into any televised poker I could.
But it wasn’t until 2004 that I started playing the game properly. Like a lot of novice players I read a couple of books by David Sklansky and, of course, the Holdem chapter in Doyle Brunson’s poker ‘bible’,...
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