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Sammy Farha Vol. 20, No. 1 Card Player Magazine


Sammy Farha

by Michael Kaplan

Sammy "No Deal" Farha has gone from managing a gift shop in Houston to handling six-figure swings in the "big game," and snagging a pair of World Series bracelets. His idea of relaxation? Betting thousands in the Bellagio blackjack pit. It's a Saturday afternoon at ...

 
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  • The Inside Straight

    by CP The Inside Straight Authors

    Michael Mizrachi is the Card Player 2006 Player of the Year He Finishes the Year With Nearly 6,000 Points and $2.3 Million in Winnings By Bob Pajich The year 2006 will go down in poker history as the biggest year yet, and when Michael Mizrachi's ...continued

  • 2006 Poker in Review

    by Lee Munzer

    We pick up our annual recap (Part I is available at CardPlayer.com) with the eyes of the poker world focused on Harrah's Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. There, in the expansive Amazon ballroom, players seeking instant fame and ...continued

  • Drawing Red Lines in the Desert, or How (Not) to Bluff a Martyr - Part I

    by James McManus

    Editor's Note: To mark recent negotiations with Iran, McManus has prepared a pair of columns about bluffing at poker and nuclear bargaining tables. After that he'll return to the historical timeline with "Dr. Jerry Cardplayer and the ...continued

  • Wild Ride at End of Year

    by Jeff Shulman

    Late December is always an exciting time for poker. With Card Player's Player of the Year (POY) race in the final heat and Bellagio hosting a huge World Poker Tour event, the industry is full of big news. This year was no exception. First, Michael ...continued

  • Furst Vs. Worst

    by Phil Hellmuth

    In the $1,500 buy-in pot-limit hold'em tournament at the 2006 World Series of Poker (WSOP), more than 1,100 players began play looking for a coveted gold bracelet and more than $340,000 for first place. Two days later, nine players sat down at the ...continued

  • World Poker Tour Foxwoods - Part III

    by Daniel Negreanu

    Despite getting very little sleep (we played 15 hours on day one and 13 hours on day two), I felt pretty fresh and was ready to make my move toward the top of the leader board on day three. I'd spent the entire tournament below the average in ...continued

  • History of the Big Game

    by Todd Brunson

    As a poker semi-celebrity, the most frequent questions I am asked (besides, did your dad teach you how to play poker? or, is Phil Hellmuth as big a crybaby in real life as he is on TV?) are about the Big Game. So, when the Shulmans approached me and ...continued

  • The Legal Landscape of 2006-2007

    by Allyn Shulman

    UIGEA U.S. citizens witnessed outrageous conduct by our legislators at the end of 2006 when Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. The Act was steamrolled through Congress as a last-minute attachment to the port authority bill ...continued

  • Value-Bet on the End?

    by Roy Cooke

    If you never bet the worst hand on the river, you're not value-betting enough. Yeah, I know - when you get called by a better hand, you feel like you have egg on your face. But did you make the incorrect play? Maybe not! As long as all plausible ...continued

  • Post-flop 'Donk Bets'

    by Todd Arnold

    First, I'd like to say that I am happy to be writing for Card Player. I have received some great feedback on my columns in Card Player College and it is much appreciated, as I am always happy to help. Topics have included short-stack play, ...continued

  • Should You Switch to No-Limit Hold'em?

    by Alan Schoonmaker

    The preceding columns in this series discussed several issues to consider when deciding whether to switch. If you performed the analyses these columns recognized, and you believe that you can succeed in no-limit hold'em (NLH), take the next step: ...continued

  • Regarding Weakness

    by Eric Lynch

    A lot of you may not know the name and face that accompany this column. I'm better known in the online poker world as Rizen, online professional poker player. I'm a dedicated professional and student of the game. In May, I won the PokerStars ...continued

  • Betting the Turn From Out of Position - Part IV

    by Barry Tanenbaum

    We now have looked at all of the cases in which you checked the flop and had to decide what to do on the turn. We now turn to those cases in which you bet the flop. If you won the hand with your flop bet, there is no turn betting to decide, so we will ...continued

  • Player of the Year Race

    by Shannon Shorr

    I'd first like to say that it is an honor to be a new member of the Card Player family. Obviously, Card Player is the name that comes to everyone's mind whenever the topic of poker media comes up, and I couldn't be more excited to ...continued

  • Another Road Trip

    by Tom McEvoy

    I recently took another of my trips to far away places. I went to Jacksonville, Florida, on my first stop for a three-day visit. Howard Korman, the head honcho of St. John's Greyhound Park invited me to host the Chips for Charity Tournament, which ...continued

  • Philippines Trip Report - Part I

    by Linda Johnson

    When my good friend Hiroshi Shimamura invited Jan Fisher and me to the Philippines to host the inaugural event of the Pan Asia Poker Tournament, we accepted quite happily; after all, getting to see new areas of the world and play poker at the same ...continued

  • Developing a Poker Notation

    by Steve Zolotow

    You must remember very exactly what occurs at the poker table. You often need to review the early action before making a decision later in a hand. You must learn specific patterns and behaviors that each of your opponents follows, so that you can make ...continued

  • The New Year in Poker

    by Matt Matros

    In 2006, as in every poker year before it, a lot of money was won, lost, and raked. A lot of new faces emerged to gain poker stardom; hello, Jeff Madsen, Alex Jacob, Joe Pelton, Shannon Shorr, and anyone else I left out! Some, shall we say, ...continued

  • World Series of Poker Shootout Mess

    by Mike O Malley

    During the 2006 World Series of Poker, I played in several events, one of which was the $2,000 no-limit hold'em shootout. Shootout tournaments have a different structure than regular tournaments, in that each table plays down to one player, and ...continued

  • String Theory

    by Brian Mulholland

    Over the years, I've received a lot of e-mail from readers inquiring about rules and procedures. In most of my responses, I refer to wording found in standard rulebooks, and I elaborate on a rule's background and the premise(s) on which it is ...continued

  • Taking a Shot

    by Bob Ciaffone

    In constructing poker rules, one of our goals is to prevent a player from taking a free shot at the pot. By this I mean retaining the option of calling attention to an irregularity until he sees whether ignoring the irregularity will help or hurt him. ...continued

  • More New Terms

    by Michael Wiesenberg

    I see lots of new terms at online poker sites and hear them on televised events. I'll be adding the following to the next edition of The Official Dictionary of Poker. Bubble: As a noun, the position just out of the money in a tournament; often ...continued

  • Is it Good That There Are So Many Bad Players Today?

    by Roy West

    Hi. Come on in. Sit down and take the chill out of your bones with a bowl of my grandma's recipe for chicken soup. It's been simmering for several hours in my crockpot. Here's a question you can roll around in the dark corner of your poker ...continued