Each year, the eyes of the poker world fall upon a single story. That story is the main event of the World Series of Poker, and like all great stories, it is a mixture of many elements. Characters emerge, both heroes and villains, smaller stories emerge within the context of the larger one, and ...
World Series of Poker by the Numbers More Events Equal More Players, Except in the Big One By Bob Pajich The dust stirred up by the thousands of players who traipsed through the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino the last two months has cleared, and now ...continued
With all of the action that was going on in Las Vegas, the Bellagio Cup III, a series of 28 events, got off to a slow start. Competing against the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, The Venetian, and Binion's, attendance at the Bellagio Cup III ...continued
He ain't the Wild Bill I once knowed. I'll swear to that. But maybe he'll change if he begins to win at poker. - Little Big Man When the war ended in 1865, the industrialized North was flourishing, while gray-coats trudged home to a ...continued
The 2007 World Series of Poker main-event title and its $8.25 million first-place prize belong to Jerry Yang. The 39-year-old self-professed amateur parlayed a $225 satellite win at Pechanga Resort and Casino into a championship title and a return on ...continued
Does the following statement sound poetic, or a touch magical to you? On June 11, I won my record-breaking 11th World Series of Poker bracelet, which was promised - last year - to my sister Molly, who was born on 11/11/'71. I have given all of my ...continued
It seems that every year around World Series time, there is ample debate as to the significance of the main event, as well as what, if any, changes should be made to the event. I've never been one to shy away from sharing my opinion, so in this ...continued
When will the United States government stop trying to force the morals of the few on the American general public? It didn't work in the last century with Prohibition, and it won't work in this one with the Unlawful Internet Gambling ...continued
All great poker players have "feel," an intuitive sense derived from associating past experiences with the current one and logically associating the reasoning between the two events. Feel is a function of experience; the more you've ...continued
In an online $2-$4 no-limit hold'em (NLH) game, a late-position player open-raised to $8. For two hours, he had raised preflop more than anyone else, but this was only the second time he had doubled the blinds rather than raise more. I didn't ...continued
A frequently overlooked opportunity for profit occurs when you have a frequent bluffer in your limit hold'em game. Many players miss the chance to exploit his desire to bluff, as they continue to play their normal game. Sometimes you need to ...continued
A situation came up in the $2,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em event at the World Series of Poker that doesn't get much attention in various texts and strategy discussions, and is one that I believe many players play very poorly. Fortunately for ...continued
When learning basic poker strategy, the first thing we learn is that the person with the best hand is supposed to bet it. Betting either stops opponents from drawing out by pressuring them to fold or makes them pay in case we go on to win the pot. ...continued
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) has become more than just a series of tournaments; it's a season's worth of tournaments. I've been to Vegas many times in my life, but never have I spent so much time there as in June-July of 2007. I played ...continued
In my last column, I discussed some key hands that I played while winning the PokerStars Nightly Hundred Grand tournament. These tournaments typically attract around 900 players, with first place paying approximately $30,000. This column is going to ...continued
I began day three of the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event at the World Series of Poker with a slightly below average but still fairly comfortable chip stack. There were 52 players remaining, and we were scheduled to play down to 21 (with 16 making the money, ...continued
"Get back, get back" Unless you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you've probably never heard of a poker player named Chuck Thompson. For about a thousand years, Chuck has been a prop player at Garden City Casino and Bay 101 in San ...continued
Hello. My name is Marc Karam, and the game of poker has made me a multimillionaire. I hope that someday it can do the same for you, and hopefully by sharing with you how I built my bankroll, when and why I changed stakes, what to expect as you move ...continued
I got an urgent phone call from my sweetie Barbara Enright the other day. "Max, Max," she cried out. "I've just been inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame! I'm going to be rich and famous. Pack your bags!" "Oh, boy, ...continued
Right smack-dab in the middle of the World Series of Poker - June 2007, to be completely accurate - an extraordinary thing took place in a suite at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino. Many famous world-class players took time out of their busy day - ...continued
My last column dealt with the lack of dealer procedures at the World Series of Poker and other major tournaments. In this column and the next one, I will examine two common rules that cause a lot of problems. In general, they end up annoying the ...continued