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 "The Grinder" Mizrachi capped off a dominating 2006 by cashing in the
Doyle Brunson North American Poker Championship and locking up the POY title. This is the first year that I can remember a player being in the lead from February on. Mizrachi sometimes wears a hat that reads, "I'm a Machine," and he sure has proven that. In just over two years of playing live tournament poker, Mizrachi has already won an incredible $5.5 million.
I played in two events at Bellagio and was lucky enough to score in both. Making the money is great, but as I have said many times, the longer you last, the more it hurts. While I was trying to slowly accumulate chips, Michael Mizrachi had about twice the next player. It was exciting to have Mizrachi cheering against his friends Nam Le and J.C. Tran, who both trailed Grinder by just a bit, as all three fought it out for the top seed.
One nice thing about playing at Bellagio is that you start out with twice as many starting chips (something that all tournaments should do), and in the championship event, you play until only 9 p.m. The most exciting part of the tournament for me was playing with Chip Reese for nine hours on the second day. I haven't played with him before, but I must say that there is a reason he is so good. He is confident and patient.
As for the rest of the tournament, after I busted out, in 45th place, Daniel Negreanu had one of the short stacks and Joe Hachem was at the top of the leader board. The next day, Negreanu was the chip leader and Hachem was second. Daniel showed us why you don't give up in poker tournaments when you are the short stack. Anything can happen, and it can happen quickly. When it was all said and done, Hachem won the event and Negreanu took third. With two final tables at this year's World Series of Poker, the 2005 world champ has proven that he has the winning formula. Now he can add a
WPT title and another $2 million to his successes. Congratulations, Joe! Read the full story on this event in the next issue.
You'll see a number of changes to the look of
Card Player, starting with this first issue of 2007. We've listened to you, the readers, and are focused on providing more of the most informative and useful information on everything poker.
We have a number of experienced new writers joining the magazine, and we look forward to continuously improving "The Poker Authority" over the course of the new year.
In this issue, I would like to welcome Eric Lynch, Shannon Shorr, and Todd Arnold to the Card Player team. All three are great poker players, with excellent live and online results. Look for them to share their knowledge with regular columns in the magazine.
