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 old and gray, he can tell his grandchildren that in that year, he played poker so well at so many poker events all around the country that he was the
Card Player 2006 Player of the Year (POY).
Mizrachi joins Men "The Master" Ngyuen (1997, 2001, 2003, 2005), T.J. Cloutier (1998, 2002), Tony Ma (1999), David Pham (2000), and Daniel Negreanu (2004) as Player of the Year winners. Like the former award recipients, he played in many events and was able to hold on as several tough players made a push to pass him in December
Mizrachi came very close to winning the award in 2005, when he finished in fifth place, only 803 points behind Nguyen. It seemed like this was fresh on his mind when he started the 2006 season, as he took the points lead early and never relinquished it.
His run started at the end of January when he finished second in the
Gold Strike World Poker Open, winning $566,352 and 1,320 POY points. He then won the
Borgata Winter Poker Open a week and a half later, taking home $1,173,373 and 1,824 POY points. And then a week after the Borgata event, he took second in the $2,500 buy-in no-limit hold'em event at the
L.A. Poker Classic. It was the cherry on top of his early-season run, earning him another $124,402 and 810 POY points.
Mizrachi, who embraces his nickname "The Grinder," took on the persona of Cal Ripken Jr. and hardly took a day off from the tournament trail in 2006. Maybe he recalled 2005, when he also took a huge lead early in the year, only to lose it to Ngyuen and others, who played in many smaller buy-in tournaments to harvest as many POY points as possible.
He cashed in events with buy-ins ranging from $1,000 to $15,000, including a 29th-place finish at the final big tournament of the year, the Bellagio
Five-Diamond World Poker Classic Doyle Brunson North American Poker Championship. He secured the POY honors after John Hoang, the only player left in the tournament who could pass him in the POY standings with a victory, was eliminated in 32nd place.
Player of the Year Race Came Down to the Wire
The 2006 Player of the Year race came right down to the wire, and Michael Mizrachi found himself a marked man in all of the tournaments at Bellagio's
Five-Diamond World Poker Classic.
Nam Le, the second-place finisher, came up just short, finishing the year with 5,215 points, 774 behind "The Grinder." Le earned nearly $2.2 million during 2006, including 20 cashes, 11 final tables, and two major victories. His late-season push, which included two final tables at
Five-Diamond preliminary events, kept the race close.
J.C. Tran also did not relent. He put himself right into the race with two victories in the last two months of the year (the $2,800 event at the
World Poker Finals and the $2,000 event at the
Five-Diamond). He finished the year with 16 cashes and 10 final tables, good for 5,170 POY points and just over $1.1 million in his pocket.
Others right on Mizrachi's tail were Shannon Shorr (4,926 points, eight final tables, $1.49 million in winnings), David Daneshgar (4,392 points, 10 final tables, $1 million in winnings), and John Hoang (4,177 points, an amazing 14 final tables, and $691,000 in winnings). All of these players played in many of the Bellagio events, in part to try to win the Player of the Year race.
Harrah's Sold for Billions
Two Investment Groups Pony Up $17.1 Billion for Casino Giant
By Bob Pajich
Harrah's has been sold. The company entered into an agreement to be bought by Apollo Management Group and Texas Pacific Group in an all-cash transaction worth $17.1 billion. The groups will also assume $10.7 billion in Harrah's debt.
Harrah's board of directors, on the recommendation of a special committee made up of non-managerial directors, approved the deal Dec. 19. The agreement has the two groups purchasing all of the outstanding shares for $90 each. This represents a 36-percent increase in the stock price that was listed on Sept. 29, the day before the offer by Apollo and TPG was disclosed.
The transaction is expected to be completed in about one year, and is subject to stockholder and regulatory approval.
Harrah's is the largest casino owner and operator in the world. It owns or manages 39 casinos on four different continents under a litany of brands, including Caesars, Harrah's, Horseshoe, and London Clubs International. It also owns the World Series of Poker brand, which it acquired in 2004.
While Harrah's has been around for 70 years, Apollo Management was founded in 1990 as an investor in private equity, debt, and capital markets. Since its inception, it has invested more than $16 billion in companies.
TPG is even younger. Founded in 1992, the private investment partnership currently manages more than $30 billion in assets.
Poker After Dark Now Playing on NBC
Shana Hiatt is Back, Along With Today's Poker Elite
By Lisa Wheeler
NBC invites viewers into the exclusive Las Vegas poker scene with its new late-night show
Poker After Dark, which debuted Jan. 2 at 2:05 a.m. ET/PT. One week of hour-long programs is hosted by former
World Poker Tour hostess and one of
Maxim magazine's "Hot 100 of 2005" Shana Hiatt. The series airs nightly, Monday through Saturday, and features six of poker's most elite players vying for a winner-take-all $120,000 first-place prize.
Set in the backroom of various casinos on the Vegas Strip,
Poker After Dark gives viewers an intimate look inside a poker game usually reserved for the eyes of professional players. The show features world-class poker pros Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Doyle Brunson, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, Erick Lindgren, Jennifer Harman, and Gus Hansen.
Each program provides an intimate look at how seasoned pros apply their strategy against one another. Friday's show determines the winner, and on Saturday night, a "Director's Cut" recaps the events with commentary.
"There's a vibrant late-night audience looking for original programming," said West Coast NBC Universal Television President Marc Graboff. "We felt this inside look at the professional poker scene is perfect for late-night viewers seeking a unique and original broadcast."
Poker After Dark is produced in conjunction with Poker Productions, the only television production company owned and operated by top professional poker players. Producers Mori Eskandani and Eric Drache both have played a key role in producing poker shows for major networks and cable television, including
NBC's National Heads-Up Championship, GSN's High Stakes Poker, Fox Sports Net and
NBC's Poker Superstars, and
CBS' Intercontinental Poker Championship.
Online Hand-to-Hand Combat: Sorel Mizzi Attacks the Final-Table Bubble
By Craig Tapscott
Want to study real poker hands with the Internet's most successful players? In this series, Card Player offers hand analysis with online poker's leading talent. And, as an added bonus, you can check out live video commentary provided by the pros and PokerXfactor.com at www.CardPlayer.com/h2hc.
Event: $50 no-limit hold'em rebuy tournament on PokerStars
Players: 259
First place: $14,864
Stacks: zangbezan24 - $173,876, Villain - $178,075
Blinds: $4,000-$8,000
Ante: $400
Craig Tapscott: Why choose this hand to share?
Sorel Mizzi: It's a good demonstration of how to use the bubble to your advantage, especially when facing an opponent with a similar stack size. No one likes to bubble the final table.
Preflop: Zangbezan24 (Sorel Mizzi) is in the small blind with the A
3
and completes. Villain is in the big blind and raises to $16,000, and zangbezan24 calls $8,000 more.
CT: Why limp here?
SM: I limped with the intention of folding to a raise of three times the big blind, but when he made a minimum raise, he had priced me in and gave me an opportunity to see a cheap flop. At this point, I put him on a very wide range of hands; I didn't think that he'd make this sort of play with a medium to high pocket pair.
Flop: 9
5
5
($26,000 pot); zangbezan24 checks, Villain bets $16,000, zangbezan24 calls.
CT: What's your thinking here, calling with ace high and no real draw?
SM: When I do this, my opponent has to ask himself what am I smooth-calling with? He has absolutely no idea of where I am in the hand. I could have a 5, I could have a 9, and I could even be slow-playing aces. And with a non-threatening flop, I thought I could float, and take the pot on the turn. I was not convinced that he had a strong hand, and thought that I could outplay him on the turn, depending on what card came and the size of his bet.
Turn: 8
SM: This gave me the nut-flush draw, which is almost irrelevant since my chances of hitting the flush if my opponent called the bet were only 18 percent, and I was not sure if my ace was live.
CT: Can you knock him off the hand?
SM: Well, I decided that I was going to put my entire tournament on the line, not because I liked my hand, but because I had a very good feeling that his hand wasn't as strong as he was trying to tell me it was.
Action: Zangbezan24 checks, Villain bets $40,000, zangbezan24 raises $101,476 and is all in, and Villain folds.
SM: Because his bet was so quick, I was able to decipher that he was being stubborn, simply because he didn't take time to consider what I possibly could have had to call a bet on that flop.
CT: This seems kind of risky.
SM: Unless he was really strong, which I already had decided he wasn't, I believed that he wouldn't be making that bet with a hand that he could call an all in with. He might have in fact had a very good hand, but I thought that he didn't value his hand as much as some people would, and that his bet on the turn was begging me to fold.
Results: zangbezan24 wins the $146,000 pot. Mizzi would go on to finish second in the event, for $9,459.
Sorel (zangbezan24) Mizzi is an accomplished online tournament player, having won countless tournaments and achieved a top-10 ranking on most tracked sites. Sorel is also known as Imper1um.
CP ePoker Report
By Shawn Patrick Green
NordicBet Pays Largest-Ever Online Prize
On Dec. 14, Swedish poker site NordicBet made history when it awarded a $735,000 first-place payday to Henrik Josefsson. This payout constituted the largest-ever first-place prize for an online tournament. The prize came from the $2.5 million-guaranteed prize pool for the two-day
Swedish Championship tournament.
While the top prize was the biggest in online poker history, the total prize pool paled in comparison to that of the PokerStars
World Championship of Online Poker main event in September, which exceeded $6 million. The first-place prize in that event originally was $1.2 million before the final table chopped the remaining prize money. J.C. Tran, the eventual winner, received more than $670,000 for his finish.
Guarantees? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Guarantees!
All four of the major sites (PokerStars, FullTilt, UltimateBet, and Bodog) experienced a holiday-season lull of sorts. Regardless, both PokerStars and FullTilt are still easily surpassing the posted guarantees for their respective big weekly tournaments. Entries at UltimateBet and Bodog slipped a bit, but remained relatively steady.
Sunday $1.3 Million Just Doesn't Roll Off the Tongue
Recently, the PokerStars Sunday Million tournament has consistently built prize pools of one-third more than the $1 million guarantee. After months of regularly breaking its own attendance records (and thus, prize pool records), the Sunday Million has finally calmed down. Entry numbers have begun dipping very slightly, as they inevitably had to after the initial surge of PartyPoker refugees settled in their new home.
FullTilt Kicks it Up a Notch
FullTilt is in a similar situation as PokerStars. The site's big weekly guaranteed tournament was continuously going beyond the posted guarantee with ease. As a result, FullTilt recently upped its guaranteed prize pool for the tournament from $250,000 to $350,000, with the buy-in remaining at $200. Players took notice, and attendance rose correspondingly. Recent weeks have shown prize pools of over 20 percent more than the $350,000 guarantee.
More Overlays for UltimateBet and Bodog
The big weekly tournaments at UltimateBet and Bodog ($200,000 and $100,000 guaranteed, respectively) still have yet to breach the magic 1,000-player number to exceed their guarantees. Both sites' tournaments have recently had overlays of around $9,000, which is both good and bad news for players. Players who like more bang for their buy-in buck love the better odds the dead money provides. On the other hand, players yearning for a big payday would rather their odds of cashing go down and the prize money increase. Entries at both sites continue to hover in the 900s, with no obvious signs of changing.
Get a Piece of the Action!
Players who want to take a shot at the huge prize pools or take advantage of the overlay tournaments mentioned here should follow these links:
PokerStars - www.CardPlayer.com/link/etpokerstars
FullTilt - www.CardPlayer.com/link/etfulltilt
UltimateBet - www.CardPlayer.com/link/etultimatebet
Bodog - www.CardPlayer.com/link/etbodog
AbsolutePoker - www.CardPlayer.com/link/etabsolute
Gary Bogdanski Back in Limelight
FullTilt has been very good to Internet semipro Gary "GB2005" Bogdanski as of late. He'd won more than $98,000 at the site in just over a month, from Nov. 11 to Dec. 17. His cashes included a win in the $350,000-guaranteed event, three from the FullTilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS), and two other big final tables.
Best All-Around Player
During the FTOPS in November, Bogdanski won the title of best all-around player for accumulating the most FTOPS leader-board points. He secured a customized FullTilt avatar for his win, just like the sponsored pros have. This accomplishment was detailed in Card Player in Vol. 19/No. 25. He won close to $9,000 during the Series.
Bogdanski's Huge Payday
On Dec. 10, less than a month after his FTOPS accomplishments, Bogdanski went on to win the biggest weekly tournament at FullTilt, the $350,000-guaranteed event. He outlasted 2,140 other players to take the first-place prize of $78,789, his biggest cash on the site to date.
Bodog Offers Vegas VIP Freeroll
Bodog poker, in collaboration with Card Player, is currently running a freeroll tournament series offering a true Las Vegas VIP experience. The tournament is called, appropriately enough, the Bodog Vegas VIP, and it offers players a free shot at winning a $5,000 prize package.
Get a Piece of the Action!
A chance to win the top prize won't cost players a dime. To qualify, players simply need to go to www.CardPlayer.com/link/etbodog for instructions on signing up. Players can then enter each of the four remaining freeroll qualifiers leading up to the final event. The top 30 percent of entrants in each qualifier will receive tournament leader-board points, and the top 50 point-earners will secure a seat in the final tournament on May 13.
What's at Stake?
The ultimate winner of the freeroll series will snag a $5,000 prize package that includes travel for two to Las Vegas, a three-night stay at a Vegas hotel, a $1,000 buy-in to a land-based tournament, VIP service for the winner and his entourage at a Vegas nightclub, and a special invitation to a swanky Bodog party.
Vegas VIP Tournament Schedule:
Feb. 4, Third qualifier
March 4, Fourth qualifier
April 8, Fifth qualifier
May 6, Sixth qualifier
May 13, Vegas VIP final
Online Tournament Results, Dec. 10-17
PokerStars Sunday Million
Dec. 10
Winner: mrrain
Winnings: $135,942 *
Prize pool: $1,336,000
Entrants: 6,680
Dec. 17
Winner: pokerno
Winnings: $124,276 *
Prize pool: $1,325,600
Entrants: 6,628
* Payout reflects a deal made at the final table.
FullTilt Monthly $500,000 Guaranteed
Dec. 17
Winner: like7
Winnings: $117,515
Prize pool: $618,500
Entrants: 1,237
FullTilt $350,000 Guaranteed
Dec. 10
Winner: Gary "GB2005" Bogdanski
Winnings: $78,789
Prize pool: $428,200
Entrants: 2,141
UltimateBet $200,000 Guaranteed
Note: The UltimateBet Online Championship (UBOC) main event was held Dec. 10 and appeared in the last issue.
Dec. 17
Winner: Brad JOHNSON
Winnings: $45,000
Prize pool: $200,000
Entrants: 957
Bodog $100,000 Guaranteed
Dec. 10
Winner: CrazyMarco
Winnings: $25,000
Prize pool: $100,000
Entrants: 981
Dec. 17
Winner: 3pounder
Winnings: $25,000
Prize pool: $100,000
Entrants: 908
Amy: I have just started playing poker more seriously, so my play is pretty ABC and I'm still building up my confidence. I don't have a problem being a little more aggressive when I'm playing online, but when I play live, I still get a little intimidated. I also think that since I'm a woman, the aggressive players are pushing me around even more. What's the best way to handle these superaggressive players?
Scott: Well, there are a couple of ways you can go about slowing down an aggressive player. In a tournament situation, when you have position on the aggressive player, every once in a while when he raises, reraise all in with any two cards. If he is raising with everything, he will probably fold, and after a few times of having to fold, he may decide to stop raising and try another approach. However, by using this strategy, you are risking your tournament life. Now, when he has position on you, you can try limping when you get a big hand, letting him be the aggressor. After you win a few hands this way, he will most likely reconsider raising you when you limp, which will also enable you to bluff and steal down the road. Once you have played more and become a bit more experienced, you will get a feel for the right times to make these "moves."
Jim: I made it to the final table in a local tournament, and when we got down to three players, the short stack asked if we wanted to make a deal. I was second in chips and feeling pretty good about my play, but at that point the blinds were pretty high and I figured it would be all luck. We chopped according to our chip counts, but now, thinking back, I'm not sure I made the right decision. What is the general consensus amongst pros about making deals at the final table?
Scott: There are several factors that go into deciding whether or not to make a deal at a final table. A lot of it comes down to personal goals and character: If you are the type of person who is happy to make the money (or really needs to earn that guaranteed money) and not necessarily going for the win, you will want to make a deal when it gets down to the last few players. It is also a question of math, stack sizes, structure, and your confidence in your play.
If you are down to three players and the blinds are sky-high and it's a total crapshoot, it makes sense to do a three-way chop, because there basically is no longer much skill involved, and your chances of getting first or third are pretty much the same, so you might as well lock up the most amount of money you can.
However, if the structure is good and you have a chip lead, you might decide against making a deal. You also need to take into consideration the players you are up against and how you are feeling. If you are confident in your game and believe you have a good shot to win, it basically would be negative expected value to chop. If you are exhausted or don't think you are at the top of your game, by all means make a deal if you can. The bottom line is, there is no right or wrong answer. It is completely circumstantial and a business decision. Playing poker is about making the most amount of money possible, so evaluate the situation and decide whether or not making a deal is the best decision for you in any given tournament.
For comments or questions, please email Scott at [email protected].
The Tao of Poker
Don't dig yourself into a hole when you first sit down
If we had to pick a number one rule in poker, this might be a good candidate. It might not be the most important rule in poker, but it is a good first one. Try not to get way down, money-wise, right from the outset of the game. It is a lot less fun if you have to spend several hours digging yourself out of a hole you got yourself into in the early rounds of play. Start slow. Observe for a while. Give yourself time to watch the texture of the game unfold and see how players are playing in order to get yourself into the feel of it and the rhythm of it.
The notion of avoiding doing anything flashy until you get into the flow of things is not limited to poker; it's an idea we see in all sports. There is a cautious feeling-out process that takes place in the early going. Play conservatively until a rhythm develops that you can recognize and exploit, and then join in. Ease into the game. Don't get yourself stuck early.
In each issue, Card Player will get a little Eastern with excerpts from Larry "Wayno" Phillips' book The Tao of Poker: 285 rules to transform your game and your life. We hope his advice will provide enlightenment and lift games to another level everywhere.
CardPlayer.com Launches Online Poker Course Starring Phil Hellmuth
Courses by Antonio Esfandiari and Joe Navarro Are Also Available
By Bob Pajich
Phil Hellmuth has been called many things over his career, from broadcaster to writer to the greatest poker player who ever lived (although that quote is attributed to Hellmuth himself). Now, thanks to CardPlayer.com, through a partnership with iAmplify.com, he can be called "online teacher."
CardPlayer.com is offering poker fans the chance to learn from Hellmuth through its "Phil Hellmuth White to Black Belt" poker course. The course was designed for people to download and take with them on their portable devices, and although the complete course runs about four hours, each lesson is broken down into segments that run no longer than seven minutes.
Hellmuth's complete course contains 48 lessons designed to take a player from - using karate terms - a white belt to a black belt in poker, which Hellmuth undeniably is. Players can buy all 48 courses for $199, or blocks of the courses, which are divided into skill levels, starting with the "White Belt Course." Prices for the individual blocks range from $14.95 to $79.95 (for the black belt course). There are seven separate blocks of courses.
The course is also available through iAmplify.com, which offers many audio lessons on all subjects imaginable. Hellmuth's course is the largest offering on poker and Las Vegas that iAmplify.com has released so far. It also offers courses by Antonio Esfandiari titled "Aggressive Poker With Antonio Esfandiari," "Antonio's Top 12 Poker Tips," and an eight-minute program called "Vegas, Baby, Vegas," in which Esfandiari tells all about finding a great experience in Vegas.
A third player in Card Player's audio poker stable is not a player at all. Joe Navarro is a retired FBI agent who is an expert on nonverbal forms of communication, including poker tells. Navarro's course, "Read 'em and Reap: A Spy Catcher's Video Guide to Reading Tells," is also available for download. The 90-minute course consists of 26 lessons culled from Navarro's book and seminar, which people pay nearly $1,000 to attend. Each lesson averages four minutes in length, and players can download the complete package for $129.95.
All of the courses can be found at CardPlayer.com.
