An Exciting Time on the Tournament Trail

It's an insanely busy time in tournament poker as I write this. Bellagio's $15,000 Festa al Lago championship just concluded, Caesars Palace is running its $10,000 Caesars Poker Classic, and the European Poker Tour Hungarian Open drew a large field.

But, despite all of this action, everyone in poker is waiting for the World Series to come to an end. Luckily, the remaining nine players will be in Vegas by the time you have this magazine in your hands, and the next issue will contain a full recap of the event and an up-close-and-personal look at the man who is $9.1 million richer and the new main-event champion.

While this player will steal the headlines for a while, there are two players I want to mention, as both are having incredible years. The first is Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier. He has won more than $3.65 million so far this year (not counting the $400,000-plus that he won during the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker), and his recent $1.4 million win in the Festa al Lago main event moved him into second place in the Card Player 2008 Player of the Year race. Congratulations, Bertrand.

Second, we're happy to feature John Juanda in this issue. John has always been one of the players I most respect and look up to in poker. He is a consummate professional, is always calm, cool, and collected, is an all-around great player, and is a gentleman at and away from the poker table. John emerged victorious in the World Series of Poker Europe main event. His fourth bracelet also came with the largest cash (more than $1.5 million) of his long and accomplished career. The final table, which lasted more than 20 hours and ended up with John battling Russian heads-up champion Stanislav Alekhin, will go down in history as one of poker's classics. Read all about John and the event on Page 62.

On a more somber note, the poker world recently lost a great man in Don Barton. When I first came to town in 1999, my dad and I played The Orleans Sunday night tournament every week. There was a regular crowd of players who showed up and competed weekly. Don was one of my favorite people. Not only was he a great player, he was one of the nicest guys around. Every Sunday evening, he made the drive from Pahrump to play. Because of this, I always called him the "Pahrump City Champion." Don passed away on Sept. 29, and he truly will be missed by everyone who had an opportunity to share time with him at the tables.