2008 Poker Year in Review -- Part I

Like the past five years, the first half of 2008 was jam-packed with tournaments, poker news, and characters who helped make the election year one of the best for poker. Internationally, poker tournaments grew in size thanks to the success of the European Poker Tour, which saw its attendance numbers spike to the point of it becoming the most popular poker tour in the world. More than 800 players showed up for the Grand Final in April, and it produced the biggest single poker prize in European history.

Domestically, well-known pros such as Chris Ferguson, Erick Lindgren, and Erik Seidel made their mark by winning events that they previously had come close to winning, Gavin Griffin made history with poker's first "Triple Crown," a number of other top players continued to produce great results, and a new legion of young international studs crowded the winner's circles of many tournaments.

In 2008, poker's legislative fight was a constantly evolving story, and The Poker Players Alliance, the game's main lobbying organization, saw its membership ranks move over the 1 million mark. The PPA used its membership numbers and the money that comes with them as leverage to pry its way into meetings with Washington's top brass.

And finally, the World Series of Poker had another successful year and welcomed more international players than ever before. Poker has gone global, baby.

January

PokerStars started the year off in a big way at both a live event and online. First, the last Sunday in December had more than 150,000 people playing for real money on the site, an astounding number that showed that even as the government continues to try to stop online poker, people in the United States will continue to play.

And it was at an EPT event when Bertrand Grospellier started his fantastic year by winning the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, a tourney that attracted 1,136 players and made Grospellier $2 million richer. The Frenchman would go on to make four more final tables and bag another major win in October in the World Poker Tour's Festa al Lago $15,000 event, good for another $1.4 million.

The Aussie Millions has become a must-play event for many tournament pros who simply can't pass up a trip to beautiful Melbourne. The top-tier pros and the super-rich have another reason to head there: to play in the Aussie Millions $100,000 (Australian dollars) event, which is the biggest buy-in tournament of the year.

Howard Lederer outlasted a trim field of 25 to win $1.25 million (Australian dollars). A day later, 780 players would start the Aussie Millions championship event, which was won by 21-year-old Alexander Kostritsyn of Russia ($1.4 million).

The Kahnawake Gaming Commission of Canada fined Absolute Poker $500,000 for the way it handled the cheating scandal that rocked the online poker world last fall. The KGC found that cheating did occur on the site for approximately six weeks, starting Aug. 14, 2007, and that Absolute Poker attempted to cover it up.

It was a bad year for the KGC. An independent commission hired by the KGC that investigated cheating at Ultimate Bet would find that former WSOP champion Russ Hamilton and partners bilked players out of millions of dollars later in the year. The site is still in the process of returning a total of $15 million to cheated players.

In Florida, thanks to a law change that increased betting limits and extended hours, a poker boom is taking place. Racetracks across the state opened cardrooms there in 2008, and at the end of January, 100 dealers were hired by one racetrack alone in Jacksonville.

And in the last week of January, Gavin Griffin raised the bar several notches when he became the first player to win a WSOP bracelet (2004), an EPT title (the 2007 Grand Final, no less), and a WPT event when he took down the Borgata Winter Open.

February

One of the biggest gambling cities in the world, Macau, added Texas hold'em to its offerings when the Grand Lisboa opened a poker room. Tournament Texas hold'em was first played in Macau during the PokerStars Asia Pacific Poker Tour in November 2007. The APPT received special permission from the government to hold the event at the Galaxy Grand Waldo Casino, and it attracted more than 300 players. Now it's a licensed game there.

Mike "Timex" McDonald became the youngest EPT winner at 18 years old when he outlasted a field of 410 at the German Open. The Canadian won more than $1.1 million. His win marked a 2008 trend of under-21 players doing well in EPT events.

Men "The Master" Nguyen again made the L.A. Poker Classic his own ATM by winning three of the preliminary events he entered, but it was Phil Ivey who won the $1.5 million top prize generated in the WPT championship event there.

Ivey's first WPT win took place at his eighth WPT final table. A week later, he would donate $50,000 to Empowered 2 Excel, a Las Vegas faith-based school with which his mother is involved.

February also saw the launch of Card Player Media's own subscription-based online poker site, SpadeClub.

March

Chris "Jesus" Ferguson finally got the monkey off his back when he won the fourth NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. Amazingly, in the short history of this event, Ferguson had been the runner-up twice before this year, but this time he would be able to close the deal against Andy Bloch.

The first event at the WSOP Circuit tournament that was held at Caesars Atlantic City took a turn for the weird when the chip leader of the $300 event that attracted 1,056 players was booted from the contest with five players remaining.

Lesley Thornburg was asked to leave after receiving several warnings from the tournament staff during the two-day event for "a ceaseless display of loud comments and baiting tactics lasting several hours." He then started jamming chips into the pot before announcing his betting intentions after becoming the chip leader with five players left. This was the last straw for the tournament staff, and he was kicked out of the tourney in fifth place.

Brandon Cantu was nothing but a professional across the country in San Jose, California, at the Bay 101 WPT Shooting Star, which he won. Cantu came to the final table with a 3-1 chip lead, thanks to winning more than 20 hands in a row the day before, and pressured his way to a win, which was good for $1 million. He also collected $40,000 in bounties for knocking out eight of the "shooting stars."

The Poker Players Alliance and Harvard's Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS) organized a protest in Boston to let Massachusetts lawmakers know that they object to provisions of a bill that would penalize online poker players - and people who place any kinds of bets over the Internet - with up to two years in prison and a fine of up to $25,000.

The language was part of a bill that would allow the state to award three casino licenses. About 45 people showed up to voice their displeasure for the attempt at harshly criminalizing online poker there. The bill failed.

At around the same time, the PPA launched a litigation support network to provide basic poker legal advice, as well as to provide members with a network of attorneys around the country who could help players in times of trouble, if needed.

The network is made up of volunteer lawyers who make themselves available to poker players who may be facing prosecution by local authorities, or who simply need advice about the legality of their home games.

Jerry Yang, the 2007 WSOP main-event winner, continued to share his good fortune by donating 10 truckloads of food, hygiene products, toys, and dry goods to Southern California families in need through Feed the Children, an organization to which he has made donations since he was in graduate school. It cost him around $72,000.

Before this, Yang had written checks totaling more than $1 million to various charitable organizations, including the Make-a-Wish Foundation and the Ronald McDonald House.

Lee Markholt won the WPT World Poker Challenge in Reno and its $493,000 top prize. Only 261 players showed up to play in this event, marking the final time in the near future that the WPT will return to Reno.

April

April started off with a big, uncomfortable murmur from Washington, D.C., where a congressional hearing on the proposed regulations of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was held. Officials from the banking industry told members of Congress that the UIGEA will place an unjust burden on their system, while officials from the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve told them that they don't believe the law can be followed the way it is written.

Despite these warnings, the rules of the UIGEA were pushed forward in November as part of the endgame strategy by George W. Bush, in order to have the rules in place before he leaves office. The UIGEA will go into effect in December of 2009.

Two weeks later, Rep. Barney Frank would introduce a bill that, if it was passed, would basically cull the UIGEA from the law books, but alas, it found its way into the giant slush pile of proposed bills that wouldn't be acted upon during the 110th Congress, meaning it will have to be re-proposed in 2009.

Two big WPT events took place in April, the Foxwoods Poker Classic and the WPT Championship.

Erik Seidel would win his first WPT title by taking down the event at Foxwoods. He came to the final table as the chip leader and used extreme patience while enduring more than a 12-hour final table. His patience and skill paid off to the tune of $992,890.

David Chiu became $3.3 million richer after coming from behind to win the biggest event on the WPT calendar, the $25,000 WPT Championship. With 545 players generating a $13.6 million prize pool, Gus Hansen came to the final table as the chip leader. In the end, his second-place finish was good for $1.7 million, the largest cash of his career.

Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Annie Duke, Phil Gordon, and Howard Lederer settled a lawsuit that they had brought against the WPT in 2006. They contended that the release that all players who compete in WPT events are required to sign violated federal and state antitrust laws. As a result, a new release form was introduced to the players' satisfaction, and after a three-year absence from the WPT, they returned.

Across the pond, the EPT held its Grand Final, and Glen Chorny would win the biggest poker prize ever to be awarded in Europe. The $3.1 million top prize was generated from 842 players putting up $15,000 each to play. The top three players all won at least $1 million.

The PPA also became a millionaire of sorts after it announced that it had reached its goal of 1 million members in April.

May

The WSOP would start on the last day of the month, but tournament players had two PokerStars Latin American Poker Tour events to attend in May if they so desired. A PokerStars Asia Pacific Poker Tour event also took place days into June.

The search for a new Shana Hiatt continued after the WPT lost its fourth hostess when it was announced that Season VI hostess Layla Kayleigh would not return for Season VII. Hiatt spent the first four seasons as the WPT's on-air hostess before moving on, and since then, the WPT has had a new hostess every season.

SpadeClub and Card Player headed to the Playboy Mansion as sponsors of a charity tournament and party to benefit the Los Angeles Urban Health Institute. This was the second year that Card Player helped sponsor the event, and what a pleasure it was to do so.

Online, David Singer won the Full Tilt $25,000 Heads-Up Championship and its $560,000 top prize. That's $60,000 more than Chris Ferguson banked for winning the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. This big buy-in event attracted a capacity lineup of 64 players, including a who's who of top online and live-tournament pros.

In the world of brick-and-mortar casinos, Trump Plaza in Atlantic City became the first location in that casino town to offer electronic poker tables. PokerTek, the company that builds and operates the PokerPro automated poker system, received approval from the New Jersey Casino Control Commission to install the machines. Later in the year, the company would install a system at the Excalibur in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas became poker central again as the WSOP invaded the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in June and July. More countries were represented at this year's WSOP than at the Winter Olympics. The youngest WSOP main-event winner ever would emerge when Peter Eastgate of Denmark captured the gold bracelet.

But there are so many stories besides the main event to be told.


World Series of Poker - The Year of the Pro Vs. an International Invasion
By Ryan Lucchesi

The 2008 World Series of Poker began with a professional player winning his first gold bracelet. Nenad Medic set the precedent for the year of the pro by winning event No. 1, the $10,000 pot-limit hold'em world championship (the first of eight $10,000 buy-in world championship tournaments that were a new standard in 2008). The rest of the summer saw much of the same, as many players who were thought to be the best to never have won a bracelet broke through the barrier and finally won one (Erick Lindgren, David Singer, J.C. Tran, Kenny Tran, David Benyamine, and Medic). Players who had tasted the sweet success of WSOP gold before were successful once again, as the professionals gained momentum and just couldn't be stopped. Daniel Negreanu claimed a fourth bracelet, Barry Greenstein and Mike Matusow won their third bracelets, and Layne Flack won his sixth bracelet, five years after winning his fifth.

Scotty Nguyen also added to his bracelet collection by winning the most coveted bracelet of all by the pros. Nguyen became the only player in history to hold both a main-event world championship title and the H.O.R.S.E. world championship title when he won the fifth bracelet of his career in the 2008 $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. tournament. Nguyen's win was the most controversial of the summer, as he put on a performance of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde proportions. Nguyen was cordial with fans, but rude to the players and staff while at the table, up to the point where the failure to penalize him was called into question.

John Phan accomplished two feats in 2008. He won his first gold bracelet in a $3,000 no-limit hold'em event, and then won his second bracelet one week later. He won the $2,500 no-limit deuce-to-seven triple-draw lowball event to become the only player to win multiple bracelets during the summer. However, one family was able to match this feat, as Grant and Blair Hinkle became the first brothers to win gold bracelets at the same WSOP when they won event No. 2 and event No. 23, respectively.

It looked as if nothing would slow down the professionals' takeover at the 2008 WSOP, but an international invasion of the game took place during the last half of the summer that continued into the fall. It wasn't until event No. 22 that a foreign-national player won a bracelet (Jens Voertmann - Germany), but after that, the growing poker markets of Europe and South America all but took over, winning 12 more bracelets. The winners and countries were as follows:



The international invasion of the 2008 WSOP extended to the final table of the $10,000 no-limit hold'em main-event world championship, where a new experiment provided the final buzz for the summer. For the first time in history, the final-table players would take a break for 117 days and return to play for a $9.1 million first-place prize on Nov. 9. Two European players were among the "November Nine," Peter Eastgate of Denmark and Ivan Demidov of Russia. When the final-table action began in November, they weathered the storm to become the final two remaining by making strong plays and hitting the right cards at the right times. They then returned for the final heads-up match the next night, and after one of the best heads-up matches to decide the world championship in years, Eastgate emerged with the victory. He became the first Dane to win the world championship, and Europe had its first champion since Carlos Mortensen in 2001.

The story lines of the year of the pro and the international invasion dominated the 2008 WSOP, but in the end they found themselves intertwined in one champion. Peter Eastgate, who is both a professional player and an international player, won the biggest poker prize of the year. He is a young online player, as well. Eastgate is the new face of poker in every sense of the word, and he is now its ambassador to the world.


Poker's First Triple Crown

Gavin Griffin exploded onto the poker scene in 2004 as a 21-year-old who suddenly had a World Series of Poker bracelet ($3,000 pot-limit hold'em) and the $270,000 in prize money that went with it. The young man proved that his win was no fluke, and he only seems to be getting better after what he already has won: a WSOP bracelet, an EPT title (the 2007 Grand Final), and, in January of 2008, a WPT title (Borgata Winter Open). He is the first player to have all three of those titles in his possession, a Triple Crown worth celebrating.

Griffin is only 27 years old and already has more than $4.4 million in tournament winnings. Everyone can't wait to see what else he will do.


Barely Legal, and the European Poker Tour

Barely legal players, and players who are unable to play in most of America's cardrooms, performed exceptionally well in EPT events during the first half of 2008.

Jason Mercier, 21, of Florida, had a breakout year. He won the EPT San Remo event, and then went on to win the £20,000 EPT London High Roller event in October, and finished sixth at the EPT Barcelona. He already has $2.7 million in winnings.

Michael McDonald was born in 1989, the year that Phil Hellmuth became the youngest player to win the World Series of Poker main event at the age of 24, a record that was broke this year by 22-year-old Peter Eastgate.

McDonald celebrated his 19th birthday in 2008, but before he did, he made three final tables at the 2008 Aussie Millions (he finished first, second, and sixth in preliminary events) and became the youngest player to win an EPT event (the German Open). Because his birthday's in September, he won't be able to play in a WSOP event in Vegas until 2010.

And Glen Chorny, at the age of 22, won the EPT Grand Final in April, and $3.1 million, which was just one of his seven cashes in 2008.


The LAPT and the APPT

PokerStars sponsors not only the very successful EPT, but also the Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) and the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT). The LAPT, which premiered in 2008, held its first four events in Rio de Janeiro, Costa Rica (twice), and Uruguay, and attracted a total of 1,377 entrants and generated a collective prize pool of more than $3.4 million.

The APPT also held four events in 2008, all in the fall: Macau, Seoul, Auckland, and Manila. Collectively, the events drew 1,295 entrants and distributed more than $3 million in prize money. More seasons of each tour are planned.


Card Player's New Way to Win

SpadeClub.com, a subscription-based poker community, was Card Player Media's biggest project of 2008. The site, where members pay $19.99 a month for unlimited poker play, launched on Feb. 11, 2008. SpadeClub provides the opportunity for poker players to learn, interact, and play poker while competing for more than $100,000 in cash prizes a month. So far, members have won nearly $1.2 million in prize money, and hundreds of members have cashed for thousands of dollars.

SpadeClub members compete every day in a number of cash tournaments with prize pools ranging anywhere from $10 to $30,000. SpadeClub also offers numerous poker games for members of varied skill levels and interests. Those games include no-limit Texas hold'em, six-handed games, pot-limit Omaha, turbos, deep-stack events, and more.

SpadeClub awards its members more than just cash; exciting poker prizes also have been awarded throughout SpadeClub's first year. Four Exclusive members were each awarded a $12,000 World Series prize package that included a $10,000 seat in the main event. Also, on top of the normal $100,000 a month in prizes, SpadeClub has been giving its members even more to play for. Two Exclusive members received the chance of a lifetime when they were awarded the Party at the Playboy Mansion package to compete in the Urban Health Institute's Third-Annual Celebrity Poker Tournament, held on the Playboy Mansion grounds. SpadeClub also awarded nine first-place finishers a WPT Boot Camp entry, where they received instruction from some poker greats. SpadeClub also has sent numerous members to Bellagio to compete at poker's most prestigious live venue.

SpadeClub is excited about the years to come, when more $10,000 seats in the World Series will be awarded via the new VIP $10,000 Reward promotion. SpadeClub members also will have the opportunity to take the cruise of a lifetime on a Card Player Cruises Caribbean adventure, and win the ultimate Vegas vacation package, including tickets to the exciting new live poker show The Real Deal! and a two-night stay at The Venetian.

With all of these ways to win and save, all at no risk to its members, SpadeClub is clearly more than just an online poker site.