E-Dog Crowned King of the Internet

PartyPoker.com and Card Player Cruises recently chartered an entire cruise ship for a week. The voyage left from San Diego and sailed to Mexico. PartyPoker was hosting its PartyPoker Million III, which once again broke the record for entrants in a WPT event; 546 players from around the world competed in the limit hold'em championship in which first place was $1 million. It was exciting for me because there were so many new faces who all had a shot at the grand prize.

After three days of play, the final table was set and it was filled with superstars. Chris Hinchcliffe qualified online and was the chip leader against tough competition when the cameras began to roll. This was almost another "Moneymaker Story," but after experiencing some bad luck, Hinchcliffe finished third and won more than $440,000. The professionals at the final table were Steve Zolotow, Barry Greenstein, Scotty Nguyen, Daniel "The Ice King" Negreanu, and Erick "E-Dog" Lindgren.

After a few hours of play, Daniel and Erick were heads up with virtually the same amount of chips. This was amazing, considering that there was almost $4 million in chips in play. Not only was this a thrill for both players because they had locked up a ton of cash, but they are great friends and have always dreamed about playing heads up against each other with equal amounts of chips. Personally, I would like to get heads up with a friend and have about a 100-1 chip lead. Because they are such good friends, they both wanted to win, but they also didn't want to see the other lose. I know that sounds funny, but "The Ice King" told me that.

When it was over, both players hugged each other and Erick Lindgren was the winner of his second WPT event of the season. E-Dog has shown that he is not only great at tournament poker, but is very successful at qualifying online for big tournaments – and winning them! He qualified online for both the PartyPoker Million III and UltimateBet's Aruba Classic – and won both of them! In the next issue of Card Player, you will learn more about Erick.

Now, this gets me to Daniel Negreanu's nickname. When interviewing Daniel on the cruise, we talked about his nickname "Kid." One thing we both agreed on was that it would sound funny when he is an old man if people were still calling him Kid. I really liked the nickname "The Ice King," which was given to him at the Sands when he had a heart monitor attached to him. I guess his (heart) beats per minute didn't go through the roof when he was bluffing like everyone else's did. This brings me to Erick's nickname, E-Dog. Maybe he is half man, half dog. Does this mean he is his own best friend? Not likely, because everyone likes a millionaire.