09 3rd, 2010
They represent close to 5 % of the population and are the third largest minority group in the country.
The Greater Los Angeles Area itself is almost 12% Asian American and one quick look inside local poker rooms like those at The Bicycle and Commerce Casino show an even bigger percentage checking, raising and pushing all in with regularity.
Asia itself is the world’s most populated continent, and with approximately 4 billion people, have long looked at the area as the new frontier for gaming.
As the powers of online poker look to expand East, of this there is little doubt: The Asian-American population is large, growing, poker is a big part of it and it’s getting even bigger.
So, when a 37-year-old Vietnamese-American Medical Supply company employee and amateur poker player from Orange County, California came out of nowhere to book a spot at the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event this summer, certain questions arose.
Could Soi Nguyen create a Chris-Moneymaker-style poker boom in the Asian-American community, the same way the Tennessee accountant did for the rest of America with his 2003 WSOP Main Event win?
“That’s exactly what I am,” Nguyen told PokerListings. “I’m the Asian Chris Moneymaker because I’m not a pro and I don’t really have that much experience.
“I’ve never really had a chance to play that much poker because I’ve been working. But I watched Chris Moneymaker win and I said, ‘Hey, I can do this.’
“Now, everybody I talk to is thinking about playing in the Main Event next year. They see that if I can do it, they can do it too.”
But the Moneymaker boom was born out of more than just his Main Event win. It was driven by online poker’’s marketing machine.
Moneymaker practically became a household name in the United States, easily recognized almost everywhere he went from the PokerStars TV commercials the site attacked the American market with in the weeks and months following his win.
Plus, a multi-tiered sponsorship deal kept him playing in big-time tournaments and in the public eye.
But Jerry Yang’s experience tells us an Asian-American winner may not get the same kind of push behind them.
Yang won the 2007 WSOP Main Event, and while his commitment to religion and charity work may have been a large part of the equation, he did not become the catalyst for any kind of tangible boom in Asian-American poker.
In fact, outside of a few major tournaments and some charity events, Yang spends most of his time these days running his new sushi restaurant in Merced, California.
All the major marketing plans, television commercials and lucrative sponsorship deals seemed to simply pass him by.
And Yang says he’s not the only one.
“I’d like to know why Asian players don’t get the big sponsorship deals?” Yang asked. “I really would like to know. Being a World Champion, I get that question all the time. Do you know why, because we would like to know and I don’t know the answer?
“I believe, in this country, that everything people do is fair and I hate to bring the race issue into this. I don’t think its racism, but at the same time, we need to figure out what it is. We have to find a way to work together and figure out what this is all about.”
Scotty Nguyen and Johnny Chan are both WSOP Main Event champions and two of the most recognizable names and faces in the game. Neither has a major sponsorship deal in place.
With more than $5 million in career tournament earnings and Player of the Year title, back in 2007, J.C. Tran was among the hottest poker players on the circuit and widely considered one of the best tournament players on the planet.
Yet the Vietnamese-born and Sacramento-raised Tran was without a major sponsorship deal.
“I think it’s mainly because I’m an Asian guy and it’s tough to market an Asian guy. I mean, how many Asian guys do you see on TV?” he said in November of that year at a tournament in Lake Tahoe.
“It’s kind of not fair that I don’t get the recognition and endorsements I deserve and there are players out there who don’t do half of what I do and they do.”
Tran said he was considering walking away from tournament poker if a major sponsorship deal did not come his way. Almost three years later, he still has no deal and is playing fewer tournaments than ever before.
As a poker agent and player manager, Eric Brewstein of No-Limit Management is tasked with negotiating sponsorship deals with online poker rooms on behalf of his players.
This summer, he brokered the deal between Full Tilt Poker and the second Asian-American at the 2010 WSOP final table - Student turned online poker pro Joseph “subiime” Cheong.
Brewstein said race was never a factor.
“He got his deal based on chip position, background, historic performance and his accomplishments in poker up to date,” Brewstein explained. “I just don’t think there’s a correlation.
“I know people, other players, who have told me the sites don’t think Asian players are marketable, but I’ve never heard it from anyone directly at the sites and I don’t believe it.”
Brewstein says players like Tran, Chan and Nguyen may be overvaluing themselves in dealings with the various online poker rooms and in the case of Yang; he simply didn’t have the right people around him pushing his agenda.
“Look at (2009 WSOP champ) Joe Cada,” he said. “He put himself in a camp with people that were going to drive that engine, a young, hungry agent willing to fight for him and the right kind of marketing people to attack the business with vigor and lofty plans. Did Jerry Jang do that? I don’t think he did.”
For his part, Nguyen has been too busy dealing with the fact he’s made the final table to make plans for what he’ll do should he win the world title and $8.9 million first-place prize this November.
Or if race will play a role in it at all.
“It is a big community and there are a lot of Asian people interested in poker,” he said. “I hope that my experience will benefit the Asian community in some way. I hope it really does shine the spotlight on the Asian community and I would love to see more Asian players get sponsorship deals.
“Obviously I’m being sponsored by Full Tilt and I hope more sponsorship deals come down the line for me and others. Some of my closest friends are well know Asian poker players like Nam Le and Tuan Le. Sooner or later they will get their due.
“We are a very close knit community, we all know each other. If one of us makes the final table we root for our teammates and when I say teammates, I mean any member of the Asian community.”
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09 1st, 2010
Names like Freddy Deeb, Neil Channing, Tony G, Bruno Fitoussi and Ross Boatman were among them.
And combined with the £5,000 buy-in, the prize pool for the event now weighs in at a healthy £820,800.
A total of 16 places will pay and £273,783 will be set aside for the winner.
Just 54 survived Day 1b, with Priyan de Mel and Richard Ashby building big stacks to separate themselves from the pack.
They will be joined on Day 2 Wednesday by the 46 players who made it through Day 1a, including chip leader Erik Seidel and a well-stacked Phil Ivey.
The plan is to play down to the final 27 players beginning at 12 p.m. London time at The Palm Beach Casino.
A winner will be crowned Saturday.
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08 30th, 2010
After the two opening flights at the latest European Poker Tour event in Vilamoura it is Russia’s Leonid Bilokur who is leading the way just ahead of Portuguese player Andre Coimbra.
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08 30th, 2010
If a Martian was to land on earth this week and ask about some card game called poker instead of sending him to Las Vegas you’d be pointing the little green man in the direction of dear old Blighty as for the next month London will be the centre of the poker universe.
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08 30th, 2010
If Roland de Wolfe’s poker career ever ends up in the gutter then he’s always got a visit to Britain’s Got Talent to look forward to. The WSOP, WPT and EPT winner has been showing off his skills of mimicry, doing impressions of some of his colleagues on the forthcoming Party Poker Premier League IV.
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If you prefer your tournament action short handed then Dublin will be the place to be this September with the European Short Handed Poker Championship.
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08 27th, 2010
The maiden World Poker Tour event on British soil is almost upon us and there are still chances to qualify for the £5,000 Main Event.
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08 27th, 2010
Two men have appeared in court this week accused of being the masterminds behind the daring raid at the European Poker Tour event at the Hyatt Hotel in Berlin in March. The pair, Ibrahim al Moussa and Mohammed Abou-Charka are alleged to have organized the four young men who carried out the raid.
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08 27th, 2010
On today’s Daily Deal, Poker News Daily visits the Legends of Poker final table, finds himself in hot water once again, and the Main Event Day 2A airs on ESPN. It’s all coming up… RIGHT AFTER OUR COOL INTRO!
Hello, I’m Sean Gibson and welcome to the Daily Deal by Poker News Daily. The ‘s Legends of Poker tournament from the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles wrapped up late last night. Part time poker player Andy Frankenberger took the event down for seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Frankenberger told me before the event that the money didn’t mean much to him as he’s already done well for himself on Wall Street and that he was gunning for the win. Well, mission accomplished as he beat out pro Kyle Wilson heads up for the victory. The next stop for the is London England for the London Poker Classic.
Recent activity across several of the online poker forums is once again indicating that noted pro Sorel “” Mizzi may have been involved in an attempt to rig multi-table tournaments. In a conversation between Steve “thorladen” Weinstein and Mizzi that popped up over the weekend on TwoPlusTwo and PocketFives, Mizzi proposes to Weinstein the use of remote PC access programs such as GoToMyPC.com to access computers in different locations. These programs allow a person from one location to be able to use another computer – using the accessed computer’s IP address. Named in the potential scandal were Chris Dombrowski, known online as “cdbr3799” and Aditya “Intervention” Agarwal. However, both have responded on PocketFives saying that they had no part in any cheating. Mizzi attempted to shed some light on the subject by posting:
“The conversation in question contains bits and pieces of information from several conversations I’ve had with Thorladen and others over the course of about a year. It was quite a while ago, but if I had to guess I would say the conversations occurred from two-thousand eight to two-thousand nine while I was sponsored by .”
Wherever the truth is in the most recent hubbub regarding Mizzi, his track record in the poker world has been mixed. He has served multiple suspensions for various violations of the terms and conditions of and . However, he’s also piled up three point two million dollars in live tournament earnings since 2006.
On Tuesday night, the World Series of Poker Main Event continued airing on ESPN. This time, Day 2A was highlighted and featured nine former Main Event champions gunning for a repeat performance. Embattled PokerStars pro was seated at the feature table, with cash game specialist at Table Two.
One of the highlights of the night was Antonius cracking pocket aces with five-three after flopping two pair. ESPN poker commentator Norman Chad added, “Patrik and I go to the same health club. He just works out a few more days a week than I do.” You can catch the two-thousand ten World Series of Poker Main Event every Tuesday at Nine P-M Eastern Time on ESPN.
Thanks for joining us as always on The Daily Deal and if you haven’t already be sure to bookmark Poker News Daily and come back every day for the latest poker news. Catch us on twitter at www.twitter.com/pokernewsdaily. I’m Sean Gibson and until tomorrow have some great runs tonight in your tournaments!
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Was it really only six and a half weeks ago that we were in Las Vegas with the 2010 WSOP Main Event in full swing? The Day 2A dinner break that was cut short for those of us who watched Chris Moneymaker wait for nearly ten minutes (believing Bryan…
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