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
Holdings, the gaming operator which owns 888poker, announced Tuesday that it will be cutting costs in order to address a loss in profits for the first half of 2010. The company has also decided to scrap its dividend in order to pay for acquisitions after the weak economy and World Cup caused a decline in poker revenue.
888′s first-half financial results showed revenues up 10.5 percent to $130 million (£85 million) but pre-tax profit dropped by 56 percent to $4.3 million (£2.8 million). Poker revenue dropped 25.2 percent to 19.6 million compared to $26.2 million in the first half of 2009. 888 also saw an increase in operating expenses from 41.6 million in 2009 to 45.8 million in 2010, as the search for business forced an increase in spending on marketing from $35 million to $48 million.
“Our business experienced a difficult first half against the backdrop of a challenging economic environment with trading impacted by a number of factors including general online poker weakness, adverse foreign exchange movements and, in relation to Poker and Casino in quarter two, the FIFA World Cup,” said Gigi Levy, the chief executive of 888 Holdings.
To help alleviate the first-half losses, the company is putting in place $6 million of cost-cutting measures, reorganizing its technology divisions and upgrading product offerings. It says the business has already started returning to seasonal trading patterns since the World Cup. “Trading in August has been significantly stronger than in July, with a double digit daily revenue increase especially in casino and poker,” said Levy. “Poker has seen an increase of more than 15 percent in revenue in August.”
888poker had an eventful first half of 2010. The company announced the release of the sixth version of its poker software following a complete re-coding of the client with fresh new look and an online loyalty store. 888 also partnered up with Microgaming, the worldwide leader in online gaming software, to gain a license to operate in the new French gaming market.
The company will continue to look for ways to boost poker revenue by upgrading its software and launching new marketing schemes. In the meantime, 888 will pay no dividend due to uncertainty about future regulation in its key European markets. France and Italy are already in the process of regulating online gambling, and several others are expected to follow.
Said Levy, “In order to continue investing for future growth, and to support potential acquisitions, the board has decided not to declare an interim dividend at this time and finalize the full year dividend when the full year results are available.”
Following the recent merger between PartyGaming and , Levy stated his desire to try and consolidate 888 with other successful online companies, adding: “We look at consolidation as one of the possible routes to realizing our full value. We feel that longer term this is the direction the industry will take.”
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09 1st, 2010
Ivey waged all-out war on deprimiert as the pair played 451 hands of $2,000/$4,000 Limit Hold’em.
deprimiert, who is rumored to be a German Limit specialist, has been playing a lot of high stakes against Ivey and prior to last night was actually up $261,000.
Ivey seemed to figure him out last night, however, as the Team Full Tilt pro smashed his way to a $327k win.
It was the cherry on the cake for Ivey who had the best online poker record out of anyone in August with $2.06 million earned.
Other big winners during the month of August included Dan “jungleman12” Cates, who made $1.1 million (the majority from the durrrr Challenge), Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond ($904,413), Tom “durrrr” Dwan ($737,208) and harrington25 ($729,000).
The biggest loser shouldn’t come as a huge surprise as Gus “Great Dane” Hansen had an absolutely catastrophic August with nary a winning session. By the time the final dollar had been tabulated Hansen lost $2.8 million in the last month of summer.
Also finishing well in the red were NEKOTYAN (-$946,000), David Oppenheim (-$846,374) and Patrik Antonius (-$815,339).
Thanks to Phil Ivey’s exceptional August, he’s finally passed Tom Dwan as the biggest winner in 2010. Ivey has $3.8 million in profit while Dwan, feeling the pressure from Dan “jungleman12” Cates in the durrrr Challenge 2 is down to $3.7 million.
Here’s a couple of the biggest pots from the Phil Ivey/deprimiert battle last night. Be sure to check out our for more information.
deprimiert flushes Ivey.
Unstoppable Ivey.
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08 31st, 2010
With lifetime winnings of over $4 million and two championships, Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little should be no stranger to any poker player.
Similar to many of today’s younger players, FieryJustice was introduced to online poker through playing Magic: The Gathering. The moment FieryJustice turned 18 he began playing online poker. He started on the lowest stakes available of Limit Hold’Em and worked his bankroll up to $20,000. This was done alongside attending college and working a day job. After two years of grinding and growing his bankroll he decided to quit his job working at Pensacola Aviation – where he was fuelling airplanes – and drop out of college to start playing professionally. He worked his way up to $30/$60 which at the time was the highest limit game available then he decided to shift focus from Limit cash to Single Table Tournaments, otherwise known as Sit n Gos.
It was the shift to SnGs that made his bankroll explode. FieryJustice signed up with popular poker forum TwoPlusTwo and started asking questions and making friends. Once he started playing Sit & Gos he was playing $200 buy-in games, allowing himself a 100 buy-in rule, and at the early stages all his play was at . Fortunately for FieryJustice he was playing before the online poker boom so things like training sites were barely heard of, leaving him with pretty soft competition. Anybody that was playing online poker around 2004 and before will tell you the games were much softer and easier than they are these days. For a good player to grind a 10% ROI back then wasn’t too hard whereas now days it’s unheard of.
Because wasn’t big back then FieryJustice had to rely on volume to make good money. Once he learned how to continuously beat the games, he soon went from single-tabling to playing 16 games at once, which gave him profits of around $10,000 per month.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing for FieryJustice: at one stage he had a 30 buy-in downswing at the $200 games, which is when he not only took a step down in games but he invested in a analytical program for SnG players called SnG Power Tools. This purchase, combined with some coaching, helped FieryJustice find his game again.
When Party Poker closed to the US market and most players merged over to , FieryJustice moved away from SnGs and started playing big buy-in Multi Table Tournaments (MTTs.) While FieryJustice aspired to play tournaments professionally; given his experience as one of the best SnG players in the world the transition wasn’t too difficult. His first year wasn’t that profitable, but he met who backed him for a while as well as helping him with his game.
FieryJustice had his career’s biggest win in 2007, taking home over one million dollars at the main event at the Mirage Casino. He outlasted famous players at the final table including and Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken. Five months prior to this he had also made a final table and finished fifth for a little over $300,000 at a PokerStars Caribbean Adventure tournament. His next big score came at the WPT North American Poker Championship where he sat at the final table with players such as and . He ended 2nd for $715,000, but this achievement also earned him the title of the WPT Player of the Year, making him the youngest player to ever receive this award.
These days FieryJustice continues to play WPT and events and can be seen at PokerStars playing under the name of Jcardshark. He is also a head coach at popular training site “Float The Turn”.
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08 31st, 2010
Seidel sits atop 31 survivors from a starting field of 72 at The Palm Beach Casino in London, although the list of names in the hunt is a rather daunting one.
2009 November Niner Phil Ivey worked his way up to fourth in chips by the time play wrapped, while names like Luke “FullFlush” Schwartz, Praz Bansi and Huck Seed sit within striking distance.
Seidel has in $10,350,014 career tournament earnings, including eight WSOP bracelets and a WPT title.
He and Kathy Liebert are the only players to have entered 100 WPT main events.
Day 1b at the London Poker Classic is expected to draw an even larger field Tuesday, with British pros Chris Moorman and Neil Channing registered to play.
The final table will play out this Saturday.
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08 31st, 2010
The 29-year-old pro from Vancouver, Washington has taken the chip lead in Portugal with 70 players remaining and will be looking for more than just his first EPT cash when play resumes just 14 spots off the money.
Cantu’s last big score was a win in the 2010 Wynn Classic this past March where he added $363,844 to his more than $3 million in career tournament earnings.
Team Online’s Andre Coimbra, originally from Portugal, is the closest player to Cantu.
Also among the leaders is Team PokerStars Pro JP Kelly and Friend of PokerStars and England football legend Teddy Sheringham, looking for his third EPT cash.
The €5,300 EPT Vilamoura Main Event drew 384 players to the Porteguese resort area, making it the largest poker tournament ever held in Portugal.
A total of 56 players will earn pieces of a €1,862,400 prize pool with €467,835 reserved for first.
The tournament will run through Sept. 2 at Casino Solverde on Portugal’s Algarve coast.
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The European Poker Tour (EPT) continues its progress across the European continent, once again having a record turnout for the most recent stop in Vilamoura, Portugal.
In its second stop at the Casino Vilamoura on the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean, 384 runners put up the €5,300 buy-in to contest, the latest championship of the EPT’s seventh season. The numbers vastly outpaced the 322 players who showed up in 2009, when Antonio Matias captured the inaugural title. A number of Team pros and other top poker players were in attendance for the tournament, making the going difficult for the amateurs who qualified through PokerStars or bought into the event directly.
() bracelet winner made his first ever appearance at an EPT event as a member of Team PokerStars and many other pros from the stable were also in attendance. Also making his first ever appearance in an EPT event on European soil was EPT founder .
Other Team PokerStars Pros such as Italy’s , France’s Arnaud Mattern, British players JP Kelly and Vicky Coren, and Russia’s Alex Kravchenko filled out the tables. Top players such as Victory Poker’s , former WSOP Europe champion , and 2010 WSOP bracelet winner James “flushy“ Dempsey were also in attendance, looking to take down the latest EPT title and the €467,835 first place prize.
Action began on Saturday with 181 players lining up for Day 1A. Leading the action at the end of the day was one of the Team PokerStars Online pros, Portugal’s Andre Coimbra, who sat with a nice Day 1A stack of 157,600. Several pros were also on the Day 1A leaderboard, including Minieri (fourth, 131,400), Esfandiari (fifth, 127,800), and Mattern (sixth, 119,200).
Day 1B on Sunday was the more active of the two Day Ones, with a sizable lineup of 203 players stepping up for battle. By the time play finished late Sunday night, Russian PokerStars qualifier Leonid Bilokur had stacked himself with 161,200 to take the overall Day One lead. The pros made their presence felt through Sam Trickett (fourth, 132,600), Sorel “” Mizzi (fifth, 132,200), and ’s (sixth, 122,400).
The field came together for the first time on Day 2 with a total of 221 players surviving. Esfandiari got off to a terrible start, dropping to 40,000 in chips after riding high on Day 1A. “The Magician” was able to make some chips appear and rebounded to slightly over his Day 2 starting stack, but the same couldn’t be said for several other top professionals. Such players as EPT San Remo champion , Lex Veldhuis, Mizzi, Coren, and Williams were dispatched during early action on Day 2.
According to the PokerStars blog at the midpoint of Day 2, Coimbra has added to his chip stack to sit at around 220,000, but several players have stormed past him to push him back to the middle of the Top Ten. Poland’s Grzegorz Cichocki currently holds a slim chip lead over Cantu, with Kelly and Trickett also arranged on the upper reaches of the leaderboard. Poker News Daily will bring you all the latest from the battle at the EPT Portugal, including the crowning of the champion on Thursday.
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08 30th, 2010
We’ve seen that poker is a great platform to raise money for charitable events throughout the country. I salute those players who help organize, put on, and participate in charitable poker tournaments. I believe the time has come, however, to parlay those efforts where the “outside world” will see that poker can be a large contributor to worthwhile charities. Thus, , Jan Fisher, Lisa Tenner, and I created in an effort to unify the poker community in this effort.
PokerGives is a charitable organization set up to benefit worthwhile charities and it’s done through the poker community. The founders don’t make a dime and we expect 95% of all contributions to go directly to the charities we support. Right now, we are supporting four charities, all very special to our hearts: Paralyzed Veterans of America, Special Olympics, Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, and Step by Step Foundation.
With the support of players, card rooms, industry leaders, and the poker media, the poker world has an opportunity to make a significant difference to the lives of many and bring a well-deserved positive outlook on poker and the poker world. Even those who oppose gambling and/or poker will take a step back and say, “Hey, those poker people are all right. They’re contributing a lot of money to worthwhile charities.”
Most of us take our health and our freedoms for granted. I wish every person, young and old, could go to a VA Hospital such as Walter Reed and see the paralyzed veterans, those who have been paralyzed as a result of serving in the Armed Forces to protect our freedoms. I promise you that visit will impact you forever, change your thinking about life, and make you a better person. The Intrepid Fallen Heroes have made the ultimate sacrifice for us, and their families have suffered. We can help them.
If you’ve never gotten involved or been to a Special Olympics event, do so. It’s something you should put on your “bucket list,” especially those blessed with healthy children. It truly is a moving experience. Step by Step is an organization providing for the underprivileged children of the world. Think how lucky you were to be born where you were.
The people who volunteer their time and money and those who work with these charities are special people. To me, they are walking angels. Through PokerGives, the poker world now has an opportunity to get involved, help these wonderful charities, and do it by doing what we love to do, playing poker.
September has been designated as PokerGives month. Card rooms from across the country are holding where 50% of the prize money goes to PokerGives. This is the first-ever PokerGives month and about 25 card rooms have signed up! Please go to PokerGives.org to see when and where you can play in a PokerGives charity event.
We are so grateful for the card rooms that are supporting PokerGives and we’re hopeful that poker players everywhere come out and play in these events. In addition, Poker Nation is hosting an online PokerGives tournament on on September 19th. I guarantee you that if you play in a PokerGives event and get knocked out, you’ll still feel good because you helped out one of these worthwhile charities.
Winners of all PokerGives events will be put into a drawing and could win a number of prizes. And the card room that hosted whoever wins the drawing will get a free seminar at their card room from Linda, Jan, and me.
We’re off to a good start with PokerGives and are excited about September, PokerGives Month. A sincere “thank you” to all of the supporting card rooms and the players who play. The potential of what we can do as an industry in charitable contributions through PokerGives is awesome.
Looking down the road, my dream would be to see all tournament players contribute 1% of their prize money to PokerGives and every card room and online site host PokerGives tournaments. Can you imagine how much money we could raise for these charities if that happened? By supporting , you’ve got the chance to make a Royal Flush in the game of life.
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08 30th, 2010
Pot Limit Omaha is one of the most exciting and action-packed poker games you can possibly play. However, the game involves four cards and not just two like in Texas Hold’em, so many players find difficulty adjusting to new table dynamics. Our latest CardRunners strategy video dives into Pot Limit Omaha play and theory, by looking at some hands using Hold’em Manager.
The official CardRunners teaser:
Mindcirkus is here to analyze his own mind. Tune in as he goes over hands from his database and determines whether his play was optimal or if he changed his mind.
Comments from Mindcirkus about the video:
In some of my past videos I tried to speed things up and people told me not to, but I’m learning and getting better with each video. I think I’m going to do my next video at 2/4, either 4 or 6 tables. I was thinking about doing 20-50bb tables this time since my other vids have all been deepstacked, but if you guys prefer normal/deep tables just let me know.
I have always personally preferred to watch live play videos myself, but I wanted to show some hands in a replayer with the intent of showing some creative lines that would help players add some new things to their game beyond the basics and the standard lines that so many players take over and over again.
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Recently, the (PPA), the main lobbying force for the poker industry, launched a petition at to reverse the Commerce Casino’s stance on critical internet gambling legislation. HR 2267, dubbed the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act, was successfully marked up in the House Financial Services Committee last month and now waits for its time to be debated in Congress.
Nearly 7,000 players had signed the online petition at the time of writing and the PPA was shooting for 10,000. The push came as a result of an action alert sent by the PPA to its members and followed testimony in the House Financial Services Committee from the Commerce Casino’s Tom Malkasian. His testimony claimed in part that HR 2267 is “based on false revenue assumptions that would require removal of the right of any state or tribe to opt out of the bill in order to achieve the advertised tax revenue of $42 billion over ten years.”
Malkasian also highlighted that allowing illegal operators to receive licenses under HR 2267 equates to “locking in unprecedented market advantages that can undermine and destabilize the land-based casino gaming industry.” He also voiced concerns over HR 2267 conflicting with tribal compacts and allowing internet gambling sites to be located outside of the United States. The latter three concerns were each addressed during markup as part of a dozen amendments tacked onto the bill.
PPA Executive Director John Pappas told Poker News Daily, “They don’t want to compete with existing online operators or Harrah’s or Wynn or Google or anyone else who may get involved in internet gambling. They prefer to have their own fiefdom in California… A lot of lawmakers went out of their way to address their concerns via amendments, yet they still continue to oppose the bill.”
The PPA’s action alert merely called for players to contact the Commerce and express their disappointment with the casino’s stance towards the sweeping internet gambling legislation. Players took it upon themselves to suggest a boycott, which the PPA did not initially ask for. Pappas explained, “We felt that poker players can make those types of decisions on their own. We want to reserve a boycott and I don’t think it’s something we intended to call for. Should the Commerce continue to be obstinate, then we might revise our stance there.”
Pappas questioned why the Commerce wouldn’t be content to apply for a license under HR 2267 if the bill were to become law. The PPA’s main face speculated, “For a long time, they dominated the poker scene in California and they feel entitled to California’s online poker players’ money. Maybe they don’t feel that they’re as strong and won’t be able to compete.” On Friday night, Commerce Casino officials distributed a press release claiming support from the Bicycle Casino, Hawaiian Gardens Casino, and Hollywood Park Casino in opposition to Congressman Barney Frank’s bill.
As part of his House Financial Services Committee testimony, Malkasian likened legalizing internet gambling to legalizing marijuana, a comparison Pappas did not look kindly upon: “In essence, they’re calling the pro players endorsing sites drug dealers. That would offend me, especially when it comes from our purported friends. It wouldn’t have been shocking if it were from Focus on the Family or Congressman Bob Goodlatte, but when it’s coming from a supposed friend of poker because it doesn’t fit their business model, of course we’ll voice our concern.”
After an internal debate on the proper course of action, the PPA launched PlayersBeforeProfits.com. “We came to a decision after hearing from so many of our members,” Pappas told Poker News Daily. “We felt obligated to inform our members about it. Our goal is to get 10,000 signatures. We’ll go back to the Commerce and see if they’ve revaluated their position after we do.”
Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest legislative developments.
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