The Nightly Turbo is bringing you the day’s top poker news stories all in one place. Tonight you can find an update on the World Poker Tour London, news on the newest stop on the World Series of Poker Circuit, and more.
Read the original here:
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.”
Visit
Read more from the original source here:
09 2nd, 2010
He travels around the world trying all sorts of foods that most of us would scoff at, but when he’s home, Andrew Zimmern just likes to kick back and play cards with his buddies.
Read the original here:
The International Poker Players Association (IPPA) will present a championship event later this year with the biggest buy-in the world has ever seen. The Monte Carlo IPPA Championship, scheduled for Nov. 29-Dec. 2, will be a $250,000 buy-in No Limit Hold-em Shootout featuring a prize pool of $12 million, with the winner taking home $5 million. Players participating in the televised event will be referred to as the “Elite 48″.
“This is the player’s championship, the pièce de résistance,” said IPPA President and CEO Yosh Nakano.
Thirteen of the biggest names in poker have already registered for the highly anticipated event: , Freddy Deeb, Tony G, Bruno Fitoussi, , , , , John Hennigan, , , , and 2010 November Niner Micheal Mizrachi. The field is also expected to consist of three sponsor’s exemptions and two qualifiers, including one from Los Angeles’ Bicycle Casino.
Players will have the opportunity to qualify for the high-roller event in a new satellite format called the Equity Rebuy Shootout. The first round of the shootout is played 10-handed, with the winners getting their $1,000 buy-in back and moving on to the second round. Players that busted out then have the option to rebuy for the value of a second-round seat.
“For as little as $1,000 — less if you win a satellite — a player can play in a qualifier and have an opportunity to win the $5 million first-place prize at the Monte Carlo IPPA Championship,” said Nakano, who worked several years as the poker manager at the Bicycle Casino.
The inaugural $250,000 IPPA Championship was supposed to take place last year but ended up being canceled. The 2009 version featured H.O.R.S.E. and two rounds of No Limit Hold’ em but, in order to gain more interest from players and television viewers, this year’s tournament will be No Limit Hold’ em only.
According to Nanoko, the goal is to create a tournament with a deep structure that will allow the cream to rise to the top. “We wanted to produce a high-end poker tournament that offered a big buy-in event with quality play. We felt that we could do a good job at putting an event together that would provide the best all-around player in the world.”
Should the event happen this year, it will be the largest buy-in poker tournament by a long shot. The current leader took place in January 2010 at the Aussie Millions $100,000 challenge, where 24 players participated to create a prize pool of $2.4 million. Dan Shak bested Phil Ivey heads up to win a prize of $1.2 million. Ivey took home $600,000, while Billy Jordanou ($300,000), Tony Bloom ($200,000) and Tony G ($100,000) also cashed.
Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for further news on the Monte Carlo IPPA Championship.
Read the original here:
09 2nd, 2010
Today the 39 remaining players in the World Poker Tour London Classic will reconvene to play down to a final table. In total, 171 players entered to create a prize pool of over £800,000 and a first place prize of nearly a quarter of a million pounds.
Read more from the original source here:
09 2nd, 2010
New penny auction site is giving bidders the opportunity to win a seat to a GUKPT event for a bargain price in a special auction that will take place this Sunday. Players could end up paying just pennies for a seat worth hundreds of pounds.
Read the original here:
09 2nd, 2010
The World Series of Poker Europe promises to be one of the highlights of the London Poker Festival and you could be there courtesy of .
Read more here:
It’s the end of the month and that means payday. For some of us it’s a modest wage but for the regular players online at Full Tilt Poker’s nosebleed stakes it means six or seven figures – won or lost.
Read the original here:
If you’re looking for the news on the 2010 Poker Hall of Fame class, updates on the World Poker Tour London, and more, you can find all of that and more in tonight’s Nightly Turbo.
More here:
The World Series of Poker Circuit kicked off its first stop in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Blair Hinkle came out on top of the $1,500 buy-in Main Event, outlasting 251 players, including Dwyte Pilgrim Bernard Lee. Find out how it all went down.
Read more here:
Sponsor:
