Top 2010 Poker Player Stories – #18 Randal Flowers

Randall Flowers becomes the youngest 2 time WPT Champion

They say that you need luck to win a poker tournament, but that players that are more skilled just need less luck than other players.  Without the years of experience that some of the poker old guard has had, Randall Flowers has already been on the fast track to racking up good scores beginning at the age of 18.  Using online poker as a vehicle to really learn the game, Flowers has to date more than $2.3 million in online tournament winnings.  But the now 22-year old poker phenom took to the casino’s in Verona, New York to really jumpstart his live play, as they allowed players to compete from the age of 18.   Flowers booked several final tables in New York, including a 3^rd place finish for $72,480 in the $5,000 buy-in Empire State Hold’em Championships, and rode that wave of live success to the EPT in San Remo in 2008, where he’d bubble the final table by losing a flip for a huge stack.

But in 2009, the 21-year old Flowers final tabled the WPT Barcelona with a huge stack, en route to besting Per Sjogren heads up to claim a WPT Title with more than $380k in prize winnings.  The WPT win made history as Flowers became the youngest player ever to win a WPT title at 21 years old, and placed him on the map as one of the brightest tournament pro’s on the circuit, with the poker world waiting to see what would happen in 2010.

Top 2010 Poker Player Stores – #19 Liv Boeree wins EPT San Remo

Liv Boeree's win at the EPT San Remo was one of the best stories of the year

If you were a close follower of the game of poker prior to 2010, you may have been familiar with the name Liv Boeree.  The beautiful brunette with a thick British accent had been selected as one of the five entrants into a reality show “Ultimatepoker.com Showdown” where she received some in depth poker training from the likes of Dave “Devilfish Ulliot, Phil Hellmuth, and Annie Duke.  The appearance landed her a gig as a Television Presenter for Gutshot TV, where she worked at the WSOP in Las Vegas in 2006.  After a few years in front of the camera, Boeree turned her attention to the poker felts as a player, where she began collecting several good scores at the casino’s including more than $170k in earnings in 2009.  By August that year, her play had garnered her interest from some of the poker sites as an up and coming female poker player.  That’s a demographic that online marketers covet, and Liv fit the bill to a “T”, inking a contract with UB.com.

Liv’s 2010 began with a bang, making the final table of the $1,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em event at the Southern Poker Championships in Biloxi, Mississippi.  She then finished 16^th at the L.A. Poker Classic in Los Angeles, California.  But it was at the €5,000 Buy-in Main Event at the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour stop in San Remo, Italy that Liv made a huge splash for all the world to see.

Top 2010 Poker Player Stories – #24 Scott Clements and Adam Levy

The 2010 WSOP Main Event run of Adam Levy (left) and Scott Clements (right) was a brilliant one, that wasn't shown on TV

The viewership numbers on the World Series of Poker Main Event telecast this year were down considerably.  I wrote an article on some thoughts I had about how to pick up the numbers earlier (found here).  The post was basically my response after having read the Wicked Chops Poker blog on the topic (found here) and thinking about some of the improvements that could be made.  One of the main reasons that people highlight as being disinterested in the WSOP on TV is that the stories of the players at the final table are just not that interesting.  The argument is basically that “The story is the same every year.  It’s a 20-something-year-old online kid that we’ve never heard of who gets lucky to be at the final table, and then wins million of dollars.”  Well, if there were recognizable names, would that make people watch?  I believe that it would certainly help.  People like watching stories that they’re familiar with and can relate to.  And when it comes to great stories, TV really missed an opportunity to tell the great stories of Scott Clements and Adam Levy.

Top 2010 Poker Player Stories – #25 Matt Affleck

Matt Affleck's run in the 2010 WSOP Main Event was a story to remember

I had to be reminded of who Matt Affleck was on Day 5 of the Main Event of the World Series of Poker this year. I didn’t recognize him in any of the first 4 days of play, but the morning of day 5, his chip stack certainly caught my eye.  Each night, the seat assignments and chip counts were sent out, and I’d go through the list the next morning prior to the start of play to pick out significant names and chip counts for my photo-blog for the day.  On the morning of day 5, Matt Affleck’s name jumped out to me as he was 4^th in chips heading into the day as one of the few stacks that were over the 1 million mark.  Affleck’s story in the 2010 Main Event was of back to back deep runs, and this year, his story was a truly special one to watch unfold.

In the 2009 WSOP Main Event, Affleck was in a remarkably similar position.  Late in the tournament he held a commanding chip lead, but somewhere along the lines, he just began spewing chips until he finally went bust in 80^th place.  It was a whirlwind of an event for Affleck who dedicated himself to improving his play over the year, and focused himself on the opportunity to run up a stack again in the 2010 Main Event, and this time, not let it slip away.

Top 2010 Poker Player Stories – #26 Johnny Chan and the Main Event

Johnny Chan made us all think that he could do it again at this year's WSOP Main Event

There are very few names in the poker industry that are referred to with the same sense of awe as Johnny Chan.  For nearly 30 years, Chan has been throwing cards around poker tables all over the globe, and stacking the chips of other poker players that have left with their wallets empty because they played with the poker icon.  Bob Stupak once coined the nickname “The Orient Express” after Chan won the 1981 American Cup poker tournament, getting through the final table of the tournament in under an hour.  The name just stuck and the train has been cruising along the tracks ever since.  Chan was the last player to win back to back WSOP Main Event titles (in 1987 and 1988), a feat which is very likely never going to be replicated given the size of today’s fields.   It’s also incredible that in 1989, he finished runner up in the Main Event to Phil Hellmuth.  But the 10 time bracelet winner was immortalized in the movie “Rounders” where Mike McDermott watched the tape of Chan slow play a monster versus Erik Seidel en route to winning his second Main Event title.

Last year I had Andew Feldman of ESPN on our show (the TPT Live Show) to talk about the play at the final table after the November 9.  As part of our discussion, we discussed if there was another player that would have the impact on the game of poker that Phil Ivey had in making the November 9.  I somewhat  jokingly said “Can you imagine if Johnny Chan was a November Niner? In fact, I think that Johnny Chan will make the final table again.”  This year, he made me believe that it was not only possible, but likely.  This made his 2010 Main Event story one of the best of the year.

Top 2010 Poker Player Stories – #27 Sam Trickett

Sam Trickett had a break out year in 2010

I made 3 trips to Las Vegas for the 2010 World Series of Poker this year and during one of my visits, I vividly remember one player sticking out to me that just flat out surprised me.  On my second trip to the Rio All Suites Hotel and Casino late in the month of June, I wandered into the Amazon room that weekend where I found a special player in Event #45.  The $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event had played down to around 75 players or so, and there was a British player with a thick accent that made some eye popping plays that kept sending pots his direction.  His name was Sam Trickett.

I’d never heard of Sam before this.  In fact, I’d run into a friend of mine in Alex Outhred who was also still in the event, and had a nice chip stack of his own that he was wielding. I asked Alex who Sam Trickett was, and he said

Top 2010 Poker Player Stories – #28 Annie Duke and Daniel Negreanu

2010 will remind me more of a feud between Duke and Negreanu than what they did at the table.

When I think back on the year for both Annie Duke and Daniel Negreanu, I will remember them both as being poker icons and ambassadors of the game.  And while they both had such positive things that happened to them throughout the course of the year that I could talk about, the story that I will remember the most about these two involves a feud that erupted between the poker “odd couple” over an event at the World Series of Poker this year, which oddly enough, neither of them played in.

There is a lot of controversy surrounding the validity of the Ladies Event at the WSOP, and whether or not it has a place at the WSOP.  There are many people who sit on both sides of the fence on whether or not the event it is a good thing for poker.  Negreanu is a huge fan of the event, and Daniel began this story by stating his opinion on why he was in favor of the ladies event in a video blog, and then again on his written blog.  He wrote about

Top 2010 Poker Player Stories – #30 Joe Cada

Joe Cada's 2010 will be remembered as a year that he'd like to forget.

6,494 Players began the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event, and all of them ended up with fewer chips than Joe Cada.  The 21 year-old from Shelby Township, Michigan played solid poker for 8 days, and then used some luck to wiggle his way from 2% of the chips, all the way to the chip leader when heads up play began against Darvin Moon.  The heads up specialist found a way to emerge victorious and booked a cool $8.5 million and the title of Poker Ambassador for winning pokers most coveted prize.

From that point on, Cada did Letterman, CNN, ESPN, and a whole host of other television media running the gambit as poker’s next coming wonder-kid

Top 2010 Poker Player Stories: #31 – Harrison Gimbel

Harrison Gimbel captured the first big poker prize of the year, winning $2.2 Million at the PCA in January 2010

2010 marks a special year for me, and one that I will remember as a “poker year” as really, that has been my profession throughout the last 12 months.  It wasn’t really something that I expected, or even planned for.  But it happened nonetheless, and I’m happy that it has.  Every year around this time I find myself heading over to the website of a friend of mine, Andrew Seely. Andrew frequents my home game, and he annually expresses himself in a December Tradition that he entitles “The December Photo Project.”  The project has Andrew taking random photo’s of himself throughout his day, every day in the month of December, and posting them onto the web for all to see.  As I reflected on this year, there were some players that immediately stuck out in my mind, and it hit me,  I wanted to create a December project of my own.   So I decided that I would profile what I felt were the 31 Poker Player Stories that have impacted me the most, or that I remember as being significant during the 2010 Calendar year.

Non Hold’em Poker

Phil Ivey won the 6th of his 8 WSOP Bracelets playing No Limit 2-7 Lowball

About a month ago, Full Tilt Poker released a new series of Draw games to their software, which offers the ability for players to add to their current selection of games.  I know a lot of players that simply rely upon No Limit Hold’em as their game of choice, but poker is a game that really requires a variation of play in order to keep it from becoming boring and predictable.

First of all, I love Hold’em.  It’s my game of choice.  It’s probably the most simplistic of the games to explain and learn, and its the game that most people play.  But every once and again, I just need a change-up