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WPT poker hands |
 Sitting in the hot sun at the World Poker Tour’s Caribbean Adventure during season five were six poker players on the hunt for a first place prize of over one and a half million dollars. The oldest man at the table was also one with the most poker experience, a poker professional named David Singer who had shown the World Poker Tour fan base skills when he entered the final event earlier in the season at the Borgata poker tournament, only to bust out in sixth place. Brook Lyter was the second oldest man at the table at 34 and they just got younger from there. One of the youngest, 22-year-old Steven Paul-Ambrose, was playing with skill beyond his years as he took on young and old alike in his personal quests for a World Poker Tour championship. |
 When Scotty Nguyen made it to the World Poker Tour Season Five Legends of Poker’s final table, it marked his 7th such final table in five seasons. In fact, Scotty was the only player ever to make at least one final table in each of the five seasons, and his participation in an event called the "Legends" of poker was very appropriate. |
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In the game of poker it is very important to make the right decisions. Poker is all about making the right decisions at the right time, and being able to do it consistently. If you make the wrong decision, you could end up broke or crippled, and when you take the game to the high pro levels of the World Poker Tour, every move you make has to be the right one. Even a small mistake like saying "Call" when you meant to say "Raise" can cost you; fortunately for Hasan Habib, one of the three remaining players at the World Poker Tour Championship in Season Three, he was up against an inferior hand when he did just that. |
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At the Bellagio’s Five Diamond World Poker Classic, newcomer and New Yorker Abe Mosseri showed a reluctance to not toss some weight around. Though comparatively new to the many poker pros sitting around the table, Abe was never afraid to push in sizable bets and raises in order to get some attention, a tactic that worked well for him in the beginning of the game. |
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Wendeen Eolis has seen a few poker tournaments in her day; being the first woman to be in the money in the World Series of Poker, she has even had a commemorative poker chip made up in her honor for “woman’s milestones” achieved. Despite her experience she was no less hungry for the win at the World Poker Tour’s Ladies Night Out II, and the winner of the previous event, Clonie Gowen, was her opponent in this hand. |
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One of the most entertaining parts of watching the World Series of Poker is when they interject bits and pieces of a player’s perspective on the game. |
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At the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas the World Poker Tour event known as the Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Classic had 314 players pay $10,000 each for the chance to win the prize, more than $1 million for the champion. |
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Sometimes it is a good idea not to play poker when playing poker. Of course, even not playing is playing, after a fashion; perhaps “not participating” is a better way to say it. Either way, by sitting out of the majority of hands you could build a reputation as a very tight player, which could pay off in a big way further down the road. |
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In the World Poker Tour few events draw as big a viewership as the Ladies Night Out, and the second installment had plenty of action to justify the popularity. Not only were there six talented ladies playing poker at the table, there were some exciting plays, especially for home viewers, who could see the pocket cards and play along. |
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The old saying goes, “It works every time but once.” It’s used in reference to any bold and risky play that seems charmed, but depends on not getting out charmed by an opponent. |
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It is commonly understood when studying strategy for Texas Hold’em that pairs are great starting cards, but they need to be protected with the right amount of aggression. |
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Possibly the highest ranking professional at the table of the World Poker Tour’s Ladies Night Out II was Cindy Violette, and she had yet to take a pot. Playing with her was veteran Wendeen Eolis, fellow pros Isabelle Mercier and Sharon Goldman, former champ from the first Ladies Night Out, Clonie Gowen, and a six-month newcomer to the game, Lavinna Zhang. |
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In the World Poker Tour there are a lot of televised events, many of which are very popular and draw a lot of viewers. One particular competition, the WPT Ladies Night Out, is among the most popular, with the first installment crowing Clonie Gowen as champion. |
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When the bad boys of poker come out to play, you can expect some bravado, some trash talk, and some wild plays, and the World Poker Tour’s “Bad Boys of Poker” event delivered all of that and more. At the table was three time WPT champion Gus Hansen, called the “Trashman” because he will play with any hand, even one others would throw away, as if it were a winner; and many times he makes them winners. |
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Phil Ivey is a fan favorite when it comes to professional poker players, and there are no exceptions when he plays at the World Poker Tour. At this venue he has made six final tables, a fantastic number in the three seasons that the WPT has been around, yet he has been unable to win once. |
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The Ladies have their Night Out, and the Bad Boys have their chance too at the World Poker Tour studios. It was the Bad Boys of Poker at the WPT, and five hard hitting pros, along with one lucky sweepstakes-winning amateur, battled it out in a winner take all poker game. |
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Sometimes you just get lucky. In the Reno Hilton event, the last stop before the kickoff of the main event of the 2005 World Poker Tour, six players made it through a field of 361 to be sitting at the final table; they played with skill, but there is always an element of luck in poker. |
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On the final stop of the World Poker Tour before kicking off their main event, 361 players competed for a chunk of the nearly two million dollar prize pool at the Reno Hilton, including famous poker pro, the unreadable Phil Ivey. |
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It was the final event of the 2005 season of the World Poker Tour, and only two players were left. Representing the new face of poker, Tuan Lee, young, newly minted poker pro facing Paul Maxfield from England; not as young, not so much a pro, but an Internet qualifier to the event. |
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Sometimes a poker player is playing for second place and does not even realize it. Poker is like any other competition; if you want to win it, then you have to WANT to win it. |
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Four players, including Phil Ivey, had busted out of the World Poker Tour’s Reno Hilton World Poker Challenge, and it was down to Blair Rodman and Arnold Spee to decide who would take home the winner’s pot of over $600,000. |
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Sometimes it is more fun when everyone plays, but that rarely happens in a game like No Limit Texas Hold’em. In the second to the last event of the 2005 World Poker Tour run, at the final table, four players were left, and in this hand four players went in. |
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When it comes down to it, all you can really do in poker is make the best decisions you can and then cross your fingers. That is what Blair Rodman did at the World Poker Tour event that came right before the championship, when he found himself near the end of the final table and looking down at a pair of wired Queens. |
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Sometimes you have to gamble playing poker, but then again, sometimes you don’t. That is just one a hundred decisions you have to make every time you play the game, especially a game like No Limit Texas Hold’em, where you have to risk it all time and time again either by pushing in all your chips in a bold, All In move, or being forced too by an opponent. |
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When it comes to the World Poker Tour, Phil Ivey is a bridesmaid. He may not be happy to hear it, but it is true, if you follow the old saying, “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.” Phil Ivey, with a plate full of fantastic poker accomplishments, has among them five final tables in the history of the World Poker Tour, yet not one first place win. |
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It is polite to feel bad for the guy you suck out on, but when you are playing for millions of dollars and a World Poker Tour first place finish, it can get kind of hard to pull off convincingly. Blair Rodman is a fifty-year-old pro gambler, but one thing he is not is an actor. |
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The 2005 season of the World Poker Tour was a fantastic ride for players and fans alike, and at the final table of the final event of the season, Paul Maxfield and Tuan Lee were keeping the pace an exciting and twisting rollercoaster ride of a game. |
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Sometimes poker is a game of leaders and followers. In poker, most of the time, it is the leaders that win the pots, if not always the game. At the Reno Hilton, in the last event of the 2005 World Poker Tour before the main event, Phil Ivey displayed once more why he was a good leader in the world of poker. With Michael Yoshino out of the way, it was a three handed game, and Phil was ready to make his move against Arnold Spee and Blair Rodman. |
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There are many, many professional poker player that you do not want to underestimate if you face them across the felt, especially if it is such an important game as the World Poker Tour championship in the third season. |
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Las Vegas professional poker player John "The Razor" Phan was one of five remaining professional poker players left at the 2005 World Poker Tour Championship, an event that saw 452 players put up $25,000 to compete for a first place prize of over two million. Phan had made a few lucky moves and played fairly well up to this point, but would his luck serve him better than Rob Hollink, who had suffered bad hand after bad hand? |
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At the Bike, the short name for the Bicycle Casino in California, six men were on a quest to become instant legends in the world of poker by wining the World Poker Tour’s fourth Legends of Poker event. One man, a self made millionaire by the name of Kevin O’Donnell, was not interested in the money so much as the title, and had been struggling as the short stack from the beginning of the final table. He was on the comeback trail and began to reverse his fortune. |
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The new season of the World Poker Tour kicked off with one of the favorite crowd pleasing events, the Legends Of Poker event, this year held at the Bike casino. Three pros and three newcomers where sitting at the final table, and the attitude was one of a long running home game, with plenty of friendly table talk and no hard feelings. |
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One has to wonder, when you come across a professional poker player with a nickname like "The Razor", if it was chosen or given; professional poker player John Phan has that name, and however he got it, he cuts it close in the opening hand of the final event of Season Three of the famous World Poker Tour. |
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For the majority of the 452 players who fought their way through the tournament it cost $25,000 to buy in, producing a first place prize of over two million dollars to shoot for. In the previous hand the man who, at the time, was the top ranked Eurpoean poker pro had sufferd a bad blow from a bad call on his part and was the short stack. Rob Hollink knew he had to make a strong move to keep alive. |
 Devin Porter was now on life support, down to $30k in tourney chips in a game where the ante was $15k and the blinds were $60 and $120. |
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At the final table of the Legends of Poker, the World Poker Tour event held at the Bicycle Casino, six men were all that was left of the biggest field in World Poker Tour history, over 800 players. One player was professional poker player Kenna James, the one that the other pros in the event thought would win (except the other pros sitting at the table, most likely.) When a professional poker player gets a monster hand like Big Slick, the odds are good viewers are in for some fireworks; unless, that is, he gets bluffed out. |
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World Series of Poker announcer Norman Chad once said that people who either have a lot of money, or very little money play poker very differently than the rest. In the season four World Poker Tour Legends of Poker, one player showed that to be true, at least after a fashion. Kevin O’Donnell, a self made millionare and owner of "K.O’Donnell’s" restaurant and bar, took time out from his hot streak to tell the producers of the show that money was never an object in his life. But, he made sure to point out, he was going to win anyway, because he is a very competitive person. |
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Sometimes it’s not how you play, its what you say that wins you a pot at Texas Hold’em. In the fourth season of the World Poker Tour, they held their Legends of Poker event at the Bicycle Casino in California, and one player at the six handed final table knew all about what is called "table presence." Jake Minter, a professional poker player who, up to this point in the game, had stayed out of nearly every hand, shown no aggression, and kept his game face screwed on tight, was ready to make a move now that he had built up enough "poker capital." |
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"These guys are playing like they are double parked." So said Vince Van Patton, co host of the World Poker Tour’s televised shows, about the play at the final table of Season Three’s championship event. At the table were Englishman and amateur poker player Paul Maxfield and professional poker players Tuan Lee and Hasan Habib. |
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It pays to know your opponent, especially when you are sitting across from him at a poker table. During the big championship event at the end of season three for the World Poker Tour, Paul Maxfield got a chance to get paid because he paid attention to his opponents, all professional poker players. Even though the man was an amateur, he knew enough to do that much. |
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It is one thing to push an opponent in with a Jack Ten, but something else to call with a Jack Ten. So said World Poker Tour announcer Vince Van Patten, and he was certainly correct. He was referring to a hand during the No Limit Texas Hold’em World Poker Tour championship in their third season, when amateur English poker player Paul Maxfield made an error in judgment against the professional poker player Tuan Lee. |
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Sometimes you just have to take a chance when you are playing No Limit Texas Hold’em, and if you have made it all the way to the final table of the World Poker Tour championship during season three, you definitely know how to take a chance. With a field of over four hundred players, there are plenty of times you have to put it all on the line by moving or calling all in, and the final table is no exception. In this hand John "The Razor" Phan had just come off a bad beat that cost him a sizable amount of chips, and amateur player Paul Maxfield was paying attention. |
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Discipline is all-important in poker, especially when you’re playing at the championship level in no limit Texas Hold them. At the Borgata Poker Open in Atlantic City, as part of the World Poker Tour, poker professional David Singer showed that he had discipline in spades. With other pros such as Robert "Action Bob" Hwang and Kathy Liebert at the table, it was the former blackjack dealer from New Jersey turned poker pro Ricardo Festejo who gave Singer the opportunity to show how a pro reacts to a bad beat. |
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The World Poker Tour has many venues, and there is a large, wide variety of plays that are shown at final tables in all of them. While it is true that the average card player cannot directly translate most of what they see at these tables to their own personal games, due to a variety of factors, sometimes you can take plenty of poker wisdom from watching the show. At the World Poker Tour event at the Borgata Poker Open, former New Jersey blackjack dealer Ricardo Festejo taught one such lesson in this hand. |
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For anyone who has played more than a couple games of No Limit Texas Hold’em, the phrase "position is power" makes a lot of sense. While the dealer button is not a magic token, guaranteeing you an edge in a hand, it gives you the chance to both observe all of the players before you act, and strike at an opportune moment. A great example of this position play was found at the Borgata Poker Open on the World Poker Tour, at the final table. In this hand a rarity occurred -- four players went to the flop instead of the standard two or perhaps three that seemed to be most common at final tables. |
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In Atlantic City, playing No Limit Texas Hold ’em, a table full of pros along with one amateur were battling it out in the World Poker Tour’s Borgata Poker Open. Sitting at the table was one of the hottest and youngest poker superstars blazing a trail in poker industry today, John D’Agostino. He is a very sharp player as evidenced at least by the fact that he was sitting at the final table, yet he stumbled early on and could never seem to regain his footing. |
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It has to be intimidating being the only amateur sitting at a table full of pros. Add that to the fact that you’re sitting in one of the most popular of professional circuits, the World Poker Tour, at the final table with over $1 million in line, and the pressure’s enormous. Of course, the bright lights, TV cameras, and audience don’t help, either. Yet, amateur player Al Ardebili was playing well -- until he felt like everyone was picking on him. |
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One of the more painful parts of playing No Limit Texas Hold ’em poker, especially at the championship level with millions of dollars on the line, is watching a leading hand slowly become less and less of a winner. It happened at the final table of the Borgata Poker Open on the World Poker Tour. Two hard bitten professional poker players were struggling to outlast their peers and an upstart amateur to become the champ at this final table. Robert "Action Bob" Hwang and David Singer butted heads in a race for an ace. |
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One of the skills that make professional poker players so good at their game is how they play their cards after the flop. While pre-flop card selection is very important in any game of hold ’em, it is how you play the cards post flop that determines how much money you make, or in the case of a tournament, how far you go. At the final table in the World Poker Tour’s Borgata Poker Open, former blackjack dealer from New Jersey Ricardo Festejo showed why he switched from blackjack to poker. |
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These days if you are sitting at a final table in a big professional tournament such as the World Poker Tour, you have already won a big cash prize. Whether or not you want to win the top prize, usually in excess of $1 million, it often depends on what you will settle for. Then again, there are situations sometimes when the money isn’t the real driver, but rather the bragging rights. For Kathy Leibert, one of the top women professional poker players in the world, it was the latter decision she had to make at the WPT Borgata Poker Open in Atlantic City, New Jersey. |
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Young gun poker hot shot John D’Agostino had been having some trouble at the final table at the Borgata Poker Open. At his third World Poker Tour final table, the young poker superstar really wanted to take home the win, but his play was not supporting his ambition. In a string of hands earlier in the day John had seen his chip lead dwindle to nearly nothing. After what look like might be a turn in his fortune, John’s luck finally ran out. |
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Kathy Liebert has had a list of successes in the poker world as long as your arm. She is one of the premier poker players in the world, especially among women. When she sat down at the final table during the World Poker Tour’s Borgata Poker Open, she not only wanted the nearly $1.5 million prize, but she wanted to be the first woman to win an open World Poker Tour event (unlike the Ladies Night events, of course.) |
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In the end, it came down to two relatively unknown players at the World Poker Tour’s Borgata Poker Open in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Falling by the wayside were professional poker players John D’Agostino, and Kathy Liebert who had busted out in third place as the highest ever woman finisher in the WPT. In the end it was down to the former blackjack dealer Ricardo Festejo, facing off against Internet qualifier and all around new guy Al Ardebili who would be the next WPT champ richer to the tune of nearly $1.5 million. |
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It seems like everybody loves Ben. One of the most respected poker players in the world today, all around the globe, is one Ben Roberts. Roberts is a career poker player who usually leaves the table with money in his pocket, and always leaves the table with a smile. In the World Poker Tour’s European Event held in Paris at the Aviator Club, Roberts showed once again why he is so well-respected. |
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Normally, when discussing poker players, people use terms like "Calling Station" and "Maniac" to describe the way they play. One such style is the "Rock", a tight, passive player who hardly seems to be playing at all. During the Grand Pre De Paris Event at the world famous Aviation Club in Paris, France, WPT viewers were delighted to see a new kind of rock in pro player Surinder Sunar. |
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During the World Poker Tour event named in honor of the Godfather of Poker, Doyle Brunson, there were plenty of examples of fine poker being played. In the very first hand was the archetype of what happens when you find yourself severely short stacked and facing a table full of good players, all of whom have you covered in a large way as far as chip stacks. During the 2006 WPT Doyle Brunson North American Championships, it was former amusement park owner Tony Grand who gave the example. |
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During the 2006 World Poker Tour one of the favorite stops is the Doyle Brunson North American Championship, where the Godfather of Poker is on hand to root for his favorite in this WPT event worth millions. At the table there were plenty of poker muscle players, including one of the oldest playing the game, 81-year-old Tony Grand. Grand, on track for becoming the oldest WPT title holder if he was to win, would knock Doyle himself out of that distinction. Grand had survived an all in move on his first hand to double up, but the blinds had done their job and once again the former amusement park owner was on the ropes as the short stack. |
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The World Poker Tour has been credited with making quite a few poker pros out of former hopefuls, and there is no question that the number of poker millionaires have been increasing ever since the WPT came on the scene. One player, however, was a poker pro long before the WPT was ever imagined, and the outfit has honored him with his own event, the Doyle Brunson North American Championship. Doyle is the oldest player to win a WPT title, and at his event in its second year six other players hoped to do the same. |
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Poker is a funny game sometimes, when the varieties of luck strike in an odd fashion in the same place, like constant strokes of lightning defying nature’s rules. In the World Poker Tour event, the Doyle Brunson North American Championship, there were a couple of times that cards turned up repeatedly, much to the chagrin of the players, and the amusement of the viewing audience and commentators, Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten. In this particular two hand set, Don Zewin saw nearly identical hands with different results. |
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Gavin Smith is one of those players who likely finds a lot of other players identifying with him. He isn’t the best looking chap at the table, or the most fit, or the one with the most style or charm. He is a fairly average bloke, yet here he is a poker champion. In fact, he has overcome a few personal handicaps in order to focus on his game, and it has paid off in spades. Gavin, hailing from Ontario, at 37 years of age was the Mirage Showdown Champion on the World Poker Tour, and here he was sitting at the final table of the WPT Doyle Brunson North American Championship. As good as Gavin was, however, he had very stiff competition with the three remaining players. |
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It is always nice to see a record being set, or a first time occurrence, and often it is nice to be the one involved - that is unless it busts you out on the first hand of a major event. This was the case for one of the players at the Season 5 World Poker Tour Caribbean Adventure, when six players sat down to finish off a poker event in paradise. The field had dropped to these finalists and the play was outdoors at the fantastic Atlantis resort in the Bahamas, with a table full of youngsters. |
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$1 million means different things to different people. To someone like Bill Gates it might just be pocket money but for someone young and just getting started in the world it can be life-changing. It was a wonder who the money would mean more to, an 18-year-old just getting started in college or a 34-year-old business owner. Those are the kind of questions that were being posed at the World Poker Tour’s Caribbean adventure at the Atlantis casino and resort in the Bahamas during season five of the WPT. Four youngsters, including two 18 year olds (which is the legal gambling limit in the Bahamas), competed against two older players for one and a half million dollars. |
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Just about everyone was wearing sunglasses around the table, not an unusual sight when the people wearing them are playing poker. In this case, however, the players had a very good reason to be wearing them -- they were playing outside. It was season five of the World Poker Tour and the venue was the Caribbean Adventure at the Atlantis Hotel and Casino in the Bahamas, and the final table match was taking place under the Caribbean sun. With a table full of young players it became interesting when the two older players ended up in a match together, David Singer, the older more experienced poker pro, versus Brook Lyter, a 34-year-old business owner. |
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As anyone who has played poker more than a few times can tell you, the game is all about the odds. What are the odds that your opponent has a better hand, what are the odds that you will make your backdoor flush draw, what are the odds that your cards are live? These questions swirl around the poker player’s head constantly as he or she weighs all their options and tries to decide what the best course of action is. During the World Poker Tour season 5 at the Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas, three players found themselves holding the same card yet all acted differently. |
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Season three was one of the more exciting seasons for the World Poker Tour as they began to cement their reputation as a quality tour for poker professionals and amateurs alike. During the Borgata Open event during this year the final table was comprised of four hard-hitting and aggressive professionals and one man called an amateur who played like a professional. |
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