$1 Million Big One for One Drop at 2012 WSOP: Player List and Bios II

Confirmed Players for the $1 Million 2012 WSOP Big One

Guy Laliberté

• Who he is: Founder of Cirque de Soleil, Guy Laliberté got his start busking on the streets of Montreal. Since then he’s grown his circus into a worldwide phenomenon that's been seen by more than 90 million people, been named Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst and Young and taken a vacation into space marked poker.
• Why he can afford a $1M buy-in: As Canada’s 11^th wealthiest man, with an estimated net worth of $2.5 billion, Laliberte is one of the few players in this event that can eat a $1 million loss without breaking a sweat.
• Fun Fact: Even if Laliberte wins this tournament it won’t fully make up for his online poker losses.

Bobby Baldwin

• Who he is: The Owl, the 1978 world champion of poker, President of the Golden Nugget, Bellagio and Mirage. These are just a few of the things Bobby Baldwin has been called. A casino industry fixture for the last 30 years, there’s a reason the biggest cash game in Las Vegas is played in “Bobby’s Room”.
• Why he can afford a $1M buy-in: According to the Casino Journal the average gaming CEO made $750,000 in 2007 and Baldwin has been a top-level executive since the 80s. And just think, he’s probably getting comps to the Bellagio buffet 365 days a year.
• Fun Fact: Despite having limited presence at live poker tournaments, Baldwin is the proud owner of four WSOP bracelets, including the world championship in ’78.

Phil Ruffin

• Who he is: An American businessman with interests in casinos, oil production, convenience stores and real estate, Phil Ruffin is best known as the owner of the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
• Why he can afford a $1M buy-in: In 2008 Ruffin was named the 215^th wealthiest man in the US, with a net worth of $2.1 billion. Even though the casino industry’s had some tough times we’re pretty sure he’s got a spare million lying around somewhere.
• Fun Fact: At 72 years old Ruffin married 26 year old Oleksandra Nikolayenko, his fourth wife and 2004's Miss Ukraine. Even more impressive? They just had their first child together.

Daniel Negreanu

• Who he is: Arguably the most recognizable face in poker, Daniel Negreanu has been among the winningest tournament players in the world for more than ten years.
• Why he can afford a $1M buy-in: With $14.65 million in live tournament earnings Negreanu is number two on the all-time live money list. He’s also the flagship of Team PokerStars Pro, a position which has probably been as lucrative for him as every hand of poker he’s ever played marked cards.
• Fun Fact: Negreanu is no stranger to dropping money in poker tournaments. At the 2006 WSOP he reloaded a record 48 times in the $1k rebuy event.

Tom Dwan

• Who he is: In many ways Tom Dwan defined what it is to be an uber-successful, fearless, talented and young online poker professional. He’s part of a very small group looked upon as the absolute best of their generation.
• Why he can afford a $1M buy-in: Estimating Dwan’s net worth isn’t easy but considering he was willing to put $1 million up on two separate occasions for the durrrr Challenge, it should come as no surprise that Dwan was one of the first to commit to the Big One.
• Fun Fact: Dwan doesn’t just play on the internet. He won the biggest pot ever played on GSN’s High Stakes Poker, a $919,600 monster he took from Barry Greenstein in Season 5.

Jonathan Duhamel

• Who he is: 2010 world champion of poker, Montreal poker poster boy, new BFF of Guy Laliberte. Jon Duhamel played a comfortable and hospitable poker ambassador during his tenure as world champ, and looks to have a staying power not shared by main event winners of late.
• Why he can afford a $1M buy-in: Duhamel snatched nearly $9 million for winning the 2010 Main Event, and he also secured a PokerStars endorsement deal that is still in place today. Despite having close to $10 million in tournament earnings it’s extremely unlikely he’ll have 100% of himself in the Big One.
• Fun Fact: Duhamel donated $100,000 to the Montreal Canadiens Children’s Foundation when he won the main event.

Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier

• Who he is: Rock star in Korea, recreational kickboxer, Guiness World Record Holder. Real name Bertrand Grospellier, ElkY has been one of the winningest players in poker since 2008.
• Why he can afford a $1M buy-in: ElkY has $8.6 million in live tournament earnings and over $1.1 million online. In addition to a bloated bankroll he has the confidence of every potential staker in the world. It will not be hard for ElkY to sell action for the Big One.
• Fun Fact:  He got kicked in the head by Lex Veldhuis just a few weeks ago.

Justin “BoostedJ” Smith

• Who he is: From wheelchair to wealthy, BoostedJ has been winning at poker since an injury put him out of work at age 17. Since then he’s been a reserved but omnipresent part of the poker world. He’s a well-rounded, high-stakes veteran who plays many games and succeeds in both tournaments and cash games, online and live.
• Why he can afford a $1M buy-in: Smith has only been playing live tournament poker since late 2008 but already he’s earned more than $2 million. He’s definitely not afraid to play high. He took fourth in the $100,000 buy-in High Roller event at the 2011 Five Diamond in Las Vegas.
• Fun Fact: It appears Smith was involved in the 2011 horror movie Detention as an executive producer. The movie “starred” Dane Cook.

Daniel Shak

• Who he is: Dan Shak is known in the poker world as a hedge fund manager, but he’s probably known as a poker player by his fellow financiers. Specializing in gold futures Shak has been finding more and more time to play live major poker tournaments.  
• Why he can afford a $1M buy-in: Shak’s New York City apartment sold earlier this year for $7.5 million and judging by the number of super high roller events we’ve already seen Shak playing, his commitment to the Big One isn’t surprising.
• Fun Fact: Shak has the rare ability to say he beat Phil Ivey at poker. Shak won the $100,000 buy-in event at the 2010 Aussie Millions, defeating Ivey heads-up.

Andrew Robl

• Who he is: A regular in the highest-stakes cash games in the world, you may have seen Robl on Poker After Dark or High Stakes Poker. Known more early in his career as good2cu, Robl cut his teeth online before becoming a predominately live player in the last couple of years. 
• Why he can afford a $1M buy-in: If you’re profitable in the highest-stakes cash games in the world, you likely have $1m kicking around. Robl has also spent time in the past year playing the softer, nosebleed-stakes games in Macau.
• Fun Fact: One of the original members of the "Ship it Holla Ballas" crew, Robl had one of the worst losing weeks of his career while being filmed for the documentary From Busto to Robusto.

An Experiment in Decision-Oriented Thinking - Courtney Gee

Long time no blog for me! The last time I wrote, I mentioned that I was about to start playing poker again for the first time in a month. Getting back to the grind has been a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.
I was pretty rusty when I started playing again in January. I started off at lower stakes and with less tables, but it was still really difficult! I was surprised that a break of just one month made that much of a difference.
While I certainly punted more than a few stacks shaking the rust off, I have also been running quite badly so far this year. You probably already know that losing day after day at poker isn’t very fun marked poker, so I haven’t exactly been in high spirits the last few weeks.
You always hear people claiming that in order to be a good poker player, you have to learn not to care about your losses. That if your bankroll is large enough, you shouldn’t worry about downswings because you should always have enough money to play through the variance.
I, myself, stand by these statements.
Just because I say it, though, doesn’t mean I take my own advice. Honestly, it’s REALLY hard to not care about losing money day after day.
The thing with me is that the actual money doesn’t matter much. This is because my bankroll management is very sound. It really comes down to the fact that I hate losing. Money is a way to keep score, so seeing losses over and over again is quite discouraging.
Blah blah blah, right? Downswings are standard. Everyone loses. I just have to keep learning how to deal with it better.

The Experiment

I think it might help me to stop “keeping score” for a while. Keeping track of account balances and bankroll funds can be important when it comes to moving up and down in stakes, but aside from that, I can’t think of any additional benefits. I don’t plan on drastically changing stakes anytime soon, so I can safely ignore my bankroll for the time being.
I’m going to try just playing online poker while ignoring my wins and losses for a week. I’ll focus on playing well, and as long as I’m doing that, it doesn’t matter what the score is.
If I run bad and still feel extremely tilted even without knowing how much money I have lost, then perhaps the root of my tilt problems is somewhere else. Running the experiment will at least help me rule this one element out.
I made up this experiment as I wrote this blog post! I think it’s an interesting idea for me, though, so I’ll definitely try it. It will be an exercise in discipline, too, because I always check my results at least once a day (usually twice). I hope that I will be able to resist checking for a week!
The next time I write, I’ll let you know how the experiment ended up (and how long it lasted… hopefully for a week and not just half a day).
Until then, good luck at the tables!

Explaining Heads-Up Hyper Turbo SNGs by Stakes

I haven’t talked much about my experience with heads-up hyper turbos yet, so I figured I’d do that today.
If you follow my Mental Game Blog, you’ll know that I’ m currently playing buy-ins between $100 and $300. I played mostly $60s and $100s for all of September, and then I added $200s at the start of October. I started registering for $300s just a few days ago and have only played a handful.
Because bankroll wasn’t much of an issue for me, I was able to go from playing $30s to $300s between August and now. I often read people asking about the differences between buy-ins while moving up, so I thought I’d briefly share my thoughts about it.
$30s are low stakes and obviously extremely soft. Since I didn’t play many $30s, I’m not too sure about the number of regs at this level. There are so many fish that play $30s, though, that it doesn’t really matter at all.
I spent a bit longer with $60s. There are definitely some regs at this level, but there are also plenty of games. This buy-in is quite popular, so I didn’t play regs that often and I never had to wait around to play.

Be prepared for protective regs juice cards

 

The change is a little more significant going from $60s to $100s. A much smaller number of these run, and there are WAY more regs. Not only are there more regs, some of them are actually competent at this level.
I’m sure that several poker players make a decent clip at $100s when rakeback is considered (which explains why there are so many regs).
The jump from $100s to $200s is even tougher. It comes as no surprise that even fewer $200s run, and unsurprisingly, some of the regs are quite good. If you don’t want to play regs, the games can be very difficult to get. If you are a new player in the lobbies and none of the regs recognize your screen name, you are probably going to play regs all day.
I played tons of regs when I moved up, and I still do. Some regs are protective of their lobbies and go out of their way to sit new players, which I have experienced quite a bit in the past month.

Higher Stakes, Tougher Regulars

The regs are also much more aggressive than the $100 regs, which I had trouble with at first. I have learned quite a lot about adjusting proper amounts rather than over adjusting like a lot of people tend to naturally do. Moving from $100s to $200s has definitely required more work than anything I have ever experienced when it comes to online poker.
I don’t currently have a lot to say about moving from $200s to $300s since I have only played a handful of $300s. Since almost all the $300 regs also play $200s, though, the jump almost certainly won’t be as difficult as it was when moving from $100s to $200s.

Moving from $200 to $300 should be easier.

 

Despite being in a tough stage of my learning process when it comes to hyper heads-up, I am really enjoying playing a lot. I am more motivated than ever when it comes to actually getting hours in, and working on improving every day has become a source of pride for me.
I try to post at the end of every session I play, so feel free to read my Mental Game Blog if you want to follow my progress.
If you are from the Vancouver area, you will probably know that the WSOP Circuit has come to town. The main event starts at the end of this week and has a $1.6k buy-in, so I’ll be taking a couple days off online poker to play that.
I’ll likely have a couple swaps in the event, which means I’ll probably be tweeting a few updates here and there. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @courtiebee if you want to know how I do.
Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. If you are playing in the Circuit event, see you at River Rock!

Erick Lindgren Dating Erica Schoenberg

We're not the types to publish stuff about other people's private matters. We're above that sort of thing.
So it looks like Erick Lindgren and Erica Schoenberg are dating. The evidence is pretty strong. They were spotted together cheat poker having an intimate dinner in Las Vegas last week and Lindgren was railing Erica as she played deep in the LAPC main event.
When Schoenberg busted out his was the shoulder she (figuratively) cried on. And they were kissing in front of the media table so it's a pretty good bet.
As we know Erica used to date Frenchman David Benyamine. Without going too far we will say Erick and Erica look like a better match.
So that's pretty much it. Like we said, we don't publish stuff about people's personal business.

Stout's Sunday Report: February 20, 2011

There's not much I can say about this session. It featured the biggest multi-entry tournament of all time, which let me take six - $640 cracks at winning $1.3 million.
It would have been difficult for me to have bricked this opportunity harder
infrared ink  not even coming close to the money with any of the six entries. On to the next one!

---

Total # of tournaments played: 34
Total buy-ins/rebuys/add-ons: $10,477
# of times I'd rather bash my head into a wall full force than have to relive this session: 46
Total amount of cashes/bounties: $992
Net win/loss for session: -$9,485
Net win/loss for 2011 in Sunday online tournaments: -$7,191
Matt Stout

Hello iPhone!: A Brief History of Poker and Mobile Gaming

The introduction to mobile gambling for most poker and casino fans came in 2007 when the iPhone made its debut.
The real roots of mobile gaming were planted years earlier, though. Dedicated apps make it much easier to play poker or blackjack today on your smartphone or tablet.
But Java-based cell phone gambling games were around in the early-to-mid 2000s. A few options for betting real money on sportsbetting, poker and casino games even existed cheat poker.

The Stone Age of Mobile Gambling (pre-iPhone)

Early cell phone games were fairly basic and often ran into bandwidth issues. Universal 3G coverage still lagged in many areas.
Single-player casino games and sportsbetting were the most common as they didn’t suffer from lag or latency issues like poker did when trying to connect multiple players in real time.
Most games were for play chips only and geared towards offering a quick and casual way to kill time with limited graphics and gambling options.

Hello, iPhone (2007-2010)

The mobile gambling industry would really take off with the launch of the iPhone, which was in many ways the perfect portable device to play poker or other casino games with.
One of the very first apps developed was Apple’s own Texas Hold’em game, which introduced the game of poker to a whole new audience.
Despite developing its own poker app Apple refused to approve any app or game that involved real-money gambling to be listed in its App Store so all the early iOS apps that involved gambling games were for play chips only.
The inability to gamble for real money may have disappointed some hardcore gamblers but millions more enjoyed the social side of being able to play poker with people around the world.
Zynga Poker remains a play-chip site -- although the companyhas considered pursuing real-money gambling for both poker and casino games.
It's still is by far the biggest mobile gambling game in the world. About 30 million active players log in at Zynga Poker each month.

Online Gambling Sites Enter the Fray (2010-2012)

The rise of smartphones and apps have helped spur online gambling operators to get serious about mobile versions of their most popular games.
Betfair, bwin.Party and Paddy Power were some of the first sites to get mobile versions up and running marked card tricks.
This first wave of real-money gambling apps debuted in 2010-2012 and often saw Android versions released first due to far fewer restrictions compared to Apple.
Many offered poker, casino and sportsbetting options although the amount a player could bet was sometimes limited on mobile versions.

Everybody Jumps into the Mobile Gambling Pool (2012-today)

Once Apple loosened its restrictions on gambling apps in 2012, more and more gambling apps began appearing – mostly on a country-by-country basis where online gambling is legal.
Flash forward to today and mobile gambling has evolved into a business that produces billions of dollars in revenue each year.
Most of the real-money gambling action is centered on apps and mobile sites of big global sportsbetting sites but plenty of smaller players have gotten in on the action.
Hundreds of different games are available for both play-money and real-money gambling.
Aside from real-money gambling apps and games, tons of free-chip games remain very popular today including Zynga Poker, Slotomania, Bingo Blitz and DoubleDown casino.
The social nature of the games coupled with un-lockable achievements keep plenty of players content and happy to just battle it out for play chips.
Many of today’s games also now incorporate bonus games and puzzle elements that combine the addictive fun of casino games with some of the strategy and fast-paced action of puzzle and strategy games.