Matt Waxman wins WSOP Circuit main event

Date: Wed, Dec 15, 2010 Live Tournament Women

The World Series of Poker Circuit main event wrapped up at Harrah's on Tuesday.

Florida's Matt Waxman won the event taking home almost $118K.

Here's more from Poker News.


Matthew ‘Poligraph’ Waxman has won the WSOP Circuit main event championship at Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City. The 25-year-old Florida poker pro has found plenty of success online, including winning the FTOPS XIII Main Event in 2009 for $453,663, but Tuesday’s WSOP Circuit finish marked his first win in a major live tournament. The $117,797 first-place prize pushes his career winnings over the $1 million mark.


A total of 352 players entered the $1,650 buy-in main event. On the third and final day of play Waxman arrived at the final table with 1,334,000 in chips, narrowly trailing chip leader Brandon Croft’s 1,397,000. Croft never got anything going and ended up falling in 8th place.


When play reached heads up, it was Waxman against Jesus Cabrera. Waxman had the early chip lead, but Cabrera doubled up a couple of times, including one hand in which his A-9 outdrew Waxman’s A-K. But Waxman kept chipping away to reestablish his chip lead. On the final hand it appeared Cabrera would double up again when he got all in with pocket 6s against Waxman’s pocket 3s. However, a 3 on he flop changed things, and Waxman held on to win the hand and the tournament.


Waxman earned $117,797, a WSOP Circuit championship ring, and a seat into the WSOPC Circuit $1,000,000 freeroll national championship event that will take place at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in May of 2011.


Poker action will continue at Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City this week with the nationally televised $10,000 Northeast Regional Championship beginning Sunday, Dec. 19, at 11 a.m.


Here’s a look at the main event final table results


1. Matthew Waxman – $117,797
2. Jesus Cabrera – $72,824
3. Mark Sykes – $53,126
4. Chris Bonita – $39,406
5. Dave Cubeta – $29,685
6. Mike Summers – $22,704
7. Tam Ly – $17,618
8. Brandon Croft – $13,869
9. Manish Patel – $11,073


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Did Harrah's mess up the WSOPC schedule?

Date: Mon, Dec 13, 2010 Live Tournament Women

ESPN's Andrew Feldman posted recently about the World Series of Poker Circuit event in Atlantic City.

Feldman had high hopes for the event - and for the record, haw drawn very well - especially after seeing how the WSOPC did in Hammond.

But Feldman thinks there was screw up in the scheduling and Harrah's could have done a better job.

Before the second of four $10,000 Regional Championships on the 2010-2011 WSOPC season, Harrah's Atlantic City $1,650 buy-in main event attracted 352 players to become the second-largest WSOP Circuit main event this year. Sounds great, right? Well, maybe. The WSOPC Hammond main event recruited 872 players before the first Regional Championship and in turn, created a field of 226 for the $10,000 event.


Hopes were high after Hammond that we'd see a great turnout in Atlantic City and in attendance, yes, they've got it compared with 2009 for the "main event." When the highlighted tournament was a $5,150 event last year, 195 players bought in and created a prize pool of $926,835. We'll have to wait to see where the $10,000 event falls as the main event reached only $561,776. Numbers aside, I have one major issue with this stop of the WSOPC: The $10,000 event in Hammond began three days after the $1,600 event; in Atlantic City, the $10,000 event begins a week after the $1,650 event.


Talk about killing all momentum.


It's possible that the staff in Atlantic City wanted to allow players the chance to come back from APPT Sydney or EPT Prague, but let's be serious, that's only an excuse I'm going to throw in their direction. This is a big mistake on their part. Traveling to tournaments isn't cheap and if you can convince players to go for two tournaments instead of one, they'll be more likely to see that the trip is worthwhile. In this case, players either had to decide to fly out for the $1,650 and stay in A.C. for a week or fly in next weekend for the higher buy-in tournament. There are some who definitely stayed for both, but you'll see an influx of different players in town next weekend ready to play in a nationally televised event. There was the opportunity to capitalize on the added excitement a televised tournament brings and this schedule just didn't do the trick. Make the $1,650 a couple days before the $10,000 and see numbers rise in both tournaments. I don't doubt that we're going to see a bigger turnout in this $10,000 compared with the Hammond $10,000, but I think that the WSOPC could've made more out of one of the bigger poker locations in the world.


As for the tournament, just over three dozen remain looking for the $117,797 top prize and notables among them include Matt Glantz, Josh Brikis, Ari Engel, Mike Leah and Chris Tryba. Thirty-six players will make the money.

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Borgata announces 2011 Winter Poker Open schedule

Date: Wed, Dec 8, 2010 Live Tournament Women

Borgata has announced the Borgata Winter Poker Open 2011 Main Event schedule.

Event 1 (Jan 19-20): $500 + $60 Deep Stack No Limit Hold'em (2 Re-Entry)
$300K GUARANTEED
Event 2 (Jan 20-21): $300 + $50 No Limit Hold'em (1 Re-Entry)
Event 3 (Jan 20): $300 + $50 Limit Hold'em
Event 4 (Jan 21-22): $500 + $60 No Limit Hold'em
Event 5 (Jan 21-22): $400 + $50 Omaha H/L 8B
Event 6 (Jan 22-23): $1000 + $90 No Limit Hold'em
Event 7 (Jan 22): $350 + $50 No Limit Hold'em (1 Re-Entry)
Event 8 (Jan 23-24): $400 + $50 Deep Stack No Limit Hold'em
Event 9 (Jan 23-24): $260 + $40 Ladies No Limit Hold'em
Event 10 (Jan 24): $300 + $50 Deep Stack Semi-Turbo No Limit Hold'em (2 Re-Entry)
Event 11 (Jan 24-25): $300 + $50 Pot Limit Omaha - High
Event 12 (Jan 25-27): $170 + $30 No Limit Hold'em (2 Re-Entry)
$100K GUARANTEED
Event 13 (Jan 25-26): $350 + $50 Seniors No Limit Hold'em
Event 14 (Jan 26-27): $350 + $50 7-Card Stud
Event 15 (Jan 27-28): $2000 + $150 Heads Up Double Elimination
Event 16 (Jan 27): $260 + $40 Deep Stack No Limit Hold'em
Event 17 (Jan 27-28): $500 + $60 H.O.S.E.
Event 18 (Jan 28-29): $1850 + $150 No Limit Hold'em
Event 19 (Jan 28): $300 + $50 No Limit Hold'em
Event 20 (Jan 29): $1000 + $90 No Limit Hold'em (6-Max)
Event 21 (Jan 30-Feb 4): $3300 + $200 Borgata Winter Poker Open Championship
$2 MILLION GUARANTEED
Event 22 (Jan 31): $500 + $60 No Limit Hold'em
Event 23 (Feb 1): $300 + $50 No Limit Hold'em
Event 24 (Feb 2): $170 + $30 No Limit Hold'em (2 Re-Entry)
$50K GUARANTEED
Event 25 (Feb 3): $260 + $40 No Limit Hold'em (1 Re-Entry)
Event 26 (Feb 4): $200 + $30 No Limit Hold'em (1 Re-Entry)

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Borgata STUD Bad Beat hit this weekend

Date: Tue, Dec 7, 2010 Live Tournament Women

It's not secret that I absolutely love seven-card stud. It's by far my favorite poker game. I loved when the Borgata decided to promote the game and try to get more players.

For the record, I'm not 70 years old either.

The stud bad-beat jackpot was hit at the Borgata. Here's more from Borgata's poker site:




On Saturday, December 4 at 9:30A, the Borgata Stud Bad Beat Jackpot hit for $5,000.

Robert Mion (Paramus, NJ), with Quad 6's lost his hand to Mark Barile (Pittsfield, MA) who had Quad Queens. Mion took home $2,000, while Barile won the hand and took home $1.000.

The other four players seated at the table each took home $500:
EVANGELOS POLLATOS (EAST NORWICH, NY)
WAYNE MASCIARELLA (ATLANTIC CITY, NJ)
ANTHONY HILL (EGG HARBOR CITY, NJ)
PANAGIOTIS RALLIS (MONROE, CT)

The 100% Borgata Funded Stud Bad Beat Jackpot promotion continues throughout the month of December:

Lose any $20+ pot with quad deuces or better and you'll take home 40% of the Stud Bad Beat Jackpot
Winning hand gets 20% and 40% goes to remaining players dealt into the hand
The Stud Bad Beat Jackpot is DOUBLED if hit between 8A-12P or between 5P-10P

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WSOP Circuit stop sets tournament record at Harrah's

Date: Tue, Dec 7, 2010 Live Tournament Women

Even while headlines of Atlantic City's doom hang over the city, poker tournament continue to do well in the resort.

It was proven again on Saturday when Harrah's Resort set a new attendance record for the casino in the World Series of Poker circuit event. Saturday's $300 buy-in saw 1,250 participants, breaking the 2008 mark of 1,181.

A $363,750 prize pool was raised for the event.

“We’re really excited for having set this record,” said Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City Poker Director John Arthur. “We got it right this year with the structures and everything else we have put into place for the Circuit and hope to continue having great numbers through the rest of the series.”

Christopher Rivers of Atlanta won the event and he took home $64,565.

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Annie Duke will be at Harrah's for WSOP

Date: Wed, Dec 1, 2010 Live Tournament Women

Annie Duke will be coming back to Harrah's Resort to support the World Series of Poker Circuit event, according to poker blog The Real Deal.

Duke will make an appearance at thetournamentat 6 p.m. and then follow with a Q&A on Dec. 10.

On Saturday, Dec. 11, Duke will play cash games in the poker room starting at 11 a.m.

The last time she played at Harrah's, Duke played in a $2/$4 and it's likely she will play there again. Harrah's brass probably don't want to rile up the no-limit players who may get cranky if she wins a big pot off of them. This way, she entertains the low-limit players and everyone walks away happy.

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U.S. Poker Championship kicks off at the Taj

Date: Mon, Nov 1, 2010 Live Tournament Women

U.S. Poker Championship kicks off in Atlantic City

ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey -- (PRESS RELEASE) -- The 2010 United States Poker Championship is back for another series of tournaments and being held in the Poker Room at Trump Taj Mahal Casino and Resort from November 1 through 22, 2010. The USPC will be televised for broadcast in 2011.

Compass Entertainment recently announced that it has reached an agreement to begin first-run syndication of the United States Poker Championship at Trump Taj Mahal. The main event of the 2009 USPC began airing on October 5, 2010 through major satellite and cable networks including a November run on Spike TV. Compass Entertainment Group is a multi-media company whose rights and holdings include the casino lifestyle magazine "Rounder," and the World Series of Golf. Viewers should consult their local provider guides for local times and channels.

Register for all poker tournaments in advance trough https://ptseats.com or at the Trump Taj Mahal Poker Room.

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Earn 2X comp dollars playing poker at Borgata

Date: Sat, Oct 30, 2010 Live Tournament Women

TEXAS HOLD'EM 2X COMP DOLLARS:

Play a minimum of 30 hours during the month of November at the following game limits:

$10-$20
$20-$40
$40-$80
and earn 2X Comp Dollars
(up to a maximum additional $300 Comp Dollars)

Comp Dollar will be available to redeem 12/6 - 12/30/2010.

Once redeemed, the Comp Dollars will be loaded onto your account (and will expire 180 days from day loaded to account).

Use your Comp Dollars for food, drink, rooms, etc.

2X Comp Dollars based on primary limit played during month (i.e., played 40 hours at $10-$20 and 10 hours at $20-$40. will receive 2X on 40 hours at $10-$20)

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Borgata Poker November Promotions

Date: Thu, Oct 28, 2010 Live Tournament Women

Throughout the month of November, Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa will offer the following promotions for Stud poker games:

• 100% Borgata Funded Stud Bad Beat Jackpot
• 2X Comp Dollars for Stud Live Action games
• $20,000 Guaranteed Stud Tournaments
  o Sunday, November 7 at 1P: $100 Buy-In + $20 Entry ($5,000 Guaranteed)
  o Sunday, November 14 at 1P: $100 Buy-In + $20 Entry ($5,000 Guaranteed)
  o Sunday, November 21 at 1P: $100 Buy-In + $20 Entry ($5,000 Guaranteed)
  o Sunday, November 28 at 1P: $100 Buy-In + $20 Entry ($5,000 Guaranteed)
• $1,000 Stud Free Roll Poker Tournaments
  o Sunday, October 31 at 1P
  o Monday, November 1 at 1P
  o Tuesday, November 2 at 1P
  o Wednesday, November 3 at 1P

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Qualify for Harrah's free roll tournament in December

Date: Wed, Oct 27, 2010 Live Tournament Women

Qualify November 1 - 30, 2010

Play a combined total of 50 hours or more of rated live poker in any Harrah's property in Atlantic City.

To increase your chances of taking the top prize, play your favorite poker room like you mean it:

50-79 hours of play earns you 10,000 chips
80-99 hours of play earns you 12,000 chips
100+ hours of play earns you 15,000 chip

First place is a $10,000 cash prize and 200 places are paid.

The list of qualifiers will be posted in all Total Rewards Poker Rooms on December 11, 2010.

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Borgata starting up with late-night tournaments - again

Date: Sat, Oct 9, 2010 Live Tournament Women

Borgata's Late Night Tournaments have resumed this week.

$80 Buy-In + $20 Enty No Limit Hold'em

Every Wednesday and Friday at 11:30PM

* 10,000 in starting chips
* Levels last 20 minutes

Check Late Night Structures

Check complete Daily Tournament Schedule

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WSOP Circuit event at Harrah's in December

Date: Sun, Oct 3, 2010 Live Tournament Women

Harrah's resort will host the World Series of Poker circuit event December 4-22 as it has for the several years, the Real Deal blog had on its website last week.

The super regional event is a $10,000 by-in ($9,700+$300).

I question the timing and the buy-in of the event. With the event being held right before Christmas and the amount of money it would cost to participate in this event, Harrah's is alienating many of its local players. I expect a small turnout for the super regional.

There could be some big name players, but the winter on the East Coast isn't really a favorite place to be especially considering how terrible the winter was last season.

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Borgata: $250K Deep Stack Double Play

Date: Thu, Sep 30, 2010 Live Tournament Women

$250,000 GUARANTEED DEEP STACK DOUBLE PLAY
POKER TOURNAMENT
October 17 - 19, 2010 in Poker Room

Day 1A - Sunday, October 17 at 11 A.M.
Day 1B - Monday, October 18 at 11 A.M.
Day 2 - Tuesday, October 19 at 11 A.M.

Play in Day 1A, Day 1B or Both*

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AC Press: Professional poker players find careers in the cards at Atlantic City gaming tables

Date: Tue, Sep 28, 2010 Live Tournament Women

Before Joe Simmons sits in on a game at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, before he grabs his chips from the cashier, Simmons scouts out the poker room.

The 45-year-old Brigantine resident looks at chip stacks, pot sizes and familiar faces. He looks for known bad players, those he does not recognize and the least number of headphones. He wants that game.

Simmons doesn’t want to play against decent regulars. He’d rather hit up the tourists. He is one of dozens — possibly hundreds — of professional poker players in the resort.

Simmons doesn’t flaunt his job or talk about the daily grind at the table. Instead, he focuses on the players around him. He makes early assumptions based on a person’s demeanor and the amount of chips a player has.

Does he look mad? Did he just lose a big pot? Did she just say she’s getting sleepy? Did that player just tip the dealer extra money? She sure knows a lot of chip tricks. He played that hand tricky.

All of these thoughts add up as Simmons creates profiles for the other players in the game.

“You don’t know if someone is just lucky or good until you have played with them,” he said. “It’s better to assume they know what they’re doing until you find out they don’t. That’s when you go after them.”

Simmons wakes up never knowing whether he’s going to get paid that day. Unlike most people with “regular” jobs, Simmons and other professional poker players could lose money after a day of work.

“I saw all the money out there, and it seemed like people were just giving it away for awhile,” said Simmons, who has $828,164 in career tournament winnings. “The money can be very good at times, but people don‘t realize how hard it is to do this every day.”

The poker boom began in 2003, when Chris Moneymaker, a regular guy with no pro experience, won the World Series of Poker Main Event in Las Vegas. He became an instant celebrity and millionaire. His win gave legitimacy to poker as not just a shady back-room card game.

Poker became mainstream almost overnight. It brought housewives, lawyers and college students to the table looking for that same success.

Simmons, who created music and managed bands such as The Roots, got involved right away. He felt poker’s popularity was about to take off, and he didn’t want to miss it even if some family members didn’t agree.

“My mother never liked me playing poker,” Simmons said. “Even when I was making a lot of money, she never agreed with it.”

Poker involves psychology, skill and luck. It combines the rush of gambling with elements of strategy.

And then there’s the money.

“I saw how much money people were making on TV, and I wanted to try it out,” said poker pro Dwyte Pilgrim, 28, of Brooklyn, N.Y., who made his name playing tournaments in Atlantic City. “I saw I was good,” Pilgrim said. “I was the best out of my friends.”

To prove it, Pilgrim won $733,402 on Thursday at the Borgata Poker Open, a World Poker Tour event.

Atlantic City has been the proving ground for popular players such as Phil Ivey, 34, a Roselle, Union County, native who now lives in Las Vegas and is considered one of the best poker players of all time. He got his start at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort, which was featured in the poker movie “Rounders.”

But the game also has chased away people who couldn’t handle the lifestyle. So many of them didn’t realize how big the ups and downs could be or how depressing losing feels.

Choosing poker as a career

Most area professional poker players say they started with a dream of winning a huge tournament like the ones they see on television. They all thought about what it would be like to be their own boss. It’s so easy to be caught in the spectacle of poker, with the money and freedom it can afford, but the leap is not easy to make.

Pilgrim made the move after testing his abilities for several months playing poker on the Internet and traveling to Atlantic City from Brooklyn on the weekends. Even though he was winning, he didn’t want to quit his job as a loan officer.

Pilgrim would leave guaranteed money and benefits to go to a world where he wouldn’t have either.

After months of talking to confidantes, he finally made the jump in 2007. He spent six days a week at the Taj Mahal, and on the seventh day he returned to New York. He earned comps and free rooms playing poker, and lived out of a suitcase.

Pilgrim switched to Harrah’s Resort in 2008, when he decided to focus on tournaments over cash games, where each player‘s own money is at stake as opposed to a tournament with a prize pool.

“I was looking for a bigger payday,” said Pilgrim in a phone interview from Indiana. “On a good day in a cash game, you can win a thousand, but in a tournament, if you get hot, you can win thousands.”

Those big scores in a cash game are rare in Atlantic City for most pros. There aren’t many big-stakes games. The resort is littered with $1-$2 and $2-$5 no-limit hold ’em games (the numbers represent the price of the small and big blinds, forced bets by the two players to the left of the dealer position). But the higher the blinds, the fewer games are available because casual players don’t want to put large amounts of money at stake.

If a person thinks about going pro, he or she has to think about losing. Sure, the money is good when you’re winning, but what happens when you’re not?

“The toughest part is the down swings,” Pilgrim said. “Anyone can handle winning, but it’s how you handle the losing that separates the good players.”

Dealing with down swings

Simmons knows about those swings probably better than most.

Since 2003, he has gone broke twice.

He lost his money the first time by playing too big. He sat in on a $150-$300 mixed game (where different games are played in a rotation) at Borgata. He had enough for a buy-in, but the other players just had more money in general.

Simmons played against those with millions of dollars behind them, while he had a bankroll worth a few hundred thousand.

It was easy for his opponents to call bets even if they didn’t have the right odds and Simmons had a favorable hand. Money wasn’t a problem for them.

“These guys were playing bad, and I knew it,” Simmons said. “But there is still some gambling going on. There is still luck, and there was a time when I was just unlucky for a long time. That happens.”

In early 2006, he went broke chasing his money. Eventually, he had to play smaller stakes and grind out another bankroll.

Simmons earned his money back cashing big in tournaments in 2007. He won more than $500,000 in a seven-month span, including $387,709 with a fourth-place finish in the Borgata Poker Open championship.

With all that money rushing into his bank account, he took advantage of the windfall.

He rented a $2,500-per-month apartment in Center City, Philadelphia, invested $50,000 each in two companies and went back to playing the bigger games.

Eventually, Simmons’ savings took a hit and dwindled. The two companies — a music studio and a salon — both failed. The rent ate away at his savings, and he once again hit a bad streak.

“You lose so much money, and you can’t even think straight,” Simmons said.

He was broke again.

“I’m not mad that I didn’t buy a house. So many people told me I should have done that,” Simmons said. “I wished I would have put money away for my kids and my parents.”

Simmons, who has a 13-year-old son and a 3-year-old daughter in Philadelphia, moved to a cheaper place in Brigantine to be closer to the casinos. He then borrowed $2,000 each from 10 different poker regulars to get his bankroll back.

He played in smaller games, such as $2-$5 no-limit, and had to deal with questions about why he was playing lower limits.

“I was embarrassed,” he said. “I didn’t know what to tell people at the time. I hated when people asked me that.”

Simmons hit a big share of a bad-beat jackpot at Borgata earlier this year worth more than $80,000. He paid back his loans and is now working on making sure his money isn’t all in one place.

He’s working on a poker website (www.stuckfrompoker.com) and is back to creating music at his home studio.

“These kinds of swings could happen to anyone,” Simmons said. “So many people told me how that happened to them. I learned a lot and not how to do that again.”

Not enough for some

Depending on the stakes, a poker player can average $500 to several thousand dollars a week in cash. There are no tax forms on cash games because there is no way for casinos to determine how much a person won or lost in a single session. However, the casino informs the IRS of tournament winnings and bad-beat jackpots in cash games.

Most poker players go to work for an eight-hour shift and take a food break in the middle. But it’s not all-in moves and a constant barrage of betting throughout the night.

Jason Hague, 30, moved to Atlantic City from Trenton to play poker while he was between jobs. There were nights he sat in on games where he was bored out of his mind — because there are nights when the action is just not there.

Those nights, Hague listened to his iPod or chatted to the person next to him. However, he still had to pay attention or he would have watched his chips slide into someone else’s stack.

This is when he had the advantage.

“Boredom makes a lot of people make mistakes,” said Hague, who normally played after 7 p.m. “I noticed when people got tired, they didn’t think right. Those were times I waited for, to take advantage.”

Hague has a bachelor’s degree from The College of New Jersey and realized there was absolutely nothing he wanted to do with it.

Playing poker wasn’t the dream either, but he was good at it. He moved to Absecon and played poker until he got a job as a poker dealer at the Showboat Casino Hotel.

“It’s too scary to just play cards,” said Hague, who recently moved to Bethlehem, Pa., to take a job as a poker supervisor at the Sands Casino. “While there is a lot of skill involved, there’s just too much luck involved to feel comfortable.”

Hague remembers nights he played at Caesars Atlantic City before he got a job and hoped he would be able to make his rent. He watched chips shuffle between bad players and was frustrated when he couldn’t get a hand to hold up against them or just never got any cards he could play with. There were nights when he lost more than $300 in one hand.

He knew he wanted a steady job and didn’t want to make a living as a poker player. Although before he moved, he often played on his days off to supplement his income.

There was just too much luck involved for his liking.

Good players lose. Good players get unlucky and sometimes make mistakes worth hundreds of dollars. The daily grind of figuring out your next payday is too much for some.

“I’ve seen thousands of people say they want to be professional poker players,” said poker pro Gavin Smith, who was at Borgata for a tournament in June. “Most of them think they have what it takes, but most have no idea.”

The swings get to most players. One week, they may never lose a hand. However, over the next three weeks, the statistical odds go against them and all the money they made during the past two months is gone.

Those times separate the good players from the bad. The good ones are mentally tough enough to ride out a bad run of cards and know they will eventually get back to winning.

The bad ones give up or go broke and never come back.

“The swings are the hardest thing you’re ever going to deal with in poker,” Simmons said. “If people don’t have discipline and can’t handle their money, they aren’t going to make it. There aren’t many people I would tell them it’s a good idea to play poker.”

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