The Poker Reporter Blog

Judging by these two videos having only 330, and 100 views at the time of writing this, none of you have ever witnessed the glory of Phil Galfond's acting debut.

According to Galfond, these videos were made to help a friend of his out with her film project.

According to me, they're goddamn hilarious.

The only question I have is this: how is it possible for these to have been kept a secret for over two years?

Without further ado, I give you the first of two short films: Mark and Amy.

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As we reported a few days ago current youngest-ever WSOP Main Event winner Joe Cada was on David Letterman last night.

As far as we're concerned this falls squarely into the "Good for Poker" category. Just talking about the main event and how much money is up for grabs in the mainstream media is a great thing.

Cada managed to pull off his four minutes without using any made up words and on the whole came off as a relatively responsible poker professional.

Check out the clip here while it's still available on Youtube. We'll try to find a version that won't be taken down but unfortunately the rest of world can't watch the official video on CBS.com.

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The main geezers from PokerRoad, Joe Sebok and Scott Huff, have gotten themselves a for-real TV show on Fox Sports and it airs tonight at 11 p.m.

We've been fans of their radio shows since the start, and we've even been on them a few times, so we're happy they're bringing their own special brand of idiocy to the television box.

Sponsored by UB, Poker2Nite is an entertainment/news format show that will cover everything that's going down in the poker world.

Poker news shows are notoriously difficult to make interesting, even to poker nerds, so we're interested to see what the PokerRoad guys have up their sleeves.

Tune in to Fox Sports tonight and tell us what you think in the comments below.

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It's common knowledge that Hollywood celebrities play poker. What isn't so commonly known is that many of them have Twitter accounts where they tweet about it all.

We've put together a handy list of the biggest and best actors, musicians and Hollywood personalities that play poker and have Twitter accounts.

This list, and others, can be found by following PokerListings.com on Twitter.

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PokerListings touched down in Lake Tahoe yesterday for the World Series of Poker Circuit main event that starts tomorrow.

Since getting here we haven't spent a whole lot of time in the casino. Given what's right outside that shouldn't come as much of a surprise.

We understand that not everyone in the poker world likes going outside, however, and we think Tahoe might be just the place for them.

The photo above was taken from my hotel room, you can even see me in the window's reflection.

That means if you're an online player with a serious aversion to fresh air and normal human activity, you'll still have a chance at seeing some sights.

The WSOP Circuit $5k starts tomorrow at noon and you can follow all the action by checking out our Live Coverage page.

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In case you haven't noticed, Twitter has added a new "list" feature that they proudly describe as "a great new way to organize the people you follow and discover new and interesting accounts."

And really, how can anyone argue with Twitter? With the way they've expanded it's hard to criticize anything they decide is a good idea.

So to help quench your thirst for poker pro info, we've kicked things off with the first of what will be many lists.

In case you haven't seen them before Twitter Lists are essentially a custom made filter that puts a bunch of Tweeters together on one page. It's just that simple.

Our first list combines the awesome power of the world's most famous live poker pros who have Twitter accounts.

You can find it at: http://twitter.com/#/list/_PokerListings_/poker-pros

If you're not already following PokerListings.com on Twitter you can do so here.

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I don't play too many tournaments but it's British Columbia Poker Championship time again and I'm gonna play all three events.

I showed up for the $500 event on Thursday to find bracelet winner and River Rock regular Robert Cheung and three other solid regulars I recognized at my table.

It was pretty shitty/surprising to get such a bad table draw in such a small tournament. But hey such is life I guess.

Not much too talk about, I busted half way through Day 1. I was pretty card dead all day which seems standard in live tournaments as far as I can tell.

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Poker and The Simpsons: two of the greatest things to come out of modern civilization.

While some bloggers might spend their time doing things like raising awareness for the world's social problems we prefer to look at all the times our favorite game has been showcased on our favorite TV show.

Everyone has priorities.

Over the years there have been a ton of poker scenes in The Simpsons. Whether it's Homer's deficient intelligence or Fat Tony's unabashed dishonesty, poker has made some of the most hilarious Simpsons moments possible.

Here are our favorites.

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Last week it was Eric Cartman singing Lady Gaga's Poker Face, but this time it's someone so much better.

On BBC 1's Friday Night with Jonathan Ross Christopher Walken did a dramatic reading of the pop hit. Second to only Morgan Freeman in the talking game, Walken is simply brilliant.

We're hoping this sparks a new fad of great actors doing dramatic readings of crappy pop music lyrics.

Kenneth Branagh doing Flo Rida's Low? Ian McKellen reading Soldia Boy?

So, check it out below in all its glory and tell us how much you like Christopher Walken in the comment section below.



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It's November 1st and we've got the inside dirt on everything you might have missed this week. We do our best to report on every little thing but, sadly, a few things always slip through undetected.

Luckily for you we take the time to recap it all. Go there now!

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Life, like many things, has both a start and an end.

From our first breath to our last we're destined to play out the stories of our lives. Each one of us has a different story and we each live with varying degrees of uncertainty about what will happen next.

Our lives are like books. Each day is like a page and tells our story. Stories unravel in numerous ways and sometimes we neglect to question ourselves about how we are viewing it.

Ask yourself, objectively, who are you in the story of your life?

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It used to be Mad Magazine, but in the modern era it's South Park: The thing you have to get on to be considered truly big-time.

This week Lady Gaga's song was sung by Cartman, meaning Lady Gaga is now a legitimate star. We assume she's planning some sort of party to commemorate the occasion right now.

We'd also like to stress that we don't condone Cartman's attitude towards the noble cetacean.

Without further ado, here is Cartman singing Poker Face.



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It seems like Ohio is a dangerous place to play live poker, giving us yet another reason why online poker is just plain better.

Another stick-up job went down in Solon, Ohio on Monday, adding to the already long list of poker-related crimes in the state of Ohio. The criminals, armed with assault rifles, relieved the players in this game of around $11,000, their wallets and their pants (?).

Players in the game seem to be blaming the host, since he advertised the game on the internet. We can only assume he was hoping for more poker players and not the gun-wielding criminals who showed up.

The full story with quotes from one of the players can be found here on Cleveland.com

The player who is quoted in the story was actually present at another armed robbery last April, when seven bandits, again with the assault rifles, took off with $75k of private cash game money.

This latest robbery came just two weeks after a man was shot in a Toledo bar, apparently over a dispute relating to a poker game. This was the second shooting in this bar in a week so it's probably not poker's fault.

That story's here on the FOX Toledo website.

Anyway, to make a long story short, if you live in Ohio PLAY POKER ONLINE. The perks include not getting robbed at gunpoint, not getting shot, and being able to play in your underwear.

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We've seen people playing poker underwater, but we've never seen pirates playing poker underwater before. This past weekend that's exactly what happened at the Key Largo Pirates Fest.

Apparently someone has organized a festival to give people with the uncontrollable urge to dress like a pirate an opportunity to do so in a looting- and pillaging-free setting.

We're not sure about the authenticity of this festival given that one of the activities was underwater poker, assisted by scuba gear for all participating pirates.

Pirates were a gambling group of people but as far as we know they didn't have poker back in the pirate days, or scuba gear for that matter.

At any rate, here's a video of them playing. Kind of gives a new meaning to the old saying, "If you can't spot the fish at the table in the first ten minutes …"



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2M2MM is over, done, kaput. The season finale just went up and we've got it embedded here for you to watch.

All in all the season did not suck. It managed to hold our attention for ten episodes and it succeeded in giving the audience a look at what's possible playing high-stakes online poker.

We're not going to preview the finale for you here so just surf on down the page and see it for yourself.

We're interested in what you thought of the show as a whole, and the future of reality poker TV, so drop it in the comment section below.

If you're on the main blog page click through to the post page to see the embedded video.

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Before the first hand of the EPT Warsaw High Rollers event had been dealt every player in the field was high-fiving each other patting each other on the back, since they had all made the final table.

Sure there were only eight people in the event, the exact number of seats at the final table on the EPT, but who are we to rain on their parade?

Making the final table is a big accomplishment, regardless of how many players enter. To your right is Sami Kelopuro at his most excited, stoked about making a real live EPT final table. This is the happiest we've seen him in years.

Dario Minieri, Florian Langmann, Gianni Giaroni, Illia Kainov, Michael Lundell, Oleh Okhotskyi, David Steicke and the aforementioned Kelopuro were the only ones to drop the €13,000 to get a seat.

The action just got going in this event and it's scheduled for three days of play which is probably a bit generous. We're not sure how long it's actually going take but check back here on the blog for more updates.

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While the PokerListings reporting machine is busy in Las Vegas right now with WPT's Festa al Lago, a main event has begun on the EPT in Warsaw.

This is one of the non-televised stops on the PokerStars European Poker Tour, and generally a smaller tournament compared to the more central destinations.

Our friends at the PokerStars Blog are doing a valiant job covering the action so if you're dying for live coverage check them out here.

The Bottom Line

- Total field of 203

- 148 remain going into Day 2

- €358,644 for the winner

- €1,145,826 total prize pool

- Carter Phillips is chip leader

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Frequent player points are a great way to promote extended play; the more you play, the more you earn.

And with your FPPs you can get everything from TVs to cameras to cars to poker clothing (Please don't).

But even though the loyalty programs have gotten better, there are some things you're just never going to be allowed to buy.

But hey, we can still dream can't we?

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Ask nine out of ten children what they want in life and they're going to say a slide in their living rooms. The sad thing is that 8.9 out of ten kids' dreams of slides go unfulfilled. Phil Galfond has given hope to children worldwide, however, by installing a slide in his living room.

Maybe his parents used to tell him that the house wasn't a jungle gym and he vowed to prove them wrong. Maybe he needed an escape route from the bedroom and the stairs just didn't cut it.

Whatever the motivation, the result is sheer awesomeness. Some people might argue the aesthetics of having a giant metal tube coming through the ceiling into your living room but I say to them, "Shut up."

Galfond is finally doing something worthwhile with his poker winnings. Watches and cars are all well and good but nothing says, "I've got too much money," like a giant slide built into your living room.

Check out Galfond's blog for a couple more pics of his condo.

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October 15 is Blog Action Day, the day when the otherwise ineffectual and self-centered blogging world is directed towards something worthwhile.

The issue is climate change and if you read this blog you're probably already part of the solution, whether you realize it or not.

By playing online poker you are literally saving the world. There, I said it. So go ahead and contact all those people in your life that said you'd never amount to anything and that playing online poker was a waste of your life.

I might be a little narrow in my definition of saving the world but as a blogger on the internet I feel I'm entitled to a certain amount of creative license.

The fact that you have to play poker is a given, there's no changing that. So, you're presented with two options: Drive to your local casino and use up a bunch of gas in the process, or sit on your couch and play on your computer.

If you chose the latter I applaud your good judgment and hearty social conscience! So the next time someone brings up Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth, just tell them you play online poker.

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2M2MM is back with another episode and it's a good one if you like poker.

While it still falls short of catering perfectly to the online degenerate it spends a ton more time focusing on the play than any other episode so far.

It's also the first episode where the $2 million goal seems like it might have been, at some point at least, attainable.

Krantz goes on a big downswing and the crew locks themselves in the war room for 36 hours to try to get something going.

You'll have to watch to find out for yourself but suffice to say, they get something going.

If you're on the main blog page right now click through to the post page to watch the vids.

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Another week has elapsed and another handful of poker happenings has slipped through our fingers. We reported so much! We don't know how it could have happened. Luckily we've got them right here for you. Go there now.

• Richard from PokerTube did this long interview with Phil Ivey during the WSOPE. They talk about a bunch of stuff including the much talked about hand years ago against Paul Jackson at the Monte Carlo Million.
  
  Go here for that.
  

• If you want to see what it's like at the final table of the Sunday Million, check out PokerStars.tv's recap of yesterday's. No big names that I know but plenty of big money.
  
  Check it out here.

• 2p2 thread saying Erica Schoenberg and David Benyamine are no longer together. If there's one place you can go for truth and credibility it's internet forums.

  2p2 picked it up from a rumor printed on PokerNews. If there are any confirmations out there leave it in the comments below.

  Check out the thread here.

• Wicked Chops applies the Q Score concept to poker players, putting together a top ten based on things like familiarity and likeability. Not too many surprises on the names at the top of the list but worth a look.

  Check it out here.

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The new episode is up and it's another solid 20 minutes of the 2M2MM crew nerding it up and trying in vain to get a little closer to their $2 million goal for the summer.

Some things we already knew were hammered home in this episode. Emil is a big nerd for Star Wars, Brian is pretty much the whitest guy on the face of the earth and just because you make millions playing poker doesn't mean you've got game with the ladies.

We're always skeptical about poker shows but we're enjoying this one.

Watch the episode below to see what we're talking about. If you're on the main blog page click through to the post page for the vid.



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The WSOPE just ended and EPT London is up and running. Basically a ton of stuff has happened in the last week and even though most of it got special attention somewhere on PokerListings, a few things slipped through the cracks.

Go there now.

• Someone from a site called TheNutz.TV taped a video of the WSOP Main Event heads-up match between Daniel Negreanu and Barry Shulman.

  It's funny because we had our computers set up literally right beside the guy filming this video at the WSOPE and we thought he worked for Betfair. Not sure if you're allowed to film this since it's an ESPN event but maybe it's all legit.

  Anyway, there are a couple of crazy hands and with a casino full of drunk British people it's pretty hype.

  Click through here to watch it.

• The Washington Post did a full piece on Darvin Moon, chip leader at this year's WSOP Main Event final table. It should be interesting to see Moon in November and this article goes into some detail on his personality. Complete with quotes from Bluff's Lance Bradley!

  Click here to check it out.

• Famous footballer Teddy Sheringham cashed in the WSOPE Main Event and is featured in this article from the Sun. Also mentioned is Daniel Negreanu's prop bet with Liverpool goaltender Jose Reina. Five shots and Daniel only has to make one for £12,000.

  Click through for that.

• Matt Glantz won the £20,000 High Rollers event at EPT London and we found the blog he writes. He recaps the final table in detail with some narrative and commentary thrown in.

  Click here to go there.

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It appears nosebleed-stakes loudmouth Luke "__FullFlush1__" Schwartz is on the outs with the Grosvenor Casinos again, following a rather unsightly incident at PokerStars EPT London.

The durrrr-obsessed Brit told PokerListings last week he had been banned from Grosvenor's flagship property The Vic after refusing to take his hat off inside the casino.

After well-known London bookmaker Eddie Hearn vouched for Schwartz, the ban was lifted, allowing him to hit the felt at the London Metropole for EPT London, being run by staff at the Vic.

However, moments after busting out on Day 2, Schwartz reportedly refused to pay for a pickle and cheese sandwich at the food stand outside the tournament area, angrily claiming he was a VIP and should be treated as such.

He walked off with the sandwich, security was called and after a bit of arguing back and forth, an unrepentant Schwartz was banned from Grosvenor Casinos across the UK once again.

Word is he will also be given a warning from PokerStars and the EPT.

It's time to lock your doors America! With FullFlush losing options for high-stakes tournament action in Europe, he could be headed across the pond.

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