The PokerListings Daily 3-Bet is a team peacoat, a bouquet of dried flowers and a small tear trickling down the cheek of the afternoon poker news bear.
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Today in the 3-Bet we find Phil Hellmuth taking a stand for "egalitarian" poker awards, PKR pro Sofia "welllbet" Lövgren continuing her ascent up the poker ranks and Norwegian icon Petter Northug slinking out of Sochi.
1) Hellmuth: "GPI is Very Flawed"
First, a few numbers
- Phil Hellmuth has cashed for over $4.6m in live poker tournaments over the past two years
- $4m of that is from two scores - a 4th in the $1m buy-in Big One for One Drop ($2.66m) and his win in the 2012 WSOPE Main Event ($1.33m)
- Hellmuth is currently ranked #149 in the Global Poker Index Top 300
What does it all add up to?
Hellmuth, who's about to play his first tournament in the past four months at the WPT Los Angeles Poker Classic, all of a sudden thinks the GPI has some flaws:
The GPI is very flawed. I cannot respect a points award system that counts $100,000 high rollers. Poker awards need to be egalitarian.— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) February 24, 2014
Seems like a strange thing to take issue with as the general impression is the GPI is the best approximation of a fair system based on an inherently flawed activity (tournament poker).
Also, considering Hellmuth won nine of his 13 bracelets before the poker boom began in earnest, odd he would take umbrage with the idea of "egalitarian" rankings. GPI head honcho Alex Dreyfus's response?
@phil_hellmuth Poker is flawed.— Alexandre Dreyfus (@alex_dreyfus) February 24, 2014
2) Sofia Lövgren: Why Not a Female/Swede in 2014?
As you might have guessed from our 2013 Spirit of Poker Awards nominations, we think pretty highly of PKR pro Sofia Lövgren.
One of the youngest players to get a pro deal at just 20 years old, Lövgren (now 24) is everything there is to like about poker's next generation: hard working, positive, personable and extremly talented.
In other words: exactly the kind of poker "ambassador" we need.
PokerFaceNews caught up with Lövgren recently and she talked about being nominated for our Young Gun award, her journey up the ranks, her appreciation of the Albatross and her hopes for 2014. An excerpt:
"As a professional poker player I have close to endless free time to be honest. I’m my own boss and can spend my day just as I want. The total freedom of a professional poker player’s day is the biggest upside but also the biggest threat.
"Right now I have so many different opportunities and so much I want to accomplish so it could sometimes be a little hard to focus on healthy living. Writing down New Year’s resolutions and goals is probably one good way to get it done!
"... I would love to see the online poker market open up for players in all countries. It would also be really great with a female winner of the WSOP Main Event 2014 and why not a Swede?"
3) Northug Drops $50k at Olympics, Opts Out
Lots of aspiring medalists left Sochi on Sunday disheartened after failing in their quest for Olympic gold.
Few left down $50k from playing online poker too.
Norwegian cross-country skiing god Petter Northug did, unfortunately, after some uncharacteristic performances on the trails left him without a medal at a Senior world event for the first time ever.
Making matters worse Northug didn't have it at the tables, either, clocking a $45k loss over the weekend to put him down about $50k (by PokerListings Denmark's calculations) for the Olympic period.
How much did it bother him? Enough he opted out of HighStakesDB showing his results anymore.
