The Poker Reporter Blog

You know how poker keeps trying to get rid of its reputation of being a 'shady' game played by 'shady' people in 'shady' places? Sure you do. But how did poker get that rep in the first place? We’re going back to the Wild West and the early days of poker to show you.

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For over a decade poker players have journeyed to Barcelona to play PokerStars events. It’s undoubtedly one of the marquee stops on the entire poker circuit and has played host to some of the biggest tournaments ever held. But there's much more to Barcelona than just poker tournaments. It's one of the most culturally rich, downright beautiful places in the world. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks to leave the casino so here's a little peak at some beyond-the-poker table activities to try to entice you. Bottom line: Barcelona is amazing. Don't miss it.

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Bluffs gone horribly wrong, different winners on every street, an online bankroll challenge eventually going the right way ... We've got stories from Barcelona, Monaco, Montreal and Doug Polk’s place this time around in PokerListings’ collection of the best poker videos of the month.

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Comedian Kevin Hart is competing against some of the most elite poker players in the world in the $300,000 buy-in Super High Roller Bowl but he’s already beating them in one category. Hart is, without question, the most entertaining player in the room. The Philly-native hasn’t toned down his larger-than-life personality one bit despite playing for a $6m prize.

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While Slovenia in general and Ljubljana in particular are still relatively 'off the beaten path,' they attract more and more tourists each year. It’s no surprise why: Slovenia is the perfect destination for people who like beautiful scenery and peace and quiet. Surrounded by Italy, Austria, Croatia and the Adriatic sea, Slovenia’s weather is ideal in summer. It’s so nice, in fact, that more and more people like Kara Scott, 888poker ambassador and famed ESPN WSOP host, have fallen in love with it and moved there.

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Every month PokerListings looks back at poker hands that stand out from all over the world.  Poker hands that have become modern classics. Hands that might have been overlooked. Hands that have been played particularly good or bad. And hands that are just weird. This month we've found four great poker hands worth watching again including a Viktor Blom golden moment, a man called Crocodile, girl power and Gus Hansen. Yes, the Gus Hansen.

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Got a poker question? We might have the answer for you. Every week PokerListings tries to answer some of the more basic poker questions you might have. These questions are mostly for new players so feel free to ask anything. There are no stupid questions. The following questions are collected from various places including our poker strategy section, Quora, Yahoo! Answers and the comments from last week’s Poker Questions piece. This week we’ll take a look at Phil Hellmuth’s skills, the fight for legal poker in America and some of the worst odds in poker. Feel free to drop questions in the comments section below and we’ll answer them next week. ***

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*Not every There was a time when the idea of televising a poker tournament was absurd. Who would want to see mostly old white men play a card game? You might as well have televised a bridge tournament from a retirement home in Boca Raton. Cue Chris Moneymaker, hole-card cameras and the online poker boom.

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You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers. PokerListings is going to answer some of the more basic poker questions you might have in a new ongoing weekly feature. These questions are mostly going to be of the new player variety so no question is too simple. The following questions are collected from various places including our poker strategy section, Quora, Yahoo! Answers and other places online. Today we’ll take a look at revealing your hands, TV poker and what it means to get “counterfeited” in poker. Feel free to drop questions in the comments section below and we’ll answer them next week.

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You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers. PokerListings is going to answer some of the more basic poker questions you might have in a new ongoing weekly feature. These questions are mostly going to be of the new player variety so no question is too simple. The following questions are collected from various places including our poker strategy section, Quora, Yahoo! Answers and other places online. Feel free to drop questions in the comments section below and we’ll answer them next week.

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Usually in our video of the week we present you with particularly spectacular bluffs, calls or even folds. Sometimes, though, we find hands that go against all odds. This week we’re showcasing a hand that would otherwise probably go unnoticed -- even thought it was played by one of the best players in the world and shows his outstanding skills. Playing top pair, Colman finds a check on the river that very few players would be able to make.

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For some, the highlight of the 888Live festival in Rozvadov was the Will Kassouf show. Not just for his grudge match heads-up against Stacy Matuson; it was also his performance in the main event.

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It was one of the most controversial scenes of the World Series of Poker last year.  Stacy Matuson and Will Kassouf first battled it out on the felt and then engaged in a verbal back-and-forth over his (and her) behavior in a high-profile hand shown on ESPN. At the 888Live festival in Rozvadov in February 2017, they met again for the first time for a heads-up battle to "settle things" once and for all – and this time, they went differently.

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At the moment, Phil Galfond is deep in the tank working on launching his new online poker room, “Run It Once."  But that shouldn’t keep us from remembering he’s still one of the best players in the world. He only played a couple of tournaments last year. One of them was the $300k Super High Roller Bowl, where he showed us how strong of a move a fold can be.

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Daniel Negreanu has been at the top of the poker world for many years. With $32 million in tournament winnings alone he doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone anymore. But even a great player isn't immune to making mistakes, like in this example from the archives of High Stakes Poker against Erick Lindgren.

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A brave bluff is one of the most beautiful things poker has to offer. One single good move is often enough to win a pot against a mediocre hand. In our video of the week we’ll see what happens when two stubborn players clash in a hand that doesn’t have any showdown value -- and where the regular laws of poker don’t seem to count anymore.

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Full Houses are rare in poker. Straight flushes are even rarer than that. Seeing both in the same hand? That's almost unicorn-level rare. But that's what happened on Day 7 of the WSOP Main Event this year, and at the end of it we saw a remarkable laydown.

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Poker is all about deception so donning a costume is not exactly a giant stretch for high-stakes poker pros. Tournaments, which can be quite slow, are also a good venue for putting costumes on display. Over the years there’s been hundreds of poker pros who have donned elaborate costumes at the WSOP, EPT or WPT. Sometimes it’s just for fun, other times it’s because of a lost bet and other times it’s merely a player repping some product or company.

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Poker players who predominately play live will always tell you how important reads are at the table -- no matter how many hands you’ve played online or how well you play in general. Pros like Jason Mercier, Luca Pagano, Theo Jorgensen, Lex Veldhuis, Chris Moneymaker and Daniel Negreanu have all explained to us in depth how they use live reads to make big decisions. In this clip, however, Doyle Brunson takes his read to a completely new level. He doesn't read Phil Ivey’s hand; he reads his mind.

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The online poker landscape has changed considerably since the halcyon days of the early 2000s. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t great poker sites that you can play right now. In fact if you haven’t played for awhile you might be surprised to find that poker software has improved exponentially and there are now more poker variants than ever before.

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For some reason, the worst possible starting hand in Texas Hold’em always seems to inspire poker players to get involved in spectacular hands. In this hand Tom Dwan, master of the elaborate bluff, takes 72o and pushes Sammy “Any Two” George out of the way in particularly spectacular fashion.

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All men and women are born equal. It's just that some are high rollers, and the rest aren’t. In the €100k Super High Roller event at the EPT Grand Final this year, Mustapha Kanit found a fold against eventual champion Ole Schemion that is out of this world.

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Legal poker everywhere, no crime, Robin Hood, and the world’s largest Wendy’s. PokerListings recently went to Tbilisi/Georgia to follow the first WSOP Circuit event in the South Caucasus and we discovered a whole new world.

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Poker is ever-present in modern pop culture. The game has invaded TV shows, sports networks, movies, video games and more. Nearly every one has played a hand or two of the game over the span of their lives. Despite all that exposure most people still don't UNDERSTAND poker, however.

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Day 3 of the Aria Super High Roller Series cash game was fairly bereft of poker pros but that didn’t stop multi-millionaire John Morgan from stealing the show with a highlight-reel hand and a few hilarious stories about his past. Morgan is the CEO of the Winmark Corporation, best known for the Play It Again Sports retail stores, but he also loves to play poker. In fact Morgan admitted he frequently plays the $100 tournaments at Aria. It was astounding to poker pro Jean-Robert Bellande that someone with Morgan’s wealth would even bother with such low-stakes events. “So you have a set and someone sucks out on you and hits a full house and busts you from the tournament, are you upset?” asked an incredulous Bellande. “No I just go buy into another $100 tournament,” laughed Morgan. “They run every hour!” Morgan explained his love for poker in more detail. “It’s more of a sociological experiment,” said Morgan. “You meet some of the most interesting people. Sometimes I play the $100 over at the Orleans too.” Apparently Morgan has won a few of the events too. The rest of the players at the table tried to organize a $5,000 last longer prop bet between Morgan and Bellande in the $100 Aria tournament but Bellande wasn’t super keen since Morgan has so much experience playing those particular tournaments.

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