As the saying goes: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again! This could be applicable to all sorts of things in life, of course, but is particularly relevant in tournament poker, where even the most talented players have no control over variance, nor how often – or for how long – bad luck keeps on coming. You could also play brilliantly, but so can others in the tournament, thus denying you that much-wanted victory.

The wait for success can be a long one, but it doesn’t take anywhere near as long in real money online poker as in traditional casinos, of course, due to the fact that you could theoretically play a dozen online poker tournaments simultaneously, while that’s not the case with live poker tournaments which, rather inconveniently, require our physical presence. Having said that, your writer has witnessed an albeit young and physically fit poker pro win a tournament while playing in another at the opposite end of the casino, but such feats are rare, and not the most practical form of multi-tabling…

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

Canadian poker pro, Daniel Dvoress has already established himself as an elite player, with a very successful career that has earned him millions (over $26 million, to be exact). Remarkably, although $7,000,000 of his haul came from Triton Series events over the years, he went 17 Triton tournaments without winning. This is all the more bizarre given that he managed to reach 16 final tables!  

But good things come to those who wait, as they say, and this finally happened to Dvoress at the latest Triton Super High Roller Series in North Cyprus. There was one last roll of the dice for the World Series of Poker bracelet winner in the shape of the No-Limit Hold’em Short Deck event, the final tournament of the festival. Despite a smallish field of 29 entries, the $20,000 buy-in generated a whopping $580,000 prize pool.

As well as the tricky format, Dvoress also had to overcome the legendary Tom Dwan in the heads-up battle for the title and, to add to the burden, was on the wrong side of a 2:1 chip deficit.

As it happened, he was up to the task, winning $214,000 for first, but also the long-awaited title and trophy, plus the Shamballa Jewels bracelet to add to his jewellery collection… Dwan, meanwhile, pocketed $148,000.

Finally, at PokerListings we strive to help our community by searching out the best deals, so check out the latest online poker bonuses and offers in our regularly updated info section.

Good luck at the tables, and have fun!

Events Galore for Fans of Poker Variants 

As I write this piece in late April 2023, there have already been three events featuring mixed games tournaments, the Malta Poker Festival is in full swing, and I am looking ahead to several events already confirmed that either feature mixed games or are chock full of them. If this year is anything to go by, mixed games poker is on the rise in Europe.  

What Already Happened? 

In February this year The Festival Series visited the excellent card room at Dusk Till Dawn, Nottingham, England. As always at a stop of this series, there was a huge variety of gambling opportunities offered. Several poker variants and casino games were offered in tournament format.  

Also, in February there was a Kings of Tallinn festival at Olympic Park Casino in Estonia. It featured a good number of mixed games events on the tournament schedule. I attended that festival and wrote a blog that you can read here.  

A quick look at the results pages on the sites of the above two festivals reveals that one man, Tuomas Roppanen of Finland, managed to win the 8-game tournament in Tallinn then take down the Sviten Special tournament in Nottingham. He also narrowly missed out in Nottingham in the 4/5/6 card Pot Limit Omaha event, in which he took second place. Awesome performance for the Finn, who might well be a player to watch out for.  

Then in March there was the Poker North Masters and Norwegian Championship, held at Card Casino, Bratislava, Slovakia. A venue I have played at in the past and a schedule that started with four days devoted to six mixed games tournaments – with a few other mixed games tournaments dotted into the later parts of the schedule – this was a festival I was sorry to miss!  

Right now I am spending my days – and nights – playing mixed games cash at the Malta Poker Festival. On Tuesday 25 April I hosted a HORSE tournament at the Festival, and this was a huge success. My role as host is as the face of a group of 4 mixed games enthusiasts and we are calling our group Donkeyfish. Our purpose is to expand mixed games both by encouraging operators to put on events and spreading the word among poker players about the love we have for all things mixed.  

There was a bounty on each of our heads in this tournament – the player who knocked out each one of us received a copy of Getting Started With HORSE Poker by Chris “Fox” Wallace and Michael and Robert Mizrachi, signed by “Fox” himself. My bounty was collected by local player and massive character Raymond Galea, who prevailed in a hand of seven card stud. I was all in on third street and drawing dead by sixth street!

The tournament attracted 54 entries and was popular with local players as well as people who travelled from overseas to take part in the Malta Poker Festival. The structure that was developed by Portomaso Casino was excellent. Early play meant something, by which I mean the levels did not start too small and therefore discourage players from turning up for the early levels. But betting limits and antes did not climb too steeply, and this meant there was play all the way through. At the end of it all, the winner was local favourite Antoine Degiorgio. Antoine is Maltese and is the main man for poker on the island – he represents the interests of players in taking issues to the casino operators, promotes the games that are being offered by those casinos to the players and runs the Malta Poker Fish Facebook group that is very active and popular among the poker community on this rock.  

As well as the tournament there was a Super Dealers Choice cash game table running for the whole week. For those who don’t know, Super Dealers Choice means any poker variant will be played if the rules can be clearly described, and the players and dealer can understand them. There were Fixed Limit, Pot Limit and even Half Pot Limit games chosen! Some people brought games we had never heard of in Malta (Pompey Ducks, anyone?!) and a couple of new games were invented. This might sound somewhat daunting, but the players are friendly and not only describe the games but also give a few tips to help new players to avoid falling into traps.  

A huge thank you to Portomaso Casino and Ivonne Montaleagre of the Malta Poker Festival for helping us to put these games on. Look out for further Donkeyfish offerings later in the year and beyond.  

Looking Ahead 

The Festival Series Malta 

May 2023 sees The Festival Series come to Malta for the first time. This will be held in Portomaso Casino, Malta’s premier poker venue. I predict this will be a huge hit for the locals as well as an event that will draw in a good number of players from all over Europe. Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk is the head of The Festival Series operation and anyone who knows this larger-than-life character is fully aware of his passion for the gamble. His festival schedules are packed full of opportunities for gamblers to take a punt, not only at the poker tables because there are also Blackjack, Roulette, Slots and Sportsbook tournaments.   

Highlights of the tournament schedule for mixed games poker players to look forward to are: 

• May 15 – 16: Pot Limit Sviten Special, buy-in €250. 
• May 17: 8-Game, €125 
• May 18: HORSE, €250 
• May 19: Open Face Chinese, €250 

There are also a few Pot Limit Omaha tournaments available, including a 4/5/6 card affair on May 18 (€250) and a PLO/PLO8 mix on May 19 (€125).  

From my own experience at The Festival Series in Bratislava in October 2021 I can predict that there will be some amazing cash game action to be enjoyed. Of course, there will be No Limit Hold Em for the GTO grinders, and Pot Limit Omaha for the many enthusiasts that will be present, but there is also likely to be Super Dealers Choice available. With the expected attendance of many players from Sweden I expect Sviten Special to be offered as a game as well.  

A feature of The Festival Series is a Cash Game Challenge: every day of the festival sees two feature tables run for a specific length of time and the person who wins the biggest number of big blinds in a session throughout the week wins a generous package to a future stop of The Festival Series.  

Battle of Malta (BOM) 

This is a popular long-standing festival for midstakes players in Europe and these days is held in Casino Malta. Up to this year the BOM schedules only featured No Limit Hold Em and Pot Limit Omaha tournaments, but for the first time the Spring 2023 offering includes a HORSE tournament. This will take place at 9pm on Friday 2 June with a €200 buy-in. 

The full schedule for the Spring edition of the Battle of Malta 2023 is available on the Hendon Mob website.  

Poker-SM Live 

The Swedish Poker Association’s live Swedish Championship 2023 will be held in Bratislava, Slovakia between 14 – 21 August. Sadly, the mixed games events – Sviten Special, Draw, 8-Game, HORSE and Chicago – are not open for non-Swedish nationals to enter. Nevertheless, I am assured that cash action will be plentiful for mixed games players.  

The Swedish language web page for this festival can be found here.  

ETOP Cruise 

ETOP is an Italian operator that puts poker festivals on in a number of locations and also organises poker cruises. From 2 – 9 September this year there is a Special Edition PLO Cup that will be held while aboard a cruise ship taking players around the Mediterranean Sea. The cruise starts and finishes it journey at the port of Marghera, near Venice, will take in some of the Greek islands and will call at Bari on the return journey.  

As well as the Pot Limit Omaha main event, players can try their hands at other poker variants including Sviten Special, Omaha Hi/Lo, HORSE, Stud Hi/Lo, 8-Game, Omaha/Sviten mix and Omaha/Razz mix.  

And That’s Not All… 

I am sure there will be more festivals that feature mixed games this year that have not been announced yet. Some possibilities, none of which can be confirmed and some being more likely to happen than others: 

• I have heard rumours of a Summer weekend of mixed games in Malta. Nothing confirmed yet, no dates announced… but I am excited at the prospect and expect to have some input into the schedule if it does happen. If you have any requests for events you would like to have included please find me on Twitter @poker4leisure and send me a direct message. 
  
• Another rumour I heard is that the Autumn (Fall, for any readers from across the pond!) edition of the Malta Poker Festival will feature more mixed games tournaments than the Spring edition. I hope to be involved again as part of the Donkeyfish group.
  
• This page seems to indicate there will be another edition of The Festival Series in Bratislava from November 28 – December 3. Franke has recently got into the habit of announcing the next stop of The Festival Series while an edition is currently in full swing. If he keeps to that habit we will no doubt have confirmation in the middle of May about this! 
  
• Finally, there are also rumours of a cash game weekend focussing on mixed games to be played in Bulgaria.  

The Festival Series landed last week at the grand Portomaso Casino in St. Julians, Malta. The series, best known for its wide range of mixed games, had its fifth stop in its two-year existence. It promised to be a real spectacle with a big Main Event, mixed games such as H.O.R.S.E, 8-Game and OFC, but also the first Mystery Bounty event in the history of The Festival Series and of course our own PokerListings Championship was part of the crowded schedule. Three full months in advance, players from all over the world were able to qualify online and turned out in large numbers for this eccentric event, this time held in the Mediterranean sun.

PokerListings Championship

In previous editions of The Festival Series, the PokerListings Championship has always been at the top of the schedule, and this time would be no different. However, this time the event had no less than three starting days, a very promising initiative. They weren’t disappointed as 354 players eventually turned up, resulting in a €250 buy-in for a total prize pool of €76,464. Never before has the prize pool been as big as in Malta, and it eventually resulted in a first prize of €16,200. In the end, a Dutchman would walk away with the gross of the prize money, as well as the unique trophy awarded by The Festival Series, and of course eternal fame!

Younes Jarir Celebrates After a Class-Act at the Final Table

Younes Jarir, a Dutch poker player who also gave act-de-presence at The Festival Series in Bratislava in 2022, was also this time together with a group of friends who came to this event. As we know, this group of friends is always there to support each other when necessary, and this time it was necessary. In Bratislava, ninth place in this eponymous event was a disappointing end, but he was confident enough to blast through to the end this time. He was opposed by not the least players; Colin Lovelock from England, our winner from the previous edition, was actually playing with a good stack throughout the event. Manuel Blaschke, the winner of the edition in Bratislava ’22, was also there. So there were two players who participated back-to-back here to go.

No one could stop Younes Jarir, however, as he was determined to win this event and finally did so by settling heads-up with former champion Manuel Blaschke from Austria.

Place	Country	Player	Prize
1		Younes Jarir	€16,200
2		Manuel Blaschke	€9,990
3		Niklas Borg	€6,690
4		Vahur Tima	€5,250
5		Karl Sundin	€4,250
6		Colin Lovelock	€3,250
7		Tanguy Pellerin	€2,574
8		Wooseun Kim	€1,930
9		Laila Hawaszadeh	€1,340

The Festival Series Malta – Main Event

The Main Event is the flagship of a tournament series, both online and live. Unfortunately, The Festival did not give a guaranteed prize pool this time, but this should not spoil the potential of this great event. It started with a quiet day 1a, in which 89 registrations were recorded, but eventually, due to a good turnout on days 1c and 1d, the total eventually came to 617 participations. The €550 Main Event, with so many registrations, within a prize pool of €296,610, is not bad for a tournament with no guaranteed prize pool! However, it was the second time in history that the event had no less than five starting days, and sufficient consideration was given to the working Maltese citizens.

Main Event	Malta ’23	Nottingham ’22	Bratislava ’22	Tallinn ’22	Bratislava ’21
Day 1A	84	129	134	58	108
Day 1B	101	138	171	123	134
Day 1C	149	224	280	250	245
Day 1D	179	118	458	71	72
Day 1E	66		144
Day 2	38		84	50	62
Total	617	609	1271	552	621

The event had 617 players registering nicely, and with 193 players returning on Day 2, it didn’t take much for the fireworks to erupt. This included players who were still able to register two levels on Day 2, another unique element in this series, who started the day with just 10-15 big blinds.

In the end, 71 players would secure a minus cash in this event, a cash for €1,000. Oystein Brenden, a poker player from Norway, had enough chips during the opening day and day 2 and even ended the day as the chip leader. They would eventually end the day with 16 players. Here are the chip counts at the start of the third and last day of the Main Event.

Player	Chips	Big Blinds
Oystein Brenden	2,240,000	90
Gytis Juskevicius	1,840,000	74
Andreas Holmsten	1,730,000	69
Stian Nostdahl	1,695,000	68
Balazs Somodi	1,625,000	65
Dario Barone	1,550,000	62
Samuel Stranak	1,280,000	51
Luigi D’Alterio	1,275,000	51
Mischa Wieten	970,000	39
Annika Haaviste	940,000	38
Clausin Sanz	745,000	30
Shimon Hagay	710,000	28
Matthew Micallef	650,000	26
Jelmer Schuurmans	520,000	21
Andras Balogh	480,000	19
Kerrien Clement	475,000	19

Final Day

The moment had arrived; The third day of the Main Event. 16 Players returned and all eyes were on the first prize of €60,700. With a couple of notable names such as Jelmer Schuurmans, Andras Balogh, Luigi D’Alterio, and Oystein Brenden, it would be a potential battlefield right until the end. Poker fans from all over the world wouldn’t be disappointed, as many big pots went up and down.

Nice detail, the final table consisted of eight different nationalities! The man with the largest rail, Oystein Brenden, eventually turned the battle in his favour by taking first place. Balasz Somodi, from Hungary, ended up being the runner-up for €40,500. Another nice fact, only Matthew Micallef from Malta managed to play his way to the final table from the last 16 with one of the shortest stacks.

The Main Event was a great success in Malta with 617 players.

Place	Country	Player	Prize
1		Oystein Brenden	€60,700
2		Balazs Somodi	€40,500
3		Luigi D’Alterio	€27,900
4		Dario Barone	€20,300
5		Stian Nostdahl	€14,560
6		Andreas Holmsten	€10,950
7		Matthew Micallef	€8,350
8		Gytis Juskevicius	€6,250
9		Mischa Wieten	€5,150

Side Events

If you look at the schedule of The Festival Series, you’ll see that they don’t just focus on the Main Event, which many other tournament series around the world still focus on. Side events, and especially mixed games, are the most important factor for these series and it paid off big time this time. With 50+ events, there were an incredible number of events available to players, events that did not exceed their expectations can probably only be counted on one hand.

The side events that topped the Leaderboard were the €250 H.O.R.S.E (69 registrations), €125 8-Game (93 registrations), €1,100 PLO High Roller (60 registrations), €1,100 NLHE High Roller (70 registrations), €250 Open Face Chinese (38 registrations), and the €250 Mystery Bounty (201 registrations).

In the end, it was the founder of The Festival Series, Martin ‘Franke’ von Zweigbergk, who won two winners’ portraits. He won the HORSE and the CashGame Challenge. The Norwegian Coolbet ambassador Svein-Olaf Eidsaeter also managed to get two by winning the Win The Button tournament and the Mystery Bounty.

Here is an overview of all the winners of the side events:

Tournament Name	Buy-in	Entries	Prize Pool	Winner	1st Prize
Sviten Special	€      250	79	€  16,353	Totti Lind	€          5,200
Texas Knock Out	€      125	130	€  13,986	Linus Lauermann	€          1,700
Heads-Up	€      250	28	€     6,048	Mantas Petrauskas	€          2,380
PLO Championship	€      250	75	€  16,200	Mirko Romeo	€          5,150
Roulette	€      125	19	€     2,006	Martin Geiba	€          1,000
Half ‘n Half	€      125	70	€     7,084	Mikael Gronvik	€          2,045
Win the Button	€      125	88	€     9,292	Svein Olav Eidsaeter	€          2,380
8-Game	€      125	93	€     9,820	Jonas Jurksaitis	€          3,350
Blackjack	€      125	25	€     2,640	Angelo Vietti	€          1,100
PLO High Roller	€   1,100	60	€  57,600	Levan Rozomashvili	€        15,400
Texas Progressive Knock Out	€      250	150	€  33,000	Joseph Jackson	€          3,500
HORSE	€      250	69	€  14,904	Martin ‘Franke’ von Zweigbergk	€          2,850
Texas High Roller	€   1,100	70	€  67,200	Cory Desmond	€        18,000
PLO 4/5/6	€      250	72	€  15,550	William Lynch	€          2,900
Matching Visions Slots	€      125	18	€     1,900	Tobias Bollmann	€          1,000
Turbo Midnight Madness I	€      125	112	€  11,827	Kai Muller	€          3,190
OFC	€      250	38	€     8,206	Aaron Kupin	€          2,880
Queens Ladies	€      125	47	€     4,963	Beate Etim	€          1,760
Texas Surprise	€      125	131	€  13,834	Salvatore Ritrovato	€          2,230
PLO/PLO8	€      125	64	€     6,758	Frank Visser	€          2,220
The Hendon Mob Championship	€      250	102	€  22,032	Jonas Engedal	€          6,100
Turbo Midnight Madness II	€      125	64	€     6,758	Guido Sanzione	€          2,250
Sportsbook	€      125	12	€        806	Sami Korpela	€             526
PLO FO	€      250	66	€  14,256	Daniele Marchesani	€          4,480
Mystery Bounty	€      250	201	€  44,220	Svein Olav Eidsaeter	€          6,400
PLO Midnight Madness	€      125	90	€     9,504	Andreas Sanden	€          1,600
Low Roller	€         60	159	€     7,632	Miguel Cuevas	€          1,800
OFC High Roller	€   1,100	20	€  19,200	Aaron Kupin	€          9,600
Seniors 49+	€      250	22	€     4,752	Gerhard Brimmers	€          1,950

The WSOP is less than a week away, and if you’re not fortunate enough to be able to be in the Horseshoe, watching the action is something you cannot miss.

Seeing those WSOP-themed chips, the biggest and most notable players sit and battle it out to cement their legacy with a gold WSOP bracelet is the pinnacle of the poker calendar. Now, thanks to PokerGO, you can sit in the comfort of your home and have the best WSOP poker content streamed to your TV, laptop, and smartphone, no matter where you are in the world.

Whether you are in Finland, the Faroe Islands, Sweden, or St. Kitts and Nevis, you can watch the very best of the WSOP action as we shuffle up and deal into the summer. Here are some of the biggest events coming up this week that poker content lovers will not want to miss:

Event #2 $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller 6-Handed, June 1 @ 4pm ET

So, what makes this event a can’t-miss? The buy-in and being a high roller will attract the biggest and best names to sit down and battle. The six-handed dynamic will put this elite poker crowd into a format where opening ranges are wider, more aggressive actions are rewarded, and the play is faster.

Last year’s event was one of the most thrilling on the schedule, with US poker pro Chad Eveslage scooping a huge $1,415,610 for his first bracelet. The final table was jam-packed with names ranging from high-stakes crushers like Chris Brewer to social media content creator Antonio ‘SoFlo’ Lievano. Other names included WSOP 2021 Main Event Champion Koray Aldemi and Josh Arieh, who has 4 bracelets and a 3rd place finish in the WSOP Main Event back in 2004.

The final four would be Brewer, Arieh, and alleged cheater Jake Schindler, with Chad Evelsage maintaining a dominant chip lead to beat Schindler heads-up. Evelsage is a mixed-game specialist, with final tables in H.O.R.S.E., Limit Hold’em, and Omaha Hi-Lo, but it was in No-Limit Hold’em where he got his first WSOP gold.

Event #6 $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em / Pot-Limit Omaham, June 3 @ 8pm ET

The Mixed No-Limit Hold’em and Pot-Limit Omaha bracelet is a fascinating event, testing a poker pro’s two and four-card ability throughout the tournament. Last year saw a scoop by Brazilian pro Joao Simao, who won $686,242 after battling in one of the more intense three-handed battles of the series.

The final three came down to 2013 WSOP Main Event winner Ryan Riess and German high-stakes crusher Marius Gierse. Riess actually came into the final table as the shortest stack but maneuvered his way to the three-handed battle with some fantastic play and lucky run-outs. He lost a big spot with Gierse when his turned straight was bettered by Gierse’s rivered flush. Simao would overcome a 2-to-1 chip deficit to pull to an 8-to-1 lead, and the final hand of PLO would end the tournament when Gierse’s nut flush draw bricked, and the WSOP gold went to Brazil.

Event #8 $25,000 Heads-Up Championship, June 4 @ 8pm ET

One of the bracelets is geared toward poker savants, as the intricate game of heads-up poker has become popular over the past few years. Whether it was Doug Polk backing the truck up on Daniel Negreanu or Matt Berkey silencing Nik Airball, both to the tune of $1 million, heads-up is a common way to deal with poker feuds.

Last year, heads-up was a remedy for a US poker crusher who had not yet gotten his WSOP bracelet. Dan Smith would get through a tough field to scoop $509,717 and his maiden World Series of Poker bracelet, beating Christoph Vogelsang in his iconic Star Wars-esque hood.

In a field that included poker wizards like Kevin Rabichow, Dario Sammartino, and Chance Kornuth, Smith battled through the rounds to get a heads-up with the German online crusher Vogelsang and get his hands on his first bracelet.

Catch the Start of the WSOP Action on PokerGO

PokerListings and PokerGO have teamed up to get you access to the biggest and best poker action this summer. You can sit in the comfort of your home and get the popcorn ready, watching players create new legacies, win eye-watering amounts of cash, and get their hands on the biggest accolade in the poker world.

Use the promo code ‘pokerlistings‘ as this gives you a chance to win back your money!

Modern poker comes in numerous forms. For many (especially those who don’t play), their image of the game remains the traditional setting – a bunch of dodgy looking men in a poorly-lit basement – while, much more typically today, real money online poker attracts countless players around the world.

However, there’s another version, too, and this revolves around the incredibly popular gaming industry. Perhaps not surprisingly – given that poker is such an entertaining game to watch – there’s also a lot of people out there with a hunger for poker viewing content, with a thirst for spectating events via live streams much along the lines of how other sports and games are enjoy by hordes of fans who tune into major events.

PokerGO is the world’s largest company in this sector. Indeed, the premium global poker brand provides access to the world’s top players and the prestigious, high profile and exciting poker events they take part in, including the World Series of Poker (WSOP), Super High Roller Bowl, Poker Masters, High Stakes Duel and more.

In their latest move, not only are PokerGO addressing this demand, but they’re also launching a state-of-the-art platform for fans to play poker, complete with innovative gameplay and the facility to redeem exclusive real-world prizes. And our PokerListings community can take advantage of an early bird special offer!  

PokerGO is teaming up with Web3 entertainment pioneers, Gala Games to launch the much-anticipated product, namely PokerGO Play™, which is scheduled for public release later in 2023 and will be available for would-be poker gamers – including those in our PokerListings community! – to play in June.

Available worldwide on devices including iPhone, iPad, Android phone, Android tablet, Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire TV, PokerGO can also be streamed on web and mobile browsers via PokerGO.com. As well getting access to 125+ days of live poker broadcasts each year, members can also enjoy a video-on-demand library packed with additional original content.

PokerListings Promo Code

Fans can gain access to all of the platform’s content by becoming a PokerGO subscriber for just $99.99 per year, with monthly and quarterly plans also available. When signing up for an annual subscription – at PokerGO.com or through the PokerGO app – make sure you use the promo code ‘pokerlistings‘ as this gives you a chance to win back your money! Don’t hang around – this promotion ends on 15 June…

Richard Blankenship, Chief Revenue Officer of PokerGO, had this to say about the ground-breaking venture: “PokerGO’s extensive experience in poker entertainment combined with the cutting-edge Web3 development at Gala Games is a perfect marriage… Together, we have been able to build a superior social poker game that players everywhere will love.”

Meanwhile, as with this promotion, our continuing goal at PokerListings is to help our community make the most of their poker sessions, so check out the latest online poker bonuses and offers in our special info section. 

Good luck at the tables, and have fun!

It’s been a sad week for the poker world, with the news that Doyle Brunson, universally known as the Godfather of Poker, passed away on 14 May.

The two-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) champion had a glittering career that spanned decades. Even on the day – 11 June, 2018 – that he announced his retirement from tournament poker at that year’s WSOP, he bowed out in style, making the final table of the $10,000 buy-in, 2–7 Single Draw event, finishing in sixth place for $43,963.

The Original Poker Success Story

For most, $40K would be a significant sum, but this barely made a difference to Brunson’s lifetime tournament earnings, which topped $6 million. Remarkably, despite this, too, being a substantial achievement, the legend – nicknamed Texas Dolly – was recently reputed to be worth $75 million.

A Winning Mix of ‘Old Style’ Poker and Keeping Up With the Times

Given Brunson’s practical, easy demeanour despite the considerable stakes he played for, perhaps it’s no surprise that he managed to carve out such a successful career both on and off the poker table. Ranked by Bluff magazine as the game’s most influential player, his legacy is unparalleled.

Happy to share his wisdom and the skills that saw him win back-to-back WSOP Main Event titles in 1976 and 1977, the books he wrote proved to be an invaluable help to countless poker fans over generations. “Doyle Brunson’s Super System” became the ultimate bible, prompting Super System 2 and going through numerous (re)editions to the point that it was – and remains – an essential read for any self-respecting poker player with even an ounce of ambition. The tome even appeared in the opening scenes of the classic 1998 poker movie Rounders, starring Matt Damon and fellow poker fan, Edward Norton.

Significantly, Brunson demonstrated a willingness to adapt over the years, his approach moving the with the times as the game evolved – catch him playing with a host of young(er) top pros in his many TV appearances to see how he continued to be a force to be reckoned with throughout his illustrious career.

Brunson the Mind-Reader

For your writer, my favourite aspect of Brunson’s game was his focus on psychology. We’ll end with the Master’s own words on the subject – advice that everyone, from beginner to number-cruncher, would do well to take in: “More than any other game, poker depends on your understanding your opponent… you’ve got to know what makes him tick at the moment you’re involved in a pot with him. What’s his mood … his feeling? What’s his apparent psychological frame of mind right now?”

Doyle Brunson’s WSOP Bracelet Wins

Year	Tournament	Prize (US$)
1976	$5,000 Deuce to Seven Draw	$80,250
1976	$10,000 No Limit Hold’em World Championship	$230,000
1977	$1,000 Seven-Card Stud Split	$62,500
1977	$10,000 No Limit Hold’em World Championship	$340,000
1978	$5,000 Seven-Card Stud	$68,000
1979	$600 Mixed Doubles Seven Card Stud (with Starla Brodie)	$4,500
1991	$2,500 No Limit Hold’em	$208,000
1998	$1,500 Seven-Card Razz	$93,000
2003	$2,000 H.O.R.S.E.	$84,080
2005	$5,000 No Limit Shorthanded Texas Hold’em	$367,800

After the record first-running in Jan 2022, the World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOP-C) has returned to Calgary three more times, with the most recent edition generating almost $3.5 million in prizes from almost 6,900 entries.

It’s now official – Calgary is a spot to remember on the annual WSOP Circuit. With its fourth edition now in the books, the host venue of Deerfoot Inn & Casino has shown it belongs in the same league as the biggest stops on the Circuit.

With almost 6,900 entries across the 13-event series this time around, Calgary has quickly emerged as one of the biggest international stops on the Circuit, and it rivals some of the biggest US stops as well. Calgary has two dates every year on the colander, one in January and the other in May.

The most recent series ran from May 3 – May 15 and was the fourth Calgary edition of the local version of the WSOP tour. There were 13 events across the two-week series and 13 different players walked away with Gold Rings, all of whom were winning rings for the first time.

Winners this time around ranged from amateurs to professional poker players, with one newly minted Ring winner almost at the event by accident. The series also continued the trend of Main Event prize money staying local – for the fourth time on the trot, an Alberta player took the win in the Main Event.

Almost $3.5 Million in Prizes

By the time the dust settled on the two weeks of poker, there was just shy of $3.5 million ($CDN) in total prizes. The only prize pool that cracked $1 million during the series was the $1,700 Main Event, which finished with almost 950 entries for a total prize pool of $1,433,792.

Once again, it was a local player who pocketed the biggest share of that deep pool. Krystian Hady from Lethbridge, one of Alberta’s smaller cities about two hours south of Calgary, pocketed more than $241k after Monday’s Day 3 when he took down local legend Matt Kwong in a heads-up battle where Hady had to come back from a big deficit to win.

Hady’s win marked the fourth-timer running that an Alberta player took down the Main Event here in Calgary. While there has yet to be a winner from either of the province’s biggest cities, previous winners were Cody McKay from Daysland, AB, Rob Limpert from Grande Prairie, AB, and John French from Canmore, AB.

Two Weeks of Stories

Decisions are what make or break a poker player, and this was clearly just the first of many good decisions for Alemany as he took down the Mystery Bounty event for his first Ring and a handful of bounty vouchers. In the end, he booked a win of better than $30k thanks to a spur-of-the-minute decision to stay in Calgary after a work trip.

Other stories from the week included two players new to Canada battling it out for the win in the closing High Roller Event. Pavlo Vertiiko eventually took it down over Qingwie Justin Meng, but neither player had been in Canada more than a year when they got the heads up. Vertiiko arrived in Canada last fall via Ukraine and Europe, while Meng has only been here since last summer, arriving from China via the US.

Both players were clearly experienced at poker, if not as Canadians. Vertiiko has a couple of final tables from Ukraine in 2019, as well as a second place from the 2022 EPT Monte Carlo, stop on his resume, so he’s clearly played the game before. Meng has a couple of wins on his live poker resume, including a recent win in another classic Canadian poker series, the Station Classic at Casino Regina.

Vertiiko’s win came after he entered the High Roller late. It wasn’t his fault though, as he was busy cashing in Day 2 of the Main Event when the HR started, but he jumped in as soon as he pocketed his ME cash. There were a couple of other similar players in previous events with Friday being a big day for a few players.

The feature game on Friday was the Go phase of the first-in-market Flip & Go game, with a PLO Bounty game running as the late side event. Two players, Justin Hotte-McKinnon and James (Zeyu) Du were both at their second final tables of the day after final-tabling the Go stage and jumping into the PLO late. Travis MacKinnon was on his second final table of the series, with Mazen Naous on his fourth in that late four-card game.

One other player had a pretty solid series – Glen “Frosty_Nug_Farm” Craigen, who has had a pretty decent 2023 so far. He started the year off by spinning $10 into a Platinum Pass and more than $40k at the PSPC this past January, and now he’s followed that up with his first circuit Ring – one of four cashes for him this series.

Results from May 2023 WSOP-C Calgary

Num	Event	Entries	Prize Pool	Winner	1st Place
1	$400 Big 30 Stack	414	$82,950	Glen Craigen	$16,800
2	$400 Black Chip Bounty	233	$76,890	Michael Wo	$12,389
3	$400 4-Flight	964	$318,120	Jake Hobday	$53,197
4	$600 Mystery Bounty	289	$148,835	Darcy Alemany	$19,769
5	$400 Seniors	321	$105,946	Brett Finch	$22,953
6	$400 Big 30 Stack	273	$90,101	John Paquette	$19,933
7	$1000 1k NLH	224	$196,000	Kyle Ho	$45,635
8	$400 Monster Stack	842	$277,860	Graham Lupton	$48,141
9	$1000 1k One-Day	120	$105,000	Mehmet Ali Sığınç	$277,860
10	$225 Flip & Go	312	$57,719	Nick Andreas	$13,787
11	$1700 Main Event	946	$1,433,792	Krystian Hady	$241,665
12	$400 PLO Bounty	333	$109,890	Sage Brocklebank	$16,615
13	$2200 High Roller	224	$448,000	Pavlo Vertiiko	$104,313

Calgary is Big for WSOP-C

2022 was the first year the WSOP-C came to Cowtown, and the first edition proved to be the biggest poker series ever run in the fast-growing live poker market of Alberta, Canada. After the first event, it was obvious to everyone involved that Calgary would be a great stop for the Circuit, and the stop is among the biggest on the international tour and has grown to rival some of the biggest US stops as well.

January 2023 saw more than 1,500 entries and almost $2.2 million in prizes for the Main Event, smashing the previous record set by the event in 2022. While the May edition of the series tends to be a bit smaller than January, between the four Main Events run in the southern Alberta city so far there has been almost $6.75 million in prizes handed out.

Both years so far have seen increases from the previous year, with this May’s Main Event about 5% bigger than last May and Jan-to-Jan about 22% bigger. Look for WSOP-C Calgary 2024 next January where players could easily be playing for more than $2.5 million in the ever-growing WSOP-C Calgary.