Bigger Deal

The World Series as we know it was born in 1971. Since then, player numbers have swelled, events have been added and the tournament relocated, but the format has remained largely unchanged. The pattern so far has been familiar: poker-mania in Vegas builds during the preceding events until a champion is crowned in the early […]

“If you start me up, I’ll never stop” Ever wonder why Mick Jagger is still touring with Keith, Ronnie, and Charlie, dancing across stages around the world, and certainly stressing his 60+ year old bones? Remember, this guy is a legendary businessman – he probably has the money to buy W1 if he wanted to. I thought […]

“In Poland there’s an inn, in Poland there’s an inn” You get in the elevator (“lift” to the Brits) at the Warsaw Hyatt, and right there, engraved into the door jamb, is the name “Schindler”. I have a confession to make: I’ve never seen the movie Schindler’s List. Whenever I’ve seen a movie (or play) like […]

From the beginning let me apologise for the trans-altlantic timing problem which led to the Tuesday Night Game starting at 7pm UK time rather than the planned 8pm. Due to clocks moving forward in the USA the PStars people forgot that we in Britain were still living in winter and many people missed the chance […]

Before bad knees and Benson & Hedges got to me, I used to play a lot of football. But about ten years ago, I had to stop. I simply couldn’t compete with younger, keener opponents. They kept on coming, those kids, leaving me wheezing and red-faced in their wake. So I put my muddy Nikes […]

Among those who played in our February tournament was the poker correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph, David Flusfeder, whom I know to be a stylish guy as well as a classy player; he managed to get into the money in the ‘main event’ of last year’s WSOP. David is a novelist and screen-writer as well […]

“It was red and yellow and green and brown and blue” When we’re at a European Poker Tour  event, it’s all too easy to spend the entire time inside the hotel. Your room is there, the tournament is there, the restaurant(s) and bar are there. After the long (and odd) hours, you find yourself thinking that a […]

The phone rang. It was my friend T. “Have you heard?” he asked. Whenever a New York poker player asks me if I’ve heard, I know that he is about to tell me some bad news. Poker is illegal in the big bad city, which means that the clubs are targets for both cops and robbers. […]

In my previous blog we talked about basic principles of playing a rebuy tournament. This outlined the structual changes during the event, specifically the rebuy period, that effected changes in the players’ rebuy strategy. Now it’s time to look at how different playing styles can operate within these guidelines. I have decided that there are three […]

The main news to emerge from our fifth Tuesday Night Game, sponsored by PokerStars, is that there is now a baby cow in Tipperary named Tony Holden. This singular honour came my way around 1.30 a.m., thanks to a communications breakdown during the frenzied heads-up that climaxed a feisty final table. After a deal made by […]