News about poker pros
Biggest chip stack, then no chip stack For reasons unknown but which could be guessed, poker pro Ali Imsirovic was ejected from a Florida poker tournament on Thursday. It was Day 1A of the $1,200 RunGood Poker Series Main Event at bestbet Jacksonville and Imsirovic was doing very well, likely oblivious to the fact that… Read more »
My oldest child has made her decision on where she is going to attend college, so the day I have to plunk down that first tuition (and more) payment is fast approaching. I am looking to save any dollar I can. High stakes poker players, on the other hand, happily risk multiple years of college… Read more »
RTA causing problems Nacho Barbero is no longer a sponsored pro of ACR Poker. In a Monday statement, ACR CEO Phil Nagy cited comments Barbero made on a broadcast of the US Poker Open, saying they “have raised serious concerns about his understanding of our security measures and his role as an ambassador. The issue… Read more »
Patience of a saint Anyone who has played live poker has probably had to sit through someone thinking long and hard about a decision. Maybe you were the one who took an inordinate time to make a move once! The subject of tanking has been up for debate for eons, but generally poker players are… Read more »
If there is something that poker players are wont to do, it is a wager on sports. Baseball is one of those activities that will spark the betting interests of some poker players, and the season is slightly more than a week away for Major League Baseball. Although we haven’t seen any action yet, we’re… Read more »
One of a possible 53 tournaments on his schedule You know those “something that makes you feel old” posts on social media? Well how about this: Daniel Negreanu, the man known as “Kid Poker” is 50 years old and qualifies for the Seniors Event at the 2025 World Series of Poker. And according to a… Read more »
Fake cars, fraudulent car loans In late 2023, poker player George Janssen turned up on the side of the road with his hands bound in his hometown of Bad Axe, Michigan after having been missing for a month. Allegedly kidnapped as a part of an extortion scheme, it was an odd story to say the… Read more »
Says she used it after a hand Late last week, a blurry, year-old image that Americas Cardroom (ACR) Pro Ebony Kenney posted to social media became a hot topic in the poker community, as it showed Kenney with real-time assistance (RTA) software open while she was playing in ACR’s “The Venom” tournament. The reaction from… Read more »
Stomped the competition Joey Weissman completely owned the 2025 PokerGO Cup this past week and a half, officially being crowned the series champion on Thursday. For his accomplishments, he earned the PokerGO Cup trophy and a $25,000 PokerGO Tour (PGT) passport, good for buy-ins to PGT events. As PokerGO called it, Weissman’s romp through the… Read more »
A week straight is too much In what will likely come as a shock to the poker community, 17-time gold bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth has announced that he will not participate in the 2025 World Series of Poker Main Event. In a two-minute video posted to social media, the 1989 Main Event champion explained that… Read more »
“With a heavy heart” The poker world is weird. It is an ecosystem that revolves around beating the hell out of each other at the tables for money, while at the same time, many players have no problem loaning and borrowing thousands of dollars from each other to keep the games going. Of course, that… Read more »
Watch what you post Americas Cardroom (ACR) pro Nacho Barbero has been under the microscope since Friday, when he posted a picture of his computer screen showing multiple ACR tables open plus an active instance of GTO Wizard. GTO Wizard is a real-time assistance (RTA) tool that helps players make statistically correct decisions while they… Read more »
In a dramatic turn of events at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Paradise Super Main Event, Justin Bonomo, a prominent poker player, faced the threat of disqualification over his choice of attire. Bonomo, who is known for his vocal support of the Palestinian cause, wore a keffiyeh—a traditional Palestinian scarf—during the tournament, which led… Read more »
With a week of the 2024 World Series of Poker in the books, the nomination process for the next class of the Poker Hall of Fame has opened. “With the poker world losing original participants of the 1970 WSOP in the last two years, it’s more important than ever to celebrate the history of the… Read more »
Alan Keating is not shy when comes to putting gigantic sums of money on the line at the poker table, so last week’s Million Dollar Game on Hustler Casino Live (HCL) was right up his alley. And though he was down over a million bucks Friday night, he came through with a $2.4 million score… Read more »
After years of trying, Lex Veldhuis finally came through. On Monday, the Team PokerStars Pro and prolific streamer won his very first Championship of Online Poker on Stars, taking the crown in the $5,200 No-Limit Hold’em Titans event in the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP). The high stakes tournament attracted the world’s best online… Read more »
No give, all take? One aspect of the professional poker world that you won’t find in most other industries is that players frequently loan money to one another. And while this certainly comes with its benefits, the clear downside is that when it comes to gamblers, sometimes someone is left holding the bag. Recently, some… Read more »
Poker players love their prop bets Shaun Deeb had 14 months to slash his body fat percentage by more than half or he would lose $100,000. He isn’t there yet, but he is now hundreds of thousands of dollars richer, as he announced over the weekend that he has accepted an $800,000 buyout from Bill… Read more »
Holz a proponent of “pure” poker A week after announcing that he is joining GGPoker’s Poker Integrity Council (PIC), high stakes poker pro Fedor Holz revealed what his top initial priority will be. In a tweet on Tuesday, Holz said he wants to advance “the strict limitation of usage of mined data & MDA with… Read more »
One man enters, one man exits High stakes poker pro Fedor Holz has announced that he has joined the Poker Integrity Council (PIC), created by GGPoker in 2022. At the same time, poker pro Jason Koon announced that he is no longer affiliated with GGPoker: Koon gave no further explanation as to why he left… Read more »
Following two rounds of preliminary voting by an industry panel, the Global Poker Index has revealed the nominees for the 5th Annual Global Poker Awards. Several awards not listed below have already been determined. Bin Weng has won GPI Poker Player of the Year, Kristen Foxen picks up her fourth GPI Female Poker Player of… Read more »
Perry Friedman, far and away one of the most beloved poker players this century, passed away on Sunday at the age of 55 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. One of founding members of the “Tiltboys” poker group, Friedman was a math and computer genius. He earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Stanford University,… Read more »
Too much of a good thing Daniel Negreanu has long been one of the most open poker pros with his fans. At the end of every year, he provides a rundown of how he did along with an analysis of what he liked and didn’t like about his performance. This week, he published his annual… Read more »
That’s a big reefer business Shawn Sheikhan, whose poker claim to fame was being insufferable at the table in the mid-2000’s, has been sentenced to four years in prison for his role in operating a drug distribution business. Sheikhan pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to distribute marijuana in June 2022. He must surrender… Read more »
Double-check Controversial hands in live tournaments are always fun and you can read that as sarcasm or not, it really all depends on one’s appetite for chaos. The latest hubbub happened over the weekend on Day 1A of the EPT Cyprus $2,200 High Roller event and while it was a situation no dealer wants to… Read more »
