One of the best methods for poker players to keep in contact with their fans is through their Twitter accounts. These 140-character gems run the gamut from the performance of players on the tables to what goes on in their everyday lives. Poker News Daily lets you know what is going on with many of the top stars in the game today.
On Wednesday night, 2001 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event winner Carlos Mortensen added another achievement to his already legendary career by winning the World Poker Tour (WPT) Hollywood Poker Open. With the victory, Mortensen tied Gus Hansen for most career titles in WPT history with three and also passed Daniel Negreanu for the top spot on the career money list for the tour. Within hours of his victory, the congratulations were flowing toward the Ecuador native.
Noted tournament director Matt Savage was the first to get in his congratulations when he Tweeted, “Congratulations to Carlos Mortensen on his third WPT Title tying Gus Hansen with his 3rd! He is running pretty decent and playing great!” Mortensen has indeed been running well of late, with five cashes in 2010, including a win at the L.A. Poker Classic and a ninth place finish in that series’ WPT event. However, poker super agent Brian Balsbaugh warned “El Matador” that the win might spark a drive in one of his clients, tweeting, “BTW, getting passed by Carlos on WPT $$ list is exactly the kind of thing that motivates @RealKidPoker (Negreanu).”
Outside of the action on the WPT, many poker players were hitting the tables in Reno for a more altruistic reason. Wednesday night marked the beginning of two days of fun for poker’s elite at the V Foundation Charity Poker Tournament to benefit the V Foundation for Cancer Research, an organization created in 1993 by the late N.C. State basketball coach Jim Valvano.
At the tournament itself, the Tweets flew as fast as the cards themselves. WSOP double bracelet holder Brandon Cantu started by Tweeting, “Jimmy V foundation charity tourney i have matt graham to my right any time he enters a pot i’m moving in.” Others would follow with their Tweets, with Liv Boeree and Tiffany Michelle chirping about their defeats at the hands of Cantu. “I swear @BrandonCantu is my poker nemesis,” Michelle commented. “Got it all in with 10s v his 7s obv he goes four to a flush. That’s what we call getting Cantued!” Boeree would prove to have no better luck when she went head-to-head with Cantu: “Playing the charity tournament. just got Cantued for big pot, obv.”
Fellow WSOP double bracelet winner Jeff Madsen had much better luck in going up against Cantu, however. “Wow beat Cantu in an all in,” Madsen Tweeted as he made his run to the final table of the event. “Final table. I make every charity final table. All of my proceeds will be donated to the Jeff Madsen Fund,” Madsen jokingly tweeted after he made it. The winner of the tournament will have a cancer research grant created in their honor.
The mountains of Reno would prove to be a tempting diversion for several of the participants in the V Foundation event. Hitting the slopes for some skiing and snowboarding were poker pros Amit “amak316” Makhija, Adam “Roothlus” Levy, and Boeree, prompting Savage to Tweet, “please don’t break anything!” Madsen, who was boarding with Trishelle Cannatella and Cantu, looked to get some action on the activity by Tweeting, “I put the number of broken bones in the group at over 0.5.” Apparently, all made it though the mountains without issue because Michelle Tweeted to fellow snow surfers Alex Outhred, Boeree, Cantu, and Madsen this morning, “4-6 new inches of snow on the mountain today… we might not kill ourselves YEAY!”
It seemed as though poker opened up its own version of the Comedy Store with many of the Tweets over the past week. England’s Vicky Coren noticed something that many see in casinos: “Just saw a guy totally lost in the Vic, trying various doors, shouting “I can’t get out!,” Coren said. “Welcome to the Hotel California.”
Doyle Brunson fired off two classic jokes when he said, “Old is when your spouse is going somewhere all dressed up and you don’t care where, as long as you don’t have to go with them.” Brunson then followed that jewel with another Tweet: “Another perk for getting old… the clothes I’m buying now probably won’t wear out.” This prompted his daughter Pamela Brunson to respond, “I like your old jokes much better than the blonde jokes!”
Finally, in response to the rumors in Hollywood regarding the separation between recent Academy Award winner Sandra Bullock and her husband Jesse James, Joe Reitman commented on James’ alleged choice in the woman he had an affair with. Reitman, who has a long involvement with the movie industry in Tinseltown, Tweeted on Monday, “As a rule I don’t have affairs with women who have tattoos on their face or ‘white power’ on their body. I see those things as red flags.”
Whether they are playing poker or living life, poker players on Twitter constantly entertain their followers. Poker News Daily also entertains their readers through the Twitterscape, so be sure to follow us by adding @pokernewsdaily to your Twitter feed.
