With August in full swing, poker players have gotten over their post-World Series of Poker lethargy and entered back into card rooms around the world. Many of those players have been keeping their fans up to date on all their activities through 140-character bursts on Twitter.
The Legends of Poker drew a nice field of 462 players and several popular Twitter-peeps were in action over the weekend. “Down to 96 at The Bike… its gonna be a long night!,” World Poker Tour hostess Kimberly Lansing chirped prior to the start of play on Sunday. Several players hovered around the leader board as the numbers began dropping.
Erica Schoenberg made a significant move during the day, but faced an unfortunate problem for play through Sunday. “Still in the WPT at the bike,” Erica tweeted her followers. “Still no IPod. Can’t stop humming Xmas tunes!” The dilemma of no music didn’t seem to sidetrack Schoenberg, however, as she reached the end of the day and tweeted, “Still in the tourney. 245k. Guess I won’t be listening to the IPod much in the future. Jingle bells!”
“Ended the day with 430k and in really good shape with 60 left blinds going to 1500/3k,” tweeted J. C. Alvarado at the close of play on Sunday. Perhaps the remaining contestants at the Legends of Poker should start worrying about Alvarado as he closed his Tweet by saying, “Starting to get a good feeling about this.” Other players who were also in the mix in Los Angeles included Joe Sebok (“Sick run to close the day out. From 28k all the way up to 196k to end. Riding my usual coaster, but ended at my high point. Back tomorrow”), former WPT Player of the Year Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little (“Ended at 305200. Guy open pushed 40bbs and I called with AK and beat his JJ. Great last few levels. We play down to 27 tomorrow”) and Amit “amak316” Makhija (“138k to end a very card dead day. Tomorrow is a new one”).
In the Mediterranean Sea, several top pros turned up for the second annual Full Tilt Poker Merit Cyprus Classic. On hand for play was John Robert Bellande, who passed along a Twitvid of “Level 2 day2 Cyprus. Karina (Jett), Chino (Rheem), John Racener” in action. Jennifer “Jennicide” Leigh continued her comeback by playing the tournament, but unfortunately tweeted to her followers, “Was up to a little over 11k and now I’m out… back to sleep for me.” Antonio Esfandiari was also one of those players dismissed from the event, tweeting, “Just busted Cyprus tournament 62nd place. Pretty tilted.”
Also having fun in Cyprus were the Mizrachi brothers. Although November Niner Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi was eliminated early from the tournament, he hung around to follow brother Eric’s play. “Back from break, have 60k, 39 players left, Avg is 144k, chips are flying here!,” Eric noted over Twitter during a break in play early this morning. As of this afternoon, Eric is still in action in the Cyprus tournament.
On the odder side of poker in Twitter, players Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin and Shannon Shorr – both noted baseball fans – decided to head out to Dodger Stadium following their eliminations from the Legends of Poker. “Nick Lachey 4 seats from us,” Baldwin tweeted from the park during the game. “Rob Lowe also just pointed out one section over. Was afraid to tweet fearing Hellmuth-like tweet accusations.” The defending CardPlayer Magazine Player of the Year also noted that, “Nick looked depressed. Likely from missing Jessica’s intellectual stimulation.”
Things got hazy is late in the evening. Shorr tweeted Sunday evening, “@basebaldy and I legit locked in dodger stadium. stayed at bar too long. 2 of last 5 non-staff members on campus.” Providing either further insight to what happened – or perhaps clouding the waters even further – Baldwin tweeted later, “Got a cop drunk. Locked inside dodger stadium. Barbed wire fence jumping. Improvised ride home. Should have made Day 2 instead!”
When it comes to best Tweets from the weekend, Joe Sebok has to take honors for his viewpoint on his run at the WPT Legends of Poker. “Today is a win-win. either keep going deep in the WPT bike, or I have @davematthewsbnd tickets in Hollywood. can’t lose.” Annie Duke joked with Sebok, “Nice chip count @JoeSebok. Don’t come in 7th!” Finally, European poker reporter Tatjana Pasalic opined through Twitter, “Xmas ads on TV and Halloween party invitations on FBK. What the hell, people? Can’t you live in the moment? #wsop2011 ftw!”
