Reading Twitter pages is a lot like playing Texas Hold’em because you’re dealing with incomplete information and you have to go with your instincts on what is happening based on what you do know.  You can tell there is some interesting stuff written, but it’s not always easy to make out the surrounding details.  For example, take a look at this Tweet from Daniel, aka RealKidPoker:

Apparently the lady reads my twitter. Oops lol. Oh well, when I sat down I swore she was a little off or slow. My bad!

This tweet out of the Phil_Hellmuth page would have been worth a watch:

Wow Ante up For Africa was massive!! I sang lyrics w Nelly while I emceed…Lyrib-i am number one

I didn’t know Twitter allowed cursing, but leave TheMouthMatusow to answer that question:

Just got f****d (Twitter doesn’t bleep this out) guy drawing dead to a q board pair for million bets got 3k left hate this place

Jen Harman also has an active and interesting account. Who knew REALJenHarman bets on tennis:

Not playing tournaments today. I think I’m going to play cash today. Either that or going to watch a 20K bet on a tennis match.

I’ll leave you with the most interesting and telling tweets from VanessaRousso:

I just had the worst meal/service at Hofbrauhas LV. A waiter actually told my mother (after messing up our order) that he’s ‘nobodys bitch’. The manager was almost as rude as the waiter.Never again.If you come to Vegas don’t wate your time at this place. Bad food, even worse svc..

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Tony Veckey is a software engineer.  He’s also a WSOP champion.  Veckey was the sole survivor of the $1,500 No Limit Hold ‘em tournament to win $673,276.  In a field of 2,817 players, Veckey won despite having never played in a WSOP before.  He has quite a percentage going there.  I don’t know if anyone has ever been 1 for 1 at the WSOP.

I also came across a great hand I wanted to share with you.  It involves one of my favorite players, Tom Dwan, who gets unlucky and then lucky against Antonio Esfandiari.  Here is the video:

As you can see, Dwan smooth plays the Queens and he runs up against some bad luck when Esfandiari calls with 7s and then catches a 7 on the flop. However, he gets lucky on the river catching the case queen and gets paid off with all of Antonio’s money. I’m not a big Antonio fan, but I do feel for him. It is no fun watching all of your chips get shipped away.

David “Gunslinger” Bach outlasted super pros Erik Seidel and Huck Seed at the final table to win one of the most prestigious tournaments in the world and take home a cool $1,276,802 despite only 95 entries.  John Hanson was Bach’s last opponent and proved a worthy adversary as the heads up battle lasted 7 hours until Bach eventually won the bracelet.

You can see the affable champion being interviewed on Day 4 reflecting on his progress throughout the tournament and looking ahead to what might be necessary to win.  In the interview he mentions his respect for Doyle Brunson.  Another interesting quote was he said no one is good enough to play two tournaments at once.  He also really enjoys bowling and says that it helps him a little bit with his poker game.

Seems like a really nice guy and obviously well deserving of praise as H.O.R.S.E is one of the most skillful events there is.

ESPN doesn’t usually put their name on YouTube videos, but it looks like times are changing.  This week ESPN submitted WSOP Unforgettable Confrontations as the 2009 WSOP winds down to the Main Event.  I can’t embed the video because they disabled the code, but here is the link.

It’s a pretty entertaining video.  Featured is the always memorable Sheik vs. Matusow match where Sheik makes an inappropriate gesture after the flop comes out (indicating he had a piece of the flop).  Mike tells him he needs to “shut the **** up” and both get sent to the rail for 10 minutes.  This was a pretty rare incident where two mega pros actually get penalized.

Of course, when they come back there is rampant antagonizing but for the most part Sheik gets the better of it as he builds a comeback through Matusow.  Ultimately, Mike does end up eliminating the Sheirk for revenge.

This was interesting poker, but I’m not sure if these guys were even playing.  Looks like they just wanted to goat one another.

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Rarely will you ever see Daniel Negreanu get so mad at a hand, but his frustration was certainly justified on this hand and he didn’t personally attack anyone which is always good.  His radar was sharp that something was askew, but unfortunately Eric Lindren had quads and Daniel couldn’t put him on anything beating his flopped nuts after the turn and river.

The most annoying thing was Gabe Kaplan repeatedly acting like this was an obvious lay down. I would love to see what Kaplan says only looking at Daniel’s cards. I wouldn’t have gotten away from this one and I’m 99.9% sure Gabe Kaplan doesn’t have the discipline to put Lindgren on quads or a full house and then put down a flopped straight.

I feel for Daniel as it’s obvious he had been the recipient of some tough beats earlier in the show(s). It was surprising to see him get so mad, but I would have been pretty perplexed myself.

The WSOP H.O.R.S.E. Event is down to 31 and last year’s winner, Scotty Nguyen, is right in the thick of things, maintaining a healthy middle of the pack stack.  Other notable pros left include Gus Hansen, Todd Brunson, Freddy Deeb, Tony G., Patrik Antonius, Erik Seidel, and Huck Seed.  It would be awesome to see Scotty take down back-to-back H.O.R.S.E championships.

In other news, the never happy Brandon Cantu beat fellow pro Lee Watkinson to win the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo 8-or-Better bracelet.  Cantu’s win was anything but certain when heads-up play began with Watkinson holding a 2,485,000 to 945,000 lead but Cantu soon doubled up and gained momentum until Watkinson was on the ropes and ultimately was knocked out.

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This was Cantu’s second WSOP bracelet and for the first place he took home $228,867.  Watkinson got $141,873 for finishing second.

The World Series of Poker H.O.R.S.E. Event (Hold’em - Omaha - Razz - Seven Card Stud - Eight or better) kicked off today with a paltry 95 entries, less than 2/3s the number of entries in 2008 (148).  HORSE is a popular game among poker players because they it showcases a lot of all around talent as the players must continually adapt to a merry-go-round of poker games.  The WSOP HORSE event is prestigious but it is also super expensive.  An entry onto the felt costs $50,000.  (Of course the winnings balloon as a result, even with only 50 entries, this year’s purse is $4,560,000.

I can’t help but think some of the players elected not to put the 50 large at stake because of our recent economic pinch.  Why else would there be such a large drop off?  I guess some who would have otherwise have played may be in other events, but the same could be said of years past.

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Derek Raymond is your Omaha 8-or-better winner.  The event was a $2,500 buy-in resulting in $229,192 in prize winnings.  Mark Tenner finished second.

John Kabbaj won the $10,000 Pot Limit Hold’em World Championship in a field of 275 for a $633,335 payday.

Elder statesmen Michael Davis was also a bracelet winner, taking the $1,000 Seniors World Championship for $437,358.

As the WSOP winds down, heads will now tun to the $50,000 Horse event which Scotty Nguyen embarrassingly but entertainingly won last year.

Here is the video of shame for Scotty’s legacy. He has since apologized and acknowledged that he drank too much.

As bad as he acted and as much as I am for regular behavior at the poker tables, I’m willing to let it go. I think Scotty is generally a good guy but his flaw is trying to act too flamboyant. Once the overflow liquor got in him, he lost control and you saw the result.

Can’t wait to see this year’s Horse.

When you’re on fire, you’re on fire and Jeffrey Lisandro is on fire.  Today Lisandro won WSOP Event #44, the $2,500 buy-in Razz Tournament.  His previous 2009 bracelets came in Seven-card Stud and Seven-card Stud Eight or Better.  It looks almost inevitable that he will win the WSOP Player of the Year award.  He now has a 355-275 point lead over second place Ville Wahlbeck.  Although his earnings are less ($807k vs. $862k), he has 1 more cash and 2 more bracelets.  Phil Ivey is third with 242 points.

The Razz event had 315 entries.  His other wins came in 164 and 213 fields.  I’m not a fan of Lisandro, but he is well deserving of any credit coming his way.  Winning 3 bracelets in 1 WSOP is outstanding.

I’ve got to wonder what the other players are thinking while Lisandro is going around collecting all the hardware.  Think of how many players would like to get just 1 bracelet - and now Jeffrey Lisandro has 3 in one tournament.

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The greatest televised moment in poker is now officially (at least PokerNews officially) Chris MoneyMaker’s colossal bluff on Sam Farha.  Many attribute MoneyMaker’s bluff and then improbable Main Event bracelet as the fuel behind the great poker rush of the mid 2000s.

On the play, MoneyMaker put the WSOP on the line with a busted straight and flush draw and incited Norman Chad to make one of the great calls in poker history, calling it “the bluff of the century.”  Farha later downplayed the play as a horrible move, but that’s probably just the bitterness talking.  The truth is Farha was afraid to put what would amount to almost all of his chips on the line and MoneyMaker correctly pushed.

It was the right move at the right time.  Farha probably thought he was ahead, but decided he would try to come back after the hand rather than risk it all.  However, that was a momentum hand and MoneyMaker cruised home to the title.

Check out the hand and watch MoneyMaker’s after hand tell, he might as well have just said he bluffed him: