Sammy Farha and Eli Elizara have a hot rivalry running on high stakes poker. Unfortunately for Sammy, Eli usually gets the better of it and this hand was no exception. Sammy started with a respectable KQ suited but ran into Eli’s pocket Aces. That’s usually good for some fireworks, but things got spectacular on the flop.
The flop came out AAJ giving Sammy a one sided straight draw to go along with possibly two overs on a pair of Jacks. Eli led out with a bet which was risky but also would give you little to no …read more

There is a wide range of interesting characters on this week’s High Stakes Poker. Tom Dwan, Viffer Peat, Doyle Brunson, Phil Laak, Eli Elezra, Alan Meltzer, Mike Baxter and Dario Minieri comprise the table and make for some very interesting poker.
In a hand around minute 22, the grandfather of poker, Doyle Brunson gets the best of Tom Dwan. I probably raise the river in this hand, but Doyle says he wouldn’t have called which may have been true, but Dwan did have a pair of kings with aces showing and a jack kicker.
Alan Meltzer is a guy I’ve …read more

PokerNews had a feature column detailing disappointing ratings for FaceTheAce, the new NBC and Full Tilt Poker program.
Here are the two glaring problems I see.  First, the pros don’t look like they care at all what happens (no pride factor).  Second, what average joe contestant is going to pass up $40,000 for possibly a 50/50 chance at $200,000?  And even if they did, who is going to risk 200k for another possible 50/50 chance at $1m?
A third problem is the poker feels a little hurried and forced.  After all, it is a game show on prime time tv (Saturday PT …read more

Did you catch FaceTheAce last night? The new poker show pitting amateur vs. pro got off to a good start as the amateurs were churning out the upsets. Read a review of FaceTheAce.  I also have a YouTube clip to show you where Don Topel goes against 1 time bracelet winner Eric Lindgren.
I wasn’t a fan of the show 1 card agreement before the match.  Lindgren was a little too lackadaisical for my liking, but I suppose the heads up battle can’t last forever.  Is it me or do the blinds go up in only a few minutes?
I …read more

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.  …read more

Tom Dwan has pretty much taken the poker world by storm in the last few months. If there were a chart of who’s hot, Dwan would be #1 by a country mile. I thought he could use a little cooling off so I dug up a nice losing hand for him vs. WSOP champ Peter Eastgate. Although he didn’t get outplayed, he certainly was surprised when Eastgate turned over the winning hand.
To take words from a recent commenter on this blog (Gerardo), Eastgate doesn’t belong at the table. All you need to do is look at …read more

I’m taking a break in the action from Cowboys Poker to pose this question to you.
Before I started watching poker on ESPN, I would have never thought it would have been a good watch.  Mostly its just guys sitting around a card table talking and playing poker.  That doesn’t sound like the recipe for success, but it is.
Of course hole cam brings the game to a much bigger dimension.  If you can’t see the cards it’s fun to guess for a little while but eventually starts dragging.  Plus before hole cam there was none of the top announcers that make …read more

This video is kind of cool.  I’ve never seen it before and neither have more than 750 others, but in it Dimitri Nobles talks about his use of the phrase “send him out on a stretcher.”  Its just a one on none video with Nobles at his house telling us a pretty interesting WSOP story.  He actually seems like a cool guy and didn’t seem that bitter about being knocked out of the WSOP.
When I had watched Nobles at the WSOP, I knew he was a wild and lucky poker player and well he was bad.  You don’t play the …read more

The last WSOP Broadcast before the final table airs in Novemeber has now gone done, and the final table is set, in case you hadn’t seen it yet.
Here’s part one, the other parts are available on the same site:

Sad way to go out for the 10th guy, shouldn’t be pushing AJ under the gun, duh.

Passive play in the hands of a killer = bounties.