I've been playing Polish Poker this evening with my new (Polish) flat mate Ted. His English is only a tiny bit better than my Polish. My Polish now extends to "I'm going to sleep, Good Night" (I'm quite proud of that one), Ashtray, Lighter, Stereo, DVD. So that was quite amusing. Five card stud poker with one round of betting and only playing with 9's through Asses. Or at least that is what I think Ted said. Ass, Cruel, Dame, Valet, 10 and 9.
His house in Poland is 80km's from Ukraine and 100km's from Slovakia but he has visited neither. I think this is because he is busy when in Poland; working, eating, sleeping. I have also discovered that Poland is cheaper than the UK for everything and Ukraine is cheaper than Poland at least for Vodka, Beer and Cigarettes.
Poker, Beer, Vodka & Cigarettes - the language of European integration.
Lou Kreiger asks on cardplayer.com, How big can the World Series of Poker become? From modest beginnings in 1970 the World Championship Event with a $10,000 buy-in saw 839 entrants in 2003 and a staggering 2576 in 2004.
In case you've been hibernating on a deserted island with Robinson Crusoe or the cast of Survivor and haven't heard the news, last year's event marked the coming of the online gaming community into poker's premier event. When a 27-year-old accountant by the name of Chris Moneymaker parlayed a $40 entry fee in an online satellite event into a $2.5 million payday when he won the 2003 World Series of Poker, it helped set the poker world on its ear.
Krieger suggests,
If the first few days of next year's event are moved to another Harrah's property, such as the Rio, you can expect attendance for the final event to dwarf what you saw here. After all, the Horseshoe ran headlong into space restrictions, but the Rio has a convention center, and the event could easily accommodate many more players. Perhaps the player base, lured by TV coverage and a bigger facility, will double. Maybe it will even triple. Can you imagine a poker tournament with 5,000 entrants? How about 8,000? It's all quite possible.Poker's riding the crest of a tidal wave right now, and this is just the beginning. Most of the game's growth was fueled by TV and the increasing popularity of Internet poker, along with the compelling human-interest story of Chris Moneymaker. In achieving his dream, he democratized poker and showed its accessibility to everyone who sat up and took notice.
Interesting article at CNN Money (America's hottest sport: Poker) the other day about the massive growth of poker on TV. It is US focused but applies similarily here in the UK, just this evening the 2003 WSOP was on some channel or other as well as Celebrity Poker, Late Night Poker ad nauseum.
The rise of Poker here has been amazing over the last, say, 2 years. Now it is possible to find a game available both on TV and at your local casino(s) nearly every night. In Edinburgh there are texas hold 'em tournaments at the Berkeley on Monday and Fridays and I think the Maybury runs tournaments on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday. Haven't won yet but have been pretty close a few times!
Nice. Ben Affleck won the California State Poker Championship - a No Limit Texas Hold'em event.
In a brief speech, Affleck said he got lucky and complimented Goldstein [Stan Goldstein (Los Angeles, CA)] as a great player. Afterwards, he said he was also pleased that he didn’t win by just sucking out and showed he wasn’t a “complete donkey.” He indeed had the best hands when he knocked out Pacheco (5-5 vs. Ac-Qc) and Goldstein (J-J vs. Ad-10d).Affleck won $356,400 and a $25,000 seat in next April’s Bellagio / WPT championship event