How Big will Poker Tournaments get?...

This past weekend Full Tilt Poker made a run at breaking PokerStars record for the largest poker tournament ever held.  Unfortunately for FT and the poor multi-millionaires who run the site, this tourney did not break the record for the largest online tournament ever despite hauling in 50,000 players.  Instead, PokerStars still holds the record at 65,000 players in a single tourney.  However, this continuous effort to lay claim to the biggest online tournament ever makes me wonder just how large poker tourneys will get in the future.

This is almost like an arms race where each room is rushing to see who can grab the bragging rights of hosting the largest tournament.  Seeing as how this is the case, I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to believe that poker tourneys will eventually be hitting the 100,000 mark and beyond within the next few years.

Of course, I’m still waiting for something to go majorly wrong with one of the room’s software as they attempt these unbelievable feats of having 50,000-65,000 people square off against each other in a single tournament.  I’m not an expert on website development and servers, but it has to be risky any time you attempt to put this many people in one tourney. 

Maybe this is why Full Tilt put a cap of 50,000 players on their attempt to beat PokerStars record of 65,000 which is very puzzling considering that they knew going in they had to get 65k people in the tournament.  The only thing I can think of is that FT chickened out at the last second, and wanted to make sure nothing went horribly wrong so they copped out by putting that 50,000 person limit on.  Of course I’m sure they’ll try and set the record once again in the future…this time without the cap!

Joe Hachem Disses Young WSOP Players...

The younger generation of poker players has often been praised as an aggressive group of people who aren’t afraid to push their chips in whenever possible.  However, not everyone is a fan of this younger generation, and some people are even accusing them of not knowing poker.

The 2005 WSOP champion Joe Hachem is the one who’s most visibly upset about the overly aggresive play of the younger players and he made this clear to the media when he said, “I had quite a bit of respect, but you know what?  They know nothing about poker.”  Hachem finished this statement by mentioning, “These kids really know nothing.  These kids are just ….. idiots.”

Hachem and Peter Eastgate were the only two former WSOP Main Event champs left and they were fortunate to be among the last 150 players left.  But Hachem still isn’t happy and even continued his rant by saying, “We’re playing for one of the biggest prizes in history and they’re getting … .five hundred million blinds in there with second pair.  To me, the reason I’m upset is because it’s disrespectful.  We’re playing in the World Series, we’re not just having fun at a local home game.  These guys are pushing chips around like it’s nothing.”

In doing his best Phil Hellmuth impression, Hachem is one of the first major players to speak out to the media on how much he hates this aggressive style that the younger players are bringing.  Of course, if these players are making people like Hachem fold hands then one might argue that they’re doing a good job.  And I don’t see Hachem cashing in a whole lot of other WSOP events so it’s hard to say that he’s an expert on exactly how one should play the game.  We’ll see what he has to say if he busts out in the next session.

Paul “Eskimo” Clark - A Trad...

Many poker players’ biggest fear is that they’ll someday end up broke and in bad health.  And it is this fear that keeps many people from making it in the game of poker - along with the fact that some people just downright suck.  Getting back to the point, with no retirement plans set up for poker players we are seeing this type of scenario happen all too often.  But rarely does the scenario hit someone as hard as it has hit Paul “Eskimo” Clark.

Paul Clark - who’s known as Eskimo because he looked like an old Alaskan Airlines logo - was once regarded as one of the best tournament players in the world.  Clark initially honed his skills back in the Vietnam War as a medic who would spend his free time playing poker with fellow amateur rounders.  Years after the war ended, Eskimo decided to try his hand at professional poker tournaments in 1988, and was hit with immediate success.

Not only was Clark winning smaller tournaments around Los Angeles and Las Vegas, but he also managed to place 8th in two tourneys at the 1988 WSOP.  1992 saw Eskimo achieve even more success when he won the $5,000 Seven Card Stud event and earned his first gold bracelet.  Clark was able to pick up bracelet number two and three in 1999 and 2003 which solidified him as a top WSOP player.

Unfortunately, Clark had let his weight problem go on for far too long and he had begun to show frequent grogginess at tournaments.  During the 2007 WSOP, people had reported that he passed out 3 different times in one tournament, but he refused to leave the table and battled to a 4th place finish.  This may be his last great finish though as people believe he has serious health concerns that he refuses to get checked out. 

And even though Clark has some skills left, his money problems may force him out of the game soon since others are hesitant to back him.  They fear that he’s not all there anymore and that his health problems have gone unchecked for too long.  Whatever the case may be, I hope that Eskimo can come to grips with reality and get his health problems solved someday.

Walking Away from Poker at the Top...

Walking away from the game of poker is easy when you suck.  After all, poker is about making money, and if you can’t succeed at it then there’s no reason for you to be flushing money down the drain (unless you’re rich and just having fun of course). 

But it seems highly unlikely that you’d want to walk away from poker when you can make a great living at it - especially if you’ve got nothing else planned when you’re done with the game.  However, that’s exactly what Ville Wahlbeck intends to do at the end of this year’s World Series of Poker.

This announcement really comes as a surprise since Wahlbeck has been nothing short of brilliant at the WSOP and has managed to win the Mixed Hold’em World Championship, place 2nd and 3rd in two other World Championship events, and finish 6th in the ever tough World Championship of H.O.R.S.E.  All of these finishes, plus two other cashes, have earned Wahlbeck over a million dollars in this year’s WSOP and enabled him to sit at second in the WSOP Player of the Year standings.

But in interviews, Wahlbeck as been adamant that he plans to walk away from poker after this year.  The Finn has always been more of a cash game player in his career, but he doesn’t want to play cash games at all when he’s done with poker and only envisions playing a few tourneys.

When asked what he’ll do in the future, Wahlbeck doesn’t really seem to know but made it clear that he does not want to go back to his old jobs of substitute teaching or freelance journalism.  He said maybe if the right business opportunity comes along he’ll get into something like that.  Personally though, I don’t really see him quitting poker altogether and think he’ll be back in the WSOP.

When High Stakes are Too High...

Those of you who commonly follow the exploits of Tom “Durrrr” Dwan know that he is all about making headlines in the poker world for the various things he does.  Dwan’s challenge against Patrik Antonius is one of the attention grabbers and Durrrr is currently losing the contest and stands to lose $1.5 million if things keep up like they are.  However, I doubt the $1.5 million will break Dwan’s career since he is involved in even bigger things at the moment.

I recently saw that Dwan’s been playing Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies on Full Tilt Poker for ridiculous amounts of money.  In fact, in one Pot-Limit Omaha game they were playing, the two agreed to pay $9,000 just to see the flop in their heads-up contests.  With $9k being used as the big blind, you can only imagine how big the hands between these two have gotten.

The money involved is so great that Sahamies admitted he is uncomfortable playing for this kind of cash and “hopes he won’t do it again.”  Unfortunately, Ziigmund noted that there is a lack of high stakes players in the online poker community so he’s almost forced to play Dwan and his crazy blind structures just to find action.

And you can bet that Tom Dwan will continue to play at these kinds of stakes since he is so used to making huge profits at the table.  During the month of June, Durrrr posted a profit of over $1 million which should keep him playing at limits that will make other like Ziigmund nervous.