Player Profile: Erik Seidel

While he may not be one of the names called when people discuss the best players in the game today, the highly underrated Erik Seidel is a player that, if not considered one of the best today, certainly should be in the running for that as well as the best of all time.

Born in New York City in 1959 and now calling Las Vegas home, Erik began his trek to the poker tables by languishing at the backgammon board and trading stocks on Wall Street.  For eight years he played backgammon professionally and, although he was making a name for himself, the smaller tournaments and prize pools made him yearn for a stronger challenge.  He would discover that on the baize of the poker tables.

Seidel found the legendary Mayfair Club in New York in 1985 and, with his talent for tournament backgammon play and some prior knowledge of poker, followed in the footsteps of other players such as Howard Lederer, Dan Harrington and Steve Zolotow to pursue the game professionally.  Little did he realize that he would have perhaps one of his most recognized moments, if not one of his personal highlights, a scant three years later.

At the 1988 World Series of Poker Championship Event, Seidel maneuvered his way to the final table alongside Jim Bechtel (the 1993 WSOP Champion), T. J. Cloutier and Humberto Brenes.  Battling these difficult players, an inexperienced Seidel found himself the only player remaining against defending champion Johnny Chan.  In a clip immortalized in the feature film Rounders, Erik was beaten by an expertly slow played straight by Chan and denied the world title.  Even Seidel himself admitted, “I was totally out of my element,” in Steve Rosenbloom’s The Best Hand I Ever Played. It would be the last time that Erik would find himself in that position.

Four years later, Erik picked up the first of what has now become an impressive eight WSOP bracelets and also returned to the WSOP $10,000 Championship Event final table in 1999.  The victories haven’t all been in No Limit Hold‘em; Erik also has tournament victories in Pot Limit Omaha and No Limit Deuce to Seven Lowball.  He has been one of only five men to win a bracelet in three consecutive years (along with Johnny Moss, Doyle Brunson, Gary “Bones” Berland and Allen Cunningham) and his eight bracelets put him in rarefied air behind only Phil Hellmuth, Brunson, Chan and tied with Moss on the list of all time bracelet winners.

The World Poker Tour has also been a fertile ground for Seidel.  He has cashed in sixteen events there, made two final tables and captured the Foxwoods Poker Classic in April 2008.  All totaled, Erik has a stunning 125 cashes in major events around the world and sits in ninth place in all time money earnings with over $9 million won.

Source: PokerNewsDaily

CardPlayer.com Interviews Chris Moorman About World Series Of Poker Europe

Chris Moorman Talks about his WSOPE Main Event Experience So Far

Englishman Chris Moorman is arguably the best online tournament player in the world right now, with  an incredibly consistent record of victories including the FullTiltPoker.com $1k buy-in which is widely considered one of the toughest fields in poker — both online and live. Moorman branched out into the live arena in 2008, playing a succession of UK circuit events, yet finding little success. However, the young man from Brighton has been firmly tipped to replicate his online success soon, and the 2008 World Series Of Poker Europe main event, presented by Betfair, is a pretty good place to start.

When Card Player caught up with Moorman, he was on the money bubble with a sizeable stack. However, shortly after we spoke, Moorman was crippled in a huge pot holding pocket kings against Johnny Lodden’s aces. He eventually crashed out in 38th, just before the cash, yet his great display here has sent a statement of intent to the live poker community.

Shane Gittes: Talk us through how your main event has gone so far.

Chris Moorman: I had a really good start managing to stack Howard Lederer in the very first level and I built up to about 80,000 before the antes kicked in. And then this guy from my hometown who I’d never met before pulled the sickest bluff on me, which tore me into pieces after he showed it. The rest of that day I stayed pretty level at 60,000. Day 2 started with me bluffing off most of my stack to send me into pieces once again before I managed to bust a Scandinavian and build up gradually through the day. It was all a bit of a rollercoaster really.

SG: You have an online reputation as being super-aggressive. Have you been bringing that same style here to the WSOPE?

CM: Yeah, really aggressive. Sometimes I give myself a heart attack. I’m aggressive in all positions really!

SG: How has Day 3 gone for you so far?

CM: I had a few tough hands early. I made a big laydown with jacks. I called a raise against a guy  and we were both very deepstacked. The flop came down ten-high and it went check, check. The turn was a 3 and I just figured when I bet that he would call me down with A-K or something like that. So I bet and then he raised me which I wasn’t expecting. I called anyway. The river was a king which didn’t really change much but then I think he owned me with his bet sizing because it looked so much like a value bet and I laid it down because I was sure he was just taking me to value-town. It might have been a bad laydown thinking about it though.

Then I played an awful hand against Mike Matusow. A really bad player raised under the gun when both me and him were really deepstacked. I was pretty sure I’d be able to take him off most flops and so I called with 2-2. If he  had an overpair and I flopped a set, I was confident I’d be able to stack him. I called. Mike asked how much he had and he called so I put him on a speculative hand. Mike had been playing pretty tight and reminded me of that every five minutes by singing ‘Tight Mike, tight Mike’! To be honest, I was pretty happy to have another player in the pot. The flop came 9-3-3 with two clubs. The preflop raiser checked and I knew 100 percent that he didn’t have a hand. I bet two-thirds the pot expecting to take it down and then Mike raised me. I started to own myself by thinking, ‘How can he have a 3?’ Pocket nines is about the only hand he could raise me with, I thought. But I knew that if I raised on the flop it just looked like a bluff. So I just called and then bet into him big on the turn. Mike then put me all-in! So I folded …

SG: This is your deepest run in a major live tournament, despite all your online success. When you lose big hands and a big chip stack like you’ve just described, did you start to panic a little bit?

CM: Yeah, I was just thinking, ‘Here we go again’! If this was online with my stack then I still would have been pretty healthy but all I could think of was how many chips I’d lost and how hard it was going to be for me to get them back. The field is so tough.

SG: We are approaching the bubble now. Does cashing really matter that much to you or is your sole aim to shoot for the final table?

CM: I’d be lying if I said cashing didn’t matter. Obviously it would be nice but it’s not the main aim. I’m trying to chip up and give myself the best chance to win the thing.

SG: You had a huge hand against John Juanda where you got all in preflop with pocket sevens and doubled up. How did that come about?

CM: Juanda had been raising with any two cards all day. I had an awful image, yet I had a really weird sized stack of about 32 big blinds. I had 7-7 and didn’t love to raise but really didn’t want to just call out of position. I figured that a lot of the time I was going to pick up the pot by reraising. Yet when I raise I know I’m going to have to go with the hand whatever happens. When Juanda moved all-in, I obviously wasn’t thrilled but I knew a lot of the time that I would be in a race.

SG: How important is it for you make a mark in a major live tournament such as this one? Would a final table here for example stand out as your greatest achievement in poker?

CM: Definitely. At the moment, all online players pray for this. And I just hope I play well enough to keep it going.

Source: CardPlayer.com

Online Poker Tournament With Adam Levy

If you’re going to study online Poker tournament play, you may as well learn from one of the best, Adam Levy.

Certain aspects of playing Poker remain constant regardless of whether it’s in person or online play, or regular or tournament Poker, but the real key to winning lies in the subtle nuances of the game.

Every Poker player wants to develop his or her own style. But, just as music students invariably mimic the established professional musicians they admire who, the student of Poker will take on some of the qualities of the professional players they study.

If you’re going to study the technique then learn from one of the best, Adam Levy, or «Roothlus», as he is known.

Adam is the subject of a 3 part, in depth interview by «Card Player.com», and here is part 1 of the online Poker tournament play interview, and this is part II of the online Poker tournament play interview

The High Roller: Jimmy Chagra, Gambling & Poker

Poker has become one of the most popular games worldwide. It is played by millions of people of all ages in countries all over the world, at casinos, home games, bars, and the past few years on the internet. Poker has become an accepted form of entertainment, loved by cops, criminals and regular citizens alike. But poker wasn’t always this popular, and it’s reputation not as good as it is now.

Since poker is considered gambling by law it is illegal to play for money outside the casinos. Of course home games are played. Not to mention the money bet on the dozens of online poker sites. More and more people are rejecting the law, and idea, that poker is gambling. They consider it a skill game, combined with a bit of chance. The fact that there is a group of players who consistenly win cash games and/or tournaments seems to support that. If it is purely a game of luck then how come there is even the title of «professional poker player»? Is there even such a thing as being professional at luck? So let’s agree that poker is a skill game with the profits that only a gambling game can bring.

Back in the 1970s poker was a game played by many but mastered by few. Those few masters were operating in the Mecca of gambling: Las Vegas. Here the best poker players played their game, winning money off wannabe professionals, rich businessmen, and those men who treated money with as much disrespect as they did themselves…the gangsters.

The high stakes poker tables at Vegas casinos such as Binion’s Horseshoe casino and The Dunes were occupied by legends such as Doyle Brunson, Johnny Moss, Puggy Pearson, and Jack Straus. These men were all sharks waiting for fish to arrive which they could devour. One day a man arrived in Vegas with millions to burn, and nothing to lose. That man was Texas drug dealer Jimmy Chagra.

Jamiel Chagra (photo on the right) had made hundreds of millions smuggling marijuana and cocaine, but he listed his occupation as gambler, naturally. He made frequent trips to Las Vegas gambling huge sums on anything from craps, to golf, to poker. On each trip he would arrive with millions in cash stuffed into suitcases. The guy was a dream for the sharks, but playing in a game with him was not that easy. «At one game the minimum stake was $50,000, but few of [the players] risked sitting down with so little, because time after time Chagra would throw in $20,000 bets blind, which he said were ‘just to liven the game up a little.’ There would be an average of $2 million on the table every night.» When a waitress brought him a complimentary bottle of water, he tipped her $10,000. But in the end Chagra mostly lost at the poker table. When a pro gets the right cards not even a million dollar bet will make him fold.

Jimmy Chagra is still a Las Vegas legend. The stories about his high stakes antics are endless. At one point Caesars Palace was hit hard by a bad run of luck at the baccarat tables so they borrowed $10 million in cash from Chagra for a 24-hour period. A saying used by a lot of wiseguys when talking about rich mobsters is «He has more money than God,» Jimmy Chagra certainly belonged in that category. I write belonged because currently his money is not under his control. After being convicted of drug smuggling he would serve decades behind bars (Thanks to the brilliant Oscar Goodman who served as his lawyer and managed to convince the jury that Chagra had nothing to do with the murder of the judge who presided over his drug case. He faced life.), from where he still managed to gamble away millions. In 2003 he was released due to health reasons, and is now said to be in the Witness Protection Program.

By David Amoruso
Posted on May 22, 2008
Copyright © www.gangstersinc.nl

Poker Stars: Clarkatroid

Who says you have to be under 21 to mash up the online poker scene? Adam Clark, 37, shows the kids how it’s done…

Adam ‘clarkatroid’ Clark is one of poker’s rarest breeds: an old school internet player who is still grinding with the young guns.

The 37 year-old prides himself on his ability to keep up internet stamina levels and by his own admission is probably the oldest 9 tabler in the UK.

Today Clarkatroid focuses on cash games and is clearing more than most British players can dream of (July saw him up $73,000 including MTTs, his best ever, and August saw him up $57,300). But if you haven’t heard of him it’s probably because Clark has willingly tried to stay under the poker radar: a rare breed indeed in the modern age of poker celebrity.

His story into poker sounds like a scene from the good ‘ol pre-Moneymaker days: «I started playing poker while on a world trip 8 years ago. Staying in a youth hostel opposite the Elvis Chapel for 5 dollars a night, myself and my best friend ended up stuck in Vegas for 6 weeks, where I discovered HoldEm in the not so glamourous Sahara Casino on the strip. We were the fish and got stung by the locals. But they fed us for free and gave us cocktails, so we stayed until we spent our daily budget of 30 dollars each. The world trip was supposedly for 6 months but we stayed in Vegas for 4!!!! We simply couldn’t get out.»

Like everyone else, Clark had caught the poker bug. This led him to take the plunge of depositing at the very inception of online poker, when he says there were just 3,000 players grinding at peak hours. It was here where he would first meet the likes of JohnnyBax, jcamby & thebeat to do battle on the virtual felt. He says «It’s nice to see ‘Bax is still doing the business at the highest level».

So if you thought online poker was all about the young guns, you’ve been pawned. Clarkatroid is turning over on average $30k a month – one of the highest poker livings earned by any UK player.

In the current climate where online poker stars are rising to poker fame as high as that of the live legends (and, therefore, gaining lucrative sponsorship deals), he believes now is the time to raise his profile and let the world know that being of legal age to play in Vegas does NOT automatically rule you out as the next acclaimed online superstar.

Anyway, do these young’uns even know the meaning of the word grind? How about literally grinding your bones to oblivion? Clarkatroid suspects he has a carpal tunnel in his fingers and has recently acquired and ergonomic joystick with which to boost his hefty bankroll whilst avoiding an ‘injured at work’ lawsuit.

Now that is definitely where the word ‘sick’ comes into play. Watch out Annette_15; Clark_37 is on your back FTW!

You can play with Clarkatroid on PokerStars and Full Tilt.Want to read more about Adam’s escapades? Check out his blog.

Source: PokerVerdict.com

Final Six Convene Today for World Poker Tour Legends

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. The excitement in the poker world was high this week as several top pros made it deep in the World Poker Tour Legends of Poker at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles this week.

However, as the final three tables whittled their way down to the final six who will return today for the televised final table, pro and pro fell by the wayside leaving Amit Makhija as the chip leader and John Phan as the most recognizable name at the table.

When play gets underway today at 4 p.m., the players heading back into action will be:

• Amit Makhija, $3.225 million
• John Phan, $2.415 million
• Zach Clark, $2.025 million
• Kyle Wilson, $1.425 million
• Paul Smith, $1.130 million
• Trong Nguyen, $980,000

Layne Flack just missed out on making the televised final table as he went out in eighth place. He was taken out by John Phan, who pretty much solidified his spot at the final table with Flack’s bustification.

Phan had made it $110,000 to go pre-flop, and Flack reraised it up to $360,000.

Some of the other players who made it all the way down to the final three tables but couldn’t quite make it to the final were Allen Cunningham, Maria Ho and Lee Markholt.

The final table today, however, could be quite interesting as Phan looks to add another win to cap off his summer of poker. He walked away with two World Series of Poker bracelets this year and has a couple of final tables at WPT events from this summer as well.

Phan still has to get past Amit Makhija, who has nearly $1 million in chips more than him. Plus, Makhija has an online poker reputation to back up his play and a pretty serious desire to win.

“I’m just trying to play for first place. I want the title,” Makhija said in on of his interviews. “I want the win. It will be a real big accomplishment for me.”

Online Poker Rights Defended Well by Ben Affleck

Poker made a public splash at the Democratic Party Convention in Denver as a charity tournament drew stars and celebrities to play, and raised over $60,000 for the Paralyzed Veterans of America. Actor-director Ben Affleck was the most recognizable face in a crowd of famous participants, and Affleck succeeded in outlasting over a hundred other players to win the tournament.

The tournament was sponsored by the Poker Players Alliance under the motto “Poker is Not a Crime: Join the Fight.” The Alliance paid for playing space at Coors Field, the operating costs including dealers and equipment, and covered the per-person buy-in of $500.

The event was designed to draw attention to the online poker debacle, in which the federal government has persecuted online gambling sites and their owners since the UIGEA was snuck onto a 2006 port security bill. Affleck, Sarah Silverman, Montel Williams, and Richard Dreyfuss were among the players that both supported the worthy cause and gave notice that poker, America’s game, should be left alone by politicians.

Ben Affleck, who has been rumored for years to be contemplating a political career, showed through his actions his sympathy lies with poker enthusiasts whose game has been attacked by close-minded religious demagogues.

Democrats have been given an opportunity to attract large groups of disenchanted Republicans following the reinstatement yesterday in the Republican platform of wording that condemns online wagering. Hundreds of poker players naming themselves core Republicans had written on the platform website of their desire to see the party honor its commitment to individual liberty and remove language asking for a ban on Internet gambling, and the party responded for a few hours by striking the clause.

But Republican officials reacted quickly to protests by radical special-interest groups, and alienated thousands of voters with the return of the passage. Democrats could draw strongly from this disaffected voting block by following Affleck’s example and embracing poker and its fans.

Legends of Poker Q&A - Amit Makhija

Makhija Talks About His Rise from a Short Stack Today and His Tough Opponents

Amit Makhija is known online as “AMAK316,” where he has won $352,265 in online tournaments. His live winnings have climbed to match that amount during 2008 ($354,903), as he has cashed a total of seven times in the first eight months of the year on the tournament trail. His largest cash came in the $10,000 pot-limit hold’em world championship that opened the World Series of Poker this summer when he made the final table and busted in fifth place ($198,528). He also finished in 20th place in the European Poker Tour Grand Final in April and took home $73,205. Those are his two largest cashes, to date, and Makhija definitely has his eyes set on the $1,091,428 first-place prize that will go to the winner at the WPT Legends of Poker here in Southern California on Thursday. He started the day low, but as you will read below, that did not dampen his spirits.

Ryan Lucchesi: You started the day with just 11,000 and then grew that to 70,000 before the previous break. Now you have over 100,000. Tell me about how you grew your stack throughout the day.

Amit Makhija: In the first orbit I doubled up with kings against A-Q. After that it was pretty smooth, and then I bluffed off half of my stack, and it was just terrible. I picked up a few pots and then re-stole a couple of times, and then I got aces vs. A-Q preflop, and those held. Then I had a bunch [of chips], and then the very next hand, the same guy that I doubled through tilt-shoved over one of Isaac Baron’s raises, and I isolated with jacks and Isaac folded. [My opponent] had K-Q suited, and then the flop came out king high, and I runner-runnered a straight with my jacks, and that put me up pretty good to like 80,000. Recently, I just played hand against some guy who was kind of playing back at me all day, and I raised preflop at 600-1,200 [blinds] to 3,200 and he made it 11,000, and I shoved for … he had about 40,000, so I shoved for 40,000. He tanked and called with sevens, but my nines held up, and I put some chips together. That’s pretty much how my day has been.

RL: What was your mindset this morning coming in with just 11,000?

AM: It was kind of depressing having one-third of the starting stack coming into the morning, but I’ve played that kind of stack all of the time online. A short stack is not that hard, and it was still 25 big blinds. So, I wasn’t going to panic and I was going to be patient and wait for a good spot, and I was lucky to find a couple, and my hands held up and it’s been pretty smooth.

RL: How big of a help is it to get the practice playing with a short stack online for when you have to deal with it in $10,000 buy-in live tournaments?

AM: I see one of the biggest leaks that a lot of people who play only live have is that when they get really short they just start shipping their chips in and they get pretty impatient and they don’t know how to play the short stack well. I feel like that is one of the advantages that online players have.

RL: Has your live tournament success this year, with seven cashes total, including your deep finish at the EPT Grand Final and WSOP final-table appearance, inspired you to play more live tournaments in search of your first major victory?

AM: I have just been playing live for a little while and I have cashed in most of my bigger buys-ins, so I have been running really hot. That’s been good … I feel like I’m ready to win one of these. I’ve been close a few times; Monte Carlo was really painful going out 20th, being close to such a big cash. That was my first deep run in a major.

RL: Did you use August to work on certain aspects of your poker game or just relax?

AM: I actually didn’t play any tournaments online or live during August. I got better at cash games; I was playing a lot of cash games. But most of the time, I was just taking it easy. I got a personal trainer and tried to get into shape a little bit and just tried to stay away from poker, and get into a better schedule.

RL: What part of your cash game strategy were you trying to brush up on?

AM: Mostly heads up, I’ve been watching training videos online and trying to get good at heads up cash. It’s been going pretty well, actually, and I had one of my better months of the year in August after the Series.

RL: Now that you have reset yourself during August, what events are you looking to play during the last half of the year?

AM: The next few ones are Borgata coming in September, and I’m going to be playing the WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker) online, which is huge this year, like $30,000 in buy-ins on that. And then I’m going over to Europe and playing the World Series of Poker Europe, and then EPT London. It should be interesting.

RL: One last question about today. You have Isaac Baron in the 5 seat, Jon Friedberg in the 7 seat, and you’re sitting in the 8 seat. How are you approaching those guys with position?

AM: I’m super thankful to have position on both of those guys, because on Saturday Isaac had position on me literally all day, and that kind of sucked, because it made me play really tight, and I didn’t really get anything going with that. With position on them, I know what they’re going to do before, and I know how both of them pretty well. I’ve played hundreds of hands with Isaac, at least, and I think he is the best no-limit hold’em tournament player in the world. He’s really, really good … and he’s just crushed online, and obviously I’m worried about him, but I kind of know his game, more or less. I’m not as worried, I feel like I know what he does in certain situations.

Source: CardPlayer.com