Vince Van Patten, an announcer for the World Poker Tour, who co-wrote and starred in an upcoming poker film.
After the movie Molly's Game that was released last year, poker fans have a new movie coming their way very soon and its main cast is the World Poker Tour's Vince Van Patten. According to IMDb.com, "Walk to Vegas" is based on a true story about Hollywood big shots who will bet on anything.
Poker pro Scott Seiver shared on Twitter about his hardcore grind session at the cash game tables.
Seiver had been successful so far in his quest during this year's WSOP. He defeated a field of 114 entries and won Event #52: $10,000 Limit Hold'em Championship for $296,222, getting himself his second career bracelet in the process. He also cashed three times more at the WSOP.
Both starting days at the 2014 World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star have come to a close and, believe it or not, a new record has been set! A total of 713 players bought into tournament (crushing last year's record of 643 players), making it the largest Bay 101 Shooting Star in WPT History!
That's it for Day 1A of the 2014 World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star ($7,500 buy-in). 312 players signed up for the first day of the tournament and 117 of them had chips left when the tournament director called it a day after several hours of play. The overnight chip leader is Giorgio Medici with 254,600 and he received the $10,000 prize as the Day 1A chip leader. Other players that bagged up plenty of chips were Hai Tran (253,500), David Forster (225,200), Bryan Campanello (210,000), Mukul Pahuja (189,100), and Shooting Star David Chiu (174,000).
The Shooting Stars who were eliminated sometime during Day 1A and had their $2,5k bounty collected were Daniel Negreanu, Mike Sexton, Todd Brunson, Tony Dunst, Jay Farber, Joe Hachem, John Juanda, Phil Laak, Nam Le, Mike Matusow, Scotty Nguyen, Noah Schwartz, Erik Seidel, Jennifer Tilly, JC Tran, Paul Volpe, and Phil Hellmuth.
Day 2 of the One Drop High Roller saw 108 players returning to the tables with Brandon Steven and Tobias Reinkemeier being the only players with over 1 million chips. Steven played did well during Day 2 and will bring 3.1 million chips to Day 3. Reinkemeier, on the other hand, was eliminated in the final stages of the day after losing a massive pot against William Perking (AA vs a set of queens).
Martin Jacobson from Sweden will bring the largest stack (3.2 million) to Day 3 of the tournament. Jacobson will be joined by poker stars such as Antonio Esfandiari (winner of the $1 million buy-in Big One for One Drop last year), Oliver Busquet, Mike Sexton and Phil Laak. Only two of the remaining 26 players need to be eliminated before everyone's guaranteed a minimum payday of $173,723 - with the chance of winning millions of dollars on the final table!
There is now only 1 heat left to be played in Group B as Talal Shakerchi, a hedge fund manager who won EPT London High Roller last week, defeated Tobias Reinkemeier heads-up in Heat 3 for 16 well-deserved points.
Sam Simon has written, produced and directed many popular TV shows (The Drew Carey Show, Cheers etc) in his life, but he's best known for developing the animated comedy series The Simpsons in 1989, along with Matt Groening and James L. Brooks.
When it comes to poker, he was a regular at the World Series of Poker of poker (6 cashes in total) between 2007 and 2011; he appeared on a 2009 episode of High Stakes Poker and has been married to poker pro and actor Jennifer Tilly, who's married to Phil Laak now.
In case you missed it, the World Poker Tour Montreal main event saw a record field of 1,173 entries - the biggest tournament with a buy-in of $1k or more in Canadian history. While the event was played, some of the well-known players took part in the WPT Montreal Playground Poker Hockey Challenge.
Scott Seiver is the 2012 PartyPoker Premier League V Champion. After a a short heads-up match against online super star Daniel "Jungleman12" Cates, Seiver had all the chips and received €500,000 and a ticket to the $25,000 World Poker Tour Championship. Cates received $300,000 for his second place finish.
Final table results: 1) Scott Seiver, $500 000 2) Daniel Cates, $300 000 3) Phil Laak, $175 000 4) Patrik Antonius, $125 000 5) Tony G, $100 000 6) Tom Dwan, $80 000 7) Matt Frankland, $65 000 8) Sam Trickett, $55 000
The preliminary heats of PartyPoker Premier League V were completed over the weekend and 6 players (Mathew Frankland, Sam Trickett and Tony G from Group A - Dan "Jungleman12" Cates, Patrik Antonius Scott Seiver from Group B) qualified for the final table.
The first 2 rounds of Group A in PartyPoker Premier League V have come to and end. Tony G took home the win in the second round for 16 points (and $32,000), while Erik Seidel finished second for 11 points. Tony G and Phil Laak now have 20 points each.
Group A - results after 2 rounds 1) Tony G, $40 000 / 20 points 1) Phil Laak, $40 000 / 20 points 3) Sam Trickett, $28 000 / 14 points 4) Erik Seidel, $26 000 / 13 points 4) Andy Frankenberger, $26 000 / 13 points 6) Eugene Katchalov, $18 000 / 9 points 7) Matt Frankland, $16 000 / 8 points 8) Luke Schwartz, $6 000 / 3 points
The Englishman Berry Danson will try to get a world record by playing poker for 5 days without a break. The attempt will most probably take place this summer at a casino in Manchester, UK and Danson will have to play for 120 hours straight, with small breaks when he needs to eat and use the bathroom.
The current Guinness World Record holder is no one else than Phil Laak who played live poker for 115 hours nonstop at the Bellagio in Las Vegas back in 2010. It will be very interesting to see whether Berry Danson has what it takes to break that insane record.
6 days have now passed since the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event kicked off. In the 42-year history of WSOP, the Main Event this year is the third-largest ever, with 6,865 participants and more than 1.4 billion in prize money. Anyhow, the 4 starting days are in the books and also Day 2a (822 of 2,031 through to Day 3). We are now waiting for the official Day 2b results to be released. It will be interesting to see how many survived from the 2490-player field.
Phil Laak has recovered very fast from the quad bike accident a few months ago, and he has also been doing very well at the poker tables. However, his first big win since the accident came yesterday when he took home the first event of 6 at WSOPE London - his first ever WSOPE (World Series of Poker Europe) win. At the moment Phil is playing Event #2 of WSOPE London and he' doing fine so far. He's one of the 49 last men standing in the tournament, however, he's far from the top of the field where notables such as Barry Greenstein, Chris Bjorin, Erik Friberg and Jeff Madsen are battling with big stacks.
Click here to read more about Phil Laak's quad bike accident.
Even though there are so many tournaments, both online and live, running at the moment, it didn't stop a big field of poker players from taking part in the 2010 English Poker Open in London. Among the field of players were notables such as Phil Laak and Liv Boeree, however, there were no familiar names who made it to the final table.
After a 6 hour battle on the final table, Fabian Quoss stood as winner of the tournament after defeating his final opponent Sebastian Crul. A big congratulations to Fabian Quoss and to his biggest cash ever, £220,650.
When Phil Laak, 37, and his friends (Antonio Esfandiari and Brian Rast just to mention 2) rented a few quad bikes and decided to race against each other, it was supposed to be a fun and thrilling experience. But it ended up being one of Phil Laak's worst nightmares after that he crashed with his quad bike and ended up at the hospital with 7 broken legs and other injuries.
A group of poker players in Austria, lead by actor and director Max Krucki, are at the moment trying to break Phil Laak's world record in staying awake as long as possible playing poker. And according to a rumor, someone in the group managed to crush the old record this morning. Anyhow, the group of Austrian poker players are trying to stay awake and play poker for 150 hours straight. Phil managed to stay awake for 115 hours, almost 5 days. In other words, if they manage to stay awake for 150 hours, they have beaten the old record with 35 hours and been awake for more than 6 days.
For me, it sounds like pure madness to stay awake and play poker for such a long time - just in order to break some record. Maybe it's just me? :) What is your opinion on this?
In the middle of May, we could read about Phil Laak and his plans on breaking the world record in staying awake as long as possible and play poker. The old record was held by Paul Zimbler who last year managed to stay awake for 78 hours. Anyhow, a couple of days ago, Phil Laak Laak started his world record attempt at Bellagio in Las Vegas.
Lots of poker players around the globe have been following Phil Laak's struggle via live streams on the net. His fans must be really happy with the outcome as he managed to break the old record with almost 2 days. Phil Laak stayed awake and played poker for 115 hours straight - almost 5 days of poker!
Last year, Paul Zimbler wrote history when he played poker for 78 hours straight without sleeping. To be precise, he played for 78 hours, 25 minutes and 45 seconds. In other words, about 3 days of poker. Phil "The Unabomber" Laak thinks that he can break the old record and therefore he's also going to try. The world record attempt will take place at Bellagio in Las Vegas this year. However, time and date is still to be confirmed.
"I have played many long sessions, but I have never tried anything at this level. I know that this will test my limits, but I love challenges and I'm glad I get the chance to break the old record at Vegas biggest poker room." said Phil Laak in an interview with a danish poker magazine.
Phil Laak started the final table with most chips meaning that he had accumulated the most points before the final table. Phil was closely followed by David Benyamine. Both of them had been in the top of the field since the first heats. However, it came to be Phil Laak who was the first player to drop out of the field. And shortly after, it was time for Roland De Wolfe to leave.
Daniel Negreanu was playing very well on the final table and also was the chip leader for a while. But unfortunately, Daniel was crippled by Luke Schwartch and then eliminated by David Benyamine. After that, it was time for Giovanni Safini, the online qualifier, to leave the tournament. He must have been quite satisfied with making $100,000 from the $120 he paid to take part in the PartyPoker Premier League IV satellite.
A few days ago, PartyPoker Premier League IV in Las Vegas kicked off. 11 pros and 1 internet qualifier are now playing for a prize pool of $1,5 million dollars + a sponsorship contract worth $100,000. So far, three heats out of 12 have been played.
Heat 1: Phil Laak wins the first heat!
Phil Laak is a very good poker player. No doubt about that! Anyhow, even a good poker player like Phil can get lucky once in a while. Well, he got lucky many times in Heat 1 as he flopped sets numerous times when his opponents had big hands. Nothing could stop Phil this day, and after 8 hours of play, it was all over as JC Tran, last year's winner, was eliminated in second place.
The long awaited PartyPoker Premier League IV is not far away now! Lots of pros are going to take part this year, which will make it super-interesting to follow. Just to mention a few of the most notable players that are going to take part, Phil Laak, David Benyamine, Daniel Negreanu, Vanessa Rousso, Phil Hellmuth and Tony G. Unfortunately, Doyle Brunson announced a few days ago that he was pulling out of the tournament because he's about to have a 5 1/2 hour long surgery on his teeth and gums and therefore won't recover in time.
PartyPoker Premier League IV will run between 12 and 18 February and will for sure be one of the most exciting and thrilling tournaments this year! 2 days to go before the action kicks off!
Jennifer Tilly, 51, is known mostly for her talent as an American-Canadian actress, but also for being a great poker player and the girl friend of Phil "The Unabomber" Laak. She has won over half a million dollars from different live tournaments, and also won a WSOP Bracelet a few years back. Jennifer has always been happy to share things in her life with others on the internet. But lately she stopped after she found out that some people were writing really bad things about her.
"It used to be really fun and interesting to speak to other poker players on the internet. Lately, however, I have read a lot of bad things about myself that made me feel really sad";Jennifer says.
Jennifer Tilly is only one of many celebs with similar problems. For example: Gus Hansen had problems not long ago with people claiming to be him by creating fake facebook-accounts and websites in his name.
It was very close that Luke Schwartz weren't allowed to take part in the tournament, but in the last minute he made a deal with the casino management and got to play in the tournament. Luke Schwartz has now made it to the final table of the tournament. Other players that have made it to the final table are Andy Black, Mike Sexton, Phil Laak, Jennifer Tilly, Jan Veit, and Bodo Sbrzesny. Most notable players of these are of course Mike Sexton and Phil Laak.
Phil "The Unabomber" Laak has lots of great results from many major poker tournaments, but perhaps he's most known from his appearances in Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker.
Mike Sexton has a long and successful poker career behind him. He's also the hottest candidate to get inducted into the poker hall of fame, which is the most honorable thing a player can achieve after a long and successful poker career.
It will be very interesting final table today! Let's pray that Luke Schwartz will manage to keep the fury inside of himself if he runs into bad beats.
Now only 138 players are left in the €10,600 buy-in EPT Grand Final tournament in Monte Carlo. Some notable players that still are in the tournament, Joe Hachem, Ilari Sahamies, Phil Laak, Mikael Norinder, Annette Obrestad and Marc Naalden.
Day 1c brought the biggest starting field so far in the tournament with almost 50% more than both day 1a and day 1b together. Day 1c included the best and most well known players as well. To mention a few of them, Gus Hansen, Phil Laak, Joe Hachem, John Juanda, Scotty Nguyen and JC Tran.
Vince Van Patten, an announcer for the World Poker Tour, who co-wrote and starred in an upcoming poker film.
And he says he's gonna do it again.
group of poker players in Austria, lead by actor and director Max Krucki, are at the moment trying to break Phil Laak's world record in staying awake as long as possible playing poker. And according to a rumor, someone in the group managed to crush the old record this morning. Anyhow, the group of Austrian poker players are trying to stay awake and play poker for 150 hours straight. Phil managed to stay awake for 115 hours, almost 5 days. In other words, if they manage to stay awake for 150 hours, they have beaten the old record with 35 hours and been awake for more than 6 days.
