Viewers of High Stakes Poker have grown accustomed to the outlandish prop bets that are made by poker’s elite, but this past episode may have eclipsed all of the others. During the episode, Phil Ivey and instant poker sensation, Tom Dwan hashed out a $1 million bet on whether Ivey could go “vegetarian” for a year.

Ivey tried goading Dwan into upping the bet to $2 million, but the bet held at $1 million. Later on in an interview with HSP host Kara Scott, Ivey let the cat out of the bag that he was already toying with the idea of becoming a vegetarian –and now he has $1 million extra reasons to do it! Read the rest of this entry…

For the second straight week a player on High Stakes Poker has been felted, losing their initial $200,000 buy-in. In week one it was the poker pro everyone loves to hate, Phil Hellmuth who went busto: Week two of the popular television show saw Andreas Hoivold take an early exit from the game.

In the most interesting hand of the evening viewers were able to get a glimpse of the ultra-aggressive style of play that has taken hold at these limits: The hand in question saw Gus Hansen –who is definitely not a passive player—smooth-call a raise from Daniel Negreanu with AK. Hansen was likely looking for a raise from one of the young aggressive players still to act, but instead saw two more raises! Tom Dwan was the first to pop-it, with an unexciting K5s, only to be re-raised by Dario Minieri and his pocket Tens. Dwan was probably trying to take the pot away, and Minieri likely thought Dwan was trying to take the pot away! Unfortunately for Gus his well laid trap had to be discarded, and he simply mucked his AK.

The table talk also took an interesting turn, Read the rest of this entry…

When it was announced that Season 6 of the popular poker show, High Stakes Poker, was going to air on Valentine’s Day 2010, forums were alight with excited posters wondering which professionals would feature over the series.

However, the excitement and joy quickly turned to despair and sorrow as it was also announced that one of the co-hosts, AJ Benza, would not be returning to the screen, instead Gabe Kaplan would be joined by Kara Scott instead.

While Miss Scott is a top presenter in her own right, having extensive broadcasting experience through the European Poker Tour and World Series of Poker Europe shows, many saw Kaplan and Benza as a great comedy double-act who bounced off each other and were part of the reason why High Stakes Poker is so popular. Read the rest of this entry…

When the Grand Rapids Michigan police went to break up the illegal poker game taking place in a downtown hotel they had little idea that even more vices were being enabled by the promoters. The game featured not only illegal gambling, but topless dealers who were receiving tips for more than their dealing abilities.

According to police –who apparently took in the scene for some time to notice Read the rest of this entry…

The popular late-night television show which pits high-profile poker players and personalities against each other in theme-based matchups will begin airing soon. Season 6 will have a total of 13 episodes –seven episodes will be 6-handed, winner-take-all, tournaments: and six episodes will be played in cash-game format. Themes for the show include: Read the rest of this entry…

In an incredibly lucid bit of foreshadowing Mike Kosowski told his wife in 2004 that he would one day play face-to-face with poker superstar Daniel Negreanu, and beat him: And that is precisely what Kosowski did on the TV Show PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge!

Kosowski has been playing online poker since 2004, when he retired from the NYPD, and qualified for the television show through an online poker tournament on PokerStars.

The episode will air on Fox, December 27th at 5pm, where you can watch the retired Police Officer, who was in the thick of things on 9/11 make good on a promise to his wife, and earn a million dollars in the process.

The feel-good aspect of this story should help the ratings of the struggling show. Along with Full Tilt Poker’s dismal failure “Face the Ace” the PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge is showing there might not be a market for poker-themed game shows.

9/11 Hero Wins $1 Million Playing Poker on the PokerStars.Net Million Dollar Challenge

The “PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge” is already the world’s most watched poker program in history.
However with 9/11 hero set to win the six figure cash prize for the episode airing December 27th, the show is set to tower over its previous record.  Viewers around the world will see the retired NYPD sergeant Mike Kowoski defeat PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu for the Challenge’s whopper cash prize.
The improbabilities and road to success of Kowoski’s seat on the show is a story in itself for viewers.  Having originally been selected as an alternate on the show, the 9/11 hero – whose bravery is well documented in the book “Never Forget: The Oral History of September 11” -   grabbed the ‘bull by the horns’, so to speak, for his moment in spotlight – after receiving the chance to play in a consolation SNG after previously being knocked out of the preliminary stage by Joanna Krupa.
Taking down all his opponents in the in the two SNGs, Kowoski forced his way through the event to earn the right to face Negreanu in the final for the Million Dollar cash prize.  “After I got knocked out by Joanna Krupa, I thought my shot was over. But with how I played in the sit-n-go, I said I gotta go for it. I knew I could win,” Kowoski said.

Story of a Hero

Forced to retire from the NYPD after picking up life-threatening injuries looking for survivors at the World Trade Centre, the former Sergeant learned the game as a means of passing time while staying at home dealing with his injuries.  Learning the rules of poker and MTT strategy at poker stars, his affiliation with beating 4 time WSOP winner Daniel Negreanu said it made the Million Dollar victory seem like destiny.
“Two years ago, I showed my wife (Fran) the World Series Of Poker on TV and Daniel was playing in it. I told her that one day I would beat him. Later, I had a second dream that I beat him. It inspired me to play better on PokerStars.net and to make the show,” Kosowski said.

Plans for the Money

Kosowski has altruistically declared plans to spend his TV poker winnings on helping those involved in 9/11.  “I’ll be donating to the Families of Freedom 9/11 Scholarship fund and City Harvest New York , and I’ll pay off my mortgage, put some into a nest egg for my daughter’s wedding, fix up the house a little, and put the rest of the money away into retirement savings,” he said.

Despite being eliminated on Day 2 of the event Baldwin was able to survive the inevitable “sweat” that every poker player is only too familiar with. With the only two men who could catch Baldwin, Yevgeniy Timoshenko and Cornel Andrew Cimpan, still in the running –Timoshenko would need a 2nd or 1st place finish to overtake Baldwin, and Cimpan would need to place in the top 3. Alas both players found the rail on day 3 of the event.

Baldwin was able to amass 6,994 POY points from his 17 final tables, 4 championships, and over $1.4 million in winnings during 2009. Numerous players earned more than Baldwin, but his 17 final table appearances outdistanced the nearest competitor by 8!  No other player in the POY standings had double-digit final tables, a truly impressive feat by Baldwin.

After making the final table of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE), Full Tilt Poker Pro James Akenhead captured his first major tournament win by taking down the invitation-only Full Tilt Poker Million. The win added $500,000 to Akenhead’s ever expanding bankroll.

The 26 year-old poker pro from London England has amassed nearly $2,000,000 in live tournament winnings in 2009, which puts his career total at $2.7 million. An amazing total considering Akenhead has been on the tournament scene for less than three years.

Akenhead was able to outlast some of the best poker players in the world, and was faced with a final table that included Cardrunners’ founder Taylor Caby, Tom “durrrr” Dwan, and Dag Martin Mikkelson among others.

With his continued success it makes the case even stronger that the 2009 WSOP Main Event was one of the strongest final tables in the history of the tournament series.

Play Online Poker

Giving the hometown Portuguese crowd something to cheer for Antonio Matias was able to capture his first major tournament victory by outlasting the 322 would-be hopefuls, including some of the top poker pros in the world.

Matias bucked the current trend of young online poker stars winning the championship events around the globe: The 54 year-old travel agent walks away with the over 400,000 euro first place prize-money, and the prestigious honor of being a European Poker Tour champion.

Entering the final table as a monstrous chip-leader Matias relinquished the chip-lead on multiple occasions, but was able to weather the up and down storm that is tournament poker, and found himself ahead in chips when the following hand came up during heads-up play:

On a flop of J78 both players, Matias and Pierre Neuville, got their money into the middle, but Matias had the big edge when he turned over 78 to Pierre’s JT: Matias filled up on the turn, so Neuville needed one of the two Jacks remaining in the deck to take the hand: When the river proved to be am innocuous 2, Matias and the entire Portuguese contingent broke into cheer.

After a relatively quiet match with Marcello “luckexpress” Marigliano that saw the Italian up $22k, followed by a back and forth with fellow high-stakes regular Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies that saw durrrr walk away $68k in the black, it fell upon English poker pro Sammy “any two” George to salvage some of the expectations poker fans had going into the contest.

When the smoke cleared, the George vs. Dwan match was exactly what poker fans were expecting all along: Big pots, and big wins and losses. In the end it was durrrr who ended up the big winner, taking $750k off Sammy George. In total Tom Dwan ended the three challenge matches up close to $800k, which should take a little sting off his recent losses to “Isildur1” at the Full Tilt Poker tables.

2009 has been a bad year thus far for Dwan with online losses in the neighborhood of $5 million; although the young phenom also signed with Full Tilt Poker which probably was the most expensive player signing of all-time.

Poker Tip: If you want to play with Durrrr at Full Tilt Make sure you get the best rakeback offer for Full Tilt.