Bluff Media, along with Publications Services of America, launched their newest magazine SE7EN at the Sundance Film Festival. The publication is geared towards men whose interest lay in sports, gaming, and an affluent lifestyle. According to Bluff:
The premier issue of SE7EN magazine boasts Hollywood icon and man's man Ray Liotta on the cover. Inside, he speaks to readers about his much anticipated upcoming film 'Smokin' Aces' due out at the end of January. Other features include exclusive stories with top athletes, such as Michael Strahan and Oscar de la Hoya, as well as SE7EN's selection of the sexiest female athletes, the SE7EN Guide to the Well-Rounded Man, and an entire section on gambling aptly named JUICE.
For more info on the magazine, you can visit their website.
Yesterday I mentioned that Michael Mizrachi won the 2006 Card Player Player of the Year award, and as I was checking out their website I noticed that they made a few changes in the scoring criteria for the 2007 season. Some of this is new, some of it isn't, but according to their website, tournaments that qualify for this year's POY points must meet the following criteria:
- Overall tournament prize pool must meet or exceed $750,000 - Single events must have a prize pool that meets or exceeds $250,000 - 60 player minimum - Buy-in must be at least $300 - Invitationals must have at least 60 players and a prize pool of $500,000 - International events must have min. 60 players and prize pool must meet or exceed $1,500,000 - Online tourneys must have a prize pool of more than $5,000,000 and player must release their real name to accumulate points
Full details on the criteria, as well as how they are calculating points for the 2007 season, can be found at their website via the "read" link below.
To vote you must add your comments to the appropriate thread in their forums, and explain why you think that player/show should be the winner. After skimming through it appears that Daniel Negreanu has the majority of the votes as Most Entertaining Player so far, though some people definitely have their own opinions: (copied verbatim from the forum)
How can it NOT be ERIC MOLINA???? He chucked the ALL IN chip at that jerk Gold, He called a guy with a good chip stack BLIND. He ended that guys chances of winning the event without even looking at HIS CARDS. He got a penalty. He bluffed all his money in a horrible spot. That kid is awesome. If he works out some we might see him punch a guy. He might steal an old guys chips when that guy isnt looking. He could throw the all in chip at a dealer after a bad beat. Matusow is just annoying, he always says how good he is yet he is really low on money, he sucks at the WPT, where better players like grinder and DN do very well. Hellmuths act is pathetic, he says hes gonna stop being the poker brat, and lose the shades, but he is ON CONTRACT TO ALWAYS WEAR THE SHADES when he is on tv. Thats lame. He isnt so entertaining hosting celebrity poker. Could you imagine molina hosting that? That guy should be picked up by full tilt. Plus he gives validity to the theory that all Nova students are ******. Vote Eric Molina
Alrighty. Moving on.
Though I haven't counted, it appears that Negreanu also has the lead in Favorite Tournament Player of 2006. Hellmuth, Ivey, Cunningham, and Hachem have also received a lot of votes, and JC Tran and Matusow have been mentioned repeatedly.
As far as Favorite Poker Television Show - really is there any question? High Stakes Poker has garnered almost every single vote so far.
Last year's winners at the POY Gala were as follows:
Breakthrough Player Michael Gracz Best Cash Game Player Chip Reese
Poker Ambassador Mike Sexton
Best No-Limit Player Phil Ivey
Best Heads-up Player Phil Ivey
Best Mixed Game Player Chip Reese
Most Underrated Player Allen Cunningham
Most Feared Player Phil Ivey
Best Female Player Jennifer Harman
Most Entertaining Player Mike "The Mouth" Matusow
People's Choice Award-Best Celebrity Poker Player Jennifer Tilly
People's Choice Award-Favorite Overall Player Daniel Negreanu
BLUFF Magazine's Readers Choice Awards were just announced, and I was ecstatic to read that PokerStars was voted the Best Online Poker Room.
Though I'm not the most impartial observer, since pretty much everyone at PokerStars is a friend of mine, and I play for Team PokerStars -- you know, come to think of it, I'm about as far from an impartial observer as you can get -- I'm not surprised at all. I've spent a lot of time with members of the support and marketing teams, and I am constantly impressed with their passion for poker, their respect for their players, and their desire to give everyone the best customer service and playing experience possible.
So congratulations to everyone at PokerStars, and thank you to the readers at BLUFF!
It's been a while since I have updated the various Player of the Year contests, so without further ado, following are the top 25 players in Card Player Magazine's Player of the Year race, followed by the Bluff-ESPN Power Rankings and Bluff Magazine's POY Top 25.
CardPlayer Player of the Year Race For an explanation of CardPlayer's scoring criteria, click here.
1 Michael Mizrachi 5,865 2 Nam Le 3,985 3 Phil Hellmuth Jr. 3,755 4 Shannon Shorr 3,692 5 Jeff Madsen 3,680 6 John Hoang 3,672 7 Allen Cunningham 3,344 8 Erick Lindgren 3,286 9 David Williams 3,152 10 William Chen 3,146 11 Anthony Reategui 2,887 12 Kenna James 2,692 13 Ralph Perry 2,546 14 Joe Bartholdi 2,500 15 John Phan 2,419 16 Joe Tehan 2,390 17 Tom Franklin 2,372 18 David Daneshgar 2,370 19 Alex Jacob 2,320 20 Stanley Weiss 2,304 21 Al Barbieri 2,286 22 Joe Brandenburg 2,268 23 Max Pescatori 2,258 24 Alan Goehring 2,224 25 Jamie Gold 2,220
Bluff - ESPN Power Rankings, Top 25 According to Bluff: Bluff Power Rankings are based on the results of major tournaments over a trailing 24-month period. Qualifying tournaments must have a minimum $5,000 buy-in, at least 100 participants. Bluff Media reserves the right to include high-denomination, high profile events. Tournaments occurring in the trailing 12-month period are given additional weighting. Players must finish in the money to earn points.
Casino Player Magazine has released the results of their "Best of" survey for 2006. The Bellagio tops the list for Best Poker Room, followed by the Mirage and then Wynn Las Vegas. Sorry April, the MGM didn't make the top three. The top picks for Best Poker Tournaments is led by Harrah's, Bellagio in second, and the Rio in third.
Following is a small portion of the results as copied from CasinoPlayer.com. You can check out their website for the entire list if you are interested in seeing if your favorites won. I definitely don't agree with all the choices, but it is interesting to see who the masses chose.
RESORT CATEGORIES Best Overall Hotel Casino 1) Caesars Palace 2) Bellagio 3) Rio
Best Overall Hotel 1) Bellagio 2) Wynn Las Vegas 3) Venetian
Stating "He Didn't Invent Las Vegas. He Just Makes It Work", 64-year old Steve Wynn has been named by Time Magazine's 'TIME 100 Issue' as one of the top professionals in their Builders and Titans category. Responsible for the 1970's expansion and renovation of the Golden Nugget, as well as the mastermind behind The Mirage and Bellagio, Wynn is often credited with bringing luxury and elegance back to Las Vegas and setting a new standard of excellence for real estate developments in the city.
In 2000, Wynn sold his company Mirage Resorts, Inc. to MGM Grand, Inc. and subsequently built Wynn Las Vegas on the former site of the Desert Inn. His next development will be in China with Wynn Macau, scheduled to open in September of this year.
Michael Mizrachi is still leading the pack in Card Player Magazine's 2006 Player of the Year
standings, which I am sure comes as no surprise to anyone after his explosive start to the year. He has yet to cash
in a tournament since March 6th though, which has allowed some other players to climb the ladder a bit.
Even
though Mizrachi cashed in four tournaments, the highest money earner (by far) in 2006 tournaments is Joe Bartholdi at
$3,819,034 - mainly due to his 1st place win at the largest tournament of the year to date, the 4th Annual Five-Star
Diamond Classic which was held at the Bellagio last month.
Two players in the current top 20 have made five
final tables each - Jason Stern of San Jose, California, currently in 10th place with 1,866 points, and William Edler of
Las Vegas who is in 15th place with 1634 points.
Last year's Player of the Year, Men Nguyen, is currently in
140th place.
Top 40 players and their earnings listed after the jump.
We
are three months into 2006, and no one seems to be able to touch Michael
Mizrachi in the Card Player Magazine Player of the Year race. Mizrachi
leads the pack with 3,957 points, followed by Kenna James in second place with 2,692.
So far this year,
Mizrachi has placed within the top nine players in six events:
No-Limit Hold'em event at the 2006
National Heads-Up Poker Championship, placing 9th
Limit Hold'em event at the 2006 Winnin' O' the Green,
placing 1st
No-Limit Hold'em Championship Day Final Day at the 2006 Borgata Winter Poker Open, placing
1st
No-Limit Hold'em event at the 2006 L.A. Poker Classic, placing 2nd
No-Limit
Hold'em Championship Day Final Day at the 2006 Gold Strike World Poker Open, placing 2nd
The top 25 players
in the Player of the Year standings are currently as follows:
Ed McMahon has long been associated with giant cardboard checks and dumping huge sums of money on people, so he was a
natural choice to help open a new casino in
Muncie, Indiana: [Ed McMahon] joined Mayor Dan Canan in cutting the ribbon last night on the Royal Crown Hold 'Em
Club.
The legality of the games have been challenged, but since the Royal Crown club is neither a bingo
hall nor a bar it doesn't have a charity gaming permit or liquor license at risk. Boy, I tell you what: as we face
bills in Congress which would turn online poker players into criminals, and read story after story about small
homegames or low-stakes tourneys getting busted, I have to
wonder: when is law enforcement going to catch up with the rest of America? Poker is our generation's bridge. It is
wildly popular, and it's not going anywhere. It is fantastically hypocritical for states to have legalized lotteries
while criminalizing poker.
Poker
News dot Com reports that a new poker magazine has hit the shelves. This one is aimed at women, as its title,
Woman Poker Player suggests: There is quality in the writing staff that has been assembled for "Woman
Poker Player" as well. [Editor Barbara] Enright joins in to pen articles as well as other respected female poker
players Susie Isaacs, Cat Hulbert, Roxci Rhodes, online player Tanya Peck and humorist Jen Leo. The excellence in
writing isn't limited to just the female players, however; such testosterone powered poker players as Lou Krieger, Max
Shapiro, John Vorhaus and PokerNews' Ashley Adams offer compelling articles as well.
The articles aren't
broken up throughout the magazine (one of my personal pet peeves) and in general have an excellent mix of information.
The strategy articles neatly intermingle with recipes for healthy drink alternatives and a view of poker through a
woman's eyes. A couple of the articles (dealing with relationships in poker and one writer's unfortunate health
situation and how she was dealing with it) gave the magazine a nice feel and truly seemed aimed toward their audience,
which neatly separated "Woman Poker Player" from other poker magazines. I link to PokerNews
all the time, and I want to take a moment to thank all their writers for putting together such a great resource. If you
haven't subbed them in Bloglines, you're missing out.
Finally, there is an incredibly entertaining account of a Tuesday Night game in Tulsa, OK,
that you've got to read: I can't tell you where I am because what's going on is illegal. I can't tell you who's
here, either, or how much money they're gambling, because that's also illegal and, more importantly, there will be
wives and girlfriends, not to mention other people to whom they owe money, reading this.
It's
9:30 on a Tuesday night and there's the unmistakable sound of cards, ESPN Sportscenter, and men
getting away with something.
Suffice it to say there are five of them (and only
one willing to use his real name) and their beverages: Linus is drinking red Zinfindel; Oklahoma Jim is drinking dirty
Martinis (no Vermouth, all olive juice and vodka); Big Rod is drinking red wine and would be smoking a big-ass Macanudo
but he's been overruled; AG, who's the pro, and the only one not wearing glasses, is drinking coffee; Michael has a
Coors Light on the floor behind him; and Crush is drinking water because he says "he wants to stay alert during
competition," which makes Oklahoma Jim laugh.
"Yeah, imported water from
Arkansas." Barry Friedman's story reminds
me of my own Lying in Odessa series from WWdN, and makes me want to get in the car and find an underground
game to play in right now.
All In Magazine recently launched their new web site. In a
press release discussing the launch, managing editor Eric Raskin mentioned poker bloggers. I thought that was cool of
him.
Day 1B is set to begin this morning at the Bay 101 Shooting Stars tournament in San Jose, California. The players
that make it through today will join the fifty-nine others who survived yesterday's action.
Some notable bustouts from Day 1A:
Cyndy Violette, Daniel Negreanu, Mike Gracz, Tom McEvoy, Phil Hellmuth, Men Nguyen, Todd Brunson, and Chau Giang.
The chip leaders from Day 1A:
1. Stuart Fahmy 125,100 2. Farzad Bonyadi 107,600 3. Kirk Morrison
104,600 4. Larry Elliott 100,600 5. John Smith 91,500 6. Jason
Stern 89,100 7. Brad "Yukon" Booth 88,700 8. Todd Arnold 83,600 9. Xin Shen 81,500 10. Luong Trinh 72,100
Figures. I removed Farzad Bonyadi from my Fantasy Poker Pool on Sunday night. Anyways - if you want to see who else
made it through 1A, go check out Jason 'Spaceman' Kirk who is
live blogging the action over at Bluff
Magazine. We will also give more updates later so check back!
On February 15th, professional poker players walked their version of the red carpet at the Music Box Theatre in
Hollywood, California, for the Card Player, Player of the Year Awards Banquet.
The event was hosted by Calvin Ayre, founder and CEO of Bodog, and Master of
Ceremonies was none other than Brad Garrett of 'Everybody Loves
Raymond' fame.
On January 25, the 2006 UK Gambling Awards were held
in London, England. More than ten thousand readers of InsideEdge, PokerPlayer, and Total Gambler magazines voted for
their favorites. Results were as follows:
Top Poker TV Show Winner: Poker Night Live Runner Up: 2005 World Seris of Poker
Poker Player of the Year Winner: Phil Ivey Runner Up: Daniel Negreanu
Poker Site of the Year Winner: PokerRoom.com Runner Up: Ladbrokes Poker
Online Casino of the Year Winner: 888.com Runner Up: Coral
If you just can't get enough of poker, you may want to check out Card
Player's new Fantasy Poker contest. They are waiving the
registration fee so you can try it out for free and possibly win one of three prizes: A $500 entry into a weekly
tournament at UltimateBet, or one of two entries to their $200 tournament.
If you register for the 'real' contest, you have a shot at winning a seat to the 2006 World Series of Poker and $2000 in spending money.
You can read the full details through the 'read' link below.
Yesterday 
CardPlayer.com
BLUFF Magazine's
CardPlayer Player of the Year Race 
Casino Player Magazine has released the results of their "Best of" survey for 2006. The Bellagio tops the list for Best Poker Room, followed by the Mirage and then Wynn Las Vegas. Sorry April, the MGM didn't make the top three. The top picks for Best Poker Tournaments is led by Harrah's, Bellagio in second, and the Rio in third. 
Stating "He Didn't Invent Las Vegas. He Just Makes It Work", 64-year old Steve Wynn has been named by Time Magazine's '
Michael Mizrachi is still leading the pack in 
We
are three months into 2006, and no one seems to be able to touch 
Ed McMahon has long been associated with giant cardboard checks and dumping huge sums of money on people, so he was a
natural choice to help 
On January 25, the 
