2013 Poker Hall of Fame Finalists Announced

World Series of Poker officials have announced the 2013 list of ten finalists for induction into the Poker Hall of Fame.  Seven of the ten have been nominated before, and six of those seven return from the 2012 finalists' ballot, when Eric Drache and the late Sailor Roberts were honored.  These were the top ten vote-getters based on fan nominations, which had been available for a couple of months this summer on the WSOP.com site.

The six returnees from last year's crop of finalists are Chris Bjorin, David Chiu, Thor Hamsen, Jennifer Harman, Tom McEvoy and Scotty Nguyen, while a seventh, Huckleberry Seed, returns to the final 10 after last being considered as a finalist in 2011.  These seven are joined by three first-timers: Humberto Brenes, Carlos Mortensen and Mike Matusow.

Final voting is done by a panel of 37 poker veterans, consisting of 19 living members of the PHOF and 18 members of the poker media.  The rules for nomination and enshrinement have been tweaked a bit in recent years, since Caesars (formerly Harrah's) acquired the PHOF brand; the latest tweaks include an age-40 minimum, and finalist-voting rules designed to ensure that two people are added almost every year.

Here are the complete requirements for enshrinement, which are what the panelists are supposed to consider when making their votes:

• A player must have played poker against acknowledged top competition;
• Be a minimum of 40 years old at time of nomination;
• Played for high stakes;
• Played consistently well, gaining the respect of peers;
• Stood the test of time;
• Or, for non-players, contributed to the overall growth and success of the game of poker, with indelible positive and lasting results.

As happens with the fan-based nomination process, all living players were nominated, although in recent years removals and substitutions have been made to give the list more of a historic flavor.  This time around, however, no deceased players or industry people have been added to the final ten, guaranteeing that the WSOP will have one or two warm bodies on hand to receive the honor, with a ceremony held in conjunction with this year's WSOP main event final table in November.

Dan Bilzerian's Files 'Lone Survivor' Lawsuit over Slashed Movie Role

Dan Bilzerian pimping Victory
Poker on the red carpet.

California poker playboy Dan Blitz" Bilzerian is back in the news, this time courtesy of a lawsuit he's filed against the makers of the upcoming action thriller Lone Survivor, in which Bilzerian's purchased role in the film was largely cut from the product that filmgoers will see when the movie is released in December.

According to a story in the Hollywood Reporter, which includes a link to the complaint filed by Bilzerian's attorney on Thursday, ol' Blitz loaned the film's producers, Randall Emmett and George Furla, a million dollars of advance production money in exchange for a significant secondary role in the film.  Lone Survivor, which will star Mark Wahlberg, is adapted from the true story of a failed 2005 Navy SEALS mission targeting a Taliban chief in which all but one of the SEAL team's members was killed.

Bilzerian is well known in poker circles along with his brother Adam as the rich poker-playing kids of self-made multi-millionaire Paul Bilzerian, signed a very specific agreement regarding his role in the film, which was supposed to include eight minutes of "recognizable" screen time and at least 80 words of dialogue.

Instead, according to the complaint, Bilzerian was on screen for less than a minute and had one spoken line, everything else hitting the cutting-room floor.  Bilzerian discovered what he alleges was a breach of the contract for the "loan" in late June, when he was allowed to privately screen the film.  His agreement called for him to receive specific refunds in case his role was trimmed, but Emmett and Furla never repaid him, prompting the suit.

In addition to the million-dollar "loan", Bilzerian alleges he is due $200,000 in interest penalties, lawyers fees, and unspecified damages.

Movie buffs will have to wait another few months to see why Blitz's role as "Sr. Chief Dan Healy" was trimmed so drastically, just as news of whether this was done by the film's producers or by distributing studio Universal Pictures remains unclear.  In any event, Bilzerian's attempt to buy himself a small film career seems to be as busto.  Bilzerian first came into public poker knowledge in 2009 when both he and brother Adam ran deep into the cash in the WSOP main event, and since then, Dan in particular has had a knack for making weird headlines, in addition to being a minor sponsored pro for the short-lived Victory Poker site.

Poker Legend Bobby Hoff, 1939-2013

Poker fans were saddened to learn of the passing on Sunday of no-limit hold'em cash game legend Bobby Hoff.  Hoff, 73, had suffered some health problems in recent years, including a stroke in 2010, but his passing was unexpected by the poker community.

Hoff's everlasting fame in poker came not only from high-stakes cash game circles, where he was regarded as one of the best no-limit players of all time, but also for his role in the 1979 World Series of Poker main event, where he served as the final victim of amateur Hal Fowler's incredible odds-bending run to that title.

In the '79 WSOP's final hand, Hoff committed half his remaining stack to a J-5-e flop while betting his pocket aces, only to see Fowler call with a gutshot straight draw (7-6 for hole cards), spike the needed 4 on the turn, and cruise to the title.  The upset loss for the heavily favored Hoff was one of two instances among 13 career WSOP cashes for Hoff where he finished second, though he never claimed a bracelet in a long career with only occasional tournament appearances.  Nonetheless, Hoff's record shows about a half million in career tourney earnings, to go along with his unknown (but considerable) cash game profits.

Hoff was one of a healthy number of Texas gamblers who relocated to Las Vegas when that state's gambling became established.  Originally, Hoff was a college golfer on a scholarship to the U. of Texas, and profited handsomely from student poker games, only to discover after graduating that the Texas poker games of the era where much tougher.

Hoff succumbed to the Nevada gambling allure, and soon became part of an early card-counting blackjack team that scored enough success to be booted from most of the state's casinos.  With blackjack closed to Hoff as an income source, he returned to poker, where he was backed by Sailor Roberts and others and soon established himself as one of the toughest no-limit players around.

Hoff remained an active part of the poker scene for more than four decades, living in the greater Los Angeles in his later years.  After suffering his stroke in 2010, he was still able to recuperate and play again the following year, and was present in games in California as recently as last week.  Hoff also played online, successfully dueling the younger generation of players on sites such as UltimateBet.

Jamie Gold WSOP Bracelet Brings $65,725 at Auction

2007 WSOP main event winner Jamie Gold's financial difficulties continue to be evident after the completion of an auction for his winner's bracelet for $65,725, none of which went Gold's way.  The auction, which was announced earlier this year and which ran for about two weeks, saw the diamond-encrusted gold bracelet served up by Heritage Auctions and Muvico, the firm in charge of the listing.

Gold has remained non-specific about the events leading up to the bracelet's auction, though he did confirm for CardPlayer in a recent piece that the bracelet was no longer his property.

“It’s a legal issue that I can’t talk about, but what I can say is that I am not selling it," Gold told CardPlayer. "I would never do that. It’s really unfortunate what has been happening. It is out of my hands, but it’s not something I wish was happening. I’m not purposefully selling; I’m not involved in the auction and will not be making $1 if it does end up being sold.”

The bracelet, with seven carats of tiny diamonds and 120 grams (a little more than four ounces) of white and yellow gold, probably went for several times its actual melt value, which was likely in the $10,000 range.  The intricacy and provenance of the piece contributed to its collectibility, though Heritage Auctions has not released the identity of the winning bidder.

Gold's bracelet is the second WSOP main event winner's bracelet to hit the auction blocks in recent months, following the IRS auction of 2008 winner Jerry Yang's similar bracelet earlier this year.  The exact purchase price for Yang's bracelet remains unknown; it was part of a larger lot of precious and valuable jewelry surrendered by Yang in partial satisfaction of his tax lien, which seems to have dated from his 2008 victory.

As for Gold, his latest resurfacing in the news continues his skein of bad publicity, which has dogged him since even before he won his record-setting, $12 million 2007 title.  Gold immediately became embroiled in a legal battle with Bruce Crispin Leyser over promises Gold had made to split potential winnings from Gold's 2007 main event entry, which was originally paid for by Bodog.

Gold subsequently went on to short-lived stints as a sponsored player for both Bodog and Aced.com, a skin on the Merge Network, neither of which worked out.  Despite Gold's fame and his occasional appearances on late-night TV cash games, including a memorable KK-v-AA hand with Sammy Farha, Gold succeeded in generating more negative press than anything else, thus limiting his sponsorship opportunities.  There was a short-lived "Jamie Gold Room" at the Tropicana in Las Vegas, which ran under that name for only a few months in late 2011 and early 2012.

Changing Roles for Familiar WSOP Media Faces

The times, they are a-changin', at least for the WSOP's media department, where veterans Nolan Dalla and Alan Fowler have both announced career changes.

Fowler is leaving the WSOP scene entirely, and returning to his hometown of Atlanta for new opportunities.  One of the most heartfelt farewell messages I've read recently came from Dall himself, who wrote a lengthy tribute to Fowler's WSOP service in a post called "Saying Goodbye to Alan Fowler."  The post is well worth the read.

Fowler, the WSOP's assistant media director since 2006 -- coincidentally my first year working at the WSOP -- has long been a recognizable force behind the scenes at the WSOP.  The skilled and always cheerful Fowler could be counted on to put in the long and odd hours necessary to get the job done, and for years he's been one of the go-to guys at the Rio.  Fowler stories I could tell by the dozens, but one of the funniest might come from the waning days of the '08 WSOP, when the main event was down to a couple of tables and people were closing up shop.

I'd been working very closely with Fowler and his crew that summer on the overnight chip counts, and finally, about three in the morning when we were all done for the night, Alan and I and a couple of his interns had an impromptu mini-tournament at one of the unoccupied cash game tables in the Amazon Room.

We had munchies, we had drinks.  (I might have snuck some beers back there.)  We had cards and chips.  And we were making a bit of a mess, so we had to scramble around for something to hold trash, the cans being a good walk away and already in the process of disappearing from Amazon by the tear-down crews.

Alan digs out a couple of empty chip bags to hold the trash, the same type every player's chips goes into at the end of the night.  But in the process of passing them around he grabs one, holds it up, and in a deadpan-perfect, "Alas, poor Yorick" voice, cries, "Poor bag, you could have been great!  You could have held Phil Ivey's chips!"

A-plus delivery, Alan.

Next day, I remember seeing him sprinting across Amazon and tackling those giant inflatable Milwaukee's Best cans they used to have.  Lance Bradley and Gary Wise were in on that one, too.  I might have pictures somewhere.

Yeah, he'll be missed, both for his overall skill and his moments of random zaniness.

For Dalla, one of poker's preeminent and savvy industry people, he's not leaving the WSOP entirely, but is instead retrenching himself at the main WSOP and WSOP-Europe while giving up his gig as the WSOP Circuit tour's traveling media secretary.  The WSOPC gig is an immensely difficult chore, trying to come up with something interesting to say about a batch of largely nondescript players each day who've managed to reach a Circuit final, all while reporting on bustout hands that with few outliers are the same, only the counts and pips changing.

Dalla, though, is branching out, having also announced a new venture he'll be joining in with Rush Street Productions called "Poker Night in America."  This new TV-poker enterprise, put together by Heartland Poker Tour co-founder Todd Anderson, is slated to start filming next month at venues across the country, with its first broadcast date sometime in 2014.

PNA looks to be a mix of televised tournaments and some sort of in-person look into occasional private and semi-private home games, if all the disparate little pieces of info released to date are assembled.  It'll be interesting to see what comes of it; I think Anderson would like to recapture some of the HPT's original magic, when it emerged from meager beginnings to establish a solid foothold as one of the country's leading mid-range tourney series.

Both Fowler and Dalla deserve the poker world's best wishes in these endeavors.  Both have been worthy, solid contributors to the game, even if their efforts are often more unsung than many others in the business.  We wish them both well.

Sam Simon Announces Donation of Fortune to Charity

It's been an awful 2013 for Sam Simon, in many ways, but that doesn't mean he isn't making the best of.  Simon, the celebrated co-creator of The Simpsons and one of the poker world's wealthiest and most well-known "visiting celebrities," was diagnosed earlier this year with terminal, metastatic colon cancer.

Simon, familiar to TV-poker audiences from his WSOP main-event cashes in 2011 and 2007, has a lengthier and more established poker career than most casual fans would realize.  His recorded tourney cashes, per the HendonMob database, stretch all the way back to 1995, and he's logged six WSOP cashes along with a couple of dozen scores in California events.

He's also, as most people know, the former husband of poker-playing actress Jennifer Tilly, and though the two have been separated for many years, they remained on amicable terms.

The popular Simon's personal fortune was secured through royalties from the long-running Simpsons series, and as he told a Huffington Post interviewer, "The truth is, I have more money than I'm interested in spending."  He's already taken care of those close to him, so Simon has announced the donation of a large portion of his remaining wealth to several charities, mostly animal-welfare groups.

Simon's Sam Simon Foundation, in California, serves the hungry of two species -- dogs and humans -- though humans get only vegan fare.  Simon is also a large contributor to various animal-rights groups (including the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and PETA), and has been a major contributor to Save the Children as well.

Whether or not one favors the same charities as Simon does isn't the point.  Simon is living out whatever time he has left on his terms, and using his fortune to do good in the manner he sees fit.  It's a classy legacy to  leave.

WSOP Final Table Delay - Good Idea or Bad?

As USA Today reported, Harrahs has decided to delay the play of the final table for nearly 3 months. Here is how it is going to work at the 2008 WSOP.

Players will play like normal until they are down to the final 9 players. At that point, all nine players will receive 9th place money and the tournament will be paused, for nearly three and a half months...

During those three months, ESPN will be editing footage of the main event and hyping the final table. The idea is to create as much buzz for the final table as possible, similar to how other major sporting events have a break before their big game, such as the Superbowl getting 2 weeks break before playing in the big game.

I question though if this is more like playing three quarters of the superbowl and then putting the fourth quarter on hold for a few weeks?

Let's discuss the pro's and con's shall we?

The Pro's

• More buzz and excitement for the WSOP


• You won't know who wins beforehand (most likely)


• Resurgence of poker to it's glory years of 2 years back after Moneymaker won, assuming hype works as scheduled

The Con's

• It's takes a huge break in the middle of the tournament


• Completely changes the dynamic of the game


• Players can watch the WSOP footage on TV before they play the final table. I only imagine that they will be able to seehands that others played and which hole cards they had and plays they made.


• Hugely increases the possibility of collusion


• Hugely increases the possibility of outside influence

I'd like to hear more about what Harrahs has said about combating any form of collusion during this hiatus because I think this has a huge risk factor of tarnishing the game. The last thing anyone wants to come from this is another scandal where some of the players are working together in concert in some form or fashion, be it working off of some sort of non verbal cue or just playing to bust others but keep one another in as long as possible. Just a ton of collusion possibilities in my mind that could come up and when we are talking World Series of Poker Final Table money you have to know that it's a possibility to happen...

Now from a personal and business standpoint I like the move because I think it will indeed increase the exposure of poker and that means more traffic to the ole Kick Ass Poker Blog as well as sites across our network... plus it hopefully means more people getting excited about poker and starting to play the game because of all of the hype.

Now only if we can have a superstar or two in the final table instead of no personality Jerry Yang and the "hardly anyone liked me cause of the WSOP" Jamie Gold winners of past, plus if the amateurs can qualify online from an online poker room, like the Poker Stars Site then woo hoo we've hit the jackpot!

Can you imagine if the final table had Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow mixed in with a couple of hot poker chicks and some personable amateurs? That'd be a great scenario for poker and we can only hope.

What do you think, if you're at the final table of the WSOP this year are you going to enjoy the 117 day break before getting to play the final table? I'd love to get some feedback on this one.

How many players will PokerStars send to the WSOP

With the 2008 WSOP rounding the corner it is going to be interesting to see this year how many people that win a seat in one of the online poker sites actually play in the World Series of Poker.



Last year, things changed for the online poker rooms who were sending players to the WSOP and this was probably most felt by PokerStars, who has consistently qualified more players to the WSOP than any other online poker room. In 2004 and 2005 and I believe in 2006 the powers that be allowed poker rooms like poker stars to purchase the seats for their qualified players directly.

Today, this has changed.

The online poker rooms can not purchase the main event seat for players and provide them with a ticket. Today, online poker rooms have to provide the player the funds to purchase the seat and rely on the players to make the purchase themselves. And we all know that there is a big difference in getting a 'ticket' to the WSOP than getting the $10 grand in your hand and then turning that over for a seat in the main event...

This year, Poker Stars is sending over 1,000 players to the WSOP and other sites like FullTilt are already qualifying players and have been announcing a 150 seat WSOP main event guarantee, but while they might 'award' this many seats, how many will actually result in players playing in the event?

Last year we saw an overall fall off on the total size of the field due to the fact that so many players qualified online but chose to take the cold hard cash and not try and parlay it into winning the biggest poker tournament in the world.

What would you do? Lets say you win one of the Step Sit-N-Go's at PokerStars with an investment of around $7 or $8 bucks and turn that into a seat worth $10k plus $2k for travel and hotel? Would you take the cash and run, or would you take the shot and play in the biggest poker tournament in the world?

Personally, I might play in some of the smaller events. Maybe take the $$ and play in a few of the $1500-$2000 events but probably not the main event... maybe next year.

Here is the 2008 WSOP Schedule kicking off on May 29th with Live Action and Satellites!

*World Series of Poker and WSOP are trademarks of Harrah’s License Company, LLC (”Harrah’s”). Harrah’s does not sponsor or endorse, and is not associated or affiliated with this website or its products, services, promotions or tournaments.