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Travel back with us to Prague, Christmas in 2008. It's freezing cold outside with snow coming down sideways and gusts of winds blowing the faces off of people bracing themselves against the season of good will. Despite this the town had come to life with Christmas markets, mulled wine,...more

Major League Baseball player Wade Boggs might have been the most superstitious athlete of all time. He ate poultry before every game, took no more and no less than 150 ground balls during infield practice. Before going to the plate, he wrote the word "Chai" (life) in the batter's box...more

What do one mother, one mother's friend eating a sandwich, one cameraman, one sound guy, one producer, two chip counters, two dealers on break, eight poker players (seated), three or four poker players (standing) and this reporter have in common? Ordinarily, not a great deal. But for about 15 minutes...more

It's day two of the World Series Main Event and the routine of it all is beginning to feel comfortable and familiar. Each day the blogging team divides duties, one of us dispatched to record the introductions made by Jack Effel and the handpicked guest invited to say the...more

We've been told it's Friday morning. It came as a surprise. If we'd not been told, it would've been evident by the bigger crowds, bikinis lined up for Ditch Fridays, and the fact we saw our former chip counting monkey shooting craps with Nelly this morning. It certainly looks like...more

For poker players days like today are days to dream. Excitement was turned up when, after two levels, registration was closed on this year's main event, sending officials back to their calculators to work out what that would mean financially. The outcome was enough to make your drop your...more

I'll admit it. I've spent a lot of time on this job being unreasonably terrified of Alex Kravchenko. Let me explain. The Team PokerStars Pro is built like a Russian tank commander, has the steely expression of a Russian tank, and even though I've seen him laugh during a...more

By Mad Harper In April 2008, a little-known online poker professional from Florida took down EPT San Remo, one of the biggest tournaments ever held in Europe, for the euro equivalent of $1.3 million. It was an astonishing victory for Jason Mercier, who was playing only his second ever...more

There was an empty seat at table 49 in the Pavilion Room, which was a bummer because I wanted to talk to its supposed occupant. Amanda de Cesare was listed as starting her day right there, but it seemed for all the world as though she was out before the...more

The final numbers of the 2010 WSOP have just come across the wire and we're officially looking at the second-biggest World Series of Poker in history. The good folks with the abacus at the WSOP have crunched their numbers and have delivered these vital statistics that every player with chips...more

Madness. That's how some people have described it. For generations, wide-eyed and uninspired populations of dullards have looked upon the greatest minds of their generation as, putting it nicely, positively mad. Goofy. Nutjobs. For most poker players--even some very good ones--that's a category into which they can pigeonhole one of...more

So this is it, the culmination of a long journey that for some started with the laptop "On" button, then a password and the opening up of the PokerStars tournament lobby. Move the mouse over to the satellite tab and away you go, maybe checking emails or playing 27...more

It's an undecorated hallway with exposed pipes, catering trays, and folded tables against the walls. The floor is concrete and the rafters overhead are uncovered. It's a labyrinth that can get one nearly anywhere he wants in the Rio convention center. If you know which doors to enter, you have...more

It's day 1D of the World Series Main Event, and by the end of the third level of play today, we will have definitely walked past our new World Champion. This is the last opening flight, typically also the biggest, and it means that when registration closes today, that is...more

Until just moments ago, all the news in the poker world was coming out of the World Series of Poker. Just now, PokerStars has released the schedule for the 2010 World Championship of Online Poker. Last year's WCOOP saw nearly $52 million in prize money awarded to PokerStars players, including...more