Archive for March 2005

From the Boston Globe- Boston New York Poker Challenge

March 22, 2005

SPORTVIEW
Boston-NY poker? Deal me in

By Bill Griffith, Globe Staff | March 22, 2005

Boston vs. New York. NESN vs. YES. Six of our wiseguys vs. six of theirs (actually two of the "wiseguys" are ladies) in an eight-week team poker competition. Round 1 aired Sunday, and reairs tonight, Thursday, and Saturday at 9 p.m.

Frankly, the prospect of tuning in to yet another made-for-TV poker tournament was about as appealing as drawing to an inside straight, especially one in which the pot was peanuts compared with the World Series of Poker.

But now I'm taking sides, especially after Dem Bums from New York beat up on Our Guys, 14-7, in Round 1.

Characters abound in boxing and gambling, and these folks are right out of central casting. Actually, that's not just a figure of speech. Casting companies in both cities found people who could both play and represent their city.

"We wanted three P's: poker-playing ability, passion for sports, and personality," said Bill Borson, NESN's vice president of programming and production. "They picked me for local color," said Jerry Maffeo, a well-known Boston nightclub figure from the North End. He's worked most of the big clubs, from Jason's to Sonny's to the Sugar Shack in "the old days," to Il Panino and, most recently, Umbria.

Unfortunately, Maffeo's aggressive "all-in" style quickly wiped out a teammate, Nicky Dileo, and then himself, leaving only Robin Galloway up against New York's trio of Adam Schoenfeld, Mariealena Calabrese, and Alfonso Silvestri in the opening game. The quality of play wouldn't have impressed a connoisseur.

I'm hoping Freddy Kaplan of Sharon, a 34-year-old commodity trader, can help fire a Boston comeback Sunday. The Hub's other players, John D'Agostino and Leo Alvarez, also are yet to begin play.

"I always said that, before I die, I want to make it to the final table of the World Series of Poker," said Kaplan last week. "Well, last winter, I stopped to get my kids new hockey helmets. My sister-in-law, Laura Friedman, said she'd seen the announcement of this tournament on NESN during a BU hockey telecast the night before. I knew immediately that I was going to do it."

As luck would have it, two of Kaplan's pro poker idols -- D'Agostino and Dileo -- were auditioning.

"It was unbelievable," he said. "They're big-time poker players who love sports. D'Agostino was saying to me that he doesn't just play for money. He plays poker like I trade [commodities]. He's `a limit player.' Playing `no limit,' as this game is, means skill is less important than guts. They play for the competition."

The personalities of the players began to show through in Round 1, though there was no live audience to add to the atmosphere. Rules are basic: Six weeks of Texas Hold 'Em, with the top three players on each team advancing to the final table. They'll be joined by the top two qualifiers from a "wild card" table among the other six players. One let it slip that they each not only had to make it through casting and auditions but also had to put up $2,500 apiece to buy in as part of the overall $55,000 total pot.

The finale will be a two-hour show May 15 at 8 p.m.

Announcers Matt Vasgersian and Matt Savage do a nice job of commenting on the play but also of stepping back and letting the players carry the action.

Round 2? Looking forward to it.

Phil Gordon's DVD/ PPM4

March 18, 2005

Phil Gordon has gone all out to produce a one of a kind video that will set the stage for new DVD's. That is the good news, the bad news is that I arrived on the stage at 7:15am and left at 11:00pm.
I cannot wait to see the finished product of this long days work. The first thing that happened when we arrived was a power outage that forced the whole block of studios to call for generators (we think it it a scam BTW).

I was so late in LA I missed the PPM4 Party at the hotel I am staying at in San Diego. I really enjoyed that Party last year as I was able to meet so many people I had never met before.

After I left the stage Maryann and I headed here to San Diego to board the Oosterdam in the morning for the Party Poker Million 4. Looking forward to the challenges of this one as we have 735 players on a boat and 3/4 of them I have never seen before.

I will try to give some live updates from the ship........

LA Confidential Project

March 17, 2005

I am still in LA working on some confidential projects however it will be public very soon. Traffic here is everything you would expect and more as it took me 45 minutes to travel 4.2 miles this morning.

WPT and PPT Final Table Notes and Comments

March 13, 2005

The WPT Final Table was a classic and even Mike Sexton commented that this was the BEST final table in WPT history. The blinds started at 3-6K which gave the players plenty of time to manuever.

Notes:

This was the loudest audience in the history of live poker, when Danny hit the 330-1 shot of 7-7 I was yelling into the mic and could not even hear myself.

Corey Cheresnik is only 22 years old and attends Florida

Only Men Nguyen did not have the chip lead in the final six

Champion Danny Nguyen had been a Bay 101 dealer at one time

Gus Hansen had the chip lead with three players left

Jay Martens won his seat and eventually $600,000 for $8 on Paradise Poker and made it a road trip for him and four of his buddies who drove from Vancouver

We will move the final table commentary to the Final Table archive section.

Thanks to all of you that followed both of these tournaments on this site. Keep watching, there is a lot more to come.