BLOG – Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey and WSOP bracelet bets.

BLOG – Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey and WSOP bracelet bets.

Wednesday, 9 June 2010

My usual perusals of all things poker-related online has led me recently to Dusty “leatherass” Schmidt’s most recent blog post where he talks about ‘The Big Three’ of Jack Nicklaus, someone else and someone else (I don’t do golf); comparing them to Ivey, Antonius and Dwan which I think is spot on.

He had somehow only just gotten around to watching that infamous hand where Dwan turns his top pair into a bluff against Greenstein’s aces and Eastgate’s trips knowing that no one wants to put so much money in without at least TT. Obviously this hand is insane and sick and a thousand other adjectives that Phil Laak is better qualified to come up with than I.


However this hand is my particular favourite from High Stakes Poker and it does justice towards showcasing the superhuman poker abilities of both Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey. When it gets to the river and the video shows Ivey taking forever to call with a pair of sixes, they edited – according to Dwan, he was being stared down by Ivey for a full nine minutes before he won the pot. That would bring tears to anyone’s eyes, no need to blame the lights Tom. But now we know – when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, Ivey mucks the river.


Anyway, leatherass’s blog was talking about Dwan for obvious reasons – he recently took runner-up in the $1,500 NLHE event; second place was around $380,000 and first place was $614,000... plus a reputed $8m plus in side bets.


This eight million figure is being thrown around because in a conversation with Andy Black, durrrr was asked if his side bet action was worth seven figures. Snap call, “yes”. Black asked if they were worth eight figures and Dwan _had to think about it_ before saying no. So yeah, I think eight million or so is a good figure.


I was rooting for Dwan and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Unfortunately Simon Watt saved the poker economy and I woke up in the morning, checking PokerNews to see what had happened (I went to bed around 3am when the final table was set) and was deeply disappointed to see Dwan had lost. The same disappointment I felt last November when Ivey was busted from the Main Event final table.


I should probably get a life.



Tags: Poker News, BLOG, –, Tom, Dwan, , Phil, Ivey, and, WSOP, bracelet, bets.