Today was the day that notorious poker pro Sorel Mizzi was set to swim from Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janiero to an distant island thought to be about 5km away. Some called him crazy and it turned out they were right…but that didn’t stop him from gutting it out on the high seas earning 6:1 on a 10k prop bet.

He had a safety boat accompany him while his journey was live bring covered via live tweet. It was slow going and at time it looked like it was a lock…

...while at others it seemed to be a longshot…

...but the thought of those people doubting him pushed Mizzi to a place where he just couldn’t give up.

Eventually he touched the rock that was his destination, proved that he could do it and cashed in on his bet.

For the full transcript of how it went down check out Sorel’s twitter feed.

Just when you thought that the poker world was done filming videos about making pizza, the latest episode of Ultimate Poker's “Me vs. U” features Dan (O’ Brien) and Danielle (Andresen) battling each other in a New York City pizza making contest.

Watch: Pizza! Pizza! – PokerNews vs. WPT In Dueling Videos, Double Cheese

The pair are in the Big Apple at Dough Boys pizzeria where they perform all the pizza building tropes. The catch for this contest is they then have to shill that pie on the streets of NYC to let the people judge who made a better slice.

To the winner a “prize” in Central Park, the loser gets humiliated. You know the drill – watch and enjoy.

Cue the soft music and the slow pans of “The Poker Brat”, Phil Hellmuth declares he’s not quite the “chip on his shoulder” egomaniac we know and love anymore.

With age comes wisdom and Hellmuth, in this new video from PokerStars, finds himself in a place where he can count his blessings and brush his shoulders off from the haters who say he’s no good at poker.

Earlier today we told you about the unveiling of the new design for live stat website The Hendon Mob where we teased that perhaps the Global Poker Index (the owners of THM) may have a new look soon as well. It came to pass sooner than we could anticipate.

Check it out – The Global Poker Index sleek new look.

In fact, the entire range of products are receiving the same treatment, allowing the user to have a similar experience over the entire network of website. In addition to launching killer new designs for their websites the GPI announced the creation of a WSOP themed magazine which will be available for free at the WSOP or available online, immediately, for all to see.

Check out the digital copy of the GPI 2014 WSOP Magazine featuring cover girl Vanessa Selbst.

We don’t know when this photo was snapped – could be today, could be a year ago – but it’s pretty cool. It’s of a building jumping Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier who, according to a tweet shipped earlier today, may be little late to the World Series of Poker.

What color will his hair be when he finally makes it to the WSOP?

Emerging poker ambassador, 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event Champ Greg Merson took some time right before he’s set to go to Las Vegas for the 2014 WSOP, to talk with Substance.com about his well-documented past battles with a myriad of drugs.

Coke, weed, booze – Merson’s used it all and it took some time for him to hit rock bottom.

I started using when I was 17, it developed very rapidly, and I was doing cocaine within six months of my first time trying marijuana. Coke was my drug of choice until I was 19 and got sober for the first time. I felt like I had hit rock bottom at the time—failing out of school, always being broke from my habit and losing touch with reality.

With the help of his friends and family, Merson fought to sober up and stay clean including a stint in rehab and a regiment of NA meetings. He also attributes a dedication to Yoga as an activity that helps him curb the cravings.

But for Merson it was poker that saved his life.

But poker is the number one reason I stay sober. I love to compete and money is just a way of keeping score. I could care less if I made $50,000 a year or $1 million. I just like to compete at a high level and I’m fortunate to be able to make a good living because of it. I love the game as much as I did when I was 16 and played for the first time. I don’t spend 70 hours a week married to the game like I used to, however. My life is much more balanced and I play about 30 hours a week during trips to Macau or Vegas. Those trips are for poker business only but can reach to the 50-to-70-hour range when I’m really fresh and the games are good. I try to push myself hard when the games call for long hours.

In the world of high-stakes poker, there’s temptation at every turn. As for if there is a good deal of drug and alcohol abuse in poker.

Tons, tons, tons. These guys have no boss, a lot of extra income and flat out just time to kill. Drugs become a much more fun way to waste time. Someone who plays poker suffering from addiction needs to use all the resources available and find out which source of recovery works best for them.

Merson goes on to talk about how families can assist with addicts in their family, things he does outside of poker and even a couple of the perks he’s spent some of his money on. It’s a very nice interview giving fans a glimpse into one of the best WSOP Champions of the past 10 years. Check it out:

Read: Greg Merson’s Rise From Rock Bottom to Poker Rock Star

Bonus: If you like what you read and have a TON of extra cash, there’s always this…

It’s yet another episode in the video blog of Ultimate Gaming top dog Tom Breitling. Here he basically says that one of the biggest problems facing online gaming in New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware is that no one even knows it exists.

Only 1 in 10 people polled in Atlantic City had any clue that online poker/gaming was legal in the state and with only 3% of the people having an account, Brietling knows that there’s plenty of more room to grow.

He goes on to say that part of the problem is battling the stereotypes of some of those “unregulated” sites that burned customers in the past too. It’s not only the stereotypes that Ultimate Poker is battling, ultimately they have some basic branding issues to deal with as well…check this out:

What is wrong with this picture?

Are you an East Coast grinder that can’t make it out to the WSOP? No worries, there’s still plenty of online action still to be had in the great Garden State (NJ) and BorgataPoker.com is making it hard to pull yourself away from the monitor.

Word is that they are offering players “Hot Cash” in their promotions section, giving players up to $75 just to fire up a few online tables to see if they can turn a molehill into a mountain (of cash).

So if you find yourself in New Jersey, make sure you Opt In to the New Bonuses so you can get some.

Say huh? In New Jersey without a BorgataPoker.com account? That happens. It’s cool. You can get all sorts of 100% sign-up bonuses and new depositor freerolls if you want to give it a spin.

Also, if you are a live grinder at Borgata, make sure you get your free lunch:

Gus Hansen's cash just can’t stop from burning holes in his pockets. Gus encountered yet another massive two-day cooler only days after his profitable $1.3 million two-day drilling of the nosebleed online cash tables.

Read about Gus Hansen’s two day heater: Gus Makes It a Milly

Cometh the next two days, the self-proclaimed poker millionaire burned through his entire previous two day’s profit and then some. His combined losses from Tuesday and Wednesday totaled a staggering $1.5 million leaving him staring down the barrel of close to a $300k deficit.

The highs and lows of a volatile Gus Hansen are becoming a familiar feature. The last time ‘The Great Dane’ found himself on what was close to a million dollar upswing was in mid-March this year. Gus won $900k in a single day; nevertheless a big win for Hansen usually triggers big losses, and so the story went. In true Hansen style, over the next few days, true to form, Hansen dumped almost $1.2 million.

Hansen’s online losses are getting close to the $19M mark as they currently sit at $18.7M according to highstakesbd.com.

Just a heads-up that the most trusted name in live results, The Hendon Mob, unveiled a drasticly new updated design today. It’s clean, clear with access to just about every single live stat you could want in an easy to reach place. In short – it’s pretty cool.

We talked with the always busy Alex Dreyfus, head honcho of the Global Poker Index which owns The Hendon Mob and asked him what he thought the biggest advantage of the new look Hendon Mob was.

“Its 'Responsive Design’. It means it works on mobile, tablet, etc. Now you have the GPI Network toolbar at the bottom of every page to switch between HendonMob, GPI, FantasyPoker, PokerCalendar and more,” Dreyfus said.

While the new look website is cleaner and faster, Dreyfus hinted that they weren’t done pumping up the features either. Don’t worry though, they didn’t get rid of anything you know and love. There’s still Money Lists, Popular Players, Recent Results, Tours and Circuits and more. You know, everything you want to keep clicking on.

With this new design we have to wonder with a brand new paint job for The Hendon Mob right before the World Series of Poker, can there be an overhaul to the Global Poker Index far behind?

Hmmmmmmm…..stay tuned.

This video has it all. Big stars, a tropical location and full frontal nudity.

One of the most popular poker players on the planet, Antonio Esfandiari, standing in some incredibly too-tight short-shorts, is being interviewed by World Poker Tour Alpha8 correspondent Lynn Gilmartin when notorious madman Sorel Mizzi (perhaps paid by Bill “The Businessman” Perkins) creeps up behind him to give the world a glimpse as to what Esfandiari is trunk smuggling.

Esfandiari, a good natured guy, keeps his junk in check, laughs it off and promises revenge, but didn’t seem to bothered by the incident.

Ali Nejad and Olivier Busquet didn’t seem too upset about it either.

Check out Episode 2 of All In Magazine's Off The Felt with the People’s Champ, Phil Ivey.

Ivey talks about building a bankroll in the Larry Flynt private home game, besting Andy Beal with the backing of the Corporation and gambling on craps and baccarat at nosebleed levels.

When you are traveling the world as a Team PokerStars Pro as the wildling Liv Boeree does, you don’t often need to drive yourself anywhere. Back at home now, Liv goes to use her car, which she hasn’t touched in 6 months, only to find that she may have left the window open just a crack…

Then again, perhaps this is for the best. This car hardly looks like it was fit for a baller like Liv. Back hubcap missing, faded paint job and it’s a Sert to boot. That’s right, a Sert. What’s a Sert? Exactly.

Looking for more Liv? Liv Boeree Goes Chasing Waterfalls…In A Bikini

Diving over a railing off the 2nd story of a boat. Something unexpected enters the picture. #fail #MeVsJetSki

Check out another super produced, hole cards up, highlight reel from the London stop of the European Poker Tour Season 10. James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton call the action as players whittle themselves down to the final two tables.

Miss the last episode? We’ve got you: PokerStars EPT 10 London Main Event – Episode 5

Ultimate Fighting beast Martin “The Hitman” Kampmann joined his Ultimate brethren Ultimate Poker's Jason Somerville at the inaugural #RunItUp event at the Peppermill in Reno this past weekend.

Kampmann did what he does best : he pummeled the other players, ended up on top and ultimately submitted the competition of the $1,100 buy-in main event for $52k.

Or perhaps everyone was just afraid of what Kampmann might do to them if they busted him, you know? The guy has a 'very particular set of skills.’

More Somerville: Jason Somerville’s Summer Speaking Engagement

(h/t to our pals at Hold’em Radio)

Pretty funny: The oft-maligned Team Ivey Pro Allen Kessler (aka “Chainsaw”) simply tried to tweet a caricature given to him as a gift by a fellow poker pro when the internet noticed that it looks nothing like him.

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Tatjana Pasalic shows you how she stays healthy and in shape during the stressful, action packed time of the World Series of Poker. Leer at Tattytats as she visually shames you into getting into better shape.

Then go hit the gym before you hit the felt.

Tournament Poker Edge seems like a place where the player comes first. Now, we don’t have a subscription or anything (and this isn’t an endorsement) , but in general they produce interesting articles on a variety of poker related subjects and while, sure, they are trying to get people to sign up – they seem to have a real sense of love of both the game and getting better at it.

With that, we thought we’d share a few of their most recent articles came across our screens and they are good reads for poker players of just about every experience level. Rather than parse them out, we’ve compiled a few for those of you open to advice and looking to kill a few minutes. Check these out.

Read: Avoiding A Poker Blowup

Headed into a big series like the WSOP you’d better have your mind right. If you can’t handle it mentally you might lose your cool or even worse…you might blowup.

Unlike tilt or even a bad read, a blowup doesn’t have to be a bad play or occur after you’ve been emotionally battered down following a bad beat. A blowup is simply when you take a needless risk; when you let your ego and your perceived ability to outplay your opponents get the better of you.

Read: The Downsides of Positivity in Poker

For some people, everything is all good, all the time and according to this article – that may be hurting you. For something like poker, being overly optimistic may be a detriment to your game.

I realize it seems like an odd question, but I think it’s an important one. What I’ll be doing in this article is laying down the arguments against being positive, posing an alternative and asking important questions. The arguments are:

1) High expectations lead to big let downs when things inevitably don’t go your way.

2) Your thoughts should be on the hand(s) in question only.

3) Positivity can lead to complacency. For example a player who’s so sure he’s the best that he thinks he doesn’t need work/help with his game.

Read: Why ‘No Man is an Island’ in Poker

Poker is an individual game/sport. There’s only one winner but in order to be the best, you can’t do it alone.

Many people are attracted to poker because of the freedom and independence of the poker lifestyle. It’s true, most poker players live a life free of alarm clocks and commuter travel, so there’s definitely an appeal to that. But what few realize before getting into the game seriously – perhaps because so many of today’s poker players get into the game at the age of 18 or 19, before they have any real life experience to speak of – is that doing things on your own is only possible up to a point, no matter what field you’re in. There’s no such thing as true independence from the system, and embracing this will only help improve your poker game and make you more profitable over time.

Over the weekend the Phil Ivey of golf, Tiger Woods, hosted his 10k charity poker tournament (with the help of the World Poker Tour) and some of the biggest names in the poker game showed up to support.

Ultimate Poker brand ambassador Antonio Esfandiari, Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu and Phil “The Poker Brat” Hellmuth couldn’t resist the photo op with Woods, the greatest golfer of numerous generations.

But the high profile poker pros weren’t the only sharks at the table as Dallas Mavericks owner, and star of the Shark Tank, Mark Cuban also ante’d up for the Tiger Woods Foundation.

He’s at it again. Apparently having read our pal pokerlolz tweet from yesterday, Gus “The Great Dane” Hansen strung two massive winning days in a row to take a large chunk out of his notoriously massive online poker “downswing”.

Hansen had been on a huge cooler as of late and began yesterday’s regular online grind with a $3,015,645 shortfall to work on – and that was just in 2014. That’s exactly what he did. After some impressive plays and a clear change of pace, the 40 year-old Hansen pulled back another $691,959 to reduce his 2014 deficit to $2,323,686.

After 15 sessions and 2,359 hands of classic Hansen poker, the poker pro had taken down one of his largest daily hauls of the year. A whopping $171,094 of that came via 9 sessions playing $1500/$3000 8-Game Mix. In the process of winning, Hansen delivered blows to well-known online grinders Phil “Polarizing” Ivey and Viktor “Isildur1” Blom.

It was however a feeding frenzy on the Full Tilt Triple Draw Tables that made up the bulk of Hansen’s $691,959 daily cash grab. In three sessions he was up $104,000, $151,000 and $158,000 in an unstoppable drive that far surpassed his previous day’s Triple Draw winnings.

Read from yesterday: Gus Hansen On a $500k Upswing

All told, between Sunday and Monday’s action, Hansen has extraordinarily pocketed $1,238,628.

Can Gus put more winning sessions together? If so, we’ll let you know!

Heroes seem to emerge just when the world needs them the most. Today is no different.

Meet Pokerman.

SrslySirius IS Pokerman. One part Mike McDermott from Rounders, one part Neo from The Matrix and 100% pure poker reference power. Enjoy the premiere trailer as Pokerman navigates the seedy underworld of Sheldon Adelson's apokerlyptic future and faces off against some of poker’s most notorious characters.

Bonus: Non-poker related but still an easy-to-enjoy classic SrslySirius jam.

Here’s one from late last week that we didn’t want you to miss (assuming you didn’t see it on PokerStrategy or Pokerlistings). Poker professional Sorel Mizzi has been called a bunch of things but suicidal isn’t one of them.

Late last week Sorel accepted a bet that he could swim from the shore of Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janiero to an distant island thought to be about 5km away.

He’s getting 3:1 on 10k and looking for even more action as the swim is expected to take place sometime this week. His friends, upon hearing this, instantly became worried about the dangers involved in swimming in the open sea.

Heeding some advice, there will be a support boat that, if Sorel touches, will end the bet on his end. While Sorel seems to think he’s in a good spot, others continue to have have a different concern.

We’ll keep tabs on this to see if this bet actually goes off and if Sorel can complete the swim. Hopefully, whatever happens it will just cost someone some amount money, something which you can get back. As opposed to something greater, like life and limb, which you can’t.

Not many people have the $10k necessary to plunk down on their dream tournament in order to play the Main Event of the World Series of Poker which is, for many, the ultimate fantasy poker experience.

With online poker coming back to Nevada, the WSOP is expecting even more players to have won their way into what is expected to be one of the biggest Main Events ever held. But not everyone is an online grinder or even comfortable with online poker…so now the WSOP have offered a schedule of sanctioned LIVE poker tournaments where you can win your way to a dream summer event in Vegas.

You have options from coast-to-coast of card rooms that are holding low-buy in events that offer seats into the WSOP. From the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles to the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut, if you want to get a read on a player before making a decision then check out the new list of live sattys to the big dance.

Find a card room close to you partnering with the WSOP.

Check out the satellite schedule for both WSOP.com as well as live events at the Rio.

(big ups to good guy Andrew Feldman for the tip)

As you may have read from our previous post, 2012 World Series of Poker National Champion and all around hot head Ryan Eriquezzo landed in some scalding water this weekend when he was booted from the Parx Poker Room and disqualified from a tournament after “crumpling” a pair of losing aces and throwing a bit of a temper tantrum.

Read: Ryan Eriquezzo Temper Tantrum Ends In Tournament DQ

While it’s generally accepted by just about everyone that a professional poker player like Eriquezzo should have contained himself, one part about the story that was put into question was the threat that he would “blow torch the place.”

You see, Ryan at first thought that this would be accepted as he’s seen others do it and that makes it ok, right?

Next think you know though, as he was being escorted out, he allegedly said he was going to torch the place… “on Twitter.”

One floor man heard the original quote as Parx Poker Room ambassador Matt Glantz originally tweeted, but another seems to have heard something slightly different – the fact that Ryan’s extremely poor choice of threatening words was directed at the reputation of the Parx Poker Room online, not the physical establishment itself.

Good thing right? Would hate to have Ryan had said something that was out of line.

Ooops. Looks like, according to the Parx, Ryan indeed called the dealer a “fat motherf***er” and that was the crushing blow to his tournament.

For the record Ryan, denies saying it. But with so much scrutiny on the situation it’s hard for anyone to know exactly what was said and to whom.

Looking for more on Ryan “The Crumpler” Eriquezzo? Check out this Twitter thread and the heated discussion over on the Two Plus Two forums!

As with Phil “polirizing” Ivey, the online poker tables have not be kind to Gus Hansen as of late, but yesterday proved to be a crucial turning point for ‘The Great Dane’ as he slowly edged his way up to a $546,668 profit by the end of the day.

Check out how Phil Ivey did last week at the nosebleed tables.

Hansen played a total of 18 session with 9 of those sessions played out on the Deuce to Seven Triple Draw tables and the remaining 9 over on the 8-Game tables. Both styles of poker proved to be kind as Hansen took $338,273 from the Triple Draw tables and $208,396 from the 8-Game tables according to highstakesdb.com>.

The toughest competition came from his 8-Game plays as he faced competition versus some of online poker’s high stakes gunners including Phil “Polarizing” Ivey, Alex “Alexonmoon” Luneau, “puntin-peddler, Alexander “PostflopAction” Kostritsyn, “samrostan”, Patrick “FinddaGrind” Antonius and Hac “trex313” Dang. Despite the big name lineups, Hansen still ruled the tables—probably winning a large chunk of change already lost to the very same opponents in his past 8-Game endeavors.

For Hansen it had been a miserable week as well as another erratic year of poker, but today he proved there is possibly a silver lining to every dark cloud. Although, Draw has been Hansen’s nemesis over this year accounting for $2,822,810 worth of his so far $3,015,645 in losses—while in 8-Game he has recorded only $379,672 in losses in 2014— ironically Hansen came up trumps in both styles over the course of yesterday’s plays.

World Series of Poker 2012 National Champ Ryan Eriquezzo apparently lost his temper after losing a massive hand during the PARX Poker Big Stax $1500+$100 buy-in last night and found himself disqualified from the tournament.

From what we gather, Eriquezzo, a professional, got involved in a massive 200bb pot holding AA vs QQ and ended up on the losing end. It’s unclear exactly what happened next but those aces found themselves in trash can moments later.

The PARX poker blog that was covering the tournament, and was following Ryan quite closely, didn’t mention the incident but, of course, it blew up online moments after it happened. It really caught fire though when Ryan called out PARX Poker room ambassador Matt Glantz to address the issue…which he did.

Ryan has been up front in the past about the fact that he has a temper and once he saw Glantz’s comments, the one-time loyal PARX player swore off the card room for life.

After some debate, Glantz then took it on himself to try and find out the details of what happened as the blowback from some of the poker community in terms of the “punishment not fitting the crime” seemed to be sitting on Ryan’s side with the disqualification being too harsh.

Yep. “blow torch the place.” Is that worthy of a DQ? Probably. Ryan denies he said that though. He said some harsh words, but claims that didn’t come out of his mouth. So the “he said, he said” continues.

Still dropping F bombs, Ryan is left without recourse and the PARX Big Stack tournament marches on without him.

Here’s some reaction from the professional poker peanut gallery (to be fair – most of these were shipped before the possible “blow torch” comment came to light):

What do you think? Did Ryan deserve to get the boot?

Want the whole story…check out this Twitter timeline and this one as well.

World Series of Poker bracelet winner *Greg “FBT” Mueller found himself in a bad spot both physically and mentally. Losing money and gaining weight Greg realized that he needed to get his mind and body back in shape before returning to the tables. Check out how Greg, an avid hockey fan, got his groove back – with the help of a NHL arena.