It seems that Phil Ivey’s Pala, CA personal appearance is part of his new venture into the world of entertainment representation and boxing promoting. According to the San Diego Union Tribune, Ivey has taken a stake in unbeaten teen welterweight Dusty Hernendez-Harrison, who is on a boxing card Friday at the Pala Casino through his new venture with Dallas Maverick's guard Monta Ellis – All In Entertainement.

From the looks of it, the agency not only promotes boxing but is also a entertainment agency representing various creative outlets and individuals like boxer Andre Ward, broadcaster James “JB” Brown and NBA Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas.

This weekend Ivey is in Pala promoting the up and coming Hernandez while taking time to meet with fans and play a a little poker.

Here Ivey is getting some fight tips from renown boxing trainer Teddy Atlas.

Here’s the full fight card:

Writer and one-time pro poker player, Shane “Shaniac” Schleger had an article published on Slate.com last week where he not only talks about having used crack…yes, crack…but that it’s still an occasional recreational habit that find him neither hitting rock bottom nor struggling to stay sober.

My levels of experimentation have varied since that night, from three months of daily usage in 1999 after that initial introduction to a year or two of abstinence. I eventually settled into a seasonal habit (I smoked crack only during the winter months), followed by a less moderate phase in 2013.

I don’t present these stories for shock value. On the contrary, I proceed with a lot of anxiety, knowing the potential to upset and alienate family members, friends, present or past business associates, future landlords, and whoever else is likely to take a dim view of the information I’m volunteering.

Read: Fifteen Years Smoking Crack
It’s a fascinating tale of Schleger’s history through drug experimentation and specifically his trials and tribulations with crack. This piece comes on the heels of his new podcast Dope Stories which also deals with “a rational discussion about drug use.” Here Schleger uses the same logic based thinking that made him so successful in poker to confront the fact that while he knows that “crack is wack” it’s a habit/recreation he has that is not likely to go away.

The article has been a bit of a discussion piece both in and out of poker generating over 1k comments on the Slate website alone. If you have the time, it’s well worth checking out.

Moorman is here and it doesn’t look like he’s is going anywhere anytime soon. Having been recognized as one of the, if not THE best, online grinder in history Chris “moorman1” Moorman is now a World Poker Tour Champion to boot. Last night he successfully finished off the field of 534 runners to take first place in the WPT Los Angeles Poker Classic taking home the over $1 million first place prize.

Of course, it wasn’t easy (it never is) as Moorman had to borrow a page from Barry Greenstein's book to spiked a fortuitous “ace on the river” in what may have been the most critical hand of the entire tournament. Here’s the hand as reported by the WPT Live Updates website:

A short time later the largest hand of the tournament took place and set the heads-up final lineup in the process. All three players were all-in preflop on Hand 129 and it was an exciting hand from start to finish. Lafaye raised to 325,000 on the button and Rocco reraised all in for 2,020,000 on the small blind. Moorman moved all in over the top for 2,835,000 from the big blind and Lafaye called to cover them both. All three players then tabled their hands.

Moorman: 10c10s
Lafaye: QdJd
Rocco: Ac8d

Board: KhQsJh3s…As

Lafaye flopped two pair to take the lead but Moorman made a Broadway straight on the river to win the hand and triple up to survive. Rocco was eliminated in third place and he took home $423,440. Lafaye still held the chip lead for the start of the heads-up final with 8,275,000 but Moorman was right on his heels with 7,750,000.

With his victory Moorman is a min-cash away from $4 million in lifetime earnings.

Glenn Lafaye had to settle for runner up and will dry his tears on the massive $662,840 payday for second place while hyper-aggro young gun Michael Rocco, who came into the Final Table with the chip lead, rakes his biggest score netting $423,440. Here’s the rest of the payouts:

Final Table Payouts:

Chris Moorman – $1,015,460
Glenn Lafaye – $662,840
Michael Rocco – $423,440
Patrick Bruel – $332,190
Josh Neufeld – $264,520
Adam Friedman – $200,440

For hand by hand recap of what went down in Los Angeles, go to the WPT Live Updates page. Next stop - San Jose, CA for the Bay 101 Shooting Star.

Sure Doyle Brunson may be the “Godfather of Poker” but some might say that this machine, dating back to 1891, is the “Godfather of Online Poker.” You see, according to QuietLunch.com this little bad boy, invented by Sittman and Pitt, is the precursor to the slot machine and the first virtual poker playing machine on the market.

Back then, not unlike now (what reformists we are) these “gambling” machines were illegal so in order to get people to play, establishments would offer incentives rather than cash.

During that time, there were gambling laws in the US that prevented gaming establishments, known as salons, to offer money for poker machine winnings. So, instead of cashing out coins, players won in the form of drinks and food. For example, getting a pair of jacks would mean winning a player a drink of his choice. On the other hand, getting a straight can get a player to eat a full meal. At the time, each spin cost a nickel, and wagering 5 cents for a juicy steak with mashed potatoes wasn’t such a bad deal.

If you want to do more than looks at a cool old photo of the first virtual poker playing machine, check out the full write up over at QuietLunch.

Don’t you love it when Mike Sexton loses his **** on the air?

In this hand from Episode 2 World Poker Tour Borgata Winter Open, Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst takes a flop with *Jeremy Kottle*r, who has position on her. But when the action heats up on the turn, so does Sexton! Kill a couple of minutes with Mike and Vince and the WPT.

The dudes over at the Blue Shark Optics eyewear company, shades specifically for poker, are hoping to start a poker revolution! Unhappy that the 60 million poker players in the USA are denied the right of online poker and frankly, according to them, are not “given their day in the sun” they plan to create a holiday to change all of that.

Introducing “Official Poker Day – April 19!”

So what IS Official Poker Day? Is that the same as “National Poker Day?” Good questions. Is it the day where poker players will stand up and be counted?! Is it the day where gov’t officials will finally hear our cries?! Is it a day of marketing where casinos will encourage you to come out and play and receive a $5 food voucher with a $100 buy-in?! It’s ALL of these things…AND MORE!

Yes, Blue Shark is creating Official Poker Day swag that you can dress up in Partnering with the poker friendly staff of…Cafe Press because they “are not in the apparel business” (except for the 9 pieces of BSO apparel they have for sale already). You see, when you buy a shirt they’ll only keep half the profit for themselves! Because when you starts a revolution you gots to get paid, yo!

In true poker fashion they are only taking 50% rake on this “grassroots movement” designed to selflessly promote the game of poker. Half will go to a poker related charity, that Blue Shark will choose. Who knows – maybe Eskimo Clark?! So, who’s interested in an “official” “Official Poker Day” T-shirt?

Now, don’t get hung up on who is potentially making money or who owns the rights to this or whether it’s a National or Official day. Don’t get thrown off by the 1-hour 1.0, throw-it-up-and-see-what-sticks website design. It’s a day that Blue Shark wants you to “accept it, and embrace” (and buy something) so you can say “I was a part of this!”

Wendy’s Club, an underground poker club operated out of Midtown Manhattan, couldn’t care less that an undercover cop infiltrated their ranks which led to a raid, the seizure of thousands of dollars and 6 arrests for drug possession this past September – they plan to keep on dealing.

According to DNAinfo New York, Jason, the club owner/operator says they are rolling in too much cash to let something like “the law” keep them down.

“The reward is much greater than the risk,” Jason (last name not given) said. “If I get arrested, it’s not going to bother me because they’ll just charge me with promotion of gambling and it will be charged as a misdemeanor.”

Not only do the operators of Wendy’s Club admit that poker in New York is illegal but the cops found drugs during their raid too – 1lb. of weed and 5 plastic bags of cocaine. Still the punishment for the profit is not steep enough to stop them.

The city though hopes that when the case is taken to court, it will receive a healthy $1k for every day that the “business” was in operation, perhaps deterring the club to keep operating.

The underground club is one of a few promoted by website MySocialPoker.com where players in the New York area can find underground poker rooms in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

New York reg Christopher Fleming says that while he was among those arrested, he will continue to keep playing.

“This is a very mouth to mouth, underground operation,” Fleming said. “The only other place to play is Atlantic City, and that’s two hours away.”

Nolan Dalla and the Poker Night In America team are making their way back to the East Coast. The PNIA crew will be at the Maryland Live! Casino, (you remember – the Maryland casino that, like the Borgata, had its own fake chip scandal last month) to put on the first televised poker tournament ever…from Maryland on March 21-25.

The show is expecting a few superstars to turn up to the event including 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event Champion Greg Merson, as well as Gavin Smith, Matt Glantz, Christian Harder and new Ultimate Poker signee Danielle Andersen. Even Darvin Moon is expected to emerge from the woods to take a whack at this one.

Of course, as in past events, the TV team is on hand for both the tournament as well as an invite-only high(isn)-stakes cash game.

Best part is, if you want to play in this cash game – Todd Anderson and the PNIA team are looking for fish…err whales…um “personalities” to jump in the game with the pros. If you think you have what it take – both in bankroll and table presence – to be on TV shoot them an email at [email protected].

The televised Main Event is a $3500 buy-in, $400k guaranteed event with two starting days which caps off two full weeks of tournaments at the Maryland Live! Casino (which guarantees $1 million in total prizes to be awarded)

The World Poker Tour Los Angeles Poker Classic is winding down and the big final is set to take place today at 4:00pm PST. The final 6 players will be battling it out to see who takes home the over $1 million first place prize.

Current chipleader is rising star Michael Rocco who is in line, no matter what happens, for his biggest payday of his career as a min cash is worth $200k at the Final Table. While Rocco may hold the lead, the odds-on favorite has to be Chris Moorman. Sitting second in chips, Moorman is one of the most decorated online players of all time and, with his score today, will eclipse the 3 million dollar mark (4 million is he wins).

The rest of the field is still within striking distance as well and that includes French actor/musician turned poker pro Patrick Bruel who comes to the Final Table 3rd in chips. Josh Neufeld, Glenn Lafaye and Adam Friedman all join Bruel in looking up at the chip average, but one double up puts any one of these players in contention.

Patrick Bruel never surrenders!

The LAPC Final Table is televised so that means no live stream. Still, for those interested in watching the action as it happens the World Poker Tour will have hand for hand updates, photos and real-time chip counts available on their Live Updates webpage.

When it comes to poker players, if there’s one thing we all like it’s a good prop betting story. From Team PokerStars Pro Freddy Torres literally swimming with sharks to Phil Ivey shooting 3s from way back, poker players like seeing people do silly tasks with cash money on the line.

Perhaps no one in the poker community likes it more than Danish professional poker player Theo Jorgensen. Known for putting money on a wide variety of physical tasks, he sits down with Pokerstrategy’s Barry Carter to talk about some of his more notorious prop bets including his famous 2009 boxing match with Gus Hansen where he famously beat the Dane in the ring and took home $35k for his efforts.

It doesn’t end there: check out this interview about shooting goals against the best keeper in Denmark, running backwards for 5km and, of course, trying to run 1km at the world record average. If you like the idea of risking big bucks on an unknown outcome, check out this piece with Theo.

Earlier this week, a photo was posted on the Two Plus Two forums of the Super High-Stakes Macau Cash Games where it was speculated that roughly $20 million dollars, plus a few $650k vouchers, were sitting on the table.

Read: MACAU HIGH-STAKES HAS $20 MILLION ON THE TABLE

Now there’s this photo from Poker King Club Macau Business Director Winfred Yu where it clearly shows former Full Tilt Professional, and confirmed sicko, Tom “Durrrr” Dwan sitting in the game with roughly a couple million dollars in front of him. Each one of those Yellow placards is supposed to be worth HK$500,000 or $65k and even a rough eyeballing of those shows he has about 25 in front of him.

The man to Dwan’s right, with heaps of plaques in front of him, is rumored to be poker pro Alec Torelli. While that is unconfirmed, it’s no secret that he’s in Macau at this time and playing a ton of poker:

Spent way too much time in this poker room… First time I see the light after 48 hours #vampire #poker #macau

Also there’s this:

Just another day in #macau sick #ferrari parked in front of the macau #tower

After seeing these photos, perhaps that rumor Tom Dwan denied about winning $25 million in a session isn’t so far fetched…

Before he was the 18 Million Dollar man and the winner of the inaugural WSOP One Drop, Antonio Esfandiari's poker “brand” was that of “The Magician.” With magic still incredibly close to his heart, the Ultimate Poker brand ambassador takes to the Las Vegas strip to dazzle the masses with some old school tricks, a la David Blaine, that will for sure make you a believer.

Esfandiari sits down with the UP cameras to talk about his journey as a Bay Area kid captivated by magic to how he got his start entertaining audiences with his winning personality and some fantastic slight of hand.

The legend of Macau’s ultra-high-stakes games got another shot in the arm this week when poker pro Tom Hall posted a photo of some serious cash on the table at the big game at Poker King Starword. According to Hall, “two well known international pros” were huge staked and there was roughly $20million in chips on the table plus vouchers. Hall’s post on Two Plus Two stated that there was so much cash, there was literally no space to play.

Got to the table and even at first glance, I’m like “Holy S…” what is going on here. Two well known international pros have got giant stacks in front of them and the rest of the table were all Asian players. There were literally so many chips on the table that there was no space to play. Pic attached below as a sample. The guys have been playing for 2 days with the odd 4 hour break here and there.

He states that blinds were $4k/$8k US and had been even higher…

Then I looked more carefully and noticed a few “vouchers” floating about for HK$5m at a time as they had run out of physical big denomination chips. In total approx. US$20m of chips on the table!! Blinds when I was there was a mere US$4K/US$8K but they had been playing as high as US$12.5K/25K earlier in the sessions. Wasn’t a game I was keen to join with even the smallest stack sitting with US$1m in front of him.

Those HK$5m vouchers are worth $650k USD. The hand Hall witnessed saw two players chop what would have been a $5m pot to the victor.

The largest pot I saw at the table had a fairly quiet start on a KH 10S 7S board, which exploded with a 10D on the turn and a 5s on the river. After an unusual amount of tanking both a local and a pro, both ended up all in for a HK$40m (US$5.1m) pot. Lot of excitement ended up in a chop with both holding A 10. Saw some pretty sick river bluffs with river bets of US$700-800k going in which were treated with much amusement at the expense of the folding player.

How much cash is in this photo? Hall states that he’s “fairly certain” the Yellow plaques are HK$500,000 or ($65k), the Orange plaques are HK$100,000 ($13k) and the Brown chips are a mere HK$10,000 or ($1.3k)

Global Poker Index head honcho and consummate business man, Alex Dreyfus tries to have a word with Phil “The Poker Brat” Hellmuth at the World Poker Tour LAPC when thing got faux ugly. The smiling Dana White look-a-like snapped a selfie (of sorts) putting up his dukes with the Brat who has been waffling back and forth on his love for the worldwide poker ranking system.

Read: Phil Hellmuth 'Can’t Respect’ The Global Poker Index

Read: Hellmuth Backs Off

Hellmuth, who still thinks that there are flaws in the GPI, has recently suggested a “players council” to help determine the formula:

While Dreyfus doesn’t seem overly concerned, it looks like he would like to get Hellmuth on board as it wouldn’t hurt to have a popular figure like Phil standing behind his business.

Hellmuth currently sits at #143 on the GPI and despite that fact, the pair seemingly are on good terms.

Back in November at the launch of iGaming in New Jersey, Ultimate Poker released a video of UFC President Dana White, Jersey Shore star Jwoww and 4-time UFC Champion Frankie Edgar placing the first bets on the brand new Ultimate Casino...well, someone didn’t like the full content of the original so after a few hours (where it was featured here on F5) it was pulled.

Now, it’s back! Not as rough, not as long and definitely doesn’t have Dana White dropping as many uncensored F-bombs… but still a fun romp with White as he, seemingly, loses his shirt in a two hour stint on Ultimate Casino playing blackjack.

The World Poker Tour LAPC is steamrolling to it’s final table, which should be set tomorrow, and as of now 18 players are still in the hunt for the over $1.1 million dollar first place prize.

While Josh Neufeld currently holds the overnight chip lead, right on his heels is one of the most decorated online players in poker history – Chris Moorman who sits 3rd in chips. Not far behind him is poker professional Joe Serock followed by Michael Rocco, Adam Friedman and famous French actor & musician Patrick Bruel.

More videos after the jump.

Tournament Director Matt Savage has been tastes of hands here and there to make us feel like we are in action ourselves. In the hand above, rising star Michael Rocco faces off against French foe Bruel in a blind on blind confrontation.

The beloved movie star turned poker pro Jennifer Tilly held the chip lead at one point today, but fell in 22nd place. But not before she was captured taking some deep breaths in tight spots against constant foe Alexandru Masek.

Side bar: Michael Rocco isn’t a household name by any stretch, but if you want to learn more about this young poker star, check out his 2012 interview with F5 editor Jeff Walsh.

For chip counts and live updates visit the World Poker Tour homepage.

It would be a massive understatement to say that Full Tilt Poker Professional Gus Hansen hasn’t done very well when it comes to online poker. In fact, The Great Dane is the lifetime leader in losses when it comes to the virtual felt sitting at just under $16 million in money distributed to others (aka: losses).

But this week, things turned around for Hansen, if but for a brief shining moment. He’s been sitting in with some of the high-stakes 2-7 Triple Draw tables at 2k/4k and making, for him, modest gains for a few days in a row.

Hansen held his own and posted a three day total profit of $630k, according to the Full Tilt Blog. His $260k winning day on Sunday came at the expense of some of the most well-known nosebleed grinders like Jungleman, Kagome Kagome and Isildur1. The sudden heater gives hopes to his fans and probably his backers that if he can build on that, he might just be able dig himself out of the record-breaking money pit he finds himself in.

For all of the stats on Gus Hansen and his online poker follies, visit his graphs over at HighStakesDB.com.

According to officials at the Pala Casino located in the small, Native American town of Pala, CA, Phil Ivey is slated to make a personal appearance to meet-and-greet poker fans. This Friday, March 7, the 9-time WSOP bracelet winner and unofficial World’s #1 poker player will “meet fans and sign autographs.”

Admission is free so if you are in the San Diego area and want to look deep into the stare of Ivey.

Ultimate Poker lead ambassador and sometimes call center representative Antonio Esfandiari isn’t called “The Magician” because he makes your stack disappear – he’s a man of magic! From the looks of this short video, he took to the Las Vegas strip, in David Blaine like fashion, and entertained a group of onlookers with tricks of cards and smokes.

The video is supposed to come out tomorrow (and if it does we’ll post it ASAP) of Antonio amazing the masses with his charm and chicanery. In the meantime, check out the be-kind-rewind trailer of Esfandiari hitting the streets.

Poker pundit Lee Davy likes to rant. Usually it’s about a subject where he feels he might be on the other side of the popular argument or out on a limb. In his latest article for Pokerlistings he tackles the subject of dwindling returns for the sponsored pro. Not in what they make, but in what they bring to the table – specifically the wrong type of customer.

Davy asserts that too many of the well-known sponsored pros are bringing too much safe money to the felt and not enough of the devil-may-care ne’er-do-well who will max out a credit card in hope of flopping a flush.

You see, in his view, poker isn’t the upstanding citizen of the gambling world but it’s situated somewhere between porn and load-sharking – it’s for mischief makers.

The reason people are running out of money is because the recreational player mass we are attracting is not in the stratum of high-risk takers. Instead, we are attracting low risk takers.
Players who won’t use their credit cards, won’t lie to their wives, won’t beg, steal and borrow, and won’t take the Children’s Book Club money.

Read: Have We Got This Sponsorship Thing All Wrong

So he asserts that people like Luke Schwartz, Tong G and Mike “The Mouth” Matusow would make great ambassadors for a poker brand that embraces the dark side (of course, all of those names are already sponsored).

I want their roles and responsibility statements to enable them to push the game to its limits, supported by the brand itself also creating even more innovative ways to create mischief, mayhem and madness.

While Davy feels that the wrong people are being sponsored, he’s not up for taking the high-risk, controversial route of calling them out by name himself. Do you agree? Are today’s high profile sponsored pros a boring lot or inspiration for you to double down on your poker game?

Players at the World Poker Tour Los Angeles Poker Classic (LAPC) were asked their opinion on the potential use of a “shot clock” to be put into effect next season. Looking to terminate the tanking in big buy-in tournaments, the WPT have distributed a questionnaire about whether or not a shot clock, like in the new PokerStars TV show the Shark Cage, should be put into effect.

According to Rich Ryan and PokerNews, the players were asked if they were in favor of the shot clock or not and, if so, to what extent? The proposal has the clock giving players 30 seconds to act on their hand otherwise it would be dead. In addition, players are given “time buttons” where they can utilize them to get an additional 60 seconds to act (those can be combined in the case where someone has multiple).

“In The Money”, “FInal Three Tables” or “Final Table Only” were the instances.

One pro who was polled was German phenom “Mad” Marvin Rettenmaier who went against the grain and emphatically voted “NO”.

Poker author Jonathan Little is in complete agreement with Rettenmaier.

But it looks like the pair are in the distinct minority as WPT’s Mike Sexton indicated that when the ballots were tallied, roughly 80% of the players were on board with speeding up the game.

Poker is as good of as waste of time as any. So let’s waste a minute watching the mundaneness of the money bubble busting at the World Poker Tour's Los Angeles Poker Classic. Gordon Vayo is all in and up against Oliver Price's Aces. With no help from the board the young man unceremoniously packs up and heads out, having to step over the barrier of chairs in his path. Here’s the hand as reported by the WPT:

Gordon Vayo raises from middle position to 11,000, Oliver Price reraises from the big blind to 26,000, and Vayo moves all in for 99,500. Price snap-calls with AA, and Vayo turns over QQ. It’s a cooler for Vayo, who will need to improve to stay alive. The board comes T8763, and the pocket aces hold up for Price to win the pot and burst the Money Bubble by eliminating Gordon Vayo in 64th place.

Savage then takes the mic and announces that the 63 players still in are “In The Money!” to a smattering of claps and even a healthy “boo.”

There’s still a ton of big names vying for the over $1 million first place prize including Jennifer Tilly, Bryn Kenney, Dan O’ Brien, Chris Moorman, WPT Champ Ravi Raghavan, 2012 World Series of Poker Champ Greg Merson, Eugene Katchalov, Mike Sexton and Jason Mercier.

The best and the brightest of the growing UK poker industry congregated at the Hippodrome Casino in London last night to celebrate and dish out prizes for the British Poker Awards. In this recap by CalvinAyre.com we watch UK superstars like Sam Trickett, Neil Channing, Liv Boeree, Vicky Coren and Sam Grafton taking the stage to accept their trophies.

The funny part is, it looks like none of the winners of the awards seem particularly informed about what they won and even what they are nominated for. Neil Channing, who wins Best Blogger, admits on mic that he hasn’t written a word in 9 months while Sam Trickett says he had no idea why he won Best Tournament Player. Tony Kendall won Best Contribution to Promoting Poker and he states he has no idea how he got it. Alexander Millar won an award he didn’t even know he was nominated for.

Despite the confusion of the recipients and the lack of red carpet attire (c’mon Trickett!) the event looks to have been a blast with the UK poker community rallying for a night of recognition and celebration. Watch it!

It’s been a few days over two years since Annie Duke and Jeffrey Pollack set fire to the house of Epic Poker. You remember, the league that was going to treat players like kings with a ton of perks and added cash to fuel their social media poker game and television show? At the time there were a lot of hard feelings against those who promised poker a revolution and then ended up paying themselves the most.

The bros at Wicked Chops Poker always had the inside track on what was going down over there as, for a brief shining moment, they were on the Epic acquisition list. Here, two years later, they look back at the key players in the fiasco and see who got bounced from poker and who lived to tell the tale.

Read: Epic Poker Two Years Post Bankruptcy: Where Are They Now?

The interesting part about the article is WCP’s inside knowledge on the major players, many of whom are unknown names to the general poker public. Additionally, they analyze who the real winners in the deal were – Daniel, the HPT, 441 Productions – and perhaps a few of the losers.

Annie Duke – Speaking of Annie, she’s also out of poker. Annie has rebranded herself as a master in Decision Science. That might actually be the best decision she’s ever made.

While they may have an agenda, as Tournament Poker Edge does specialize in online poker training, they may also have a point. In this short essay, the pros at TPE say that if there’s a good live cash game near you, it’s worth sitting in – but if poker tournaments is your game of choice, the decision is easy: online is superior to live.

When you factor in all the expenses that go along with following the circuit or even just making your way to the occasional destination poker tournament, you are probably leaking lots of money that could go into increasing your online volume.

Food, flight, hotel and especially the massive amount of rake that comes with playing live, in the eyes of TPE, just isn’t worth it. TPE points out that the juice on any given tournament can be as high as 18% and never goes below 10% and almost none of that goes to the dealers.

Read: The Cost of Playing Live Tournaments Is More Than You Think

Even the most frugal of us, like an Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler would find it hard to be profitable in the long run by chasing the tour. On the other hand, online tournaments give you the comfy confines of home, being close to your fridge and the ability to fire up as many tournaments as you need to beat variance.

What do you think? Is online the superior choice or are you grinding online so you can take your shot in the live arena? Or do you live in one of the 49 US States where if you don’t play live, you don’t play at all….

Looking for more information on the tough life of a tournament pro? Check out Deadspin’s Article: Why You’ll Never Make A Living Playing Live Poker Tournaments

PokerStars reached out to their Facebook fans and had them submit questions for the Women of PokerStars. What came back was people wanting to know how some of the top female pros balance life and love in the game of poker.

“How do you mix poker and love?”

The ladies took to The Notebook that is the PokerStars Blog to dish some juicy advice on how to keep that balance between Rounders and romance.

Here’s a couple selections for you:

Liv Boeree

There’s no definitive answer to this. Do whatever you feel works for you and whomever you’re fortunate enough to meet. If you fall in love, that’s great. If you don’t, that’s fine too. The two things can mix well and can also cause problems, like almost all great things in life! Don’t worry too much about it either way.

Read: Ask The Pros: Mixing Love And Poker

Natalie Hof

In my opinion, it’s very important to share some interests in a relationship. Thank goodness my boyfriend is also playing poker. But to be totally honest with you, I try to avoid talking too much with him about hand histories and strategy. We are only playing Sundays or live events together, so the rest of our time it’s just a normal relationship with other activities.

Natalie is not impressed

Celina Lin

I need a person who loves me as a poker player, but I also make the time to be available outside of poker.

So if you are looking for love in all the wrong places (e.g. the poker table) perhaps these smart ladies can give you some helpful hints on how to find and keep a relationship together in the face of a four-bet.

This is a bit of a random video where PokerNews’ Sarah Grant poses a series of random “Last time I…” questions to 2010 World Series of Poker Champion Jonathan Duhamel in an effort to get a conversation going. While not being rude, Duhamel just doesn’t have much to offer on these questions in particular.

If you are looking to get some inside information on the life of Duhamel, this probably isn’t going to get you too excited. When was the last time he – Had a hangover? Broke a bone? Called someone a f***face? Of all his replies, perhaps the most interesting is him having busted 4 tournaments in 2 days. Anyway, it’s Monday and what are you going to do…work on your spreadsheet?

Kill 2 minutes with Sarah and Jonathan.

In what will likely be the coolest video you see today (unless you have seen this already) Niall Farrell sits down with PokerStars to go though his thought process on a huge hand against Rens Feenstra at Season 10 EPT Barcelona.

The incredibly well-produced video seemingly captures every angle you’d hope to get on this head to head battle where Feenstra flops trips with top kicker and Farrell is tasked with finding a way to win the hand with 3rd pair. There’s so much insight to be gained just from listening to how Farrell frames his decisions and views each step of the action. The cherry on top is how cool PokerStars makes the action look. Check it out.

While not everyone will be attending the World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star Tournament in San Jose this month, attendance is expected to be up for one of the most unique and popular tour stops of the year.

The tournament is so special that 50 poker superstars commit to being there, all with a $2500 bounty on their heads, and the chip leader of both Day 1a and Day 1b get a massive cash prize. This year is going to be so big that the Two Plus Two Pokercast will be broadcasting from the tournament floor and like every year, the rail will be 4 people deep…it should be an amazing week.

Read: Bay 101Frequently Asked Questions

That said, tournament director Matt Savage is fed up with his phone blowing up with the same questions over and over. Will there be a live stream? Yes. Will it sell out? Probably. What hotels are near by? And so on…

So the brain trust at Bay 101 posted all the answers to all the questions that Savage is asked on the regular. So if you are planning on attending or even if you will be sitting in your New York apartment, forced to watch from a distance because you ran like crap when you took multiple shots last week trying to get in, you should check out the schedule and live stream details.

How good is Mike “Timex” McDonald? In an experiment with an incredibly small sample size, Timex found out how good some people think he is. This past Sunday PokerStars held their $8 Million Sunday Million with only a $200 +15 buy-in. Timex decided to have a little fun and let someone have a piece of his action…for a price.

Rather than having the “Bank of Timex” set a markup, he let the market determine how much 10% of the multi-million dollar winner was worth. He took to the 2+2 Forums and allowed people to bid the 10%. Of course, at face value, 10% is going to cost someone only $21.50 to get involved.

So how much did someone end up paying to take a virtual Lambo ride with McDonald?

Poster demetri1978 purchased 10% for $115.

That’s over 5x the value (5.3488 to be more exact). But that didn’t seem to matter as demetri1978 even stated he was just having a “fun gamble on a sicko.” So, of course, you want to know if demetri1978 got his money’s worth:

Busto A7o to A9s, ty for investing

That was shortly after Timex ran pocket kings into a set of 4’s.

The audience is starting to circle around PokerStars new televised poker show, The Shark Cage. The 6-max sit-n-go features the entertaining talent of Phil Laak, Jennifer Harman, Team PokerStars Pro Lex Veldhuis, Tony Dunst, Jason Alexnader and online qualifier… Gareth.

In the promo vid, we get a glimpse of all the bells and whistles of the new show. Shot clocks putting pressure on the players and the aggressive action button where, if a player gets to showdown with a bluff the folding opponent has to get in the cage and sit out and orbit while the other players feast on their blinds and antes. Plus they get the needle for making the wrong decision.

James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton call the action on what looks to be a well-produced piece of poker TV we’re looking forward to.

The World Poker Tour Los Angeles Poker Classic Main Event is in full swing. While the WPT is shipping their camera crew from table to table in order to get some b-roll footage for the televised broadcast, Tournament Director Matt Savage is bringing huge stars in big hands right to the people with the help of his smartphone.

First we have Phil Hellmuth shipping it in with top pair and a flush draw against his opponent who find himself with a tough decision with bottom set. Then, below, it’s a battle of heavyweights as newly minted Full Tilt millionaire, Blair Hinkle, is put to the test by 2010 World Series of Poker Champion Jonathan Duhamel on an extremely wet board.

Enjoy!

We’ve completely lost count of how many segments All In Magazine have cut this Daniel Negreanu interview in, but here’s another. (It’s part 6) This time Kid Poker finds himself distancing himself from the extra curricular activity that many high stakes poker pros engage in – prop betting. You know, putting money on silly tasks or humiliating circumstances.

Anyway, Negreanu says that while he’s not really one for prop betting, he does have a big one with notorious prop better, Ted Forrest. While the amount is not disclosed in the interview, the premise is that Daniel can NEVER weigh 170. Negreanu turned vegetarian right after making that bet (eventually became a vegan) and currently sits at 160 lbs.

The World Poker Tour Main Event of the Los Angeles Poker Classic kicked off yesterday and tournament director Matt Savage has whipped out the camera to give us some small chunks of the early action to watch.

Here’s, we catch up with F5 favorite Phil Laak as he plays a big pot for the entirety of his stack. His opponent, Jake Schwartz bets the turn and as Phil goes to make a call, he puts in enough chips for a min-raise. Was it by accident or is the Unibomber playing mind games? Either way, he gets his tournament life in on the river. No quips, no push-ups…just poker.

In case you didn’t notice at first, that’s Jeff Madsen sitting to Laak’s right.

Matt Savage is a charmer. Poker’s premiere tournament director can win anyone over, including the girlfriend of his social media mortal enemy Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler.

In this “rare photo” Savage wraps his arms around “Gigi”, dumps some LAPC gear on her and snaps a shot all while Kessler is crying (probably about a tournament structure) in the background.

Here’s Kessler doing what he does best…

Ryan Johnson and the All In Magazine crew are cruising the floor of the recently started Los Angeles Poker Classic (LAPC) when they cornered Heartland Poker Tour commentator and poker pro, Maria Ho.

Maria takes a few minutes to answer a few questions from the curious cameraman about what makes the LAPC such a great tournament, how she balances her poker dreams and living her life as well as what she hopes to get out of the rest of 2014.

The always charming Ho, chats it up and explains that while she is in hot pursuit of a World Series of Poker bracelet, taking time to life her life – without being worried about the all mighty dollar every day – is what gives her a fresh perspective when she sits down at the table. Check it out!

Team PokerStars Pro and wearer of giant glasses ,Isaac Haxton takes to the PokerStars Blog to talk about all the ways he hates to talk to an uninformed public about his chosen profession of a poker pro.

Read: 'You Play Poker For A Living’

From the judgmental masses who secretly hope that variance will bite him in the ass to the doe eyed dude who wants to hear about every pot he’s ever played, Haxton details all the stereotypes he encounters. If you find yourself having to explain your chosen hobby or profession, then Ike even offers some a couple pieces of advice on how to deal with all those people who want to know when you are going to get a real job.

The first of which is to watch and share his PokerStars origin video…which is right here: