The 2014 WSOP Money Bubble was one of the most exciting poker moments of this summer Series. When 695 remained (693 places paid) FIVE players put their tournament life at risk in simultaneous all-in pots.
Cracked pocket Aces probably top the list of the most frustrating bad beats and it must be absolutely excruciating when it happens on the money bubble in the biggest event in poker. This is what the poker gods had in store for @Kori Hunter in an all-in vs another American pro - @Harrison Kaczka.
http://www.pokernews.com/poker-tools/poker-odds-calculator.htm
Only two of the five players at risk on the money bubble survived and the remaining three - Zhen Cai, Kori Hunter and John Dwyer - split the $18,406 prize. In addition, the three drew high cards and Carl Zhen won a seat to next year's WSOP main event with the King of diamonds.
Kori Hunter thus got a consolation prize of $6,135 while Harry Kaczka advanced to 162nd place and earned $52,141 for his efforts.
Flaminio Malaguti - the World Champion of 1st Places in Live Poker Tournaments Rules Unchallenged
We first told you about him in July, when he held the world record for most live poker tournament wins with 97 first places. In just a few months @Flaminio Malaguti has added nearly a dozen more wins, and 36 more ITM finishes worth $40,000 to his poker resume. He now rules supreme with 108 1st places and 200 ITM!
photo by Jay Newnum
“I stay in Vegas most of the time. I own the “Rock & Roll Cafe” on the strip and I play poker for fun. I moved here in 2002 and after Moneymaker I really started thinking about poker seriously.”
A native of Venice, Italy, Malaguti won his 108th tournament and 200th cash at @The Venetian Las Vegas in the $300 buy-in Event 3 of the 2014 Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza.
We are happy and proud that Flaminio is a member of the RankingHero community and hopefully he will keep our dear @Ina just as busy in the coming months with more results :)
RKH: Meet the Man with Most Poker Tournament Wins in the World - Flaminio Malaguti
Bluff.com: Flaminio Malaguti Wins Daily Deepstack Player of the Series
Mentions
2014 November Nine Moments - Bruno Politano Doubles Through Phil Ivey
Our RankingHero collection of November Nine Moments begins with a #PokerHand from Day 4. You can also check out the #RKHbio page for #NovemberNine player biographies!
It is Day 4 of the 2014 World Series of Poker Main Event. Here is Brazil's @Bruno Politano doubling through none other than @Phil Ivey:
2014 November Niner Martin Jacobson Bio and Poker Profile
@Martin Jacobson, a 27-year-old cook turned poker pro, comes to the 2014 WSOP Main Event final table 8th in chips but first in live tournament experience and winnings. Experience will be the basic ingredient the young chef and Sweden's Number One live poker pro will use in his NovemberNine recipe! Meanwhile, that final table is 'the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing on my mind when I go to bed at night'.
He was born on June 30, 1983 and grew up in the posh island of Lidingö, Stockholm. Martin did not care much for maths and science in school so he decided to do professional training and graduated from a culinary school. He did his military service in 2007 (compulsory in Sweden until 2010) and served as a cook in the Navy. After working for a while in restaurants in Stockholm, Martin felt he needed more experience abroad and started looking for opportunities. As it happened, he found them in poker.
As so many others of his generation, Martin discovered poker on TV at the time of the Moneymaker boom and started playing in 2004-2005. It was a hobby during his high-school years - mostly home games and online freerolls. He approached it quite seriously - reading books, watching videos, and grinding online - yet without ever considering or even dreaming about making a living in poker.
What decided him to embark on the professional poker path was his success in the 2008 Hungarian Open. Martin had won a satellite qualifier for the EPT Budapest and this was only the third live tournament he had ever played. He finished 3rd in the Main Event and a chop deal gave him his very first live cash of $263,649.
With this comfortable start, Martin left his culinary ambitions on the back-burner. He has been based in London for the past three years and says he's glad he 'followed his intuition' back in 2008 when he chose a full-time poker career.
For a long time, he seemed destined to final-tabling major events without capturing the title, and has even been called "the greatest EPT player never to win an EPT Main Event title".
"For every final table I make I feel more and more relaxed and experienced in the situation I’m in. This works to my advantage in order to play better and make fewer mistakes than more inexperienced players that might not perform their best due to nervousness.” [September 2011]
The spell was broken in 2013 when he won a EPT London £2k NLHE event in heads-up with @Eugene Katchalov.
photo credit Rene Velli – PokerStarsBlog.com
With the exception of Mark Newhouse, @Martin Jacobson is the only one of the 2014 November Niners for whom the minimum 9th place prize will NOT be their biggest career cash. In fact, it would only come third - after his runner-up prize in Deauville 2011 and his 6th place in the One Drop $111,111 high roller of 2013.
The $807,427 from the 2013 One Drop is his best result in the World Series of Poker. He has never before cashed in the Main Event though his previous earnings since 2009 total in excess of $1.2 million.
Including the $730,000 he's guaranteed as one of the November Nine, Jacobson's total live winnings today amount to $5,537,644. Having recently added a cash from EPT 11 Barcelona, this summer Martin Jacobson rose to Number One in the Swedish ranking, and ranks 36th in the EPT all-time earnings list, with 23 ITM, 12 final tables, and $2,306,291.
Martin Jacobson seemed to breeze through the 7 days of the Main Event. He started out as Day 1 chip leader and never once put his tournament life at risk. It is his vast experience at high-pressure final tables in the shadow of million+ prize pools that will probably be his key advantage on November 10, 2014, when he will not only be representing Sweden, but also the top world tournament pros.
#RKHbio #NovemberNine #WSOP2014
Sources:
RKH player stats: http://www.rankinghero.com/martin.jacobson.3
Official site: http://martinjacobson.pro/
CalvinAyre.com: THE NOVEMBER NINE INTERVIEWS: MARTIN JACOBSON
http://www.pokernews.com/poker-players/martin-jacobson/
http://www.aftonbladet.se/sportbladet/poker/article19358166.ab
http://www.aftonbladet.se/sportbladet/poker/article19221508.ab
Weekly RankingHero Highlights
We've added more portraits to our #RKHbio gallery! This week, with 2014 November Niners Billy Pappas, Daniel Sindelar, and chess Grandmaster and PokerStars Mind Sports Ambassador Jennifer Shahade!
Today, September 28th, is a big day for #HappyBirthdaysOnRKH. Congratulations to @Davidi Kitai (great day to pay homage to his genius and recall this #PokerHand and crazy call he made in WSOP 2014), to @William Pappaconstantinou aka Billy Pappas, @Jamie Kerstetter, and @Christophe Ducrot! May your RankingHero results pages swell with juicy cashes in the coming year :)
In other news, we took a look at the WPT Monster Invitational - David Williams Defeats Five Monsters of Poker Amidst Refreshing Camaraderie and Great Fun, and the Unibet Open Cannes.
Warm welcome to @Patrick Muleta @Derek Maughan @Edward Liu @Iheb Bouajaja and all of our new members!
Congratulations to the winners of the past week - @Nicolas Le Floch @Arnaud Peyroles @Ellie Biessek @Michael Cadet @Dimitri Paillarguelo @Cesar Ferreira and many, many other members who cashed in tournaments all over the real and online world of poker!
The #screenshotcampok gallery is also growing fast and even our own co-founder and ambassador @Nicolas Levi has contributed :)
Special thanks to all of you who post, share and like on RankingHero and on our Facebook page - @VinzZ-BlitzZ @arnaudco @MyPokerPal @janluk1554 @Gene O'Leary and all the other active members of our community!
Yours truly,
PokerStars Mind Sports Ambassador Jennifer Shahade Bio and Poker Profile
@Jennifer Shahade comes into the world of poker with the rigor of a chess grandmaster and a beautiful woman's self-questioning creativity. The PokerStars Mind Sports Ambassador and 'gamesplayer', as she introduces herself in her Twitter handle, is a two-time U.S. women's chess champion, as well as a writer and video artist.
Jennifer was born in Philadelphia on December 31, 1980, into a family marked by intellectual brilliance and competitiveness. Her mother was a chemistry professor and both her father and brother are reputed chess masters. She took her time before deciding to commit to a game in which both her dad and brother had long excelled (and no wonder with a family name associated with the very persian word from which the name of chess, 'the game of kings', derives :).
“When I started out I was intimidated because my father and my brother were so good and I wasn’t catching on so quickly. So I left it to one side for several years because of that. People are surprised about that. They believe that if you don’t grasp it immediately then you will never be good. I was a counter story to that. I picked it up – was pretty bad for a while – and then in High School, I came back to it, was much more motivated and became a Master pretty quickly with some hard work.” (CalvinAyre)
The hard work got the recognition it deserved - in 1998, Jennifer won the U.S. Junior Open, and in 2002 and 2004, she was the U.S. Women's Champion.
"Winning my first US Women’s Championship title was a special moment because it was the first time that women and men were combined into the US Chess Championship. It also coincided with my first International Master norm." (PokerFaceNews)
It was her brother @Greg Shahade who introduced Jennifer to poker and she quickly picked it up and started playing online. Though she still prefers the comfort of online poker and finds it challenging to cope with the high variance in live tournaments, Jennifer has been a regular and recognized player on the live scene in the past few years.
"Playing poorly definitely upsets me more than bad beats, though of course when they coincide that’s the worst! My general strategy in chess was to question myself constantly and I’ve applied the same sort of attitude to poker."
Her very first tournament cash amounted to $253 and dates back to 2005 and a NLHE event at the @Borgata. Her latest and biggest cash came from a deep run in the 2014 PCA Main Event when she finished 31st for $43,300.
"Why don't we both look away and figure out who wins by the table's reaction?" Vanessa Selbst suggested. I was all-in against Vanessa's pocket sevens with K♣ 10♣ on a board 3♠ Q♣ J♦ 8♣. After the river peeled, the table was mostly stoic, but I had a feeling I wasn't getting up; I was correct, thanks to the 7♣. Soon after, I took the rest of Vanessa's chips with A-Q over tens all-in preflop. This turned out to be win/win, since immediately after busting, she entered the $25K High Roller, going on to take third for $607,580. (PokerStars Blog)
Jennifer has a degree in comparative literature from New York University and regularly contributes to online blogs and leading national publications such as The New York Times and the LA Times. She is the author of two books about chess: Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport (2005) and Play Like a Girl! Tactics by 9Queens (2012).
Amazon.com: 'Play Like a Girl! Tactics by 9 Queens is the first book with combinations that are all executed by female chess champions. All the author royalties of Play Like a Girl go to 9 Queens, a non-profit Jennifer co-founded with Jean Hoffman, which promotes chess to those most in need of its benefits.'
In video art, Jennifer Shahade has worked with Daniel Neirom and Larry List, taking her exploration of games and the women who play them even further through a different medium.
In 2010, Hulachess was shortlisted from over 23,000 videos for the first online gallery of the Guggenheim/Youtube Biennial.
"Hulachess is a combination of the masculine and the feminine, of lines and circles–symbolizing some idealized version of sex. It’s also a reference to the artist (and chessmaster) Marcel Duchamp. The moves we played were based on one of his games, and he was obsessed with movement that may not be visible (like the movement of chess pieces in your head as you think)." [pokerfacenews interview]
Women-in-games has been a topic of continuing inspiration and fascination for Jennifer and she has commented at length, in both her own writing and in interviews, on women's experience of and in the male-dominated worlds of chess and poker:
"The problems women may face in poker are similar to the ones they face in other subcultures - the male gaze and occasional suspicion, harassment or assumption of stupidity. There are also plenty of fun things about being a female in poker, which are basically the flipside of many of the negatives (attention, opportunities, and opponents revealing more information)." PokerFaceNews interview
With her year-long experience Jennifer is now less exposed to the problems, and enjoying more of 'the fun things' about being a woman player in live poker. This year she was appointed PokerStars Mind Sports Ambassador in anticipation of a unique combined poker & chess tournament on October 3, during the UKIPT Isle of Man:
“I am so excited about this. There will be a Blitz game played in the hybrid event where you will accrue chips to play in the Turbo poker tournament. I think it’s fantastic. I am the Mindsports Ambassador for PokerStars and I have been wanting an event like this to happen for a long time. It will be a blast. Chess is becoming a lot more popular and it’s image and stature is rising. There are so many poker players that love chess, and vice versa, I think you will see a lot more collaborations in the future.” (CalvinAyre)
Sources:
http://www.rankinghero.com/jennifer.shahade
http://www.jennifershahade.com/
Pokerstars Blog by Jennifer Shahade: Poker and giving: REG-Fest at the WSOP; My PCA Main Event: Count his stack first
Game-inspired video art collection by Jennifer Shahade: http://pokerfairytale.com/
PokerFaceNews: Interview with Jennifer Shahade – Poker Player, Serial Chess Book Author & Chess Champion
@Lee Davy on CalvinAyre.com: LIFE OUTSIDE OF POKER: JENNIFER SHAHADE – CHESS
Understanding Chess Mastery: Jennifer Shahade at TEDxBaltimore 2014
Annie RKH 19 Mar 2015
2014 November Niner Dan Sindelar Bio and Poker Profile
@Daniel Sindelar's biography up until the WSOP 2014 reads like the profile of a whole generation of young Americans in poker: born in the 1980s, they started out with small home games in their teens, then rode the 'Moneymaker wave' out of college and into the online poker rooms (developing varying degrees of social awkwardness on the way). In 2011, Black Friday drove many of them out of the United States or onto the live poker scene. They may all share the same path and dream but Dan Sindelar is actually living it right now as one of the 2014 #NovemberNine .
Dan was born on November 27, 1983, in Howells, a town of 640 people right 'where the West begins' - in the state of Nebraska.
His father, Bill, is the big poker lover in the family and in his late teens, Dan occasionally joined his dad's home games. Bill Sindelar, a feedlot owner, is actually a hero of the small Howells community. In 2011, at the age of 60, he won a gold medal in the IPF World Masters Powerlifting Championships in Canada. Now the son hopes to follow in his dad's world-champion footsteps and may well 'powerlift' the World Series of Poker Main Event.
Dan finished high school in Howells and went on to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, only to drop out before the end of his junior year. By then he had built himself a serious bankroll playing mostly online.
“By the time my junior year rolled around, I pretty much withdrew from all my classes,” Sindelar told PokerNews. “I started playing in casinos and everywhere I could play. Made the move to Omaha to play at Council Bluffs, Iowa, and started playing a little bit more online there. When I turned 22, I moved out here to Vegas.”
His mom did not take that decision well but everyone must have been somewhat reassured in 2007, when Dan took down a Fall Poker Classic $1,000 Event for $105,312. In 2008, he moved to Las Vegas and hasn't missed a World Series of Poker since. His biggest WSOP cash was $44,110 for the 13th place in Event 57, WSOP 2012. In 2014, he cashed in three out of 18 events without any deep runs before making it to Day 7 in the Main Event.
“There’s nothing that matches this, I’ve never, ever felt like this before. It’s really something special.”
After 2011, instead of relocating to Canada or Mexico as many other American pros deprived of their living, Dan Sindelar chose to devote more time to the other passion in his life - golf. All the more that Nevada happens to be one of the top golf states of America. In the past few years he has taken most of his gambling to the golf course and hasn't played as much poker.
Dan Sindelar's live poker resume includes 9 years as a pro, as many as 51 tournament cashes, and - now that he's guaranteed at least $730,725 as one of the 2014 November Nine - his earnings have gone up to $1,258,504.
On the 10th of November, Sindelar will start the final battle for the title and $10 million 5th in chips. He has said he wants to win for all of the people who supported him throughout and "to have two Sindelars becoming world champions in the family'.
“I just hope to play my game and not get out of my element, Just feel comfortable out there is the main thing.”
Sources:
http://www.rankinghero.com/daniel.sindelar
http://www.pokernews.com/poker-players/dan-sindelar/
Omaha.com Nebraska native nears immortality in World Series of Poker’s Main Event
Las Vegas Sun: Low-key local pro Dan Sindelar breaks through into WSOP’s November Nine
PokerListings: Poker Pro Dan 'dsindy' Sindelar Makes 2014 WSOP November Nine
Mentions
Tags
#NovemberNine
#RKHbio
#WSOP2014
Tags
#NovemberNine
#RKHbio
#WSOP2014
2014 November Niner Billy Pappas Bio and Poker Profile
‘I’m definitely top three, probably number two’, says multiple world champion @William Pappaconstantinou. But Billy Pappas, as he is better known, is referring to table football, not the poker tables.The most decorated 2014 November Niner is in fact the only true poker amateur among them and earned his titles and reputation with his nearly 18 years as a foosball pro.
Billy Pappas was born on September 28, 1984 and is a proud native of Lowell, Massachusetts.
Foosball is the family sport and everyone plays, but the real passionate is his mom, Nancy, and she was the one who got him smitten with the love (and talent) for the game.
'My parents played, my mom still plays. It’s a cool connection, me and my mom are super close.'
Billy started playing competitively when he was 7 and professionally, when he was 12. Since then, he has travelled and competed all over the world (even spent a few years in Hungary), and today is one of the game’s best-liked, recognized, and admired champions.
‘Foosers’ are extremely proud with the achievement of one of their own and happy with the revival of interest in their game that has come with Billy’s poker celebrity, as evidenced by this inspired post from a table football legend, Johnny Lott Rafols:
You sir just changed the very *definition (4 below) of that for us Foosers. Proud doesn't begin to cover it. So as one of the sports old school "leaders" that thought it had seen it's better days, let me say I for one will do my best to take this amazing opportunity you have given our Great Sport and let it re-invigorate my interest and my passion and work to get the most out of this breath of fresh air you have given us!
As for poker, ‘it’s been a struggle’, Billy says. From a very early age it was a favorite pastime with the boys - his Lowell and foosball buddies. The nearest he has come to a professional involvement has been his part-time job as a poker dealer at Rockingham Park Poker Room in Salem, New Hampshire, a couple of small tournament cashes, and the shared dream of all poker lovers - playing the Main Event in the World Series of Poker.
Billy Pappas has been wanting to do it for the past 10 years but never got the chance until 2014 when a foosball friend generously offered to back him. Still, he only booked his room for a short stay and was preparing for an early bust and a flight to Austria for a foosball tournament.
'I'm in shock. I never thought I'd play in this event. It's been my dream, and I've been saying 'this year' or 'next year' for like 10 years, just to play in an event, period. Now I get to play this, and I've never expected this at all.'
As it happened, he had to extend his stay one day at a time all the way to Day 7 when he made the dream come true and became one of the 2014 November Nine.
'The last couple of years I was thinking I wanted to be a poker player and now that I have the money to do it I'm pretty scared about it. I don't want to lose it all.'
He doesn't want to 'lose it all' so went ahead and won some more recognition for himself, just in case. A few days after making the biggest final table in poker, Billy Pappas flew to Germany where he won another world championship title! We'll just have to wait and see if he will be a champ of two worlds in November!
Sources, videos, interviews:
Photos from Billy Pappas Facebook and Twitter account
http://www.rankinghero.com/william.pappaconstantinou
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_table_football_champions
Maxim.com: Can a Foosball Champion Win the World Series of Poker?
lowellsun.com: Billy Pappas: An unknown scaling poker's highest peak
PokerNews.com: http://www.pokernews.com/poker-players/william-pappaconstantinou/
Mentions
Tags
#RKHbio
#NovemberNine
Tags
#RKHbio
#NovemberNine
Adrien Bacchi 24 Oct 2014
Great article thanks !
David Williams Defeats Five Monsters of Poker Amidst Refreshing Camaraderie and Great Fun
In an exclusive, televised WPT invitational tournament sponsored by Monster Products, @David Williams prevailed over an illustrious six-handed final table at the @Borgata on Sunday. The five other monsters of poker invited to what Williams said was 'definitely one of the most fun tables' he's ever played, were: @Thuan B. "Scotty" Nguyen @Vanessa Selbst @Antonio Esfandiari @Phil Laak and @Tony Dunst.
Photos by Joe Giron, WPT Live Updates
Williams: "You can be a good player and still be an extrovert"
David Williams is the happy winner of: a Hublot King Power Unico watch; seats into the WPT World Championship, WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic, and WPT L.A. Poker Classic; a pair of Monster 24K headphones; and $20,000 in cash!
Two one-hour episodes of the inaugural WPT Monster Invitational will air on FOX Sports North in early 2015.
Bluff.com: David Williams Defeats Phil Laak in WPT Monster Invitational
Mentions
Weekly RankingHero Highlights
Three November Niners and two beautiful women players in our RankingHero portrait gallery this past week - check out the #RKHbio page and the profiles of Ebony Kenney, Jennifer Tilly, Andoni Larrabe, Bruno Politano, and Felix Stephensen!
Visit the #PokerHand page for a collection of great poker moments, and watch Jennifer Tilly outplay the likes of Sam Trickett and Jungleman Daniel Cates!
There is a new article under the #PokerCharity hashtag, as well - Amanda Musumeci Wins 3rd Charity Series of Poker Event.
While waiting for the announcement of the special October contest, RankingHero members continue to have fun with Campok - the first webcam social poker application on Facebook! Don't forget to link your accounts and share your Campok moments here: #screenshotcampok
Special welcome to @Ismail Yagci @Scott Demoulin (US) @Kish Kumar @Thierry Groualle and all the other new members who joined the community in the past week! Don't hesitate to contact @Ina and @Elena RKH if you need any help in keeping your profile up-to-date, linking your social media accounts, and in making the most of all the features available on Ranking Hero :)
Special thanks to @VinzZ-BlitzZ @Colorem @Gibson883 (and to @harmansmith for the comic strips 
) and everyone else posting and sharing on RankingHero and on our Facebook page!
Yours truly,
