Newcomer Dominik Panka and Online Legend Viktor Isildur1 Blom with Similar Live Performance Records

They are both 23 years old and typical representatives of the online poker generation; they both took on the live tournament scene with major wins at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and so far have about 1.5 million in live earnings; last but not least, both @Viktor "isildur1" Blom and @Dominik Panka come out as thoroughly likeable, ‘normal guys', humble and yet sincerely proud and happy about their live poker achievements. Both are currently in Vienna for the EPT.

The swede had achieved legendary status as #Isildur1 already in 2009 and was the most-talked about online player, famous for winning and losing the largest pots in online poker history and for playing 9 tables at once against the likes of @Patrik Antonius (FI) , @Phil Ivey AND @Tom Dwan. He had started making a name for himself in the live field by 2010 but his big breakthrough came in 2012 when he won the PCA Super High-Roller event and $1,254,400.

In August 2012 Blom parted ways with PokerStars and signed a deal with Full Tilt Poker a few months later.

The arrogance and recklessness, and the intimidating and aggressive style of play associated with his online persona, however, seem to have little to do with the real-life character - "Viktor emanates happiness and kindness from the moment you meet him. He’s one of those guys that you can instantly tell is a truly nice and genuine good person" (@Phil Galfond), “great kid, unassuming, kind of quiet” (@Daniel Negreanu).

Meanwhile, nobody outside Poland knew much about Dominik Panka who described himself as “just an Internet player” and he took poker journalists by surprise with his incredibly good run at the PCA Main Event when he ultimately defeated Mike McDonald after a 16-hour final table and more than 3 hours of heads-up.

He immediately followed up by winning the EPT Deauville High Roller and has now established himself firmly in the live poker world. As for his personality, it is hard to find a public appearance, statement or interview by Panka where he doesn’t pay tribute to his opponents and where he doesn’t come out as genuinely nice, humble and down-to-earth.

More is to come, no doubt, since he has just made a deal with PokerStars and is sure to be playing more live tournaments. Dominik is at EPT Vienna (as a PokerStars sponsored player) where he dropped out of the EPT Main Event but had a deep run in the Eureka High Roller (ultimately won by @Eugene Katchalov).

Are You Pro or Against the Shot Clock in Poker?

The shot clock debate has been flaring up regularly in the past years and the most recent occasion was the news, during L.A. Poker Classic, that WPT was conducting a survey among players and was considering introducing a shot clock in some events. 

One player who has been outspoken on this issue is @Daniel Negreanu. He has always shared his refusal to tolerate systematic tanking and encourages everyone not to have any qualms about calling the clock. "It’s within our rights as players to police the game; If I’m at the table with players that are tanking, I have the right to call the clock on them anytime I feel that they are taking an unreasonable amount of time."

@Tom Dwan  - a player famous for taking his time at the table - has even assumed responsibility for starting the fashion. Yet, even he notes that much of it is just ‘hollywooding’.

The fact is, most pros are reluctant to call the clock (or openly support the shot clock) because of the established perception of it as unethical and disrespectful.  There is even the notion that tanking (assuming it is thinking) only confirms the status of poker as a skill/mind game and should be upheld.

Most importantly, players won’t call the clock because they fear their reputation and image would suffer and because of likely ‘retaliation’ from their opponents. To quote Bluff editor-in-chief Lance Bradley,

The problem lies in the fact that calling the clock has a stigma attached to it. Do it against somebody you're in a hand with and you're seen as a jerk for not letting your opponent think his options through. It's "unsportsmanlike," in some eyes. Call the clock on somebody at your table when you're not in the hand and you're going to spend the rest of the day dodging daggers from the player you called the clock on.

Interestingly enough, the ultimate argument of both camps concerns the best interests of amateur players. On the one hand, it is argued, they would be placed at a terrible disadvantage if, in addition to the intimidating experience of facing real pros in a live tournament, they also had the pressure of the shot clock.

On the other hand, drawn-out hands with endless tanking make live streams of poker events unbearable for the general audience or in other words, for the pool of potential or actual recreational players without whom the industry is doomed. This position is best resumed by PokerNews’ Chad Holloway: 

Finally, I’ll end by saying that a shot clock is a must for any tournament or final table being live streamed (I’d grant a few exceptions where huge money is at stake). I say this for purely entertainment reasons. Everyone fell in love with poker 10 years ago when action was fast-paced and ESPN episodes were full of big hands. Little did we know about the hours of monotonous footage that hit the cutting room floor. For the most part, poker is a boring game, and that makes it hard to attract new players. A shot clock would help speed things, inject some excitement into a broadcast, and hopefully appeal to a wider audience.

Apparently, 80% of the players who took the WPT voted in favor of the shot clock. And if you happen to be part of the 20 per cent who oppose it, here is one video that I think is likely to change your mind :)

Thank you for sharing other excessive tanking episode videos :)

Is 2014 the Next Big Year in Eugene Katchalov's Poker Career?

A closer look at the player statistics page of @Eugene Katchalov on RankingHero reveals an interesting pattern. There seems to be a three-year cycle in his live career earnings chart, with major peaks about every three years: 

Eugene’s first registered live tournament cash came in December 2004.

In December 2007 he earned his WPT title and $2,482,605 dollars at the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic. 

Just about three years later, in January 2011, he won a WSOP bracelet, and the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Super High Roller event with a frist prize of $1.5 million; since then he has been after the elusive #triplecrown. An EPT win would get him into the exclusive Triple Crown (WSOP, WPT, and EPT title) club which only has five members to date: @Gavin Griffin, @Roland De Wolfe @Jake Cody @Bertrand Grospellier and @Davidi Kitai 

Could 2014 be the year for the next big peak in Eugene Katchalov's career live earnings?

It has certainly started out extremely well, with a second-place finish in EPT Deauville Main Event  that brought in $518,981 to sweeten the disappointment at not getting the final jewel for his Triple Crown: "I'm satisfied with second place. I've got a lot of money to soothe my wounds."

Next Eugene got ITM at L.A. Poker Classic, finishing 40th with $26,660 in the $10,000 buy-in main event won by @Chris Moorman.

And in Vienna he has been making all the poker news titles with his latest feat - live multi-tabling!

Katchalov got to heads-up in the Eureka High-Roller Event all while playing AND making it to Day 2 of the European Poker Tour with an above-average stack of chips! The payouts for 1st and 2nd place in the Eureka High-Roller are €170,000 and €107,000, so that’s another nice stack added to his 2014 earnings even if he doesn’t win.

It looks like 2014 is ‘written in the stats’ for Eugene Katchalov - let’s wait and see if it is written in the cards, as well :)

The Man Behind the Largest Buy-In Poker Tournament in History - Guy Laliberté

It probably takes an accordion-playing, fire-eating, stilt-walking, space-exploring philanthropist to come up with such a wild poker tournament idea in the service of a humanitarian cause. And Canadian @Guy Laliberté is exactly that. Plus successful entrepreneur and billionaire and a poker player with an impressive record on the felt: $2,582,286 in live earnings since 2006.

Guy was born in 1959 in Canada and was part of the world of street performance in his youth. In 1984, together with his friend and colleague, Gilles Ste-Croix, he won a Canadian government grant for a one-year project that would eventually expand and become a worldwide institution, setting new standards and reinventing the frontiers in modern circus entertainment - Cirque du Soleil.

Photo: AFP/GETTY The total worldwide audience of Cirque du Soleil shows is some 90 million people.

2007 was an important year in Guy's biography, with both his poker career and philanthropic activity moving up to a different level. He founded One Drop - a charity organization dedicated to making water "accessible to all, today and forever". And finished fourth in the World Poker Tour Season Five Main Event, winning $696,220. That same year Guy Laliberté was on High Stakes Poker, Season 4, with the likes of @Patrik Antonius (FI) , @Doyle Brunson, @Jennifer Harman, and @Daniel Negreanu. 

He later took part in Poker After Dark, Season 4. Watch him bluff @Phil Hellmuth with 10 high vs Hellmuth's JJ:

To celebrate his 50th anniversary, in 2009 Guy treated himself to a 32 million-dollar present and became the first Canadian space tourist (7th worldwide). He embarked on what he called a 'poetic social mission' taking thousands of photographs from the International Space Station that he would later share in his GAIA project:

ONE DROP Poetic Social Mission by multivu

"GAIA—a creative project designed by Guy Laliberté for ONE DROP—is a body of work bearing witness to the beauty and fragility of Earth with regard to the universe. All proceeds from GAIA sales go to ONE DROP. ONE DROP is an initiative of Guy Laliberté, Founder of Cirque du Soleil™. Its aim is to provide everyone with access to safe water, now and forever."

So where could he go after space exploration?.. In 2012 Guy Laliberté joined forces with Ceasar's Entertainment (owners of WSOP) to organize a unique event - a $1 million buy-in NLTHE tournament with a noble charity cause as additional incentive. The event sold out, with 48 entries, and the first prize soared to the unimaginable $18,346,673, won by Antonio Esfandiari who climbed to the top of the live earnings ranking. Guy himself had been the first to register and one of the last ones to drop out - he finished in the fifth place, with $1,834,666. 

An extra table has been included this year and the cap has been raised to 56 players. Three months from the #OneDrop event, already there have been 23 confirmations and it looks like the $ 5.3 million raised for One Drop Foundation will be exceeded in 2014. (There is no rake and instead, $111,111 of every buy-in goes to One Drop Foundation.)

The bold concept of staging this unprecedented buy-in event in the service of a humanitarian cause could perhaps only have come from a visionary such as Guy Laliberté. But no less important was his own passion for the game of poker. To quote @Bertrand Grospellier, "Guy was so important. If it wasn't for Guy, there wouldn't have been a tournament. It had to be him, a guy who loved poker, knew the players and knew the businessmen. Guy was definitely the absolute best person to do this."

Who Will Play to Win $20 Million in the Big One for One Drop This Summer

After the amazing success of the sold-out inaugural event in 2012, Big One for One Drop is back this year with a higher cap of 56 players which potentially increases the first prize to over $20,000,000! With 97 days left to the second edition of the largest buy-in poker tournament in history, already 23 $1 million  seats have been reserved, of which three satellite seats and three reserved by "anonymous businessmen".

 WSOP platinum bracelet specially designed and created by famed watchmaker Richard Mille

The Big One for One Drop will take place at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, from June 29 to July 1, 2014, during the 2014 World Series of Poker. There will be no rake, and $111,111 of each buy-in goes to ONE DROP as a charitable donation. Here is the list of players who have confirmed they want a second chance (most having participated in 2012):

1. @Antonio Esfandiari (winner, 2012, $18,346,673)
2. @Guy Laliberté (5th, $1,834,666)
3. @Bobby Baldwin (7th, $1,408,000)
4. @David Einhorn (3rd, $4,352,000)
5. @Phil Galfond 
6. @Philipp Gruissem 
7. @Phil Ivey 
8. @Jason Mercier 
9. @Paul Newey (GB) 
10. @William Perkins 

Some of the top contenders at Big One for One Drop - Phil Ivey, Antonio Esfandiari, Sam Trickett.

11. @Vivek Rajkumar 
12. @Brian Rast 
13. @Andrew Robl 
14. @Erik Seidel 
15. @Brandon Steven 
16. @Sam Trickett  (runner-up, $10,112,001)
17. @Noah Schwartz 

Some of the non-anonymous entrepreneurs who have already registered for the Big One for One Drop: David Einhorn, Guy Laliberte, and Bill Perkins. “Amazingly I lost a million dollars in this event in 2012 but still had a great time,” said investor Bill Perkins. “Little do the others know, but that was all part of a plan to set them up for this year. I’m calling my shot now. I will win the 2014 BIG ONE for ONE DROP.”

Some observers have voiced concerns that the Big One for One Drop will eclipse, or outright 'kill', the WSOP Main Event. However, such fears are probably exaggerated as the WSOP is sticking with the #NovemberNine tradition and the final table is scheduled for November 10th. In addition, the guaranteed first prize has been increased to the unprecedented $10 million! 

We have taken a look at the performance of some of the main contenders in 2012 and 2013.  Antonio Esfandiari and Sam Trickett shot up the all-time earnings ranking to number 1 and number 5 position, respectively, with their cashes of $18,346,673 and $10,112,001 as winner and runner-up in the 2012 One Drop. Feel free to explore their profile pages and play with the statistics yourself :)

Wyatt Earp - A Legendary Hero Shared by Poker, Hollywood, and the Wild West

Everyone knows him as a gambler, gunfighter and lawman; as the hero of Tombstone and the gunfight at O.K.Corral. The gunman who was never hit by a bullet himself has been featured in dozens of movie productions and his image is intertwined with that of the Hollywood stars who portrayed him - from Henry Fonda and Burt Lancaster, to Kurt Russel and Kevin Costner, to name but a few.

But did you know how much Wyatt Earp loved the movies himself? That towards the end of his life he was an unpaid consultant on many silent cowboy films? A friend of John Wayne? And John Ford?

Soon after settling in the silver mining town of Tombstone, Arizona, Wyatt Earp and his brothers became involved in a feud with the local cowboys which culminated in the notorious 1881 gunfight at the O.K. Corral (the town's stables). At the subsequent trial, Wyatt Earp and his friend Doc Holliday were acquitted.

Wyatt Earp spent the last years of his life in Los Angeles where he travelled from one end to another just to watch the lastest cowboy films. He is said to have been an unpaid consultant on many of those early silent movies.

It was about this time that he befriended John Ford, a great poker aficionado himself, as well as a young actor named Marion Morrison - who was in fact none other than John Wayne.

The O.K. Corral scene in John Ford's  'My Darling Clementine' was based on the first-hand account and a sketch drawn by Wyatt Earp.

In his lifetime, John Wayne made more than 170 movies, more than half of which were Westerns. He shared that his portrayals of cowboys and Western lawmen were based on his conversations with Wyatt Earp.

Wyatt's own passion for cowboy films, and his friendship with John Ford and John Wayne  helped shape some of the most iconic characters and Old West stories that have not lost their power of fascination over audiences all over the world for nearly a century.

Three Young Love Couples to Watch Out For

Three lovely and dedicated lady ambassadors of poker and their pro partners form three up-and-coming couples to watch out for!

Several German sites reporting from Eureka Poker Tour in Vienna published news of the latest romance in poker - @Natalie Hof and @Pius Heinz are happily in love and have no wish to hide it from the world. Natalie was the German presenter for the European Poker Tour in Seasons 8 and 9 and has been a Friend of Pokerstars since October 2013. 

"I hope that I can be an inspiration to women and encourage them to take up the game," she told PokerStars Women. "We need more women, don't you think?"

Pius Heinz is the number one German player by all-time live winnings, with $8,976,540. In 2011 he became the first German to win a WSOP Main Event bracelet.

At the age of 20, @Sofia Lovgren became the first woman to join the PKR Team and has been their ambassador ever since. Sofia splits her time between Sweden and Malta, where she recently moved with her boyfriend and fellow poker pro @Luca Moschitta - the youngest player ever to earn SuperNova Elite on PokerStars.

Last year they were both nominated for most promising young player in the PokerListings awards. 'I'm happy Luca won it, it was best for domestic peace ;),' Sofia said in a PokerFaceNews interview.

@Katerina Malasidou is one of the latest members of the PokerStars Team Online. She comes from Greece, studied to be a French language teacher and used to work as an accountant before she gave it all up and decided to take up a career in poker under the influence, and with the help of her boyfriend, fellow PokerStars Team Online member, Portuguese player @Andre Coimbra.

Andre Coimbra is yet another poker pro who used to be a professional Magic: The Gathering player and is famous for winning the MTG 2009 World Championship. In fact, Andre and Katerina met at a MTG tournament!..

All of these up-and-coming young players are on RankingHero. You can follow their profiles to keep up-to-date with their tournament results. As for their love life, we still haven’t created a romantic exploits ranking - maybe it’s a niche worth exploring in the future:)

 More on RankingHero:

 #womenINpoker #MTGpoker 

Play with Player Statistics on RankingHero!

In addition to the extensive and growing live poker database, RankingHero is constantly improving and offering new functionalities in order to help you make the most of the data when preparing for a tournament and studying your opponents.

Here is just one example of what you can do with our figures!

Number One French poker player @Bertrand Grospellier is currently playing the Eureka Poker Tour in Vienna and will stay for the European Poker Tour Main Event. Here is how his chart compares to that of two other notables who are expected in Vienna on Sunday 23 March,  @Liv Boeree and @Sam Trickett:

Here is Elky with the EPT Vienna chip leaders at the start of Day 2,  @Mateusz Warowiec whose earnings since 2011 amount to $81,664 and @Gerald Karlic with $361,128 in live winnings since 2011:

Alternately, you may specify a particular year when comparing players or a circuit; and you can view the data as a graph or in a table. Below you see the all-time EPT results of Gerald Karlic set against one of the main contenders at 2014 EPT Vienna, Season7 EPT champion, @Michael Eiler:

Obviously they are useful, but statistics can also be fun on RankingHero. Enjoy :)