May
28
by Chad Holloway
One of the fantasy poker competitions I am doing this year involves a great deal of the PokerNews crew as well as some other members of the poker community. The league, run by Tim Duckworth (who writes a great blog called “Tilted Behaviour”), costs $100 and allows each participant to draft a team by choosing players to fill certain categories. There are two chances to win: a prize for the team with the most cashes at the WSOP, and another prize for the team that earns the most money throughout the WSOP. Here is a look at my team:
Categories:
Female: Kathy Liebert
American Nationality (USA, Alaska and South America): Phil Ivey
Canadian Nationality: Pat Pezzin
European Nationality: Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier
Other International Nationality (includes far east Europe such as Russia and everywhere else not mentioned): Eugene Katchalov
Previous WSOP/E Champion (includes WSOPE): Phil Hellmuth
Online Player (must have honed his skills playing online - ie more none for his online game than anything): Vivek Rajkumar
Full Tilt Sponsored Player: Erik Seidel
PokerStars Sponsored Player: Daniel Negreanu
Minor Site Sponsored Player (includes Doylesroom etc and even Ultimate Bet as we will disregard the dumping of their pros): Phil Laak (Unabomber Poker)
The real difference maker in this draft is the non-traditional picks as most teams have Ivey, Seidel, Negreanu, and the like, which just cancels everything out. If I succeed, I have a feeling it will be because of Liebert, Pezzin, Rajkumar, and Laak.
In other fantasy poker news, I took part in the 2011 ESPN Fantasy Poker League along with Dwyte Pilgrim, Lance Bradley, Dennis Phillips, Daniel Negreanu, Chops from Wicked Chops Poker,Andrew Feldman, Gary Wise, Eric Baldwin, Bernard Lee, and Mark Seif. If you recall from this blog, I managed to win the title last year. The league proved very popular with poker fans and this year was no different. Here is a look at the teams, with the roster listed in the order they were drafted.
PILGRIM: Eric Baldwin, Scotty Nguyen, Thomas Marchese, Shaun Deeb, Steve Gross, Allen Kessler, Darren Alias, Josh Brikis
HOLLOWAY: Phil Ivey, Alexander Kostritsyn, Andy Frankenberger, Sam Trickett, Galen Hall, Justin Young, Phil Laak, Sorel Mizzi
BRADLEY: Erik Seidel, Scott Clements, Robert Mizrachi, David “Bakes” Baker, Isaac Haxton, Brett Richey, Chris Bjorin, Allen Bari
PHILLIPS: Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Allen Cunningham, Bertrand Grospellier, Mike Matusow, Chris Ferguson, Jeff Madsen, JC Tran
NEGREANU: Erick Lindgren, Daniel Alaei, Scott Seiver, David Benyamine, Justin Smith, Michael Thuritz, Yuval Bronthstein, Yueqi Hu
CHOPS: John Juanda, Men “The Master” Nguyen, Ted Forrest, Dwyte Pilgrim, Shawn Buchanan, Alexander Kravchenko, Chris Bell, David “Doc” Sands
FELDMAN: Jason Mercier, Tom Dwan, Vivek Rajkumar, Justin Bonomo, Matt Hawrilenko, David Oppenheim, Ali Eslami, Yevgeniy Timoshenko
WISE: Barry Greenstein, Jeffery Lisandro, Huck Seed, Vanessa Selbst, Nick Schulman, Jason Sommerville, David Pham, Roland De Wolfe
BALDWIN: David Chiu, Eugene Katchalov, Carlos Mortensen, Andy Bloch, Frank Kassela. David “ODB” Baker, Vladimir Schemelev, Michael Chow
LEE: Michael Mizrachi, Shannon Shorr, Chau Giang, Phil Galfond, Faraz Jaka, James Mackey, Jen Harman, Jonathan Duhamel
SEIF: Mark Seif, Gavin Smith, John Racener, Michael Binger, Matt Glantz, Chad Brown, Freddy Deeb, Todd Brunson
First and foremost, Pilgrim taking Baldwin with the #1 overall was both unexpected and amusing. Pilgrim was diligent in his defense, but it put me in a quandary . . . Ivey or Seidel? I assumed Pilgrim would have taken one or the other and my decision would have been made for me; however, that was obviously not the case. I decided to play it safe and go with Ivey, despite Seidel’s amazing 2011. Needless to say, Seidel was drafted immediately after.
I’m really happy with landing Ivey and felt it gave me a little security to gamble a bit on my draft picks. Kostritsyn is a solid performer and a pretty conventional pick in the late stages of Round 2. In Round 3, I went with World Poker Tour Player-of-the-Year Andy Frankenberger. This is one of those gamble picks as Frankenberger plays primarily no-limit hold’em events. However, he has been on a heater as of late and is hungry to qualify for the Federated Sports + Gaming League, so I expect him to play a lot of events.
I’m really pleased with my 4th and 5th Round picks in Sam Trickett and Galen Hall. Both are young and have hit their stride. I believe both are playing at their peak and will play a lot of high buy-in events, which could translate into some major points. The only downside is that Trickett is a no-limit hold’em specialist, meaning he’ll pass on the mixed games.
Rounding out my team was Justin Young, Phil Laak, and Sorel Mizzi. Young is a solid performer, although I’m not sure of his schedule. Like Frankenberger, Laak is intent on qualifying for the FS+G League, so he has said he’ll be playing a full schedule of events. I’m really counting on the Unabomber to pull through. Finally, I got Mizzi in the last round, which I believe was a nice way to end the draft. He hasn’t been putting up results like he did in 2010, but if he can recapture some of that fire it’ll mean big points for my team.
I will say that I had my eye on both Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and David “Bakes” Baker; however, they went taken by Dennis Phillips and Lance Bradley respectively, right before my next pick I might add. That left me scrambling and I rushed into picking Trickett. He is a great player, but I’d probably do things differently in hindsight. For a great analysis on the whole draft, be sure to check out Feldman's article on ESPN.
I’ll be posting a lot of fantasy poker updates throughout the WSOP, so be sure to keep checking the blog for those. In the meantime, be sure to follow me on Twitter @ChadAHolloway.
May
24
by Chad Holloway
This write-up on my rise to Senior Writer of PokerNews that was done by Ken Leiviska and appeared on the front page in the Saturday, May 14, 2011 of my local small-town Wisconsin paper, the Reedsburg Times Press. I thought it might be fun to repost it here to allow my readers the opportunity to get to know me a bit. Enjoy!
North Freedom native Chad Holloway went "all in" following his life's passion, and now he's cashing in with the job of his dreams. The 28-year-old Reedsburg resident has made his living as a senior writer for PokerNews.com since October 2010. He likens the website to "the CNN of the poker world." Writing daily poker articles for the website is one of his duties, but Holloway also covers major poker events about once a month. He gets to stand in the background of famous poker stars such as Daniel Negreanu and Madison native Phil Hellmuth as he blogs the live action.
"That's my favorite part of the job because it allows me to travel," he said, adding that he's been to Argentina, the Bahamas, Los Angeles and Las Vegas in the last eight months. But the job also is a big challenge, he said. Some days will be 14 hours of work as he follows the action at the poker tables, Holloway said.
"At times it's grueling and you're tired, but when you really have a passion, or love it like I do, there's nothing else I'd rather be doing," he said. That passion has been tested in the last few years. Holloway had to give up other career paths to follow his dreams. That story is something that's in high demand, he said. "I get asked all the time, people always want to know the story of, ‘How'd you get into that? How'd you get that gig?'" Holloway said. He said it all started when he dropped out of law school at Tulane University to pursue a career knew he'd enjoy.
"After two semesters of law school, I just did not have a passion for it at all," Holloway said. "I realized I would be very unhappy doing that for the rest of my life." While studying law in New Orleans, he found a passion he wanted to pursue at Harrah's Casino. Holloway said he turned $400 of spare cash into nearly $2,000 in his first week at school. He knew starting a career as a poker player was unlikely, but he wanted to stay in the industry. Holloway found a Craigslist job to write about poker and did so for about a year, building up a portfolio of work. "That was my first foot in the door for poker writing," he said. But at only $12 an article, it wasn't a career. Holloway picked up other odd jobs along the way to support himself.
In January 2009, he took a leap and emailed all the poker industry personalities he knew and asked them how they got the jobs they had. The response was not encouraging. "The overwhelming response that I got back was that you just don't make it in this business," Holloway said. "But I did get one back that said you're best bet is to basically work freelance and submit your articles to publishers and see if they like your stuff. I took that to heart." Holloway said he knew it was important to find a niche to get noticed, so he started writing articles about fantasy poker, which is like fantasy football. The publisher of Pro Poker Magazine liked his column and picked him up in May 2009.
That summer Holloway was able to land a freelance job with Bluff Magazine to cover the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, the biggest poker event of the year. He described it as an unpaid internship since he had to pay his own way and the small wage he made was only enough to make it a break-even experience financially. Believing his poker writing days likely would be limited to covering the WSOP, blogging and writing his fantasy poker column, Holloway got his teaching certificate and was student teaching in the spring of 2010 at Sauk Prairie High School. He applied for a freelance job with PokerNews to cover the WSOP in 2010. To his surprise, he got the job. But it wasn't an easy decision to leave a stable career in teaching."Just like the game of poker, it was a gamble," Holloway said. "In hindsight I'm so glad I made that choice."
His father, Larry Holloway, is one of the people who gave him some advice with the decision. "I always told him he could do anything in life he wanted and he would succeed at it," he said, adding that he supported his decision to go to the WSOP. "I'm truly proud of him."
When the WSOP was over at the end of summer, Holloway emailed the editor-in-chief at PokerNews, Matthew Parvis, to see if there was other freelance work he could do. He was happy to learn there was an opportunity for him to cover a poker tournament in Argentina in September. When he was in the Southern Hemisphere, a longtime PokerNews writer quit. Holloway was offered the full-time job.
"It was really a no-brainer for me," he said. "It was the opportunity I always hoped for as far as breaking into the industry. It just doesn't happen. Luckily for me, it did."
Offering Holloway the job was a no-brainer for Parvis, who said he met him at the WSOP in 2009. "Chad brings a very unique attitude to the table," Parvis said. "Working events can be very tough with long hours and it can really be a grind. "Chad has the ability to take those things with a grain of salt," he added. "He's really positive all the time."
*** Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @ChadAHolloway.
Apr
20
by Chad Holloway
On Wednesday, April 6, 2011 I set out from Wisconsin with my cousin Dan Almerli (@Almerli on Twitter) for the World Series of Poker Circuit at Harrah’s St. Louis. I was assigned to cover the Main Event for PokerNews.com, but decided to go down a few days early to play some cash games and take some shots in various tournaments. I was really looking forward to playing poker instead of watching and actually getting to enjoy the experience as opposed to flying in, working, and flying out.
After driving six hours to the venue, I jumped right into the action by entering the 4 PM Event #18 $245 limit Omaha Hi tournament. It is rare to see limit Omaha being played, especially in a tournament format, so I was looking forward to it. On top of it, I felt I had an edge given that I’d played a few such tournaments in the past, even managing to win one. The tournament drew 40 players, which was about what I was expecting, and I got off to a fast start by winning the first two hands.
Since it was a limit tournament, the action was long and grueling. Slowly but surely the players began to bust and I found myself holding a pretty decent stack. Fast forward a few hours and we were down to the final table of ten. Most of the remaining players wanted to make some sort of deal, but I wasn’t too excited about it considering I was top three in chips and two players were extremely short stacked (one had 400 with the blinds at 500-1,000 or so). When those players inevitably busted, the table once again brought up the idea of a chop. I was open to the idea since only four players would make the money ($6,940 prizepool of which $3,100 was set aside for first), but I was looking for a good deal given I had chipped up close to the chip lead.
Here was the situation: three of us had big chip stacks and were in good shape, two players were sitting in the middle of the pack, and three players were on life support. The top three chip counts got together and discussed what to do. I came up with the following deal, which I never expected to get accepted (I know I wouldn’t have taken it had I been in anyone else’s shoes): the top three players would get $1,600 each, the woman who sat fourth in chips took $800, the next guy got $545, and the three short stacks would get their buy-in back. The blinds were high and it really was anyone’s game, but to my surprise the entire table agreed. I would have been more than happy to play it out, but I was ok with a deal that favored me and provided me the funds to freeroll into a couple more events. “Officially” I was listed as taking third in the event (it was a non-ring event so I didn’t care all that much).
I used part of my winnings to buy into the $565 Event #20 NLHE tournament at noon on Thursday. This was a ring event that drew 272 players, including my cousin Dan, who ultimately busted around the halfway mark. On the other hand, I found myself slowly chipping up and made it to the dinner break. When we returned, there were about 100 players left with the average stack at 34K. I was sitting with 25K when an under-the-gun player, who had just lost 47K out of his stack, moved all in for his lat 7,700. A middle position player flatted and I looked down at pocket queens in the big blind (600/1,200 with 100 ante). It was the best hand I had seen in a couple hours and by far the best since returning from the dinner break, so I decided to push all in. I knew the UTG player was pushing extremely light (he ended up having 10-6), but unfortunately the middle position player had flatted with kings. I couldn’t catch and I busted in what I estimate to be 90th place (only 30 got paid).
I was disappointed I couldn’t go further, but felt I played pretty good overall. I decided to skip the cash games, get some sleep, and enter Event #23 $345 NLHE on Friday. Unfortunately, that event was similar to the one prior. I played for 8-9 hours, made the top third of the field, but subsequently busted. Luckily, my early score and cash games results ultimately saw me coming home with more than double what I took. It was a fun and profitable trip to say the least.
When Sunday rolled around, I had to transition from player to reporter as I had to cover the Main Event for PokerNews.com. All told, 449 players entered, creating a prizepool of $646,762 with a first-place prize of $142,290. Both 2004 WSOP Main Event Champ Greg Raymer and St. Louis native Dennis Phillips were in attendance, and managed some deep runs. Unfortunately, they were both eliminated shy of the money on Day 2. In the end, it was Kyle Cartwright who emerged victorious. Cartwright, who had won the “Casino Champion” designation at Harrah’s Tunica a few months prior, won his third WSOP-Circuit ring. That is amazing since he played his first live tournament just a few months earlier and the record for most rings held by a single player is only four. Cartwright’s performance cemented his legacy a WSOP-Circuit beast.
Here is a look at the final table:
WSOP-Circuit Harrah’s St. Louis Final Table
|
Seat
|
Player
|
Chips
|
|
1
|
Kyle Cartwright
|
2,875,000
|
|
2
|
Mitch Franks
|
460,000
|
|
3
|
Nick Jivkov
|
206,000
|
|
4
|
Ron Segni
|
983,000
|
|
5
|
Asheesh Boyapati
|
1,138,000
|
|
6
|
Chris Viox
|
346,000
|
|
7
|
Troy Weber
|
1,006,000
|
|
8
|
Steve Goff
|
1,270,000
|
|
9
|
Phil Stelzer
|
637,000
|
Apr
5
by jake
MarketZero, the company behind the poker stat tracking portal PokerTableRatings, was recently purchased by Zynga, the company behind numerous highly successful social games for Facebook.
Zynga has been on a company buying tear having bought 11 studios in the past 11 months. The PokerTableRatings purchase is particularly interesting as its their first poker related purchase. Zynga described MarkeZero as a "pioneering force in the online poker world.”
Could Zynga, with its 37 million free play Texas Holdem players, be possibly gearing up to dive into the real money online poker game? If so, you can expect they'll be significant player in the industry.