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The 2009 PokerStars.com London EPT saw a quick but exciting heads-up battle between the 2008 WSOP Main Event Champion, Peter Eastgate and the chip leader coming into the final table Aaron Gustavson.

All the chips went into the middle of the table when Eastgate pushed with A-9 and was called by Gustavson while holding A-Q. With no help from the board, Gustavson’s hand held and he was awarded £850,000 to take home to Las Vegas. Eastgate was awarded £530,000 for second place.

Long-time poker commentator and player Mike Sexton is known for his dullness while describing the action on episodes of the World Poker Tour and for his exploits at the table. An ambassador of the game since the early days, Sexton helped to push online poker into the limelight and televised poker into the mainstream.

Being elected into the Poker Hall of Fame was no easy task this year as he was joined on the ballot by well-known players (some of whom are well on their way to or have already achieved “legend” status) like Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein, Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Scotty Nguyen, Dan Harrington, Men “The Master” Nguyen and Tom McEvoy.

Pretty much everyone who gets into poker starts out with Limit or No-Limit Hold’em.  So learning the betting ropes for these two games really isn’t a big deal to most people.  However, once people start getting more adventurous, they like to branch out into new games like Pot-Limit Hold’em.  Unfortunately, many people don’t know much about the betting basics of Pot-Limit Hold’em so it’s always a good idea to go over them before starting play. 

The first thing you should keep in mind is that Pot-Limit is a game all to itself.  It doesn’t utilize all of the mathematics of Limit Hold’em, yet doesn’t use all of the reading skills that No-Limit does either.  Instead, it combines the two elements with a little more emphasis on No-Limit Hold’em.  That’s because the pot odds aren’t always so good in Pot-Limit and you have to be able to read opponents to decide whether or not to make a call.

Another important element of Pot-Limit is being able to control the pot.  You have to be able to control the pot if you want to capitalize on other players’ mistakes and minimize losses on hands you need to get out of.  The best way to do this is by making value bets which will help you to get more money in the pot when you have the nuts and keep the pot low if you hold a second rate hand.

One more thing you need to do in Pot-Limit Hold’em is be mindful of your bets because they can have a huge impact.  For instance, even a $5 wager can have a huge impact down the line as more bets and raises are made.  So you have to keep in mind the size (and simple act) of your wagers even more so in Pot-Limit.  Follow these tips and you’ll be on your way to being a better Pot-Limit bettor.

Doyle Brunson’s legend in poker will be enshrined for centuries to come.  He has not only won numerous tournaments, WSOP bracelets, and other accolades, but he has also become legendary for games played in dusty Texas saloons well before he ever hit the bright lights of Las Vegas.  By the time everything is said and done, there may never be a poker player that’s done as much throughout his life as Doyle Brunson has in the game.

But what’s amazing about Doyle Brunson is that he has been so much more than just a felt jockey during his 76 years.  This was recently proved when Brunson was elected into the Hardin-Simmons University Hall of Fame.  For those who’ve never known Doyle to be more than a poker player, he was also a standout basketball and track star during his days at HSU.  Of course, the induction into the Hardin-Simmons Hall has been a llong overdue as Brunson will tell you.

Doyle told the media, ““I know a lot of people went to bat for me, and they were more anxious for this to happen than I was at this point.  I felt a little snubbed, but on the other hand I did understand the reasons.”  The reasons Brunson is talking about include the fact that he became a famous poker player out of a Baptist University.  With this being the case, HSU looked down upon his induction into the HOF for many years.

Fortunately, the right thing has finally been done and Brunson is in.  He’s definitely deserving of the honor too since he even drew NBA attention during his time at the college.  A broken leg ended that dream, but also openned up possibilities that he never could have imagined outside of basketball.

It’s definitely goes without saying that High Stakes Poker has been one of the most successful poker TV shows in history.  The fact that HSP runs cash games instead of tournaments definitely sets it apart from most shows, and the broadcasting combination of A.J. Benza and Gabe Kaplan has been another reason for the show’s continued success.  However, the Game Show Network recently announced that this duo will no longer be working together since A.J. Benza has been let go.

Apparently, GSN wants to bring in a younger, attractive female host to take Benza’s place on the show; there’s been no word on who this woman will be, though some speculated Vanessa Rouso.  Benza was pretty outraged by GSN’s decision to fire him and said something on his blog about, “if you got the best pizza in town for 5 seasons, why add licorice to it?”

I think he definitely has a point here since Kaplan and Benza have played off of each other pretty well during the show’s first 5 seasons.  Bringing in an entirely different person to take Benza’s place will definitely shake things up, and it might not end up being in a good way.  All I know is that High Stakes Poker did fine in the past with just Benza and Kaplan doing the announcing.

Of course the suits at GSN probably think that the change will help draw a wider audience.  And I can kind of see their point since so many men are drawn to the game of poker and the vast majority of them would probably rather see Vanessa Rouso’s face (for example) than Benza’s.  If this move does end up attracting a bigger viewership then I guess it’s all good in the end.

In my last post, I talked about how thousands of Hungarians are picking up the game of online poker in an effort to beat the country’s 10% unemployment rate.  Well I must have had great timing because news has just recently been released saying that Hungary is thinking about regulating poker.  In regulating poker, Hungary will also technically be legalizing the game which will be a big relief to many players in the country.

The obvious reason for why Hungary wants to legalize poker and regulate it is because they want to make some tax revenue from the deal.  If all goes according to plan, Hungary stands to raise around 1 million Euros in tax money right off the bat from this move.  Unfortunately, the details to the plan have not been fully worked out yet so there is some work to be done before everything is official.

One problem is that certain people want to put big limitations on live club poker and this calls for a limit of 10 tables in each venue along with low level entry fees.  I’m not exactly sure why Hungary wants to do this, but I just know many are concerned that this will drive all of the high profile players away from the country and keep others from wanting to play there.

The Hungarian Poker Association is particularly concerned because they think the goal should be to try and attract more high profile players to the country.  The organization believes that strict regulations will force most residents to continue their poker days online.  I think it’s unfortunate that Hungary wants to do it this way to and the plan really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me in the end.

A big deal has been made in the past couple of years about how many Russians and Italians have been jumping into the game of online poker.  And there is certainly plenty of evidence to support how many people are getting into poker from these countries due to the large amount of pros and bracelet winners who have come from Russia and Italy over the past few years.  But moving past what’s already discussed all the time, I’ve noticed that a large amount of Hungarians are getting into poker recently too.

I saw this trend after reading about a study done by the National Poker Association (not quite the PPA) that revolved around a Hungarian pro by the name of Peter Trapley.  Trapley, like many successful online players before him, has made an outstanding living over the past couple of years by playing online poker.  He’s earned over $500,000 and has only just recently graduated from college. 

And sure $500k over a few years isn’t amazing when compared to the exploits of durrrr and Patrik Antonius, but you’ve also got to keep in mind that Trapley is from Hungary.  Hungary has a 10% unemployment rate and the average salary in this nation is about $6,800 a year.  So if you’re making $500k over a few years then you’re pretty much a millionaire in Hungary.

Seeing as how stories of people like Trapley have made it around Hungary, there are plenty of other people there trying to make poker their primary job now.  In fact, 1 out of every 40 Hungarians consider online or live poker to be a job which means 250,000 of the country’s 10 million residents are using the felt for income.  It won’t be long before we start seeing this trend show up in the WSOP and other big tourneys.

For many beginning poker players, every hand looks good.  After all, what’s the excitement of poker if you can’t take your hand into the flop to see if you hit anything?  And this concept works pretty good actually….when you’re playing practice poker.  However, anybody who is playing poker for money should stay clear of this philosophy since it can end up costing a person lots of money in the long-run. 

That’s why you need to play as tightly as possible in the beginning so you avoid bleeding out money.  Now most poker strategists preach that you should play as aggressively as possible so you can be successful.  However, the problem with this is that beginners don’t have the necessary skills to play aggressively from the onset.  Aggressive play takes lots of experience and you simply can’t fake this until you develop the necessary skill set.

With this in mind, you should only be raising pre-flop with premium hands like J-J through A-A (as common strategy dictates) and playing good hands in middle to late position.  Playing premium hands pre-flop is easy, but you’ll have a lot more difficulty with other cards such as A-10 or K-J.  Some beginners will overvalue these hands and it’s a mistake that will end up costing them major money.

Instead, you want to treat hands like A-10 and K-J with caution since they are not able to dominate premium hands and you needs lots of help from the board to win.  Seeing as how this is the case, play tight and try to see flops cheaply until you develop a better feel for when to play aggressively.  When you do develop more skills, you can open your range of starting hands.

Jeff Shulman already had a name in the poker world due to his numerous cashes in WSOP and WPT events.   Among Shulman’s numerous cashes include a 7th place finish in the 2000 WSOP Main Event as well as an upcoming November Nine appearance at this year’s final table.

In addition to his playing abilites, Shulman is also well known throughout the poker community as the prime owner of Card Player Magazine.  Seeing as how Shulman has plenty of fame and accolades on his poker resume already – not to mention $2.6 million in live winnings – you think he’d be satisfied with his own level of play.

However, Shulman isn’t resting on his laurels or taking any chances since he as decided to hire 11-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth to coach him before the Main Event final table.  Now some people might find this odd that Shulman would hire a coach since he is already a successful player himself.

But Shulman summed up his choice to have Hellmuth coach him before the final table saying, “The simplest reason why I’m doing this…..I want to win, and I think it will help.”  He also added an important point by mentioning, “I turned on the TV and I was watching Tiger Woods or something, and I realized every single player has a coach.  No matter how good or bad my game is, it can always get better.”

The choice to pick Phil Hellmuth as his coach goes beyond the obvious reason of Phil being arguable the most successful WSOP player of all-time.  Shulman also chose Phil because they’ve been business partners and friends for a number of years.  If Hellmuth’s coaching does propel Shulman to victory, hopefully he won’t trash his WSOP bracelet like he’s stated he would do in the past.

After pros like Chris Moneymaker and Chad Brown were knocked out it came down to Steve Hamontree of Chattanoogaa, TN and Jeremy Gaubert of Thibodaux, LA to duke it out for the title of WPO champion. In a rare occurrence the winning hand went turned out to be pocket aces. Gaubert, who held the hard-to-beat hand, collected $192,953 for his win. This win brought Gaubert’s lifetime live tournament winnings up to $300,000.