Hollywood Poker at the WPT!

[Julie]

Congratulations again to the winners of our WPT Celebrity Shootout Tournaments: paddy_o_dour, Kane Hodder, Joey.Knish and Josh Malina! These lucky winners were entered into the WPT Legends of Poker Tournament at the Bicycle Casino in LA. And as the last female celebrity standing, we also sent Pamela Gidley to the ladies only event.

Unfortunately no one from HP took the top honors, but they all had a fabulous time! Check out these pictures taken from the Legends of Poker Tournament:



Josh Malina, Joey.Knish and Kane Hodder



Josh Malina, Pamela Gidley, Joey.Knish and Kane Hodder



Vince Van Patten and Pamela Gidley



paddy_o_dour, Kane Hodder, Pamela Gidley, Vince Van Patten, Joey.Knish and Josh Malina



Joey.Knish, James Woods, paddy_o_dour



Vince Van Patten and Joey.Knish



paddy_o_dour and Vince Van Patten



The whole HP crew: Kane Hodder, Joey.Knish, paddy_o_dour, James Woods, Josh Malina, Pamela Gidley and Vince Van Patten

Thanks again to everyone who participated in our WPT Celebrity Shootouts! Keep your eyes peeled for more exciting events coming your way from Hollywood Poker

[Hollay]

Looking good, ya'll!

[HP-Suzanne]

Here is Joey Knish's tale of the tournament in his own words...enjoy!


I had a great time at the Bike for the Legends of Poker Tournament. Prior to the start of the tourney, I got to meet and take pictures with several of the Hollywood Poker celebrities, including Josh Molina, Kane Hodder, and the lovely Pamela Gidley. They were all really cool people and I enjoyed meeting them. Josh and Kane were playing for Hollywood Poker as well. Pam got to be entered into the WPT ladies event. In fact, they all seemed as eager as I was to play some poker. I also got to meet James Woods and Vince Van Patten, and I think James played in the tournament as well.

The tournament started with little fanfare as everyone just hurried to their seats and the cards were in the air. As this was my first WPT event I was a bit nervous, but I took down a few early pots and was relaxed and ready to play some cards. I wasn't sure if I was happy that I didn't recognize anyone at my table, which meant I wasn't playing with any high profile pros. (Good news in that it was probably an easier table, bad news in that I was looking forward to the experience of mixing it with the best.) There were two empty seats to my immediate left though, and about 20 minutes into the tourney, they were filled by Chip Reese and Eli Elezra. This relatively weak table just got a good bit harder! Watching Chip and Eli slowly carve out pots while betting outrageous amounts of money in a game they called "Props" (which was basically a complicated system to bet on what the flops were going to be in each hand) was quite an experience. Both guys were there to have fun and play some cards and it made for an entertaining table. I kept my focus and tried to avoid Chip and Eli when I could and had taken my 10,000 starting chips to about 12,000 when our table broke.

Then next table I played at contained John Hennigan to my immediate left and Gabe Kaplan (of "Welcome Back Kotter" and WPT fame) to my immediate right. Not exactly an easy seat either. This table was much more aggressive with a lot of raising and re-raising on every flop and I lost a few chips while making the adjustment. Then came the hand that I imagine cost me my chance. I picked up AA in first position and made a standard raise, and only Gabe called in the big blind. The flop came J97 with two spades and I bet out about 2/3 of the pot and was called instantly. At this point there was probably about 2000 in the pot. The turn was the third spade. Gabe checked
to me again, so I bet about 1700 and was called again. I was starting to not feel too good about this hand. The river brought another J and Gabe now bet out about 3200. I thought for awhile and decided that there was little chance that my AA was still good, so I decided to fold and hold on to my last 4000 chips. I have no idea what Gabe had, but I sure hope I didn't make one of the worst folds of my life. (Tournament poker can be tough sometimes).

From there I managed to survive most of the day winning a few all ins with my small stack but never able to build up much past 7000 again until the blinds and antes eventually caught up to me towards the end of the first night. Gabe went on to bust many of the players at our table including Hennigan. He ran out to quite a large stack by the end of the day. I checked back later to find that he made the money, and finished somewhere in the 30's I believe.

Later in the week, I got to go to a filming of the WPT Season Two Battle of Champions which was filming at the Bike. I won't ruin the result for any of you who plan to watch it on TV, but it was really cool to see how these shows are filmed and put together. I got to sit almost directly in front of Shannon Elizabeth (there to cheer on Antonio Esfandiari) so that was a pretty cool experience as well.

All in all, I had a great time and I think playing in my first tournament of this magnitude was quite a learning experience (although I am still not sure what Gabe taught me...if anything). I can't wait for a chance to do it again. And I would just like to thank all the people at Hollywood Poker for offering such an outstanding promotion and making my week in LA a ton of fun.

Joey.Knish

Thanks Joey for sharing your experience with us!

Suzanne

[doubleeaglec]

Originally Posted by Julie

Congratulations again to the winners of our WPT Celebrity Shootout Tournaments: paddy_o_dour, Kane Hodder, Joey.Knish and Josh Malina! These lucky winners were entered into the WPT Legends of Poker Tournament at the Bicycle Casino in LA. And as the last female celebrity standing, we also sent Pamela Gidley to the ladies only event.

Unfortunately no one from HP took the top honors, but they all had a fabulous time! Check out these pictures taken from the Legends of Poker Tournament:



Josh Malina, Joey.Knish and Kane Hodder



Josh Malina, Pamela Gidley, Joey.Knish and Kane Hodder



Vince Van Patten and Pamela Gidley



paddy_o_dour, Kane Hodder, Pamela Gidley, Vince Van Patten, Joey.Knish and Josh Malina



Joey.Knish, James Woods, paddy_o_dour



Vince Van Patten and Joey.Knish



paddy_o_dour and Vince Van Patten



The whole HP crew: Kane Hodder, Joey.Knish, paddy_o_dour, James Woods, Josh Malina, Pamela Gidley and Vince Van Patten

Thanks again to everyone who participated in our WPT Celebrity Shootouts! Keep your eyes peeled for more exciting events coming your way from Hollywood Poker

Maybe we will get another shot at the WPT....or at the WSOP, still haven't had much on it either

[sp3llch3ck3r]

Originally Posted by HP-Suzanne

Here is Joey Knish's tale of the tournament in his own words...enjoy!


I had a great time at the Bike for the Legends of Poker Tournament. Prior to the start of the tourney, I got to meet and take pictures with several of the Hollywood Poker celebrities, including Josh Molina, Kane Hodder, and the lovely Pamela Gidley. They were all really cool people and I enjoyed meeting them. Josh and Kane were playing for Hollywood Poker as well. Pam got to be entered into the WPT ladies event. In fact, they all seemed as eager as I was to play some poker. I also got to meet James Woods and Vince Van Patten, and I think James played in the tournament as well.

The tournament started with little fanfare as everyone just hurried to their seats and the cards were in the air. As this was my first WPT event I was a bit nervous, but I took down a few early pots and was relaxed and ready to play some cards. I wasn't sure if I was happy that I didn't recognize anyone at my table, which meant I wasn't playing with any high profile pros. (Good news in that it was probably an easier table, bad news in that I was looking forward to the experience of mixing it with the best.) There were two empty seats to my immediate left though, and about 20 minutes into the tourney, they were filled by Chip Reese and Eli Elezra. This relatively weak table just got a good bit harder! Watching Chip and Eli slowly carve out pots while betting outrageous amounts of money in a game they called "Props" (which was basically a complicated system to bet on what the flops were going to be in each hand) was quite an experience. Both guys were there to have fun and play some cards and it made for an entertaining table. I kept my focus and tried to avoid Chip and Eli when I could and had taken my 10,000 starting chips to about 12,000 when our table broke.

Then next table I played at contained John Hennigan to my immediate left and Gabe Kaplan (of "Welcome Back Kotter" and WPT fame) to my immediate right. Not exactly an easy seat either. This table was much more aggressive with a lot of raising and re-raising on every flop and I lost a few chips while making the adjustment. Then came the hand that I imagine cost me my chance. I picked up AA in first position and made a standard raise, and only Gabe called in the big blind. The flop came J97 with two spades and I bet out about 2/3 of the pot and was called instantly. At this point there was probably about 2000 in the pot. The turn was the third spade. Gabe checked
to me again, so I bet about 1700 and was called again. I was starting to not feel too good about this hand. The river brought another J and Gabe now bet out about 3200. I thought for awhile and decided that there was little chance that my AA was still good, so I decided to fold and hold on to my last 4000 chips. I have no idea what Gabe had, but I sure hope I didn't make one of the worst folds of my life. (Tournament poker can be tough sometimes).

From there I managed to survive most of the day winning a few all ins with my small stack but never able to build up much past 7000 again until the blinds and antes eventually caught up to me towards the end of the first night. Gabe went on to bust many of the players at our table including Hennigan. He ran out to quite a large stack by the end of the day. I checked back later to find that he made the money, and finished somewhere in the 30's I believe.

Later in the week, I got to go to a filming of the WPT Season Two Battle of Champions which was filming at the Bike. I won't ruin the result for any of you who plan to watch it on TV, but it was really cool to see how these shows are filmed and put together. I got to sit almost directly in front of Shannon Elizabeth (there to cheer on Antonio Esfandiari) so that was a pretty cool experience as well.

All in all, I had a great time and I think playing in my first tournament of this magnitude was quite a learning experience (although I am still not sure what Gabe taught me...if anything). I can't wait for a chance to do it again. And I would just like to thank all the people at Hollywood Poker for offering such an outstanding promotion and making my week in LA a ton of fun.

Joey.Knish


Thanks Joey for sharing your experience with us!

Suzanne

Malina .

[doubleeaglec]

Thought I would ask you my monthly question

When will we see some WPT qulifiers

Just thought I would check with you again

Thanks

[Julie]

Hey DE,

That's right about on schedule

I actually asked our Tournament Manager about this again the other day and he told me about some cool qualifiers that we are planning on leading up to another main event. I promise I will fill you in on all the details as soon as I can.

Cheers,

Julie