2008 Year In Review
With another year in the books, it’s time to have one fi nal look back on all the events that helped make 2008 another great year of poker. This year, we’ve compiled a nice little timeline to help you remember all the highlights and winners so you can impress your friends with wacky, chronologically based poker trivia.
January
Alexander Kostritsyn beats Erik Seidel heads up to win the Aussie Millions Main Event.
Howard Lederer wins the Aussie Millions $100k event.
Bertrand “ElKy” Grospellier wins $2 million at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.
Gavin Griffi n wins Borgata Winter Poker Open and becomes fi rst player to ever win the Triple Crown with WPT, EPT, and WSOP championships.
February
Phil Ivey wins his fi rst WPT title at the LA Poker Classic, beating out a fi nal table that featured Phil Hellmuth, Nam Le, Quinn Do, and eventual November Niner Scott Montgomery.
Michael “Timex” McDonald, 18, wins EPT German Open.
Full Tilt Poker holds FTOPS VII. A total of over 43,000 players entered the twenty events. Erick Lindgren was the biggest name to win an event after he took home $291,748 in Event #9 ($300 + $22 No Limit Hold’em), an event for which he was also the host pro.
Venetian holds the fi rst Deep Stack Extravaganza of the year.
March
Online legend Eric “Sheets” Haber wins WSOP Circuit Event in Atlantic City.
Chris “Jesus” Ferguson fi nally wins NBC Heads-Up Championship after fi nishing second twice. Orel Hershisher shocks the world fi nishing fi fth.
Brandon Cantu steamrolls the competition winning his fi rst WPT title at the Bay 101 Shooting Star. The fi nal table includes Steve Sung, Jennifer Harman, and POY John Phan.
April
Erik Seidel wins his fi rst WPT at the Foxwoods Poker Classic, beating a fi nal table that included Ted Forrest.
David Chiu pulls off a stunning upset to come back and beat Gus Hansen for $3.3 million at the WPT Championship.
Tom Dwan wears crazy hats after losing a prop bet and still fi nishes ninth in the WPT Championship.
Glen Chorny wins the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo by beating a fi nal table that includes Michael “Timex” McDonald, Antonio Esfandiari, Isaac Baron, and Luca Pagano.
May
Allen Cunningham wins WSOP Circuit Event at Caesars Palace, defeating a fi nal table which includes Justin Bonomo, Blair Hinkle, and Doug Lee.
Borgata hosts the fi rstever $500k guarantee that isn’t attached to any tournament circuit. The event garners a $1.5 million prize pool.
FTOPS VIII runs through the month with 38,654 players entering the twenty events. The Main Event is won by Keith “cheesemonster” Lehr who turned his $500 buy-in into $410,780.
The LAPT kicks off in Brazil and is a huge success. The inaugural event is won by Julien Nuijten.
June
The 39th Annual World Series of Poker kicks off, and is better than ever with better registration, better structures, more food options for players, and a more rounded schedule.
This year’s WSOP is deemed the Year of the Pro, as bracelets are won by a plethora of big name players including: Nenad Medic, David Singer, Erick Lindgren, Mike Matusow, Daniel Negranu, Max Pescatori, Phil Galfond, Dario Minieri, Kenny Tran, Barry Greenstein, David Benyamine, Layne Flack, J.C. Tran, and John “Razor” Phan, who wins two.
The WSOP breaks numerous records with the largest non-Main Event tournament in history with its second event, a $1,500 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. event with over 800 runners.
Scotty Nguyen wins the $50k H.O.R.S.E championship by beating a stellar fi nal two tables that included Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Huck Seed, Barry Greenstein, Andy Bloch, and Erick Lindgren. The win didn’t come without controversy, however, as Nguyen’s behavior at the table was deplorable to both his opponents and the game of poker itself.
July
Erick Lindgren caps off an outstanding WSOP, winning his fi rst ever bracelet, and is named WSOP Player of the Year.
The Main Event starts on July 3rd, and is highlighted by the deep runs of Mike Matusow, Brandon Cantu, Phil Hellmuth, and newcomer Tiffany Michelle. None of them make the fi rstever November Nine, and we are left with a 53-year-old manager of a trucking company as our chipleader.
John “Razor” Phan continues his solid year by fi nal tabling the WPT Bellagio Cup, slowly making a run for BLUFF Player of the Year.
August
John “Razor” Phan not only makes another WPT fi nal table at Legends of Poker, but this time he wins it, along with $1.1 million.
Nearly 47,000 online poker players make FTOPS IX the biggest FTOPS to date. Yuval “yuvee04” Bronshtein steals the show with back-to-back wins in Event #14 ($500 + $35 H.O.R.S.E.) and Event #15 ($200 + $16 No Limit Hold’em Turbo), the only player to ever accomplish this feat.
September
Nam Le wins the APPT High Roller event in Macau, besting a fi nal table that includes poker legend Johnny Chan.
PokerStars holds the seventh World Championship of Online Poker with 33 events and a total guaranteed prize pool of $30,000,000. The schedule includes two $10,000 buy-in events. Carter “ckingusc” King wins the Main Event and $1,265,432.23.
Vivek Rajkumar wins the WPT Borgata Poker Open and $1.4 million.
The WSOP Europe kicks off with Jesper Hougaard, Sherkhan Farnood, and Theo Jorgensen all winning preliminary event bracelets.
October
John Juanda wins the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event, beating a wicked fi nal table including Daniel Negreanu, Scott Fischman, Bengt Sonnert, and November Niner Ivan Demidov. Juanda then goes on to fi nish second in the EPT London High Roller event. The trip wins him over $2 million combined
Ivan Demidov becomes the fi rst player in history to fi nal table both the WSOP Main Event and the WSOP Europe Main Event.
With high stakes games moving more and more online, Di “urindanger” Dang wins the largest record pot online, $723,938, in a $500/$1,000 No Limit Hold’em game on Full Tilt Poker. The victim? Online poker god Tom “durrrr” Dwan.
Bertrand “ElKy” Grospellier wins the WPT Festa al Lago defeating Nam Le heads up.
Alec Torelli fi nishes fi rst and second in two consecutive preliminary events during the Festa al Lago.
Hevad “RainKhan” Khan wins $1 million at the Caesars Palace Classic
Clonie Gowen wins the World Poker Open in Tunica, taking home $183,000.
Jonathan Little wins the Foxwoods World Poker Finals, beating a fi nal table including Mike Matusow and David Pham.
November
Peter Eastgate wins the World Series of Poker Main Event, becoming the youngest champion in history. The fi nal table marked the culmination of Harrah’s drastic efforts to spice up the event and it certainly worked, garnering a hugely raucous live crowd and television ratings which trumped those of regular season basketball and baseball games during the year.
Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy is the highest profi le player to win an event in FTOPS X. Josephy wins $46,125 in Event #15 ($200 + $16 Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo) but Vashon “Julian Verse” Watkins takes home nearly $500,000 for winning the Main Event.
Team BLUFF, consisting of Justin Bonomo, Eric Morris, and Matthew Parvis, wins the inaugural Dream Team Poker Championship.
Barack Obama, a known poker fan, is elected as the fi rst African American President in our country’s history.
60 Minutes airs an exposé on the Absolute Poker/Ultimate Bet cheating scandals, revealing to the world what the poker industry had known about for some time.
December
Phil Ivey allegedly wins over $7 million playing cash games on Full Tilt Poker. Tom “durrrr” Dwan is his closest competitor with around $5 million.
High Stakes Poker resumes fi lming after what seems like an eternity.
PokerStars.com puts itself in the Guinness Book of World Records by hosting the largest online poker tournament ever with 35,000 players entering a $10 + $1 No Limit Hold’em event.
John “Razor” Phan clinches the BLUFF Player of the Year award, narrowly defeating Michael Binger. Had Binger won rather than coming in third in a tournament concluding on New Years Eve, he would have snatched the crown for himself.
David “The Maven” Chicotsky wins BLUFF Magazine Online Player of the Year by playing fi fteen-hour days for the last half of December to pass Jon “PearlJammer” Turner and Chris “Moorman1” Moorman for the title.
