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he World Series of Poker has come and gone, and once
again the biggest event in live poker has caused a surge
of traffic to the major online sites. PokerStars and
PartyPoker each saw a big jump in the attendance of
their major weekend tournaments. As always, PocketFives.com
has been right there following the action. The PokerStars
$200 Sunday tournament, which now features a $500,000
Guaranteed Prize Pool, has had almost $700,000 in the
prize pool every week. PartyPoker’s July 30th
Million Dollar Guaranteed tournament drew an astounding
$1,271,000 prize pool as 2119 entrants fought for a
$267,000 first prize. The weekend before that, PartyPoker
actually hit their cap of 2500 player in their $350,000
Guaranteed Sunday tournament. We’re looking forward
to another surge once the 2005 Main Event begins broadcast
on ESPN in mid October.
The online poker All-Stars are continuing to dominate.
Players like Johnnybax, Sheets, Mr. Lobo,
and Soupie are coasting through tournaments, but the
most successful player lately has been Matt “SamENole”
Smith. This 23-year-old FSU grad is on fire both live
and online. After a disappointing Main Event at the
World Series, he decided to play the $1000 buy-in final
event. 12 hours of solid play later, Matt finished 2nd
in the event, taking home $100,000 cash and nearly winning
a bracelet. Before leaving Vegas he also won another
$8,000 in the Bellagio’s daily tournament.
You might think Matt would take a break at this point
and enjoy his cash, but instead he returned straight
to his computer and resumed his domination of online
tournaments. Just a few days after nearly winning the
bracelet, he finished 11th in the previously- mentioned
Stars $500,000 Guaranteed tournament. A week later he
beat out over 500 people in a Stars $150 tourney and
split first place for a $15,000 profit. Not to mention
he also recently won his Legends WPT tournament prize
package on Paradise and his Aruba prize package on UltimateBet,
so he’ll get another shot at a big live win soon.
He’s making a final table “virtually”
every day and raking in a ton of cash in the process.
Matt has moved into the Top 5 in the PocketFives.com
rankings and shows no signs of slowing down. So if you
venture into an online tournament soon, watch out for
a guy at your table named SamENole – this kid
can play.
Cal Spears is the President/Co-Founder
of Pocketfives.com, which has fast become the authority
in online poker.
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