Wicked Chops Poker
It’s WSOP time again. Finally. We were getting a little bored. Sure, we love the NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship. actually a great event – well lots of excitement. The World Poker Tour championship has some good buzz too.
But after that, does anyone really care about other poker tournaments? Let’s put it this way: if the WPT announced that it was going to shut down every event save their championship, would you really be upset? Probably not. We’re all suffering WPT fatigue as it is. For them, less at this stage could mean more.
And if NBC said it was dropping the Heads- Up Championship, you’d probably be bummed, but in all, it’s still new and somewhat of a novelty, so you’d get over it pretty quick. But if Harrah’s announced the WSOP was done? Everyone would be crushed. Think that gut-punch-air-outof- the-balloon-UIGEA-feeling multiplied by 1,000.
For poker, it’s all about the WSOP. It’s the best time of the year. It’s Poker Christmas. Or for many on the circuit, it’s Poker Hanukkah. Whatever the case or your religious affi liation, here’s our offi cial Wicked Chops Poker Preview for the 2009 WSOP.
Guy(s) Most Likely To Capture His Elusive First Bracelet:
Last year Erick Lindgren came through, got the proverbial monkey off his back, and shed the title “Best Without a Bracelet”. Then the spectacularly- breasted J.C. Tran did the same. The usual candidates for the “Best Without a Bracelet” title after those guys are typically Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, Gavin Smith, Gus Hansen, and, more recently, Tom “durrrr” Dwan. However, we’re going in a different direction with two guys that are about as consistent as they come but haven’t broken through yet with that major victory: Michael Binger and the man with the best porn star name in the business, Shannon Shorr. These two guys are like Everybody Loves Raymond. They’re always on, you probably never really watched or noticed, but you appreciate the success nonetheless.
Girl Most Likely To Capture Her Elusive First [Open Event] Bracelet:
Gotcha! Like that is going to happen. Seriously, there are better odds of one of us Entities riding a bicycle to the moon.
Annie Duke Will Final Table Something
Riding the wave of pseudo-celebrity popularity from her success on The Celebrity Apprentice, Annie Duke will make a run in some event (go ahead and pencil it in for an Omaha Hi/Lo one), come close, not win it, leading to the inevitable “You’re Fired!” headlines or jokes on other poker news reporting websites.
Pro Most Likely to Win H.O.R.S.E., $40k NLH, or Main Event:
Well, we retired Huck Seed as our “Offi cial Pick to Win It” after he captured the NBC Heads-Up Championship in March, and we announced Annie's bro, Howard Lederer, as our new pick. So we’re sticking by our guns and saying that Bub is gonna bank a bracelet in one of the major events this year. The added bonus of this one is we get to make our “chip lederer" jokes whenever he is inevitably leading a fi nal table.
Most Likely to Pull a Vinnie Vinh No Show Cashing:
Not that we’re going out on a limb here, but Layne Flack hasn’t exactly had the best 2009 so far. Not being Asian aside, the parallels between Flack and Vinh are striking: both are insanely talented and maybe a little bit insane, and either could just suddenly no-show an event (for whatever reason) and no one would be surprised. So don’t be shocked if Flack builds up a massive stack during Day 1 of some event, only to not appear and watch his chair do all the work on its way to cashing during Day 2.
Trend of The Year:
Twitter is to Facebook this year what Facebook was to MySpace last year. seems like every big name pro is regularly tweeting the mundane and not so mundane aspects of their life to us all. Expect it to get out of control at this year’s WSOP, with constant chip updates and insta-analysis.
Pro Most Likely to Twitter a Blow-Up:
With that said, and with the new WSOP rules prohibiting profanity at the tables, pros that typically like to blow-up at others may have to resort to Twitter to do it. And the most likely to tweet a profanity- laced tirade? It’s obviously Phil Hellmuth. He’s already name dropping on Twitter like a pro, so expect a few “Stupid Northern European” tweets come mid-June.
As for the Entities, while we’ll still be doing our Girls on the Rail and other popular features on WickedChopsPoker.com, we’ll also be expanding our coverage with some fun new features. Keep a look out, as we expect this to be the best WSOP yet.
