The World Series of Poker Europe is fully underway with the Main Event going on and there is much excitement in the poker air.  Thousands of players have shown up in London and it has been a good event for the WSOP’s namesake.  Things are going especially well since a star player in Daniel Negreanu is leading the field after three full days.  In addition to this great storyline, Negreanu has a $200,000 prop bet going with Phil Ivey that he will win either a WSOP bracelet (which is already out) or a WSOPE bracelet (he’s down to his last chance).

Going beyond just the Daniel Negreanu thing, people may also notice that John Juanda, online star Justin “BoostedJ” Smith, Mike Matusow, Andy Bloch, and Erik Seidel are near the top of the leaderboards too.  But while there are plenty of good storylines going on, I have to wonder if the World Series of Poker Europe is really coming into its own or if it is just an expansion event trying to capitalize off of the popularity of a big name.

Now the WSOPE has definitely drawn some people to its now four tournament and one Doyle Brunson vs. Annette Obrestad one-on-one matchup extravaganza.  However, I’m really wondering how much bigger things will get.  Will it just be a failed experiment by Harrah’s to further expand their already popular event? 

I hope not but I also am not sure how long it will take for people to really catch the WSOPE fever.  After all, the 1,000,000 Pound top prize for the winner has already been trimmed down to 868,000 Pounds and I’m hoping that the future doesn’t see it falling any farther.  But even more so, I’m hoping that the WSOPE doesn’t end as badly as another European expansion where the NFL tried to extend their power into the continent with the NFL Europe.  Then again, I don’t think there’s any fear about that since nothing can go as badly as the NFL Europe did.

I am definitely a person who supports the movement to increase people’s freedom to play poker wherever, whenever, and however they want to anywhere in the world.  In fact I think it’s ridiculous that places like the United States can tell people that they can’t use certain methods to legally play poker online or in their home. 

And along with this, I also support what the PPA (Poker Players Alliance) has been doing to try and secure more freedoms for poker players in places such as the US.  Many other people support what they’re doing too since the membership base has grown to a staggering 1.2 million.  However, I am starting to wonder just how much money should really go to the poker lobbying effort.

This is because some figures have shown that the PPA spent a whopping $283,000 just over the spring of 2008 alone!  Now I know that it costs money to get anything done on Capitol Hill but you’re talking about a nice chunk of change in $283K and it’s only in one fourth of a year.  Imagine the spending for the entire year as it would have to be at least a million.  And the sum could definitely be going up in the future as the PPA will no doubt be trying to put the pressure on Congress even more to lift online gambling regulations on poker.

Speculation seems to indicate that the PPA is hopeful that the ban will be lifted sometime in 2009 but that is only the best case scenario.  I definitely hope that they are successful in their attempt to get the regulations lifted but I also hope that they make some major headway since the costs have been so great in getting things accomplished.  We’ll see how things progress in another few months or so.

It began as a classic matchup: Doyle Brunson vs. Annette Obrestad, Old vs. New, American vs. European, Prototypical tournament player vs. The successful online player….the descriptions go on.  And this matchup was so juicy that some people were more interested in the outcome of it than they were with what happened in the WSOPE Main Event itself. 

As I mentioned in my earlier post (seen here) I thought that Doyle Brunson would win the best of three No-Limit Hold’em matchup but I also thought that it would come right down to the end.  It turns out that I was wrong though as it didn’t come down to the end since Doyle won in two straight games.  But it was still close.

Brunson had to catch some cards late in hands to top Obrestad such as when they both went all-in during the first game where Brunson held a pair and Annette had a straight draw.  Obrestad hit a queen-high straight only to see Brunson overtake her hand on the river with a king-high straight.  The next game saw both players go all-in with a jack sitting amongst the flop.  Brunson held J-3 while Obrestad was sitting better with K-J.  However, the turn would give Brunson a 3 and a two-pair and the river brought Obrestad nothing better.

Brunson was the winner of the matchup 2 games to none but it was definitely a well played contest by both.  And it was fun too!  I hope that future poker events can drum up these kinds of contests to increase fan interest in the game of poker.  It might be nice to see something like Phil Ivey vs. Daniel Negreanu in a heads-up contest or anything similar in nature that would make the tournament events even more exciting.

As one of the things designed to hype up the WSOPE and draw more attention to an event that is still in its infancy, Doyle Brunson will take on Annette Obrestad in a heads-up No-Limit Hold’em match.  And I’ll admit that this event they’ve cooked up is definitely a draw to the WSOPE as Doyle is an American icon in the poker industry while many say that Annette Obrestad is Europe’s best all-around player due to the fact that she has won the WSOPE Main Event and has the online world at her fingertips.

Further souping up the drama for this contest is the whole age difference between the two and the accolades that they bring to the table.  Doyle Brunson is 75 years old, has won the WSOP Main Event twice, is second all-time in WSOP bracelets with 10, and has played the game for well over 50 years.  Annette Obrestad, on the other hand, just turned 20 and is said to be a prodigy in that she began playing poker for cash when she was 15, has never deposited money into an account, and she started her bankroll through freerolls and never looked back.

This much anticipated match-up really has me wondering, just who will win the event.  The way this No-Limit heads-up contest is set up is that the winner will be the person who wins two out of three of the games.  So here goes my prediction:

I always like a surprise and think that Annette Obrestad is someone who is just a naturally talented poker player capable of doing whatever she wants in the game and in her future as well.  However, it’s hard to dispute Brunson’s experience and the fact that he has decades of table exposure over Obrestad.  So I pick Brunson as the winner though I think that it will definitely come down to the last game.  But whatever happens, it will definitely be an event to remember.

 A while back I did a post on how a British poker player by the name of David Cain was seeking to break the world record for the longest poker session in history.  Check that out here.  To summarize things, he was trying to play longer than American Larry Olmsted’s record of 72 hours and 2 minutes straight of poker.  Of course, Olmsted did take breaks every once in a great while to shower and change clothes but that was it.

And to hear Cain speak of playing over 100 hours straight well, I just thought that was madness.  In fact, I’m not even sure that I thought he could go past 72 hours as that is a lot of poker to play without a real break.  After all, most regular players have trouble playing 5 or 6 straight hours straight without going insane.

The word insane is a good term here too as it seems Cain starting to get pretty delirious while he was playing.  According to an article written by Cain on his website after the challenge, “As usual, I will be completely honest and upfront about what happened, so I won’t hide the fact that my decision to bring it to an end was mainly based on health grounds.  During Wednesday afternoon I had something of a mental breakdown.  It was extremely scary for me and even worse for friends and family who witnessed it.  I was fine one minute then all of a sudden I didn’t know where I was or what I was there for.” 

Cain slipped further into insanity saying, “People obviously explained what I was doing but even so it was something I could not comprehend at all.  I even had to be taught how to play poker literally from scratch.  I complained that the blinds were not necessary and that there should be a flexible amount of community cards and that the game was too linear so should be played in a circle.  Following that I felt like I was in a cage being taunted tortured and punished for a crime I didn’t commit.”

Luckily for Cain and the charity he was playing for though, he did manage to break the record as he played for 74 straight hours.  My hat does go off to him for being able to accomplish a feat many of us would have given up on a long time before that.