The best thing about writing a blog is you can write whenever you want about whatever strikes your fancy. If you look back over the entries I have posted in mine this past year, you will see articles about a variety of topics, mostly relating to gaming of some sort. New slots at G2E and films of slots on YouTube, various aspects of sports and sports betting, California Native American casinos and tribal sovereignty issues, the differences in Class II and Class III slots, news articles about gamblers and gambling, the tax implications of winning or losing when you play, money laundering and title 31 (money laundering) concerns. Whatever is on my mind at the time I sit down to write is what you get to read when you visit spinning2win.blogspot.com. If you don’t find a particular entry is something you care about, that’s okay too. The next week I’ll be talking about something entirely different, and that may be something you want to know about. This week the game is Poker.
Today the finals of the 2015 World Series of Poker begins. Nine players are left, each hoping to win $7.6 million and the title of World Series of Poker champion in the event’s annual no-limit Texas Hold’em tournament. The group of 9 pros, retirees, and software developers have outlasted 6,410 other players each of whom paid $10,000 for the chance to take home the big prize.
The favorite is a 24 year old from North Wales, Pennsylvania, with a degree in mathematics from Arcadia University, Joe McKeehen. He enters the finals with 63,100,000 in chips. His earnings before the Main Event total $2 million. Sitting comfortably at the top of the pack, he has more than twice the number of chips as his closest competitor. Not bad for a 24 yr old!
In second place with 29,800,000 in chips is a relative unknown in the tournament world, Ofer Zvi Stern, age 37 from Israel. He is a software developer and owner of multiple tech companies and the only one of the November 9 with a day job. Prior to this competition, this relative unknown player’s poker tournament earnings totaled only $152,818. Before this match he placed no higher than 18th in five World Series of Poker events and earned no more that $22,318 total since 2006. I guess Stern is the dark horse favorite.
In third place Neil Blumenfield with 22,000,000 in chips is a former tech company founder and executive originally from Chicago, now San Francisco, and soon Ft. Lauderdale. At age 61 he, along with Pierre Neuville age 72 with 21,075,000 in chips, are the oldest players to reach the final table in its modern era. Blumenfield is a UC Berkeley grad with a degree in political science. Neuville is a retired executive with board game maker Hasbro’s European division.
The remaining 5 players are young. In 5th place is Max Steinberg, age 27, who has daily fantasy sports and DraftKings to thank for his foray into poker’s premier event. Tom Cannuli, age 23, is the youngest player and has skyrocketed from 691st place last year to 6th today. Joshua Beckley, age 25, who has played in 15 events this year and won cash in five of them is ranked 7th. Patrick Chan, who has entered the Main Event every year since 2012 and never cashed until now is in 8th place. He turns 27 at the end of the week. The final 9th competitor is Federico Butteroni age 25 from Italy, who also has played in 13 events and cashed in three this series.
I have not been following the World Series of Poker, so you may wonder what about WSOP caught my attention today. It was a column by my favorite local writer Richard Lederer, a well known linguist who writes for the San Diego Union Tribune each Saturday. Lederer also has a site on the web verbivore.com where you can read his previous columns and order his books.
What’s a verbivore, you may ask, and what does that have to do with poker?
Carnivores eat meat. Herbivores eat plants and vegetables. Verbivores devour words. If you love puns, word origins, metaphors, and the evolution of language usage - you may well be a verbivore too. Visit Lederer’s web site and read some of his columns and see. His most recent one deals with the origins and usage of various poker phrases. Why poker? Well, Richard Lederer is also the proud parent of two world-class poker players.
His son, Howard “The Professor” Lederer and his daughter, Annie Duke, have together won $11.5 million in poker championships. Lederer proudly tells us that they are the only sibling pair to reach the final day of a World Series of Poker event, and both have earned World Series bracelets. Between 1993 and 1999 Howard Lederer made eight final tables at WSOP events before winning his first WSOP bracelet in 2000 and his second in 2001. You can read more on Wikipedia. He was also a founding member and onetime president of Tiltware LLC, the company that handled marketing and software development for Full Tilt Poker in 2004.
His daughter, Annie (Lederer) Duke, holds a World Series of Poker gold bracelet from 2004 and formerly was the leading money winner among woman until dethroned by Vanessa Selbst. She has written a number of instructional books for poker players, and co-founded a non-profit Ante Up for Africa. She has also been involved in advocating for the legality of online gambling. Wikipedia can tell you much more about Annie also
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The Lederer siblings no longer play in the WSOP, but proud parents don’t need much excuse to talk about their children’s achievements. And it inspired Mr. Lederer's column this week all about “laying cards on the table” and other poker-related phrases. Take a look at his site. You’ll enjoy it, I bet. As for the WSOP, pick your favorite of the November Nine and watch and see who wins. Don't count on Jennifer to know and tell you.
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