Robbie Strazynski

Readers of Daniel Negreanu’s poker blog know that he always sets himself goals for the year. His first goal for 2011 was to win $1 million. Incredibly, just a couple weeks into the New Year, Negreanu can already cross that off his list! While he didn’t win the $100,000 Super High Roller event at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, second place was good enough to win Negreanu $1 million and catapult him into the all-time lead for money won in poker tournaments (around $14 million), ahead of FullTilt pro Phil Ivey.

That’s right. After more than 12 years “away from the felt” Matt Damon (as Mike McDermott) will ante up again in “Rounders 2” and try to win some serious “stacks of high society”!

Proving that her recent North American Poker Tour (NAPT) Mohegan Sun $750,000 win wasn’t a fluke, Vanessa Selbst scored big again at the €8,500 buy-in main event of the Partouche Poker Tour. This prestigious win in a field of 764 players is Selbst’s biggest success to date, carrying a €1.3 million payday.

Jonathan Duhamel has won the 2010 WSOP Main Event. The 23-year-old professional poker player became the first Canadian World Champion and had a payday of almost $9 million. Duhamel enjoyed a memorable run to defeat the 8 other remaining November Niners, the most famous of whom was Michael “the Grinder” Mizrachi, who finished 5th.

Lost in all of the hullabaloo of Michael Mizrachi making the final table of this year’s WSOP Main Event, with a chance to tie for Player of the Year honors, was the man who was already guaranteed to at least be the co-winner, Frank Kassela.

Inductions to poker’s Hall of Fame have become an annual ritual during the ceremonies surrounding the World Series of Poker main event final table. As the November niners prepare for combat on the felt, two legends of the game are preparing to be enshrined as poker Hall of Famers.

Perhaps London is where the poker pros shine brightest? Hot on the heels of Phil Laak’s 1st bracelet victory, 2009 World Series of Poker Player of the Year Jeffrey Lisandro scored his 5th career bracelet at the WSOPE in London, at the £5,250 Pot-Limit Omaha event.

The Unabomber? Wild? Crazy? Nuts? Insane? Call him what you will, but 1 thing is undeniable – Phil Laak is quite the character. Known more for his table talk, antics, prop bets, and friendship with Antonio Esfandiari, than his poker play, Laak had been atop an infamous list of “professional poker players without a World Series of Poker bracelet” – until now.

Okay – admittedly, it’s a bit surreal to be writing a poker blog entry about something that happened to me, as I mostly cover news in the poker world. But what happened to me last night simply begs for some sort of a headline.

Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi has already made a run for the ages. Earlier in this year’s World Series, Grinder took down the prestigious $50,000 Players Championship, winning his 1st World Series of Poker gold bracelet, the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy, and over $1.5 million in the process

Never far from center stage in the 14 years since his Main Event win at the World Series, Huck Seed has done it again, winning this year’s Tournament of Champions (TOC). Essentially a 27-person freeroll comprised of essentially the greatest assembly of bracelet winners poker has to offer, Seed emerged from this most loaded of fields to claim the $500,000 winner’s payday.

Ante Up for Africa, a joint venture of actor Don Cheadle and poker pro Annie Duke, was held for the 4th time at this year’s World Series of Poker. The duo has teamed up to raise millions of dollars over the past few years to benefit victims of the Darfur conflict.