May 26 2012, Chad Holloway

With the 2012 World Series of Poker right around the corner, it was time for the seventh annual ESPN Fantasy Poker League, and I couldn’t have been more excited. This marked my third year as a participant, and I was seeking to win my second title in three years after winning the competition in 2010.

This year’s draft saw an eclectic mix of pros and prominent media members participate, though last year’s champion and former November Niner, Dennis Phillips, and two-time bracelet winner Mark Seif both had to miss the contest. With the addition of Josh Brikis, who has more than $1.4 million in career earnings, the total number of teams for this year’s draft stood at 10.

Here are the 10 teams/participants in the draft order: Lance Bradley, Brikis, myself, Eric Baldwin, Gary Wise, Daniel Negreanu, Dwyte Pilgrim, Chops of WickedChopsPoker, ESPN’s and the league’s commissioner Andrew Feldman, and Bernard Lee.

The invite-only league, which is built around the World Series of Poker, doesn’t feature a buy-in, but there are some major bragging rights on the line. Each participant utilizes their expertise to draft a team of eight players whom they think will find success at the WSOP. That team is then awarded points based upon the following criteria:

• 1 point for making the money
• 2 points for the top 50
• 5 points for top 20
• 10 points for the final table (defined as top nine in hold ‘em, eight in mixed and other games, six during shorthanded events, eight in heads-up (5-8th will be awarded 5th, etc).

In addition:

• 1 additional point for ninth
• 2 additional points for eighth
• 4 additional points for seventh
• 6 additional points for sixth
• 10 additional points for fifth
• 15 additional points for fourth
• 20 additional points for third
• 30 additional points for second
• 40 additional points for first
• Double points will be awarded for all events with a $10,000 buy-in or more.
• Players will earn one extra point by cashing per every 100 players in the field. For example, if you cash in a 2000-player event, you will earn an additional 20 points.
• Every team can drop one player and replace him or her with another player. Stats will only count once on your roster.

The draft proved to be a quick affair, and some interesting facts emerged:

• Last year’s number one pick, Eric Baldwin, dropped to the 70th overall pick this year. As Pilgrim explained, “He’s learned a thing or two” since making his pick last year.
• Phil Ivey was drafted second overall the past two years. Let’s hope it works out better for Brikis than it did for me last year when Ivey didn’t play!
• Seven of the first-round picks were also first-round picks last year. Eric Baldwin, Erick Lindgren and David Chiu were the players who fell out of the first round, while Steve Billirakis, Eugene Katchalov and Shawn Buchanan were the ones who jumped in.
• Last year Erick Lindgren was the fifth overall pick, but dropped to 68th this year; meanwhile, last year’s second-round picks Shannon Shorr, Men Nguyen, Scotty Nguyen, Mark Seif and Gavin Smith weren’t even selected this year.
• Other players not drafted this year included Huck Seed, Chau Giang, Andy Frankenberger, Ted Forrest, Andy Bloch, Galen Hall, Chad Brown and Jennifer Harman, just to name a few. Oh, and Chris Ferguson, he wasn’t selected either.

What’s even more interesting is that once the draft was completed (you can view the team rosters below), the Twitterverse chimed in:

Below is a round-by-round look at the 2012 ESPN Fantasy Poker League Draft:

Team Lance Bradley

Who do you think has the best team? Were there any players you were surprised to discover did not get drafted? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. In the meantime, be sure to follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

Follow Chad Holloway on

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to post one!

May 24 2012, Donnie Peters

While the $25,000 Championship at the 2012 World Poker Tour World Championship bursted the bubble and reached the final table, the $100,000 Super High Roller was kicking off across the room. The last big event before the summer bracelet hunting began saw 25 players come out to action on Day 1 with seven re-entries. At the end of the first 10 levels of play, 19 remained with Justin Bonomo finishing on top. He bagged up 1.433 in chips.

You can only imagine the types of names that this massive, six-figure buy-in event would attract, but there were also some rather unknown players in the mix tangling with elite pros. Clemenceau Calixto, Rob Zeps, Michael Parziale, Roger Sippl, Daniel Perper and Bill Klein were amongst those lesser known players in the field and a few of them performed very well. Of that group, Calixto, Parziale and Zeps were eliminated on the day.

When it comes to the big names, it was more of a “who’s who” of the young superstars in the game. You had Isaac Haxton, Sam Trickett, Tom Marchese, David “Doc” Sands, Phil Galfond, Dan Smith and Jason Mercier all playing while Erik Seidel, John Juanda and Daniel Negreanu represented the “old guard” in the field.

Also playing in the event was former WPT champion Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, but he was eliminated by Trickett during Level 8. With the blinds at 2,500/5,000/500, the WPT Live Updates Team reported that Mercier had opened with a raise to 12,000 from under the gun before Grospellier reraised all in from the button for 120,500. In the big blind, Trickett made the call and then Mercier folded. Grospellier tabled the for two overs against the held by Trickett. A clean and simple ran out and Grospellier was eliminated.

Bonomo wasn’t doing so hot for the majority of the day, but a late surge was what earned him the chip lead. In the last level of play, Bonomo doubled through Seidel with the versus Seidel’s . All of the money went in preflop and Bonomo was fortunate to have the flop come down with three hearts to make him a flush.

We mentioned there were seven re-entries into the event and Negreanu accounted for two of those. That’s right, he fired two $100,000 bullets into this thing, but opted to not fire a third and enjoy some time off before the World Series of Poker. Cary Katz, Andrew Robl, Galen Hall, Marchese and Mercier were the other players to fire in a second bullet.

Super High Roller Day 1 Top 10 Chip Counts

During Day 1 of the event, the players unanimously voted to allow registration to stay open 15 minutes into Day 2. This should draw in a few more late entries into the event. It will also allow those that busted on Day 1 a night to think things over and put together another $100,000 to re-enter. Day 2 is scheduled to kick off at 1300 PDT (2100 BST) on Thursday. Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews for the daily recap.

Get all the latest PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook today!

*Photo courtesy of BJ Nemeth at WorldPokerTour.com

Follow Donnie Peters on

No comments yet. Be the first to post one!