Las Vegas
Las Vegas the City of Las Vegas and known as Vegas, is the 28th-most populated city in the United States, the most populated city in the state of Nevada, the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area and is the largest city within the greater Mojave Desert. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city, known for its gambling, fine dining and nightlife; the Las Vegas Valley as a whole serves as the leading financial and cultural center for Nevada. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, is famous for its mega casino–hotels and associated activities, it is a top three destination in the United States for business conventions and a global leader in the hospitality industry, claiming more AAA Five Diamond hotels than any other city in the world. Today, Las Vegas annually ranks as one of the world's most visited tourist destinations; the city's tolerance for numerous forms of adult entertainment earned it the title of Sin City, has made Las Vegas a popular setting for literature, television programs, music videos.
Las Vegas was settled in 1905 and incorporated in 1911. At the close of the 20th century, it was the most populated American city founded within that century. Population growth has accelerated since the 1960s, between 1990 and 2000 the population nearly doubled, increasing by 85.2%. Rapid growth has continued into the 21st century, according to a 2018 estimate, the population is 648,224 with a regional population of 2,227,053; as with most major metropolitan areas, the name of the primary city is used to describe areas beyond official city limits. In the case of Las Vegas, this applies to the areas on and near the Las Vegas Strip, located within the unincorporated communities of Paradise and Winchester; the earliest visitors to the Las Vegas area were nomadic Paleo-Indians, who traveled there 10,000 years ago, leaving behind petroglyphs. Anasazi and Paiute tribes followed at least 2,000 years ago. A young Mexican scout named Rafael Rivera is credited as the first non-Native American to encounter the valley, in 1829.
Trader Antonio Armijo led a 60-man party along the Spanish Trail to Los Angeles, California in 1829. The area was named Las Vegas, Spanish for "the meadows," as it featured abundant wild grasses, as well as the desert spring waters needed by westward travelers; the year 1844 marked the arrival of John C. Frémont, whose writings helped lure pioneers to the area. Downtown Las Vegas's Fremont Street is named after him. Eleven years members of the LDS Church chose Las Vegas as the site to build a fort halfway between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, where they would travel to gather supplies; the fort was abandoned several years afterward. The remainder of this Old Mormon Fort can still be seen at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue. Las Vegas was founded as a city in 1905, when 110 acres of land adjacent to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks were auctioned in what would become the downtown area. In 1911, Las Vegas was incorporated as a city. 1931 was a pivotal year for Las Vegas.
At that time, Nevada legalized casino gambling and reduced residency requirements for divorce to six weeks. This year witnessed the beginning of construction on nearby Hoover Dam; the influx of construction workers and their families helped Las Vegas avoid economic calamity during the Great Depression. The construction work was completed in 1935. In 1941, the Las Vegas Army Air Corps Gunnery School was established. Known as Nellis Air Force Base, it is home to the aerobatic team called the Thunderbirds. Following World War II, lavishly decorated hotels, gambling casinos, big-name entertainment became synonymous with Las Vegas. In the 1950s the Moulin Rouge opened and became the first racially integrated casino-hotel in Las Vegas. In 1951, nuclear weapons testing began at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. During this time the city was nicknamed the "Atomic City". Residents and visitors were able to witness the mushroom clouds until 1963, when the limited Test Ban Treaty required that nuclear tests be moved underground.
The iconic "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign, never located within municipal limits, was created in 1959 by Betty Willis. During the 1960s, corporations and business powerhouses such as Howard Hughes were building and buying hotel-casino properties. Gambling was referred to as "gaming"; the year 1995 marked the opening of the Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas's downtown area. This canopied five-block area features 12.5 million LED lights and 550,000 watts of sound from dusk until midnight during shows held on the top of each hour. Due to the realization of many revitalization efforts, 2012 was dubbed "The Year of Downtown." Hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of projects made their debut at this time. They included The Smith Center for the Performing Arts and DISCOVERY Children's Museum, Mob Museum, Neon Museum, a new City Hall complex and renovations for a new Zappos.com corporate headquarters in the old City Hall building. Las Vegas is situated within Clark County in a basin on the floor of the Mojave Desert and is surrounded by mountain ranges on all sides.
Much of the landscape is arid with desert vegetation and wildlife. It can be subjected to torrential flash floods, although much has been done to mitigate the effects of flash floods through improved drainage systems; the peaks surrounding Las Vegas reach elevations of o
Antanas Guoga
Antanas Guoga, more known as Tony G, is a Lithuanian businessman, poker player and philanthropist. He is a Member of the European Parliament for the Liberal Movement, as well as Public CIO to the Mayor of Vilnius, Remigijus Šimašius. In May 2016, Guoga was the temporary leader of the Liberal Movement following the bribery scandal that prompted Eligijus Masiulis to step down after corrupt activities. Guoga spent his childhood in the Alytus district in Lithuania; when he was 11 years old, he moved to Australia. Guoga lived in Melbourne where he graduated from school, had various jobs, including repairing sewing machines and washing cars. Guoga started working as an assistant to Australian Mortgage Brokers chief Bill Buchanan, he studied finance at college. In 1993, he was employed by an investment bank in Hong Kong managed by CitiBank, his responsibilities included managing their investment portfolios. Following that, Guoga invested in a news portal, in Rate Detective life insurance company in Australia.
In addition, he developed a trading business in London. In Lithuania, he invested in real estate and internet projects, TonyBet an international betting company, TonyResort a recreation and amusement park in Anupriškės, TonySports, TonyStreets an online sports and leisure store. Guoga owns an insurance business in Australia. Guoga is investor and chair at sports-blockchain company Lympo. Since 2014, Guoga has been married to Aistė Šlapokaitė, a former psychology student and a photo model for clothing brands like Armani Jeans and Max Mara. Guoga and Šlapokaitė met during her 30th birthday celebrations in a Vilnius night club. Together they have 2 sons (Herkus, born in 2015 in Brussels and Tauras, born in 2016 in Vilnius. Guoga has a son and two daughters from previous relationships. Guoga was a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats group in the European Parliament until October 4, 2016, he became a member of the European People's Party, the biggest party in the Parliament. He works on a range of digital policies in the Internal Consumer Protection Committee.
Guoga is involved in a number of Digital Single Market topics. Being an entrepreneur himself, Guoga works for better conditions for European businesses in the technology sector; these conditions include smarter regulations, less red tape, policies that encourage innovation and entrepreneurship. In 2015 Guoga was chosen as the Lithuanian representative in the POLITICO 28 list; the European affairs weekly newspaper chose one person from each of the European Union's 28 member-states, "shaping and stirring Europe."Guoga has been elected as the vice-chairman of the European Parliament delegation to Armenia and Georgia, appointed as a member of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, a substitute member of the delegation for relations with Switzerland and Norway in the EU-Iceland Joint Parliamentary Committee and in the European Economic Area Joint Parliamentary Committee. He is a substitute member in the Employment and Social Affairs Committee. Guoga is entrepreneurship education ambassador in Lithuania.
In 2016, he launched Coder Dojo movement in Lithuania and was one of the organisers of programming clubs for 7–17 years old youth in the country. For three years in a row, 2015, 2016 and 2017 he organized the biggest ICT and entrepreneurship event in the Baltics #SWITCH! This event in 3 years has grown by 60% from 6000 participants in 2015 to 15.000 in 2017 About 200 speakers from 16 countries participated in the event. Among them was Vice-President of the European Commission for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip, Vytenis Andriukaits, EC Commissioner and representatives of tech leaders such as Microsoft, Google, Uber, Dash, Oath, Mastercard, Tele2 In 2016-2017, Guoga was Chief Investment Officer to the Mayor of Vilnius, Remigijus Šimašius. Guoga was nominated as a candidate for the European parliamentary elections at the summer congress of the Liberal Movement in the last week of June 2013. Guoga was second in the list of the Lithuanian Liberal Movement in the elections to the European Parliament 2014, was elected as the MEP with 97,907 votes ending on top of the list.
After the corruption allegations of Eligijus Masiulis, Guoga became a temporary chairman of the Liberal Movement. After public criticism by the party members, Guoga left the party on May 17, 2016; as a child, Guoga was the Rubik's Cube champion of Lithuania before moving to Melbourne, Australia at the age of 11. He has played poker since the age of 18, is known for his outlandish table talk and frequent attempts at intimidation of his opponents, he had a fifth-place finish in the World Poker Tour Grand Prix de Paris 2003. He finished in the money twice at the 2004 World Series of Poker in Seven-card stud and Pot Limit Texas hold'em tournaments and three months earned his biggest tournament money finish in the WPT Grand Prix de Paris 2004, where his second-place finish to England's Surinder Sunar earned him $414,478, he finished on the bubble in the same month at the WPT 2004 Mirage Poker Showdown. On August 7, 2005, he won the £5,000 No Limit Hold-Em Main Event of the European Poker Championships, earning £260,000.
In 2005, he made the final table of the World Speed Poker Open. In 2006, he won the WPT Bad Boys of Poker II event when his 10♦ 8♦ outdrew Mike Matusow's K♠ K♥ on a board of 8♠ 10♠ 2♥ 9♥ Q♣, he wore a kimono throughout the event to promote poker in Japan. In 2006, he finished second to Yosh Nakano while representing Australia in the inaugural Int
Jonathan Little
Jonathan Little is an American professional poker player who won both the World Poker Tour's Season VI Mirage Poker Showdown and Season VII Foxwoods World Poker Finals and won the WPT Season VI Player of the Year award. Little was a student at the University of West Florida studying psychology when he began playing poker with friends; as his interest in poker grew, it led him to study many books on poker. After earning an initial bankroll of $35,000 online over a six-month period, he decided to drop out of college and play poker professionally. Little is a successful professional poker player who has played online under the screen names "FieryJustice", "Jcardshark", "JonLittle". Little posts a weekly educational poker blog and hosts a weekly podcast at his personal site, JonathanLittlePoker.com. Little was a participant in the now defunct online poker training site called SNGIcons.com. Little has since created his own poker training websites, PokerCoaching.com and FloatTheTurn.comLittle creates poker training hand-packs™ for Insta Poker, a mobile-only poker strategy game on iPhone, iPod and iPad.
At the 2008 World Championship of Online Poker, playing under his PokerStars screen name "Jcardshark", Little finished 7th place in the $10,300 buy-in, earning $107,535 at a final table consisting of other well known players like Major League Baseball Pitcher Orel Hershiser, 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event Champion Chris Moneymaker online pros Nick Niergarth, Greg Hobson, Scott Dorin who won the event and the European Poker Tour Season IV Grand Final Champion Glen Chorny. This win brings Little's total online cashes on Pokerstars to over $280,000. In March 2008, Full Tilt Poker announced it had dropped Little from its group of sponsored professionals for violating its terms and conditions; the violation of Full Tilt's terms and condition was a result of Little allowing other people to play his Full Tilt account. Via his blog, Little accepted responsibility for his actions and issued an apology to Full Tilt. Little finished fifth in the World Poker Tour PokerStars.com Caribbean Poker Adventure Championship winning $317,000 and went to win the WPT Mirage Poker Showdown title, earning $1,091,295.
The final table was made of four other professional poker players, Cory Carroll who finished runner-up, Darrell Dicken, Phil Ivey, Amnon Filippi. In November 2007 he finished runner-up to Scott Clements in the WPT North American Poker Championship, where he earned an additional $715,702. Jonathan Little is the WPT Season VI Player of the Year. In November 2008, Little won the WPT Foxwoods World Poker Finals for his second WPT title after defeating professional poker player Jonathan Jaffe during heads-up play; the final table included professional poker players Mike Matusow who finished 6th and David Pham who finished 4th. The match broke the record for longest WPT final table at 275 hands and longest WPT heads-up match with 170 hands. Little has cashed 30 times at the World Series of Poker. In 2010, he cashed 5 times, including a 3rd-place finish in Event # 53, the Limit Hold'em Shootout for $73,218. In 2013, he cashed 5 times, including a 3rd-place finish in Event # 32, the No-Limit Hold'Em/Six Handed $5,000 buy-in for $238,833, as well as twice at the WSOPE.
In 2015, he cashed 4 times, including a 6th-place finish in Event # 25, Eight-Handed $5,000 buy-in for $85,616. In 2016 he cashed in 5 events for $63,231 - including a tag team event with his mother and father as partners, his lifetime winnings at the WSOP total $696,841. As of February 2019, his total live tournament winnings exceed $6,800,000. Little married on August 2015 to Amie Broder, his best man was Shannon Shorr. When Little is not traveling the live poker circuit, he teaches his students how to improve their poker strategies at PokerCoaching.com. Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 1: Fundamentals and How to Handle Varying Stack Sizes ISBN 978-1904468561 Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 2: Stages of the Tournament ISBN 978-1904468585 Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 3: The Complete Workout ISBN 978-1904468950 Positive Poker: A Modern Psychological Approach to Mastering Your Mental Game The Main Event with Jonathan Little: In-Depth Analysis of 54 Poker Hands from my WSOP Main Event ISBN 978-1500766375 Jonathan Little on Live No-Limit Cash Games, Volume 1: The Theory ISBN 978-1909457232 Jonathan Little on Live No-Limit Cash Games, Volume 2: The Practice ISBN 978-1904468950 Strategies for Beating Small Stakes Poker Tournaments ISBN 978-1508660200 Jonathan Little's Excelling at No-Limit Hold'em: Leading poker experts discuss how to study and master NLHE ISBN 978-1909457447 Strategies for Beating Small Stakes Poker Cash Games ISBN 978-1518655388 Peak Poker Performance: How to bring your'A' game to every session ISBN 978-1-909457-50-8 Bluffs: How to Intelligently Apply Aggression to Increase Your Profits from Poker ISBN 978-1537130231 Official Website PokerCoaching.com FloatTheTurn.com JonathanLittleSecrets.com Insta Poker Pokerlistings.com interview CardPlayer.com – 2007 a Big Year for Little Jonathan Little Interview
Russ Hamilton
Russ Hamilton is an American poker player. He was the 1994 World Series of Poker main event champion, defeating Hugh Vincent in heads-up play to win $1 million in first-prize money, as well as his body weight in silver. Following his World Series win, Hamilton served as a consultant for Ultimate Bet, an online poker server. In 2008, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission found Hamilton responsible for cheating players on Ultimate Bet out of $6.1 million through software that allowed access to opponents' hole cards. In 2009, Kahnawake increased the $6.1 million estimate to $22,100,000. Hamilton attended college in Michigan and pursued a degree in electrical engineering, before a conversation with a professor led him to decide that playing poker for a living would be more profitable. After playing in underground games in Detroit, he moved to Las Vegas at the age of 36, he joined a tournament blackjack team and enjoyed a successful run but, when tournaments started barring blackjack pros, he turned back to poker.
In 1994, he won the World Series of Poker main event bracelet. He invented Elimination Blackjack, a tournament Blackjack derivative, used as the format for the televised Ultimate Blackjack Tour. Hamilton's last major cash came in the 2009 World Poker Tour PCA Main Event; as of 2014, his total live tournament winnings exceed $1,525,000. His eight cashes at the WSOP account for $1,261,940 of those winnings. Since winning his World Series bracelet, Hamilton has served as a gaming industry expert, including as a consultant for the online poker cardroom UltimateBet where he was involved in recruiting some prominent poker players, including Phil Hellmuth, to promote the site, he has won World Championships in several types of casino games and founded the Ultimate Blackjack Tour in 2005. On September 29, 2008, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission stated it had found clear and convincing evidence that, between the approximate dates of May 2004 and January 2008, Russ Hamilton was the main person responsible for, benefiting from, multiple sophisticated cheating incidents at UltimateBet.
UltimateBet refunded a total of $22,100,000 to the defrauded players. In October 2008, 60 Minutes aired a report profiling Hamilton and called the fraud the biggest scandal in the history of online gambling. 60 Minutes partnered with the Washington Post in their investigation. In May 2013, recorded audio of discussions with UltimateBet management was released by Travis Makar where Hamilton and other management can be heard discussing the scandal and the plans to cover up known conspirators and participants as well as aiming to reduce the declared or refunded amount of the fraud; this recording included statements of admission from Hamilton such as "I did take this money and I'm not trying to make it right, so we've got to get that out of the way real quick."
PokerStars
PokerStars is an online poker cardroom owned by The Stars Group. It can be accessed through downloadable poker clients for the Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. A PokerStars.com online satellite tournament produced the 2003 World Series of Poker champion, Chris Moneymaker. As the first person to become a world champion by qualifying at an online poker site, Moneymaker's 2003 win was an important factor in catalyzing the poker boom of the mid-2000s; the press has called this the "Moneymaker effect."PokerStars is the largest real money online poker site in the world, controlling over two-thirds of the total online poker market. PokerStars launched its beta play-money-only site on September 11, 2001; the company began offering real money wagering on December 12, 2001. PokerStars was a Costa Rican company, Rational Enterprises, majority owned by the Israeli Scheinberg family; the company was subsequently moved to Isle of Man. The move was driven by the establishment of a 0% corporate tax rate and the removal of rules barring companies from accepting casino and poker bets from the United States of America.
PokerStars holds its licence with the Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission and holds numerous licences in other jurisdictions. On February 10, 2012, PokerStars acquired a European Union license granted by the Malta Lotteries and Gaming Commission. While owned, PokerStars had been the subject of financial media speculation regarding a possible initial public offering or merger with a publicly listed company. Analysts estimated its market value would have been $2 billion in 2006, which would have made the company one of the world's largest held gambling companies. PokerStars overtook PartyPoker as the world's largest online poker room at after the U. S. Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. Many sites, including PartyPoker suspended business with U. S. gamblers, while others, including PokerStars, did not. On December 27, 2009, PokerStars set the world record for the biggest online tournament; the tournament entry fee was $1, the number of entrants reached 149,196.
They broke that record on December 4, 2011, when 200,000 players played in a $1 buy-in tournament with a first prize of $50,000. PokerStars was so busy during the early stages of the tournament, all tournaments had to be stopped for 20 minutes because the heavy traffic crashed their servers; this record had been broken again at June 2013, with 225,000 participants. The buy-in was $1 and went into the prize pool, with no rake. In January 2012, PokerStars introduced a downloadable mobile client for iOS from iTunes. In February 2012, the company introduced a client for Android. On July 31, 2012, PokerStars bought Full Tilt Poker; the $731 million deal settled a civil lawsuit with the Department of Justice while giving ownership of Full Tilt Poker's assets to PokerStars. On June 12, 2014, The Stars Group known as Amaya Inc. agreed to buy PokerStars and its parent company for $4.9 billion in cash. The deal was completed on August 1, 2014; as of April 6, 2016 they have reached an agreement with Netent to add desktop and mobile gambling games to its poker lobby in New Jersey and other locations.
In February 2017, Microgaming announced a partnership with PokerStars, owned by parent company for the integration of its Quickfire platform. In July 2017, PokerStars agreed to a deal with bankruptcy administrators to acquire some of rival PKR.com's assets and in doing so will reimburse 60,000 PKR players 100% of their final balances. In December 2017, PokerStars unveiled a brand new player tournament called the PokerStars Players No Limit Hold'em Championship, to be held in January 2019; the tournament is expected to become one of the biggest events in the annual poker calendar with a twenty-five thousand dollar buy in and a $1 million bonus for the eventual winner. In March 2018, The Stars Group reached an agreement with gaming company Sugal & Damani to support the launch of its PokerStars brand in India. In September 2018, PokerStars revealed PokerStars VR, a immersive virtual reality poker experience. PokerStars offers a large number of poker variations: Texas hold'em, Omaha Hi/Lo, Stud, Stud Hi/Lo, Five-card draw, 2-7 Triple Draw & 2-7 Single Draw, Badugi, HORSE, HOSE, Mixed Hold'em, Mixed Omaha Hi/Lo, Triple Stud and 8-Game Mix.
PokerStars offers "Mixed Games," which rotate through several of these games. PokerStars averages over 15,000 players playing real money cash games daily. PokerStars launched Zoom Poker in March 2012, with an official launch in May 2012. Zoom Poker is a fast fold ring game poker format; the aim of Zoom poker is to offer players more hands of poker than in a regular ring game. In January 2013 PokerStars rolled out Zoom Poker Tournaments due to popular demand for the fast fold variant The site's weekly Sunday Million tournament has a guaranteed $1 million prize pool and a $215 buy-in; the Sunday Million is the biggest weekly online poker tournament. On March 7, 2011, The 5th Anniversary Sunday Million broke records, with 59,128 players creating a total prize pool of $11,825,600. World Championship of Online Poker has been running since 2002 and is regarded as the online equivalent of the World Series of Poker; the WCOOP tournament series is the largest online poker series and pays out the largest prizes in online poker.
The WCOOP 2010 Main Event champion Tyson “POTTERPOKER” Marks won $2.2 Million, the largest online tournament prize in history. Spring Championship of Online Poker was established in 2009 and has since become the most popular online tournament series. Unlike WCOOP, there are t
Video poker
Video poker is a casino game based on five-card draw poker. It is played on a computerized console similar in size to a slot machine. Video poker first became commercially viable when it became economical to combine a television-like monitor with a solid state central processing unit; the earliest models appeared at the same time as the first personal computers were produced, in the mid-1970s, although they were primitive by today's standards. Video poker became more established when SIRCOMA, which stood for Si Redd's Coin Machines, introduced Draw Poker in 1979. Throughout the 1980s video poker became popular in casinos, as people found the devices less intimidating than playing table games. Today video poker enjoys a prominent place on the gaming floors of many casinos; the game is popular with Las Vegas locals, who tend to patronize locals casinos off the Las Vegas Strip. These local casinos offer lower denomination machines or better odds. A few people that are skilled in calculating odds have made money playing video poker.
After inserting money into the machine, play begins by placing a bet of one or more credits and pressing the "deal" button. The player is given 5 cards and has the opportunity to discard one or more of them in exchange for new ones drawn from the same virtual deck. After the draw, the machine pays out if the hand or hands played match one of the winning combinations, which are posted in the pay table. Unlike the table version, the player may discard all 5 of their original cards. Pay tables allocate the payouts for hands and are based on how rare they are, the game variation, the decision of the game operator. A typical pay table starts with a minimum hand of a pair of jacks, which pays money. All the other hand combinations in video poker are the same as in table poker, including such hands as two pair, three of a kind, flush, full house, four of a kind, straight flush and royal flush; some machines offer progressive jackpots or other unique bonuses, spurring players to both play more coins and to play more frequently.
Video poker machines in casinos in the United States are regulated by state or Indian gaming agencies. These agencies require that the machines deal random card sequences using a virtual deck of cards; this is based on a Nevada Gaming Commission regulation adopted by other states with a gaming authority. Video poker machines are tested to ensure compliance with this requirement before they are offered to the public. There are many variations of video poker, they include Deuces Wild. In games which do not have a wild card, a player on average will receive the rare four-of-a-kind hand once every 500 hands, while a player may play tens of thousands of hands before a royal flush, which has the highest payout. Video poker games online are now available in the US in 3 different states: New Jersey and Nevada. Players in all three states are able to enjoy regulated online video poker games provided that they are physically present in the respective state, of legal age to gamble, can validate their identity.
When modern video poker games first appeared, the highest-paying common variant of a particular game was called "full-pay". Game variants that returned a lower payback percentage were termed "Short-Pay". Though the term full-pay is still in use, there are many game variants that return more. Payback percentage expresses the long-term expected value of the player's wager as a percentage if the game is played perfectly. A payback percentage of 99 percent, for example, indicates that for each $100 wagered, in the long run, the player would expect to lose $1 if they played every hand in the optimal way. Full-pay Jacks or Better, for example, offers a payback percentage of 99.54%. Some payback percentages on full-pay games are close to or in excess of 100 percent. Casinos do not advertise payback percentages, leaving it up to the player to identify which video poker machines offer the best schedules; the payoff schedules for most video poker machines are configured with a pay schedule that pays proportionally more for certain hands when the maximum number of credits is bet.
Therefore, players who do not play with the maximum number of credits at a time are playing with a smaller theoretical return. "Jacks or Better," sometimes called "Draw Poker," is the most common variation of video poker. Payoffs begin at a pair of jacks. Full pay Jacks or Better is known as 9/6 Jacks or Better since the payoff for a full house is 9 times the bet, the payoff for a flush is 6 times the bet. Sometimes, 10/6 and 9/7 versions of Jacks or Better can be found as promotions. Bally Technologies All American video poker is based on Jacks or
2008 World Series of Poker
The 2008 World Series of Poker was the 39th annual World Series of Poker. Held in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino, the series began on May 30, 2008, featured 55 poker championships in several variants. All events but the $10,000 World Championship No Limit Texas hold'em Main Event, the most prestigious of the WSOP events, ended by July 15; as has been the WSOP custom since 1976, each of the event winners received a championship bracelet in addition to that event's prize money, which ranged from $87,929 to $9,119,517. Highlights of the 2008 series include the selection of Erick Lindgren, who won a bracelet and made three final tables, as recipient of the "Player of the Year Award". Nikolay Evdakov led all players with a record 10 money finishes, Phil Hellmuth set a WSOP record of 41 career final tables; the Main Event, which began with 6,844 participants, was suspended once the event was down to the nine players needed for the final table. This year was the first in which the Main Event was suspended in this fashion, a change introduced at ESPN's request to allow the television network to do a same-day Main Event broadcast.
In a stunning statistical improbability, Justin Phillips knocked out Motoyuki Mabuchi in the Main Event. Phillips held a Royal Flush and Mabuchi held quad aces. One of the broadcasters, Lon McEachern, mentioned on air that the chances of such a showdown occurring were 1:2.7 billion. Ray Romano had just sat down at the table. Nikolay Evdakov set a WSOP record for most cashes at a single World Series with 10; the previous record of eight was held by five players: Chris Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth, Humberto Brenes, Michael Binger, Chad Brown. Evdakov's achievement represents the most cashes by a player at one WSOP without reaching a single final table. Hellmuth, who made two final tables, established a new WSOP career record of 41 final tables, two more than T. J. Cloutier. Scotty Nguyen became the first player to hold both a Main Event and a $50,000 H. O. R. S. E World Championship bracelet. Several nationals were the first from their country to win bracelets. Brazilian Alexandre Gomes won Event 48 to become the first South American player to win a WSOP bracelet since Ecuadorian-born Carlos Mortensen won the 2001 Main Event.
Rob Hollink won Event 30, becoming the first Dutch WSOP bracelet winner, Davidi Kitai won Event 38, becoming the first Belgian player to win a bracelet. The 2008 Main Event final table took 15 hours and 28 minutes to play, beating the previous record of 14 hours and 2 minutes in 2005; the $10,000 World Championship No Limit Texas Hold'em Main Event began on July 3 with the first of four starting days. After reaching the final table of nine players on July 14, the final table was delayed until November 9; this change in schedule was made to allow ESPN to broadcast the final table on November 11, shortly after it was played. All final table players were paid ninth place prize money in July, with the remaining prize pool distributed in November. Instead of the Amazon Room, aka "the Poker Room," where all of the events were held, the final table would be held in the Penn and Teller Theatre. On November 9, players played down from nine to two and the winner was decided the next night; the final table consisted of 274 hands in total.
After a large decrease in Main Event participants in 2007 compared to 2006, the number increased in 2008 but was still far from the 2006 number. As in 2007, the payout structure is flatter than in 2006 and before, with the lowest payouts at $21,230, as compared to $10,616 in 2006; the "last woman standing" in the 2008 Main Event was Tiffany Michelle. Celebrities best known from television and professional sports, among other areas participated, with two placing in the money; the list includes: Out in Day 1: Jason Alexander, Nick Cannon, José Canseco, Jeff Fenech, Larry Flynt, Forrest Griffin, Orel Hershiser, Chuck Liddell, Brad May, Mekhi Phifer, Sam Simon, Jennifer Tilly, David Wells. Out in Day 2: Paul Azinger, Bruce Buffer, Shannon Elizabeth, Sully Erna, Ray Romano. Out in Day 3: Andy Griggs, Shane Warne. Out in Day 4: Steve Davis. Out in Day 5: Kara Scott. *Career statistics prior to the beginning of the 2008 Main Event At the age of 22, Peter Eastgate became the youngest Main Event winner, surpassing Phil Hellmuth, 24 when he won in 1989 and became the first European to capture the title since Carlos Mortensen won in 2001.
His winning hand was a five high straight known as a "wheel", made from his hole cards A♦ 5♠ and three of the community cards which were 2♦ K♠ 3♥ 4♣ 7♠, while his opponent Ivan Demidov lost with 4♥ 2♥ for two pair. NB: This list is restricted to top 30 finishers with an existing Wikipedia entry. Twenty past WSOP Main Event champions, representing 22 bracelets, participated in the 2008 Main Event. Two champions from the late 1980s finished in the money: Johnny Chan placed 329th for $32,166, Phil Hellmuth finished 45th for $154,400
