Top Poker Stories of 2015 Pt 2: April - June
Welcome back to part 2 of our round up of the biggest and best poker-related stories of 2015. In part 1 we looked at the major stories to emerge from Q1 of 2015, and in this recap we'll cover our pick of the stories from April through to June.
April
Alex Jacob Wins Jeopardy
Former poker pro Alex Jacob, who has over $2.6m in live tournament winnings under his belt but who now works as a currency trader in Chicago proved that he is no one-trick pony as he rekindled his winning ways in the hugely popular long running US quiz show Jeopardy in April 2015.
Jacob, who won the United States Poker Championship in 2006 for a cool $878,000 made his first appearance on Jeopardy on Friday April 10th, going on to win five more games before eventually losing on April 20th, by which time he had accrued $151,802 in prize money and also qualfied for the annual "Tournament of Champions".
Jacob then went on to cruise through the TOC in November to win the grand prize of $250,000
Human "Brains" Beat AI Program"Claudico" in HUNL Challenge
From April 24th through to May 7th, a group of elite heads-up No Limit Hold'em players took on "Claudico", a NLHE program created by Tuomas Sandholm, professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon over the course of 80,000 hands.
The human team "Brains" comprised of NLHE superstar Doug "WCGRider" Polk, Dong "Donger Kim" Kim, Bjorn "asianflushie" Li and Jason "heyitscheet" Les.
"Brains" lead from the start and eventually ended the battle up over $723k in profit from the 80,000 hands played at the nominal $50/$100 blind levels. The biggest indiviual winner was Bjorn Li, who won over $529k in the match with only Jason Les ended up in the red (-$80k).
Although this was a pretty convincing victory, the AI guys were still able to claim a "statisical tie" in so far as they couldn't say with more than 95% confidence that the humans were actually better using statisical modelling. However, those in the know recognise that abstract statisics don't tell the whole story and that the "Brains" were comfortable winners of the challenge and would likely win again and again.
Doug "WCGRider" Polk gave us an exclusive interview a little while after the completion of the challenge where he discussed Claudico and his part in the challenge.
May
Soccer Superstars Neymar and Cristiano Ronaldo Join PokerStars
May saw two huge signings for PokerStars as Brazilian soccer hero Neymar Jr. and Portugeuse maestro Cristiano Ronaldo both annonced that they had signed on to become sporting ambassadors for the world's largest online poker site.
Neymar Jr. was the first to sign in a rumoured €4m per year deal on 7th May, with Amaya CEO David Baazov commenting on the coup:
“Neymar Jr. is a young and extremely charismatic megastar who loves interacting with fans on social media, is comfortable on camera and loves the game of poker", said Amaya CEO David Baazov.
“And as a superstar with one of the world's most famous football clubs and footballing nations, his appeal is global. The partnership is a great opportunity to market the game of poker across the globe and attract new fans."
Just three weeks later, the 3 time FIFA World Player of the Year Cristiano Ronaldo joined the ranks after speculation had been rife ever since he'd posted a picture of himself playing poker using PokerStars branded chips and cards earlier in the month.
‘Dragonwarior’ wins 2 SCOOP titles in one day for over $500,000
There were some pretty impressive individual performances at this years SCOOP, with Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier winning 3 bracelets, and the UK's Luke "lb6121" Schwartz, winning two within three days. However, the performance of the championships must go to Canadian player "Dragonwarior" who achieved the remarkable feat of winning two SCOOP events in a single day - winning a cool half million in the process.
First he won Event #30-H, the $1,050 buy-in special SCOOP Super Tuesday which attracted over 1,600 contestants, for some $275,202. Then, just a few hours later, he inconceivably repeated his heroics in Event #33-H, wading through almost 700 of the world’s toughest players in the $2,100 buy-in optional re-entry tournament for a further $256,056.
For more info on Dragonwarior's performance check out our article from May 22nd.
June
Brian Hastings Wins 2 WSOP Bracelets after placing big bets on himself before the series
It was the "Summer of Hastings" in more ways than one this year as the multi-million dollar winning former online pro made some big bets on himself prior to the World Series of Poker, and then duly delivered with 2 bracelet wins and a very deep run in the Main Event, where he was one of the chip leader for much of the event before eventually falling in 48th place after losing a huge 10m chip flip which would have seen him in a very strong position to make the November Nine.
First, Hastings took down the $10k Seven Card Stud event, winning $239,158 before become the first 2 time winner of the 2015 series after topping the 380 strong $1500 10-game mix event, adding $133,403 to his bankroll. Both of these wins, however, were dwarfed by the alleged $500k he won in side-bets against fellow players after his performance at the series.
However, Hastings jubilations were short-lived as shortly after his second bracelet victory, he was revealed to have multi-accounted at PokerStars nosebleed tables as "NOELHAYES" in the run-up to the WSOP.
Hastings didn't help matters by responding somewhat aggressively to his detractors, not offering up a decent explanation, and generally coming across as a touch arrogant and dismissive about the whole affair.
Hastings multi-accounted as he was resident in the USA and was reportedly playing through a VPN. It seems his downfall was caused not so much by his desire to hide his identity from fellow players, but because he openly told many of his opponents. Had he come straight out and explained this in the lengthy 2+2 thread in which the revelation was made then he may have got off a little lighter - although of course a high profile pro being outed as a multi-accounter was never going to go down well!
Come back to HSDB tomorrow as we continue our run-down of 2015's best poker news!