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Tri Nguyen Interview "How I Made My First Million..."

After years of beating the highest stakes of online poker, Tri "SlowHabit" Nguyen became a coach to several high profile poker players to teach his winning ways to others. After beating the games in the early years of online poker, Nguyen played a small amount on PokerStars as QuickStilz. Drawing on his ability to explain complicated poker concepts and break them down into simple and understandable terms, Nguyen found his way as a writer, launching the acclaimed "Let There Be Range," which he co-authored with high stakes superstar Cole "CTS" South. Nguyen has a new book coming out in December titled "How I Made My First Million from Poker," and we caught up with the acclaimed coach and author to chat about his journey.

PTR: How did you get your start playing online poker?

Tri Nguyen: First of all, I'm Vietnamese. So, I grew up playing cards. Not really Texas Hold'em, or even poker in general, but playing cards with our family and friends. Every New Year, our parents would give us some money and we'd sit around and play different card games, so it was always a part of my upbringing and part of the culture ...

Pius 'MastaP89' Heinz Wins 2011 WSOP Main Event

The 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event drew 6,865 players, and at the end of an event that began back in July, a winner has been crowned. Pius "MastaP89" Heinz entered the final table as one of the shorter stacks, but it took only a few hands to gather enough chips to propel Heinz into the chip lead, a position that he maintained for the majority of the final table. The 22 year old Heinz defeated Martin "filfedra" Staszko to earn his first ever WSOP Bracelet, and $8,715,638 in a grueling heads up battle.

While he enjoyed the luxury of being the chip leader for the majority of the final table, Heinz actually spent most of the heads up battle as the short stack until he moved all in on a Ks-Tc-7c flop with Ah-Qh, and Staszko made the call with Qc-9c. Heinz faded each of the clubs and the remaining 9's on the turn and river and found himself the beneficiary of a 4 to 1 chip lead, which he would not relinquish, and in so doing joined a unique fraternity of poker players that includes the title Main Event Champion, the most coveted ...

PartyPoker PokerFest 2011 Results

More than $3 million in prize money was handed out during the PartyPoker Pokerfest, and after 47 events there were countless winners. The biggest prize went to koppiesop, who took the top prize in the $1 million Guaranteed No Limit Hold'em Main Event, taking home $165k in the process. But there were several big winners in the tournament series, including prize winners in three different leaderboards.

The largest leaderboard prize went to Timaxxl, who finished atop the High Buy-in Leaderboard (tournaments at $55 and above). Finishing with 6,692 points, Timaxxl takes home the top prize of $5,000 for winning the leaderboard outright. Jeff710 finished as runner-up in the leaderboard standings for a $4,000 win, and DRasmussen rounds off the top 3 with a $3,000 cashout.

The second leaderboard was for the Low Buy-in tournaments ($6-$33) and featured $30k being divided among 500 players. The winner with 1,843 points was LarsPeter who took home the leaderboard's ...

News Roundup - Merge, DoylesRoom, Genting

Merge re-opens to the US, DoylesRoom is dead, Genting Poker voluntarily blocks countries and PartyPoker gets the Mac treatment.

Rumors were flying this week that Merge Gaming would once again accept new players from the US, and yesterday these rumors were confirmed as the doors quietly opened up to American signups. It has been over four months since the Australian based network made the surprising announcement to temporarily close to new US signups, much longer than the four to six week estimate originally made on June 3. That statement cited rapid growth and the inability to maintain high customer service standards as reasons for the temporary shutdown.

With this announcement, Merge reclaims the position as the largest online poker operator accepting new US signups, overtaking Bodog and Cake Poker. Not all Merge rooms are going along with this announcement, but some that have confirmed include Black Chip Poker (use Black Chip Poker bonus code BPC190 for an exclusive 200% bonus up to $2,000), Carbon Poker and RPM Poker.

Note that residents of New York, Washington, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, DC and Missouri are still prohibited as per the May 14 and May 24 statements due to strict state gaming laws ...

WCOOP Main Event and Final Results

The 10th Annual World Championship of Online Poker on PokerStars has officially drawn to a close, and just like a Hollywood movie, they saved the best for last. The final few events saw some incredible star-filled final tables combined with some gigantic player turnouts, and tremendous prize pools, with the $5k Main Event providing the perfect cap to the series.

In the end, more than $47 million in prizes were awarded, with the final prize going to Danish poker player Thomas "Kallllle" Pederson who bested the 1,627 player field to win the Main Event and bag the only seven-figure score of the series, winning $1,260,018 after a five player chop.

After 62 events, it was Joel "2FLY2TILT" Gordon who edged out Big_Nemo courtesy of a tie-breaker to win the 2011 WCOOP Player of the Series. Gordon's four final tables secured the top spot of the series, and in so doing, he is the recipient of a 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Package, a 2012 European Poker Tour Grand Final Package, a SCOOP Main Event Entry, a trophy and a commemorative chip set. Big_Nemo, who finished on the leaderboard despite booking the most cashes in the series with ...

WCOOP Week 3 Summary, 51 Events Completed

There are very few people with a poker resume that rival that of Dan "djk123" Kelly. Though only 22 years old, Kelly has nearly $5 million in career online tournament earnings to go along with another $1.5 million in live tournament scores and a WSOP Bracelet.

This week the member of DoylesRoom's "Brunson 10" added his third WCOOP bracelet of his career to his mantle by winning yet another 8-game mixed event, besting a field of more than 1,400 to earn $23,000. Kelly joins Anders "Donald" Berg and Ryan "g0lfa" D'Angelo as the only players to have three WCOOP Championships.

Meanwhile, Berg almost became the first player to ever accomplish the feat of four WCOOP titles, getting to a heads-up battle this week with marroca5 in the $530 Stud Hi-Low Event. However, marroca5 earned the victory and the runner up performance by Berg left him just short of the record books.

Another Brunson 10 member made it to the final table in this WCOOP, as Steve "gboro780" Gross continued with his already impressive performance this series by winning the $320 H.O.R.S.E. event in a star-studded table. Though looked upon as a ...

WCOOP Week 2 Action

We are now full swing into the World Championship of Online Poker as the WCOOP completed its second full week of action.

At nearly the halfway point of the series, 29 bracelets have been handed out in poker's most prestigious online tournament series with another 33 to be given away over the next week and a half.

The player of the series thus far has been Joel "2FLY2TILT" Gordon who has 3 final table appearances through the first 29 events, including a win in event #8. But close behind Gordon is "Big_Nemo" who has several cashes this WCOOP and a win in event #24, leaving him just 5 points behind Gordon for the Player of the Series. The duo is closely followed by Kevin "ImALuckSac" MacPhee, who now has two final table performances, after a runner up finish in the $320 Badugi event.

Team PokerStars added yet another bracelet to their mantle when Noah "exclusive" Boeken took down a star studded table in the Mixed Hold'em Event. While the prize pool was far from the largest of the series, Boeken managed to finish ahead of poker superstars Steve "gboro780" Gross, and newly relocated Shaun "shaundeeb" Deeb, who was ...

Online Poker's Biggest Tournament Kicks Off

Labor Day Weekend brought out the heavy hitters in the online poker universe as thousands of players got back to competing for the 2011 WCOOP on PokerStars. PokerTableRatings will be providing extended coverage of the events, complete with links to PTR player profiles. 

The major online tournament series was a breath of fresh air for poker players across the globe as the gaudy guarantees and long hours of grinding were a return to normalcy in the wake of Black Friday.  The prestigious WCOOP's are a crown jewel among online tournament grinders, and a big reason that so many players have decided to relocate to play in the biggest prize pool tournaments available online.

This year's The World Championship of Online Poker spans a total of 62 events and will be spread out over the course of the next 3 weeks with multiple tournaments running each day.  The series kicked off in a big way with a $1 Million Guaranteed No Limit Hold'em 6-max 2-day event coupled with a $10k High Roller event drawing poker's biggest names.

Through seven events, Kevin "ImaLucSac" MacPhee has already final tabled twice, with a pair of third place finishes and a ...

AGCC Releases Statement on Full Tilt

The Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC), the licensing body where Full Tilt Poker holds its license, released a statement on Saturday regarding Full Tilt Poker's overdue licensing fees. The news of the overdue fees became public when they were disclosed during the hearing in London last month, and were reported to be around $410,000. Matin Heslop, who represented Full Tilt Poker at the hearings explained that the reason the fee's weren't paid in full related to Full Tilt's expectation that the AGCC did not have any intention of reinstating it's license, and didn't wish to remit payment in vain. Heslop also explained that Full Tilt could pay the fees within seven days if there was a reasonable chance that the license could be reinstated, and with the news of the press release today, that appears to be the case.

"As a result of the AGCC's investigations the decision was taken on June 29th, 2011 to suspend the licenses of the companies collectively trading as FTP," the AGCC released in their statement. "The AGCC has also imposed a condition that requires the licensees comprising FTP to arrange for the ring-fencing of identified players ...

Bodog Leaving the U.S. Market

Bodog announced this morning that it will no longer be offering its suite of online gaming services to the United States market after December 31st, 2011. The news comes just two weeks after the announcement that Bodog had become the first bookmaker to receive both a remote and non-remote gambling license from the UK Gambling Commission under the new regulations that are still to be put into place in the country. Bodog's current license agreement with Morris Mohawk Gaming is set to expire at the end of 2011, and it would appear that Bodog has no plans of renewing.

The online poker room of Bodog was commonly referred to as a safe haven for US customers looking for online gaming after the events of April 15th with the US Department of Justice and Black Friday. With a number of inexperienced gamblers participating in poker as a side-wager, the site was commonly dubbed by industry insiders as one of the softest grounds for poker rooms. Bodog has rebounded considerably from its plummeting numbers in recent years to see traffic increases of more than 76% year over year, and vaulting from 19th to 16th in terms of 7-day average cash game ...