Season Nine of the long running television show “World Poker Tour” begins taping today at Bellagio in Las Vegas with a $10,000 buy-in and a potential $1,000,000 first place prize. The Bellagio Cup VI will mark the 123rd open tournament in the WPT’s eight year existence as well as the 179th and 180th televised episodes when the high stakes battle airs as a two-parter in early 2011. Thought of as a long shot when it was first broadcast on the Travel Channel in 2003, the WPT is now one of the top one hundred longest running shows in the history of television.

photo by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com Poker Champion Hoai Pham takes down WSOP gold bracelet #1 for 2010 At daybreak Sunday Morning the 2010 World Series of Poker handed the first gold bracelet to event #1 winner, Hoai Pham. He will be returning to his home in Mission Viejo, California with the new trinket, $71,424 in cash, and knowing his name will always be in the WSOP history book. photo by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com Arthur Vea received $44,079 for second place No related posts

photo by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com Eric Seidel plays Annie Duke in the best of three finals for the championship of the 6th Annual NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship Tune into NBC TV at Noon - 3PM ET / 9AM - Noon PT for the finale of the 6th Annual NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship today, Sunday May 23. Three hours of top level poker pros playing the semifinal matches and the best-of-three final matches for the prestigious title. Begin the three hour episode with the four surviving players from the elite, invitation-only starting field of 64

Game 6 in Boston could very well be the biggest game yet in the history of the Cleveland Cavaliers. In case you haven’t been paying attention to the 2010 NBA playoffs , this year’s league MVP LeBron James and the heavy favorites to win the title, that’s the Cleveland Cavaliers, are on the verge of being sent off to an early summer after the Boston Celtics won Game 5 in Cleveland convincingly, 120-88, to take the 3-2 series lead and give themselves a shot at eliminating the Cavaliers this Thursday night in Boston

One of the key things that separates good players from mediocre ones is their ability to radically change how they would play a hand in an identical situation - against different players - depending on history. Good players will do totally different things against different player types - even with the same hand, on the same board, with the same stack size; and understanding why and when to make these changes is crucial to working your way up the stakes