It Was A Very Good Year
2007-12-31 18:20:06
By:
Gene Bromberg
Another year has come and gone. It's just about time to close the book on 2007, but before we do that, why not look back at some of the highlights of the past twelve months?
The year got off with a bang thanks to Mr. Phil Hellmuth, who had
a bit of a confrontation with Shawn Sheikhan
on Poker After Dark. Brian Gabrielle, who won UltimateBet's Pro For A Year tournament during the 2006 Aruba Poker Classic,
made a deep run at the World Poker Open in Tunica and nearly made the final table.
January was also when
Neteller closed it doors to American customers. Making sense of poker's ever-changing legal landscape would be a challenge throughout the year.
I took a little jaunt to Daytona Beach in February and
played some very unsatisfying poker at the Daytona Beach Kennel Club. Fortunately Florida has changed its laws concerning poker and players can now enjoy no-limit action, instead of the
$1-2 Limit and uber-turbo sit-n-goes that I had to choose from.
The mainstream media often treats poker as a quaint little game played by the unwashed rabble, but rarely has the game been as unfairly dumped on as
the hack job ESPN's Mark Kriedler penned in March. Both me and Daniel Negreanu didn't think much of Kriedler's piece.
In April Team UB's Phil Hellmuth and Jim "KrazyKanuck" Worth
both made deep runs at the WPT World Championship. KK finished 16th and Phil went out in 18th place, great results at one of the most prestigious tournaments in the world.
May saw the much-delayed release of the poker movie Lucky You, and I was apparently the only person in the galaxy
who thought it wasn't horrible. OK, the ending was horrible, but it certainly didn't deserve to be called the worst movie in the history of history.
May also saw the
countdown to the 2007 World Series of Poker. The biggest event in poker would be a time of triumph for both Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth.
Annie made the final table of the
Omaha/Stud Hi-Lo event (finishing 3rd) and cashed on two other occasions, and then she and Don Cheadle hosted the hugely-successful
Ante Up for Africa charity event.
Phil's WSOP started slowly, but he more than made up for that by
winning his record-breaking 11th bracelet. He had several more cashes and crowned a triumphant World Series by being
elected to the Poker Hall of Fame.
Of course, it wasn't all bracelets and glory for Phil. You may have heard--and seen--that he had a
little mishap in the Rio parking lot before the Main Event. Just a little fender-bender, move along, nothing to see here.
I spent most of August and September recovering from the World Series and re-charging the batteries for the 2007 Aruba Poker Classic. If you want all the info on what went down in Aruba this year, you can check out the
Arublog and read about all the poker and partying and fun in the sun. And if you want to check out the pictures I took (including many that didn't make it into the blog) you can
look them over at my Flickr page. Including one picture when Serinda Swan looks very nice and I look very drunk.
November saw the run-up to the second
UltimateBet Online Championship, and our 13-event, 10-day series proved an even bigger success than last year. The biggest story to come out of the UBOC was the
incredible run put together by Greg "Wild Duck" Hobson, who won two UBOC events and final tabled two others to lock up the top spot on our Leaderboard and catapult him into contention for many Online Player of the Year Awards.
Which brings us back to...tonight. New Year's Eve. Another year has come to an end...well, it won't end without a proper send-off. Some good food and drink, hang out with friends, set off a few fireworks. And then hit the Advil hard when I wake up tomorrow afternoon. Because 2008 is hopefully gonna be bigger and better than 2007. And if that's the case we'll all need to be on top of our game from the very start. Maybe I'll just stay in, get a good night's sleep. Hmm....nah
.
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