Player: Blind Poker Player Being Featured on ESPN (Las Vegas, NV)

“It was only about three years ago when Hal Lubarsky’s failing eyesight made it impossible for him to play poker. Thanks to a disease called retinitis pigmentosa, the darkness slowly closed onto the center of his eye, and it led him to a point he knew was coming – his eyesight had been deteriorating basically since he was born. He would soon be blind, and one day Lubarsky said to himself that he couldn’t play poker anymore, something he’d done since he was a boy in Brooklyn. It was a sad day among sad days when he decided to give it up.

Jeff Haney on how the new face of championship poker came from unlikely origins, gained fame lightning fast and plans to give away part of his winnings

The newest de facto worldwide ambassador for poker spent part of his youth in a refugee camp in Thailand, began playing the game only two years ago and prays to a deity who’s fluent in poker lingo.

Jerry Yang, a 39-year-old psychologist, social worker and deeply spiritual man from Temecula, Calif., has pledged to donate to charity 10 percent of the $8.25 million he won at the World Series of Poker and plans to devote even more to missionary efforts.

WSOP: Whispers at poker table – The blind guy’s winning

“Hal Lubarsky lifts his three gold rings an inch from his face; two are stone-studded, one is a fat band hammered flat and carved to look like a playing card. The ace of inlaid diamonds.

It’s about all he can see. Lubarsky is legally blind, which complicates his near-nightly poker games at the Mirage, where the sightless gambler guesses he’s up about $20,000.

Not bad for an utter underdog, a blind man trying to beat a game that rides on reading not just cards but faces. This in a city with religious reverence for poker, where one complaint from fellow card players can get you banned from the green felt fields, as Lubarsky has been in the past.

People get prickly when the blind man bags their money, he says.”

Las Vegas Sun (07/07/07)

Profile: Bryn Mawr woman comes up aces in World Series of Poker (Philadelphia, PA)

“Beth Shak doesn’t fit the stereotype of the Friday night poker player. She’s attractive, a mother of five and doesn’t even smoke cigars or guzzle beer when she plays cards.”I drink water and chew mints,” Shak says.

Shak, 39, who lives in a $3 million home on two acres along a secluded lane in Bryn Mawr, can handle herself at a poker table, however.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer (06/20/07)

Profile: Taking poker face to Vegas Hamburg 21-year-old to compete in ‘World Series’ (New Jersey)

“Texas Hold’Em has seen a tremendous surge in popularity over the last few years, largely due to the World Series of Poker being televised on ESPN2.

Sacchiero, a Sparta resident, said the poker craze has also been apparent in Sussex County. Since he started the New Jersey league two years ago, it has grown from 2,000 members to 3,000, and includes players from Morris, Somerset, Middlesex, Bergen and Passaic counties as well.

Player: Talking Poker (and Spurs) with Top Pro Chad Brown

“VI: What do you think about all the actors trying to be poker players these days?

CB: I think it’s great. Poker is so in vogue that you don’t only have actors that are passionate about playing, there are a number of professional athletes that play it passionately, as well. I’ve played in games with Pete Sampras, a number of pro baseball players, pro basketball players, even pro boxers. Poker is the one sport that anyone can play from any gender and from any age group and the playing field will be equal. I couldn’t go on the tennis court and compete with Pete Sampras. It would be any fun for either of us. But on the felt, anyone can win if they take the time the learn the game.

VI: Who are the best actors you’ve played against?

CB: James Woods is a very good friend of mine, and he has become an excellent poker player. Now on the female side, Jennifer Tilly has been very successful. Other actors who I have played with that play very well are Tobey Maguire, Ben Affleck, Shannon Elizabeth and of course my very good friend Gabe (Welcome Back Kotter) Kaplan, who I had the pleasure of beating in the NBC Heads-Up Championship…”

WOAI (06/13/07)

Player: Unabombshell talks poker

“If you want an indication of how popular poker has become, take a look at the size of the playing fields at tournaments and the stars that are starting to fill in those seats as well. One star who has made the transition from movie star to serious poker player is Jennifer Tilly.

In 2005 she took down both the World Series of Poker Ladies, winning herself a championship bracelet, and the World Poker Tour Ladies Night Out as well.

The two wins gave her instant acclaim and credibility in a poker world that can be harsh on one-hit wonders and women players in general…”

PokerListings (06/10/07)

News: Hollywood’s Van Patten links athletics with poker

“Maybe you saw Matt Damon play poker in the 1998 movie Rounders or Brad Pitt teach poker in the 2001 movie Ocean’s Eleven. This year, WSOP bracelet winner Robert Williamson III was among the poker pros to appear in the movie Lucky You while Damon and Pitt are scheduled to play in Don Cheadle’s “Ante Up For Africa” charity poker tournament on July 5 in Las Vegas.

“We’re an entertainment industry,” Williamson says.

Talk about role reversals.

Fictional 007 agent James Bond always played baccarat in casinos, but in the 2006 remake of Casino Royale he gets involved in a high stakes game of Texas Hold’em, the game of the WSOP’s main event.

“That’s a very big statement about where we are,” says WSOP commissioner Jeffrey Pollack. “We loved that movie.”

USA Today (06/07/07) 

News: Friday poker club plays out hand (Baltimore, MD)

“For more than 30 years, a group of city men met for cards and fellowship, but now only two remainForty-nine rare poker hands hang from the walls of Buzz Chalk’s North Baltimore basement. Each is framed and sealed under glass, splayed against white mats inscribed with names of the living and the dead. Some of the hands belong to Chalk. But most belong to his Hampden-area neighbors.

The oldest is a royal flush of diamonds dealt to Chalk on Jan. 23, 1976. One of the most recent is a straight flush of diamonds, nine high, that won George Lopez a pot of plastic poker chips on March 20, 1999…”

Baltimore Sun (05/21/07)

Profile: Berman gets high-stakes revenge for poker bust at his almost-mater (Minneapolis, MN)

“As Berman told a Minnesota Business Magazine leadership luncheon that honored him, Dave Anderson of Famous Dave’s fame and Steve Schussler, founder of Rainforest Cafe and T-Rex: “Starting the World Poker Tour and creating this whole legitimacy around poker was my revenge. We have certainly taken poker out of the backrooms and onto mainstream television. People look at poker players today as heroes.”

And celebrities. “One of my executives was telling me his 8-year-old daughter said, Daddy, can we play Hold ‘Em? He said, Sure. She said, Just a minute. She went into the bedroom and came back out with sunglasses on.”

Sounds like she was being Greg Raymer, the 2004 World Series of Poker “Main Event” champ and U law school alum known as “Fossilman” because of his choice of shades…”

Star Tribune (05/12/07)