Should poker celebrities be considered role models? It’s a question that many would answer, “Absolutely not!” And watching poker tournament pro Phil Hellmuth throw a temper tantrum at the poker table may not help the case much either. But before you rush to judgment, consider some of the other poker celebrities. For example, five time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Chris “Jesus” Ferguson earned a Ph.D. in computer science from UCLA before hitting it big in poker. He used his knowledge of game theory and computers to run simulations that helped him net the big bucks in poker tournaments. Not too shabby, and not usually what one would imagine when the thought of a poker player comes to mind.

Then there’s 23 year old internet poker sensation Tom “durrrr” Dwan, an engineering major who dropped out of college to pursue poker full time. He made over 5 million dollars playing online poker in 2008 alone. And let’s not forget poker tournament and cash game player Phil Laak, who has worked as a mechanical engineer and a day stock trader prior to his poker career. Not only that, but he is currently dating the beautiful movie actress and World Series of Poker bracelet winner Jennifer Tilly. Not bad, and in addition to all of that Laak also has his own television show that he co-hosts along with his best friend and fellow poker pro Antonio Esfandiari. And even the “Pokerbrat” Phil Hellmuth, whom we mentioned earlier, has launched numerous entrepreneurial endeavors in addition to his poker tournament career, including his own clothing line and energy drinks.

So as you can see, poker celebrities can come from many various and diverse walks of life. Gone are the days when poker players are only seen as macho, cigar chomping chauvinists. Today poker is for everybody and with options available to play free poker people are quickly able to learn it and shed their fear of getting involved with this game. And in many ways a poker tournament is an apt metaphor for life, teaching skills such as: being good at reading other people; being able to assess risk in relation to reward; and how to not just survive a situation, but how to thrive. All of these qualities that make poker great also make for an admirable set of skills when it comes to entrepreneurship and the pursuit of new ventures. Poker celebrities as role models you ask? It’s not as unlikely as you might think.

Here are a few tips we’ve put together to help you when you begin playing poker. To the seasoned player these may seem like obvious things, but when you first start out it is easy to feel a bit at sea.

1. Have fun! – Yes poker is a gambling game, but it’s not something that is worth getting totally stressed about. Enjoy it, and you’ll find things will come a lot easier to you.
2. If you’ve never played poker online then join one or two poker sites that will let you play for fun rather than money. Use this time to learn the ropes and get to grips with the nuances of the game.before you start, but don’t be afraid to ask questions. Most people who play poker are quite happy to answer your questions when you’re a new player, so don’t be afraid to ask, everyone is new once!
3. Don’t play every hand when you’re new, this is probably the biggest mistake that new poker players make. Set yourself a starting hand requirement and don’t play if you don’t have at least that in your starting hand. If you’re playing more than 50% of the hands then you probably need to re-think your starting hand requirement.
4. Don’t drink and play for big money. If you’re going to have a drink then keep the stakes low. If you’re playing for big stakes then don’t drink. The two things really don’t mix well it’s as simple as that.
5. Pay attention to the cards on the table, not just your own cards. It really is important to learn to look at what’s going on around the table not just with your own cards particularly in games like Texas Hold’em.
6. Pay attention to other players. Even if you’ve folded pay attention to the game. When you are a new player, this is probably one of the best ways for you to learn how your opponents think. Look out for poker tells (where someone gives themselves away by a sign or movement or way of doing things when they have good/bad cards) this will help you to gather information for the hands when you do keep playing.
7. Don’t jump too high or too fast. Just because you are doing well at a low stake game doesn’t mean to say that you will at one with higher stakes. Generally speaking, as the stakes rise so does the skill level. Besides that, if you’re winning money at a lower stakes table then why move!

Of course there are going to be other things that you find useful, and for different people it will be different things, but we think that remembering these things will give you a good place to start from in a game that can be both fun and for the good player sometimes even lucrative.

Winning the World Series of Poker main event is the pinnacle in the
life of many a poker player. They say once you win the World Series of
Poker your life is changed forever. Although many of the older
champions are now household names, some of the newer winners were
complete unknowns before they won the Main Event. It remains to bee
seen if WSOP 2009 will be the time when a famous pro once again enters the throne, which hasn’t happened since Carlos Mortensen won in 2001.

2008 Champion Peter Eastgate

In November 2008, Eastgate was far from the odds-on favorite to become
world poker champion. He was one of the shorter stacks in chips, and
had less experience than players such as Ylon Schwartz and Chino Rheem.
Still, the 22 year-old from Odense, Denmark, battled fiercely, and
managed to get to heads-up action. Even then, facing young superstar
Ivan Demidov, Eastgate was the underdog, but when his A5 made a
straight on the turn to beat Demidov’s two pair, Eastgate
became poker’s newest -and youngest- champion.

2007 Champion Jerry Yang

Jerry Yang emerged in a tumultuous year for poker. U.S. restrictions on
Internet play had limited the number of Internet satellite qualifiers
and the main event experienced a dip in attendance for the first time
in history. On the plus side, America’s loss was the
world’s gain, as the final table was the most international
affair in the event’s history, and led to a surge in
international poker play. The amateur Yang, a therapist and social
worker for California, was welcomed as champion due to his good works
and kindhearted demeanor. It was hoped that he would serve as an
ambassador for poker moving forward, but he made very little impact on
the poker world in his year as champion.

2006 Champion Jamie Gold

Some say that Jamie Gold’s win is what necessitated a poker
ambassador. Gold, a show business agent and producer who befriended Johnny Chan during a show he was producing, was a force in the tournament, taking over the chip lead after day three and never
relinquishing it, generally implementing a successful strategy of
“strong means strong and weak means weak,” as
opposed to the traditional amateur “weak means
strong” strategy. However, Gold’s victory was mired
with controversy, as he was the victim of an extended lawsuit by an
associate who claimed that Gold promised him half of his win.

Michael Keiner is a professional poker player, who was born on February 8, 1959, in Germany. He has won a WSOP bracelet in 2007 in Seven Card Stud Poker. In 2008, Michael Keiner was the winner of the UK Open.

Actually Keiner is a plastic surgeon, who started to play poker in 1993. Finally he made a profession out of his hobby and has started to play Seven Card Stud games on a regular base since 1995. This also made him become European champion. His favorite poker game is Omaha Pot Limit.

Since 2006 Michael Keiner is sponsored by 888.com and the company’s poker room Pazifik Poker.

His winnings in poker tournaments are $1,129,846.

In his video blog, Michael Keiner reports live from Las Vegas about the WSOP 2009:

Can one be more unlucky at the WSOP, Royal Flush against AAAA. That’s a bad beat!

Scotty Nguyen’s infamous 2008 WSOP final table. Insults every player, but eventually wins the whole horse tournament. After it he actually apologizes for his behaviour.

A classic video from WSOP 2008. Hellmuth gets upset over a bluff from Dragomir, a much see!

Scotty Nguyen is bluffing Humberto Brene big time! That’s how confident Pro’s play.

Not ready yet, but will be soon! The idea is to write about poker celebrities, and post some cool Youtube clips.