Monday, December 15, 2008
Poker Room Net, Playtech's CEO said, "This has been an outstanding quarter for the Group, registering impressive month on month revenue growth. The addition of new licensees during the period and the anticipated full roll out of the new Asian P2P games and Flash Pokerroom mean the Group is well positioned to grow in Q2 and beyond. The Group continues to pursue significant business opportunities across all the regulated markets and the Board is highly confident regarding the Group's trading performance for 2008 and beyond." NBC's popular late-night pokerroom series, "Pokerroom After Dark," has excelled at late in creating unique themes and interesting matchups in the series' weekly six-player sit-'n'-go tourneys.
The latest twist in the "Pokerroom After Dark" theme is this week's "Love at First Raise," which features three well-known poker couples vying against each other – and their romantic mates – for the week's winner-take-all prize. "Pokerroom After Dark" episodes, and one curious fact is that the women have three WSOP bracelets among them (Harman two and Tilly one), while the men have none, though Laak and Benyamine have other major titles and Traniello has notched 15 WSOP cashes in just the past three years. Harman, of course, brings the most famous poker reputation to the week's matchup, as a regular participant in the "Big Game" at the Bellagio. Before I describe the various factors that set the stage for Mike Sexton's career as a poker visionary, I would like to let many of the younger players know that my brother was a professional poker player for 25 years, before he was ever seen as an announcer on TV.
One of the most common things I'll hear, especially from a young player is: "I didn't know your brother was such a good player himself." The pros that have been around for a while know Mike was a great player for many years. He started out as a seven-card stud hi/lo-split player and Omaha hi/lo split player.
He later developed into an all-around player in all games. Mike is one of those players today that plays both cash games and tournaments very well. Mike is the only American player to win the European Championship twice.
He was also the first player to win the $10,000 buy-in event at the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods. He has won the Four Queens Main event twice, the Legends of Poker, the Super Stars of Poker in the early days back in Lake Tahoe at Caesars, many other events including several all around awards, the 2006 WSOP Tournament of Champions, Poker After Dark, and a couple of large buy-in events with winner-take-all formats. Mike has been in the top five in cashes at the WSOP for most of his career. Once in the early eighties Mike was at work playing $30/$60 seven-card stud hi/lo split at the Dunes Hotel. Telly Savalas came into the poker room with an entourage of friends and family and asked the floor man if he could sit behind one of the better seven-card hi/lo split players in the room. The floor man said Mike Sexton was over there and is one of the best players in town, so let me ask him if he would mind if you sat behind him to watch. Mike responded, "That's no problem at all. I look forward to meeting him."
