In the spotlight: Hoyt Corkins

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Hoyt Corkins (born Glenwood, Alabama) is an American professional poker player. Known for his softly-spoken voice and his aggressive style, Corkins has two World Series of Poker bracelets and a World Poker Tour title.

Early Life
He started playing at the age of 19 after receiving lessons from his father. He is often known by his nickname “Cowboy” as he always wears a cowboy hat and boots to the table. However, he has been given other nicknames, including “Mr. Move All-In” by Phil Hellmuth Jr. Many players also call him “Nightmare. He often wears a pair of ear plugs while playing in live poker tournaments in order to prevent other players’ chatter from affecting his game.

World Series of Poker
Corkins won a World Series of Poker bracelet and $96,000 for winning the 1992 $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha tournament. In total, he has finished in the money on 19 occasions.

In November 2005, Corkins finished second to Mike Matusow in the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions freeroll, receiving $325,000.

In 2007, at the 2007 World Series of Poker, Corkins won the $2500 6 Handed No Limit Hold Em event, defeating Terrence Chan and winning over $515,000, in addition to the championship bracelet.

At the 2008 World Series of Poker, Corkins finish in 162nd place out of 6,844 entries, earning $41,816.

Reappearance into poker
After the win in 1992, Corkins disappeared from the game for 11 years whilst going through a divorce. He was encouraged to return to poker by his fiancee Natalie, and resurfaced in 2003, taking a then record-breaking first prize ($1,089,200) in the World Poker Tour 2003 World Poker Finals. He also had a second-place finish to Gus Hansen in early 2004 at the PokerStars Caribbean Poker Adventure, which earned him $290,065. Corkins was sick from flu during the event, but he says it did not affect his play.[2] Also in 2004, he made the final table at the United States Poker Championship main event held at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, NJ.

Away from the poker circuit, Corkins has sixty head of cattle to tend in Alabama and also has a home in Las Vegas.

World Poker Tour
In 2006, he made another World Poker Tour (WPT) final table in the Season V Legends of Poker event, finishing 3rd.

In 2008, in the Season VI of the WPT’s World Poker Open WPT Corkins finished second winning $458,267.

In December 2008, During Season VII of the WPT Corkins made the final table of the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic and finished in 6th place, earning $216,175.

As of 2008, his live tournament winnings exceed $4,200,000.

Tags: Professional Players, World Series of Poker

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Everythingaboutpoker.com · Filed Under Professional Players

In the spotlight: Carlos Mortensen

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Juan Carlos Mortensen (born April 13, 1972 in Ambato, Ecuador) is a professional poker player and the only hispanic Main Event winner of the World Series of Poker. Mortensen is known for his loose play, bluffing tactics, and interesting chip-stacking style.

Mortensen moved from Spain to the United States in the late 1990s to play poker. He won $1,500,000 at the 2001 World Series of Poker (WSOP) main event. He also won the World Poker Tour (WPT) Doyle Brunson North American Poker Championship in 2004 for $1,000,000. Mortensen won the Season Five World Poker Tour championship event, and its $3,970,415 first prize and his second WPT title, making him the first player to ever win the World Championship events at both the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour.

Mortensen has also made the prize money in the World Heads-Up Poker Championship, and was a semi-finalist in the second season of the Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament.

At the 2006 World Series of Poker Carlos made 3 final tables. He finished 9th in event #2 (NL Hold ‘em) winning $71,617. He would once again finish 9th in event #6 (NL Hold ‘em) earning him another $73,344. He came up just short of winning his 3rd bracelet in event #33 (Razz) where he finished runner-up to James Richburg earning him $94,908.

In 2006, he and his wife, fellow poker player Cecilia Reyes Mortensen, were divorced.

Mortensen is also considered the last poker professional to win the World Series of Poker Main Event.

Mortensen also had a good run at the 2007 European Poker Tour Main Event in Monte Carlo finishing 11th, going out to Joshua Prager after making a straight on the turn, but defeated by a flush on the river.

As of 2008, his total live tournament winnings exceed $8,500,000.

Tags: Professional Players, World Series of Poker

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Everythingaboutpoker.com · Filed Under Professional Players

In the spotlight: Doyle Brunson

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Doyle Brunson Doyle F. Brunson (born August 10, 1933) is an iconic American poker player who has played professionally for over 50 years. He is the first two-time World Series of Poker main event champion to win consecutively, a Poker Hall of Fame inductee, and the author of several highly influential books on poker.

Brunson is the first player to earn $1 million in poker tournaments and has won ten World Series of Poker bracelets throughout his career, tied with Johnny Chan for second all-time, one behind Phil Hellmuth’s 11. He is also one of only four players to have won the Main Event at the World Series of Poker multiple times, which he did in 1976 and 1977. In addition, he is the first of five players to win both the WSOP Main Event and a World Poker Tour title. In January 2006, Bluff Magazine voted Brunson the #1 most influential force in the world of poker.

Brunson was born in Longworth, Fisher County, Texas, a town with a population of approximately 100, the eldest of three children. Because of Longworth’s small size, Brunson frequently ran long distances to other towns, and became a promising athlete. He was part of the All-State Texas basketball team, and practiced the one-mile run to keep in shape in the off-season. Although he was more interested in basketball than running, he entered the 1950 Texas Interscholastic Track Meet and won the one-mile event with a time of 4:43. Despite receiving offers from many colleges, he attended Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, because it was close to his home.

The Minneapolis Lakers were interested in Brunson, but a knee injury ended his playing days. He had taken a summer job and was unloading some sheetrock; when the ton of weight shifted, Brunson instinctively tried to stop it, but it landed on his leg, breaking it in two places. He was in a cast for two years, and the injury ended his hopes of becoming a professional basketball player. He still occasionally requires a crutch to get around because of the injury. Brunson changed his focus from athletics to education and obtained a master’s degree in administrative education.

Brunson had begun playing poker before his injury, playing five card draw and finding it “easy”. He played more often after being injured and his winnings paid for his expenses. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in 1954 and a master’s the following year. After graduating, he took a job as a business machines salesman but, on his first day, he was invited to play in a seven-card stud game and earned over a month’s salary in under three hours. He soon left the company and became a professional poker player.

Brunson started off by playing in illegal games on Exchange Street, Fort Worth, Texas with a friend named Dwayne Hamilton. Eventually, they began traveling around Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, playing in bigger games, and met fellow professionals Amarillo Slim and Sailor Roberts. The illegal games Brunson played in during this time were usually run by criminals who were often members of organized crime, so rules were not always enforced. Brunson has admitted to having a gun pulled on him several times and that he was robbed and beaten. Poker was not a socially accepted career path during this time and, given the reputation of those running the games he was playing in, he had little legal recourse.

Hamilton moved back to Fort Worth while the others teamed up and travelled around together, gambling on poker, golf and, in Doyle’s words, “just about everything”. They pooled their money together for gambling and after six years, they made their first serious trip to Las Vegas and lost all of it, a six-figure amount. They decided to stop playing as partners yet remain friends.

Brunson finally settled in Las Vegas.

Other than his poker success, his greatest achievement is probably his book, Super/System, which is widely considered to be one of the most authoritative books on poker. Originally self-published in 1978, Super/System was the book that transformed poker by giving ordinary players an insight into the way that professionals such as Brunson played and won, so much so that Brunson believes that it cost him a lot of money. An updated revision, Super/System 2 was published in 2004. Besides Brunson, several top poker players contributed chapters to Super/System including Bobby Baldwin, Mike Caro, David Sklansky, Chip Reese and Joey Hawthorne. The book is subtitled “How I made one million dollars playing poker”, by Doyle Brunson. Brunson is also the author of Poker Wisdom of a Champion, originally published as According to Doyle by Lyle Stuart in 1984.

Brunson continues to play in the biggest poker games in the world, including a $4000/$8000 limit mixed poker game in “Bobby’s Room” at the Bellagio. He also plays in many of the biggest poker tournaments around the world. He won his ninth gold bracelet in a mixed games event in 2003, and in 2004 he finished 53rd (in a field of 2,576) in the No Limit Texas hold ‘em Championship event. He won the Legends of Poker World Poker Tour event in 2004 (garnering him a $1.1 million prize) and finished fourth in the WPT’s first championship event. Early in the morning on July 1, 2005, less than a week after Chan had won his 10th gold bracelet - setting a new record - Brunson tied the record at the 2005 WSOP. He is now one bracelet behind Phil Hellmuth, who earned his 11th bracelet at the WSOP on June 11, 2007.

Brunson’s nickname, “Texas Dolly”, came from a mistake by Jimmy Snyder. Snyder was supposed to announce Brunson as “Texas Doyle”, but incorrectly pronounced the first name as Dolly. It stuck and many of Brunson’s fellow top pros now simply refer to Brunson as “Dolly”.

Brunson has the honor of having two Texas hold’em hands named after him. One hand, a ten and a two of any suit, bears his name as he won the No Limit Hold ‘Em event at the World Series of Poker two years in a row with them (1976 and 1977), in both cases completing a full house. In both 1976 and 1977, he was an underdog in the final hand, requiring Brunson to come from behind both times. Another hand known as a “Doyle Brunson”, especially in Texas, is the ace and queen of any suit because, as he says on page 519 of the Super/System, he “never plays this hand.” He changes his wording in SuperSystem2, however, noting that he “tries to never play this hand”. However, it has been seen on episodes of High Stakes Poker, Poker After Dark, the Professional Poker Tour and the World Poker Tour that he does play it. He was also eliminated from the 2007 World Series of Poker main event while holding A-Q.

Brunson endorses the online poker room Doyles Room.

As of 2008, his total live tournament winnings exceeded $5,300,000.

Tags: Professional Players, World Series of Poker