In the early days of poker, little was known about most of the great players. Only those who played professionally knew of their successes and styles of play. But with the explosion of poker worldwide in recent decades, gurus have become icons in the public eye. Their faces are recognized in the streets, and they are stopped for autograph requests everywhere they go.
Leading the next wave of major poker talent is the young online-playing generation. The champions of virtual cash games and tournaments, often millionaires before finishing college, are rapidly seeing their 21st birthdays and becoming well-known pros. Events like the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker have given these young guns a chance to display their poker prowess for the whole world to see.
In 2006, Nick Schulman (aka TheTakeover) stormed onto the mainstream poker scene with a victory at the World Poker Tour Bellagio Five-Diamond Classic, as well as a follow-up win at the WPT Tournament of Champions in the same year. Following in his footsteps, our own Ryan Daut took first place and over $1.5 million in the WPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in January 2007. These are just two among dozens of examples of top-ranked internet players demonstrating their ability to compete with the well-known veterans.
This year, we're witnessing the rise of yet another monster from the online poker world. He has been a regular and huge winner at high-stakes online cash games for a long time. Under his belt, he holds five victories in large online tournaments in the past year, including the Sunday $200 rebuy on PokerStars, for $56,980 this May. He has also made the final table of the PokerStars Sunday Million twice. But his most recent score dwarfs his entire tournament resume to date.
 At this year's World Series of Poker, the first event was the $5,000 no-limit/fixed-limit Hold 'Em tournament, where the game switched every half-hour. After three days, overcoming a field of 451 entrants, Steve "MrSmokey1" Billirakis emerged victorious with a bracelet and massive $536,287 first-place prize. Not only did MrSmokey1 win his first-ever WSOP tournament, he also became the youngest bracelet winner in history, at just 21 years and 10 days old, breaking the record of last-year's young champion, Jeff Madsen, by just 25 days.
When the final table of this event began, MrSmokey1 had an above-average chip count, with 562,000. He had also drawn a good seat, with two good players to his right. After some short-stacks had been eliminated, five players remained when MrSmokey1 claimed his first victim at the final table. During a limit phase with blinds of 30,000/60,000, he eliminated Fred Berger with AQ against A2.
With that win, he gained significant momentum. After crippling Steve Paul-Ambrose, champion of the WPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure 2006, he then dealt the final blow and eliminated him in fourth place, taking the chip lead with three players remaining. But Greg "FBT" Mueller regained the chip lead soon thereafter, busting Tony George in third place and securing a heads-up competition for the bracelet. When FBT and MrSmokey1 began, they were almost even in chips, with FBT sitting at 2.35 million and MrSmokey1 trailing with 2.17 million.
 Feeling at a disadvantage playing limit against the more-experienced FBT, MrSmokey1 was soon on his heels, trailing FBT's 3:1 chip lead when they switched again to no-limit. Back in his specialty game, however, MrSmokey1 remained intensely focused and thoroughly contemplated every decision he made. As you may have read in Daut's blog, MrSmokey1 was even making FBT sweat for several minutes on decisions not even for his tournament life.
And then the poker gods shone upon our hero. Catching two full-houses in a row and regaining the chip lead, MrSmokey1 had run FBT down to just a few remaining big blinds. When the two got all-in with MrSmokey1 holding K2o and FBT holding 54s, the board brought QJ28Q, and no help for the short-stacked FBT, securing MrSmokey1 the victory and the bracelet.
Above: Nat Arem, Ryan Daut, pbdrunks, Brandon Schaefer, BeatifulMan;
Roman, Ozzy, Buko, ZeeJustin, ahh_snap;
Bushman, MrSmokey1, Martine23
Congratulations to MrSmokey1, for this amazing and record-breaking win. You can find some more resources on this player below
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United States. Jun 09 2007 17:25. Posts 12159
