The world of fantasy sports is no doubt intoxicating as millions of people worldwide spend hours trying to think of every possible angle to improve their team. This being said, where does fantasy poker fit into this equation?
While I love poker, it’s hard to see how one could get excited about fantasy poker since the game isn’t exactly something that you invite your buddies over to watch while downing a few beers. Instead, it is an activity that gains popularity from one thing – the fact that you can win major money doing it!
Sure it’s fun to check out the latest poker news and crazy happenings that are currently going on, but aside from this, extracurricular things like WSOP fantasy leagues will never have a following outside of the diehard players who have deep ties to the game. This being said, I can see how people like Daniel Negreanu can get into it as he and some other pros actually had a WSOP fantasy draft party at the Aria Casino, while they selected their dream lineups.
Kid Poker recently blogged about the draft on FullContactPoker, and the rules are as follows:
– League buy-in is $25,000
– Everybody gets 200 points to spend on players
– When players are announced, people bid on them with the points
– Every team must have 8 players
Now that we’ve covered the rules, here is a look at who got who in the draft as according to Negreanu:
Team #1 Joe Cassidy/Huck Seed
1: Tom Dwan 62
2: Vladimir Schemelev 33
3: Alexander Kostritsyn 58
4: Jennifer Harman 19
5: Sam Trickett 7
6: David Pham 1
7: Vitaly Lunkin 10
8: David Bach 1
Team #2 Barry Greenstein
1: Barry Greenstein 64
2: Phil Ivey 108
3: Chau Giang 19
4: John Pham 2
5: Ralph Perry 3
6: Ted Forrest 1
7: Joseph Serock 1
8: Jimmy Fricke 1
Team #3 Robert Mizrachi, Greg Meuller, Jared Bleznick, “Crazy” Mike
1. Daniel Alaei 80
2: Robert Mizrachi 51
3: Josh Arieh 26
4: Hoyt Corkins 5
5: Chad Brown 24
6: Marco Traniëllo 1
7: David Baker 5
8: Lee Goldman 1
Team #4 Justin “BoostedJ” Smith, Ashton Griffin
1. Justin “BoostedJ” Smith 64
2: Huck Seed 50
3: Ali Eslami 35
4: David Chiu 32
5: Farzad Bonyadi 3
6: Amnon Filippi 1
7: Eli Elezra 4
8: Mike “SirWatts” Watson 10
Team #5 Eugene Katchalov, Danny Alaei
1: Eugene Katchalov 72
2: Steve Sung 6
3: Matt Hawrlenko 32
4: Nikolai Evdakov 12
5: Pat Pezzin 14
6: Mikael Thuritz 28
7: Ville Wallbeck 15
8: Abe Mosseri 21
Team #6 Casey Katz
1: Erik Seidel 43
2: John Juanda 53
3: Michael Mizrachi 50
4: Carlos Mortensen 19
5: Annette Obrestad 1
6: Jason Somerville 1
7: David Singer 20
8: Eric Baldwin 13
Team #7 Scott Seiver, Justin Bonomo, Eric Froelich
1: Matt Glantz 58
2: Sorrel Mizzi 40
3: Justin Bonomo 43
4: Christian “charder30” Harder 5
5: Jon “PearlJammed” Turner 13
6: Andrew Brown 9
7: John Monnette 11
8: Greg Mueller 21
Team #8 Jason Mercier, Jason Somerville
1: Michael Binger 45
2: Dan “djk123” Kelly 36
3: Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier 18
4: David Oppenheim 6
5: Allen Bari 36
6: David “Bakes” Baker 40
7: Ben Lamb 15
8: Bryn Kenney 4
Team #9 James Bord, Toby Lewis
1: Nick Schulman 64
2: Scott Clements 45
3: Shaun Deeb 38
4: Luke Schwartz 1
5: Richard Ashby 28
6: Andy Bloch 6
7: Anthony Lellouche 1
8: James Bord 1
Team #10 Daniel Negreanu
1: Scott Seiver 73
2: Jason Mercier 74
3: Yuval Bronstein 18
4: Yueqi Zhu 5
5: Mike Matusow 12
6: Roland De Wolfe 1
7: Gavin Smith 1
8: Steve “MrSmokey1” Billirakis 16
Team #11 Frank Kassela, Shaun Deeb
1. Daniel Negreanu 89
2: Frank Kassela 41
3: Dwyte Pilgrim 10
4: Alan Cunningham 25
5: Victor Ramdin 1
6: Rob Hollink 17
7: Thomas Koral 1
8: Dario Minieri 16
Team #12 Erick Lingdren, David Oppenhiem
1: Erick Lindgren 61
2: David Benyamine 58
3: Shawn Buchanan 63
4: Eric Froehlich 6
5: Shannon Shorr 1
6: Kirill Gerasimov 1
7: George “Jorj95” Lind III 9
8: Brian Hastings 1
Team #13 Todd Brunson
1. Todd Brunson 40
2: Scotty Nguyen 35
3: Phil Hellmuth 38
4: Freddy Deeb 23
5: Allan Kessler 41
6: Chris Feguson 4
7: Minh Ly 1
8: Shun Uchida 1
Team #14 Mori Eskandani
1: Jeffrey Lisandro 50
2: Chris Bjorin 38
3: Men “The Master” Nguyen 27
4: Dan Heimiller 21
5: Tom Marchese 10
6: David Williams 14
7: Vanessa Selbst 5
8: Phil Galfond 35
Team #15 Vladimir Schmelev
1. Sebastien Sabic 40
2: Joe Cassidy 43
3: Brett Richey 37
4: Patrik Antonius 5
5: Jared Bleznick 8
6: “Crazy” Marco Johnson 43
7: Alex Kravchenko 21
8: Sergey “gipsy74” Rybachenko 1