The “Poker Brat” falls short at the World Series of Poker, Hollywood Casino is reopening its poker room, and the Florida Panthers turn out to be poker fiends are some of the short stacks CardsChat scooped in its latest orbit of poker news.
Hellmuth falls short
Poker Hall of Famer Phil Hellmuth is obsessively looking to add to his record-holding stack of 17 WSOP bracelets, but so far, 2024 has given him nothing but dry mouth. That didn’t stop the poker world from perking up and again taking notice after Hellmuth made his first final table of 2024 in the $1,500 Mixed PLO Hi-Lo 8, Omaha Hi-Lo 8, and Big O event.
Hellmuth, who turns 60 this summer, stalled in fourth for $64,324. Instead, the bracelet would go to Sweden’s Magnus Edengren, an amateur who won his first bracelet and $196,970 for taking down the event that attracted 853 entrants.
“I haven’t started playing again. I just come to Vegas every year to have fun and then I play some tournaments,” Edengren told the WSOP afterwards. “I don’t really play poker anymore at all. I stopped a long time ago and just play for fun.”
For fun, Phil. Hellmuth only has three cashes so far this year.
Penn’s Hollywood Casino hiring dealers
Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course is getting ready to reopen its poker room and is the process of hiring 30 dealers.
The casino, which is located outside of Pennsylvania’s capital Harrisburg, closed its poker room during COVID in 2020.
“We’re excited to bring poker back,” Tony Frabbiele, vice president and general manager of operations at Hollywood Casino’s Pennsylvania properties, told PennLive in January. “It’s something a lot of people want and we want to bring it back.”
The reopening date has not been released, but the room will initially be open Friday to Sunday.
Panthers are poker fiends
The Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers are currently in a battle for the Stanley Cup, and the 2,210 miles between each city is one of the longest commutes in the NHL. That’s nearly a six-hour plane ride. So how have the players dealt with flying back and forth as the series requires?
According to CBS News, lots of Mario Cart and lots of poker.
“We spend a lot of time on that plane,” Edmonton captain Connor McDavid told CBS. “But we have a good time. There’s guys who are playing cards or guys who are playing Switch or guys who are just napping. There’s a bunch of different guys that are up to different things, but we pass the time anyway.”
But with the Oilers, it’s most Mario Cart.
For the Panthers, who play in Southern Florida, which is one of the great poker regions of the world, cards are king. The Panthers’ plane has ate least two card tables set up, one for Seven Up and one for poker. From the CBS report:
“There’s a couple good guys: Gustav’s pretty good, and Ekky thinks he’s pretty good,” forward Carter Verhaeghe said, referencing defensemen Gustav Forsling and Aaron Ekblad. “Some guys take it more lightly. Some guys take it more seriously. I’m on the lighter side, for sure.”
NHL.com also had a story on the Panther’s poker game, noting the group has assigned seats at the table and play for six hours.
Forward Matthew Tkachuk, the team’s alternate captain, is one of the players and said Gustav Forsling is the best player this year.
“(Forsling is) sneaky. Can’t read him,” Tkachuk said at a press conference.
Former Panther goalie and current NHL Network analyst Devan Dubnyk said poker is one of the things he misses most about being part of the hockey club.
“Those poker games on the plane were always my favorite thing,” he said. “I could play for hours and hours and hours. We still played cards, just different games. But I was at the card table and I would rather be just chatting with the boys and playing cards than watching movies.”
See folks, they’re just like us.
The Panthers are up 3-2 in the series after rattling off three straight wins to start. The series continues in Edmonton tomorrow night.
