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Brad Yukon Booth

Bradley (Brad) Booth (born September 20th, 1976 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) is a Canadian professional poker player known for his appearances on the GSN series High Stakes Poker. He is one of the most successful high limit players of the last decade. He was once referred to as a “poker savant” by Phil Laak and is rated as one of the best poker players in the world by Phil Hellmuth and Doyle Brunson.

In 13th episode of the third season of High Stakes Poker, Booth stated that he has been playing poker every day for 14 years – first in Vancouver, then Calgary and then in Yukon hence his nickname “Yukon Brad” – but is now slowing down.

Booth appeared on the second season of NBC’s Poker After Dark on the episode “International Week” and finished in second place to Patrik Antonius.

As of 2007, his total live tournament winnings exceed $640,000.

Kid Poker

Daniel Negreanu (born July 26, 1974 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian professional poker player.
Early life

Daniel Negreanu’s parents, Annie and Constantin, moved to Canada from Romania in 1967. When he was several credits short of graduation, Daniel dropped out of high school and began his life as a rounder playing at the local charity casinos and looking for illegal games around the city. While in Toronto, Daniel met and began dating Evelyn Ng, who would also become a well-known professional poker player. After building up his bankroll, he left for Las Vegas at the age of 21 to pursue his dream of becoming a professional poker player. However, “The Strip” got the better of him and he was forced to move back home to Toronto to rebuild his bankroll.
Poker career

In 1997 his luck began to change when he won two events at the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods, earning himself $133,600 as well as being named the tournament’s best all-around player. Negreanu followed this triumph in the 1998 World Series of Poker by winning $169,460 at the $2,000 Pot Limit Hold’em event and becoming the youngest WSOP bracelet winner in history — a record he held until 2004.

Over the next few years, he became one of the most successful poker tournament players in history, winning two (WPT) events, another two World Series bracelets, and appearing at 11 final tables. He was also named the World Poker Tour World Series of Poker player of the year in 2004 and World Poker Tour player of the year in 2005.

Upon opening, the Wynn Las Vegas resort recruited him as their “Poker Ambassador” to play for any stake in their poker room. The arrangement lasted until October 2005 when he opted out because it was restricting his ability to play for high stakes outside the Wynn. In December 2005, he started his own online poker cardroom “skin” site on his official site, Full Contact Poker, which also includes his blog and a variety of poker forums. He played at his cardroom under the screen name “KidPoker”. In 2006, he used Full Contact Poker to launch a competition to select a protege, whom Daniel would attempt to mold into a world-class live tournament poker player. In addition, he would pay the protege’s entry fee into four $10,000 buy-in events. Daniel’s first protege was Brian Fidler. In 2007, Daniel ran a second protege promotion, which was won by Anthony Mak.

On June 11, 2007, Negreanu signed with PokerStars, joining Chris Moneymaker, Joe Hachem, Greg Raymer and many other professional poker players as a member of Team PokerStars. His Full Contact Poker site has since returned to being a forum and informational site.

Daniel has been a regular at the big game in Bobby’s Room, in the Bellagio casino, Las Vegas, for several years. He is a self-admitted action junkie who always seeks new challenges and sets high goals for himself, not only at the poker table but also on the golf course. Unlike many other players, he is very outspoken about his poker results and regularly posts updates in the forums at the Full Contact Poker website.

Some of Negreanu’s success is attributed to his ability to read opponents. When asked about this skill, Negreanu explained that the most important skill he employs is observing what hands his opponents play and how capable they are of playing them.

He has written over 100 articles for CardPlayer Magazine and contributed to Doyle Brunson’s revised book, Super System II. He has tutored on the web as part of Poker School Online and also personally given lessons to celebrities such as Tobey Maguire. In addition, it was announced in early 2006 that Negreanu had assembled a team of “Superstar Contributors” to write a book called Daniel Negreanu’s Power Hold’em Strategy. Modeled after Brunson’s Super/System, the book delves into every aspect of hold’em, and is due to be released in early 2008.

Negreanu has played poker on various TV shows such as Late Night Poker, Poker After Dark, and High Stakes Poker, as well as serving as a commentator and stand-in host on Ultimate Poker Challenge. He also appeared in the third season of Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament. In January 2007, Negreanu appeared in the Fox Reality original series Rob and Amber: Against the Odds in which he mentored reality television personality Rob Mariano in his bid to become a professional poker player.

Negreanu was named “Favorite Poker Player” at Card Player Magazine’s Player of the Year Awards Gala in February 2006.

Negreanu is also featured in the 2006 poker video game Stacked with Daniel Negreanu, providing tips and hints as to how to play effectively.
# On August 19, 2005 Negreanu married Lori Lin Weber. On November 24, 2007 he announced their separation in a blog entry.
# Negreanu’s surname is pronounced “Neg-rah-noo”.
# Negreanu has a blog at Full Contact Poker where he posts his thoughts and feelings about poker and various life topics.
# Negreanu is a vegan.

As of January 2007, his total live tournament winnings exceed $9,650,000, behind only Jamie Gold and Joseph Hachem. He is the 2nd all-time leading money winner on the WPT circuit, recently passed by Carlos Mortensen in April 2007 at the WPT Championship. With a 2nd place finish at the World Poker Open in Tunica, Mississippi, Negreanu has now cashed in a record 4 consecutive WPT events (which has since been tied by Kirk Morrison), and ties John Juanda in total WPT cashes with 14. He has the highest tournament earnings of any individual who has not won a WSOP Main Event.

Poker in Canada

Winning Necessary, Win with Rackback All the Time

Many people are leaving Online Poker tables these days with fatter bankrolls than they had when they started without having won a single hand. How’s that? By profiting from the rakeback schemes their online poker rooms of choice offer. It’s easy to do, and a money wise way to wait out the deal for the nuts.

If you are part of poker room’s rakeback program and you were dealt cards in a hand, even if you never toss a single chip into the pot, you get a portion of the rake taken by the house at the end of the hand credited back to your account. So how do you use this information to profit?

Simply put: play tight - that’s the key to making money with rakeback programs, the closest to a sure thing you’ll get at the felt.

Fold more often than not, and in particular pre-flop. Understand that you aren’t playing to win here. You’re playing to not lose, in other words - to break even. As long as you walk away from the online poker table with close to the same amount of chips you sat down with (even a little less is okay), then you still win, by simple virtue of the rakeback.

It’s rule number 1, 2 and 3. If you fold pre-flop, without having contributed a single chip to the pot, it’s not your money being taken out of the pot by the house as rake. It’s that of those players who stayed in.

But as part of a Rackback program, your account will be credited for a portion of the rake equal to that of each of the other players dealt cards in that hand, regardless of how much (or little) each contributed to the overall pot. That’s right - equal. You will make the same in rakeback folding pre-flop as the poor sap who sufferred the bad beat on 4th street.

Remember, however, that some of poker’s most basic tenets still apply, even when you’re not exactly “playing poker”. For example, when you’re already in the blinds, don’t just automatically fold pre-flop. That’s a sheer waste of money. You’ll fritter away all your rakeback earnings that way.

If you’re in the blinds anyway, especially the big blind, then for heaven’s sake, check first. Maybe you’ll get off easy - maybe you’ll get to see the flop without having to put up any more chips. Maybe you’ll even get a real hand out of it. And if someone raises, and your risk assessment of the current situation at thet able (ie. your cards vs. the number and manner of players staying in) determines that your staying in is not worth chancing, then fold then. But don’t jump the gun.

Another piece of basic strategy not to be ignored is that if you’re in last position, you already have so many other advantages at the poker table that you’d be foolish to waste the opportunity on mere rakeback skimming, unless you get a really lousy hand and don’t read the table as good to bluff at that moment, in which case - go for it.

And, of course, you’re probably not going to want to restrict your online poker experience to solely rakeback skimming. That would get boring fast. Hopefully you’ll play those pocket Kings when they come around and, hopefully, when you’ve got the Nuts you’ll still have the smarts to go All-In. And if your opponents start to get wise to that, then the time is ripe for you to start bluffing.

Understand, you won’t make a killing making all your poker money from the rakeback. But what you give up in potential winnings, you gain back in increased odds. You just minimized the effect luck will have on your game. Playing online poker just got a lot less risky and a little more profitable.