I don't normally cover poker news and events here on Coding the Wheel, but a quick congratulations to our old friend Bobby "Shooter" Hempkins of Dallas, Texas, who recently logged a $710,000 win at the WinStar casino River Poker Championship in Thackerville, Oklahoma. Via Pokerati:
WinStar reportedly threw in a $580,000 overlay to make their $3 million guarantee. Not sure about the buy-in details — I think they upped it to $2k? — nor overall results. The best “coverage” has come via 2+2 here, mixed in with some Facebook, Twitter, and direct txt msg buzz. (Thanks KevMath and Harris, as always, for the info!)
1,210 players overall.
The winner: Bobby Hempkins, aka “Shooter” in the Dallas poker boom days. (And now your source for residential real estate in the North Texas area.) $710k win. Nice!
I've long considered Shooter to be one of the strongest players in Dallas, as well as a true class act; one of the coolest, downright friendliest people I've ever come across in a card room. It was over two years ago that I said in an email to another player out of Dallas:
If I were a poker executive with millions of dollars of funding at my disposal, I would absolutely sponsor Shooter on the basis of his personality alone. He'd be a welcome refrain from some of the current crop of wannabe-cool loudmouth braggarts who dominate the televised poker circuit.
I could tell you half a dozen great Shooter stories in that vein, but a lot of these took place in private games, so I'll hold off. Still, it's nice to see some of those juicy WinStar funds flowing back across state lines to the Texas players without whom WinStar would never have been built.
This is actually the 2nd year in a row that a Dallas player has taken down the River Poker Championship. But thanks to the same shady, dishonest politicking that gave birth to the toilet paper legislation known as UIGEA, and despite the easy availability of casinos just across state lines: the game of Texas Hold'em remains mostly illegal within the state of Texas.
Anyway, props out to Shooter and all the Texas players who moneyed in the event. This is the best news I've heard out of Dallas since the 2008 installment of the Red River Rivalry, in which the 5th-ranked Texas Longhorns smashed the evil #1-ranked Oklahoma Sooners, 45-35.
Tuck Fexas, indeed.
Posted by James Devlin 22 comment(s)
