Hoyt Corkins was born in Glenwood, Alabama and is a professional poker player who is sometimes called by his nickname “The Cowboy”. Hoyt got the nickname “The Cowboy” due to his apparel that he would always be seen wearing at the poker table including a cowboy hat and cowboy boots. Hoyt didn’t start learning how to play poker under he was nineteen years old and he learned the game from his father.
Over Hoyt’s poker career he has won two WSOP bracelets and one WPT title along with nineteen money finishes on the WSOP circuit and another ten on the WPT circuit. Corkins won his first WSOP bracelet over a decade ago in 1992 when he won the $5000 PL Omaha tournament. In 2005 Hoyt almost won the freeroll set-up by the WSOP for tournament champions, but he finished second place only losing heads-up against Mike Matusow. Hoyt’s second WSOP bracelet didn’t come until 2007 when he won the $2500 NL Holdem 6 handed event. His most recent WSOP tournament action was in 2008 where he finished in 162nd place in the WOSP Main Event taking down just over $40,000 for his efforts.
Hoyt won the 2003 WPT World Poker Finals where he won over $1 million which at the time was the biggest prize pool in poker history for a single event. In 2004 he made a couple final table appearances on the PokerStars.com Download Caribbean Adventure and the USA Poker Championship. Corkins also made the final table in several events throughout 2008 which goes to show you that Corkins has yet to finish his career. Hoyt has been seen on a couple poker shows over the past couple years, but he definitely doesn’t get as much television time as most of the pros do.
When Hoyt isn’t playing poker online, he spends time living in his home in Alabama where he has sixty cattle that he takes care of. He also has a home in Las Vegas and lives in that home when he is playing poker. With sixty cattle to take care of Hoyt’s poker time is limited compared to other poker pros, but his resume is still as good as players who have played in way more tournaments then him. This goes to show you that you don’t need to play a ton of tournaments in order to become one of the best poker players in the world, you just need to make the most of the events you do enter.
A little fact that most people don’t know about Corkins is that he left poker from 1992-2003 which is just over a decade. The reason he needed to leave poker was because of a divorce he went through and he just didn’t have the money or mentality to play poker. After the long absence he was persuaded to start playing poker again by his fiancée and what a good decision it was. Since coming back Hoyt has played better poker then he has ever played before and has made millions in the process. Hoyt has earned just under $5 million from live tournament action in his career.
Johnny Moss is a poker legend and was one of the first poker players who made poker popular amongst the mainstream internet poker crowd. Johnny competed in all of the early WSOP events and when he played poker this was the only circuit out there for poker. Johnny grew up in Dallas, Texas and spent most of his childhood learning how to play cards.
When Moss was just a teenager he spent time working in the saloons making sure that everyone was playing the poker games fairly without cheating. Johnny was taught at a young age all the ways to cheat in poker at that time so he was well equipped for the job at the saloon. It was a dangerous job at the time, but someone needed to do it and Johnny stepped up to the plate. He also didn’t really mind working there because he was able to watch other players and learn the strategies they used.
Johnny has won 9 WSOP bracelets and finished in the money 25 times in his career which is pretty impressive because there were hardly any events to play back when he played. He won the main event bracelet at the WSOP in years 1970, 1971 and 1974. He has also done well in other poker games on the WSOP circuit and won many bracelets in games other then Holdem.
Johnny Moss was known in his early days as a rounder, a rounder is someone who travelled the country looking for any gambling action that they could find in the saloons. Moss traveled around the USA with some of his poker buddies and made a lot of money for the time. Later in his career Moss started getting called the “Grand Old Man of Poker” because he was basically there since it became regulated and played for more then most poker players do today.
Throughout Moss’s long career as a poker player he won $680,000 which you might think is pretty minuscule compared to how much the players earn today on sites like PokerStars.com, but back when he played this amount of money was a ton. Nowadays you see the winner of the main event winning nearly $10 million, but back when Moss played the tournaments were way smaller and the prize pool therefore was also a lot smaller. Although when Moss played there weren’t that many players the skill level of the players who did play was exceptional. Players like Doyle Brunson were some of Moss’s competition in the early days so it wasn’t like it was easy for Moss to win his 9 WSOP bracelets.
Johnny Moss has been inducted to the Poker of Hall of Fame decades ago and with a HOF with only a select few poker players inducted it’s quite the achievement for Johnny. He has been in the HOF since 1979 after pioneering poker and there isn’t anyone else more deserving then Moss to be in the Poker HOF. I personally haven’t seen him play or his style of poker play so I can’t comment on that, but judging by his poker resume he definitely was one of the greatest players of all-time.
Allen Cunningham was born in 1977 and has emerged as one of the world’s most elite poker players. Before playing poker Cunningham spent some time studying at UCLA under a Civil Engineering major, but he never ended up finishing his degree. Allen made the move to play poker professionally before he was able to complete his schooling, but I’m sure it isn’t something that Allen has any regrets about. Allen started playing poker for money initially when he was just eighteen in Indian Casinos.
Allen has an impressive poker resume thus far in his career and he still plays a ton of poker to this day which can only mean more good things are coming for Cunningham. He is a regular online poker player and is a member of the FullTilt Poker.net team which is full of impressive poker pros. Throughout the past few years Allen has seen himself appear on a lot of television shows including multiple appearances on Poker After Dark.
Cunningham has seen great success while playing on TV Poker shows, but I’m sure he could care less about those events and a lot more about his five WSOP bracelets. Not to many other poker players have won five WSOP bracelets like Allen has and I can see some more in the near future. Allen has also played well on the World Poker Tour, but he has yet to win his first title. Cunningham has made appearances twice on final tables on the WPT circuit though so he has been coming close.
Allen is one of few players who have won three WSOP bracelets in three consecutive years and most of the other players who completed this accomplishment did so when the tournament fields were much smaller. This makes Allen’s three WSOP bracelets in three years a much harder feat then the other players who have done this.
Over Cunningham’s poker career he has managed to win more then $10 million in live tournaments which has put him fifth on the all-time list. Allen is no doubt one of the best tournament poker players in the world and in history and he still has a lot of years to win some more tournaments which could put him in the top ten all-time players. With a couple more WSOP bracelets and maybe a couple titles on the WPT or EPT Allen could no doubt make a list of the top ten players in poker history and especially the past decade.
Right now Allen is living in Las Vegas with his girlfriend and spends most of his time playing poker at FullTiltPoker and spending time going out with his girlfriend. He is definitely living the high life in Vegas and there is no way he could have imagined this when he was attending university for engineering. Cunningham is a great example of someone who put there mind to becoming a poker professional and not stopping until he achieved exactly that. Allen is less aggressive then most poker players, but it seems to be working great for him so all the power to him.
Should You Bet The Moneyline On NFL Games?
The NFL season is a time many of us look forward to all year, it’s a time when we get to relax in front of the television and watch one of the best sports played. What makes watching the NFL better is the chance to gamble on the games before you watch them in hopes of winning money. One of the betting options you can choose when betting on the NFL is the moneyline. Betting on the moneyline is simply picking whether a team is going to win or lose.
Let’s quickly look at an example of a moneyline bet in the NFL.
Dallas Cowboys -3 vs. Buffalo Bills
In this game the moneyline would be around -150 for Dallas and +125 for Buffalo.
With the moneyline above you’d need to wager $150 to win $100 on Dallas and $75 to win $100 on Buffalo. As you can see the favourite in the game is going to cost more in order to win the same amount then betting on the underdog. This is realistic though because if you think about it the favourite wins the game more often then the underdog.
The problem with betting on the favourites in the NFL on the moneyline, as with basketball betting, is that you need to risk too much juice in order to win money. You’d be better off taking the team by the point spread if you think they’re going to win the game and this way you wouldn’t need to risk as much money. If you bet the moneyline on the favourites then you’re going to need to win a high percentage of your bets in order to turn a profit.
If you bet on the moneyline and you take the underdog then you’ll be able to see a good amount of return of every bet. You won’t need to win a high percentage of your games to break even and if you’re winning a good amount of games then you’re going to win a lot of money. This same rule holds true for baseball betting. The one problem is that it’s difficult to pick the underdogs who will win outright each week.
What you should do is use the moneyline bet in your arsenal once in awhile when you find a strong underdog to bet on. The favourites don’t payout enough money so I don’t suggest betting on them regularly, but the underdog makes a good bet every so often. Make sure you scope out the good underdogs every week and when you find a strong game lay some money on the moneyline.
If you watched much of this season in the NFL then you’d noticed that quite a few underdogs won there games. If you spend some time putting in the work every week then you should have no problem finding an underdog at least once a week to bet on. Don’t rely on moneyline bets as your bread and butter though and stick to the more traditional point spread wagers. One more small note that I should mention is you can find different moneyline odds at different sports gambling sites, so shop around for the best odds.
Whether you’re playing a heads up poker game or you’ve made the final two in a tournament on PokerStars.com you’ll need to know how to play heads up poker effectively. I’ve had many poker players ask me in the past for some simple heads up poker tips that they could implement into there poker game. I sent them over some tips that I used when playing heads up poker and now I want to share those tips with you in this article. Continue reading through this strategy guide for heads up poker and I guarantee when you’re done reading you’ll have some new tips to use when playing your next heads up match.
You need to become an aggressive poker player when you’re playing heads up because if not your opponent will walk all over you. Heads up matches are usually fairly quick matches to play and you’re not always going to get a monster hand. You need to be willing to push your chips into the pot with marginal hands. Your opponent is going to bluff at pots and you just need to be able to tell when your opponent is bluffing and when they aren’t.
Acting last in a heads up match at FullTilt is a great advantage since you get to see what your opponent does before it’s your turn. If they act weak you can try making a stab at the pot, and if they come out betting you’ll need to determine whether they’re bluffing or have a real hand.
Don’t get out of control in a heads up match after losing a couple pots because you’ll only start losing more chips. You need to control every pot whether you win the pot or lose the pot you need to be in control. You want to make the pots big when you have a hand and when you don’t have a hand you want to keep pots minimal.
When you think you’re beat you need to just fold your cards and not payoff your opponent every time they make a bet. You also need to be careful how often you chase flushes and straights on carbon poker because after chasing a couple hands and not hitting your chip stack is going to be crippled.
If you can’t make a bluff on your opponent then don’t even bother playing heads up poker games because you won’t stand a chance. You need to be willing to bluff at some pots, half the time you bluff you probably have the best hand anyways. In heads up poker it’s often for both players to get nothing and usually the first player to bet in those hands will win. You need to make sure you’re the one winning these pots.
The size of your poker bankroll is going to directly reflect how much you stake in each heads up poker match. Don’t play poker over your limits because you need to leave plenty of room for winning and losing matches. I usually recommend playing for about 5% of your bankroll which means if you have a bankroll of $200 you should play $5 matches until you make some money.