Sammy George Poker
The finale of the Full Tilt Poker Million Dollar Challenge in London featured sponsored pro Tom “durrrr” Dwan taking Sammy “Any Two” George for a colossal $750,000. Dwan entered the contest up over $40,000 after facing Marcello “luckexpress” Marigliano and Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies.
The battle between Dwan and George featured a 7-2 bonus, similar to a promotion you’d find at some of the world’s largest online poker sites. If either Dwan or George scooped a pot with the worst starting hand in poker, they’d claim a $10,000 reward. Dwan, as expected, went all-out to claim it, including pushing for $400,000 on a board of J-A-6-3-3 with three hearts with just 7-2. George tanked for over five minutes before finally releasing A-6 for two pair. Dwan flipped over his bluff, raking the pot and the $10,000 bonus.
George commented after his nearly $1 million thumping, “The turning point was the bluff with the 7-2 when I had the two-pair, but I cannot call there for three times the pot. The game was in his favor, he was hitting cards and rivering cards, but I respect Tom a lot and always will. He’s one of the best in the world and I think he’s up there with Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius. I think when people see the show, they will have a different opinion of me from what they had before.” George was originally slated to appear on the sixth season of GSN’s “High Stakes Poker,” joining Dwan, Ivey, and Antonius, but was a no-show when taping commenced in Las Vegas.
- Sammy George poker tournament results, including recent cashes, lifetime winnings, WSOP and WPT stats.
- Sammy George's Results, Stats, Gallery & Pictures. Date Country Place Prize; Dec-2009: England: Heat 10 Full Tilt Poker Million VIII, Sky Sports: 6th Oct-2009: England: Heat 3 PartyPoker.com World Open V, London.
- The finale of the Full Tilt Poker Million Dollar Challenge in London featured sponsored pro Tom “durrrr” Dwan taking Sammy “Any Two” George for a colossal $750,000. Dwan entered the.
Other poker activities. Farha has also finished in the money in the National Heads-Up Poker Championship, once for $75,000 and the other time for $125,000. He also has three cashes in World Poker Tour events, for a little over $100,000. Farha co-authored a book Farha on Omaha, a detailed guide on Omaha poker strategy. Farha intersperses basic.
Dwan and George bought in for $500,000 each and blinds began at $500/$1,000. Marigliano bested Dwan to the tune of $22,500, while Sahamies dropped $68,000 to his young opponent over 500 hands of Pot Limit Omaha. The action unfolded at the Les Ambassadeurs Club in Mayfair and featured pros such as Roland de Wolfe and European Poker Tour founder John Duthie turning out to catch a glimpse of the action.
In another key hand during Dwan’s match against George, the challenger was down 10:1 in chips, $900,000 to $90,000. George shoved all-in with 9-4 for bottom pair after the flop came 7-6-4, but ran into Dwan’s A-7. The hand boosted Dwan’s stack to nearly $1 million and ensured that George would be funding the youngster’s online bankroll for some time to come.
Early on, George ran A-K into Dwan’s pocket aces. George put in a raise pre-flop, Dwan bumped the action to $30,000, George re-raised to $113,000, Dwan shoved, and George made the call. The flop came 5-6-7, no help to George, but an eight on the turn left the possibility of a chopped pot if a four or a nine came off on the river. However, the final card was a 10 and George lost his initial $250,000 buy-in. Coverage on Matchroom Sport candidly noted, “[George] grabs the $250k behind him and off we go.” Neither player was allowed to leave the table until one was broke or 500 hands were completed.
In another pot, George held pocket kings and led out for $26,000 on a flop of 3-2-9 with two clubs. Dwan made the call with J-5 of clubs and the five of hearts fell on the turn. The action went check-check to the nine of clubs on the river, filling Dwan’s flush and also pairing the board. George bet $50,000 and Dwan moved all-in over the top. George debated for several minutes before folding. That hand gave Dwan a $357,000 lead; he’d more than double that by the time the 500 hands were up.
All told, Dwan won nearly $800,000 over the course of the Full Tilt Poker Million Dollar Challenge, which will hit television airwaves next year.
From left: Binh and Washington Ho and cousin Sammy from the HBO series 'House of Ho,' which focuses on the Ho family of Houston.
Photo: Felicia Graham/HBO MaxFairly early in the new HBO Max streaming reality series “House of Ho,” debuting Dec. 10, Washington Ho — the fast-living scion of the family whose name is in the title of the show — slips into a striking blazer and sunglasses and enters a dimly lit room to join a poker game with stacks of chips and bundles of Benjamins.
“Let’s get (messed) up,” he declares, “and make some money.”
The scene feels of a kind with the hit film “Crazy Rich Asians,” a vibe further established with scene-setting shots of Houston’s affluent neighborhoods and punctuated with images of the kind of cars that carry six-figure sticker prices.
The son of a Vietnamese immigrant who came to the United States 45 years ago, Washington took naturally to having cameras around. “I love it, the lights, camera, action,” he says in an interview.
And while grandiosity is on display in “House of Ho,” the show also finds pockets of nuance in its presentation of an immigrant success story. It tells stories of people teetering between young adulthood and the responsibility of parenthood, of complications in domestic partnerships, of small tensions between old and contemporary cultures from geographic points thousands of miles apart.
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Sammy George Poker Rules
‘House of Ho’Details: Streaming on HBO Max beginning Dec. 10
Washington’s wife, Lesley, confesses to “a little anxiety opening our lives like this.”
“With this venture, I had some concerns,” Washington says. “But we chose to focus more on how we as a family inspire each other to be better.”
American dreaming
Family is at the center of “House of Ho,” starting with the story of Binh and wife Hue Ho, who left war-ravaged Vietnam and landed in Texas. Fredericksburg, to be exact. Hue worked at a Circle K and learned English from a woman at Schreiner University. Binh worked at an Exxon station .
Sammy George Poker Games
“My dad jokes, his friends in Vietnam would ask him, ‘How did you show up and get a job at Exxon so quickly?’” Washington says. “But he was proud of how he started. This was a land of opportunity. This show lets us showcase that American dream.”
Sammy George Poker Game
They then moved to Houston, where he made a fortune in real estate and banking. Daughter Judy — named after the woman who taught Hue English — and son Washington were born in the early ’80s. A third sibling, Reagan (the family wanted to name their sons for U.S. presidents), decided not to appear in the show.
“House of Ho” picks up the family’s story before the pandemic, yet for the Ho family it’s still a time of change and unease. Judy, an attorney, is reconfiguring her life shortly after a divorce. And Washington is slowly stepping away from a more fast-paced youth into a more family-focused role (his son and daughter are named Roosevelt and Lincoln) and a greater emphasis on work in the energy field.
Anxieties about connections surface early on the show. Lesley, a pharmacist, says opening their lives to the cameras required an adjustment. “For me, my family was not aware of issues going on with our marriage, so it was difficult,” she says. “But the crew was so welcoming and warming. It got easier over time.”
Even then, the show’s cousin Sammy, who serves as a confidant to Washington, says at one point, “Damn, should that be on TV?”
Judy’s divorce also generates tension. It’s a subject her parents sidestep with a quiet disapproval.
“It’s not a thing Vietnamese families speak about, even among themselves,” she says. “But I felt there was some good to bring it out in public. That this is something that could perhaps help someone else in the same situation.
“Sometimes, life takes unexpected turns.”
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Any reality series presents some sort of distorted reality. Behaviors change when people are observed, and the Ho family found themselves regularly going about their lives with multiple cameras and crew members milling about.
“In the beginning I felt very self-conscious,” Judy says. “There’s a microphone attached to you, so you’re very aware of what’s going on. But after a while, you forget about it and lose that filter.”
Adds Washington, “And that’s when it gets fun.”
In one clip, Washington and Lesley discuss Binh’s potential retirement and how they should discuss it with her family. There are traditions to abide by, that they refer to as “the Asian way.”
More Asian American visibility
“House of Ho” fits a growing trend in television programming as a medium, with increasingly broad outlets, that seeks to diversify the people and cultures it chooses to spotlight. Earlier this year Netflix introduced “Never Have I Ever,” a scripted teen drama about a first-generation Indian American high school student. A Houston woman was featured in another Netflix reality show, “Indian Matchmaking.” And Bravo’s “Family Karma” focused on a South Asian family based in Miami.
On multiple occasions, members of the Ho family point out the family’s story as representative of the American dream. “I think the idea of the American dream is a more common thread in the United States now,” Lesley says. “You’re looking at a much more diverse United States. We also have the first woman vice-president elect … I think our story is very relatable now.”
“I think it started for us with ‘Crazy Rich Asians,’ how well that movie did in Hollywood,” Judy says. “It was a big step toward people seeing Asians in a different light. Of course, there are so many different Asian cultures. Our family’s story represents just one. But I’m proud of what we showed, this one Vietnamese tradition that gets followed through our homes.”
Washington says the show’s producers considered other families in other places. “I told them Austin’s a cool city, Dallas is a cool city, but you got to come to Houston,” he says.
Judy calls the show “a love letter to Houston.”
And the Ho family kept looking for ways to underscore the breadth of their journey. The opening shot includes the Houston skyline, a Ferrari and a dining scene, which certainly triangulate an aspect of the city’s culture.
Even that tuxedo jacket Washington wears for his poker game — black and embroidered with red flowers and sequins — has a story. It was created by Patrick Pham, a Vietnamese designer based in Paris.
“With this project, I wanted to help other Vietnamese and Asian people,” Washington says. “Maybe open some doors for them to this Hollywood industry. We try to support some local businesses that maybe don’t have the national marketing budget to do something like this.”
With the show about to debut, the family says they’d do the it again.
“No regrets,” Washington says.
Adds Judy, “We’ll have some nice home videos to show the kids and grandkids one day.”
andrew.dansby@chron.com