Last week, the top 10 players in the world (as ranked by the Global Poker Index), squared off for the third Epic Poker League Main Event, held at Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. At the end of the five-day tournament, Philadelphia’s Chris Klodnicki emerged victorious, taking $801,680 and the champion’s ring. With the win, Klodnicki raised his lifetime earnings to $2,818,881.

The win also secured Klodnicki’s spot in the season-ending $1,000,000 Epic Poker League Championship Freeroll, which is open to the 27 players with the highest earnings in the four regular season main events from the Epic Poker League’s inaugural season, under the auspices of Annie Duke, EPL commissioner.

Big League Sports spoke with Klodnicki about the EPL and his epic win.

Big Lead Sports: What was the upside of the Epic Poker League competition vs. others in which you have participated?

Chris Klodnicki: The Epic Poker League definitely runs great tournaments and goes out of the way to accommodate the players. The free rooms, $100 food vouchers, and limo ride from the airport are just the start. Epic also adds $400,000 to each of their main event prize pools, and collects no rake from league members. On top of that, they have the million-dollar freeroll at the end of the season. Their tournament director, Matt Savage, is the best in the business. The tournament structure is great and he makes sure everything runs smoothly. EPL also employs some of the best dealers, which really makes a difference compared to some other tournaments. EPL also provides a type of concierge service at the table that is a nice luxury (food delivery, dinner reservations). All of these things make playing Epic tournaments more enjoyable. Read the rest of this entry »

Doyle Brunson, a legend in the world of poker with more than 50 years of playing the game, has another honor to add to his collection: the Epic Poker League has awarded him its first Lifetime Card. Read the rest of this entry »

Blog By Annie Duke
I have been thinking a lot lately about how much Poker has evolved since I started playing. In a lot of ways, the evolution of the game itself mimics the evolution of the individual player.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Blog By Annie Duke

When I first started playing poker back in 1992, I suspected I was choosing a life of guaranteed anonymity. Back then no one really understood that playing poker could be an actual profession.

My perspective, however, was that poker was simply a form of investing your money at a mathematical advantage over time, akin to options trading. The general public thought poker was more like craps, pure luck, gambling in the truest sense of the word. No one believed that poker could be a vocation or a craft that could earn you a living and a pretty good one over time. Read the rest of this entry »

Blog By Annie Duke

I was interviewed recently by The Daily Pennsylvanian, the school newspaper of one of my alma maters, the University of Pennsylvania, and that interview really got me thinking about how far poker has come, and how much this sport has evolved in the nearly two decades since I started playing.

When the interviewer asked me about where I first started playing poker it dawned on me that I started out playing in a fairly ridiculous place for a 20-something-year-old girl to be hanging out.(although poker might have been the safest thing to do there). Read the rest of this entry »

By Michael Craig

Phil Hellmuth is a polarizing figure in poker, among both fans and other professionals. To some, he is the greatest tournament poker player of all time. To others, he was last relevant in the pre-Moneymaker era and has morphed into a pro-wrestling style character, preening and pouting to the camera’s demands. Read the rest of this entry »

Blog By Annie Duke

Poker has been an anomaly among televised sports because it has operated on the somewhat odd premise that if anyone can play poker then televised tournaments should be open to anyone. That, of course, is just some strange logic.

Anyone can play golf. Anyone can play football. Anyone can skateboard. Anyone can play tennis. My father is still out there competing in the seniors division on the courts several times a week. I am pretty sure you don’t want to watch my 72-year-old dad playing tennis on TV.

The beginning of the television boom for poker was all the way back in 2002-2003. That tells you how new poker is to the mass media. It is a young sport and it is time for it to grow up. Read the rest of this entry »