It’s been a pretty good eight months for Sean Getzwiller.
The former Tucson-area resident, who learned to play poker at the local casinos (as well as the underground games) while also riding the wave of the region’s rising and falling real estate market, made his fourth deep run in a major tournament since June by finishing third late Monday in the World Series of Poker Circuit championship event at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
The $1,600 event, which began on Friday with more than 600 players, paid Getzwiller a little more than $89,000.
Though that money pales compared to the $611,000 Getzwiller earned for winning at World Series of Poker bracelet last June, yet another strong finish in a high-profile event helps solidify him as one of the top up-and-coming players in the game.
I’d like to say my limited interactions with Getzwiller taught me how to play as well as he does. Unfortunately, all I learned was how to throw a $1 chip from one table onto the other.
This article appears in Jan 26 – Feb 1, 2012.
Brian, I can’t believe you aren’t attending my felony trial. A former Judge respresenting himself against 3 felony charges and the ICGPA players association in Maricopa County Superior Court. I am cross examing my first witness in about 4 hours.
The lack of press coverage speaks volumes about how successfully the gambling industry has bought off the public media. You might visit my blog and see where I am headed after my trial is over—regardless of the outcome, we will be back in court attacking the reservation system. In my lifetime poker will be a legitimate stand alone sport, unaffiliated with the gamblng industry. http://www.icgpa.org
Judge Harold Lee (Retired)
You’re asking me, a lowly freelance writer in Tucson, to skip out on my day job and drive to Phoenix to cover a trial that is in no way connected to any activities in Pima County. I think the request itself is the travesty.
Sure Brian, as if the treatment of my former associates from Tucson’s Club Royale by gamblng industry thugs is not relevant to the issues in my trial. Are you maintaining that the bogus lawsuit filed by the Pascua Yaqui Card Room operators will not be an issue either?
I am willing to wager that if I am acquitted, it will be due in no small part, to the actions of those industry goons that terrified Johnny Ray’s young children. They lobbed a stun gernade into his 12 year old son’s bathroom. They stuck a 9MM gun in the boy’s face. Later, when the kid asked his assailants what might have happened if he had been killed? The schmuck replied that “…stuff” like that just happens.”
Sadly, Johnny Ray was not even the licensee of the Arizona Card Room, that would have been his estranged wife Donna. The police had no business bombing his house on a Saturday morning at seven in the morning.
I did not know that you were freelancing. However, it is hard to believe that with your networking skills, you have no Phoenix press associates with whom you could collaborate. Surely, you would agree; that a former JP facing three felony counts and representing himself in pro per is somewhat newsworthy? Yet, it is not being covered anywhere within the State. What would you suggest is responsible for this odd circumstance?
Come on Brian, this is a statewide story and you know it. The reality is that the entire press corps is being compromised by the gambling industry’s big bucks. You are not responsible for this sorry situtation. So why are you defending it? The jury has the case and deliberations begin at 9:30 this morning.
Judge Lee
It is rather odd that after all the ballyhoo and media posturing by the Yaqui tribe in Tucson in ’08 that the culmination of the 5 year investigation garnered zero press at the trial… One ADoG press release and subsequent New Times story after the conviction… AND THEN NOTHING about the sentence that cant even be called a slap on the wrist, but more likely an award of $250k more taxpayer money for the gratis appeal. Kinda makes ya go hmmmmmmm