People News: Bilzerian joins GGPoker; Negreanu and Seidel hacked; Galfond Challenge Update; Poker Hall of Fame; Gus Hansen’s domestic life

In this column, we deliver you the latest and most interesting news and gossip from our favourite poker people.

Dan Bilzerian joins Team GGPoker

The final stretch of 2020 is still full of surprises. GGPoker has just announced that they have signed the “bad boy” of Instagram Dan Bilzerian as a new ambassador. The controversial Bilzerian is mostly known for hanging out with beautiful mostly naked women and posting pictures with guns, expensive cars, and other expensive toys on social media.

https://twitter.com/GGPoker/status/1334529220387758081?s=20

The questionable celebrity enjoys popularity amongst the general public as he is very entertaining in the way he presents himself. And as poker people we often get asked by non-poker players “Do you know Dan Bilzerian?”, having to reply “He is not actually a poker player.”

So, attaching their brand to this famous persona is probably not the worst idea by GGPoker, but many people in the poker industry reacted confused and sarcastic.

Do we really want to attract more @DanBilzerian’s to poker?

From what I’ve heard he’s one of the biggest poker winners of all time so would be bad for the fragile poker ecosystem

— Max Silver (@max_silver) December 4, 2020

Dan Bilzerian becoming a GG poker ambassador is the equivalent of me becoming an ambassador for GQ

— Doug “Truck Driver” Polk (@DougPolkVids) December 3, 2020

GGPoker poster child Daniel Negreanu defends the poker skills of his new teammate.

He’s made more money playing poker than 99% of pros. You may need to redefine your definition as to what makes a player “good.”

Also, who cares dude?

— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) December 3, 2020

Yuck.

This guy’s audience is a bunch of toxic losers – literally the worst kind we could add to our community.

Feels extra gross given how he treats women like literal props.

Super disappointing GG, lot of us loved what you’d been doing.

— Vanessa Kade (@VanessaKade) December 3, 2020

Bilzerian replied to this tweet in an unsurprising fashion:

Quiet hoe, nobody knows who you are

— Dan Bilzerian (@DanBilzerian) December 4, 2020

How helpful the behaviour of the new ambassador will be for GGPoker’s brand will be interesting to see. Fact is, Bilzerian has a big following and could potentially bring a lot of new players to the poker world.

Also, this new signing does come with a big promotion. GGPoker will celebrate Bilzerian’s 40th birthday on 7th December with a $100,000 freeroll.

Negreanu and Seidel hacked

Venmo is a mobile payment service owned by PayPal and it’s for U.S. users only. Account holders can transfer funds to others with an app. This service is being used to pay for services but probably mainly to send money between friends.

Now in some way or fashion, there has been a breach and several poker players were hacked or targeted to send money to accounts that were pretending to be other poker players.

The hackers probably did not do the most thorough research work as a request for $6 by Dan Coleman landed in Vanessa Selbst’ accounts and that was obviously more than suspicious.

Most famously Daniel Negreanu fell victim to a hack, losing $15,000 to an unknown hacker, who afterwards also attempted to pay for a $43 Uber ride.

The dude who robbed my @venmo @VenmoSupport account has some balls. Cleaned it out and then still tried to pay for a $43 Uber ride on my dime.

You just stole $15k dude, and you still need to get me for $43 more? Ain’t you a piece of work.

— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) November 25, 2020

Erik Seidel also tweeted about a hack and scolded the payment processor for not replying fast enough as it should be the case in case of a security breach like this.

Looks like my Venmo has been hacked & email connected to the account changed. I’ve tried calling, emailing & contacting @venmo & @VenmoSupport with no response for the last hour

— Erik Seidel (@Erik_Seidel) November 24, 2020

Vanessa Selbst agreed and it’s probably a good moment for everyone to once again look at their own personal online security.

The fact that I saw my @venmo hack coming, and still couldn’t prevent it (no 2FA, seriously?) is a security catastrophe. I have to recommend people stop using this service if they don’t take security more seriously.

— Vanessa Selbst (@VanessaSelbst) November 26, 2020

Galfond Challenge Update

The Galfond Challenge between Phil Galfond and Chance Kornuth continues after a short break over the Thanksgiving period. The two players are playing heads-up $100/$200 PLO over 35k hands.

Kornuth had been in the lead for several weeks now with a record lead of $344.500 on 13th November. Since then Galfond has been working hard to reduce his losses. The challenge is about halfway through at this point

On the 32nd day of play (3rd December) the hero of the story, Galfond, regained the lead with a $96k win on the day. He is now $32k ahead of Kornuth.

You can watch highlights of the match on the Run It Once YouTube channel:

Poker Hall of Fame

The nomination period for the Poker Hall of Fame 2020 has begun and it is possible to send in nominations until 11th December on the WSOP website.

The final ballot will be revealed by Caesars Entertainment on 16th December and then the actual voting process will begin. The voting will be done amongst the 32 living Hall of Fame members and no media seems to be included this year.

In the early years of the Poker Hall of Fame (1980-2004) one person got inducted each year. That was changed to two afterwards, but this year we go back to the roots. Only one person is going to be inducted in 2020 and he or she will be announced ahead of the WSOP Main Event final in Las Vegas on 30th December.

If you want to use your opportunity to honour someone in the poker world, here are the criteria:

• must have played poker against acknowledged top competition
• minimum of 40-years-old at time of nomination
• played for high stakes
• played consistently well, gaining the respect of peers
• stood the test of time
• for non-players, contributed to the overall growth and success of the game of poker, with indelible positive and lasting results

Head to the WSOP Poker Hall Of Fame website to nominate your candidate.

Gus Hansen’s domestic life

In times of little to no scandals around the “Great Dane”, Gus Hansen entertains us with some funny remarks about his new-found domestic life. The 46-year old has recently settled down with his girlfriend and even became a dad.

Now his social media posts are tongue-in-cheek comments about the “normal” life that Gus might now have wrapped is head around fully yet.

In a recent Instagram post, he made fun of himself at the supermarket, trying to score 30% on his shopping with coupons.

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