Jorryt van Hoof was born in Holland in 1982, where he spent the better part of his childhood. He is not one of the professional poker players who had early dreams of being a card player. In fact, he was studying industrial engineering at college before a unique opportunity presented itself. Van Hoof got the chance to run a gaming store (GameForce). He began to learn about different card games, with poker immediately standing out in his mind.

He discovered that he was very good at the game. His ability to stay calm under pressure, along with reading other people’s intentions, helped him win plenty of games in his native Holland. Ten years from the first time he played poker, he is the chip leader at the World Series of Poker’s November Nine event.

Van Hoof can be considered a true student of the game. Instead of spending all his time playing the game, he made the effort to study poker as thoroughly as possible. He would read different books by poker strategies and previous legends of the game. He completed at the World Series of Poker in 2005, two years after first playing a hand of poker, and finished 66th with $3,500 in prize money.

Despite being a very good player, Van Hoof has had a hard time closing the deal at major events. His biggest failing took place at the Master Classics of Poker event in 2006, where he was the chip leader for three straight days. Instead of closing it out and winning a $900,000 prize, he finished 7th and had to settle for $70,000.

The November Nine event has been very interesting so far, with some accomplished players already eliminated. For van Hoof, it is a chance to right the wrongs of 2006 and emerge victorious at a major event. When the November Nine event gets underway, he will start with 39 million chips. He will be hoping to stay at the top of the leaderboard by the time the event is over.

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Connor Drinan probably thought he had the game in the bag when he drew two pocket aces during the World Series of Poker tournament. Instead, bad luck and a series of unfortunate events meant he walked out of the studio $1 million in the red.

It all started with the “Big One for One Drop,” a table where 42 players bought in for a cool million each in hopes of taking home a jackpot worth even more. Drinan fared well enough against his first competitors, and when he sat across from Cary Katz and drew two pocket aces, it seemed like his good fortune was holding.

Unfortunately, Katz drew two pocket aces as well.

All conventional wisdom said that they would split the pot at this point. Statistically speaking, there was a 96 percent chance of it. Drinan could only lose if Katz got a flush.

Katz got a flush.

In what ESPN commenter Lon McEachern dubbed “the worst bad beat in the history of tournament poker,” Katz was dealt four hearts in a row, snagging the win out of Drinan’s hands despite the other man having an impossibly high chance of success.

To make matters even worse, Katz had warned Drinan not to go all in at the beginning of their game, telling him, “Save your money, kid. You can’t win every pot.”

It appears that the kid should have listened. At the end of the taping, Drinan went home in 18th place and $1 million lighter.

According to probability calculations, the odds of two players being dealt consecutive pocket aces are almost 50,000 to one. There are no known odds about sitting down to a poker tournament and losing a million bucks after being dealt the best cards in the entire game.

McEachern summed it up best: “That is brutal.”

Online poker sites have been around since the 1990s, allowing more people to play the game. Not all of the sites have offered tutorials, however. This has made it hard for people who are not familiar with the game to participate.

In recent years, as online and mobile gambling has become more popular, more of the casinos and poker sites have begun offering tutorials. This can come in the form of videos as well as how-to guides so that people understand such things as:

– Betting principles

– Poker terminology

– Pace of play

– Winning hands

All of these aspects need to be understood prior to someone sitting down at a table and betting. Even the sites that don’t offer real money play are offering the tutorials as a way to improve the amount of participation they get on the site.

There are more poker tournaments available to people around the world. The World Poker Tour has been around for many years, based in Las Vegas. From there, the European Poker Tour was created and now the Asian Poker Tour has also been developed to ensure that all four corners of the globe have poker playing opportunities.

Additionally, casinos around the globe have decided to remove their keno rooms and convert them into poker rooms as a way of providing players with what they want. These rooms are also high sources of revenue for the casinos.

It all starts with understanding poker and there are now poker sites that offer tutorials so that no one has to be in the dark. This makes it possible for more people to participate in the tournaments that are held online and in casinos around the world. It also allows people to find out how to play so that they can develop the confidence needed to sit down at a table, bluff their way through a game, and potentially walk away with a poker championship bracelet or at least a significant amount of money.