• Mike Landers Poker Mandalay Bay
• Mike Landers Poker

This Photo taken in November of 1969 shows Daniel Kos o tan on the left, Bob Bailey in the middle and Mike Landers on the right. When this was taken, William A. Anderson had been Killed In Action, and Kos o tan and Bailey both were awarded Silver Stars for that mission. WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic is off to a roaring start at Bellagio, and the $100K came down to Dan Smith against a resurgent Daniel Negreanu. Mike Landers: $36,842: 5: $1,100 PLO. Prime Desk Tennis Gamers – Mark Hazinski and Michael Landers Mark Hazinski and Michael Landers are arguably two of the major desk tennis players in the globe. Mark commenced playing when he was nine, and by age fifteen he acquired a spot on the U.S. Men’s Countrywide Desk Tennis Group. Black Stretchable Poker Table Rail Vinyl 55 x 108 in Major Table Tennis Players – Mark Hazinski and Michael Landers Mark Hazinski and Michael Landers are arguably two of the prime desk tennis gamers in the planet. Mark began actively playing when he was 9, and by age fifteen he gained a spot on the U.S. Men’s Nationwide Desk Tennis Group.

The air at the photo shoot was likely only tense to Cissy Bottom. “It was just an article about four female poker players but she said the whole thing made her uncomfortable and she wanted it to be over as soon as possible,” says David Kopp, longtime poker pro and friend who recalls Cissy being stressed by the event. “She said that she thought Annie Duke was really pretty and she didn’t know why she (Cissy) was there.” While such events are commonplace today as female players are often giftpackaged as a hazard of their d-list celebrity, to Cissy it must have seemed bizarre. “I’m a poker player,” she often offered in explanation for just about everything.
The eventual Cecilia Stricks Russo Bottom was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1941 in a house won in a poker game. Pregnant at 16, she left Atlantic City High School to give birth to her son David Russo. She returned to finish high school but her life had already assumed an alternative track. Initially setting up household with her new husband the union was not to last. One night as they entertained guests her husband paused mid-sentence, snapped his fingers, and pointed to his coffee cup. The docile and compliant Cecilia immediately leapt to her feet to retrieve the pot of fresh hot coffee and poured it exactly where it was demanded— on Mr. Russo’s head. After this, she went about devising a means of support for herself and her son which involved the race and poker. Legal gambling came to Atlantic City in 1978 and legal poker in 1993 however there had long been a private poker circuit. The games however were not all accessible to Cissy who was constrained to playing social poker with the “ladies.” One afternoon while playing Criss-Cross high/low (a game with a horizontal and a vertical row each of five cards intersecting at the third card which is common to both. Each player is dealt four cards and may play either row) she was dealt AAAJ. She held it up in disgust, attracting the attention of one of the “ladies” who picked it up and looked at it after Cissy mucked. After the hand was exposed Cissy was no longer welcome in the games. She was 34 years old with an adult son and it was time to seek an even playing field. After a few successful trips to Las Vegas she made the decision to move there in 1979.
Establishing herself first at the Fremont in the 3/6 limit hold’em game, she easily dominated. It is here that her Las Vegas legend begins. Running with a crowd including Mike Landers, David Kopp, Rick Klehammer, Denny Axel, and Jimmy Flanagan, they ate two-dollar-steak-specials and discussed poker strategy every day at Binion’s. Despite cutting edge insight into Hold’em strategy— a game of which she had said “…as soon as I heard about it I knew I’d like it”— she was slow to move up in limits. She was early to recognize AK as a strong hand and said “What you want is for everyone to make a pair or for no-one to make a pair.” Friends pushed her to play higher but she was reticent. A statement made years later may shed some light on this: “I believe pot saps ambition.”
By the time I met Cissy she was 50ish and had been a Las Vegas icon for more than a decade. She snickered at me, took my hand limply, said “how do you do?” with —I swear—a slight curtsy, and had no further use for me. While I believe this was meant to be dismissive of me, Marsha Waggoner, a poker icon in her own right, recalls a very different side of Cissy “Cissy told me to always make the last rinse of my hair after shampooing a COLD one. It will make your hair shine, I’ve never forgotten that and I always do it and I think of Cissy. We were good friends and played at the Stardust almost every day. Loved Cissy!” Cissy’s dismissal of me said more about her desire to be left alone to play than about anything else. Even when I showed up in Vegas, oblivious to how I was seen by the locals, Cissy was still the only female pro one was likely to see in a 15/30 or 20/40 game. Coming from a market where virtually everyone called themselves a “professional” (and carried a dog-eared copy of Sklansky for Advanced players and had a high security clearance at Sandia or Los Alamos labs) but I was one of the few with no other source of income, it never occurred to me that there was any trick to getting into a game other than putting one’s name on the list. By the time I was ruining poker games by sharing my every breakthrough and folding hands face up, Cissy had already claimed her independence with that fateful AAAJ event. She had already been on the correct and revolutionary side of the J10suited debate in which she and one of her crew held the line against the rest of the pack: the proposition being whether to fold or call with J10 suited on the button after a player who certainly held AA or KK raised and was then called by seven players— Cissy’s side held that they would rather re-raise than fold in this spot, an avant garde strategy at the time. It is easy to see in retrospect why Cissy had little use for me— I was walking road which she had paved

After a humbling Poker Masters that saw him lay down the gauntlet and lose a series of side bets, Daniel Negreanu said he needed to rededicate himself to learning his craft as the top players were 'just too good.'

Mike Landers Poker Mandalay Bay

It appears any time spent in the lab may have done him some good, as he made it to heads-up play in the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic $100,000 Super High Roller. However, Dan Smith forced 'Kid Poker' to settle for second place and $936,000 while Smith claimed $1,404,000 for first.

It's the third-biggest career cash for Smith, who now has over $19 million in earnings, and an impressive third title in an event with a $100K buy-in.

The only $100K event in a schedule packed with high rollers drew 39 entries and paid out six places. The closest thing to live reporting for the event came via the Twitter account of Negreanu, and he said Bryn Kenney was the first player to bust in the money when he lost a flip with sixes to the ace-queen of Stefan Schillhabel.

Mike Landers Poker

Negreanu then doubled through Isaac Haxton in a cooler spot where Haxton flopped aces up and Negreanu a set of fives. That gave Negreanu and Smith the top two stacks five-handed.

A short-stacked Sergio Aido fell to Smith in fifth, and Haxton sent his remaining chips to Negreanu with against .

Schillhabel then managed to climb from micro-stack with a few big blinds to the chip lead courtesy of a handful of doubles. However, the German ran ace-jack into Smith's ace-queen and wound up short again. From there, he seemed to have binked a lucky double when he flopped a boat with in what sounded like an all-in preflop pot against Smith's aces, but an ace hit the turn to end Schillhabel's comeback bid.

Negreanu said he was slightly down going into heads-up play but managed to get his chips in ahead with on a flop against Smith's . A queen hit the river to give Smith the winning straight.

While a nice score for Smith, it doesn't quite match the return on investment of his best result either at Bellagio or in this series. Back in 2013, Smith took down the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic Main Event for $1,161,135.

For more on the history of Five Diamond and other relevant info previewing this year's WPT Main Event, check out PokerNews' primer.

Here's a look at all of the winners from the preliminary events thus far:

There are still plenty of big events to come. The schedule still holds four more $25K high rollers, two more $5Ks and the $10,400 Main Event. Stay tuned to PokerNews this week as we bring you more coverage from Five Diamond.

_{Photo courtesy of WPT.}

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