Love Nuke

Take a quick look at poker’s “List of all time money” and you’ll see that Allen Cunningham is currently in ninth place with earnings of $10,945,147 in live tournament.

Rated 33 years is cashing in tournaments since 1996 and is 5 times winner of the WSOP bracelet in Seven Card Stud, No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Hold’em. He also voted by his peers as ‘Best all around player fewer than 35 and in 2006 it was upgraded to Pro, sponsored by a full member of Team Full Tilt.

However, unlike many other highly successful poker pros Allen Cunningham is a polite and softly-spoken player who has managed to avoid much of the media limelight reserved for more flamboyant celebrities. So just who is Allen Cunningham and how did he get started in his prospective poker career?

For a start the Californian said he was fascinated with poker from a very young age after countless games playing with his family at the kitchen table, but only decided to give the game his best shot after turning 18. He then goes on to explain that it was a slow progression and only after playing for a year did he begin seeing some solid wins.

“At that time, I was in my first year of college and also had a part time job delivering pizzas which I used to fund my poker. Eventually I won two tournaments in a row, which paid $500 each, then I stayed and played cash games and won another $1k. It wasn’t exactly quick but I never looked back from there.”

Allen Cunningham said he first cut his teeth playing limit poker, which was the game of choice in California at the time but played many of the other poker variants in order to sharpen his all round poker understanding.

Cunningham further developed his skills by studying poker literature and developing an overall strategy for different situations, although he said he started out by playing tightly and only added more looseness and aggression as he evolved as a player.

Evolve as a player Cunningham soon did as all the elements of his game came together and as he explains:

“When you’re at the table you’re using intuition. You’re not figuring out any sort of math or strategy; you have to think about that ahead of time…When you add some more sophisticated plays, you’ve probably thought about the maths behind a lot of situations and now you’re thinking about how some of the players are playing and incorporating a few tells and whether people are playing looser or tighter than normal.”

As mentioned, the list of Allen ‘Clever Piggy’ Cunningham’s poker achievements include almost $11 million in tournament winnings, and 5 WSOP bracelets, with his biggest score to date coming at the 2006 WSOP Main Event, where he finished 4th for $3,628,513.

However well justified, Cunningham said he does not really suffer from large amounts of invoice, or interfere with your bets and make enough money to stay away from ultra-high stakes cash games. He also said that he does not rely on the limelight, and added:

If Hellmuth Twitter feed is to be believed, the Poker Brat is set to join the cast of Dancing with the Stars – the U.S. version of Strictly Come Dancing – when it is sent to next March.

Writing in his Twitter last weekend (Dec. 18), Hellmuth said, “OMG! Phil Hellmuth (me!) on “Dancing with the! Stars” Outrageous! May make a fool out of myself Worldwide Television, once again …”

If the rumors are true, Hellmuth could make a monumental fool of himself, as for those unfamiliar with the show, it features celebrities prancing around on screen in skimpy sequined outfits. Contestants are paired with professional ballroom dancers as they shimmy across the floor performing a host of dance routines, including the foxtrot and the rumba, in a bid for the Dancing with the Stars (DWTS) crown.

And if Phil’s Jitterbug is as good as his gambling he may just find himself rubbing shoulders with past DWTS champions Donny Osmond and Dirty Dancing star Jennifer Grey. 6ft6 portly Phil should be warned, though, the public doesn’t take kindly to contestants carrying a couple extra pounds.

In the last series, which finished in November, Sarah Palin’s recently-pregnant daughter Bristol graced the dance floor, only to receive a barrage of criticism from the media. One comedian branded her “the white Precious” and said she was “the only contestant to gain weight”.

In response to the comments Bristol said winning SWTS “would be like a big middle finger to all the people out there that hate my mom and hate me.” Sadly she finished third so she never got to swear. But let’s hope Hellmuth – who seems equally inept at handling criticism – fares better if he does take part in 12th series. Perhaps the thought of all the sequins and lycra will motivate him to shed the pounds and have the last word on Huck Seed’s $100k weight loss bet.

Only time will tell whether these promises are good, but one thing is for sure though, if the Poker Brat is not getting his jive on national television, the poker player will surely be in some respects …