WSOP Academy BLOG

Congratulations to WSOP Academy graduate Patty Till who finished 3rd out of 1,190 players in the Ladies Championship, one day after graduating from the Ladies Only Academy. Patty outlasted all the top female pros and took home over $80,000 for her work! Congrats Patty, the WSOP Academy and your classmates are so proud of you!

Could it be back-to-back WSOP Ladies Champions for the WSOP Academy? Going into today's final table, WSOP Academy graduate Patty Till, who attended last weekend's Ladies Only Event is 3rd in chips at the final table of the Ladies Championship. Of course, we all know that last year's Ladies Champ, Sally Anne Boyer was a LadiesOnly Academy graduate.

Good luck to Patty as she prepares for today's final table! We're very proud of you!

I recently had the pleasure of meeting a gentleman at a promotional Annie Duke seminar we produced. He told me that he learned more from 90 minutes with Annie than he did at our competitors two day boot camp! We always thought Annie was one of the best in the business, but now we know! You can catch Annie at the Advanced Academy, the Ladies Only Academy and the Main Event Primer and find out for yourself!

It was a dream night for contestant Mary Beth Holtzheimer on Monday's episode of "Deal or No Deal". A dedicated poker player with dreams of winning a WSOP Bracelet, Mary Beth's bank offer of $133,000 was increased when her poker idol Annie Duke made a surprise visit to the stage! In addition to the cash offer, Annie sweetened the pot by adding a private dinner, an entry to the WSOP Academy's Ladies Only Event in June and 4 private lessons!

Mary Beth agonized over the decision, and in the end turned down the deal and ended up winning $343,000! I'm sure we will see her at the June Ladies Only Event and have the chance to congratulate her in person.

This is the latest in a series of WSOP Academy's game show connections! Annie has been a regular on the hit game show "1 vs 100", where she set a record for most questions answered correctly in a row. And who could forget WSOP Academy instructor Alex Outhred's appearance on "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader" where he walked away with $500,000!

Check out Annie's "Deal or No Deal" highlights here

From Joe Navarro (Spycatcher) author of "Read em and Reap" and the soon to be released "What Every Body is Saying":

Those of you fortunate enough to see the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee meeting today where Roger Clemens and his ex-trainer Brian McNamee were questioned were in for a nonverbal treat. But that is all.

First of all, a matter as serious as perjury is rarely brought to closure before a congressional committee because from a forensic standpoint (forensics being that which is subject to debate, in this case he said, he said) a media circus is not the way to get at the truth. The setting could not have been worse for those attempting to get at the truth.

When it was over I got over 15 calls from the media wanting to know who was telling the truth, to which I said, who knows, surely you didn’t expect that kind of public spectacle to reveal that! To which most of the media said, Ohhhh, as if they really thought truth and deception could be discerned from people who are being photographed, videotaped, questioned, and annoyed, by the presennce of at least 100 others in the room who were gawking, gesting, photographing, talking, whispering, moving about, leaving the room, and at several points answering their blackberries ( I love mine by the way). Come on, that is the worst setting.

That was further derailed by some of the worst questioning I have ever seen. At one point I had to wonder if some of the inquisitors were not idiots (you can be one and be elected you know, look at Hugo Chavez).

So, to the question, who was telling the truth, good question I don’t know, I suspect that McNamee had to tell the truth because he is under threat to go to prison if he lies, while Clemens is not. True McNamee is a liar but then those players he has fingered for injecting with these drugs have come forth and said he was right, to their own detriment. Ouch! In that regard, if I may, he is batting over 700 (3 out of 4 accusations) and I am told that in baseball: that is really good! (I am Cuban but I never played baseball, long story don’t ask).

So what about their nonverbals. Well we saw all the nonverbals one would expect. On the part of Clemens we saw a lot of lip licking, lip compression, dissapearing lips, etc. All indicative of stress and discomfort but not necessarily indicative of deception. The closest we come to that is in the CBS Mike Wallace interview between 2:10 and 2:28 minutes (check it out). In that interview, Clemens does several behaviors suggestive of deception but not conclusive of. To wit: nodding in the affirmative as he is being told what was done to him, tucking his chin in (low confidence), hard swallow (extreme nervousness).

In todays performance, and that is all, it was rehearsed, we saw a fairly good performance. It served him well and in the end we may not know the truth. One could tell it was rehearsed, just look at the body language of Clemens’ attorneys when he was ansering just right. Speaking of his attorneys, he should get rid of them for the kind of advise they have been giving him.

What about his accuser, Brian McNamee? Well, if he is lying, he has a high price to pay. His nonverbals were likewise consistent, his tension was as a result of the setting, not anything that was said. With him we also see lip licking, lip pursing, etc. It was interesting to note how often McNamee’s thumbs pointed up, in these instances he was commenting with confidence. It should also be noted how when he was accused of lying how close to the table he drew; again a sign of discomfort but not necessarily deception.

So bottom line, whats my professional take? Anyone who comes along and says definitely from this congressional inquiry that they can definitely say that Clemens was lying from his nonverbals, does not know what he or she is talking about. Is he lying, and there are other indicators, perhaps but we can not tell from the performance here today. This inquiry, if it was in fact intended to get at the truth was in the wrong place, conducted by amateurs, in a theatrical atmosphere. I must be the only one who rememebrs Ollie North and how well he did in such an atmosphere.

Will we ever know the truth I don’t know. It was certainly not garnered here today. Spycatcher

Here's your chance to have your questions answered by any of the WSOP Academy instructors. Click here to submit your question - we will select the best questions and post them right here.

Congratulations to WSOP Academy graduate Glen Chorny for his 13th place finish at the Poker Stars Caribbean Adventure. Glen cashed for an impressive $80,000 and played extremely well throughout the entire tournament. Great job Glen!