Anna Kurnikova is the richest (according to Forbes) and most beautiful (according to People magazine) people on the planet. Source: Reuters/Vostock
Konnikova became interested in poker after reading John von Neumann ’s work on game theory. She described it as a way to examine the mind’s responses to conditions that involve both skill and chance. Konnikova told The New York Times that 'When I started this, I didn’t know how many cards were in a deck. Lake Jackson Poker Run safe, reliable and trusted online casinos, welcome bonuses and gambling for players from the United States. We do not provide the opportunity to play for money on our website.
Kournikova has been (and still is) accused of many things in her life. Critics say she missed her chance to become a tennis great and walked away from the game too early when she still had a promising career ahead. Kournikova has also been accused of falling for the temptations of show business. Instead of making her fortune through hard work on the tennis court, she chose advertising, by using her natural gifts of long legs and stunning golden hair.
But during the years since her retirement, Kournikova has been proving time and again that she’s not a bimbo; she’s just different, one of a kind. “Forgive me for being who I am”, she always tells her critics.
Related:
Kournikova’s tennis career got off to an auspicious start. She picked up a racket for the first time when she was five. She liked tennis right away, but for a long time she treated it as a hobby. She was seven when she realised that she had extraordinary talent. She started training more seriously, and a year later won an open tennis tournament in Moscow. It was at this time that she also started competing in international tournaments. At age 10, she was offered a scholarship at the famous Bollettieri tennis academy in Florida.
In 1991, Anna moved to America with her mother, where she left a lasting impression on one of the game’s most prominent coaches, Nick Bollettieri. “Anna is the most promising young talent around,” he once said. We have seen Agassi, Courier, Seles, but I’m absolutely delighted with the way Kournikova plays.”
Fact
Anna Kournikova is a Russian retired professional tennis player. Her beauty and celebrity status made her one of the best known tennis stars worldwide, despite her never winning a WTA singles title. At the peak of her fame, fans looking for images of Kournikova made her name one of the most common search strings on Google.
Success came quickly. At 14, Kournikova became the youngest player ever to win a Federation Cup match, and at 15 she won the world junior championship. At 16, she reached the Wimbledon semifinals in her first attempt (something only Chris Evert had managed to do before).
The following spring, she became (and remains) the only female tennis player to beat four Top 10 players in four days. Three months later Kournikova beat Steffi Graf on grass – only three players managed to do this throughout the 1990s. At 19, she finished the season in the Top 10 for the first and last time. This is when her short-lived tennis fame came to an end. She would still win the Australian Open doubles title two years later, but the dreams of those who saw her as the next big champion never came true.
“Tennis is my life, I practice every day. But I can’t return to professional tennis. I’ve broken my leg on numerous occasions, dislocated my knee, and hurt my back”, Kournikova once confessed to journalists.
Even though tennis didn’t become a life-long career for Kournikova, it did serve as a springboard. By the time she finished her career, she had long ceased being a mere tennis player – she had become a global brand.
By the age of 22, not only had she become one of the richest (according to Forbes) and most beautiful (according to People magazine) people on the planet, she had also co-starred in a movie with Jim Carrey and been named “the sexiest woman on the planet”. Kournikova has rung the opening bell at the NASDAQ stock exchange and hosted the World Music Awards ceremony.
A 2001 internet virus used the promise of a “never-before-seen” photo of Anna Kournikova as bait. A little later, a poker hand of ace and king was dubbed “Anna Kournikova”, because “it looks pretty but it never wins”.
Today Kournikova lives in Miami with her pop star boyfriend, Enrique Iglesias, whom she met in 2002 on the set of the video for his hit song “Escape”. She says that she is completely happy: “We have two dogs, but we haven’t thought about kids yet. I would like to have kids – my own or adopted. But I’m only 31 – there’s still time,” she confessed recently to the Spanish fashion magazine S Moda.
Today Kournikova lives in Miami with her pop star boyfriend, Enrique Iglesias. Source: Press Photo
Kournikova still attends celebrity parties and occasionally does photo shoots for glossy magazines. But the star has made it clear that none of this is important. She turned down a proposal to host The Biggest Loser, a popular American TV show, because she didn’t want to move to LA for that. “I like sailing, dining with friends, sitting on the sofa watching TV… I’m happy in Miami,” Kournikova said.
Anna Kournikova Instagram
Kournikova attaches far greater importance to “good deeds”. She has started actively promoting a healthy and active lifestyle, especially among younger Americans. Together with the popular children’s channel Cartoon Network, she has launched a campaign to get kids off the sofa and involve them in some kind of healthy activity, even if it isn’t sports.
Anna has also worked with charities. She visited different Russian cities as part of an AIDS awareness campaign with Population Services International delegations, and also took part in a malaria-fighting mission in Haiti. Anna also tours US military bases as part of the United Service Organisations Programme to entertain troops.
All rights reserved by Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
Get the week's best stories straight to your inbox
The Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times features a poker column. I read it regularly, hoping to improve my own game. Sometimes I do, but often I find the writers missing the mark.
A recent column was devoted to playing A-K. I was suspicious from the start when the writer referred to these hole cards as “Anna Kournikova” (a one-time tennis star); whereas most of us know A-K in the hole by the nickname, Big Slick.
That seems more appropriate to me, considering it’s the top premium drawing hand. (Just to be sure, I checked it out in Wiesenberg’s Official Dictionary of Poker.)
Some players prefer the A-K (even if it were not suited) over pocket Aces or pocket Kings. If you connect on the flop, you have top pair with top kicker; that’s a very strong hand – usually a big favorite to hold up to the end and take a decent pot.
What’s more, if you miss on the flop while an opponent connects for a big hand (say, trips), it’s a lot easier emotionally to get away from the “unfulfilled” A-K than it would be from A-A.
At the start of the column, the writer focused on “knowing your opponent’s hand range and betting pattern.” Sure, those are important issues, but there are other “reads” that are more significant and easier. You can only guess at hand range and betting pattern. Most often you are up against more than one opponent, at least until the flop comes down.
The more opponents in the hand, the more difficult it is to make good guesses. After all, you don’t get much time to make decisions. Better yet, I teach my poker students to evaluate their opponents.
Simply classify each as: tight or loose; passive or aggressive; deceptive (likely to check-raise and bluff); a calling-station (hard to bluff out) or a combination of these. You can accurately identify most opponents on this basis within the first 15-20 minutes of play.
With that information safely tucked away into your memory bank (or noted on a small piece of paper), you can refer to it whenever necessary; whereas being half-way accurate in determining their hand ranges and (often-changing) betting patterns is extremely difficult. (Try it.)
The writer might have applied a little logic and basic probability theory to the situation. (And you don’t have to be a math expert.) With A-K in the hole, raising preflop seems to be an automatic bet for most players; but that’s a big mistake.
Sure your raise will thin the field, but it is more likely to force out the very hands you would like staying in the pot with you – at least for a few rounds. Unchallenged, most players will stay in to see the flop with Ace-anything, even A-rag.
Anna Kournikova Poker
Do you really want to force them out before the flop? Suppose an Ace does flop, then the A-rag most often will pay you off all the way to the river. And if your unlucky opponent has A-Q, he may even bet into you or raise. The same applies to the King.
Remember, your goal is to win chips (money) – not just hands. When you hold the best hand, the more chips in the pot, the better it is for you. Certainly, there is always the possibility your opponent may connect with his kicker while you miss, but the odds are with you from the start.
Note: According to Tom Green (ref. Texas Hold’em Poker Textbook; www.pokertextbook.info), the best hand on the flop will win the pot 73.5% of the time. Those are great odds!
As it turned out, the writer took the pot with his unimproved A-K suited when an opponent with Q-J suited folded to an all-in three-bet (a re-raise) before the flop. (The Q-J flashed his hand as he folded.) He would have caught another Q on the turn.
A little luck always helps!
Anna Kournikova Net Worth
Comments?
“The Engineer,” a noted author and teacher in Greater Los Angeles, is a member of the Seniors Poker Hall of Fame. Contact George at [email protected].
Anna Kournikova Poker
GamingToday on Facebookand GamingToday on Twitter