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Kobe Bryant

Kobe Bean Bryant (born August 23, 1978 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a National Basketball Association player for the Los Angeles Lakers; he is also the son of NBA player Joe "Jellybean" Bryant.

Kobe Bryant dunks the ball.

Bryant spent much of his childhood in Italy, where his father played professional basketball, and speaks fluent Italian. Bryant entered the NBA at the age of eighteen after a spectacular high school career in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion, and was originally selected by the Charlotte Hornets but never played for the team. Within weeks of being drafted, the Hornets traded him on July 11, 1996 to the Los Angeles Lakers for center Vlade Divac. Though young and somewhat introverted, Bryant's immense talent made an immediate impression with his teammates on the practice court.

He married Vanessa Laine on April 18, 2001 in Dana Point, California and their daughter Natalia was born on January 19, 2003. His parents initially disapproved of the marriage, but have since reconciled with Bryant.

Bryant's career trajectory as an NBA player out of high school has been exceptional. By the age of 24, Bryant had won many individual awards, and had been named to the All-NBA team multiple times. He is regarded as one of the best players in the NBA. Bryant helped lead the Los Angeles Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships in 2000, 2001, and 2002. The Lakers also ventured to the 2004 Finals against the Detroit Pistons, but lost four games to one. Following the loss to the Pistons, Bryant opted out of his contract to tested the free agent market. After flirting with the idea of joining several teams, he signed a new seven-year deal with the Lakers worth over $136 million on July 15, 2004.

Bryant's youth, style, good looks and accomplishments on the basketball court had made him one of the most popular and marketable players in the NBA. Much of his marketability was lost, however, as the result of rape allegations stemming from his encounter with Katelyn Faber in a Colorado hotel room in June 2003.

Honors

  • Three time NBA champion: 2000, 2001, 2002
  • NBA All-Star Game MVP: 2002
  • NBA All-Star: 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
  • All-NBA First Team: 2002, 2003, 2004
  • All-NBA Second Team: 2000, 2001
  • All-NBA Defensive First Team: 2000, 2003, 2004
  • All-NBA Defensive Second Team: 2001, 2002
  • Slam Dunk Champion: 1997
  • Ties NBA record for most made 3-point field goals in one game with 12 versus the Seattle SuperSonics on January 7, 2003.
  • One of only three players in NBA history to score 40-plus points in 9 consecutive games.
  • One of only two players to ever score at least 35 points in 13 straight games.
  • Holds the Lakers team record for most consecutive free throws made at 43.
  • Named the 1996 Naismith High School Player of the Year.
  • Led Lower Merion H.S. to a 31-3 record and Class AAAA state title as a senior.
  • USA Today and Parade Magazine's 1996 National High School Player of the Year with a seasonal average of 30.8 points, 12.0 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4.0 steals and 3.8 blocks per game.

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Much of his marketability was lost, however, as the result of rape allegations stemming from his encounter with Katelyn Faber in a Colorado hotel room in June 2003. Down to the final 2 players, he said this to his opponent while he held the best possible hand. Bryant's youth, style, good looks and accomplishments on the basketball court had made him one of the most popular and marketable players in the NBA. You call...gonna be all over, baby. -- Scotty Nguyen, during the 1998 World Series of Poker. After flirting with the idea of joining several teams, he signed a new seven-year deal with the Lakers worth over $136 million on July 15, 2004. Cards are war, in disguise of a sport. -- Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia (1832). The Lakers also ventured to the 2004 Finals against the Detroit Pistons, but lost four games to one. Following the loss to the Pistons, Bryant opted out of his contract to tested the free agent market. I got a full house and four people died. -- Steven Wright.

He is regarded as one of the best players in the NBA. Bryant helped lead the Los Angeles Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships in 2000, 2001, and 2002. Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. By the age of 24, Bryant had won many individual awards, and had been named to the All-NBA team multiple times. The guy who invented poker was bright, but the guy who invented the chip was a genius. -- Big Julie. Bryant's career trajectory as an NBA player out of high school has been exceptional. Hold em is to stud what chess is to checkers. -- Johnny Moss. His parents initially disapproved of the marriage, but have since reconciled with Bryant. It's not the hand I hold, it's the people that I play with. -- Amarillo Slim.

He married Vanessa Laine on April 18, 2001 in Dana Point, California and their daughter Natalia was born on January 19, 2003. Poker is a game of people.. Though young and somewhat introverted, Bryant's immense talent made an immediate impression with his teammates on the practice court. They anticipate losing when they sit down and I try my darndest not to disappoint one of them. -- Amarillo Slim. Within weeks of being drafted, the Hornets traded him on July 11, 1996 to the Los Angeles Lakers for center Vlade Divac. Nobody is always a winner, and anybody who says he is, is either a liar or doesn't play poker. -- Amarillo Slim. Bryant entered the NBA at the age of eighteen after a spectacular high school career in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion, and was originally selected by the Charlotte Hornets but never played for the team. It is enough to make one ashamed of one's species. -- Mark Twain.

Bryant spent much of his childhood in Italy, where his father played professional basketball, and speaks fluent Italian. Why, I have known clergymen, good men, kindhearted, liberal, sincere, and all that, who did not know the meaning of a 'flush'. Kobe Bean Bryant (born August 23, 1978 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a National Basketball Association player for the Los Angeles Lakers; he is also the son of NBA player Joe "Jellybean" Bryant. There are few things that are so unpardonably neglected in our country as poker.. USA Today and Parade Magazine's 1996 National High School Player of the Year with a seasonal average of 30.8 points, 12.0 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4.0 steals and 3.8 blocks per game. Unless he is both able and prepared to see himself as others do, flaws and all, he will be a loser in cards, as in life. -- Anthony Holden (from Big Deal). to a 31-3 record and Class AAAA state title as a senior. Whether he likes it or not, a man's character is stripped bare at the poker table; if the other players read him better than he does, he has only himself to blame.

Led Lower Merion H.S. If you can't spot the sucker within the first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker. -- common poker saying, as spoken by Matt Damon in Rounders; originally attributed to Amarillo Slim. Named the 1996 Naismith High School Player of the Year. It is fickle and elusive, but ultimately it is fair, and right, and just. -- Lou Krieger. Holds the Lakers team record for most consecutive free throws made at 43. It can be rough-hewn or polished, warm or cold, charitable and caring or hard and impersonal. One of only two players to ever score at least 35 points in 13 straight games. Poker is a microcosm of all we admire and disdain about capitalism and democracy.

One of only three players in NBA history to score 40-plus points in 9 consecutive games. As a computer would not make any tells, playing against a computer would fundamentally change the nature of the game far more than in games like chess. Ties NBA record for most made 3-point field goals in one game with 12 versus the Seattle SuperSonics on January 7, 2003. A major part of the skill of live poker games, however, is guessing at the strength of a player's hand by identifying tells made by other players, while concealing one's own, unlike, for example, chess, where all information about the game's current state is public. Slam Dunk Champion: 1997. A large amount of the research is being done at the University of Alberta by the GAMES group led by Jonathan Schaeffer who developed Poki and PsOpt. All-NBA Defensive Second Team: 2001, 2002. Some of these systems are based on Bayes theorem, Nash equilibrium, Monte Carlo simulation, and Neural networks.

All-NBA Defensive First Team: 2000, 2003, 2004. In this case, a perfect strategy would be one that correctly or closely models those weaknesses and takes advantage of them to make a profit. All-NBA Second Team: 2000, 2001. From a game-theoretic optimal point of view, a perfect strategy is a minimax one that cannot expect to lose to any other player's strategy; however, optimal strategy can vary in the presence of sub-optimal players who have weaknesses that can be exploited. All-NBA First Team: 2002, 2003, 2004. Perfect strategy has multiple meanings in this context. NBA All-Star: 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005. However, methods are being developed to at least approximate perfect strategy from the game theory perspective in the heads-up (two player) game, and increasingly good systems are being created for the multi-player or ring game.

NBA All-Star Game MVP: 2002. The game of poker (or at least most of the variants) is considered to be computationally intractable. Three time NBA champion: 2000, 2001, 2002. Some deals may not reach the showdown phase if all players drop out except one. The player with the best hand according to the poker variant being played wins the pot. At the end of the last betting round, if more than one player remains, there is a showdown in which the players reveal their previously hidden cards and evaluate their hands.

This is what makes it possible to bluff. At any time during the first or subsequent betting rounds, if one player makes a bet and all other players fold, the deal ends immediately, the single remaining player is awarded the pot, no cards are shown, no more rounds are dealt, and the next deal begins. After the first betting round is complete because every player called an equal amount, there may be more rounds in which more cards are dealt in various ways, followed by further rounds of betting (into the same central pot). When the round is over, the bets are then gathered into the pot.

To keep better track of this, it is conventional for players to not place their bets directly into the pot (called splashing the pot), but rather place them in front of themselves toward the pot, until the betting round is over. During a round of betting, there will always be a current bet amount, which is the total amount of money bet in this round by the player who bet last in this round. Between rounds, the players' hands develop in some way, often by being dealt additional cards or replacing cards previously dealt. After the initial deal, the first of what may be several betting rounds begins.

In a casino a "house" dealer handles the cards for each hand, but a button is still rotated among the players to determine the order of dealing and betting in some games. In a home game, the right to deal the cards typically rotates among the players clockwise, whose position is often marked by a button (any small item used as a marker, also called a buck). The deck is then cut, and the appropriate number of cards are dealt face-down to the players. Like most card games, the dealer shuffles the deck of cards.

These are called forced bets and come in three forms: antes, blinds, and bring-ins. Depending on the game rules, one or more players may be required to place an initial amount of money into the pot before the cards are dealt. The game of poker is played in hundreds of variations, but the following overview of game play applies to most of them. Broadcast of poker tournaments for cable and satellite TV distribution, such as with the World Poker Tour, has added additional popularity to the game, as has the introduction of online poker.

It was also during that decade that the first serious strategy books appeared, notably The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky (ISBN 1880685000), Super System by Doyle Brunson (ISBN 0931444014), and The Book of Tells by Mike Caro (ISBN 0897461002). Modern tournament play became popular in American casinos after the World Series of Poker began in 1970. Such phrases as ace in the hole, beats me, blue chip, call the bluff, cash in, pass the buck, poker face, stack up, up the ante, when the chips are down, wild card, and others are used in everyday conversation even by those unaware of their origins at the poker table. The game and jargon of poker have become important parts of American culture and English culture.

military. Spread of the game to other countries, particularly in Asia, is often attributed to the U.S. Further American developments followed, such as the wild card (around 1875), lowball and split-pot poker (around 1900), and community card poker games (around 1925). During the American Civil War, many additions were made, including draw poker, stud poker (the five-card variant), and the straight.

Soon after this spread, the full 52-card English deck was used, and the flush was introduced. Zieber, Philadelphia, 1843) described the spread of the game from there to the rest of the country by Mississippi riverboats, on which gambling was a common pastime. B. Green's book An Exposure of the Arts and Miseries of Gambling (G.

Jonathan H. English actor Joseph Crowell described the game as played in New Orleans in 1829: played with a deck of 20 cards, four players bet on which player's hand of cards was the most valuable. It is quite possible that all of these earlier games influenced the development of poker as it exists now. The English game brag (earlier bragg) clearly descended from brelan and incorporated bluffing (though the concept was known in other games by that time).

It is commonly regarded as sharing ancestry with the Renaissance game of primero and the French brelan. It closely resembles the Persian game of as nas, and may have been taught to French settlers in New Orleans by Persian sailors. The name of the game likely descended from the French poque, which descended from the German pochen ('to knock'), but it is not clear whether the games named by those terms were the real origins of poker. The history of poker is a matter of some debate.

Dealer's choice is a way to play poker where the dealer chooses what type of poker to play. The most commonly played games of the first three categories are five-card draw, seven-card stud, and Texas hold 'em, respectively; each being a common starting point for learning games of the type. "widow game"), and miscellaneous poker games. There are also many variants of poker, loosely categorized as draw poker, stud poker, community card poker (a.k.a.

Some knowledge of the equipment used to play (see Poker equipment) is useful. In order to play, one must learn the basic rules and procedures of the game, the values of the various combinations of cards (see hand), and the rules about betting limits (see betting). Poker can also refer to Video Poker which is a single-player game seen in casinos much like a slot machine. Poker is a card game, the most popular of a class of games called vying games, in which players with fully or partially concealed cards make wagers into a central pot, after which the pot is awarded to the remaining player or players with the best combination of cards.

ISBN 1880685000. Two Plus Two Publications. The Theory of Poker (3rd Ed). Sklansky, David (1989).

ISBN 1580420818. Cardoza. Doyle Brunson's Super System. Brunson, Doyle (1979).