As if Phil Galfond’s unparalleled Pot-Limit Omaha ability hadn’t already gained him enough attention throughout the years, the American also made national news for installing a slide in his $3.14 million New York City condo. Unfortunately, Galfond isn’t getting much use out of the slide these days because he lives in Canada. And seeing as how he has two mortgages on the condo, Galfond is looking to sell the property within the coming months.

The high stakes poker pro discussed the sale by saying, “I’m selling my place in New York because I don’t know when I’m going to be able to live there full-time again. And it’s pretty expensive. I have a mortgage….two mortgages technically because it’s two apartments.”

He continued by saying, “I’m not living there, nobody’s living there. And I considered renting it out, but I don’t really like the idea of someone in my space if I’m gonna be back there. And I realize that I don’t really know if I’m gonna be back there.”

Galfond continued to discuss the sale by saying that if he wants to live in New York again, he can always find another place. He also added that the sale of his $3.14m condo will be featured on the Home & Garden TV show Selling New York. No date has been specified on when the apartments will be shown on Selling New York since they’re still filming the segment.

While not the primary motivation behind selling the condo, it’s worth mentioning that Galfond has been struggling in PLO games as of late. The Maryland native has lost over $580,000 playing online poker in January, and he’ll be looking to get back on track in future months.

It appears as if Jamie Gold has joined the ranks of the poker coaching elite since he’s charging $1,000 per hourly session. The 2006 WSOP Main Event champion has a sign posted somewhere in the Tropicana Las Vegas that gives players details on how they can retain his pricey poker coaching services at the Jamie Gold Poker Room.

People in the poker community have already started in with the jokes on how Gold’s actual playing ability may not be in line with the fees he’s charging. But to me, the funniest part of this story is the sign used to promote his services.

Pokerati, which originally reported this news, made light of the sign by writing, “Really … $1k an hour? I mean that’s not quite Carrot Top money, and supposedly Gold’s already had five students pony up … but jeesh … you’d think at that rate they could at least afford a nicer sign!”

Indeed the sign does look like something that would be posted outside of a high school bake sale. In any case though, it looks like Jamie Gold is continuing to find ways to make money with the game of poker. And as Pokerati alluded to, he supposedly has five people in line for coaching sessions already.

Since winning the 2006 WSOP Main Event along with $12 million, Gold has continued to put his stamp on the game of poker through appearances and having the Tropicana’s Jamie Gold Poker Room named after him. The Malibu, California native has $12,242,748 in live poker tournament earnings, which ranks him 5th on the all-time winnings list.

A couple of years ago, Gus Hansen was the laughing stock of the poker world after losing over $5 million in online poker games. Now Hansen is one of the most feared players in both online and live poker. And he recently put his live poker skills on display in the Macau high stakes action that’s currently happening.

Hansen rolled into Macau a few days ago, and has already made a big impact at the tables. According to Poker Portal Asia, the Great Dane was up HKD $2 million (approx. US $258,000) during the session he was playing.

Also, it looks like Hansen may be blowing off the 2012 Aussie Millions to play in Macau, which is interesting because he won the Aussie Millions Main Event in ’07 along with $1,192,919. Of course, it’s hard to pass up the chance to make over $250k in a single cash game session!

It’s also worth mentioning that Hansen wasn’t the only star poker player in Macau this past weekend since John Juanda, Andrew Robl and Phil Ivey were also in town to play these juicy cash games.

It’s interesting that Ivey hasn’t let his recent divorce drama stand in the way of him and the Macau high stakes poker games. His wife is still in the process of fighting for more spousal support checks worth $180k a month.

Going back to the Macau games, Robl is an interesting story in all of this two because, a couple of weeks ago, he made $2 million during a session, only to lose it all in the same session. Of course, judging by how successful some of the other big-name cash game players have been in Macau, it’s likely that Robl has worked back towards that $2m in profit.

Dusty Schmidt is one of the better success stories in online poker since he’s earned millions of dollars with the game, kept a reasonable life away from the poker tables, and has written a couple of popular books. But underneath the surface of it all is a golfer who is still very passionate about the game. And Schmidt wants to turn his passion into a run at the PGA Tour, while limiting his time with online poker.

The 30-year-old blogged about this by writing, “At this point in my life, I am 30 years old and the chances of having a career on the PGA tour are fading fast, but it isn’t over yet. My chances are infinitesimally small of making the big time, but I have overcome far longer odds before in my life. I won’t let that intimidate me.”

He continued by writing, “At 23 years old, I was finally getting some momentum in the game of golf. I was leading the money list on the Golden State golf tour (which is basically the equivalent of single A minor league baseball) when I suffered a heart attack that abruptly ended my career, at least for the time being.”

So does Schmidt stand a chance of making the PGA Tour at 30 years old? Possibly, since golf isn’t like basketball, where at 30, you’re more likely to relive high school glory days in YMCA pickup games than to ever work your way up to the pros. In fact, just a few years ago, Jim Rutledge became a 47-year-old PGA rookie, thus showing that golf is a somewhat ageless sport. And one PGA Tour rookie that was older than Rutledge was Allen Doyle, who picked up the game at 46, and made the Tour just three years later.

Sure this doesn’t mean Dusty Schmidt is a shoe-in to get his pro card, but starting up again at 30 is easier than being introduced to golf at age 46.

A couple of days ago, we mentioned the lighthearted prop bet that 2008 WSOP Main Event champ Peter Eastgate completed to win $6,000. Today, we’ve got news on another Main Event champ, but nothing about this story is lighthearted or fun in the least!

2010 WSOP Main Event winner Jonathan Duhamel was beaten and told he was going to die yesterday after two unidentified men broke into his Montreal home. The primary motivation for the break-in was that the men wanted to rob Duhamel, and they took his Main Event gold bracelet, a Rolex watch and cash. However, things turned far more scary when the men tied the 24-year-old up and hit in the face multiple times.

The Canadian poker pro issued a press release about the horrifying incident, and here’s an excerpt from the release:

As police reported, I was victim of an home invasion early yesterday, as two persons forced my entrance and beat me up and robbed me. After they threatened to kill me I gave them all I had. They then tied me up and beat me, hitting me in the face and all over my body before leaving my house. I’m glad to tell you that I did not sustain any major injuries. I spent yesterday at the hospital and I’m black and blue all over but no broken bones, no blood clots, nothing to worry about.

Duhamel went on to talk about how much the WSOP bracelet means to him, and he’s hoping the item can someday be recovered. What’s still unclear about the robbery is whether or not the thieves had been planning this heist for a while, or if they randomly targeted Duhamel.

In either case, it was pretty stupid stealing the watch and WSOP bracelet (especially) because both have his name engraved on them. Hopefully, the criminals get busted trying to sell these items.