Ijji Max

The line between success and failure is a fine one, especially in the English Premier League, generally regarded as the world’s top football competition. In the case of South Korean striker Lee Dong-guk, that line was about as wide as a goalpost.

The Lion King moved to Qiu Qiu Middlesbrough in January 2007. His debut came a month later against Reading. Lee was introduced as a substitute with around eight minutes remaining. Seven minutes later, England international winger Stewart Downing fired over a perfect cross from the left side. Lee was unmarked on the edge of the six-yard box and let fly with his right foot. He wasn’t the only one in the stadium to put his head in his hands after the ball bounced off the post and rolled agonizingly away.

Though he wasn’t to know it at the time, that was the closest Lee was ever going to come to scoring a goal in the world’s richest league and things could have been a lot different. As it stands, the striker is about to be shipped out of England’s northeast. If there was any doubt about that, it was dispelled last week by head coach Gareth Southgate.

“… He has not played as well as we might have hoped,” said the former England captain. “For him and for the team I think it’s been better to involve other players really.”

The softly-spoken Southgate has given the Korean ample opportunities to prove that he has what it takes. Eight starts and 15 substitute appearances may not be as much as the player wanted but in the modern high-pressure world of elite football where coaches can be fired after three or four poor results, it is more than many get.

With Lee’s contract …

At PokerWomenNews we have high hopes for the women poker players at this years World Series of Poker. In fact, we went all in and predicted, that female poker players would win four bracelets in open events this summer! Yes, four bracelets.

Every week of the WSOP, I intend to take a look at the results so far. Bracelet wins. Final tables. Deep runs. Here are the highlights from week two.

Melissa Gillett Takes 4th Place in Event #12

The second week of the WSOP was only one day old, when Melissa Gillett from Australia made the final table of Event #12: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em. The poker playing principal entered the final day as a huge chip leader with nearly three time as much chips as the second largest stack, Aditya Agarwal. Down to six players Gillett had lost some, but was still sitting on a healthy stack. Unfortunately she lost a big pot vs. David Pham with a pair of sevens against his pair of queens, and soon after Gillett was sent to the rail.

Gillett took home $127,180 for her deep and impressive run. This is the largest cash of her career; prior to this event Gillett had only cashed for around $12k. The tournament attracted 1,739 players, and David Pham wound up winning the bracelet.

E-Tay Final Tables H.O.R.S.E Event

When I made the prediction of four female bracelet winners this summer, E-Tay (Esther Taylor-Brady) was the first player I had in mind. Brett Collson from PokerNews gave the nod to E-Tay too, and on Facebook the mixed game pro said herself, that she had her “eyes on a bracelet”.

In the $1,500 Tag Team Event last week E-Tay came close via her team mate DJ MacKinnon, and this week …