Poker From The Rail
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Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
I laid my head down for just a few short hours, a little respite before throwing myself back in front of the keyboard to writeup everything that happened during Big Money Sunday. Whatever plans I had to knock out a few hundred words hit a speed bump when I fired up the Full Tilt client once again and saw the PLO cash lobby. That has been my default setting since Isildur1 came on the scene. There sat four active tables at $500/$1000 HU PLO and Isildur1 having money spread across 8 other tables at various levels as “low” as $300/$600. It becomes a distraction as I watch the action instead of typing.
These big time tables were mostly quite over the last four days, perhaps the Swedish newcomer was observing the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday but this morning they were running steady for a few thousands hands. In the end it appears that Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies had the edge when they finished the session, continuing a streak following Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius. Are the regulars starting to figure out new guy? Is there a degree of wrath in the works from sweet Mother Variance? I’m still waiting for Tom “durrrr” Dwan to get back in the ring to take another shot. Keep your eyes on the tables.
Your regularly scheduled action during the Sunday majors was setting up to be eventful for a handful of players making their biggest scores. Nothing terribly exciting was occurring in the Sunday Brawl, $750k Guarantee or Double Deuce that screamed to me to pull up the tables and watch the action. That changed once the Sunday Mulligan was down under 100 players with plenty of big names shooting for the top. Mark “newhizzle” Newhouse was running over players or coming behind with his monster stack to brutalize anyone in his way. Imagine his joy when he found himself sitting in the big blind with KK and watching 3 people shove before his action. The damage is screenprinted below, included in the knockout was Lauren “locoenlacabeza” Kling.
He was later moved to a very entertaining table featureing Lee “acumen3″ Childs, Adam “Roothlus” Levy, and Stian “JohnnyBelow” Stabell. The action was everything you would expect from the last major tournament of the evening. Newhouse was unable to maintain his commanding chip lead going out short of the final two tables, while Adam “Roothlus” Levy moved his way up the leaderboard. He went into the final table as one of the big stacks but fell short in 7th place. A disappointing finish for the pro who had everything set to win it all.
You can find all the final table results after the jump, as well as the spectacular end to my evening on the tables.
Tags: AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, Isildur1
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Yesterday was the traditional Thanksgiving Holiday here in the States. It generally serves as an excuse for people to overindulge in genetically enhanced turkey with every family-style side dish ever imagined by Martha Stewart. The men-folk sit around the TV watching athletes in armor slam each other into a pulp while ducking every kid that materialized out of the woodwork running through the living room. While it might seem the entire point is a massive meal and NFL games, the basis of the day is meant to gather with friends and family to give thanks for those things good in a person’s life.
I did my duty with family and food before retiring to the laptop for a little holiday grinding. I do find myself very thankful for my station in life, a situation where I can travel the world looking for my next adventure or head to Vegas to watch a new WSOP champion crowned or just find a wifi connection allowing me to fire up a few tables. Those who know me understand the 180 degree switch over the last year, thanks for coming by this little space for a few minutes to read.
The only other serious note of this entire post, I am thankful that this message showed up in my twitter feed this morning from the Poker Players Alliance, “@ppapoker: Fed, Treasury Accept PPA Request to Delay UIGEA | Poker Players Alliance”. They issued a press release stating enforcement of the evil UIGEA here in the States has been pushed back until at least June. You can read the press release on the previous link. As always, US-based poker players are encouraged to sign up with the PPA and fight for your rights.
On my Full Tilt/pay the bills note, I’m thankful for the new Holiday Hundred Bonus that just popped in my account. Everyone likes a free hundy. I play at such nosebleed micro-levels that it will take some work to grind it away. Holiday Hundred details can be found here.
I’m thankful for the upcoming MiniFTOPS series. I’ve never maintained much of an online bankroll, generally preferring to keep my money handing for live degenerate activities. The MiniFTOPS fits right into proper bankroll management, where I can make a huge jump with a big payday for a small buyin. The entire MiniFTOPS schedule can be found on the link. There is also the incredibly lemur-loving MiniFTOPS Turbo Warmup tournament on December 6th. $50,000 NLHE Turbo tournament for just a single dollar bill. Near 50,000 players will be run through in a few hours. It will be spectacular.
So very thankful for the emergence of Isildur1 to the world of monster pot poker. (This has nothing to do with our competitors actively writing on their sites about games going on here. That’s just pure bonus.) Not only does that make the job of following from the rail make things a lot more interesting, it seems to also have been driving those some insaniac railbirds to try their hand at the low limit games to imitate their heros. Badly. I’m also thankful to our competitors who have begun writing about our games on their site.
Thank you poker gods for the introduction of Twitter. It’s made it very easy to track players as the play on different sides of the globe, learn about the latest controversy, and update the world on the latest things in poker. Twitter has become such a big deal that we are working on a blogger guest post about the emergence of this new social media platform with perhaps the biggest player list. For the record, I can be found at @FullTilt_WSOP and my person (degen) account is @AlCantHang.
I’m thankful for my blogger brethren who will soon gather in Las Vegas for a yearly tradition of -EV table games, unhealthy alcohol consumption, and a little poker tournament thrown into the mix. I decided to ask a few of them for their poker Thanksgiving thoughts this year. Here’s just a little of what was shipped in my direction:
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
This weekend was already destined to have more huge action then usual with the $25k Heads-Up PLO World Championship running in addition to the regular slate of Sunday Majors. On top of all the scheduled action, most of the poker world now knows about the spectacle going down on the HIGH limit cash tables on Full Tilt. Isildur1 spent the entire week make news on an almost daily basis but shifting insane amounts of money back and forth across the virtual felt. The Swede has already pushed around some of the top online players, participate in the biggest ever online pot on Wednesday, and gave back quite a few after that. It’s not very often you see something for the first time, Saturday it happened.
It was only a matter of time at these elevated levels that we would finally see a 7-digit online pot, it finally happened Saturday evening setting the poker forums, blogs, and tweeters (?) into a frenzy. With nearly $2,000,000 sitting on the table between Patrik Antonius and Isildur1 all the pieces were in place to witness history. There was $162,000 in the pot before the players saw the 4s 5c 2h flop and then things went nutty. It only took a few re-pots before Isildur1 was all-in for his final $597,000 as a slight underdog. Antonius flopped the wheel but Isildur1 was holding a ton of out. The 5h on the turn did him no favors and he didn’t hit one of his final 9 outs on the river.
The $1,356,946.50 pot was shipped across to Antonius. Online poker’s largest and first million dollar cash game pot.
The action would go well into the evening with pots in the high 6-digits becoming commonplace and the swings mind boggling. By most online calculations it seems that Isildur1 gave back nearly $2.7million to both Patrick Antonius and Phil Ivey. The session came to an abrupt end right after Phil Ivey smacked him on the nose for almost $1.5million within moments. Screen printed below for your enjoyment, click to enlarge.
35 players put down a cool $25,000 earlier in the day for a chance at the Heads-Up PLO World Championship including Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, Andy_Bloch and the enigmatic Isildur1. Phil Ivey let the Swedish player know that he put a little side wager down on his victory, getting 10-1 on his money. None of the Full Tilt pros would feature in the final payouts with Cole South and Justin “Boosted J” Smith coming up one victory short. After a HU chop, World Series of Poker bracelet winner Andrew “Browndog19″ Brown would add this tournament to his resume.
All this action around the tables also generated plenty of available prizepool money in the Big Money Sunday tournaments. $1.9 million was on the line between The Sunday Brawl, Double Deuce, $750k Guarantee, and The Sunday Mulligan. “roddiass” was the big winner of the evening collecting $114,743.18 after a 3-way chop followed by “pytcheye1111″ ($108,726.80 in the Sunday Brawl) and “zavor4ik” ($107,757.59 in the $750k Guarantee).
Action continues Monday evening with the obviously named “$1K Monday” tournament, railbirds should also keep one eye on the high limit cash game tables. You never know when the next “biggest pot in history” will occur.
Tournament final table results after the jump, as well as my unfortunate exit from Michael Craig’s “Relay for Life” charity tournament.
Tags: $25K Heads-Up World Championship, AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, Isildur1, Michael Craig, Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
In all the excitement of the November Nine, FTOPS XIV, and the Isildur1 cash game craziness I completely lost track of the upcoming $25k Heads-Up PLO World Championship.
In addition to the standard Big Money Sunday games, today at 15:00ET brings a tournament that will feature most of the top players from the online and live poker world. The buyin alone will narrow the field to the best players in Pot Limit Omaha, the game which has quickly taken over as the HU game for those risking huge swings. Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius are already registered and it’s only a matter of time before newly minted member Tom “durrrr” Dwan is in the field. You’ll find Andy Bloch and Erik Seidel signed up as well as “Annette_15″ Obrestad and crazy man Tony G. It wouldn’t be a high stakes Heads-Up these days if you didn’t see Isildur1 registered for the tournament.
The field will be capped at 64 and we halfway there. Full Tilt continues to run satellites for this incredible event, chances to win yourself on “the cheap”. The tournament ID is 116764959, the satellites are listed in the lobby. I will be surprised if it does not fill before the start leaving a small number of players shooting for part of the $1,600,000 prizepool.
I will be there along the rail to catch and report that action. Look for updates.
Tags: $25K Heads-Up World Championship, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, durrrr, Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
It’s usually fuel to fire up a fine argument amongst poker players, especially those plied with large amounts of alcohol and a spur under their saddle. What’s the best, poker tournaments or cash games?
It generally goes a little like this: Tournaments are the best format, cash games players rule. Tournaments are for lucksack push monkeys, cash games are for boring rock-garden nut-peddlers. As long as poker has been around there has been an argument for both sides of the equation. Nothing is ever solved but in the end it’s just a matter of preference and comfort zone.
You can count me in with the nut-peddling grinder crew as I generally view the tournament players as a bunch of gamblers looking to get all their chips in the middle on the come. It’s also true I’m so tight that I make Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler look like the world’s biggest LAGtard. Different strokes for different folks. Tournament players find my process of grinding out my daily nut in number of big-bets won the dullest most unimaginative form of the game.
This week’s guest blogger comes along and tells both sides it’s our best interest to cross the line, get our money in the game when the price is right and expand horizons. I’ll let him explain.
Ladies and gentlemen, your guest blogger Drizztdj.
Tournament or Cash Player?
by Drizztdj
Unless you have been living under cryogenic freeze for the past six months, or last decade for that matter, you dear readers are aware of the poker exploits of one Phil Ivey. He flies, he wins, he grinds, he smiles on a rare occasion when certain loggers from Maryland are not outdrawing him at the World Series of Poker Main Event final table (that apple must have tasted bitter after the queen flopped).
He’s a tournament player obviously, right? Nearly won WSOP bracelet number eight by becoming one of this year’s “November Nine”, a WPT bracelet, $12.2 million in tournament winnings, the man excels at closing out the tournament once given the chip ammo piled up from the countless check-raises and reading the souls of those who dared to pony up the entry fee to sit at his table. No emotion unchecked, staying just ahead of the blinds to cash isn’t an option as its first place or no place, Phil Ivey is definitely a tournament player.
But, wait. There’s a little side cash game going on at the Bellagio with millions of dollars on the felt. When the lack of tournament chips appear in front him, the high roller can be seen behind the glass doors of Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio playing for stakes that normal nine-to-five cube monkeys like myself only see while hitting up the play chip games. Only those aren’t play chips they’re $10,000 and $25,000 real currency chips being splashed across the felt on an up-and-down straight draw, or trying to squeeze out a wheel in deuce-to-seven triple draw. Likewise, if you’re a closet online nosebleed railbird like me, you’ll see Mr. Ivey’s avatar taking on all comers at Ivey League, Ivey Showdown, Ivey Thunderdome, and Ivey’s Playground tables, playing with $1,000 /$2,000 blinds all levels limit or no limit and in all games.
So, he’s a cash game savant right?
Wrong.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, drizztdj, Guest Posts
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Patrik Antonius" width="250" />
I was minding my own business after a casual day of live cash games/drinking when my trusty wifi-enabled communication devices began chirping and chiming away. Everyone who knew of my associate with The Tilt began texting and twittering about the cash games blowing up with huge pots, all the big game grinders were getting their “two cents” involved. Pot Limit Omaha, No Limit Hold’em, and the 7-Game Mix table were packed with obscene amounts of honest-to-god real money cash that are unimaginable to the vast majority of the poker world. There are many huge poker players who won’t go near these levels.
I did what a respectable member of the poker community would do, especially one whose charter involves keeping an eye on the big games and big names. I found a way to fire up the Full Tilt Poker software and witness some of the craziness for myself. I found all the action spread across several different lobbies with the largest games being found in PLO and 7-game involving Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, David Benyamine, Brian Townsend, Cole South and Abe “EazyPeazy” Mosseri. Notably absent was new Tilter Tom “durrrr” Dwan who was in London preparing for, and playing in, his “durrrr Million Dollar Challenge”. The Challenge didn’t stop Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies from taking time from his preparations to get in a little action.
Most notably involved was the mysterious Isildur1, it seems all we can figure out about this player is that he’s from Sweden and he’s got a bit of the gamble in him. Isildur1 was a regular in the higher stakes but came out of the blue to blast away at the very highest levels running against those accustomed to the rarefied air. Before Dwan hopped a plane across the pond it was reported the Isildur1 came in an relieved his bankroll of over $3,000,000. His name has been mentioned by every outlet that covers poker and the race is on to find out his/her real identity. Dwan even went so far as to issue a challenge for him to become part of the Live Heads Up matches in London. Isildur1′s lack of response was his decline.
I have a habit of saying “Mother Variance is a right bitch” to just about anyone who brags about huge gains over a short amount of time, well that seems to have jumped up and bit poor Isildur1 a little over the last few nights. Patrik Antonius is not the player you want to run into when it’s your time to give a little back. Not only did Antonius give him a smack on the nose, he popped Isildur1 for the biggest pot in online poker history.
In all the bouncing around I actually managed to miss everything go down but my good friends over at PokerNews.com caught it all. Without digging into the forensic details of the hand, I’ll just tell you that Antonius and Isildur1 had all the money in on the turn with a chop the most likely outcome. Antonius hit one of his ten outs on the river and dragged the new record pot of $878,958.50. That is not your standard home game pot. For the full details of the hand (until I can finally get the hand replayer pasted into this spot), you can check out the PokerNews.com writeup.
That wasn’t the end of the beatdown for Isildur1 as Brian Townsend and Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies also stepped up over the last few days trying to take a piece out of his bankroll. Dwan must be licking his chops in London, wanting to get back online and reclaim what was once his. It will be interesting to see how long Isildur1 can hang at these levels, he’s been getting chippy in the chat the last few days and it may doing a number on him already. These tables have been running each evening and are definitely worth checking out for pure entertainment value.
~
In Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge news, Dwan is currently 1 for 2 in his battle. He is playing three 12 hours Heads Up matches against Marcello “Luckexpress” Marigliano, Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies and Sammy George at $500/$1000 PLO or NLHE. No player can leave the table before 500 hands or going busto. First up was Marigliano who finished with a narrow edge of just over $22,000 and then he defeated Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies by $68,000.
Playing at these stakes you could generally expect a much wider gap at the end of play but the challenge has been very even. Next up is World Class Smack Talker Sammy George, I feel pretty confident that this will not be a close affair no matter who wins in the end.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Isildur1, Patrik Antonius, Tom Dwan
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Sunday brought to close another successful FTOPS with 25 more events and over $18,000,000 dished out among the players. We had some big score by the top online and professional poker players such as David “The Dragon” Pham, Steven “UFman2″ Burkholder, Brian “badbeatninja” Devonshire and Thayer “THAY3R” Rassmussen. Brad “bd3109″ Albrinck came out of nowhere to claim the top of the FTOPS XIV leaderboard with one title and a runner-up result in back-to-back days (Event #16 and 18) collecting nearly $100,000. Gary Jones was your big money winner amongst the Full Tilt pros when he banked $193,462 with his 4th place finish in the $2,500 Two Day Event.
The series started off with a little controversy in Event #1 when the players decided to not pay attention when making a deal at the table. If you want to know what happened, feel free to check out the Full Tilt forums. Yesterday concluded the series by paying out $6,487,7000 across four huge tournaments and awarding 13 players with paydays in the six digit range. There were actually four events this series which fell just short of the guarantee which meant that Full Tilt kicked in an extra $200,000 to the players in the form of overlays bringing the final prizepool payout to $18,153,100 across the 25 events.
I spent most of the series sitting in Las Vegas covering the November Nine but that didn’t mean I wasn’t keeping an eye on the biggest set of online tournaments running at the same time. After spending my days with the live players I would return to see what I missed, or what was still going on after one particularly long day. I asked fellow blogger Brad Utz to help me out and here are some of things we witnessed. You can find the final table results of all events after the jump.
- Full Tilt pros have a tough time breaking through to win these major events. Before this series only Erick Lindgren, Berry Johnston, and Gavin Smith were able to accomplish that feat with Smith and Johnston doing it last series. FTOPS XIV saw two more red letter pros score victories with David “The Dragon” Pham and Greg “FBT” Mueller. Pham had several prior FTOPS final tables to his credit but no joy until Event #14. Mueller’s victory was previous documented as he joined Erick Lindgren as the only Full Tilt pros to actually capture a victory in the event they were “hosting”.
- Coming into FTOPS XIV there were only 10 players who have won multiple events across the near 240 tournaments prior to this series. csimmus and Yuvee “yuvee04″ Bronshtein lead the way with 3 FTOPS titles. This series added three more to that list with Steven “UFman2″ Burkholder, Deception Pt, and elheroe all earning their second “golden jersey”. Event #5 was the FTOPS stacked table of the series with three previous winner with Burkholder almost adding another, “yuvee04″ going for his FOURTH, and it was here that Deception Pt picked up his second. There were actually quite a few former winners who came close to adding another this series including Bryan “badbeatninja” Devonshire, David “Doc Sands”, and lilkimmer77 who all made final tables.
Live poker update: While finishing up this post I found out that “yuvee04″ just took down the H.O.R.S.E. event at the L.A. Poker Open. Congrats to a friend of the blog!
- Miscellaneous numbers from FTOPS XIV:
Number of events: 25
Guarantee Prizepool: $16,000,000
Actual Prizepool: $18,153,100
Largest Prizepool: $2,735,500 (Main Event)
Smallest Prizepool: $111,000 (Stud Hi/Lo)
Overlay (4 events): $221,300
Number of players: 54,823
Players with over $100,000 payout: 30 (thirty!)
Largest Payout: $539,350.00 (obiedman)
Largest FTP pro Payout: $193,462.50 (Gary Jones)
Total FTP pro cash (#): 79
Total FTP pro cash ($): $481,343.36
- I’m not sure anyone who hasn’t witnessed millions of online hands can appreciate some of the complete insanity the follows along with the big names on the site or when the tournaments get down to just a few tables. The regular Big Money Sunday events are crazy enough but FTOPS brings out the top shelf. The beggars are still there but practically drowned out by every nutball that’s ever posted on a forum or played a $1 SnG offering up their opinions on every move. It’s almost priceless when they start fighting amongst themselves. When the railbirds start challenge to play any for any stakes, it’s pure comedy. That’s why Craig “HU4ROLLZ” Bergeron has one of my favorite screennames. In a moment of weakness I decided to start a Railbird Hall of Shame Fame. I witnessed the following names on the rail who will join our inaugural class with nh83012001 getting special honors for challenging everyone “ill play you in any game any stakes”. It seems his apostrophe key was stuck that day also.
Your FTOPS XIV Railbird inductees, be sure to congratulate them:
chuckie247: you think im a fish, yet im the one in profit…
(ragging the rail, while on the rail)
Joey1029: go cry to your mom kid.
(overused the word “kid” when abusing)
nh83012001:ill play you in any game any stakes
(we have a winner!)
xMONSTERxDONGx: u guys dont know what ur talking about
(no-it-alls annoy me on the last day)
i8aNET15: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
(with a incredibly impolite message to “FBT” Mueller)
I’m always looking for something amusing on the rail, feel free to pass anything along if you see something worthy of notice.
After the jump you can find the results for all FTOPS final tables and other notables. You can also find the complete unofficial Full Tilt Poker Red Letter Pro Challenge.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, David Pham, FTOPS, Greg Mueller
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
We’ve all heard stories of the Big Game running in Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio. Standard play is a $2,000/$4,000 cash game sometimes hitting even higher depending who’s in town and who’s stuck. Prop bets flying all over the place with chip sizes 99.9% of us will never see. Then there was the famous battle of Andy Beal versus The Corporation as documented by Michael Craig in The Professor, The Banker, and The Suicide King where the levels ranged from $30,000/$60,000 to $100,000/$200,000. Insane amounts of money that are practically impossible for the regular grinder to wrap their mind around.
The equivalent of these nose-bleed levels online can be found on Full Tilt poker, generally in the gamble-it-up game of Pot Limit Hold’em or the recently added 7-game mix cash game tables. It is not uncommon to see up to a half dozen tables running during the weekend at $2,000/$4,000 limits with a waitlist once the 6-max limit is reached. The average post size reaches up to $20,000 and they are seeing over 100 hands per hour. Players looking for big cash game action make this their first stop.
In the recent years, the king of these huge games has become newly minted Team Full Tilt member Tom “durrrr” Dwan. He began his poker career by reportedly loading $50 online and tearing through the low limit SnG’s, now he can be found challenging and felting some of the world’s best players including Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, Gus Hansen, and David Benyamine. He has seen daily swings in the 7 figures but also claims to have never gone broke since he began playing. That alone is an incredible feat that very few poker players can claim.
This weekend in Las Vegas, during the November Nine celebrations, it was announced that Dwan would now be a member of Team Full Tilt. While there are quite a few Full Tilt pros, it’s very rare for a player to be added to the Team and no players since Patrik Antonius joined the roster nearly 18 months ago. Dwan joins such big guns as Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, John Juanda, and others. “Tom is sort of the first wave of great players, who really cut his teeth on the internet but he’s showing that he’s going to be around for a long time,” Lederer praised their newest member, “I feel like Tom’s really our first player that learned his craft online. The new breed.”
Most people know Dwan more recently for his “durrrr Challenge” which he is currently running against Patrik Antonius. Quick primer: Dwan put up $1,500,000 of his own money versus Antonius’ $500,000 that he could win more playing 4 tables simultaneous again Antonius in Heads Up Pot Limit Omaha with $200/$400 being the minimum stakes for 50,000 hands. The Challenge has been running for awhile with both players actively seeking soft spots in the large cash games. Dwan currently leads by just under $800,000 but the swing in that game can be massive. (Link for the “durrrr Challenge” Stats page)
In addition to all the perks for being a team member, Full Tilt has also launched his very own website Tom “durrrr” Dwan and he will now join the stable of players blogging for the site at “durrrr Poker Blog”. He’ll be updating his blog on a regular basis and didn’t waste any time mentioning a new challenge with his very first post.
In just a few short days he will kick off the Full Tilt Poker Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge in London. A live version of his online challenge where he will now go Heads Up from November 17th to 19th against such pros as Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies and Marcello “Luckexpress” Marigliano. Big talker Sammy George also returns after his first go-round in September. There will $1,000,000 on the table for either Pot Limit Omaha or No Limit Hold’em.
A fine way to start his career with Team Full Tilt. You can find Dwan’s welcome video on his brand new official Full Tilt Poker bio page.
You can find a video of “durrrr” press conference with Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, and Patrik Antonius after the jump as well as the new links and resources you’ll want to bookmark.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, durrrr, Team Full Tilt, Tom Dwan
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
As you might imagine, things have been a little crazy around here for the past few days. I made a trip out west for the November Nine, watched Michael Craig pay off a prop bet, and witnessed a 21-year old kid become the newest World Series of Poker champion. You will excuse me just a little bit for missing out on my near daily updates during FTOPS XIV which kicked off more than a week ago. Now that I am back in the safety of the great Northeast I am finally catching up on some things I missed.
That’s not to say I wasn’t keeping an eye on things which were going down with the online world, it just couldn’t be my highest priority. I was really looking forward to throwing yet another image of David “The Dragon” Pham* for his victory in FTOPS XIV Event #14 and because I like adding the “*-not a real dragon tag” to as many posts as possible. But it turns out Greg “FBT” Mueller** had other plans.
Coming into the day, only one Full Tilt pro has ever won an FTOPS event that they were hosting. Erick Lindgren accomplished that feat by taking down FTOPS VII Event #9 for just under $300,000. In fact, before today only Lindgren, Gavin Smith, and David Pham have been able to bring home an FTOPS victory for the red letter pros. Greg Mueller found himself in his comfort zone today.
Merriam and Webster Dictionary
Main Entry: comfort zone
Function: noun
2. the level at which one functions with ease and familiarity
The game was Limit Hold’em, something Mueller is very familiar with over his entire career. I am assuming he was hosting this event since he won two bracelet in the variation this summer at the WSOP. His career Limit Hold’em WSOP resume includes 8 cashes (out of 19 total), 4 final table, 1 second place finish (NLHE/LHE Mix game included), and the 2 WSOP bracelets. Throw in a Seven Card Stud final table and you’d have to believe that he feels pretty comfortable slinging the chips in a limit game.
He was holding, or near, the chip lead for most of the latter parts of the tournament and came to the 6-handed final table with a chance to make history. There were a few opponent’s that would battle him for a very long time. OmadJoped was hoping to become just the third player to win two FTOPS in the same series and James “P0KERPR0″ Campbell was the only other major player. It turned out to be Campbell and Mueller who would finish heads up for the title with Campbell putting up a decent fight but finally succumbing to the former hockey player.
Mueller collected $36,081.50 for his efforts and had a little encouragement from fellow Tilter Mike Matusow just before the final table:
Mike Matusow (Observer): greg fbt mueller is my hero
GregFBTMueller: thx mikey
Mike Matusow (Observer): dear god how u get cards like that
With that I will call it yet another day (night/morning). I will return tomorrow with a full update from the previous tournaments in the series.
*-Not a real dragon
**-Full Blown Tilt
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, FTOPS, Greg Mueller
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
2009 World Series of Poker Bracelets
Photo credit: Pokerati.com
After a 40 hour pause of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event final table, the two remaining players will take their seats to play Heads Up for the most coveted championship in the game. The amateur Darvin Moon will attempt to continue his incredible run through the Main Event field and professional Joe Cada will be trying to break the short record of Peter Eastgate as the youngest Main Event champion. Both showed an incredible ability to come from behind when their tournament life was on the line so we are looking at a battle between two players looking to stay lucky.
The stacks of money are laid out across the felt while the WSOP staff prepares the stage and the hallways outside are full of returning friends, family, and spectators. The only remaining tasks are to open the doors and the player to unbag their chips. Cada enjoys more than a 2-to-1 chiplead and will most likely look to outplay his opponent, Moon on the other line very may well gamble it up early to reduce the advantage.
I will be back once the cards in the air to bring you updates from the Sky Box. Here you can find the 2009 November Nine Live Blog that got us to this point.
22:00PT – Late start
Play was intended to begin at 10pm but the players are just now unbagging their chips. The crowds are streaming into the auditorium, already getting loud and rowdy. Unsure but I assume they are Joe Cada supporters if Saturday/Sunday taught us anything. The VIP seating area around the stage is full of people milling around in anticipation of our start. There is definitely a ton of excitement in the air whether you are pulling for either player or just a fan of poker.
In unrelated news, Sasquatch has been spotted rolling through the lobby and may be leaning up against the bar.
Things should be underway shortly.
Darvin Moon – 58,850,000
Joe Cada – 135,950,000
22:30PT – Card in the air
Both WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack and Tournament Director Jack Effel warmed things up by welcoming the crowd and pumping up the supporters. Amusing that Effel’s voice seems to go up an octave with each new sentence, sounds a bit like Alvin and the Chipmunks by the time he takes a breath. Both players were introduced to loud applause with a Darvin Moon fan even sporting a toy chainsaw.
The theater is completely packed with an even bigger line down the hallway. The line stretches from down to the rotunda near the Amazon Room and halfway back up. An incredible turnout and it should make for a very energetic match. They surprised everyone in the room when metal legend Vince Neil of Motley Crue was given the honor of commanding “shuffle up and deal”.
We’re getting different predictions for the number of hands we will have during heads up play with the highest being 60 and the lowest (by yours truly) of just 10. They restart play with blinds at 500,000/1,000,000/150,000 ante.
23:00PT – Everything back even
It didn’t take very long for Darvin Moon to erase the sizable lead of Cada. On the very first hand of heads up play they built a huge pot with pre-flop and post-flop raises. In the end Moon drug the pot worth over 40,000,000 with QQ versus 99. The two kings and ace on board probably saved some chips for Cada as they both checked the river.
At this time Moon has a very small chip lead and my 10-hand prediction is down the drain, though neither has seemed very shy about getting large numbers of chips in the middle. As Mike Matusow said about Cada “this kid has no idea what small ball is“.
Darvin Moon – 101,850,000
Joe Cada – 92,950,000
00:00PT – Back and forth
As the clock rolls over to the new day here in Las Vegas, play has settled down a bit as the stacks evened out. Cada retook the lead from Moon after flopping the nut flush but might have played it a little too slow. He probably could have taken more chips as Moon easily called the value bet, a bigger bet probably also gets called. They are still pushing chips back and forth easily although they have been generally much larger pots than we anticipated. As Matusow continues to says they are either limping or playing 10,000,000 pots.
Just before the end of the hour Moon made another push and we are a virtual dead heat, just 500,000 difference with 97,000,000 for both players. That’s less than one small blind.
The hallways continue to be crowded with spectators unable to enter the auditorium. The Rio has been kind enough to have monitors spread throughout the area which is showing the live feed to those unable to make their way in. There is also a major line to the lobby bar with everyone it seems loading up on the adult beverages. The WSOP swag shop is selling out of all their gear and the coffee shop has an endless line.
The players are on the first 20 minute break.
00:30PT – More swings
The stacks were pretty even going into the break but Darvin Moon took the initiative when they returned. Because there were few showdowns we’ll have to wait until the ESPN broadcast to see what was moving Moon along but he has built up a chip lead over his young opponent. After several big pre-flop raises Moon is sitting on a nearly 3-1 chip lead.
Darvin Moon – 145,200,000
Joe Cada – 49,6000
01:00PT – Big punches, no knockouts
We saw our first all-in moment with nothing to show of it than a few chips shipped over to Cada. Moon re-raised pre-flop to 8,000,000 only to have Cada 3-bet allin for another 50,000,000. Moon took his time to make a decision, going so far as standing up which had some of believing we’d see a call and possibly a new champion. He ended folding and getting the chips back a few hands later. Still no sign of either player slowing down as we’re continue to have some massive pots.
With the big swing of chips towards the Darvin Moon side of the table, the rowdy fans of Joe Cada have spent some time sitting on their hands. Earlier in the event 3 guys and a girl took off their shirts, each with C-A-D-A painted on their bodies. That lasted just long enough to get the attention of Jeffrey Pollack and security took care of the fun loving fans. For all the loud fans on either side, it’s get spooky quiet among the 1,500 in the auditorium when a big hand is in progress.
Darvin Moon – 136,050,000
Joe Cada – 58,750,000
01:25PT – New World Series of Poker Champion crowned
It didn’t take long for two huge hands to develop and bring us the 2009 World Series of Poker Champion. Just 25 short minutes ago Darvin Moon enjoyed a significant chip lead over Joe Cada but that changed quickly.
Joe Cada doubled up on a hand when all the chips went in the middle on the turn. Darvin Moon re-raised Cada allin and made him think long and hard about putting his tournament on the line. Cada eventually called with his paired 9 versus the open ended straight draw for Moon. A meaningless 3 hit the river and the chip lead swung back in favor of the young pro. Just 8 hands later and both players once again had all the chips in the middle, this time pre-flop.
The Cada side of the stage erupted when he tabled pocket 9′s and he was racing against the QJd of Moon. There were complete bricks on the entire board and Joe Cada is now the 2009 World Series of Poker champion, replacing Peter Eastgate as the youngest Main Event winner.
It was a well fought match by both players and the entire final table should make for some very interesting TV when it is broadcast on ESPN tomorrow evening.
Signing off from the Sky Box at the Penn & Teller Theater. I will be back tomorrow with my thoughts and review of the broadcast.
1st – Joe Cada – $8,547,042
2nd – Darvin Moon – $5,182,928
3rd – Antoine Saout – $3,479,670
4th – Eric Buchman – $2,502,890
5th – Jeff Shulman – $1,953,452
6th – Steven Begleiter – $1,587,160
7th – Phil Ivey – $1,404,014
8th – Kevin Schaffel – $1,300,231
9th – James Akenhead – $1,263,602
Tags: 2009 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, WSOP
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