Poker From The Rail
a Poker Blog brought to you by Full Tilt Poker
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
It was a big day for Heads Up poker yesterday with the $25,000 Heads Up Championship playing down their final four and the Main Event grudge matches played out on the nifty new ESPN stage. Two Tilters have a chance to collect the first bracelet of the summer and there is still one epic Grudge Match to run.
Just one round was played in the HU Championship but the matches produced a final four worthy of the main stage. Eric Froehlich wasn’t even sure he was going to play in this event up until the registration as he was trying to sell off some of his action. Those who took a shot on “EFro” are certainly happy now. He will take on monster Ukranian Yevgeniy Timoshenko with a chance to make the finals.
Gus Hansen’s match was much smoother than his previous versus Tom Dwan. He never had to reach towards his 2 “rebuy” chips before dispatching Matt Marafioti. Hansen will battle it out with Jake Cody and try to back up his WSOP-E Heads Up title.
Gus Hansen versus Jake Cody
Eric Froehlich versus Yevgeniy Timoshenko
The second tournament to award a bracelet today will be the $1,500 Limit Omaha/8 Event #3. As we can expect to see throughout the summer, this tournament did not make it down to the final table and they’ll have to play from 25 to a winner (unless it goes over 10 levels, then back tomorrow). Francesco Barbaro is the front runner but Matt Waxman is right on his heels. Scott Clements loves his Omaha tournaments is still alive but will begin the day with just over 4 big bets. The winner will take home $262,283 and a shiny gold bracelet.
1 – Francesco Barbaro – 459,000
2 – Matt Waxman – 458,000
3 – Vladir Shchemelev – 335,000
4 – Bradley Helm – 308,000
5 – Jimmy Fricke – 278,000
6 – Dan Smith – 235,000
7 – Kostas Kalathakis – 209,000
8 – Michael Deveronica – 200,000
9 – Ricard Monroe – 184,000
10 – Travis Pearson – 175,000
Other notables: Humberto Brenes (160,000), Scott Clements (84,000), Lex Velduis (27,000)
Two other events will bring players back for their Day 2 including the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament which drew another stellar field. 243 of the starting 865 players return and will make the money later today. 81 spots are paid with 1st place picking up a cool $874,116. The 2009 bracelet winner in this event, Brian Lemke, comes into the day sitting near the top of the leaderboard.
1 – Gavin Cochrane – 175,500
2 – Victor Ramdin – 174,700
3 – Brian Lemke – 171,900
4 – Gregory Dyer – 138,800
5 – David “Doc” Sands – 138,100
6 – Jordan Morgan – 136,900
7 – Matthew Braund – 135,600
8 – Jamie Rosen – 133,900
9 – Ashley Mason – 132,600
10 – Joe Tehan – 129,900
Other notables: Brandon Cantu (129,500), Shane Schleger (112,700), Darren Elias (112,700), Erick Lindgren (102,200), Luke “IWEARGOGGLES” Staudenmaier (93,700), JC Tran (81,100), Jonathan Little (80,600), Gavin Griffin (75,300), Matt Glantz (75,000)
Two new events also begin today with one small-ish and one big. The noon tournament is the grinders special, Limit Hold’em for $1,5000 and a small piece of their sanity. Matt Matros is the defending champion. 5pm brings the next $10,000 tournament with the Pot Limit Hold’em Championship. This event drew 268 players last year so we can expect a similar field this time around.
Remember to keep an eye out on our @FullTiltPoker twitter and Facebook page for updates during the day. The Fantasy WSOP contest is also up and running for non-US players, get in the game and challenge your favorite pros.
My favorite picture and t-shirt of the WSOP so far
Tags: 2011 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Allen Cunningham, Bloggers on the Rail, Eric Froehlich, Gus Hansen, Scott Clements, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
We are inching ever closer to crowning the first WSOP bracelet winner of the summer in the $25,000 Heads Up Championship. 32 players returned yesterday needing to win one more match to make the money and advance closer to a title. Gus Hansen entered the room late, but with a flourish. The Dane cruised into the Amazon Room with his shirt completely unzipped as he sat for his match with Daniel Alaei. If this had been Patrik Antonius we might have seen some of the female railbirds pass out, as it was he just zipped up and took care of Alaei to move on.
Hansen also provided the match of the tournament in the round of 16 when he took on Team Full Tilt member Tom “durrrr” Dwan. While the others moved along quickly, Dwan and Hansen took turns taking huge chunks out of the other until the blinds forced Hansen to shove his severe short stack in the middle several straight times. He pulled off every showdown and eventually eliminated Dwan in the final match of the night.
They will play just one match today and determine the final four. The next round kicks off at 3pm PT in the Amazon Room.
Matt Marafioto vs Gus Hansen
Jake Cody vs Anthony Guetti
David Paredes vs Yevgeniy Timoshenko
Nikolay Evdakov vs Eric Froehlich
Yesterday was also the first day for the $1,500 Limit Omaha/8 tournament which was an interesting indicator of the rest of the summer. There was plenty of speculation ahead of the WSOP about field sizes and they blew the doors off yesterday. According the WSOP staff, the 925 entrants in Event #3 made it the biggest LO8 tournament ever run. A fine start to the summer.
Defending champion Michael Chow will not go back-to-back as he was eliminated late on Day 1. 201 players remain with the top 90 getting paid. Below are the top 10 and notable stacks to kick off Day 2 at 2:30pm with blinds at 500/1,000 (1,000/2,000 limits).
1 – Guillaume Rivet – 71,200
2 – Andy Seth – 61,700
3 – Gary Bolden – 60,700
4 – Richard Monroe – 59,000
5 – Cary Falk – 59,800
6 – James Dempsey – 59,800
7 – Francesco Barbaro – 58,800
8 – Sorel Mizzi – 56,400
9 – Ted Woolridge – 55,300
10 – Kostas Kalathakis – 50,600
Other Notables: Jimmy Fricke (47,600), Barry Greenstein (46,900), Matt Waxman (39,900), Bryan Micon (38,400), Humberto Brenes (36,100), Jean-Robert Bellande (34,700), John D’Agostino (34,400), TJ Cloutier (34,300), Scott Clements (30,600), Thayer Rasmussen (28,500), Josh Arieh (28,400)
The glamour part of the day involves the made-for-TV Grudge Matches playing out on the fancy new ESPN feature table. They will replay three classic Heads Up matches from previous Main Events in front of the cameras. Matches filmed today will be Chris Moneymaker vs Sammy Farha (2003), Johnny Chan vs Phil Hellmuth (1989) then the Rounders favorite and fan choice of the classic Johnny Chan vs Erik Seidel from the 1988 Main Event final table.
Two other new events also run today with the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em off at noon and the field of rocks in a $1,500 Seven Card Stud at 5pm. Both are showing an early trend at record sizes.
Remember to keep an eye out on our @FullTiltPoker twitter and Facebook page for updates during the day. The Fantasy WSOP contest is also up and running for non-US players, get in the game and challenge your favorite pros.
Tags: 2011 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Eric Froehlich, Erik Seidel, Gus Hansen, Tom Dwan, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
I promised a fun weekend in the poker world and it delivered. Between the World Series of Poker Europe, the regular Big Money Sunday games, and some other tiny gathering of online poker players, there was plenty of opportunities to see something interesting.
First up across the pond was the start of the WSOP Europe Main Event and the eventual restart of the Highroller Heads Up match between Gus Hansen and Jim Collopy. It’s probably quite obvious from the picture above that Hansen was able to defeat Collopy after an insanely long pause in play. Hansen collected £288,409 for his victory but more importantly was able to put on his first career WSOP bracelet.
In Main Event action, they played down to their final table 9 earlier today with Full Tilt’s Roland de Wolfe sitting right in the middle of the pack. There was tremendous anticipation of a possible showdown between Phil Ivey and Viktor Blom with all the money on the line but it was not to happen. Ivey was one of the early victims and was quickly followed by the man rumored to be “Isildur1″. Greg “FBT” Mueller and Barny Boatman were the other Full Tilt pros who began the day with a final table shot but came up short.
Final table action can be followed on Tuesday with a 5-hour delay on ESPN3.com for many viewers in the U.S. Here are your chip counts:
1 – Dan Fleyshman – 1,946,000
2 – Ronald Lee – 1,899,000
3 – Danny Steinberg – 1,520,000
4 – Roland de Wolfe – 1,377,000
5 – James Bord – 1,331,000
6 – Brian Powell – 842,000
7 – Fabrizio Baldassari – 677,000
8 – Nicolas Levi – 428,000
9 – Marc Inizan – 349,000
Online action presented one of our big names making the $750,000 final table. David “The Dragon” Pham* was in the mix throughout the day with a top stack heading to the final nine but was unable to finish better than 6th. The end came with another of those fun chop deals which found 2nd place finisher “randomcliche” collecting $10,000 more than winner “Eleon222″ and one of the two 6 digit payoffs of the day.
One of the few top online pros to jump out to get my attention was Mohsin “chicagocards1″ Charania who managed a deep run in the $200,000 and just missed a Sunday Brawl final table. Mario “Pwnasaurus” Silvestri also jumped back into the fray with a runner up finish in the $200,000. As the year begins to wind down, it’s just about time to keep an eye on our friends over at Bluff Magazine and their 2010 Online Player of the Year (here’s a hint, you won’t see my ANYWHERE on that table).
You can look for our first post highlighting this year’s November Nine later in the week and the Big Money Sunday results are after the jump.
Tags: AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey, WSoP-E
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
There is never a dull moment around the poker world and this week was no different. I suppose right now the only “dull” place in poker would be in Las Vegas since most of top players have run away to the east, top worldly destinations like London, Paris, and Atlantic City. That last one is questionable but there were definitely some top players gathered at the Borgata for latest WPT tournament and the Empire Casino in London to wrap up the World Series of Poker Europe.
The Borgata has been on the cutting edge the last few years with their stop on the World Poker Tour with some lower buyin Main Events as well as thumbing their nose at many “suggestions”. This time around they lowered the buyin to $3,500 to go along with a $2,000,000 guarantee and smashed the WPT record for participants when 1,042 were among those to put the money down. There were plenty of big names in the field including a few WSOP Main Event winners but it was a WSOP-C champion, Dwyte Pilgrim, who made the biggest splash.
The World Series of Poker Europe has made it through Day 2 and Full Tilt is right in the mix. You can find out below who’s alive and who needs to make a move.
1. The 2010 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event is underway with some huge names including Phil Ivey and someone rumored to be “Isildur1″.
2. The “Highroller” WSOP-E Heads Up event final match was suspended between Gus Hansen and Jim Collopy Thursday morning at 3am and they have yet to resume play.
3. Dwyte Pilgrim, master of the small buyin circuit events, finally wins his first major televised tournament.
4. The Hard Rock is suing the Hard Rock.
5. Tom Dwan’s Full Tilt commercial is a crowd favorite, our friends at PokerNews made a funny spoof of it.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey, WSoP-E
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
It’s one of the standard conversations which always come up during the World Series of Poker. Who’s the best player to not have captured their first bracelet? Mr. McCarthy and myself were just sitting on media row yesterday bouncing names back and forth with the usual suspect always in the mix, Team Full Tilt member Andy Bloch. He is one of the most successful tournament players in the world but has yet to find himself as the last player standing at the end of a WSOP event. His efforts include two high profile second place finishes where he was the favorite going into heads up play.
Regular guest blogger “Tuscaloosa” Johnny sent along his thoughts on ten high-profile players coming into the summer still aiming for their first title. Interesting that he lists Michael Mizrachi in his post as “The Grinder” will sit at the $50,000 Player’s Championshp final table later today.
Best players without a WSOP bracelet
By “Tuscaloosa” Johnny Kampis
Erick Lindgren, Kenny Tran, Nenad Medic, Dario Minieri, John Phan. Know what all of these players have in common? They all won their first World Series of Poker bracelets in recent years. These players were lucky enough to achieve their first victories in the Rio, but there are plenty of deserving pros who haven’t tasted WSOP glory yet. Here are ten pros that are due:
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Andy Bloch, Bloggers on the Rail, Gavin Smith, Guest Posts, Gus Hansen, Michael Mizrachi, Patrik Antonius, Tom Dwan, Tuscaloosa Johnny, WSOP
Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner
In General Poker News:
Phil Ivey and Howard Lederer each donated $30k to attend a fundraiser with President Barack Obama Thursday night at the home of Palms owner George Maloof. No word on whether the two Full Tilt pros were able to convince the President to accept the Irish Poker Open’s invitation to play in their April event.
Tags: Chris Ferguson, durrrr, durrrr Challenge, Full Tilt Poker Academy, Gus Hansen, Howard Lederer, Isildur1, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan
Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner
Before I started blogging here at Poker from the Rail, Full Tilt gave me some data about their web traffic so that I’d have a better idea of what everyone likes to read. This included a list of all the google searches that led people to Poker from the Rail or Michael Craig’s blog. Here’s what I learned from some of the weirder search terms:
Team Full Tilt’s youngest pro is not only smart, handsome and charming – he might be immortal:
tom dwan girlfriend, pics of durrrr’s girlfriend, tom dwan roommate, tom dwan boyfrnd, tom dwan lamborghini, is tom dwan a vampire?
*
Durrrr isn’t the only Team Full Tilt pro fans are personally interested in:
gus hansen ladies man, patrik antonius girlfriend, what does jennifer harman look for in a guy, erick lindgren on women, how tall is mike matusow, phil ivey naked fish
*
Maybe Full Tilt should create some new avatars:
cartoon cleavage, ftp and porn, women with whips, full tilt sex, images of women with whips, my first girlfriend movie
*
Poker is not an easy game (for most people):
i suck at poker, you suck at poker, is phil ivey a donk, i am the lord of poker
*
Full Tilt’s blogs: a great source of information if you cross paths with a Mediterranean gypsy, fall ill, wind up in Hell, return to earth for an apocalyptic showdown with Good, and then have to reclaim your possessions in probate court:
how to lift italian curses, pictuer of a sick man liing in bed, 666lucifer.com, its the world gonna end on 212?, contesting wills
Tags: Gus Hansen, Jennifer Harman, Mike Matusow, Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Always looking to push the envelope, Full Tilt Poker is now adding an extra twist to your Friday nights. The Friday Night Fights. There are three new guarantee tournaments as well the chance to rail a Heads-Up match between two of your favorite Full Tilt pros. This week’s battle will take place between Gus Hansen and Andy Bloch.
Their match will kick off at 21:00ET but you can get in on the action an hour earlier by joining one of the $5,000 Sweat Tournaments. For $11 you can enter a $5,000 guarantee tournament with a chance at bigger prizes. You have an option to choose between a Gus Hansen or Andy Bloch tournaments, if you win the Sweat Tournament and your players wins his match, you will automatically win an entry into the $75,000 guarantee Friday Night Fights Knockout Tournament.
The Friday Night Fights Knockout Tournament is the final event of the night with a $500+35 entry fee and plenty of chances for some KO dollars. The tournament kicks off at 21:00ET along with the Gus Hansen/Andy Bloch Main Event.
More after the jump
Tags: AlCantHang, Andy Bloch, Bloggers on the Rail, Friday Night Fights, Gus Hansen
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Tom “durrr” Dwan issued a big challenge to poker players
Tom “durrr” Dwan threw down the gauntlet earlier this month via Bluff Magazine that involves big money and some of the biggest name in poker. Dwan spoke with them and issued the following challenge online:
“I’m making this heads-up challenge to the world. Anyone can accept. Four tables, minimum of $200/$400, and I’ll put up $1.5 million to their $500,000. We play 50,000 hands minimum and if they end up a dollar after rake they keep the side money or whatever. So basically, if you and I played and you won a dollar, you would get my $1.5 million and if I won a dollar I would win your $500,000.”
In followup forum posts, he clarified his intentions and has excluded his friend Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond from participating. It didn’t take long for some of the biggest names to accept the challenge, there are rumors running amok on the forums that Phil Ivey, David Benyamine and Patrik Antonius are ready to hit the tables and take him up on the offer.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey
Posted by Big Donkey | Filed under The Week at FTP
Ahh… late July. The WSOP is over until November, the sun is out, and the world’s poker pros have all scattered to their private islands to bake the toxins of the
Either that or they’re sitting around in front of air conditioners, chowing down on Ben & Jerry’s, and playing a little online poker here at the Tilt. Either way, they’re certainly having more fun than me.
Tags: Gus Hansen, WSOP
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