Poker From The Rail» Michael Craig

Big Money Sunday – October 18th

AlCantHang — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:08:58 +0000

It was one of the rare Big Money Sundays where the blog post almost writes itself. This week brought the monthly upgrade from the $750 Guarantee to the cool $1 Million Guarantee with a slightly smaller field and hugely larger prizepool. Big names were running deep all across the major tournaments and my little laptop screen was full of different tables as I attempted to capture some of the action.

My usual routine when keeping an eye on these tournaments is start at the beginning and move my way towards the big one, checking for red letter pros and big online runners, always looking for notables. When I took a quick look at the $1 Million Guarantee I saw two Full Tilt pros sitting together deep in the tournament. Both Vivek Rajkumar and Michael Craig (fresh off my having fun at his expense last week) were sitting together at one of the few remaining tables. Unfortunately Mister Craig busted out shortly after began railing him, getting out pipped when he 77 ran into 88 for 52nd place. Rajkumar, on the other hand, was a completely different story.

Once the field was down near 3 tables he picked up the lead and rarely released it. He started the final table with the chip lead and I sent an IM message to a friend saying “Vivek is running over the final table, he’ll have to be unlucky to lose.” I saw the exact same action in person when he took down the 2008 WPT Borgata Poker Open championship. He put his foot on their throat with constant pressure and never let up. In the end he chopped the prizepool heads up and took down the title for literally 1 penny short of $180,000. It was an impressive showing by the Full Tilt pro who also cashed in the Sunday Brawl. Also running deep in the $1 Million Guarantee were former FTOPS winner Jake “psutennis11” Toole, Brian Hastings, Phil “USCphildo” Collins, Brian “SN8WMAN” Hawkins, and Alex “AJKHoosier1” Kamberis.
All finishing in the top 100.

I also spent quite awhile railing the final few tables of the Sunday Mulligan that saw Matt “All In At 420″ Stout make a final table push along with FTOPS runner up Austin “The Quietwinner” McCormick, Dan “USCswimmer” White, Bruce “Not Michael” Buffer, and Rick “MookieBlaylock1″ Whittington. I have to give props to MookieBlaylock1 since he’s based in my home neighborhood. Stout battled the entire final table, eventually moving his way up into a 3rd place chip stack but ran into a big blind versus blind hand. His JackAce was no good against the small blind’s KQ. That put a hurt on his chances and the JackAce was his final undoing when it ran smack into Kings.

Matt Stout is a ton of fun, if you get a chance you should read his blog post about getting berated at the Borgata in a preliminary event. I was one of the bloggers who witnessed the hand and this guy would not let it go. Just laying into Stout while he calming stacked the poor Jersey gentleman’s chips. He got “scumbagged”.

Those were the two really interesting developments during the evening, the Brawl moved along quickly and I continue to only throw a mildly amused eye towards the $200k Double Deuce. Yet another situation developed as they moved towards the final table that me shaking my head in disbelief. Simple question for every poker player on the planet, except for maybe this one. You need to call here with any two cards.

It was a 5-handed table just short of the final 9 players. With blinds at 50k/100k/10k ante it folded around to totsev on the button who pushed for 1,085,351. slikone is the chip leader sitting in the small blind and flat calls the all-in bet. JetYourChips in the big blind reshoves for 1,508,393. How can a player possibly fold getting near 10 to 1 with over a million already invested? Here’s the math, slikeone only needed to call 423,042 to win a 4,152,137 pot. 9.8 to 1 odds with any two cards with a chance to knock out two players and hit the final table with a much larger chip lead. Needless to say, slikone folded or I wouldn’t be writing this. Don’t believe my account, here’s the screenprint before he folded. Don’t ask me why I grabbed it then, I just had a feeling he was going to fold.

Click to enlarge

I felt pretty confident in my prediction that slikone was not going to win this tournament even with the chip lead. And I was correct.

You can find final table numbers and results after the jump:

The Sunday Brawl
Entrants: 2,606
Prizepool: $521,200
First place: $105,803.60

pez102 – 2,227,216
YrrsiN – 962,485
jse81 – 956,749
Irv Gotti – 745,998
DonT11 – 693,960
Vluff S4S – 669,629
XXJNRXX – 666,256
Sammy Siam A – 475,449
chinchati27 – 420,258

1st – pez102 – $105,803.60
2nd – YrrsiN – $68,277.20
3rd – XXJNRXX – $50,556.40
4th – DonT11 – $38,047.60
5th – Sammy Slam A – $26,581.20
6th – jse81 – $17,720.80
7th – Vluff S4S – $11,987.60
8th – Irv Gotti – $8,339.20
9th – chinchat27 – $6,254.40

The $200k Double Deuce
Entrants: 10,718
Prizepool: $214,360
First place: $33,225.80

slikone – 8,379,095
Chezebby – 5,856,510
Henrich1 – 4,619,988
ppucca – 4,083,276
JetYourChips – 3,649,095
PageUpV – 2,731,944
CEJM 2008 – 2,321,396
woodpigeon – 1,968,773
Tommy Cash 99 – 901,883

1st and 2nd made a deal:

1st – ppucca – $28,947.69
2nd – Chezebby – $26,785.91
3rd – JetYourChips – $15,862.64
4th – silkone – $11,403.95
5th – CEJM 2008 – $8,360.04
6th – Henrich1 – $6,002.08
7th – PageUpV – $4,287.20
8th – woodpigeon – $3,065.35
9th – Tommy Cash 99 – $2,167.18

$1 Million Guarantee
Entrants: 2,326
Prizepool: $1,163,000
First Place: $213,352.35

Vivek Rajkumar – 2,226,316
aheggem – 1,759,146
krasark – 1,635,222
tyme2gab0l111 – 1,457,196
bdubs3737 – 1,249,503
Jake “psutennis11” Toole – 966,264
bedias – 952,562
thugmonkeymkr – 854,647
smokrokbyflock – 529,144

1st – Vivek Rajkumar – $179,999.99
2nd – krasark – $164,306.16
3rd – bdubs3737 – $85,713.10
4th – tyme2gamb0l111 – $68,384.40
5th – aheggem – $51,753.50
6th – bedias – $37,216.00
7th – thugmonkeymkr – $27,330.50
8th – smokrokbyflock – $21,399.20
9th – Jake “psutennis11” Toole – $16,282.00

The Sunday Mulligan
Entrants: 1,282
Prizepool: $256,400
First place: $56,408

leguito – 627,680
kvista – 521,077
AKat11 – 517,515
MrQuist – 511,628
Big Dann – 494,561
The_End_15 – 354,729
Timvd20 – 318,793
Matt “All In At 420″ Stout – 318,535
WhoIsThisGuy – 181,482

1st – kvista – $56,408.00
2nd – AKat11 – $35,896.00
3rd – leguito – $26,409.20
4th – The_End_15 – $20,832.50
5th – WhoIsThisGuy – $16,025.00
6th – MrQuist – $11,538.00
7th – Matt “All In At 420″ Stout – $7,692.00
8th – Big Dann – $5,769.00
9th – Timvd20 – $4,102.40

Post from: Poker From The Rail

Big Money Sunday – October 18th

2009 World Series of Poker – Full Tilt blogger finishes second!

AlCantHang — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:42:05 +0000

And that blogger would not be me.

We almost had special day for the Full Tilt blogging team here in Vegas. The writing team consists of two people, myself and Michael Craig. Two basic differences between us, Michael can write and play poker. I’m a keyboard hack and boardline grinder. Michael made his third WSOP final table yesterday, I once won a private $10 tournament on Full Tilt.

Michael batted through Day 2 of the Razz tournament and started the final day 8th out of 12. I’m assuming the blame goes toward the structure, but players were busting early and often. The unofficial “9-handed” final table was setup on the secondary feature table with a few players that had a shot. East Coast monster Allen Bari (over $1,000,000 in career tournament earnings), Kenna James (+$3,000,000 career), and of course Jeff Lisandro who already two WSOP bracelets this year.

I did a little “railing” dance throughout the day. Michael would start losing chips, I’d move back to my perch atop media row to watch from afar. He’d start moving up and I would go back. That’s how it went all day. I did not want to be his personal cooler so most of my “railing” was via the internet.

At one point he was the shortstack of the table then he started his run to second chip stack. The other players made their way out of the tournament to hit up the cage for a payout but he stuck around. Unfortunately for Michael the ultimate Stud “stud” was still sitting there. According the chip count reports, Jeff Lisandro was sitting with well over half the chips in play when 4 other players were still involved.

It was only a matter of time before everyone would succumb to his power. Senor Craig finished in second place, just shy of that elusive first WSOP braclet but no dishonor in losing to Lisandro. Not only is this Lisandro’s third WSOP bracelet this year but he’s won all three in different variations of Seven Card Stud. Stud Hi, Stud Hi-Low, and now Razz.

Congrats to Michael and I can’t wait to read his post (edit: his first post it up). He was taking enough notes for a new book.

For the record, I tried to find a picture of the ever-elusive Shauna sweating Michael for you my gentle readers. Either she dodged the camera well or she’s a ghost we’ve been imagining.

Post from: Poker From The Rail

2009 World Series of Poker – Full Tilt blogger finishes second!

2009 World Series of Poker Day 29 – Day of the Blogger?

AlCantHang — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:51:59 +0000

It’s been a crazy few days with so many chances for Team Full Tilt to add to their riches. Last night was Jon “Pearljammer” Turner’s chance in the $2,500 Mixed Event but fell short in 5th place. Combined with Vitaly Lunkin finishing second in the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha final table and several Tilters just missing the $5,000 Shootout finals, Team Full Tilt is pushing to add some more prizes before the Main Event rolls around in a few weeks.

Fellow blogger Michael Craig is the latest chance for the red letter FTP players. He enters Day 3 of the $2,500 Razz tournament. He sits 8th out of the remaining 13 and plenty of tough players to deal with. Two of the top Player of the Year candidates sit in the field, Jeff Lisandro and Ville Wahlbeck. I’ll be sweating his action the entire day as he tries to win one for Full Tilt and for bloggers everywhere.

The Senior’s Event will play down to their winner today…..

Toto Leonidas and David “The Dragon” Pham lead the Full Tilt players into Day 2 of the Pot Limit Hold’em World Championship. 85 of the original 275 remain with 27 players getting paid. The winner received 2/3rds of a million dollars. Play resumes in the orange section of the Amazon Room.

Only one new tournament is kicking off today, the $2,500 Mixed Hold’em (alternate between No Limit and Limit Hold’em). We’re slowing making our way towards the big $50,000 HORSE event on Friday which is just a gateway to the Main Event and a new World Champion.

Chip counts for the restarts after the jump:

Event #43 Seniors No Limit Hold’em
Buyin: $1,000
Number of Entries: 2,707
Net Prize Pool: $2,463,700
First Place Prize: $437,358
Total Spots Paid Out: 270
Players Remaining: 28

1	Tom Thomas	917,000
2	Charles Simon	626,000
3	Scott Buller	541,000
4	John Bennett	487,000
5	Zip Vitullo	420,000
6	Richard McCall	414,000
7	David Posey	342,000
8	Barry Bounds	342,000
9	Mitch Garshofsky	309,000
10	Theodore Garner	303,000
11	Robert Beck	302,000
12	Daniel DeLatorre	301,000
13	Steven Schwartz	293,000
14	Marvin Darnold	280,000
15	Michael Morusty	280,000
16	Art Duncan	264,500
17	Michael Davis	237,000
18	Alan Hance	236,000
19	Tony Brenner	174,000
20	Theodore McCollom	173,000
21	Clyde Reed	140,000
22	Duffy Riebe	138,000
23	Ken Centanni	119,000
24	Adolfo Gonzalez	107,000
25	Chuck McCormick	101,000
26	Gioi Luong	100,000
27	Jeff Heiberg	82,000
28	Maru Jagiello	80,000

Event #44 Razz
Buyin: $2,500
Number of Entries: 315
Net Prize Pool: $724,500
First Place Prize: $188,390
Total Spots Paid Out: 32
Players Remaining: 13

1	Jeff Lisandro	438,000
2	Steve Diano	302,000
3	Don Zewin	300,000
4	Kenny James	284,000
5	Warwick Mirzikinian	191,000
6	Ryan Fisler	190,000
7	Bill Cole	182,000
8	Michael Craig	102,000
9	Nikolay Evdakov	88,000
10	Eric Rodawig	75,000
11	Allen Barb	62,000
12	Ville Wahlbeck	55,000
13	Al Barbieri	DNR

Event #45 Pot Limit Hold’em World Championship
Buyin: $10,000
Number of Entries: 275
Net Prize Pool: $2,585,000
First Place Prize: $633,335
Total Spots Paid Out: 27
Players Remaining: 85

Top 50 chip stacks:

1	Brummelhuis, Michiel	330,200
2	Leonidas, Toto	241,100
3	Gerasimov, Kirill	213,200
4	Fish, Darryll	209,100
5	Kagawa, Masaaki	194,900
6	Pham, David	187,500
7	Lee, Kwang	182,400
8	Kamran, Michael	180,000
9	Kahlmeyer, Tim	178,300
10	Kabbaj, John	176,800
11	Kopp, Billy	171,700
12	Lennaard, Ken	161,000
13	Rafalowicz	157,000
14	Stammen, Keven	146,600
15	Kenny, Brian	142,800
16	Haxton, Isaac	141,400
17	Simon, Sam	140,900
18	Boutin, Burt	128,500
19	Moore, Chris	126,700
20	Ludovic, Lacay	120,800
21	Young, Justin	120,600
22	Liukku, Kimmo	120,200
23	Seidel, Eric	118,500
24	Staudenmaier, Luke	114,200
25	Pettersson, Thomas	113,800
26	Baldwin, Eric	113,200
27	Jacob, Alex	111,200
28	Nishijima, Thiago	109,900
29	Davidi, Kitai	109,700
30	Alvarado, JC	108,200
31	Jomeen, Karim	107,200
32	Todd, Eugene	105,500
33	Smith, Jordan	104,000
34	Pesek, Michael	103,800
35	Popov, Alex	102,900
36	Lehr, Keith	101,800
37	Rosenblum, Russell	101,500
38	Firestone, Bobby	101,200
39	Medic, Nenad	95,400
40	Langmann, Florian	95,300
41	Lesnoy, Dmitry	95,000
42	Chen, Bill	90,100
43	G, Nam	86,000
44	Drescher, Daniel	85,100
45	Heinecker, Niklas	83,600
46	Rabin, Gary	82,900
47	Steicke, David	81,500
48	Chan, Terrence	81,500
49	Greenwood, Max	81,100
50	Charania, Mohsin	81,000

Event #46 Omaha Hi-Low Split
Buyin: $2,500
Number of Entries: 424
Net Prize Pool: $975,200
First Place Prize: $229,192
Total Spots Paid Out: 45
Players Remaining: 196

Top 50 chip stacks:

1	Schlein, Joshua	60,700
2	Luu, Thang	56,200
3	Bohlman, Scott	48,300
4	Im, Eddie	47,000
5	Tunkel, Jeff	45,300
6	Ruiz, Armando	44,000
7	Bowker, Kyle	40,300
8	Hua, Can	38,400
9	Appleman, Mickey	37,200
10	Poels, Pat	36,900
11	Enoch, Jameson	35,400
12	Tulchinskiy, Mikhail	35,200
13	Glantz, Matt	35,000
14	Eichel, William	34,900
15	Odell, Frankie	34,200
16	Motlow, Will	34,000
17	Jamshidi, Sirous	33,100
18	Juanda, John	32,700
19	Schock, Mitch	32,600
20	Newburger, Jason	30,600
21	Ruppert, Aaron	30,500
22	Johns, Ian	30,000
23	Miller, Travis	29,700
24	Lind III, George	28,900
25	Chen, Steve	28,300
26	Watkinson, Lee	27,900
27	Esposito, John	27,000
28	Kirkwood, Robert	26,600
29	McLaughlin, Steve	26,400
30	Loehde, Jason	26,400
31	Darden, Paul	26,400
32	Morgan, Jordan	26,100
33	Ladowsky, Stephen	26,000
34	Pescatori, Max	25,600
35	Costa, Marcelo	25,200
36	Stencil, Steven	25,200
37	Vengrin, Matt	25,100
38	Coppola, Fabio	25,000
39	Schwertley, Brett	24,400
40	Wong, Steve	24,300
41	Keiner, Michael	23,300
42	La, Meng	23,300
43	Do, Gary	23,100
44	Rossi, Simone	22,900
45	Gold, Ben	22,700
46	Dolan, Thom	22,700
47	Nathan, Rayan	22,700
48	Shorr, Shannon	22,400
49	Lotito, Dave	22,300
50	Cole, Jeffrey	22,200

Post from: Poker From The Rail

2009 World Series of Poker Day 29 – Day of the Blogger?

2009 World Series of Poker – The Week in Pictures

AlCantHang — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:03:38 +0000

In my other life as a completely unprofessional blogger (I am semi-pro at best in this space), I always take the stand that posting nothing but pictures on your site is just the crutch of a weak blogger. Words are hard, pretty picture keep the masses coming back. However, pictures can have the great effect of enhancing a story and I’ve been getting some top shelf images sent my way via Images Masters. Each Friday I’ll share with you some of the best images available.

All images credited to IMDPI.

Pictures after the jump, click to enlarge.

Eli Elezra playing in the 2009 World Series of Poker Event #3 Limit Omaha/8.
He would go on to cash in 20th place.

Fellow Full Tilt blogger Michael Craig playing in Event # 4 “Stimulus Special”

2007 WSOP Main Event Champion Jerry Yang in The Champions Invitational, which was new to the 200 World Series of Poker. The tournament featured former WSOP Main Event winners. Tom McEvoy eventually won the Binion’s Cup.

Poker legend Ted Forrest was eliminated in 9th at the final table of the $40,000 No Limit Hold’em Event #2. An event to honor the 40th Anniversary of the World Series of Poker, the field was stacked with some of the best players in the world.

Prior to the 2009 World Series of Poker, there were thoughts that this would be the year of the Russian poker players. Full Tilt pro Vitaly Lunkin started on the right foot by winning the $40,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament.

The $40,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament was one of final tables to be broadcast by ESPN. Winner Vitaly Lunkin is sitting in front of his piles of cash and giving the traditional Norm Chad post-victory interview.

Jeff Madsen ponders his action during Day 1B of the $1,000 “Stimulus Special”.
Gavin Smith in the foreground.

Amanda “Mandy B” Baker playing on Day 2 of the $1,000 “Stimulus Special”. She would go on a great run but finish in 33rd. $22,000 return on her $1,000 investment.

Allen Cunningham ponders the action during the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha tournament

Erick Lindgren starts Day 2 of the World Championship Seven Card Stud

Erica Schoenberg playing in the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em Event #7

Between hands in the No Limit 2-7 Draw tournament, Chris Ferguson takes time to play some games on his phone

Phil Ivey plays Day 2 of the No Limit 2-7 Draw tournament.
Bracelet number 6 is just days away.

Phil Ivey eyes up bracelet number 6 during NL 2-7 Draw final table.
He would win it eventually after a 3 hour heads-up battle with John Monnette.

Post from: Poker From The Rail

2009 World Series of Poker – The Week in Pictures

MiniFTOPS Event #1 – My Recap

AlCantHang — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:40:30 +0000

Alternate Title: How 6-max and flat-callers tilted me

Michael Craig claims that FTOPS acts as a vampire to his bankroll, after one MiniFTOPS I’m almost willing to put that claim down. My performance certainly was not outstanding and in the end I just tilted off my chips in a way I haven’t done in quite some time. It took me 4 straight episodes of Family Guy to finally come down off the ledge and take a look at what happened.

The numbers were huge. Over 14,000 players volunteered $22 for a shot at the $42,000 first prize. The total prizepool came to $280,000 and change. That’s 70 million chips plus in play with a slow structure and plenty of room to play the NLHE 6-max format. I was all set to go and make my mark on the very first MiniFTOPS event. I had my strategy in my mind, pick my spots and use the structure against the impatient push monkeys.

Best laid plans of mice and men.

The first hour was uneventful as it should be. This tournament was going to be 4 or 5 hours before it even sniffed the money bubble. I picked up a few biggish hands, no action on my one AA hand but I did have a dead stack to my left at the start for a little chip stealing. I was as high at 7k and started the break just under the chip average. Life was good and players were dropping at an amazing rate. Then I found the table where Full Tilt grayed out the fold button for most players.

I will never be that guy who goes on and on about the sub-par play in small buyin tournaments. I won’t go on and on, I promise.

6-max is obviously not the format most suited for my game. From what I can tell, the optimum strategy is to disregard position, hand strength and the betting patterns of your opponents. Suited connectors are practically unbeatable, ace rag will never lose, and baby pairs are the mortal nuts to three raises.

My patience was paying off for awhile, even if I had to snap a couple players off who began to think my blinds were there for the stealing, but I never showed down anything that wasn’t upper deck. I started to lose some chips by open-raising with big aces only to get half the table calling down then folding to monster action post-flop. I admit that I let the calling stations get under my skin. After the 100th time of the same player making moves on my BB, I made a read that my 88 was way ahead of his junk on the flop.

Bad read as he finally had a hand for the first time we were at the same table. 88 no good versus AA with two cards to come. I take full credit for losing my patience, making a bad read, and then way overplaying afterwards. My game plan went right out the window and I have no one to blame. Except those few button-mashing, junk-calling, over-hyphenating lemurs that I’ve added to my enemy list.

At least I outlasted Michael Craig, I’m putting that on my resume.

FTOPS and MiniFTOPS information after the jump.

Post from: Poker From The Rail

MiniFTOPS Event #1 – My Recap

Weekend Plans for April 10th

AlCantHang — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:35:35 +0000

Eli Elezra and Chau Giang will battle it out in Friday Night Fights

Another tough week of grinding away at the tables will be rewarded this weekend with the big guarantee tournaments and other special events. Qualify continues on a regular schedule for both the 2009 World Series of Poker and the upcoming FTOPS XII which kicks off in less than a month.

Tonight brings us the latest in the Friday Night Fights, pitting Eli Elezra against Chau Giang in a Heads-up battle. They will play heads-up in a $50/$100 HA game – half Pot-Limit Hold ‘em, half Pot-Limit Omaha – starting with $10K in chips in a “winner take all” session. While you are railing there match, you can play in the $500, $75,000 guarantee Friday Night Fights tournament and a $10 Sweat Tournament at 20:05ET.

Big action and big prizepools for the taking. More for you after the jump.

“I firmly believe that it’s impossible to play too tight in Omaha Hi/Lo, especially in a ring game. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not especially fun to play the game that tight, but if you have the patience for it, it’s as good a game as any to make money in.”
- Chip Jett – Selecting Starting Hands in Omaha Hi/Lo

I’m a huge fan of Omaha/8 and it’s my preferred cash game, action I enjoy much more than the perceived push and pray fun of NLHE. If you feel the same way I suggest you hit up Chip Jett’s Pro Tip #183 for Omaha/8 hand selection. Many people find it dull since the most profitable play is the nut/nut grind but you’d be surprised just how it easy to pick off the weak players who don’t play optimum poker.

Besides Jett’s latest nugget, there is plenty of great advice that comes out each week in the Full Tilt Pro Tips. Add this to your Full Tilt Poker Academy experiences and you’ll improve your game by leaps and bounds in a much shorter time than in the past.

For the 1% of people who are not aware, fellow Full Tilt blogger Michael Craig authored one of my favorite poker books to date (The Professor, The Banker, and The Suicide King), the story of the biggest heads-up battle which occurred between Texan banker Andy Beal and a group of the biggest players in poker. For a couple reasons I began wondering what was going on with Andy Beal and whether the game would ever continue.

One, with the big Heads-up match between Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Partik Antonius in the durrrr Challenge it was an easy leap to try and compare the two grudge matches. Two, there’s a little banking crisis going on in the world and Beal is a big banker with a unique business strategy.

No sooner did I start thinking about the Beal matches and Michael Craig posted an update on the Full Tilt Poker Blog. As I suspected, Beal is just a little too busy with taking care of business to worry too much about a “little” poker game. You can read the rest of the post my jumping to the link below.

“So what does all this mean? First, Andy Beal is too busy for poker now. I remember, back in February 2006, he said he wasn’t even finding the heat of battle in a high-stakes poker game especially rewarding. I asked why he still did it and he said, “What am I going to do? Work one hour a day? Go to bed at 8 o’clock?” Andy says he’s done with high-stakes poker but as long as the economy stays as it is, his resolve won’t even be tested. Second, the FORBES article reveals something I have known for awhile, which is Andy’s interest in race cars.”
Michael Craig – Andy Beal’s Biggest Game

Big Money Sundays will also be running the normal stable of big guarantee tournaments as well as some big WSoP satellites. I suspect the fields will be a little smaller with the holiday and you might find some bargains in the big games as well as some of the smaller buy-in guarantee tournaments throughout the day. A perfect time to get some action.

Tournament: The Sunday Brawl
When: Sundays at 14:00 ET
Game: Deepstack NLHE with Knockouts
Buyin: $240+16
Guarantee: $350,000 prizepool

Tournament: The $200K Double Deuce
When: Sundays at 16:22 ET
Game: NLHE
Buyin: $20+2
Guarantee: $200,000 prizepool

Tournament: $750,000 Guarantee
When: Sundays at 18:00 ET
Game: Deepstack NLHE
Buyin: $200+16
Guarantee: $750,000 prizepool

Tournament: The Sunday Mulligan
When: Sundays at 19:05 ET
Game: Deepstack NLHE
Buyin: $200+16
Guarantee: $200,000 prizepool

Post from: Poker From The Rail

Weekend Plans for April 10th

Goatttt Challenge Terms are Set

AlCantHang — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:58:46 +0000

A few weeks ago, our guest blogger Julius_Goat issued a challenge to fellow Full Tilt blogger Michael Craig similar to the durrrr Challenge. Except it would be micro-limit, far fewer hands and nothing major at stake. But completely the same other than that.

Well Mr. Craig responded and now Julius_Goat offers up his end of the bet. I hope this happens and it’s nearly as funny as we all think it will be. You can read his terms after the jump.

(On a serious note, you need to check out the durrrr Challenge stat tracker. Just shy of 6,000 and they are almost dead even.)

Goatttt Challenge Terms
by Julius_Goat

Well, Mr. Craig, you did it. You incapacitated me with your cowardice. Also, you blinded me with science, but that’s not important right now. I came to you in good faith, offering you 3:1 money at micro stakes, and what do you do? What, I ask? What?

No seriously, what? It’s been nearly three weeks since I fell to the floor in shocked disbelief at your craven and scurrulous response. Let’s see, let’s see . . .

Oh. Right. That.

So, you don’t fancy actually playing for money, and think you can hide by claiming you don’t need my filthy lucre, eh, Mr. Craig? You’d rather have a YouTube vid or photograph of me eating something awful? And not only that, but you have to invent a female “assistant” to answer me. I call shenanigans on your so-called Gal Friday, sir. That’s right, I said it. Shenanigans!

Let’s face it, Mr. Craig, if you can’t afford my offer, you certainly can’t afford to pay the kind of money it would take to get one of the fairer sex to interact with you on a semi-regular basis, even over the Internet.

Furthermore, you couch your response in legal blather. Really sir? Legal talk? I thought we were poker players, not degenerates.

But very well, I am as flexible as I am magnanimous as I am good at poker stuff as I am at writerly sentences that are concise and easy to read without run-ons or dangling participles which I hate and besides I am also taller than you.

I will accept your terms, with the following provisos.

1) As it is unlikely that I will be able to attend this summer’s WSOP — nearly as unlikely as (for example) you beating me. As I am unwilling to contract bachilism, mad cow disease, scurvy, dropsy, the whoop-whoop fever, sad lurky, morveliscm, angry poot rash, beefy marmenstein, or any other uncomfortable, debilitating, or hilarious disease for the sake of your prancing monkey entertainment, the foodstuff selected must be either: (a) non-perishable; or (b) sealed in its container with a “best eaten by” date that is clearly and indelibly marked and not less than 15 days from the date of receipt by me.

2) If the above is impractical or undesirable to you, then you may either a) pay for the refrigerated and airtight transfer of said foodstuff, or b) communicate to me a fungible foodstuff that may be purchased within my county of origin.

3) If you ain’t playing for money, brother, then neither am I. In the extremely likely, nearly inevitable, case that you lose to me, you need not pay me the $5 bounty. Instead,

(a) You will, for an entire day of a 2009 WSOP tournament in which you are playing, wear a hat, which I will ship to you on your dime. If you are not playing a tournament, you will wear it during a televised event that you are covering.

(b) Specifically, you will wear a goat hat.

(d) You will, of course, submit to me photographic or video evidence of this.

(e) I reserve the right to find and send a more hilarious goat hat, should one become available, or (sadly) a less hilarious goat hat, should this one remain out of stock.

Mess with a goat, you get the horns. The silly horns that curl back so that the pointed parts can’t possibly hurt you, but the horns nonetheless. You have my terms. Let’s set a time and a date and do this like Brutus, cause you knew ‘dis.

Post from: Poker From The Rail

Goatttt Challenge Terms are Set

Guest Post – Drizztdj – Chatting for Profit

AlCantHang — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:38:21 +0000

The Battle of the Blogger Tournaments 4 started up this weekend with a great showing. Bloggers/readers and a few big name online pros made their appearance in the first few events. These are not your average smaller buyin events, the play is a little tougher than you would expect at these levels. Not unexpected with thousands of dollars in added prizes on the line and 7 WSoP seats.

You will also find some very interesting banter in the chat as a lot of players have seen each other over the course of play and sometimes it gets a little heated. When that happens you need to know how to use it to your benefit.

Funnyman/blogger Drizztdj brings us a primer on that very subject. Stop back later in the week for a roundup of the week’s action as well as Michael Craig responding to the Julius_Goatttt Challenge.

Chatting For Profit
by Drizztdj

You’re a busy person.

Work, kids, school, A-Rod Fan Club President, professional poker player, needs to get a haircut. In the mist of getting twenty-five things done at once, you find the time to sit down at your favorite laptop , PC, or MAC and decide to fire up a few tournament tables here at Full Tilt. With that extra block of time you choose a couple of MTTs with fat guarantees and settle into your chair with a favorite beverage or eight sitting to your right.

Motoring along in the second hour of the $27,500 guarantee $26 token tourney, you find yourself with double the starting stack but under par and getting your blinds picked off by the big stacks as the antes kick in. The money spots won’t hit until the third or fourth hour and barring the dealer gifting you some big pocket pairs soon, you’ll need to pick a spot to gamble. After a tug off your Captain and Coke (or insert favorite drink here as I’m biased towards the spiced rum) and holding only seven big blinds you’re dealt 8s-9s in the big blind. Folded around to the aggressive big stack that has been using your blinds as his personal ATM for the past half hour, he min-raises again from middle position getting the rest of the table to flip over to CNN for the latest on Obama’s stimulus plans. Being in a spot to hopefully get two live cards in for a gamble and maybe net his chips in the middle, you shove over the top of his fourth straight raise pre-flop and are sadly met by a snap call with red aces.

“Oh well, gg folks!” you type into the chat box as there’s a decision to be made on one of the other tables and your focus heads to another screen. Flop comes down Ts-4h-Js, and suddenly those pocket fives on the other table don’t seem very exciting as you just flopped an open ended straight flush draw. A pulse in your seemingly dead tournament life, you cheer for those 15 outs twice waking up the wife in the process but will deal with her wraith later, live outs baby!

2s falls on the turn and you offer an “unlucky” in the chat box to your opponent’s crushed pocket rockets, suddenly you have chips again and a new outlook toward snagging that $4,000+ first prize. Poker is fun! But, wait, what’s this?

“U r a f in dkey, looser ROFL omg idiot!!11” come from the rock avatar as his once mountain of chips went from Mount Everest to K-2, after you managed a few snowflakes off the peak of his stack. Being a calm player, you offer another condolence for the cracked aces, but are careful not to educate the irate player as to why you made the move.

Unfortunately, this happens with any successful run to the final table of a lengthy MTT. Somewhere along the line, you found two cards to gamble your short stack/beginning stack with and hit a flush, a set, or snared that dominated kicker on the river. Its poker, best hand does not always win, the sooner you learn that lesson, the more likely you will keep your wits when the above situation happens and not end up throwing a laptop or berating a play that made perfect sense if you were in his shoes with the cracked aces.

Some people thrive on anger and turn their aggression into a pile of blinds, antes, and continuation bets being shipped towards their stack. But, playing optimum poker is best done when you are able to analyze the situation quickly and make the best positive expectation play. Letting someone’s comments in the chat box get to that Zen-like calm can mean spewing chips, buy-ins, and cheating yourself out of a potential three, four, five, or six figure score just because you couldn’t handle being called a poorly typed name.

Now there’s a couple of ways to go about releasing the tension from the poor sport in the five seat:

1. Battle of words
2. Silent treatment

Choosing to face the mouth breather to a battle of wits in the chat box can be effective as long as you don’t stoop to his level. Coming up with mama/sister jokes and using a plethora of poor poker playing adjectives might tilt the other player into a bad play, but most likely have the reverse effect as you look up your next witty one-liner on Google.

The better decision is the silent treatment. No one likes to be ignored and thanks to the wonders of technology, here at Full Tilt you can simply right click on the ball of rage’s avatar and choose to block their chat. Or if you prefer, just read along with every insult about your car being able to fit inside a chihuahua’s dog house and laugh with it instead of feeling the need to press your intellectual superiority.

Check raises, floats, and stop-and-gos are not the only weapons you can use at the table to win. Using your head and staying calm while others make bad decisions based on an inability to accept a suckout, can take you from being a break-even player to a profitable one!

Post from: Poker From The Rail

Guest Post – Drizztdj – Chatting for Profit

Guest Post – Julius Goat – The Goatttt Challenge

AlCantHang — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:57:36 +0000

No doubt every online player knows that Tom “durrrr” Dwan is in the middle of his Challenge with Patrik Antonius on the Full Tilt PLO tables. They have played near 10% of the 50,000 hands and Dwan is currently leading. A long ways to go.

While you are watching those great games from the rail, we have another challenge that could be fun to watch. Blogger versus blogger, a little bit of money but a ton of smack talk. Resident Poker From the Rail guest blogger is throwing down the gauntlet to fellow FTP blogger Michael Craig. Not nearly the amount of money in play as the durrrr Challenge but these guys have their egos on the line.

Waiting on Michael’s response.

The Goatttt Challenge: Calling Out Michael Craig
by Julius_Goat

Like most of you, I am following two new developments in the wold of Full Tilt Poker with great interest. Unlike most of you, I am following it with nothing but two atrophied brain cells and a complete lack of fact checking as I write this, but I’m sure I am getting all the details correct, so just take my word for it, okay?

The first development is the now-famous “Durrrr Challenge” named after the young internet poker phenom Tom “Durrrr Dwan” Challenge, who first came to national prominence in a televised heads-up match with Phil Hellmuth, who accused him of using far too many of the letter “r” in a row.

Durrrrrecently threw down the high stakes internet poker gauntlet with resounding authority by announcing that he would take on all comers in at least $200/$400 PLO or NLHE for at least 50,000 hands. What makes this prop bet especially juicy is that if the challenger is ahead after the alloted number of hands by $1 or more, Dwan will ship $1.5 million. If Dwan is ahead by $1 or more, the challenger need only ship 500K. What this means, in essence, is that Dwan is saying to the world at large, “I am three times better than anybody else.” Cheeky bastard, no? Dwan may disagree with this characterization, justifiably pointing out that he’s trying to spice up the pot to generate some good games, but I’m using my 9th grade math for the first time in my life, so get out of my way.

The sole exception to this challenge is Durrrr’s good buddy Clay “OMGPhilGalfond” Aiken, who apparently knows a little bit too much about his playing style, or perhaps is too good a friend to want to take so much money from, or maybe Phil is really Dwan, having gone back in time through the Lost island and joined the Dharma Initiative somehow. In any event, Durrrr is now playing a promising young newcomer named Patrick Antonius, who is currently ahead. Let me be the first to say it: I think this Antonius kid might be the real deal. In a few years, I bet we’re talking about him as one of the great players in the game. You read it here.

The second is the long awaited introduction of micro-stakes cash games to Full Tilt Poker. This is wonderful for me, because now I can play cash games for considerably longer before I’ve lost all of my money. I can now neglect to learn from my mistakes for far less per hand than I used to have to pay, and for that, I speak for all my fellow donkeys in saying, “Thank you, Full Tilt, thank you!”.

This may seem like a rather rambling and tangential post, but here’s where I pull the drawstrings tight and hit you with the mad confluence of my craft. I say, to hell with Egon Spengler, I’m crossing the streams. That’s right, Julius_Goat is where micro stakes and the Durrrr Challenge meet.

I am issuing my own Durrrr Challenge. I will play anybody in PLO or NLHE for at least 50 hands at stakes no more than $0.02/$0.04. If I am up by a penny or more at the end of the arranged hands, I will get $5. However, if my challenger is up a penny or more at the end, I will send him or her $15. This challenge is open to anybody who is a poker writer for Full Tilt Poker’s blog named Michael Craig, as long as said challenger is also the author of the popular book The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King.

Why Michael Craig? Well, first I sort of know the guy, in an Internet way. He awarded me an FTOPS seat once as a prize for one of his writing contests, even though I speak no English. He makes himself available via email and instant message. And now, I take that policy of openness and accessibility, hone it to a point, and shiv him right between the shoulder blades. Open up the loading bay, Craig, because here comes your surprise delivery of smack talk.

Reasons I Am Challenging Michael Craig

1) I am three time the player that Michael Craig is. Easily. There are all kinds of proofs of this, they are everywhere. In fact, it’s so obvious that I’ll just leave it to you to think of seven or eight of them right off the top of your head.

2) I am also four times the player Michael Craig is. You can’t argue with math.

3) Michael Craig is semi-literate. It’s a well-known fact that most of Michael Craig’s blog posts are outsourced to a shop in Bangalore. Again, it’s so well-known that I don’t really see the need to cite any sources on this. Just think, off the top of your head, of twelve or thirteen respected news source that have reported this, and we’re good.

4) Michael Craig is a shaved ape. I don’t really have any comment to add to this, but I thought it was important to get this in print. Truth is beauty, you know.

5) Michael Craig killed my father. Taking him in online poker for five bucks and change seems like a suitable revenge, no? I’ve been plotting this for nearly seven years. That’s something like 49 dog years, Michael. Hope that helps you figure it out.

OK, now that this challenge has been thrown down in rather over-the-top, semi-slanderous (but I want to stress, completely, utterly and unequivocally true) fashion, the ball is in Craig’s court. What do you say, Craig? Are you ready to feel the hurt? Are you ready for the Goatttt Challenge, or are you a coward on top of everything else? The world is watching.

Post from: Poker From The Rail

Guest Post – Julius Goat – The Goatttt Challenge

FTOPS X comes to an end with Main Event

AlCantHang — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:43:57 +0000

Full Tilt blogger Michael Craig runs deep in FTOPS X Main Event

FTOPS X finished up early this morning when over 5,000 players built a prizepool which exceeded $2,600,000. Each player started with 7500 in chips plus 15 minute levels, this was guaranteed to be an event that drew the top online players and there was plenty of room to make moves. 11 members of Team Full Tilt would cash in the event with resident FTP blogger Michael Craig and Peter “nordberg” Feldman the last standing.

Julian Verse took down the $450k top prize after nearly 12 hours of play concluding play in this incarnation of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series. There was a ton of great play over the last 25 events and exceeded expectations. FTP guaranteed $5,000,000 in prizes and the final prize pool topped out at $5,908,900 with over 20,000 players in all events.

After leading the unofficial Poker From the Rail Red Pro leader for the first half of FTOPS X, Aaron Bartley had to give up the top spot to David Pham who pulled in over $111k in the $300 rebuy Event #16. Pham eventually finished the series with $126k and Bartley’s series finished up with $72k. Bartley also led the pros in number of cashes (5 total) followed by Brandon Adams, Huck Seed, Stuart Paterson and Ali Sarkesik all with 4.

At first glance it doesn’t not seem like the red pros had a great run this FTOPS but statistically it was a success. They were responsible for 3.4% of the buyins (707 of 20783) yet pulled out 7% of the prizepool ($413,437.30 of $5,908,900). They started off slow but picked it up at the end in the big events. I’m sure there are quite a few wishing they had a better series, but it was a great run by some big names.

Here is your final Red Pro leaderboard. You can see the official Full Tilt leaderboard for FTOPS X by clicking here

1. David Pham – $126,879.90
2. Aaron Bartley – $72,149.24
3. Brandon Adams – $58,665.75
4. Nordberg – $19,291.24
5. Craig Marquis – $17,500.00
6. Ram Vaswani – $16,912.50
7. Brian Hastings – $7,700.00
8. HuckleberrySeed – $7,684.82
9. Gary Jones – $6,757.00
10. Stuart Paterson – $5,640.00
11. Roy Winston – $5,513.20
12. PearlJammed – $5,310.62
13. Berry Johnston – $4,774.38
14. Michael Craig – $4,571.88
15. Ali Sarkeshik – $4,429.94
16. Jeff Madsen = $4,294.38
17. dmmikkel – $4,293.28
18. Sandra Naujoks – $3,411.75
19. Richard Ashby – $3,343.00
20. Clonie Gowen – $3,018.09
21. Eddy Scharf – $2,909.87
22. Christian Kruel – $2,375.00
23. Jeremiah Smith – $2,340.00
24. TheWacoKidd – $2,260.20
25. Martin Klaeser – $1,921.17
26. Bruce Buffer – $1,800.00
27. Eli Elezra – $1,620.00
28. Luis Velador 7 – $1,411.89
29. Josh Arieh – $1,387.62
30. Steve Zolotow – $1,358.50
31. Maciek Gracz – $1,353.00
32. Chip Jett – $1,106.53
33. S Gromenkova – $833.58
34. Leandro Brasa – $809.87
35. Stefan Rapp – $750.00
36. Fabrice Soulier – $679.25
37. Julian Gardner – $675.00
38. Keith Sexton – $665.60
39. Hans Vogl – $660.00
40. Steve Yea – $499.41
41. Barny Boatman – $479.94
42. Adam Schoenfeld – $461.16
43. Beth Shak – $420.17
44. Chris Wolters – $393.12
45. Brad Booth – $378.90
46. Scott Fischman – $369.18
47. BrunoStefanelli – $363.89
48. Lee Watkinson – $355.68
49. R Romanello – $328.90
50. Scott Clements – $328.90

Post from: Poker From The Rail

FTOPS X comes to an end with Main Event