Poker From The Rail
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Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
The 2011 World Series of Poker is upon us. The first “open” event will begin in a few hours with the $25,000 Heads Up World Championship and we will officially be underway in the Rio. It’s become a custom around these parts to begin the WSOP by putting together a list of players to watch. Some come into the summer riding a heater, others just seem to be due a big series, and the others are just too big to ignore.
There are plenty of names which could be included on the list but no one wants to read a 3,000 word post. I didn’t include (but well worthy) were current Bluff Player of the Year leader Galen Hall, 2010 WSOP Player of the Year Frank Kassela, WPT World Championship winner Scott Seiver, or WSOP legend Doyle Brunson.
Below are some of the players I think are worth your attention this summer. The Big Guns, Honorable Mentions, and Sleepers.
Tags: 2011 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Eugene Katchalov, John Juanda, Jonathan Duhamel, jungleman12, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Vanessa Selbst, Vivek Rajkumar, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
We’re just a few short days away from the start of the 2011 World Series of Poker and things are beginning to buzz. Plans are being solidified, airfare booked, and rolls wired to the Rio cage. While the world winds itself up for the coming series, we thought it would be nice to head back to last year for a few highlights.
Last week I put together a list of some of the best pictures of the summer and today I tried to come up with my 5 favorite stories from last year. It was not an easy task as I didn’t add the much anticipated first WSOP for Annette Obrestad, the incredible class shown by Brandon Adams getting berated on the way to a second place finish, or the incredible run of 2010 WSOP Player of the Year Frank Kassela.
While they may come off as a strictly Full Tilt Poker list, as a long time poker observer, these were the stories I consider the most memorable.
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Gavin Smith, Michael Mizrachi, November Nine, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Full Tilt Poker is always looking at ways to expand the poker experience and yesterday announced a new set of events designed to bring together some of the best poker players in the world. The Onyx Cup Series is six high roller tournaments around the world with buy-ins ranging from $100k to $300k, creating fields where world renowned players can battle against each other for an estimated prizepool of $30,000,000.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Chris Ferguson, Erik Seidel, John Juanda, Onyx Cup Series, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan
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
This week’s list is not necessarily a “Top 5″ list as I will barely mention the durrrr Challenge 2 which everyone seems to be following (for good reason) but more a little Hall of Fame action followed by a few videos. The entire list could be composed solely of poker related videos but decided the 2010 Hall of Fame nominees and Jen Harman news worthy of a mention.
Dwan is down nearly $700,000 to Dan “jungleman12″ Cates, most of the top players in the world have taken up their place in Europe, and Blair Hinkle won the WSOP Circuit Event in some place called “Council Bluffs” (appropriate name). Just a few of the things that did not make the list this week.
1. The 2010 Poker Hall of Fame nominees were released and include 4 members of Team Full Tilt.
2. Jennifer Harman will be inducted to the Women in Poker Hall of Fame along with Kathy Liebert and Billie Brown.
3. Tom “durrrr” Dwan joins This Week in Poker to discuss the durrrr Challenge 2 and his WSOP bracelet prop bets.
4. ABC’s Nightline aired a story about online poker that wasn’t 6 minutes of taking pot shots.
5. Phil Ivey spends 3 solid minutes in front of the camera for a proper interview.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Chris Ferguson, durrrr, durrrr Challenge, Erik Seidel, Jennifer Harman, Phil Ivey
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
It’s been a great week in the poker world with FTOPS drawing huge fields to the tables, cash games are running at the insane levels, and ESPN began broadcasting the 2010 WSOP Main Event. There were plenty of stories throughout the week and here are five that caught my attention, details after the jump.
1. FTOPS XVII cruising right along. Brandon Adams represents Full Tilt with a win and Mike “chapmoney” Chappus is the first double winner this series.
2. The NFL withdraws it’s opposition to HR 2267.
3. Doubles Poker Championship debuts this weekend on the GSN network.
4. High stakes poker games on Full Tilt continue to run hot.
5. Phil Laak takes a bad beat, on an ATV.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Brandon Adams, FTOPS, Phil Ivey
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
It’s Shark Week on the Discovery Channel here in the states (I’m too lazy to see if the Discovery Channel and Shark Week are available outside the lower 48) and appropriately enough the huge cash games on Full Tilt Poker began hitting up at the same time. The “durrrr” Challenge resumed after a summer hiatus, Ivey stomped some mud-holes, and other big games were running on a regular basis. The poker sharks have come out to play.
After a short pause for the WSOP, Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Patrik Antonius put a jolt back in their heads up challenge by playing a few hands over the last two days. Antonius came out on the wrong side of both sessions with Dwan taking several huge 6-digit pots yesterday alone. The lead for Dwan has been stretched to over $2,000,000 making Antonius a long shot to come out on top. The Challenge is nearly 80% and just over 10,000 hands remain to be played before someone has to pay off their bet. You can track the Challenge stats, replay hands, and get updates on the “durrrr” Challenge Stats page.
I first noticed things were going to pick up on the big games this week when Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond tweeted on Monday “Making the same mistake I’ve made time and time again… Playing Ivey”. He may have underestimated his chances playing Heads Up $500/$1,000 Pot Limit Omaha ($40,000 cap) because he finished the day taking a decent chunk of cash from Ivey. On the other hand we had several players (Luukie21 and IHateJuice) who would take Galfond’s spot at the table and proceed to dust off over $1,000,000 back to Ivey.
Those were just a few of the games running. Dwan seems to be constantly sitting at empty tables waiting for competitors, at the time of this post he is playing games from$50/$100 HU PLO, $200/$400 6-max PLO, $500/$1,000 HU PLO, and $1,500/$3,000 7-game mix. With several weeks of big-time online poker tournament about to kick off, it seems the cash games may explode at the same time. Railbirds should have the Full Tilt client fired up and keep an eye on the biggest online cash games in existence.
You can find out quickly whether they are playing the “durrrr” Challenge by checking the top of the “durrrr” Challenge stats page and check which of your favorite members of Team Full Tilt are online by clicking on the “Full Tilt See Who’s Online” link.
Tom “durrrr” Dwan Challenge progress chart
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, durrrr, durrrr Challenge, OMGClayAiken, Phil Galfond, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Bad beats suck. It’s just the nature of the game. Unless you have your opponent drawing completely dead, you have a chance to be on the ugly side of a slim draw. Spending the last few years around both live and online poker games, I have seen my fair share of just incredibly horrible beats. From the river one outers to the runner runner perfect 1% gross beats. It seems my never ending lot in life is to explain to online players that their bad beats happen live and vice versa.
The 2010 WSOP was nothing out of the ordinary in this aspect. At one stretch I watched four consecutive all-in situations where aces or kings were cracked in absolute brutal fashion. ESPN’s Andrew Feldman made his appearance at the Rio at the start of the Main Event and immediately watched big hands get flushed, after two months (or two weeks) you just become immune to them. Perhaps another reason I give very little slack to those who feel the need to tell bad beat stories. I’ve seen them all, your beat is nothing spectacular.
The Main Event brought over 7,000 players and seemingly just as many suckouts. While it is completely impossible to report them all, we did witness quite a few plus our friends at PokerNews were all too happy to display a little grief for the readers. I went back over my notes, tweets, and posts to find the worst ones after a Rail reader left a comment asking about the worst beats I saw. To keep things interesting I’m just posting nine and leaving the last one empty for the readers to fill in the blank.
Here you have some of the nasty, gross, disgusting ways to bust out of the 2010 WSOP Main Event and watch $10,000 disappear. Every one of these beats would send the online railbirds straight to the forums to complain about some sort of “conspiracy”. They were live, they happened, someone walked away very unhappy. After reading these I hope you begin to realize just how wide open this game can be.
Enjoy.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Phil Ivey, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Phil Ivey stands for the U.S. National Anthem during his bracelet ceremony
(Photographer/GreasieWheels)
Just in case you were living under a rock away from the poker over the last week, Phil Ivey captured his 8th career WSOP bracelet in the $3,000 HORSE event over Bill Chen. It was an interesting spectacle with a different atmosphere than the “durrrr” final table a few ago, this final table was stuck our little corner of the Amazon Room without the fan fare or big stadium seating of the main stage.
Two days later Ivey returned to the Pavilion Room for his bracelet ceremony followed by wide open press conference. The picture about was taken by the official WSOP photographer (with creative credit going to B.J. Nemeth) and is something special. You can click the image for the full size picture, it should give you a small feel for the number of people who jammed into the room to see history. Ivey and WSOP TD Jack Effel were joined on stage by Jack Binion.
The rest of the week was full of drama, fun, and of course the continuing parade of Perry Friedman’s hats. You can find just some of our the pictures our very own HeatherB snapped over the last few days. Enjoy after the jump.
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Chris Ferguson, Donnie Vann, Howard Lederer, Huck Seed, Johnny Chan, Kristy Gazes, Mike Matusow, Perry Friedman, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Pictures of the Week, Scott Clements, Scott Montgomery, Tom Dwan, WSOP
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