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
You stick around the poker world long enough and you will see some pretty strange coincidences. This past week saw another oddball occurrence during the 2010 L.A. Poker Classic Heads Up tournament. 2009 saw Full Tilt pro Vivek Rajkumar battle through the double elimination field and come through the losers bracket to defeat Chris Moore to take down the title. 2010 saw nearly the exact same thing happen with Rajkumar once again coming through the losers bracket only to find Chris Moore once again waiting for him with an undefeated record. This year Moore exacted his revenge for last year’s defeat by taking down the red letter pro. Rajkumar took home $78,600 for his second place finish and continues his heater.
Tags: AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, LAPC, Vivek Rajkumar
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
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:
Tags: AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, Matt "All In At 420" Stout, Michael Craig, Vivek Rajkumar
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Vivek Rajkumar was my pick to be the surprise standout at this year’s World Series of Poker. He was finishing up his best year at the tables which started with a WPT win at the Borgata in September. Unfortunate his heater did not continue as his only cash this year was a 15th place in one of the many $1,500 donkaments.
Yesterday he continued the streak of Full Tilt pros making a run at the online equivalent $200k Double Deuce with an 8th place finish. We had a great shot at two red letter pros at the final table until Scott Fischman imploded coming down the stretch. I often wonder how players with so much behind them take a serious run at a $20 buyin event, but they keep doing it. Second place finished “timmay28″ is my favorite example of the Double Deuce style of play. When in doubt, shove 100 BB’s in the pot and pray nothing bad happens. It worked at the WSOP Main Event so it must be good here.
Newly crowned red letter pro and 2009 November Nine memeber James Akenhead made a fine showing this weekend with a 31st place finish (highest amongst Team Full Tilt) in the $750,000 Guarantee. I hope to have a WSOP profile of our newest UK grinder sometime this month.
While these folks spent their afternoon tearing up the Sunday Majors, I took some time to punish my fragile ego by playing some micro-limit cash games. I’m working on my next Full Tilt Poker Academy Challenge and also trying to work off the newly awarded “Biggest Bonus Ever“. You have picked up your bonus haven’t you?
It was a never ending string of frustration as I ran into bad play after bad play where Mother Variance made it quite clear it would not be my day. I will forgo the tales of running flush cards and disgusting two outers because no one likes a bad beat story. Also, the running position of the bloggers is to charge $1 per bad beat story which could get quite expensive spread of my reading audience.
I’ll continue working off the bonus and trying to earn my first Iron Man badge. I’ll also be praying to the poker god to turn Variance in my direction.
Click the link above to learn about the new $100 bonus available to ANYONE who earned at least 1 FTP point before July 28th. Big Money Sunday numbers after the jump.
Tags: AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, James Akenhead, Vivek Rajkumar
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
It was another great week for Team Full Tilt. Final tables were populated with players patched up in FTP gear and make a lot of noise. Three bracelets would be brought into the fold by Phil Ivey, Nick Schulman and Greg “FBT” Mueller. If the rest of the poker world wants to catch up, they better start working hard.
It’s Friday so that means it’s time for the Week in Pictures. These are just some of the collection that did not make any posts during the week but are worthy of your time
View of the final table of Event #27 Pot Limit Omaha/8. Three Full Tilt members were present but Roland De Wolfe would defeat Omaha-guru Scott Clements for the title.
![ev 34 day 1 imm3008 impdi 2009 World Series of Poker Week 3 in Pictures](/poker-from-the-rail/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/ev-34-day-1_imm3008-impdi.jpg "Amanda \\"Mandy B\\" Baker at the 2009 World Series of Poker")
More pictures after the jump:
Tags: 2009 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Allen Cunningham, Amanda Baker, Bloggers on the Rail, Cyndy Violette, Fabrice Soulier, Jon Turner, Josh Arieh, Kelly Kim, Lee Watkinson, Nick Schulman, Perry Friedman, Pictures of the Week, Richard Brodie, Roland de Wolfe, Ross Boatman, Scott Clements, Steve Zolotow, Vivek Rajkumar, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
They are in Day 4 of the WPT LA Poker Classic Main Event at the Commerce Casino and Chris Ferguson is leading the way amongst the Full Tilt pros. The $10,000 buyin tournament drew 696 players with a first place prize over $1,600,000. The bubble burst at the end of Day 3 with Nick Schulman, Greg Mueller, Erica Schoenberg, and David Pham joining Ferguson in making the money.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Chris Ferguson, Vivek Rajkumar
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