World Series of Poker: What's New for 2007
New Rules and Schedules Affect All Players
By Bob Pajich
Players who have arrived in Las Vegas early to play in many of the preliminary
World Series of Poker events that already have taken place have surely noticed several changes that the Harrah's
World Series of Poker team made this year. The changes have been made to enhance the players' experience, to keep up with the massive crowds that are expected to flood the Amazon Room over the next several weeks, and to please more players who compete in the
WSOP.
Starting Chips and Blinds
The biggest change as far as tournament structure is concerned is the amount of starting chips and the blinds structure. In every event, players will start with double the amount of chips in relation to the buy-in. For example, players in the $5,000 events will receive $10,000 in chips. Players in the $10,000 main event will start with $20,000 in chips. Players in the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event will start with $100,000 in chips, and so on.
Players should note, though, that a revised blinds structure comes with the starting-chip change. Blinds start at $50-$100 and, at least for the main event, change every two hours. Several levels have been eliminated, including $150-$300 and $250-$500. Instead, blinds jump from $100-$200 to $200-$400, which runs two levels in a row, the second with a $50 ante.
At the beginning of the second day, the blinds level is $500-$1,000 with a $100 ante. Last year, it was $250-$500 with a $50 ante.
In the later rounds, the $50,000-$100,000 level has been cut. Blinds will instead jump to $60,000-$120,000 (level 27). When players reach level 41, the ante structure gets very aggressive. It goes from $400,000 to two levels of $500,000, and then it jumps to $1 million (with blinds of $3 million-$6 million).
Payouts
Harrah's revised the payout structure of all of the events in order to get more people in the money. The schedule is less top-heavy than in past years, which means that more people will cash and will receive more money than in past years.
Here's an example: Last year, 846 players cashed in the main event, and the minimum received was about $14,000. If the new schedule was in place last year, 773 people would be paid $22,266.
The paydays of the top finishers suffer, though. Using last year as an example, first place would have paid $10,028,715, down from $12 million, while second place would have been worth $5,442,769, compared with $6,105,900.
Satellites
The Amazon Room is big, but it gets crowded, especially with the lines that sometimes snake from the cashier's and registration booth into the gawkers. A kiosk system in which players use their Rewards Card to sign up for the sit-and-go satellites is in place to help alleviate the crowds at the cashier's window and quickly seat satellite players.
This also was a necessity because Harrah's is spreading so many sit-and-gos this year: One-, two-, and three-table sit-and-gos are spread around-the-clock, with buy-ins ranging from $120 to $2,050. They start when they are filled.
The F-Word
Don't be surprised to hear more swearing at the tables this year. Players will no longer be penalized for simply dropping F-bombs, but they will receive penalties if they direct verbal aggression toward players, dealers, staff, or patrons while using the infamous F-word. Simply exclaiming the F-word after a bad beat is OK and won't result in a penalty. However, using the word in some form of name-calling directed at someone, for example, would warrant a 10-minute penalty for the first offense.
Antigua and Barbuda Ask World Trade Organization to Go After U.S.
By Bob Pajich
Soon, money might be involved.
Antigua and Barbuda asked all members of the World Trade Organization to file compensation claims against the United States after the United States rejected the WTO's ruling that it's in the wrong by trying to stop offshore online gambling companies from doing business with Americans.
The WTO ruled that the U.S. is in violation of the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) because the U.S. has repeatedly tried to stop its citizens from accessing and taking part in online gaming.
The U.S. claims that it's not in violation - even though a WTO court has ruled otherwise - because it never thought online gambling would be considered "recreation" when officials signed the GATS about a decade ago.
So, instead of following the WTO's decision that the U.S. is in violation of WTO agreements because it works to stop offshore online gambling countries from doing business with Americans, the U.S. will only revise the GATS agreement to reflect the current climate toward online gambling. The U.S. believes that this will put it in line with WTO rules even though the main issue that the WTO has with the U.S. trying to stop online gambling with offshore companies is that it allows other forms of online gambling to take place (horse betting and lotteries).
Antigua and Barbuda asked WTO members to file claims for future losses that they may endure as a result of the U.S. violating the GATS agreement. With more countries getting into the online gambling game - the United Kingdom being the largest and most powerful one in that mix - the chance that the U.S. will be sued by its fellow WTO members for its stance increases.
PokerStars Continues to Make History
By Bob Pajich
On May 20, PokerStars held the largest poker tournament in history when its
Sunday Million event attracted 10,894 players and generated a prize pool of more than $2.4 million ($250,000 of which was added by PokerStars). What a long way in such a short time PokerStars - and online poker - has come.
Online poker players in the United States should thank their lucky stars that PokerStars did not go public, like its online rival PartyPoker did back in 2005. If it had, it most likely would've followed the trail out of the U.S. that was blazed by PartyGaming after the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was signed into law in October.
Because it's not publicly traded, it doesn't have to undergo the scrutiny that publicly traded companies have to endure for the safety of investors. PartyGaming decided to pull out of the U.S. because of its relationships with both the London Stock Exchange and the banks that helped facilitate the stock launch.
It took PokersStars four years to deal its 5-billionth hand, and then less than a year to deal another 5 billion.
Although the legality of online poker in the United States is still in question - and there are some politicians out there who would like to see online gambling legalized, taxed, and regulated - PokerStars is flourishing in the U.S. market. And like PartyGaming and its other competitors, it's spending millions of dollars on marketing to the rest of the world.
On Sept. 5, 2005, PokerStars announced that the first event in its
World Championship of Online Poker that year made history as the largest online poker tournament ever to take place. It more than doubled the record set the previous year. The number of entrants: 3,062.
Grinz 'Winz' Card Player MediaEmployee Freeroll
Will Play in World Series of Poker Main Event
All members of the
Card Player family would like to congratulate John Grinzivich, Card Player Media distribution manager and tournament results coordinator, for winning the freeroll tournament that was open to all full-time employees of
Card Player. He will play in the
World Series of Poker main event.
The idea for the freeroll was hatched by
Card Player CEO Barry Shulman, who put up the $10,000 buy-in. Grinzivich outlasted 30 of his co-workers to win the tournament.
Grinzivich will be playing for all of
Card Player. By winning the freeroll tournament, he gets to play in the main event for 20 percent of his winnings. The rest of the pie was broken down according to how people performed in the tournament; second place received 15 percent, third 10 percent, fourth 5 percent, and the rest of the employees - no matter whether they played or not - received 1 percent each.
Go get them, Grinz.
Esposito Wins World Series of Poker Tournament Circuit Event in New Orleans
Outlasts 345 Players to Claim Ring
By Bob Pajich
Phil Gordon nearly proved the "a chip and a chair" axiom at the
World Series of Poker Tournament Circuit event at Harrah's New Orleans recently, but could manage just fourth place after a bit of bad luck sent him to the rail.
The championship ring and the $516,801 top prize would go to Lou Esposito, who came back from more than a 7-1 chip deficit at the start of the final table to win it. Esposito also received an entry into the World Series of Poker main event this summer, $1,000 in traveling money, and a gold ring.
The $5,000 event attracted 346 players and generated a prize pool of more than $1.6 million. The top 38 players were paid, because there was a three-way split for 36th place.
Gordon was the main story for most of the three-day event because of his domination after coming from way back. Early in the first day, he was down to $525 in chips. After he squeaked his way up to $1,200, it looked like the end for Gordon was imminent after he ended up all in with K-2 against A-Q with a flop of K-J-10.
"I figured my chances of winning this tournament at the point when I was all in with the K-2 against the made straight were about 150,000-to-1 against," Gordon said. "My equity in this tournament was a grand total of $17. I've never experienced such an incredible turnaround."
But running deuces gave Gordon the full house and life. He ended the day as the chip leader with more than $100,000, and kept the lead all the way to the final table before he ran into a buzz saw. About two hours into the final table, Gordon's luck changed when he ran into Esposito's A-A while holding K-K. After all the dust had settled from the hand, Gordon was left with about $500,000, and Esposito had more than $1 million.
Gordon wasn't done, though. He worked his chip stack up to more than $1 million again before hitting the rail in fourth place. Gordon would first lose about $300,000 in a race against Clint Schafer. Then, he found himself all in with A-10 versus Schafer's A-Q and failed to improve.
Threehanded, Esposito first knocked out David Fox, holding A-A against 7-7, which gave him a little more than $2 million in chips. At this point, Schafer had about $1.4 million.
The heads-up battle lasted about two hours, and ended after both players flopped a pair of sixes. But, Esposito had a king kicker, and that was good enough to send Schafer home in second place.
Esposito is a 31-year-old businessman from Howard Beach, New York. He owns a pizzeria, vending machines, and a cellphone store. He's been playing poker for only about two years, but already has competed in more than 40 events. This is his first major win.
World Series of Poker Tournament Circuit - New Orleans
1. Lou Esposito $516,801
2. Clint Schafer $266,736
3. David Fox $133,368
4. Phil Gordon $116,697
5. Anthony Longoria $100,026
6. J.D. Estilette $83,355
7. David McLeroy $66,684
8. Bobby "Wiz" Wisiak $50,013
9. Scott Mitchell $33,342
David Pham Wins Mirage Poker Showdown Heads-Up Title
He Ends Eric Froehlich's Juggernaut-Like Roll in the Final
By Ryan Lucchesi
The $5,000 no-limit hold'em heads-up championship at the
Mirage Poker Showdown attracted 85 players, and over the three-day event, they put on a show. This popular preliminary event has become a favorite of both well-known professionals and amateurs at the
Mirage Poker Showdown. This year, a dragon took down the title.
David "The Dragon" Pham advanced to the finals after disposing of Jonathan Little, who would win the
Mirage Poker Showdown championship event a week later. Little made noise throughout the tournament, especially in the "Sweet 16," where he shut out Nenad Medic (2-0). He also defeated Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi handily during day one.
"How lucky," Little humbly commented after he steamrolled Ryan Hughes (2-0) in just over a half-hour in the "Elite Eight." In fact, Little had his seat in the "Final Four" before half of the field had secured their seats in the Elite Eight.
Pham dueled with Eric Froehlich for the championship title. Froehlich had advanced through a number of intriguing matches, first with a marathon victory over Nam Le in the Sweet Sixteen, and second with a victory over Erick Lindgren in the Elite Eight.
In the Lindgren match, Froehlich called Lindgren's all-in bet with pocket kings. Lindgren flipped over the A
7
, and the board came 7
6
3
A
K
.
"I was ready to start over from ground zero. It would have been dead even at that point, but a little bit of justice on the river was kind of nice," said Froehlich.
The Final Four pitted Froehlich against Aaron Been, while Pham dueled with Little.
Froehlich won the first game against Pham, even after The Dragon woke up with pocket aces to double up against Froehlich's pocket kings. Pham fought back in the second game and took less than 20 minutes to even the score. Pham took an early lead in the rubber match, and increased his chip stack to $31,000 with large, well-timed raises. Froehlich was able to fight back a little and increase his stack to $13,000 at one point, but it was Pham's day.
On the final hand, Froehlich made a pair of sevens on a board of A
10
5
4
7
with the 9
7
in the hole. It was not enough to beat Pham, though, who won the championship match with pocket queens.
"Eric, he's a tough one," remarked Pham at the end of the day. "This heads-up event, I love, because we play three sets. So, if you lose one, you still have a chance." He won $155,200, the championship trophy, and a $10,000 seat in the
World Poker Tour championship event of the
Mirage Poker Showdown.
Pham may have won the tournament, but Froehlich was the true class act of the day. The former University of Virginia student donned the hat of his rival school Virginia Tech, in support of the recent tragedy there.
"I know a lot of people who were affected by it, including myself," he said. "It's just something in remembrance; it's important to me."
New World Poker Tour Hostess
Layla Kayleigh is Fourth Hostess of the Show
By Bob Pajich
The
World Poker Tour has hired another beauty to act as the show's hostess.
Model, correspondent, and TV personality Layla Kayleigh will serve as the
WPT hostess for at least season six. She is the fourth hostess to step onto the
WPT set. If she lasts longer than one season, she'll have the second-longest tenure as a
WPT hostess. Shana Hiatt, the
WPT's first hostess, performed her duties for three seasons.
Courtney Friel and Sabina Gadecki worked seasons four and five, respectively.
The British beauty has appeared on
Punk'd, Best Damn Sports Show Period, Monday Night Football, and the
G4 shows
Icons and
Attack of the Show. She also appeared in a photo spread in both
Maxim and
King Magazine in various partially clothed stages.
She made her debut at the
Mirage Poker Showdown.
A Little Roll: Jonathan
Little Keeps the Ball Moving
For those of you who have never heard of Jonathan Little, here's what you need to know: He's playing great poker. Just look at his results since the beginning of the year as confirmation.
Little recently won the
World Poker Tour Mirage Poker Showdown championship event and the $1.09 million that came with it. He was one of 309 players to put up $10,000 for a shot at the title. Little must really like playing at the Mirage, because his victory in the championship event was his third cash of the tournament, and all were final-table cashes. He also finished fourth ($18,624) in the $5,000 heads-up event that was won by David Pham, and eighth ($5,994) in the $2,500 no-limit hold'em event that Joe Tehan won.
At the
Five-Star World Poker Classic, he also made two final tables. He finished seventh ($18,230) in the $2,000 no-limit hold'em event and second in the $3,000 event, where he won $146,760.
Card Player Player of the Year leader J.C. Tran won that event.
Five cashes, five final tables; that's not too shabby.
Little has cashed four more times since the start of the year, giving him more than $1.6 million in winnings for 2007. His lifetime tournament winnings sit at $1.7 million.
His recent heater has been good enough to catapult him into second place on the Player of the Year (POY) list with 3,306 points, only 1,063 points from taking the lead from Tran.
Look Out!
Cory "UGOTPZD" Carroll, a well-known Internet poker player, is making waves in 2007 on the live tournament circuit.
He captured his first major title when he won the
World Series of Poker Tournament Circuit event at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, defeating David Pham heads up. That was good for $505,176 and 1,188 points. Just three weeks later, Carroll scored hugely again by making the final table of the
World Poker Tour Mirage Poker Showdown. He finished second behind Jonathan Little and won $561,369 and another 1,200 POY points.
With these two cashes, along with another final-table finish in a no-limit hold'em shootout preliminary event at the
WPT Foxwoods Poker Classic, Carroll has put himself in contention to win the POY race. He is currently in sixth place with 2,664 points.
Previous to this, Carroll has been highly successful in online tournament play, making it deep in the
PokerStars Sunday Million tournament several times.
Movers vs. Grinders
Big money equals big points for the POY race, but in the long run, it's going to take more than just one big score to win.
Since points rely on the buy-in, number players in the event, and the place in which the player finished, one or two big cashes can catapult a player into the top 10. Juan Carlos Mortensen finished 11th in the
European Poker Tour Grand Final, giving him 96 points, but his win in the World Poker Tour Five-Star World Poker Classic netted him a whopping 2,400 points. He is now in 10th place.
In contrast, there are players who may not have won a huge event, but are consistently accumulating points. Such players are Randy Holland and David Pham, who, along with Little, have made the most final tables of the top-10 players. They are taking down the smaller buy-in events and cashing in numerous tournaments, and are the silent killers to look out for.
Online Hand-to-Hand Combat: Pokertrip Outmaneuvers
Opponent in Blind vs. Blind Battle
By Craig Tapscott
In this series,
Card Player offers hand analysis with online poker's leading talent. And, as an added bonus, you can check out live video commentary provided by the pros and PokerXfactor.com at www.CardPlayer.com/TV.
Event: Ultimate Bet $120 no-limit hold'em tournament
Players: 233
First Place: $7,800
Stacks: Pokertrip - $19,590; Villain - $14,365
Blinds: $600-$1,200
Antes: $125
Preflop: Pokertrip sits in the small blind with the 10
5
and completes. Villain checks.
Craig Tapscott: What's your take on Villain preflop here?
Jon "Pokertrip" Friedberg: He'd been playing very tight-passive, straightforward poker, so I was pretty sure that he would raise only with a big hand. Furthermore, I was confident about my ability to outplay him post-flop if he didn't make a decent hand. Given these circumstances, I will call, or raise, from the small blind with virtually any two cards - especially late in a tourney.
CT: What's your plan after seeing Villain check preflop?
JF: I'm pretty certain he doesn't have a real hand here, since he didn't raise, so I'm going to make a small bet on the flop regardless of what comes - unless I flop a monster. I figure that he's going to fold on the flop, and raise only if he flops a made hand or a big draw - in which case I obviously will fold.
Flop: J
9
7
($3,525 pot)
CT: That's not a bad flop for you.
JF: I actually flopped a straight draw, although the cards are almost irrelevant here, because I know that I can outplay Villain if he doesn't make a hand. I make a normal-sized bet on the flop, which will either win me the pot right away or allow me to probe the strength of Villain's hand.
Pokertrip bets $1,550. Villain calls.
CT: What do you put him on now?
JF: I figure him for middle or bottom pair, a diamond draw, or an open-end straight draw (Q-10, 8-6).
Turn: 2
($6,625 pot); Pokertrip checks. Villain checks.
CT: Villain seems weak here with that check. What's the plan?
JF: I figure that since I checked, Villain probably would have bet if he had any pair here. He checked behind, which now narrows my read on his hand to either a straight or flush draw.
River: 8
; Pokertrip checks. Villain bets $4,000.
CT: Why the check?
JF: I didn't want to bet out on such a scary board, since there were so few hands that he could call with. Instead, I chose to check, hoping to induce a bluff. Villain probably put me on a pair of sevens or nines, or a missed flush draw, as well. I thought there was a good chance that he would make a bet in an attempt to steal the pot.
Pokertrip calls and wins the $14,625 pot with a straight, jack high.
CT: There's no raise from you here on the end. Why not?
JF: I didn't think he'd call a raise with any hand that doesn't tie or beat me. Furthermore, I wanted everyone at the table to see me just call with the second nuts - in order to aid in my ability to bluff by raising in later hands.
CT: What can we learn from this hand?
JF: Possessing the ability to outmaneuver opponents and extract maximum chips in medium-sized pots such as this is one of the most important aspects of being a successful tournament player. Anyone can put their chips all in and hope to win a race, but the consistent winners are those who can outplay their opponents to win a higher percentage of small and medium pots.
Jon Friedberg is an accomplished tournament player online as well as live. At the 2006 World Series of Poker, he grabbed a bracelet in a $1,000 no-limit hold'em event along with $526,000. He most recently finished eighth in the World Poker Tour Mirage Poker Showdown, for $57,000.
Sorel 'Imper1um' Mizzi
Retakes the Lead
By Shawn Patrick Green
It's hard to keep Sorel "Imper1um" Mizzi down. He is once again the points leader in the 2007
Card Player Online Player of the Year (OPOY) standings by virtue of some huge recent wins.
Mizzi went from ninth place to first place in the OPOY standings in just three days. First, he navigated through a field of 1,072 to take down the eighth event at the
Full Tilt Online Poker Series (
FTOPS)
IV - a pot-limit hold'em tournament - on May 18, earning almost $41,000. He then went on to best 3,058 other entrants to win the PokerStars
Sunday Warmup just two days later, for almost $110,000. Those two tournaments alone earned him a combined 1,920 OPOY points.
Mizzi also officially claimed his win in the $200 no-limit hold'em (with rebuys) event of the
FTOPS III, which he won under the screen name kristy_sea. A representative from Full Tilt directly contacted
Card Player to acknowledge that the site has attributed the win to Mizzi, and that the kristy_sea account has been closed, per Mizzi's request. (Per a forwarded message from Full Tilt: "Congratulations on your win. I have gone ahead and swapped avatars for kristy_sea and Imper1um so that your account has the gold
FTOPS one. … Yes, this [kristy_sea] account has been closed.")
Those two facts put his win in compliance with the OPOY qualification rules and unlocked a 720-point score for him. As of press time, Mizzi has 4,850 OPOY points and almost $400,000 in winnings from OPOY-qualified tournaments alone.
Hot on His Heels
Mizzi's ascendance illustrates how tenuous a lead in the OPOY race is at this point. He took the lead despite the fact that Matt "ch0ppy" Kay, the previous points leader, had been steadily earning more points, as well. Kay has earned more than 800 points from four OPOY-qualified finishes since the standings were published in the last issue, including 480 points for a win in the Full Tilt
Sunday Mulligan, for $27,250. He's no slouch, to be sure. Kay is currently just 633 points behind Mizzi, and considering how many points he's racked up in just two weeks, the lead is easily within his grasp.
Aaron Kanter's Mad Dash
Aaron "Gotcha55" Kanter (aka "011180" on PokerStars and "get_that" on Full Tilt) was in 11th place on the OPOY leader board as of last issue. He initially shot up through the ranks via a win in event No. 1, a $300,000-guaranteed no-limit hold'em tournament, of the
FTOPS IV on May 11, which earned him 1,200 points. Kanter followed through with an incredible second-place finish in the PokerStars
Sunday Million event just nine days later, which earned him $160,875 and another 1,200 OPOY points. He currently sits in fourth place on the OPOY leader board with 3,212 points.
Continued Success at the Full Tilt Online Poker Series
The
Full Tilt Online Poker Series (
FTOPS)
IV was held just three months after its predecessor, with even higher expectations. The series guaranteed $4 million in prize money (up from the
FTOPS III's $3.4 million) and easily beat that number. The combined prize pools for the tournaments came to $5,826,200, with $1,899,000 coming from the main event alone.
The series also saw some all-star winners, including Sorel "Imper1um" Mizzi, Aaron "get_that" Kanter, and "TheFatFISH" (aka "Andy McLEOD"), all of whom are top-five contenders on the OPOY leader board. John_McClane17 won the series' no-limit hold'em main event, pocketing a huge $336,217 payday for his accomplishment. See "Tournament Results" in this section for all of the events' winners.
Get a Piece of the Action
Those wishing to take advantage of the promotions, overlays, and guaranteed prize pools at these sites can do so by going to the following links:
PokerStars - www.CardPlayer.com/link/etpokerstars
Full Tilt Poker - www.CardPlayer.com/link/etfulltilt
UltimateBet - www.CardPlayer.com/link/etultimatebet
AbsolutePoker - www.CardPlayer.com/link/etabsolute
Bodog - www.CardPlayer.com/link/etbodog
Tournament Results, May 14-27
Full Tilt Online Poker Series IV
Ran one event per day, May 11-20
Event No. 1 - No-limit hold'em, $300,000 guaranteed
Buy-in: $200
Winner: Aaron "get_that" Kanter
Winnings: $94,403
Prize pool: $514,600
Entrants: 2,573
Event No. 2 - Pot-limit Omaha (with rebuys), $150,000 guaranteed
Buy-in: $100
Winner: Terpfan2
Winnings: $53,136
Prize pool: $221,400
Entrants: 746
Event No. 3 - No-limit hold'em, $750,000 guaranteed
Buy-in: $300
Winner: Homerindoors
Winnings: $164,426
Prize pool: $898,500
Entrants: 2,995
Event No. 4 - No-limit hold'em, $300,000 guaranteed
Buy-in: $1,000
Winner: CalBandGreat
Winnings: $208,840
Prize pool: $908,000
Entrants: 908
Event No. 5 - H.O.S.E., $100,000 guaranteed
Buy-in: $200
Winner: Cardsharps_net
Winnings: $32,550
Prize pool: $130,200
Entrants: 651
Event No. 6 - No-limit hold'em sixhanded, $400,000 guaranteed
Buy-in: $200
Winner: rc hoop
Winnings: $100,647
Prize pool: $511,000
Entrants: 2,555
Event No. 7 - Pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better, $100,000 guaranteed
Buy-in: $200
Winner: ArgentinaBoy
Winnings: $42,780
Prize pool: $186,000
Entrants: 930
Event No. 8 - Pot-limit hold'em, $150,000 guaranteed
Buy-in: $200
Winner: Sorel "Imper1um" Mizzi
Winnings: $40,972
Prize pool: $214,400
Entrants: 1,072
Event No. 9 - No-limit hold'em (with rebuys), $250,000 guaranteed
Buy-in: $100
Winner: TheFatFISH
Winnings: $75,482
Prize pool: $343,100
Entrants: 1,351
Event No. 10 - No-limit hold'em main event, $1.5 million guaranteed
Buy-in: $500
Winner: John_McClane17
Winnings: $336,217
Prize pool: $1,899,000
Entrants: 3,798
PokerStars Sunday Million
May 20 †
Winner: tanbai
Winnings: $187,901*
Prize pool: $2,428,800
Entrants: 10,894
May 27 ††
Winner: RikkiTikki
Winnings: $226,142*
Prize pool: $1,459,500
Entrants: 2,919
* Payout reflects a deal made at the final table.
† Tournament had a $250,000 overlay to celebrate the 10-billionth hand dealt at PokerStars.
†† Monthly $500 buy-in version of the tournament
Full Tilt Poker $400,000 Guarantee
May 27
Winner: magikstick8
Winnings: $95,284
Prize pool: $519,400
Entrants: 2,597
UltimateBet $200,000 Guarantee
May 20
Winner: si moneb73
Winnings: $44,440
Prize pool: $202,000
Entrants: 1,010
May 27
Winner: raaazib
Winnings: $45,000
Prize pool: $200,000
Entrants: 867
Bodog $100,000 Guarantee
May 20
Winner: Frank "Round42" Rusnak
Winnings: $25,000
Prize pool: $100,000
Entrants: 833
May 27
Winner: head2782
Winnings: $25,000
Prize pool: $100,000
Entrants: 751
Isaac Baron
Writing a Legacy
By Craig Tapscott
Isaac "westmenloAA" Baron has pretty much owned online tournaments for the last six months, even with college classes limiting him to a part-time schedule. He doesn't come close to rivaling the volume of most Internet pros. Instead, Baron aims for the big Sunday events to make an impact on his return-on-investment percentage and bankroll. It's a strategy that seems to be working.
Baron's online achievements include a $254,000 win in the PokerStars
Sunday Million, second place for $30,000 in a Stars $200 rebuy event, first place in two $100 rebuy events - 10 days apart - for a total of $62,000, and more than $850,000 in combined winnings over the last 14 months. He's also played in three
World Poker Tour events outside the U.S., cashing in all three. His highest finish was 18th in the
North American Poker Championship for $62,000.
Poker has come relatively easy for the University of Santa Barbara journalism major.
"I was always pretty confident in my game," said Baron. "Part of it had to do with a huge desire to be really good. I used all of my resources to get better: books, discussing hands, more experienced friends, and so on."
Baron, 19, will have to sit out a few
World Series of Pokers before he can compete for a coveted bracelet. The biggest challenge this year will be taking down the
Card Player Online Player of the Year award. Currently, he sits in fifth place. Look for the next six months to heat up. During summer break, Baron can put down the books, play more events, and continue to take players to school.
Craig Tapscott: You don't play as many tournaments as most of the young guns.
Isaac Baron: Playing so many multitable tournaments a day to me seems like too much of a grind. I'll play tourneys on Sundays and during the weekdays whenever I feel like it. On weekdays, I'll pop in and play cash games when I can. It's better than a 9-to-5 job when I'm not in class.
CT: You became a winning player rather quickly.
IB: Mainly because I've always been real aggressive and had some idea of how to play. Mostly, it was me getting lucky combined with being so aggressive.
CT: What are some of the weaknesses you learned to exploit in multitable tournament play?
IB: In general, I pick out the players who are weak, whom I can attack. I also try to pick out the players who are going to play back at me or are too tight.
CT: Can you define how they're playing weak?
IB: They're not defending their blinds or playing back at me. An example is when a player raises from late position; you should be playing back at that player if you know he's aggressive. Weak players will reraise you only with a huge hand. In live tourneys, you can immediately spot those kinds of players. It's a great way to pick up chips.
CT: What do you love about the game?
IB: The thinking behind everything. In cash games, there is so much more thought and decisions to be made. Preflop in multitable tournaments, only so much can happen. After a while, multitable tournaments get boring. In cash games, every situation is different. It's like a puzzle that you have to figure out.
CT: Compare tournament players and cash players.
IB: There are some highly ranked tournament players who really have no clue how to play after the flop. You can get away with it in online multitable tournaments. You can play real solid and tight poker at the beginning. Once it gets late and the blinds rise, if you know how to play preflop, you can have real good results. But I don't think that's really poker.
CT: How do you break out of a bad run?
IB: If I have a bad run, it really doesn't affect me too much. Most of all, I won't take a hit to my bankroll if I take a downturn. The more you play, the more you get your head on straight; it's all a cycle and short term. If you play better than your competition, eventually you're going to win.
CT: You're also successful in high-stakes cash games. Do you have any tips for tournament players who are making the transition to cash games?
IB: Don't play with deeper stacks the same way you would with smaller stacks. In multitable tournaments, top pair is a monster hand, because the stacks are around 30 times the big blind. In a cash game, with stacks of 100 times the big blind, if you overvalue hands or run big bluffs, or call down too much with one pair, it can be a big mistake.
Scale and Niche
By Dave Apostiloco
There are many paths to success in most disciplines, including poker. What may work in one discipline may not necessarily work in another. There are, however, a couple of universal truths that seem to have application to most pursuits in life. Principally among these are scale and niche.
When we talk about scale, bigger is typically better. Eventually, the big guys wipe out the small guys. From wrestling to business, there is a huge competitive advantage to being big. Small guys may have superior products, customer service, technology, or solutions. The small guys may even have a substantial head start. The big guys, though, will have more resources and will be able to throw both people and money around in order to compete. They have the flexibility to experiment with different approaches, while the little guys must be concerned with not squandering what few resources they have. Perhaps, even more critically, the big guys can undercut the little guy in the marketplace to squeeze him out. Big guys will routinely enter a new business at a loss in order to gain market share and freeze out competitors. Once they accomplish that, they can raise prices and roll in the profits.
When it comes to a poker tournament, you can never underestimate the power of a big stack. The big stacks can see more flops and take more chances. They can afford to play a few orbits at a loss as they look for opportunities to crush the little guy. Meanwhile, the little stack has to be very careful and not squander any chips. He has much less room for error or gamble. Lose one race and it's over for the little guy. Yes, we've all heard about, witnessed, or even experienced a tournament in which a little stack came from way back to win. In the great majority of cases, though, the big stacks will wipe out the little stacks. Building a large stack by the middle stages of a tournament offers a tremendous advantage.
Finding a niche is another path to success. Smaller companies that have a particular expertise or niche in the market that others steer clear of will always do well, and so will poker players. Playing small cards often has a big tactical advantage over hands like A-9. Let's say that you decide to play A-9 and three other players decide to pay to see a flop, as well. The flop comes A-7-2. This has the appearance of being a very good flop for you. Yet, it spells trouble. With three other players in the pot, there is a fairly good chance that one of your opponents has an ace with a bigger kicker than yours. If that's the case, you could lose a lot of money on this hand, since you will have a hard time folding. But what if no one else has an ace? What if you have the best hand here? That's great, and it's certainly better than being up against an ace with a bigger kicker. Yet, you are unlikely to win much money. Your opponents will be very concerned that someone else will have an ace, and they are unlikely to commit any more money to the pot.
As a poker player, if I'm in a hand with a number of other opponents, I'd much rather have a hand like 5-4 than A-9. With the 5-4, there is a much greater probability that I have live cards. With a flop like 10-5-4, I am likely to have the best hand.
Even preflop, let's say that I have 5-4 and two opponents are playing A-J and A-10, respectively. Anytime my opponents share common cards, that increases my chances for success.
With my 5-4, I also will have a much deeper understanding of where I stand compared to the others. I have picked a niche for myself that will either succeed or not. When I play A-J, I will have a hard time folding when I flop an ace, even if I suspect that my opponent has me beat with a hand such as A-Q. With 5-4, I can easily fold my hand unless I get a very favorable flop. If the flop is K-9-5, I know that I do not have a strong hand even with my pair of fives.
If you're looking for a path to success on the felt, scale and niche are pretty good roads to travel.
David Apostolico is the author of numerous poker strategy books, including Lessons from the Felt, Lessons from the Pro Poker Tour, and Tournament Poker and the Art of War. You can contact him at [email protected].
Card Player TV Ramps Up For Summer's Big Events
This summer is sure to be an exciting time at
Card Player TV, as the multimedia crew will be covering all of the busy poker action, including the
World Series of Poker and
Bellagio Cup III. Included in the coverage will be a daily strategy piece with
WSOP bracelet winners and many other strategy pieces with top poker pros. In addition, there will be two daily news shows containing player interviews, hand analysis, and much, much more.
The
Card Player digital team is also excited to bring viewers more lifestyle pieces that include a look at nightlife and poker pros away from the table. Be sure to visit CardPlayer.com/tv to stay in touch with what's going on in poker this summer.
Card Player Wants to Give You an Edge
You are sitting at a table with a player who is berating everyone while spitting out odds and percentages of each hand that are totally wrong. You wish there was a way to prove him wrong, but don't know how. That's when the
Card Player Odds Calculator could come in handy.
Card Player is offering the calculator to be downloaded for only $4.99, so that players can know when to bet and when to fold by determining the strength of their hands. Whether there is a jerk at the table whom you want to show up or you need to know the numbers yourself, the
Card Player Odds Calculator will give you an edge.
For more information, or to download the calculator, point your cellphone's browser at CardPlayerMobile.com
Poker Summer
With so many events happening this summer,
Card Player will be the place to keep track of the craziness that Las Vegas will experience during these few months. With the
WSOP, the
Bellagio Cup III, and The Venetian
Deep Stack Extravaganza, there's going to be hundreds of stories about poker to relate, and the
Card Player staff will be deployed to capture as many of them as we can.
When waiting for a seat in the game of your choice, do you play other games?
Yes: 47 percent
No: 53 percent
Winning the Heads-Up War
By Andrew Wiggins
CardRunners.com is an online poker community dedicated to improving its members' poker skills. Members enjoy downloadable instructional videos from top poker pros, an active poker forum, articles, live chat, and more. Check out CardRunners today for a free sample video.
The Internet has revolutionized not only poker players' access to games but the games themselves. Consider heads-up play: Before online poker, it was rare, but now, heads-up cash games are abundant, players routinely start playing heads up while waiting for bigger games to fill, and online sites are spreading more heads-up tournaments. There is therefore more information on proper heads-up strategy, but I think that two critical aspects, momentum and patience, are often overlooked.
Momentum is the general way the match is going, and there is both long-term and short-term momentum. Long-term momentum concerns who is winning the entire match; short-term momentum can change in the span of several hands. When the momentum swings against you in a heads-up match, it can be very difficult to regain your edge. When a player is losing, he has an increased desire to win pots. Often, he will push situations that he would normally pass on simply to try to get even. Good winning players will recognize this phenomenon and in turn give these types of opponents less respect. This dynamic can cause the losing player to go on tilt, which is devastating in a heads-up environment. If the momentum turns too heavily against you during a match, it is usually best to just walk away. For most players, this occurs after they have lost two or three buy-ins.
For all the reasons that a lack of momentum brings you down, a momentum advantage enables you to excel. Realize when you have this edge; when you have the ability to control the match, it's essential to do so. Your opponent will try to win too many pots with marginal hands, and thus create opportunities for you to float and bluff-raise him. Both of these plays, however, rely on good timing, so it's important to wait and find the right spots.
Patience is even more important in heads-up play than in other forms of poker. Heads-up play causes players to play faster than they are used to. This overaggression is one of the commonest leaks in heads-up play. Optimal heads-up play is aggressive, but aggression is easy to overdo. The best fix is to slow down and think through your plays, and not just because you will make better strategic decisions: You will also thwart some very aggressive players who thrive on their opponents' overaggressive adjustments to them. These players tend to struggle when their opponents actively work to slow down the game. Also, marginal situations occur more during heads-up play than in any other form of poker; a patient player will navigate them better than one who is rushing. Meanwhile, using patience will eliminate most tells, since the clearest online tells are timing tells.
Patterns of play, both yours and your opponent's, are decisive in heads-up play. You must pay maximal attention to the lines your opponent is taking. Patterns emerge more quickly in heads-up play because you see more hands against a specific opponent. Remember also that your opponent is seeing as much of you as you are of him. Therefore, you need to focus on varying your own play that much more. To keep your opponent guessing, take different lines than you normally would with a given hand. The laws of probability dictate that you will very often have exactly, say, a marginal pair or a draw to overcards; if you telegraph these kinds of holdings, your opponent will easily play well against you.
Poker players often overlook the effects of intangibles on heads-up play, but that does not diminish their importance. In fact, it enables you to get an edge. If you take full advantage of your rushes and know when to quit a session, and if you take your time and make the best decisions in marginal spots, you will find many lucrative opportunities at this increasingly popular form of poker.
Andrew Wiggins is a 21-year-old poker player living in Chicago. He is the co-founder of CardRunners.com and can be found playing mid-stakes no-limit hold'em cash games across the Internet.
Poker Player, Know Thyself
By Tim Peters
Your Worst Poker Enemy: Master the Mental Game by Alan N. Schoonmaker, Ph.D. (Lyle Stuart, $15.95)
I used to keep track of the races I lost. Whenever I was all in in a classic coin-flip situation - I'd have, say, a pair of nines against big slick, or two overcards against a small pair - I'd record how I'd fared after all the cards were out. At one point, I lost 19 races in a row; over the course of two months, I won only about 27 percent of them. I even posted these results on my personal website.
I realize now my motivation for this kind of self-flagellation: to prove to the world that I was one of the unlucky ones, which was another way of saying, "I'm a good player, but I can't win because I run so bad."
That's a form of denial, according to Alan Schoonmaker (that's Dr. Schoonmaker; he has a Ph.D. in psychology), author of this extremely valuable new book on the mental aspects of the game. Schoonmaker also wrote the 2000 book
The Psychology of Poker and is a regular columnist in
Card Player.
"To be a winning player, you must
stop blaming bad luck and
accept responsibility for your results," he writes (emphasis his). I wasn't losing because I wasn't winning races; I was losing because I wasn't as good a player as I thought I was. I've been trying to develop a realistic view of my game over the past several months, and a lot of my recent poker reading has helped, including Larry W. Phillips'
Zen and the Art of Poker and
The Poker Mindset by Ian Taylor and Matthew Hilger. But after reading this new book, I am more convinced than ever that my worst poker enemy is indeed myself.
Schoonmaker's title comes from a Stu Ungar quote: "At the table, your worst enemy is yourself." You play hunches, about the cards or about the players, without rational reasons for doing so. You go on tilt after a bad beat or a long string of unplayable hands. In other words, emotions start to take the upper hand. That's when you make mistakes, and that's when you lose money.
It's really a classic right brain/left brain issue (the right brain is responsible for creativity/intuition, while the left brain handles logic). Schoonmaker is willing to concede that there are great "feel" players out there, but he asserts that most of us should favor logic over emotion when it comes to decision-making.
You're not going to stop feeling emotions at the table. Indeed, why would you even want to? The real point of Schoonmaker's book is to help you recognize emotions that cause problems. He explains why people play stupidly or illogically, and the elaborate efforts we'll make to blame something else: bad luck, other players' ineptitude, and, my favorite, "this site is so rigged." ("Delusions," writes Schoonmaker, "are more pleasant than reality.")
But he doesn't just describe the psychological issues that will affect your game; he provides tons of useful advice for reducing their impact: to help you "master the mental game." Some of his suggestions will be familiar, but that makes them no less valuable. My favorite is "explain your decisions" (to yourself!): "Imagine that an expert is looking at your cards and watching how you play them … Can you give him a clear, logical explanation for every move you made?"
Of course, sometimes you'll have good intuition - sensing weakness, for example - and you might have a hard time articulating why. Pay attention to that kind of feeling, and certainly try to hone it if it works. But I'm sure that Schoonmaker is right to point out, "You probably have much less intuition than you believe."
Significantly, the book points out up front that strategic knowledge is still vital; unless you know how to play your hands, no amount of self-awareness or introspection is going to make you a winning player. (Put another way: This should not be the only poker book you read, or even the first.) But for a lot of us - players who let the variance of poker and the vagaries of our opponents frustrate us and
damage our ability to play - this book is a gem.
