The Inside Straight

Virgin Poker Offers Luxury World Series of Poker Packages

Virgin Poker is sending players to this year's World Series of Poker in Las Vegas with a €10,500 package that includes $10,000 (€7,000) main-event seat, €1,500 spending money, return Virgin Atlantic flight from London Gatwick to Las Vegas, and hotel accommodation.

Joe Legge, poker manager for Virgin Poker, said, "Virgin Poker is the only poker room in the world which has its own airline and holiday company, so it made perfect sense to offer our players the chance to win the ultimate poker package for this year's World Series. With costs often spiraling out of control to attend the biggest and best poker tournaments around the world, we wanted to give our players the opportunity to spend all of their winnings on simply enjoying themselves. We are proud to be the only poker room that can offer this exciting opportunity."

The company is running a series of guaranteed WSOP satellites during April and May with each tri-weekly €275 final offering one guaranteed package. There will also be one package for each 34 players entering the tournaments, which take place on April 9, April 30, and May 21 at 8:30 p.m. GMT.

Daily freezeout satellites, which start this Monday, March 3, are at 8:30 p.m. GMT and cost €25 plus €2.50, while each Saturday and Sunday there is a €10 plus €1 rebuy at 5 p.m. GMT. There will be one WSOP final seat for each €250 generated in the prize pool, and one seat to the final will be guaranteed.

Legge pointed out that the promotion was likely to be great value for players. "Virgin Poker's a comparatively small site meaning there is likely to be overlay in most of the daily satellites and finals. Add this to the extra €2,000 worth of free flights and accommodation and our WSOP promotion offers huge value for anyone attempting to get to the World Series this summer."

Check Virgin Poker for more details on this promotion.

$3 Million World Poker Crown Nears

888.com's $3 million-guaranteed World Poker Crown tournament is just around the corner, taking place online on April 26, 2008. The event will see the winner pocket a cool $1 million -- one of the largest ever prizes in online poker history.

The company has described the World Poker Crown as a "new breed" of event which starts online and then sees the last eight players move the final table offline in a 16th-century castle in Peralada, Spain, from May. 6-10, where play will be filmed for broadcast on Sky Sports, Das Vierte (Germany), Tele 5 (Spain), and Fox Sports (LatAm).

Online qualifiers for the event are exclusive to 888.com and continue right up to the start of the tournament on April 26. Players can also buy in directly to the online final for $1,000 plus $50.

Check 888.com for more details.

Andy Black Wins Party Poker Premier League

Irishman Andy Black won the $1 million PartyPoker.com Premier League Poker and finally shook the hoodoo which had dogged him in major tournaments. It is his first major title win having previously held the chip lead at the final table at the World Series of Poker main event, eventually coming fifth, as well as coming second in the Aussie Millions in 2007. He collected $316,000 for his victory over Roland De Wolfe.

"It has taken 20 years to finally finish the job," said Black, "it is a fantastic feeling. I've been in so many strong positions before and not ended up winning that sometimes I doubted whether I could actually get the first place. Everybody was waiting for me to blow up. I see this as a turning point -- perhaps now I can convert my dominant positions in tournaments into victories."

The Premier League saw 12 of the world's top players stump up the $60,000 buy-in including 2007 winner Juha Helppi, 11-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, CardPlayerEurope.com European Player of the Year, Dave "Devil Fish" Ulliott, Tony G, Ian Frazer, Vicky Coren, and Eddy Scharf.

Joining them this year were "Flying Dutchman" Marcel Luske, Annie Duke, and Russian WSOP bracelet winner Alexander Kravchenko.

The format of the tournament, devised by organiser Matchroom Sports, saw the players play six times in the preliminary stage, with the top four players moving on to the final table and the next four playing heads-up matches for the final two places.

Tony G was pre-tournament favourite and despite going into the final table as chip leader could only manage third place.

The final payouts in the event were:

BING Poker Goes to Estonia and Vegas

BING Poker is sending a handful of lucky players to the Olympic Open Championship 2008 event in Tallinn, Estonia, which is taking place on May 9-10.

The €2,000 package covers entry into the no-limit hold'em main event being held in the resplendent Olympic Casino, Tallinn, as well as €950 travel, accommodation, and spending money.

Qualification is under way on BING Poker with €1 rebuy and €3 freezeout satellites running daily. These feed into a weekly €30 final to compete for a €270 seat in the last online final which takes place on Apr. 20.

Also taking place on April 20 at 6:30 p.m. is the last €500 final for World Series of Poker main event seats on BING Poker.
Last year's winner of the WSOP $10,000 main event took home $8.25 million but you can qualify for as little as €3 and €7 with daily satellites into the weekly €58 Sunday final.

Check the multi-tourney lobby on BING Poker for further information and qualify for this fantastic event now.

Vance Victorious at Scandinavian Open

Tim Vance, from St. Louis, Missouri, is the new Scandinavian Open champion after winning the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Copenhagen in Denmark. Forty-six-year-old Vance, who runs a construction company back home, won his seat for free in an online frequent-player-point satellite on PokerStars. He won more than €834,964.

Vance beat local Soren Jensen heads up after four hours of play and afterwards said, "Winning the title was at least as important to me as the money, but I knew I was going to win today -- I was the best player and I wanted it the most. It was a tough competition though -- as tough as anywhere I've ever played -- and now I just can't wait to call my daughter Nanzi. She's been watching it back home with her grandmother."

The sold out 460-entrant tournament had a prize pool of almost €3 million with around one-fifth of the players winning their seats online at PokerStars.

The final table payouts were:


The EPT Grand Final takes place in Monte Carlo from April 12-17.

Wu Chops With Two At Gala Casinos British Poker Tour

The first Gala Casinos British Poker Tour of the season, held in Edinburgh, Scotland, at the beginning of March, was won by Colin Wu, though the £500 buy-in event, which attracted 175 runners, ended in a three-way chop between Wu, Robin Yiltalo, and Rory Mathews.

As part of the deal, Wu took the title and the seat in the grand final taking place in Bristol in December 2008.

The top three agreed to take £20,500 each, while former World Snooker Champion John Higgins just missed out on the final table, taking 10th place.

The top 10 payouts were:


The next stop on the tour is Nottingham from Apr. 16-20, and satellites are under way at Gala casinos around the country.

CardPlayerEurope.Com Now Direct to Your Desktop

CardPlayerEurope.com has launched its Really Simple Syndication (RSS) service for news, blogs, TV, and Card Player Poker + Sports magazine. The service allows users to receive content from the website automatically when it is uploaded, and it saves users from having to check the site regularly for updates.

Signing up for the service is simple and takes no more than one minute. First, users must register with an RSS reader service -- there are dozens to choose from, including:

Windows
• Newz Crawler, FeedDemon, Awasu

Mac OS X
• Newsfire, NetNewsWire

Web
• Bloglines, My Yahoo!, NewsGator

Next, they go to CardPlayerEurope.com, click on the Orange RSS button in the News Headline, Poker Blogs, Multimedia, or Magazine sections, and that's it!

Users simply wait for new content to be delivered to their reader automatically, as and when it is added to the website.

aaaaaaaa Dissects His Opponent's Hand Range and Makes a Big Double-Barrel Bluff on the River
By Craig Tapscott

Want to study real poker hands with the Internet's most successful players? In this series, Card Player offers hand analysis with online poker's leading talent.

Villain raises from under the gun plus one to 1,000; aaaaaaaa three-bets from the button to 2,650, holding the 9 7.

Craig Tapscott: What's your thinking at this point with the reraise in position?

Daryl "aaaaaaaa"Jace: I three-bet because I thought my opponent was a weak player and would fold many times to my preflop raises. If he did call, I knew I could outplay him post-flop. And we're both 60 big blinds deep, leaving lots of room for play.

Villain snap-calls.

Flop: 10 4 3 (6,350 pot)

Villain checks; aaaaaaaa checks.

CT: Why no continuation-bet if you thought he was a weak player?

DJ: I decided not to bet because the only hands he would call that quickly preflop with are Q-Q, J-J, 10-10, 9-9, and maybe 8-8. The reason I don't have other hands in his range is that he would have to think about folding or reraising with them. He can't instantly call with them. If I bet, it's very unlikely that he folds at this point.

Turn: J (6,350 pot)

Villain checks; aaaaaaaa bets 3,300.

CT: What are you trying to define with this bet, his calling range?

DJ: I made a small bet due to the range of hands I put him on, and because he's shown weakness. He had either a flush or a set, which he's not folding no matter what I bet. I also really doubt that he's folding Q-Q, 9-9, or 8-8 if it has a club in it. The hands I'm trying to get him to fold are the hands without a club in them.

Villain calls 3,300.

River: A (12,950 pot)

CT: Could he have called with A-Q or A-J preflop, holding the A?

DJ: I figured he couldn't have the A because he probably folds A-Q preflop. And even if he did decide to call with it preflop, it would take him longer to do so. That was my instinct. Even if he did call that fast with A-Q or even A-J with the A, it's likely that he takes a different line on the turn or river. The only other hand with the A is pocket aces, which I don't think he can snap-call with preflop. He has to think about four-betting.

Villain checks; aaaaaaaa bets 10,000.

CT: Explain your thoughts on this nearly pot-size river bet?

DJ: I think with a big bet like this, he'll fold a king-high flush here a decent percentage of the time, mainly because it turns his hand into a bluff-catcher. I thought I needed to make a big bet here for a large portion of his stack. This will push him off his hand a good portion of the time. It's obvious to him that I'm never value-betting, even the king-high flush, for 10,000 on this river. If this situation were versus a good player, I wouldn't try this bluff.

CT: Why?

DJ: An experienced opponent would have a different thought process: "Hmm … the only hand aaaaaaaa can bet for value here is the A, and this would be a good spot to bluff at this pot." A savvy player would call me much more often.

Villain folds; aaaaaaaa takes down the pot of 12,950.

Daryl Jace, 20, is a professional poker player ,recently married and has a child on the way. He has won more than $1 million playing online tournaments. He recently won Full Tilt Poker's Sunday major event for $385,937.

Dying With the Best Hand
By Mike Sexton, the "Ambassador of Poker" and Commentator for the World Poker Tour

The Mirage Poker Showdown was the kickoff event of season six on the World Poker Tour. It was also our inaugural event on GSN -- the new network for the WPT. (The World Poker Tour is now seen on Mondays on GSN at 9 p.m. PT/ET, following High Stakes Poker.) And it seemed only fitting that the first WPT event on our new network had the guy many consider to be the premier player in poker at the table -- Phil Ivey, and he was the chip leader. It's hard to kick off a new season better than that.

Incredibly, this was Ivey's seventh cash on the WPT -- and seventh final table! Although he didn't win this tournament, later in season six, at the L.A. Poker Classic, he made his eighth cash and his eighth final table, and captured his first WPT title.

This hand was the second hand dealt at the final table, and there was booming action right out of the gate. Antes were 3,000 and the blinds were 12,000-24,000, when Amnon Filippi (with 565,000) opened the pot from under the gun for 70,000 with A-Q offsuit. Two players folded, and Cory Carroll (with 1.3 million) called from the button with the A 7. Chip leader Phil Ivey, in the small blind, decided to join the party and called with A-J offsuit. The big blind folded, so it was three-way action in a raised pot heading to the flop.

The flop was K-J-10 with two hearts. Bingo, bango, bongo! Filippi, the preflop raiser, had flopped the nuts! Ivey was first to act and checked his jacks and straight draw. Filippi then bet 135,000. To his delight, Carroll (with both the ace-high straight and nut-flush draws) made it 355,000 to play (a 220,000 raise). Ivey folded, and Filippi, with the best hand possible, went all in, and Carroll called.

Everyone was on his feet. The turn card was the 6 and the river card was the 2! Carroll made his flush, won the pot (more than 1.2 million), and was the new chip leader. Filippi reported to the rail in sixth place, muttering, "Why me?"

The legendary Hall of Famer Johnny Moss once said to me, "Mike, in poker, you can't control the luck factor. All you can do is get your money in with the best hand." Filippi did just that. It simply wasn't meant to be for him on this night.

It was, however, meant to be for Jonathan Little, who won the Mirage Poker Showdown, captured his first WPT title, and became the newest member of the WPT's poker-made millionaire club. Congratulations, Jonathan.

Wisdom That Stands the Test of Time
By Tim Peters

Poker Wisdom of a Champion by Doyle Brunson (Cardoza; $14.95)

Doyle Brunson revolutionized poker publishing with his groundbreaking 1979 classic Super/System: A Course in Power Poker. A few years later, he collected a series of poker columns in Poker Wisdom of a Champion (originally titled According to Doyle and recently re-released by Cardoza under that name). Published more than two decades ago, this book is so "out of date" that Brunson feels compelled to explain the mechanics of Texas hold'em. But do not let that put you off. This collection of object-lesson anecdotes and poker strategy is invaluable for today's players, as it's filled with the wisdom that characterizes one of poker's legendary figures.

Some of this wisdom may be familiar, but that doesn't mean it's not useful. "Don't just play your cards, play your people." Don't play in "a game where you feel uncomfortable." And beware of the desire to play bigger: "If there's any single fault universal to top-ranked pros, it's that they have too much heart. They tend to seek out too-tough competition and risk too much of their bankrolls as proof of their daring." Heart is Brunson's word for "gamble," and no one has more heart than Brunson (except maybe Patrik Antonius). Today's ambitious players always seem to want to play higher, even when they might make more money at lower stakes.

Poker Wisdom of a Champion also describes the genesis of Brunson's concept of "power poker." The prevailing notion back in the day was to play tight, wait for good hands, and set traps. Brunson writes, "I figured if I had to play that kind of poker to win, I'd rather stay home and throw paper wads at my wastebasket." Power poker is "dynamic, aggressive poker": It confuses your opponent, shocks him, and slows him down. "He won't raise with anything less than a super-hand because he's too afraid of your reraise … You have brought him to his knees." But Brunson also warns that you have to have command of the fundamentals to execute this strategy, another lesson many of today's hyperaggressive players fail to grasp.

In another compelling chapter, Brunson advises players of the importance of changing speeds dramatically: "Superstars shift gear … They shift suddenly from first to third and back again, seldom using anything in between." Learn to do this well, and "you'll instantly sense a new and dramatic power over the other players and your profit will be commensurate with their confusion."

This kind of style also puts you in control of the game, a critical aspect of Brunson's poker philosophy: "I've seen many smart players put themselves at the mercy of the cards," he writes. "Poker is a game where you have control over your action. You never have to call; you never have to bet; you never have to raise. You choose to call; you choose to bet; you choose to raise. You are the master."

Some of the great pleasures of this slim volume are the anecdotes from Brunson's life in poker, from backroom and private games in Texas to his eventual shift to Las Vegas. Poker has changed since Poker Wisdom of a Champion was published, but some of its lessons are timeless.

Take, for example, Brunson's point about honor in gambling: "In truth, a professional gambler is among the most honorable of men." That's probably still true among high-stakes live players, but the online game is a different story. There is no honor in ghosting, multi-accounting, collusion, or selling accounts. Brunson wouldn't do it, and neither should you.

Folksy in tone, easy to read, and filled with his unique insights, Poker Wisdom of a Champion is a valuable addition to any poker library.

What constitutes a "classic" of poker literature? Let me know -- especially if I haven't reviewed it -- at [email protected].