The Inside Straight

Final Straight for European Poker Tour Season Four

After 11 hours of play, 40-year-old German share trader Michael Schulze won the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Polish Open in Warsaw, seeing off 358 others on his way to taking down the $609,782 first prize.

A couple of weeks later 21-year-old American James Mercier defeated French fancy Antony Lellouche and local hero Dario Minieri at the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour in San Remo, Italy. He lifted €869,000 after qualifying for the €5,000 buy-in event online with the sponsor. It was only the second ever live tournament for the former trainee maths teacher.
These were the final two events before the Grand Final in Monte Carlo and both proved popular.

In Warsaw, the €5,750 buy-in event created a prize pool of more than €2 million, and Schulze eventually triumphed over Portuguese pro Ricardo Sousa when his A-6 managed to overtake Sousa's pocket sevens. Sousa, a 30-year-old father of one from Oporto, collected €345,779.

Norwegian Trond Erik Eidsvig, who was on his third final table of EPT season four, exited in eighth place, and was one of four PokerStars qualifiers among the final nine.

The place and payouts at the final table were:



Schulze also picked up a seat at the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo.

However it was Italy which confounded all expectations. The event, which attracted a sellout 700 runners, was the first major international tournament to be held in Italy and a clutch of the game's most recognisable names made the final table to battle it out with the PokerStars online qualifiers.

The final table make-up was:



Rather predictably the short-stacked Bower was first out, earning €76,700 when he moved all-in for 155,000 on Lellouche's 70,000 chip raise. The Frenchman called with A-J and hit an ace on the river to send Bower's pocket fours sinking.
Palovic was next to the rail for €111,800 when he moved in with Q-Q on a 8-3-2 flop but found Minieri with pocket threes to make trips.

Swede William Thorsson busted in sixth for €140,600 when he re-reraised all-in with A-Q and was called by Mercier and his marginal monster A-K.

Roman investment banker, 37-year-old Genovese was out in fifth for €188,500 when Mercier again raked in the chips with his A-3 finding another ace on the flop and nothing coming to help out the Italian.

Another PokerStars qualifier, Koskas, was eliminated in fourth for €223,600 when he bluffed with 10-high on the river with a board of J-6-5-8-8 and Mercier called with a pair of fives after some considerable deliberation.

Minieri, who was hot favourite to lift his first EPT title, was ousted in third for €287,000. He was joint chip leader with Mercier when the two clashed. A pot of 719,000 had been built and the pair saw a flop of 8 7 2. Minieri bet 200,000, Mercier moved all-in and Minieri snap-called.

Minieri showed Q-Q and was ahead of Mercier who held A 4. A diamond on the river shocked the hometown crowd and catapulted Mercier into a virtually unassailable lead while sending the vanquished Minieri to the rail with his head spinning.
Two hands later it was all over. Lellouche pushed his remaining chips into the middle with 7-7 and Mercier called with K-Q. A queen fell on the flop and Lellouche got no help from the rest of the cards and James Mercier came from behind a second time in almost as many hands to win the first ever EPT event, but certainly not the last, to be held on Italian soil.

Lellouche won €505,000 while Mercier took down the first prize of €869,000 as well as a Monte Carlo Grand Final seat.

Great Britain Wins PartyPoker.com Nations Cup

Team Great Britain, captained by Roland De Wolfe and featuring Irish Open winner Neil Channing, won the 2008 PartyPoker.com Poker Nations Cup. The team, featuring De Wolfe and Channing, as well as Surinder Sunar, Joe Beevers, Ian Frazer, and PartyPoker.com VIP online qualifier Charlie Durbin beat Ireland heads-up to lift the prestigious title and $100,000 first prize.

There was a total prize pool of $280,000 to be won over six heats, with each player scoring points for his team and individual-match winners lifting $20,000 for victory. The triumphant team took down $100,000.

The final was again a tag-team format wherein the team captain could make tactical substitutions and strategic timeouts.

This year's teams were:



"I'm absolutely delighted," said team captain De Wolfe. "In many ways it is even better to win a team event for your country than win an individual title. I am so proud that the selections for my team were vindicated," he added.

"We knew that it would be tight early on so I played Surinder. We fancied that he could exploit his tight image and he had played so well in his heat that it simply had to be him. Next we put on Joe Beevers. At that point we needed to shore things up as we were near the chip lead. This was a choice I made based on the situation. If we had been leading I would have put in Ian Frazer to get at them but Joe did a good job. I played third and always fancied this period of the tournament. I had a good run against Holland's Thierry van den Berg and knew that blind stealing would be key at this stage before the blinds got too big. Neil had to play last as he had the form and confidence. Even though neither Ian Frazer or Charlie Durbin were involved at this stage, both were key to our success. Both played excellently in the heats and the decisions were hard but we were only allowed to play four players in the final."

Channing claimed victory after he beat Ireland's Donnacha O'Dea heads-up. Play swung both ways but the key-turning point saw Channing go all-in with 8-4 offsuit, and get called by O'Dea's 2-2. He hit a 4 on the river and O'Dea never recovered and Great Britain won the Cup they first won in 2006.

Channing, who was a late substitute and was originally supposed to conduct the TV interviews said, "I am just as proud of this as I am of my win in Ireland. It was an honour to be picked to represent my country and great to be chosen to play the crucial final leg for the team."

Irish captain Padraig Parkinson was philosophical about the defeat. "We were the oldest team in the tournament," he said. "It's quite obvious that poker is a young man's game." Parkinson only played one hand in the final before substituting himself.

The event was filmed for TV and will be broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK in autumn and around the world thereafter.

Journalist Wins European Challenge II

Peter Gelencser, a 20-year-old trainee journalist from Budapest, Hungary, has won the PartyPoker.com European Challenge II at the Concord Card Casino, Vienna. The €3,000 plus €150 buy-in main event attracted 172 runners and created a prize pool of €516,000.

Vienna has proved a happy hunting ground for Gelencser who came third in this event last year when it was won by Croatian Branimir Brunovic.

"I'm very happy," said the young winner, "I was disappointed not to win last year but to win this time feels fantastic. I was in a strong position going into the final table but couldn't help but think it would go the same way as last year. Thankfully, it didn't -- I had such fantastic support from the rail and am glad I didn't let anybody down."

Gelencser got heads-up as the massive 10:1 chip leader and beat local-pro Josef Klinger, despite Klinger clawing his way back to almost even in chips, when he rivered a seven for a Jack-high straight.

Bjoern Kaersten, the German winner of the East Versus West team event a few days earlier was the final table bubble boy, exiting in 11th place. Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott busted in eighth when his pair of sixes got trumped by chip-leader Alex Leview hit two pair on the flop.

The final table payouts were:



The event was filmed for broadcast in the UK in late summer/early autumn on ITV4 and around the world thereafter.

World Series of Poker Returns to Europe

Harrah's Entertainment has announced the dates of the second annual World Series of Poker Europe. The event will take place from Sept. 19 to Oct. 1 in London, England.

The tournament will once again be hosted by London Clubs International to be held at St. James (Fifty), Leicester Square (The Casino at the Empire), and Marble Arch (Sportsman) locations.

The schedule of events has not yet been released but will be when finalised.

Last year's WSOPE main event winner was Annette "Annette_15" Obrestad, who was 18-years-old at the time. She broke the record for youngest main event winner and took over Annie Duke's record for the woman with the most money won in WSOP events. Obrestad took home more than $2 million after defeating a field of 361 players.

PKR in HCPTR PRMO

PKR.com, the next-gen 3-D online poker room has unveiled its latest ad campaign -- a giant banner three-quarters the size of a soccer pitch which, when trailed through the skies behind a helicopter, can be seen by one million people.

The company worked with Helibanners and their system Helicopter Overcity Banner Systems to produce the 25,000 square foot banner which will be used in and around London during major sporting events.

The banner is visible for over 10 miles and with three flights already undertaken, Simon Prodger, marketing director of PKR, said, "It's a pretty awe-inspiring spectacle, and one that no one expects to see. We've gotten reports of sightings from all over London, and people have even been sending in their own camera phone images."

Easy Money
By David Apostolico

Too much liquidity in markets can prime the pump, leading to easy gains for quite some time. Of course, the party never lasts forever and the bubble always bursts, resulting in painful losses for those unprepared. In the late '90s, the Federal Reserve greatly increased liquidity in the markets in preparation for any potential Y2K problems. That certainly contributed to the great run-up in the stock market that ultimately came down hard. The availability of subprime mortgages, coupled with low interest rates and an easing of credit requirements, led to the run-up in the housing market, which caused the most recent bubble to burst.

Since this is a column for Card Player, you may wonder what any of this has to do with poker. Well, poker is no different from any other discipline. Too much liquidity, or easy money, doesn't last forever. Inevitably, things dry up and someone is left holding the bag. Let's explore how that can happen in poker. We've all seen the fast and loose cash-game player with deep pockets who is out for a good time and a lot of action. Making money is secondary to his primary need of entertainment. You'll watch this player dig into his pockets time and time again as someone else scoops a big pot. The temptation to play any two cards against him is very great. Yet, rarely will you force this player out of a pot, so the better course of action is to wait for a good (but not necessarily very strong) hand and try to isolate him. Every player has his threshold limit for losing, so you want to get your share before the party ends. You have to be selective in picking your spots, however.

Specifically, in tournaments, I've seen fairly mediocre players go on an unbelievable rush and accumulate a bunch of chips. You know they are going to give them all away at some point in time, as the bubble will always eventually burst. Again, the idea is to be patient and selective in picking your spots, to make sure that you get some of those chips while the easy money is there. What happens, however, when you are the one on a rush? We tend to be aware of going on tilt when things go badly, but players can also go on tilt when things are coming too easily. Even a hardened player can start to feel an air of invincibility when sitting behind a mountain of chips.

Inevitably, any rush is going to end -- even yours. It can be very powerful -- and smart poker - to use your big stack as leverage. Just be sure that you are adopting a big-stack strategy and not playing just because you believe you can't lose and the money will keep coming your way. Concentrate on making correct decisions for the situation, taking into account all factors. Certainly, the size of your chip stack and the fact that your opponents may be afraid to go up against you should figure into the mix, and you may be able to use that to your advantage if you retain objectivity and stay detached emotionally. There's a big difference between adjusting to the current situation in a completely objective manner and playing a rush just because you want easy money. If you are looking for easy money, the party will end much quicker.

David Apostolico is the author of numerous books on poker, including Tournament Poker and The Art of War and Poker Strategies for a Winning Edge in Business. You can contact him at [email protected].

djk123 Plays the Villain's Hand, Not His Own
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.

Event: $100 PokerStars freezeout no-limit hold'em tournament
Players: 588
First Prize: $12,642
Stacks: djk123 - 1,100,418; Villain - 663,582
Blinds: 8,000-16,000
Ante: 1,600

The villain limps in from the button in the first hand of heads-up play; djk123 checks his option with the 6 5.

Craig Tapscott: Great players say the key to winning is putting themselves in their opponent's head and playing their opponent's hand, not their own. Share how you do that.

Daniel "djk123" Kelly: Well, his limp is generally a sign of weakness, so raising is an option. But given that I thought I had a decent post-flop edge on the villain, and that I was out of position, I decided to just check.

Flop: A 7 4 (35,200 pot)

djk123 checks.

CT: This is a pretty good flop for you.

DK: The villain's preflop limp significantly reduces the chance that he has an ace in his hand. However, I expect him to bluff this flop a lot. I like a check-raise in this spot, because it gets value from his bluffs and appears very strong. Unfortunately, the villain spoils that strategy.

The villain checks.

Turn: K (35,200)

CT: What did you learn from that check?

DK: Well, it indicates one of two things: He has either a mediocre hand with showdown value, or nothing and decided not to bluff the flop. I decide to bet as a semibluff.

djk123 bets 24,000; the villain raises to 96,000.

CT: Uh-oh.

DK: At first glance, the villain's raise looks quite strong, but he's actually representing a very narrow range of hands. If he had a one-pair hand, he most likely would just call instead of raise, since raising would turn his hand into a bluff. So, by raising, he has a hand that is two pair or better, or he has a bluff/semibluff. In other words, his range is "polarized."

CT: Explain.

DK: Given his limp preflop, we can almost completely eliminate 4-4, 7-7, K-K, A-A, A-4, A-7, and A-K from his range. We are left with 7-4, K-7, and K-4, which are not many hands at all. After taking that information into account, I decided it was likely that the villain was bluffing.

CT: So, it's time to reraise?

DK: If I were to reraise, I would probably shove all in, since I wouldn't want to give him the chance to do something crazy, like flat-calling or four-bet bluffing. A poker player should always strive to make the most positive EV [expected value] play. I decided to just call, with the intention of check-raising all in on most rivers. By waiting until the river to bluff, I gain an extra bet when he follows through with his bluff. Although this delayed bluff is risky, since it would be disastrous if he gave up and checked behind on the river, I was confident that he would follow through with his bluff, based on the way he had been playing.

djk123 calls 96,000.

River: A (227,200 pot)

djk123 checks; the villain bets 112,000.

DK: This was a perfect river for me to check-raise bluff. First of all, if he had been semibluffing with a diamond flush draw, he missed. Secondly, it is now mathematically less likely that he holds an ace. Furthermore, since the ace counterfeits K-7, K-4, and 7-4, I would expect him to check behind with those hands sometimes, because weak multitable tournament players are not good at value-betting lightly. As a result, his betting range on the river is polarized between a huge hand and air. The logical conclusion is that he is bluffing most of the time.

djk123 shoves all in for 986,818; the villain folds; djk123 wins the huge pot.

Daniel Kelly is a top-ranked online tournament player with more than $1 million in cashes. Most recently, he topped the world's best online players in the highly regarded PokerStars daily $100 rebuy event with multiple wins of more than $30,000 each. And he won the PokerStars 2007 World Championship of Online Poker $215 plus rebuys pot-limit Omaha second-chance event for $41,515.

Basebaldy Hits One Out of the Park
By Shawn Patrick Green

Eric "basebaldy" Baldwin has come a long way from playing poker to avoid doing homework in high school. He squeezed in online poker here and there during college to pay for beer and food, but now he earns enough on the poker felts to avoid a more mainstream career entirely.

Baldwin has been landing big scores both online and live for some time now, but he recently turned up the heat with his biggest cash ever when he took down a prelim at the Bellagio Five-Star World Poker Classic. That win netted him almost $150,000, and he had to plow through a final table full of very tough opponents to land his payday. He has made almost $350,000 live, and even more online.

Since Eric was already in Vegas, Card Player got him in our studio to talk about his beginnings in poker and his tournament-winning strategies.

Shawn Patrick Green: What tactics did you use to move your way up the ranks, and what did you use to improve your game?

Eric "basebaldy" Baldwin: Well, I'm a book guy. I hear a lot of the top online guys saying that they've never read a poker book -- but that's not me. When the Harrington on Hold'em series came out, I studied those like textbooks; I actually took notes on them. That really, really helped my game. Once everybody started learning all of that stuff, you had to go on Internet forums and read new books to find out how to play against what everyone was doing. The game evolves so much, it's incredible.

SPG: Actually, that's an interesting point. What do you think about the longevity of poker books as far as once everyone has read them and started incorporating their contents into their game is concerned? Are the books now useless and you have to find a new book with new tactics?

EB: I definitely think that the poker book market is getting pretty saturated, because most of the new ideas are already out there, and now it's just "how to play against that idea." And then you just get into second- and third-leveling the things that you learn in those books, so almost the next thing to do would be to read a psychology book.

SPG: There have always been a lot of poker players who aren't necessarily beginners, but they aren't necessarily pros; they're kind of stuck in a rut somewhere in the middle. They're reading all of the books, they're talking to friends about hands, they're doing all of the prerequisite stuff, but they still don't seem to be going anywhere. Do you have any recommendations, maybe, for how they can step up to the next level?

EB: I think the best advice I could give to any poker player, really, is to never stop trying to get better. There's always room to improve, and when you get complacent, and when you stop trying to get better -- I've seen it happen to a lot of people -- there's a downward spiral that starts. There's so much luck involved in the game; you'll run hot for one week and start thinking that you know everything, and then the next week, you run bad. But there's so much luck involved in the game that you can blame your losing on bad luck. You can go on doing that for months, and during those months, you're not improving your game.

And in the meantime, other people are learning new strategies to exploit what you're doing. So then you get passed by and get into a bad habit, and you think you're running bad; it's just a bad spiral that's tough to get out of. So, I would say, just never get complacent and keep trying to learn.

SPG: How would you describe your style of play, in particular?

EB: My style in multitable tournaments, I would say, is pretty low-variance. I try to stay away from neutral EV [expected value] plays and even some slightly positive EV plays, because I find that at most of these tournaments, you're going to find great spots. There are enough bad players in the fields that you're going to find a great spot, but you're not going to have the opportunity to exploit that spot if you took a coin flip that you didn't necessarily have to and you're watching from the rail. So, I try to play a lower variance and keep pots small, and stay away from marginal spots. But, at the same time, I'm not afraid to gamble if the situation calls for it.

SPG: Can you give an example of what you would consider a marginal spot?

EB: For example, if I open a pot and raise, and a player behind me reraises all in, I run the math. I try to put him on a range of hands, and then I see how my hand plays against that range of hands, and I look at the pot odds. Let's say it's a break-even call, just going by the math and what I think he's reraising me with. Unless I dislike my situation at the table, I'll pass on it.

If I have a bunch of really great players on my left and don't like my situation, I'll take a coin flip because I want to play a higher-variance style. But if I'm at a table with a lot of bad players I think I can take advantage of, I'll just pass on that opportunity.

SPG: Take me through your thought process in any given hand at a full table in a tournament. What considerations do you make, and how do you factor those into your final decision?

EB: One thing that I think really helps me a lot is trying to figure out what's going to happen in a hand before I'm even dealt or even look at my cards. I'll think about what my image is and what the stack sizes and playing styles are on my left, and what they're likely to do if I open a pot. If I think I'm likely to take the blinds and antes because of my table setup and image, I'm likely to raise with any two cards. But, at the same time, if I think I'm likely to get reraised by someone behind me and I have a marginal hand, like A-10 or something, there's no reason to put those chips in the pot. If you're just going to fold when you get reraised, you're turning A-10 into 4-2, because you're never going to see a flop with it.

Chatbox Cunning: Strategy from Top Online Pros

Peter "#1PEN" Neff

On taking advantage of short stacks near the bubble:

"Let's say there are 10 or 11 people left in the tournament, so you're on the final-table bubble, and there's one stack of six or seven big blinds and a bunch of stacks of between 12 and 20 big blinds. You can raise their big blinds all of the time. You can reraise and put them all in with moderate hands, because they can't call off all of the time. There are just little things like that; they're not going to call off all of their chips if there's a short stack who is almost out of the tournament and they're going to get to the final table, where the whole dynamic of the tournament changes. So, I think a lot of people play to make the final table, and you can pick that off and use that as an advantage to you."

On the difference in strategies he employs for low-stakes tournaments compared to high-stakes tournaments:

"There's a big difference. I play a lot of tournaments, so the difference between playing a $100 freezeout and a $1,000 freezeout, like on Stars or Full Tilt, is huge. You're playing two different levels of competition. In the $1,000 freezeout, you're going to be playing, I think, a much tighter range. I don't think you can open as many pots or steal as much, and you have to always be aware of your opponents' reraising ranges. When you're in a $100 freezeout and the field is so much weaker, you can steal and resteal a lot more easily, and you can just get away with things much more easily than you can in a $1,000 freezeout. I think that's the biggest difference between the two."

On when, if ever, it makes sense not to add on in a rebuy tournament:

"I don't think I've ever not added on in a tournament. If you think you have an edge in the field, I think it's a smart idea to add on. If you're not adding on, I think you're not a positive-EV player in that kind of field. I've had stacks that were more than 20,000 or 30,000 and I've still added on, just because I was still getting my money's worth. You put up $100, or whatever the buy-in is for the rebuy that you're playing, and you get more chips. You're still looking at the same exact ratio of money to chips in value. So, I don't think that it's ever right not to add on."

Russell Carson: The Hottest Player Online
By Craig Tapscott

Some Internet poker forums debate whether Russell "rdcrsn" Carson ever sleeps. Pull up ringside on any given day and there he sits online, usually at a final table, usually with the chip lead. A typical day will include firing up about 35 tournaments over 12 hours, sometimes deciphering as many as 16 tables simultaneously, splayed out over three huge screens; overlapping, jumbled tables just don't sit well with his fine-tuned and meticulous sensibilities.

"It's all about the setup," said Carson. "When I travel, I take an extra screen to attach to my laptop. That allows me to play only 10 tables. If I can see the tables, and hands don't pop out of nowhere, I can process the information pretty fast."

It obviously works well for the former commerce student. One banner day this past January netted Carson a third-place finish in a Full Tilt Poker FTOPS event and a second in a PokerStars $200 no-limit hold'em tournament, for more than $108,000. Just seven days later, he would take down the coveted $200 rebuy event on PokerStars for $45,855, and also win the PokerRoom $500,000-guaranteed $1,000 buy-in Grand XXI event for $141,000.

Carson, a native Canadian, has cashed for more than $1.4 million over the last 14 months online. He hopes the hot streak continues when he brings his A-game to the upcoming World Series of Poker. And perhaps he'll have the opportunity to catch up on some well-earned sleep, with only two or three live events running daily.

Craig Tapscott: What helped your skills improve so fast when you switched from limit cash games to no-limit tournaments?

Russell Carson: Just playing a ridiculous number of hands. And as my bankroll grew, it allowed me to play bigger buy-in tournaments. I was then able to play with and watch some of the better players. I would notice what they were doing and learn the dynamics of no-limit. I never really had a mentor, read books, or participated in online forums.

CT: What key concept did you pick up during this time?

RC: I learned how to get maximum value out of my hands, especially later in tournaments. I usually will only call with something like A-A or K-K. I'm more inclined to see flops with huge hands, unless I'm certain that an opponent has a big hand, also -- for example, when a super-tight player raises from under the gun. I'm trying to get that extra bet on the flop and make the opponent think I have what I don't have. I may even play my hand weakly after the flop to get even more chips. I hate three-betting and having a player fold when I have a premium hand.

CT: What else can you share?

RC: I learned to pay close attention to the 10-percent rule. If you have pocket pairs and are calling 10 percent of your stack off preflop, you have to make sure that your opponent is able to double you up. If not, you shouldn't be calling more than 10 percent of your stack. Example: If I'm holding 5-5 and a guy opens from middle position and he has only 5,000 and I have 10,000, I can't be calling there. I'm either reraising or folding.

CT: You've been red-hot these past few months. Has your approach to the game changed?

RC: I think my base and foundation as a player is basically tight-aggressive. But in the last six months, when I've built a stack, I've learned to open up my game and change gears. And I've also started to put in more volume to combat variance.

CT: That sounds way too simple.

RC: Well, overall, I just see things better now. Early on in my game, I would reraise with a hand like A-J from the cutoff, and when it was shoved over me, I would call. I thought A-J was the nuts back then [laughing]. But my thinking has improved and I understand table dynamics much better.

CT: What separates the good online players from the great ones?

RC: It's a combination of things. When there are 50 players left, the top players are usually making the final table. They know how to avoid situations that they shouldn't be in. We play our A-game for a full session. You can't throw away chip equity or money by making terrible plays. You have to learn to understand how much equity you're tossing away by not playing your A-game every hand, every tournament.