The Inside Straight

€250,000 Guaranteed at Ladbrokes Poker Festival

LadbrokesPoker.com, in conjunction with Destination Killarney, has announced details of the €250,000-guaranteed Ladbrokes Poker Festival taking place in the INEC - Gleneagle, Killarney, Ireland, Oct. 2-5, 2008.

The European ranking event has a €550 buy-in and is expected to attract about 500 players.

Bryan Coleman, Ladbrokes Irish territory manager, said, "Ladbrokes are delighted to be associated with Destination Killarney and this event. We wanted to offer the Irish poker player an event that gives them a fantastic playing experience alongside a great location and world-renowned hospitality."

Ladbrokes Poker professional Roy "The Boy" Brindley commented: "I have played in tournaments all over the world, and without doubt Killarney is the finest setting for an international lifestyle/poker event; Roll on October."

Players will be treated to the Ladbrokes Lounge with pool, darts, and a host of other activities, as well as a Ladbrokes shop. Accommodation deals for the event can be found at GleneagleHotel.com.

Qualification for the main event is underway, and players can avail of three routes into the tournament:

Pre-Registration for Main Event:

• Register for the event now by buying in directly at LadbrokesPoker.com
• $1,250 Online Qualification Packages at LadbrokesPoker.com:
• Weekly $137.50 final each Monday at 7:30 p.m. GMT

Offline Satellites:

More than 150 seats have been reserved for the event for local cardroom satellites. There will also be a super satellite held at the venue on Thursday, Oct. 2 at 7:30 p.m. with 20 seats guaranteed. The buy-in is €50 + €10 with one rebuy or top-up.
The festival will also host a €270 + €30 freezeout on Saturday, Oct. 4, with an estimated prize pool of €60,000 and a €150 + €20 freezeout on Sunday, Oct. 5 with a €25,000-guaranteed prize pool.

Dane Casper Hansen Wins World Poker Tour Spain

Dane Casper Hansen won the World Poker Tour Spanish Championship in Casino Barcelona in late May, lifting the first prize of $655,720 after topping a field of 253 runners. Hansen started the final table third in chips and came from behind in the final hand with A-2 to beat Swede Stefan Mattsson, who held A-9.

The event generated a prize pool of almost $2 million, and Card Player Brazil columnist Thiago Nishijima came third, earning $176,934.

Fourth placed Andreas Vidal took home $137,703, while Guy Sitbon and Martin Lundenius lifted $118,166 and $98,157 respectively for fifth and sixth place.

Hungarian Wins Latin American Poker Tour Event in Costa Rica

The second stop on the PokerStars.net Latin American Poker Tour, held in San José, Costa Rica, was won by Hungarian Valdemar Kwaysser. The 24-year-old poker pro, who qualified online for $200 at PokerStars, topped a field of 389 players to collect the $274,102 first prize when his A-A stayed ahead of American Max Steinberg's J-9 despite a flop of 9-8-8.

It was only Kwaysser's second live tournament, although he had a substantial online cash at PokerStars last year when he came third in a Sunday Millions for $133,000. Nineteen-year-old Steinberg, who was playing alongside his twin brother, Danny, took home $144,773 for his second place finish.

"I had some very lucky hands today as well, but that's poker," said Kwaysser after his victory. "Sometimes you play perfectly and don't get the results. This was different."

The final table payouts were:


The event attracted entrants from 35 countires and included noted poker players Humberto Brenes, Daniel Negreanu, and Isabelle Mercier, as well as celebrities such as talk show host Montel Williams, Simpsons creator Sam Simon, and baseball star Orel Hershiser.

Local players gave a good account of themselves, with 45 playing and one making the final table. The third and final stop on the tour is Punta del Este, Uruguay, Aug. 7-9. Players can qualify now on PokerStars.com.

German and Spanish Card Player Websites Launched

The Card Player Media family continues to expand with the recent addition of CardPlayerDeutsch.com (Germany) and CardPlayerEspana.com (Spain), bringing to 13 the total of international sites and magazines in Card Player Media's business portfolio.

The sites join CardPlayerEurope.com, CardPlayerItalia.com (Italy), CardPlayer.fi (Finland), CardPlayerBrasil.com (Brazil), and CardPlayerFr.com (France), as well as partner magazines in Poland, Hungary, Sweden, Estonia, Quebec, and South Africa.

Jeff Shulman, chief executive officer of Card Player Media, said, "This is just the next stage of our continuing commitment to be the leading international poker media outlet. As the game itself increasingly crosses borders, so do the players, and, as a result, so must the media. And we're delighted to partner with some very dedicated writers and players in Germany and Spain who can deliver the most relevant and interesting news for those markets."

Poker fans can get their poker news and views fix with an international flavor by visiting CardPlayer.com and clicking on any of the array of flags at the top of the page.

David Singer on Song During FullTilt.com $25,000 Heads-Up Poker Championship
By Shawn Patrick Green

David Singer may have gone out in the first round of the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship (NHUPC) in March, but he lasted all six rounds in the $25,000 buy-in Full Tilt Heads-Up Championship to take down the $560,000 top prize -- more than he would have won for taking down the NHUPC ($500,000) and also more than the winner of last year's heads-up championship at the World Series of Poker ($425,954).

An elite field of 64 entrants bought in for $25,000 apiece, the highest buy-in heads-up tournament ever to be held online. The event, hosted by reining NHUPC champion Chris Ferguson, featured a venerable who's who of poker, including both online and live-tournament pros. The Full Tilt-sponsored, red-named pros who played in the event included Ferguson, Singer, Andy Bloch, Phil Ivey, Erik Seidel, Gus Hansen, Howard Lederer, Brandon Adams, David Benyamine, David Oppenheim, Huck Seed, Nick Schulman, Nenad Medic, Steve Zolotow, Erick Lindgren, Eli Elezra, Gavin Smith, Max Pescatori, Brian Hastings, Peter Feldman, Peter Jepsen, and Taylor Caby. Full Tilt pros made up more than one third of the field.

Also in attendance were Patrik "FinddaGrind" Antonius, Jeff "ActionJeff" Garza, Isaac "the guru 11" Baron, Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Chris "Genius28" Lee, Phil "OMGClayAiken" Galfond, and Cory "UGOTPZD" Carroll.

Eight places paid in the event, and after three rounds of heads-up matches had been completed, the final eight players were Bloch, Hastings, Singer, Antonius, Card Player Pro trainer Dani "Ansky451" Stern, Emil "whitelime" Patel, mischiefofmagic, and Scott "mastrblastr" Seiver. All eight were guaranteed at least $96,000 for having lasted that long. Round 4 saw the end of Antonius, Stern, mischiefofmagic, and mastrblastr. Once down to four, play ended for the night to resume the following day.

The final four comprised three red-named Full Tilt pros. Two of those pros, Singer and Hastings, faced off, and Singer ultimately took down the final pot to make it to the sixth and final round of play. In the other matchup, Bloch, who finished runner-up to Ferguson in the most recent NHUPC, wouldn't repeat his spot in the finals when Patel took him out. Bloch and Hastings earned $168,000 apiece.

Singer then went head-to-head with Patel, and defeated his sixth straight opponent to take down the huge first-place payday of $560,000. Patel left the final match with a very respectable $320,000 for second place.

Those interested can watch events like these on FullTilt.com.

Doctor Wins Grosvenor UK Poker Tour in Newcastle

Ganesh Rao won the BlueSquarePoker.com-sponsored Grosvenor UK Poker Tour, Newcastle, in May, topping a field of 189 to lift the first prize of £57,175. The doctor, originally from Sheffield, had previously finished ninth in the Walsall leg of the tour. He snatched the title from Ian Farrell when his J-J picked off Farrell's 5-2 bluff.

Online qualifiers were particularly successful at leg five of the tour, including the runner-up, Farrell, who had qualified for free online on Blue Square Poker and ended up winning more than £33,000. He qualified via a freeroll for a regular $109 rebuy satellite that takes place twice a week on the tour sponsor's site. He went on to secure his seat without needing to rebuy. This was the first major tournament that Farrell had played in, proving that recreational online players can make the transition to the live arena.

Two other online qualifiers, David Allen (finished fifth, collecting £12,275) and Cheryl Routledge (finished ninth, collecting £4,725), also made the final table in Newcastle without spending a penny. James Akenhead, who came third in the event, finished second in the $1,500 no-limit hold'em tournament at the World Series of Poker a few weeks later.

The final table payouts at the event were:
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Rao also won a £3,000 seat to the GUKPT grand final in London in November. Qualify for the GUKPT at BlueSquarePoker.com.

Soren Kongsgaard Wins PokerStars Sunday Million

Current Danish champion and European Poker Tour grand finalist Soren Kongsgaard won the PokerStars Sunday Million in early June, triumphing over a field of 6,747 players to take $158,555 from a total prize pool of $1,349,400.

It was the second time Kongsgaard made the final table of the Sunday Million, having come fourth in February 2007. He has also won the FullTilt.com Million Dollar Guaranteed for $197,984 after Chris "BluffMagCV" Vaughn was disqualified for selling his account to Sorel Mizzi who finished the tournament for him.

Kongsgaard is now in the top 100 in the Card Player Online Player of the Year race.

The Invisible Hand of Poker
By David Apostolico

The seeds of capitalism can be found in The Wealth of Nations, written by Adam Smith in 1776. Smith's work was revolutionary at the time, in that it called for the removal of governmental control over the economy. Instead, he argued that if you allowed the individual to seek his own self-interest, the result would be an increase in the overall wealth of nations. His theory was based upon his observations that people are motivated by self-interest. "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest," Smith wrote. He continued that "neither intends to promote the public interest," but rather, each is "led by an invisible hand to promote an end that was not part of [his] intention."

This works in the marketplace, where both parties can benefit from an economic transaction. Each party to a transaction, acting in his own self-interest, not only benefits, but unwittingly contributes to a greater good -- via that invisible hand. Poker, however, is a zero-sum game, or, more accurately, a negative-sum game when you factor in the house juice. With that in mind, can there be an invisible hand in poker?

As is the case with most poker questions, the answer is, "It depends." For the purposes of this column, I am going to argue yes -- at least for a great number of games. If you looked at poker purely in terms of dollars won and lost, you would be hard-pressed to find an invisible hand at work. However, for many players, the potential monetary gain is not the only potential benefit received from playing. For these players, there are other intangible, but just as real, benefits that they gain from playing. Chief among them are recreation, learning, and competing. Many players don't measure success at the poker table purely in terms of dollars and cents. They enter a tournament to see how far they can progress, and can be happy with a result even if they don't make the money. A tourist may sit down in a cash game with a set amount that he is prepared to lose for the sake of entertainment. Even a serious player who's just starting out or jumping up a level in play may realize that he has a learning curve that he is willing to pay for. For all of these types of players, arguably, there is an invisible hand working to promote an end that is not part of the individual player's intention.

To keep that invisible hand working, those who play for economic gain must reinforce the intangible benefits perceived by others. Make the game entertaining and relaxing. Don't speak ill toward others. Instead, say positive things about an opponent's play and congratulate him for his good play when he is eliminated from a tournament.

However, the biggest thing learned from The Wealth of Nations is the recognition that people are motivated by self-interest. Human nature hasn't changed in the last 230 years. That same self-interest that drives capitalism also drives poker. If you're going to play, you have to be 100 percent committed to maximizing your economic benefit or you are destined to lose. You must push every edge and take advantage of every opportunity. You can't feel sympathy for or let up on an opponent. After all, your opponents, much like the butcher and the baker, aren't playing out of benevolence, but out of self-interest. Their job is to take your money. Don't ever forget that. Too often, players are content to play by the book or develop a formulaic pattern that is all too easy to exploit. A big part of the game is making adjustments, and those adjustments become much easier to make if you analyze each player's moves in the context of what he is doing to maximize his self-interest.

David Apostolico is the author of Tournament Poker and The Art of War and Poker Strategies for a Winning Edge in Business. His radio show is live every Thursday on roundersradio.com. You can reach him at [email protected].

Hand 2 Hand Combat
Dan 'Rekrul' Schreiber's Deep Thoughts Catch a River Bluff
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: No-limit hold'em cash game at Wynn Las Vegas
Blinds: $10-$20
Stacks: Rekrul - $3,010; Villain1 - $2,075; Villain2 - $1,560

Two players limp in for $20 and Rekrul makes it $120 to go from late position with the Q 9. The small blind calls, one limper folds, and one limper calls.

Flop: K 7 6 ($400 pot)

Villain1 (the small blind) and Villain2 check.

Craig Tapscott: I understand punishing the limpers, but what now? Do you automatically continuation-bet in this situation?
Dan "Rekrul" Schreiber: In live poker, you often have to be more careful about your continuation frequency, and definitely should be cautious of board textures, especially if you're the kind of player who doesn't like to fire more than one barrel as a bluff (which would make you a bad player). This is the perfect flop to bet, though, because it's likely they are playing small cards or small pairs. I can easily represent the king and take down the pot.

Rekrul bets $320. Villain1 calls. Villain2 folds.

CT: What's your plan now?

DS: Well, one might think this isn't an ideal situation, inasmuch as I have queen high and this guy doesn't look like he's in the mood to be going anywhere. But his range is likely to be a weak pair, with which he's just fishing to try to hit two pair or trips, or a multitude of different straight draws. It's possible that he has a weak suited king, a set, or he's slow-playing two pair.

CT: What cards help you to pull this off?

DS: If the turn card is an ace, king, jack, 6, 7, or deuce, I can fire a second barrel of $800 or so and he definitely will fold. Cards I don't want to see are the 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, or 10, because they all can possibly make him two pair or a straight.

Turn: A ($1,040)

DS: This is the best possible turn card for me, because in the rare event that he actually has a king, he's going to fold it now, assuming that I was just continuation-betting the flop with ace high and got lucky and hit it. I'm sitting there waiting for him to check so that I can bet and win the pot, when he suddenly …

Villain1 bets $600.

DS: What's he trying to represent? It's a very strange card to bet into me when I was the preflop raiser. If he has a king, he certainly would check; there's no way that he has just the ace. If he does, he would just check it and hope to catch me bluffing. So, his hand is narrowed down to one of three things: (1) a straight draw like 5-4 or 9-8, trying to take down the pot right now because he missed; (2) A-6 or A-7, a hand that just made two pair; or, (3) a set betting out, hoping that I hit the ace, and trying to get paid off.

CT: There's no way that he has A-A or K-K and tried to trap you preflop?

DS: A-K, A-A, and K-K are all ruled out because he just flat-called out of position with other players in the hand. He certainly would have pumped it up preflop if he had one of those hands.

CT: OK. Lay out the options that you considered?

DS: I don't like folding, especially when I think someone is weak. If I shove all in, I'm getting snap-called if he has two pair or a set, and he's folding if he has a straight draw. So, this makes shoving bad. If I flat-call, it looks like I have a very big hand and am setting myself up to take down the pot on the river if he has a very weak hand. Also, I'm giving myself room to fold if he actually does have it.

CT: Any other scenarios?

DS: The only problem with this is that I'm also giving him room to fire all in as a bluff on the river and own me. I have only freaking queen high. Another problem is that if he has a straight draw, I'm giving him a chance to hit it or even hit a fishy pair, which now beats my queen high. But I'm in position, I was the preflop raiser, and the board looks like I hit it. So, I have the power.

I'm shoving the river, though, if he checks, so he will have to fold his pair if he hits it. So, I'm either drawing dead or up against eight outs. If I had a stronger read on the guy, I would have decided exactly what I thought he had and either shoved all in or folded.

I'm not trying to be cool by posting that I played a huge pot with queen high, but I think this hand demonstrates a lot of fundamentals about the intricate nature of poker on every street. So, 50-50, I'm either winning the pot or losing it. There's $1,040 in the pot and he's betting $600. That's almost 3-1 on my money, and if I'm wrong … so what? I'll learn something about this guy's style that will enable me to profit in the future. And it will make him think I'm a crazy idiot who calls with queen high, so there are plenty of meta-game factors here, as well.

Rekrul calls $600.

River: K ($2,240 pot)

Villain1 shoves all in for $1,035.

CT: Oops. That can't be good.

DS: Wow! I just let him own me! Hmm … maybe not. This river narrows his range even further. If he does indeed have 7-6, A-6, or A-7, this is the worst river card in the deck for him, as he just got counterfeited. Shoving there with A-7 or A-6 would be absolutely horrible, especially when this guy doesn't know how I play. If he shoves, hands that have him beat are calling him, and I'm folding hands that he beats (usually). But 99 percent of live players will check A-6 or A-7 in this spot, and the other 1 percent who shove with it are either idiots or geniuses who realize that I have queen high and are shoving for value [laughing].

CT: So, what hands can he shove with, then?

DS: His range for shoving could be two scenarios: (1) a bluff with 5-4, 9-8, 10-9, and so on -- missed straight-draw hands; and (2) a set that just turned into a full house. But the fact that only two sets are possible on this board (6-6 and 7-7) makes it a bit less likely.

CT: Did any other reads/factors come to mind, even though you just sat down at this table?

DS: To be honest, I wasn't sure about what he had. I was still 50-50 on it being a bluff or a monster. Another contributing factor was that he had a really hot girlfriend or wife loitering around, which meant that he was rich and not afraid of money. When people aren't afraid of money, they grow a pair to play proper, skillful poker with bluffs. There was $2,240 in the pot and he bet a bit more than $1,000. I was getting better than 3-1 odds, which is more than enough to make a call in this specific scenario. I called after five seconds of thought, and he turbo-mucked his hand (which meant that he had a busted straight draw). I tabled Q-9 for queen high, and everyone started worshipping me for what I thought was a simple situation.
Rekrul wins the pot of $4,310.

Daniel Schreiber is one of the most feared high-stakes cash-game players online and live. In 2007, he won his first World Series of Poker bracelet by taking down the $5,000 heads-up no-limit hold'em event for $425,594.

Online Zone
Alec Torelli on Heads-Up Poker
By Shawn Patrick Green

Twenty-one-year-old Alec Torelli, known as "traheho" online, made his first World Series of Poker cash one to remember when he made it to heads up versus Kenny Tran for a bracelet. After defeating seven other opponents in the $10,000 heads-up no-limit hold'em world championship, he came up just short in his final matchup against Tran, but still earned almost $337,000 for his excellent showing. And at his age, it's not like he doesn't have time on his side to make another bracelet run.

Torelli is well-known as an online poker player, and his biggest cash in the online poker realm occurred when he took down an event in the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) III - a $500 buy-in no-limit hold'em tournament with 3,217 entrants -- which was good for $228,000.

Card Player recently spoke to Torelli about heads-up strategy and what it takes to go deep in major live and online events.

Shawn Patrick Green: Is there any credibility to the notion of having momentum in a heads-up match, or is that just kind of a mental thing?

Alec "traheho" Torelli: Well, both, actually. It's good for you and bad for them, so it's twice as good for you. It's like having a swing; if you were going to win $2,000 and then you ended up losing $2,000, it's a $4,000 swing. It's the same sort of thing.

If you're playing well, you can see the frustration on their faces. You can just see it, because you're in every hand, and it's hard not to show emotion. Whereas in a full ring game, you're supposed to fold basically every hand and you're supposed to lose hands, so when you show emotion, it's OK, because it's not as bad, and you're not going to be playing a hand for a while. But in heads up, you can see it, and you can see each pot affecting a player, so when you get a lot of momentum built up, they're left there feeling like they're doing something wrong and that they can't win. And eventually it just spirals downward.

SPG: In a heads-up match, what patterns or tells are you looking for to help you determine how to play against an opponent?

AT: Betting patterns, I think, are the most important. With physical tells … I'm not sure if people give off too many in a big event like this, although I picked up some. In some small pots, you limp from the button and you have 100 big blinds, and they think the pot doesn't matter, so they'll just check, and it's kind of obvious that they have nothing. But, as far as big pots are concerned, I don't think that ever really comes up with any of these players, that they're going to give anything away.

But betting patterns are really important. If people are going to value-bet their marginal hands, that's a really important thing to know. If they're going to value-bet marginal hands, that makes them really hard to play against, because they could be bluffing, value-betting [a marginal hand], or betting a big hand. As I found against Lyle Berman, whom I played during the WSOP event, he wouldn't value-bet marginal hands. When he bet the river, it would be either "I've made a huge hand" or "I'm bluffing." That really polarizes their range, which means that it's side A or side B; it's one thing or the other, which makes it a lot easier to play against, because there are a lot fewer combinations of hands that they could have. So, that's really important to notice, and that's probably the most important thing to pick up. And it helps to pick it up early on so that you can adjust accordingly.

SPG: If it helps to pick it up early on, are you making a lot more loose calls on the river early on just to see what they have, even if you don't think you can win the hand?

AT: Yeah, usually. Like, against Lyle, I called a huge bet on the river with third or fourth pair and he had a set. I thought he was either bluffing or had a huge hand - and he had a huge hand. The next time, I checked and he checked down top pair against me. So, I knew not to value-bet marginal hands against him, because he was only going to call with better, and he was only going to make big folds to me, because he played a really tight style. I learned that early, and I was able to capitalize on it.

SPG: At 21, you're still relatively green in live tournaments, although you've played some overseas. What were the adjustments that you needed to make when you first started playing live tournaments?

AT: I've been making adjustments constantly to my live game; it's a lot different than online in some aspects. Mainly, it's just patience, because you're not seeing as many hands. Sometimes in the World Series events, it's 10-handed instead of ninehanded, and you need to make some adjustments and play a little tighter from early position. It's hard to do that, especially if you're having a bad day and you've lost a few tournaments in a row and your table's really weak and you want to play hands against them. You convince yourself to open in marginal spots, and it hurts you.

For me, it's just patience and waiting for good spots. Sometimes you know the right decision, but it's hard to make it because it's so boring. For me, that's the hardest thing. I'm pretty sure that if you ask most players, especially the young online players, they'll probably say the same thing.

SPG: In that case, then, is it easier to play online, or are there some offsetting factors that make it easier to play live?

AT: If you're playing your best, it's easier to play live. If you can play the same game you play online when you play live, it is 100 times easier to play live, just because the fields are worse and other players are giving off more physical reads than you are. But playing that A-game is so hard to do live, just because you're not used to it because you don't do it every day; online, it's easy, as you can eat a banana while sitting at your computer, watch TV, play X-Box ... you can do anything while playing online.

SPG: You probably shouldn't do anything, but … [laughing]

AT: Yeah, but you can keep yourself entertained. So, it's a lot easier to play your best game online. And that's the biggest factor for me, and, I think, for most people.

SPG: What is on your checklist of information that you go over in every hand that you play?

AT: First, generally, it's going to be, "Is this hand profitable to play in this position?" Also, another really important thing is who is behind you, whether you're in a tournament or a cash game. Who is left to act, including the blinds? Are they going to reraise you a lot? Are they going to call you a lot? It's also about how they're going to play on the flop against you. Are they just calling stations? Should you bet the flop against them if they're just going to call you down with anything? A lot of times, it's just better to give up than continuation-bet, even though most of the time you should continuation-bet. But sometimes, against players who are just going to call you or make moves against you, you've got to know how to act and react against them. So, that's really important to factor in.

I'd say those are the most important things, before the hand, at least. During the hand, obviously, there are other things to take into consideration, but before you open with any two cards, those are the most important things to look at.

SPG: What's the best "getting started" advice you can give to someone aspiring to become a full-time poker player?

AT: Oh, wow. I don't know, "Don't"? [laughing] You have to really want to do it. You have to really want to just play poker. You really have to want to just win. You have to be upset if you get second for $300,000 in a heads-up event.

SPG: As a random example [laughing].

AT: As a prime example, honestly. If you're happy that you got second because you made $300,000, poker's not for you. If you're upset that you got second because you wanted to win, and you don't consider the money until later, you have a shot. You have to really just want it and you have to have heart.

And, obviously, you have to work at it; you have to practice, you have to do your homework, you have to study hands, and you have to talk to people. That's all a given; it's the same with any sport. I don't think that Kobe [Bryant] is too happy right now that he got second place, even though he's getting paid like $50 million a year. If you have that attitude toward poker, of just wanting to make money, and you think it's an easy way to make money, you're in for a rude awakening, I think.

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Generation Next
Vivek Rajkumar: Lives and Dies by the Numbers
By Craig Tapscott

Vivek Rajkumar was one of those smart kids we all hated in high school, mostly because he annihilated the grading curve for normal humans. By the age of 18, he had graduated from the University of Washington with two degrees, computer engineering and applied math. His next stop was a geek's dream, a cushy job at Microsoft. But within a year, he would abruptly quit, drawn more to the pot odds, hand ranges, and outs of a complex poker hand than the inner workings of computer software.

"It's basically all math," said Rajkumar. "Sure, a lot of poker is math-based, but it's also about picking up on other aspects that you can translate to math, like hand ranges. I spent a lot of time figuring out hand equities, so I'm always ready for any situation that comes up."

What did come up was an impressive rookie World Series of Poker soon after turning 21 last June. He would finish sixth in the $3,000 limit hold'em event, and eventually cash a total of five times. This past January, he captured his first live win by defeating a strong final table that included Brandon Cantu, Toto Leonidas, and Dutch Boyd in the L.A. Poker Classic $2,500 no-limit hold'em event, which was good for $113,000.

Odds are that Rajkumar will repeat his strong WSOP performance from last year in 2008. Why not? It's all in the numbers.

Craig Tapscott: How could you leave a corporate job at computer nirvana central to hang out in a hoodie at poker tables?

Vivek Rajkumar: [Laughing] It's a whole different lifestyle. I do have two degrees to fall back on and some work experience. It allows me more options than many players who haven't finished school. And I'm lucky to have my parents' support. How many tell their son that it's OK to quit a great job and go to Vegas and play professional poker?

CT: I understand that you worked your way up the sit-and-go ladder.

VR: My whole bankroll was built up on them. I had about a $10,000 roll when I was playing $30 sit-and-gos. I was way over-rolled, but played the same stakes for about six months. I played about 1,000 sit-and-gos every month for about six months. Then, I quickly shot up to the $200 sit-and-gos and started playing multitable tournaments.

CT: What sit-and-go concepts translated well to multitable tournaments?

VR: Most of the hands that you're playing are in the range of 15-20 big blinds. A lot of those are open-raise stealing, and restealing over another player's open. There are different hand ranges that you can figure out for opponents, and from there, you can decide on the best play. A lot of the situations that you encounter in a multitable tournament are in the range of 15-30 big blinds.

CT: Explain hand ranges for those who have difficulty understanding how to apply that information.

VR: You figure out most players' general hand opening ranges from early position, middle position, and then late, from the cutoff or the button. Most of the time, people are not going to be opening light from early positions. Then, you start to understand a player's ranges from the cutoff and button, but you also fine-tune that with what you know about that player. Is he a winning online player? Is he a cash-game player, loose, tight, and so on? Then you can figure out what good restealing ranges are with that acquired knowledge.

CT: Give us one example of how that applies to resteals.

VR: You can execute strategies against these different ranges. If a good player opens from the cutoff and you three-bet from the small blind, that doesn't look as strong as if he had opened from middle position and you three-bet from the cutoff. This is because he knows that he has to get by five people, and he knows that you know that; yet, you still three-bet. Different three-bet ranges convey different strengths.

CT: Coming from an online background, what were some of the stumbling blocks when making the transition to live play?

VR: The good live players, like Pham, Tran, and Ivey, are just so good at exploiting weaknesses at the table. It's just insane. When I first started, I had no clue about some of the things those players can do. After a few months, I began to pick up timing tells and what bets convey strength, and even how to put my chips into the pot. All of these things matter. In the beginning, online players are weak in those areas.