The corridor between the tournament area and the press room at the Las Vegas Casino, Budapest, is going to need recarpeting at the end of this week. On a day of startling activity at EPT Budapest, the returning day three field of 42 players was trimmed to the final nine in less than five hours. Even though it took another 120-odd minutes to shed one more, keeping up with the action for the most part forced reporters to buzz between the tables and their laptops with hazardous haste and frequency, and no sooner was a player doubling up than he was out; the seeming shoo-ins for the final kicked into touch.
The eight players surviving the cull will return tomorrow to play to a winner, who will be €595,839 richer. It will be one of these:
Zoltan Toth, Hungary (1,059,000)
Ciprian Hrisca, Romania (1,038,000)
Albert Iversen, Denmark (1,017,000)
William Fry, UK, PokerStars player (572,000)
Johnny Lodden, Norway, PokerStars sponsored player (500,000)
Gino Alacqua, Italy (466,000)
Marino Serenelli, Italy (357,000)
Martin Jacobson, Sweden, PokerStars qualifier (306,000)
Regular poker observers will see one name leaping out from the page: that of Johnny Lodden, the Norwegian professional, for whom reaching a first EPT final table is a sizeable step nearer completing a personal journey of catharsis. Known across the world as one of the most talented and fearless of the online poker generation, the internet was abuzz earlier this year with rumours that Lodden had lost his sizeable bankroll forcing him out of the tournament arena and away from the high-stakes cash games that had been his hunting ground for several years.
Johnny Lodden
But the 23-year-old's ability was always too great to remain in exile for long, and he was brought back in from the cold and given a two-tournament sponsorship deal with PokerStars for the EPTs in Budapest and Prague. And what a way to repay the faith and underline his proven talent: Lodden, who has six previous cashes in EPT main events without ever making a final table, will tomorrow break that duck, hauling half a million in chips to take his place in the last eight.
The company he'll keep tomorrow fits a classic EPT final table archetype. There's the home-town hero carrying the hopes of most of the railbirds: Zoltan Toth is representing our hosts here in Hungary and is also the narrow chip leader.
Zoltan Toth
In the Scandinavian corner there's Albert Iversen, the 21-year-old Dane and chip leader at the start of day three, and Martin Jacobson, a chef-turned-PokerStars qualifier, who is hoping to join the likes of Mats Iremark, Magnus Petersson and Alexander Stejvic as Swedish EPT champions.
The Italian poker boom continues apace, with the reappearance on an EPT final table of Gino Alacqua, runner up in Prague last year. And there's also another new face from arguably the most promising poker nation in Europe, Marino Serenelli.
William Fry, a British PokerStars player, has capped a memorable debut in major tournament poker by cruising all the way to tomorrow's final test.
The PokerStars player William Fry
And then there's also the Romanian player Ciprian Hrisca, whose move upwards today has been as silent as it has been relentless. He's comfortably in the top three with more than a million.
Ciprian Hrisca
Of course, to reach those eight, we lost all others: the final remaining Team PokerStars Pro Alex Kravchenko perished in 23rd. He was joined on the rail - or in today's €2,000 side event - by the PokerStars qualifiers Janek Schleicher, Nicholas Maieritsch, Ofir Abramovivi, Dave Hardy, Robert Firestone, Tommi Etelapera, Dwayne Stacey, Lukas Bencovic, Oleg Korotkov and Sebastian Saffari.
It's been fast, furious and fun. More of the same will follow tomorrow.
Take a look back at today's action with any of the following:
The eliminations have come thick and fast today as we edge closer to discovering the eight who will comprise tomorrow's final table. The official counts of the last 13 are on our chip counts page, and we'll be reverting to our time-stamped reporting style from here until the final is decided.
8.40pm - And there we have it
Ciprian Hrisca had been joking around a lot in these finishing stages, blowing his cards back to the dealer for instance and warning people he had position when the button came around, much to the merriment of the other players and railbirds. In contrast to him was Ivo Denev, a quiet player who has been wearing a mirrored visor since he started on day one.
As the short stack everyone paid attention when he raised to 48,000 pre-flop from under the gun plus one, especially Hrisca who re-raised, 150,000 in total. He didn’t seem to be joking anymore.
Denev called, leaving himself 200,000 behind for emergencies. The flop came Ts-6s-7c. There was no more finesse following that, just all-in and call.
Ivo Denev showed Ah-Kc but Hrisca turned over bullets to put himself ahead. The turn brought a king but the river a jack, ending this day and vaulting the last eight into tomorrow’s final.
As we await the final chip counts and the day end wrap, share a few moments with the PokerStars player William Fry, who will be on the final table tomorrow in his first major tournament:
8.25pm - Play resumes
Blinds increase now to 10,000/20,000 with a 2,000 running ante.
8.05pm - Will he won't he
On a flop of 8s-3d-7h Jacobsen bet 100,000 and Zoltan Toth re-raised to 230,000. A tense few minutes passed by as Jacobsen considered the call but eventually mucked. Toth showed a ten and is now up to more than 1million. Players pause for a break.
7.45pm - Four way action
Four players see the flop of Qs-Tc-3d and four players check it. The turn is the Ac which is checked by Johnny Lodden in the small blind. Zoltan Toth in the big blind makes it 70,000 and Ciprian Hrisca asks how much before mucking. Gino Alacqua calls though before Lodden mucks. They see the river card 2c and both players check. Toth shows K-J to which Gino can only smile and tap the table in salute.
7.30pm - Not done yet
This time Ivo Denev moves all-in, a total of 145,000 which gives Ciprian Hrisca a seemingly painful decision to make. Visibly tired the Romanian scratches his head before deciding to call, showing pocket nines to Denev's A-Q. the flop brings the queen. Denev doubles up.
7.20pm - It's that man again
Next to be pushed off a hand by Sarenelli is Johnny Lodden. He raised to 40K before the Ialian re-raised to 120,000. Serenelli is now up to 370,000.
7.12pm - One more time
Serenelli is at it again, this time forcing a fold from Hrisca after moving all-in.
7.10pm - The fightback begins
Just when you thought it was all coming to a close the short stacks begin to double up. First double up goes to Marino Serenelli, the Italian enjoying every moment of his EPT. He moved all in with A-Q against Hrisca’s pocket sixes. A queen on the fop started his good run.
7pm - Down to one table
Sebastian Saffari is out in tenth after first losing a big hand against Gino Alacqua and then after an all-in called by Zoltan Toth. It was K-6 v K-Q, the bigger hand held by Toth who would go on to make a flush and leave just nine players remaining. Two tables become one until we have a final eight.
6.50pm - Jacobsen asks the question
Martin Jacobsen moved all-in on a flop of As-7s-8c. Zoltan Toth was the only player still involved, having first raised. Four players had seen the flop but now Toth held Jacobsen's fate. He passed.
6.45pm – Down to ten
“Well, it’s that time” announced Robin Keston, moving all in. Albert Iversen did the honours, calling Keston and showing pocket queens. Keston could only manage pocket tens. That wasn’t enough. We’re down to ten players.
6.30pm - Down to 11
Menno Antonius Bussinik of Holland is the next player out, leaving in 12th place after moving in with Ac-8s only to be called by Ciprian Hrisca with Ah-Jh. The jack on the flop all but extinguished hope for Bussinik, who collects €23,408.
6.15pm -- Down to 12.
With 13 players left every hand is a big hand. Simeon Tsonev raised pre-flop to 35,000 from under the gun and watched as PokerStars sponsored player Johnny Lodden re-raised, 90,000 total. An all-in and call followed with Lodden showing A-Q. With understandable irritation Tsonev turned over A-J and watched helplessly as a queen hit the flop, eliminating him in 13th place. Lodden meanwhile is up to 650,000.
The players are now into level 21, with blinds of 6,000-12,000 (ante: 1,000).
It’s a sensation just experienced by Christophe Haller, who tussled with PokerStars qualifier Johnny Lodden and came out of it, well, out. Lodden held K-T and found two more on the board, taking the event down to 15 players.
Then came the end of Casey Kastle’s tournament. Kastle, an adopted American sporting a Slovenia cap of his homeland, bet pre-flop and was re-raised by Ciprian Hrisca. Kastle checked his cards again and moved all-in. Hrisca called and whilst Kastle showed pocket queens Hrisca had him beaten with pocket kings.
Casey Kastle
It was a painful way to go for Kastle, who looked back at the board a couple of times before gathering his things to leave.
Robin Keston moved all-in and whilst Marino Serenelli eliminated another player two tables along, Keston waited for a call, got one and doubled up with pocket eights.
But the big news for PokerStars is Johnny Lodden’s progress, a near double up that saw him take a big haul from Romanian Ciprian Hrisca with pocket tens, the same hand he’d folded just a few hands prior in a pot with Ofer Golko. Lodden now has more than 400,000.
Yesterday one of the stories was that of Slovakian PokerStars qualifier Lukas Benkovic and his ascent to the chip lead, knocking out former EPT winner Arnaud Mattern along the way. Well, his adventure ended today in 17th place, all in with his short stack on a hopeful 9-6 but ran headlong into a caller with A-J.
Benkovic spoke with the video blog team earlier today...
With 7,415 competitors in the October 26th edition of the PokerStars Sunday Million, taking down the top prize is an accomplishment for any player. But for a player with the hopes of a nation on his shoulders, it’s an even greater victory. When Darkillermax took down the top prize he claimed one of the biggest wins for a Chinese player in the history of internet poker! Darkillermax took a huge chip lead into the final table and rode it all the way to victory and a $174,656 payday.
Darkillermax is currently studying in Reims, France, and got his start on PokerStars in February 2007. He started off on PokerStars for the tournaments, and switched to cash games after a few months. After seeing the structure of the WCOOP and other major tournaments, he switched back to tournaments, and succeeded past his wildest dreams when he took down the Sunday Million less than two years after picking up the game!
He describes himself as a recreations player, but adds “since this win I might consider playing more big buy-in tournaments online and live, and might go pro.” Even with no live tournament experience, we have no doubt that he’ll be able to translate his online success into big wins on the green felt as well. Even after his success with No Limit Hold’em tournaments, he calls Omaha his favorite game because it “needs more skill and guts.”
We asked him to describe one key hand that propelled him to the final table, and he told us this story – “I had K-J suited and raised from the hijack. The button re-raised me and I supposed that was a squeeze play and with my stack I could make the call and see the flop. The flop came A-9-7 rainbow. At this point I thought I might move my opponent off his hand if he had a pocket pair. I decided to check and see what he does. He thought for a few seconds and bet 1/3 of the pot. I really felt weakness at that point and I insta-shoved all in. He used his time bank and finally made the call with A-5. I was almost drawing dead, but a Q on the turn and a 10 on the river gave me the runner-runner straight.” Even with the inevitable abuse in the chat box, Darkillermax used that big pot to give himself breathing room and then wielded his big stack like a hammer all the way to a deal when play reached heads-up and then the win and the extra $30K for the victor!
With a big boost to his bankroll, this self-described “Chinese boy” is poised to do great things in the world of poker both online and live!
The field has reduced to 19 players on three tables, and flops are increasingly scarce. It's possible to stand somewhere in the middle of the three of them for 15 minutes at a stretch without seeing any cards face up. The usual drill goes raise, re-raise, fold, fold, fold, etc., although there's sometimes a variation on the theme, which goes raise, fold, fold, fold, etc.
The tournament officials have just conducted a chip race to remove the 500 denomination chips from play, and shortly before they did there was a mildly diverting hand between William Fry and Johnny Lodden, featuring a cameo from Lucas Benkovic, the PokerStars qualifier from Slovakia. One of the button, Fry raised to 22,000 and Benkovic, in the small blind, did a degree of huffing and puffing and looking at his hand without concealing it much, which allowed Lodden, still to act, to see his cards from the big blind chair.
For all the vast amounts of money up for grabs, there's still a surprising amount of sportsmanship to most poker events, and Lodden confessed that he'd seen the cards, encouraging the dealer to show them to Fry as well. It was eight-six off-suit. Then Lodden put his headphones back on and re-raised to 80,000. Fry asked for a count, Lodden told him 130,000 an Fry folded.
It’s Halloween and William Fry is proving hard to kill, if you’ll excuse the expression. In a remarkable turnaround Fry, who came out on the wrong end of a hand with Romanian Ciprian Hrisca a short while ago, has now bounced back to the tune of 250,000 – a good fighting weight.
Catch up on what William had to say when he spoke to the video blog team earlier today...
Meanwhile on the table next to them Italian Gino Alacqua just survived another all-in, pushing with As-3s before shielding his eyes from the lights above and the glances of anyone considering a call.
Jari Pekka Juhola did just that, showing pocket queens but helpless to prevent an ace from hitting the flop, digging “El Diablo” out of trouble.
We are just a little more than a week from knowing who will be the 2008 World Series of Poker champion. Among the November 9, there are six PokerStars Million Dollar Men who have a chance to win the big one. Before they get the chance to win the bracelet, however, the PokerStars 6 will have to have face off against three PokerStars players in the Million Dollar Men Main Event
Last weekend, those final three players beat out nearly 3,000 other runners today to play for a fairly massive amount of money. Everybody in the event will get $10,000, but first place is guaranteed $100,000! Here are the full payouts.
It marks the last of the Team PokerStars Pros. Alex Kravchenko’s attack on an EPT title just ended on the last hand before the break. Short stacked after some earlier clashes brought him back from the heights of 220,000 earlier today.
It was a case of threes against nines for the Russian again Ivo Donev. Kravchenko needed a three but none came and the Team Pro exits in 23rd place for €10,640.
Table one has rapidly become the table of certain death here today. Dave Hardy, Dwayne Stacey, Brice Cournut, George McKeever, Robert Firestone and Mauro Corsetti have all sat there for at least a couple of hands today, but are now walking the streets of Budapest and out of this tournament.
These eliminations were largely responsible for the incredible surge up the tournament leaderboard of the Greek player Pantelis Pavlis, who went from an overnight stack of 59,500 to more than 400,000. But if flirt with the poker gods to such a large extent, there's always the chance that they'll suddenly turn and send a bolt of lightening right back at you, something that has just happened to dramatic effect to Pavlis.
He got his now huge stack all in pre-flop against the established might of Albert Iversen, and the Greek was well armed with pocket aces. Iversen had queens. But the first card on the flop was another queen, and - kaboom! - there's a smoking heap of clothes left where Pavlis previously sat.
As the blinds go up and the players drop out this is the time for critical hands and bigger pots. It’ll be like this all the way through to the final but the latest example featured PokerStars qualifier William Fry and the player to his immediate left Ciprian Hrisca of Romania.
On first glance Hrisca is a relaxed, happy-go-lucky kind of player, leaning way back in his seat. Yesterday he and Danny Ryan sparred regularly in the blinds, each time the Romanian joking, suggesting something akin to both players moving all-in blind.
But today it’s the serious business of getting deeper into the EPT Budapest and he just did wonders for his chances.
PokerStars player William Fry
Fry had raised pre-flop to 14,000 from the button with Hrisca calling in the small blind, Lukas Benkovic did the same in the big. “I need a good flop” said Fry.
It came 8s-3d-7s.
Hrisca raised now, 40,000 in total, which forced Benkovic out. Fry meanwhile asked how much, before announcing “I’m raising anyway” and pushing in another 110,000. He’d hardly finished the move before Hrisca announced all-in.
“Sick” said Fry, now left with a decision to make, one worth 93,000 of what was left of his stack. “You’ve either got me crushed or you have a big draw” said Fry before calling with a simple “good luck”.
Hrisca had him crushed. Pocket threes for a set against Fry’s Ad-8d with nothing but tumbleweed on the turn and river. Hrisca stacked up more than 400,000 whilst Fry now has just 75,000.
Hevad Khan is not the same Khan we met in 2007 and that's just fine with him. In fact, Khan is not the same Khan we knew this time yesterday. The difference: Khan is a million bucks richer today.
Last night, Team PokerStars Pro Hevad "RaiNKhaN" Khan took down the 2008 Caesars Palace Classic for the $1 million first prize.
This is Khan's biggest single win to date and pushes him over the $2.5 million mark in live tournament winnings (to say nothing of the piles of cash he has made online at PokerStars).
Ten months ago, we walked through the cavernous Atlantis Resort and Casino with Hevad Khan on the way the opening party for the 2008 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. He stood tall above us and if we hadn't known it wasn't true, we would've insisted he'd had a lobotomy. He was calm, cool, collected and nothing like the dancing primate we'd known at the World Series of Poker. Something in the big man had changed and the ten-minute conversation was proof he was on his way to something far more sublime than a televised bulldozer dance.
After winning nearly a million bucks at the World Series, a switch flipped in Khan's head. He told us he had high hopes for 2008. In March, he won more than $100,000 in a side event at the Foxwoods Poker Classic. He won the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up for the same amount in the same month. Two hunded grand in the first three months of the year would be enough to keep some people in high cotton for the next ten months. Khan wasn't satisfied.
The ensuing months were not as kind. His 2008 World Series did not go to plan. His success in March seemed pale in comparison to the chilly months of cards he endured. Two things snapped him out of it. First, was a trip to Korea.
“I discovered myself there,” Khan said. “I came back a different person.”
Second, he had a killer weekend online in which he won nearly $100,000 in a couple of days, including a $58,000 second place finish in the Sunday Warm-Up. Khan was back.
By mid-year, Khan had won in the neighborhood of half a million bucks, but was looking for that elusive firtst place finish in a $10,000 event. He finally got it last night after beating out more than 300 players for the Caesars Place Classic title. The change in Khan's demeanor was not lost on the official tournament reports who noted, he is now "considerably more subtle. He rarely celebrates winning hands or leaves his seat during play."
This week, I would like to move on to another topic in our quest to become -- and remain -- a high level poker player.
Game selection is a very important; game choices need to consistently be made correctly by every successful poker player.
I am not referring to just your choice of what limits to play in, i.e., $10/$20, $30/$60, etc. We have already covered that concept under the umbrella of bankroll. I am now strictly referring to which type of game to play, and at what point in time.
When (and where) I began playing professionally, Stud poker was the universal game of choice, and there were no online gaming options. Considering that I grew up playing Stud and all variations of it, combined with the fact that I had both an innate sense of how to play that game as well as some great teachers who took me under their wing, I was prepared to be successful soon after I began playing highly competitive poker.
As the years went by, other games such as Hold’em (limit and no limit), Omaha and its variants, multiple-games such as HORSE, as well as other new games, gradually usurped Stud as the game of choice. That does not mean that I do not get to play as much Stud poker as I used to. Stud and its variants, such as Razz and Stud Hi/Lo, are still spread in most live casinos, and are certainly a mainstay on Poker Stars.
But there are now far more types of games to choose from, especially online, and that means you have more options. You should try to get as adept as possible at as many games as possible; this will give you the opportunity to evaluate and decide amongst the many different types of games and limits available in your casino of choice. It will be virtually impossible for you to get to the highest level in all of these types of games, or maybe even in more than one type of game. But that should not discourage you from learning new games.
Personally, I do not play Hold’em as well as I play Stud. But, I do hold my own in Hold’em when I am playing HORSE; I got good enough to where I am not a target. I would not be able to earn enough in other games (besides Stud) to play them for a living, but I can play them well enough to survive and sometimes win.
Now, I tried to become as good a Hold’em player as Stud. But, regardless of how many lessons I took, or how many hours I put in playing Hold’em at low and medium limits, I just did not have the” feel” for that game as I did in Stud. That is what most likely will happen to you, too. I do not mean specifically in Hold’em versus Stud, but you will most likely be better in certain games than others, and sometimes it will be a drastic difference. If you’re not careful, this can be costly.
I say this because at some point you will have to choose which type of game(s) to compete in most seriously for money. If you are solely playing poker to have a good time and do not care about your results, feel free to play whatever type of game you enjoy and can afford, even if it is not the type of game you play the best.
But if you’re playing seriously, you need to study and play to find out where your strengths are. Books, lessons, and your “Friday night beer and poker marathon” may help you learn what game you play best, but you will not really be able to get a truly accurate read on which your best games will be until you begin playing them in “casino conditions”, whether live or online.
Notice that while I talked about your “best” game, I did not say your “most profitable” game. The game that can earn you the most money might be completely different. There will be times when you will have a higher expected hourly earn in your second or third best game, because of the players who are competing in that game at that time. If I’m facing a strong, difficult line-up in my “normal” $30/$60 Stud game, and there is a loose, wild line-up playing $10/$20 Hold’em, it is probably more profitable for me to play Hold’em at a lower limit that day, even though I’m less skilled at that game. Being able to recognize those opportunities when they come along, and being able to take advantage of them, is an important poker skill.
The “Hold’em boom” which has occurred over the past few years acts as a strong example. I know numerous excellent Stud players who no longer play their best (Stud) game, but instead have gotten adept enough at Hold’em to where they feel that it is now their most profitable game. They saw an influx of new, inexperienced Hold’em players, and have taken advantage of the opportunity for profit they presented.
Regardless of what your “best game” is, it’s a good idea to put in the hours to learn other types of games. Read books, watch television shows, videos, live action as a spectator, and play low limit poker so that you become more adept in multiple games and enjoy playing them. That way, when opportunities arise, you will be ready to exploit them.
Most “new players” tend to delve into no-limit Hold’em these days, due to the television exposure it receives both in tournaments and cash games. But there is no reason for you to “jump on the bandwagon”, at least not until you are sure that Hold’em is your best game. There are plenty of other options available with regards to types of games, limit vs. no limit, cash games vs. tournaments, etc. Smart players will explore all of the options available, to figure out what is best for them.
I will continue this topic in my next few blogs.
If you need to find me, I am usually in the $10/$20 and$ 30/$60 Stud, Stud Hi/Lo, and Razz games, as well as the weekly $215 buy-in tournaments, with guaranteed prize pools, we offer each weekend in all of those games.
With Szabolcs Saskoy gone from the Kravchenko table his seat is filled by PokerStars sponsored player Johnny Lodden after his table is broken and it’s not long before the Norwegian is raising, 14,000 pre-flop from the button, getting called by Kravchenko.
On the Td-8c-Ad flop Lodden bets again, another 17,000 which Kravcehnko backs away from, with good reason it seems as Lodden showed his A-T.
The table is hardly a quiet one. Korotkov Oleg, a PokerStars qualifier from Russia moved all in from the big blind but got no takers and then a huge pot developed between Micha Hoedemaker and Marino Serenelli.
With the chips in the cards were turned, a good old fashioned aces versus kings collision with the young Dutchman with the bullets. When the wreckage cleared Hoedemaker was sat behind a stack of 280,000 whilst Serenelli prepared to nurse his remaining 35,000.
One of the more notable players for much of two days here in Budapest was the Italian Mauro Corsetti, who was an early chip leader on day 1b and was top of the pile when the fields merged for day 2. He was hauled back to the middle of the pack by the end of yesterday, but was still very much alive. He has been vocal throughout the tournament, engaging in strategy discussions with all of his opponents for the duration of his time around the tables.
Mauro Corsetti, left
This hasn't stopped even as he is now seated beside Albert Iversen, who has assumed Corsetti's former perch at the top of the chip ladder. Corsetti was recently engaged in a verbal joust with Dwayne Stacey, which ended with the equivalent of a fold from the British PokerStars qualifier. "OK, you played it right," said Stacey, with an air of resignation. "I played it ... wrong."
It's a lively table at the moment, with Pantelis Pavlis moving all in for about 60,000 pre-flop ("Have you been drinking too much Red Bull?" asked Brice Cournut), then Robert Firestone, the PokerStars qualifier from the United States pushing all in from the big blind on the next hand, scaring away four limpers.
They're all active tables today, this one included. We have already had five eliminations, which are listed on our payouts and prizewinners page.
The day three draw has provided its usual array of interesting match-ups, none more so than the positioning of the overnight chip leader Albert Iversen beside the overnight micro-stack George McKeever. And it all ended somewhat predictably for McKeever moments ago, when he founnd a hand in his shoving range and duly shoved pre-flop. Iversen, also fulfilling his pre-defined duty, reraised - making it 25,000, and isolating the all-in Irishman.
Albert Iversen
McKeever was in excellent shape when they flipped their cards. He had A-Jo against Iversen's J-Qc. And although the flop was benign - 4h-Kc-6d - the turn and river were cruel and then crueller: the 9s and 10d filling a straight for Iversen. McKeever shook hands with his adversary and wandered away to enjoy Budapest with his newly-acquired €6,384.
Elsewhere, things just got a little tougher on Alex Kravchenko’s table, at least for his opponents. The Team PokerStars Pro began today with a little more than 114,000 but has just doubled that, calling the all in of Szabolcs Attila Saskoy of Hungary. Saskoy had pushed pre-flop for a little more than Kravchenko’s stack, leaving the Russian to think over a call. When he did he pushed his stack into the pot, flipping over As-Ks to Saskoy’s Ac-7c.
Team PokerStars Pro Alex Kravchenko
The board ran 2c-2h-7h-Kd-9d and after a minute to count and compare Saskoy was left with just 5,000.
This is the sharp end, crunch time. You can use whatever well worn phrase you like to describe today as long as it expresses that critical sense of urgency as the money begins to increase and the number of survivors does the opposite in the EPT Budapest.
Today we play down to a final eight players. No time frame, no schedule, just poker for as long as it takes and few have any doubts that we’re in for a long day.
Last night 42 players left the Las Vegas Casino ballroom with different sized reasons to return today. For Albert Iversen that meant the chip lead and a stack of 442,500, whilst Irishman George McKeever experienced almost the exact opposite, fully aware that his stack of just 23,500 needs some serious building work if his day four appearance is to last until the witching hour.
Yes it’s Halloween on the EPT but we’ll try to keep the ghoulish references under control. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t admit that there are some nightmare table draws for some today.
On table one the chip leader Albert Iversen will tower over his table mates, outnumbering their total chips combined, whilst in contrast on table two the big stacks have been drawn together. Spare a thought also for the Hungarian contingent. Of the four locals left, three of them face each other on table five and have Russian Team PokerStars Pro Alex Kravchenko to contend with.
Here’s how the day will start...
Table 1
Albert Iversen, Denmark, 442,500
Dave Hardy, UK, PokerStars qualifier, 101,500
Pantelis Pavlis, Greece, 59,000
Dwayne Stacey, UK, PokerStars qualifier, 86,500
Menno Antonius Bussinik, Netherlands, 79,000
Brice Cournut, France, 63,000
George Mckeever, UK, 23,500
Table 2
Casey Castle, USA, 264,500
William Fry, UK, PokerStars player, 257,000
Ciprian Hrisca, Romania, 280,000
Lukas Benkovic, Slovakia, PokerStars qualifier, 224,000
Rikard Englund, Sweden, 75,500
Christophe Wemelbeke, France, 80,000
Robin Keston, UK, 137,000
Table 3
Gino Alacqua, Italy, 89,500
Ivo Donev, Austria, 67,500
Severin Walser, Switzerland, 33,000
Martin Jacobson, Sweden, PokerStars qualifier, 365,000
Jari Pekka Juhola, Finland, 92,500
Janek Schleicher, Germany, PokerStars qualifier, 161,500
Simeon Tsonev, Bulgaria, 64,000
Table 4
Denis Volkov, Russia, 106,500
Ofer Golko, Israel, 39,500
Tibor Tolnai, Hungary, 50,000
Nicholas Maieritsch, USA, PokerStars qualifier, 49,000
Ofir Abramovivi, Israel, PokerStars qualifier, 163,000
Tommi Etelapera, Finland, PokerStars qualifier, 130,500
Christophe Haller, Germany, 142,000
Table 5
Zoltan Toth, Hungary, 175,000
Alexander Kravchenko, Russia, Team PokerStars Pro, 114,500
Korotkov Oleg, Russia, PokerStars qualifier, 45,000
Micha Hoedemaker, Holland, PokerStars player, 142,000
Milan Andrejkovics, Hungary, 75,500
Jecek Ladny, Poland, 33,000
Szabolcs Attila Saskoy, Hungary, 98,500
Table 6
Mauro Corsetti, Italy, 116,000
Pasquale Braco, Italy, 208,500
Marino Serenelli, Italy, 195,500
Robert Firestone, USA, PokerStars qualifier, 67,500
Nicolo Calia, Italy, 132,000
Sebastian Saffari, UK, PokerStars qualifier, 53,000
Johnny Lodden, Norway, Sponsored, 131,500
And here's how the video blog team see it as we approach the penultimate day:
Typically day two of a major poker tournament is when the most moves are made, the chips fly in huge flocks from one player to another, and plenty of dreams die. Where there are winners, there must be losers, where there's fortune there's misfortune and where there are headline makers, there are inevitably footnotes. And while there is so much that is inevitable, there is also always something new. We have seen the patterns before but it is the variations on the theme that are most compelling.
Tonight, as they bag up chips for day three tomorrow, we have a new name right at the top of the tree. It's Albert Iversen, from Denmark, who went on a charge in the closing couple of levels to end with 425,000. This next sentence, on the other hand, has been written plenty of times before: PokerStars qualifiers are right up there too. But these players are both new names to reporters and spectators alike: there's the inevitable Scandinavian Martin Jacobson, from Sweden (365,000) but there's also a Slovak, Lukas Benkovic (224,000).
Martin Jacobson
Lukas Benkovic
In the hometown hero category, there's Zoltan Toth (175,000). And filling the shoes of the high profile players going into the penultimate day are the Team PokerStars Pro Alex Kravchenko (114,000) and the sponsored player Johnny Lodden (131,000).
Notable by their absence from the the final shakedown are two of the tournament's most dominant forces, who were once peering down from the top of the day one counts, but left without a pay-cheque. Neither Annette Obrestad nor Arnaud Mattern could make it into the money, and they were joined on the rail by Praz Bansi, Fintan Gavin, Luca Pagano and William Thorson before anyone started getting paid.
The last player to walk into the Budapest night with nothing was Thomas Vestergaard, who became today's most celebrated yet most unfortunate elimination as he burst the cash bubble.
As the spectators gathered, Vestergaard had the same hand as Christophe Wemelbeke, but Wemelbeke's A-K was suited in clubs and three flopped, which was definitive.
The rash of eliminations that inevitably followed the resounding pop included Sorel Mizzi, Kara Scott and Danny Ryan. And at the end of the day, there were 41 players remaining, who are already guaranteed €6,384 but will be playing tomorrow to get down to the final table and closer to the first prize of €595,839.
Of course, PokerStars blog will be with the action right until the end, and you can also read it in Hungarian, German and Swedish, if you're into that kind of thing. You can always check out PokerStars.tv for your video blogging needs, or you can look back on the day's play with all these shiny hyperlinks to the previous coverage.
And to round it out, how about the excitement and agony of day two of EPT Budapest in two photographs, modeled by the PokerStars sponsored player Kara Scott.
Contrary to standard operating procedure after the EPT bubble there has been no sign of the all-in frenzy associated with that period after the bubble has burst. Aditya Agarwal, a PokerStars qualifier from India, exited in 56th place but it’s some time before the 55th player was eliminated, and that player was another PokerStars qualifier, Danny Ryan.
PokerStars qualifier Danny Ryan
Ryan had been struck earlier for most of his stack and moved in from the big blind with what he had left behind a small blind raise from Simeon Tsonev. This battle of the blinds pitched Ryan’s Jh-7c against Tsonev Kc-3c. A king on the flop and that was that.
It came after the landscape had changed significantly, particularly for Sorel Mizzi who lost the vast majority of his one towering stack to Italian player Pasquale Braco before the bubble. His stack is still big but only in its dimensions. His mass of chips is all black and adds up to less than 30,000.
Elsewhere excitement gripped the corner of the room when William Fry moved all-in behind a raise from tournament chip leader Lukas Benkovic. For a second it looked like Benkovic might call, creating the biggest pot of the week, but the Slovakian decided against it and the crowd dispersed.
Whilst that all went on Gino Alacqua effectively tripled up, catching a two-outer on the river to keep his hopes alive for a second final table, much to the delight of Alacqua himself and the large contingent of Italian fans cheering him on from the rail.
Gino Alacqua
Sorel Mizzi followed in 54th and Peter Zamiska in 53rd. And the latest news is that Kara Scott has been eliminated after one of the hardest slogs seen on the EPT for a long time. She finished in 52nd place despite never seeming to have had a stack larger than 30,000 chips for the entire tournament.
The bursting of the bubble always precipitates one of the maddest phases of play. Those people who have just clung on long enough to reach the money now want to double up their micro stacks or get themselves into the side event - or to the bar.
It genuinely is ridiculous: an attempt to walk across the room to congratulate Kara Scott on her cash ran into at least three all ins. In one particularly notable hand, Brice Cournut doubled up through Stefano Fiore when the Frenchman rivered a straight. It was a classic A-Q v J-J all-in pre-flop encounter, but the straight came when a jack fell on the end, giving trips for Fiore but that broadway straight for Cournut.
Then, when I arrived to Scott's table, she was all in, shoving for her last 25,000 over the top of Lukas Benkovic's pre-flop raise. Everyone got out of her way - perhaps fearing the mightily-stacked Slovak behind them - but he also folded and Scott took down the pot.
"Congratulations," I said.
"I wanted to double up," insisted Scott.
Bubble time and a raft of all-in moves, but only one had the result the surviving 56 players were looking for.
First Gino Alacqua doubled up a player, his A-Q no good against a flopped set of threes.
Then two all-ins at once, both called. The first of the two hands was played through, called over the public address system by EPT Tournament director Thomas Kremser ; A-K against the all-in hand of pocket queens, queens which ultimately doubled up.
When the hole cards of the second all-in were announced most believed we would be playing on a little longer for the money. A-K v A-K. Only there would be no going through the motions this time for Chrisotophe Wemelbeke’s hand was suited.
The flop was the cruellest, 5c-Tc-9c. Wemelbeke had flopped the nuts leaving Thomas Vestergaard from Denmark with the dubious honour of departing as the bubble boy.
There’s action on both sides of the last break of the day. Before the break, Claudio Pagano busted out, his pocket jacks good against A-5 but not when a second five hit the flop and a third hit the turn. Obviously disappointed, papa Pagano still managed a sporting smile as he left.
Then after the break the last remaining Team PokerStars Pro Alex Kravchenko got stuck into the action, limping from under-the-gun before a raise by Englishman Robin Keston.
Team PokerStars Pro Alex Kravchenko
Keston made it 19,000 to go which Kravchenko pondered for a while, re-arranging his chips in various ways, a ballet of sorts, that had as a finale a slow push all-in with all his chips moving across the line in perfect formation. No change of expression on the Russian’s face, just 50,000 more.
Keston bowed his head, holding his brow to think this one over. It would be a call for the majority if not all of his stack with just a few places away from the money. He thought. He folded. Kravchenko simply took his chips back, no need to re-stack, 20,000 to the good.
Kravchenko has been a solid presence in Budapest all week and spoke to the video blog team earlier today about his thoughts on day 2.
Players have taken what will be their last 15-minute break of the day. That means there are two more levels before we wrap, and about 60 of them remain. We may or may not reach the cash bubble tonight - it's due pretty soon, so my guess is that we will. But either way, it's been another day of thrills and spills.
A full official chip count will appear on the chip counts page imminently. In the meantime, the story in pictures, as seen through the lens of Neil Stoddart:
Chip leader I: Martin Jacobson
Chip leader II: Lukas Benkovic
Local hope Zoltan Toth
The final Team PokerStars Pro: Alexander Kravchenko
A huge, huge pot just played out between the EPT Prague champion Arnaud Mattern and Lukas Benkovic, the PokerStars qualfier from Slovakia. Mattern is out and Benkovic is the probable chip leader, taking down a pot of more than 280,000.
There was betting all the way, on a board that ran out 6h-2d-4d | 7d | 4s. It ended with Benkovic moving all in, which actually covered Mattern, forcing him to a decision for his tournament life. When Mattern announced that he was calling, Benkovic nodded, appreciating what he considered was a good call. Benkovic clearly thought that his own hand wasn't good enough - something that Mattern possibly noticed in his opponent - and that had prompted the call.
However, after Benkovic sheepishly flipped A-7, Mattern was preparing to leave. He showed A-K and had made the hero call with ace-high. But it's a fine line between heroism and the rail, with Mattern now the wrong side. He was also the final former EPT champion left in the field, meaning the search for the first two-time winner continues.
Things haven’t exactly been easy for Kara Scott but her tournament hopes live on after picking up a 10K pot, moving in on a flop of Kd-3d-6h which Brice Cournut couldn’t bring himself to call. As Scott raked in her chips the table next to them was experiencing its own drama. A pre-flop raise by Micha Hoedemaker, re-raised by Oscar Blanco Carrasco to 18,000 before Sorel Mizzi announced “all-in”.
Sorel Mizzi
Mizzi had good reason, holding pocket aces. Hoedemaker would eventually fold his pocket queens whilst Carrasco stayed in to either double up or die with pocket fours. The board delivered nothing to help Carrasco who quickly departed, with Hoedemaker relieved to have ducked and covered before things really went off.
Mizzi on the rise once more.
Earlier today the video blog team caught up with PokerStars qualifier Darren Hope about his expectations on the day...
Time was when a stack of 100,000 was good for a monstrous chip lead. Those days are gone, however, with at least 15 players reporting stacks in six figures and one of the earliest to reach that number - Annette Obrestad - hitting the rail.
That elimination first: in a battle of the blinds, Obrestad flopped two pair with 7-9 on a board of J-7c-9c, with two clubs. All the money went in with Obrestad's opponent holding J-8c, for top pair and the flush draw. The turn brought an eight to give a better two pair and the river improved nobody. Obrestad is out.
Up at the top of the tree still sits the Italian Mauro Corsetti, but the duo of PokerStars qualifiers Lukas Benkovic and Martin Jacobson are getting very close indeed, as is the PokerStars sponsored player Johnny Lodden, who spoke to PokerStars blog ahead of day one.
A quick glance around the tournament ball room and you’ll notice quite quickly how the field has shrunk; meaning the painfully tense moment of bubble play cannot be far off. Still more than 80 players remain.
PokerStars sponsored player Kara Scott, who found herself drawn on the immediate right of Annette Obrestad first thing today, is still here and still on Obrestad’s right. Scott’s stack measures 30,000 at last count.
PokerStars sponsored player Kara Scott
Arnaud Mattern just added another chunk to his stack, raising big on a board of As-5s-Jd-8c-6c. Lukas Benkovic called in a flash but the Frenchman wasted no time in showing his cards, a sure sign of confidence. His Ah-8h was ahead of Benkovic’s Ac-Kc. Mattern up to 150,000.
On the next hand Benkovic came out firing to make up for his Mattern loss. The last Polish player in the tournament Jecek Ladny started things, raising to 15,000 pre-flop before Benkovic moved all-in, his stack totalling 150,000 and dwarfing the Pole’s meagre reserves of 25,000.
Ladny thought for a while, eventually folding a few seconds before the clock would have taken that decision out of his hands. Benkovic showed A-K. Ladny apparently folded a pair.
Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano
Whilst Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano’s day ended one table along, Annette Obrestad’s was granted a temporary reprieve. She moved all-in for 40,000 and waited patiently while Robert Firestone persuaded himself to call for all of his stack. Obrestad turned over A-Q but so did Firestone. A score draw and back to where they started.
Level 12 has recently just ended, and there have been some major movements in the past couple of hours.
In the literal sense of that word, Johnny Lodden has been relocated to sit next to Sorel Mizzi and opposite Luca Pagano, offering a real treat for the online poker-obsessed rail bird. Meanwhile the big movers on the chip ladder seem to be Martin Jacobson, of Sweden, and Annette Obrestad, of Norway, who have gone in the opposite direction to one another. Jacobson started the day with just 29,300, but now has 155,000. Obrestad began with 101,300, but now has about 40,000. It's still workable.
Mauro Corsetti still leads - he's up to 192,000. And Lukas Benkovic, from Slovakia, is second with 185,000. Meanwhile, three minutes into the break, the Hungarian player Zoltan Toth was still involved in a hand, but was mighty glad that he stayed. He ended up cracking aces with J-10, flopping a jack and turning a 10 to double up to 102,000.
While the players take 15 minutes to exchange their stories, have a look at what some of them have been saying to our team of video bloggers. Dan Muraiu is a local PokerStars qualifier, who made it through to day two:
Like the blaze of glory performed at times yesterday by Team PokerStars Pro Dario Minieri, Arnaud Mattern is displaying similar flare at his table which features Danny Ryan, Paul Testud and the last remaining Polish player Jecek Ladny. The Frenchman just won three of four pots simply by raising in late position (and once from the small blind to mix it up a little).
The table alongside is presided over by Sorel Mizzi, chip leader and punisher of mistakes, who has PokerStars sponsored player Johnny Lodden, Ionel Anton, and Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano for company. There’s also Micha Hoedemaker who was all-in for nearly 40,000 when I stopped by.
First Anton counted out the call, separating it from the bulk of his stack, before folding his hand instead. Not so Sorel Mizzi who did the same with his stack, separating the call, before going into the tank, rubbing his face and brow for a few moments before the clock was called on what had been a fairly pedestrian hand.
Mizzi made the call. Hoedemaker turned over Ad-Td whilst Mizzi showed 9s-9c.
The flop came 4c-Qd-Ah-Js-Ks. Hoedemaker took the pot, being congratulated by his friend Noah Boeken behind him as he raked in his new chips. A 40K bump to his stack, a 40K dent for Sorel Mizzi.
The Irish player Fintan Gavin scored the biggest success of his poker career when he came second to Sebastian Ruthenberg at the recent EPT event in Barcelona, earning him €792,000. He did so by endearing himself to the Catalan poker gods by kitting himself out in the immediately distinctive red and blue of Barcelona FC - or, more precisely, the blaugrana of Barça.
Fintan Gavin
Here in Budapest, he's trying the same trick. Although the white shirts with green trim of the Budapest team Ferencváros (or Ferencvárosi TC) are not as instantly recognisable on the world stage as those striped colours of Barcelona, Gavin has sought out such a shirt and is wearing it proudly here in on day two of EPT Budapest. And he's faring just fine, up to 95,000 as the players went into their first break.
Peter Zamiska is also nailing his national colours to the mast.
Peter Zamiska
Few will be surprised to learn that Zamiska hails from Slovakia - it's writ large across his chest. Slovakia just might be another emerging market in poker, with Dag Palovic making two final tables on last year's EPT. And here, there is also another PokerStars qualifier from Slovakia making waves. Lukas Benkovic has more than 100,000 (probably about 125,000 actually), confirming that there might just be something in the water over there.
Play is progressing at a breakneck pace, with players sliding out the door like greased pigs down a fireman's pole. Among those notable fallers are William Thorson, Alan Smurfit and Denes Kalo, all of whom started with small stacks, and Pierre Husson, who was one of the overnight leaders but had a catastrophic day two. The young Frenchman suffered at the hands of Claudio Pagano earlier and could not arrest the decline.
At the other end of the ladder, the Italian Mauro Corsetti continues to occupy the spot he filled overnight: tournament chip leader. The Canadian Sorel Mizzi overtook him at one point earlier in the day, but Mizzi slipped back to about 140,000 during the last level. Corsetti has nearly 160,000; Mizzi has close to 150,000. But they're both in the sights of the PokerStars sponsored player Johnny Lodden, who is up to 140,000-odd. Then there's Annette Obrestad and Arnaud Mattern, giving the top of this tournament's chip table a formidable appearance.
The Paganos, or “Pagani” as one person quipped, are still in contention albeit with stacks at opposite ends of the favourable scale. Whilst son Luca is one of the short stacks at a table that features tournament leader Sorel Mizzi, father Claudio just escaped elimination with a fortunate double-up against Pierre Husson, whose day has gone from high flying luxury to one of club class misery.
With the chips all in Husson had the better deal, pocket aces to Pagano’s pocket sevens. Crucially though one of Pagano’s sevens was a diamond and on a board of Qd-8s-8d-Td-9d that was worth its weight in gold. He rockets up to 65,000. Husson, who started today on 76,100 now has less than 20,000.
Pierre Husson earlier this week
Over on Praz Bansi’s table it seems the Londoner is still reeling slightly from the pressures the A-K v A-K hand placed on his soul. Bansi watched as a player at his table called a sizeable all-in with pocket aces, up against A-K. An ace hit the flop and by the river a full house was complete.
“It must be nice...” said Bansi, smiling.
“It is” answered the victor.
Ricardo Sousa almost became the first Portuguese EPT winner in Poland last year where he finished runner-up to Michael Schulze. His chances of a repeat performance in Budapest just ended at the hand of Lukas Benkovic from Slovakia.
The clock was called on Sousa with a board reading 8h-Qc-Tc-Qh. Sousa tried to put on a show of casual contemplation by picking up the knife and fork and cutting up some of the salad he was eating. But after a few chopping motions he put them down again, unable to stomach it.
Slowly, he stood up and shoved his chips across the line, showing Ad-Td. Benkovic flipped up Ks-Qd for the pot, sending Sousa out to enjoy the rest of his meal in peace.
With the blinds getting steeper the pace of the action seems to be increasing. Team PokerStars Pro Alex Kravchenko just pulled off one of those world class calls, holding A-5 against A-Q. When the A-Q player bet on the five river card, Kravchenko’s read told him that his opponent had nothing. With a pair of fives Kravchenko called, taking down the pot.
Praz Bansi just used various words that we all know but rarely use on the blog to describe his latest predicament, down now to less than 20,000. He lost out on a 100,000 chip pot, all-in with A-K against A-K. For his mood to be so sour you can guess what happened, his opponent making a flush.
“As good as I run in the World Series I run bad in the EPT” Bansi said.
PokerStars qualifier Danny Ryan just arrived at Arnaud Mattern’s table, carrying a bucket of chips, the same type of bucket you’d use to carry your slot machine quarters back to the cage. Arnaud was in the process of continuing his assault on the chip lead, raising on the button pre-flop and then again on the flop to persuade the others in the hand that their intentions were now folly.
Lastly, whilst the Frenchman bounds onwards PokerStars shooting star Johannes Strassmann is out, A-9 against pocket queens that made a set.
That's the kind of welcome you get for day two of the EPT Budapest...
Actually his name is Ivo Donev and he was talking to one of the chip leaders, Annette Obrestad, explaining to her his intention to raise from the button regardless. Obrestad was in the cut off and made a bet of 1,800. The gambler, true to his word, re-raised to 4,000 in total. Obrestad called.
Ivo Donev
The flop came 5h-Jc-6c. The gambler bet again, another 4,000 and then buried his head in his arms, resting them against the side of the table. Obrestad thought for a second, turning her head slightly to see the gambler crumpled over. She mucked her cards then banged on the table to wake up her opponent.
“You want to see one card?” he asked.
“I don’t know if I want to...”
Stop press: Notable Hungarian player Denes Kalo has been eliminated, all-in with queens against the K-Q of a countryman no less, on a board that arrived 6-9-T-J-x.
Often poker is a non-verbal pursuit. As long as you make your intentions clear, don't under-raise, don't act out of turn, and don't get embroiled in any unnecessary controversy, then you can pretty much play as a mute. Plenty of players like to talk around the table, of course, but it's really not essential - especially when you can say so much with a carefully contorted facial expression.
Such was the case moments ago as Kara Scott peered up from under her cap at the reporters swarmed around her table. Scott, sponsored here by PokerStars, is most familiar on the EPT with a microphone in her hand, presenting the television and PokerStars.tv broadcasts in the most verbal of media. But here she is a player, and she just said as much with her eyes as she possibly could in a five-minute to-camera spot. She flashed her eyes left, right, straight ahead and then rolled them, accompanying this with a uncharacteristic grimace.
Kara Scott
The reason was simple. Peering immediately left, there was Annette Obrestad. Peering a seat or two further round was Ivo Donev. Then Ramzi Jelassi. Then the PokerStars qualifier Dave Hardy. In three predictable words: Table. Of. Death.
Still, Scott might not be happy, but she's unikely to be intimidated. On her last outing in the PokerStars livery, Scott went super-deep in the World Series Main Event, finishing 104th from more than 6,000, good for $41,816.
She's mixing with the world's best here again in Budapest. Is a repeat on that magnificent showing on the cards?
Someone had to do it, hang around to see whether William Thorson’s 3,400 day two starting stack would be the beginning of something great, or the end of something that could have been. Sadly it was the latter.
Not that Thorson had much choice on a table featuring Alex Kravchenko and blinds starting at 400/800 with a running 100 ante.
With just three hands available to him before the blinds struck Thorson was forced out of hand one by Lazlo Lajos of Hungary, sitting to his right, who raised to 2,200. On the second hand Lajos did the same. But with time running out Thorson moved all-in, waiving his hand as a gesture to Lajos to do the same. Lajos did, showing Ad-9d to Thorson’s Kc-4c.
Team PokerStars Pro William Thorson
The flop brought some hope with two clubs, but the turn and river brought little else. Team PokerStars Pro William Thorson out first on day two.
Day two on the EPT, and here are a few facts about today's play, sprinkled with fairly safe predictions:
The remaining players from the two day ones are now merged in the ballroom of the Las Vegas Casino, Budapest. That's a total of 182 in the field, who will hope to play the eight, one-hour levels scheduled for the day. If they do, they will probably be among about 30-40 players surviving to go into tomorrow's day three.
Before that - and possibly sometime later tonight - the cash bubble will burst, leaving us with the lucky 10 percent who will take some money away from Hungary, happy with their week's work. Lucky, yes, but also massively skillful; you don't navigate through a field of this class and quality without knowing what you're doing.
Top of the pile at the moment, as players are taking their seats and the cards are being shuffled, is the Italian player Mauro Corsetti, who has a clear 35,000 more than his closest challenger. But that challenger is arguably the single player you'd like least to be breathing down your neck: the formidable Annette Obrestad. And not far behind her is the EPT Prague champion Arnaud Mattern, and a chasing pack of the highest quality: Sorel Mizzi, Praz Bansi, and the PokerStars sponsored player Johnny Lodden, who is making his usual charge.
Before the day is out, though, there will almost certainly be at least three other names coming from the main bulk of the pack to challenge the very top. Few would bet against either of the Team PokerStars Pros Luca Pagano and Alex Kravchenko being among them. And then there's William Thorson, a short-stack at the moment, but more than capable of the umpteen double ups that will put him back in the mix.
Look out also for the PokerStars qualifiers Dwayne Stacey, Lukas Benkovic and Aditya Agarwal, who are also all lurking with intent.
And then there's always PokerStars.tv, where you can watch all of the action from the video blog team. All of this will be updated throughout the day. In the meantime, here's how the PokerStars players Johnny Lodden and Kara Scott saw it yesterday. They're both back today for more of the same:
Sunday night, we mentioned here that ElkY had managed to win the World Poker Tour Festa al Lago. As it happened, ElkY won his first WPT event in the same year he won his first EPT event (the PCA in January of this year). Of course, we had to ask how he did it. This was his response.
I decided to arrive in Vegas about two weeks before the start of this event so I could really be in perfect shape and condition to play it. Considering it was a six-day event, the amazing structure would make way for a lot of poker to be played. I wanted to be ready to exploit any weakness from my opponents.
My plan worked well and i managed to hang around the top of the field for the first 4 days, before taking the chip lead in Day 5 and going to the final table as a huge chip leader.
During this week I played a hand that im very proud of, probably the best hand i ever played in my life. The action had folded to Joe Ebanks. He raised to 26,000 from the button. Oddie Dardon and I called from the blinds. The flop came out J-7-5. Dardon and I checked to Ebanks, who bet 44,000. Dardon folded, but I called. A queen came on the turn and I checked again. This time, Ebanks bet 90,000.
This time, I raised to 225,000 and Dardon called. The river was a deuce. I checked and Ebanks moved all-in for 300,000. I thought for just a moment before calling with my 7-6, good against K-T. That hand moved me into the chip lead.
All in all, I'm very satisified with the way the tournament went, because I was never all-in. Also I took very few coin flips, and when I took them i had a dominating chip lead against my opponents.
This victory means so much to me. I defeated 1136 players inthe Carribean for the EPT PCA earlier in the year. They were mostly players coming from the internet world, like me. This time the field was probably the toughest I had to play. Proportionally, there were many tough seasoned live players, and being able to come on top of it once again is really an achievement I'm proud of.
It was twice as important also for me to conclude this event by a victory because during all the WCOOP I felt I played great and went very deep but every time i was down to 2 or 3 tables in a 1000 or 2000+ entrants tournament, Lady Luck was playing tricks with me and I finished a bit disappointed everytime. Coming with the chip lead at the WPT when 12 players were left, i did everything I could so that wouldnt happen.
And of course, Las Vegas really is all you hear about for poker players. Winning a tournament here was definitely one of my goals, and now that its done, I'm in a good spot for the Player of the Year race.
I feel my tournament game has never been so tuned, and my confidence level never so high, so I'm ready to finish the year as well as I started it!
See you all on PokerStars or on the tournament circuit very soon.
We spend a lot of time here talking about the people who routinely play every Sunday major event every week. They're all great stories and deserve to be told. Every once in a while, though, it's nice to take a look at how folks get started.
Recently, we received an e-mail from chill823 about his first run at the Sunday Million, something he could only try using a ticket he earned in the PokerStars Steps tournaments.
Here's his account of his first dip into the big waters.
--- by chillin823
I started playing poker when I was 22 for play money, and I played for play money for about a year online. Before I was 22, I didn't know anything about poker, but I started watching it on TV and thought it looked interesting.
I ended up on Pokerstars when I started playing online for real money, around October 2007. I looked at a few of the major sites and decided that Pokerstars was the online room I wanted to join. Since then, I have played in mainly low buy in MTTs and sit and gos. Over the last year I have done pretty well, consistently making a profit, however small.
I turned 24 in July. I'm in my senior year of college and am majoring in Education. I plan to graduate in May 2009. Since I didn't start playing until I was 22 I'm a few years older than a lot of the really young online players.
When I played in the Sunday Million this past Sunday it was by far the biggest prize pool tourney that I have played in. I got in to the event using a step 4 EPT ticket, which I had built up to from an EPT Step 1 tournament I entered with 500 FPPs.
My chips were pretty steady during the event. I was nervous at the start, but since I got in using my Step 4 ticket I was a little less nervous than I would have been if I bought in. Towards the end of the first hour I was down to about 5,000 chips having lost a few small pots. I was starting to think that it was just not my day but I picked up AA towards the end of the first hour. I got the chips in against one other player and the aces held so I had about 10,000 at the end of the first hour. The second hour started well for me, I had won a few pots and was up to about 17k. Right before the second hour break I had slipped down to around 12k. It was folded around to me in the small blind and I had A-4, suited. I raised 2.5x the big blind. The big blind player reraised me back and I felt that they were making a move, so I re-raised all in. We both had about 12k. He called and had A-6 off suit. I hit a 4 on the flop and another 4 on the river.
After that hand I was feeling good and had about 25k. Throughout the third hour I was doing well and had my stack up to about 47k, but lost a good size pot when I had Q-J. After the queen high flop I bet, then got re-raised my a big stack so I let it go, down to about 23k. A few hands later I had AK suited, I shoved all in for around 23k, 1 call, they had A-10 offsuit. My A-K held up, and I was back to near 50k. It was close to the money bubble at that time, and I didn't have another big hand before the money.
Once the money came I was really excited to cash, before that my biggest cash online was around $50 where I came in 9th in a $2 mtt, and the Sunday Million cash was $300 minimum. After the bubble I had about 22k I think, and I picked up J-J. I shoved it and got called with a player having A-A.
No miracle for me and I was out in 1,022th I think. Even though I wish I could have gone a little further I was very excited to cash and it was one of my most exciting poker sessions.
Day 1b of the EPT Budapest had a slow start, a frenetic middle and a finish that mixed everything together. Between the victorious and the defeated there will be those simply happy to be alive. A day on the EPT can be a harsh and unforgiving environment but 94 players tonight - give or take the usual vagaries of these things - have stuffed their chips in plastic bags and will focus on the battles they’ll encounter tomorrow.
The closing stages proved volatile with various eliminations catching us out. Sebastian Ruthenberg was spotted doing the walk of shame before anyone could figure out why, a walk performed by his countryman and fellow shooting star Jan Heitmann earlier in the day. While the Barcelona champ licked his wounds Italian player Mauro Corsetti left only a trail of dust as he sped away into the lead, ending the day as chip leader on close to 130,000.
Mauro Corsetti
He left a trail of contenders behind him looking towards tomorrow for their salvation. Frenchman Pierre Husson was probably next in line on 71,000. American pro Casey Castle was alongside him on 70,000 whilst Londoner Praz Bansi kept pace on 68,000.
For Team PokerStars Pro day 1b was a mixed bag. Noah Boeken was out early, out in the middle was Vicky Coren and out late was Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier who could be forgiven for falling short having flown to Budapest on the back of a WPT win in Las Vegas only a few hours before. It had looked good for the Frenchman but then bad and ElkY drifted away courtesy of hand gone bad against a flopped set.
Team PokerStars Pro Dario Minieri
Dario Minieri flew close to the sun and looked set to re-appear a golden brown colour, a spell of relentless raising putting his table on the back foot almost permanently until he was shot down, crashing out at the mid way stage.
There was betting pickings for William Thorson and Alex Kravchenko however, both of whom were able to finish the day in the black but not by much in Thorson’s case. He lost a critical hand with minutes left on the clock to leave him with just 6,500. His Russian team mate will sleep easier on 40,000.
Team PokerStars Pro Alex Kravchenko
It was left to Team Pro’s adopted stars to shine. Johnny Lodden tried to break the habit of a lifetime but couldn’t, playing unplayable hands and winning with them to leave him with a stack of 42,000. Kara Scott’s more conservative approach served her well. Despite falling to around 4,000 before the half-way point she steered a careful course of survival, finishing with a flourish in the last few hands of the day and bagging up 20,500.
PokerStars sponsored player Johnny Lodden
So to tomorrow and day 2 when the surviving 88 from day 1a, including Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano, will merge to link up with the 94 of today, including Claudio Pagano. You can find out their chip counts and the rest from days 1a and 1b on our chip counts page.
Meanwhile, you can look back over the day's action by clicking on any of the links below, or see the video bloggers' work on PokerStars.tv.
You can read all about the tournament in various languages. Here in Budapest, our new Hungarian blog is ready for your attention, as is out ever present Swedish blog that is always worth checking out.
There are certainly always a lot of similarities between any two days at the European Poker Tour. But sometimes we also get day ones that are massively distinct from one another. Although they take place in the same town, with the other half of the same field, they are as if completely different tournaments. Many more players qualify from one day than the other, and the leaders have many more (or many fewer) chips.
As we approach the end of day 1b here in Budapest, it's fairly obvious that this, err, isn't one of those. In fact, this second day one has followed almost precisely the day one we had yesterday. There are round about 110 players left at the moment, meaning we'll probably finish with about 95; the chip leader has round about 90,000 at the moment, meaning he or she will probably end with about 100,000, and things are something like the mirror image of what has gone before.
That man at the summit is likely to be Mauro Corsetti, from Italy. He raced to about 40,000 very early in the day and then pushed on dramatically in the final couple of levels, to overtake Christoph Haller, who was also up there for a while.
We're entering the home straight today and chip counts will be updated as close to the end as we can manage.
The grapevine has spoken and apparently PokerStars sponsored player Johnny Lodden has decided to restrict his natural flow and only play premium hands. It comes as an act of penance you might say, following a crazy hand that saw him forced to call an all-in with 8-7.
Lodden had re-raised pre-flop only to see his opponent push all-in. Priced in Lodden called and was up against A-Q. The eight struck on the flop saving Lodden from disaster. His vow of good sense was taken.
PokerStars sponsored player Johnny Lodden
Cut to a hand a short while later. Lodden’s new rule of premium hands takes effect at once, re-raising on the button and getting called on a flop of J-7-4. Lodden checked and his opponent checked. On the turn card three Lodden checked and his opponent checked. On the river card five Lodden checked and his opponent checked. At showdown the A-Q of his opponent was not enough to scupper Lodden’s 7-2.
He’s been peroxide blond, he’s been bright green, and today his hair was jet black. ElkY cuts a striking jib everywhere he plays and arrived this afternoon with the halo of success hovering above his head following his WPT win at Bellagio still a matter of hours ago. But any chance of carrying on where he left off and winning a second EPT title just ended after he crashed out courtesy of a set of sevens made on the flop, a hand that crushed his own holding.
Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier
His elimination seemed unlikely earlier today. The Frenchman had been up to 23,000 a few levels in. But a few bad hands would follow leaving him stranded with nothing more than all or nothing moves. Exit left for the Team PokerStars Pro.
One of the quiet men of the day has been Barcelona winner and PokerStars shooting star Sebastian Ruthenberg. The German pro has worked his stack up to 25,000 by virtue of an all-in move that saw off one opponent.
On a flop of 3h-Ah-Jh the seat nine player raised to close to 10,000 and Ruthenberg moved in behind him for a few thousand more. Seat nine made the call showing Jc-Th for second pair. Ruthenberg had Ad-Js for top two pair that held firm on the turn and river.
PokerStars shooting star Sebastian Ruthenberg
Stop press: Despite earlier reports things haven't turned out quite as expected for Dario Minieri. He's busted out in level five.
The multiple-flight format of the modern major poker tournament presents a handful of unique problems that the average poker player is only sometimes able to solve. If you're playing day 1b, what do you do on day 1a? And if you're playing day 1a how do you fill day 1b? (Bear in mind that sightseeing is usually out of the question. These are poker players we're talking about.)
The second of those quandries was facing the PokerStars qualifier Danny "THE_D_RY" Ryan and Annette Obrestad, both comfortably into day two, but at a loose end today. That's how come they were kicking around in the PokerStars players' lounge here in Budapest, and also how come they ended up in a tennis tournament on the Wii games consoles provided for players to use while they relax.
A bit of context here: Obrestad is something of fiend when it comes to Wii, having honed her talents in Joe Hachem's Champions Lounge in Las Vegas during the recent World Series. Not old enough to play in the States, Obrestad instead whiled away her time in Nevada perfecting her video sports. Bowling was a particular favourite, as was tennis.
Ryan, on the other hand, insists that he never plays video games and has had no previous experience on the Wii courts. Still, he was a real-life tennis master in his (even) younger days, and represented North Dakota in the sport, winning numerous tournaments in the region and ended up ranked in the top five in ninth grade. He's also about 6ft 4in, to Obrestad's 5ft plus very little.
Winner and not the winner, from left to right
However - and we might really have expected this - it was Obrestad flexing her muscles and Ryan left licking his wounds. The Norwegian won 3-0 and take bragging rights into day two tomorrow, where she also has the tournament chip lead.
Tournament update: The Team PokerStars Pro Vicky Coren is out, beaten in two key hands. She was forced to fold on an all-spade flop when she had already bet about 5,000 of her 10,000 stack. She was shown aces. Moments later, she lost a coin flip with pocket threes against A-K. A king flopped and Coren was out. Better news for William Thorson, who is now up to 27,000, forcing his opponent to fold A-K face up on an ace-high flop. Only Thorson knows what he had.
Any mention of Team PokerStars Pro Dario Minieri is loaded with expectation, to a point where it’s hard to sound original. The thing is there is little you can do but kow-tow to adjectives like crazy and fearless that are bandied around so easily around Minieri. It’s the same today and most players at his table can only sit back and watch.
Minieri only has 11,000 in front of him but he plays as if was ahead of the rest by thousands.
A raise from early position by the seat four player is re-raised by Minieri on the button, 2,325 in total. Seat four mucks. Like the Moscow Variation by Grand Master Kasparov, it's a standard Minieri move.
Team PokerStars Pro Dario Minieri
On the next hand, Minieri makes it 800 to go pre-flop, this time good for the blinds.
Next hand, another 800 pre-flop from Minieri. This time the small blind re-raises and Minieri mucks but that’s purely incidental. Next hand Minieri is out raising again, as if he can’t stop. A total of 1,100 pre-flop this time, again uncontested. I left him to it when, under-the-gun, he folded pre-flop, but I expect he’s back to raising every hand as I type.
Watching all this in seat one is PokerStars sponsored player Kara Scott, who talked to the video blog team about day 1b.
The tournament is progressing as tournaments do: some stacks are building nicely while their previous owners head for the hotel room, bar or airport. The latest, selected chip counts have recently been updated, and a quick glance shows some unfamiliar names at the summit, with some of the EPT's best known players falling by the wayside.
Top of the pile seems to be Mauro Corsetti, an Italian player continuing a recent spectacular run for players from the land of Pagano and Minieri. Also up there is the British player Benjamin Lebor, the Austrian Ivo Donev and the Swiss Severin Walser. Walser made the final table at the first-ever Latin America Poker Tour tournament, in Rio during the summer and is now hoping to prosper in his home continent.
At the other end, we have lost the Team PokerStars Pro Noah Boeken and the EPT Baden winner Julian Thew. Boeken's A-Q lost to A-K when both a K and a Q flopped. Thew disappeared before anyone noticed, but he'll definitely be back. The German PokerStars Shooting Star Jan Heitman is out, as is the EPT Vienna champion Pascal Perrault.
Poker has always been a generational game; old against young have pitched in together in a way few other contests cannot recreate. A notable example of father teaching son is right here at the EPT Budapest. Yesterday Pagano the younger played, today Pagano the elder, Claudio, does the same.
It’s not the first time the Pagano's have played in the same event. In fact back at the grand final in Monte Carlo they even faced each other on the same table before Claudio was eliminated in 22nd place. Luca of course went on to finish in sixth place on a memorable final table.
That was then, now Claudio goes into the second break of the day with 14,000, whilst Luca, who finished yesterday with 23,500, take a welcome day off. The Team PokerStars Pro spoke to the video blog team yesterday about the week ahead.
If there was ever such a thing as a soft table in an EPT, and I doubt there is, Team PokerStars Pro Vicky Coren’s line up wouldn’t be it, featuring as it does World Series bracelet winner, and fellow Londoner, Praz Bansi.
The two are familiar with each others’ play having clashed countless times in London’s Victoria Casino, home to the English leg of the EPT just a few weeks ago. Time to do battle again.
Team PokerStars Pro Vicky Coren
Praz got them started, raising pre-flop to 550 from middle position. Coren was in the small blind and called. It was just the two of them for a flop of 4c-3-Js. Coren checked, Praz bet out for 650 and Coren called. On to the turn, the 4h.
Coren looked at Bansi before she looked at the board, checking before Bansi did the same. The river came 3h...
“I’m checking and calling” said Coren tapping the table, “I must be in front.”
Praz immediately went for his chips and made it 2,200 to see if Coren was true to her word. “Oh god” she said, but she was, calling the bet. Bansi showed K-J for top pair, Coren folded tens.
“nh” she said. Coren now down to 5,000.
It's nearly half way through the day's play, this is day 1b...
One player everyone on the blog team watched closely during the World Series last summer was Kara Scott. The EPT presenter slogged away with an indefatigable run that saw her bust out just a few places short of the top 100. It was a result that pinned her name to the poker map for her skills at the table as well as those off it.
Flash forward to Budapest where she took her seat in just her second EPT event earlier today. After a bad first level this afternoon that involved a pot of 3,500 and an opponent’s unbeatable set, Scott has been fighting a holding action, waiting until better moves can be made. Right now that involves folding hands as well as winning them.
PokerStars sponsored player Kara Scott
Scott had raised two off the button to 450 pre-flop. The player in seat five, a Hungarian player known as Ricky with tattoos down both arms and the houses of each suit painted on his knuckles, re-raised making it 2,300 in total. He looked happy doing so, sashaying side to side in his seat as if dancing to music. No sign of headphones, this guy was just happy, grinning like he knew a secret that could prove disastrous to everyone else.
The player known as 'Ricky'
“It’s not much” he said to Scott who was spending several minutes deciding whether his hi-jinks were a show of strength or of paper-thin bravado.
She decided on the former and mucked her hand. Being a sporting gent, Ricky showed his pocket jacks, and keeping with the spirit of things Scott flipped over her A-J. Not a victory but not a defeat either. She’s now down to 5,000.
Players are taking their first 15-minute break of the day at the end of level two. As usual, it's been a mostly sedate opening, interrupted by a couple of bust outs and one seemingly unlikely story. It prompted utter disbelief in the press room, and at least three repetitions of the same story in various languages.
"Dario Minieri just folded kings! Pre-flop!" came a chorus, in English, Swedish and Hungarian. And it was true. The Team PokerStars Pro is known as one of the most aggressive players on the circuit and the common perception is that he'll playing pretty much any two cards. But Minieri is an all-round talent, which means he can also pass a losing hand, even if it is two kings.
In this instance, his instincts were spot on. One opponent had queens and the other aces. Minieri did well to get out of the way. And while nothing has changed - Minieri will still play any two cards - he will only do so on his own terms. Calling all in does not fit the bill.
Dario Minieri
His Team PokerStars Pro team-mate, Betrand "ElkY" Grospellier has, meanwhile, vaulted in and among the early leaders. He has more than 20,000 after getting it all in pre-flop with aces, which beat some (unfolded) pocket kings and some pocket sevens. ElkY is on the hottest of hot streaks at the moment, and it looks like continuing for the moment at least.
Tournament poker is the perfect arena for making overnight superstars. Put in a decent performance under the studio lights and you can rapidly become a sensation on the world stage. If you've been tuning into the broadcasts of the 2008 World Series Main Event - or if you were reading about it first on PokerStars blog during the summer - you'll know all about this man, who goes by the name of Christian Dragomir:
Christian Dragomir
For the uninitiated, Dragomir was already familiar enough in Europe from his captaincy of the Romania World Cup of Poker side. But he is now also a bone fide poker hero for standing up to one of the familiar tirades of the self-appointed poker brat Phil Hellmuth at the World Series. Evidently sick of Hellmuth's berating of "idiots" ("idiots" who have sometimes outplayed him), Dragomir turned the tables on the 11-time bracelet winner and formally complained to the tournament officials. "It is my right to play my cards however I want," insisted Dragomir, not unreasonably. He then flew into his own fluent berating of Hellmuth's ego-driven rants, and earned rich applause from the studio audience, as well as various online commentators who have now seen his spectacular performance on television.
Hellmuth, for the record, was given a one-round suspension, which was overturned on appeal. And, to give credit where it is due, he later apologised to Dragomir for his behaviour. We are also already well aware that many of Hellmuth's antics are usually the equivalent of a pantomime villain (or professional wrestler) and largely just for the sake of the watching cameras. But Dragomir's actions have still made him a worthy icon; someone prepared to stand up to the bully boys.
Of course, Dragomir outlasted Hellmuth in that Main Event, and although he still has some way to go to match the achievements of the poker brat, he's working on it on the EPT. Just watch out if any flop has a 10 or a four on it; those were the cards held by the Romanian which sent Hellmuth spiralling into absurdity, and it is now Dragomir's signature hand, whether he likes it or not.
The Norwegian player Johnny Lodden is wearing the PokerStars colours in Budapest, hoping to prove once again why he is among the best young players in the world game by securing a place on his first EPT final table. Lodden is widely tipped to become one of the all-time poker superstars and already has six cashes on the EPT, without ever completing the push into the top eight. It really is only a matter of time.
Lodden spoke yesterday with our Swedish blogger Lina Olofsson, whose tournament coverage you can always read on PokerStarsblog.nu. And she even translated her interview with Lodden for the English speaking audience. Here it is:
A new Norwegian poker star: Johnny Lodden Interview by Lina Olofsson
Johnny Lodden just signed with PokerStars and he will play in our colours here in Budapest and in Prague. After that we'll see what happens with this young poker star who is already a well known face on the EPT circuit.
Johnny started this year at a low point, having lost all of his online bankroll and it seemed as though the hotshot from Norway would have a tought year attempting to win it back. But then came the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo and he finally made it deep in a live tournament for the first time in what seemed like ages. He finished 20th and just a few weeks ago he came 11th in the WSOP Europe Main Event in London. And that's not all. He also made four final tables in major online tournaments over the past two weeks alone.
What are your chances for tomorrow?
- They look good. I'm in good shape at the moment. I haven't played that much live lately but it went well in London and I have a good feeling about Budapest.
What do you think makes you a good tournament player?
- I'm always mixing up my game and I'm really good at reading my opponents and put them on hands.
You had a hard time before Monte Carlo this spring. Was that tournament your turning point?
- Yeah I think so. Before Monte Carlo I really didn't feel like playing poker but then I really needed the money since I was stuck so I tried harder than before. I got unlucky in a few tournaments though. In San Remo I lost with middle set versus top set and in London with pocket aces versus kings.
Do you consider yourself a cash-game player or a tournament player?
- Before I mostly played cash-games but nowadays I play a lot of tournaments online. I don't like the big ones though. There are too many people in them and they take too long. With 1,000 entrants I normally finish in the top 50 but I never final table.
What are your tactics when playing a live tournament?
- It depends on the table. If there are only poor players I will run over them. If there are only good players I play a totally different game.
How does your dream table look then?
- It's with a mix of good and bad players. With good players I focus more and they are easier to put on a hand. I have problem reading bad players and I don't have a single clue what they are thinking. For some reason it's always bad players who knock me out of tournaments.
Describe yourself as a poker player?
- Most would say I'm aggressive but I'm not that aggressive anymore. I've calmed down lately. I played with John Juanda in WSOP and he played every hand.
What do you think of Budapest?
- I've spent most of the time in my hotel room but the little I've seen I really like. Everyone I talked to says it's excellent so I think I'll have to go sightseeing before I go back home.
What are your plans for the winter and the spring?
- I don't have any plans really. I will try to travel as much as possible. Now I'm single it's easier to leave home and I can go wherever I want.
Who don't you want to have to your left tomorrow?
- Antony Lellouche or ElkY.
Who's the best tournament player and the best cash-game player in the world right now?
- When it comes to tournaments ElkY and John Juanda. In the big cash games, there's just one name and it is Patrik Antonius for sure.
It’s hardly surprising but the first level is a mostly tentative affair. Sure, you hear about the occasional big pot that catapults a player into an early lead and another to the rail, but by and large the road so far has been smooth.
That would go for PokerStars sponsored player Johnny Lodden. The only drama on this table is the arrival of a late player who turns up to find someone in his seat, goldilocks style. The confusion is sorted by a tournament official who asks why the player is sitting where he is. “This is seat nine” he says but is clearly in seat one, something he realises pretty quick, holding his face in shame in a way that he might not do again until he busts out.
Shooting Star Jan Heitmann
Elsewhere it’s the same tempo on Jan Heitman’s table, albeit everyone is safely tucked up in their rightful place. The PokerStars shooting star assumed his natural position when re-raising a player pre-fop – keeping perfectly still, both hands flat on the table, until his opponent relented. Heitmann up a little with 30 minutes played.
Taking the first initial stroll through the tournament area Team PokerStars Pro Alex Kravchenko starts the day sharing a table with Anthony Lellouche whilst another player who has found success so far this season Davidi Kitai sits next to Jonas Klausen.
The most notable table sees Thomas Fougeron line up opposite friend and countryman Pascal Perrault. London winner Michael Martin is between them.
Finally, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, complete with black hair and jetlag, sits opposite Sebastian Ruthenberg to provide some PokerStars friction.
There might have been better debut seasons on the European Poker Tour, but probably not. In his first year playing in the major tournaments across Europe, the Hungarian Denes Kalo finished in second place on two of the largest tournaments going: EPT Baden, won by Julian Thew, and the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo, where only Glen Chorny bettered the Hungarian's show.
Those two cashes were good for €375,000 and €1,179,000 respectively, which means we'll be seeing a lot more of Kalo on this tour. And a good result here in this particular event, in his home country, will mean more to Kalo than all the others. Kalo is in the field today, and he spoke to the video blog team yesterday about the excitement of his homeland joining the EPT fray, and how he helped to facilitate it.
As we mentioned yesterday, the tour has come to Hungary for the first time and Budapest has delivered - a sell out field in one of the most stunning locales inside and out and it looks set to carry on. It’s day 1b so we’re ready to do things all over again. If things continue in the same style as yesterday we should see a similarly relentless pace whittle down 260 starters into something resembling the shape of 100 survivors.
Players will start with the same 10,000 chips and will try to turn that into a bag full nine hours from now. Annette Obrestad and Arnaud Mattern did that best yesterday, finishing on 101,300 and 90,600 respectively. Both of them know what it’s like to taste EPT glory. Mattern won his title in Prague last year while Obrestad came close, finishing second, in Dublin. You can find a full list of yesterday’s results on the chip count page which will of course be updated regularly with today’s latest counts.
Eight one-hour levels will begin in a few minutes. Today the field includes some EPT notables, among them Team PokerStars Pros Noah Boeken, Vicky Coren, Dario Minieri, and Alex Kravchenko. Also here is ElkY Grospellier, who has proven that you can win a WPT event in Bellagio Las Vegas over the weekend and be in Budapest 48 hours later for an EPT.
Also lining up for their seat is EPT Live presenter Kara Scott, swapping her microphone for a card protector today. She spoke to the video blog team yesterday about her preparations for day 1b.
Johnny Lodden also wears the PokerStars colours and Barcelona champion Sebastian Ruthenberg is also here, so too London winner Michael Martin looking to make it two in a row. That's all ahead of us. Stay with us to find out how successful he is throughout the day on the PokerStars blog.
We're not even a quarter of the way through this thing, but already it's safe to say that EPT Budapest is a success. This might be the first time a major poker tournament has visited Hungary, but so far there hasn't been a foot put wrong by anyone, and it can only get better over the coming week.
That, though, is the end of day 1a, which began with the tournament officials announcing that every seat had been sold - that's 540 of them - and finished with 90 bagging chips. And there was a familiar face bagging the most: the Norwegian Annette Obrestad, who may have only just turned 20, but is already a veteran on the EPT. She won two massive pots towards the close of play, including knocking two players out in the same hand when she made pocket deuces into quads, and is the probable chip leader with close to 100,000.
The EPT Prague champion of season four, Arnaud Mattern, had a fluctuating final couple of levels, but that was only the difference between a huge stack and a large one. He ended with close to 82,000, which is probably good for second place.
It was a day to forget for the Team PokerStars Pros Marcin Horecki and Katja Thater. Horecki made the final table at EPT London earlier in the month, but perished very early here. The World Series bracelet winner Thater also couldn't get going in Budapest and bust in mid afternoon. Better news though for Luca Pagano, who flies the Team PokerStars Pro flag into day two. The Italian flew out of the blocks and doubled his stack within the first couple of levels. And although 25,000 is still more than alive and kicking, he has slipped slightly down the field.
Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano
Anton Ionel, from Romania, has about 60,000; Robert Andersson, of Sweden, has about 51,000. Although the local favourite Valdemar Kwaysser went out, many other Hungarians remain in the field including Antonio Karman (45,000), Peter Gelencser (35,000) and Jozsef Ruttkai (35,000). As ever, the latest, approximate chip counts can be found on the chip count page. That page will also be updated with the full, official counts over night.
Meanwhile, you can look back over the day's action by clicking on any of the links below, or see the video bloggers' work on PokerStars.tv. Day 1b starts at 1pm tomorrow, where the field will be equally star-studded and there will be more of the same terrific play. Until then, goodnight.
Don't forget, you can read all about the tournament in a number of different languages. Here in Budapest, our new Hungarian blog was unveiled and is awaiting your click. Our Swedish blog has been running significantly longer, but is also worth checking out.
The board was already reading Tc-As-8d with Paul Testud, Stephan Engler and Ramzi Jelassi among the cast of this hand. Checked to Jelassi the Swede bumped it up to 2,500 which Testud and Engels both called. The turn card 9c saw Testud check whilst Engler, who was responsible for adding to Danny Ryan’s stack earlier, moved all-in for 6,400. Jelassi got out of their way as Testud called. Engler made an “arghh!” noise as he turned over A-T, being shown Jh-Qh by Testud who took the pot with a straight, stacking his new chips as Engler disappeared to the rail.
Blinds have just gone up to 300-600 with a 75 ante as we enter the final level of the day. There were 109 players still remaining as the level started, but in one fell swoop there were soon two fewer. Their assassin, as so often, was Annette Obrestad, who vaulted into the chip lead of about 90,000. Here's how she did it.
There was some small pre-flop action and the players saw a board of 2h-4d-9h. Obrestad, first to speak, checked and the short stack to her left moved all in for his last 5,600. The player on the button flat called, but Obrestad moved all in over the top, for another 50,000-odd and putting the other player to a decision for his tournament life. After a while, he called and showed pocket eights. Obrestad, however, had pocket twos and had flopped a set. By the end, it was quads when the fourth deuce rivered.
That table had previously seen the first royal flush of the tournament, in the hand of Nick Maieritsch. He had Ad-Kd and his opponent had an unsuited A-K. But flop, turn and river eventually brought the 10d, Jd and the Qd to make the top hand in poker.
A few other players are also building sizeable stacks here. The top four are probably these:
Marcel Luske’s day is over, eliminated half way through level six. It’s a fate shared by many others including a former EPT winner (Deauville in season two) in Mats Iremark. Keith Hawkins joins them. He was short stacked and moved in with A-8 only to be called by a triumphant pair of kings.
Over on Ben Kang’s table the seat five player is busy eating a burger while play goes on. To do this he reaches behind Ben Kang to a glass table. Kang is a big guy and stands up to stretch his legs every few minutes. The effect this has as the table behind him tips over, is to send two tournament officials into action. Making that involuntary panic noise they catch the table before it hits the floor, preventing a Public Safety Code nightmare. Kang hardly notices.
PokerStars shooting star Ben Kang
This aside Kang is playing his usual solid game, the PokerStars shooting star currently sitting with 23,000 which he’s added to in the last level by winning multiple pots uncontested.
On the table alongside sits an equally imposing figure, adding to their stack of 31,000. This is Annette Obrestad, neatly postured on the button, first raising before being re-raised on a board of Js-Jd-5c-Kh. Is this guy trying his luck or does he really have something?
To find out Obrestad slides in another tower of red chips. The amount doesn’t matter, it’s the walnut to crack a nut effect that works so well, her opponent grinning as he mucked his cards. The result isn’t far off that which Kang had when he sent a table flying. Everyone jumps suddenly and wakes up a bit.
For many playing in the EPT Budapest came after qualification on PokerStars. One of them is Darren Hope of the UK who spoke to the video blog team earlier today.
The clock ticks down, the last break of the day is minutes away. Whilst some players eye the clock and count the seconds before their next cigarette break PokerStars qualifier Danny Ryan is deep in a hand.
The seat six player had made it 1,500 on a board of 9s-8c-Qh and now the action was on Ryan, who asked how much his opponent had left. The answer was something in the region of 16,000.
Ryan had more and re-raised another 4,000 on top.
This had the effect of sending his opponent into the tank, a period spent partly staring at Ryan and partly spent running through possible hands out loud. Ryan sat quietly. It was a one-sided conversation.
The result was a fold, the seat six player turning over Kc-Qc.
“Did you have better?” he asked. Ryan nodded. “Serious?” Ryan nodded again. He’s up to 35,000.
With just 155 players remaining from the monstrous field of 262 on day 1a, all the tables in the overspill tournament room have now been broken and everyone is seated around 18 tables in the main ballroom.
Although many of the tournament's biggest names are still in and prospering - Pagano, Obrestad, Mizzi, Jelassi, Mattern, Iremark, Ryan, etc. - there are some finding the going less than comfortable. The PokerStars player Keith "The Camel" Hawkins, for instance, has little more than 2,500, while Marcel Luske may look chipped up, but his stack is deceptive. His habit of collecting the small denomination chips means that the towers in front of him barely represent much more than 3,500.
That, however, is 3,500 more than the home-field hope Valdemar Kwaysser.
Valdemar Kwaysser
The Budapest native burst onto the poker scene earlier this year when he won the inaugural LAPT event in San Jose, Costa Rica. But unfortunately he won't be adding an EPT title to his collection after a hand moments ago. The under-the-gun player limped, and seven others came along for the ride, spotting increasingly good value step-by-step around the table.
Kwaysser was in the big blind and looked down at A-Q, which seemed like the perfect time to shove his entire stack of 9,000 into the middle. But that under-the-gun player, who had started all this, saw a dastardly plan work to perfection. He had kings, called and knocked Kwaysser down and out.
Before all that happened, Kwaysser had been chatting to our video blog team. Here's what he had to say about the EPT on his home turf:
As reported on the chip counts page the current leader on day 1a is Frenchman Arnaud Mattern. The EPT Prague champion now has 64,000 after a pivotal hand against a fellow Frenchman. Mattern made a flush on the turn as his opponent moved in with a straight, a figure around 25,000. Mattern called, his opponent drawing dead, to boost his stack and send his countryman out.
Elsewhere it hasn’t been a good day for two of the three Team PokerStars Pros in the field today. Whilst Luca Pagano ticks along nicely Katja Thater has been eliminated, as has Poland’s Marcin Horecki.
Update: Mattern just took a sizeable hit, doubling up a delighted Italian opponent, who celebrated with his countryman Daniele Mazzia, who made the final table in Barcelona and is still in here. Mattern still has more than 30,000 but he is not quite as dominant as he once was.
On one side is PokerStars qualifier Danny Ryan. Slight beard, long hair, the look of carefree youth about him. On the other Marcel Luske in his tailored nine yards and, well, slightly thinner hair. Call it youth over experience, a generational contest, but either way they just tangled in a big hand.
Ryan started it, making it 800 pre-flop which was first called by Daniele Mazzia of EPT Barcelona final table fame, and then re-raised by Luske, the Dutchman making it 3,300 from his seat two off the button.
While Ryan smiled a bit, Luske put his shades on.
PokerStars qualifier Danny Ryan
After a pause for inner reflection Ryan re-raised. A total of 6,800, the final nail in the hand for Mazzia, who quickly moved aside. Luske called though for a flop of 4h-Ks-4s.
Now Ryan made it 2,000, almost covering the remains of the Dutchman’s stack and ultimately forcing him out of the hand. He may now be down to a little more than 2,000 but Ryan scoots up the chip league, with 22,000.
PokerStars player Marcel Luske
Another player faring well is Annette Obrestad. She spoke with the video blog team earlier today...
The players have taken their second break of the day, at the end of level four. For some the break is no such thing: the Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano, for instance, has just spent at least 14 of his 15 minutes recording a series of interviews with various media outlets. He won't have minded so much, though, because he still has north of 20,000, well about the average.
Ben Kang and Sorel Mizzi also spent some of their break otherwise occupied. They were actually still in a hand which went all the way to showdown, with Kang sliding out a huge bet and Mizzi calling for all his stack. But the Canadian will return from the break still alive: his aces and kings were better than Kang's aces and twos.
The PokerStars Shooting Star Benjamin Kang
The chip leaders are all grouped at around 40,000. The French player Anthony Roux has 39,000 alongside new faces on the EPT Frederic Magen (39,000), Alp Okumus (42,000) and Antonio Karman (38,000).
As reported earlier, the tournament is a sell out, which means the officials have already been able to announce the prize pool and payouts. It is as follows, and you will be able to access information via the link at the top of the page.
PokerStars Shooting Star Johannes Strassmann is one of the EPTs potential superstars and would have attained grand master status already had it not been for a habit of busting on final tables, or thereabouts. Actually it’s hardly a habit, more colossal bad luck.
His day so far has been the slow meandering type. No real movement in his stack except for a hardly noticeable downward slide. Part of this slide came courtesy of Viki Szilasi who was undeterred by some Strassmann raising on a flop of Qd-2c-Ts. On a turn card 9d it was Szilasi’s chance to raise, which stopped Strassmann from advancing any further in the hand.
PokerStars shooting star Johannes Strassmann
Strassmann’s table is s tough one, featuring as it does Barcelona runner-up Fintan Gavin and also Sweden’s Patric Martenssen.
Martenssen could be typecast as the quiet and lethal poker player, easily capable of ruining your day without flinching, a look of innocence courtesy of his well starched baseball caps. I’ve seen him wear the colours of the Orioles, Red Sox, Nationals, Tigers, Giants, Padres and today the Dodgers, suggesting a slight bias towards the National League West, but his poker remains brutal at all times.
But the current threat is the arrival of Theo Jorgensen and his stack of more than 20,000. He immediately made his presence felt by re-raising pre-flop, enough to scare off everyone, including the initial raiser.
Amid all this Strassmann was able to mount a mini-revival. On a flop of 8s-3d-5s he bet 1,100 after the action was checked to him by Fintan Gavin. The seat three player called while Jorgensen left them to it. A turn card 6s was checked and the river brought a queen. With a little more than 4,000 to his name Strassmann put another 2,300 into the pot. The seat three player called fast but made tutting noises and then mucked when Strassmann showed him his Kc-Qs.
Strassmann back up to 10,000 as we approach the end of level four. Whilst players take a break the good people in the PokerStars video blog team welcome you to Budapest...
As reported on our chip count page Team PokerStars Pro Katja Thater is down to less than 4,000. But it could have been worse for the bracelet winner were it not for a painful but disciplined lay down.
With a board reading 6-4-2-3 Katja had flopped a set but was soon facing an all-in raise from her high-flying opponent. With straight draws all over the place Thater put down her sixes, missing out on a pot worth several thousand but at least keeping her seat at the table.
There's an empty chair next to Luca Pagano and a mountain of chips in front of him. These two facts are undoubtedly connected, although it doesn't seem right to interrupt the EPT Player of the Year for details since he is clearly on a tear at the moment.
In the same recent orbit, Pagano took down three pots: an uncontested pre-flop raise pinching the blinds, then a pre-flop re-raise (adding 1,200 to an initial 450) taking that one down, then a continuation bet on a queen-high flop after the player in the small blind came along. That was enough to add another 1,000 or so and Pagano is possibly the tournament chip leader at this stage with 28,000.
Team PokerStars Pro Luca Pagano
On the other hand, the PokerStars qualifier Dave Colclough is out, and the Team PokerStars Pros Katja Thater and Marcin Horecki are both struggling. Thater has 4,200 and 5,000. They're playing level three now, where the blinds are 75-150. The full structure is always available on the EPT website, and our chip counts page is updated throughout the day.
Team PokerStars Pro Marcin Horecki is down to 3,700 after an escapade on his table, putting a dent in his hopes of a second deep run. He flopped two pairs but was chased down by his opponent who had made the nut flush on the turn.
Elsewhere Annette Obrestad left a bruise on her opponent. He'd woken up with pocket aces and the money went in on the 4h-Qh-3s flop with Obrestad holding pocket threes. This hand was only going to have one ending, a stack of close to 20,000 for the young Obrestad.
That should be close to the lead as players head into the first break of the day.
Marcel Luske is back. After a spell away from the EPT the Flying Dutchman has landed in Budapest, a welcome sight in his trademark suit, accompanied by a salmon pink windsor-knotted tie, mirrored shades and a PokerStars badge on his breast pocket.
He made call of 125 on the button to see a As-Ah-2h flop. It was him and the seat one small blind player, just a dealer in between.
PokerStars sponsored player Marcel Luske
Both had checked the flop for a 5c turn card which saw the seat one player make it 200. Luske casually matched that. With a 9d on the river it was checked to Luske this time. He tossed in a red chip worth 500. Too much for seat one who mucked. Luske showed him his Ad-9c.
A nice start for Luske who, as the blinds increased, was up several grand, amassing a nice pile of green chips along the way.
Of all the players in this field who are dangerous with a huge stack of chips, there are few more fearsome than Annette Obrestad. And in these very early stages, the former teenage sensation (note the "former"; she has just turned 20) is possibly our chip leader.
Obrestad has just taken down about a 15,000 pot when she shoved all in on the river, staring at a board of Jd-7c-Kd-5h-7h. She had pocket kings, which were good whenher opponent mucked.
A few regular faces to the European Poker Tour are playing their first hands of this new event, including a few of its former winners and near winners. EPT4 Dublin champion Rueben Peters plays today as does Fintan Gavin, who finished runner-up in Barcelona last month, and Team PokerStars Pro Marcin Horecki who just a few weeks ago narrowly missed out on a first EPT title in London, coming third.
Team PokerStars Pro Marcin Horecki
In the Art Deco surroundings of the ballroom tournament area, all clean lines and right angles, one of the exceptions is Arnaud Mattern who is in contrast all stubble and aviator eyewear. The Frenchman won in Prague last season, one of the new events to the calendar, looking for a second in Budapest away from the television cameras. A few early pots and he’s headed in the right direction. At least 539 others are trying to do the same.
Arnaud Mattern
Or make that 538. One of the first players out is PokerStars qualifier Mark Dalimore from the UK, betting all the way from early position on a board of As-Js-9h-x-9s.
Looking back on the hand Dalimore thought the turn card was a three of diamonds, but more importantly thought he made a straight flush when he pushed all-in on the river. Actually, holding Qs-Ts, he had just a queen high flush. His opponent insta-called with a king-high flush. Dalimore was gone.
Cards are in the air in Budapest on the first-ever EPT in Hungary. The news is reassuringly predictable: this is a sell out. The tournament director Thomas Kremser announced that 540 players are registered - already more than the advertised capacity - and they're playing ten handed in these early levels. That means 27 table packed with poker talent, and the same again tomorrow.
Players begin with 10,000 chips and if they lose them, they're out. The latest, approximate counts of some notable players can be found on our chip counts page. Please note that they're only approximate, but they're still the most accurate around.
We'll play eight one-hour levels today, with a short break after every other level. As we wait for all the action to unfold (it won't take long), hve a look at the video blog team's introduction to Budapest.
As unlikely as it might sound, there are still some spectacular destinations in this rich and varied continent so far unvisited by the European Poker Tour. Of course, we will always have Barcelona, London, Copenhagen, Prague, San Remo, Monte Carlo and all the others, but there's no particular reason that we must stop there. And so we haven't.
This week the EPT has rolled into Budapest for its first ever visit to Hungary. And on first glance, the only question leaping to mind is this: why haven't we been here sooner?
The Royal Palace
This is another exquisite European capital, spanning out from the grand sweep of the majestic Danube across small hills and through slender, cobbled streets. The roofs of pastel-coloured cottages, punctured by lines of chimneys, twinkle with multicoloured mosaics. Medieval churches, cathedrals and basilicas display the finest work of generations of visionary architects and stone-masons. And the ornate stylings of a succession of bridges link the two sides of this formerly divided city, fusing the formidable castle complex in old Buda, to the tangle of lanes, squares, cloisters and gables in what was formerly Pest. As one, Budapest is sublime.
History lessons, though, will have to end tomorrow, when eyes will return to the familiar beige baize of the EPT poker tables. They are already lined up - more than 30 of them - spilling out of the Las Vegas casino and into the adjoining five-star Sofitel hotel, whose residents enjoy views across the river and to the magnificent Royal Palace turned art gallery high on the hill.
Among those residents are many of the 500-odd players expected for the largest poker tournament ever held in the country. And among those players are several members of Team PokerStars Pro, as well as a characteristically fine clutch of PokerStars qualifiers, comfortably the most feared party of marauders in modern central Europe.
In the first category this week, we have nine of the Team's finest ambassadors: Marcin Horecki, Katja Thater, Luca Pagano, Vicky Coren, Dario Minieri, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Noah Boeken, Alex Kravchenko and William Thorson. Just to pick two out of those, Horecki made the final table at the last EPT in London, while ElkY is fresh from his spectacular WPT success at the Bellagio last week.
These are joined by the PokerStars sponsored players Kara Scott, Marcel Luske, Johnny Lodden, Jan Heitmann, Sebastian Ruthenburg, among others, plus those qualifiers boasting a heady mix of veteran's guile and uninhibited youth: David Colclough, Danny Ryan, Valdemar Kwaysser and Laurence Houghton, to name but four. In total, we're expecting close to 500, each paying €4,000 for their seat. That will produce a prize pool of grand proportions, enough perhaps to impress even the Habsburg dynasty, who shaped this wonderful city through its most prosperous times.
The first card will be dealt at 1pm tomorrow, central European time. That's day 1A, to be followed on Wednesday by day 1B, Thursday is day 2, Friday is day 3 and our final is on Saturday. Don't miss it.
As ever, the video blog team are in Budapest, and you can follow their exploits at PokerStars.tv.
There is also coverage of the event in a variety of languages, which we will link to tomorrow - including a brand new Hungarian blog for all the latest from Budapest in this most difficult of native tongues. Again, stay tuned.
PokerStars Macau hosted yet another successful Macau Poker Cup (MPC) and set a new record for participants and prize pool in the Red Dragon Event. The first prize, in excess of HKD $142,000, is the biggest yet in the MPC signature event. China continued to show its continued growth in the poker world as 20 of the 25 prizes were awarded to players of Chinese descent.
PokerStars.net Sponsored player Van Marcus placed 5th in the tough field of the Red Dragon Event and adds to his impressive resume, including a 9th place finish in the APPT Macau 2008 High Rollers Event and 4th place finish in APPT Manila 2007.
PokerStars.net Sponsored Player Celina Lin now has the distinction of being the only player to final table all three major Macau Poker Cup tournaments with her 2nd place finish in the Rebuy Event. Celina placed 2nd in the Red Dragon Event and 7th in the Deep Stack Event in the July’08 Macau Poker Cup.
The next exciting installment of the Macau Poker Cup is December 12-14, 2008 at PokerStars Macau
Summary:
(all figures in HKD)
Macau Poker Cup - Charity Event
Date: Friday – October 24, 2008 Buy-in: $500 (450+50) + $1500 Donation Players: 43 Players Prize Pool: $19,350 +$ 127,500 in prizes Charity: Caritas de Macau
Winners:
1. Roel Pijoers from Netherlands – Prize: $70,000 Package for APPT Sydney
2. Cheung Hoi Wing from Hong Kong – Prize: $10,000 Red Dragon Event Entry
3. Paulo Gomes from Macau – Prize: $10,000 Red Dragon Event Entry
4. Chow Kut Fu from Hong Kong - Prize: $10,000 Red Dragon Event Entry
5. Karen Lee from Hong Kong - Prize: $10,000 Red Dragon Event Entry
6. Jonathan Lin from Territory of Taiwan - Prize: APPT Manila Phase 2 Entry
7. Richard Jenks from Hong Kong - Prize: APPT Manila Phase 2 Entry
8. Charles Ng from Hong Kong - Prize: APPT Manila Phase 2 Entry
9. “Will” Cheong Kuok Wai from Macau - Prize: APPT Manila Phase 2 Entry
10. Wong Ke Hou from Macau - Prize: APPT Manila Phase 2 Entry
Roel Pijoers is part of a 43 player field who’s participation in the Macau Poker cup Charity Event helped raise $64,500 for the Caritas De Macau (http://www.caritas.org.mo) charity. Caritas De Macau is a social service organization of Macau.
1. Christopher Koo from Hong Kong – Prize: $12,960
2. Howard Stribbell from Canada – Prize: $8,910
3. Paulo Gomes from Macau – Prize: $4,860
4. Wu Hong Cheng from China – Prize: $3,240
5. Yu Mei Ping from Hong Kong – Prize: $2,430
Hong Kong’s Christopher Koo dominates the final table on his way to victory in the Deep Stack Event.
1. Jason Jia from Hong Kong – Prize: $142,080
2. Jonathan Lin from Territory of Taiwan – Prize: $97,680
3. Wu Hong Cheng from China – Prize: $53,280
4. Elton Tsang from Hong Kong – Prize: $35,520
5. Van Marcus from Australia – Prize: $26,640
Jason Jia holds the Macau Poker Cup trophy as the champion of the Red Dragon Event. Jason beats a tough final table that includes PokerStars.net Sponsored Player Van Marcus and local poker pro Wu Hong Cheng.
1. Caetano Ramos from Brazil – Prize $10,930
2. Celina Lin from China – Prize: $7,510
3. Hou Jian Kang from China – Prize: $4,100
4. Robert Wong from Macau – Prize: $2,730
5. Fu Fung Wing from Hong Kong – Prize: $2,050
Caetano nearly carries the chip lead from beginning to end on his way to capturing the Macau Poker Cup Rebuy Event.
On the last Sunday in October, 7,415 players were looking for treats in the Sunday Million and hoping not to get tricked by a bad beat to prevent them from getting their share of the $1.5 million prize pool and the $184,500 first place prize.
Play from three tables down to the final nine went slowly into the wee hours of Monday morning and the final table bubble burst when darkillermax won a race for a huge pot with J-J versus the A-K of cdbr3799. The hand knocked cdbr3799 out in tenth and gave darkillermax a huge lead over the field with more than 31 million chips.
The final table seats and chip counts were as follows:
BackDoorovic was first to go in ninth when he pushed 2.3 million with Qd-3c and ran into the As-Ks of sms9231. The board ran out harmlessly for sms9231 and BackDoorovic earned $10,500 for the day.
Cashadvance7 got $17,250 for eighth after he pushed with Ah-3h for 1.1 million after a 400K limp under the gun from Numb Nutzzzz. Only Numb Nutzzzz called the raise with his 4c-4d and was awarded with a flop of 8c-4h-7c.
Cracking kings and winning with kings were key for sms9231 in building a stack at the final table. First, he pushed all-in from the cutoff for 13.6 million and kodi100 pushed all-in for 2.4 million from the button. The hands were As-9c for sms9231 and Ks-Kh for kodi100. The board ran out 7c-Ah-Qc-9h-6d and kodi finished in seventh for $26,250. Three hands later sms9231 raised the 400K big blind to 1 million under the gun and moabut shoved for 2.4 million from the cutoff. Sms9231 made the call with Kd-Kh and this time no ace hit the board to help the Ah-4d of moabut who exited in sixth and collected $39,000.
Lounatic0815 was next to depart when he shoved 6.8 million from the button with blinds at 250K/500K and 50K antes. Salvo58 called from the small blind and showed Tc-Th to be well ahead of the Ad-5h of Lounatic0815. The board ran out 8c-5c-Ts-As-Qh to give salvo58 the dominating set and send Lounatic0815 home in fifth, and with $54,000 in his pocket.
The tournament was then paused so the remaining four players could discuss a deal. They could not work out an agreement so play continued. Shortly afterwards darkillermax raised to 1.35 million from the cutoff and Numb Nutzzzz raised all-in to 6.5 million from the small blind. Darkillermax made the call and was well behind with 5h-5s against the Ts-Tc of Numb Nutzzzz, but the board came 8c-7d-8h-Ad-5d to give darkillermax the full house on the river to knock Numb Nutzzzz out in fourth. He got $69,000 for the finish.
The tournament was paused a second time to discuss a deal and the negotiations were again fruitless, necessitating further play. Sms9231 got the rest of his 10 million into the pot against darkillermax in a blind versus blind situation and was behind with Jh-Td versus Ks-Qc. The board ran out Kd-6h-3h-8c-Th to put sms9231 out in third with $84,000.
The third time was the charm as darkillermax and salvo58 agreed to a deal, giving darkillermax $144,656 and salvo58 $134,793, with an additional $30,000 going to the winner. Darkillermax was the recipient of that extra $30,000 a few hands later when the two got it all-in with darkillermax holding two queens and salvo58 tabling two eights. The queens held and darkillermax was the October 26 Sunday Million Champion and earned $174,656 for the victory.
Time once again to make something for nothing as 5,000 Frequent Players Points (FPPs) will earn one lucky (and/or skillful) player tonight $100,000 simply for “buying in” with FPPs. With eight players getting over five figures this evening its well worth the time invested in satellites if you do not have 5,000 FPPs lying around. 8,634 players got here any way they could from the penny players up to the Supernova Elites and nearly half of them, 4,000 to be exact, went home with at least $90.00 tonight.
The $1 Million Turbo Takedown once again is paying out big money for those FPPs from your hard work on the tables and after six and half hours these final nine players will be taking home the biggest slices of that $1,000,000 pie.
Here’s how the final table shaped up:
(Click on image for larger size)
Seat 1: fatimato (566306 in chips)
Seat 2: Gefallener (4637248 in chips)
Seat 3: ukom777 (4996824 in chips)
Seat 4: elitesauce (1773932 in chips)
Seat 5: greener_tree (5842055 in chips)
Seat 6: el10delajuve (640128 in chips)
Seat 7: Hip O'Crazy (4047941 in chips)
Seat 8: Big Pig 63 (2123232 in chips)
Seat 9: MikeG5 (1274334 in chips)
el10delajuve wasted no time in finding a double up. With the blinds for the final table starting out at 35,000/70,000 ante 7,000 he took his black pocket jacks (Js-Jc) all-in pre flop against the big stack of ukom777 and managed to win the race and double up to 1.3 million in chips.
On a short stack and needing a double up, fatimato decided to min raise from UTG to get those juicy blinds while only holding 655,306 in chips with blinds at 40,000/80,000 ante 8,000. But, Big Pig 63 had big ideas and pumped it up to 400,000 in the small blind after it folded around to him. Faced with a decision for all his chips fatimato took the plunge with Jd-Qc and found himself behind Big Pig 63’s Ah-Th while creating a 1.4 million chip pot. The two pair on the board of 6d-5c-5s-6h-7c helped no one as Big Pig 63’s ace kicker won the hand and fatimato exited with $5,500.00 in ninth place.
elitesauce opened in middle position for 270,000 with blinds escalating to 45,000/90,000 ante 9,000 while holding nearly five million in chips and Big Pig 63 decided to give him some action by calling in the big blind. After flop a flop of 9h-6s-5d Big Pig 63 checked and elitesauce bet 360,000 as Big Pig 63 oinked back for a check-raise all-in for his remaining 1.5 million. Not fazed by the big bet, elitesauce calmly called with his red aces (Ah-Ad) as Big Pig 63 was left holding only a pair of fives with 4d-5s. The aggression backfired on the barnyard favorite as the board ran out Ts and 7c to give the 3.7 million chip pot to elitesauce and sent Big Pig 63 back to the holding pen with $10,000.00 for his eighth place finish.
el10delajuve found a pair of kings in his hand in the cutoff, perfect for the short stack with only 720,512 chip left and blinds at 50,000/100,000 ante 10,000. He correctly open-pushed while Hip O’Crazy found enough sanity to isolate him on the button with his pocket pair of fives (5h-5c). Leaving 4.3 million behind, Hip O’Crazy had enough to take the hit, but sometimes crazy works as the board ran to his advantage as a four flush hit the river on the board of Ah-Jd-4h-7h-Th. The bad beat story was worth $15,000.00 for el10delajuve in seventh place.
Big pair, meet bigger pair. Gefallener found himself on the wrong side of that equation after 3-betting greener_tree’s 875,000 chip UTG raise on the button as the blinds got out of the way. greener_tree responded with a shove for his remaining 5 million in chips. Gefallener made the call with his pocket jacks (Jh-Jd) only to see the bad news in the form of greener_tree’s pocket kings (Kc-Kh). The board ran out without any face cards 3h-8d-8s-9d-7s and Gefallener received $20,000.00 in sixth place.
After several hands which saw slices of greener_tree’s chip lead go to ukom777’s pocket aces and another slice for MikeG5 river four flush while dominated Ad-5c versus Ac-Qs The hand kept MikeG5 in the tournament long enough to be a part of the deal talks as the players checked with the PokerStars staff to discuss deal. The players decided to draft a new book on poker negotiations in the chat box for nearly ten minutes, but they still fell through as greener_tree was not willing to deal.
When greener_tree knocked out ukom777 in fifth place it looked like an even better decision to drop the chop talks. Picking up pocket kings (Kh-Ks) UTG again while raising to 485,000 with blinds at 90,000/180,000 ante 18,000 greener_tree was looking for action and found it with ukom777 who shoved for 5.5 million from the small blind with missus slick (Ah-Qh). The board 8d-Jd-6h-2d-4c put out a diamond flush possibility, right color, wrong suit for ukom777 as he earned $25,000 in fifth place.
Deal talks remained silent while MikeG5 got in his remaining 1.5 million chips in the middle from the small blind with blinds still at 90,000/180,000 ante 18,000 having only elitesauce in his way for the 342,000 sitting in the middle. After a slight pause, elitesauce took his Ad-7d to war making the call while leaving three million behind. MikeG5 found himself behind with Kd-5h and did not improve on the 8s-2d-2c-9c-8c board. Fourth place was worth $32,500.00 to MikeG5 as chop talk began again.
After several offers from greener_tree using his double stack chip lead on Hip O’Crazy and elitesauce as the bargaining weight, they came to an agreement:
greener_tree $84,000
Hip O’Crazy $48,000
elitesauce $48,000
As with all the big Sunday tournaments, an amount was set aside for the winner. So, after the deal was broken these three played on for the remaining $20,000 of the prize pool.
greener_tree had to be smiling wide after the deal was cut as he made nearly $44,000 when his lead was chopped into after several three-handed play. His final hand came with blinds at 125,000/250,000 ante 25,000 as Hip O’Crazy folded from the button and elitesauce came in for a 750,000 from the small blind. greener_tree pushed his remaining 5.7 million chips as elitesauce called and covered by 1.9 million.
greener_tree: Qh-Jc
elitesauce: Ad-Ks
The flop of 5c-Qd-7h turned the advantage to greener_tree for the 12 million chip pot, and the 3h on the turn left elitesauce looking for six outs. Team PokerStars pro Barry Greenstein’s book “Ace on the River” came in handy here, as the ace of spades hit on the river sending greener_tree to play with his newly minted $84,000 from the deal for his third place finish.
The final two would start the heads-up match for the remaining $20,000 nearly even with 14 million for elitesauce versus the 11 million for Hip O’Crazy with blinds at 125,000/250,000 ante 25,000.
The heads-up match would be a series of blinds steals by both players for nearly twenty hands then Hip O’Crazy snagged a seven million chip pot post flop to take 16 million to 8 million chip lead for five hands until the following big hand turned the tides towards the winner:
elitesauce completed the additional 150,000 chips from the button as Hip O’Crazy liked his cards enough to raise to 2.1 million. elitesauce then 3-bet all-in to 11.8 million and Hip O’Crazy made the call leaving two million behind.
Hip O'Crazy: Ac-Td
elitesauce: Th-Tc
The dominating lead pre-flop would not be overturned as the board ran out 6h-8d-Qc-Qh-Jd giving elitesauce the 23 million chip pot and a 11:1 chip heads-up clip lead with the blinds at 150,000/300,000 ante 30,000. After doubling up two hands later, Hip O’Crazy would succumb to elitesauce’s enormous chip lead as he called elitesauce’s button push with four million in chips with 8d-Qd and found himself dominated again against elitesauce’s Qh-Js. As the board turned, it made the river interesting by putting up two diamonds: Ks-9h-7d-Kd, but no diamond nor an eight on the river as the 6h fell and elitesauce showed who was the 1337 (that’s elite for those not up with geek lingo) player in taking home the extra $20,000 for being this month’s $1 Million Turbo Takedown winner!
Join us again next month and see if you too can turn 5,000 FPPs into a possible six-figure score!
October $1 Million Turbo Takedown Results (based on three-way deal)
The starting time for the Sunday Warm-Up was bumped up 45 minutes tonight, and the result was the guarantee being broken. Helping to smash the $750,000 guarantee by PokerStars was the 3,806 players who contributed to the $761,200.00 prize pool.
GravityPilot is skydiving into the final table of the Warm-up once again as he took fifth in this tournament a few month ago in July for a $52,056.30 score. For a little back information on his final table run, check out the PokerStarsBlog final table write-up here. Displeased came very close to a WCOOP final table in Event #31 $1,050 buy-in tourney, as he bowed out in 16th place good for $2,224,12 (find the WCOOP live blog here) .
After TheBonafide’s Kd-Jd ran head first into xnotthatonex’s pocket aces that flopped a set our final table was set below:
Click on image to enlarge
Seat 1: coinflipster (2061103 in chips)
Seat 2: GravityPilot (1533320 in chips)
Seat 3: Gran_Goliat (7327839 in chips)
Seat 4: Mi||a.TiMe (1089333 in chips)
Seat 5: xnotthatonex (6368913 in chips)
Seat 6: MadSkillz609 (3040239 in chips)
Seat 7: freeds (6888137 in chips)
Seat 8: Displeased (5003246 in chips)
Seat 9: gutshtallin (4747870 in chips)
Using some skillz, MadSkillz609 put Gran_Goliat on a position steal after Gran_Goliat raised it up to 420,000 from the cutoff on his big blind. The button and small blind got out of the way, but MadSkillz609 decided to resteal and shoved for his remaining 2.8 million in chips. Unfortunately, Gran_Goliat’s pocket kings (Kd-Ks) said “not this time sir” and was well ahead of MadSkillz609’s Ah-6h. The board played out with no excitement Js-Tc-3s-9s-2d and the skillful one was left with $6,546.32 in ninth place.
Just three hands later short stacked Mijja.TiMe found a hand to go with while holding just three BBs with blinds at 100,000/200,000 ante 20,000 in middle position, he open-shoved for 645,333 with pocket eights (8s-8h). But Displeased found a hand he had more than neutral feelings towards as he over-shoved with pocket queens (Qd-Qs) giving him a solid advantage pre-flop. The flop raised Displeased level of concern to “overly annoyed” with all hearts coming out 6h-Kh-Jh. The 5s and 5c on the turn and river missed Mijja’s flush draw and returned Displeased to his normal state of mind. For eighth place Mijja.TiMe received $9,515.00 and the knowledge that Displeased was at least happy after that hand.
Another pocket pair preflop battle took place ten hands later as coinflipster’s pocket sevens (7s-7c) did not have a fifty percent chance of beating xnotthatonex’s pocket jacks (Jh-Js) for a 4.2 million chip pot. Once again the favorite held up on the board of 5h-Tc-6d-3d-3h as coinflipster was left to join a Pot Limit Omaha game perhaps to work on his coin flipping skills with the extra $15,224.00 he earned in seventh place.
15 or so hands of blind steals went by and a big hand developed between gutshtallin and freeds. gutshtallin opened UTG for 625,000 with blinds at 125,000/250,000 ante 25,000 as it folded around to freeds in the small blind who flat called and Displeased folded his big blind. Flop of 8s-Tc-5c had freeds check while gutshtallin followed through with a 1 million chip bet. freeds check raised all-in for his 4.8 million as gutshtallin made the call leaving 5.4 million behind and creating a 11.2 million chip pot. Flush draw and overcard for gutshtallin’s Kc-9c while freeds slowplayed his red ladies (Qd-Qh) to a big lead in the hand. The cruel Kd on the turn gave gutshtallin the lead and left freeds with one out on the river. The Qs did not hit, as the Js sent freeds home with $22,836.00 in sixth place.
Six hands later saw GravityPilot’s parachute come out while left with just under five BBs while in the big blind and facing a 615,000 chip raise from xnotthatonex. Any ace will do just fine here and GravityPilot jumped for his remaining 1.4 million with Ah-9s, only to be staring at the pocket jacks of xnotthatonex. Two pair on the board of Qh-Qs-6s-2d-6h helped no one as GravityPilot landed in fifth place with a golden parachute filled with $30,448.00.
Displeased upped his level of uneasiness to perturbed while holding only 2.1 million in the small blind and blinds at 125,000/250,000 ante 25,000. He open shoved those remaining chips in the small blind into the chip leader’s gutshtallin’s big blind that was sitting on 19 million chips and made the call with Ac-7c. Displeased remained that way after the 4d-Ah-Jh changed nothing to gutshtallin’s preflop advantage, and no two pair or trips came on the turn or river to lighten his mood as gutshtallin’s pair of aces sent the grumpy gorilla home with $38,060.00 in fourth place.
This started several attempts to get take a look at the chop numbers between the remaining three but someone resisted to take a look so they played on.
The move to play on was costly to the short stack xnotthatonex, as he managed a small double up but was unable to get anything going. His fateful hand began with Gran_Goliat opening for 1 million on the button with blinds at 200,000/400,000 ante 40,000 and xnotthatonex 3-betting more then half his stack to 4.02 million. gutshtallin folded as Gran_Goliat pushed with pocket tens (Th-Td) and xnotthatonex decided there were too many chips in the middle to fold and turned up 8d-Qd for the 14.2 million chip pot. A set flopped for Gran_Goliat on the flop of Jd-6s-Ts left xnotthatonex looking for running diamonds or a nine. Neither the Ac nor the Jh provided those diamonds as xnotthatonex was gone with $45,672.00 in third place as deal talks immediately opened up between the final two.
After some quick sparring about who had the most poker muscle the two came to the deal shown below:
Gran_Goliat: $80,593
gutshtallin: $76,870
The players began the head-up journey for the remaining $10,000 with the following chip stacks:
Seat 3: Gran_Goliat (22934622 in chips)
Seat 9: gutshtallin (15125378 in chips)
After a rivered straight for gutshtallin versus Gran_Goliat’s two pair shifted the chip lead the two continued to throw the chips back and forth while the cards were not allowing a winner. Gran_Goliat found himself down to only 6.4 million with blinds at 250,000/500,000 ante 50,000 and managed to double up, then four hands later did it again after losing the blinds three times in a row to nearly knot up the match.
It took a preflop race of gutshtallin’s presto magic (5d-5c) versus Gran_Goliat’s Js-Ts for a 26.9 million chip pot with gutshtallin holding 11.1 million behind to settle the winner’s $10,000 share. A flop of Ad-7c-5s gave gutshtallin a commanding lead with bottom set, leaving Gran_Goliat looking for running spades. Only one spade hit, as the turn and river came Tc and 8s. Gran_Goliat received $80,593 as part of the deal, and this week’s Sunday Warm-Up champ, gutshtallin, made $76,870 plus the $10,000 for the win!
Sunday Warm-Up Results 10-26-08 (based on two-way deal)
Without going too far into the praise and burying the lead, we should point out right now that ElkY has just won the World Poker Tour Festa al Lago at Bellagio in Las Vegas. He pockets $1.4 million after beating out a field of 368 people.
This marks ElkY's second major title of the year. He started 2008 with a win at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure for $2 million. That event marked the PCA's first time on the European Poker Tour and gave ElkY his first EPT win.
In May, ElkY took fifth place at the grand Prix de Paris for more $120,000. Last month, he nearly won a WCOOP bracelet in the $25,000 head-up championship. He finished runner-up for $320,000.
ElkY's exploits at the Festa al Lago this year did not begin with the main event. Just a few days ago, we won $55,000 for a second place finish in a $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em contest.
Then came this year's Festa al Lago main event. He sat at a final table tonight with such names as Nenad Medic and Nam Le. ElkY went into the final table with the chip lead and took it all the way to the win.
At 27 years-old, ElkY has amassed more than $4 million career live tournament winnings. He's earned most of that money in the last ten months.
The October edition of the Battle of the Planets $50,000 Triple Shootout saw 426 SnG specialists drop by the special tournament tab on your PokerStars interface after qualifying for the event through the weekly points race in which additional prize pools of $3,000 for the Mercury division up to $10,000 for the high rolling Jupiter division. For those still unfamiliar with this lucrative monthly freeroll that is giving away over $3,000,000 a year for high volume SnG players, check out the Battle of the Planets promo page here.
da ItchY 84 knows all about the final table for the Battle of the Planets triple shootout, as he took third place in August (final table write up, follow the link) for a $4,500 score. He was waiting for some time, as was JCrosby for the remaining seven seats to fill up.
All 81 players who won the first leg of the triple shootout took home $195.00 while the final nine squared off for the $12,500.00 first prize. After V-X-DRAGON and BakonJarser finished up their heads up battle with BakonJarser coming out on top, here’s how the final table shaped-up this evening:
Ouch! Just six hands into the final table with most of the players still sitting in front of their 1500 starting chips with blinds at 10/20, slidinshadow found himself severely crippled after getting tangled up with SmartFAB post flop. The hand started out with slidinshadow raising it up to 60 chips from UTG + 2 and SmartFAB making the flat call to his left and the blinds folded to see a flop of 2c-8d-9c. slidinshadow led out for 80, as SmartFAB raised it up to 220, slidinshadow wasn’t getting out of the way as he 3-bet to 1,360 leaving just 110 chips behind. SmartFAB raised all-in as slidinshadow had just 30 chips behind to see the bad news.
slidinshadow: Ad-As
SmartFAB: 9s-9h
Top set for SmartFAB as slidinshadow watched the Qd and Tc fall helplessly on the turn and river. Two hands later the scraps was eaten up da ItchY 84 and slidinshadow went back into the dark in ninth place picking up $775.00 in the process.
At the first break SmartFAB steadily gained chips since knocking out slidinshadow and held first place with 3,989 chips. Only teamhonda1 and slipperily had more then the starting 1,500 chip rack and five minutes after the break the blinds went up to 50/100 and short stacks da ItchY 84 and Tysic with under a thousand chips needed to dig out of the early hole. Shortly after the break SmartFAB got served a cooler as his pocket kings (Kh-Ks) got all-in preflop against bparis’ pocket aces (Ac-As) with the board showing nothing to change the advantage, SmartFAB handed over the temporary chip lead to bparis.
Play sped up significally after the blinds went up to 50/100 as the short stacks were shoving preflop to grab those 150 chips in the middle off the blinds. da ItchY 84 was sitting on the button facing a shove by JCrosby, calling meant his remaining stack of 565 from the small blind. Pocket jacks (Jd-Js) was his choice of weapon as JCrosby flipped up Ad-Qs for the race. The flop of Th-4c-Ac left the two-time Battle of Planets final tablist needing a king or jack on the turn or river. Neither came as the board ran out 3c and Qh to give JCrosby the 1,280 chip pot with top two pair and da ItchY 84 did not improve on his third place finish, but showed his poker chops by finishing eighth today for $1,200.
Tysic, while displaying the five stars of a Supernova player, sat on the short stack for quite some time managed one small double up, then pushed the very next hand for his remaining 357 chips on the button with blinds at 75/150. JCrosby made the call from the small blind with Ac-Jd. Tysic held As-4s and neither player improved on the board of Kh-5d-8c-Kd-2d. The Supernova did earn $1,700.00 for his time today while finishing in seventh place.
Which way is up? After slipping and sliding through the board slipperily found himself out in sixth place after a wild ride. UTG and only 330 chips to his name, he pushed as BakonJarser made the call in the cutoff but JCrosby in the small blind had other ideas as he over-shoved getting BakonJarser out of the way. slipperily’s Jc-5c was way behind the pocket queens of JCrosby (Qc-Qs)…
… that was until the flopped flush appeared. Kc-Tc-3c spelled jackpot for slipperily but the board paired on the turn Ks giving JCrosby some more outs to a boat along with the higher flush…
… that hit on the river Ac and slipperily slid home with $2,200.00 in sixth place.
Four hands later BakonJarser found himself on the short stack and open shoving on the button with Ah-2s with 1,150 chips remaining. But, the JCrosby's terminator-mode was on full throttle as he called with pocket sevens (7s-7h). No ace, no wheel, no more chips for BakonJarser as he earned $2,735.00 and fifth place on the board of Kc-9d-8h-4h-3s .
bparis got back into the picture after winning an all-in preflop race with big slick versis against JCrosby’s pocket queens. A few hands later he would use those chips as he defended his big blind against the small blind shove of SmartFAB. bparis turned over pocket threes while “The Brain” held Ks-9d. Inky’s partner could not find a pair on the board of Jc-8d-5c-6d-Tc and SmartFAB went back to his laboratory for world domination with an extra $3,350.00 in fourth place.
bparis crippled teamhonda1 on a preflop all-in by both players when bparis’ pocket fours found a set on the flop and teamhonda1’s Kh-Qd found an open ended straight draw on the turn of Td-3d-4h-Jc but no love on the river and teamhonda1 was left with 960 chips and forced to play the severe short stack with blinds at 125/250 ante 25. Undeterred, he managed two double ups, one off bparis and another off JCrosby as the chips began to slowly even out with bparis still holding out to the lead.
Seat 5: bparis (6635 in chips)
Seat 7: JCrosby (3123 in chips)
Seat 9: teamhonda1 (3742 in chips)
teamhonda1 eventually chipped up enough to overtake bparis’ chip lead by 167 chips as the two got it all-in preflop again. This time bparis’ pocket kings Kc-Kh would hold up against teamhonda1’s As-Qh on the board of 7c-Qc-3d-4c-Tc. The reliable car maker would triple up on the next hand but bparis would send the popular Civic home in third place on the next hand dominating teamhonda1’s Ks-9d with his Kh-Tc and the flopped pair of tens was plenty for the 1,092 chip pot. teamhonda1 earned $4,500.00 for the bronze medal.
Just two hands later, JCrosby faced over a 3:1 chip deficit and was facing a button raise from bparis for his remaining 2,784 chips. It was the right call as JCrosby’s Ad-3d was slightly ahead of bparis’ Jh-Kh but the 8h-9s-Ts flop gave bparis several more outs, one of which hit the turn as the Qc fell giving bparis the unbeatable nut straight and this month’s Battle of the Planets victory!
JCrosby earned $7,000.00 for his runner-up effort as the Battle of the Planets champ, bparis, took home the mother lode of $12,500.00 for first place. Congrats to all of our qualifiers and participants today. Be sure to start earning those seats for next month!
In just a couple of weeks, we will know who will be the 2008 World Series of Poker champion. There is a pretty good chance that one of the PokerStars Million Dollar Men will win the big one. Before they get the chance to win the bracelet, however, the PokerStars 6 will have to have face off against three PokerStars players in the Million Dollar Men Main Event
Yeah, that's right. Today, those final three players beat out nearly 3,000 other runners today to play for a fairly massive amount of money. Everybody in the event will get $10,000, but first place is guaranteed $100,000! Here are the full payouts.
I would once again like to thank you all for your positive feedback on my blogs, as well as suggestions on what topics to cover and explain further.
Our most recent discussion has been about various forms of money management, both on and off the poker tables. I would like to continue and conclude on that topic this week.
One of the benefits of playing online, as opposed to in a live casino, is having the option to play in multiple games concurrently. The money management strategy I have offered so far applies to each individual session at one specific table. There would be no reason to change those “stop” guidelines whether on the upside or downside, if you are playing in multiple games.
Nevertheless, as a multiple table player, there is also nothing wrong with having a “concurrent multiple game” stop limit, or even a “per day” or “24 hour” one as well.
Although I do realize that playing poker can be looked at as one continuous game, I again recommend doing what is most comfortable for you when it comes to feeling good about your overall play and results. That may translate to using my “per session” money management suggestions, which we have previously covered, or using the concepts I just wrote about. Or you can use variations of them, or combine them.
For instance, if you have been playing for a few hours and find yourself ahead in one game but stuck in another, you may want to apply the single game money management concepts to this multiple game setting, combined.
Or, maybe you would set a loss limit on the downside for a 24 hour period, no matter how many sessions you play in that time frame, or whether you play single or concurrent multiple games. For example, you might set a loss limit of $4,000 per day at the $30/$60 limit, while continuing to use the 20x big bet stop gap “per session” on the down side during that time frame.
Another option is to quit a certain game after achieving your goal either way (up or down) and immediately go to another game. If you have achieved this goal in a relatively short period of time, I see no reason for you not to do this. For instance, you played 2 hours and lost 20x the max bet. As long as you are still fresh and playing well, there is no reason not to go play in another game in the same limit, if it is available.
The potential disaster to this type of strategy is that you may lose another 20x the max bet in the new game, etc. That is why you may want to have some type of overall loss limit over a time limit of a day or so.
I also like to use a “positive expectation” figure for each of my sessions. That translates into how much I expect to make during that session based on the hours I have already put in during that session. For instance, I always come into a game looking to win at least 20x the big bet, while allowing myself that same amount as a maximum to lose.
But, I also tend to lower those numbers as time goes on during each specific session. In other words, if I have already put in three hours in a game (which translates into at least six hours in a live casino game because of the amount of extra hands you are dealt online), I will probably lower my “per session expectation” to where I may quit a winner or loser of 5x the big bet, instead of allowing myself to get to 20x either way, like I did at the beginning of that specific session.
I do this for two main reasons. The first is the as a human being, we are all susceptible to not being as sharp after a few hours of work as we probably were at the beginning of our session. This especially applies to a skill such as poker, since it requires so much more concentration than most other jobs. A lot of times we do not even realize that we are not as sharp any more after a certain time period.
Regardless of your style of play, you will usually get a 20x the big bet “decision” either way within 2-3 hours online. If that hasn’t happened, then you may want to lower your limits on both ends.
In addition to adding this type of limit so as not letting it affect your acuity at the table, it will also enable you to come back the next day or a few hours later totally fresh, as opposed to having gotten burnt out by putting in too many non-quality hours, especially if you ended up losing a big amount for that session after doing so. The point is to not let yourself get sucked into a bad situation, as letting yourself play for too long increases the likelihood of this happening. So set realistic limits, and when you reach them, quit.
A number of you have asked me “How long can a streak last, both good and bad?” My friends, this is an eternal question which has no definitive answer. We have all obviously seen huge streaks, both good and bad, over a few hours, days, and even weeks, which we clearly remember and leaves us “scratching our heads” as to how it was possible. But it is possible.
What’s most puzzling is when this streak plays the opposite of its expectation, like when a good player has a prolonged bad streak, or when a bad player “runs good” and wins for an extended period. Both things do happen in a random game, and there is no telling when they will start or end. That is why I have used the 2,000 hour minimum at a specific limit and game to determine what someone is “most likely” to average in his/her results in that limit and type of game.
There is no particular mathematical reason I chose that number of hours. It may actually be a lot more, but certainly no less. The longer you play, the less “luck” plays into anyone’s results.
I can clearly remember prolonged streaks (both good and bad) that defied any “normal” mathematical logic. While luck tends to even out over time, it may not, completely; witnessing these (as well as other natural phenomena unrelated to poker) has left me no other choice but to believe that there are some people who are just luckier or unluckier than others. While luck may not be “controlled” in any particular way, a “lifetime” may not be long enough for luck to “even out”; some people will just get luckier than others, in life and in poker. In my 20 years in this business, I have seen many extreme results for some players, on both the upside and downside.
There are many excellent poker players who are out of action, even though they followed proper money guidelines both on and off the tables, and played their cards well. That is because they fall into that (estimated) 1- 2% group of poker players who are just ran too unlucky to win.
On the flip side, I have seen other players win lots of money for long periods of time doing a lot of “incorrect” things, both on and off the table. They fall into the top (estimated) 1-2% of the “luck factor”.
Most likely you will fall into the 98-99% of people who, if they follow the suggested guidelines, will have results that are within the statistical norm.
An interesting side of this is that most people do not realize when they are getting inordinately lucky. They feel that is was their “skill” which enabled them to win. I call this the “Mr. Magoo Effect”; things just go well for them, no matter what they do. It’s important to not put too much value on the skill in short term winning, or to take short-term losses personally. Luck is part of the game.
In addition to spreading consistent games at the $10/$20 and $30/$60 limits in the Stud, Stud Hi/Lo, and Razz sections, every weekend we are now offering weekly $215 buy-in tournaments with guaranteed prize pools, in each of those games.
Please check the Tourney > Special lobby to see when they begin in your time zone.
Just last week we told you about a PokerStars player who managed to turn 1,000 Frequent Player Points into a $13,300 2009 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure prize package. Modfan might have been the first to do it, but he certainly wouldn't be the last.
Since Modfan's accomplishment, we have been flooded with stories of people turning a relatively small amount of FPPs into a massive tournament packages.
PokerStars player Phoelex has been playing on the site nearly as long as it has been operating.
"The effective rakeback of the Pokerstars VIP program basically makes it so that it makes the most sense for me put the majority of my play there," he said.
Turns out, that was a smart move, because he turned his FPPs right into a PCA package.
Twenty-nine year-old Sander "snazje" Smits from the Netherlands had been playing on PokerStars for about a year when he won his PCA seat for a 1,000 FPP entry.
"The 2009 PCA is my first major event and I'm very excited," Smits said. "To me the Bahamas seem to be a perfect environment for such an event. I'm really looking forward to it."
The same goes for PokerStars player oilslinger who is a longtime player on the site.
"I have been playing on PokerStars from the time that the peak number of players was 7,000," he said.
After winning a seat with his 1,000 Frequent Player Points, oilslinger will be making his second trip to the PCA.
"I played in 2007 as a VIP seat winner also," he said.
The stay-at-home father to two kids is already planning his golf outing at the PCA,
"I am grateful to Pokerstars for offering me this opportunity," he said. "I plan to make the most of it, win or lose."
At this hour, more than 260 people have qualified for PCA seats on PokerStars. That number is bound to grow significantly over the next two months of qualifying.
We've also recently learned that PokerStars is now allowing players to buy the big prize packages in a variety of different ways, including through PokerStars accounts fund, W$, and with Frequent Player Points. For full details, check out the PCA Frequently Asked Questions page.
It's time for another Macau Poker Cup this weekend at Grand Waldo Casino in Macau, China.
This quality series of tournaments at Macau's first live poker room always draws a crowd. If you find yourself in that part of the world this weekend, you've got a great shot at winning some decent money in the Las Vegas of the East.
The Grand Waldo poker room will host a big freeroll on Thursday. Then, you'll have a chance to check out a multi-language poker seminar hosted by Fred Leung and Celina Lin on Friday.
The big action starts on Saturday with a HKD $1,000 deep-stack tournament, followed by the HKD $10,000 Red Dragon event at 6pm that night.
For all the details and a schedule of events, be sure to visit PokerStars Macau.
Not everyone was glued to their television sets Sunday afternoon watching NFL football. Nearly 7,500 players came out for the weekly Sunday Million on PokerStars to try their hand at the $1.5 million guaranteed pool. The final tally was 7,446 players, with 1,080 of those getting paid and first place receiving $184,500.
The final table bubble boy was tupakkayska, who got $7,500 for his 10th place finish.
Petit ponche got an early double up when he shoved 3.1 million when blinds were at 200K/400K and Crackpfeife shoved over the top. Crackpfeife showed Ad-6c and was ahead of petit ponche’s Kh-8h, but the flop of 7h-Ah-Th turned it around and gave the underdog the hand.
Crackpfeife would get those chips back only a few hands later. After xannax20 shoved all-in for 2.9 million from the cutoff, Crackpfeife pushed all-in behind on the button for 3.6 million. Crackpfeife was well ahead with Kc-As versus Kd-4h. The board brought no help for xannax20 and he exited in ninth for $10,500.
Blinds increased to 250K/500K and antes were 50K so every blind steal was growing ever more valuable with more than 1 million in each pot before any action was taken. All-in shoves and re-steals ruled the day for awhile. Finally, petit ponche got it all-in as a big favorite, but then the board wrecked his day:
Petit ponche busted in eighth, collecting $17,250.
Slumpee was next to go after a brutal beat. Joncheng raised to 1.5 million from under the gun. The action folded to slumpee who made it 4.5 million from the big blind. Joncheng shoved all-in for 10.9 million and slumpee called, covered by about 300K. The hand was a domination – Ac-Ad for slumpee and As-Qs for joncheng – but the board came Ac-7s-Jh-3s-Ks to give joncheng the spade flush and a 22 million pot. Slumpee went home in seventh with $26,250.
DragonBenoni was out in sixth when he pushed all-in for 5.7 million from the cutoff with Qs-4c. Crackpfeife pushed all-in for 10 million from the small blind with As-Td. The board ran out Ah-3c-7s-5s-9h and DragonBenoni collected $39,000 for sixth.
The action was then paused so players could discuss a deal, but the short stacks rimmer27 and doulas12 didn’t like their share when a chop by chip counts was presented. Play continued. Rimmer27 went out next when he made his all-in move with 4.9 million under the gun with As-Jh and anetas1 called from the small blind with 8d-8c. The flop of Ks-Qh-2d, but the turn and river brought thudding 7s to put rimmer27 out in fifth for which he received $54,000.
At this point the clock was stopped again to discuss a deal, which was agreed upon. Joncheng was next to go on a brutal counterfeit board. Crackpfeife raised to 2.1 million from the cutoff, joncheng re-raised to 6.4 million from the small blind, Crackpfeife pushed all-in for 18.1 million and joncheng called. Joncheng was ahead, albeit barely, with 3d-3s versus Ah-Jc, but the board ran out Qh-6s-6h-Qc-8d to bring Crackpfeife’s ace into play and give him the 37 million pot. Joncheng earned $106,024 for fourth thanks to the deal.
Anetas1 was next out. He raised to 3 million on the button and doulas12, now sitting with 38.5 million after a nice run, pushed all-in from the small blind. Anetas1 called with 8s-8d and was up against Ac-Qc. The flop was a lovely 5s-4h-Jc for anetas1, but the board ran out Kc-7c and he was done in third after doulas12 made the nut flush. Anetas1 got $125,824 thanks to being the chipleader when the deal was made.
The tournament was over on the next hand as doulas12 continued his hot streak. He got his money in behind, but caught a six on the flop:
Crackpfeiffe earned $105,123 for his runner-up finish while doulas12 got $125,478 for the win ($95,478 from the deal plus $30,000 set aside for the event winner).
3645 players took to the virtual felt Sunday afternoon for the $750,000 guaranteed prize pool in the Sunday Warm-Up. The top 540 players picked up at least $375 each, but the real money was at the top of the pyramid, with a guaranteed $101,250.00 for first place. After eight hours of tough poker, the final table was set when allofit29 picked up the unfortunate title of final table bubble boy. His A-7 hit an Ace on the turn to crack chip leader TribunCaesar’s pocket Kings, but the fourth spade on the river sent the check mark back to TribunCaesar, and busted allofit29 in 10th place ($4,500).
The final nine wasted no time getting in on the action, with willcutyou moving all in preflop on the first hand of the final table. He got no callers, but a few hands later LoboTommi got it all in preflop with pocket Queens to Djelly’s pocket jacks. On a board of 9c-Ad-10h-3s, LoboTommi was poised for a double up, but the brutal Jd on the river gave Djelly a set and LoboTommi $6,750 for 9th place.
Overpairs continued to fall as willcutyou busted in 8th place ($9,750) when his pocket Kings couldn’t hold against Bajasen’s Ad-10s. A ten on the flop and another on the turn left willcutyou looking for two outs on the river. The 3c wasn’t one of them, and his evening was over.
+ to the EV! picked a tough time to make a move when he moved all in over the top of big stack Djelly’s preflop raise. Djelly insta-called with pocket aces, and EV! was left looking for help with his J-10. The flop made things interesting, as it came down Kh-2d-Jh, but the better hand eventually held up as the rest of the board came down 3s-4h and + to the EV! picked up $15,750 for 7th place.
Short stacks caiimeron and wasylaa both moved in with pocket pairs and found action from chip leader Djelly in a monster three-way all in pot. Djelly’s Ah-Qd was a coin flip against caiimeron’s pocket jacks and wasylaa’s pocket eights, and when the flop came down 7c-5s-Ac, it looked like the field would thin quickly. The 8s on the turn gave wasylaa new life, and the 5c on the river meant that only one player went to the rail in the hand, caiimeron in 6th place ($23,250).
Still pretty short-stacked, wasylaa wasted no time moving all his chips into the middle with Qd-10c from the button. TribunCaesar re-raised all in to isolate with his pocket Kings, and the flop of Jh-As-4d gave wasylaa outs to the straight. No King on the turn or river meant that wasylaa was done in 5th place ($30,750) and TribunCaesar was challenging Djelly for the chip lead.
After a lengthy period of four-handed play, Bajasen became the next to fall when he busted in 4th place ($38,625). TribunCaesar raised preflop with Kh-Qd, and Bajasen moved all in over the top with As-9s. The board ran out 8h-Kd-6c-Ks-8c, and TribunCaesar made kings full to bust Bajasen and tighten his hold on the 2nd-place chip stack.
Short stack cpfz55555 came into the final table with one of the smallest stacks, and dodged bullets and doubled up all the way to 3rd place and a $48,750 payday. Even with the smallest stack, it took a gutshot to send him packing, as he got it all in with As-Qh against monster chip leader Djelly’s Kh-9h. The flop came down 2s-Qd-10h, and quicker than you could say “he needs a jack,” the Jh came on the turn. The 7c provided no suck-resuck action, and cpfz55555’s masterful display of short-stack poker came to an end.
Djelly took a huge chip lead into heads-up play, and extended his lead in the early going over TribunCaesar. Finally, after a dozen or so hands of back-and-forth, all the money went in preflop. TribunCaesar moved all in with Js-7s, and Djelly called with As-10c. The flop of 5d-Qd-4d was no help to either player, but the 10d was the perfect turn card for Djelly, as TribunCaesar was left looking for three outs on the river. The Qh wasn’t one of them, and TribunCaesar was busted in 2nd place for $71,250.
After nearly ten hours of tournament and almost two hours of final table, Djelly claimed the win and the $101,250 top prize! Congratulations to all our final table finishers and the 540 players who cashed in the Sunday Warm-Up!
With the announcement came the news the event would once again be held on Paradise Island in the Bahamas (January 5-10 of 2009). This time, however, the event would have a bigger buy-in, this year ringing in at $10,000 buy-in.
Since that time, we've started to hear word about players who are winning their seat for no more than Frequent Player Points. Among those players is PokerStars' modfan.
Modfan started playing on PokerStars in 2006. That year, he won his seat to the World Series on PokerStars.
"I didn't cash," he said, "but it was great and PokerStars treats their players so well."
With that in mind, he started trying to win his next seat. This one was a 1,000 FPP qualifier on PokerStars. Modfan won his seat after a tournament bubble that lasted for 111 hands.
"I can't tell you how thrilling it was to win in the first FPP PCA satellite event and how great it is that PokerStars gives back to the players through the VIP program," he said.
Now, modfan will be headed off to the PCA for hundred of other qualifiers. Nearly 200 people have already won their seat with more than two months to go before the event.
Last year, the PCA became an event on the European Poker Tour and Team PokerStars Pro Betrand "ElkY" Grospellier won the title for $2 million (see the whole episode below).
The 2009 PCA prize package is worth a whopping $14,300. Everybody who wins one will get a buy-in to the main event, a sweet hotel room, and some cash for travel expenses. You can win your seat for as little as $7.50 or 500 FPP credits.
To check out the whole array of satellites, look under the EVENTS and PCA tabs in the PokerStars lobby.
It was Sunday again, a day that online poker players look forward to all week long. The early parts of the day might consist of spending time with family or watching football, but the afternoons are meant for PokerStars tournaments. And one that is on the must-play list of most poker enthusiasts is the Sunday Million with its $1.5 million guaranteed prize pool.
A total of 7,307 players joined in by winning their entries through the numerous satellites available or ponying up the $215 buy-in to compete for their share of the substantial prize pool. When all was calculated, there was an overlay and the payout schedule was complete. The final 1,080 players standing would be paid, and the first prize was set at $184,500.
Play began at its usual quick pace, and half the field had been eliminated only two hours into the tournament. And as the action continued, the bubble approached as play hit the three and a half hour mark. Finally, after a bit of hand-for-hand action, Jovial Gent was the 1081st finisher and the bubble player, making way for the remainder of the field to do a little happy dance in front of their computers. bjolla was the first player eliminated in the money and took away $300 for that distinction.
The bustouts then took on a whole new meaning of fast and furious. About 40 players were eliminated in the first three minutes after the money bubble burst, and about 80 were gone within five minutes of that mark. Though play slowed somewhat, the field had still been reduced to 100 players only six and a half hours into the event.
Just over eight hours after the tournament began, the final 18 players took their seats at the last two tables standing, and the action took on the pace of a snail…or of a few very deliberate poker players. But when it finally seemed to quicken, it turned out that only one half hour had elapsed until the final table was reached. GeoffRas22 put all 2,713,443 chips into the pot with As-Ks, but Br0ke24/7 called with pocket queens. The showdown brought nothing on the board to help the short stack, and GeoffRas22 was out in 10th place with $7,500 and the position of final table bubble player.
The final table began in level 32 with blinds at 100,000/200,000, a 20,000 ante, and the following chip counts:
Seat 1: BOKINHA (11027452 in chips)
Seat 2: DeuceBuster (4059150 in chips)
Seat 3: trangers15 (9872014 in chips)
Seat 4: Y2JKID (3877876 in chips)
Seat 5: princio (6606879 in chips)
Seat 6: Br0ke24/7 (6377874 in chips)
Seat 7: Jazz604 (3235053 in chips)
Seat 8: govshark2 (19040496 in chips)
Seat 9: MyGambit (8973206 in chips)
By the first break of the final table, Jazz604 had lost ground and went from short stack to ultra short stack. MyGambit had climbed into second, but govshark2 had increased his chip lead to 2/1 over MyGambit.
Jazz604 finally made a move as his stack was reduced to only 895,053. With Ah-6h versus the pocket fours of govshark2, an ace came on the flop to allow Jazz604 to more than double up. Soon after, another large pot was brewing in which trangers15 was all-in with pocket jacks against the pocket kings of MyGambit. After a jack came on the flop, trangers15 was able to grab the pot worth more than 17 million.
Jazz604 needed to make another move and did so preflop with Ac-Js for his last 1,660,106. DeuceBuster reraised all-in to isolate, and with no other callers turned over Ah-Qc. The board came down Th-Ad-Tc-3h-5c, and the tournament was over for Jazz604, who left in ninth place with $10,500 for the effort.
MyGambit had been suffering since losing the aforementioned substantial pot to trangers15. With less than six million in chips remaining, MyGambit moved all-in preflop with Ah-Jh, but govshark2 called with pocket sevens. The board brought nothing for the all-in player when it came 8d-Qs-8c-6d-5h, and MyGambit was forced out in eighth place with a $17,250 prize.
Y2JKID had been short-stacked for some time and decided to push it preflop in the small blind with just over two million chips. princio called from the big blind with As-Jd, which dominated the Kd-Qh of Y2JKID. The virtual dealer flipped over Kc-Jh-6s-Ad-9c, and Y2JKID was eliminated in seventh place for a $26,250 consolation prize.
Double-ups were in order for several players, and their wishes were granted. Br0ke24/7 doubled through BOKINHA when his sevens cracked the eights of BOKINHA with a rivered straight. DeuceBuster then won with his pocket eights over the A-Q of princio.
BOKINHA wasn’t able to recover from doubling up an opponent earlier, and with just over two million in chips, he pushed all-in preflop. princio called with Ah-Ks, and BOKINHA showed the dominated Ac-5c. The board came down 8h-8s-3d-Th-Qh, and princio took it down with the better kickers. BOKINHA was relegated to the virtual rail in sixth place with a $39,000 payout.
govshark2 continued to bully the table with his chip lead. And when DeuceBuster chose to push his 2,138,512 short stack into the pot preflop, govshark2 didn’t hesitate long in calling with Ac-5d. DeuceBuster showed Ad-7d, which was far ahead of the Ac-5d of govshark2. It looked like the short stack would double through…until the river. The board came down with 2h-6s-Th-As-5h, and that five gave govshark2 the two pair needed to win. DeuceBuster was out in fifth place with a $54,000 payday.
Next up was the other short stack. Br0ke24/7 moved the stack of less than three million all-in with Kh-2h, but govshark2 called with a dominating Kc-9d. The cards ran out 7d-Kd-Ac-8d-Td, and it was all over for Br0ke24/7 in fourth place, though broke no more with an extra $69,000 in his PokerStars account.
While princio crept into the chip lead for a short time, just after the tenth hour break, he lost a significant amount of those chips to trangers15. The latter had been making a run by doubling through govshark2 before the break, then doubling through princio after. Though govshark2 quickly regained his chip lead, it was clearly going to be anyone’s game but govshark2 had every intention of dominating it. And with no talk of a deal from anyone, the determined threesome was going to play it out.
trangers15 had lost a great deal of ground and finally moved his last 9,786,300 all-in from the small blind after an initial raise by govshark2. govshark2 called with pocket kings, and trangers15 was in deep trouble with only pocket deuces. The board came Qs-5h-8d-6s-Ad, and it was just that simple. trangers15 was out in third place with $84,000 for his troubles.
Heads-up action began with princio and his 13,441,756 chips trailing govshark2’s 59,628,244 stack by quite a bit. With blinds at 300,000/600,000, it was going to be a tough road for princio. However, the short stack gave it his all and slowly chipped his way up to more than twenty million. In an attempt to double his stack, princio got aggressive. From the small blind, princio raised it up to four million, but govshark2 came over the top of that to make it 10,400,000. princio took it one step further with an all-in move for just over 20 million total with Ks-Td, and govshark2 called and showed Ah-Kh. The flop came 5s-Qd-Kd, and hope was thinning. The 6h on the turn and 4s on the river sealed the deal, and princio was eliminated from the tournament in second place with a $124,950 prize.
govshark2 swam his way to the top of the leaderboard and did everything he could to stay there. With only a slight falter, he came back to win the Sunday Million, which was good for a total of $184,500 in prize money and the title of Sunday Million champion.
No, its not the Sunday Million wrap up’s early edition as that will be coming your way a little later on tonight. For the early birds, the Sunday Warm-up provides the big MTT experience for most players without having to explain to your boss why there’s a keyboard imprint on the side of your face when that double espresso doesn’t quite kick in.
3,617 players checked-in for the Sunday Warm-Up tonight and PokerStars provided the extra bread as the guaranteed prize pool of $750,000 would be up for grabs as bot432931 (with an 8th place finish in the Warm-Up last December, click here for the report) took the chip lead into the last break with 17 players left.
mement_mori and pokerMJ were also in the mix with 16 players left and had a little history as the two battled it out on the August Turbo Takedown final table taking 2nd and 4th respectively. Check out their final table battle here. mement_mori would check out in 14th place in a big five million chip pot for ael1979 who held Ad-Kd to mement_mori’s Ac-Qc and the board running out to no avail for mement_mori. pokerMJ would also run into the buzzsaw known is ael1979 (who has won the Warm-up twice last year for a total of $180,000 in winnings) as he picked up Aces twice within three hands to knock out ScaryGrant and pokerMJ to amass a huge 12 million chip stack.
Also checking in once again looking for a big cash was December 2nd Sunday Million runner-up (read here for the final table wrap up) WestMenlo92 who snagged $97,710.92 but would need to take the first prize of $101,250 tonight to eclipse that cash.
Here’s the how the final table formed up:
(click on image for full size)
Seat 1: IBLUFFULOL (2790106 in chips)
Seat 2: mozitas (4409391 in chips)
Seat 3: ael1979 (14496801 in chips)
Seat 4: wdrzich (1760704 in chips)
Seat 5: bot432931 (3050676 in chips)
Seat 6: Puniponken (2988578 in chips)
Seat 7: wildman22222 (1479562 in chips)
Seat 8: Pokky Star (2574189 in chips)
Seat 9: Pappe_Ruk (2619993 in chips)
As stated above ael1979 received the cards coming into the final table and started off with a sizable chip lead over the table, nearly four times as many as second place mozitas.
Bluffing works every time in NLHE except the last time, as IBLUFFULOL open-shoved his 1,925,106 chips into the middle preflop after it was folded around to his small blind. But, mozitas was sitting on nearly five million chips in the big blind and As-Qd was plenty to call the shove creating a 4,230,212 chip pot. IBLUFFULOL wasn’t laughing being dominated while holding Ad-4h as the board ran out 2d-3c-2s-Jc-9s as IBLUFFULOL earned $6,750.00 in ninth place.
bot432931’s finish in eighth place could only be described in one word: “dirty”
Happily calling the small blind open-shove of wdrzich (who covered by 334,028) while holding pocket rockets (Ad-As) and being well ahead of wdrzich who’s held the blackjack hand of 3c-8s. wdrzich wasn’t looking for face cards but rather some sort of two pair or trips. The flop came Jh-8h-7s, hitting the first leg of the mountain climb for wdrzich, the Jc on the turn though negated the three treys as outs, but the river 8d sent wdrizch over the peak of the mountain with eights full of jacks and sent bot432931’s cracked aces home in eighth place for $9,750.00.
Just five hands later Puniponken opened a pot UTG+2 for 490,000 with the blinds at 100,000/200,000 ante 20,000 folding around to mozitas in the small blind who re-popped it to 1.4 million. Puniponken decided to take a stand by four-betting all-in which mozitas called leaving 3,874,373 behind creating a 6.4 million chip pot.
mozitas: As-Qh
Puniponken: Ac-Kd
Flop of 5d-7h-9s provided nothing to note, but the Qs on the turn flipped the domination in the direction of mozitas. A 9d on the river and Puni’s big slick wasn’t so big any longer as mozitas’ pair of queens sent Puniponken home in seventh place with a rather large $15,750.00 score.
Shortly after the break PokkyStar and ael1979 got tangled in an all-in preflop 10 million chip pot which was shipped to PokkyStar as his pocket kings (Ks-Kc) held up over ael1979’s Ac-Qs and three players now held 10 million in chips (Pokky Star, mozitas, ael1979).
The very next hand however would be the last for the short stacked Pappe_Ruk. Open shoving UTG for 658,993 with the blinds going up to 125,000,250,000 ante 25,000 with 4s-5s for Pappe_Ruk was looking great for the blind steal. But, wildman22222 woke up with a suited connector himself in the big blind as he called the extra 400K. The board gave Pappe_Ruk a little light on turn of: 7d-Th-Qh-3s giving him a few outs despite the flopped straight-flush draw of wildman22222. But, the Kh on the river completed wildman22222’s flush and Team Supa would bow out in sixth place for $23,250.00
Despite knocking out Pappe_Ruk, wildman22222 was still short stacked compared to the remainder of the table and several hands later found himself all-in preflop after open-pushing for 1.4 million from the button with blinds still at 125,000/250,000 ante 25,000. mozitas was sitting in the big blind with over nine million in chips and gambled a little while calling with Th-8h. wildman22222 did have a slight lead in the race with Ac-3s that expanded with the Ad-6d-5c flop. The waters muddied quickly on the turn of 7d giving mozitas an open-ended straight draw which filled on the river 4h giving mozitas the higher straight. Fifth place and $30,750.000 for the Farmington Hills native wildman22222 left us with four.
Chop talks consisted of two lines of texts and crickets as the remaining players had a bit of play compared to the blinds and the remaining four got back to work.
If you’re interested in the recently completed APPT Auckland tournament, be sure to check out the posts here, or watch the video below of Daniel Craker’s victory:
wdrzich pulled out of a slight hole as he took his “short” stack of 5.7 million and pocket eights 8s-8d to war against mozitas who called from the small blind leaving 3.5 million behind with Ah-Qd. The pocket pair held up shipping the 11.7 million chip pot to wdrzich who would take down the blinds in the very next hand, and continued the rush the very next hand against the now short-stacked mozitas. With blinds still at 150,000/300,000 ante 30,000 mozitas tried to get his sailboats(4s-4h) to port from UTG while open-shoving for 3.4 million but wdrzich’s pocket ladies (Qh-Qs) sprung out of the small blind for the snap call and the Td-7h-Jc-3c-6s board sent mozitas home in fourth place with $38,625.00 from big stack to out in three hands.
wdrzich meanwhile zoomed to the top of the leaderboard with the 7.3 million chip pot with his 15.8 million chips and the chat box finally opened up the dialogue for a chip-chop based on the below chip stacks:
After the chop, the players contracted an allergy to board cards as they saw a whopping five flops in over thirty five hands as the chips floated towards whoever would shove over the top of the opening raiser but resulting in no real changes of the chip counts as the blinds were escalating to 300,000/600,000 ante 60,000.
But, just six minutes prior to the jump in the blinds and the break, Pokky Star and ael1979 got their chips into the middle preflop as ael1979 was all-in while PokkyStar kept 9.3 million behind:
Pokky Star: Js-Jd
ael1979: 9h-9d
The dominating pocket jacks of Pokky Star would hold up on the board of Qd-2s-Qs-3c-2h as ael1979’s shot at a Sunday Warm-up hat trick would fall short of the back of the net but, via the chop, he received $65,005 for third place.
Starting off with a nearly three to one chip lead, Pokky Star would not relinquish his stack. wdrzich managed a double-up after 28 hands holding Qc-Th and getting a call from Pokky Star with Jh-5h, but due to Pokky Star’s pre-flop aggression, the double-up only returned the chip stacks to the amounts they started with at the beginning of heads-up play.
Five hands later with 26 million for Pokky Star and nearly nine million for wdrzich tonight’s winner was named. The blinds sitting at 300,000/600,000 ante 60,000 and wdrzich shoved his nine million from the button with 7s-5s and Pokky Star made the call with Ad-Jd
The flopped pair of aces (9h-Ah-4d) left wdrzich drawing extremely thin, the Qh on the turn had wdrzich falling through the ice and drawing dead as the 8c was dropped on the river for legal purposes. wdrzich snagged $74,649 for second place from the three-way chop as Pokky Star got the extra $10K and $81,595 for being is this week’s Sunday Warm-up Champ!
10-12-08 Sunday Warm-up Results (based on three-way chop)
Well the party is over, we have crowned our champion, Kiwi Daniel Craker, and now it is time to reflect on yet another great event from the Asian Pacific Poker Tour. The PokerStars.net APPT Auckland SkyCity Festival of Poker has certainly rocketed poker’s profile in the country. SkyCity Auckland has smashed all records here in New Zealand and can now lay claim to being the home of poker here.
PokerStars.net APPT Auckland 2008 Main Event Champion, Daniel Craker of New Zealand.
New Zealand is a wonderful country full of natural wonders and incredible culture. Adding to this is the warmth of the locals making it such an inviting place to come. Whether bungee jumping off the Sky Tower or sampling some of the finest cuisines in the world is more to your liking, players from throughout Asia, Pacific, and indeed the entire globe, have enjoyed the wonders of the Land of the Long White Cloud, Aotearoa, New Zealand.
SkyCity is one of the friendliest Casinos we have reported from and all the players will walk away from this experience raving about the standard of service they have received here. The poker here has been nothing short of amazing with some of the world’s best flying in to enjoy all that was on offer. Team PokerStars Pros Joe Hachem, Greg Raymer and local celebrity Lee Nelson were all here and spent time out of their busy schedules, not only to play the game they love, but to spend their time with other players and the many fans that have flocked into the Festival.
SkyCity Executive Manager of Table Games, Ejaaz Dean, awarding the cheque to APPT Auckland Champion Daniel Craker.
Notable Sydney duo and sponsored PokerStars players Eric Assadourian and Grant Levy have both had good weeks and showed that they are also great ambassadors of poker. Assadourian and Levy went head to head in the $550 Pot Limit Omaha side event during the series, taking an hour and a half to find a winner, with Assadourian finally taking first and $12,000 NZD, while Levy pocketed himself $7,500 NZD.
PokerStars Sponsored Player Eric Assadourian.
While the remaining few players continued in the Main Event, the table next to it saw the High Rollers event in an epic heads up battle between Carter Gill and Michael Long, both from the USA. Finally it was Carter Gill who triumphed and took away $83,000 NZD for his troubles.
The final five from the APPT Auckland High Rollers. Winner, Carter Gill, on the far right.
From a local perspective we had the antics of James “Paddywhack” Honeybone and his side-kick Chris Walton who both made Day 2 of the Main Event and showed some real New Zealand flair. The duo were often spotted wrapped in New Zealand flags or, for an appealing alternative, flanked by girls behind them holding the flags up.
Chris Walton and James Honeybone, pictured with James' girlfriend Christina.
The final table of the main event was the real highlight as locals packed the into the SkyCity Poker Room to watch Daniel Craker from Wellington, New Zealand, walk away with $257,040 NZD and the title of the APPT Auckland 2008 Main Event Champion. Daniel will be a great ambassador and it was fantastic to see the title (and the cash) stay in New Zealand. South Korean born New Zealander, Wang Che Jung, 3rd place, and Australain Matthew Konnecke, 2nd place, also performed amazingly throughout the event and it was a pleasure to watch them play.
The local crowd packs into SkyCity Casino Auckland to watch the Final Table battle.
The pressure was intense and even though we got to the final table quite quickly it was a hard fought event. Once the play was down to four handed things moved slowly and the action became steady and serious as the players came to terms with how close they really were to holding the first New Zealand Main Event title for the PokerStars.net APPT Series.
Ultimately it was New Zealander Daniel Craker who took down the title. Craker won his entry into the event at SkyCity Casino for just $80 in the very last satellite tournament held in the poker room. After winning the main event, Craker said of his victory "I didn't get much sleep last night, I felt that I played flawless poker yesterday but didn't really play that well today. When I got lucky and made two pair with my king-deuce I felt as if I had nothing to lose. I'm not sure what I am going to do now, but I know I'm going to go and celebrate tonight with my Wainuiomata mates!"
So now we move our attention to Manila in the Philippines for the next leg of thePokerStars.net APPT Season 2. APPT Manila is always one of my favorite events. If you are looking to immerse yourself in one of the most fascinating countries in the world for some culture mixed with your poker then put this one on your list of must attend events. PokerStars, as always, is running a myriad of different satellites for all bankrolls so there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to join the team over there for Season 2 of the APPT Manila, the tour that brings world class poker to exotic travel locations.
Well that’s all we have for you Auckland, congrats to Daniel Craker, our APPT Auckland Main Event Champion and from the PokerStars blogging team we look forward to bringing you all the action from Manila.
8:28pm: Daniel Craker is the APPT Auckland 2008 Main Event Champion! Daniel Craker, $257,040 NZD ($153,399 USD), Matthew Konnecke eliminated in 2nd place, $162,792 ($97,153 USD)
The Trans-Tasman battle between New Zealander Daniel Craker and Australian Matthew Konnecke has finished after only eight minutes of heads-up play. Craker went into heads-up play with nearly twice the chips of Konnecke, putting him in a good position to secure the trophy and title, keeping first place on home soil.
The two young players didn't waste any time finding hands to tangle with and on the second hand of heads-up play Craken pushed all-in over Konnecke's raise. Konnecke called and put his tournament life on the line with As-9s. Craken rolled 2h-2c and our players were in a race. With the crowd anxiously watching the board was dealt out, Kc-6h-Td-5s-Qh, offering no help to Konnecke. The rail erupted into cheering and applause as Craken began his celebrations.
Our second placed Matthew Konnecke will take home an enormous $162,792, while our winner, Daniel Craken, takes home over a quarter of a million dollars, $257,040, and the innaugural winner of New Zealand's largest ever tournament, the APPT Auckland Main Event 2008.
Keep tuned, we will bring you a full wrap up of the event over the next day.
8:20pm: Heads-up has begun! Wang Che Jung has been eliminated in 3rd place ($85,680 NZD)
Just ten minutes back from the dinner break, we have seen the elimination of Wang Che Jung in third place. Jung led the chip count for much of the final table and takes home over $85,000 for his efforts.
Jung limped his button for 24k, before Daniel Craker raised 80k from the small blind. Jung added a further 220k from the button, which Craker called. Craker checked a flop of 9h-2c-3c and Jung moved in for his last 470k. Craker wasted no time in calling and turned 8h-8c to be well in front. An uneventful 3s and Jc on the turn and river left Craker with almost 2 million in chips moving into heads-up play.
7:35pm: Dinner break
Play has stopped as we go on a 30 minute dinner break here at the APPT Auckland Main Event. Three players remain, Daniel Craker on 980,000, Matthew Konnecke on 760,000, and our chip leader Wang Che Jung on 1.1 million.
We will continue to keep you updated as soon as our players return to continue the battle for the championship. In the meantime, check out another player interview brought to you by the PokerStars.tv crew:
6:55pm Dan Sing eliminated in 4th place ($59,976 NZD)
Dan Sing has been elminated in 4th place, taking home $59,976 NZD, after being on the unlucky end of a bad beat. Sing and Jung got all of the chips in the middle on the turn, with the board showing T-7-A-J. Sing was quick to snap over KQo for the nut straight, while Jung resignedly rolled over JT for two pair. Luck fell in favour of Jung however, with a repeating jack on the river to give him a full house.
Dan Sing, less than impressed with the turn of events.
The shortstack as we go three handed is clearly Daniel Craker who is taking his stack of 450k up against Jung and Konnecke who both have approximately 1.2 million in chips.
6:15pm Rollercoaster ride for Daniel Craker
Daniel Craker has been on a rollercoaster ride at the final table, adding excitment and entertainment to a table which has not seen an elimination for almost two hours.
Craker lost a significant portion of his chips in a battle of the blinds with Matthew Konnecke. After Craker raised from the small blind and called a re-raise from Konnecke, both players saw an ace high flop. Craker made a move, check-raising Konneke all-in. Konneke had no trouble calling with his AKo, and Craker, with J7o, was looking for running outs which never came.
Continuing the ride, Craker moved all in preflop the very next hand for 235k. Craker was called by both Konnecke and Jung in the small and big blinds and the action was checked through to the river on a board of K-4-T-7-2. Craker, pumping his fist, rolled K2o for two pair and scooped a 700k pot to get back in the game.
Craker awaits his fate as he is called in two spots.
6:00pm: Dan Sing doubles up
Facing a 50k raise from Jung on the button, Sing flat called from the big blind. Players saw a flop of A-8-7 rainbow. Sing checked to Jung, who fired another 50k into the pot, which was called by Sing. Both players checked the K on the turn and a 5 fell on the river.
Sing led into Jung for 75k. Jung asked for a count and put Sing to the test for his last 113k. "Ok, let's go" yelled Sing, quickly followed by Jung rolling 86s. "What? A pair of eights?" Sing asked in disbelief, shortly before he rolled over A5s for 2 pair. Still at the bottom of the chip count, Sing is back in the game after a much needed double.
Dan Sing celebrates as he doubles through Wang Che Jung.
Approximate chip counts:
Daniel Craker: 850
Matthew Konnecke: 550
Wang Che Jung: 850
Dan Sing: 450
5:15pm: Action slows as the prizes climb
Play has almost ground to a halt in the SkyCity Casino Auckland as we play the final table. Now down to four players, there are no particular shortstacks and nobody appears to feel pressured to make a move.
Players are currently on a 10 minute break and when we return play will resume at 8000/16000 with a 2000 ante. Approximate chipstacks at the moment are:
Daniel Craker: 885,000
Matthew Konnecke: 392,000
Wang Che Jung: 1,130,000
Dan Sing: 380,000
There is currently over $565,000 NZD remaining in the prizepool for these four players, with over a quarter of a million dollars for the lucky player who secures the title of APPT Auckland Main Event Champion.
Despite the slowing pace on the felt, excitement is still high among the onlookers railing here. Local fans are still keen to see the title kept in New Zealand and tension will only climb as we continue. With three Kiwis and an Aussie in the remaining four there is guaranteed to be at least one New Zealander in the eventual heads-up battle.
4:35pm: Stanford heads for the door, eliminated in 5th place ($46,276 NZD)
Already shortstacked from his recent fray, Luke Stanford pushed the last of his chips in with A8o. Dan Sing, who has picked up a couple of recent pots to jump over 500k in chips, was quick to call with KQo. A king high flop put Dan in front and a queen on the river only added insult to injury.
Luke Stanford, eliminated in 5th place.
We are down to four players in the APPT Auckland Main Event, all of whom are guaranteed $59,976 NZD minimum. Action is still flying here at SkyCity Casino as the players get ever closer to the quarter million dollar first place prize.
4:25pm Luck runs out for Luke Stanford as Daniel Craker doubles up
Local player Luke Stanford has taken two large pots recently when luck fell his way to crack his opponent's hands. Finally the luck has run out for the Kiwi as he doubles up Daniel Craker.
With both players all-in on a queen high flop, Stanford showed AQ to be well ahead of the shorter stacked Craker, holding QT. A ten fell on the turn to rocket Craker in front of Stanford, and the river subsequently blanked. Luke is now one of our shortest stacks, and wil be needing to find a spot to double up.
Approximate chip counts at the moment are:
Daniel Craker: 840k
Matthew Konnecke: 135k
Wang Che Jung: 1.46M
Luke Stanford: 140k
Dan Sing: 140k
Sidenote: APPT Auckland High Rollers
There was a high rollers event offered to the players here at the PokerStars.net APPT Auckland SkyCity Festival of Poker. What the field lacked in size (17 runners) was certainly no reflection of the quality of entrants.
Notable runners included Team PokerStars Pro Lee Nelson, David “Superman” Saab, Eddie Sabat (APPT Macau Main Event Champion), Andrew Scott, Carter Gill.
They played down to the final 5 last night and have now got back under way on the table next to the Main Event final table. We will bring you the winner of this event once the event has been completed.
Seat 1: Lee Nelson
Seat 2: Shaun Gray
Seat 3: Josh Egan
Seat 4: Michael Long
Seat 5: Carter Gill
Prize Payouts:
1st: $83,000
2nd: $50,000
3rd: $33,000
The five high rollers left to battle it out for an $83,000 payday.
3:50pm Seet exits in 6th ($34,272 NZD)
Crippled three hands earlier, Seet jammed for 70k from the button and was called by Jung in the big blind. Seet showed Q5s to Jung's ATo and was run down by a board of K-4-2-J-Q, giving Jung the broadway straight.
The final blow is delivered for Nathanael Seet.
With four New Zealand players starting the final table here at the APPT Auckland Main Event, four still remain. In their midst is Australian Matthew Konnecke. Trans-Tasman rivalry will be feirce as the four Kiwis look to keep the title in New Zealand, and the local fans cheer from the rail.
3:45pm Nathanael Seet crippled on the river
After raising to 27k UTG, Luke Stanford shoved for an extra 267k from the button. Painfull, Seet considered his options and where he would be if he lost. Finally Seet announced "call" and rolled over As-Kh. Stanford was behind with Qc-Tc and needing help from the board.
The board ran out 3c-3d-4s-8d-Qd, with the crowd of locals erupting into cheers and and applause as Stanford scooped the pot on the river.
Fellow Singapore player Ivan Tan jokingly asked Tournament Director Danny McDonaugh if they could run it twice. With that loss, Seet is under 60k and is the clear shortstack at the table.
3:10pm: Jani Karke eliminated in 7th place ($25,704)
Just one hand before their first break, Jani Karke and Daniel Craker managed to tangle in an all-in pot. It was another race situation as Karke took ATo up against Craker's pocket nines. A low board kept the nines in front and Karke's final table appearance has come to an end.
Jani Karke, with his girlfriend and fellow pro Teresa Nousiainen, shortly after elimination.
3:00pm: Jung first to join the millionaires club
After eliminating the first two of our players from the final table, Jung has taken a commanding chiplead. Jung is using the chips to his advantage and playing some very aggressive poker. In his most recent hand, Jung fired a 300k bet into a 431k pot against Luke Stanford, our former chip leader heading into the final table.
After painful deliberations, even going to the tournament screen to check the prize structure, Stanford finally called time on himself. APPT Tournament Director Danny McDonaugh counted down the last ten seconds and Stanford finally announced fold with four seconds remaining. Jung was quick to flip nine high and the rail erupted in cheering and appluase.
With that last pot, Jung now has 1.1M in chips, roughly fourty percent of the chips in play.
Wang Che Jung stacking chips after reaching the millionaires club.
2:40pm: Wai Kwan Yuen first elminated ($14,565 NZD), Michael Mariakis follows behind ($19,706 NZD)
As predicted things have started moving here on the final table of the APPT Auckland Main Event. We have had two eliminations in quick succession and are now down to our final seven players, with those left guaranteed over $25k.
Yuen was the first to fall. After a UTG raise from Jung and a call in MP from Sing, Yuen pushed her last 31k into the pot. Jung re-raised a further 145k, pushing Sing from the hand and playing the pot heads-up.
Yuen showed As-Kd to Jung's Qc-Jc. The first card out of the door was Jung's jack, on a flop of 2d-4d-Jh. The turn of 3d left Yuen calling for any of her 17 outs to get back in front. The Th wasn't one of them, and we lost our first player, and only female to make it through to the final table.
Our first elimination, Wai Kwan Yuen.
Just two hands later another big pot began to brew with Mariakis opening to 24k from middle position. After a call directly behind from Craker, Jung re-raised from the small blind a further 75k. Mariakis moved all-in for a further 115k and, after Craker folded, Jung quickly called.
Jung flipped 7-7 and was in a classic race with Mariakis' AQs. A seven high flop quickly decided the outcome and Jung scooped another huge pot to be propelled to the top of the chipcount with a stack just shy of 900k.
Michael Mariakis, on the wrong side of a coinflip.
2:20pm: Final table settling in
Players have settled in at our final table and the play has been subdued during the first 45 minutes of play here at SkyCity Casino. We have just moved up levels, and the blinds are now 4000/8000 with 1000 antes.
As yet, no players have had their life put to the test. The few all-ins we have had thus far have been from our shorter stacked players who have managed to pick up the blinds and antes. Approximate chipcounts at the moment are:
Daniel Craker: 410k
Nathanel Seet: 450k
Wai Kwan Yuen: 115k
Matthew Konnecke: 150k
Wang Che Jung: 495k
Luke Stanford: 600k
Jani Karke: 127k
Dan Sing: 175k
Michael Mariakis: 300k
With the blinds having just moved, and the players now comfortable, we can expect the eliminations to begin. We will be keeping you posted throughout!
The final table has been decided and we have taken a chance to chat with all of our playes. We will be bringing you updates of critical hands and knockouts throughout the final table as they happen. Here is an introduction to our final nine:
The PokerStars.net APPT Auckland Main Event trophy.
Seat 1: Daniel Craker is a 30 yr old plasterer from Wellington. Well, in his own words, hopefully not a plasterer for much longer. He resides in the Lower Hutt in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, a beautiful city located at the bottom of the North Island. He flew up and won his way into the tournament in a single table satellite but plays a lot online. He has a ripper home game back at home and has asked the PokerStars Blogging team to mention the “Wainuiomata Boys”. Who were we to refuse? Cheer on your boy, he’s going strong.
Daniel Craker
Seat 2: Nathanael Seet is a 24yr old poker pro who resides in Singapore. Nat is a high stakes cash player who can always be found in the biggest game in most card rooms. If experience counts for anything then Nat would be a short priced favorite over this field. He has made a name for himself online but he prefers the hard edge of live poker as it suits his style. He hasn’t played a lot of tournaments and says that this is his biggest result up to this point in time. He started playing 3 years ago and has never looked back. He lists his other interests as World of Warcraft and also loves soccer, especially Manchester United.
Nathanael Seet
Seat 3: Wai Kwan Yuen, from Birmingham, United Kingdom, qualified for APPT Auckland on PokerStars for a minute $4 just one week ago. A full time poker player, Wai has been playing poker for the past few years. The only female to make the Final Table in Auckland, Wai heads into the Final Table positioned 6th with 162,000 in chips.
Wai Kwan Yuen
Seat 4: Matthew Konnecke is a 27 year old from Sydney, Australia. An Office Administrator, Matthew has been a dedicated online poker player for the last four years. Deciding to cross the Pacific this month and try his skills offline, the PokerStars.net APPT Auckland is Matthew’s first live tournament this year. Making up half of the Aussie contingent, Matthew heads into Final Table play positioned 8th in chips.
Matthew Konnecke
Seat 5:Wang Che Jung is a 33 year old business man from a small New Zealand town called Blemheim in the South Island of New Zealand. Blemheim, situated near Nelson, is great wine country and a few hours North of Christchurch. Jung was a native of South Korea and moved to the Shaky Isles 7 years ago to start a new life for himself, his wife, and his 3 year old daughter. This is his first live tournament ever and won his way into the event in an $80 satellite at SkyCity. Wang is a likable guy and says that even though he has only been playing poker for 2 months it is defiantly his new favorite pastime.
Wang Che Jung
Seat 6: Luke Stanford is the best placed of all the local New Zealanders and has plenty of chips to push around on this final table. Luke is 26 years and lives 50 metres away from SkyCity Casino. He loves the cash games here and puts in a lot of hours both online and in live play. He currently works in Risk Management but it is clear that Luke could have a bright future in the game. This is his first major tournament but learned his trade playing in the local tournies in literally his own backyard.
Luke Stanford
Seat 7: Jani Karke is a 36 year poker pro from Finland. He is travelling with his girlfriend and fellow pro Teresa Nousiainen who qualified to the tournament on PokerStars. Jani crafted his poker skills as a cash player but in recent times has played a lot of tournaments throughout Europe. He has played many EPT tournaments but this is his best finish up to date. He plays a lot online but really enjoys the challenge of live poker. With a good finish here he is hoping to travel a lot more on the tournament circuit in 2009.
Jani Karke
Seat 8: Dan Sing is an actor and won his way through to the final in the celebrity event here at the APPT Auckland. Dan has been playing poker for 5 years and tries to get down to SkyCity when he can. He is a proud New Zealander and has made Auckland his base for the time being and has a Chinese, Malaysian and Samoan heritage. He has all his mates here cheering him on and he has asked to mention the ‘Leveeda Poker Boys’.
Dan Sing
Seat 9: Michael Mariakis is a 48yr old Logistics Manager for Harvery Norman. He lives in Kyle Bay in Sydney and is married. Poker is his passion and he is an avid player on PokerStars under the User ID 'smmmooth'. He has mostly played online but heads down to Star City on occasions. This is his first major live tournament and he has had the time of his life. He lists Golf as his other passion but it is clear that Poker is what this guy loves to do.
Within 30 minutes of play today we have lost both our 11th and 10th placed players, Edward Holdcroft and Eric Mutrie.
Holdcroft, who started the day as one of our big stacks on 297k, was eliminated early after open-raising in middle position and facing an 85k re-raise from chip leader Luke Stanford. Holdcroft called the re-raise and both players saw a 9 high flop. Holdcroft open jammed his last 150k and was snap called by Stanford. Holdcroft rolled queens as Stanford flipped over Aces. No help came for Holdcroft and Stanford scooped the biggest pot of the tournament and rocketed to over 800k in chips. Standford holds over a quarter of the chips in play heading into the final table.
First player eliminated on Day 3, Edward Holdcroft.
Mutrie followed less than an orbit later. After being short-stacked, Mutrie called all-in from the small blind for 12k after Dan Sing opened to 16k. Michael Mariakis in the big blind called and three players saw the flop of 6h-3h-Kh. Mariakis led out for 20k and Sing folded. Cards were turned and Mariakis’ Ks-7s left Mutrie’s 2s-4s in need of a 5 which never came.
The final table bubble has burst with Eric Mutrie the player missing out on a spot.
Play has stopped for 30 minutes here as we take an opportunity to talk to the players on the final table and make preparations for the final battle. We will be bringing you constant updates throughout the final table as the players battle it out for a quarter of a million for first place here at the APPT Auckland Main Event.
Good morning all and Welcome to the final day of the PokerStars.net APPT Auckland SkyCity Festival of Poker. We have 11 combatants ready and later today one will be crowned the inaugural APPT Auckland champion and will walk away with over quarter of a million dollars.
The stage is set and we are ready to bring you some of the hottest action on offer. We will bring you player profiles of our final nine after we lose two more players and will stay with you all day until only our champion remains.
Yesterday went pretty quickly and it will be interesting to see how the players approach today. I would think that there will be some fairly cautious players out there early with players like Seet and Stanford looking to take control and push their big chip stacks around. It will be fascinating to watch and report so make a cup of tea, sit back and relax with all the information from the APPT Auckland.
We have come to the end of Day 2 of the PokerStars.net APPT Auckland SkyCity Festival of Poker Main Event. It has been a long day with 9 levels being played. The poker, however, has certainly been first rate. The SkyCity Poker Room has never seen action like this before and the locals are packed to the rafters to watch the biggest poker event in the countries history.
It was an early day for PokerStars sponsored player Celina Lin who was one of the many very early casualties. Team PokerStars pro Joe Hachem fought hard all day but never got the cards to put up a major challenge. It was a credit to the champion to make it so deep when things weren’t going his way. Joe’s brother, the likable poker playboy Tony, kept all entertained and made the money and showed he is the real deal.
Tony Hachem...Guaranteed!
Grant Levy also finished in the money and another good finish from our APPT Grand Final Winner last year will add to his growing reputation as one of the region’s best.
We are now down to 11 players who will come back and fight it out in the final day of the tournament. This is what poker players play the game for and these players will all be very excited tonight and might not get too much sleep.
Local boy Luke Stanford is our chip leader and played nearly flawless poker all day. Hot on his tails is Nathanael Seet with 400,000 chips and the Singaporean should start tomorrow as the favorite and will be hard to beat.
Luke Stanford leads the way into the final day
Daniel Craker is another one of the local challengers and it has been great to see so many Kiwis make it deep into the money. It certainly is a credit to the game here and it would be a huge result for a local to walk away with the title.
Daniel Cracker another of the local challangers still well in the mix.
Tune in early tomorrow for bio’s on all the players on the final table and all the action from the APPT Auckland.
In a rush of activity we have just lost 3 players in record time and we are now down to our final two tables.
Trevor Saunders from Sydney Australia has just been eliminated in 16th position and has walked away with over $7,000. Trevor pushed his small stack in with A-J and was called with Q-10. The window card bought a Queen and the rest was history.
Trevor Saunders falls with two table left.
You’ve all asked for it, so here it is. Tony Hachem uncut and bought to you by PokerStars.tv. What more could anyone ask for.
W Yuan has just put Mat Wall out of the tournament. Wall pushed all in with 9-9 and was quickly called by Yuan who turned over A-K. An ace on the river had Yuan jumping for joy and Wall was eliminated in 20th place. The pace has slowed a little as the stacks are deep and the play is intense.
Mat Wall eliminated in 20th position.
The boys from PokerStars.tv have come up with another entertaining video blog that will have you chuckling away to yourself as it has been described as 'three poker players having a back slapping good time.'
Eliminations are coming thick and fast here at the PokerStars.net APPT Auckland SkyCity Casino Festival of Poker. Having just broken the bubble before the dinner break players have now returned to the tables to battle down to at least our final two tables tonight. The play hasn’t slowed down at all and the action all three tables is seeing plenty of chips being shipped onto the felt.
With railbirds five deep in the grandstand, action continues to tear across the felt as we near the final two tables.
We have already had a further eight eliminations since returning from the dinner break, leaving 24 players spread across the three remaining tables. For pre-dinner chip counts, and the subsequent eliminations, please check on our chipcount page for the latest info.
We will be keeping you posted as the tension mounts here at APPT Auckland and players begin to dig their heels in an effort to make the final table and take their shot at a quarter of a million dollars!
While the players enjoy their dinner break you might like to catch up with a few interviews. We have Teresa Nousiainen one of Finland's finest poker exports. Followed by Mark Oosterveld from Canada who qualified for the tournament on PokerStars for $6 and last but not least, local personality Chris Walton who won his way into the tournament in an emotional fashion at the World Poker Seminar run by Team PokerStars Pro's Joe Hachem and Lee Nelson.
In the space of two minutes we lost two players in what might have otherwise been a long and painful bubble battle. It was a sad time for the room as Kiwi G made his departure to the rails, lamenting what might have been. Grant Levy called down Graeme Putt with two over cards and got straight to business by catching on the flop, rubbing in the salt with a second pair on the river. On the other side of the poker room we lost our official bubble boy, Alex Bond, and the rails erupted with appluase, as did the 32 players that made the money.
Kiwi G, now extinct, just misses a payout.
Players have just departed for a well earned dinner break. They can all enjoy their supper as they will have all earned a minimum of over $5,000. In the last few minutes before the break we managed to lose Canadian PokerStars Qualifier Jeff Dunbar in 32nd place, taking a nice bundle of dollars back home with him.
When they return the blind levels will be 1,500/3,000 with a 500 ante, with average chip count at just under 100,000.
We have just gone to only 40 players. The room is starting to be filled with "ooohhh"s and "ahhhh"s as we really get down to the business end. Eight is a lucky number in Chinese culture but we are about to find eight very unlucky players that are going to miss out on the money. Lets have a look at 3 of the ‘endangered species’
Jeff Dunbar from Vancouver Canada is another one of our PokerStars online qualifyers. He is battling it out but only has a little over 20k in chips which makes him an endangered species.
Jeff Dunbar. There are still chips in front of him - we swear there are some behind his cards.
Assadour Assadourian has warmed the poker room with his presence. The proud father of son Eric is one of the most popular guys in the room. He unfortunately has the shortest stack which makes him…..yes you guessed it, an endangered species.
Assadour Assadourian has outlasted son Eric, but seems unlikely to cash.
Graeme Putt, like the kiwi (the bird, not the fruit for those of you wondering), is a treasured, yet threatened New Zealand icon. Kiwi G has got a little under 30k in chips which makes him an endangered species.
Kiwi G's kiwi, about to lose his perch.
If all of this sounds like fun PokerStars are proud to announce that they have started running APPT satellites for the APPT Manila in November. Come on guys get cracking and win your way to a trip of a lifetime.
The game of poker can certainly be a cruel one. In fact for 305 of the 306 players in this tournament there will be a bad beat story to tell. Today was always going to be a challenge for the short stacks to build and remain in the tournament and the challenge of the chip leaders was to not blow up and lose their hard fought gains.
We are already down to 50 players with the average chip stack now hitting 50k. We have had some early casualties that we should bring to you. PokerStars sponsored player Celina Lin was short stacked at the start of play and was unable to double up early. Ivan Tan, the third of the Singapore Three, also made an early exit. He was the short stacked member of the trio and his two countrymen are still going along very well.
Peter Aristidou was expected to have a big impact on the tournament today but was seen leaving the pit shaking his head after a sick beat. We have also lost our local NZ boys James “Paddywhack” Honeybone and his new best mate Chris Walton. This was certainly sad for the big local crowd that was enjoying their patriotic antics.
Chris Walton and James Honeybone, pictured with James' girlfriend Christina.
The biggest elimination of the day must be that of the overnight chip leader who has now been eliminated. Amant Nauhria ran into a few train wrecks early and was eliminated by Dan Sing who flopped the nut straight on a low board and managed to get all the chips in the middle agains Nauhria's top pair, top kicker. Sing has now joined the 100K club and looks very dangerous at the top of the leaderboard.
Local player Dan Sing shortly after being the third player to join the 100k club.
PokerStars Qualifier Mark Oosterveld has also had his fairytale dreams crushed here in Day 2. Oosterveld won his seat here for just $6 in one of the many PokerStars APPT Satellites. Earlier in the day, the PokerStars.tv video blog team took the chance to have a chat:
Players are just about to go on a break and when they come back we will see if the eliminations continue relentlessly or if play begins to slow down as we get near the bubble here at the PokerStars.net APPT Auckland Main Event.
Ejaaz Dean, Executive Manager of Table Games here at SkyCity Casino here in Auckland, has taken the PokerStars.net APPT Auckland SkyCity Festival of Poker under his wing and should be credited with a large percentage of its success. He took a little time out of his busy schedule to give us his thoughts on the event.
“We have been delighted and proud to host this event. The feedback both from our local and international players has been outstanding. Danny McDonough is the greatest Tournament Director in the world in my opinion and to leverage his expertise and knowledge allows all of our staff to improve. This is just the start though. We embarked on this journey 100 days ago and you can only expect bigger and better things from SkyCity from here. The APPT, and especially Jeffrey (Haas), has been willing to impart his knowledge and we have enjoyed our partnership with APPT and look forward to continuing it in the future.”
People would be forgiven for thinking that there were only two players at Table 9 here in the SkyCity Casino poker room. Player Nathanael Seet from Singapore, our Day 1A chipleader, has been butting heads with PokerStars Sponsored player Grant Levy through the course of several hands. Levy is now nursing a stack of just over 20k after losing the most recent game of chicken while Seet is the continuing to amass chips. Seet has a stack of 132k and is the early chipleader here on Day 2.
Nathanael Seet, Singapore, behind the first six figure stack of the tournament.
Joining him in the 100k club is Sydney player Michael Mariakis with 125k. Early in play today, Mariakis eliminated prominent Australia based jockey Shane Dye from the event. Scooping the pot and beginning to stack the chips, Mariakis commented with a cheeky smile “I suppose it’s only fair to win some back after the money I’ve thrown away on his horses.” Mariakis paid his own way into the event and is a keen online player, playing under the User ID ‘smmmooth’ on PokerStars.
Michael Mariakis, smmmooth and steady, amassing chips.
Friend and confidant of the biggest names in poker, Australia’s very own international playboy Tony Hachem, has made it into the poker room on time. From all accounts he fell asleep during a morning massage but has had a shave and a shower and looks ready for action. The PokerStars bloggers bailed up the charismatic poker celebrity and asked him for a few words to send to his legions of fans:
“Buckle up you bananas, Tony Hachem has come to play… that’s guaranteed.”
PokerStars Sponsored player Tony Hachem, bananas for breakfast.
Kiwi pair James “Paddywhack” Honeybone and his protégée Chris Walton arrived wrapped in the New Zealand flags. Both boys are desperate to survive and even though they are short on chips expect a big showing from these aspiring poker giants. Honeybone took a little time to give us his views on the day.
James Honeybone, looking to make some moves today.
“I am feeling fresh, I went for a workout this morning and I feel ready to take on the field. I am on a good table here with Grant (Levy) and Putty (Graeme ‘Kiwi G’ Putt). I have always admired Graeme’s game and it is an honour to play with him. I will be targeting Andrew Scott here on my right, he was a little crazy yesterday and I am ready to capitalize on that sort of play.”
His cheer squad is back again and they are ready to start waving the flags as soon as he can double through.
Welcome to Day 2 of the PokerStars.net APPT Auckland SkyCity Festival of Poker Main Event. With Day 1A and Day 1B over, 106 players remain and today the gloves will come off. This is where the real poker starts as the blinds start to mount and the tension starts to build.
APPT Tournament Director Danny McDonaugh thinks that we will be in for 9 to 10 levels today as we play down until we are deep into the money. We may play down to the final table but it is more likely that we will get to a little under 20 when we call it a day. Payouts begin at place 32 and the full payout structure can be found on the Prizes page.
Our chip count reflects that this is truly an international tournament but we certainly have enough local Kiwis in with a good chance of talking away the $257,000 first prize on offer.
Overall chipleader going into Day 2, Amant Nauhria.
Amant Nauhria from Auckland heads the field with nearly 100,000 in chips. The Indian born local was very aggressive and it will be interesting if he continues in that vein today. Just behind are the dynamic duo of the Singapore kids, Diwei Huang and Nathanael Seet, who are running second and third respectively and both have over 80,000 in chips.
All three of our players from Singapore, Ivan Tan, Bryan Huang, Nathanael Seet, made it through to Day 2 here at the APPT Auckland Main Event.
In regards to the big names we still have Team PokerStars Pro Joe Hachem alive who made it through a tough day yesterday. The Aussie icon never really got started yesterday but toughed it out and finished the day on 21,900. The thing that sets players like Joe Hachem ahead of the rest is his ability to re-focus and take control of the situation in the later parts of big tournaments. Expect Joe to make some noise at the very least as both he and his brother, Tony Hachem, battle out for a spot on the Final Table.
Team PokerStars Pro, WSOP World Champion Joe Hachem.
Grant Levy PokerStars sponsored player and 2007 APPT Sydney Main Event Champion is ready to pounce with 32,900. Grant doubled up early yesterday and then never looked like getting eliminated. He is another player that we should expect to be there for a long time today.
Put the kettle on and sit back and relax and we will keep you updated on what should be a fascinating day.
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Rheem and the other five PokerStars Million Dollar Men will play for the World Series bracelet on November 9th. You still have a chance to win a piece of another Million Dollar Man.
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In last week’s blog, we began to cover money management, specifically in “per session” situations. This week, I would like to address this important issue in broader terms.
I am a big believer in playing as many “quality” hours as I can, as opposed to a larger “quantity” of hours.That’s a big reason why I adhere to the money management principles I discussed last week.
Those quality hours should include the hours that you are on a positive run (which for me translates into any upswing of more than 10x the big bet in the game). During those hours, you should take as few breaks as possible away from the table, or sitting out.
Although I do not recommend playing “looser” or using a strategy other than what you know and are comfortable with, while you’re winning (on a rush) you will have more of an intimidating persona at the table. This table image might help to decide if you want to try and bluff to win a hand; your persona might give your bluff more of a chance of working.
If your rush is continuing over many sessions, (days, weeks, etc.), I would consider playing more poker to capitalize on my current image, but would still follow my per session money management guidelines which I covered last week (please also refer to some of my previous blogs with regards to changing limits).
What about when a bad “rush” is happening? The opposite applies.
To elaborate, when things are going bad in a game (and you are still within my game money management guidelines to keep playing that session) I recommend the following:
Play tighter. Just like you may be intimidating while winning, you will look like a “target” while losing, no matter how well you or others think you are capable of playing.
Don’t “steam”. It is human nature to get upset while losing, and this can affect your play. Many times you may not ever realize that this is happening. That is why you should……
Take short breaks from the table. Sit out hands and take walks away from the table. Not to the point where you get your chips picked up and have to leave the game, but just to where your head clears and you will be back playing your “A” game when you return to the table. Further, if your table image is bad from a losing streak and you seem to be the target, walking away for a while can redirect your opponents’ attention away from you.
Change seats. Is there any mathematical reason for this? No, but it sometimes works for me. If a player on your left is torturing you, then getting away from his right can actually help.
Take extended breaks. When the losing continues for days, weeks, or more (it happens to every player), time off will only help. This applies regardless of what category of player you fall into (please see other previous blogs about this). When you’re “running bad”, your hours may not be of the "quality" that you are looking to maintain. There is also no way to determine when this negative rush may be over. When you feel ready to play with confidence again, just go back into the casino and try playing. You will know soon enough, lol…
Tighten your budget. On a personal note; my biggest downfall through the years has been overspending money away from the poker table. This is a death wish for a poker player. When you are on a winning streak, which applies whether you are exceeding your per hour, day, month, etc. expectation, you tend to feel that it will never stop. This may entice you to overspend money, whether it be frivolity or otherwise. Remember, your winning streak will stop at some point. Trust me on this. When it does end, you will need to have that money you may have frittered away when you were winning, as well as the ability to reduce your spending even further.
Play in less concurrent games. This is for online players only, obviously. I may devote a future blog on the topic of how to play in multiple online games concurrently. For now, I will say that when on a losing streak, you may want to consider not multi-tabling at all, both for bankroll considerations and to maintain concentration and focus.
As always, I hope you have enjoyed reading my thoughts and opinions. You can usually find me in the $10/$20 and $30/$60 limit Stud, stud Hi/Lo, and Razz games on our site. We now offer $215 buy-in weekend tournaments (with guarantees) in those games as well. Please check the Tourney > Special lobby to find out when they start.
Our tireless reporters at PokerStars.tv have got a couple of entertaining interviews to tickle the most discerning of any poker followers. Firstly we have Andrew Scott and his good mate Kelly Flynn talking blackjack, poker and all things interesting. Then we have the Team PokerStars Pro Lee Nelson’s co-host from local TV show ‘Joker Poker’, Brooke Howard-Smith.
PokerStars.net APPT SkyCity Auckland Festival of Poker Day 1B has come to a close, locking in our contenders for Day 2 tomorrow. After a great day of poker we have 47 players left out of the 142 that started the day. That brings the total entrants for the event to 306, an amazing record breaking effort for New Zealand, the APPT, and SkyCity.
The most notable early departure was Eric Assadourian who lasted less than ten minutes before he was making his way to the rails. The other big name player to go was Team PokerStars Pro Lee Nelson who was knocked out when he pushed on a draw. The crew from PokerStars.tv had an opportunity to chat with Assadourian leading up to today's event:
With the bad beat stories also come the happier ones with a few of the big names making an impact. Team Pokerstars Pro Joe Hachem is still in the tournament with just under 22k in chips. He will have to make an impact early on Day 2 which will make for some interesting poker. The other name to make it through is APPT Sydney Main Event 2007 Champion Grant Levy, on just over 30k, who will be confident of going on with the job tomorrow. Local Jockey Shane Dye remains in the game with a little over 20K, a huge effort given that he slipped to under 3k earlier in the day.
Joe Hachem receiving a helping hand in getting through Day 1B.
The chip leader for Day 1B was a neck and neck battle between local Amant Nauhria (94K) and Bryan Huang from Singapore (93K). Huang held a commanding chipstack throughout today's flight and is looking to better his third place in the APPT Macau Main Event last month. They will both join Nathanael Seet from Singapore (Day 1A chip leader with 75k) on top of the leader board.
Day 1 chipleader, Amant Nauhria, with friend New Zealander Ted Everard who just managed to hold on through Day 1A yesterday.
Poker was again the winner and field of just over 100 players who have made Day 2 should all be well rested with the relaxed structure of the Day 1 flights. Tomorrow is when it all starts, however, and we could well be in for a long one. The blinds will start to go up, the chip leaders will gain some dominance, and the shortstacks will feel the pressure as we approach the bubble at 33rd place. There will be plenty of play time and Danny McDonaugh the APPT tournament director expects around 9 to 10 levels in what will undoubtedly be another lively battle here at SkyCity Auckland.
Look forward to seeing you all tomorrow for Day 2 at 12.15pm NZ time.
Amant Nauhria considers himself a local Aucklander who is from India. What he most certainly is at the moment is the chip leader of the Pokerstars.net APPT Auckland SkyCity Festival of Poker Main Event. He currently has 94K in chips and is terrorizing his table. Unless something goes wrong he will be the man they are chasing tomorrow.
Amant Nauhria.
Zane Kopua is a proud local from the West Auckland suburb of Ranui. He has been quiet all day but has found himself in a very strong position with nearly 50K in chips. He is deep in concentration and will have plenty of local support tomorrow.
Zane Kopua.
Matt Cheer is another one who leads the local charge and was described to us as a 'SkyCity Pro'. He laughed at the suggestion but he is certainly showing plenty of skill at the felt and is also just under the 50K mark with under 30 minutes of play left today.
Matt Cheer the last of the big 3 chip movers all from Auckland.
Kelly Flynn, the American born native who resides in Hong Kong, has just departed the poker room. Flynn got involved in a 4 way raised pot pre flop and shoved his small stack in on the flop in late position on a bluff. In a hand that took over 10 minutes he was finally called and only had 1 overcard with two cards to come and didn’t get the luck he needed. Flynn is heavily involved in poker throughout Asia and was looking for a good performance today.
Kelly Flynn departs late in Day 1B.
James “Paddywhack” Honeybone is very short on chips. He currently has around 5k and will be forced into making a move at some stage today. He looks well focused and his stable of supporters are still very confident. He hasn’t had any cards to speak of today and needs to get lucky in the next level.
Honeybone needs to be thrown a bone.
Graeme “Kiwi G” Putt is on the move and has nearly 30k in chips. He has toiled away all day and has never put any of his chips at risk. The wily Kiwi has more experience than anyone in the field and will certainly feature late into tomorrow with an ounce of luck.
Proud Kiwi looking for yet another big result.
The team from PokerStars.tv have continued to take opportunities to chat with players as they play in the APPT Auckland Main Event. Neil Stewart, from Scotland, happened to be in town and decided to throw his money into the pot. Here is the interview with Stewart:
Martin Cardno, a New Zealander, has travelled the globe to play poker and is today happy to be playing a major even on home soil. The PokerStars.tv crew pinned him down for a few words:
We are down to 65 players and it has certainly tightened up in the last hour after a flurry of eliminations. The room is starting to fill up and the spectators section is 10 deep as the locals pour in to cheer on their players and catch a glimpse of some of their poker idols.
Team PokerStars Pro Lee Nelson is the latest casualty and had been nursing a small stack for some time. He pushed in on a draw and failed to hit after he was called down. Nelson is a true ambassador of NZ poker and was applauded on his departure.
Team PokerStars Pro Lee 'Final Table' Nelson will not be the one keeping the title in New Zealand.
Andrew Scott is an interesting character and has been on a roller coaster ride all day by his own admission. He has been up to over 30k in chips and well down under 10k at different stages. He is currently at a little over 20k and the blackjack expert always keeps his opponents guessing with his strange style and colourful antics. Scott recently gained a huge poker status by finishing second in the APPT Macau High Rollers Event this year.
Paul 'The Voice' Khoury has unfortunately blessed the table with his last warm tones as he eventually succumbed to a lack of chips. Khoury lost a few early pots and found himself very short before fighting back to over 6k. He drew an up and down straight draw on the flop and called a bet. The top pair repeated on the turn and The Voice moved all in.
“I had him on an over pair and thought I could get him off.”
It was a good read by the APPT Season 1 Television host but he was called by Q-Q and the straight wasn’t to come on the end. Goodbye to the great man but make sure you all catch him and his mate Daniel Negreanu on Season 1 of the APPT.
Paul Khoury PokerStars Sponsored player and APPT Season 1 Host.
The boys from PokerStars.tv are hard at work and have more good footage from the start of Day 1B here at SkyCity Casino, Auckland.
The inaugural World Poker Seminar that we brought to you yesterday finished last night in a tournament that saw the winner put into the APPT Auckland SkyCity Festival of Poker Main Event by Team PokerStars Pro’s Joe Hachem and Lee Nelson. The winner was local boy Chris Walton who was a ball of emotion when he won the event.
“I was going to win it. I just knew it. I was going to fight it out to the end. The help that the guys gave me today gave me the confidence to take out the seat.”
Chris Walton, World Poker Seminar's first freeroll winner.
Walton is a real learner of the game and he was a popular winner. When they got down to a heads up battle for the seat Walton was offered a deal and replied “NO! I fight to the death. Let’s play on!”
When he eventually triumphed the room erupted as the likable Kiwi broke down. Walton is still alive and is every bit as happy as he was yesterday when he won the seat, he is also in decent position so far with 15k in chips, just over the average.
The winner of the PokerStars.net APPT Auckland SkyCity Festival of Poker Main Event will walk away with $257,000 NZD. The top 32 will get paid which will make 33rd the dreaded bubble to avoid at all costs late tomorrow.
Mark “the Ginger General” Vos caught a plane from Queenstown this morning, where he was doing some Heli-boarding, to come to SkyCity to add another title to his impressive resume. Unfortunately he only lasted a few levels today and he was eliminated when he pushed his last 8k in chips into a 3 way pot with A-K. He ran into another A-K and A-A and a blanked board spelled the end of the flamboyant playboy. He was heard saying as he left the table that he was looking for the next plane back down south as the snow was so good.
Mark Vos flies south for winter to some of the best ski fields in the world.
Even though we have lost some of the big name players early today some of the others have got off to excellent starts. Team PokerStars Pros Joe Hachem and Lee Nelson are both up to nearly 20k in chips. Grant Levy the 2007 APPT Grand Final Champion is sitting comfortably on a little over 20K and the Doyle Brunson of New Zealand poker, Kiwi G (Graeme Putt), is also a little over 20k.
There is a big charge of local hopefuls here taking on the world. We all know the exploits of Team PokerStars Pro Lee Nelson but we would like to introduce you to some of New Zealand’s biggest names and best poker players who are battling it out on Day 1B of the Pokerstars.net APPT Auckland SkyCity Festival of Poker:
James “Paddywhack” Honeybone is New Zealand’s newest poker sensation. This lovable teddy bear turns into a shark when he is at the table. Honeybone has a final table at APPT Seoul in Season 1 and has travelled the globe getting some excellent results.
James 'Paddywhack' Honeybone - where are MY flag waving girls?
If Honeybone represents the new then some may venture to say that Graeme ‘Kiwi G’ Putt may represent the old. But don’t let this friendly ‘grandfather figure’ of a poker champion fool you. We don’t have enough time to tell you the poker exploits of Kiwi G but he has been considered one of the region's greatest poker players for many decades.
Local legend, Graeme 'Kiwi G' Putt, and his furry friend.
New Zealand born Shane Dye is one of the regions finest jockeys. Not only has he ridden multiple group 1 winners he is also an accomplished poker player. When he returned from a riding stint in Hong Kong he started his love affair with the game and has recently won two tournaments at Sydney’s Star City Casino, which is the home of the APPT Final in Sydney later this year.
Jockey Shane Dye assesses the track conditions of today's play.
Auckland born Brooke Howard-Smith has returned to New Zealand after growing up in the United States. Co-hosting New Zealand television show ‘Joker Poker’ with Team PokerStars Pro Lee ‘Final Table’ Nelson, Howard-Smith has been a keen poker player for the past nine years, having been one of the early pupils of the hold-em boom. Howard-Smith speaks highly of Nelson’s love of the game: ‘Lee is like the crack rock of poker, he has such a passion for the game and passes that passion on to others. You can’t be around him and not develop a love for the game.’
Joker Poker co-host and local celebrity Brooke Howard-Smith.
Mike King, New Zealand comedian and television personality, has been a keen hold-em player for the past three years and a Manila player for a decade before that. King has been a regular sight at local poker tables and has had some great success in local tournaments. Currently working on a New Zealand documentary on the Treaty of Waitangi, as well as his local comedy gigs, King commented “I’ve got a gig tomorrow night that I’m hoping I have to cancel”, as he cracked his trademark grin.
Local celebrity Mike King.
With the local talent packed into the tables, there will be a number of strong contenders looking to making the APPT Auckland Main Event a New Zealand title. We will be keeping you posted with updates as we track our local boys through the course of the day!
In contrast to yesterday’s slow morning, with subdued action, today looks to be filled with bloodlust. Chips are riffling incessantly throughout the poker room, and a good number of them have already made their way into the middle on the felt.
Young Aussie legend, PokerStars Sponsored player Eric Assadourian, started today full of energy and optimism, having yesterday closed off the $550 PLO event after a prolonged heads-up battle with good friend and APPT Sydney 2007 Main Event Champion Grant Levy for a $12k payday.
PokerStars Sponsored player, Eric Assadourian
His hopes were crushed within the first ten minutes of play here at the SkyCity Auckland poker room and he is already on the rail commiserating. Holding pocket Kings, Assadourian got all of his chips in the middle against New Zealand player Ray Walker when the flop came full of rags. Walker rolled pocket Jacks to be well behind but found himself hooking a lucky Jack on the river to bust one of the favoured contenders to win the event.
Ray Walker, Eric Assadourian's first level executioner.
While Assadourian may have beaten up on Levy in the PLO yesterday, Levy has already doubled his stack this morning and is in a great spot. Facing a raise from middle position, Levy holding TT on the button called, as did the blinds. A flop of T-4-3 gave Levy the stone cold nuts and, facing a bet from the middle position player, Levy managed to get all the chips in on the flop. No help came for his opponent’s KK and Levy scooped a 20k pot.
Grant Levy, already caretaker of a double sized stack.
We will be keeping you posted as play progresses and more spectacular knockouts occur.
Welcome all to the Pokerstars.net APPT SkyCity Auckland Festival of Poker as players prepare themselves for Day 1B. It looks like we are well on our way to the $800,000 NZ dollar mark, with 159 players confirmed for today’s flight. Registration will remain open for the first two levels, and with players flying into Auckland at the last minute, there is every chance we will see a couple of flustered last minute entrants.
The standard of play today should be world class with a long list of world class players getting ready to make their impact on the tournament. Heading the list are Team PokerStars Pros Joe Hachem and Lee Nelson who are certainly legends of the game down under. Other notable players include Mark “the Ginger General” Vos who has apparently flown in from the South Island of NZ and will certainly make for some exciting poker. Also PokerStars Sponsored players Eric Assadourian and Grant Levy, hot off their final shootout in the Pot Limit Omaha, will be flying the flag for Sydney, Australia. New Zealand legend Graeme (Kiwi G) Putt, and young rising star James Honeybone will be among the strong contenders looking to keep the APPT Auckland title on home soil.
With his huge table presence and ‘larger than life’ attitude, there will be no missing Paul “the Voice” Khoury who will be looking to make an impact on Day 1B. Last year Khoury teamed up with his good mate, Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu, as host of Season 1 of the APPT. Not only does Khoury posses the golden tonsils he is also a hardened poker player himself and PokerStars is looking for a big showing from their A List host.
Paul Khoury, golden voice and silver smile.
APPT President Mr Jeffrey Haas is over the moon about the tournament up to date;
“SkyCity here in Auckland have really put on an exciting event. It is well run we have had an excellent tournament and we hope to be here in the years to come “
APPT President Jeffrey Haas welcomes our players to APPT Auckland
The Main event was just opened again today with another powhiri, a traditional Maori Welcome, this time featuring a lovely display on ‘poi’, which saw APPT President Mr. Jeffrey Haas and SkyCity Executive Manager Ejaaz Dean welcomed into the room. Haas took an opportunity to thank our hosts here at SkyCity Auckland, as well as the poker players who have come far and wide to support the event, local players who have supported poker in New Zealand, and finally to thank all of the New Zealanders for putting up with the APPT Players coming to Auckland to “steal their women and eat their food.”
Keeping the energy high, a traditional haka was again performed by our group of local Maori performers. The haka is a cultural icon of New Zealand, with its roots sunk deeply in the warrior culture of Maori tradition, giving a symbolic challenge from the local warriors to the incoming visitors. With a repeat performance, players from both Day 1A and Day 1B got to enjoy this unique experience, and there were even a few of our less punctual players from Day 1A who snuck over to watch today.
PokerStars Pro Joe Hachem took today’s honours and got the tournament underway with a traditional “shuffle up and deal!”.
As with yesterday, players will be facing a relatively relaxed seven levels of play today. This will see a large contingency make it through to the Day 2. In total 59 players made it through from yesterday's Day 1, and their stack sizes can be found on the chipcount page. We will be keeping you posted with Day 1B chipcounts as the day progresses. So buckle up for a long day guys and we will look to keep you up to date with all information, from both on and off the felt, as soon as it comes to hand.
The boys from PokerStars.tv have done it again with a couple of highly interesting and entertaining interviews. Firstly with David "Superman" Saab and the charming Celina Lin and if that wasn't enough another one with PokerStars online qualifier Carter Gill.
Throughout the day the team from PokerStars.tv managed to steal a few precious minutes from previous APPT Champions Eddie Sabat and Grant Levy. The video blogs and the insights from these players are here:
Day 1A of the Pokerstars.net APPT SkyCity Auckland Festival of Poker has come to a close after playing a friendly seven levels. After a great day of poker we have 59 players left out of the 168 that started the day. After starting with 10k stacks, the average now is just a shade over 28,000.
The most notable early departure was Emad Tahtouh who unfortunately never got started. The other big name player to go was Team PokerStars Pro Greg Raymer who was knocked out in one of the last few hands of the day when he pushed his small stack in with 10-10 but ran into J-J.
Much of the cream certainly rose to the top with sponsored players Celina Lin and Tony Hachem making it through. Local Simon Davis finished the day strongly with 33,000 chips. Australian Peter Aristidou with nearly 50,000 in chips will also be well in the hunt on Day 2.
At this point they will all be chasing Nathanael Seet from Singapore who has around 80,000 most of which he got late in the day. Running chipcounts have been posted throughout the day on the PokerStars Blog, and a final count will be added once the numbers have been released.
Nathanael Seet, more than comfortable behind his stack of chips.
The poker was especially hot all day and special mention to Eric Assadourian who won the Pot Limit Omaha event and has now played three PLO tournaments in New Zealand for three wins. His dad also made it through Day 1A so it has been a good day for the family.
Peter Aristidou, Eric Assadourian, and Tony Hachem moments after Eric won himself another PLO title.
Tomorrow Eric makes it onto the felt for the Main Event, along with fellow PokerStars Sponsored player Grant Levy and Team PokerStars Pros Joe Hachem and Lee Nelson. We look forward to seeing you all tomorrow for Day 1B at 12:15pm NZ time!
The last level today is 300/600 with a 75 ante. This is always an exciting time as some of the good players try and build a stack as other players desperately try and make it through to Day 2.
There have been many short stacks surviving in the last half an hour but the most notable knockout was David “Superman” Saab. Saab had seen his stack dwindled down to 20K before he lost the rest in a “train wreck” of a hand after his top pair ran into a set.
“I can go from chip leader to bubble boy in a matter of seconds, that’s my style. I thought I was in front so I pushed my chips in.”
Up up and away for our superhero.
Peter Aristidou is also on the march and has 45k in chips. Peter is a quite ahchiever on the poker table and is deadly with a big stack. Teresa Nousiainen from Finland also just lost a big pot when her J-J was cracked by A-K but she still has nearly 30,000.
One of the interesting things going on at the PokerStars APPT SkyCity Auckland Festival of Poker is the inaugural World Poker Seminar. This exciting concept was developed by Team PokerStars Pro's Joe Hachem and Lee Nelson. Joe and Lee host the events, with the help of some of their friends, and are also intending to take the concept to other cities around the world.
Dennis Waterman addresses the seminar, flanked by Joe Hachem, Tony Dunst, Lee Nelson and Tyson Streib.
The idea is simple: it’s a seminar to help poker players improve and develop their game. There were over 20 players turning out, who ranged from the novice to some very seasoned players, all of whom were keen to see their game move to another level. Lee took 5 minutes out of his busy schedule to explain his motivation behind the seminars.
“I have always enjoyed teaching and I have always wanted to give something back to the game that has given so much to me. I wanted to take the next step from the books that I have written and wanted to try a live teaching format with my mate Joe. If you are going to do something, then do it right. I really feel that we have a formula that will turn learners into good players and good players into even better ones.”
Budding New Zealand pro player James Honeybone, who made the final table of APPT Seoul in 2007 and would love to do the same on home turf in Auckland this year, attended the conference and was the first to sing its praises.
“It was a great thrill to attend today. I have always been a student of the game and chance to learn like the likes of Lee and Joe is something that not everyone gets to do. I especially found the Q and A part of the seminar invaluable because I got the chance to ask some of the tough questions that the very best hate answering.”
Last month Yasuki Shino busted out of the APPT Seoul main event and vowed to change the way he thought about poker.
A modest businessman from Tokyo, Shino used to always want to make sure that the people around him were having a good time on the table and never cared about winning or losing. His upbeat personality hasn’t changed, but his attitude about the game certainly has. His result in the Seoul main event was so disappointing to him that he spent the whole night reviewing his game and preparing for side events to be held next day.
He played in a Japan Poker League event at Walker-hill Casino and got 4th place. Still not satisfied with this improved result, he spent the afternoon reviewing his game again and then entered in a 500,000won satellite to the APPT Auckland main event. This time he got the result he wanted.
After making it heads-up, he agreed to a deal to give the runner-up their entry fee back. This he had to pay out of pocket after he won the satellite, a chance to represent Japan in New Zealand and accommodations for the trip. He also fronted the cash for a plane ticket and made the 14-hour flight down here yesterday (actually on the same plane as me!).
Now he is on the table with the APPT Macau champion, Eddie Sabat. Shino humbly admits his good fortune with nice starting hands in the first few levels of this event. He has voiced his respect for his opponents’ games, saying that everyone is much stronger than himself, but everyone else can see that he himself is a force to be reckoned with.
In one hand he actually got chips from Sabat by raising pre-flop and getting 2 callers. He hit top pair on the flop, kept Eddie in with second pair, checked Eddie’s 2-pair on the turn and out-drew him for a better 2-pair on the river, calling Sabat’s final bet and turning over the better hand. In another pot he had the nut-straight with A-Q on a straight-flush broadway board, but somehow got his opponent to put chips in with the 9-7 bottom straight to chip-up even more.
Yasuki Shino, glad to be stacking chips.
Sitting on $26,000 chips at the start of Level 5, Shino is ahead of World Champion and Team PokerStars Pro, Greg Raymer, as well as a number of other well-known players including David Saab and Tony Hachem. We are expecting more great things from the sole Japanese competitor on Day 1a.
Players are back from their break and the blinds are starting to become of interest at 150/300 with a 25 ante. There are now only 108 runners left and some big and small stacks starting to appear. The action is still happening on the Saab/Hachem table with plenty of banter going on. The winner up until this point in time is David Saab who now has 40K in chips. Tony Hachem was heard saying that Saab was killing the table but had got lucky in a few hands. He then proceeded to ask the table is Saab was a “luckbox” which everyone quickly agreed too.
David "Superman" Saab.
The PokerStars.net APPT Macau Main event winner Eddie Sabat is rolling along nicely with a stack of 14K. Eddie is another one keeping a low profile and waiting for the blinds to increase before he gets busy.
Sabat shoots a glare at his opponent across the felt.
Alexander Fitzgerald is another popular player who originated from Seattle. The Washington State national, who now resides in Malta, is a regular on the APPT and LAPT player who nearly always qualifies online. He is a very well known online player and, we have it on good authority, is also very popular with the ladies. He is a little short at the moment on 10K but is also looking to get busy.
Our PokerStars.tv Video Bloggers have been hard at work capturing the sites and sounds of not only your favourite poker players but also of the wonderful country of New Zealand and the harbor city of Auckland.
Andrew Meldrum from Sydney has stormed to an early chip lead and has just under 40k in chips. Meldrum, who has been a quite achiever in the Asian poker scene, is hot off a successful campaign in America after the WSOP.
Andrew Meldrum looking to keep up his good form.
Hot on his tail is local Aucklander Simon Davis who has been playing poker now for three years. He won his way into the tournament in a SkyCity satellite for $40. He has been a regular at the SkyCity Poker Room and is looking to deliver the Pokerstars.net APPT SkyCity Auckland Festival of Poker Main Event Title to his home town and poker room. He currently has over 35k in chips.
Kiwi Davis looking to keep the title and the cash on NZ soil.
The loudest table in the room is the one featuring David Saab and Tony Hachem. After David welcomed Tony to the table the atmosphere intensified when Saab pleaded with the gallery that it was a quiet table before Hachem arrived. Tony then replied: “where’s your Superman T-Shirt you banana?”
Saab usually wears Superman logos and is looking to be known as David “Superman” Saab. We certainly haven’t heard the last of these two, and Saab just managed to get his hands on some more chips in a recent pot.
Looking down at an unspectacular board of 3-3-7-5-2, Saab was facing a bet of 2.5k into a roughly 4.5k pot. After an initial "do you have Jacks?" Saab went on to mutter to himself in the tank for a full two minutes.
Finally Saab talked himself into a call, holding his cards above the muck pile, but he was beaten to it by his opponent who threw his into the muck without showing, pushing the almost 10k pot in Saab's direction.
We also have the final table of the PLO Omaha running in the room with good friends but fierce rivals and PokerStars Sponsored players Eric Assadourian and Grant Levy clear cut chip leaders with five players left.
Grant and Eric are best of friends but might end up in a heads up challenge.
There are certainly some great stories here at the PokerStars.net APPT SkyCity Auckland Festival of Poker. The first of these may be Canadian Mark Oosterveld.
The Canadian won his way through to the tournament for only $6 in a $2 Rebuy, one of the many qualifying tournaments that PokerStars runs for the APPT. If Mark was to be crowned the Champion here he would certainly have turned a handsome dividend on that wisely invested $6.
In New Zealand for all of $6, Oosterveld is looking to parlay that into a big payday
The other great story is that of Assadour Assadourian. You might recognize the name if not the face. Assadour’s son, Eric, is one of the hottest properties in Australian poker right now and among many other titles was the 2007 PokerStars.net APPT Macau High Roller Champion.
Assadour is a relative newcomer to the poker scene as he has a very successful lighting business back home in Australia. Even though he is ‘wet behind the ears’ when it comes to poker he has certainly made his presence felt here by winning 3 Main Event seats in the many satellites that have been running.
It looks like the Assadourian gene pool has poker running through the veins of this father and son combination with Senior already off to a flyer with over 20k in chips.
Assadour Assadourian looking to one-up his son in the APPT Auckland Main Event
In other not so pleasant news, Emad Tahtouh has just described his start to the PokerStars.net APPT Auckland Main Event as “death by a thousand paper cuts” as his stack has dwindled to around 2000. Tahtouh was very focused for this event and was looking for a good finish but has run into a few big hands and has found himself on the wrong side of an excellent bluff.
Players have just returned from the first break and are straight into level three with blinds of 100/200. Only 11 players so far have exited the tournament, however with the blinds moving up casualties will soon follow.
Starting bank for the PokerStars.net APPT Auckland SkyCity Festival of Poker Main Event is 10k. The first early mover is Team PokerStars Pro Greg Raymer who has moved up to 18K. He just won a very nice pot with 9-7 suited. He made both his flush and straight on the river and left his opponent scratching their head.
Greg Raymer, with plenty of reasons to be smiling already
David Saab is trying to fly under the radar by keeping a low profile. The flamboyant Australian, who was born in Korea and now resides in the Philippines, is trying to stay out of the way of Tournament director Danny McDonagh who has threatened putting the ‘David Saab rule of excessive talking' into act if Saab starts to talk his table into distraction.
David Saab cracks a smile as he begins to warm up
Tony Hachem has just walked into the room looking a little flustered after sleeping in. When asked what happened he replied in true Tony Hachem fashion;
“Of course I’m late for the tournament you banana … guaranteed!”
Tony Hachem: Poker would be a boring place to be without the antics of people like the lovable Australian.
Numbers for day one have been finalised and 164 players will be battling it out today in an effort to join us on Saturday for Day 2. Stay tuned for further updates as the players here get comfortable and the chips start to find their way onto the felt.
Welcome all to the Pokerstars.net APPT SkyCity Auckland Festival of Poker Day 1A. It looks like we are well on our way to the NZD $1 million mark as we approach 180 players for Day 1A.
As the players drifted into the poker room, some looked fresh and rested; others looked like they may have really enjoyed last night’s welcoming party. The one thing that everyone had in common was they all looked eager and ready for some poker. The energy level built exponentially as we approached our kick-off time of 12:15pm local.
With players shuffling through the poker room here at SkyCity, a few names of note stand out – among those in the crowd are PokerStars Sponsored players Celina Lin, Tony Hachem and Emad Tahtouh, and Team PokerStars Pro Greg Raymer, all preparing for their Day 1. Many other well known players, such as Team PokerStars Pros Joe Hachem, and local legend Lee Nelson, will be waiting until Day 2A to take their seats.
Tournament Director Danny McDonagh is as busy and keen as ever, preparing to host what will be New Zealand’s largest ever event – in both player numbers and prizepool. Danny told us that he is excited to be running New Zealand’s first APPT event;
APPT Tournament Director Danny McDonaugh cracks a smile as he prepares minutes before the tournament begins.
“The room here is really buzzing. Not only is it exciting to work in a room that is dedicated to poker, it is also great to be working with such a professional team. SkyCity is really leading the charge in this country when it comes to poker and they are going to break every record when it comes to a tournament here.“
APPT President Jeffrey Haas welcomes players to New Zealand's biggest ever poker tournament.
The Main Event was opened with a powhiri, a traditional Maori welcome, which saw APPT President Jeffrey Haas and SkyCity Executive Manager Ejaaz Dean welcomed into the room. Keeping the energy high, a traditional haka was performed by a group of local Maori. The haka is a cultural icon of New Zealand, with its roots sunk deeply in the warrior culture of Maori tradition, giving a symbolic challenge from the local warriors to the incoming visitors. The challenge looks set to be answered by any number of eager players, ready to go to war over the felt.
A traditional Maori haka.
PokerStars Pro Lee Nelson, being the country’s biggest poker celebrity, took time out from a ‘Learn to Play with the Pros’ seminar being hosted here at SkyCity and got the tournament underway with a traditional “shuffle up and deal!”.
Celina Lin waits for cards to hit the felt in the first hand of the APPT Auckland Main Event 2008.
The APPT usually has very friendly first days with only 7 levels usually being played. This will see a large contingency make it through to the Day 2. So buckle up for a long day guys and we will look to keep you up to date with all information, from both on and off the felt, as soon as it comes to hand.
One of the great things about the all APPT events is the hospitality on offer. Season 2 has followed the lofty heights set by Season 1 when it comes to the Opening Party. They are never quiet affairs and they are not reserved for the VIPs – it's a great opportunity for all the local and overseas PokerStars Qualifiers to run shoulders with their heroes (and soon-to-be foes).
PokerStars Sponsored player Emad Tahtouh gets ready to toast the first APPT Auckland main event. Day 1B Emad?
The PokerStars.net APPT SKYCITY Auckland Festival of Poker is already a success, and earlier today the SkyCity Poker room broke a New Zealand record, with 18 full tables of players seated at the start of the $550 Pot Limit Omaha event – the largest official poker gathering to date. The event began this evening at 6.15pm local time, and with the party starting at 9pm it was easy to spot the dejected faces of the recently busted slipping quietly into the party.
Bar 3, situated right next to the SKYCITY Poker room, was the venue for tonight’s party and everyone turned out to play. Some of the big names, such as Team PokerStars Pros Greg Raymer and Lee Nelson, and PokerStars Sponsored player Tony Hachem rolled straight off the plane into the function. It is always great to see the local players getting to meet the pros that they have watched on television over the years.
Local player Andrew Dimock chats with SKYCITY Auckland’s Executive Manager – Table Games, Ejaaz Dean.
Local influence found its way into every corner of the party, with a strong Polynesian theme being celebrated. While new arrivals to the party were lei-ed as they walked through the doors, local band Karamol, self professed “young cats with old souls”, played what they described as “Polynesian inspired R'n'B and Soul”.
Adding to the warmth of the reception on arrival was a Pacific Welcome Cocktail for each guest. For the budding bartenders amongst you, this was a mix of vodka, Malibu, pineapple juice, passionfruit pulp and mixed tropical fruits. Of course I selflessly offered my services in sampling one of these, all in the name of accurate reporting.
Such selflessness was also extended to sumptuous range of (the fried senorita banana bacon roll deserves a mention), and naturally a wide range of local NZ wines and beers. The later flowed plentifully and were readily consumed by the players at a lively rate, especially by those lucky enough to be playing on Day 1B.
We look forward to bringing you the coverage on Day 1A tomorrow, from 12:15pm NZ time. I’m off to sample one or two more of the local beers before getting a good night’s sleep.
The Pokerstars.net APPT Celebrity Poker Invitational, hosted by Team PokerStars Pro Lee Nelson and Brooke Howard-Smith, was the perfect way to kick-off a big week of celebrations culminating in the APPT Auckland main event here at SKYCITY Auckland later this week. Some celebrity events lack that x-factor, but this was certainly not the case with a well structured tournament that went well into the night.
Howard-Smith, who co-hosts the ultra-popular Celebrity Joker Poker on New Zealand TV with Lee Nelson, is excited about the prospect of hosting some of the world’s best poker players into his “home” poker room.
The corridor between the tournament area and the press room at the Las Vegas Casino, Budapest, is going to need recarpeting at the end of this week. On a day of startling activity at EPT Budapest, the returning day three field of 42 players was trimmed to the final nine in less than five hours. Even though it took another 120-odd minutes to shed one more, keeping up with the action for the most part forced reporters to buzz between the tables and their laptops with hazardous haste and frequency, and no sooner was a player doubling up than he was out; the seeming shoo-ins for the final kicked into touch.
We are just a little more than a week from knowing who will be the 2008 World Series of Poker champion. Among the November 9, there are six PokerStars Million Dollar Men who have a chance to win the big one. Before they get the chance to win the bracelet, however, the PokerStars 6 will have to have face off against three PokerStars players in the Million Dollar Men Main Event
Hevad Khan is not the same Khan we met in 2007 and that's just fine with him. In fact, Khan is not the same Khan we knew this time yesterday. The difference: Khan is a million bucks richer today.
Sunday night, we mentioned here that ElkY had managed to win the World Poker Tour Festa al Lago. As it happened, ElkY won his first WPT event in the same year he won his first EPT event (the PCA in January of this year). Of course, we had to ask how he did it. This was his response.
Time once again to make something for nothing as 5,000 Frequent Players Points (FPPs) will earn one lucky (and/or skillful) player tonight $100,000 simply for “buying in” with FPPs. With eight players getting over five figures this evening its well worth the time invested in satellites if you do not have 5,000 FPPs lying around. 8,634 players got here any way they could from the penny players up to the Supernova Elites and nearly half of them, 4,000 to be exact, went home with at least $90.00 tonight.
The October edition of the Battle of the Planets $50,000 Triple Shootout saw 426 SnG specialists drop by the special tournament tab on your PokerStars interface after qualifying for the event through the weekly points race in which additional prize pools of $3,000 for the Mercury division up to $10,000 for the high rolling Jupiter division. For those still unfamiliar with this lucrative monthly freeroll that is giving away over $3,000,000 a year for high volume SnG players, check out the Battle of the Planets promo page 
Just last week we told you about a PokerStars player who managed to turn 1,000 Frequent Player Points into a $13,300 
By James Potter and Eliot James
