Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

The stop and go is a trick used by many very good poker players to maximize their chances of taking down a crucial pot when they are on the short stack. This is a poker tip that you can try next time you are involved in a poker tournament holding a short stack and you decide that you are going to go all in out of position. For example, if you are in the small or big blind and another (typically known to be aggressive player raises), instead of just going all in over the top of his raise with a short stack (that the other player will likely gamble and call) just call the bet. Then, regardless of what comes on the flop immediately go all-in. This will help give you some extra chances of winning the hand as the player will have a harder time calling on the flop if he hasn’t quite made his hand yet.

Here is a hand that I was involved with recently where this would have worked. I was on the short stack and had been playing very tight. The player that opened had been raising most pots. I looked down at A9 in the small blind and decided to make my move:

PokerStars Game #17415090173: Tournament #88276515, 500FPP Hold’em No Limit - Level VIII (200/400) - 2008/05/13 - 23:23:20 (ET)
Table ‘88276515 1′ 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: soiwinha (4170 in chips)
Seat 5: closemaster (3295 in chips)
Seat 8: yankfan (6035 in chips)
soiwinha: posts the ante 25
closemaster: posts the ante 25
yankfan: posts the ante 25
closemaster: posts small blind 200
yankfan: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to closemaster [9h Ad]
soiwinha: raises 800 to 1200 - Aggressive player raises
closemaster: raises 2070 to 3270 and is all-in - What I should have done was just call this bet, then regardless of what happened on the flop raised all-in.
yankfan: folds
soiwinha: calls 2070
*** FLOP *** [Qc 7s 2h] - Had I just called his raise pre-flop then shoved here, it would have been very hard for him to call with just Jack High.
*** TURN *** [Qc 7s 2h] [Kd]
*** RIVER *** [Qc 7s 2h Kd] [8d] - Because I didn’t do it, look what happened on the river
*** SHOW DOWN ***
closemaster: shows [9h Ad] (high card Ace)
soiwinha: shows [Jc 8c] (a pair of Eights)
soiwinha collected 7015 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 7015 | Rake 0
Board [Qc 7s 2h Kd 8d]
Seat 1: soiwinha (button) showed [Jc 8c] and won (7015) with a pair of Eights
Seat 5: closemaster (small blind) showed [9h Ad] and lost with high card Ace
Seat 8: yankfan (big blind) folded before Flop

Good luck!

Layla Kayleigh has announced that she decided to leave the WPT on her myspace page today. Kayleigh said in a her blog entry:

“Also you should know that as much fun as I had on season 6 of the World Poker Tour, I will not be returning for a 2nd season.

WPT were kind enough to ask me back for a 2nd season, however after much thought and deliberation I decided that I really want to minimize traveling in my schedule this year, focus more on my health and personal relationships, and they were very understanding to where I was coming from.

Might I add, that I had the most adventurous time on the road, learned so much about life and poker! and most importantly gained the most amazing friendship with my dear friend Kim Lansing (who I really hope lands the hosting position for Season 7)”

We also hope that Kimberly Lansing gets the job, because there is nothing better than watching her youtube videos. Here is one of her recent videos looking so good as usual:

Ultimate Bet player dhc2lovr has most likely set some kind of record this past week. Within the past 3 months he has made $317,397.54 from Ultimate Bet’s lucrative bad beat jackpot while playing poker online.

On Tuesday, May 6th at 3:03am ET, dhc2lovr scored it big from UltimateBet’s Bad Beat Jackpot by losing with four tens to four queens in a hand of Texas Hold’em. The jackpot had reached an impressive $448,920.71. For his beat, dhc2lovr won $145,899.23 and 117 other UltimateBet players shared an additional $145,899.23, including the winner of the hand who walked away with $72,949.61.

For most players this would be a dream come true, but this isn’t the first time dhc2lovr has cashed on UB’s bad beat jackpot. On March 25th at 2:48am ET, dhc2lovr hit his first Bad Beat Jackpot for $171,498.31.

“I had won a bad beat before but I really didn’t feel there was any reason why I couldn’t win again,” says dhc2lovr. “I felt I had the same chances as anyone else to win and the fact that I had won it before made no difference.”

According to UB Security, dhc2lovr has been playing on UB since 2005 and is in the highest ranks of their loyalty program (meaning he plays a lot).

The Bad Beat Jackpot is just an added jackpot component to the poker game. In addition to rake, $0.50 is collected from qualifying poker hands and placed into a constantly growing pot until someone hits the jackpot.

When a player loses a hand with four 8s or anything better, 65% of the jackpot is divided among Bad Beat Jackpot players (25% remains in the pot for the next jackpot and 10% is dedicated towards administrative fees). All players seated at a Bad Beat Jackpot table featuring the same limit and game type as where the bad beat occurred also win a piece of the jackpot.

Full details on UltimateBet’s Bad Beat Jackpot game can be found at www.ultimatebet.com.

After almost 11 hours of play, PKerBL dominated the final table to win the Sunday Millions at Pokerstars.com.  Once there were just 5 left he always had at least $20,000 in chips more than his opponents at any given time.

This was a huge win for PKerBL as going into the tournament he only had  $9,892.53 in winnings.  At one point it looked like he may have to put up a fight when AQUA RAIDER clawed back from just $2,000,000 in chips to over $20,000,000.

The final hand of the tournament came when both players were dealt suited spade hands.  PKerBL called pre-flop with the 10 5 of spades, and AQUA RAIDER the 7 4 of spades.  The flop came K 6 2 all spades.  PKerBL led out for 2 Million, which AQUA raised to 4 Million.  PKerBL thought for a minute then shoved over the top to put AQUA RAIDER all in.  AQUA made the call to discover he was drawing dead.

Here are the major money winners at the final table:
1. PKerBL - $193,339
2. AQUA RAIDER - $97,355
3. Snitch24 - $68,560
4. FeFranco - $54,848
5. OllowainTim - $41,136
6. jp4est - $30,166
7. roniirani - $21,253
8. Talgamer13 - $12,340
9. HelmetSky - $8,090
10. El Canonero

The Sunday Millions runs every week at 16:30 EST on Pokerstars with a Guaranteed prize pool of $1 Million Dollars.

I know the story about the 2008 WSOP Final Table Delay broke over a week ago, but to be honest I had no idea what it was actually about. I kept hearing people talking about how they were delaying the final table and automatically assumed they were talking about delaying the airing of the final table… so what I thought, there usually is a delay between the time of the actual final table and the airing of it anyway, so I didn’t think this was anything big…. until today.

I was looking for some poker news today and found some links to the USA Today coverage of the final table delay, so I decided to take a closer look. Apparently, for those who are as oblivious as I am, ESPN wants to delay the actual PLAY of the final table 3 months! This is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. I can understand the point of view that the WSOP want to make it a big media spectacle and get people talking, but couldn’t they do that in say 2-3 weeks and not 3 months? So much can change in 3 months and it completely changes the game. Here are some of the reasons why I think this is a BAD move….

Reads/Tells - During play much of a players’ time at the table is looking for reads and tells on his opponents. Over a 3 month period, this player could discover these reads/tells and use them against his opponents.

Steroids - Oh wait, this is poker… I guess this wouldn’t apply.

Skill/Coaching - 3 months will allow players a ton of time to improve their game. This is NOT fair. Players should be playing at the final table with the same skill they used to get there.

Hitmen - After all, there is A LOT of money on the line. We live in scary times where you can have people taken out for 5 figures. All I gotta say is just hope you don’t get some shady people at that final table!

I agree that it will create a more interesting poker game, and possibly do some good to raise awareness for the game, but I just don’t think it really will be the same poker game that we have become accustomed to.  Could you imagine if they started doing this at the Olympics!

Isaac Baron, commonly known online as Menlo, WestmenloAA and more recently the guru 11 on Full Tilt Poker, took down the first event of Full Tilt Poker’s FTOPS series of events.  Isaac outlasted 4,157 players in the $200 + $16 NL Hold ‘em 6-Max Event.

This win propelled Baron into 2nd for CardPlayers’ Online Poker Player of the year a title that he won last year.  Baron is off to a really good start this year.  He finished 4th at the EPT in Monte Carlo for just under $1 Million (USD), and many big wins online.

Here are the final results from event #1:
1      the guru 11      $158,852.23
2     dan_dada     $97,297.20
3     TheFunseeker     $67,525.92
4     commitment     $49,896.00
5     jnjnlee86     $36,590.40
6     CABOWABO23     $24,948.00
7     Danuglyman     $16,049.88
8     imperior     $16,049.88
9     PokerGPScom     $10,561.32
10     GreatDANbino     $10,561.32

The FTOPS tournament runs for the next few weeks on Full Tilt Poker.  Players have twenty-four chances to bring home FTOPS gold; with over $10Million Guaranteed!  There are 24 events total, so check out Full Tilt Poker today.