Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

After the recent events of Black Friday, the US online poker community has been floundering looking for a reliable online poker room to play in. The loss of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker has left US poker professionals looking for good US poker sites where they can enjoy poker tournaments.

To meet this need, Jeffrey Pollack, the man behind the behind the World Series of Poker, has decided to launch an international live poker tournament only allowing poker professionals to participate in it. This move has not surprised the online poker community despite Jeffrey Pollack’s strong views on poker being a game of skill for anyone who has the skills. This tourney will be an event that is exclusive to poker pros who have a huge bankroll.

A $20000 buy-in league will be held at the Palms Hotel and casino, where four main events will be held during August, September, December and February. The top 27 players will move on to the championship on February 13-14 and will play for the $2.6 million prize.

Jeffrey Pollack wants all the biggest names in poker to be showcased at the event and hence online poker participants will include Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Vanessa Selbst, Chris Ferguson, Scotty Nguyen and Phil Ivey. The participants for this poker event are not just poker pros but also have to be consistent winners with good poker bankrolls. This means, one time poker champions like Jamie Gold, the 2006 WSOP winner and Chris Moneymaker, the 2003 WSOP winner have not been included in the same.

Although, Chris Moneymaker was regarded as a potential candidate based on his past contribution to the poker industry, he is still “on the bubble”. The list will be finalised after the 1^st of August 2011, after this year’s WSOP main event takes place.

In a recent report by ‘The Nuts’, a monthly magazine dedicated to poker and the top poker players all over the world, Phil Ivey has been given the number one ranking for poker players in the month of March.
Phil Ivey, a high stakes poker professional, cashed in a total of $901,730 in winnings in March and according to the magazine he averages approximately a million every month.
Following close behind Ivey on the list are Seidel, Mercier and Dwan. While Seidel took the title of the National Heads-Up poker Championships bagging $750000, Mercier took home $30,000 in the same tournament.
Losing most of his money to Daniel Cates, Dwan approximately lost a million this year, which pushed him down to the 4th rank. Although Cates cashed in $740k this month, he is still considered to be a newbie and maintained rank 10. Cates still has not qualified for this.
Daniel Cates, who is a new comer to the list, is only at Number 10, even though he banked over $740k profit in the last 30 days. He is definitely one of the best online cash game players, but has not played in a WSOP yet. He will make his first entry into WSOP in two months and it is rather exciting to find out if his strategy will be as rewarding as it is for Ivey.
Joining Cates in the beginners list, into the best ten, is Vivek Rajkumar who has seen many victories over the last few days, reaching the final table twice in the WPT tournament. Cashing in $1.23 million, he placed 2nd and 4th. Rajkumar has made a little over $4 million.
The poker world is pleasantly surprised to see Gus Hansen featuring the list, who in the first three months of the year won so much money, which sidetracked all the players on the list who are bordering $4 million.

In the month of March, Phil Galfond’s earnings went up higher than those of Gus Hansen’s. Since Hansen has been doing fairly well in 2011, this news might come as a surprise for everyone who has been ardently following Gus Hansen’s sheer supremacy in the online poker world in the last few months.

There is little doubt about the fact that Hansen has been the most prolific poker player this year; he was also the biggest earner in the months of January and February. March looked very promising for Hansen until the final day session against Phil “OMGClayAiken” when Galfond beat him and stole rank one.

Phil Galfond’s margin of winning was unbelievably thin at a mere $50,000, although, it was sufficient for the Cardrunner’s founder to overthrow Full Tilt Poker expert Gus Hansen a.k.a “the Great Dane. Considering that fact that he came into $1.1 million in 2011, Galfond’s month looks even more remarkable. He is not assured that he will make $600k this year.

Both Hansen and Galfond also ended up beating the likes of several other tremendously accomplished expert players the previous month. This includes fellow Full Tilt expert, Phil Ivey and online phenom Dan “jungleman12? Cates.

The sour losers in the month of March include popular names such as Viktor “Isildur1? Blom and Tom “durrrr” Dwan, who definitely top the loser’s category.

The month of March also accounts for some huge wins by Phil Galfond who stands at $1.75 million, Gus Hansen who stands at $1.7 million, and Phil Ivey who stands at $901,000. Gavin Cochrane stands at $816,000 and finally there is Dan Cates at $747,000.

Online poker fans may probably be shocked to see Phil Ivey’s rank because of the fact that he played less than 4500 hands in the Month of March, which is even lower than Blom.

Viktor “isildur1” Blom’s latest PokerStars SuperStar Showdown, a non-limit heads-up Texas Hold’em tournament played against legendary poker player Daniel “KidPoker” Negreanu in two phases of 2,500 hands each has generated plenty of interest and excitement in the online poker gaming community.
Negreanu was definitely in the red for $150,000 halfway through the first phase of the Showdown and spectators believed that he was done for. The second phase of the heads-up was run this week, and in a surprising and dramatic turn of events at the poker table, Negreanu finished as the winner of the match and with a cool prize of $26,500 added to his bankroll.
When the second phase of the heads-up match began, Blom was definitely the lead play and he remained in the lead for $100k even after 1200 hands were played. Blom was still the leading player after 100 more hands, and spectators felt that he will win the match. But KidPoker drew himself neck to neck with his opponent when there were just 350 hands left for the match to end. When there were just 38 more hands to play, he was way ahead of Blom. Ultimately, Negreanu’s pocket aces won over Blom’s pocket fours, as a result of which he pocketed the prize of $20,000 and turned out as the winner of a tough poker battle.
The heads-up against Negreanu was Blom’s second loss. Previously, he had lost to the Australian professional poker player Tony G. Guoga. Otherwise, Blom had successfully won all the other five heads-up tournaments he had played as part of PokerStars SuperStar Showdown.
Blom’s next heads-up will be against Scott “urnotindanger” Palmer, another two-part event, the first part of which will be held on April 2nd, Sunday at PokerStars. The outcome of this match is definitely bound to be interesting.

Gus Hansen has reigned as the supreme king of online poker for nearly 7 months, with his current bankroll being $2 million more than that of Matt Hawrinlenko, his rival at Full Tilt Poker. After Hansen’s recent success at the $500/$1000 Pot Limit Omaha game, his total winnings for the year have shot up to $4,196,883.
Last week saw Hansen losing $560k while playing against O Fortuna PLS, a loss that did not upset the Danish player much, especially since he succeeded in adding another $1.3 million to his bankroll shortly thereafter. Surprisingly, the last poker pro who contributed heavily to Hansen’s bulging bankroll was Phil Ivey, who played against Hansen in a $500/$1000 Pot Limit Omaha game. Ivey lost a total of $200k after 95 hands were played and was wise enough to put an end to the session.
Hansen appears to have corrected a number of flaws in his high-stakes strategies recently. Moreover, his whopping World Series of Poker (WSOP) 2010 success has greatly boosted his self-confidence. These could be the factors responsible for the 37-year-old pro’s success and wins worth $6.4 million since September 2010.
Hansen, however, is known to lose all his winnings in the shortest possible time. For instance, in March 2009, Hansen’s total winnings soared to $4.26 million, and by the end of 2009, he was in the red for $5,575,624. History repeated itself in February 2010 when Hansen built his bankroll to $2.73 million and ended the year by losing $225,228.
This time, Gus Hansen is determined to make his good luck last and is looking forward to finish the current year at the top of the leader board at Full Tilt Poker. He has no dearth of fans all over the world, who hope that he will end the year as the biggest winner of Full Tilt Poker.

The latest news is that Daniel Negreanu and Viktor “Isildur1” Blom have finalized the various details of an exciting match called SuperStar Showdown, which will be played over two different dates.

Negreanu and Blom will play against each other on March 20 and March 27, which happen to be Sundays, at 15:00 ET. The only difference between this match and all the previous SuperStar Showdown matches is that this one will be played on two days.

The poker pros will sit at four tables with $150k. The Showdown will be a No Limit Hold’em game with $50/$100 limits on March 20. They will carry over what is left of their chip stacks at the end of 2,500 hands to the second round on March 27 and will finish off the rest of the 2,500 hands at the same tables.

Negreanu’s blog post reveals that he wants to defeat Blom in this four-table match although he admires him a great deal. He also writes that he has been practicing a lot. Explaining that it is “part of the learning process,” he says that “it’s no different than a baseball player swinging five bats before he goes up to the plate or a golfer taking some practice swings with a heavy club.” Obviously, Negreanu is not bothered about the money; but he definitely cares about competing with some of the best players and emerging victorious.

Interested online poker enthusiasts, in the meantime, can keep an eye on the PokerStars Blog for the latest news about the doings of the two. This Showdown has attracted a lot of attention already and is sure to be one of the most-watched matches ever played for a long time in the history of online poker. The PokerStars Blog has promised to provide complete details of the match on both days.