Speedyfold Poker Blog

Some of the tournament field sizes on Pokerstars can be huge. Several thousand players or more can be very common. But how do you navigate such a large field, and more importantly make some profit in doing so?

The first task is to come to the realisation that all of the money worth making is at the final table. So placings such as 14/3500, 22/2340, 11/3165 whilst they might look very good at face value, are basically not a hell of a lot better than a min-cash.

The second task is to make sure you dont get knocked out needlessly early. You cant win a poker tournament if you are not in it. Gambling it up too much when say 40+ BBs deep too early is not really going to dramatically improve your tournament chances, but it will certainly increase the chances of you busting out.

So now try to combine the two. Play pretty tight early on, but as you get a few hours deep into the tourney start to crank it up a bit and take a lot more risks. If the poker gods are with you (which they occasionally will be) and you get to the last ballpark 100 players, now is the time to really start pressuring your opponents. Be prepared to risk your tourney life now in the quest for a big stack here. For every 5 or 6 times you may fail, it will be more than made up for by making a final table and achieving a good score.

If you can get through to the top 100 (of a tourney with 2000+ entrants) about 5-7% of the time, and then convert that to a final table about 15-20% of the time, then you will make profit. Conversely you could finish in-the-money 30% of the time in a tourney and still be making a loss.

In summary, lack of final tables will be the death of your bankroll, so be prepared to risk a lot whilst deep, and occasional bomb out more than you feel would happen in your natural game. The times you get to the final table with a good stack will be the paydays which keep you afloat and in profit.

Pius Heinz became the first German to win the WSOP Main Event. His aggressive play throughout the final table earned him a worthy victory. Martin Staszko from the Czech Republic likewise played some excellent poker and finished in 2nd place. The golden boy of the 2011 WSOP, Ben Lamb, finished a very decent third to cement his WSOP Player of the Year standing.

1 Pius Heinz $8,715,638
2 Martin Staszko $5,433,086
3 Ben Lamb $4,021,138

Pius has become a member of Team Pokerstars, so no doubt we’ll be seeing a lot more of him over the coming months and years.

With the WSOP Novemer Nine commencing in just a couple of days, all eyes (and money) seem to be on Ben Lamb and Phil Collins. Lamb in particular had a superb WSOP, and largely due to that has the most tounrament winnings of all the players at the final table. Staszko is the chip leader and cant be discounted, but can he close it out against a very agressive table? Sam Holden is the short stack. From interviews over the last few months he seems like a good guy, so it would be nice to see him secure a little more money. No one wants that dreaded 9th place as it means no more money on top of what they’ve already been paid. Expect some pretty tight play at the start for largely this reason alone.

Here is the table seat draw and chip counts:

1 Matt Giannetti 24,750,000
2 Bob Bounahra 19,700,000
3 Eoghan O’Dea 33,925,000
4 Phil Collins 23,875,000
5 Anton Makiievskyi 13,825,000
6 Sam Holden 12,375,000
7 Pius Heinz 16,425,000
8 Ben Lamb 20,875,000
9 Martin Staszko 40,175,000

A $30 million guaranteed live tournament has been announced in London, as part of a new International Stadiums Poker Tour. It is planned to take place at Wembley Stadium, home of internation football games.

It is going to use a rather unusual combination of electronic playing stations, within the stadium itself. ie a sort of a live/online cross-breed. Once the field size reduces it will then become a live tournament in the center of the stadium (where the pitch would normally be).

Initial plans are for it to be a $1000 buy-in with 30,000 entrants targeted.

You can find out more at ispt.com

Pokerstars Pro Eugene Katchalov continued a fine year with a 3rd place in the EPT Barcelona. 2011 started with a bang for Katchalov, with him winning the PCA Super-Highroller for $1.5 million, and finishing 2nd in the regular PCA highroller (winning $131K). He then went on to win a WSOP bracelet in the summer along with a 4th place finish in another WSOP event. Any maybe he’s not done yet, with still a few months remaining in 2011.

1 Martin Schleich 850,000 Euros
2 Dragan Kostic 532,000 Euros
3 Eugene Katchalov 315,000 Euros
4 Raul Mestre 244,000 Euros
5 Tomeu Gomila 185,000 Euros
6 Saar Wilf 145,000 Euros
7 Juan Manuel Perez 105,000 Euros
8 Isabel Baltazar 73,000 Euros

There you go. I managed to write the whole thing without saying catch-a-lot. Oh wait, doh

WSOP Bracelets, WPT Main Event titles, and EPT Main Event titles have sort of become the triple crown of poker. But notable, not the preliminary events of the latter two. And at other fairly well establised series’ like the Aussie Millions, again it’s only the main event that really gets your name up in lights for any length of time.

I wonder whether any other series except the WSOP will be able to create the great value that is associated with simply each and every WSOP event, not just the Main Event. Bracelets matter, in essense.

Maybe it’s the actual physical bracelet, maybe it’s the decent field sizes, maybe it’s all the history. But most probably it’s a bit of all three. It’s not really an easy formula to replicate. Only time will tell whether other prelims become a little more prestigious.

The WSOP Main Event as always was full with lots of drama. Phil Hellmuth no showing and having his hotel room door broken into by security to wake him up. Ben Lamb continuing an amazing run. And a boyfriend/girlfriend couple both making it all the way through to the top 30 (Doc Sands and Erika Moutinho). To name but a few.

Following the events of Black Friday there was widespread belief that the field size of the main event would be smaller this year. Well it was, but not by much at all. In fact it was the 3rd largest main event field ever with 6865 runners.

Some of the notable deep finishes were:

JP Kelly: Out in 26th
Tony Hachem: Out in 37th
Erick Lindgren: Out in 43rd
David Bach: Out in 45th
Sebastian Ruthenberg: Out in 55th
Jean-Robert Bellande: Out in 65th
Allen Cunningham: Out in 69th
Daryl Jace: Out in 89th
Sorel Mizzi: Out in 95th
Eli ElezraL Out in 107th
Joseph Cheong: Out in 114th
Daniel Negreanu: Out in 211th

After 8 days of intense play we finally had the field down to 9 players, the November Nine no less. And here they are, with their chip stacks:

1 Martin Staszko 40,175,000 chips
2 Eoghan O’Dea 33,925,000 chips
3 Matt Giannetti 24,750,000 chips
4 Phil Collins 23,875,000 chips
5 Ben Lamb 20,875,000 chips
6 Badih Bounahra 19,700,000 chips
7 Pius Heinz 16,425,000 chips
8 Anton Makiievskyi 13,825,000 chips
9 Samuel Holden 12,375,000 chips

In November they will be competeting for a first prize of over $8 million. But for the time being they each have $782,115 secured and paid out:

1st $8,711,956
2nd $5,430,928
3rd $4,019,635
4th $3,011,661
5th $2,268,909
6th $1,720,396
7th $1,313,851
8th $1,009,910
9th $782,115

Event 42 of the WSOP saw two online poker legends make it down to heads-up. It was the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha event and Ben “benba” Lamb and Sami “LarsLuzak” Kelopuro battled it out for the bracelet having already dispensed with the rest of the field of 361 players.

In the final hand LarsLuzak raised to 240K. Benba called. Flop was As 9h 3d. Luzak bet $275K. Benba called again. The turn came the Queen of spades. Luzak bet 675K and Benba raised and Luzak went all in. Benba made the call and they showed:

LarsLuzak: Ac Kd Qc 7d
Benba: 2d 4s 5h 6s

So Benba had a wrap draw for the wheel and a flush draw, and Luzak had top two pair. The 5d came on the river giving Benba the straight and the title.

1st Ben Lamb $814,436
2nd Sami Kelopuro $503,173

The poker world certainly took a very big hit from Black Friday and the fallout is only just starting to settle a little. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have had their options for playing drastically reduced, and even the remaining options have an element of fear to them, or at least healthy caution. Some of the poker sites that stayed out of the US market (and thus unaffected by the indictment) have been quick to try to capitalize on the shuffle of players, looking to pick up some of the non-US players who felt more comfortable with their bankrolls at a site not involved in the indictment.

We can probably expect a settlement between at least a couple of the indicted poker sites and the DOJ at some point, but either way the wheels are in motion for some potential major changes in landscape in the world of online poker. The end result for Pokerstars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker is going to have significant bearing on which poker sites are positioned best when (inevitably) online poker starts to be properly regulated in the United States. The likes of Party Poker, Titan Poker, and 888 Poker could all end up doing well.

In the mean time the networks still taking US players (such as Merge and Cake) may boom a little but there is always going to be an element of fear lurking about whether they might be targeted next. None seem likely to get anywhere near the numbers of Pokerstars and Full Tilt despite the lack of competition so to speak. Many Americans are just not quite ready to get involved again quite yet, understandably, and many never will be until regulation happens. Something in the region of 10,000-15,000 players online will be a good achievement for the Merge and Cake sites, but even with these sort of numbers games like Stud and Draw are never really going to get enough players for significant action, but the likes of Texas Holdem and Omaha should have healthly player levels for the Americans happy enough to risk it.

For non-US players many decent, safe, and reputable sites are still out there, and online poker will certainly remain one of the world’s most popular online pastimes.

I guess you could say the shit has hit the fan. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has issued an indictment against the 3 major poker sites that are operating in the US online poker market (Pokerstars, Full Tilt, and Absolute Poker). Basically online poker for US players looks like it could be over for the time being, with the exception of a few smaller operators.

11 people were indicted, 2 from Stars, 2 from Full Tilt, 2 from Absolute Poker, 4 from payment processors, and 1 from a bank. Early indications suggest they are trying to get the payment processors and bank on money laundering and bank fraud, and the poker sites on running a gaming site that they allege is illegal in the US because of UIGEA.

If there’s enough dirt some of it may stick, and the sites may end up with quite a chunky fine. The bank and payment processors are probably screwed if there is enough evidence.

It’s unlikely that the DOJ would fair that well making a case off the back of the UIGEA legislation mainly because of the words “unlawful” and “gambling”. It could probably be argued by a team of lawyers/experts that poker is a skill game and not gambling. And it could probably be argued that the game of poker wasn’t unlawful in the first place, therefore not covered by UIGEA.

Perhaps a little dirt linking them a bit too close for comfort to the payment processors will be the DOJ’s main weapon of fear. But a gambling man (or a man keen on skill based wagers) would probably bet on a settlement being reached at some point later down the line. Pretty shitty for US players though. Tough break guys.