Speedyfold Poker Blog

The FTOPS on Full Tilt is in full swing. Here are the results so far:-

Event #1
Wednesday August 6th 21:00 ET
$200 + $16
NL Hold ‘em $1,000,000
Entrants : 5,779
Winner: GARFIELD25

Event #2
Thursday
August 7th 14:00 ET
$240 + $16
PL Omaha/8 Knockout $200,000
Entrants: 1,138
Winner: Teledonk

Event #3
Thursday August 7th 21:00 ET
$200 + $16
NL Hold ‘em 4 x Shootout 6-Max $250,000
Entrants : 1,296
Winner: CapTinBisKuiT

Event #4
Friday August 8th 14:00 ET
$300 + $22
NL Hold ‘em 1 rebuy and 1 add-on $600,000
Entrants : 970
Winner: ryanghall

Event #5
Friday August 8th 21:00 ET
$200 + $16
Stud $100,000
Entrants: 581
Winner: dread noughts

Event #6
Saturday August 9th 14:00 ET
$500 + $35
PL Omaha 6-Max $300,000
Entrants: 794
Winner: chipwizard1

Event #7
Saturday August 9th 16:30 ET
$100 + $9
NL Hold ‘em Rebuy $500,000
Entrants : 1,961
Winner: bizzleraises

Event #8
Sunday August 10th 14:00 ET
$240 + $16
NL Hold ‘em 6-Max Knockout $500,000
Entrants: 3,007
Winner: ryanbluf

Event #9
Sunday August 10th 16:00 ET
$500 + $35
NL Hold ‘em Heads Up $500,000
Entrants : 1,322
Winner: tedsfishfry

Event #10
Sunday August 10th 18:00 ET
$300 + $22
NL Hold ‘em $1,500,000
Entrants: 4,985
Winner: Harlindo

There is the FTOPS going on at Full Tilt at the moment, so I been focusing on that mostly. I did manage to complete just over 1000 more hands on the cash poker challenge, so that was good. Not exactly setting the world on fire with the profit still, but I suppose that’s better than an overall loss

Current Balance = $238.44. Total Challenge Profit = $38.44. Total hands played = 2907

The Problem with Winning in Poker

We all love to win in poker. To have a really nice tournament score. To see those dollars materialise in your online poker account. It is after all the prime motivatation to play for the vast majority of online players.

However this often creates a problem. Suddenly to have a large chunck of cash gives you a very liberal feeling when it comes to spending. Suddenly you have bought that $2000 watch that caught your eye, suddenly you are giving out $50 tips like some business tycoon or film star, and suddenly you are buying pretty much what you want whenever you want it.

Sure this feeling gradually subsides, but the fact of the matter is that in poker money won is never really there for liberal spending, unless you are retiring completely from poker, or have a really ridiculous sized score (eg WPT Main Event scale).

You might have spent $5K in tourney fees before that “significant” $18K score, and you could quite easily spend another $10K before you hit another. Variance is by its very nature unpredicatable, and really cold periods can creep up on you. That money is not profit, and it is not a “Christmas bonus”. You are dealing with a fluid operating role. That money won is very much part of that role.

Sure exurberance goes hand in hand with poker, and we all know it is a requirement to buy those diamond studded jeans from the shopping mall at Caesars, the moment you have anything half resembling a decent win

So how do you deal with it without spoiling the obvious fun and pleasure. Really the best way is to wait a few days in a period of reflection until the money properly sinks in. Then decide what you want your operating role to increase to. Look if you have enough to be fully rolled for a level up. Also assess if there are any imporant financial things outside of poker that need to be sorted. Then after this period, have a look at what’s left, and if there is anything then its time for the spending spree.

I’m grinding away slowly at this Sun Poker cash game challenge. Havent even completely 2000 hands yet, most of which I blame on tournament “commitments” on Stars and Full Tilt. Hopefully I’ll start to knock out some really long sessions soon

Current Balance = $221.03. Total Challenge Profit = $21.03. Total hands played = 1884

The WSOP Main Event has reached it’s part one conclusion. The Final Table will be played, after a considerable gap, on the 9th November. The nine players who made it are (with chip counts):-

Dennis Phillips 26295000
Ivan Demidov 24400000
Scott Montgomery 19690000
Peter Eastgate 18375000
Ylon Schwartz 12525000
Darus Suharto 12520000
David ‘Chino’ Rheem 10230000
Craig Marquis 10210000
Kelly Kim 2620000

The rest of the top 100 are as follows (all of these players are out):-

10 $ 591,869 Dean Hamrick
11 $ 591,869 Joe Bishop
12 $ 591,869 Chris Klodnicki
13 $ 463,201 Nicholas Sliwinski
14 $ 463,201 Gert Andersen
15 $ 463,201 Owen ‘ocrowe’ Crowe
16 $ 334,534 Anthony Scherer
17 $ 334,534 Tiffany Michelle
18 $ 334,534 Jason Riesenberg
19 $ 257,334 Albert Kim
20 $ 257,334 Brandon Cantu
21 $ 257,334 Paul Snead
22 $ 257,334 Judet Toni Cristian
23 $ 257,334 Tim Loecke
24 $ 257,334 Aaron Gordon
25 $ 257,334 Niklas Flisberg
26 $ 257,334 Phi Nguyen
27 $ 257,334 Michael Carroll
28 $ 193,000 Nikolay Losev
29 $ 193,000 Cristian Dragomir
30 $ 193,000 Mike Matusow
31 $ 193,000 Garrett Beckman
32 $ 193,000 Clint Schaefer
33 $ 193,000 Jamal Kunbuz
34 $ 193,000 Greg Byard
35 $ 193,000 Andrew Brokos
36 $ 193,000 Peter Neff
37 $ 154,400 Andrew Rosskamm
38 $ 154,400 Felix Osterland
39 $ 154,400 Craig Stein
40 $ 154,400 Mauro Lupo
41 $ 154,400 Kido Pham
42 $ 154,400 Jonathan Plens
43 $ 154,400 Jason Glass
44 $ 154,400 Chris Crilly
45 $ 154,400 Phil Hellmuth
46 $ 135,100 David Saab
47 $ 135,100 Nhan Le
48 $ 135,100 Adam ‘Roothlus’ Levy
49 $ 135,100 Aaron Keay
50 $ 135,100 Allen Kennedy
51 $ 135,100 Alfredo Fernandez
52 $ 135,100 Mark Ketteringham
53 $ 135,100 Alan Gould
54 $ 135,100 Alex Outhred
55 $ 115,800 Rafael Caiaffa
56 $ 115,800 Eric Bamer
57 $ 115,800 Jeremy Joseph
58 $ 115,800 Jeremy Gaubert
59 $ 115,800 Justin Sadauskas
60 $ 115,800 Mark Owens
61 $ 115,800 Thomas Keller
62 $ 115,800 Geert Jans
63 $ 115,800 Brian Tatum
64 $ 96,500 Victor Ramdin
65 $ 96,500 Larry Wright
66 $ 96,500 Chris Zapf
67 $ 96,500 Justin Scott
68 $ 96,500 Suresh Prabhu
69 $ 96,500 Sean Davis
70 $ 96,500 Terry Lade
71 $ 96,500 James McManus
72 $ 96,500 Daniel Buzgon
73 $ 77,200 David Benefield
74 $ 77,200 Jamal Sawaqdeh
75 $ 77,200 Keith Hawkins
76 $ 77,200 Lisa Parsons
77 $ 77,200 Mark Wilds
78 $ 77,200 Matt Matros
79 $ 77,200 Bob Whalen
80 $ 77,200 Mark Vos
81 $ 77,200 Davor Lanini
82 $ 64,333 Stephen Kenna
83 $ 64,333 Lonnie Heimowitz
84 $ 64,333 Alexander Kostritsyn
85 $ 64,333 Cedric Kolstad
86 $ 64,333 Reagan Silber
87 $ 64,333 Karle Wilson
88 $ 64,333 Santeri Valikoski
89 $ 64,333 Jose Barbero
90 $ 64,333 Jeffrey Papola
91 $ 51,466 Tim Taylor
92 $ 51,466 Geoffrey Herzog
93 $ 51,466 Markus Feurle
94 $ 51,466 Robert Hwang
95 $ 51,466 Yde van Deutekom
96 $ 51,466 Aditya Agarwal
97 $ 51,466 Dwayne Stacey
98 $ 51,466 Darren Grant
99 $ 51,466 Cort Kibler-Melby
100 $ 41,816 Marc Podell

Well, close but no cigar, as they say

Out of a field of 6844 players, my closest to the final table (out of my 40 horses) were:

Victor Ramdin - who finished 64th
Mark Vos - who finished 80th
Jeff Madsen - who finished 112th

I guess there’s always next year

Out of my 40 main event horses, I have lost 13 to my knowledge. Which is great. Maybe there are a few I’ve missed, but quite a few are looking good, especially Mark Vos and Jon Turner, who are amongst the leaders.

The 13 bust-outs so far are:

Chris Ferguson
Andy Black
Bo Sehlstedt
Dario Minieri
Kevin Saul
Humberto Brenes
John Gale
Kristy Gazes
Marc Goodwin
Sammy Farha
Steve Paul-Ambrose
Vanessa Selbst
Young Phan

Fingers crossed for the remaining 27 horses

Event 46 - $5000 NLHE Shorthanded - 805 entrants
1 $ 911,855 Joe Commisso
2 $ 570,551 Richard Lyndaker
3 $ 368,891 Edward Ochana

Event 47 - $1500 Seven-card Stud Hi-Lo - 544 entrants
1 $ 183,368 Ryan Hughes
2 $ 113,240 Ron Long
3 $ 68,686 Thomas Hunt

Event 48 - $2000 NL Holdem - 2317 entrants
1 $ 770,540 Alexandre Gomes
2 $ 491,273 Marco Johnson
3 $ 326,812 Ryan D’Angelo

Event 49 - $1500 NL Holdem - 2718 entrants
1 $ 631,170 JC Tran
2 $ 389,557 Rasmus Nielsen
3 $ 278,255 John Conroy

Event 50 - $10,000 PL Omaha - 381 entrants
1 $ 859,549 Marty Smyth
2 $ 528,256 Peter Jetten
3 $ 331,279 Michael Mizrachi

Event 51 - $1500 HORSE - 803 entrants
1 $ 256,412 James Schaaf
2 $ 158,933 Tommy Hang
3 $ 93,168 Phil Hellmuth

Event 52 - $1500 NL Holdem - 2693 entrants
1 $ 625,443 David Daneshgar
2 $ 385,974 Scott Sitron
3 $ 275,695 Dan Heimiller

Event 53 - $1500 Limit Holdem Shootout - 823 entrants
1 $ 278,180 Matt Graham
2 $ 173,564 Jean-Robert Bellande
3 $ 107,845 Joe De Niro

I am not much of a betting guy really, but come the time of the WSOP Main Event it seems criminal not to have a few fun bets on a range of players.

So, welcome to my elite stable of horses ;)  Hopefully some of these make it through to the final table.  I have naturally avoided the biggest names, as getting odds of 22 to 1 on Phil Ivey is ludicrously poor value.  This is poker, not AC Milan vs Accrington Stanley, or Gary Kasparov vs Jim from the meat-packing factory.   In poker we deal in edges, not 99.9% certainties.

All of my stable of players have odds of between 250-1 to 150-1 to make the final table

Chris Ferguson $2 @ 150-1
Andy Black $2 @ 185-1
Bo Sehlstedt $6 @ 185-1
Carl Olsen $2 @ 185-1
Cliff Jospehy $2 @ 185-1
Dario Mineiri $2 @ 185-1
David Singer $2 @ 185-1
Eric “Sheets” Haber $2 @ 185-1
Jeff Madsen $2 @ 185-1
Joe Beevers $4 @ 185-1
Jon Turner $2 @ 185-1
Kevin Saul $2 @ 185-1
Kirill Gerasimov $2 @ 185-1
Liz Liu $2 @185-1
Neil “Bad Beat” Channing $2 @ 185-1
Alex Kravchenko $2 @ 250-1
Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier $2 @ 250-1
Cory Carrol $2 @ 250-1
Eddy Scharf $5 @ 250-1
Greg Mueller $2 @ 250-1
Humberto Brenes $5 @ 250-1
Jason Strasser $2 @ 250-1
John Tabatabai $2 @ 250-1
John Gale $4 @ 250-1
Kristy Gazes $2 @ 250-1
Marc Goodwin $4 @ 250-1
Maria Ho $2 @ 250-1
MarK Vos $4 @ 250-1
Nenad Medic $2 @ 250-1
Nick Goodall $2 @ 250-1
Richard Tatlovich @ $2 250-1
Sam Farha $2 @ 250-1
Steve Bilirakis $2 @ 250-1
Steve Paul-Ambrose $2 @ 250-1
Steve Zolotow $2 @ 250-1
Stig Rasmussen $2 @ 250-1
Thomas Wahlroos $2 @ 250-1
Vanessa Selbst $2 @ 250-1
Victor Ramdin $2 @ 250-1
Young Phan $2 @ 250-1

I’ll keep you updated, and we’ll see how I do

Popular pro Scotty Nguyen picks up his 5th WSOP bracelet

Event 45 - $50K HORSE - 148 entrants
1 $ 1,989,120 Scotty Nguyen
2 $ 1,243,200 Michael DeMichele
3 $ 781,440 Erick Lindgren
4 $ 568,320 Matt Glantz
5 $ 444,000 Lyle Berman
6 $ 355,200 Barry Greenstein
7 $ 284,160 Huck Seed
8 $ 230,880 Patrick Bueno