Speedyfold Poker Blog

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

Amazingly Vanessa Selbst has won the NAPT Mohegan Sun for the 2nd year in a row. The $5000 dollar event at the Mohegan Sun casino in Uncasville, Connecticut attracted 387 entrants, and Selbst once again bested them all. This takes her to $4.29 million in career live tournament winnings. No one can question the girl’s ability, and she is certainly fast becoming a big player in the team of Pokerstars Pros.

1 Vanessa Selbst $450,000
2 Dan Shak $254,000
3 Tyler Kenney $170,000
4 Thomas Hoglund Jr. $120,000
5 Vincent Rubianes $90,000
6 Joe Tehan $70,000
7 Aaron Overton $50,000
8 Steve O’Dwyer $32,330
9 Corey Hochman $26,000

Annette Obrestad (Annette_15) has finished 2nd in the Wynn Classic main event in Las Vegas, winning $215,922.  This takes her career winnings in live tournaments up to $3.7 million.   She’s currently 4th in the women’s all time money winners list behind Kathy Liebert, Vanessa Selbst, and Annie Duke.

212 players paid the $5K entry fee for the event.  Here are the top finishers:

1st       Timothy West    $318,738     
2nd       Annette Obrestad    $215,922     
3rd       Matt Waxman    $120,814     
4th       Max Steinberg    $71,974     
5th       Eric Froehlich    $51,410     
6th       Vasilis Lazarou    $41,128     
7th       Carter King    $30,846     
8th       Francisco Fernandes Braga    $20,564     
9th       John Kim    $17,944     
10th       David Wooldridge    $15,423     
11th       Men “The Master” Nguyen    $15,423     
12th       William Kopp    $15,423     
13th       Konstantin Streletskiy    $12,853     
14th       Audley Harrison    $12,853     
15th       Marcus Gonsalves    $12,853     
16th       Alben Barkley    $10,282     
17th       Robert Notkin    $10,282     
18th       Gerald J DeNicholas    $10,282 

It would seem the Full Tilt Pros are getting a bit of a lock on the all time poker winnings list.  Some of which relates to tournaments which perhaps are a little too exclusive to be included.  

If we take Erik Seidel for example, who by all accounts has been doing fantastically lately.  The bulk of his winnings do however come from very exclusive events, often with very small fields.   Often you also find that Team Full Tilt in particular are the group of pros most rolled to play them.  

Let’s look at it in more detail.  Here are Seidel’s latest scores which propelled him to the top of the All-time money winners list:

3rd March 2011 Won the $25K NBC Heads-up - $750,000
27th Feb 2011 Won the $25K High Roller at the LA Poker Classis - $144,570
27th Jan 2011 Won the $250K Super High Roller at the Aussie Millions - $2,472,555
22nd Jan 2011 3rd in the $100K High Roller at the Aussie Millions - $618,139
13th Jan 2011 4th in the $25K High Roller at the Pokerstars PCA - $295,960

If we take the $250K buy-in at the Aussie Millions as case in point.  This attracted just 20 entrants and 11 of those were either Team Full Tilt members or Full Tilt Red Pros (5 of the former, 6 of the latter).

Similarly with the $100K event just about a week earlier.  Out of a tiny field of 38 players, half…yes 19 players were Full Tilt players (10 Members of Team Full Tilt alone).

Let’s not take anything away from Seidel’s acheivements.  Clearly he is on his A-game to win such events against such tough opponents.  But it does also feel increasingly a little like an old-boys club rather than a true all time money winners list from open tournaments.