Speedyfold Poker Blog

Congrats to Senecady who won the 40th Billionth hand on Pokerstars, winning himself $24,000

PokerStars Game #40000000000: Hold’em No Limit ($2/$4 USD) - 2010/02/19 12:43:11 ET
Table ‘Naef III’ 6-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: Senecady ($117 in chips)
Seat 2: Joe Hahn ($412 in chips)
Seat 3: zawaaa ($266.45 in chips)
Seat 4: 13_Xerxes_13 ($400 in chips)
Seat 5: thecooler992 ($142.55 in chips)
Seat 6: jeckjeck ($515.40 in chips)
13_Xerxes_13: posts small blind $2
thecooler992: posts big blind $4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Joe Hahn said, “oh great, I just sat.. lol”
Joe Hahn said, “heh thanks”
thecooler992 said, “b quiet sir”
Joe Hahn said, “lol, hmm, ok!”
jeckjeck: folds
Senecady: raises $113 to $117 and is all-in
Joe Hahn: raises $295 to $412 and is all-in
zawaaa: folds
13_Xerxes_13: folds
thecooler992: calls $138.55 and is all-in
Uncalled bet ($269.45) returned to Joe Hahn
*** FLOP *** [7s Qh 7d]
*** TURN *** [7s Qh 7d] [Tc]
*** RIVER *** [7s Qh 7d Tc] [7c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
thecooler992: shows [5d Kh] (three of a kind, Sevens)
Joe Hahn: shows [Jd Kd] (three of a kind, Sevens)
thecooler992 collected $25.55 from side pot
Joe Hahn collected $25.55 from side pot
Senecady: shows [Kc Ts] (a full house, Sevens full of Tens)
Senecady collected $350 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $404.10 Main pot $350. Side pot $51.10. | Rake $3
Board [7s Qh 7d Tc 7c]
Seat 1: Senecady showed [Kc Ts] and won ($350) with a full house, Sevens full of Tens
Seat 2: Joe Hahn showed [Jd Kd] and won ($25.55) with three of a kind, Sevens
Seat 3: zawaaa (button) folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 4: 13_Xerxes_13 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 5: thecooler992 (big blind) showed [5d Kh] and won ($25.55) with three of a kind, Sevens
Seat 6: jeckjeck folded before Flop (didn’t bet)

jeckjeck, zawaaa and 13_Xerxes_13 all managed to somehow decide to fold!

The other guys who played in the hand picked up between $12,000 and $15,000. The folders just picked up something like $1500

I recently watched some of the replay of the Sunday Million final table from the end of Jan. The one where OX45AL won. There was one of the most farcical chop attempts ever witnessed.

OX45AL had a significant chip lead with 93 million chips. His 3 opponents (eMarkM, OBVAMENTS and celofyz33) had 37 million, 32 million, and 30 million respectively. Obviously its a good chip lead but it’s still just 1 double-up of any opponent to put one of them at approx 60 million to 60 million.

The chip count chop finally got posted after a long delay, with OX45AL penciled in for $455K, with 30K left on the table. This is obviously way way over any reasonable expectation of what the seat is currently worth. However OX45AL not content with that said he needed 500K!!!. Now at this point you should note that the actual first prize was only $550K. So he was asking for a lock on 91% of the first prize money with 4 players left! with another 30K left to play for!!

Needless to say it got rejected and the players said to just continue the action. However at this point the action didnt resume and assadourian (a Pokerstars Team Pro, and apparently the final table “host”) set about a 1 man campaign from the rail to actually try to persuade OX45AL that 500K was too much and preceded to also tell him what was reasonable. What the hell was he thinking???? He had absolutely no place there whatsoever. OX45AL had to tell him to basically stfu. It really was totally ridiculous.

I saw a new tourney format on Pokerstars today. It was a Heads-up Hyper-turbo. The buy-in was $10.20 and there were 512 entrants.
You started with 1000 chips and the blinds increased every 2 mins starting at 50/100. The blind levels in full were:

50/100
75/150
100/200
150/300
200/400
300/600
400/800
500/1000
750/1500
1000/2000

The whole tounament from start to finish lasted a mere 44 mins. First place won $1280.00

Yes that is 9 entire rounds of heads-up battles all completed in 44 mins! Dont pause for breath, you might just miss it.

Somewhat bizarly it would seem, some of the poker rooms on the iPoker network have been forced to trim back on the number of profitable players.

Firsty we saw Blonde Poker being told to find a new network, and being given a months notice to vacate iPoker. Now we have also seen some sites such as Victor Chandler being told they must reduce the profitable players and hence forcing some players to leave. The have actually emailed players citing this reason.

At first glance this does seem totally ridiculous, but if we think further about possible motivations we can derive a probable reason for it:

Several skins are likely to have been part financed by some online pros in collaberation. Obviously they spend their time playing on their own skin and mopping up the fish. This basically looks like it applies to Blonde Poker. Similarly others have actively targeted a small market of good/better players (lurring them over from sites for example) and are reliant heavily on them to make money.

These type of operators dont really have the millions needed to effectively market to a broad audience so they are largely reliant upon their inner circle and niche marketing for their players.

The problem though is that the network (ipoker) generates its revenue from part flat fee and part commission of the skins rake. Commission making up the lions share. So if sites like those described exist they contribute very little to ipoker’s revenue but they are drawing lots of withdrawals from money on the network. Effectively there’s too much of a shortfall between the two. Too much money out, not enough money in.

It seems very unlikely any site which does market heavily on the ipoker network, like Titan or Sun Poker etc, are going to be told to change anything. But it seems increasing likely that the small operators will need to justify their place by having enough deposits (by players) in relation to the pseudo shortfall. Otherwise they are essentially draining funds from the hard work of the major skins, and contributing very small commissions for the priviledge.

Nanonoko is a absolute legend from the mid-stakes games on PokerStars. He recently broke through the $1 million profit barrier. This is a totally sick acheivement considering most of his hands were played at $2/$4, $3/$6 and $5/$10 (all NLHE Shorthanded). He plays long sessions with often as many as 24 tables running at a time. It takes tremendously focus to deliver that volume, but Nanonoko has done it.

He acheived $1,019,091 profit from 2,318,079 hands (at a win rate 3.65 BB per 100). Just 2.3 million hands in a year and a bit, about 5.5K hands a day… an average internet grinder eh

The WCOOP on PokerStars is well underway. In previous years this has been a tournament series that has got me licking my lips in anticipation. Large field, large buy-in, large stack, long blind levels, etc. OMG what was not to love. However this year’s WCOOP has been somewhat of a disappointment. Gone are virtually all of the 30 min blind levels. The stacks have frequently been a reduced size, and the starting blinds often have come in at a higher level. It is difficult not to think the series has been cheapened somewhat. It just doesnt feel that special.

Lets take tonights $320 HORSE event as a case in point:

There is a regular $33 HORSE tourney on Stars with 3000 starting chips, 12 minute blinds, and first levels of 20/40, 30/60, 40/80, 60/120, and 80/160. Regular, run-of-the-mill, ordinary HORSE tourney.

So, how special was Event 25 of the WCOOP I here you ask? A HORSE event with a $320 buy-in and 1180 entrants? I will tell you how special: 10 min blinds!! 5000 starting chips and first levels of 50/100, 50/100, 60/120, 60/120, and 80/160!!

It is a major disppointment that this has happened to virtually all events. God did I used to love playing this highly skillful series, where you’d still be pitting your wits 17 hours deep. Now it feels like so un-very-special in comparison.

All I can do is pray enough poker players moan in order that Stars re-instates the former glory of this series next year.

Full Tilt first introduced synchronized breaks in tournaments, a great help for multi-tablers to actually get a proper break without having to sit out.

PokerStars followed suit in their tit-for-tat battle of feature development and enhancement, and they now have sychroniszed breaks fully operational too.

Gratefullly PokerStars did the right thing and married up their break time with Full Tilt’s much to the delight of cross-site multitablers, myself included.

Now at 55 mins past every hour, it’s all stop in MTT land of the 2 major sites, and those much needed trips to the fridge or WC can be looked forward to and completed without a sprint.

PokerStars have introduced a late reg policy for the WHOLE of the first hour of a tournament. At first it seemed like very selective tournaments, but now it appears to have been rolled out to about half of the whole schedule. It produces some very wierd situations, such as playing for 3 hours and finishing lower on the list than someone who lasted 10 minutes. This is because when you bust you simply get allocated the finish position of NO. OF PLAYERS NOW LEFT + 1. At the beginning you might only have 2000 entrants and bust first hand and get placed in 2000th, whereas by the end of the late reg hour there might be 5000 entrants, with 3500 left in, meaning if you bust at that point you get positioned lower (3500th) than the guy who busted the first hand.

It is good from the sense of increased prizepools in your favorite tournaments, and less good if you like an idea of what you are letting yourself in for in terms of field size. I suppose if you’re late it’s also good too (if we take things to the literal max!)

In the picture below you see 13 tournaments with late reg…. most of the screen. Perhaps this is too much, the jury is out.

I thought I would cover the subject of who owns Full Tilt Poker

Full Tilt is owned by the Kolyma Corporation based out of Aruba, and licenses it’s software from Tiltware LLC, based in California. It is regulated by the Alderney Gambling Control Corporation. Tiltware LLC moved to Ireland in Summer 2006 and was renamed Pocket Kings Ltd. This move was mainly motivated by the adverse online gambling situation in the USA; namely as a consequence of the UIGEA bill, to be specific.

The fees that Pocket Kings charge the holding company for the software licence are likely very high, meaning that the majority of what could be loosely deemed “gross profit” filters back to the founding stake holders and pros, with the actual owning company making a only a small net profit on their books.

Due to this structure, and due to the fact that many of the pros were involved from inception and foundation, it is reasonable to refer to some of the pros as the “owners” of Full Tilt.

Players with likely the highest shares

Howard Lederer
Chris Ferguson
Phil Ivey
Erik Seidel
Andy Bloch
Jen Harmen

Players with likely high shares

Phil Gorden
Erick Lindgren

Players who it is unclear whether they have high shares or only endorsement deals

John Juanda
Gus Hansen - it is likely he had higher shares at one point, but either sold his stake or reduced it (remember heavy involvement with PokerChamps)

Players with likely strong endorsement deals only (It is reasonably assumed that 1% profit share is a likely good guess on this front, as this is definately the percentage what Clonie Gowen got for her endorsement)

Allen Cunningham - came onboard in 2006

Mike Matusow - cerainly not part of the original team, as he has moaned about it previously as one of his worse decisions not to get involved.

Patrik Antonius - only came on board recently, so therefore certainly on an endorsement deal like 1% ownership

Non-Playing Stakeholder

Raymond Bitar

The Bad Beat Jackpot on Carbon Poker recently was hit, paying out a whopping $734,542.27

The hand in question saw “Ween10″ with quad 7s and “kdawg1979″ with quad Queens

This won Ween10 a collosal $257,089.81 for the bad beat. Well at least if you can call it bad

kdawg1979 won $60.92 in the actual hand and more importantly $128,544.90 for having the winning hand at the bad beat scenario.

The other remaining 7 players at the table each got $18,363.55. Not bad for just being sat around

It was a great result for Ween10, not least because many sites dont pay out bad beat jackpots on quad 7’s being beaten, but as chance would have it Carbon poker is the one known site that does.

kdawg1979 amazingly had no money on the site a few days before. He won $5 in a freeroll, and run that up to $60 at the cash tables, and then after just 2 hours at the bad beat tables he had $128K!

He said “It came at the right time. I have three boys and a wife. We were literally getting evicted. This was a blessing from God. Thank you again”