Speedyfold Poker Blog

The long road to online poker taxation seems to have started in the USA. Which at face value doesnt sound like a good thing at all, but is actually pretty positive news. For several years now online poker in the USA has had a status that is for all intents and purposes illegal. So when the USA figures out the best way to tax online poker (which there has been initial steps towards) it can officially approve and regulate it. This would mean re-opening the US to fully legal online poker. Now there’s the good news.

It may take time, but the momentum seems sufficient to get there eventually. This is particular good for the likes of Party Poker, the former giant of the online poker world and still a formidable presense. They of all the sites probably have the most to gain as they have a player database of over 10 million American players, who were former players at their site before US regulation.

So it is going to be an interesting year or so ahead, especially with Party Poker waiting in the wings ready to shake up the current status quo.

The Pokerstars Sunday Million nearly had an overlay last night. First time in like almost forever. I say almost because there were 7214 entrants, which means 7214 x$200 prizepool = $1,442,800. There is a $1.5 million guaranteed prizepool so it sort of looks like an $57,200 overlay, but then when you consider the rake of 7214 x $15 = $108,210 it wasnt really. Close, but not quite a cigar as you might say.

Danloulou won, taking down $215,555 after a chop with 2nd place player airic1400, who got $175,000

Congrats to the 1080 players who cashed and liberated Pokerstars of a little of the normal rake.

If you fancy giving the Sunday Million a go, and trying to emulate those 1000+ players, then join Pokerstars and get a deposit bonus up to $600

The long awaited Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) is now on the doorstep. There is a massive and very varied schedule of events, so it looks like it’s going to be a good one. The SCOOP series of events takes place on Pokerstars. Join Pokerstars to take part.

Each event is duplicated at 3 different buy-in levels to cater for all budgets. eg you can play the $22 event 1, the $215 event 1, or the $2100 event 1. Or all 3 if you feel that way inclined.

The mysterious Isildur1 on Full Tilt has been revealed as retired Swedish ice hockey pro Mats Sundin. He played 11 seasons with the Torono Maple Leafs, the majority of them as team captain.

Since his retirement in Sept 2009 he has been playing a huge amount of online poker player with a view to it being a career post-hockey. Ironically he has already done endorsement work for Full Tilt’s bitter rivals Pokerstars in 2008, although that deal was only a temporary one whilst he was still a NHL player.

For a long time Viktor Blom was widely suspected as Isidur1 but always denied it. Sundin is perhaps a surprise to some but things do add up easy in retrospect. Ex-sportsmen like Benamine and Antonius often look for a new competitive persuit post-retirement. And with Sundin having very substantial amounts of cash and assets and a heavily competitive spirit, poker really fits the bill. At age 39 he is still relateively young in sense of careers vs retirement. With a bit more discipline he could quite easily turn his talents into long term success on the green felt.

Mats Sundin will be playing in the Party Poker Big Game in mid April following his friendly relationship and backing relationship with Tony G (who is heavily involved as a Party Poker Pro)

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.