Speedyfold Poker Blog

Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, the PokerStars Pro, has made an attempt on the SNG volume world record. He needed to make a overall profit from all the simulataneous SNG games in order for the volume to qualify.

After a few feeler attempts, he loaded up a whopping 62 (yes sixty two!) $6.50 SNGs accross 4 screens. Witnessed by an audience of spectators on a big screen he then proceeded to covert the 62 SNGs into an overall profit of $24.67 thus breaking the World Record!!!

That is one crazy volume to manage to convert to profit. Probably needs a warning of “dont try this at home” Congratulations to Elky. It may be a while before anyone gets near to breaking that one

Speculation is always quick to come of “Busto soon” when a new poker player emerges through the ranks on a heater and then heads on a downswing. The chances of the busto soon speculation actually becoming a reality is obviously a lot to do with Bankroll Management and the faith of any backers to stick with the player in question.

We have seen it time and time again, players coming and then blowing their bankroll, with probably the most recent being Kaibuxxe emerging and running up a $3 million profit, but then losing a not disimilar amount after joining the Full Tilt ranks under the new ID of Niki Jedlika.

Now durrrr is the man of the moment, but he has started to run cold and inevitably some calls of “durrrr busto soon” are starting to emerge.

He ran up a $5.4 million profit on Full Tilt in 2008, but this year he is more than $3 million down to date. He is also behind in his 50,000 hand challenge against Patrik Antonius. Should he finish that behind he needs to find $1.5 million to pay off the prize. Now if a player were rolled really really deep, or has very wealthy and patient backers, then it might not be a problem. Sometimes backers are few and far between though for a young maverick at nosebleed stakes. Dangerous waters certainly seem to be approaching.

The problem always comes from the apparent inabililty of a player below about 25 years-old to step down stakes after reaching the top. Blowing the whole roll at the top level is so so much more likely than gradually dropping down the levels. It’s partly to do with ego and partly to do with chasing the losses, thinking it will be impossible to turn them round any time soon by dropping down.

So back to the player in point. Tom “durrrr” Dwan. An excellent cash player, that is certainly not in doubt. But can he control the roll? and can he convince anyone with very deep pockets that millions of dollars of backing are a “sure thing”? Time will tell. I would like to see durrrr emerge and hold-up at the top stakes, but that is far from certain. High stakes cash poker is a cruel game, and the next busto-soon baller is always just around the corner. Good luck durrrr, dont let it be you.

PokerStars pro Gavin Griffin has no shortage of poker talent. He is the first player ever to win titles in all three of the following: WSOP, WPT and EPT

And, he’s not too bad at multi-tabling either. On Sunday I spotted him playing 15 tables at once. Keep up the good work Gavin

Phil Ivey won a near half-million dollar pot last night playing heads-up PLO on Full tilt. Here is how the hand played out:

Ziigmund raises to $3K from the SB
Ivey re-raised to $9K
Ziigmund re-raised to $27K
Ivey re-raied to $81K
Ziigmund calls

Flop: 6d Qd 9c

Ivey bets the pot ($162K)

Ziigmund raises for 2k more, and is all-in

Ivey shows: Ac As 2s 4d
Ziigmund shows: Ks 9s 2c 7c

Turn: 6c
River: Th

Ivey takes down the $491,891 pot

Love him or hate him, durrrr has talent at the poker tables. His strongest game is probably NL Holdem, where he knows how to dominate a table and how to mix things up in a often hyper-aggressive style.

Many players almost worship the ground durrrr walks on. Others fall over themselves to try to knock him. As we remember from just a few months ago, this is the sort of prime example of the latter:

sunra18: so bad and so lucky
durrrr: i try
durrrr: u obv kno we can play more tbls
durrrr: if u rly believe tht
durrrr: not trying to rub nething in but just in case u thought id
sitout or somethin
sunra18: I mean, look at how u get your money in doofie
durrrr: ok tht 1 mightv been bad, sry
sunra18: should go broke when u dont hit your miracle cards
sunra18: puke
durrrr: im omw dont worry
Dealer: David Benyamine shows a full house, Kings full of
Fives
Dealer: durrrr shows two pair, Jacks and Fives
Dealer: David Benyamine wins the pot ($383,170.50) with a
full house, Kings full of Fives
sunra18: look durr
durrrr: nh
sunra18: u dont know this game
durrrr: lol go kill urself sunra
sunra18: always in with the worst
durrrr: thts kindv @&$%
David Benyamine: ty
sunra18: dont even know how to play deep, just pot with
shia..t
sunra18: u play as ugly as u look, go back to playing
pokemon u little geek
sunra18: U even know what a girl is`?
durrrr: pls play me hu to go busto
sunra18: loser
durrrr: instead of busting to someone else
durrrr: plsplspls
sunra18: plsplspsl
sunra18: get a life fagggg
sunra18: nobody likes to get close to a gayboy like u
sunra18: I always try to take seat as far as away from u
sunra18: retarded and ugly

Yes, sure durrrr can be described as a little geekish, but you could easily say that about 90% of players who are stuck behind their computer for large proportions of the day. Winning players easily attack haters, who pick up on the quirkiness of a player or small things they say and try to go after them verbally to try to knock them down.

Broadly speaking I think durrrr is ok. He’s seems to be enjoying himself with all these prop bets etc, and I think the guy gets more of a tough time than he deserves.

There has been some very interesting challenges made recently in the world of online poker. Firstly we have Durrrr (high stakes cash game player Tom Dwan) who has laid down a challenge that he cant be beaten over 50,000 hands of NL Holdem or PL Omaha.

To put his money where his mouth is he has offered to put up $1.5 million against any challenger, to their commitment of $500,000. Effectively offering a $1 million prize.

This challenge has obviously created a lot of interest and it looks like a minimum of David Benyamine and Phil Ivey are set to take him up on the offer. You can probably safely add Patrick Antonius to that list.

With the minimum limits of 200/400 there is much speculation that someone could go broke and the challenge wont ever reach 50,000 hands. We could certainly see someone being so far down that they would have to make the decision to pay off the bounty early to stop going even further down overall.

This challenge will take place on Full Tilt Poker, and I will post again when any firm dates are arranged.

A second very interesting challenge recently made is by PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu, he has said he’ll be able to run a starting bankroll of $10 all the way up to $100,000 just through good poker and good bankroll management. It certainly seems a long grind. We have seen Chris “Jesus” Ferguson accomplish something similar, going from zero to $20,000. It will be interesting to monitor the progress of this and see whether Daniel really does have the patience to play at such low limits compared to what he is accustomed too.

You dont need to know the game to win a tournament

JohnnyBax is a poor PL Omaha Hi-Lo player, that is certain. He lacks experience, and his game needs huge amounts of refinement and work. I am one of the few actually qualified to make this statement. Slightly arrogant I know, but nevertheless it is a fact.

However JohnnyBax is a great poker player. One of the best no quesion about it. A legend in his own time.

His recent win in the FTOPS PL Omaha Hi-Lo is testiment to the fact that you dont really need to know a game that well to win. And I am not saying JohnnyBax was lucky either. What I am saying is that his poker instincts are so good that the actual ability or experience in the specific game didnt really matter.

Recently in the 2008 WSOP we also saw a similar case. Mike Matusow freely admitted he had no clue how to play 2-7 Triple Draw. But what the man knew was how to play No Limit. His ability in terms of reads/timing, and piling on the pressure against selected opponents at the right stages of the tournament (etc) was enough to win the bracelet. A refined ability and understanding in the game was not important.

WCOOP 2008 Main Event

This is the current online MTT stats of the final table players

ckingusc $55,623 profit
liberace $79,181 profit
AJKHoosier1 $379,240 profit
Markush13 - Negative ROI from 333 MTTs, Qualified via a $215 satellite
ShoesRDurrty - Negative ROI from 11 MTTs, ABI $20!
Sumpas - Negative ROI from 335 MTTs, Qualified via a $215 satellite
klslcz - Negative ROI from 558 MTTs
BOLLPOKER - Negative ROI from 125 MTTs
kovi99 - Negative ROI from 801 MTTs

125 players entered the $10,300 HORSE Event in the WCOOP. A tough contest saw DocHolatchya beat PokerStars Pro aakkari to the bracelet

1 DocHolatchya United States $287,500.00
2 aakkari Brazil $200,000.00
3 crazyjanie United States $150,000.00
4 pycb United States $112,500.00
5 pumped4good United States $75,000.00
6 djk123 United States $59,375.00
7 7CardRyon United States $46,875.00
8 gipsy74 Russian Federation $38,750.00
9 MadCaddy United States $25,000.00
10 Empire2000 United States $25,000.00
11 goodolehank United States $25,000.00
12 MrSmokey1 United States $25,000.00
13 Humberto B. Costa Rica $18,750.00
14 ozenc Netherlands $18,750.00
15 floes United States $18,750.00
16 jerrod United States $18,750.00
17 Exclusive Netherlands $13,125.00
18 double joker United States $13,125.00
19 THAY3R United States $13,125.00
20 LeeNelsonP* New Zealand $13,125.00
21 gibralter11 United States $13,125.00
22 bigjoe2003 United States $13,125.00
23 str8flushin5 United States $13,125.00
24 astarisborn United States $13,125.00

WCOOP Event 5 - NL Holdem

A great event to look forward to is Event 5 of the WCOOP on PokerStars on 7th Sept. This is the high roller $10,300 buy-in NLHE.  Standard table size of 9 players at a table.

Currently there are 36 entrants, 13 of which are from Team PokerStars itself.  Those entrants are as follows:

aakkari (Team PokerStars)
Allingomes
Bebop86
Born2Dogbaby
ChadBrownPRO
Dariominieri (Team PokerStars)
DOTTT
Exclusive (Team PokerStars)
GavinGriffin (Team PokerStars)
Goral
holla @ yoboy
HouseeLover
jcamby33
John Duthie (Team PokerStars)
Katja Thater (Team PokerStars)
klslcz
Kravchenko (Team Pokerstars)
LadyMaverick (Team PokerStars)
LucaPagano (Team PokerStars)
MiniTilt
Money800 (Team PokerStars)
Moorman1
nofingclue11
snake8484
stevesbets
stevejpa (Team PokerStars)
stpauli111
taktloss47
Telefonkiosk
THE__D__RY
tjbentham
Tom McEvoy (Team PokerStars)
Tulkaz
VictorRamdin (Team PokerStars)
William

Each player gets 25,000 starting chips and the blind speed is 30 mins per level, starting at 25/50