Speedyfold Poker Blog

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 poker world certainly took a very big hit from Black Friday and the fallout is only just starting to settle a little. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have had their options for playing drastically reduced, and even the remaining options have an element of fear to them, or at least healthy caution. Some of the poker sites that stayed out of the US market (and thus unaffected by the indictment) have been quick to try to capitalize on the shuffle of players, looking to pick up some of the non-US players who felt more comfortable with their bankrolls at a site not involved in the indictment.

We can probably expect a settlement between at least a couple of the indicted poker sites and the DOJ at some point, but either way the wheels are in motion for some potential major changes in landscape in the world of online poker. The end result for Pokerstars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker is going to have significant bearing on which poker sites are positioned best when (inevitably) online poker starts to be properly regulated in the United States. The likes of Party Poker, Titan Poker, and 888 Poker could all end up doing well.

In the mean time the networks still taking US players (such as Merge and Cake) may boom a little but there is always going to be an element of fear lurking about whether they might be targeted next. None seem likely to get anywhere near the numbers of Pokerstars and Full Tilt despite the lack of competition so to speak. Many Americans are just not quite ready to get involved again quite yet, understandably, and many never will be until regulation happens. Something in the region of 10,000-15,000 players online will be a good achievement for the Merge and Cake sites, but even with these sort of numbers games like Stud and Draw are never really going to get enough players for significant action, but the likes of Texas Holdem and Omaha should have healthly player levels for the Americans happy enough to risk it.

For non-US players many decent, safe, and reputable sites are still out there, and online poker will certainly remain one of the world’s most popular online pastimes.

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.

February isnt even over yet and the race for the first player to reach Supernova Elite in 2011 on Pokerstars is well and truely on. Several players are up around 700,000 VPPs, with 1 million VPPs being the target to get the coveted stauts.

One person in the running, Isildur1 has been playing long sessions of heads-up 25/50 and also Heads-up $5600 SNGs. However despite this volume he is nonchalent or previously oblivious to the SNE race. Pretty sick to be one of the main contenders without really trying for it or not particularly caring. This is highlighted best by the following conversation at the table where azntracker is talking about given up on the race if Isildur1 plans to keep playing the volume he’s playing.

azntracker: Hey isildur, i was just wondering what your intentions are for VPPs
azntracker: Right now it’s me and you #1/#2
Isildur1: What
Isildur1: u mean 1 and 2
Isildur1: i got no intentions
azntracker: ah cool
Isildur1: why?
azntracker: ah, well ive been playing a ton to try get 1mm as soon as i can
Isildur1: how much u got now
azntracker: but your 5k HU will kill me if you keep going
azntracker: i got 623k now, u?
Isildur1: ok
Isildur1: little less than you i think
Isildur1: is there any prize?
azntracker: are you going to be grinding these as much as you have been?
azntracker: no prize
Isildur1: k, no idea
azntracker: if so, i’m gonna stop playing as much as i have been, save me misery haha
Isildur1: u play sng to?
Isildur1: lol
azntracker: yes, but i gotta play 30-40 table all high stakes
Isildur1: right now im playing pretty much
Isildur1: kk
azntracker: by the way, we played at the same PCA table, u busted med day 2 with QQ vs my ATs
azntracker: i had KK two times i 3bet you previously but u folded
Isildur1: ok:/
azntracker: yea you are playing sooo much now
azntracker: are you going to continue playing so much everyday, next week or 2?
Isildur1: yeah mb
Isildur1: what does it matter for u
azntracker: oh well i’d just like to know if i should keep killing myself to get 1mm vpp first
Isildur1: ok, i dont know sry
Isildur1: ilprolly play pretty much
azntracker: it’s just a personal goal of mine to get 1mm first, that’s all
Isildur1: ok well sry i plat theese 5k so much
Isildur1: gonna get some food
Isildur1: glgl
azntracker: good luck!

There was a pretty interesting event at the fixed limit tables recently. In an act of politcal correctness IhateJuice has forced by Full Tilt Poker to change his screen name becamse of complaints that it was phonetically too much like “I hate Jews”. Considering juice/rake is a perfectly reasonable thing for a poker player to hate this seems heavy handed, but what can you do eh. The powers that be have spoken.

Now, IhateJuice is a very good FL Holdem player who has made over $2 million in profit at the FLHE tables on Full Tilt over the last couple of years, mainly at stakes $30/$60 thru to $2000/$4000. More lately it has been very much the higher of these levels.

So, Full Tilt, aware that name changes (particular of such good regulars) are a sensitive issue, informed the FL Holdem regulars via email that IhateJuice has changed his name to “Kagome Kagome” (his chosen alternative).

But he was also allowed to change his location from Germany (where he lives) to Japan, in what he later described as “just for fun”.

Now herein lies the controversy. A player called bicyclekick noticed this guy from Japan by the name of Kagome Kagome whom he had never seen sat at the 30/60 tables. He decided to take a shot against him. bicyclekick started to win some dollars and decided to push Kagome Kagome to play at higher limits. He agreed to this but then bicyclekick went on to lose $7200 until he found out his opponent was in fact IhateJuice. He quit the game but felt he had been hustled by him hiding his identity and allegedly playing sub-par at 30/60 to lead him to believe he had an edge, a fact which IhateJuice denies.

In a generous act IhateJuice shipped 33% of his profits from the game back to bicyclekick, but he was still a little annoyed about the possible unethical nature of the game.

The jury is out. IhateJuice didnt want to change his name, and also for a period had been mentioning it to players at the table after it had happened. It was also decent of him to ship some money back. However name changes are very rare and the “Japan” location does hint at the slight possibilty of a desire to bypass a few bumhunters’ lack of desire to play him. All in all I think IhateJuice didnt do anything wrong really. It was reasonable in-my-opinion to just let Full Tilt inform possible opposition, and carry on as normal. Affected opponents should probably be a little less sensitive, if that doesnt sound a bit harsh. Especially when they often base a lot of their player selection on info that isnt officially permitted by the sites (such as P&L databases).

It is surprising that Crazy Pineapple hasnt been picked up by any of the main online sites as a bit of a fun alternative game. I can’t seem to ever get a game going without someone at some point suggesting to play some Crazy Pineapple. When you look at the sort of numbers the small games get on Stars etc, then it cant exactly do any worse. In fact I think adoption will be quite reasonable and tournament numbers pretty decent too.

I will give a quick description of how it’s played whilst we’re on the subject, just in case you are not sure:

Crazy Pineapple is exactly like Holdem but instead you get 3 hole cards. Assuming you dont fold pre-flop, then when the flop comes you must discard one of your hole cards. It then preceeds as holdem. Essentially it is an action inducing game where more players stay involved to see the flop because of a lot more possibilities of connecting. And then post flop there is normally also quite a bit of action because of the connected hands and better draws. The sort of interesting dynamics it raises is whether to keep a weak pair or to go for a draw.

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.

Day 1 of the WSOP has just concluded and whilst glancing through the names of the chip leaders I noticed the name Dwyen Ringbauer. Not a name I have heard of and it looked a bit unusual. In fact I thought it looked a bit like an anagram. Low-and-beyond it is indeed an anagram of Breadwinner Guy. How very apt. Lets hope he continues to do well and live up to his name.

This year’s WSOP has seen some of the biggest prop bets ever. Not only has there been the Durrrr ones we have already discussed, but Phil Ivey has got some massive ones booked in. Howard Lederer has laid 5 million dollars against him getting 2 bracelets over the course of the next 3 years. Phil Ivey is already half way there after winning Event 37, the $3000 horse event. Following that win Ivey also booked bets running into the millions at 7-1 about him getting a 2nd bracelet this year. eg Phil’s $50,000 to villians $350,000

Phil has also got bets direct with Durrrr over who will get the most bracelets over 2 years. After nearly a great start for Durrrr (finishing 2nd in Event 11) Ivey has lept ahead with that Event 37 win, making it 1-0 to Ivey. Things look like a big uphill struggle now for durrrr, as Ivey is a bit of a bracelet machine given the proper motivation (ie money) and already has a total of 8 lifetime bracelets to his name now. Durrrr is still looking for his first one, but no doubt has the talent to get there.

Bets and talk about bracelets have been frantic of late, with Ivey vs Hellmuth also a lot in the news. Hellmuth has had a couple of deep runs (most recently 7th in a PLO8 event) but no bracelets this year. Most people in the industry seem to think it is only a matter of time before Ivey overtakes Hellmuth, some thinking in less than 5 years. Many are also speculating on Ivey even reaching the dizzy heights of 30 bracelets in his career. He’s sure come a long way since his No Home Jerome days.

This was a pretty interesting hand from the Party Poker Premier League. Luke “FullFlush” Schwartz vs Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko. FullFlush a minor legend from the cash game tables, and Jovial Gent a legend from tournament play. Although it’s clearly a ballsy play, I do have a small problem with it. The speed of the shove makes the hand look really weak in my opinion. Add that with how he looks afterwards and maybe a call is findable. But how can you possibly call with KJ for so much? Almost impossible in reality.