Speedyfold Poker Blog

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).

Chiren80 is perhaps more famous for his other online gaming exploits. He was one of the top players at World of Warcraft (WoW), playing under the name of Athene. During this time he created increasingly more outlandish videos of his games and encounters and lifestyle. This lead to him become somewhat of an online celebrity if there is such a thing.

Athene decided to turn to poker where his experience of WoW is generally thought to be useful in the sense of quick decision making and information processing. At Pokerstars he adopted the screen name Chiren80. Well not content with being average Chiren80 quickly established himself as a high volume regular which let to him eventually becoming a member of Team Pokerstars Online. He is now taken that volume to the extreme and is attempting to play 1 million hands in a month. This is some insane grinding when you work it out. It is 32,358 hands a day, every day for a month. If he plays for 12 straight hours a day that is 2688 hands an hour every hour. Well if he plays 24 tables constantly for those 12 hours then that is still 112 hands an hour. Many tables play slower than that so that basically means he need to play 24 tables at the same time, for a period of longer than 12 hours a day for 31 consecutive days. A truely remarkable feet of grinding if he pulls it off.

And it seems he is actually on target also. He is up to over 750,000 hands with still about a week left. It is going to be close, but if he gets there then it’s a very unique accomplishment that is unlikely to be acheived again any time remotely soon.

You can follow his progress at Pokerstars

After many years as the key big names promoting the Ultimate Bet (UB) poker brand Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke have called it quits and moved on, by mutual agreement. Hellmuth famous for his grand WSOP entrances and similar UB marketing stunts is reported to possibly be moving on to promote the WSOP itself and/or some of the major Las Vegas casinos. With 11 WSOP bracelets to his name he is certainly well suited in that sort of capacity. Annie Duke is reported to not be considering any endorsement deals right now. Her profile is pretty high with her taking part in Celebrity Apprentice and other TV shows. So she could be a valuable marketing asset at some site.

The reasons for them leaving have not been fully disclosed but it is widely thought to be a combination of factors such as the negativity surrounding the superuser scandal that Hellmuth and Duke whilst defending UB have carried around and been affected by a little of the stigma. Other factors such as UB adopting a more youthful marketing approach have also been mentioned with a move towards a much lower average age for the Team UB pros.

The mysterious Swedish player Isidur1 has joined Pokerstars as one of their official online pros. Isildur1 (widely thought to be Viktor Blom) first came to the world’s attention at the high stakes tables on Full Tilt. In some extreme Heads-up multi-tablling he took on all comers at all stakes. He managed to take $4 million of Tom Dwan’s money in the process, but then ended up losing that to Brian Hastings. A few short-lived comebacks never really fully materialised but with the intense coverage the online sensation received Pokerstars saw him no doubt as a great marketing opporunity. There are Superstar Showdown Challenges planned, and expect to see Isildur as a regular fixture at the high stakes tables on Pokerstars very soon.

Kent Lundmark has won the main event at the EPT Barcelona. He crushed the final table knocking out 5 of the players on the way to the title. 758 players entered at a buy-in of €5300.

Top Prize Winners in Euros (€)

1 Kent Lundmark 825,000
2 Jesus Cortez Lizano 525,000
3 Konstantin Puchkov 300,000
4 Shander De Vries 222,000
5 Giuseppe Pantaleo 170,000
6 Thor Stang 130,000
7 Georgios Skotadis 90,000
8 Francesco Notaro 70,000
9 Candido Gonçalves 50,000
10 Luis Rufas 50,000
11 Ognjen Sekularac 36,000
12 Jorge Lores 36,000
13 Zachary Korik 28,000
14 Jani Kristian Rasinen 28,000
15 Marco Bognanni 23,000
16 Alessandro Longobardi 23,000
17 Roman Makhlin 20,000
18 Todd Sisley 20,000

Macau (the Chinese gambling haven) saw some crazy poker action recently. Durrrr, Ivey, and Juanda were amongst the players gambling it up at HK$5000/10,000 blinds and sometimes HK10K/20K blinds. The Chinese businessmen they were playing against had very deep pockets. John Juanda started off as the big winner. Durrrr was initially stuck put recoved and ended up quite a big winner. Ivey was at one time HK$15 million up (about $2million USD).

The action was taking place at the rather salubrious Starworld Casino in Macau

Daniel Negreanu has reached the final table of the EPT Vienna, as the chipleader no less. He could become only the third player in history to win a WSOP Bracelet, a WPT title, and an EPT title. The other two are Gavin Griffin and Roland de Wolfe

If he wins it will also catapult him to the top of the All Time Money Winners list.

Griffin did the triple first:

WSOP Bracelet in 2004 - Winning $270,420
EPT Monte Carlo in 2007 - Winning $2,434,061
WPT Borgata Open in 2008 - Winning $1,401,109

De Wolfe was next to complete it:

WPT Paris in 2005 - Winning $574,419
EPT Irish Masters 2006 - Winning $696,970
WSOP Bracelet in 2009 - Winning $246,616

Can Negreanu become the thrid, in 2010. We will find out soon.

Update: He finished 4th for 175,000 Euros. He will need to wait a little longer for the triple. Michael Eiler was the winner of the 700,000 Euros first prize.

Nor for that matter is a 4-bet…. or 5-bet…

As a reflection of the evolution of our game and the amount of increased aggression and disbelief of any resistance preflop this hand cropped up this evening with hero 6-betting all-in preflop!

PokerStars Game #50272623129: Tournament #2010090062, $5000+$200 USD Hold’em No Limit - Level XXVII (5000/10000) - 2010/09/27 19:19:35 ET
Table ‘2010090062 34′ 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 2: harddecision (153062 in chips)
Seat 3: JabaTheFlop (146653 in chips)
Seat 4: MarkusG91 (1248232 in chips)
Seat 5: deoxyribo (719936 in chips)
Seat 6: Antoshka (688199 in chips)
Seat 7: pedmend (314322 in chips)
Seat 8: plumber922 (512055 in chips)
Seat 9: tbvle (117700 in chips)
harddecision: posts the ante 1250
JabaTheFlop: posts the ante 1250
MarkusG91: posts the ante 1250
deoxyribo: posts the ante 1250
Antoshka: posts the ante 1250
pedmend: posts the ante 1250
plumber922: posts the ante 1250
tbvle: posts the ante 1250
pedmend: posts small blind 5000
plumber922: posts big blind 10000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
tbvle: folds
harddecision: folds
JabaTheFlop: folds
MarkusG91: folds
deoxyribo: raises 10000 to 20000
MVPAT is connected
Antoshka: raises 28875 to 48875
pedmend: folds
plumber922: folds
deoxyribo: raises 67125 to 116000
Antoshka: raises 95250 to 211250
deoxyribo: raises 507436 to 718686 and is all-in
Antoshka: folds
Uncalled bet (507436) returned to deoxyribo
deoxyribo collected 447500 from pot
deoxyribo: doesn’t show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 447500 | Rake 0
Seat 2: harddecision folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 3: JabaTheFlop folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 4: MarkusG91 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 5: deoxyribo collected (447500)
Seat 6: Antoshka (button) folded before Flop
Seat 7: pedmend (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 8: plumber922 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 9: tbvle folded before Flop (didn’t bet)

I made a case a while back (with lots of evidence) of why RaiseOnce on Pokerstars was very probably Phil Ivey. See this RaiseOnce Ivey post. But now I am essentially going to confirm it.

RaiseOnce was registered in the 10K WCOOP 8-Game (and sat out) and not registered for the running $5K WCOOP Main Event. The WSOPE Main Event in London was still running at the time (with Ivey still in it). Then when the WSOPE ME concluded for the evening about 20 mins later RaiseOnce sits into the WCOOP 8-Game and registers for the $5K WCOOP Main Event AND Ivey joins a table of $300/$600 PLO on Full Tilt within the same few minutes. The writing is on the wall. It is confirmed in every way shape and form apart from actually coming out of Ivey’s lips.

As a later after-note to this post: At 19.43 ET - he disconnected at both Stars and FTP at precisely the same time. Final confirmation really.

How much can you make in poker cash games? Over the years I have heard this question many times from many different people, thinking of seriously giving it a go. So I thought I would post a little inspiriation for any potential cash game converts out there. Some people scoff at the fact that you can be a pro at $1/$2 or $2/$4 etc but as you can see it is pretty realistic for players willing to put in the time.

The figures are profit, followed by hands played, followed by Big Bets won per 100 hands. A Big Bet in NL Holdem is twice the Big Blind. So 5.41 BB/100 at $0.10/$0.25 is 5.41×0.5 won per 100 hands. ie $2.70

Winnings in a month at $0.10/$0.25 NLHE

1. rshofbldtothehd Full Tilt $1,738 64,233 5.41
2. HippieAlbino PokerStars $1,615 156,315 2.07
3. ur_suspect PokerStars $1,607 53,130 6.05
4. l LadyLuck l PokerStars $1,578 36,121 8.74
5. yogayoga2008 PokerStars $1,409 110,972 2.54
6. L3NGTHY PokerStars $1,360 26,413 10.3
7. JoseFranco08 PokerStars $1,339 48,182 5.56
8. FRIENDO Absolute Poker $1,289 11,085 23.26
9. mehike PokerStars $1,212 23,517 10.31
10. KillingAce PokerStars $1,183 60,017 3.94

Winnings in a month at $0.25/$0.50 NLHE

1. PushItDown PokerStars $4,611 27,029 17.06
2. Big Greeno Full Tilt $4,404 30,234 14.56
3. asseskiller PokerStars $4,143 51,180 8.09
4. malishka1985 Full Tilt $3,148 47,246 6.66
5. chomberz PokerStars $3,091 54,593 5.66
6. AdonisZeus iPoker $2,866 80,829 3.55
7. arienop Full Tilt $2,817 10,956 25.71
8. UrNailed Full Tilt $2,707 7,716 35.08
9. tayfos3333 PokerStars $2,693 33,781 7.97
10. knuffi1986 PokerStars $2,656 24,448 10.86

Winnings in a month at $0.50/$1 NLHE

1. QQ-Q u a d s-QQ Full Tilt $11,885 110,744 5.37
2. Marshall000 PokerStars $10,460 187,483 2.79
3. PAKETA7 Full Tilt Poker $8,463 126,872 3.34
4. helen_gamble PokerStars $8,414 111,080 3.79
5. Ljuti_Gusar PokerStars $8,164 133,143 3.07
6. Highpothead PokerStars $7,088 263,316 1.35
7. EyeballsMary Full Tilt $6,907 100,803 3.43
8. 4timmy PokerStars $6,616 89,053 3.71
9. MagicNinja Full Tilt $6,613 3,304 100.08
10. gutter23 PokerStars $6,473 138,218 2.34

Inspired yet? If you are then dont forget to sign-up for a rakeback deal to improve your winnings even more.

Winnings in a month at $1/$2 NLHE

1. Gooserer PokerStars $14,344 85,045 4.22
2. U2KILLERS Full Tilt $13,368 64,093 5.21
3. WolleMalone PokerStars $11,536 130,370 2.21
4. RaulFu PokerStars $10,958 99,104 2.76
5. Peedy69 PokerStars $10,350 74,268 3.48
6. rbrizzy Full Tilt $10,253 60,234 4.26
7. obtrice11 PokerStars $10,084 12,629 19.96
8. GayGambla Full Tilt $9,974 63,926 3.9
9. kin575 Full Tilt $9,684 80,677 3
10. hope floatz PokerStars $9,545 37,474 6.37

Winnings in a month at $2/$4 NLHE

1. Dave4112 Full Tilt $23,207 53,034 5.47
2. GUIGUI_88 Absolute Poker $18,665 41,948 5.56
3. Victoria92 iPoker $15,792 6,991 28.24
4. DUSHELOV Absolute Poker $15,724 17,171 11.45
5. ezyeeyore_ Full Tilt $15,263 64,807 2.94
6. CATWOTISADOG Absolute Poker $15,239 25,821 7.38
7. Ghoulio1 ongame $14,933 7,118 26.22
8. Magic_Water99 Full Tilt $14,645 27,887 6.56
9. RobSainter Full Tilt $14,539 48,387 3.76
10. d123kid PartyPoker $14,463 20,697 8.73

Winnings in a month at $3/$6 NLHE

1. waitamin08 Full Tilt $28,630 57,897 4.12
2. GRASS 318 PokerStars $24,906 87,034 2.38
3. Alpha 5.20 PokerStars $24,464 80,476 2.53
4. markwin11 PokerStars $22,444 29,302 6.38
5. RobSainter Full Tilt $22,323 20,521 9.07
6. inwooke PokerStars $20,295 65,305 2.59
7. Sharknebulah PokerStars $20,276 25,294 6.68
8. jj_raise PokerStars $19,238 43,217 3.71
9. JC-TheGuide PokerStars $18,702 23,795 6.55
10. mrienader PokerStars $17,680 27,589 5.34

Winnings in a month at $5/$10 NLHE

1. Tim0thee Full Tilt $114,403 71,990 7.95
2. LAICHZEIT10 PartyPoker $85,820 29,124 14.73
3. ADUBERT1 Absolute Poker $49,144 14,701 16.71
4. fengikareh PokerStars $48,230 8,259 29.2
5. TeRRoRBRaTzE PartyPoker $45,639 14,891 15.32
6. MoNteiRoZoR Full Tilt $44,083 39,273 5.61
7. thebud9999 PokerStars $37,896 22,648 8.37
8. DRAGONALLIN PokerStars.fr $37,862 30,664 6.17
9. x_QUIXTAR_x PokerStars $37,839 45,111 4.19
10. digital_love Cake Poker $37,061 9,750 19.01

Winnings in a month at $10/$20 NLHE

1. ZicoTumba PartyPoker $86,432 13,280 16.27
2. runawayT PokerStars $54,626 12,075 11.31
3. moi_rhums33 Full Tilt $49,268 20,219 6.09
4. UMD Tennis Full Tilt $49,205 7,497 16.41
5. DerjatUroven PartyPoker $43,977 7,501 14.66
6. timmo1122 Bodog Poker $41,731 23,036 4.53
7. fengikareh PokerStars $41,684 4,493 23.19
8. deamoneye PokerStars $34,065 2,847 29.91
9. The_Eend Full Tilt $32,132 3,886 20.67
10. 26071985 PokerStars $31,760 2,798 28.38

Winnings in a month at $25/$50 NLHE

1. AGGRESSIVE22 PartyPoker $198,243 9,876 20.07
2. MikiOpasniy PokerStars $150,633 14,247 10.57
3. tuff_shark PokerStars $108,665 15,384 7.06
4. carreira PokerStars $106,049 10,644 9.96
5. matate PokerStars $103,813 30,188 3.44
6. Al K. Holick PokerStars $96,886 10,741 9.02
7. refracmalo iPoker $88,839 7,765 11.44
8. FLIPokeHer Full Tilt $83,912 7,047 11.91
9. FreeLancerZZ PokerStars $80,121 15,431 5.19
10. phounder Full Tilt $79,951 8,101 9.87

So as you can see the cash game earnings potential is very high in poker even at the relatively low levels. Be prepared to put in a few thousand hands a day 5 days a week, and before you know it you are hitting 60,000 hands a month.