Speedyfold Poker Blog

RaiseOnce on Pokerstars won the $25K Highroller Heads-up WCOOP Event on Pokerstars last night. He’s also been seen playing very high stakes over the years at the cash tables on Stars. But who is RaiseOnce I hear you ask. Well I am here to say that it is 99% certain that RaiseOnce on PokerStars is the one and only Phil Ivey. Cue shocked expression.

The 7-part Evidence

1. Location: Las Vegas. Yes yes in isolation hardly evidence really. But lets continue…

2. RaiseOnce/Phil Ivey play very very few online tournaments. Only really the ultra high buy-in ones:

Pokerstars

9 tournaments. Buy-Ins:
$25,500 x 1
$10,300 x 4
$5,200 x 2
$1050 x 2
That’s an ABI of $8800

Full Tilt

16 tournaments. Buy-Ins:
$25,000 x 4
$2620 x 4
$2100 x 1
$1060 x 2
$535 x 3
$216 x 2
That’s an ABI of $7296

3. Language Similarities

otterkopf: gg
otterkopf: be back later
RaiseOnce: thx

harrington25: YOU ARE THE GREATEST TO EVER PLAY THE GAME
harrington25: LOVE THE 78 HAND
Phil Ivey: thx

Ziigmund: ok gl m8
Phil Ivey: thx u2

Phil Ivey: someone just transferreed me 6dollars
Phil Ivey: thx whoever that is

4. Cash Games

Plays all games, and plays them at a v.high standard at the highest levels. For example at 1000/2000 Limit HE, and 1000/2000 2-7 Triple Draw. The player pool of people doing that is very very small.

Here he is in action:

PokerStars Game #49923191501: Triple Draw 2-7 Lowball Limit ($1000/$2000 USD) - 2010/09/20 18:46:40 ET
Table ‘Psyche III’ 6-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: Wrasse ($32500 in chips)
Seat 5: oogee ($40460 in chips)
Seat 6: RaiseOnce ($45960 in chips)
Wrasse: posts small blind $500
oogee: posts big blind $1000
*** DEALING HANDS ***
RaiseOnce: raises $1000 to $2000
Wrasse: raises $1000 to $3000
oogee: folds
RaiseOnce: calls $1000
*** FIRST DRAW ***
Wrasse: discards 1 card
RaiseOnce: discards 2 cards
Wrasse: bets $1000
RaiseOnce: calls $1000
*** SECOND DRAW ***
Wrasse: discards 1 card
RaiseOnce: discards 2 cards
Wrasse: bets $2000
RaiseOnce: raises $2000 to $4000
Wrasse: calls $2000
*** THIRD DRAW ***
Wrasse: discards 1 card
RaiseOnce: stands pat
Wrasse: checks
RaiseOnce: checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Wrasse: shows [8c 6d 5h 2c Jh] (Lo: J,8,6,5,2)
RaiseOnce: shows [3d 8s Ts 4h 2d] (Lo: T,8,4,3,2)
RaiseOnce collected $16998 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $17000 | Rake $2
Seat 1: Wrasse (small blind) showed [8c 6d 5h 2c Jh] and lost with Lo: J,8,6,5,2
Seat 5: oogee (big blind) folded before the Draw
Seat 6: RaiseOnce (button) showed [3d 8s Ts 4h 2d] and won ($16998) with Lo: T,8,4,3,2

5. Live Buy-ins via Pokerstars

RaiseOnce registered for the £20,000 High Roller London EPT event via Pokerstars. He also registered for the 25,000 Euros EPT High Roller Event in Monte Carlo via Pokerstars. The EPT is owned by Pokerstars so registering via them is the easiest way. Now these events had a very small number of entrants.

The Americans who played the London EPT Highroller:

Chris Moneymaker
Dennis Phillips
Greg Raymer
Vanessa Rousso
Steve O’Dwyer
Nicholas Schulman
Erik Sediel
Dan Shak
David Steicke
Vadim Trincher
Brian Powell
Joe Cada
Tom Dwan
Chris Ferguson
Matt Glantz
Barry Greenstein
Ashton Griffin
Phil Ivey
John Juanda
Harrison Kaczka
Eugene Katchalov
Bryn Kenney

As you can see many of those names have very well known Pokerstars IDs, particularly the PokerStars Pros. So if we actually remove those names we get:

Erik Seidel
Phil Ivey
Dan Shak
David Steicke
Vadim Trincher
Brian Powell
Chris Ferguson
Matt Glantz
John Juanda

If we then take off the players who didnt play the Monte Carlo EPT High Roller we get:

Phil Ivey
Chris Ferguson
Dan Shak
David Steicke
John Juanda
Erik Seidel

Then if you ask yourself who plays the highest stakes games on Full Tilt out of those you only really end up with:

Phil Ivey

6: Availability. Yes again hardly evidence (as in no.1) but building a full picture here.

Phil Ivey is currently in London but there is a bit of a gap in events. His had busted from events in progress and had a while to wait before the WSOPE 10K Heads-up and the WSOPE Main Event. A perfect time to have a crack at the $25K Heads-up WCOOP on Pokerstars.

7. Playing Style Similarities

RaiseOnce on Pokerstars has a very similar playing style to Phil Ivey on Full Tilt. And I dont just mean to the naked eye, but using a range of PT3 stats. The style/stats also arent very similar to any other high stakes players. Many of the stats are very close to or in the same orientation/magnitute as the Full Tilt account. For example his C-bet Percentage in limit holdem and the amount he calls from the BB when playing Heads-up games.

In conclusion, hello Phil

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.

Durrrr (Tom Dwan) is taking on Jungleman12 in a second prong of his Million Dollar Challenge. His match against Patrik Antonius isnt actually finished but he is going to run two at the same time.

The challenge basically works with Durrrr putting up $1 million, and the challenger (Jungleman12) putting up $500,000. Then they play 50,000 hands at either NLHE or PLO. Whoever finishes up from those 50,000 hands scoops the $1.5 Million prizepool.

Jungleman12 is Daniel Cates. He is a regular at the high stakes tables and a respected player. He is up around $3.3 million from his games at Full Tilt in the last year. He also coaches at the site Card Runners.

If you are intested in following the challenge then sign-up to Full Tilt Poker

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.

Peter Eastgate has announced his retirement from poker. The 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event champion has decided it is time to call it a day and move on to new things.

Eastgate’s short but successful career comprised of many high WSOP and EPT cashes including the following notable scores:

Mar 2010 - $20K NBC National Heads-Up Championship - 5th $ 75,000

Feb 2010 - Deep Stack Extravaganza, Las Vegas - 7th $ 85,000

Feb 2010 - DKK 35,000 Main Event EPT Copenhagen - 22nd DKK 80,000

Jan 2010 - €5K Main Event EPT Deauville - 8th € 70,000

Oct 2009 - £5K Main Event EPT London - 2nd £ 530,000

Jul 2009 - $10K WSOP Main Event - 78th $ 68,979

Jan 2009 - $4,800 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure 1st $ 343,000

Jul 2008 - $10K WSOP, Las Vegas - 1st $ 9,152,416

Eastgate, from Denmark, but living in London is speculated to return to his homeland following his retirement.

In a statement about his retirement Eastgate said:

“When I started playing poker for a living, it was never my goal to spend the rest of my life as a professional poker player. My goal was to become financially independent. I achieved that by winning the WSOP main event in 2008. The period following has taken me on a worldwide tour, where I have seen some amazing places and met many new people; it has been a great experience.”

“In the 20 months following my WSOP win, I feel that I have lost my motivation for playing high-level poker along the way. I have decided that now is the time to find out what I want to do with the rest of my life. What this will be, I do not yet know. I have decided to take a break from live tournament poker, and try to focus on Peter Eastgate, the person.”

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.

Since Tom “Durrrr” Dwan became a member of Team Full Tilt there has been a promise to play more tournaments, so this year at the WSOP Durrrr is really going to go for it on the tournament volume. As a bit of encouragement he has been taking bets on himself getting a bracelet. He offered 3.25-1 on him getting a bracelet this year (including the WSOP Events in London) and 2-1 on him getting 2 bracelets in 3 years. In other words to bet against him you would need to put up $32,500 to win a $10,000 profit if he didnt win one this year. Those odds look pretty decent. Durrrr is a great player, but pretty much unproven in majors MTTs, and the WSOP does have many events with huge field sizes, so winning a bracelet is going to be far from easy. Whether he wins the bet only time will tell, but as a betting man I would bet against it for sure. Nevertheless, good luck Durrrr.

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

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.