e su is 2
stackedâ™ issue 2 | autumn 2008 | luck, what luck?
$200,000
World series giveaway! see p19!
World champion sociation w i as
th
pages of advanced strategy
Learn how to: n Shoot down satellites n Make the perfect bet n Defend blinds like a pro
in
Which player will reign triumphant at the $9m November Nine final table?
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autumn 2008 | contents
stacked♠ community
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Word on the Street Read which players have been having their say in the PKR forums
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Bet Sizing Make sure you consider all the factors when weighing up a bet
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Gear Club PKR launches a brand new line of top poker merchadise
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Community Card PKR TV is putting you in the starring role on the small screen
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Player Focus gladheateher shares his thoughts on multi-table tournaments
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Casting a Wide Net The PKR Cast hit the World Series of Poker hard and fast
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The PKR Masters There were outdraws and big names aplenty in the August Masters
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Grudge Match PKR’s most aggressive young players go at it hammer and tongs features
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Mtt STRATEGY
How close to extinction are you? A balanced chip stack strategy will give you a fighting chance in every tournament that you play
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Player Focus TheSqueeze is trading in the bank for the life of a pro poker player Blind Defence Playing back from the blinds can make or break any sit-and-go
back section
Player Focus mayotacker is a dangerous man to have at your cash table
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Cash Converter Turning your hand from tournaments to ring games is easy if you know how to change your game
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p32
SNG STRATEGY
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CASH STRATEGY
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Shooting Satellites These tournaments are a great way to boost your bankroll
The Final Countdown Which player of the November Nine will walk away with the WSOP Main Event bracelet and $9m? Playing Live PKR Live shuffles up for the very first time. Learn how to spot tells and keep cool under pressure
p16
Stuff to buy
Oktobefest There’s a guaranteed $270,000 being put up in toutnament prizes in the Oktoberfest festival. Make it yours
The Clinic Danski and Jabba go head to head to decide whether it’s ever correct to lay down the nuts
cover image manipulation: Linda Duong, Lee Pettet, Adam Gryko, Karl Dolenc, Linda Duong, simfo, Sharon Dominick
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Test Your Know How Think you know your bubble play from your implied odds? Try our quiz and see what you really know
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Tournament diary Find out who has been winning the biggest tournaments at PKR and how to qualify for them
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River Rage PKR TV host Colin Morris vents his spleen at the threemonth delay of the World Series final table
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welcome | ed’s letter
THE last man standing… Don’t miss out on your chance to become a world beater
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STACKED♠ Editor Rick Dacey, Design by Graham Greig, Subeditor Ben Sneath, Commercial Director Tim Farthing, Project Manager Liz Moores,
Snr Production Controller Kate Faulkner, Production Manager Mark Young, Reproduction by Mullis Morgan Imaging, Chief Executive James Tye, Chairman Felix Dennis pkr people Colin Morris Media Manager, Dan Grant Community Manager, James Bach Poker Operations Executive, Neil Wright Cardroom Manager, Simon Prodger Marketing Director, Malcolm Graham Chief Executive Officer, Dmitriy Shlyuger CRM Manager Published by Dennis Publishing Ltd, 30 Cleveland Street, London W1T 4JD, a company registered in England number 1138891 Entire contents ©PKR ltd. Milennium House, Ollivier Street, St Anne, Alderney
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stacked♠
Dennis Communications
photography: laura cadenazzi
Rick Dacey Editor
o you remember the bite of excitement of making your first final table? It’s an exhilarating yet terrifying feeling. You’re thrilled that you’ve already won your buy-in back several times over but you could so easily turn this into a missed opportunity. You might pass when you should call. You might check when you should bet. Each street of each hand has ramifications and one foot wrong could see your first final table chances dead before they’ve really begun. Now imagine that pressure multiplied as you contest a $32.6m final table prize pool and the World Championship title. On top of that you have to wait three months between the tenth player being sent to the rail and the first card of the final table being dealt. This is exactly the strain that the players at the WSOP Main Event final table are under. Dubbed the November Nine, each player may have already bagged close to $1m but the chance to write themselves into the history books will be the thing that sends them to bed smiling and makes them wake up worrying. Discomfort aside every one of us would kill (not literally, I hope) for the chance to be there playing for the biggest prize of them all. And what’s great about poker is that you can. There is nothing to stop you being next year’s Dennis Phillips, a 53-year old part-time player who works for a trucking company by day but come July is the Main Event chip leader. Take a look at our WSOP Main Event final table preview (p16, The Final Countdown) to see if you can pick this year’s winner, and find out how to win some of the $200,000 of WSOP packages that PKR are giving away free. Failing to win a World Series of Poker bracelet in your lifetime is excusable. Not trying isn’t.
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community | forum chat
All-in players Fantabulous So, you’ve found
brutusnr1
Zabeen
mickyclearyUK
The love for the game brutusnr1 I love playing poker and
what I love about it is when I make a move or put an opponent on something and feel like – wow – that I did great. But it can just as much be the other way around. You think you trapped a guy and post-river bets start to fly, then at showdown you see his cards and realise you were owned from the flop forward and he managed to take maximum chips from you. When you’re outplayed I will definitely congratulate him for a very well played hand. When I was playing james666 he said something to me that means more than the $ of the tourney. james666: respect… It’s just a small word but if you respect each other, love the game, know when you are outplayed and try to see it from your opponent’s view, and then stand up and tell him you admire his play – then you know you got my respect as well. Zabeen Nice sentiment and well put. “I’d rather be outplayed than sucked out on” springs to mind. Remember it’s those memories we bottle up in poker to help us get through the bad times. mickyclearyUK Good stuff mate. I haven’t had the best time of it lately with my online game but I’ve been trying to see things for what they are, instead of flying off the handle and being a total muppet. It should work both ways, whether you’re having a really good patch of form or luck, or you’re in the doldrums of despair with a bad downswing. Very nice thread mate, it’s put a lot of things into perspective. brutusnr1 Thanks for all the responses guys – it really does mean a lot to me. I know it’s hard sometimes to look from another person’s view but that way the big losses feel a little bit less painful.
yourself at a table with a really aggressive all-in player who just keeps on winning with low-ranked hands after getting it in pre-flop. Just how are you supposed to counter it ? I tried waiting for a good hand only to be knocked out with something like 8-4 offsuit. It is so infuriating. Surely the odds of winning can’t be that stacked? stetorres9 Don’t play against him, play against everyone else, if you have a monster and he is yet to act, there’s not much you can do, but it will come good more often than not in the long run!
fantabulous stetorres9
mrtortoise
mrtortoise Well, if it’s a sit-and-go
what’s wrong with an easy second place? Sometimes someone does seem to keep hitting two outers but you can’t let that change the way you play against them. If you do then you are giving them enough money to make an uber aggressive style pay. Just wait for a hand. A profitable session comes from three or four hands; two that you win and maybe a couple of big folds. The rest is just a dance.
street talk
Whether blowing off steam or discussing strategy, the PKR forum is the place to muse your poker problems
PKR Forum Olympics Event #2 - Poker Wisdom PKR_Danski With joints
loosened and nerves settled, it’s time to show how deep your expertise of the game goes with our PKR_Danski Poker Wisdom event! In UNDER 50 WORDS, post your most valuable tip, your Greensteinesque analysis of the game or your offbeat but ingenious angle on our favourite pursuit. Make us better at poker, or make Jabba a winning player, and you’re in with another shot at a place on our virtual podium and could win a $55 TV Showdown or $30 PKR Open ticket. Best of luck! Azurecoil Those who play poker often make the mistake of thinking that they are only playing one game, as opposed to three;
Azurecoil
Waterlou
srw46
1. The metagame 2. The perilous joust with lady luck, and most importantly; 3. The game against oneself! Waterlou Poker is like a horserace. You may be well in front after the off, but it’s only reaching the finish line first that counts. Sometimes they’ll even beat you on the very last metre (on the river). srw46 Playing poker is a lot like making love to a beautiful woman, you have to target the soft spot, stay hard, control the pot and always pay attention to position.
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my pkr | oktoberfest
take on the world …and win! Oktoberfest 2008: $270,000 of guaranteed tournaments
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n 17 October the legendary PKR Oktoberfest opens its doors to another smorgasbord of top poker action. Twelve tournaments over as many days could see you turn your PKR account from a few hundred dollars into tens of thousands, bagging you not just a tidy bankroll but huge bragging rights if you are the outsanding player crowned Oktoberfest Champion! There is a wide variety of tournaments that caters for all tastes with buy-ins ranging from $25 up to a chunky $250 in the PKR Masters. There are shorthanded and speed tournaments for players that like their action fast and
frantic and there are also deep-stacked and limit tournaments for players who appreciate clean clinical finishing. Whatever you do, don’t miss the Team PKR bounty tournament. Knock out any of the PKR staff – you know you want to – and you’ll score $200 for your troubles. If you finish in the top 50 of any event you’ll be given a free berth in a massive $5,000 freeroll. If you manage to win any of the guaranteed events, or finish in the top 10 of the Oktoberfest leaderboard, you’ll win a seat in the exclusive Tournament of Champions freeroll where a handful of the best players will battle over a very tasty $5,000 prize pool! n
Oktoberfest 2008 Date
Event / Tournament
17 October
$20,000 guaranteed No-Limit Hold’em
18 October
$25,000 guaranteed Deep stack Hold’em (six-seat) $75
19 October
$30,000 guaranteed No-limit Hold’em
$65
20 October
$10,000 guaranteed Deep and steep Hold’em
$25
21 October
$10,000 guaranteed Pot-limit Omaha
$40
22 October
$17,500 guaranteed Team PKR bounty Hold’em
$30
23 October
$7,500 guaranteed Limit Hold’em
$25
24 October
$15,000 guaranteed Terminator Tournament
$40
25 October
$100,000 guaranteed PKR Masters
26 October
$25,000 guaranteed No-limit Hold’em (six-seat)
30 October
$5,000 freeroll
2 November
Tournament of Champions freeroll Free
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stacked♠
Buy-in $40
$50
For all the latest info and details check
Free
www.pkr.com
$250
stackedâ™
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image: Andrey Prokhorov
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community | PKR TV
Watch
PKR TV on satellite television and on the internet
pkr on the box The PKR revolution is being televised and you can be one of its superstars today
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elevision has a lot to do with how poker has grown over the last few years and now you can be involved in the next step of the game’s evolution. PKR, which is set apart from other sites by its innovative and realistic graphics, launched PKR TV this summer showcasing the top action from high octane final tables such as the $100,000 guaranteed PKR Masters, all with running commentary from PKR experts.
Where can I watch it? PKR TV began life on two UK Sky channels (842 & 157) before expanding to satellite channels in more than 30 countries across Europe. PKR TV has now been added to a selection of Freeview channels such as Virgin Media, and is also available from PKR’s own YouTube channel at http://uk.youtube. com/user/PKRTV.
Who are the commentary team? Irreverent host Colin Morris is supported by his wingmen James ‘Jabba’ Bach and 8
stacked♠
Dan ‘Danski’ Grant (thats me) to provide commentary, insights and plenty of ribbing. Throw into the mix the charming Paulie ‘Two Flutes’ Condron who twiddles the knobs in the background, and you’ve got a winning mix.
How do I get onto the show? You’ve got two shots each and every week to make it onto PKR TV to bag yourself some fame and fortune for as little as a $55 buy-in (and even less if you satellite in, see p48 Shooting Satellites). Reach the final table of one of our designated TV tournaments and you’ll
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Episodes will be shown on TV within two weeks of the final taking place and are streamed on www.youtube. com the following week
book your spot on the small screen. Enter either the $10,000 guaranteed TV Tournament ($100 buy-in) every Thursday or Saturday evening’s premier event, the $20,000 guaranteed TV Showdown ($55 buy-in). Episodes will be shown on TV within two weeks of taking place and are streamed on the PKR www.youtube.com page the following week. Keep an eye on PKR’s tournament schedule too because festivals such as the Super Series and the upcoming Oktoberfest will also get showcased on PKR TV.
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community | PKR TV
Q&A
Chief Operating Officer Leon Walters gives us a mouth watering taste of upcoming developments
In fact, the Oktoberfest is the next big thing in our sights and its key tournaments will hit PKR TV this October. There are also a number of exciting new developments on their way, such as the possibility of televised high stakes cash game tables. Check out the PKR TV section of the PKR Forums for breaking news as it comes.n Dan ‘PKR_Danski’ Grant is the PKR Community Manager. You can play him in PKR’s bounty tournaments online.
Watch PKR TV now! Epic clashes, sick calls and barbed final table putdowns are at fingertips There’s more than 25 episodes of PKR TV available to view and it that time weíve seen some unbelievable hands, classy moves and shocking lay downs! Renedesí famous As Ac fold (Episode 5, 03 March) set the forums on fire for weeks, while whiskymacís wild inebriated antics (Episode 14) entertained us all. In only the second MTT shown on PKR TV viewers witnessed an epic clash between DRFrever, sourshark, RudWolf & theruffler (03 May TV Showdown).
stacked♠ We’ve heard that there are developments aplenty at the moment, Leon, what can we expect? There are a lot of things that we’ve been working on in terms of both community and game play. PKR probably has the richest community of any poker site in the world and that’s partly due to the nature of our game play so we wanted to increase those social networking aspects further. Currently you can only make friends with someone if you’re sat at their table, so we’re changing that to add search functionality within the game client. It will be more similar to some of the social networking sites out there in that being friends becomes a two-way connection. Your friends’ activity will be reported to you via a news feed in the client homepage. It’s pretty major. So if one of your friends cashes in the PKR Masters you can leave them a congratulatory message? Kind of, friend to friend private messaging isn’t something we’re doing for obvious reasons but you will be able post messages on their public profile pages. Actually, you’ll be able to find out whenever they cash immediately with the news feed function. It will alert you whenever any of your registered friends make the money in a tournament, adds a new game, changes their status and so on. And should you win a tournament
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The last longer bet utility will let friends and rivals wager against each other to see who can outlast the other in a tournament
yourself you’ll be able to expect more of a celebration. At the moment when you win a tournament the final table wraps up and you collect your cash without much of a fanfare, which is something we’re going to change. I don’t want to spoil the surprise so I won’t say much more. What else is the research and development team working on? There’s a lot going on behind the scenes, mostly focused on scalability and rebuy functionality but also include things such as a time bank, deal wizard and last longer bets. The deal wizard will allow final table players to discuss chopping money at the end of a tournament. The last longer bet utility will let friends and rivals wager against each other to see who can outlast the other in any given tournament. It’s really all about the poker, but we’re also deep into three new playing environments, including Egyptian style casino and China Town settings as well as new animations. We’re also pushing the 3D technology forward. What kind of timescale can we expect to see all these exciting new bits? We can’t release all of these things at once so they’ll be staggered over the coming months. Our immediate priorities are infrastructure and poker features. We’re working hard on some improvements in the next few weeks. As well as making the site run more efficiently it will also lead to us being able to host deeper field tournaments and rebuy tournaments. n stacked♠
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community | Your problems solved
THE CLINIC+
Doctors Jabba and Danski are on hand to dish out bitter medicine to the ill and sick
The diagnosis: Doctor Jabba Ok, let’s not get too bogged down in the maths and equations that prove the optimal play is to call. Suffice to say the only hand player A does not want to see is T♣ J♣ which would give his opponent the same nut straight with a huge redraw to the flush.µ Paranoia that player B has this hand is not sufficient reason to fold the nuts with 25% of his stack invested. Poker is a game of imperfect information and playing with scared money will vastly reduce expectation in graduated prize pool tournaments such as the Big One. What we should really be focussing on here is not folding the nuts. I can think of several situations in multi-way pots where I should/could have folded the nuts with strong arguments to back that decision. The cardinal sin of poker and the key information which proves that player A is NOT a genius is his final bet. The lack of forethought or planning here is obvious and ugly. The only universal rule in poker is ‘never lay a bet or raise without planning your response to more action’. If player A was planning to fold to the reshove when he raised the 3k bet to 11k, then why did he raise so much? If he was scared of the free rolling straight then why open the door to a ‘tournament life’ decision. Did he not think about it? The simple fact of the matter is that he shouldn’t lay
T
Flop
with his flopped nut straight. Player B instantly check-raises from the small blind to 3,000. Player C throw his hand away. The decision is back on player A who reraises to 11,000 leaving himself 30,000 chips behind. Player B has player A covered and thinks for a short while before announcing that he is all-in. Player A, who has 25% of his stack in the pot already and still currently holds the nuts, goes into the tank. After thinking for some time he lays the hand down.
A dangerous looking flop is checked by player B and C to player A who bets outs 1,000 into the 1,800 pot
Before reading the doctors’ opinions decide whether you think this is the worst play in the history of poker or a legendary laydown.
his situation had forumites at each other’s necks during the World Series with players arguing that this fold was one of the best or worst laydowns in the history of poker. The action starts with the protagonist, player A, limping from middle position with J♦ 10♥. Player B completes from the small blind and player C checks the big blind.
out 25% of his stack and then fold the nuts when he could have peeled off the turn and even the river to find out how far ahead or behind he could be. The only logical reason to re-pop to 11k is build a monster pot whilst he is ahead and his opponent is drawing. This is not a ‘feeler’ bet to find out where he is. He knows where he is. He has the best possible hand. He just isn’t sure that he will still have the best of it when fifth street hits the felt. To sum up, you should never put a large percentage of your chips in the middle and then fold! It is a truly terrible play in my professional opinion. Player A can now be found on Blackpool beach chomping at the bit and complaining of backache…. Eeeeeee hawwwwww! n
The second opinion: Doctor Danski I’ll set out my stall immediately – I think it might just be the fold of the century. While Jabba rants about shocking play, I’ll start by claiming that there are very few absolutes in poker. This situation simply cannot be read as ‘I have the nuts, I must call.’ Sure, you don’t fold the nuts that often, but ignore ‘relativity’ at your peril. You should ask yourself these two questions in a big hand: What range can I put him on and what then is my equity in the hand? I highly doubt that Player B has one
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community | pkr cast
Do you need sick treatment? If you got yourself into a tricky situation and want the doctors to diagnose your poker problem send us the full details of the hand to us at stacked@pkr.com. Include a hand history if it took place on PKR
Casting a wide Net
The PKR team hunted down the biggest names in Las Vegas to get a shout out to PKR players
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KR player ChivalrousGent can dodge bullets, or so says 10-time World Series bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth. The poker brat’s shout out to the PKR regular was just one of the many that Jabba and Danski broadcast from Las Vegas during this year’s WSOP. If you missed the PKRcast this summer you can find all of the interviews at www.pkr.com/poker-community. Don’t miss the new episode out, which is delves into the subject of online poker, variance and the human mind’ - a subject that anyone that plays cards should immerse themselves in! See if you can put
your mind on a track for success. The PKRCast boys then turn their heads to the WSOPE, where they’ll be harassing more top pros on your behalf. Email the team on pkrcast@ pkr.com if you want them to hunt down your favourite player, but stacked♠ can’t guarantee that they’ll be kind about your username! And while you’re at you may bag yourself a ticket into a $100 televised tournament. Each week Danski and Jabba give out a ticket to the person that sends in the email that makes them laugh the most. They have just one rule for subject matter: no strategy! Email the team today. n
THE TEAM The podcast is recorded with loving care that can only be created when you stick a bunch of poker fanatics in a small room James BacH The second in the trio of resident poker pros is limit hold‘em expert Jabbawa who has a sharp mind for the game, and an even sharper tongue. Dan GranT Resident expert and up-and-coming poker pro Danski is on hand to offer expertise as well as giving the inside track on the wild and wonderful world of poker.
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photography: laura cadenazzi, alessandra cHila, christine balderas, Sebastian Meckelmann
pair or two pair, given the heavy action. You can assume his range covers top set, the nut straight (with flush draw) or a big flush draw (with a straight draw). Your hand heavily dominates exactly none of these. Worst case, he has J♣ T♣ and you’re in big trouble. Best case? He flips over an appallingly played set. That’s the best you can hope for, and hope is the enemy of good poker. So you’re all-in at the start of Day 2 with a 30% chance of getting busted. Couldn’t you increase your stack to 80,000 at lower risk? Risking your tournament life is to be avoided, so says 11-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth. The more you do it, the less likely you’ll be there at the end. Put another way, doubling up on the first hand of an MTT (let’s say 200-runner) isn’t going to give you much more than 1% extra chance of winning, yet losing reduces your chance to 0%! This fold shows a serious thought process at work (if you’ll ignore the atrocity of re-raising to 11,000!). Although poker is NOT results-orientated, we later learnt that Player B claimed to have had A♣ J♣ – making him 42% against the nut straight. My verdict: Great but marginal fold. I’m not saying I would have folded, but to Jabba, I say: “Few great players would be insta-calling here. They’d at least take some time. Ignoring hand relativity while holding the nuts is….nuts.” n
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community | tournament report
$100,000 ♣ ♦ ♥ ♠ ♥
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M A S T E R S
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p k r
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Forza Italia!
The unstoppable PKR Masters hosted yet another recordbreaking field in July as 527 runners anted up to take their shot at a mammoth $131,750 prize pool. Although 60 players cashed there could only ever be one winner and that glory fell to Italian Toms2up who scooped $31,620
ASTRALIS made it to the big money with a couple of final table scalps but ran into problems when her top pair was outkicked on a low flop 12
stacked♠
Cash game player james666 showed that he could push and shove with the best of them and was unlucky to go out with A-J against K-10
CASH photography: Lawrence Sawyer
Runner-up BokitoNL showed down Aces twice at the final table but a flopped two-pair critically swung the momentum of the heads-up
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Toms2up was up and down like a yo-yo at the final table, but hung on to reverse BokitoNL's strong chip lead and take the PKR Masters title
that really changed the game. Shoving ven though it's your own record over top of a couple of limpers with A-J, to break, the month-on-month growth of the PKR Masters shows james666 was overcalled by Toms2up just how much hunger you have for who held a marginal K-10 which won high-octane, big-money tournaments out. It busted one of the most dangerous (which you can watch with commentary players at the table and gave the loose on PKR TV). The August Masters lasted Toms2up more ammunition. seven hours before the money bubble British player scottceltsrae was next burst, proving that endurance is just as to go, ironically claiming eighth when important as skill and a touch of luck. his pocket eights failed to outdraw If a tournament was a marathon, then ASTRALIS's bigger pair. KranK wasn’t far it was azzjas that tried to lead the late behind as he chose a nasty time to make breakaway on this final a stand by pushing A-8 into table – and failed. Firstly BokitoNL’s pocket rockets. PKR Masters his K-J was crushed by vincevegas33's K-Q got Buy-in $250 the A-K of vincevegas33 him in trouble against Entrants 527 to leave him shortToms2up’s A-Q and he Prize pool $131,750 stacked. He then suffered was all-in and out on the big Starting Chips 5,000 a dominated Ace outdraw blind the very next hand. from xoxo64 before tripling mylovelyHORSE up with Jacks and falling to Toms2up. had quietly cantered into fourth but proceeded to fall with an A-5 shove xoxo64 had dragged himself closer to the pack but felt compelled to call all-in into the 10-10 of ASTRALIS, who was with J-10 against vincevegas33’s Queens then unfortunate to spike on a nine-high but it was the death of james666, a board with K-9 against fellow Dutchman player better known for his cash game, BokitoNL who outkicked him with A-9.
The mammoth pot sent BokitoNL into the heads up with a dominating chip lead but a flopped two-pair against Toms2up's small set reversed the pair's fortunes. One ill-timed shove later and the sixth Masters title was winging its way to Italy, courtesy of Toms2up. n
The final table 1st
Toms2up
$31,620
2nd
BokitoNL
$18,445
3rd
ASTRALIS
$11,857
4th
mylovelyHORSE $8,563
5th
vincevegas33
$6,587
6th
KranK
$5,270
7th
scottceltsrae
$3,952
8th
james666
$2,635
9th
xoxo64
$2,042
10th
azzjas
$1,646
How to play in the Masters
Italian Toms2up won $31,620 and the title after revealing a slowplayed top pair with A♥ J ♦ that left opponent BokitoNL very thin on outs
There are several routes open to you if you want to play in the monthly PKR Masters $100,000 guaranteed. You could buy-in off the cuff for $250, qualify through sit-and-go or multi-table satellites or even through premium freerolls using PKR points. Go to www.pkr.com/pokerpromotions for a full list of qualifiers.
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community | grudge match
vakostar
Described as a relentless machine at the table, 25-year old Swede vakostar is well up since joining PKR. A denizen of the dangerous $5/$10 tables, he knows the importance of aggression and certainly isn’t afraid to use it!
HoldemGosu
This 21-year old Canadian is very much a regular at PKR’s $5/$10 and $10/$20 cash tables. Although he has a $5,307 tournament victory to his name, HoldemGosu is known as a dangerous cash game specialist.
grudge match
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holdemgosu It’s the part of the mag where we not only vakostar let bare-knuckle combat take place – we encourage it. Bring it on!
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hat happens when you put two piranhas in the same tank? Would they circle each other, darting in to nip a small bit off here or bite a chunk off there – or would they just snarl and throw themselves into the fray? We weren’t sure so we thought we’d find out. We got our answer just four minutes into the stacked♠ Grudge Match, albeit thanks to two premium hands. HoldemGosu, who had built up a slight lead with $5,660 to $4,340, raised from the button with A♠ A♥ to $60, which vakostar happily re-raised to $190 with his A♣ K♠. It was a perfect situation for HoldemGosu who knew that there was a very good chance that a four-bet raise could be read as an act of heads-up aggression just as easily as it could a declaration of a premium hand. With bullying raises and re-raises it didn’t take long for all the money to go in the middle. It took even less time for vakostar to realise that his chances
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last as long as issue one’s two-hour spectacular between james666 and Najammq. In fact, it looked highly unlikely that the match would reach the second There’s a very good chance blind level given the rate the chips were moving. Somehow HoldemGosu got that a four-bet raise could himself back into the game and was sat read as an act of heads-up on just over $3,000 around the 25-minute aggression just as easily mark, where a big play from vakostar was snapped off to turn the match around as a first-class hand (see Turning the tide, right). HoldemGosu continued to apply the pressure and went for the knockout blow for survival were thin and hanging on re-raising all-in with a J♠ 6♠ flush draw the hopes of a 7% outdraw. And that on a 7♦ 2♠ 3♠ flop. vakostar called included the 1.35% chance of a with top pair good kicker in the split pot. One flukey riveredform of K♣ 7♠ making him straight later and the a 57% favourite to double Swede was sat on a back into contention. The monster $8,680 stack Then send us an email at turn and river fell blank with HoldemGosu stacked@pkr.com with your 8♥ and 3♦ and vakostar left cursing his screenname and the player scooped the $4,246 pot. cracked Aces! you want to challenge, plus Could the Swede possibly It didn’t look likely your reason for challenging swing the momentum that this bout would them to hand-to-hand
Do you wanna fight?
combat. 14
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Turning the tide
After his early setback HoldemGosu drops the 7-2 hammer suspected continuation bet from HoldemGosu who pushes out $200. 4
HoldemGosu vakostar
$3,080
$6,920
Blinds 30/60 (top) Position is power so
The 2♦ gives vakostar a gutshot draw which he attacks with a $444 bet. HoldemGosu has hit two-pair on the turn and raises to $999. 5
raising with any holding is very understandable. HoldemGosu makes it $180 with a suited 7-2. back his way? Unfortunately for him the answer appeared to be no as he leaked another $1,000 chips over the next few hands which led inevitably to another match-shifting all-in.
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vakostar has the choice of giving up on the $2,203 pot or shoving back with his thin draw. Calling is not an option. The Swede pushes all-in with Ace-high and a gutshot.
Critical coin toss After an impressive fight that had swung back and forth the final stages of the match came down to a classic race with vakostar’s A♥ K♣ re-raising and then calling all-in against the 9♠ 9♥ of HoldemGosu. This time the Swede’s big slick failed to connect with the flop, turn or river meaning that the pot and a deserved victory was handed to the plucky young Canadian who had ground all the way back from a horrible bad beat in the first level to come out as the victor. So this month’s Grudge Match finds in the favour of HoldemGosu (whom the editor of stacked♠ would personally like to thank as he cleverly backed him for £20 against Jabba). n
Knowing that the button raise could be made by pretty much any two cards, vakostar calls and is ahead with his low-suited Ace.
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The 7♣ 3♦ J♠ flop isn’t pretty for vakostar who check calls a
HoldemGosu is getting around 2.6 to 1 on his chips to call and with no flush or straight on the board it’s a no-brainer. He makes the call, his hand holds up and he’s put himself firmly in the driving seat.
stacked♠
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feature | wsop 2008
the final countdown After 47 days and 54 bracelets the WSOP has packed up and left the Rio, but for nine poker players the journey has only just begun…
dana star / IMPDI
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he road to the WSOP Main Event title is always a long and torturous one, but earlier this year Harrah’s delivered a shock announcement that added another twist to the mix. The 2008 $10,000 Main Event would play down as normal to the final nine on July 14. Then, instead of retiring to bed to dream of untold riches and a place in poker history, the remaining players would bag up their chips, collect their $900,674 ninth placed money (the minimum prize money they would now be guaranteed), fly home and wait 117 days before sitting down at the most important final table of their lives. The news split the poker world down the middle. Harrah’s claimed it as a ‘groundbreaking change’ designed to provide the final nine with an unprecedented media platform guaranteed to boost their already considerable earnings; ESPN boasted of ‘nearly live" television u stacked♠
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feature | wsop 2008
One of these nine players is destined to become the 2008 World Champion, and come November will walk away with the coveted Main Event bracelet as well as over $9m t coverage; and Internet forums the world over flamed with tales of woe. Jeffrey Pollack, the WSOP Commissioner, took the criticism on his all-American chin and vowed that if it wasn’t a success the delay would be abolished in the future. This set the scene for the most controversial Main Event in history, but in a game with few certainties, one fact remained: out of the 6,844 hopefuls who played or bought their way into the $10,000 event, each and every one would kill for the chance to duel in front of the TV cameras. Alongside the $9 million first prize was the chance to mark their place in history alongside such greats as Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth and Johnny Chan. If you’ve never experienced the Main Event in person it’s almost impossible to describe the carnage. Four Day 1s are snapped into two Day 2s before the entire field is squashed together on Day 3 to play on through to the money bubble. This year there were 666 players celebrating as news filtered 18
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Hellmuth jumped out of his seat and started a 10-minute tirade which would earn him a one orbit penalty
through the room that the bubble had burst; Steve Chung was the last player to bust outside the money. Players who had been holding onto the tiniest piles of chips started playing with newfound abandon, but for the big stacks and the big names there was a new focus: to reach the most important, and most watched, World Series of Poker final table ever.
the road to vegas…
$200,000 WSOP giveaway!
You could be playing By the end of Day 5, and with play down to the final nine tables, the Main Event started to heat up. With only minutes left on the clock Phil Hellmuth (Harrah’s biggest draw in the whole field) got into a confrontation with Christian Dragomir. Dragomir had opened the pot with a raise to 80,000 before Hellmuth made it 255,000 to go from the small blind. Dragomir waited a few minutes before making the call, and then fired on the 9♣-10♣-7♠ flop after Hellmuth checked to him. Hellmuth mucked A♠-K♥ in disgust before Dragomir flipped 10♦-4♦. Hellmuth jumped out of his seat and started a 10-minute tirade which would earn him a one orbit penalty, later to be controversially rescinded, at the start of the next day. Meanwhile, one of the only other remaining names, Australian Mark Vos got all his money in, only to run into the Aces of amateur player Dennis Phillips. Vos was dispatched to the rail, while Phillips moved into fifth spot, just behind the u
for millions at the WSOP for free
Packages to be won! ■ 5 x $10,000 World Championship Main Event
■ 1 x $10,000 Heads-up World Championship
■ 1 x $10,000 Potlimit Hold’em World Championship
■ 1 x $10,000 Potlimit Omaha World Championship
■ 3 x $5,000 No-limit Hold’em
■ 2 x $5,000 No-limit Hold’em Shootout
■ 1 x $5,000 Mixed Hold’em
■ 3 x $2,500 Six-Handed No-limit Hold’em
■ 3 x $2,000 No-limit Hold’em
■ 2 x $2,000 Limit Hold’em ■ 4 x $1,500 PLO ■ 3 x $1,500 NLHE ■ 3 x $1,500 SixHanded NLHE
■ 1 x $1,000 Ladies Event
photography: Image masters photography & digital imaging, Joe Giron / IMPDI
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o you want to play in next year's World Series? How about playing in Las Vegas for a bracelet for free! PKR is giving away 33 seats worth $200,000 through its amazing The Road to Vegas promotion. From 15 September each week will see a different package up for grabs – ranging from $1,500 short-handed event entry, all the way up to the $10,000 Main Event. Each package is topped up with $1,500-$2,000 for travel and hotels. All you need to do to be entered into each package's freeroll is meet the weekly criteria, which will vary and cater for all PKR player segments. Check the www.pkr.com blog to make sure that you're ticking all the right boxes and putting yourself in the firing line for a free World Series package.
feature | wsop 2008
u Tiffany Michelle: collected $334,534 as she recorded an impressive 17th place finish
tales from the rail
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rian Clark aka clark77 qualified for the Main Event through a $50 PKR satellite, we caught up with him on his way back from Sin City.
t biggest stacked woman who had been left in the Main Event, Tiffany Michelle who was still running strong. On the penultimate day, Harrah’s last two big horses fell. Hellmuth went out in 45th position and nearly man Mike ‘The Mouth’ Matusow got cold-decked again to depart in 30th. Holding A-J, Matusow re-raised from the big blind to 660,000 following a 200,000 bet from Paul Snead. Both players checked the A♦-A♠-5♥ flop and all the money went into the middle after the 9♥ hit the turn, which had given Snead a three-outer full house with A♣-9♣ to sink the peoples’ champion. Matusow took it well but admitted it was probably his last chance to win the title that he’s been so close to before. For Harrah’s the issue now was one of ratings: who would provide the big story it could hang its hat off for the TV spectacular? At the end of the day, 27 players were left and all eyes were fixed on the huge final table bubble. Tiffany Michelle was Harrah’s last big hope, sitting in third and looking good to become only the second woman ever to make a WSOP Main Event final table. It wasn’t to be though. Just after 5pm on Day 7, Dennis Phillips raised to 500,000 under the gun. Peter Eastgate called and Tiffany Michelle called from the big blind. On a flop of A♦-10♥-9♣, Michelle checked, Phillips bet a cool 1,000,000, Eastgate called and Michelle pushed all her chips in with A♣-J♦. Philips laid his hand down but Eastgate called and tabled A♠-A♥ for top set. Needing running straight cards, Michelle missed and left to a standing ovation. The rest of the field continued to play short-handed until they were down to the last 10 men standing, at which point u
2008 WSOP Main Event Final table payouts 1st $9,119,517 2nd $5,790,024 3rd $4,503,352 4th $3,763,515 5th $3,088,012 6th $2,412,510 7th $1,769,174 8th $1,286,672 9th $900,670 20
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What was it like walking into the Amazon Room for the first time? When I got there I was confronted by 2000 other players all waiting to get in. I took my seat in the most famous poker room in the world and could feel that my dream had come true no matter what my result. I just took a minute to take it all in. What would you do differently if you played next year? I learnt more in the 12 hours I was playing in the WSOP than I had after seven months on PKR! Day 2 was really tough. My stack was just 20,000 so I was forced to play as a short stack until eventually I pushed
clark77 qualified for the Main Event on PKR for $50
with pocket tens and was knocked out by a big stack’s A-Q. I walked out of the room feeling numb, a little like the scene in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. I just felt dizzy and light-headed. for two days after. What advice would you give PKR players heading out for the 2009 WSOP? I think the best thing is to take your time with each decision, act decisively and use aggression at the right time. Get some practice playing live poker as it’s easy to make mistakes. If you don’t say ‘raise’ before you toss a single chip in it will just count as a flat call – it sounds simple but it can catch you out big time! What was your lasting memory from Vegas? This is going to sound stupid, but it has to be the burgers from Wendy’s. They are the most amazing things on the planet!
photography: stephen bayer / IMPDI, christine balderas
An Amazon Room first-timer
feature | wsop 2008
Dennis Phillips
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Chips 26,295,000 / Age 53 From St Louis, USA
Chips 10,210,000 / Age 23 From Arlington, USA
Philips is the oldest and one of the least experienced players at this level (his only previous cash of note was in a WSOP Circuit event for $2,386). Working as a commercial account manager for a trucking company, he took up poker as a hobby four years ago and turned
You might not have heard of Craig Marquis but he counts two of the world’s best online players, Tom ‘Durrr’ Dwan and David ‘Raptor’ Benefield, among his friends. Taking up poker in January 2007, Marquis quickly spun $100 up through the levels from $2/$4 to the $200/$400 games that he plays now. He may be the second smallest
down initial sponsorship offers in favour of wearing his St Louis Cardinals hat and a branded work shirt.
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Craig Marquis
stack but a double-up would make him dangerous – he’s a heads-up specialist who’s not afraid to gamble.
The remaining nine Scott Montgomery
Chips 12,520,000 / Age 39 From Toronto, Canada
One of the most experienced players on the final table, Montgomery can also claim to be the man in form. Before the Main Event he had already cashed for over $400,000 in 2008, including a 5th place finish at the WPT LA Poker Classic. He also made three separate cashes at this year’s WSOP for $73,700. A maths
Describing himself as a ‘weekend poker player’, a number of comparisons can be drawn between Suharto and 2003 champ Chris Moneymaker. Both are accountants that qualified online. Moneymaker won $2.5m and Suharto has already turned his $80 into over $900,000. A tight
student from the University of Waterloo, Montgomery admits his game is ‘insanely, psychotically aggressive.’
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Chips 2,620,000 / Age 31 From California, USA
Despite making most of his money playing online poker, Demidov prefers to call himself a semi-pro. He started playing poker in 2006, and cashed in a $200 PLO tournament in Russia before a solid third place finish in a $1,000 WPT event. He narrowly missed out on another final table in one of this year’s $1,000
Kelly Kim might not have many chips but don’t write him off – he’s a short-stack specialist who made it to the final table shipping his chips at the right moments. He’s played poker since 1995 and switched to concentrate on tournaments in 2003. ‘Obviously I’m in critical condition,’ said Kim, ‘but if I double or triple early then it's
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player who doesn’t take ‘unnecessary risks’, 12m chips make him a rocky force at the final table.
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Kelly Kim
Chips 24,400,000 / Age 27 From Moscow, Russia
WSOP events and wisely invested some of the $39,854 winnings into a Main Event seat.
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Darus Suharto
Chips 19,690,000 / Age 26 From Ontario, Canada
Ivan Demidov Joe Giron / IMPDI , matt mathis / IMPDI, stephen beyer / IMPDI
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on. If I win it’s going to be the biggest comeback ever.’ And everyone loves a plucky underdog…
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Chips 12,525,000 / Age 38 From New York, USA You’ve got to love Ylon Schwartz. He’s a proper old-school gambler who started off hustling chess at 13 before expanding his CV to include pool, darts, backgammon and the horses. He’s stacked up over $250,000 in tournament earnings, including 11 WSOP cashes and cites yoga, meditation
and swimming as the secrets to his success. He promises to ‘drink a whole lot of tequila’ if he wins.
Up close and personal with the November Nine final table David ‘Chino’ Rheem
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Chips 10,230,000 / Age 28 From Florida, USA Harrah’s decision to delay the final table and make stars of the November Nine isn’t going to be easy. This year’s biggest ‘face’ is David ‘Chino’ Rheem. A childhood friend of Michael Mizrachi, he’s recorded five previous WSOP cashes, including a huge second place finish in 2006 to Allen Cunningham which netted him $327,981.
Peter Eastgate
Rheem may not be as heavily chipped up as some of his opponents but he can't be written off quite yet.
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Chips 18,375,000 / Age 22 From Odense, Denmark Eastgate might be known for high-stakes cash games rinsing the $200/$400 short-handed and heads-up tables, but he’s already proved he can switch his skills to the tournament arena final tabling the 2007 Irish Open. His fellow pro, Jacob Rasmussen, was asked if Eastgate was
t the remaining players were compressed on a single table to play out the biggest bubble in WSOP history. While the player to go out in 10th would still get $591,869, it would be almost half of the $900,670 for 9th and they wouldn’t receive the lucrative endorsements that everyone else on the final table would automatically be able to broker. Perceived poker wisdom usually tells you to get busy on the bubble and take advantage of other players’ anxieties but with so much at stake play became excruciatingly tense and, with Kelly Kim protecting the shortest stack on the table with his life, it was over two and a half hours before Dean Hamrick moved all in for 3,420,000 with A♠-J♣. Craig Marquis pushed over the top and his Queens didn’t need to improve when the board came down K♣-10♥3♦-10♦-K♠. Hamrick left to contemplate what should have been as the remaining players started to celebrate. The November Nine as they’ve been dubbed will start playing, aptly enough, on November 9, with the following chip counts and seat assignments. Seat 1: Dennis Phillips - 26,295,000 Seat 2: Craig Marquis - 10,210,000 Seat 3: Ylon Schwartz - 12,525,000 Seat 4: Scott Montgomery - 19,690,000 Seat 5: Darus Suharto - 12,520,000 Seat 6: David ‘Chino’ Rheem - 10,230,000 Seat 7: Ivan Demidov - 24,400,000 Seat 8: Kelly Kim - 2,620,000 Seat 9: Peter Eastgate - 18,375,000 There are 21 minutes and 50 seconds left remaining in level 33 with the blinds at 120,000/240,000 and a 30,000 ante. Kelly Kim is the obvious candidate to fall first as the short stack has just four orbits of play left in him at the starting level. To make matters worse he’s got the second biggest stack of Demidov on his right, and the chip leader on the big blind when he’s got the button. The two big stacks meanwhile are just about far enough away from each to avoid an early confrontation. Kim’s going to have to hope he picks up a hand early on before he's forced to get it in with a marginal hand. Also watch out for Scott Montgomery and Craig Marquis to push the action early. Both are hyper-aggressive and out for the win. US broadcaster ESPN has the worldwide broadcasting rights and is expected to stream the action live on ESPN360 – albeit without the hole cards. Check worldseriesofpoker.com for subscription details near November 9. ■
American supremacy Do the yanks still rule poker?
the next Gus Hansen. He replied, ‘Not really. It’s more like Gus Hansen is the first Peter Eastgate.’
Players from 118 different countries played in this year’s Main Event and when the bubble burst in Rest of 667th place, 58 nationalities the world 225 were left. Although some 66% of the those left were American almost half the final table is Canadian or European so the yanks still have plenty left to do.
USA 441
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WSOP
Ylon Schwartz
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Live poker The first ever PKR Live tournament takes place in the heart of London this November, make sure that you’re at the top of your game!
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feature | playing live
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here are some major differences between live poker and online poker but if you’ve never played in the flesh before you’ll find the biggest is the pressure. If you think making decisions is difficult when you’re in the comfort of your own home then imagine what it’s like when there are nine poker players trying to stare into your soul across the baize. You may have played in the $100,000 Masters, you may have even mixed it up at some of the biggest cash games at PKR but unless you’ve played live before you won’t be able to appreciate the spikes of adrenaline and moments of dread you experience when playing live. Luckily for you, the next few pages are going to give a crash course in live tournament play by schooling you to avoid the most basic embarrassing mistakes and live poker faux pas. And if you’re a regular in bricks and mortar poker then we’ll be able to take your game to the next level by helping you to spot those all important tells and show you how to hide your own giveaway twitches. Now all you need to do is to qualify for the $75,000 tournament…u
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pkr live Three days, three tournaments and side action aplenty at London’s Loose Cannon club When is it? 14-16 November 2008 Where is it? Loose Cannon Club, All Hallows Lane, London, UK The Welcome Tournament Prize pool $9,000 Date 14 November 2008 The festival kicks off on Friday night with a $60 freezeout and a 150-runner capacity. Playing this freezeout is a great way for players lacking live experience to steady their hands before the Main Event. Start your weekend firing on all cylinders.
The Main Event Prize pool $75,000 Date 15-16 November The PKR Live show piece is a two-day $500 freezeout with a whopping great $75,000 guaranteed prize pool and $20,000 first place pay out. The Main Event’s 2pm start should be enough time for everyone to recover from Friday night.
The Bounty Freeroll Prize pool $10,000 Date 16 November What better way to finish the weekend off than to compete in a $10,000 freeroll! If you bust any PKR staff in the event you’ll notch up a tasty cash bounty as well as the chance to mock them for their poor play. Teach them a lesson in humility! Entry to all three events are included in the $1,000 online satellite package.
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feature | playing live
the mechanics of playing live Follow these six steps to a mistake free tournament Always think before you act because actions and verbal announcements are binding. If it’s your turn and you jokingly say, ‘All-in,’ you will have to put your chips across the line. If you say raise you must raise at least the minimum legal amount, you can’t suddenly change your mind and decide to call instead.
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Announce clearly what you intend to do. The physical action of pushing chips over the betting line on the table can’t be taken back. If you toss a single chip forward it will only count as a call unless you have already announced how much you intend to raise. If you put multiple chips, even just two, across the line it’s a physical announcement that you’re raising (assuming that it is a sufficient number of chips to make a minimum raise). Don’t make the mistake of calling when you want to raise. You’ll get flustered and give away a lot of information for free. This may sound obvious but many players get themselves into unnecessary trouble this way.
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Peel the cards up from the table just like you do when playing on PKR. No amateur dramatics of picking them up off the table and waving them around in front of your face - it will only let other players see your cards.
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If you’re not sat down when the last card of the hand is dealt your hole cards will be declared dead. On the upside this does mean that you don’t need to remember to click ‘I’m back’, you just need to get your backside on the chair instead!
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Stack your chips with the largest denomination in clear view. Hiding your chips out of view is not allowed and you will get cautioned by the tournament director. Your chips can be seen easily online and they should be readily available to be seen by the rest of the table.
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The dealer will make sure that every player gets their chance to act, every split pot is divided accurately and that each player is given the correct amount of change when they call or raise. This means you don’t need to worry about breaking your chips up. Simply focus on your game, say the amount you wish to raise to and the dealer will do the rest.
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Bad Manners Break any of these rules of poker etiquette and face the consequences No hand chat If you’re not in the hand then you’re not in the room, as the saying goes. The only people allowed to discuss the current hand are the ones that are still active in it. That doesn’t mean that the table must be silent. Feel free to let the banter flow about anything else - just not the hand in play! No slow rolling You’ve flopped the stone cold nuts with J♦ J♠ on a J♣ K♣ J♥ board. Your opponent bets out, you decide to fast play your monster by raising and they move all-in. The correct etiquette here is to call immediately and table your hand. It is definitely not to milk the call for all its worth before turning your cards over with a big smug grin. Think of the hand the other way around. No loser signs PKR has a huge array of emotes that can be used at the virtual table but try using some of the wilder ones in the real world and you might not get the same reaction. If you suck out on someone with a runner-runner flush it’s not recommended that you make the loser sign, do chicken impressions or start laughing in their face. stacked♠
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side action!
There’s plenty to do at PKR Live even if you get knocked out
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hat happens if your Aces are cracked on the very first hand of the Main Event? Apart from spending the rest of the day telling people your bad beat story, you can join in the sit-and-gos and cash games which will be running all weekend long. In fact, it could work out more profitable for you than if you ran hot all Saturday before losing 4 coin-flips in a row and going out on the bubble! PKR staff will also be on hand to challenge heads up. Form an orderly queue to dish out the poker lessons.
uPacifying actions When the brain sees something it doesn’t like it subconsciously orders the body to do something to soothe itself. If you see an opponent unwittingly scratch their nose, rub their chin or squeeze the back of their neck you can bet they don’t like the flop that has been dealt or the bet that you have just made. It may only be for an instance but if you spot someone making one of these actions you can be assured that continued aggression will pummel them into submission.
uEyes The Egyptians used to say that the eyes were the window to the soul and at the poker table there’s a lot of truth to the saying. Follow where a player is looking and you’ll learn a lot about their hand. A player that tends to gaze that little bit longer at the flop has usually missed it because they’re desperately looking for options. A player that has hit it will move their eyes away from the flop and towards their own chip stack as a sign of intent, or to yours to see how much they have to gain.
How can I qualify for PKR Live? There are two ways to take part in PKR Live. You can qualify through a raft of online satellites or receive an exclusive invite direct from PKR. Around 100 seats are up for grabs in the run up to the event.
How can I get involved? Entry to PKR Live is by online satellite qualification or invite only. An estimated 100 seats will be given away through PKR’s online satellite schedule (see Tournament Lobby for details) with direct entry through $100 and $25 satellites.
Route 1 Online satellites - an estimated 100 $1,000 packages will be available to be won through PKR Live finals. You can buy in direct to $100 satellites (Monday and Thursday) or $25 satellites (Tuesdays and Sunday). Stage 1 qualifiers start from as little as $2.38.
Route 2 A number of seats will be available to special guests of PKR, VIPs and various competitions. Keep an eye open for details as they break on www.pkr.com.
Reading Tells Spotting weakness and hiding strength can make a winning difference in live play
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feature | playing live
uShaking hands If you’re playing against someone that you know is new to the game then this is an absolutely priceless tell. When someone new to the live game picks up big hole cards such as Kings or Aces their body will receive a small shot of adrenaline. This will outwardly manifest itself in a couple of ways. The first way is that the player will have visibly shaking hands or if a little more experienced they may try to cover it up with a random movement such as reaching for a drink.
uHappy feet The legs are the most honest part of the body. They’re the first thing to react in fight or flight situations and at the poker table they’re no different. A little bit like the shaking hands syndrome, if you see someone’s legs bouncing up and down then you might want to think twice about bluffing them. You might think that trying to read someone’s leg is a waste of time - as it’s out of sight under the table - but if you spot movement at the bottom of someone’s shirt it’s a giveway of leg movement.
uSmile
Hiding Tells
A smile is very hard to fake. Imagine any American TV presenter and you’ll be able to think of what a fake attempt looks like. A real smile uses the eyes as well as the mouth and is incredibly hard to imitate. If your opponent is looking at you after moving all-in and is smiling a genuine smile they are happy with their situation, this isn’t to say that you’re not beating them, of course. If they’ve shoved and are trying to fix you with a forced simper then they are definitely not feeling at ease. Call!
Concealing your own tells is just as important as picking up on other players When you look at your cards, try to react in the same way. Look at your hole cards for a few seconds, fold your arms and then announce what you plan to do. Build a routine and stick to it. When making a bet, raise or call try to place your chips in the same way each time. By splashing your chips forward with one bet and placing them down calmly on another you’re giving away more than you realise. If you’re not comfortable with being needled verbally you should go into lockdown each time you make a bet. Cross your arms on the table, rest your head in your hands or pull a hood down over your head. Give out as little information as possible once you’ve made a big bet.
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here is only really one way to decipher what a player is holding in online poker and that is by gauging their betting actions on the texture of the board in a given situation, while keeping in mind their previous playing tendencies. When you take the game into the live forum then a whole new swathe of player information becomes available, which you’ll ignore at your peril. You can stare a player down, watch how they make a bet, see how they react to the flop and weigh up
whether they feel comfortable with their hand or not. And they can do the same to you. Everyone sprays out non-verbal information without realising just how much they are giving out. Your job at the table is to decipher what everyone’s body language is saying about themselves in relation to the decisions they’re making while limiting the amount that you give out. You can even try sending out false signals to induce calls or make other players think twice about betting. n
Having a rock steady poker face is essential against the more observant poker players. Pursing your lips and letting out involuntary smiles could be the difference between you winning or losing a monster pot. By keeping calm at the table you’ll be a less attractive target for other players to spy on. In other words, they’ll get bored of trying to pick up on any tells! stacked♠
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ca$h strategy | player focus
CA$H Q&A
mayotacker Name Shane Cawe Location Naas, Ireland Age 27 Joined PKR December 2006
mayotacker
Meeting a Cash King
Aggressive no-limit betting, raising and shoving has put this young Irish cash game player firmly on the mid-stakes map
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omposed, calm and highly competitive, this cool customer has produced jaw-dropping results in mid-stake ring games during the last year, leaving a trail of conquered foes broken and bloodied in his wake. In other words, you need a sturdy disposition to take him on. So what is it that separates this Irish poker aficionado from so many of his counterparts? Well, one characteristic that stands out in the hand histories is mayotacker’s ability to get his opponents’ money in sooner rather than later. He doesn’t wait for scare cards to kill his action, or slowplay his rivals into submission. He shirks the temptation to check or smooth call top sets while most of us try to trap (and we all know how that ends up). Fearlessly, mayotacker enters each pot with his finger over the raise button with bluffs and nut shoves, all part of his terrifying arsenal. This calm and calculating execution should strike more fear into your heart than any intimidating banter. All hail mayotacker, king of the cash tables!!! PKR_jabba
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stacked♠ Have you decided to take the game on full-time yet or are you still juggling poker with the rest of your life? Shane: I’m only playing part-time and playing when I can. A normal day for me involves getting up at 7am to go to work as a ceiling fixer. A regular wage is very important for bank loans and mortgages, hence why I don’t play fulltime. I usually get back around 5pm and it’s dedicated family time until 7pm before I turn my attentions to poker for a few hours. I usually play 4-8 tables depending on how I feel at the time. I might also throw in a tournament or two with a buy-in of $50-$200. My work hours are fairly flexible so there’s no rigid routine set in stone and I’ll never force myself to play if I don’t fancy it. At the weekends I’ll play for around eight hours a day. What kind of tables can we expect to find you playing at? I started playing poker some threeyears ago and I’ve since decided that tournaments tend to tilt me too much for me to focus on them! I also find them a little too time-consuming which is why I tend to play the $2/$4 ring games most of the time. Multi-tabling at that level and higher can be very lucrative. What has been your biggest winning session at PKR? I have had a few days where I’ve won over $5,000 at the $5/$10 tables but the most I’ve won in a single day is $6,000 from playing $2/$4. My biggest tournament win has been around $4,000 but I’ve also made final tables in the PKR Open, Grand Prix, Sunday Classic and Saturday Showdown.
cash convertors p32-35
bet sizing p36-39 Hitting an opponent with an onslaught of perfectly sized bets will force them to make bigger mistakes and win you even more chips.
photography: Slava Gutsko, Adam Gryko
Make key adjustments and you’ll be able to turn your tournament skills into cash game thrashing talents.
If you could play a heads up grudge match against any player, who would it be and why? I’m not really into the ego headsup match. There are players that I admire for the way that they handle themselves though, such as Greg Raymer, Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson [both former-World Series of Poker Main Event winners] and Gus Hansen. At the PKR tables james666, DannyKK, Najammq, callmebabe and bennythejet are a few of the players that I respect. All of them are solid but they all play a totally different game to each other. What one thing do you think differentiates a good player and a great player at the cash tables? It’s got to be tilt control. It’s easy to play well when you’re winning, but it’s hard to still play at that level when you’re losing. The biggest tip I’d give would be to think about what you are trying to do when you make a bet. What do you want to achieve by betting a certain amount? You really should have a reason for every action you decide to make. The key is to learn every time you play. Do you feel that you are now near achieving your A-game? No. I’m still learning and I feel like I’m a long way off being totally happy with my game. Well, you still seem to be doing very well even if you’re still on a learning curve. What have you splashed out on with those winnings of yours? I’ve just bought a 50inch plasma screen but it’s mostly on lots of small things and home improvement. I’m not a big spender. I did get to go to Las Vegas
this year for a working holiday [Shane bought into the $1,500 no-limit event with PKR Points]. I was there for 10 days and was up about $3,000 for the trip, which I was happy with because I was down $2,000 after the first four days. If I go next year it will be for at least two weeks. Every poker player has to go there at least once in their
life but I would say don’t go alone as it could be a very lonely place. So when you’re not at the poker table what are your passions? I have a two-year-old daughter so I obviously try to spend a lot of time with her, but I also have to admit that I do like my cars as well – and the lower they are the better! ■
Jamming the pot
Pushing your opponent when you have the nuts can pay big or ideally a third Jack to give him a dominating set.
Flop 7♥ 5♠ J♥
mayotacker
tubby81
$417
$421
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ll too often players hit their dream flop and rather than capitalise on it they slow down and either let their opponent catch up or fail to win as much as they could. mayotacker makes a standard opening raise with pocket Jacks to $14 at a $2/$4 table only to run into the pocket Queens of tubby81 who is sat on his left and raises to $44 from the button. After a quick look at his cards mayotacker calls the additional $30 hoping for a low flop
mayotacker gets the dream flop, especially when one considers what tubby81 is holding. He checks to the raiser. tubby81 has an overpair to the Jack-high board and bets a pot-sized $94. mayotacker wastes no time in jamming the flop for $373 with his top set. tubby81’s Queens are an overpair to the board and fears that mayotacker could be shoving with a draw or perhaps even top pair rather than having a set. He calls.
Turn 7♥ 5♠ J♥ A♠ The Ace here would have killed the action for mayotacker who would have had to protect his set from multiple draws while tubby81’s pair would suddenly look very weak, especially given the action pre-flop and on the flop itself.
River 7♥ 5♠ J♥ A♠ 10♥ An equally draw-friendly 10♥ lands on the river but as mayotacker had got the money in on the flop he’s already bagged the $840.
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ca$h strategy | tournament transition
Taking winning tournament skills to the cash tables is straightforward once you understand how to rearrange your game
become a Cash converter N
ow let’s be honest with each other – tournaments are fun, exciting and if you hit one hard you can win a bunch of money, but a lot of players would argue that they’re not real poker. You see, real poker is where you open your wallet, pull out some cash and then have the guts to put it in the middle. When you win you get paid – when you lose it really hurts. Cash poker is where it’s at. It’s where poker reputations are put on the line and fortunes made. Succeeding at the cash tables isn’t easy. You need a good fundamental understanding of the game, an ability to play down the streets, solid hand-reading and player-reading skills, not to mention excellent emotional control to stop you from making one bad decision or unlucky beat into a major losing session. Most new players play tournaments first and can struggle when trying to transition to cash. Of course, the game is still no-limit Hold’em so there are great similarities but there are also major differences which you’ll need to work on in order to bring your tournament success to the cash game arena.
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Play is deep stacked more often than not
illustration: Slava Gutsko
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ost of the time that you’re sat at a cash table you and your opponents will have 100 big blind stacks or more. This is rarely true in tournaments, and if it is, then it’s usually only for the first level or two at the very most. There is a huge difference between deep-stack poker and playing with blinds that are huge compared to the stack size. This is where tournament players may initially struggle in a cash game. Many of the ‘moves’ that are staple in tournaments such as the all-in re-raise before the flop simply don’t occur in cash play. Well, not often anyway. Instead you will find yourself playing a lot more flops with major decisions on more turns and rivers than you’d see in most tournaments. Hold’em becomes a much more complex game as you travel down the streets and it’s very easy to get lost in hands and make big mistakes, which will cost lots of chips. This can only be combated with some experience and study but the rewards, both financially and in terms of your poker progress, make it more than worthwhile. Deep-stack play also makes it essential that you improve your hand-reading skills. While many decisions in tournaments can be boiled down to mathematical situations, such as when the all-in carnage of the later stages begin. Putting someone on a range of hands pre-flop when they move in can be a straightforward exercise, but with deeper stacks that process post-flop becomes complicated. Focus on recording how each person plays each type of hand post-flop and you’ll find it easy to consistently beat them up @ the tables.
Key Point
Choose your game, choose your seat
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n a tournament you are forced to play where the tournament director – real or virtual – tells you. You can find yourself to the right of the best player in the room who pushes you around all tourney, or at a table of fish; it’s pot luck. In cash games you can choose not only your table but also your seat, allowing you to pick on weak fish all day long. This is a huge difference and good game and seat selection should never ever be overlooked. The combination will have a massive impact on your results
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You can choose your table and also your seat, allowing you to pick on weak fish all day long
no matter what level you’re playing. If you’re about to make a virgin foray into ring games, put some time into learning the best ways to select good games and seats, and don’t just jump in to the first available games. Remember that cash games at any level contain a huge variety of players and your job is to maximise your winnings by focusing on and playing with the weakest of them. Look for tables with a high number of players per flop (over 30% for a 6-handed game), this indicates loose and bad play.
Position is vital, the blinds are not
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ositional awareness and play in tournaments is important but with deep-stacked cash games it becomes even more acute. In a lot of tournament situations it’s possible to get all your money in pre-flop or to play a line that takes away positional advantage, such as pulling a stop and go. At the cash tables, it’s very hard to strip away the power of position. Tournament players will often play too many hands out of the blinds by re-raising or defending. In a tourney this makes sense as there is more dead money in the pot making it more likely the raiser is trying to steal. Solid cash game players will murder you if you transfer this approach to their table. When making your first steps into the cash world you should tighten up your play out of position and be far more selective when fighting back from the blinds. Use the deeper stacks to your advantage. Play more pots in position and take control by attacking across the streets.
Key Point No matter how adept you might be at tournaments start your cash game career by folding everything but premium hands in the blinds.
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Key Point Don’t sit down at the first table that you see. Check any notes you have on the players at the table to see if it’s fishy or tough.
Keep your finger away from the all-in button. Bets relative to the size of the pot will net you more value over time.
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ca$h strategy | tournament transition
Players can’t go broke at the table
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illustration: Slava Gutsko
t a cash table you theoretically never go broke. You simply click the reload button and bump your stack back up to the max. Okay, this is being a little deceptive because if you were to bust your entire account you would be automatically forced off the table, but with good bankroll management this should never happen (see Bankroll Blitz). Many players from the MTT arena put too much emphasis on survival, often passing up great equity and value to make sure that they don’t go out of a tournament cheaply. In a tournament big stacks apply pressure to shorter stacks with life-threatening bets and raises making them put hands down that they probably shouldn’t. None of this applies in a cash game which, in very general terms, means players don’t fold as much. Of course, there are still many players who play weak tight and pass too often, but it’s definitely the case that bluffing and exerting pressure with stack size plays a far less important role in cash games. Tournament players taking up cash need to adjust to playing hands based on value more than simply whether they think they’ll win any single given hand or not.
Key Point Stop thinking in terms of big stacks and short stacks. Paying attention to effective stack sizes is important, but only in term of pot odds and implied odds.
Better hand-reading skills are needed
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ne of the great benefits of playing cash is that you will spend far more time playing against the same players. In a tournament you may only play a couple of hands against someone before having to make a judgment about them in a big pot. Of course, that can happen in cash too but it happens less often, and the fact that tables aren’t broken down means you can play literally hundreds of hands with them at that static blind level.
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Don’t put your chips near anyone who has you covered without a grade-A premium hand This gives you much more time to get a read on their play and exploit their weaknesses. It also allows you to be more creative as plays that may make no sense in isolation (such as big bluffs, very thin value bets, slow playing etc) can make perfect tactical sense after you’ve played with a player for a couple of hours. This is a two-way street though. Your opponents can and will get more of a read on your play so it’s really important to be aware of your table image as well as your specific history with individual players.
Key Point Make sure that you pay attention and always be prepared to break away from abc poker if it will allow you to exploit another player’s bad habits.
Getting stacked at PKR
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Cash games at PKR start from as little as $0.02/$0.04 and go all the way up to the meaty $10/$20 tables. And don’t forget about the Omaha tables, where the potting and re-potting can soon see players shoving pushing all-in with all kinds of draws!
Emotional control is key to success
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t’s important to maintain control of your emotions in tournaments but even more so in a deep-stacked cash game. In a tournament if you take a bad beat that knocks you out it is incredibly frustrating, but the main victims of that anguish are most likely going to be the eardrums of your housemate/ partner/friend or your mouse. In a cash game, however, it’s far more likely that you’ll find yourself taking it out on your wallet and this is not a good idea. Being able to reload after a bad beat – or when you’re frustrated – can be a dangerous proposition if you’re not used to it. It can even start a vicious circle that sees you donk off multiple buy-ins before you’ve regained composure. If your blood is still boiling after your set lost out to a rivered gutshot there is no harm in sitting out for a few hands. Sit back, relax and then reload. The benefit of being able to buy back in is that the chips that you have lost are still up for grabs. In a tournament the bad player that has sucked out on you sends you away from the table but in a cash game you can keep hitting him until you have all your chips back and more. Just be certain that you’re playing your A-game and, if necessary, set yourself a maximum you are prepared to lose in any one session to prevent yourself from falling outside your emotional comfort zone. You don’t want to wake up the next day to find that you’ve tilted off your entire bankroll.
Key Point Try to be disciplined when you feel yourself playing substandard poker. Stand up, take five minutes out and then decide whether you should keep playing or not.
Bankroll blitz
Balancing your funds is essential if you want to go all the way
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ankroll requirements for cash games are a slightly thorny issue as you’ll receive a variety of answers from different sources. If you’re going to play casually or just want to dip your toe in the cash waters, the size of your bankroll doesn’t matter so much as long as you play at a level you’re comfortable at and with money you can afford to lose if things don’t go well. If you intend to play in a more serious way, and want to be a long-term winning player, you need to take things more seriously. The basic rule of thumb is that you should have at least 20 full buy-ins
(i.e. 100 big blinds) at the level you’re playing. So for example if you’re playing the $1/$2 tables you should have a $4000 bankroll. This is to sustain the inevitable swings you will incur, which will happen even if you’re a winning player. The 20 buy-ins should be considered as the minimum. As you move up the levels, 30+ buy-ins are more advisable as the greater aggression in the games will increase the variance. It’s also vital for long-term success that if you are having a serious bankrollbleeding losing run that you are big enough to drop down a level to prevent yourself going bust.
Tourney vs cash
Hands play out very differently at the cash tables
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ou’re playing at a $2/$4 six-max table when the following hand takes place. Everyone folds around to the button who raises to $12 with 7♣ 8♣. The small blind has A♦ Q♠ and re-raises to $42. The big blind folds and the button, knowing that he has position flat calls making the pot $88. Both players have the same full buy-ins of $400 at the beginning of the hand. In most stages of a tournament the small blind would have usually made a much bigger raise in relation to the stacks, possibly an all-in bet, forcing the button to make a more significant decision and would have seen the suited connectors tossed into the muck.
Flop J♦-6♠-5♥ The small blind has missed the flop and makes a continuation bet of $60. The button calls with his straight draw making the pot $208 and leaving them both with $298 in their stacks.
Turn J♦-6♠-5♥-2♥ The turn is a huge blank for both players and with just six outs and only the river to come the small blind effectively admits defeat by checking. The button, using the full power of their position, smells the weakness and moves all-in for his remaining $298. The small blind is forced to fold the winning hand – albeit with just Ace-high! Playing with deeper stacks gave the button more options and room to move. In this case he chose to flat call on the flop to try and hit his draw which also left the option to take the pot away on the turn if the small blind stalled. He also had the option of raising the flop, which would have been a more dangerous move given his opponent’s show of pre-flop strength. In a tournament there wouldn’t have been the chance to manoeuvre and the small blind may have shoved the flop to reduce the button’s positional advantage.
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CA$H strategy | bet sizing
The Science of bet sizing Understanding exactly why you’re betting a certain amount is key to long-term cash game success, so think through your reasons and responses before making a move
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If there’s $800 in the pot, betting $10 makes no sense at all, yet players continue to do this by betting a token amount
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Expect success
Analyse your expectation of a river bet to makes the difference
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he key to value betting is not about whether an isolated bet will be called but making the bet that maximises your expectation. For example, let’s say you reach the river and have a hand that you are very confident is ahead of your opponent’s so you want to bet it for value. There’s $1,000 in the pot and you both have $2,000 each remaining. If you make a small bet of around $300 you guess that it will be called 80% of the time by a given opponent in that situation. If on the other hand you move all-in for the full $2,000 you think it will be called just 20% of the time. So which is the correct bet? Simply take the amount you’re set to bet and multiply it by a decimal relating to how often you’ll think it will be called. In the
accordingly. If you were going to check then instead you call, if you were going to bet then raise the by the same amount as you would have bet if checked to. A significant bet is usually half the pot or bigger as it’s only this amount that really starts to affect your opponents odds.
Adding value Poker is a game of incomplete information so standardising your bet sizing is extremely important. A trap many fall into early in their poker careers, and carry over to higher levels, is betting slightly more when they don’t want action and slightly less when they do. Betting for value is where bet sizing becomes most important and it’s misunderstood by a lot of players. When you’re
first scenario you think your bet will be called 80% of the time so you multiply the $300 by 0.8, resulting in $240. If you thought it would be called 23% of the time then you’d multiply the bet by 0.23. So what’s the expectation of the larger bet? If you think the $2,000 slid forward would be called 20% of the time the expectation of the bet would be $2,000 x 0.2 = $400. So while the bigger bet will be called less than the small bet it will make you more money in the long run. Keep an eye on the long-term prize of a bigger bankroll than picking up a few extra coins here and there.
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If you bet small for fear of scaring off your opponents, who might pay you off, you are potentially leaving a lot of money on the table. value betting you are trying to get paid on what you are confident is the best hand. If you bet small for fear of scaring off your opponents, but they would have called a larger bet more often than not, you are potentially leaving a lot of money on the table. Look hard at your play and try to spot if you’re committing this crime. You might be surprised. While it is possible to get away with this against unperceptive opponents, and actually increase your profitability by manipulating your bets in this way, competent players will pick up these giveaway traits and adjust their play accordingly. You have to accept u stacked ♠
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Words: Nick Wealthall, image: Adam Gryko
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ith no-limit Hold’em you have the luxury of betting any amount you like – from the minimum all the way up to every single chip that you have in front of you – whenever you want. Given that there is such vast flexibility on how much can be bet it’s incredible how little attention is actually paid to their actual size. It’s time to change that right now. While it’s often true that most players have the correct instinct - they know that they should bet - horrific mistakes are made with the actual amount slid forward, and each slip-up will have ramifications on their fortunes as a player. Certain bets can make yourself easier to read, let players in too cheap or, more seriously, make it much more difficult to maximise your profits by leaving money that you should have taken on the table. All bet sizing in poker is made in relation to the pot. It’s a simple point you already know but one that is absolutely fundamental to success at the tables. If the pot represents the potential reward, your bet is the cost to your opponent to win it. So when you make a bet make it a significant one. If there’s $800 in the pot, betting $10 makes no sense yet players continue to do this (or close to) by betting a token amount. When confronted with a bet like this you should treat it as a check and act
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CA$H strategy | bet sizing
t that not every value bet is going to get paid. Maximise your expectation whenever you can even if this means betting more than you think you should or moving all-in. (see Expect Success, previous page).
Larging it Over-betting the pot isn’t something that should be done often but it can be effective as a big hammer bluff or semibluff to push your opponent off his hand as well as shoving for value. Imagine you’ve been calling your opponent down with A-10 on an Ace-high board and had decided to fold the river to a big bet. Suddenly a scare card arrives on the river and your opponent bets a small defensive amount. Against a good player you might make a standard raise to look like you’re trying to get paid, which will often make them pass, but against an average or poor player moving all-in will force them to make a big decision and they’ll probably fold the best hand. It’s even more effective in tournament play than at the cash tables. There are always exceptions and bet
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Against poorer players a minimum check-raise should raise a red flag as they’re often trying to get paid with a strong hand sizing is no different, especially when you can alter your play if you’re facing a player that you think is unlikely to exploit it. The first of these is a defensive or blocking bet, which can be effective when you’re trying to set the price of a draw or blocking an opponent from bluffing you on the river. Betting approximately 25% of the pot in either circumstance will usually achieve your aim. If you’re facing a solid and perceptive opponent and you incorporate these bets into your play it’s essential you also make some of your value bets a similar size. It might seem that this contradicts the concept of maximum expectation but with the
Making tricky value bets
Think big to confuse your opponents and force them into calling
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orking out the correct expectation of a bet is an art that will see your winning margins rocket once you put some work into it. In this hand Phil Laak makes a great bet by betting $44,400 into a $48,500 pot with a set. Daniel Negreanu, who is holding top pair and a busted straight with A-7, is so confused by the hand and Laak’s big bet on the river that he’s finally forced into making the call. If Negreanu is in two minds as much as he professes and will call the $44,400 bet 50% of the time Laak’s expectation is $22,200 ($44,400 x 0.5 = $22,200). So if the self-styled Unabomber had bet anything less he would effectively be losing money. In fact the increased size of the bet actually helped to tip the scales in favour of the call, as it added weight to
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added value of inducing a bluff-raise from a tricky player factored in, it can soon be paying dividends. The second element to bet sizing is not your own play but interpreting and exploiting other players bets and bet sizing. It’s vital that you’re able to put yourself in their position and understand their level of knowledge. For instance a novice player will be betting on instinct and often fall into easily exploitable patterns whereas an advanced player will be very aware of how much they’re betting and there will be reasons behind it. As a general rule weak bets can and often should be attacked. If a journeyman player makes a small lead out on the turn or especially the river it’s very often a sign that they’re not comfortable about their hand. Instead of calling to see if your hand is good there are many situations where you should actually raise, especially if a scare card has arrived. So for instance let’s say you reach the river and an Ace arrives. Your opponent who’d had the lead in the hand bets small. Often it’s possible to bluff raise here representing a hand like Aces-up and getting him to fold better hands than yours such as bigger pocket pairs. Of course any card that completes draws on the river is great for this although if your opponent is tight weak and doesn’t think through hands properly you can make the raise regardless of what you can represent and punish his weakness. Do be aware that sophisticated opponents will make small bets to trap and induce bluffs so make sure you target your players correctly.
Look for weakness
the argument that Laak may be trying to steal the pot away. Watch the hand at www.pokertube.com under High Stakes Poker season 2 episode 4 part 3.
An exception to the idea of attacking smaller bets is when you are minimum raised or minimum check-raised. Against poorer players this should raise a red flag as they’re often trying to get paid with a strong hand. This is especially true if they’ve taken a line that includes calling your continuation bet on the flop and then proceeding to check-raise you on the turn. This is usually the way abc players will milk big hands such as top two-pair and flopped sets. By contrast players sometimes use minimum raises when they have a hand they think might be good, like top pair, and are trying to ‘find out where they are’. Making this kind of bet is weak.
Reading the check-raise Being check-raised is a different matter entirely. This very strong betting line is reserved by most low level players for their big hands but more creative players will also use it as a complete bluff and as a semi-bluff with a drawing hand. Given that you should be more inclined to either call or raise again against these players it’s vital to know which of your opponents will only ever check-raise when they’re very strong. Spotting that means a minimum check-raise from them is the equivalent of being given a get out of jail free card. Bet sizing improves with experience so don’t be afraid to experiment to keep ahead of the table. n
Bluffing big on the river
Sometimes slowing down your play can bring in those big pots
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hil ‘Poker Brat’ Hellmuth and Mike ‘The Mouth’ Matusow are long-term rivals who are constantly trying to get one over each other. This hand is a great example of why it’s important that you are hyper-aware of your own table image. Twice WSOP Main Event winner Phil Hellmuth bets a near-pot sized $40,000 on the river with 7-2 on a board of Q♦ 6♥ J♠ 8♦ 6♣ and forces Matusow to throw pocket Kings away, even though they are an over pair to the board. The Mouth passes his hand face up announcing, ‘I know Phil never makes a big bet on the river unless he has it,’ just as Hellmuth shows his astounding bluff. Matusow almost certainly would have called any other player in the game given the situation, and had played his hand so unconventionally that he
induced the bluff but then was unable to capitalise on it. Watch the clip at www.pokertube.com under High Stakes Poker season 4 episode 1 part 1.
image: Adam Gryko
It’s neither a bluff nor a value bet but you’ll still find a lot of players making it. The key is to get good reads on your opponents so once you know you’re playing someone who makes this kind of weak probe bet you can re-raise and repeatedly brutalise them. They are making the fatal error of re-opening the betting with a hand that cannot really stand any further action and they must be punished for it immediately!
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Once you know that you’re playing someone who is making weak probes you can re-raise and repeatedly brutalise them
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gear | PKR merchandise
gear
stacked♠ takes a peek inside the PKR store to check out some of
the hot new wares on offer - start saving your PKR points today! Monkey T-shirt Part of the new range of clothes to hit the PKR store, this monkey t-shirt is the very same worn by Mayotacker on p30! Points required: 57,000
PKR Sweatband Perfect for those intense allin mop your brow moments Points required: 10,000
PKR T-shirt Cool and comfortable, this ladies t-shirt will see you through tough sessions Points required: 30,000
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More PKR gear There’s a whole load of PKR treats that you can tuck into from as little as 15,000 for a pack of PKR branded playing cards all the way up to 3,500,000 for a Grosvenor UK Poker Tour package which includes your buy-in to the £1,000 main event. The personalised 500 piece chip set is also worth a look in as the 11.5g casino quality chips have your username emblazoned around the side of each and every chip!
PKR Baseball cap
PKR Zip up top
No poker player should be without a baseball cap or visor to protect themselves from the glare of the table Points required: 25,000
PKR’s new line of poker clothing includes zip ups and poker hoodies. Wear your stripes with pride. Points required: 80,000 stacked♠
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MTT strategy | player focus
mtt Q&A
Gladheateher Name Richard Newton Location Gloucester, UK Age 35 Joined PKR April 2007
gladheateher
Meeting a tournament titan It might be a female avatar sat in front of you but don’t be fooled that this gender-bender Brit isn’t going to boss your final table
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eaching the top of the MTT rankings is tough, staying there is harder still. Since registering in April 2007, Richard Newton has rarely appeared outside the top 10 and – at the time of writing – sits atop the PKR all-time money list with more than $77,000 in tournament earnings, due more to solid consistency than one large lucky cash! In the last 16 months he’s racked up an astonishing 404 final tables, including an enviable 42 victories. His roll of honour includes multiple final tables in the Super Series 2007, Saturday Special, $10,000 guaranteed and Grand Prix tournaments. If you were ever to need an example of skill and determination then gladheateher is your man (or woman). In fact, I would put my liferoll on the line that he’ll be claiming a Masters, TV Showdown or Super Series Leaderboard title in the very near future. PKR_Danski
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stacked♠ You’re currently number one on the PKR all-time money list having scored $77,707.03 from 318 cashes, why do you think you do so well consistently? Richard: I have good and bad spells like anyone and even though the last two months have not been so good I like the structure of the tournaments. The slower blind levels allow you to be more patient in your approach which suits my style and allows me to go deep more often than not. How did you discover Texas Hold’em? I started playing poker a little over four-years ago. I watched Hold’em on television and became fascinated by the game. I started off on the play money tables for a couple of months as many people do before playing for real. I then deposited $290 and I’d say that I have made around $120,000. Since signing up with PKR I estimate that I deposited $800 and have made somewhere in the region of $42,000. That’s a very tasty return on your money! What’s been your biggest winning days at PKR? My biggest single cash wasn’t that much – only $3,000 on the Open – but that 24 hours remains my favourite poker memory. I first won the $2,000 guaranteed followed by the PKR Open’s $10,000 guaranteed the same day before going on to win the $2,000 again! That got me TPOTW (The player of the week) award from Danski in the PKR tournament blog. So we’re guessing that with this amount of grinding that you’re now playing full-time? For the last 18 months or so I have
photography: Clint Hild, TKarl Dolenc, Image manipulation: Linda Duong, alessandra cHila
endangered species p44-47
Satellite revolution p48-51
Being able to shift your strategy as your chip stack changes will maximise your chances in any tournament.
Learn to conquer satellites and you’ll be able to play in every big money tournament without hurting your bankroll.
been playing full-time but I’ve been fitting in my play in around my kids rather than a job. I start playing at around 8pm when they go to bed and I’ll normally play three tournaments, which are The Open, the $100 buy-in $7,500 guaranteed and, my favourite, the $50 buy-in $2,000 guaranteed at 2am. I’ll usually have two or three cash tables open as well and play until around 7.30am, which is when I get the kids up and off to school before turning in for bed myself. Having kids does make the possibility of playing big live tournaments a little harder to realise but it is something that I’d like to do in the future. However, in the short-term, if I’m still playing for a living by the end of the year I’ll be happy. If you could go heads-up with any of the players at PKR, who would you pick to play against? I don’t really hold grudges but if I had to pick one player I would say sourshark. I like him but he’s bullied me in a lot of pots at tables in the past. There are an increasing number of good players joining PKR, they know who they are as I play them a lot. farryboy has my total respect for the commitment he shows in the amount of tournaments he plays and the number of cashes he’s scored. I’d also like to play Daniel Negreanu as he’s really good at reading players and situations so I think that he would be fun to play against. If there was two things that you could hammer home as being the most important tournament qualities, what would they be? It would have to be patience and position. Both are vitally important, but there are a lot of players that
Punishing the donk bet
gladheateher makes neophyte66 crack under the pressure neophyte66 decides to defend his blind, somewhat loosely, with J♣ 8♦ calling the additional 16,000 to make a juicy 57,600 pot.
Flop 5♥ Q♠ J♦ gladheateher
neophyte66
$223,984
$171,890
Blinds 4,000/8,000 (800 ante)
S
eeing two over cards on the flop when you’ve raised with a medium pair is not exactly what you’re hoping for. Winning players will always look to make the best of a bad situation and in this hand gladheateher shows how you can use position and pressure to beat your opponent. gladheateher raises to 24,000 with 7♦ 7♠ under the gun.
don’t seem to understand either. I find far too many players will play weak hands out of position and then when they hit some part of the flop end up blowing their entire stack by playing weak kickers or chasing draws. What is the hardest skill to master at the tables? I think the most important skill in poker is knowing when to throw away good hands. Realising when you are
It’s an ugly flop for gladheateher, not least of all because neophyte66 has bet out 24,000 with middle pair. It’s a weak leading bet, which many online players refer to as a donk bet, so gladheateher rightly senses weakness and raises to 72,000. neophyte66 looks back at his hole cards, which still show middle pair and weak kicker, and is unable to decide whether to commit his entire stack and tournament life to the hand. He eventually times out giving the 105,600 pot to gladheateher. It was a strong play to make, utilising the full strength of gladheateher’s position and show of pre-flop strength. The size of the raise made it look like it wanted action but if push had come to shove gladheateher could have passed and played on.
behind can save you a whole lot of money if you are confident enough to pass. It can be the difference between you being a winning or losing player. Away from the poker table and the kids how do you spend your time? I think I need more hobbies! I don’t do much apart from look after my kids or going out drinking. So far I’ve only really used my winnings to pay bills and get the house done up. Although, I have just been on holiday which I raided my account for. ■ stacked♠
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MTT strategy | understanding chip stacks
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Bleeding out is giving up, and attacking at least gives you a fighting chance of tournament survival
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stackedâ™
how close to extinction are you?
When you find your chip stack on the edge of extinction it’s time to turn the hunted into the hunter with well placed raises, reraises and all-in shoves
O
ne of the first things that most people learn about playing multi-table tournaments is that should your chip stack fall to around 10 big blinds you’re in trouble. Big stacks at the table will start picking on you and the more chips you lose, the easier it is for you to get taken out. When your stack gets that low you need to start pushing all-in. The logic behind this being that you need to steal blinds to survive with an aim to double up as soon as possible. Bleeding out is giving up and attacking at least gives you a fighting chance of survival. But what do you do when you’re just above or below 10 blinds? Should you only auto-shove or fold if you’ve hit that number? And what about if there’s antes in play?u
Questioning logic In poker there are no absolutes. There isn’t a pre-ordained perfect way to play a given hand. Aces will not always beat 7-2 offsuit. Each situation needs to be weighed and measured before the correct decision can be made – and even then you can still lose or put your money in a long way behind. Suddenly the logic of moving all-in just because you are close to 10 big blinds seems a little simplistic. It’s time for you to give serious thought to your short stack game. Poker theory and strategy is constantly evolving and developing through internet forums and ground
breaking poker texts. Kill Phil and its successful follow-up Kill Everyone brought a lot of important chip stack strategy out into the open and are highly recommended reading for any serious tournament player. Kill Phil described how to work out your Cost Per Round (CPR). It’s the amount that it would cost you to sit through an entire orbit of play paying blinds and antes. If the blinds are 100/200 the CPR would be 300. If the blinds were 300/600 with a 50 ante and 10 players at the table the CPR would 300 (small blind) + 600 (big blind) + 500 (50 ante x 10 players) = 1400. The next thing that you need to know is your Chip Stack Index (CSI), which is measured by dividing your chip stack by the u
Endangered species
0-2
Near extinct Close your eyes and hope. You will get definitely get called.
2-7
Endangered Death or glory. Move all-in or move out of the way with a fold.
7-12
Vulnerable Eliminate limping from your arsenal and attack with strong raises.
12-17
Near threatened Crank up your aggression levels. Stop early position limping.
18+
Thriving Play normally but be aware of short stacks in shoving territory.
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photography: alessandra cHila
Mount an aggressive come back campaign before you’re dead as a dodo
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MTT strategy | understanding chip stacks
t current CPR. So if you were sat on a 10,000 stack in the previous examples you would have a CSI of 33.3 and 7.14 respectively. What that number tells you is how close you are to tournament extinction. The lower the number the more precarious your grip on the game is. Take a look at the table (p44, How close to extinction are you?) to see how you should ideally shift your game.
Thriving As this piece of strategy is aimed more at the survival end of the chip stack range all you need to know about this for the moment is that you’re very healthy. You might not be the chip leader but you’re also in no panic. You’re still one of the hunters looking to shoot down the smaller stacks, but just be careful that you don’t get dragged into the open. Think twice about investing 10% or more with prospective hands such as small pairs or suited connectors.
Near threatened You’ve still got plenty of chips to play with and no immediate pressure to play a hand. Despite all this you can see danger on the horizon. As other players start making moves around the table and you pass blind after blind it’s very easy to find yourself getting caught up by the pack. Counter this by adopting an aggressive stance a little sooner. You
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have a whole heap of fold equity and if you cover most players at the table it will keep them respectful. Start raising with good suited connectors and a wide range of pairs. As more players get short stacked in the middle and later stages of a tournament you can make your raises smaller and still pick up a lot of blinds unopposed – and a healthy continuation bet on the flop will often finish the job off if you do get called. If the action is folded to you in late position you should be raising with any selection of Broadway cards. Keep stealing until you’re given a reason not to.
Vulnerable When your CSI falls beneath 12 you’ll find yourself entering the twilight zone of hunter and hunted. Calling and limping with speculative hands is too weak a play at this point, but making a raise can be an even more dangerous proposition. For instance, if you open for a raise of three big blinds with a hand like A♦ 10♦ and a shorter stack moves all-in over the top it’s going to cost you a big chunk of
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By moving all-in you can increase your stack by 25-30% and if you’re called you might get taken off the endangered list
your stack to call. Stealing the blinds is still very important but you’ll have to be careful about picking your spots. If you’re not the opening raiser and you’re in doubt as to what to do you’re best erring on the side of folding if the raise was from a tight player. Conversely, veer towards moving all-in if the raise was from someone that you have noted as being loose aggressive. When your stack falls towards a CSI of seven and/or a raise amounts to a third or more of your stack it’s time to hold your breath and push it all across the line. Anything less and you’ll almost certainly have to call if someone raises you. Commit your chips before you’re put to the test and risk elimination.
Endangered You are now directly in the firing line. Big and medium stacks surround you and are all waiting to pounce. This is the stage most akin to the ‘10 big blinds or less shove’ that players are aware of. Limping is out of the question even with a big hand. You need to exert maximum pressure by moving all-in as first into the pot with a marginal to strong hand, or over the top of a raiser with a premium hand. If no-one calls you increase your stack by as much as 25-30%. And if you are called and manage to double up you’re taking yourself off the endangered list and back into vulnerable territory. Keep in mind the looseness of players that you’re shoving into, particularly if the big blind has a big chip stack. The tighter the players the wider the range of hands you can make a move with. Picking up the blinds is essential to your survival and remember that unless you’re called and double up
Near extinct If you’ve fallen this low you don’t need anyone to tell you that you’re in real trouble. You’re critically wounded and the chances of you staying alive are not good but with absolutely no fold equity the question is how you best put your remaining chips over the line. It’s not just about survival but also how to give yourself the greatest chance to mount a real comeback. If there are no antes in play you can afford to wait for a hand or two, or be forced to call all-in on the big blind with any two cards. If no-one has opened the pot you’d be best to only go in if you have high cards, a bare Ace or a pair as you’re certain to get at least one caller in the big blind. If there has been a limp or two, or even a raise and a call, then getting it in with suited cards or connected cards is a positive move for two reasons. Firstly there is a chance that further pre-flop or post-flop betting could narrow the field while still allowing you to quadruple up or more. Secondly a good multi-way hand such as 7♥ 8♣ gives you around 24% equity if a raiser was only playing the top 10% hands and a caller was playing any pair and any Broadway cards. Q♦ 5♦ would also give you close to 24% against that tough range of hands. As soon as multiple players are involved you need to be willing to gamble. The more players in the pot the greater the number of chips you can win. When there are antes involved you can’t afford to wait many hands as each time you pass directly reduces your return when you do finally get it in. Any vaguely playable hand needs to be pushed unless there’s been a really serious show of strength such as a raise and reraise. Get your chips in, cross your fingers and be satisfied that you’re getting a good price on the pot. n
Calling for value
Calling all-in when there’s lots of action can be your lifeline
Y
ou’ve got just 1800 chips playing blinds of 150/300 with a 30 ante. The current CPR is 750 giving you a CSI of 2.4, which is very endangered. The blinds will also go up before they reach you again. A loose player from middle position makes a standard raise to 900 and the next player to act, who you have tagged as tight aggressive, pushes all-in. If you plot the loose raiser’s range as 5d 5h+ Kc 4s+ and the tight player’s range as Js Jd+ Ah Qc+ you should get out of the way, right? Wrong. Firstly we’ll see what happens if the loose player folds.
Tight player
+
Your hand
+
67%
33%
Including the blinds and the fold you’d be putting in 1800 to win 3450 giving odds of almost 2 to 1, which meets your chances in the hand head on. If you win your stack is back up to a CSI of 7 regaining important fold equity and the chance to survive the blinds. If the loose player is also a bit of a maniac and calls his wide range of hands you’re getting 2.4 to 1, which again is giving you fair equity in the pot. You’d be contributing 29% of the 6150 pot with your 1800 and will win 27% of the time. loose player
+
Tight player
+
Your hand
+
24%
+
49%
27%
But what if the loose raiser has actually woken up with a monster, Queens or better, and calls? This scenario is not great with your chances of sucking out just 22%, but this is still an unlikely scenario. loose player
+ 50%
Tight player
+
your hand
+
28%
photography: alessandra cHila
the only way that you’re going to see your stack go in the right direction is by stealing the blinds more than once an orbit.
22%
When you’re getting short stacked you need to look for good spots to steal and to pick up value in a gamble. Being protected by an all-in where you’re getting extra chips from players that are forced to fold should be considered. Don’t be afraid to get it in when things are looking grim!
stacked♠
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MTT strategy | satellite tournaments
satellite revolution Circling major tournaments are satellites that can carry you cheaply and quickly through to play on the big stage for world-beating value
W
hen American Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event and $2.5 million after qualifying through a $40 satellite he changed online poker forever. That satellite revolution has never stopped spreading with thousands of players qualifying to play in major tournaments online and around the world for just a few dollars. It’s been one of the most important developments in poker, particularly online, yet its strategy has also been the least written about. Learning to crack satellites is a crucial part of your game as it’s the only way you’ll be able to contest those
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Basic strategy
You’ll find most satellites are of the multi-table tournament variety as they’re the most popular. The first thing you must understand is that in a satellite you qualify through staying alive. It doesn’t matter if you have one chip or one million when the bubble bursts, everyone gets paid the same amount. It’s not survival of the fittest, and you don’t have to run fast – just as long as you’re limping quicker than the guy at the back. For instance, if the seat is worth $100 you’ll have to change your strategy and aggression levels depending whether your satellite buy-in is $5, $10 or $20 as the number of players going through will differ accordingly. In a rebuy satellite the initial entry fee, a rebuy and add-on will add up to close to 15% of the full buy-in of the tournament that you’re aiming for. The optimal strategy for qualifying 48
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big buy-in tournament unless you have a mammoth bankroll. To succeed you’ll need to combine concepts from both sitand-gos and standard tournaments. There are satellites available for all of PKR’s daily, weekly and monthly tournaments as well as for major tournaments around the world. Once you’ve won your first seat to an event any subsequent seats that you win on PKR are exchanged for cash, allowing many players to use the satellite’s flat payouts as an efficient bankroll-builder. So buy-in now and who knows where it will end…
should change depending on that ratio of entrants to seats. If one in three entrants wins a seat then play similar to a sit-andgo. If it’s seven or more that win a seat, then you should approach the satellite like a standard multi-table tournaments. But no matter the number of seats up for grabs, there are some key differences that you will need to master on your route to becoming a satellite master.
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It’s not survival of the fittest, and you don’t have to run fast – just as long as you’re limping quicker than the guy at the back
2
Chip preservation over accumulation
In a tournament your best strategy is to play to win, and to do that you sometimes need to gamble in marginal spots as, although they may be a coin flip, they’re a long-term winning proposition (due to pot odds, fold equity, fear factor etc). However, in a satellite there’s no pressure or need to accumulate a massive stack due to the flat payout structure, so the nature of the satellite can turn what would be a marginal call or open-raise in a standard tournament into a straightforward fold. At a full table early on it may be prudent to fold A-Q offsuit. You very rarely want to be calling off all your chips pre-flop at any stage, especially with a hand like A-Q. You simply can’t commit 50% of your stack with a non-premium hand in a satellite during the early and mid-stage
words: nick wright, illustration: Karl Dolenc, Image manipulation: Linda Duong
skirmishes, whereas if someone shoves for eight big blinds in a normal tournament you can be confident you’re either ahead of his range, or competitive with it, and make the call. In a satellite, if you call and lose what is probably a 50/50, you lose a whole lot of fold equity and that can be bad for your chances of making it to the later stages as you’ll be pricing in many stacks to call your all-in shove when you do eventually put all your chips across the line. What you should be doing is get your chips in from late position to pick up pots unchallenged, or for the very sweet over pair versus pair situation where you’re 80% favourite to double up or knock someone out.
3
Do the least work to win a seat
If there are 50 entrants to a satellite and 10 seats to be won and everyone starts with 2,000 chips, you can easily work out the average chips when the seats will be won. In this case 50 (entrants) x 2,000 (starting stack) / 10 (number of qualifying places) = 10,000. That number right there is what the average stack will be when the bubble
bursts. As you know, you don’t need the average chips to get a seat, indeed just one chip will do. There’s an easy way of working out if you can just fold to a seat so there will be times when you have no need to play a hand at all u stacked♠
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MTT strategy | satellite tournaments
to your average cash game player, is matter of fact (see Can I fold to a seat?, right). As always there are some key exceptions: If you have a large stack and the action folds to you in late position you can still consider shoving. If all the stacks to your left are in trouble, but none are big enough to damage your chances of folding to a seat should they win, then go ahead and hit the all-in button. The move will deny them the chance to do the same and that in itself brings you closer to getting a seat let alone if they call and you knock them out.
4
Learn to make big folds
Following on from the last point is that making big lay downs during the bubble stage of satellites are 100% necessary if you’re in a strong position; this is the opposite to multi-table tournaments where you should constantly be looking to increase your stack to maximise your chances of reaching the final table. In a satellite if someone shoves all-in for around half your stack and you have a hand like 9♣-9♥ or 10♦-10♥ then you should lean towards folding because the downside – the loss of half your stack – is far worse than the potential upside. There’s no need to be a hero, you gain nothing by attempting to eliminate a player and put yourself in a position to lose a seat. You should feel no anguish in folding Aces, Kings or Queens if there is simply no need to play a hand and getting bullish with a hand like J♦-J♣ from early position, when you’ve almost got a seat locked up is a terrible idea. You only need to be called by two over cards or a bigger pair to lose a pot that may drag you back into the scrap for the final seats.
5
When you need chips
They’ll be times towards the end of satellites when most effective stacks are between five and 20 big blinds as players will stall, dwell and wait for people to get eliminated (this is not bad etiquette but smart play). When only a few more people need to be eliminated it’s wise to keep an eye on all the remaining tables to see who is going to be forced all-in by the blinds and who’s desperate. Sometimes stalling so the blinds go up on a short-stack’s big blind can be the difference between winning a 50
stacked♠
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You should feel no anguish in folding Aces, Kings and Queens if there is simply no need to play a hand seat and not. If you’re the one at risk of elimination and need chips to stay alive then you need to be careful about who you target and when you target them. At this stage you’ll want to pick up chips by shoving in pre-flop, taking the blinds, avoiding a showdown; all while adding a healthy percentage to your stack, but you can’t just wait for a premium though. So who do you attack? Here satellites become closer to a standard multi-table tournament. Being first in is crucial as
is position, but equally important is the size of the stacks in the blinds that you’re going to shove into. Large stacks who can call you with impunity should be avoided, likewise the shortest stacks should also be given the swerve as they’ll be willing to call all-in with a wider range as they’re desperate and will know that you are as well. If a stack has less than five big blinds wait for a better spot – unless you’ve got less chips and are just as desperate, in a late position and with no raise in front of you. The stacks you want to attack are those that are currently well placed, but should they lose the hand to you will be in trouble. Their calling range should be incredibly tight – literally AA, KK, QQ, A-K and maybe JJ – although it won’t necessarily be that tight. This means you can make unexploitable shoves with any two cards (see Late shoving survival, below) in certain situations, which can
Late shoving survival
Pushing with rags is painful but necessary
D
uring the late stages of a satellite, winning chips without showdown is key to survival. There will be spots late on where you’ll need to accumulate chips and the action will have folded to you in the small blind or the button and you’ll have absolute trash. This should not stop you from shoving. Let’s look at an example where you’re in the small blind: Players left 20 (10 to a table) Seats 12 Your position 17 Your chips 4,000 (before posting) Average stack 10,000 Blinds 300/600/50 BB stack 9,000 (before posting) Your cards 9♦-5♠ Shove or fold SHOVE! Here’s why. There’s 1,400 in the middle and if you shove and win it uncontested you’ll increase you stack to 5,050, a gain of over 25%. n The extra chips not only gain you more time to wake up with a real
hand but also make it harder for people to call should you shove again. But the real beauty of this spot is that the big blind’s calling range should be incredibly tight due to the fact that he’d be down to 5,000 and in trouble should he lose the hand, yet very comfortable should he fold. You can effectively shove any two. Let’s say we run the hand 100 times, getting called 20 times and winning the blinds uncontested the 80 times. n Out of 80 times he folds we add 1,050 (600 + 9 x 50) to our stack. 80 x 1050, which gives us a gain of 84,000. n Of the 20% of the time we’re called, we luck out 6% of the time and gain 4,450 chips. 6 x 4,450 = 26,700. n 14% of the time we lose 4,000 chips and are out the tournament. And make a loss of 14 x 4,000 = 56,000. n 84,000 + 26,700 - 56,000 = 54,700. Divide this by a hundred and you’ll see that each time we shove we’ll gain 484 chips, whereas if we fold we make a loss of chips.
illustration: Karl Dolenc, Image manipulation: Linda Duong
and folding aces, a thought horrifying
gain you the chips to win a seat. If your stack is a little bigger, let’s say 15-20 big blinds, then re-stealing is an effective way to gain chips. Shoving over a late position raise from a similar stack can add 3350% to your stack at little risk, where again they need a big hand to call as they can fold and be in okay shape. There is high-risk element to this move but giving yourself two ways to win – they fold or you win at showdown – is a winning play, especially when aimed at players that you have marked as understanding satellite strategy. Also, avoid opening too many hands when your stack is 12-18 big blinds if you’re still in a good place to take a seat. Raising and folding with that stack size will be a disaster so only open raise if you can stand a re-raise and plan to call a shove. Learning how to get an edge playing satellites is crucial if you want to play in any major tournament. Buy-in today! n
Can I fold to a seat?
Know your strategy as a medium stack with one calculation
O
ne system that has been posted online for the business end of a satellite is Jeff ‘MonkeyCowboy’ Bilby’s ‘B-ratio,’ which helps to explain whether you can fold to a seat or not. You first take how many places you are above the bubble and divide that by the number of people that need to get knocked out before the bubble. Any number above two puts you in the position where you can fold to a seat, although you must reassess your B-ratio as the final stages
Become a satellite star
★
progress. For instance, there are 15 players left in a tournament with 12 seats up for grabs and you currently sit fifth in chips, so your B-ratio would be seven (you’re seven above the bubble spot) / three (there are three to go until the bubble) = 2.3. The closer to 2 or more you are, means you can ditch hands with impunity as you’re pretty much guaranteed a seat.
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PKR hosts satellites every month. Here’s the lowdown... PKR’s $100,000 guarantee takes place at 19.00GMT on the last Saturday of every month. The two most popular qualifiers are the $13.50 (one in 20 qualify) and $54 (one in five qualify). There are also satellites for major live tournaments around the world. More info: www.pkr.com/poker-promotions/satellites.cfm
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SNG strategy | player focus
sng Q&A
thesqueeze Name Mike Panayiotou Location Walthamstow, UK Age 27 Joined PKR January 2007
TheSqueeze
Meeting a Sit-and-go superstar He’s weathered the storm of losing runs, thrashed PKR’s highest rollers and is about to turn pro, introducing TheSqueeze
H
ailing from PKR’s home town and still a young man working towards his poker prime, Mike Panayiotou has racked up over 500 sit-and-go victories since joining in Jan 07. Known as TheSqueeze for good reason, he’s regularly taken on PKR’s best and won and chalkedup over 20 $200-$300 SNG first place finishes. He’s also made final tables in the Grand Prix, TV Showdown and $10k Bounty final tables. Anyone who plays sit-and-gos will know that they’re a volume game, but hitting a barren patch can be brutal. In the last year he’s gone through runs of over 20 games without a win four times but shown the emotional and mental strength to play back into the black. In July he placed first three times and second twice in six consecutive $200 and $300 SNGs. In one session he converted $1,400 into $4,000 in just six hours – quite an evening! PKR_danski
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stacked♠ What first started you off playing poker? Mike: I learnt how to play after watching the movie Rounders in 1999. I never dared playing for money at first but I was always fascinated by the game and just kept watching more on TV. Then a couple of years ago a few home games were arranged with friends from the bank I work in and I did reasonably well. That changed my mind about playing so I bought myself a PC and started playing $3-$20 online sit-and-gos and did reasonably well. I then found PKR and loved it. I’ve played some medium-level cash games here as well but I’m sticking to sit-and-gos for most of my poker for the moment. I’ve been playing the larger buy-in sit-and-gos ($100-$300) after finding a lot of success in them. So are you still playing the home games with a bunch of bankers? Well, by the time this magazine goes out I’ll be officially fully dependent on poker. I gave in my notice at work two weeks ago as I feel like I’ve been gearing up to give full-time poker a go for a good seven or eight months. My schedule so far has been to work for eight or nine hours, then come home and play poker for five or six hours which hasn’t left much time for anything else. This is the main reason why I wanted to go full-time, as well as being able to give more quality time to my poker which will hopefully mean better results. I believe leading a balanced life is important. I love my sports but it has been watching rather than playing the last year or so, which is something I hope to change when I
illustration: simfo, photography: Marcel Mooij
Blind Defence p56-59
Test Yourself p60-63
Stealing blinds is a vital part of the game but when it comes to defending rising blinds many players get themselves in serious sit-and-go trouble
Feel like you’re a sit-andgo shark? Check out our scenarios and find out how good you really are. No peeking at the answers first!
quit work. I’m a big Liverpool fan and even have TheSqueeze on the back of my Liverpool shirt! And, of course, I love a drink and socialising as well. TheSqueeze is a name that pops up quite a lot on the forums. What is it that keeps bringing you back? I find it very entertaining to read how different players perceive the game and I like the way it makes you feel part of a close community. It’s a little like family because most of my friends can’t understand the ‘obsession’ I have with poker. In the forum you realise you are not alone! Who do you most respect at the PKR tables and why? It’s a close community and you’re bound to make friends. The players I respect on the tables that spring to mind are Tovarsky, LarsAx, IneedUrChips and damocles who I play regularly in the bigger STT’s. They are good players and we have some banter, and the odd disagreement as well. Other players I get on with well are PirateNation, who is off to Macau (good luck, buddy) and the PKR couple of Trymean77 and Azurecoil. I’ve met a lot of other players and had a drink with a few of them. And on the other hand, are there any players that you’d like to face down at the table? Erm, well there are one or two. Some players don’t seem to like me much as I do like to use the chat and emotes to wind players up to my advantage. One player that seems to have taken the bait recently is Jtstepney, an average player that likes to tell me what a bad player I am. I enjoy taking money off people like that.
Knowing when to pass
Even when you make a hand you have to be ready to drop it Flop K♠ Q♦ 9♠ It’s a terrible flop for TheSqueeze and a great one for Tovarsky who checks their two-pair. TheSqueeze neglects to fire a continuation bet and shifts his play to pot control mode by checking to see the turn. TheSqueeze
Tovarsky
$2,655
$2,390
Blinds 75/150
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he bubble is the critical phase of the sit-and-go. Knowing when to apply pressure, when to sit back and when to grab chips for a strong first place finish is a skill that can take time. TheSqueeze shows his patience and caution with pocket Jacks in position. It’s down to the final four when TheSqueeze opens under the gun for $450. Tovarsky calls on the button.
What annoys you most when you play poker? It’s got to be the miniraise. It’s such bad play. There are rare occasions when a miniraise is correct but I’m talking about when you’re sat there with 2000 chips, the blinds are 10/20 with three limpers and someone makes a mini-raise! I don’t like the under the gun mini-raise either but the beauty
Turn K♠ Q♦ 9♠ K♦ Tovarsky has turned a full-house for a lock on the hand and checks again. TheSqueeze chooses not to bite at the second show of weakness and checks behind again with his two-pair.
River K♠ Q♦ 9♠ K♦ 10♦ The river gifts TheSqueeze a straight but it's not enough for him to lose any of his precious stack. Tovarsky bets the $975 pot and after a little thought TheSqueeze folds and shows his hand. Although a straight may win most pots fourhanded he's experienced enough to know that a paired and flushing board is far too dangerous to lose half your chips on. And if they're bluffing? Fair play to them!
of poker is we all interpret the game in our own way. We may know the answer to this, but what tip would you give to someone looking to improve their game? Don’t mini-raise under the gun! When you’re in a pot try to take control of it – you want be the one bossing the game. Put your opponent in a category (bluffer/maniac, calling station or good player) then base your decisions on those judgments. n stacked♠
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SNG strategy | blind defence
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BLIND DEFENCE Defending your blinds is a key issue at the table, but if you pick the wrong time to take a stand you could find your walls getting knocked down hard and fast
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veryone knows that in Hold’em the action is started by the two players to the left of the button posting blinds so there is something in the pot to contest. However, most players do not know how to play from the blinds correctly when facing a raise from other players or how to proceed post-flop when they do defend. This is indicated by the idea of ‘defending your blinds’ itself – once you have posted, those chips are no longer yours and, in most situations, you are better off relinquishing them rather than getting overly aggrieved at having someone try to ‘steal your blind’. Playing out of position puts
you at a huge disadvantage. After all, everyone must face the same situation as the button rotates, and soon enough you will have the opportunity to put someone who gets too involved out of position in a tricky situation. In sit-and-gos blind play gets particularly complicated as they inexorably increase as the number of players gets lower and the play gets more aggressive. For this reason, you can’t follow a ‘standard’ set of guidelines as you might when playing in a cash game. It’s essential to change the way you approach playing the small and big blinds that depends on the stage of the sit-and-go and your chip stack.
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SNG strategy | blind defence
Middle game
Early game
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hen there are still most of the original players left in and stacks of 50 big blinds or more, your situation is very similar to a cash game. Playing out of position is a problem because you can potentially face bets on every street making marginal hands very difficult to play. For this reason you should fold the vast majority of your hands to a raise and usually only defend pairs and big Aces. You also have the option of calling or re-raising at this stage, as opposed to the fold or
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In a sit-and-go you should try to avoid close gambles as other players will benefit from your loss
illustration: simfo
all-in decisions later on. Big pairs and AK usually deserve a re-raise and you can do the same with slightly weaker starting hands against loose or bad players in late position. You'll usually have the implied odds to call with small pairs in an attempt to flop a set – give up should you miss your set. In a sit-and-go you should avoid close gambles because other players will benefit from your elimination more than you will from doubling up! This can be quantified using a system called ICM (the independent chip model) which shows us that if you double up on the first hand of a ten-handed sit-
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and-go your stack is only worth 1.84 times its original value in real money terms, meaning you need to be more than a 54% favourite when the money goes in. Obviously that doesn’t factor in pot odds which can make a call more favourable. For this reason with weaker hands like AJ or medium pairs you should just call a raise rather than raising and folding to a shove. In the small blind you will often be getting great odds to complete, but because position is such a weakening factor you should only call with hands that have strong potential, like suited connectors, small pairs or face cards. Post-flop you will always be at a disadvantage. You should be looking to check-call with a lot of hands against aggressive players to keep them from using their position against you, unless you are in a re-raised pot or you have a very strong hand and believe an opponent will pay you off. The best advice is to not play many hands unless you feel very comfortable with your post-flop play.
uQuestion You’ve just started a sit-and-go and a late position raiser opens and you have A♦ 9♥ in the big blind. Do you fold, call, re-raise or move all-in?
uAnswer Your hand is not going to flop big very often and if you do hit an Ace or Nine it will still be hard to play confidently out of position. Fold.
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ou can apply most of the advice given for the early game as the game progresses with the average stack now around 30 big blinds, except even more stringently. The increasing blinds mean that you will have worse implied odds to defend a raise or complete in the small blind. Other players will generally tighten their opening ranges too and you are still deep enough that you can easily get in trouble playing out of position. Be extra cautious about defending and remember that the blinds are still small in relative terms and therefore it's less likely that players are simply stealing. Similarly, be more careful about your re-raising range as you will be putting a larger percentage of your stack in the middle when you do, and therefore give yourself better pot odds to call if your opponent shoves over the top. And with the bubble getting closer all the time you should be even more averse to close gambles. Therefore only re-raise with hands that you are happy to get it all-in with (unless you are re-stealing, which shouldn't be tried that often). You should be flat calling or folding most of the time.
uQuestion It’s now the middle game and you have AQs in the big blind. An early position raiser makes a standard raise of 3 big blinds. Do you fold, call, re-raise or move all-in?
uAnswer You have a strong hand but not one you want to get all-in with against most early position raisers, therefore you should see the flop before comitting any more. Call.
Late game
On the bubble
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hen the bubble approaches and the average stacks are 15-30 big blinds, the blinds become attractive to steal. Re-raising all-in becomes more viable because you still have fold equity but won't be risking unecessary chips. You can move in from either blind position over a mid-late position raiser with hands like A-J or 7-7 when you have 15-20 big blinds. Tighten up with larger stacks or against early position raisers. You can also resteal with weaker hands like face cards or suited connectors against opponents who open with a wide
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Re-raising all-in is more viable when you have fold equity and won't be risking too many chips
hen you reach the bubble the stacks will typically be so high players will have to play jam or fold poker. When you’re in the blinds you simply will not be able to defend many hands, bar premium hands, for fear of being eliminated. As discussed at the start of the article ‘defending your blinds’ is a particularly fallacious concept here since you should be far more interested in defending your overall position and stealing other players blinds when it's their turn to face that situation. If you’re one of the larger stacks your situation is a little different. If the blinds are still small enough for people to make non-committing raises you are now in the position to exert maximum leverage with a re-raise, which you can make with a wide range of hands as you threaten other players with bubbling at this late stage. You’ll often force the fold, allowing
you to pick up the raise and the blinds, which is a very profitable play. On the whole you should avoid making this play against very good or bad players unless you want a call. Bad players will usually stick their chips in while you may want to avoid doubling an excellent player back into contention.
uQuestion On the bubble with four similar stacks, an aggressive small blind pushes all-in against your big blind with ten big blind stacks when you have A♦ 7♣. Do you fold or call?
uAnswer Although your hand is probably going to be beating his range, at this stage you cannot afford to take the risk and freeroll the other players into the money with such a marginal call. Fold.
The ultimate re-steal
In the right situation a re-steal will make your opponents fold
range but whom you’ve noted will often fold. Avoid doing this very often though otherwise you'll get called light. In fact, with hands that are playable but not re-raise worthy you are now in a good position to flat call in the big blind. If you now hit a good flop the stack sizes will be ideal for you to check-raise a continuation bet all-in without having to risk much out of position. Face cards, pairs or aces with a kicker below your all-in ranges are ideal for this kind of play.
uQuestion A player opens in the cut-off to three big blinds. You have 6♣ 6♦ in the small blind and have him covered. Do you fold, call, re-raise or move all-in?
uAnswer Although your sixes may be behind your opponent's calling range, he will often fold to a shove letting you walk away with 4.5 big blinds for free. Move all-in.
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n sit-and-gos you only want to pull a re-steal under optimal conditions. The more ticks you can put to the following factors the better.
n Do you have a big stack that will allow you to play on if you lose the hand? n Do you have leverage due to the bubble and the stack sizes of other players? n Is your opponent opening a wide range? n Has the raiser previously shown that they’ll fold to re-raise a reasonable portion of the time? n Do you have some kind of hand should you get called? Imagine that you’re in the following situation which ticks a lot of the boxes. You are dominating a bubble situation with a chip stack of 7,500 against three players with around 1,500, 2,000 and 2,500 and the blinds have just turned 100/200.
The player with 2,000 chips has got back into the game by taking advantage of the bubble situation by making lots of mini-raises. The under-the-gun short stack folds, the player with 2,000 chips mini-raises from the button and the small blind folds. You’ve got 8♥ 9♠, which is not a great hand and while moving all-in with a weak holding may seem like a terrible play all the factors point towards it being the perfect time for a resteal. If he folds, which he may well do with the UTG player facing the blind next, I would win 700 chips, and even if called I would still only be putting in 1,800 to win 2,300. And because of my lead the loss won’t matter much and it would also make the other players less inclined to play back at me, making it easier to steal those lost chips back. All told, if opponents fold at a quarter to a third of the time (depending on his calling range) it makes the shove a profitable play!
stacked♠
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sng strategy | sng tests
test your know how
Do you know all the right moves in the fast and furious world of sit-and-gos? It’s time to see if you’re as good as you think
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ingle-table tournaments, or sit-and-gos, are a great low-risk way to build your bankroll, because with 30% of the field getting paid, it only takes a handful of good decisions to make the money. But therein lies the problem - in order to succeed at them you have to consistently make the right decisions in a variety of different situations. The more you play sit-and-gos the more you’ll see the same situations come up time and again, as the blinds rise and often force players into making one of two moves: all-in or fold. The most important thing then, is to know when to pull the trigger and when to lower your gun because one false move could easily result in an early death. Here are six classic situations that you could easily face any time you play. Can you answer them correctly and claim to be an SNG wizard or will you have to face the bitter truth that your sit-and-go needs some extra lessons? n
Jacks under fire 1 Pocket Players 10 / Chips 2000 / Blinds 10/20 / Your hand The action
It’s the very first hand of a nonturbo sit-and-go. The Under the Gun player raises to 60, a mid position player re-raises to 200 and the player in the cut-off then moves all-in for 2000 chips. You are on the button with J-J. Do you: a) call or b) fold.
$2000
$1940 $60
BB $1980
$1800
$2000
$200
$20
$2000 $10
all in $2000
Answer
You should fold. Although J-J is a big pair it is crushed by Q-Q, K-K and A-A, and with three raises before you it is highly likely that one of those holdings is already out there. Even if you are ahead of the player who has pushed all-in, you cannot be sure that the initial raisers do not have stronger hands given the early raise and reraise, and it is also highly likely that at best you are up against a player with two overcards
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sB $1990
You $2000
- A-K or A-Q - and that you are racing on the very first hand of the sit-and-go. To put yourself in a situation so early on in a sit-and-go, where you’re going to be knocked out nearly 50% of the time at best, or 80% of the time at worst, is
$2000 $0 abolutely terrible for your equity in the tournament and your long-term profits. If you answered… a) call, score 0 points. b) fold, score 3 points.
Queens 2 Critical Players 9 / Chips 2100 / Blinds 20/40 / Your hand The action
You raise to 120 from early position and a very loose player, who has already lost half his stack with a mid-pair, re-raises to 300, leaving just 700 chips behind. The button calls the re-raise and both blinds fold. Do you: a) call 200, b) re-raise to 900, or c) re-raise all-in for 2100.
$2200
$700
$300
$1740
$1900
$300 $20
$4260 $120
sB $2150
$40
Answer
You should move all-in. You are well ahead of the loose raiser’s range. You should also be able to get the player on the button, who presumably called with a marginal hand, to fold, thus trapping some dead money as you go heads up against the loose player. Calling is an option if you have strong evidence that the button caller could be slow-playing Aces or Kings but if an Ace or King comes down it’s hard to
$1990
BB $2300
You $1980 know where you stand. A smaller re-reraise to 900 is not the worst move but can result in you putting nearly half your stack in and being forced to fold. It’s much better decision to make things easier by moving all-in pre-flop as
a what is likely to be a big favourite. If you answered… a) call, score 1 point b) re-raise to 1100, score 0 points c) move all-in, score 3 points.
much paint to fold? 3 Too Players 5 / Chips 3600 / Blinds 100/200 / Your hand The action
$0
$2200
$4400
$4600 $200
$100 words: Rick Dacey, photography: Marcel Mooij
Down to five players and with a useful chip stack of 3800 you are in the big blind with K-Q. Action folds to the cut-off - a very tight player who has only played a couple of hands - who shoves all-in for 2200 chips. The small blind folds. Do you a) call 2000 more, or b) fold? Answer
You should fold. The player in the cutoff is very tight and has probably been waiting for a good spot to get his chips in. He’s moving all-in for 11 big blinds and isn’t imperilled, so it’s likely he has a premium hand. His range probably includes all pairs and AK-AT. Using Pokerstove (www.pokerstove.com), your hand’s equity against his range is just 38%, meaning you would need to pot odds of nearly 2/1 to make the call.
sB $4900
You $3600 But as it is, you are calling 2000 into 2500 - only slightly better than evens. You also have a very healthy stack nearing the bubble and calling 2000 chips would simply be gambling with a hand which is easily dominated. The damage it does to
your tournament equity when you lose outweighs the benefit of winning. If you answered… a) call, score 0 points b) fold, score 3 points
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sng strategy | sng tests
and big stacks 4 Bubbles Players 4 / Chips 9500 / Blinds 150/300 / Your hand The action
The extremely short-stacked UTG player folds and the button raises to 1000. You are in the small blind holding total rags - 2-7o. Do you a) fold, b) call 900, or c) re-raise all-in. Answer
Move all-in! As the big stack on the bubble of a sit-and-go you have all the power. The tiny stack folds hoping that two other players get it all-in. The second biggest stack on the button then makes a standard raise. The situation is perfect for you to shove with any two cards. The tiny 1000 stack is about to go through the blinds so the raiser really shouldn’t risk elimination with anything less than Aces or Kings. Even if he does have a monster you will still win about 15-20% of the time. Should you lose you’ll still have 4700
BB $4400
$300
$1000 $1000
$150
$3800
You $9350 chips left with one player almost certain to go out in the next couple of hands. There’s nothing wrong folding, you have a poor hand and can cruise into the cash, but it’s a weak play. Don’t pass an opportunity to really dominate. Calling
has absolutely no merits at all. If you answered… a) fold, score 1 point b) call 900, score 0 points c) re-raise all-in, score 3 points.
pressure 5 Under Players 4 / Chips 2800 / Blinds 150/300/a30 / Your hand The action
This time you are the short-stack on the bubble holding J-10. You are first to act and you have about nine big blinds, but with the antes in play and the cost per orbit of 570, you have an M of just 5. Do you a) call 300, b) fold, or c) move all-in.
$120
$7200
$150
BB $4420
$300
Answer
Your best chance to get back into the tournament is to move all-in. The blinds are just about to hit and you must make a move while you still have fold equity. The big stack has no reason to get involved without a monster and the blinds are both precarious mid-stacks. They should be reticent to call without a very strong hand. You must try to pick up the 500 chips and survive another orbit. Even if called your hand plays pretty well because of its suited
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You $2800 and connected nature. Limping with this hand achieves nothing because if someone raises you have to fold which wastes 300 chips. Folding is a weak play as it leaves you very short but if you feel someone will call
sB $4010
you very light then it is a viable option. If you answered… a) call, score 0 points b) fold, score 1 point c) move all-in, score 3 points
photography: Marcel Mooij
up maniac 6 Heads Players 2 / Chips 6800 / Blinds 400/800/a100 / Your hand The action
You made it to heads-up as almost equal stacks but your opponent has pushed all-in the last four hands and you haven’t been able to call. Your stack will be down to eight big blinds if you fold. The button pushes you all-in again. You have K-9 but is it good enough to call? Do you a) call, or b) fold?
sB $0
$13,200
$200 $800
Answer
This isn’t a clear cut decision but you should probably take the calculated gamble. If you pass he’ll have over a 2/1 chip lead and you’ll have to rely on finding a hand to double up with. He has pushed all-in on for five hands, capitalising on the high percentage chance that you will fold. If he’s pushing with approximately 75% of his hands; according to Pokerstove your
You $5900 hand - K-9s - has 57% equity against that range, making a call profitable. If you said fold, it’s not a terrible decision but your chance of winning is slipping away with each fold. The only move that’s going to get you back in it is
to call with your above average hand and hope to win it. If you answered… a) call, score 3 points b) fold, score 0 points
What’s your score?
Are you an SNG wizard, veteran grinder or a serial bubble boy
0-6
7-12
If you think you’ve been unlucky it’s time to think again. Your sit-and-go strategy is seriously flawed. Before you play another SNG re-read this quiz, pick up some strategy books and consult the PKR forums to get to grips with the fundamental concepts.
You understand the basic SNG concepts and even some of the more advanced ones too, but you still need to put some serious playing time in to grasp all the nuances and maths involved in the game. Keep thinking through each situation and you’ll get there.
You are a serial bubble boy
You are a veteran grinder
13-18
You are a sng wizard You consistently make the money through playing a tight-aggressive game at the start of a sit-and-go, and then ramping up your aggression in the end stages. Keep doing what you’re doing and you can’t fail to rake in the money. As long asyou follow sound bankroll management you should have no worry about stepping up another level. stacked♠
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what’s on | pkr biggies
x marks the spot PKR recently hit its two million user landmark which proves that you’re playing on one of most popular sites in the world, and that means there are going to be growing prize pools to plunder. As more players ante up we’ll continue laying on the best guaranteed tournaments around.
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stacked♠
$100,000
Guaranteed PKR Masters
Roll of honour
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o those that fell before these tournament winners we salute you. You had the courage to take your seat and play with the best of them. Maybe you got unlucky and they sucked out, maybe they didn’t, but they went on to further glory. Beware of these players, they know exactly what they’re doing.
PKR Masters Winners
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There’s a reason that the PKR Masters is the tournament that everyone wants to take down. Not only has it got the biggest guarantee
See a cheap flop Satellites from as little as $1.28 run all month long for the Masters. Read p48, Satellite Revolution for advice on qualifying to the final.
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The first big tournament of the weekend is the TV Showdown. Sporting a very attractive $20,000 guaranteed prize pool with just a $55 buy-in you can not only win big but also claim televised glory! See a cheap flop Satellite your way into the TV Showdown for just $6.05 at 10.30 GMT, or for free at 13.15. It is replaced by the $100,000 PKR Masters on the final Saturday of each month.
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The Sunday Classic gives you a second chance for weekend glory. A solid blind structure allows the cream to rise to the top in this $25,000 guaranteed tournament. The buy-in, a very affordable $65, can be spun-up to over $7,000 if you beat all comers at the final table. See a cheap flop For $7.15 you can qualify every day at 16.15 GMT, or try to freeroll in free at 17.20 (except Wednesday and Sunday).
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stacked♠
Tomislav Forgo
$20,000 $25,000
$7,145 $6,841 $6,484 $7,348 $7,410 $7,550 $6,890 $7,270 $7,332 $6,906 $7,051 $7,231
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river rage | november pain
Colin Morris
main event malaise…
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here has to be a better way to pick a WSOP Main Event Champion. I say that not in the spirit of someone who has a positive alternative to offer – more in the sense of someone who recognises when something has gone FUBAR (check wikipedia if you’re not sure what this means but suffice to say that it means ‘really gone wrong’). Now what I keep hearing from the advocates of this new system is that, “you’ll see what a great idea it is come November”. Maybe, I’m not so sure. I just can’t think of any other big time sport that pauses for three months IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GAME! Not even cricket, and they play that ridiculous game for like two weeks and stop for snacks! Putting the whole thing on pause is putting a wicked harsh downer on my WSOP buzz. The way I look at it, any way you slice it, dice it OR spice it the days of the Main Event final table being studded with poker royalty are over. Sure, Harrah’s was perhaps a little unlucky not to have any recognisable faces make it all the way this year, but the sheer number of
No sport, not even cricket, pauses for this long - and they play that ridiculous game for two weeks and stop for snacks!
Colin Morris is the host of PKR TV. Listen at www.pkr.com/ poker-community 66
stacked♠
runners contesting the Big One dictates that even the best players have only a marginal edge. The slow structure of the Main Event ensures that the tournament is not an out and out luck fest but really you’re not going to make this final table without running pretty damn hot. So with that in mind how and why they thought they could introduce a bit of pro-poker glamour to the proceedings is beyond me. The idea that those reaching the final table would receive coaching from pros like Daniel Negreanu is ridiculous – the idea runs completely opposite to the notion that poker is all about proving yourself. It ain’t a team game. Plus,
a player that picks a pro coach is putting himself in a lose-lose situation. If they become World Champion everyone will say that it’s because their pro-coach turned their end game around and if they lose it’s their own damn fault. Anyone with the nous to make a WSOP final table knows a losing bet when they see one, and I think that’s why we have yet to see any of the November Nine pick a named pro to ‘coach’ them - at least publicly anyway. The pause was meant to increase the suspense, allowing ESPN and other media outlets to build excitement leading up to November. The only difference I can see about putting the whole thing on pause so far is that it’s given the final nine a chance to whore themselves out to the highest bidder seek sponsorship deals with poker rooms who may help groom them to be champions. So far it isn’t exactly making for great TV, is it? Why not add in a reality TV element with more chips given to each player that wins in the boxing, cooking and free-style rapping disciplines? Okay, that might not help but the other attempts to spice of the Main Event up seems to be backfiring. My colleague Dan ‘Danski’ Grant recently and rightly (hey, there’s a first time for everything!) pointed out that never in the 30-plus year history of the World Series has a single cent been added to the prize pool. How many other major sporting events have prizes completely funded by the participants? I’m sure Harrah’s and ESPN are making a few bucks from all those TV viewers – so why isn’t any of this extra coin making it into the prize pool? I don’t know why some people look at as something as insanely successful as the WSOP Main Event and think they can make it better – but whatever it is I hope there’s a 12-step programme. Meanwhile we’ll be watching and waiting with baited breath to see who the next WSOP champ will be. The question is how many other people will be…n
photography: Sharon Dominick
Has the delayed final table taken the sparkle out of the WSOP?