American PokerPlayer Issue 2 by People Like You

American www.pokerplayerAMERICA.cOM

$3.99 Issue 2 MAy-June 2014

tower of power! how to run up a monster chip stack in mtts

pages of winning poker strategy inside!

ITâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s party time!

Find out why Jay Farber is the real king of Las Vegas

JAMIE GOLD IS BACK!

Exclusive interview with the controversial world champ

05-06/14 CONTENTS

THis month…

Game on!

THE PLAYERS editor David Tuchman contact@pokerplayeramerica.com

There I was, the ESPN camera in my face, looking down at the felt hoping, no, praying for a diamond. Come on, one time – this time! Alas, it wasn’t to be, the Nine of clubs hit the river and Event #2 of the 2005 WSOP was over for me. Knocked out in 66th place – pretty good considering the huge field, but still disappointing. For the record I had Ad-Kd in the cut-off and I made an overbet hoping to trap a weaker Ace. Instead I ran into pocket Aces. The flop was 2-2-3 with one diamond. The turn brought a bit of hope for me when a second diamond fell and that’s when the ESPN camera honed in on me. I wondered if they’d use me as the poster boy for their ‘agony of defeat’ portion of the WSOP coverage (they did). But that’s poker – it’s why we play. The adrenaline and the fun. I still remember that first summer I spent in Vegas for the WSOP. I was positive I was going to come back with a bracelet and suitcases filled with cash. It didn’t happen, but my excitement hasn’t waned one bit. I don’t get to play as many events now as I’m doing the commentary (see p16) but still I can’t tell you how intoxicating the WSOP is. If you’re looking to bag a bracelet this summer, we’ve got three WSOP winners to help you out: Matt Waxman (p18), Max Steinberg (p62) and Brian Rast (p68). If you’ve never been, COME! There’s nothing like it on the planet. And if you are coming, find me and we’ll go grab a beer!

editorial director Dave Woods dave.woods@plyp.co.uk

David tuchman

editor No WSOP bracelet for Tuck – yet!

BRIAN RAST With two WSOP bracelets, nearly $6m in live cashes and a reputation for killing the biggest cash games in the world, Brian Rast hasn’t joined us for the money! His passion for the game is apparent every second you speak to him. He’s also a very contented family guy and talks about the importance of balance in his first column for us.

editorial consultant Ross Jarvis art director Marc Southey Production editor Scott Skinner Online editor Nick Pryce THE hustlers Brian Rast, CardRunners, Crush Live Poker, Jamie Sykes, Karl Mahrenholz, Marco Valerio, Matt Moore, Matt Waxman, Max Steinberg, Michael Kaplan, Simon Hemsworth, Sofia Lövgren Advertising

Tim Farthing +44 20 3176 6982 +44 7939 106213

max steinberg

matt moore

In 2005, a 17-year-old Max Steinberg sat hunched over a computer screen. His Paradise Poker ‘Cashier’ was open and the account balance read $6. His game has come a long way since then, and we’re lucky to have Max’s insight into making the most of the tells on offer when you’re playing live this issue. Turn to p62 for his expert tips.

Matt Moore made the move to Vegas and chronicled every step along the way. He ‘writes for the grinders, for the passionate, and for anybody who’s ever had a dream.’ He says of Vegas, ‘While I may leave broke, I’ll know I gave it a shot. As T.S. Eliot said, “Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.”’

PUBLISHER’S NOTE Before playing at a gaming site you must ensure you meet all the age and regulatory requirements before placing a wager.

tim.farthing@plyp.co.uk people like you Publishing Publisher Tim Farthing editorial director Dave Woods

AMERICAN POKERPLAYER is published bi-monthly by People Like You Publishing (Gibraltar) Ltd, 3.3 Waterport Place, 2 Europort Avenue, Gibraltar. Entire contents © People Like You Publishing (Gibraltar) Ltd.

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contents

Jay Farber: Party animal and poker big shot

8 poker news Keven Stammen wins the WPT World Championship

Strategy 44 start your engines The five best ways to run up a monster stack in MTTs

11 a kid with a dream Matt Moore falls foul of Open Face Pineapple

48 don’t try this... The biggest mistakes you can make at the poker table

12 best of the web The top videos, blogs and forum posts this month

52 pokerplayer quiz How well do you know the basics of poker?

15 snapchat High stakes legend Alex ‘Kanu7’ Millar reveals all

54 the perfect start How to play monster pairs and win the most

16 2014 wsop preview How to watch it all live

58 cardrunners [vital]Myth continues his look at experimenting with examples of new lines to crush the tables

18 MARCO’S MINUTES The latest on the fight to bring online poker home

62 max steinberg How catching bet sizing tells can win you the money

20 jay farber Winning millions and high rolling in Sin City

63 Your call Top pro Karl Mahrenholz with a tricky real-life hand

24 Pokerplayer court The angle shooters and cheats finally face justice

30 the swings of life Theo Jørgensen on the highs and lows of family life

66 in the tank Our new agony aunt Sofia Lövgren heals your woes

32 sam trickett The king of UK poker on leaving Macau behind 38 jamie gold The 2006 champ looks back at High Stakes Poker

64 crush live poker Beat the live game with tips from the pros

68 Brian rast Don’t miss the WSOP! Going for Gold: Jamie looks back

Twitter: Follow us @PokerPlayerUS Web: www.PokerPlayerAmerica.com for updates from the poker world Facebook: Like us at facebook.com/ pokerplayeramerica

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69 gpi rankings The world’s top players

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SHUFFLE INBOX

Inbox

Send us your rants, questions and opinions. If you’re picked as the Star Letter you’ll win a pack of PokerPlayer playing cards

Email: contact@pokerplayeramerica.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/pokerplayeramerica Twitter: @PokerPlayerUS Girl power

Sofia Lövgren is our new poker agony aunt

STAR LETTER

We’re proud to have Sofia on board – turn to p66 for her very first feature and make sure you ask her a question for next issue! With Victoria Coren Mitchell becoming the first two-time EPT winner ever (see p9 for the story), women have proved there’s nothing they can’t do in poker. Now all we need is a woman to win the WSOP Main Event. Fingers crossed it happens this November.

Royal bust? I have been playing poker for about 12 years both online and in local casinos and card clubs. I keep meticulous records and have played more than one million hands of poker in that time! I have never had a royal flush. My mate has just rivered one at the Quad Casino in Vegas for $850. This is his second and he has only been playing for about six years and plays nowhere near as much poker as I do. His two are genuine but do you think some players claim to have had a royal flush when they haven’t? Mike Bennett Email

It’s pretty difficult to flop a royal flush. A quick Google search tells us that it will happen once in every 649,740 hands. So if you’ve played over one million hands and not seen one, you’re running pretty bad at the royal flush game. PokerPlayer isn’t sure why you’re so bothered though. There are no special prizes for getting a royal flush (well, apart from in some Vegas casinos) and winning a hand with Ace-high is just as profitable. Given all that, it seems unlikely that players would choose to lie about having a royal flush. Keep grinding away and surely you’ll hit one eventually – if you play another million hands and still haven’t, come back to us and you may get a little more sympathy.

The interest on $1m alone would give you the chance to continue playing any tournaments you want and try to win more titles. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Yes, the money is nice, but is it worth risking it all? Dale Buchanan Facebook This is a debate that has really gathered steam in the poker world, with everyone from Daniel Negreanu to Dan Shak and Phil Hellmuth having spirited debates on Twitter about it. At PokerPlayer we’re inclined to say that players are entitled to do what they please with their own money. However, a great way around the madness would be to simply stop the re-entry phase of these tournaments. That way, it’s a fairer playing field and you prevent players like Haxton

Spitting images

Do you know a poker player that has a long-lost identical twin? Let us know on Twitter @PokerPlayerUS!

THIS MONTH:

Macho madness I have a question for the poker world. With all these high-stakes cash games and super high rollers, how much money is enough? When Isaac Haxton fired six bullets in the $100k event at the Aussie Millions I thought it was madness. Personally, if I won an WSOP event for $1 million, I don’t think I’d risk it all by playing high-stakes cash or massive buy-in events to win even more money.

Scott Seiver Seth Rogen (sent in by Mike Curry)

neil stoddart, JOE GIRON

It’s great to see Sofia Lövgren as your new agony aunt. I think it’s important to promote the young women in the game. If poker is going to grow as a game it must increase the demographic of the players. It started with the ‘old live grinder’ before moving on to the ‘young internet whizz kids’ but an audience that has always remained under-represented is women in the game. It’s good to see a positive role model for female players and hopefully this will increase the player pools further. Well done PokerPlayer – keep it up! Gareth Jackson Email

www.pokerplayerAMERICA.coM

RAISE

The voice of reason As usual, it was left to Phil Galfond to have the definitive word on the Joe Hacheminspired Old School vs New School spat. Galfond gives his unique and reasoned take on the situation here: www.tinyurl.com/Galfondblog.

tty but A royal flush may look pre ched atta e priz cial spe a ly there’s rare

I’ve been playing poker for about 12 years and seen over a million hands, but I’ve never had a royal flush and Negreanu dusting off a sixshooter every time.

A serious issue After a terrible few weeks I was feeling down about poker and told my site that I had a gambling problem and to close my account for me. I was just tilting and now I can’t get them to reopen it for love nor money. I feel very stupid about it now but I was so tilted I didn’t care at the time. What do you suggest I do? I miss playing! I hope this at least made a few people laugh… Robbie Millross Email

Snow plough I’ve started using PokerSnowie since I saw it featured in the last issue of American PokerPlayer. It’s reminded me that a key element to be successful is to

What’s hot and what’s not this month

Quiet down there! In a recent interview poker player and crazy degen Dan Bilzerian described himself as ‘poker’s Bill Gates.’ Now, PokerPlayer could think of a lot of things to call Bilzerian, but that is not one of them… NBC pull the plug The popular NBC National Heads-up Championships will not be returning in 2014. The 64-player tournament has run every year since 2005 (barring 2012) and previous winners include the Poker Brat Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow and Erik Seidel.

fold

Thanks for your email Robbie – it must be very annoying for you to be barred from online poker but PokerPlayer thinks it’s great that online poker sites are being so vigilant in the face of potential addiction. Gambling addiction is an issue that affects many people and must be taken seriously. As far as getting your account back, we have no concrete answer but it’s unlikely that you’d be able to go back on your decision. In the meantime it sounds like you could do with reading The Mental Game of Poker to get your mindset right for future bad runs!

Million dollar dreams The field at the $1 million Big One for One Drop is starting to take shape, with 23 players already signed up for the summer extravaganza. Big names including Ivey, Esfandiari and Mercier will be competing for the $20m first prize.

keep all my opponents guessing and to try to have a system for estimating what they have. PokerSnowie gives you an insight into funnelling hand ranges down by each street, while ensuring no villain can read what you have. I’d recommend the free trial to everyone – even if you only have one hour per day to try it you will get some insights into your game which will help you beat your foes over time. Andy Sinha Email It’s good to see you’ve been putting your PokerSnowie trial to full use Andy, and we agree that it is a very powerful training tool for any aspiring poker player. From books to training videos to interactive tools like Snowie, the world of poker coaching is constantly evolving and if you ignore it, you might be left behind… If you fancy giving PokerSnowie a go we’ve worked out a fantastic offer exclusively for PokerPlayer readers. Just register your details at www.tinyurl.com/PokerSnowie for a free 30-day trial.

Let’s beat cancer PokerStars released Play To Cure: Genes in Space, a non-poker mobile app game that helps analyse genetic data in the battle to find a cure for cancer. The game is free to download and has been getting great reviews. Get it now for iOS or Android devices.

Tapping out 2010 November Niner Filippo Candio is the latest famous poker face to say they are quitting the game. If he’s anything like messrs Deeb, Benefield and McDonald, we can expect to see Candio in the $1,500 event at this summer’s WSOP.

SHUFFLE NEWS

VIEWS

GOSSIP

Keven Stammen and his fan club

Keven shows Stammena WPT Season XII finale moves to New Jersey and makes another poker millionaire

2014 WPT World Championship

Buy-in: $15,000+$400 Entries: 328 Keven Stammen might not be a household name but he’s been on a tear this year and recorded his best ever result at the end of April when he won the $15k WPT World Championship for $1,350,000. For the first time the season finale moved away from Bellagio in Las Vegas, which saw just 146 players take part last year. Action at the Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was significantly hotter, as 328 players stumped up the $15k to ensure that the $5 million guarantee was hit after just a few re-entries. Keven Stammen had already posted a third place at the 2014 WPT at the Lucky Hearts Poker Open Championship, and put in a dominating performance to reach the six-handed final table as the big chip leader. He was the only player to boast a 100BB stack when play started, with a bonus $1m up for grabs for anyone that flopped a royal flush.

Unsurprisingly, that didn’t happen. Instead Stammen steered his chip lead past Ryan D’Angelo and the WPT’s own Tony Dunst to take on Byron Kaverman heads-up for the title. Stammen had a two-to-one chip lead at this point and extended this after two hours of play before the final confrontation. In his victory hand Stammen limped his button with A♣-8♠ and made the call when Kaverman shipped his stack with 4♠-4♦. Kaverman was looking good for a double-up on the Q♥-9♣-6♠-3♥ board but an Ace on the river shipped Stammen the title and his first seven-figure tournament score. Stammen is definitely one to watch at the World Series of Poker this summer. As well as claiming the WPT World Championship, he’s currently sitting on top of the Global Poker Index Player of the Year rankings. See p16 for more on this year’s WSOP and how you can watch almost every final table live.

FINAL TABLE 1. Keven Stammen 2. Byron Kaverman 3. Tony Dunst 4. Ryan D’Angelo 5. Curt Kohlberg 6. Abraham Korotki

Stammen was the only player to boast a 100BB stack when play started

$1,350,000 $727,860 $452,729 $363,930 $286,292 $235,341

Byron Kaverman couldn’t fade the Ace on the river

Tony Dunst took the title for bestdressed player

The NUTS

twotime!

victoria coren mitchell makes history at EPT sanremo The popular PokerStars pro Victoria Coren Mitchell won the PokerStars EPT Sanremo main event in April for a huge €476k prize and in the process became the first ever two-time winner on the European Poker Tour. Arguably the most famous UK poker player, Coren Mitchell stormed to victory on Easter Sunday with one of the largest viewing audiences in the history

of EPT Live watching the action unfold in real time on the Italian coast. Coming into the final table as the short stack, Coren Mitchell’s victory looked unlikely but she pulled out a battling performance and got crucial double-ups at the right time. The tournament ended quickly once the play went heads-up, with Coren Mitchell making two pair with her Q-J to bust the slow-played pocket

900 million for stars pokerstars hits another huge milestone Despite being shut out of the States in April 2012, PokerStars continues to rack up impressive figures across the rest of the world. Sunday April 27 marked the 900 millionth tournament the world’s biggest online site has put on since 2001. 18,711 players ponied up the $109 entry fee creating a prize pool of $1,871,100, smashing the $1m guarantee. Canadian player earlygrey23 took the title and $152,532 but runner-up PaPakwanto took the biggest slice of cash home – $176,278 – after a three-way deal was struck.

baby steps in the US Inaugural NJCOP attracts 7,125 runners The huge numbers at PokerStars (see above) make us green with envy, but the good news is that online poker is back in certain parts of the US. New Jersey residents enjoyed the first ever NJCOP (New Jersey Championship of Online Poker) in April – a series made up of 15 MTTs with $600k in guaranteed prize pools. All but two of the Party/ Borgata tournaments hit their guarantees, with the $200k main event attracting 892 runners.

Victoria Coren Mi tchell celebrates her sec ond EPT victory in Italy

Aces of runner-up Giacomo Fundaro. Season 11 of the EPT kicks off with the 100th event in Barcelona, Spain, in August. PokerStars are promising to break all attendance records here with a 12-day poker festival to celebrate the milestone, before moving to London in November and Prague in December. You can get the very latest info at www.europeanpokertour.com.

phil ivey sued for $9.6m high-stakes legend accused of edge sorting by borgata casino

Phil Ivey is used to winning million-dollar battles on the table. Now he’s hoping he runs as well off the felt after being sued for $9.6m in winnings at the Baccarat table by the Borgata in Atlantic City. The lawsuit alleges that Ivey used a technique known as ‘edge sorting’ to exploit flaws in playing cards. Ivey is involved in another lawsuit with UK casino Crockfords, who he is suing for $12m in winnings, witheld after a similar incident. Ivey admitted to edge sorting but said the casino only had itself to blame.

Moorman wins at last! online superstar clinches first major live title He may be the biggest winner in online tournament history, but in the real world Chris Moorman has usually been the bridesmaid, finishing runner-up on four separate occasions in major tournaments. That all changed in March at the Commerce Casino’s LA Poker Classic where Moorman beat a field of 534 players to the $1 million first prize. The final hand came when Moorman’s pocket Aces held up against the straight draw of Glenn Lafaye to end Moorman’s heads-up voodoo and take his live tournament winnings to $4m.

Neil Stoddart

The poker world is firmly behind Ivey in both cases

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SHUFFLE COLUMN

A kid with a dream No matter how careful you are, says Vegas pro Matt Moore, the perils and pitfalls in Vegas can catch you out when you least expect it

here are two types of players in the high limit area of the Bellagio poker room. Those who play no-limit and those who play mixed games. Requiring two different skill sets, the two groups overlap surprisingly infrequently given their everyday proximity. They consider us one trick ponies drinking from a dried up well, and we peg them for the wimps they are, incapable of handling the pressure of big bet games. While the player pools generally don’t overlap, there is one game that allows the rivalry to play out on the tables: open face pineapple. With lots of varying strategies and none proven ‘correct’, the game has taken Vegas poker rooms by storm. To be short, all players start with five cards and begin filling out three rows where hand strengths must flow progressively from the back to front. The next four rounds each player is given three cards, adding two to their hand and tossing one away. Bonus points are given to big hands with the mecca being fantasy land (given when you make at least a pair of Queens up top).

their heads at their own misfortune. I joked with anybody in shouting range as my pile progressively grew, while my opponents drooped into their diminishing chip stacks. But like the Wolf of Wall Street, the mirage that was my edge in this game would all come crashing down. Suddenly my hands were bricking, even the big favorites finding a way to crap out. And I was the one silent as my opponents laughed their way through the next few hours. By 5am I was borrowing my second flag (5k chip). I’d gone from calculated risk taking to reckless gambling and had no idea how it happened so quickly. By 8am we had finally quit. Not by my choice I hasten to add, but my opponents who had long passed through the courtesy

Feeling fruity I made a rare after dinner stop to the Bellagio one Wednesday to collect a $300 debt from a night shift player. I was exhausted from an early schedule when I noticed an open seat in the $20/point open face pineapple game. My experience over a few thousand hands on the Pineapple Poker app told me that: 1) I was definitely a solid winner in the game. 2) Girlfriends don’t appreciate 24 hour-gambling as much as you would think. Nonetheless, there was a sizable mark at this particular table, prompting me to push back my bedtime and parlay my $300. Two hours later my freeroll had turned into a $7k stack. With each set of three cards the perfect path to fantasy land seemed to unfold, while my opponents were left scratching

There’s plenty to tempt you in the bright lights of Veg as

period given to their buried counterpart. The sun was blinding, as it always seems to be when an all-night session ends poorly. My $300 freeroll had turned into a $5k IOU, my blood was boiling, and any chance of a productive no-limit session the next day was as laughable as my open face downfall.

By 5am I was borrowing my second flag (5k chip). I’d gone from calculated risk taking to gambling

Gamble gamble The poker community is the legitimate wing of the seedy gambling underworld; the Stringer Bell of Baltimore. And Chinese poker is our prescription pill; the upper-class drug of choice, its dangers hidden behind big words and small bottles. An app with no rake has given the illusion that the game can be beat, and those that continue on this self-fulfilling prophecy will fail to distance themselves from the evils of the pits, living their professional lives as ticking time bombs. Collectively we paid $1200 to the house during that 10-hour session at Bellagio. Not to mention the four-figure sum I cost myself in equity by sleeping through the next day’s no-limit session. With an edge so small and variance through the roof, the only winners in the long run are the rake boxes. As the World Series of Poker approaches, there will be a plethora of options for those into prescription gambling at all ends of the strip. A chance for anyone who’s logged thousands of hands on the Pineapple Poker app to finally prove themselves in the live arena. It’s all too easy to get caught up in the rush, but if you’re coming to the desert for work, try not to forget that gambling is gambling no matter PP how you dress it up. l Matt Moore will be avoiding open face pineapple and looking to win a bracelet instead this summer. Follow his quest at AnotherKidAnotherDream.com.

SHUFFLE THE MONTH ONLINE

Best of the web All the latest poker highlights from the online world

Online legends Reliving the greatest players in online history

Niki ‘Kaibuxxe’ Jedlicka

BEST O BLOFG S

Who? Austrian Jedlicka made $3.5 million online in 2007 playing high-stakes PLO to top the yearly charts. The baby-faced assassin was made a Full Tilt Red Pro and immediately went on a terrible downswing. Where are they now? Jedlicka showed up at EPT Vienna and reports surfaced of him cleaning up in a private after hours €100/€200 PLO cash game. Besides the odd dabbling in poker, Jedlicka says he is ‘taking care of my investments’. A true legend.

ElkY: Not a fan of re-entry tournaments

Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier Bertrand Grospellier isn’t happy. No, it’s not because he finally lost a coinflip after playing poker for ten years. He’s unhappy about re-entry tournaments; ‘I really dislike them. I think too many tournament series have adopted the re-entry format and I believe it’s bad for the game as a whole, especially in main events.’ It’s a view that PokerPlayer is inclined to agree with. ElkY sees re-entries as a bad thing for recreational players who, ‘can’t afford to re-enter multiple times in a big buy-in tournament.’ It also offers an unfair advantage to the pros. ‘Professionals already have a skill advantage…and re-entries give them an additional edge. It’s very unfair to players who qualify online or win live satellites and can only fire one bullet.’ Luckily for ElkY his favourite tour, the EPT, is currently freezeout only and he, ‘hopes they stay that way!’

Where’s the glory? There’s another reason why ElkY is vehemently anti re-entry; the thrill seeker

thinks they, ‘take away a lot of the excitement of tournament poker. Having the potential to bust on any given hand is what makes the game so thrilling.’ The Frenchman is right that re-entries take away some drama from the game but they can also affect the strategy at the table, ‘You should always be one crucial mistake away from the rail. Being able to reach into your pocket and rebuy takes away the huge adrenaline rush you get when you make a big call.’ Finally, ElkY equates the current situation to, ‘making a tournament feel more like a cash game. I would much rather play a freezeout so I can experience those exhilarating moments.’ As other big name players begin the backlash against re-entries PokerPlayer wants to know where YOU stand? Are re-entry tourneys killing poker? Or are they a brilliant way to pump up the prizepools and give players even more value for money? Let us know on Twitter @PokerPlayerUS. www.tinyurl.com/ElkYrages

Jase the Ace was waxing lyrical about a recent trip to Cape Town in his latest blog. He calls the South African capital ‘the most beautiful city I’ve ever visited. The scenery is just amazing and there are these lookout points where you can look down on the city.’ Mercier was in Cape Town for the latest leg of the WPT’s Alpha8 tour where he finished third. Given that the tour has a $100k buy-in Mercier was unlikely to see many fish but he did ‘get to see a bunch of cool animals such as penguins, baboons, ostriches, and seals’ instead. After returning home to Florida, Mercier’s attention turned to his first love, basketball. ‘I truly believe coaching basketball for those three years has helped me in poker.’ ‘When you’re a player, you feel like you are influencing the action. But the coach has to sit back….it taught me a lot about maintaining composure and not tilting.’ If that’s the case, it sounds like Phil Hellmuth could do with a spell at basketball camp before the WSOP…. www.tinyurl.com/MercierCape

Mercier: White men can jump

Neil stoddart

Jason Mercier

www.pokerplayerAMERICA.coM

check it out!

Top videos on the web this month What’s the best way to make a quick $1.4m back? Asking for a friend.” Phil ‘@PhilGalfond’ Galfond Watched Wolf On Wall Street. They had to set a record for using the fxxx word.” #prettydisgusting Doyle ‘@TexDolly’ Brunson By far best @WSOP schedule ever created. @WSOPTD & @wsopSUITd willingness to listen to player feedback is key to their continued success.” Matt ‘@MattGlantz’ Glantz

Rafa smashes it The poker and tennis worlds collided when PokerStars locked Daniel Negreanu and Rafa Nadal in a room for an hour long webcast. Rafa vs. The World is part awkward chat show, part beginners poker strategy. Watch to see if Rafa is a shark or fish. Click here to watch!

Leaving gym. Someone stopped me and said I really enjoyed watchin u when I was growing up. Man I’m getting old. Lol” Phil ‘@philivey’ Ivey Yup. Girls still look better with makeup” Mike ‘MikeMcDonald89’ McDonald OK guys, gonna be honest. Sometimes I sell action for poker tournaments. Who has 800k spare to put me in One Drop? DM me. (750k will do)” Vanessa ‘@VanessaSelbst’ Selbst

Not even Ivey can beat Father Time

Tweetin’ Out! The craziest pics and videos tweeted by the poker world

Chris

Joe

‘@Moorman1’

Moorman

Kid ‘n Play (tennis)

Tell me everything The New York Times ran a cool science experiment where members of the public were asked random questions – half told the truth and half were bluffing. Can you use your poker reads to deduce who was pulling a fast one? Click here to watch!

‘@Stapes’

Liar Liar pants are from GAP

Stapleton

Last night I pulled off a surprise proposal to @katekinds and all these people joined us after. Biggest bluff ever! www.tinyurl.com/ moormans-bigbluff

Most said the class was still too expensive. www.tinyurl.com/ nuke-the-uke

Vanessa

Daniel

‘@VanessaRousso’

‘@RealKidPoker’

Negreanu

Rousso

Cabo… Nuff said www.tinyurl.com/ kid-in-cabo

I’m selling my 1957 Ford T Bird pictured here if anyone is interested! www. tinyurl.com/ cracking-bird

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @PokerPlayerUS Go to pokerplayeramerica.com for the latest poker news

Short stack ninja If you’re struggling with your short-stack tournament game this masterclass from the WPT’s Tony ‘Bond18’ Dunst should put you on the right track. Click here to watch! Smooth Tony shows you how to play a short stack

SHUFFLE tavern poker

Play for free and win big at the WTP

World Tavern Poker Get involved with World Tavern Poker for the very best free action, with huge prizes up for grabs

Se ason 2

eason 2 of World Tavern Poker is in the bag and the qualifiers are gearing up for the WTP OPEN this June in Atlantic City. It’s set to be the largest freeroll championship the World Tavern Poker has run, with the winner walking away with a $10,000 Main Event seat that could be worth, oh, around $8m come November. In total 24 WSOP seats will be given away in June and we’ll follow the progress of all the winners in Vegas.

All smiles at the WTP final table

Expect friendly and fierce competition

Here are the leaders from over 25,000 players who took part in Season 2 of 2013! Sign up for the World Tavern Poker today and it could be you name on top of the leaderboard for Season 1 of 2014!

National Leaders Dimone Long (MD) Larry L Jones (SC) Steve Vogel (NC) Indy Kowlessar (NJ) Nick Magnocavallo (NJ) James Schippe (NJ) Bob Howard (NJ) Chris Rhew (NC) Bob Pietrucha (NJ) Dave Singh (NJ) Barbara Garrett (NC) Robert Zurcher (VA) Paul Hernandez (PA) Vlad Zaltsman (NJ) Sophie Stulberger (NJ) Sriram ‘Sam’ Raghu (NC) Deby Jedrey (NC) Doug Marshall (NC) Lawrence Schulman (NJ) Cliff Applegate (MD)

10340 10220 10219 10114 10113 10012 9967 9955 9943 9886 9878 9877 9836 9826 9823 9797 9778 9756 9747 9736

The winner will walk away with a $10k Main Event seat that could be worth $8 million

Get Getinvolved! involved! ItItcouldn’t couldn’tbe beeasier easier to to find find aa game at atWorld the World Tavern Tavern Poker. Poker. Just visit www.WorldTavernPoker.com, Just visit the website – where www.WorldTavernPoker.com you can create a profile and search – where foryou a local can game createwith a profile your and Zip search or onfor theyour interactive local game map. with Youyour can Zipalso or on find thethe interactive latest leaderboards map. You and canaalso full find schedule, the latest along leaderboards with information and a full schedule, on everything along with from the information prizes to on theeverything WTP rules.from Signthe up prizes and to join the the WTP party rules. today!

www.pokerplayeramerica.com Zip it Skippy: You’ve had your ‘one time’

Snap chat

Alex ‘Kanu7’ Millar

The poker world’s fastest interview 140 characters max per answer PokerPlayer: How is your 2014 going so far poker and life-wise? Alex Millar: Bad start to the year poker-wise, lost over $600k in a session vs Blom and mainly playing $25/$50 so down a lot. Life going good though, fun trip to the PCA and my 5-a-side football team is going well!

Kanu7 piles more pressure on poor Cleverley

Are you beating Isildur lifetime or is he up on you? I am beating him lifetime in terms of $$$s but he is beating me in terms of BBs, I have done better at the highest stakes we have played. Are you a little bemused that he is still seen as the Online Hero? It makes sense, he basically instigated the craziest action online poker has ever seen. If you’re a fan you’re not gonna forget that even if he isn’t the very best at NLHE anymore.

You’ve just signed with PokerStars. Will we be seeing more of you on the tourney circuit? I’ll be more visible I guess but not by much, I still plan to mainly focus on online play where I can earn more than I would playing live tourneys.

Do you care about things like a WSOP bracelet or is the respect of your online peers more important? Most important is just being happy with my career. I’ll take whatever results that gives me. Winning a bracelet isn’t a major goal, I didn’t even go to the WSOP last year. You’re a big Man Utd fan. Who is worse? Tom Cleverley or Gus Hansen? Haha! At football or poker? Maybe Tom Cleverley for both...

Gus Hansen: poker ambassador and high-stakes donator

Poor Tom. But what is up with Gus? Is he that bad? He’s not bad, he just plays against the best. He’s a good ambassador for the game so credit to him for that. You wrote recently that you won $250k from Isildur and then had dinner with your girlfriend. Please tell us you didn’t take her to Nando’s [a UK chicken joint] … We were eating in! That being said, I’m not averse to a Nando’s after any sort of winning day, they do good chicken! When we’re in the UK it’s always a half-chicken ‘hot’ with coleslaw. You’re quite clearly a Nando’s fish! It’s all about a double fillet wrap with cheese and pineapple!

Millar likes to mix it with online hero Isildur

To p 5

worst table

talkers

Joe Hachem When you win the WSOP Main Event you lose the right to ever utter the phrase ‘one time!’ again. That’s the deal – everyone knows it. Except Joe. If you can show us a world champ that whines as much as ‘Salty’ we’ll give you a prize. But just this one time.

Howard Lederer Putting aside the small matter of screwing players out of hundreds of millions of dollars the former Full Tilt supremo also has some of the worst table chat ever. He’s not offensive or a whiner. No, Howard’s main crime to banter is that he’s incredibly boring. Be quiet Howard, you’re sending us to sleep.

Andrew Robl A curious choice you might think but one word springs to mind when you think of Robl’s table talk: awkward. Robl is the geek trying to muscle his way into the cool kid’s club – only to be rebuffed with a shake of the head and a kick to the nuts. Chin up Andrew.

Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates If Robl were to have a tag team partner in Awkward United it would have to be ‘Jungleman’. His verbiage seems to consist solely of incoherent mumbling, bad jokes and an eruption of swear words when he realises nobody is paying any attention. In your own words Dan, would you please STFU?

Tony G Tony G’s table talk made the Aussie man-mountain famous. The joke was funny ten years ago when he was berating Surinder Sunar at the WPT – but not now. Tony’s bullying schtick is beyond stale and we’re begging him to keep his mouth shut for once.

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Watch the World Series live! Making a final table at the WSOP is every poker player’s dream. The next best thing is watching, says WSOP live stream host David Tuchman

58 WSOP final tables will be streamed live this summer

I still remember waking up to my phone ringing in February 2011. It was Dan Gati from Poker PROductions and Jamie Horowitz from ESPN. They told me about their intention to do a live stream for some of the tournaments at the World Series of Poker that summer and that they’d like me to do play-by-play. ‘Would I be interested?’ was their next question? I’d like to think I was composed and professional when I answered, but I’m fairly certain that wasn’t the case. I probably sounded like a fifteen year-old girl who’d been asked to the prom by the captain of the football team. I’d done play-by-play for the WSOPE before, but to do the WSOP in Vegas was a

dream come true. And it still is. I’ll be back behind the mic for the 2014 WSOP and it looks like it might be the best summer of streams yet. Virtually every final table will be streamed as the WSOP has the capability to handle more than one at a time. 31 of themwill be streamed on a 30-minute delay with six cameras, commentary and with hole cards using RFID technology. Instead of using a camera to capture the cards, RFID (radiofrequency identification) uses cards equipped with chips. Special readers are positioned in certain spots on the table to read each card and send the data to the Poker PROductions team. Oh and if you haven’t heard of Poker

PROductions, you have reason to get very excited. Simply put, nobody makes a better poker show than them. These are the guys behind High Stakes Poker, the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship and Poker After Dark. There’s another reason to be excited about the live streaming this summer – the calibre of our guests. It’s my favorite part of the job. To be able to pick the brains of the best poker players in the world on a daily basis is too much for this poker nerd to handle. There are too many great players to mention them all by name, but I can tell you each year we do the show it gets easier and easier to lure the best in the world into my black booth so they can offer their analysis. Join us and join in!

www.pokerplayeramerica.com

of the best

Book a vacation or get ready to call in sick! Tuesday June 3: Millionaire Maker We had 6,343 entrants last year and I’m expecting at least 8,000 this year. Insanity will definitely ensue.

Sunday June 8: Seniors NLHE It’s a crazy big turnout, the ESPN stage is always rocking and for whatever reason the old-timers just seem to have a load of fun.

Monday June 16: 10k Six-handed NLHE This tournament usually delivers an amazing final table. Two years ago, Greg Merson won in what was a precursor to his Main Event run and last year’s final table had Phil Galfond, Dani Stern, and Stephen Chidwick on it. (None of them won it.)

Thursday June 26: 50k Poker Players Championship We stream this one without hole cards as the software only supports hold’em and Omaha. But with eight games and the best players in the world battling it out for a place in history, it’s just too good to miss.

Get involved You can watch all of the action at WSOP.com. Most final tables will start streaming between 2-4pm local time, but this is subject to change – follow @WSOP on Twitter for the latest info. We like to keep the show as interactive as possible so make sure you tweet us (@WSOP or you can get me @TuckonSports) and get involved in the show. Luckily, we’re on the same 30-minute delay as you!

2014 WSOP live streaming schedule May 28 Casino Employees Event NLH May 30 Mixed Max No-Limit Hold’em May 30 Pot-Limit Omaha May 31 No-Limit Hold’em May 31 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball June 1 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout June 1 Seven Card Razz June 3 Millionaire Maker NLH June 3 Limit Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better June 4 No-Limit Hold’em Six Handed June 5 Pot-Limit Hold’em June 5 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball June 6 Limit Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better June 7 No-Limit Hold’em Six Handed June 7 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball June 8 Seniors Event June 8 Seven Card Razz June 9 No-Limit Hold’em June 9 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout June 10 No-Limit Hold’em June 10 H.O.R.S.E. June 12 No-Limit Hold’em Six Handed June 12 Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split-8 or Better June 13 No-Limit Hold’em June 14 H.O.R.S.E. June 14 Pot-Limit Hold’em June 15 No-Limit Hold’em June 15 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low 8-or Better June 16 No-Limit Hold’em June 16 No-Limit Hold’em Six Handed June 17 No-Limit Hold’em June 17 Seven Card Stud June 18 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball June 19 No-Limit Hold’em Eight Handed June 19 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split-8 or Better June 20 No-Limit Hold’em June 21 Heads Up No-Limit Hold’em June 21 Dealer’s Choice Six-Handed June 22 Pot-Limit Omaha Six Handed June 22 Limit Hold’em June 23 No-Limit Hold’em June 24 No-Limit Hold’em June 25 Ante Only No-Limit Hold’em June 26 The Poker Players Championship June 26 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better June 27 Eight Game Mix June 28 No-Limit Hold’em June 28 Limit Hold’em June 29 Ladies Championship June 29 No-Limit Hold’em Monster Stack June 30 No-Limit Hold’em July 1 No-Limit Hold’em July 2 Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better July 3 No-Limit Hold’em Mixed Max July 3 Seven Card Stud July 4 10-Game Mix Six Handed July 5 The Little One for One Drop July 5 Pot-Limit Omaha

$500 $25,000 $1,000 $1,000 $10,000 $1,500 $1,500 $1,500 $10,000 $1,500 $1,500 $10,000 $1,500 $3,000 $1,500 $1,000 $10,000 $1,500 $3,000 $1,000 $10,000 $5,000 $2,500 $1,500 $1,500 $10,000 $2,500 $1,500 $1,500 $10,000 $1,000 $1,500 $1,500 $5,000 $10,000 $3,000 $10,000 $1,500 $5,000 $1,500 $1,500 $1,000 $1,500 $50,000 $1,500 $1,500 $5,000 $10,000 $1,000 $1,500 $1,500 $1,000 $3,000 $1,500 $10,000 $1,500 $1,111 $10,000

Hole cards Hole cards Hole cards Hole cards Hole cards Hole cards

Hole cards Hole cards

Hole cards

Hole cards Hole cards Hole cards Hole cards

Hole cards Hole cards

Hole cards Hole cards Hole cards Hole cards Hole cards Hole cards Hole cards

Hole cards Hole cards Hole cards Hole cards Hole cards

Hole cards

• These are the dates of all the final tables being streamed live at WSOP.com • The Big One for One Drop and the Main Event are being televised exclusively for ESPN • For full tournament schedule see www.wsop.com/tournaments/ PP

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Waxman bluffs and sets the trap

Marco’s minutes Online poker is coming back to America, state by state. Industry expert, Marco Valerio, reports from the legislative frontline

Waxing lyrical

Matt Waxman reveals the winning secrets behind his WSOP bracelet

1 2

During a bluff, make a memorably dumb face and show your cards after it gets through. Make the same face for your next big value bet... GET PAID! If a guy shoves on you preflop and you’re in a tough spot, ask him, ‘Where are you from?’ Not because you care, but to get info. If he doesn’t understand you, he’s obviously European… CALL!

If you play tight, don’t shower. Your neighbors will spite-call your shove just so they don’t have to smell you any longer. This might not work for everyone, but it will definitely work against me.

People tend to respect players at NL if they can cut their chips fast while betting. Don’t. It only means that they play a lot of limit poker. Also, try betting with your weaker hand at a table of unknowns to build up a fishy image.

If you smell a fart at the table and you already know who dropped the bomb, carefully study their face after you say ‘Phew, do you guys smell that?’ Now you have their bluff face for the next time you’re in a pot together.

gaming activity. It’s a bill that aims to throw l New Jersey online gaming revenue is UP! away tax revenue and destroy jobs. I cannot The total iGaming revenue for March was just think of any other way to put it. Fortunately, underneath $12 million. This time, only 27% its chances are widely considered to be low. is attributable to poker, but that’s because online casino revenue jumped up l And speaking of ill-fated attempts to significantly from the previous month. squash online gaming, State Numbers-wise, online poker Representative Jim Scavello revenue for March is almost of Pennsylvania floated a bill exactly what it was in last month to outlaw the February: a little over $3 business in the state, but it million. You’ll hear some has gone nowhere. Industry observers bemoan how insider Joe Brennan Jr. has ‘underneath expectations’ said that Caesars Interactive these numbers are, but take (WSOP.com) is about to airlift that with a grain of salt. a sizable task force to lobby Pre-launch revenue for iGaming legislation in projections were often Pennsylvania. But we already inflated to impress legislators know where Pennsylvania and other people worth Every story needs Governor Tom Corbett stands influencing. If you ask me, a villain. Adelson plays the part well on this issue. His office the problem is with those recently told a local projections, not the way newspaper that he isn’t things are going now. crazy about it. You know who else once l Looking upward said he wasn’t a fan to New Jersey’s big of online gaming, and sister, there’s some in fact vetoed a bill fresh online poker to legalize it? Chris activity to report in Christie, the Governor New York. State of New Jersey. Senator John Bonacic has introduced a bill to l Jumping to the West regulate intrastate online Coast, the Nevada Gaming poker in the Empire State Control Board has finally begun – population, about 20 million. releasing monthly revenue reports. It’s a good-looking bill, but Bonacic Total online poker revenue in Nevada for the himself has said he will not be pushing it this month of February was a little over $800k – year. Still, it’s a nice start. not exactly show-stopping figures, but this isn’t a densely populated state. However, it l Now let’s talk about those who would seems fewer people are playing online poker rather stand in iGaming’s way. You remember in Nevada today than they were when the Congressional Wire Act fix that Sheldon Ultimate Poker was the only game in Adelson wants, outlawing all forms of online town last summer. gambling nationwide? That ‘fix’ now takes the shape of a recently introduced federal bill, called the Restoration of America’s Wire Act. Primary sponsors include US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and US Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). It’s a hideous thing. Not only would it definitively take away state’s authority to do as they please with online gaming, but, if successful, it would also force Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey to shut down all their online

It’s a bill that aims to throw away tax revenue and destroy jobs

Where will it be legalized next?

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JAY FARBER

Welcome to the party Jay Farber was a complete unknown before he was the $5.7 million runner-up in the 2013 WSOP Main Event. Yet, as Michael Kaplan discovers, that win was just another episode in Farberâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s crazy, Vegas-fuelled life

fter finishing second in the 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event, the heavily tattooed, muscled-up Jay Farber did something smart: He took a portion of his money and bought a house in Las Vegas. It sounds way more logical than slowbleeding your bankroll with flights on private jets or risking it all on a wrongheaded bid to beat the Phil Iveys of the world. In the egocentric milieu of professional poker, Farber seems to be showing admirable restraint. Arriving at his place, inside a suburban development on the west side of town, I notice a well-worn Toyota parked in the driveway. Good for Jay, I think as I step up to ring the doorbell. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s taking it slow and not blowing money on poker-stud worthy Bugattis and the like.

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"I stayed out partying rather than psyching myself out that the other guys were great players"

JAY FARBER Farber took home $5.7m for his second place at the 2013 WSOP Main Event

e answers the door dressed in gym shorts and a t-shirt, appearing to have recently rolled out of bed. A newly acquired puppy trails him as he gives a quick tour through his nice but not-yet-furnished home, of which the swimming pool seems to be a particular point of pride. No stranger to Vegas, Farber has long worked there as a nightclub host, taking big spenders around to the glitziest clubs on the Strip. So he knows how badly things can go for gamblers who are careless with windfalls of cash. Additionally, even though he won $5.7 million in the Series, a little less than half went to investors, mostly poker pros who kicked in on his $10,000 entry fee. I tell him it must be nice to have friends, including the insanely high-rolling Dan Bilzerian (he famously posted an Instagram picture of his $m-plus cut from Farber: a fortress of banded $100s), who helped cut down on the pain of a $10,000 tournament entry fee that seemed an odds-on favourite to go up in smoke. ‘Actually,’ Farber says, settling down at his kitchen table, ‘it’s the opposite. I took the backing as a favour to Dan and the other guys. I didn’t need their money. Without having a big poker ego, I can tell you that I am better than a good chunk of the field. So I am not an underdog to cash. My friends recognised the opportunity cost, and I wanted to give them a sweat. If I lost $10,000 of my own money, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.’

Friends in the right places Whether or not he would have truly felt that way if he had actually dropped $10,000 of his own money – prior to the Series, Farber had been on a poker hiatus as a result of running bad and being busy with his hosting business – we’ll never know. Uncontestable is that Farber never seemed to be in any real danger of disappointing himself or his backers. He finished each day of the tournament with high chip counts, got lucky when he needed to, played very well, and found himself paid off in situations when unknowing opponents figured him for having a loosey goosey style. ‘You get huge coolers and take huge coolers over the course of a tournament like the WSOP,’ explains Farber. ‘Through the whole thing, I went all-in only twice. Once

"Without having a big ego, I can tell you I am better than a good chunk of the field" was against Noah Schwartz. I had Aces, he had Kings, and we went set over set. It was the classic bad beat. I don’t like crushing my friends. And, yeah, I know, there are no friends in poker, but I’d much rather crush people who are not my friends. Like the other time when I got all-in for my tournament life: I had A-T and my opponent had a pair of Nines. The hand was stressful, since it was against an Argentine nightclub owner who kept getting the best of me.’ Not that time, though, and Farber made a steady march toward the final table. He says that he never let himself get too worked up, taking each day on its own terms. Then

it got to Day 7, and things became very real. ‘My friends were there, hanging out, watching the tournament, and suddenly there was a ton of pressure,’ he remembers. ‘Once I made the final table’ – with the second largest stack of chips – ‘it was surreal. Then it was like, holy sh♠t, I made the final table. But it didn’t really sink in for about two weeks.’ Momentarily breaking up our conversation is the appearance of a pretty, sleepy-eyed, bed-headed brunette who has emerged from Farber’s room. He introduces us and she tells him that she’s going to head out. He asks for a kiss before she leaves and

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"People underestimated me, and I showed that I belonged...I don't regret how I played a single hand" Party-boy Farber rubbed shoulders with Calvin Harris at Hakkasan

gets one. A few minutes later, I refer to the woman as his girlfriend. Smiling, he responds, ‘Please, she’s just a friend.’ I’m left with the impression that Farber is a man of many such friends.

Hats off Through the tournament, Jay Farber wore a hat with the Hakkasan logo. He wasn’t paid to wear the club’s colours and pretty much did it after a friendly taunt from one of Hakkasan’s managers. ‘He told me that good things would happen if I wore it, and they did.’ Lucky as the hat may have been for Farber, it was even luckier for Hakkasan, which received a ton of publicity that would be tough to put a price on. ‘I got my payment in alcohol and partying for free,’ says Farber. ‘And my idea of partying is not just having a few drinks at the bar. Normally, my friends and I go to a nice restaurant for dinner. If it’s poker players, we play credit card roulette for the bill; if it’s normal nightclub people, we split it; and if it’s

customers, well, they never let me pay. Then we go to a club, grab a table, and do a lot of drinking. I don’t like champagne. So, for me, it’s peach Ciroc and Fireball. There was a lot of drinking; I celebrated my birthday for the entire month of August. One night, a buddy and I walked into Hakkasan. They put us at a table next to Calvin Harris [who was playing there] and loaded it up with girls. That was a good night to be single.’ Things seemed to temporarily derail a bit in Europe during the WSOPE. Farber brought a girl with him, wound up not getting along with her, and sent her back to

the States. That the Series took place in France, just outside of Paris, didn’t help. ‘I don’t particularly like the French,’ says Farber. ‘They have great food and Paris is a great city, but I don’t like the people. They think we’re arrogant, but they’re way worse.’ Feelings for the French aside, Farber had one consolation: cashing in Europe’s Main Event with a 34th place finish that paid €20,250.

Stylin’ and profilin’ Considering how his life has progressed, 29-year-old Farber has been on a jet-fueled rush for the last eight years. He learned

JAY FARBER to play poker as a teenager, buying into cheap games at a pool hall near where he grew up in Santa Barbara, CA, 95 miles north of Los Angeles. From there, after turning 21, he began hitting local poker rooms and going to Vegas for weekends of partying. Often he was able to finance Sin City jaunts by playing low-stakes hold’em. His predilection for nightlife led to gigs promoting clubs at Hard Rock and Wynn. By the time he went out on his own, working as an independent host, he had established a clientele of affluent clubbers who counted on him to bring the fun. Generally, that boils down to booze, girls, and a good table for a decent price. But sometimes it goes a bit further too (see boxout for details)… Farber lives it up as stylishly as any of his clients. And now that he’s got World Series infamy, he’s sometimes the man commandeering a table, ordering bottles, and calling the shots. That said, like most poker players, he’s not dropping the truly big bucks in clubs. As Farber explains it, the same guys who’ll sit down with seven-figure chip stacks are disinclined to get too carried away with heavy-duty bottle service. ‘With the exception of Phil [Ivey], poker players are not big ballers,’ says Farber. ‘You never see a poker player spending $100,000 in a nightclub. But many of them have no problems spending $10,000, and for $5,000 you pretty much get whatever you want. They look at $50,000 as a buy-in and won’t blow it in a club.’ Encouraged by his Hakkasan freebies, Farber took his streak of nocturnal debauchery right to the wire. Even on the night before the final table, he was out with friends until 2am. ‘I knew that my nerves wouldn’t let me sleep,’ he recounts. ‘I knew that I was not going to pass out at midnight. So I stayed out partying rather than sitting home and psyching myself out over the fact that the other guys at the table were great poker players.’

One monkey, one tiger, 18 girls

"[Second place was] the best feeling in the world and the worst feeling in the world"

Farber describes his second place finish as ‘the best feeling in the world and the worst feeling in the world. It’s all a heartbreaker for you if you don’t win. But nobody had expectations for me. I came in there as the unknown, people underestimated me, and I showed that I belonged.’ Still, he acknowledges, getting so close to snagging poker’s most coveted bracelet smarted more than a little bit. ‘Winning the Main Event is once-in-a-lifetime, and I wanted to say I was world champion more than I wanted the $8m. But I enjoyed the experience and don’t regret how I played a single hand.’

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What really happens in Vegas As a host for Vegas’s most exclusive clubs Jay Farber deals with some very successful and demanding clients. Most of the time he’s only required to land them a good table, secure some hot girls and open a few bottles of Dom Perignon. Sometimes though, the requests get a little more extreme… ‘I had one guy wanting me to get him a hooker who would be in the car when his buddy got picked up at the airport. Another time somebody wanted a midget jumping out of a cake; I found him the midget but never got the cake. I once saw a guy take a big bag of cocaine, mostly rocks, drop it on the floor [of his suite], and stomp on it a couple of times. Then he put his face in the bag and snorted up a bunch. Next, he threw the bag on the table for his friends. ‘That’s a whole different world from three guys sharing a hotel room or girls going to tables and drinking for free. I see them posting pictures of bottles that my friends buy and typing, “We popped bottles!” They didn’t do s♠♣t. They were along for the ride. Sometimes I’m along for the ride as well, but for me it’s just another night. Normal fu♠♣ing people do not hang out with the Seattle Seahawks or party in Tiësto’s suite.’ There are some perks to e being Dan Bilzerian’s mat

In the wake of the final table, millions of dollars richer, you could argue that Farber celebrated as if he had actually aced the thing. ‘After winning I went to Los Angeles with Dan [Bilzerian],’ recalls Farber. ‘I partied with him there and he bought me an Audemars Piguet panda-edition watch [Farber had taken on a cartoonish Panda as his final-table trademark]. Then he took me to Mexico, to Puerto Vallarta, on a private jet. It was me, Dan, two of our buddies, and 18 girls’ – plus one monkey and a baby Bengal-tiger. ‘We had three houses and partied for three nights straight before going to Miami. Dan had promised me an awesome party, and this was it.’

Cool ride What happens to Farber next is anybody’s guess. One thing he won’t be doing, he says, is earning his living as a tournament grinder, travelling the world and trying to replicate his World Series success. But games in Vegas and L.A. remain alluring. Despite his run-bad prior to the Main

"Dan [Bilzerian] took me to Mexico on a private jet. It was me, Dan, two buddies and 18 girls." Event, he has played in some very large cash sessions, including mixed games with Eli Elezra and Jennifer Harman among others. Another time, he played in Bobby Baldwin’s game at Aria. Baldwin apparently picks and chooses who is let in, so you’re not likely to be up against the world’s most gifted pros. ‘It’s a lot of money, and yes-and-no I’m comfortable,’ admits Farber. ‘I’ve won a couple of times and lost a couple of times. I got killed at a game in L.A. But it’s poker. You have upswings and downswings.’ He continues to host select clients at the Vegas clubs (his compensation comes through tips), has been firing it up a bit at the sports book, and clearly enjoys the notoriety that comes with a stellar Main Event performance. TMZ stalkerazzi called him by name outside of an L.A. nightclub – which left Farber a bit miffed – and Johnny Chan recently congratulated him in Bobby’s Room. All and all, just by taking in Farber’s almost perpetual smile and good-natured personality, you can make a case for him

being one of the happiest WSOP finishers in recent memory. He seems grateful for the windfall of cash and appears to be enjoying his post-Series life. Plus, I’m figuring, the money will provide him with an enviable cushion. Finishing the interview and walking out of his house, I’m expecting the Toyota in the driveway to remind me of his relatively sensible ways. But as Farber shuts the door behind me, I glance to my right and notice that the car is gone. So I ring the bell and ask Farber if his Toyota has gone missing. ‘That car in the driveway?’ he asks. ‘It belongs to the girl who was here, my friend. I have my old 1969 Camaro and a new Mercedes Benz that I bought after making the final table. This year I’m paying taxes and getting on the list for the new Lamborghini.’ If he’s talking about the 2015 Lamborghini Huracán, which I assume he is, the car looks amazing and will retail for some $200,000. It may not be sensible, but, honestly, all things considered, it does PP make sense.

DEAL pokerplayer court

THE Cheaters, angle-shooters and the downright nasty are all tried in the first-ever PokerPlayer Court. Silence! Court is in session!

he sad truth is that whatever game you play, you’ll find cheats. Whether it’s sticking horseshoes in your boxing gloves or slipping yourself an extra $500 as the banker at Monopoly, scumbags the world over will try to win by nefarious means. Cheating at poker is pretty tough, especially in the modern age, but it happens. Angle shooting is perhaps more common – playing within the rules of the game but using unethical tactics to give yourself an advantage. We’ve scoured the archives for eight of the most infamous moments of skullduggery in poker. But did they do anything wrong? And how should they be punished?

The Howard scale

Neil stoddart

We’re not accusing all the players featured here of cheating, but we are saying they’ve all acted questionably at the table. To see how bad their actions are we’ve devised the ‘Howard Scale’, inspired by The Professor of Poker-duggery, Howard Lederer. 10

You’re a dirty, rotten cheat

You might not have broken the rules but you’re a douchebag

You’re no cheat but you need 1 to brush up on your etiquette

Court 1.

Ivan Freitez 2011 EPT Grand Final

What happened? Ivan Freitez fills up with 6-5 on a 5-3-K-5-6 board and is bet into by Eugene Yanayt with K-Q. Freitez announces a raise but puts calling chips in before saying that he meant to call all along. The floor calls for tournament director Thomas Kremser who drops the bombshell that this isn’t the first time this player has made this move. On each other occasion he’s had the nuts. Freitez is forced to make a min-raise which Yanayt calls, much to Kremser’s disgust.

Why is it wrong? This is scummy behaviour on so many levels and a classic example of using the rules to shoot an angle. What Freitez does might not be illegal but it’s completely against

the spirit of the game. The fact that the table would know what he was doing at showdown shows he’s got no problem with being publicly outed as a douchebag. CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

PokerPlayer verdict A video that makes us angry just watching, even more so as Freitez went on to win the tournament for $2.2 million. Ivan Freitez, we find you guilty of aggravated douchebaggery and sentence you to live in a world where nobody understands anything you say.

Howard scale

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Prahlad Friedman vs Ted Bort 2010 WSOP Main Event

What happened? This is an absolute car crash of a hand played out at the 2010 WSOP. On a board of 6♠-J♠-9♥-5♦-2♣ Ted Bort bet the river enough to put Prahlad Freidman all-in. Freidman tanked, Bort barked like a dog and called the clock. Freidman seemed to find the whole thing amusing but used every second before making the call midway between the floor saying ‘One’ and ‘Hand dead’. Bort showed his hand but Friedman mucked and the floor ruled it dead. Cue a fracas with players arguing that Freidman should have been out.

Why is it wrong? There’s a lot wrong in this hand. Players shouldn’t bark like dogs at the table but that’s not serious enough to wind up in PokerPlayer

Court. Freidman had a worse hand and decided to prolong his tourney life by mucking his hand and keeping quiet. And the floor should learn how to count down from ten properly. CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

PokerPlayer verdict Should Friedman have tabled his hand? Absolutely. The hand would still have been ruled dead by the erroneous floorman. Would you have if your WSOP life depended on it? Prahlad, we sentence you to record a Christian rap with the Insane Clown Posse featuring Bort the Dog.

Howard scale

Tobias Reinkemeier vs Roland de Wolfe 2009 EPT Barcelona

What happened?

Why is it wrong?

On a board of A♥-10♣-7♣-9♥-4♥, de Wolfe bets the river and is called by Reinkemeier. Neither player shows their hand but by the rules of the game de Wolfe has to show first. He reluctantly turns a King over and says, ‘King high’, but Reinkemeier still refuses to show. Eventually de Wolfe tries to muck but the dealer forcibly takes his cards and shows them face up. Reinkemeier triumphantly slams his Queen-high down and the two players start to argue. The floor is called and the hand awarded to Reinkemeier.

If it goes to showdown the best hand should win. You can feel some sympathy for de Wolfe but by refusing to show his hand he gave Reinkemeier enough rope to hang him with. We can only assume the dealer wanted some camera time as well. And we’re not exonerating Reinkemeier here – both players acted like they were back in nursery but it’s Reinkemeier who is most guilty of a breach in etiquette.

Roland de Wolfe gives Reinkemeier enough rope to hang him with

CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

PokerPlayer verdict It’s actually embarrassing watching both players make idiots of themselves – we think the video evidence is punishment enough.

Reinkemeier played a sneaky game to win the hand

Howard scale

DEAL pokerplayer court

Jamie Gold vs Lee Kort 2006 WSOP Main Event What happened? Jamie Gold won the biggest WSOP of all time, scooping $12 million for besting the 2006 Main Event. It wasn’t without controversy though and Gold was accused of bending the rules on occasion. The worst transgression was undoubtedly the infamous ‘top-top’ hand. Playing against his buddy, Lee Kort, Jamie Gold pulled a face on a 4♦-J♦-7♦ flop. Kort went all-in to which Gold said, ‘I’ve got top-top’. ‘Me too’, replied Kort, and Gold called. When Kort flipped Q♦-J♥ Gold asked him what he was doing, ‘I said I had top-top!’ The board bricked and Gold knocked Kort out.

Phil Hellmuth vs Tony G The Big Game

What happened? You’re not expected to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in poker. In fact, you’ll be penalised if you do. But there’s also etiquette at the table and Tony G stretched this in a televised cash game with Phil Hellmuth. The ‘G’ had double-straddled when the action moved to the big blind. Hellmuth woke up with a genuine hand – A-J – and bet the pot. Tony G asked if Hellmuth had looked at his cards before stating that he was all-in

Why is it wrong? This isn’t against any of the laws of the game, it’s just a bit of a scummy move. But in a televised high-stakes cash game? Hellmuth should have been more vigilant and shouldn’t have trusted what Tony G said. CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

Why is it wrong? Gold might not have started talking until Kort was all-in but it seemed he was soft-playing and didn’t want to knock his friend out. The WSOP have since introduced the ‘Jamie Gold rule’, barring players from disclosing their hand until showdown. Gold later told PokerPlayer: ‘It was wrong and I should never have done it. If you want to know what I was thinking during that time, then the answer is, I wasn’t thinking.’ CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

PokerPlayer verdict Gold has admitted he was wrong but that’s not enough. We sentence him to watch his Kings vs Aces hand with Sammy Farha non-stop for 12 hours. CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

Golden balls: ‘I thought you said top-top’

Howard 4 scale

blind. (He had, in fact, checked his hand and had A-K.) The action in The Big Game was pot-limit preflop and Tony G was forced to take some chips back. He repeated that he was all-in blind, and lied a third and a fourth time when Hellmuth asked if he was still blind. Hellmuth moved all-in, Tony G snapped him off and showed his hand. ‘Oh, you lied’, said Hellmuth. ‘Of course I lied, it’s poker Phil.’

PokerPlayer verdict This isn’t Tony G’s first offence. We sentence him to ride his bike from Land’s End to John O’Groats.

Howard scale

Tony G takes the Court’s verdict on the chins

Pasqualini and Rossi, 2009 Partouche Poker Tour

What happened? How do you actually cheat in a poker tournament? One way is to signal to another player the hands that you’ve got, a system employed by Jean-Paul Pasqualini and Cedric Rossi at the final table of the 2009 Partouche Poker Tour. Using a series of secret messages including a scratch to the top of the head to indicate an Ace and a touch of the arms for small pairs, the two dirty rotten scoundrels avoided an Aces vs A-K clash, and won first and second, worth $1.43 million and $870k respectively. They would have got away with it too if it wasn’t for the work of French poker-playing author Nordine Bouya. He released a video compilation of their signals, which was enough to convince the

poker world of the gruesome twosome’s misdeeds.

Why is it wrong? This is outright cheating and the only unfortunate thing is it wasn’t spotted until it was too late to do anything about it. They got away with the cash but are now ostracised from the poker community. CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

PokerPlayer verdict A lifetime ban is too good for them. We propose 20 years hard labour with Russ Hamilton.

Howard 10 scale

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Ali Tekintamgac 2010 Partouche Poker Tour

What happened?

Why is it wrong?

It’s an unlucky double for the Partouche Poker Tour as Ali Tekintamgac was disqualified for using media people to signal his opponent’s cards to him. It wasn’t the first time controversy has dogged him. There’s a very incriminating video of him winning the 2010 WPT Barcelona and making a big call heads-up with Q-5 after what looked like a signal from a photographer. Part of his prize was entry into the $25k WPT Championship, which he duly sat at before being called out by Scott Siever and Daniel Negreanu. Negreanu tweeted: ‘Ali Tekimtamgac who was caught cheating in Partouche is in #WPTChamp. I called him out, and floor told ME I can’t do that! When will we learn?’

Not only is Ali Tekimtamgac a cheat, but he got masseuses banned from French tournaments in case they lulled players into revealing their cards to them. CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

PokerPlayer verdict He’s only cashed twice since he was disqualified from the PPT. We say he should be banned for life everywhere but it’s not going to happen. If you’re unfortunate enough to sit with him at the table, call him out.

Howard 10 scale

Shaun Deeb vs Mike Matusow Poker Night in America

What happened? After losing a big all-in to Tom Schneider with Queens against Aces, the poker gods decided to have a little fun at Matusow’s expense. He was dealt Jacks to Shaun Deeb’s Fives, with a bet and a call before a 10-5-5 flop. Matusow bet and was called, and then moved all-in on the 4♣ turn. A snap call? Not for Deeb, who ummed and ahhed, before slyly winking to a couple of players. He eventually called before flipping over his quads. Matusow didn’t take it well, saying it’s ‘the only f♠ckin’ thing in life I don’t deal with. You can call me any name under the sun but you f♠cking slowroll me I’ll f♠cking punch you in the mouth. You think I’m joking? I’m not.’

What’s wrong? There’s never a good time to slowroll someone. Do it at a home game and you’re likely to get the same reaction as Deeb got from Matusow. What was Deeb expecting? That Matusow would laugh along with him? The only mitigating factor is that this happened during a rowdy cash game with an emphasis on social as well as poker.

Deeb ummed and ahhed, before flipping over quads. Matusow didn’t take it well

CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

PokerPlayer verdict Deeb was lucky not to get punched in the mouth. We find him guilty of slowrolling and sentence him to a drinking contest with Gavin Griffin.

Howard 4 scale Prankster Deeb loves a cheeky slowroll

DEAL theo jørgensen

T heo Jorgensen

The swings of life

Theo Jørgensen has won millions at the poker table and was nearly killed during an armed robbery. However, as Howard Swains finds out, nothing compares with the highs and lows of Jørgensen’s family life Theo Jørgensen has been playing nosebleed poker since the earliest days of the poker boom and has won and lost millions at the tables, both live and online. He’s also had his share of drama off the table; in late 2012, he was robbed at his home in Greve, Denmark, and shot in the leg three times. However, nothing that has happened to Jørgensen – either at the tables or at gunpoint – compares with the extreme highs and lows of fatherhood…

The lowest point in my life was when my kids were born. That sounds insane, but they were born prematurely, three months too early, and we had no idea it was going to happen. The worst thing I could imagine before was they would get colic. But we would have swapped that a lot of times for a lot of money if they could just not be born premature. My daughter weighed 840 grams (the average female baby weighs about 3.3kg). When there was no argument that she had to be delivered, she came out and the doctor said there was a 50% chance she was going to survive, and if she survived there was a 50% chance she was going to have severe brain damage. We were told we were just extremely unlucky and they would follow up on us if we decided we were ever going to get another kid. We were told that this was pure bad luck. But then the same thing happened again. My son was born after 26 weeks and with him there were more complications. It was originally the same thing, there was a 50% shot whether he was going to survive, 50% shot from thereon that he was going to be totally healthy. But later, they told us he was brain damaged. And that, with my daughter’s thing, was pretty much the lowest point of my life.

LOW

Neil stoddart

I was walking around like a maniac, ‘Do we have a 10% shot? Do we have a 90% shot?’

Being robbed at gunpoint was tough but not compared to fatherhood

Becoming a father

At the time I didn’t know if I was ready to be a father. I didn’t really know what I was getting into and I wasn’t even sure if it was going to be ‘love’ when the child came out. But as soon as she was born, and you see the eyes and stuff like that, you just want to make her get stronger. It was very tough and it was most likely three times as tough on my wife. I couldn’t comprehend the fact I couldn’t help. It was so painful for me to be in the hospital because I couldn’t do anything. So I preferred to get away. I saw this really fragile small kid and I couldn’t do anything and I was supposed to do something. I’m her father, for f♣♠k’s sake. I should have stayed there more to support my wife at least. She was sticking with our daughter all the time, and I’m very grateful to her for that, and I’m grateful for her not being too upset with me. I don’t know if we were ever told she was going to make it. They are not very keen on telling you that kind of thing. I was walking around like a maniac out there because I wanted to know, ‘Do we have a 10% shot? Do we have a 90% shot? I want to know which ball park we are in.’ There’s going to be some people surprised I didn’t say the robbery, right?

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Jørgensen is third on the Danish all-time money list

The highest point for me was that both my kids were lucky enough to hit the 25% and they are totally healthy today. It seems like if you or me have a breakdown in our heads and we get brain damage, we’re not going to be able to recover from that. But at that age, when they’re so young, the brain kind of goes in and repairs itself. So that’s what happened with my son and there was no brain damage at all. So both kids are healthy – perfect. That’s the high. They are now nine and five-years-old. It was a slow ride. It was pretty much like winning a poker tournament. In the beginning, you don’t really think you’re going to win it, but you double up and there’s suddenly a tiny chance. Then you double up again and you say, ‘Okay, I know the chances are still that I’m not going to make the money.’ But then you double up again and suddenly, you’re sitting there with almost all the chips heads-up, and it’s not a big surprise when you win it. But it’s been a slow ride up the hill.

HIGH

Family guy It helped my poker career in some ways. It helped me in a way that I’m not too concerned about bad beats. If a really horrible bad beat happens, I think, well, my son could have been brain damaged. I could have lost my kids, both of them, they could have died. The bad thing is it puts more pressure on me to perform. I need to put food on the table. I have some pretty big swings, but I think my biggest swing was when I used to play on Full Tilt. But those swings at that time didn’t feel quite as bad as they do now, because suddenly as soon as I start losing $100k, $150k, I think, oh for f♠ck’s sake. We’re going to be on the streets. Obviously it was a lot easier to travel for poker before I was a father and it’s getting easier again because the kids are getting to an age where they understand what’s going on. But I have a tendency to get a little more homesick than before, my travels are a little shorter than they used to be. [For a major festival] I used to come a day before the whole thing started and was then the last to leave the place. Now it’s more planned. Before, if Gus [Hansen] called and said, ‘There’s a game,’ or if somebody called from Paris and said, ‘There’s a game here’, I would be on the next plane. That’s not going on so much so more. I don’t know if I miss those days, but I definitely think I’m losing out on some really good action. That’s a negative. The PP positive is that those two kids are giving so much back.

Both kids are healthy. It was a slow ride. It was pretty much like winning a poker tournament

SAM TRICkETT

King of the mountain In an exclusive interview Sam Trickett talks to American PokerPlayer about million dollar swings in Macau, hanging with Phil Ivey and why he hates talking poker

I TOM mILES

n 2010 rumours started swirling around the internet that secretive, nosebleed stakes cash games were taking place on the other side of the world. Only this time it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Las Vegas that played host, but the mystical new world of Macau, China. They were the biggest games ever seen since billionaire businessman Andy Beal strolled into Vegas in 2004 and attempted to bankrupt the poker world.

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I [used to] talk about poker to every man and his dog. [Now] Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m just sat taking it in

SAM TRICkETT

etails were scarce at first but then we heard about Tom Dwan swinging $4 million in a day, Chinese businessmen queuing up to lose their fortune and a $13.8m pot getting shipped when a gutshot straight got there on the river. For any pro with a booming bankroll – or friends in the right places – this was the game to be in. Dwan, John Juanda, Phil Ivey and Johnny Chan were all there from the start. Legends of the game, nobody batted an eyelid. But there was one other mainstay on the scene that definitely raised eyebrows – Sam Trickett. Back in 2010, the Englishman wasn’t the super high roller, Big One for One Dropconquering superstar that we know now. He’d finished second in a WSOP event but surely that didn’t qualify him to play with the big boys, where every pot was the equivalent of winning or losing a new car? So how did he get in the game? Financially, he was helped out by his friends at Matchbook, including 2010 WSOPE champion James Bord, but in Macau it’s not just money that talks, but politics too. Trickett explains, ‘I’ve always got on well with people and I’m fairly good at networking. When I first went out there I built up a lot of friends and did it all on my own back. I knew what I was trying to do – I was trying to get in the game. So I made friends with the right people, they liked me and took me on a few nights out. Eventually they asked me to come and play and it has worked out well for me.’ Four years later and apparently, it’s worked out too well, because Trickett, ‘won too much money and [I] was recently told that they don’t want to play with me now. I get the feeling that I’m not welcome.’

I was told they don’t want to play with me now. I get the feeling I’m not welcome

High rollin’ One place where Sam Trickett is welcome is in the London HQ of Everest Poker, where I meet with him fresh off an all-night session of £5/£10/£25 PLO with Rob Yong, Devilfish, Ludovic Geilich – ‘he’s mental’ – and co. Despite little sleep, Trickett looks fresh-faced and, as he slips on a tailored suit for our photoshoot, as debonair as ever. The Everest Poker sponsorship deal is a new horizon for Trickett, who has traditionally shunned the limelight.

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It seems the timing, with his spell in Macau winding down, is now right. Trickett concurs, ‘Over the last few years I have been really busy playing, especially in Macau. In these big cash games you can win or lose a lot of money in a day and I just thought there was more value for me to use my time playing in those games. Now I have the time to really get involved [with Everest Poker].’ On signing a major sponsorship deal many poker players instantly lose any of the personality they once had, afraid that one stray word will get them in trouble with their new ‘employers’. Thankfully, Trickett is not one of these guys. Whatever the topic he’s interesting, engaged and brutally honest. Like when we talk about Tom Dwan who, Trickett has, ‘always had a funny relationship with. He’s a very temperamental guy depending on how he is doing, and there’s a little bit of a rivalry there [but] we respect each other.’ Trickett starts to laugh when thinking about how Dwan plays in the big games – ‘the business guys love playing with him! He gives so much action.’ It doesn’t sound like Dwan’s typical full throttle style is necessarily healthy though, as every time Trickett sees him, ‘he looks like he’s never slept. His body clock is mashed because he’s so stressed about these big games. I don’t know how he handles such a high variance style. He’s at it way too much, endlessly doing big bluffs and people just don’t fold to him now!’ Still relatively new to the elite of the poker world, I’m interested to find out if Trickett can believe the situation he’s found himself in. The catalyst is when we start talking about Phil Ivey, who Trickett, ‘remembers watching on High Stakes Poker and looking at his hands on YouTube. I still pinch myself sometimes when I’m out to dinner or playing golf with him.’ Before we move on, Trickett has one thing to clear up about Ivey too. ‘I read that Dan Bilzerian said he’s broke – I can assure you he’s not. The $4m he won at the Aussie Millions was not even his biggest win that week! It’s fair to say that Ivey is doing just fine.’

they can’t help but harp on about poker strategy, what they would have done in this spot and why. I’ve been speaking to Sam Trickett for an hour and he’s pointedly avoided that side of the game completely. I ask him to go over a big hand from a recent Macau session and he quickly changes the subject to more friendly ground. He loves poker no doubt, but getting an insight into his poker mind is tougher than breaching the USS Enterprise. It’s not because Trickett is rude or shy, it’s all part of a calculated plan. ‘I think it’s very unprofessional. When I first started playing I would talk about poker to every man and his dog. I’d talk on TV about poker and it was almost like I was showing off by telling people my knowledge. I’ve now realised that was very dumb.’ The humble Trickett in front of me is the same one you’d encounter at the poker table: ‘Some of the best players in the world will sit there and openly talk about what they would have done with this hand or that hand and I’m just sat there taking it all in. If they ask me what I would have done, I just say I don’t know – of course I do know exactly what I would have done.’ If it’s a competitive disadvantage why are so many players so eager to reveal their thought process? ‘It’s just ego. I think they want you to know that they know what they are doing. It’s their way of showing off.’ Perhaps his reluctance to spiel off on advanced poker concepts has stopped Trickett from receiving the critical acclaim his results warrant. If that’s the case, you better believe that the fifth biggest tournament winner in poker history isn’t sweating it one bit – ‘I don’t have anything to prove by going out and telling all these forums exactly what I think. Doing that would be very short-term and stupid thinking. I’m even reluctant to do TV commentary because I don’t like to give my views on hands and let people use that against me in the future.' When it comes to his peers, the ones whose opinion really matters, Trickett is in no doubt that, ‘they all rate me as one of the best no-limit hold’em players in the world.’ No amount of forum posts or training videos will ever equal that.

Trickett's Greatest Hits See why Sam Trickett is widely regarded as one of the world’s best cash game players in these classic videos

Sam is a hero

Trickett makes a great hero call on the river against David ‘Viffer’ Peat. CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

I’m even reluctant to do TV commentary because people [can] use that against me

Shut up and deal When speaking with many top pros like Dwan, Isaac Haxton or Daniel Negreanu

Taming the Devil

Trickett uses the Devilfish’s signature table talk against him. CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

Fold them Aces

Trickett turns second pair into a bluff, expertly getting Jason Mercier to fold Aces on the river in this big hand from an Aussie Millions cash game. CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

Trickett will be looking to go one better at this yea r's Big One for One Drop

SAM TRICkETT

Behave yourself There’s only one thing that makes Trickett lose his cool during our conversation – players that don’t play the game. In Macau, ‘there’s a lot of politics. It’s not that you have to suck up but you must be friendly, kind and interact at the tables, and some players just don’t want to do that.’ He cites Patrik Antonius as one who is ‘quite a shy guy and doesn’t want to get involved’ but his main gripe is with ‘online pros’ who ‘lack class and are very narrow minded.’ Just like online, it seems bumhunting is also a major issue in the live arena. Trickett doesn’t name names but says some prominent players in Macau ‘tell the bad players when they have made mistakes [and] get there at 10am to lock up a seat in the game before the businessmen arrive twelve hours later. Then as soon as the business guy picks up his jacket to leave those same players won’t even post their blinds!’ As he’s laughing it off Trickett says, ‘they could at least let the business guys get out of the building!’ Even if he wasn’t now blacklisted, Trickett doubts he’d be grinding in Macau anyway. ‘The games have got too big, the blinds are now $15,000/$30,000 [converted]. I can’t really play that. I don’t think any poker player can. Tom [Dwan] plays but there’s no way in a million years that he is playing all his own money.’ In another moment of candor from Trickett he reveals that those days of

The money will need to last me for the rest of my life so I don’t want to take big shots

million dollar swings might be behind him for a different reason. The stress was ‘affecting me. I don’t want to take big risks anymore. The money I have made will need to last me for the rest of my life so I don’t want to go in there and take big shots.’

A different game Now that Macau is off the menu, what’s next for Trickett in 2014? Luckily, it just so happens that the $1m buy-in Big One

For One Drop is making its highly anticipated return at this summer’s WSOP. Trickett, the $10m 2012 runner-up intends to be there. ‘I can’t wait. It’s the most important tournament of the year for me.’ With all the pageantry and mainstream coverage Trickett equates the original event to a ‘boxing match’ where, ‘when you walk in they’re all shouting your name.’ In any other sport the higher the stakes you play for – whether it be a Superbowl, World Cup final or Olympics – the tougher the competition is. Due to its open nature, poker is a curious exception. According to Trickett the original Big One For One Drop, with it’s $1m entry, was ‘very soft. Half the field were business guys or recreational players.’ Despite being a cash game specialist Trickett feels as though he, and other cash kings like Ivey, have a significant edge over the field due to the

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deep structure, ‘You’re able to get in there, play a few hands and work out what people have. A lot of tournament pros go wrong in the One Drop and super high rollers because they play quite snug early on as it’s what they are used to doing on the internet. I think it’s important to get in as many pots as you can with the business guys early on. Gamble it up and try to make some chips.’ It’s this type of attitude that gives Trickett the immense confidence that he can emulate – or even surpass – his sterling efforts last time out. ‘I’m extremely confident. [The tournament really suits] players that have a lot of experience playing against both recreational players and pros. I wouldn’t put a player like Ole Schemion [as one of the favourites], as I can’t imagine they have much experience playing against business guys. But then if you take Phil Ivey, who is probably not as good at tournament poker as Schemion, he would have a better edge in the One Drop.’

articulate and undoubtedly skilled as him in the spotlight is a major coup but, as Trickett explains, it’s a challenge that he needed. ‘I got bored. I wasn’t motivated or driven to play poker anymore. I found myself not travelling to tournaments because there was nothing to play for - tying myself to Everest has motivated me again, and I’m going to put myself out there and try to win some tournaments again.’ A Partouche Poker Tour title, $10m win at the One Drop and many more millions won in the Macau shadows saw Sam Trickett climb the poker mountain once before. Those days of million dollar swings may be behind him for now but, with a renewed purpose and the backing of Everest Poker it’s very clear that the sky is still the limit for Sam Trickett. PP

Moving on up With the Everest Poker deal behind him, Trickett is now more visible and accessible than ever before. To have someone as marketable,

I wasn’t motivated to play poker anymore. Tying myself to Everest has motivated me again

DEAL High stakes poker

High stakes heroes JAMIE GOLD

Love him or hate him, there was no ignoring 2006 WSOP Main Event champ Jamie Gold when he appeared on High Stakes Pokerâ&#x20AC;Ś.

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ta Jamie Gold’s 2006 WSOP win thrus r spotlight unique personality into the poke

igh Stakes Poker was enthralling television because you got to see the biggest pros in the world not only go up against each other, but also against rich businessmen, for enormous sums of money. Coming off a $12 million win in the WSOP Main Event in 2006, many poker commentators were unsure which category to place the TV agent Jamie Gold in when he first appeared on High Stakes Poker in 2007’s season three. After a dazzling debut filled with plenty of table talk, $750k suckouts and a bold attempt to become the ‘world’s best bluffer’, one thing was for sure; Gold was compelling television. After eventually breaking even over the course of his three High Stakes Poker appearances – helped in no small part by Sammy Farha’s charity (see boxout) – Gold disappeared from view in the poker world. Besides an appearance on 2010’s NBC National Heads-up Championship and a few small cashes in Vegas, Gold kept a low profile in the poker world. PokerPlayer managed to track down the former world champion to find out what he’s been up to, why he’s sailing the coast of Florida and his memories of those classic moments from High Stakes Poker… PokerPlayer: Did you feel a responsibility to play on High Stakes Poker after winning the WSOP Main Event to ‘prove’ yourself? A lot of people said you only won the Main Event because you ran good. Jamie Gold: I was just excited to play on the show that I had watched and loved for years. The opportunity to play with some of the best players above my level, that I looked up to was wonderful. I lost $60k the first season, won $440k the next season and on my final day I lost $400k. Breaking even overall after that experience was most fortunate. We were paid a minor fee to appear too. You seemed to relish being on the big stage and getting TV time while you played the WSOP Main Event. Was that another reason why you were so keen to play on High Stakes Poker? Having worked in the television and film business I realised what they needed to make the show most interesting, and my style of play was sometimes animated at the time. Were you happy with how the TV shows portrayed you? Or do you regret any of your actions?

unseen hands, but the few you do see tell a story without the before and after. [That makes them] totally out of context so you must consider that when assuming ideas about a person. I’m not arrogant. [But] I’ve had moments yes, and they were on film, so I can understand why some may feel that way. Despite winning $12m at the WSOP, were the stakes in the cash game quite daunting for you? Not really, I had been playing in high-stakes cash games at my local casinos in California just before I won the Main Event.

I do regret a few of the moments. I’m not arrogant. [But] I’ve had moments – and they were on film

I do regret a few of the moments for sure. I have also learned a lot since that time. It’s also much different than what was seen [on TV] – if you saw the ten hours between WSOP clips then the perception of it would be a lot different. We played thousands of

Were you familiar with any of the players beforehand? Yes, many of the players were regulars in the casinos in California where I was living and playing for about eight years before I took my shot at the Main Event. From 1998-2006 I played a minimum of five nights a week. Johnny Chan was my inspiration and convinced me that I had a legitimate shot of winning it in 2006. How did the players react to you when you walked on the set of High Stakes Poker for the first time? It was a bit intimidating to walk onto the set, and I knew I was the outsider. They were all very nice to me and I had a great time playing. Were you playing for 100% of your own action on High Stakes Poker or had you sold any to friends? In every episode I played on High Stakes Poker it was 100% of my own money.

DEAL High stakes poker Did you go in expecting to be able to compete with the other pros and how do you feel like you played? I knew that all of the players were more experienced than I was and it was absolutely about the experience for me. I was glad to have broken even over the seasons that I played because there were times when I played poorly, however I was also proud of the moments when I played my best. Overall, I was very fortunate to come out even. I knew that I was not a favourite in the game, but there were certainly moments against some of the players where I was confident I was. You quickly became famous for talking a lot at the table. Why did you continue to do this against such top pros and do you think it was a help or hindrance to your play? I think it worked both ways for me, at times it was a help and other times it was a hindrance. However, I knew that if it was a quiet table and set, the show would have been extremely boring. For me [I talked a lot

Hand 1: ‘feels like aces’ Jamie Gold vs Patrik Antonius, High Stakes Poker Season Four Pot size: $743,800 CLICK HERE TO WATCH! Patrik Antonius raises it to $4,000 with A♠-J♦, only to find Gold sitting behind him with K♠-K♦. Gold says his hand ‘feels like Aces and wishes it was’, before three-betting to $14,000. Antonius calls and they see a 3♠-Q♦-T♥ flop. Antonius checks, Gold bets $15,000 and Antonius calls. The turn is a dramatic K♥, giving Gold top set but Broadway for Antonius, who decides to

due to] a combination of making it an interesting show to watch, having fun, and learning from the best players in the world. Which players did you particularly enjoy playing against or hanging out with? Bob Safai, Nick Cassavetes, Phil Laak, Barry Greenstein, and Jennifer Harman were the players I enjoyed spending time with the

I devote my time to philanthropic causes, businesses, and poker. I combine the three

lead out for $45,000. Gold sighs and thinks it over before announcing ‘raise’. After counting up his stack he eventually shoves for $341,500. Antonius calls and the pot is a phenomenal $743,800. The two agree to run it three times with Antonius a 77% favourite.

I wish I hadn’t reacted the way I did, but I’ve learned a lot since that experience

most outside of the show. Are you sad that you’re no longer a part of that high-stakes scene when players like Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu and a few others have gone on to even bigger success? No, not at all! I am doing exactly what I want to be doing with my life. My life is not about trying to win as many tournaments or play in the biggest cash games that I can. I devote my time to various philanthropic causes, businesses, and poker. I try to combine the three whenever I can, but until I retire, I can’t imagine just playing poker and trying to win as many tournaments as possible every year. I don’t fault anyone that does, there is just so much more that I can do to help the world while I still have the time, energy, and PP resources to do so.

Gold gets lucky and wins two of the three runouts to take home just under $500k! What do you think when you look back on this hand? I played this hand very poorly. Sometimes I give away too much information and sometimes my decisions are incorrect. The thing that bothers me the most about this hand is the way I reacted during the hand [Gold celebrates after winning each runout while Antonius sits there in silence]. It was inappropriate and a learning experience for me. It’s been seven years since that hand and I’ve made a concerted effort to not act that way again. Patrik is a world class player and has always been a gentleman at the table. I wish I hadn’t reacted the way I did, but I’ve learned a lot since that experience. I am constantly learning and working to be a better poker player.

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Hand 2: ‘this is good tv’ Jamie Gold vs Sammy Farha, High Stakes Poker Season Four Pot size: $391,300

back and forth between the two, Farha elects to raise one more time to $90,000. Gold screams, ‘you have the Aces!’ and says he’s in big trouble, before calling the extra. The dealer puts out both the flop and the turn; T♦-6♠-9♣-4♣. Gold checks and Farha bets $100,000. Gold quickly calls. The river is T♥. Gold checks and begs for Farha to check

CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

I was supposed to go broke on that hand. Whatever I did - or Sammy did not do - saved me $181,000

Jamie Gold just calls in early position with K♠-K♥ and it’s folded round to Sam Farha who raises to $4,200 with A♠-A♦. The action comes back to Gold who asks Farha if they should ‘get it all-in now or later’, before just calling. Gold checks in the dark and Farha bets $10,000 without seeing the flop! Gold raises blind to $30,000 now and stands up, imploring Farha to reraise him, saying, ‘this is good TV’. After lots of

behind before saying that he will call any amount. Farha inexplicably checks behind and his Aces are good for a nearly $400,000 pot as Doyle Brunson and Barry Greenstein look on in stunned silence at the antics of both players. Greenstein eventually says, ‘you played well to save $185,000’ with a smile on his face. This is one of the most famous hands in High Stakes Poker history, but also one of the strangest. What do you think looking back on it? There is only one way to look at this hand if you really understand poker. Without getting into the details of it, based on the situation and if you had seen all of the hands leading up to it, I was supposed to go broke on that hand. Doyle [Brunson], Barry [Greenstein], and every other player I respect that I’ve spoken to feels the same way. I was very fortunate that whatever I did – or that Sammy did not do – it saved me $181,000. In my mind that is the same as winning $181,000!

Sail away with me Jamie Gold was one of the most polarising figures at the height of poker’s popularity in the late 2000s. But he’s been absent from our TV screens – and the circuit – for years. So what is the self-proclaimed ‘best bluffer in poker’ up to now? Thanks to a deal with Island Breeze, Gold is sailing around the Florida coastline as host of the Jamie Gold Poker Room. Island Breeze is a full Las Vegas-style casino – the only difference being it’s on the water. How did Gold end up swimming so close to the fishes? Jamie Gold: My business manager brought the deal to me – he also represents a ton of celebrity investors including Rob Lowe and Eddie Griffin. It was the right situation for me as I fully trust and believe in the founders who are running the day-to-day operations – there are many planned casino ships worldwide, but this is the first. We sail seven days a week and are the only poker room in Florida that can offer free drinks to players! It seems that most people I meet at the poker tables [on Island Breeze] still remember watching the 2006 WSOP and recognise me from that. I’m honoured to have been in such a fortunate situation

with luck on my side – and that so many players are still interested in playing with me certainly helps build our poker room and casino. [My Main Event win] is very important to me and I know how lucky I am to be one of the few to ever hold the title. It was my goal to win the Main Event and afterwards to give back as much as I possibly could to help my family, friends, and the world through philanthropy. If I hadn’t won such an event I would not have had the same opportunities to give back. You can find out more about Jamie Gold’s latest venture at www.ibreezecasino.com.

Gold is a regular on the world’s first casino ship in Florida

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Get the knowledge – beat the field

STRATEGY TIP of the month

Monster mash ‘Big pocket pairs are the most profitable hands to play in no-limit hold’em. Contrary to the ‘I never win with Aces’ brigade’, they will make you the most money. Online poker tools that track hands allow you to look at your most profitable hands and any good sample will show this to be Aces. However this is not to suggest big pairs are always easy to play, and making them very lucrative requires you to play them correctly. The most common problem new players have with big pairs is they get too attached to them after the flop when the board suggests they are no longer the best hand. When you get dealt Kings preflop it’s only natural to expect to win a large pot – suddenly the board runs out badly and it can be hard to get over the fact you may now lose a large one. This is a lesson all players have to learn until folding Kings on an ugly board becomes second nature.’ Simon Hemsworth on playing big pocket pairs, p54

tion A little bit of experimenta p58 can help you crush – see

CONTENTS 44 start the engines How to build a monster stack

62 max steinberg Start profiting from obvious bet-sizing tells

48 don’t try this… Poker’s worst mistakes

63 your call Can you play like a pro?

52 pokerplayer quiz Test your basic poker skills

64 crush live poker Can you play like a pro?

54 the perfect start How to play monster pairs

66 in the tank Meet Sofia Lövgren, our new poker agony aunt

58 cardrunners Shake your game up with these unusual plays

68 brian rast It’s time for the WSOP!

STRATEGY tournaments

e h t ! es tart n S i g en

fers a f o es p Syk o run u e i t m s t Ja t ways ament r e p y ex ve bes f tourn g e t fi o stra on the tages r e y s rly tive rPla oke erspec the ea P New ique p tack in s un his assive m

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I hate it when people say that poker isn’t a sport. It is a sport and I, therefore am basically an Olympic athlete. Well, maybe neither of those statements are true, but they do allow me to segue perfectly into a fantastic analogy; if poker was a sport, like running for example, then tournament poker would be a marathon. Think about it, you train most days for them, and they are long feats of endurance, which provide you with a huge sense of accomplishment when completed successfully. They also carry a certain degree of prestige. In both marathons and poker tournaments it is important that you are well versed with how to properly navigate each section because overall success can depend entirely on effortlessly flowing from stage to stage with the wind in your sails and momentum as your companion. Recovering from a mistake at any stage isn’t impossible, but it certainly makes life more difficult, and the earlier that mistake is made, the larger its radius of effect can be. Any good professional will testify that when they have momentum with them from an early stage it becomes much more natural to make good decisions throughout the tournament. Getting off to a good start is one of the best ways for us to capture that elusive creature that we call momentum, so let’s look at a few ways in which we can accomplish that…

Assess your table

The first and most important thing that you have to do before embarking on the long journey towards tourney glory is to assess the marine life in front of you. Can you spot any fish? Any sharks? Maybe a beluga whale floating around? A catfish perhaps? There are a few little warning flags that show up within the first twenty hands or so in online and live tournaments alike that you can use to identify whether the person sat across from you is your prey, or if you are theirs:

Have they open limped preflop? This is usually a solid indicator that a person plays poker recreationally rather than as a professional. Limping is nowhere near as unfashionable as it was a few years ago (these days you’ll definitely see me whipping out a limp in a live tournament) where it was almost considered illegal to do so by the online whiz kids. However it is a tool the pros use more towards the mid to late stages of a tournament, so if you see someone limbering up with an open limp, you can be pretty sure they are just here for a day out.

Have they three-bet in position preflop? This is basically the polar opposite to the point above. If they have already

whipped out the three-bet pre in position and aren’t on a life support machine then they are quite likely to be competent and aggressive. This is not a hard and fast rule though because: A) They could just have a really good hand B) They could simply be aware of the three-bet and know that they should use it but not actually have the ability or knowledge to properly apply this strategy, resulting in them being a cheesecake themselves The latter point used to trip me up all the time. I’d see a person under the age of 25 being aggressive preflop with small bet sizing and just assume that they were a competent player – but in reality, because of all of the information that is flying around the internet, there is a whole culture of people who know that they should do something but don’t properly know how to do it, and these people can be almost as soft a spot as a recreational businessman.

It is important to gather as much information as possible both in and out of hands in order to properly assess the opponents across the table. If it’s a live tournament have a good look at the players – how old are they? Are they wearing expensive clothes? Are those clothes expensive but informal (potential pro) or a balling business suit (potential recreational player)? Make sure you listen to them as well, you can pick up a lot from table banter which can help you to identify the marks from the pros. Are they local? What kind of language do they use? If they are using modern poker terminology correctly then there’s a good chance your man does alright. But if he’s saying things like, ‘I see that bet!’ then you’re probably safe. For now…

You can pick up a lot from the banter which can help you to identify the marks from the pros

STRATEGY tournaments

Get stuck in (play a lot of pots)

This stage of the tournament is where the stacks are the deepest and the players are at their most generous. I’m sure you will have noticed that most pots go multi-way in the first few levels and people are quite happy to show up on any street with a complete bag of spanners. Poker players seem to be much less afraid of making a mistake in the first few hours than they are once the blinds have gotten a little bigger and they’ve invested some time. The reason behind this is simple; there is no pressure at this stage, thus presenting us with a very lucrative opportunity that we should always be taking advantage of. If your opponents are determined to see too many flops and turn cards then they allow us to employ a very simple but very effective strategy against them. That is to absolutely ramp up your sizing and play mostly for value. Now, by no means should that sentence suggest that we have to wait for premium hands to beat these opponents, quite the contrary. You should be getting involved in as many pots as you can, just as long as you stick to Sykes’s super simple rules:

B) Choose hands which dominate the kind of hands that they will peel your raises with This is a really important point. One of the most common mistakes I see is people trying to take advantage of loose-passive players by isolating them with hands that play poorly versus the type of hands that our villain is going to show up with. Yes, we want to punish the guys who are calling too much, but the majority of us can’t do that by isolating with hands like 9-6 offsuit. Wait until you have a hand like J-T offsuit which flops much stronger, dominating draws, more dominating top pairs and just generally plays better down those pesky streets. Remember, no matter how much better you are than the person you are trying to take money off, the hand you have does matter. It is not, I repeat not illegal to let your villain get away with a few limps or weak raises if you are waking up with bad hands to combat them with. Forcing the action will only lead to disaster.

Players seem to be much less afraid of making a mistake in the first few hours

A) Try and play in position as much as possible Since we are relying on our opponents not to fold, we need to make sure that we have as much maneuverability as possible down the streets. We achieve that by making sure that we are in position as much as we can be. It is very important that they give us the information that we need to decide whether we can extract value or blow them out of the water – being in position affords us that luxury.

C) Ramp up that sizing! Since the rise in training videos it feels more and more natural to stick to a pre-set bet sizing guide, especially preflop. Min-raise pre always, but if someone limps then you are allowed to make it 3xBB. Oh thanks, unwritten poker rulebook in the digital sky! Nonsense. If you think a person will call ten times the big blind, then you go ahead and make it ten times! Ignore that voice in your head telling you that you’re not allowed. If the lemons on your table are calling too much then you want to try and find that sweet spot where your bet size is the most that they will call before just tutting and letting you have the pot.

Play for stacks As I mentioned in point number two, this is the part of the tournament where people are fearless, and seem to all have a mantra written on their hand reading: ‘YOU WILL NOT BE BLUFFED!’. This allows you to really jack up your sizing down the streets when you have a strong value hand and your villain has shown signs of stubbornness. You’ll get big river bets called off that you won’t be able to once the fear kicks in towards the middle stages of the tournament. Don’t be afraid to go for full pot or even over the pot on the turn and river on dry, uncoordinated board textures where you think that a person’s range contains mostly top pair type hands that they really don’t want to fold. You’d be surprised how many times a full pot bet will be called just as quickly as a half-pot bet on later streets.

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Don’t over-value hands preflop

It is really important to constantly have in the back of your mind that you are much deeper stacked in the first few levels than you will be throughout the rest of the tournament, meaning that any mistakes you make for your full stack now are much bigger mistakes than they would be later on when stacks are shallower. With this in mind, getting the lot in preflop without very specific reads with J-J, Q-Q and A-K suited is often a big mistake. It can result in that all too common feeling of frustration where you trick yourself into thinking you run so bad – as you lose versus their Kings and Aces – when in reality, in most spots in the first few levels the villain is only ever going to get it in preflop with those two hands. Often the best option is to three-bet pretty big for value with these hands intending to fold if we

are met with a four-bet, safe in the knowledge that our opponent is just going to call with all of the hands that we beat and only put in that terrifying fourth bet with Q-Q+, making a stack off with J-J/Q-Q/A-K pretty disastrous. I know that it feels counterintuitive to three-bet a hand for value and then fold to a four-bet, but without reads or a dynamic then this is often going to be by far the best play, especially in live poker. If you are concerned about your opponent overvaluing a hand like Jacks, Queens or A-K – meaning that we are folding the best hand a certain percentage of the time – then just call instead. These three hands hold their value pretty well postflop and including them in your flat calling range preflop actually makes you tougher to play against postflop and allows you to do some pretty cool things down the streets.

Chip up by three-betting opponents who raise too much and peel too wide

Get your three-bet on!

As I’m sure you can tell by now, the overwhelming theme of this article has been that in the first few levels of tournaments people tend to play too many hands, are in too many pots and just generally get pretty darn stubborn down the streets. One of the ways we can chip up as a result of this is by three-betting opponents who raise too much and peel too wide. We want to be doing this as much as we can because it is going to end up being very profitable playing bloated pots in position heads-up against

someone who gets to the flop with too wide a range of hands. This wide range results in our continuation bets getting through a lot, but also that your villain is going to get to the turn and river with very marginal showdown hands – giving us the ability to both bluff when we miss and milk them for very thin value when we make a hand. As for which hands we should be doing this with, you should be selecting hands which benefit from people behind us folding hands that dominate ours and would usually call,

for example J-9 suited. With a hand like J-9 suited we get A-J, K-J, Q-J J-T, T-T and 9-9 to fold behind us, which is already a massive victory. We now get to go heads-up to the flop with a hand that plays well down the streets versus an opponent who will, because of how wide his range is, get to each street with very marginal holdings allowing us to really punish him. This is what I like PP to call the dream. l Jamie Sykes is a tournament pro and you can follow him on Twitter @gotdeuces

STRATEGY basic errors

Don’t try this at home

Mistakes. Everyone makes them – even the top pros – but eliminate these from your game and you’ll be a better, and more popular, player Playing live poker is a lot of fun, but it’s also pretty stressful at times – especially if you’re fairly new to the game or you’re playing for large sums of money. Mistakes can be costly, both financially and emotionally – nobody wants to look like an idiot at the poker table or draw the ire of their fellow players. Join us as we take you on a journey through poker’s worst mistakes as acted out by a cast of some of the biggest players in the world. And remember: Smart players learn from their mistakes, but the best learn from the mistakes of others…

Taxi for Mr Ivey: Even the greats can misread their hands

Don’t talk too much! Poker’s a game of incomplete information. Or at least it’s supposed to be. But talk too much and you can give away the strength of your hand, as Daniel Negreanu found out to his cost against Antonio Esfandiari in this classic hand from an early season of High Stakes Poker. Negreanu is a master of speech play and is highly proficient at teasing crucial nuggets of information out of amateur and pro players. But in this hand he takes it too far and his big mouth gets him in trouble before he is saved by the river.

Neil stoddart

Don’t muck the best hand! It’s become de rigeur to muck your losing hand without showing in tournaments. It means your opponent doesn’t get free information from you in addition to your chips. Which is fine if you’re actually mucking the losing hand. However, in the heat of the moment it’s easy to misread your holding sometimes. So if you’re one of those players that doesn’t want to turn your hand over, check it, double check it and check it once again before mucking. If you’re still not sure whether you are winning or not, just turn your hand over and let the dealer work it out for you. And don’t be embarrassed – it can happen to the very best players in the world, as Phil Ivey showed at the 2009 WSOP Main Event. Holding 8♠-8♦ on a 5♠-Q♥-T♠-Q♠-A♠ board, his opponent announces Ace, shows his hand and Ivey mucks the winning Eight-high flush. Ivey explained after that he didn’t notice four spades on the board. Well, if he can do it… CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

After making a great read, putting Esfandiari on Jacks, Negreanu moves all-in on the Q-6-T flop with K-T. And then proceeds to talk. And talk. He offers to show a card and then retracts the offer. And just when Esfandiari is looking like he’s going to fold, Negreanu talks some more, telling Esfandiari that he’ll show him a card after he folds. Esfandiari quickly makes the call, leaving Negreanu to sheepishly admit, ‘I gave it away at the end’. CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

Ivey mucks the winning Eighthigh flush. He said he didn’t notice four spades on the board

Protect your cards at all times! In a game of poker it’s up to you to protect your cards. That’s why a lot of players use card protectors. Stick one of those on top of your cards and the dealer isn’t going to inadvertently muck your Aces. And that rather unfortunate situation is exactly what happened to Estelle Denis at the 2009 WSOP Main Event. Sitting next to the dealer, she shoves for 140k over the top of JC Tran’s 32k preflop raise. The dealer mucks her cards and, despite telling the floor what she had, they can’t be retrieved from the top of the pile. The correct ruling is that her hand is dead and she has to forfeit the 32k it would take to make the call. Ouch! CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

STRATEGY basic errors

Don’t flip your hand over early! Don’t talk about the hand (if you’re not in the hand)! This is a real no-no and a mistake that’s only really made by absolute beginners or total idiots. Once you’ve folded a hand you’ve got information that has a direct bearing on the play. Say you fold A-3 and the flop comes down A-A-3. You slap your forehead and say, ‘I can’t believe I folded A-3’ to the player on your left. One of the players still in the hand has an Ace and he now knows it’s the last one in the deck, giving him tons of vital information. It’s rare to see something like this happen in a big tournament, but when Shawn Sheikhan folds his short stack to see a 9-8-A flop in the 2005 WSOP Main Event, he jumps out his seat and slams the table, causing Mike Matusow to drop an f-bomb. Old Sheiky isn’t an absolute beginner, so… We’ll let you fill in the blank. CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

When Sheikhan folds his stack to see a 9-8-A flop, he jumps out his seat and slams the table

In the heat of the moment it’s easy to get overexcited and turn your cards over early thinking your opponent is all-in or everyone else has folded. When that happens the usual ruling is that you can’t make any bets or raises – you can only call any bets. It obviously gives your opponent a huge advantage of either checking the hand down if you flop a monster, betting if they’re beating you, or bluffing if the board puts out some obvious scare cards to your hand. In this first hand Tony G flips his pocket Sixes after making a call thinking that Andy Black is all-in. He’s

Don’t get stuck on hands that are obviously beaten! You only get Aces once every 225 hands but they’re still just one pair. And pairs get beaten quite often at the poker table. If you want to be a successful poker player you’ve got to be able to lay down big hands that you thought were going to reap you a huge pile of chips. And that includes hands stronger than just one big pair. If the action strongly suggests that you’re beat, you’re quite often going to be beat. Don’t get frustrated and don’t make a call saying, ‘I know I’m beat but I’m not good enough to fold this’. Fold and know you’ve made a good laydown. Sure, you’ll be Kid Poker couldn’t let go of his straight and paid the price

bluffed off a pot every now and again, but not often enough to stay stubborn. That’s what happens to Daniel Negreanu here. He’s on a terrible run during High Stakes Poker, flops the nuts with T-9 on a Q-8-J flop and ends up losing to quad Eights. Sure, he was unlucky but when Erick Lindgren moves all-in on the river with the board reading Q♣-8♥-J♦-8♦-A♥ it’s an easy fold. He calls out of frustration, after slamming his fists on the table, and loses an extra $70k. He can only beat a bluff and even says, ‘Full house is good’ as he calls. Lindgren’s quads are even better. CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

www.pokerplayerAMERICA.coM not and Tony G has to suffer the ridicule of his tablemates. It reaches fever pitch when the G-man turns a set. Andy Black tells him he’s drawing dead and mucks in a fit of giggles.

Don’t bet the wrong amount!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH! Of course, when you are against someone that’s playing face up, you shouldn’t lose any more than the minimum. After all, you can see your opponent’s cards! But that’s exactly what happens in this weird hand from Spain. After the first player flips his A-J preflop, thinking everyone’s folded, he’s forced to play the hand out face-up. His opponent is sitting pretty on pocket Nines when he flops a set. But as the board runs out 9-2-J-J-2 he makes the decision to move all-in on the river. Ay caramba! CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

Kaplan summed it up: ‘It’s a kitchen table mistake that might cost Eastgate $25k’

Eastgate’s chip mixup cost him dearly on High Stakes Poker

You work hard to get your chips, so don’t go giving them away by tossing the wrong amount into a pot. If you do make this mistake, make sure you don’t do it during a game of High Stakes Poker – it could be very costly. After raising to $3,000 with 9♠-8♠, Peter Eastgate picks up three callers to create a pot of $13,600. On the 6-8-K flop, Eastgate picks up a blue chip by mistake and makes it $32k, eliciting a frown from Elezra and a ‘he got the wrong colour’ followed by a giggle and a hand over the mouth by Negreanu as he insta-realises he shouldn’t talk during the hand. Eastgate smiles it off but Gabe Kaplan on commentary sums it up perfectly (as usual) when he says, ‘It’s like a kitchen table poker mistake that might cost Peter Eastgate $25,000.’ Elezra – with a pair and a flush draw – makes it $140k to go and Eastgate mucks, $25,000 less richer than he should be. CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

Don’t underestimate your opponent! That spotty kid who you think is spewing chips is actually an online Supernova Elite. And that bloke acting the tourist on the cash table is actually a grinding reg in disguise. What we’re trying to say is that unless you know someone’s game inside out, you should never underestimate them. There’s a great example on High Stakes Poker. Season 7 might have been a huge disappointment – stripped as it was of Gabe Kaplan, AJ Benza, and the Full Tilt pros – but it had its moments. Most of them came from the unique dynamics of top-name pros against big businessmen. And the latter weren’t there to make up the numbers.

In this fantastic hand Bill Klein pulls a sick bluff on Phil Galfond – one of the very best cash game players in the world. After Galfond turns the nut straight with Q-T on the J♠-9♥-2♠-K♣ board, Klein sticks around with his 10♠-6♠ for a gutshot and flush draw. The river puts another Jack down and Klein leads straight out for a pot-sized $150k. Galfond thinks for a while before basically saying he knows Klein has the full house (‘What else could you have called with’) and mucking. Klein shows. Of course he does. How else would he get to fist bump Antonio Esfandiari? CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

STRATEGY QUIZ Q1 Pick up and play Players 9 Blinds $0.10/$0.20 Your stack $20 Your hand K♣-K♦

QUIZ THIS MONTH

The basics

To become a winning poker player, you are first going to have to master the basic fundamentals of the game. Does your poker game have the right foundations? Find out in our testing quiz

BB $20

SB $20

PLAYER 1 $20

$0.20

PLAYER 2 $20

Pot: $00.30

$0.10

BUTTON $20

PLAYER 3 $20

PLAYER 4 $20

ACTION You get dealt pocket Kings UTG+1. It’s folded to you. What should you do?

Decision a) Limp in b) Min-raise to $0.40 c) Raise to $0.60 d) Raise to $5

Q3 suits you?

Q2 trip me up Players 9 Blinds $0.10/$0.20 Your stack $20 Your hand K♣-K♦

Players 9 Blinds 500/1,000/a50 Your stack 13,000 Your hand 7♣-6♣

YOU (UTG+1) $19.40

FOLD

BB $19.40

FOLD

SB $19.40

YOU (UTG+1) $20

FOLD

Pot: $1.80

FOLD

YOU (BB) 13,000

FOLD

SB FOLD

FOLD

Pot: 6,950 2,500 2,500

BUTTON FOLD

ACTION In that same hand you raised preflop and got called by the blinds. The flop is A♠-K♠-8♥. Both players check to you and the pot size is $1.80. What should you do?

FOLD FOLD

Decision a) Check behind for deception b) Bet full pot c) Bet $1.40 d) Move all-in

BUTTON 42,000

ACTION You’re short-stacked in a tournament and have 7-6 suited in the big blind. The cutoff raises to 2,500, the button calls and now the decision is on you. What should you do?

CUTOFF 30,000

FOLD

Decision a) Fold b) Call and see a flop c) Three-bet to 6,000 d) Move all-in

Decision a) Fold b) Call c) Raise to 6,000 d) Move all-in What should you do? 3,200

YOU (BB) 12,000

SB 26,800 Pot: 7,000

250,000

BUTTON FOLD

0-4 back to basics Stick to the microstakes – you still have a lot to learn

your score 10) You’ve mastered the basics and you want to turn pro. What should you do first? a) Change your mind – being a pro is not easy! b) Prepare a plan B in case it all goes wrong c) Play on for a longer period to make sure you’re not just running good d) All of the above options are valid 9) What adjustments should you make when moving from full ring to six-max? a) Play tighter b) Play the same c) Play more looseaggressively d) Use the chat box more 8) If you are new to live poker what can you do to avoid giving off tells? a) Stay silent and act deliberately b) Drink seven pints c) Constantly tweet d) Always ask players what they have during a hand

Decision a) Fold b) Call FOLD

Pot: 270,000 FOLD FOLD

7) What should you never do when playing poker? a) Slowroll the nuts b) Trash talk c) Fold out of turn d) All of the above 6) Why is it important to always play for the win in a multi-table tournament? a) So that you can collect trophies b) To gain more Twitter followers c) That’s where the majority of the prizepool is d) Playing aggressively is more fun

Quick-fire

5-7 basic training You’re clearly familiar with some of the fundamentals but take it slowly

8-10 basic instinct You’ve mastered the basics and it’s time to take your game to the next level

ANSWERS 1 c) Raise to $0.60. Many players are tempted to slowplay big hands by limping in so they can then reraise if someone else opens the betting. Unless there are exceptional circumstances this is a mistake. It’s much better just to raise yourself in an attempt to build a pot and narrow the field. If you limp instead you could see the flop multi-way (putting your Kings at risk of being cracked). 2 c) Bet $1.40. It’s important not to slowplay in situations like this. Yes, your hand is very strong but it’s also important that you are aware of the ways in that your hand is also vulnerable. Your opponents may have flush or straight draws and you definitely want to charge those to see the turn and river. Also, given that two other players are in the pot there’s a fair chance of one of them having an Ace – if you bet you will be able to get value from your set of Kings. If you check, you just waste a potential street of value. 3 a) Fold. When playing tournaments it’s crucial to always be aware of your stack size and how this impacts on how you must play. 7-6 suited is a great hand when deep-stacked but trash when you only have 13BBs. You could squeeze all-in here but you’re likely to be called as the other two players will be getting a good price – it’s much better just to fold and wait for a spot where you are the one shoving. 4 b) Call. It may seem too loose to be calling off a large portion of your stack with A-8 but you have to take chances when late in a tournament and go for the win. A-8 is ahead of an aggressive opponent’s shoving range and while you may sometimes be behind, you’ll often be dominating or racing with him for a chance to get a big stack. 5 a) Fold. When playing satellites it’s key to remember that you are only trying to win the prize and not the whole tournament. You’re in a great spot here to secure a seat without any risk – you must fold even a hand as strong as Aces. 6 c) That’s where the majority of the prizepool is. In any MTT the top three spots will house most of the prizepool. It will be far more profitable to win two tourneys than to min-cash in 20. 7 d) All of the above. Players will give you the benefit of the doubt when you are new but it is important to pay attention to the unwritten rules of the game – otherwise you’ll quickly make enemies at the table! 8 a) Stay silent and act deliberately. Many new players make the mistake of being too chatty at the table. Perceptive opponents may be able to use this against you. While it’s important to have fun at the table it will be in your best interests to keep it shut if you want to avoid giving off tells. 9 c) Play more loose-aggressively. It’s important to open up your game when there are less players at the table. Relative hand strengths go down so a hand like A-Q suddenly becomes a monster. 10 d) All of the above options are valid. There are tons of factors that you must consider before making the big jump to becoming a professional poker player. It’s not an easy life and most aspiring pros fail within the first few years. Good luck if you take your shot!

ACTION You’re on the bubble of a satellite to win a package into a $1,500 WSOP tournament. Four players are paid and five remain. A short-stacked player shoves for 3,200. The chip leader, with 30,000 chips, calls. You have pocket Aces in the big blind. 600 FOLD 3,200 PLAYER 1 ALL-IN

Players 5 Blinds 300/600 Your stack 12,000 Your hand A♣-A♥

Q5 bubbling up ACTION It’s deep in a live six-max tournament and you’re nearing the final table. It’s folded to the small blind, an aggressive young player, who moves all-in for 250,000. You have A-8. What should you do? BUTTON FOLD SB ALL-IN

20,000 YOU (BB) 400,000

Players 6 Blinds 10,000/20,000 Your stack 400,000 Your hand A♣-8♥

Q4 take the call?

round

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STRATEGY starting hands

The perfect start

In the second part of this series looking at starting hands, cash game pro Simon Hemsworth reveals how to win the maximum with your monster pairs

Part 2: Big pocket pairs

Contrary to the belief of the ‘I never win with Aces’ brigade, they do make you the most money

Big pocket pairs are the most profitable hands to play in no-limit hold’em. Contrary to the belief of the ‘I never win with Aces’ brigade, they do make you the most money. Online poker tools that track hands allow you to look at which hands are your most profitable and any good sample will show this to be Aces. However this is not to suggest that big pairs are always easy to play, and making them very lucrative starting hands requires you to play them correctly. The most common problem new players have with big pairs is they get too attached to them after the flop when the board suggests they are not the best hand anymore. When you get dealt Kings preflop it’s only natural to expect to win a large pot – suddenly the board runs out badly and it can be hard to get over the fact that you may now lose a large one. This is a lesson all poker players have to go through until folding Kings on an ugly board becomes second nature. In this article we will consider some of the potential pitfalls of big pairs and also how to extract maximum value from them. We’ll consider big pairs to be pocket Jacks or better.

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Preflop Big pairs should be raised from all positions almost all the time. There would need to be some exceptional circumstances to consider doing anything different. The more difficult preflop decisions come with how aggressively to play the slightly weaker big pairs like Jacks, and whether to fast play or slow play monsters like Aces.

Cautious or reckless

Despite Jacks being an excellent starting hand in NLHE, and one that can yield high profits, it is also a hand that can cause a lot of problems. These troubles tend to lead to mistakes such as stacking off preflop in a situation where Jacks are too weak, or playing them too passively and missing out on value. In a standard NLHE cash game with 100BB stacks it can both be very standard or a big mistake to stack off with Jacks, depending on the situation. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s consider some key factors that would decide this:

Against aggressive opponents you will play Jacks fast and three, four and five-bet at will

l The action before you Sometimes the preflop action that occurs before your turn will make Jacks look weaker. If for example there is an open from under the gun, and then a three-bet from a tight player in mid-position you might consider the ranges of these two players (particularly mid-position) and realise Jacks in the big blind is just a fold. Your alternatives of calling or raising are quite undesirable and could ultimately end in either needing to get lucky or losing a big pot. Sometimes when no money has yet been voluntarily invested it is best to just fold.

l Positions of active players In a situation where a regular opens from the button and you have Jacks in the small blind it would normally be standard to three-bet as a reg will open the button extremely light. You know this, so you three-bet Jacks, and he knows you know this so can four-bet bluff or four-bet for value with worse than Jacks. You also know all this so can happily five-bet jam! However if

you opened from UTG and the BB three-bet you it would be more prudent to just call as the BB will likely know your UTG range is much stronger and that the three-bet represents more strength.

Slow playing or fast playing

l Stack sizes Although stacking off with Jacks and Queens might be standard in a lot of spots 100BB deep, this can change with deeper stacks. Unless there is an aggressive dynamic, most players tend to only go with extremely strong hands when this deep. Jacks and Queens tend to do poorly against this range.

With increasingly aggressive online cash games it could be argued that for the sake of balance you should fast play all of your big pairs. To a certain extent this is true. However, there are also situations where slow playing your monster pairs is better. This is best done with Aces where you are in such a dominating position against all other hands that there are very few bad flops. Also, having Aces means you have two blockers to A-K and A-Q type hands the villain could have, which increases the chances he is bluffing. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s look at an example where slow playing Aces is the best play:

l Reads on the villain(s) Against more aggressive opponents you will be happy to play your Jacks fast and three, four and five-bet at will. However, frequently in cash games there are players that rarely bluff and play medium strength hands very cautiously. As a result the hands they play aggressively are very strong and Jacks does badly against this range. In such situations it might be best to either just flat call an early position raise or call a three-bet and look to proceed carefully when you do not flop a set.

l An aggressive player raises the cutoff and you three-bet the button with Aces. The cutoff villain four-bets and you decide to call The aggressive player will be opening the cutoff very light and knows you will often three-bet the button light. It will be difficult for the villain to proceed by calling out of position so he will frequently four-bet bluff. Just calling allows you to keep bluffs involved. You can balance this play by also calling four-bets with suited connectors and other playable hands so you are not simply trapping with Aces every time.

STRATEGY starting hands

ON THE FLOP The texture of different flops can radically change how you should proceed with a big pair. We will look at some common problem flops that can occur with big pairs and the best way to proceed in these situations: l You three-bet K-K out of position 150BB deep and the flop comes A-T-5… This is a very common spot that every player has encountered. You are delighted to be three-betting a great hand like K-K and are really hoping for a flop that doesn’t contain an Ace. A-x hands are frequently in the range of a player calling a three-bet so you should certainly be aware that K-K could now be the worse hand. The best way to proceed with the hand from here will largely depend on reads you have on the villain. Does the villain fold to c-bets frequently in three-bet pots? Does the villain bluff here when checked to with air hands? Will the villain value bet strong with a hand like A-J here? Questions like this should be going through your mind to determine the best play. Against a player you don't have a read on the best line would be to be cautious, check and re-evaluate depending on how the villain reacts. If he checks you can look to get value on

the turn or river. If he bets you can call one street then see what happens on the turn. With big pairs it is not just overcards you should be afraid of. Sometimes flops can smash your opponents’ range and make your overpair appear considerably weaker:

It is not just overcards you should be afraid of. Flops can also smash your opponents’ range

l You three-bet Q♠-Q♣ out of position 125BB deep and the flop comes 8♥-6♥-5♦… This is potentially a very dangerous situation for a hand like Q-Q. This is a flop that could hit your opponent in all sorts of ways with two pairs, sets, straights and big combo draws all in the villain’s range. Much like the previous situation with K-K facing a flopped overcard, how to proceed best would depend on reads on the villain. The difficulty with betting here is that being raised would leave you in a very tough spot. All the possible strong hands that the villain can have will raise, but it’s also possible that your opponent could bluff here knowing he can represent lots of strong hands. Again, I would recommend a cautious approach and check looking to control

the pot size. By doing this you can encourage the villain to bluff or value bet worse hands and also keep the pot smaller for when you may want to fold your hand. Quite often when you have big pairs the flops are favourable, but there are still mistakes that can be made: l You hold A-A and four-bet a villain out of position 100BB deep. The villain calls and the flop is J-5-4. A frequent mistake I see here is to bet too big. In such situations the pot size is likely to be somewhere between 40-50BB already, with 75-80BB behind. Therefore there isn’t much room for maneuver and for the villain to ‘make moves’. Typically regulars bet too big here and don’t allow their opponent to bluff or float on a flop where you have air a lot of the time. If they happen to have a hand like Q-J then you will get stacks in by the river anyway. If the pot was 50BB at this point I would recommend betting as low as 15BB. This makes it frustratingly small for your opponent to have to fold and tempts him to call with very weak holdings or to raise as a bluff.

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Always play Aces fast versus Vanessa Selbst… In this hand from The Big Game, Prahlad Friedman and Vanessa Selbst get tangled up in a huge pot. Unusually this was not a cooler but involved a huge bluff from Selbst, who commits $170k preflop with J-7 suited against the Aces of Friedman. With both being very aggressive players there is a dynamic whereby neither gives each other much credit for a hand. Some might believe that slow playing Aces against a player like Selbst would be the most profitable line. However this hand shows how sometimes fast playing Aces in a spot where you can easily be bluffing can be very advantageous too. Although Selbst looks a bit silly here, she has forged a very successful career playing this aggressively. Unfortunately sometimes bluffs go wrong!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

The turn and river With big pairs the turn and river cards can drastically change how you might want to proceed in the hand. The board can be one that makes you want to get more value from your hand or a danger card could make you want to fold. Let’s consider an example where a turn card might look dangerous but is actually fairly harmless: l In a three-bet pot with K-K you c-bet a 9-7-2 flop. The turn is an Ace… This is a spot where regulars will frequently shut down and check because of the scary looking Ace. However, this is not a card that hits the villain particularly often and one that many regulars will identify as a good bluff card, therefore giving you less credit when you bet it. By continuing to bet you can get value from hands like T-T, 9-x and 7-x if the villain is

a non-believer. Although checking the turn can encourage bluffs from floats and missed draws, continuing to bet for value will usually yield higher profits. Let’s continue this hand on an interesting river card:

this was unlikely, but it’s certainly possible) with a hand like A-Q, A-J or A-9, now 10-8 just got there for a straight and two pair in J-9 is very possible. The only hands we feasibly now beat are double floats or made hands that the villain is turning into a bluff. If that’s the case we just have to give the villain credit for a creative and ambitious bluff. Your Kings looked great preflop, on the flop and were still very decent on the turn. However on the river the board was looking pretty ugly and suddenly your mindset has to change to one that is looking to fold. This is a key skill in playing big pairs and one that all good players are capable of. Folding big pairs at the right time is just as important as extracting big value when they are PP the best hand.

The board can make you want to get more value from your hand or could make you want to fold

l You bet again on the Ace turn and the river is a Jack… This is a pretty terrible river card with the previous action in the hand and one that means we can no longer realistically get more value from K-K from worse hands. In this situation the best play would be to check and look to get to showdown. If the villain then bets you should probably give him credit for a better hand. Sometimes the Ace on the turn improved his hand (I did mention

STRATEGY self improvement

It’s time for a little e xperiment

PART 2

CardRunners pro [vital]Myth continues his look at experimenting in poker with examples of new lines that you can take to crush the tables In association with

In part one last issue we talked about why it was important to experiment when playing poker, and the best situations to try out new moves. This time out I want to show you some experimental strategies you can use to show a profit at the tables….

Unusual lines The first type of NLHE experiment I want to talk about is that of taking unusual lines. Almost any line is optimal in some situations – now, of course there are some exceptions and some lines will probably never, ever be good given certain parameters (like when you have a certain type of hand or are against a certain opponent) – but even lines as esoteric and crazy as min check-raising all three streets are sometimes optimal. It will be very rarely but you’ll never know unless you give it a go to find out when. Here are some simpler examples of non-common lines you can experiment with to round out your game…

take the lead Even today after years of various people advocating that you should sometimes lead

instead of always checking to the aggressor people are not doing it enough. There are so many times where you can find really good spots to lead into the raiser, whether it’s for value or as a bluff. People seem to not take advantage of these spots. Leading can take place on any street and in any situation. There are a lot of possibilities to experiment with here. For example, your opponent may check-call flop and turn before shoving the river when a draw gets there. In your head you may think it’s obvious that he has the nuts and just fold. However because you are thinking that it’s likely that all the other regulars in your game would think that too. This means you could now try that leading move as a bluff when a draw gets there but you have actually missed. You’ll never know if it works until you try it. It’s a great way to represent a flush. When you lead opponents will be polarized between how they view a leading bet. If you lead into the preflop raiser some people will always give you credit and fold their air. Other people are on the extreme and never give it credit, raising automatically without thinking. Most people are like this. Leading on any

street is a polarizing action. If you can narrow down which players belong to which group you can really exploit them by picking the perfect times to lead.

Checking as the aggressor As long as you were the preflop aggressor you can check but with the intention of continuing to play your hand. Don’t check just planning to fold in this experiment. Check with the intention of playing trappy, or being aggressive by check-raising. Just check instead of your normal c-betting approach to see how people respond. Some people will always give the preflop raiser tons of credit if they check-call the flop whereas others will never give you credit at all. For example, on a King-high board if you check-call the flop some people will squarely put you on pocket Jacks and triple barrel against you all the time. So you can use this to your advantage with K-x hands. Often checking instead of c-betting will allow you to get one bet out of players who otherwise wouldn’t have called a bet in the first place.

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If you can narrow down which players belong to which group you can really exploit them

STRATEGY self improvement

Slow playing This can have a number of meanings. I think a lot of people are pretty good at slow playing in instances such as when you have 8-8 on an 8-8-2 flop. People don’t tend to raise a c-bet with that hand because they have the deck crushed, and the only way they can get money is if their opponent decides to run a big bluff or has a big hand themselves (neither of which is that common). But people don’t have a good sense for slow playing so that they can get a little bit more value.

Preflop You can do it preflop. If you slow play preflop that means just flat calling with a big pair or A-K when those hands would usually be in your three-betting range. For example, this can work well if you have an aggressive opponent but one who doesn’t like to mess around much preflop. If he raises the button and you have Aces in the big blind it could be a good spot just to call as he’ll bluff postflop much more than preflop. Three-betting is definitely +EV but it might not be as optimal as just calling. Slow playing big hands preflop can lead to rash plays from volatile players and also end up getting more value from nits, who would fold to a three-bet a high amount. By flatting

you’ll get at least one more bet out of your aggressive opponents. You will look very weak to them and they may even double or triple barrel against you. Versus a nit, it’s going to be hard to get too much value preflop – unless you cooler them – so by just calling you allow him to hit a draw or some equity which should get you extra value with your Aces when you check-raise the flop. Anything like that is better than just three-betting against someone who folds all the time. This is especially the case when you have a hand like Queens that actually doesn’t do too well against their all-in preflop range.

Postflop Pretty much the same principles apply postflop – you have something and normally you feel like you want to have a mixed range of bluffs, semi-bluffs and value hands when you make a play such as check-raising. That’s often true, but you should mix in slow playing too. For example, you flopped a set and even though there is a straight draw and flush draw they are not hugely likely, such as on a J♥-8♥-2x board and you have 8-8. That’s a much better flop to slow play on than J♥-8♥-7x. Instead of doing what you are expected to do, which is raise for value on the flop, if you call there is a really good

If he raises the button and you have Aces in the big blind it could be a good spot just to call chance you’ll get at least one more bet out of A-K if the turn is an Ace or the Ace of hearts when a heart comes on the turn. Those hands would have folded the flop right away. This falls under the category of ‘letting people catch something.’ When this happens you can end up getting much more value from your opponents. This requires you to think about balancing your bluffing by check-raising draws alongside huge value hands on the turn. Slow playing also allows people to fire a one-barrel bluff. Let’s say you open from the small blind and the big blind calls. If you check the flop, the big blind will fire most of the time with their complete range. As the small blind you can take advantage of this by knowing this and letting him barrel once instead of giving up versus a c-bet.

Bet sizing Bet sizing is really important when it comes to experimenting. Here are some ways you can play around with sizing to accomplish some good results…

Min-bets Min-bets are always an option. Every now and then it is the perfect play. For example, I have noticed that a lot of volatile, fishy European players tend to spew and bluff versus them. If you min-bet they tend to raise with a lot more hands than if you had just bet a normal amount. When you are experimenting with min-betting don’t make assumptions about what effect the min-bet will have as you will probably be surprised. A lot of people think a min-bet will always induce a raise or bluff. But you’d be surprised that sometimes people even fold to min-bets, especially in bloated pots! This could be as much as 10% of the time if you pick your situations well. The min-bet can now become a cheap bluff or a blocking bet.

Pot sized bets and overbets These are two things that have startling effects on people. When you do it they sit and re-evaluate for a second - this period can lead them to make really bad decisions. These bet sizes will get moderately more folds than if you had bet your normal amount of three quarters the pot. Suppose you triple barrel and your opponent may or may not have a hand. If you bet the pot or bigger on the river you might get a lot more

A lot of people think a min-bet will always induce a raise or bluff. But you’d be surprised

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Experimenting with game flow People think of game flow in very varied ways. One person talking about game flow may use emotional and competitive language whereas another may be logical and talk about adjustments. Everyone has a different framework. You should experiment with some basic things within game flow…

Image building Building an image is not about thinking that everybody is going to make the same judgement of who you are. If you sit down and play really loose and crazy it makes sense that people will call you a lot, but it also makes sense that they will perceive you as a dangerous opponent so they will instead wait for a big hand before they battle with you. There are lots of subtle ways that people will view you at the table. Your experiment should not be that you will play crazy for a while and assume people will spew off money to you. It must be that you will play crazy and then see what happens. Also keep in mind that it is very difficult to build up a tight image these days, you need so much of a sample size and mindful opponents that it’s rarely worth the investment!

folds than your standard bet, meaning your profit from that bluff is hugely improved from a normal bet size. On the other hand when you are overbetting sometimes you will get really suspicious calls. One mistake I see people making frequently is if they value bet in a limped pot against a fishy player they tend to bet two or three BBs less than they should have because they don’t like overbetting in general. That fishy player probably doesn’t care if it’s 5BBs to call instead of 2.5BBs. You can bet twice the pot in these situations and get called the same amount. You must take notes on players when you do moves like this. Keep track of which players tend to have what tendencies. It can be really valuable – if you spot a player that is always suspicious of plays that are out of the ordinary you can now bet really big with your value hands against them and expect to be paid off.

Picking on someone Pick a specific person and only mess with that guy. Three-bet them a lot, raise them all the time and see how they react. Maybe they will lie down and take it forever – that will teach you that some players will take much more abuse than you ever could have imagined! On the other hand people may tend to have a breaking point, and once they reach that you can observe some cool changes in their game.

Playing weirdly Doing weird stuff like min-betting, three-betting really tiny or betting twice the pot on the flop are all examples of weird plays that you can throw at the game. See how people react. If you sit down and take weird lines people will not know how to react to you. If you can figure out their reactions it can be very profitable. What you are looking for is getting people to level themselves. When somebody knows deep down they should fold because you never bluff in a certain spot, but he’s seen you three-bet ten times as soon as you sit down, they just can’t find a way to fold to you. Just in case you are bluffing. If you can figure out ways to manipulate your opponents into levelling themselves you PP will quickly add a lot to your win rate.

This article is an extract from Classroom: Experimentation by CardRunners coach [vital]Myth. To watch the full video, and thousands more training videos, go to www.cardrunners.com today!

STRATEGY pro COLUMN

How to exploit bet sizing tells One of the easiest ways to gauge the strength of your opponents is by the size of their bets. WSOP bracelet holder Max Steinberg reveals why size is important

ne thing that surprises me every time I go to the WSOP is the blatant bet sizing tells I observe from not just amateurs, but the experienced pros. Bet sizing tells vary between each player, which is why I constantly observe the bet sizing of the table instead of getting caught up in trying to extract physical tells. While many players say physical tells are one of the most important aspects of live poker, I think bet sizing tells are even more important. There isn’t a one-size fits all trick to bet sizing tells, but there are a few things I’ve observed that make reading bet sizing easier. One thing I see constantly from players is they cap their range by betting too small. Their bet size is too small to rep a huge hand. One would think by now that players are too self-aware to make this mistake, but I’m shocked at how much it holds true, especially on early streets where players aren’t as calculating about their bet sizes. Along the same lines, I see a lot of players make their bets too large on early streets to be bluffing.

Size is important This is a hand that perfectly illustrates when a player bets too small to be strong. It’s against a young pro who travels the circuit and it was on Day 2 of the $3,000 NL mixed-max last summer (I finished second). With blinds at 800/1600/ 200a, he raises to 3,600 in early poisiton (from a 70k stack). I call on the button with 7♠-6♠ (100k stack) and everyone else folds. The flop is A♥-8♥-4♣ and he bets 4,000. This, like many tournament players today, is his consistent mediumsmall c-bet sizing regardless of the board. I call with my gutshot getting very good odds. The turn is the 3♦ and he now bets 7,500 into the pot of 18,800. I raise to 24,000, he thinks for a minute, sighs, and folds. The young pro’s small bet sizing on the turn is a huge mistake. He bets well under half-pot, which doesn’t protect him against the several draws on the board. If he had a hand like a set or a strong Ace, he would feel

Bets that are too big or small can be the best tells you get

the urge to bet bigger, especially this late in the tournament where he doesn’t mind taking down a small pot. This spot is an easy raise for me, and although my opponent is probably aware that he looks weak, I think he will give me credit for a strong hand since it’s so rare to see anyone bluff raise the turn on such a wet board. I make a large raise here because it makes my opponent’s only option with a marginal hand to shove or fold, and he doesn’t want to risk his stack at this point in the tournament. The bluff works.

Ignoring an obvious bet sizing tell like this can end up costing you big time

Size is important

A hand from Day 5 of the WSOP Main Event last summer illustrates another way players use transparent bet-sizing. My opponent, an older player, seemed pretty knowledgeable, but wasn’t an expert. With 8,000/16,000/2000a blinds, he makes it 40k to go from the hijack with a stack of 1.3m. I call with K♦-T♣ on the button from 1.75m. This is a little loose, but I like to play speculative hands in position to small raises. Everyone else folds. The flop is Q♣-9♣-3♣ and he bets 80k. In this situation, I already have enough info to

know my opponent is never bluffing. His bet is way too large, and a player like this does not think deeply enough to bet this big on an early street as a bluff. I have a pretty good draw here, a gutshot and the fourth nut flush draw, but I can safely fold here. I’m not exactly sure what he has, but his range is very strong and could have me crippled. I ended up calling though, feeling careless with my big stack, and lost a large pot when I hit my gutshot on the turn and a decent flush on the river, to his Aces with the A♣. This killed my momentum in the Main Event, and I got eliminated later that day, finishing outside the top 100. Sometimes, ignoring an obvious bet sizing tell like this can cost you big time. It’s tempting to sit down at a table in Las Vegas and get engrossed in trying to pick up live reads. I sometimes become obsessed with trying to pick up every detail. But I’ve found that I play my best when I’m focusing on my opponent’s bet sizing, and letting the live reads come. So when you sit down at the WSOP this summer, try finding your own bet sizing tells with my examples as a guide, and PP tell me if it improves your game. l Max Steinberg is a poker pro and WSOP bracelet winner. He currently resides in Las Vegas where he grinds high stakes cash games. You can find him on twitter @MaxJSteinberg

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YOUR CALL

THis issue’s teaser…

Karl plays a tough hand versus rising star Alex Goulder EVENT: £1,000+80 GUKPT London STACK: 70,000 BLINDS: 200/400/a50

PokerEncore.com’s Karl Mahrenholz tests out your poker skills with this tough hand from a recent major tournament. Can you work out the best move? In association with

SITUATION: This hand comes from midway through Day 1 of the recent GUKPT London main event. I had been at the table since the start of the day. It had been generally a very good table but was getting progressively harder as new players moved onto it. I got a big double up with Kings early on and had been reasonably active without showing down any bad hands. The action was folded to me on the button and I raised to 1,000. The small blind called out of a stack of 11k and action was on Alex Goulder in the big blind. He was playing a stack of around 40,000 and had only been at the table 20 minutes. I hadn’t played with Alex

FOLD

BB 14,000

FOLD

Pot: 40,900

12,500

SB FOLD

FOLD

YOU (BUTTON) 44,000

much before and didn’t know too much about his game. I knew him as a thinking player, who is no doubt creative, but not the craziest of the young guys (in my limited knowledge). He asked the SB how much he is playing before three-betting to 3,000. I called and the small blind folded.

The flop came K-7-6, all hearts. Alex bet 3,000 without much delay and I called. The turn paired the Seven. Alex bet 7,500 again without too much thinking time and I called. The river was the Q♥. Alex thought for a long time before betting 12,500. What is my best play and why?

LAST MONTH

Karl gets into a raising war with a super-aggressive hoodie EVENT: £400+£40 Genting Poker Series Nottingham STACK: 28,000 BLINDS: 200/400/a50

Win! pokerplayer playing cards

The winner this month is Tony Wood who analysed the hand perfectly and came to the conclusion that the overbet shove represented either air or K-Q. Mr Wood said the latter was more likely and Karl should fold. Nice hand sir!

Think you can solve the problem?

SITUATION: My opponent in this hand was a young guy, presumably with an online background. Since being at the table I saw him open very wide from UTG and he got into a raising war with me the very first hand we played against each other where he five-bet me button versus BB and quickly folded to a shove. My table image is fairly active. In this hand he opened from early position to 875 and the cutoff and SB called. I called the extra with 6-5 suited. The flop was J-6-5 rainbow giving me bottom two pair. Everybody checked. The turn was a Ten which put up a flush draw. The SB checked, I bet 2,600 and the EP player made it 6,900. He had me covered. Everyone else folded and I called. The river was an offsuit Ace. I checked and he set me all-in. The pot was 17,750 before he shoved and I have just over 20,000

UTG+2 ALL-IN

FOLD FOLD

YOU (BB) 20,500

FOLD

Pot: 17,750

SB 20,000

behind. What is my best play? SOLUTION: It’s interesting he didn’t bet the flop. The pot is four-way so he should be less inclined to get out of line. When he checks I think it either means he has top set, he has some backdoor equity or he’s giving up. I think four-way he is more likely to bet than check with top set. When I lead the turn and he raises either he has just turned a set (but I’d expect T-T to bet this flop almost always),

EMAIL contact@pokerplayeramerica.com or

FOLD

25,000

FOLD

CUTOFF 30,000

he was slow playing a set (but would he check the flop?) or has turned a draw. The turn card does bring a flush draw and straight draws. I called looking for a brick river. The Ace isn’t a complete brick but the only draw that completes is K-Q. The flush draw missed and Q-9 and 9-8 missed. I know he will also barrel this card almost always with his air. I called. Unfortunately this time I was wrong and he had K-Q.

TWEET @PokerPlayerUS using the #YourCall

STRATEGY live poker

The C-bet Matrix In the first of a new series looking at live play, Bart Hanson explains when you should and shouldn’t continuation bet with air in cash games One of the most common situations in no-limit hold’em is when you raise preflop, either with a value hand or as a steal, and you miss the flop. But how do you determine whether you are going to continuation bet bluff? The best way is to use something I like to call the C-bet Matrix. It will help you determine if you should fire that c-bet or just check and give up. The C-bet Matrix is made up of nine c-bet factors and your table image. Simply put, you rank the c-bet factors from one to ten and add it to your image, which you also rank from one to ten. When you look at each of these factors, one would be the worst possible situation to c-bet and ten would be the best possible time to c-bet. You then add that score to your table image, which you also rank from one (the worst image possible) to ten (the God Image, where everyone fears you).

The nine C-bet Factors of players in the hand 1 Number

The most important factor and it should be obvious that, generally, the fewer players the better. The sweet spot is one or two players calling your raise preflop. Any more players and the rating goes down. However, it’s not necessarily better to have only one caller. Sometimes it can look stronger to bet into two players. If you're new to NLHE and you're still getting your feet wet, it's never a terrible idea to shut it down when you miss the flop and three or more players have called your raise.

Board texture It's important to play off your

opponent's range. There are two types of boards that are good to c-bet bluff: a) One and done boards: where there's one high card with two lower disconnected cards like A-7-2 or K-7-3. Generally speaking, you should fire once into these kinds of boards. b) Multi-barrel boards such as T-4-2, 9-2-3 or T-2-2. Plan on firing more than one bullet, especially if scare cards hit the turn. Scare cards are usually overcards, but they could be low blanks. For example, the flop is 8-7-2 rainbow and you fire into two people. The first guy folds and the last guy to act calls. Because he was the last to act, he

could easily be calling you light. The turn is a Three. We know the Three didn't complete a straight draw and in all likelihood it didn't give your opponent two pair, so firing again might get your opponent off a Seven, an Eight or a low pocket pair like 4-4.

3 Stack Sizes

This is one of the most overlooked factors, especially important in smaller cash games that have capped buy-ins. You really need to pay attention to what your opponent’s stack size is. Against the short stacks, you have to decrease the amount of times you c-bet bluff because... • Opponents will check-jam on you a lot forcing you into awful spots where you are pot committed. • You don't have the ability to multi-barrel even if the board dictates it is the best play.

within your own hand 4 Equity

Simply put, the more equity you have in your hand post-flop, the more you should be c-bet bluffing.

5 Position

C-bet bluffing in position is much better than c-bet bluffing out of position. Being last to act is a huge advantage.

opponent’s range preflop 6 your

Evaluate what kind of hand your opponent is calling preflop with. As always, the more information you have on your opponent, the

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Adding it up

better. What is his limp-calling range? What is his flat calling range?

level of your opponent 7 Skill

This is not necessarily something you need to worry about at the lower limits, but if you’re in a tough game against tough competition, factoring in the skill level of your opponent is important because a good player is not going to be playing fit or fold. He knows you're probably going to c-bet a T-4-2 rainbow board, so when you do, he can float in position with a plan to take it away on a later street.

8 Your own VPIP

Essentially, if you aren’t opening very often, it makes sense that when you do open your range is significantly stronger than others. This allows you to c-bet bluff more often because you should be getting more respect from your opponents. Be aware that some opponents just aren’t paying attention.

How sticky your opponent is

We all know players who will literally call with any pair, any draw, any gutshot. You should be c-bet bluffing these guys less often and value-betting thinly more often. Depending on how sticky your opponent is, you might double-barrel these guys more if you think they are the type to call the flop with anything, but fold the turn when they don't improve.

Take all these factors into account and try to figure out the situation you're in. What does it add up to? If the combined score for both your image and the c-bet factor is in the top 50% – for example, your image is a four and the c-bet factor is a six – you should fire the c-bet. If the c-bet factor is a two, you’ll need a God-like image – eight or higher – to fire the c-bet. Your image is important when determining whether to c-bet bluff or not. And I’ll take it further. Being aware of how each player at the table perceives you is important. For example, if I’m losing badly, my image might be a two to opponents I’ve been with all day. But, let’s say, an opponent shows up late, hasn’t seen me lose a pot and in fact, the last time we played I absolutely owned his soul. What's my image specifically to him? Maybe a seven? Clearly, this isn't an exact science but if you get an idea of what factors go into the decision, you should feel a lot more comfortable the next time the most common situation in NLHE comes up.

The sweet spot is when one or two players call your raise preflop

C-bet Matrix Quiz

You raise UTG with A-K and pick up three callers. Stacks are all at least 100BBs and none of your opponents seem overly sticky or really good. The flop is 7♦-6♦-5♠. What is your c-bet factor?

It’s the same hand but now only one player calls and the flop is Q-7-2. What is your c-bet factor?

One player limps and you raise with Q-J suited on the button. Stacks are deep and your opponent is a little sticky. The flop is T♣-8♠-4♣. What is your c-bet factor?

There are two limpers and you raise it up with A-Q suited. Both limpers call despite only being 20BBs deep each. The flop is J-9-6 rainbow. What is your c-bet factor? ANSWERS 1) 0 2) 8 3) 5 4) 0

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STRATEGY ADVICE

In the tank

New 888 Poker pro Sofia Lövgren is here to answer all your poker dilemmas - and give a little bit of advice for girls too! Learning from mistakes I was wondering if you could remember a key hand where you made a big mistake? I sometimes think that you can learn even more from your mistakes than from hands you played well – do you agree? Kevin Wheeler I 100% agree. It hurts so bad when you make a costly mistake but it’s probably the quickest way to improve. I once overplayed A-K in a tournament in Slovenia. I was sitting with almost 100BBs and an old gentleman with a grey beard was opening every pot, so I three-bet him a couple of times. The grey beard opened again to 2.6k. I picked up A-K and three-bet him one more time. A

young aggressive Italian made a four-bet to 15.2k. I felt that he had seen my three-bets and a four-bet bluff could be in his range, as well as a big pair or A-K. I five-bet to 32.5k, and immediately felt that calling in position would have been better. He tanked forever which I liked. Nice… he was bluffing. Then he put his 90k stack in the middle which I didn’t like… oops, he wasn’t bluffing! I couldn’t fold with a third of my stack in the middle and the possibility of doubling up for the lead. I called and was dominated by his Kings…sh♠t! I lost and got knocked out soon after. Next time I’ll give it an extra thought before I pull the trigger with Big Slick.

Put aside your smartphone – in live poker it’s important to pay attention

Nut allergy It’s great to have the nuts in poker but when I have a massive hand I’m sometimes not sure whether it’s best to play it fast it or to slow play. I had two cash game hands this week where I had a set and played them both fast. In the first I check-raised with 7-7 on a A-A-7 rainbow flop and my opponent folded. But then I check-raised with 8-8 on a 2-4-8 flop with two spades on it and managed to stack my opponent. Now I’m confused how to play these hands best in the future – help! Andy Miles

Neil stoddart

My general advice is: Say no to slow! There are nits that will always fold without a hand so you do sometimes have to slow play on dry boards and let them catch up. There are also maniacs who will hang themselves if you let them bet, but I like the idea of getting paid with a monster and playing for stacks if they have a hand. You want to win big pots with big hands. Even if they fold it will be compensated when they have a hand and you stack them.

Tweeting tilt

I love Twitter but I’ve found I get distracted easily at the poker table by looking at it all the time. It’s really affecting my game because I no longer watch the other players and get live reads. Is it just me who plays on their phone far too much? And do you have any advice how I can cut it out? Harry Ball In live poker it’s very important to pay attention, pick up tells from opponents and study how they play. Many younger players use their phones too much and I’ve done this quite a lot myself. This has definitely affected my game, so half a year ago I decided to look less on the phone and focus more on my game and the other players. I started to chat more with the players around the table and found it created a more enjoyable and relaxed atmosphere.

tter Constantly looking at Twi e won’t help your live gam

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There’s more to offer in Vegas than casinos and all-you-can -eat buffets

So, my advice would be to put aside your smartphone and talk with the other players. It will make your live experience more interesting and you may pick up valuable information about the other players’ experience and skill.

Vegas virgin

Track me down How important do you think tracking software is when playing online? I’ve never really used it and fear I’m missing out while others have a big advantage over me. I guess the problem is that I’m too lazy! Edward Stone

I’m going to Vegas this summer during the WSOP. It’s my first time out there and I’m going to play in a couple of smaller events before trying to qualify for the Main Event. You must have been to Vegas a few times now – is there anything that I must go and see or do while I’m out there? I wouldn’t want to miss out on an amazing restaurant or club! Sammy Haynes

Hi lazy Edward, you should start using tracking software today! Nearly all online regulars use programs like PokerTracker or Hold’em Manager. Since the games have become tougher it’s important not to give players this advantage. If you can see one player is folding far too often to three-bets – then voila! – you have an edge on him.

The first time you go to Vegas there’s so much fun stuff to do besides poker – you can always play poker the next time! Here are some of my personal favourites: l A 45 minute helicopter flight to the Grand Canyon. You land deep in the Canyon for a champagne picnic, and then on the way back you can see an amazing view of the famous, neon-lit strip. l Go to the Top of the World in the Stratosphere, an unforgettable experience at one of the most romantic restaurants in the town. It has an amazing view of Las Vegas with a 360 degree rotating floor. The food is delicious too!

Its great to see you in PokerPlayer – I love to see women do well in the game. Are there any female players you really look up to in poker? My favourite has always been Vanessa Selbst, I think she’s awesome! Mandy Vale

Who is Sofia Lövgren? The new 888 Poker pro is one of the poker world’s fastest rising stars – here is why YOU should seek her advice

Total live tournament winnings: $129,436 l Crushes online cash games up to $5/$10 l Looks better in a dress than 99.9% of poker players

Girl power

Thanks Mandy! Vanessa Selbst is one of the best players in the world and she is someone to look up to. I played against her in the PCA Bahamas Ladies event and she busted my A-A with a flopped set. She often gets paid in these situations because of her sick image! It’s not easy to fold Aces against Vanessa…

Sofia’s tips for girls

Keep them short Very long nails may look nice, but in my experience they are not the best to shuffle and stack chips with. Keep them a little shorter but always have a cool colour!

Get involved! If you have a question about poker strategy, a hand you played or even if you just want to know what Sofia’s favourite flowers are you can send your question to: contact@pokerplayermaerica.com, or Tweet Sofia direct @PokerPlayerUS using the #AskSofia. All questions that get published will WIN a FREE pack of PokerPlayer branded playing cards!

STRATEGY COLUMN

The world according to Rast There are games of poker all round the world, with action in Macau, Europe and Australia. But, for Brian Rast, there’s still only one place to be every summer

hen I first came to Vegas for the WSOP, I was thrilled to be going and eager to show the world I could play. I remember driving out to Vegas in my white 4-door Integra from San Diego and renting a room at the Baymont Inn (sounds pretty sexy, huh?). If I’d get up to play a tournament in the middle of the day, I’d walk out to an uncovered scorching car and drive to the Rio sweating my balls off to go try and win a bracelet. If I wanted to play a cash game, poker was going 24/7 with all kinds of action at the Bellagio; it was like a dream.

Popping the cherry I had one small cash that first summer and lost money overall, but decided to plop down the $10k on the Main Event anyway – which at the time was around 10% of my bankroll (and I believe my first 10k tournament). After all, f♣♥k it, I was young and could always grind it back – but the Main Event only comes once a

I honestly can’t see myself missing the WSOP here in Vegas ever again

year. This doesn’t have a fairy-tale ending, I was out Day 1, but I knew I’d be back next year. Sure, I went through my World Series ‘teenage rebellion years’. One year I missed the first three weeks to make a trip over to Macau because I thought the games were better there. I won’t give any specifics, but let’s just say white people couldn’t play in the ‘big game’ over there for almost two years after I came back mid-series. My friend Andrew Robl, who knew where I was, covered my tracks by telling everyone I was broke when they asked. At least he found a believable excuse – thanks buddy! I did this because I was a pro’s pro. I was going to be where I could make the most money, WSOP glory be-damned. I still more or less am that kind of pro. The WSOP is an awe-inspiring sight for any poker player

I’ve never travelled the circuit to play tournaments. I’ve played one tournament lifetime in Europe, never been to Australia, and never played a tournament east of Las Vegas in the USA. And while maybe that sentiment hasn’t changed I honestly can’t see myself missing the WSOP in Vegas ever again.

Summer home I do have a confession though. I’m not as excited now as I was that first wide-eyed summer, with youthful exuberance, over-confidence, and dreams of grandeur. Although I do still get some feelings of excitement, I

think it’s probably closer to anticipation these days, and even a sense of longing for the familiar hallways and people. Walking in the Rio feels a little too familiar, homey even – I can sympathize with how WSOP veterans must have felt when they moved it from Binions. But I am too young for that, and for me the Rio is another home; that vacation home you built so you can finally forget about all the bullshit and just play some cards for a month or two. I’m never going to quit the game of poker, I love it too damn much and when I think of poker, I think of the World Series. See y’all PP this summer!

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Global Poker Index

rankings

The GPI is the world’s most respected ranking system for live tournaments. We count down the best players in the world this month

How the rankings work

Every open poker tournament with over 21 entrants and a buy-in of $1k-$25k is eligible for points in the GPI

Tournament results from the past 36 months will count towards a player’s ranking

global player rankings

Neil Stoddart, DANNY MAXWELL

rank nat

name

For more details on the scoring system see www.globalpokerindex.com/about

uS player rankings score

STAR PICK

GPI score is determined from a combination of finishing place relative to the field size, the size of the buyin and the amount of time passed since that result

rank GPI rank name

score

3,997.60

Vanessa Selbst

3,598.53

Vanessa Selbst

3,598.53

Jason Mercier

3,367.87

Marvin Rettenmaier

3,545.94

Dan Smith

3,271.06

Jason Mercier

3,367.87

Mukul Pahuja

Mike McDonald

3,315.17

Joseph Serock

3,176.26

Dan Smith

3,271.06

Paul Volpe

3,159.36

Mukul Pahujar

3,181.30

#10

Shannon Shorr

3,132.83

Joseph Serock

3,176.26

#16

Bryn Kenney

2,993.55

Paul Volpe

3,159.36

#17

Olivier Busquet

2,976.39

Shannon Shorr

3,132.83

10 #18

Matt Glantz

2,953.57

Ole Schemion

STAR PICK

3,181.30

star pick OLE SCHEMION

star pick MUKUL PAHUJAR

Riding the wave of new German poker superstars, Ole Schemion has been on an incredible run recently, including four chunky six-figure scores in high roller events this year alone. Look out for big things from him in Vegas this summer, in his first ever WSOP.

Mukul Pahujar might not have won a WPT title in the last season but he achieved almost everything else. He secured the WPT Player of the Year title after cashing five times, making three final tables and finishing as runner-up on two separate occasions.

The Global Poker Index™ (GPI™) is a patent pending system that ranks the top 300 live tournament poker players in the world. Data used in calculating the GPI is provided in partnership with The Hendon Mob.

all-in exclusive news

Got a stor y? Tweet us @PokerPlay erUS using the #muckraker POKER NEWS AND GOSSIP FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Eye of the tiger

The Tiger Woods of poker is set to become the Don King of poker with a move into professional boxing. Phil Ivey has co-founded a new boxing/entertainment company called All in Entertainment. No Home Jerome has thrown his financial clout behind rising star Dusty Hernandez-Harrison. HernandezHarrison, named after the bin on 1980s quiz show 3-2-1, is a young welterweight with a bright future. The 19-year-old slugger is currently unbeaten and will be hoping to emulate Ivey’s poker success on the boxing canvas. But if Ivey’s looking for any pugilists from the poker world to add to his burgeoning boxing stable we suggest he steers clear of Bertrand ‘Glass Jaw’ Grospellier – Devilfish is a better bet (so long as he’s keeps the knuckle dusters on). So, it seems the rumours of Ivey being skint were somewhat premature, and if you don’t believe it (we’re looking at you Bilzerian) you can take it up with Phil’s mate Dusty.

Knockout: Ivey steps into the ring

Just one Kiletto l Poker beauty Lily Kiletto narrowly missed out on her first poker title at the Heartland Poker Tour in California. Lovely Lily ploughed through a tough field including top pros Phil Hellmuth and Greg Raymer. We imagine randy Raymer’s lizard specs were all frosted up as he struggled to concentrate on his cards. But Mark Jones stood in the way of Kiletto's first title and she had to settle for second place and $55,607. Kiletto, who describes herself as a fashion designer and poker enthusiast, is also no stranger to posing on beaches in skimpy bikinis. But she is not slouch at poker – with $436,370 in live MTT takings. Muck Raker welcomes anyone who brings a touch of glamour to the tables – unfortunately the same couldn’t be said for Kiletto’s conqueror Jones, who looked worryingly like Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs. All the best Lily, we hope to be seeing kiletto me softly: a lot more of you in the future. Not just a pretty face

Full Metal Twassock

After losing a prop bet he agreed to adopt the crazy name

Keep an eye out for this name next time you're on The Hendon Mob – Full Metal Havok More Sexy N Intelligent Than Spock And All The Superheroes Combined With Frostnova. In what must rank as the craziest wager since that berk got a rainbow tattoed on his back, news reaches us from New Zealand of poor Mr Frostnova (or Full Metal to his friends). After losing a poker prop bet some five years ago, Forstnova agreed to adopt the ridiculous name. But it was only when his passport came up for renewal that the full horror of the moniker change became clear. To be fair there’s not a lot to do in New Zealand except talk about Lord of the Rings and a spot of ewe-bothering – these crazy kiwis PP have to occupy their time somehow.

NEXTE ISSSU ALE ON 2 June 2

The brat is Back Phil Hellmuth is planning to take the WSOP by storm â&#x20AC;&#x201C; again!

Neil stoddart

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