Category: My news, views and fun facts

Fancy your luck at the poker tables, then rub the head of Adrian Mateos, and hope that his winning streak spreads by contagion.

The Spaniard star flew into Prague for the European Poker Tour (EPT) on the back of an incredible visit to the Bahamas for the partypoker MILLIONS World, and he’s taken down the first event.

Mateos banked $1.7m in the Bahamas after winning the $25,500 Super High Roller, followed by the $10,300 Main Event, and now he’s secured his fourth EPT side event win with victory in the €10,300 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller.

The event attracted 61-entrants (15 re-entries) like rats to a sewage system, and, as expected, it was a stellar cast including EPT final table reg, Orpen Kisacikoglu, high roller star, Matthias Eibinger, and the Triple Crown winner, Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier.

Let’s see how Mateos took it down to Cesky Krumlov town.

Final Table Seat Draw

Seat 1: Tsugunari Toma – 213,000
Seat 2: Orpen Kisacikoglu – 145,000
Seat 3: Adrian Mateos – 340,000
Seat 4: Arsenii Karmatckii – 100,000
Seat 5: Matthias Eibinger – 195,000
Seat 6: Bertrand Grospellier – 580,000
Seat 7: Vladimir Troyanovskiy – 267,000
Seat 8: Anton Yakuba – 910,000
Seat 9: Derek Ip – 275,000

Nine people began; the EPT would only pay eight, and it was the name of ‘Matthias Eibinger’ that felt the wrath of the delete key. With blinds at 6k/12k/12k, Tsugunari Toma moved all-in from the hijack for 227,000, and Eibinger made the call with the inferior stack from the big blind. It was the right call. It was a good call. But the A9 of Toma still managed to bury the AK of the Austrian after a second nine hit the turn.

Eibinger’s exit guaranteed everyone a €23,670 payday, and that’s precisely the amount Arsenii Karmatckii collected after his smile turned into a frown a few hands later. Anton Yakuba moved all-in for 240,000 from the first position, and Karmatckii called with less from the button. The rest of the table allowed the pair to party, and after pocket sixes beat AK, the form of Karmatckii seeped into the Prague cobblestones.

Orpen Kisacikoglu was the next to leave, and this time AK proved to be the winning hand when Adrian Mateos found it in the small blind after Kisacikoglu had moved all-in for 104,000, holding KsQc. The Turkish star did flop a second queen to take the lead, but Mateos picked up a diamond flush draw that got there on the river.

Mateos didn’t have a chance to stretch his wings and fly.

With blinds moving into Level 19, at 8k/16k/16k, Mateos opened to 24,000 from the cutoff, and then called after Troyanovskiy jammed the button for 182,000. Troyanovskiy was ahead with AhJc versus KhQs, and that’s the way it stayed after the flop, turn and river.

Like Mateos before him, a win followed a loss for Troyanovskiy when Derek Ip coolered him KK>QQ to double up, sending the Russian to the middle of the pack. Still, he bounced back immediately, eliminating the Day 1 chip leader Toma when KdQc beat Ad4h when all-in pre-flop.

Bertrand Grospellier then doubled through Troyanovskiy when As9s beat Ad8c, and then Deja Vu when As5h beat Ts7s. The Frenchman’s luck finally expired when he got it in with AhQc, and Ip looked down to see pocket jacks. ElkY got a tad excited when the saw two more queens hit the flop only for a third jack to join the fray to give Ip a boat.

The action then moved into Level 21, and Troyanovskiy doubled up in one of the first hands when Kc2s beat the Jd5s of Mateos in a blind bust-up. Then Troyanovskiy’s spin cycle of a final table ended when he lost a flip 77<AJ of Anton Yakuba.

Adrian Mateos – 1,320,000
Anton Yakuba – 1,030,000
Derek Ip – 705,000

We reached heads-up play during Level 22.

With blinds at 15k/30k/30k, Mateos opened to 60,000 on the button, and then called when Ip moved all-in for 205,000 from the big blind. Ip showed pocket jacks, and Mateos showed AQ and turned a second queen on the turn to take a 2:1 chip lead into the final phase of the tournament.

Heads-Up Tale of the Tape

Adrian Mateos – 2,045,000
Anton Yakuba – 1,005,000

Mateos had all of the chips, the experience, and, arguably, the skill. The Spaniard had lost 19 of his 36 heads-up encounters but had won his last three. Yakuba had only made heads-up six times in his career and had won as many as he had lost.

Yakuba made a fist of things, almost pulling level at one point, but Mateos was always going to win this thing.

The final hand saw Yakuba limp on the button and Mateos check his option. The dealer placed 9s6d2s onto flop, Mateos checked, Yakuba bet 45,000, Mateos check-raised to 140,000, and Yakuba made the call. The dealer painted the 4d onto the felt like a smudge of lipstick, Mateos bet 265,000, and Yakuba called. The Ac ended the action. Mateos moved all-in, and Yakuba made the call. Mateos showed 4s2d for two-pair, and Yakuba showed KQ for king-high.

Final Table Results

  1. Adrian Mateos – €177,500
  2. Anton Yakuba – €128,400
  3. Derek Ip – €82,840
  4. Vladimir Troyanovskiy – €62,720
  5. Bertrand Grospellier – €48,520
  6. Tsugunari Toma – €37,870
  7. Orpen Kisacikoglu – €30,180
  8. Arsenii Karmatckii – €23,670

Don’t count Manig Loeser out of the race for the 2019 Global Poker Index (GPI) Player of the Year (PoY) race. The German high roller picked up 299.77 GPI PoY points after winning a $5,000, $200k GTD No-Limit Hold’em at the back end of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Seminole Rock & Roll Poker Open in Florida.

Loeser, who is ranked #5 in the GPI World Rankings, now rests in that same position in the PoY rankings, 164.76 points behind the leader Kahle Burns. The world’s elite will now travel to either Prague (for the European Poker Tour (EPT)) or Las Vegas (for the WPT Five Diamond), as we reach our exciting conclusion to what’s been another bumper year of poker.

Last year, Loeser chose Vegas over Prague; a decision that turned out to be top dollar after he won the $25k No-Limit Hold’em Super High Roller. If he repeats that feat within the fortnight, he could take the PoY title.

GPI PoY Rankings

  1. Kahle Burns – 3,599.67
  2. Sean Winter – 3,581.45
  3. Bryn Kenney – 3,570.84
  4. Stephen Chidwick – 3,499.40
  5. Manig Loeser – 3,434.91

The event attracted 88-entrants, and Loeser defeated the World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner, Joey Weissman, in heads-up action. The final table also housed the winner of the 2018 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown, Scott Margereson, and the former WPT UK Champ, Matas Cimbolas. Cimbolas finished fourth in a $10,000 at this event in the summer, and also made the final table of a 114-entrant $2k during this series, so he was in good form. Ray Qartomy also made the final table, and he finished runner-up to Ryan Riess in a $10k at this event last year.

The win was Loeser’s eighth of his career, and the second of 2019 after winning the European Poker Tour (EPT) Grand Final in Monte Carlo.

Final Table Results

  1. Manig Loeser – $86,581
  2. Joey Weissman – $85,449
  3. Scott Margereson – $75,120
  4. Ray Qartomy – $53,780
  5. Timothy Flank – $26,040
  6. Craig Chait – $20,815
  7. Paul Domb – $17,260
  8. Matas Cimbolas – $14,545

Jack Salter Wins The $1,100 No-Limit Hold’em Turbo.

We haven’t seen Jack Salter in the high roller scene for a while, but the UK star is fine form, picking up the win in a $1,100 No-Limit Hold’em Turbo event, a few weeks after winning a 596-entrant WPTDeepStacks Main event in Montreal for $115,026.

It was Salter’s 13th win of his career.

The only player of note, joining Salter at the final table was Leonard Maue, who finished 4/272 in the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Championship Six-Handed during the WSOP, this summer.

Final Table Results

  1. Jack Salter – $35,050
  2. Marcus Araujo – $21,675
  3. Leonard Maue – $12,930
  4. Niel Mittelman – $8,290
  5. Unknown Player – $6,265
  6. Hiroaki Harada – $5,195
  7. Tomas Soderstrom – $4,480
  8. Greg Levine – $2,945

Two other stars who went deeper than a kamikaze pilot plunging into the Atlantic ocean was Joseph Cheong (10th) and Jeff Madsen (11th).

Milen Stefanov won the $3,500 No-Limit Hold’em WPT Seminole Rock & Roll Poker Main Event. It was a cracker with 988-entrants creating a $545,070 first prize, although none of the high roller fraternity featured in the money.

Final Table Results

  1. Milen Stefanov – $545,070
  2. Fabian Gumz – $353,380
  3. David Novosel – $260,845
  4. Roman Korenev – $194,605
  5. Cesar Fuentes – $146,760
  6. Francis Anderson – $111,895
  7. Jeff Blenkarn – $86,255
  8. Antonio Mallol – $67,240
Image by René Velli

Jonathan Karamilikis used all of his I.Q, E.Q and luck to scramble back from a seemingly impossible heads-up position to defeat Ryan Otto in the AUD 20,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller at the World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) at The Star Sydney.

The event pulled in 53-entrants, and at the end of Day 1, nine signed media contracts without looking at them.

Four players stood out.

Karamalikis was the most experienced of the final table incumbents, with $4.3m in live tournament earnings, and 12 wins under his belt, including beating a 422-entrant field in an AUD 2,500 No-Limit Hold’em event at the Victorian Poker Championships for AUD 198,970 in October.

Michael Egan won an 89-entrant WPT Cambodia High Roller for $64,870 at the end of November, and Roger Teska won the 373-entrant WPT Gardens Festival Main Event in July for $368,475. He also won the 394-entrant $25,500 MILLIONS World in 2018 for $2m.

Let’s check out the action.

Final Table Seat Draw

Seat 1: Julien Sitbon – 110,000
Seat 2: Bernie Stang – 142,000
Seat 3: Qiang Fu – 366,000
Seat 4: Jonathan Karamalikis – 128,000
Seat 5: Mladen Vukovic – 360,000
Seat 6: Tom Rafferty – 258,000
Seat 7: Ryan Otto – 630,000
Seat 8: Michael Egan – 204,000
Seat 9: Roger Teska – 461,000

The Nutshell Action

If you remove the ’n’ from Bernie Stang’s name, you get Stag, but Bernie didn’t have the opportunity to stick his antlers into anyone before Ryan Otto had his head on his wall.

Otto opened to 12,000 from the hijack, and Stang made the call from the big blind. The dealer laid the Kh7h6s onto the flop, Stang led for 15,000, Otto raised to 40,000, and Stang moved all-in quicker than an electric chair convulsion. Stang showed Ah3h for the nut flush draw, and Otto was ahead with AcKs for top pair. The 3s and 2s concluded the action, and Stang hit the rail.

Then we lost Tom Rafferty.

Rafferty limped into the pot from the small blind, and Otto checked his option in the next seat. The dealer stuck the innocuous-looking 9h3s2d onto the flop, Rafferty bet 10,000, Otto re-raised to 30,000, Rafferty raised to 85,000, and Otto called. The dealer placed the 4d onto the turn, and Rafferty moved all-in holding pocket jacks, and Otto called with 3h2h for a flopped two-pair hand. The 5h hit the river, and Rafferty missed the money by two spots.

The final six players made a profit after Julien Sitbon visited the cemetery that is the bubble position. The Frenchman got it in holding KhQc, and Roger Teska called and beat him with As8c.

Michael Egan was the first to leave the blockbuster with a few Aussie bucks in his back pocket when he exited in the sixth position. Ryan Otto was once again the Dr Manhattan of this one when his KhQc beat the Kh9c of Egan in a blind on blind battle.

Otto continued to be a one-person wrecking crew by removing Mladen Vukovic from the picture. Vukovic made it 18,000 to play from the cutoff and called when Otto three-bet to 60,000 from the button. The dealer placed 3h3c2s onto the flop, and Vukovic check-called a 30,000 Otto c-bet. The Td fell on the turn, and the same action ensued for 90,000. The final card was the 4s, Vukovic checked, Otto moved all-in, and the call came. Otto showed Ac5c for the straight, and Vukovic showed AsTs for a pair of tens, and that’s the last act he made before leaving his seat.

Ryan Otto – 1,300,000
Roger Teska – 594,000
Jonathan Karamalikis – 415,000
Qiang Fu – 316,000

Qiang Fu finished third in this event last year, and he had to make do with fourth in this one. Fu got it in pre-flop holding pocket kings against the AcKc of Jonathan Karamalikis, and an ace on the turn turned into an FU for Fu.

We reached heads-up when Otto eliminated Teska. The pair got it in pre-flop with Otto’s pocket four racing against Teska’s AcQd, and the fours held.

Heads-Up Tale of the Tape

Ryan Otto – 2,127,000
Jonathan Karamalikis – 537,000

Karamalikis began with a 4:1 chip deficit but clawed his way into the lead by the end of the first level. Karamalikis then looked the likelier to win until a cooler saw Otto retake the lead with pocket queens besting pocket jacks.

Karamalikis doubled back into the lead, and never let it go. The final hand saw his Qc8s beat the Ah5s of Otto when all-in pre-flop earning Karamalikis the first WSOPC gold ring of his career.

ITM Results

  1. Jonathan Karamalikis – $257,640
  2. Ryan Otto – $159,395
  3. Roger Teska – $104,430
  4. Qiang Fu – $72,140
  5. Mladen Vukovic – $52,900
  6. Michael Egan – $40,535

The global life expectancy of men is 70-years of age; 75 for women – so it’s as odd as a sentence about a Phoenix that doesn’t rise from the ashes to hear of a 200-year prison sentence.

200-years!

That’s the sentence Dennis Blieden could have received if a jury had found him guilty of 14-counts of wire fraud, identity theft and forfeiture. 

Rewind to the beginning of 2018, and the name ‘Dennis Blieden’ was as unfamiliar to the poker community as Malaria bed nets to four-poster beds. The Cincinnati kid changed that when he took down the 493-entrant $10,000 World Poker Tour (WPT) Los Angeles Poker Classic. 

The WPT lavished Blieden with $1m, and for most people, that’s life-changing money. 

Not to Blieden.

Little did the world know, but Blieden had been secretly embezzling $22m from the company that had been paying him a monthly wage. 

The Con

Blieden was the vice-president of accounting and finance for StyleHaul, a digital marketing company based in L.A., that provided ad-campaigns for behemoths such as Sephora, Maybelline and Walgreens.

StyleHaul closed for business in March, with a piece in Variety claiming, “StyleHaul, like many of its digital-video peers, simply couldn’t sustain profitability.”

Yeah, on that.

The L.A. court heard how Blieden abused his position to falsify wire transfers from Western Union to make it look like StyleHaul was paying clients. $1.2m in personal checks ended up in the bank accounts of poker players, $1.1m paid off Blieden’s credit cards, and he used $8.4m to gamble in the Bitcoin market. The rest went on personal expenses such as mounted deer heads, pole dancing poles and poker. 

Blieden also created a fictitious lease for a condo in Rosarito Beach in Mexico, forging the signature of a fellow StyleHaul exec. He then transferred $230,000 to personal accounts, making it look like StyleHaul were using the condo for business purposes. 

Court reports show that shortly before winning the big one in L.A., Blieden also entered a $50k and a $100k event, but this less than intrepid reporter didn’t find events of that magnitude on The Hendon Mob.

In the wake of his WPT win, Blieden entered the lottery for the Super High Roller Bowl (SHRB). That’s a $300,000 buy-in, folks. The $1m win, plus his admission to CardPlayer, in an exclusive interview, that he was an ‘avid investor’ in his spare time kept curiosity from killing the cat. 

Unlike a cat, it seems Blieden doesn’t have nine lives. 

“I don’t plan on turning pro, as I kept my day job and have no plans on quitting anytime soon,” Blieden told CardPlayer in a post-L.A. Poker Classic interview. 

It looks like he’s going to get plenty of opportunities to improve his poker game, even if the only things he will win are cigarettes. 

U.S. District Judge André Birotte Jr scheduled a March 20 sentencing hearing. The maximum sentence is 22-years. Still, given that more people are living inside the U.S. Prison system than Iceland, Bahamas, Malta, Barbados, Samoa, St. Lucia, Vanuata, and Belize combined, you can take a reliable punt that he will see the sun sooner than expected.

Image from pokercity

It’s interesting how most people dream about invading Amsterdam to smoke copious amounts of pot, before slipping and sliding through the folds of prostitute stained sheets.

It’s different for those who call the place home.

There were no drugs or prostitutes anywhere near Kevin Paqué’s REM cycle, and no stained sheets in his rinse cycle. After winning the €4,300 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event at the Master Classics of Poker (MCOP) at the Holland Casino, Amsterdam, the 23-year-old told the press that it was every Dutch poker player’s dream.

The reason that we’re creaking this particular floorboard is Paqué defeated high roller reg, Steve O’Dwyer, heads-up to win the title. O’Dwyer is a boss, but with this being his 17th heads-up defeat it seems if there is a way to get at him, it’s in the end zone.

The MCOP Main Event attracted 346-entrants, and Paqué became the eighth Dutchman to win the title, and second in successive years after Alberto Stegeman defeated Kilian Kramer. O’Dwyer was trying to become the first American to win the title since Robert Mizrachi proved there was more than one Mizrachi brother, by taking down the 2004 event.

It’s an old one, dating to 1992, and the roll of honour includes such luminaries as Surinder Sundar, Ram Vaswani, and Noah Boeken.

O’Dwyer wasn’t the only high roller hammer that pounded a pile of nails on his way to a final table appearance. Ole Schemion is as comfortable at the Master Classics as the words ‘sting like a bee’ are coming out of the mouth of Mohammed Ali.

Schemion topped a field of 212-entrants to win the 2012 Main Event for €286,200. Two years later, he finished second to Rachid Cherif in the €10,250 High Roller. In 2016, he won the €25k Super High Roller, and then in 2017, finished runner-up to Joris Ruijis in another €10,300 High Roller.

No stretch marks for Schemion in this one though. The German who typically delivers a top-quality poker sermon was the first ousted from battle when Pascal Vos flopped a two-outer when all-in with pocket queens versus Schemion’s kings.

The person responsible for live tournament reporting was a happy bunny after Shyngis Satubayev fell through a trapdoor with the number 8 written in dead maggots. Satuyabev got it in with pocket nines versus the AhTc of Paqué, and an ace on the flop did the damage.

O’Dwyer needed a little luck to get started when his As2s outdrew the AcTd of Johan Rensink, and the American star finished the job when his pocket aces poured hot tea over the head of As5s to send Rensink to the rail in 7th place.

Then we lost Jan Bednar, and it was another live reporter’s nightmare who waltzed him into the Grand Ballroom for a spot of dancing before dropping him unceremoniously on his head. Bednar moved in with Ac4h from the small blind, and Paraskevas Tsokaridis knocked him out with pocket kings.

It’s not been a bad year for Frederico Silva, after winning a juicy side-event at the European Poker Tour (EPT) in Barcelona – and he followed it up with a fifth in this one after his QhJd came up short against the AsTs of the runaway chip leader, Paqué.

Pascal Vos was the next to receive a kick in the groin. Vos moved all-in with Qd9s from the button, and after O’Dwyer folded in the teeny-weeny blind, Paqué called with 83cc in the big. He flopped a trey and rivered an eight to create a three-handed dynamic.

Paqué – 5,600,000
Tsokaridis – 2,700,000
O’Dwyer – 2,200,000

After holding the chip lead for the majority of the final table, Paqué lost it to the one man he didn’t want to lose it to.

With blinds at 40k/80k/80k, Paqué opened with a min-raise from the button, and O’Dwyer defended the big blind. The flop fell AsJh6s, and O’Dwyer check-called a 140k Paqué c-bet. The turn card was the 8d, and the same action ensued, this time for 800k. The final card was the 6c, both players checked, and O’Dwyer picked up the pot and the chip lead with Jc7h. Tsokaridis’s threw his hand into the muck like a leper.

Paqué retook the lead in the same level. The Dutchman min-raised from the button and O’Dwyer defended from the big blind. The dealer gave 9h7s3s a starring role, and O’Dwyer check-called a 300k Paqué bet. The Qc turned up on the fourth street, and O’Dwyer check-called a 675k Paqué bet. The 8h completed the board, and Paqué bet approx. 1.1m once checked too. O’Dwyer went into the tank before calling and mucking when Paqué showed QhTs for the pair of queens.

Paqué had killing in his veins, but O’Dwyer made sure the heads-up action would be more of a battle than a massacre after eliminating Tsokaridis in the third spot. With blinds at 50k/100k/100k, Tsokaridis moved all-in from the button for 11 bigs, and O’Dwyer also moved all-in from the small blind. Paqué took a bow and left the pair go at it, and O’Dwyer’s KdTd proved too hot to handle for the pocket sixes of the Grecian after a second ten appeared on the flop.

Heads-Up Tale of the Tape

Kevin Paqué – 6,280,000
Steve O’Dwyer – 4,130,000

Paqué had the chips.

O’Dwyer had the experience.

Paqué had only reached the heads-up phase of a tournament once, and he lost that to Luuk Gieles at the end of the €3,500 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller at the 2018 World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) in Rotterdam.

O’Dwyer had made the end zone of 40 live tournaments, winning 24 and losing 16.

But when did poker ever care about stats?

The first hand that Paqué lost saw O’Dwyer double up to a 3.2m v 7.2m deficit after flopping two pairs in a hand that saw Paqué bluff-shove the river. Paqué ground down O’Dwyer some more, before a second double up, saw Kh5d beat Jd9d when all-in pre-flop, but he could never catch the Dutchman.

The final hand saw O’Dwyer raise to 280k on the button, and Paqué make the call from the big blind. The dealer thrust QhJc5d onto the flop, and Paqué check-called a 160k O’Dwyer bet. The turn card was the 4c, and all the money went in. O’Dwyer bet 1.15m, Paqué put O’Dwyer all-in, and the call came. O’Dwyer tabled KsQs for top pair, and Paqué showed Kc3c for the flush draw. Yes, you’ve guessed it, the 2c arrived on the river to flush Paqué up, and the Main Event ended with Rocky beating Apollo Creed.

Paqué has had limited tournament success, cashing only nine times in his career. It was O’Dwyer’s third heads-up loss since winning the HKD 250,000 No-Limit Hold’em Turbo at the Triton Poker Series in Montenegro earlier in the year. Although, Amsterdam is a happy stomping ground for O’Dwyer, who won the €2,200 WPTDeepStacks High Roller for €72,905 in March. Last year he won the €25,500 Super High Roller at the Master Classics (albeit topping a field of 3-players).

Here are the final table results.

Final Table Results

  1. Kevin Paqué – €260,878
  2. Steve O’Dwyer – €174,421
  3. Paraskevas Tsokaridis – €124,548
  4. Pascal Vos – €95,911
  5. Frederico Silva – €73,441
  6. Jan Bednar – €56,177
  7. Johan Rensink – €43,023
  8. Shyngis Satubayev – €33,021
  9. Ole Schemion – €25,485

Jorryt van Hoof Wins The High Roller.

It’s been a cracking year for Jorryt van Hoof on the tournament tables. The former WSOP Main Event final tablist has now earned $555,705 in 2019 after banking €164,508 for winning the €10,000 High Roller. It’s his best annual haul since that 2014 WSOP Main Event year.

Ruijs, who won this event in 2017, won the Patrick Antonius Poker Challenge Main Event earlier in the year for €57,200. Ryan Riess also made the final table, his first cash in this event. Riess finished in the fifth position.

Here are the ITM results.

ITM Results

  1. Jorryt van Hoof – €164,508
  2. Joris Ruijs – €109,658
  3. Kees Alblas – €65,050
  4. Mustafa Biz – €38,302
  5. Ryan Riess – €24,928
  6. Tommie Janssen – €20,780
Bryn Kenney

Bryn Kenney now has $55,860,195 in live tournament earnings after winning the $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em Super High Roller at the World Poker Tour (WPT) Seminole Hard Rock & Roll Poker Open.

Not a lot is it?

The lone wolf defaced a field of 45-entrants with his unique style of poker earning $354,565 after defeating the in-form Brock Wilson in heads-up action. The win puts Kenney into serious contention for the Global Poker Index (GPI) Player of the Year (PoY) race should he choose to tattoo his presence on either the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic in Las Vegas or the European Poker Tour (EPT) in Prague.

Kenney earned 316.67 GPI PoY points for his win to move into 8th place, with Shannon Shorr dropping into 7th. Kenney’s now one of the favourites because he is the only player ranked in the PoY Top 20 that hasn’t scored in 13 qualifying events. The only other rival to the crown who found his way to the final table was Anthony Zinno, but the three-time WPT earned diddly squat in GPI points for his fifth-place finish.

It’s the third time a $25k+ event has appeared in this series. In 2015, Jason Mercier conquered a $25k field of 83-entrants to win the $517,187 first prize, and in 2016, Ben Tollerene vanquished 21-entrants in a $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em event for $459,228.

When the final table began, Mercier was in a decent position to defend that title, starting second in chips to Brock Wilson.

Let’s see how it went down.

The Nutshell Action

Final Table Seat Draw

Seat 1: Jerry Robinson – 200,000
Seat 2: Bryn Kenney – 685,000
Seat 3: Jason Mercier – 1,340,000
Seat 4: Brock Wilson – 1,425,000
Seat 5: Anthony Zinno – 570,000
Seat 6: Andjelko Andrejevic – 330,000

With blinds at 10k/20k/20k, Bryn Kenney opened to 45k from the hijack seat, Brock Wilson three-bet to 150k from the penthouse position, Kenney moved all-in for 670,000, and Wilson took a look.

Kenney needed help.

AQ v KK.

Help arrived in the form of an AdTc4d flop.

However, Kenney couldn’t consolidate, as a few hands later, Jerry Robinson took a swing at the All-Time Money leader, and gave him a bruise worth 130k chips – Robinson’s AQ outdrawing the pocket deuces of the man from New York.

The third double up of Level 16 saw Wilson take from Mercier. This time his pocket kings held against A8o.

Then we lost Andjelko Andrejevic in the same level when he moved all-in from the cutoff for 150,000. Robinson also moved all-in for 230,000 from the button, and Mercier made the call, covering both players.

Robinson: AcQs
Mercier: 9d8d
Andrejevic: KsQd

Andrejevic took the lead on a king-high flop, only for Robinson to hit an ace on the turn to retake it. The river helped nobody but the man in charge, and Andrejevic exited in the sixth position.

Level 17 was the level were Anthony Zinno’s seat stopped swivelling.

With blinds at 15k/25k/25k, Wilson opened to 55k from under the gun, and Zinno made the call in the cutoff. The pair stared at the 9s6s3s flop like a couple of old biddies staring at a bus schedule before Zinno bet 60k, and Wilson called. The turn was the 5c; Wilson checked, Zinno bet 130k, and Wilson moved all-in with the covering stack. Zinno made the call and showed QsJs for the queen-high flush, but Wilson’s nut-flush crushed Zinno like a pack of cigarettes sitting in a too-tight jean pocket next to super warm thighs.

Then we lost the 2015 champion.

With blinds at 15k/30k/30k, Mercier moved all-in for 745k, after Kenney had opened to 75k. Kenney made the call, and Mercier was left feeling like brine when pocket kings battered his AQ.

Heads-up came into view after Robinson took a cold bath in the third-place. The blinds were still 15k/30k/30k when Robinson moved all-in for 600k, and KsTd and Kenney called and eliminated him with 9s5s after rivering a flush.

Heads-Up Tale of the Tape

Bryn Kenney – 3,340,000
Brock Wilson – 1,160,000

Kenney began with the chip lead, and the most impressive heads-up stats, having won eight of his previous ten encounters, whereas Wilson had won four from seven.

The one common denominator was both had taken the lion share of the money in finishing second in their previous heads-up encounters. Brock Wilson banked $619,536 against the $520,464 of Adrian Mateos after cutting a deal in the $25,500 No-Limit Hold’em MILLIONS Super High Roller in the Bahamas. Kenney collected $20.5m versus the $16.7m that Aaron Zang banked after cutting a deal at the Triton Million London.

Wilson drew first blood when he doubled with Ah3d versus Kh8c, and with the stacks even, the pair agreed upon a deal that saw Kenney collect $354,565, leaving $301,215 for Wilson. As Kenney was the slight leader at the time, he took the title.

ITM Results

  1. Bryn Kenney – $354,565*
  2. Brock Wilson – $301,215*
  3. Jerry Robinson – $161,170
  4. Jason Mercier – $111,150
  5. Anthony Zinno – $77,805
  6. Andjelko Andrejevic – $61,135
  7. Lazaro Hernandez – $44,460
    *Indicates a heads-up deal.

If I’m not mistaken, it was the 2 December 1804, when Napoléon Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor Napoleon I at Notre Dame de Paris, snatching the crown from the Pope in a display of Pontiff rejection. It’s written that Napoléon not only hated authority, but he wasn’t too fond of losing at cards, so much so that he would often cheat.

At the same time, in that part of the world, a new law entered the record books stating that the only gambling debts enforceable by the courts had to involve weapons, foot or horse racing, chariot races, tennis and other games that involved physical skill and exercise.

Did the law come into effect to protect an emperor?

Who knows, but we do know they’ve just helped a sheikh.

Back in October, a court of law in Grasse, France, sharpened their knives during a tete-a-tete between legal teams representing Rick Salomon, and Raad al-Khereiji, and those knives now lie in Salomon’s back.

Salomon sued Khereiji over an unpaid gambling debt weighing in at an impressive $2.8m. The Telegraph reported that Khereiji incurred the debt competing in a private cash game at the Tiara Miramar Beach Hotel near Cannes. The year was 2014; a time when Salomon’s then-wife, Pamela Anderson, said that Salomon had earned $40m playing poker.

Now we know-how.

The court recently sided with Khereiji, and the legal teams believe the 1804 law was the meat in the stew. Ronald Sokol, Salomon’s lawyer, argued that poker is a game of endurance, because the game in question, lasted 48-hours. Khereiji’s lawyer, Paul-Albert Iweins, successfully argued that poker was a game of complete chance, with no physical skill involved.

Iweins refused to acknowledge that Khereiji even owed Salomon a debt, calling the American’s pre-trial chances of winning, ‘infinitely small {a bit like Bonaparte}’

“You cannot pursue someone in France for a gambling debt, full stop.” Said Iweins.

Sokol admitted that while it was easy to explain to the court that poker was a game of skill, it was more challenging to persuade them that playing poker for the 48-hours straight involved exercise of the body.

“These two cumulative conditions were not met,” said Sokol.

If you ever considered becoming a high stakes poker player, then maybe the following fact may be the nudge you need. Court documents showed that Khereiji lost $34m playing poker in Ivey’s Room at ARIA with a minimum buy-in of $100,000, in a little over two years. 

Several players backed up Salomon’s claims that Khereiji told him that his lawyer in Los Angeles, would arrange payment of the debt, before rescinding that suggestion. Instead, Khereiji claimed that there was no payment owed because there was no money at risk in the game.

Salomon has earned $9.9m playing live tournaments, and is the only player to make the final table of three One Drop events, finishing fourth in 2014, third in 2016, and fourth in 2018. Things didn’t go as well at the recent Triton Million. Salomon was the first player eliminated.

It’s time for this hamlet of ours to stand on a grander stage.  

It’s time for the best in our business to be recognised. 

It’s time for us to shower them with rice.

Wait.

That’s a wedding.

Scratch that last sentence.

It’s time to shower them with words of praise.

The Global Poker Awards (GPA) returns.

In 2019, the Global Poker Index (GPI) teamed with Poker Central to host the inaugural GPA – a decision that brought an axe down on the necks of the European and American Poker Awards, and the pair reunite for a take two.

On Friday, March 6, 2020, the GPI and Poker Central will host the 2020 GPA live from the ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. Details are as sparse as organic fruit and vegetables in a small Welsh valley, but here is what we do know thus far.

The whole shebang takes place at the PokerGO Studios, and you need to be a PokerGO subscriber to watch the entire thing live.

Last year there were 20-awards, and you can expect even more this year. We don’t know how many thrones need filling with the kings and queens of poker, but we do know there is at least one new category: Player’s Choice for All-Around Poker Player and the smart money is on Stephen Chidwick. 

In June, CardPlayer asked 76 players to inscribe a name on a piece of clay, and when the various parts of pottery came out of the kiln, Chidwick’s name was on a third of them. On the day CardPlayer handed Chidwick a mug inscribed with the title of “The World’s Greatest Player,” he locked up his first World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet, winning the $25k Pot-Limit Omaha. He remains the GPI World #1.

Voting Process

Cynical complaints on the voting process marred the first GPA, with members of the poker community feeling the process for creating shortlists for the content creation categories was weak. 

Speaking at the time of the complaints, Eric Danis, GPI President, ensured his team would change things up for 2020, and although we don’t have the full details, changes are on the cards.

Referring to the voting process, Danis called it ‘updated’. A panel of experts will oversee voting in each category (for example, streaming experts on the streaming category), and the GPI will lean more on fan voting.

We will bring you further news on the categories when we see them.

Here are last year’s winners.

Global Poker Awards 2019 Winners

Tournament Performance of the Year – John Cynn (WSOP Main Event)
Breakout Player of the Year – Ali Imsirovic
Streamer of the Year – Lex Veldhuis
Vlogger of the Year – Andrew Neeme
Podcast of the Year – The Chip Race
Broadcaster of the Year – Maria Ho
Poker Journalist of the Year – Sarah Herring
Media Content of the Year – Lance Bradley (The Pursuit of Poker Success)
Industry Person of the Year – Angelica Hael (WPT)
Tournament Director of the Year – Paul Campbell (ARIA)
Mid-Major Circuit of the Year – RUNGOOD Poker Series
Event of the Year – WSOP Main Event
Moment of the Year – Justin Bonomo Winning The Big Three
GPI Player of the Year – Alex Foxen
GPI Female Player of the Year – Kristen Bicknell
Lifetime Achievement Award – Doyle Brunson
Charitable Initiative – Robbie Strazynski
Jury Prize – Drew Amato
PocketFives Legacy Award – Chris Moorman
People’s Choice Award: Poker Personality of the Year – Brad Owen

It’s time to enter the gravity of high stakes poker players tweets. We’ll extract the nuggets that smell like a sharpie and discard those that sniff like sulfur, and we begin in a place that has odours both good and bad – the live poker room.

Last week, Poker Central, Sydney’s Star Casino, and the World Poker Tour (WPT) inked a deal that sees the Australian Poker Open (APO) and Super High Roller Bowl (SHRB) Australia emerge from the vernix. 

The inaugural APO consists of seven events ranging from $10,000 to $100,000. The SHRB retains the $250,000 price tag it courted during its holiday in the Bahamas. 

It’s a smart move by all concerned and provides a much-needed shot in the arm after PokerStars killed its Caribbean Adventure. 

You can check out the full details in our article, right here.

Poker Central Prepare to Launch Australian Poker Open & Super High Roller Bowl Australia

In other live poker-related news, our friends at Triton have released Episode #6 of the No-Limit Hold’em Cash Game from The Triton Super High Roller Series in Montenegro.

And there is another episode of ‘I Am High Stakes Poker’ doing the rounds, this time with the SHRB Bahamas winner, Daniel Dvoress, under the glare of the police helicopter spotlight.

The Debate: Does Playing Online Poker Hurt Your Live Game? Are Training Videos Beneficial?

Two debate worthy tweets caught my eye this week, and the first came from the mind of Lauren Roberts. 

As a female high stakes poker player, Roberts is a rare breed, and a fortnight ago, she competed at the partypoker MILLIONS World in the Bahamas. Judging by her twitter feed, things went as well as trying to stroke a chained and starving bear, and she posed this question as a potential source of what she described as ‘not my best showing.’

Roberts received a well of information resulting in the realisation that too much online poker wasn’t the cause of her demise – an unhealthy mindset was. 

What’s your view? Can too much online poker have a detrimental effect on your live game and vice versa?

Patrick Leonard on The Efficacy of Training Videos

My favourite thread of the week came from Patrick Leonard. The PocketFives World #3, believes that ‘most’ players that watch online poker training videos become worse players. He suggests that ‘poor imitation of somebody else’s strategy is usually worse than their own while not optimal but clear strategy performed pretty well.’

Dominik Nitsche agreed with Leonard’s statement, calling ‘live session videos’ ‘entertainment, not studying.’ Nitsche also claimed that it’s ‘easy’ to watch a video while grinding and call it studying.

“Doing the actual hard work isn’t anywhere as easy or fun. People aren’t looking for poker training as much as they’re looking for something that makes them feel better.” – Dominik Nitsche.

Chris Kruk then waded in with an interesting viewpoint.

“The idea that you’d study something from other humans nowadays makes me lol. Why would you ever ask another human how to play an NL spot when you can ask a comp?”

And the response from Nitsche, who owns the poker training app DTO Poker.

“Chris, do you want to take my spot as DTOPoker ambassador? That’s literally my sales speech.”

What about you?

Do you feel poker training videos can make you a worse player?

Outside of Poker

Not a week goes by that Fedor Holz doesn’t get coverage in ‘The Pinnacle’. It’s rarely poker-related, but at least the lad keeps our ‘Outside of Poker’ segment running. 

Last week, Holz caught up with Watford and Austrian defender, Sebastian Prödl, for a spot of selfie-snapping, as well as opening a fashion lab in Vienna called 360 Fashion Lab.

On Service

Two of the best poker players on the planet became benevolent baristas delivering two cups of excellence.

Jason Koon penned a blog post called “It’s the same game, but it isn’t,” sharing his in-hand thought-process. The purpose of the post was to defend his fellow pros from the criticism that high stakes poker players are robotic and boring to watch. 

It’s a beauty.

Koon’s partypoker partner, Patrick Leonard, was also in a giving mood last week. 

Check it out.

Leonard’s early thoughts on a Pads style leaderboard include.

1. Planning to work with players to help popularise them, create brands, hype and attention.

2. He wants to create something that reminds people that the games are still beatable

3. He wants to help create new heroes for up and coming players.

4. A team concept during significant festivals.

What would your suggestions be?

The Quote(s) of the Week

I love the quote mentioned above by Dominik Nitsche.

“Doing the actual hard work isn’t anywhere as easy or fun. People aren’t looking for poker training as much as they’re looking for something that makes them feel better.” – Dominik Nitsche

And here’s a throwback from Phil Hellmuth and Jennifer Tilly.

And that’s a wrap for this week’s Pinnacle.

On Sunday, online poker’s pilgrims endured another arduous trek back and forth to the kitchen and the little boys and girls room, as they whinnied and whined their way through another stupendous Sunday. 

We begin our short round-up at partypoker, and Day 1A of the $10,300, $20M GTD MILLIONS Online enticed poker players from around the globe to drop their pitchforks long enough to wire the online poker room, ten-large. A record is brewing after 709-entrants competed in the first of four starting flights. Leading the way is ‘Jiggidyjigjohn,’ who crammed 20,120,995 into a virtual plastic bag, and the highest finish from a poker celeb came from Anatoly ‘NL_Profit’ Filatov, who ended the night in the sixth spot.

In finishing in the top spot, ‘Jiggidyjigjohn,’ moves into $1m Promotion Village: Population One. Courtesy, of partypoker’s generous promotion, should jiggidywhat’shisface win the thing, they will give him or her an additional million bucks. 

Last year, Day 1A ended with 1,574-entrants in the books, and Philipp Gruissem was leading the way. It’s worth noting that the inaugural event saw a $5,300 buy-in clatter into the kitty, hence the reduction in attendance 12-months on. 

Here are the Top Ten Chipcounts, which given the anonymity, makes it as useful a hypoesthesia sufferer’s steaming hot cup of tea.

MILLIONS Online Day 1A Top Ten

  1. Jiggidyjigjohn – 20,120,995
  2. Triple Sexy – 20,027,055
  3. Sharealgor – 17,064,569
  4. Aaaaaaaaaaaa – 15,113,516
  5. Greekeye – 14,621,981
  6. Anatoly ‘NL_Profit’ Filatov – 14,616,878
  7. Langenzersdorf – 13,588,991
  8. Brobizz – 13,455,467
  9. LawyerUp1981 – 11,976,290
  10. Madgenuis111 – 11,700,523

Continuing with our weekly online round-up, and while we don’t know the full extent of Johannes “Greenstone25” Korsar, and Mikita ‘fish2013’ Badziakouski’s weekend, we know they appeared at the final table of two pristine events. 

The PocketFives World #2 made the final table of the $5,200, $500k GTD No-Limit Hold’em Sunday Big Game. The event pulled in 132-entrants, and Korsar finished sixth. Triton Poker’s three-time champion, Badziakouski, went one better, finishing in the fifth position. Roberto “R_Romanello” Romanello finished eighth, and ‘BtchByTrade’ eclipsed them all, winning the $151,734 first prize.

PokerStars

Korsar and Badziakouski also flocked to the final table of the $2,100, $100k GTD Sunday High Roller on PokerStars. The event attracted 59-entrants, and ‘anteen’ beat Korsar, heads-up, to win the $34,745 first prize. Korsar collected $35,137 after cutting a heads-up deal. Badziakouski finished fourth.

GGPoker

The most significant buy-in outside of the MILLIONS Online came courtesy of GGPoker’s flagship skin, Natural8. Forty-seven entrants competed in the $10,000, $300k GTD No-Limit Hold’em events, and ‘KenBrynney’ won the $166,221 first prize from a base in Canada.

PocketFives World Rankings

  1. Sami ‘LarsLuzak’ Kelopuro
  2. Patrick ‘pleno1’ Leonard
  3. Johannes ‘ Greenstone25’ Korsar
  4. Niklas ‘lena900’ Åstedt
  5. DeathbyQuads