Category: The Pinnacle

Round up of news in the poker world.

Inside the cockpit of a high stakes poker player is a dazzling array of knowledge. It’s enough to give you a concussion. Remain in your cave. Don’t attempt to step into that good light. 

You will burn. 

So, it’s better to watch these bulls in action from a distance, and for the next fortnight the King’s Resort in Rozvadov becomes the ring, and there are red rags everywhere. 

The World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) has begun, and the primary focus will be on the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Player of the Year race. Likely winners are Daniel Negreanu, Robert Campbell or Shaun Deeb. 

All three have spent some time on social media this week, discussing the event. 

Negreanu has been bowled over by the service Leon Tsoukernik’s team provides for a man of his stature.

The Canadian star has also begun his vlogging ritual, and you can pick up the slack, right here. 

The two-time WSOP POY winner sold a WSOPE package to his loyal fans, and Shaun Deeb, also dabbled in the market. The reigning WSOP POY sold somewhere between 40-60% of his action, and it didn’t take long for the gavel to hit the wood.

Leading Negreanu and Deeb in the POY race is Robert Campbell, and the Australian ace prepared for his WSOPE Rozvadov debut by inking a lyrical masterpiece.

At the time of writing, the WSOPE is ankle-deep into two events. 

399-entrants competed in Day 1A of Event #1: €350 No-Limit Hold’em Opener. Both Campbell and Negreanu battled and busted in the first flight, but have multiple opportunities to reinvest. Event #2: €550 Pot-Limit Omaha is also underway with 130 different accents currently struggling to be heard amid the Day 1A noise. 

The Beef: Kenney v Timex

This week, Bryn Kenney and Mike “Timex” McDonald take on the roles of hero and villain in ‘The Beef’, and I will layout the story arc, and let you decide who gets what position.

It all began with a Daniel Negreanu poll.

Negreanu then added a daisy to the chain.

McDonald was the first person to disagree with Negreanu. The Canadian star stated his ‘shock’ that having a million bucks allows a person to think it’s ok to give 400% tips ‘while affecting your life precisely 0.’

The Canadian’s response seemed to irk Kenney:

“Mike could have 100 million, and still wouldn’t tip cuz he “doesn’t see the value in it.” 

Kenney cited several incidents that cast a mole beneath McDonald’s moral high ground, including a night out in Panama that seemed to tug at McDonald’s ego strings. 

McDonald tweeted Ike Haxton and Sam Greenwood asking them if they picked up his tab? He also agreed to repay anyone who was the worse off because of his behaviour. 

“It was an isolated incident,” said Timex.

Kenney didn’t agree.

The Debate: The Jordan Peterson Paradox

Twitter is many things (a cesspit being one of them), and one of its selling points is the ability to pass on prime information to your followers. 

Haralabos Voulgaris likes to do just that, and this week he posted a video of Jordan Peterson called ‘Sacrifice,’ leading to some dissenting voices.

It’s a fantastic thread.

Central to the debate is the habit of humanity to disregard a positive message once we have thrown someone into the trash with the other rotten eggs. 

https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/1181420324031610880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

The Life Outside of Poker: Perkins Offers $100k Reward; Triton Helps The Bahamas

Bill Perkins posted a $100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the Joshua Brown murder case. Brown provided crucial testimony in a murder case involving a former police officer and a neighbour that lived in Brown’s apartment.

Brown gave evidence in front of a jury but was then found dead several days later due to gunshot wounds. Perkins immediately posted the $100k reward, and the police arrested three people in connection with the murder with a ‘drug deal gone wrong’ cited as the likely reason. 

We covered the story here:

Bill Perkins Offers $100,000 Reward in Joshua Brown Case.

Perkins has also been using his money to help the Bahamian victims of Hurricane Dorian, and he’s not alone. This week, Rob Yong thanked Triton Poker for pledging £100,000 from the Triton Million London charity fund to the Bahamian disaster relief, with more likely to come from partypoker sources.

The Poll: Who Are The Most Aggressive Selfie-Askers

When you reach the highest echelons of poker power, someone will likely ask you to take a selfie. But what nation needs to add selfie-asking manners to their school curriculum. It’s an important question that Daniel Negreanu felt he had to ask this week.

And the answer.

The Quote of the Week

I can’t remember who retweeted this, but it most definitely came from a high stakes digit. 

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

A bloodbath.

That’s what we’ve witnessed this week, as poker’s collective force gathered its Columbo might to take down Mike Postle. 

Who?

You’re right in thinking that Postle is not a name associated with high stakes poker. He gets a mention here because nobody in the high stakes locker room is talking about anything else, leaving me woefully short of content. 

Here’s the walnut shell deal.

The Stones Gambling Hall in Citrus Heights, California, has been live-streaming a $1/$3 live No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) cash game for the past four years. 

Postle is the game’s biggest winner. 

In September, after months of doubt, Veronica Brill, the poker player oft-time commentator raised concerns about Postle’s play.

The casino held an internal investigation and didn’t find Postle standing in the poker room, holding a bloody candlestick in his hand.

Then Joe Ingram got involved.

Ingram poured over hundreds of hands, putting together a five-hour livestream to talk through the footage with his crew. Doug Polk spent eight hours doing the same. 2+2 created a super-sleuth thread. Twitter blew up, including an army of thoughts, suggestions and assumptions from the High Stakes brethren. 

The verdict was 99.9% confirmed by the public.

Mike Postle was a guilty man. 

Throughout all of the noise, Postle denied any wrongdoing, telling all and sundry that his poker skills are as delicious as Dulce De Leche ice cream. He even went on the Mike Matusow podcast to claim his innocence.

Scott Van Pelt covered the story on ESPN’s SportsCast. 

If you eat asparagus, then your pee will smell of asparagus. Postle’s hyper-variance style shows no variance winning 62 of 69 sessions, gathering more than $250,000 in profit. 

Stones have since halted all action on the stream and in the poker room until they conduct a second investigation, and we wait with bated breath. 

Live Poker News: Emmett Wins; Antonius Heading to Malta; Fast Starts Late Reg Debate; Legends Turn Up at DTD

In other live poker news, Randall Emmett has earned his first two high roller stripes for taking down back-to-back high roller events at the PokerGO Studios at the ARIA in Las Vegas. 

3rd October, Emmett conquered a field of 20-entrants to win a $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em event. The film and television producer defeated Sean Winter, heads-up, to win the title. World Poker Tour (WPT) Champions Club member, Dylan Linde, was the only other person to make money, finishing third.

ITM Finishes

  1. Randall Emmett – $108,000
  2. Sean Winter – $60,000
  3. Dylan Linde – $32,000

The following night, Emmett returned to the felt to win his second $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em event, this time beating 19-entrants to capture the $102,600 first prize. Poker Central Player of the Year leader, Sam Soverel, lengthened that lead with a second-place finish, and Kristina Holst finished third.

ITM Finishes

  1. Randall Emmett – $102,600
  2. Sam Soverel – $57,000
  3. Kristina Holst – $30,400

Fans of Patrik Antonius continue to benefit from the launch of his new app First Land of Poker (FLOP). As part of his marketing strategy, the fabulous Finn will host and compete in a special event at the Battle of Malta. The €300 buy-in Patrik Antonius Poker Challenge Pop-up Cup begins October 18 at the Casino Malta.

The WPT team has been at Rob Yong’s gaff (Dusk till Dawn) for WPT UK this week. Although you won’t find this lot competing in too many high stakes events these days, there was a day when they did. 

A nice touch of nostalgia.

The Beef: Dietrich Fast v Live Tournament Organisers

Dietrich Fast is the focus of this week’s ‘beef’. The WPT Champions Club member, penned the following tweet, copying in Tournament Directors Paul Campbell and Matt Savage, and DTD owner, Rob Yong. 

Savage and Yong responded, but they didn’t answer Fast’s question. Instead, they focused their response on late registration and multiple re-entries in general.

What’s your view?

The Business: Fedor Holz Launches The Poker Code

Fedor Holz has finally launched his new online training product. It’s called The Poker Code, and from the packaging, looks similar to the David Rogier and Aaron Rasmussen’s MasterClass. 

Holz has teamed up with Matthias Eibinger to create more than 60 training videos. Holz calls the Poker Code a ‘holistic’ approach to poker education, and has billed it as the ‘world’s most complete poker course.’

The price is $1,549.

Click here to learn more.

Life Outside of Poker: Bill Perkins on Chess; Holz on Health; Brunson on Billions.

Sticking with Holz, and outside of his aggressive marketing of the Poker Code, the German star continued uploading videos to his YouTube channel, this week. His latest offering covers how to stay healthy when operating on the live tournament circuit.

Check it out.

Bill Perkins is moving into the world of chess.

Early in 2020, Perkins will host a $300,000 Guaranteed chess tournament in Houston. 50% of the money will go towards charities chosen by each winner, and the rest is going to the people who make money in the event. Can you help him name it?

Last week, we told you that Doyle Brunson loved Showtime’s Billions. This week, not so much. Brunson tweeted that he had binge-watched three seasons of the show created by Brian Koppelman, David Levien and Andrew Sorkin. He’s not a fan of the continual dropping of f-bombs, and the use of sharp objects during sex. Ouch.

JC Alvarado is on the retirement train, that much we told you last week. We also told you to keep your eyes out for his episode of “I am High Stakes Poker”, and here it is.

The Poll: Polk on Food; Fast on The Fabulous; Negreanu on Nicety

Doug Polk began an interesting poll on food. The thread, contains lots of interesting observations and information appertaining to nutrition.

Polks BFF Daniel Negreanu wanted to know how nice poker people believe they are, and they think they are very nice indeed. 

Finally, Dietrich Fast wanted to know who the greatest all-round sportsman of all time was, and it was a whitewash.

Quotes of the Week

Here’s how Patrick Leonard feels when he’s got pocket aces, but the internet is making him sit out, and nothing more in life seems more important than pressing that right button.

We began with Postle, and we end with Postle, as Matt Salsberg jumps on the VLOG train.

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

Percy Bysshe Shelley once said, “A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.”

There is nothing sweet about the Pinnacle.

It’s more magpie than nightingale with every single story stolen from the tumultuous land of Twitter.

We begin in the live realm.

The World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) is on the horizon, and one of the favourites for the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Player of the Year (POY) has been busy.

In the summer, Daniel Negreanu surprised his fans by selling a percentage of his WSOP action with no markup. Gremlins turned the sale into a farce when a glitch led to Negreanu overselling, but Kid Poker promised to make amends.

Negreanu is heading to Rozvadov, and 984 backers will have a sweat after buying $400,000 worth of the two-time WSOP POY winner’s action. If anyone missed out for a second time, have some patience, you’ll get your chance, sooner or later.

Negreanu will compete in 15 events at the WSOPE as he tries to beat Robert Campbell and Shaun Deeb in pursuit of an unprecedented third title. In Vegas, Negreanu paid $760,000 to compete in 58-events and secured a $2,042,752.92 gross profit for his investors (an ROI of 168.78%). His WSOPE investors hope for more of the same.

The WSOPE comes at you live from the King’s Resort in Rozvadov: 13 October – 4 November.

Here is the WSOP POY Top 5.

  1. Robert Campbell – 3,418.78
  2. Shaun Deeb – 3,280.13
  3. Daniel Negreanu – 3,166.24
  4. Daniel Zack – 3,126.13
  5. Phillip Hui – 2,881.67

One man who will be competing at the WSOPE is Tony G. Since stepping down from his position as a Member of European Parliament (MEP), G has found more time to compete in high stakes action. In August, he won the €25,000 Short-Deck event at the partypoker MILLIONS Europe in Rozvadov.

Ahead of the WSOPE, the G-Meister General is calling on the ‘old boys’ to form poker’s equivalent of The Avengers, with the new GTO guard taking the form of Thanos and his cronies.

From one arm of the World Series of Poker to another, and Brian Hastings has taken down Event #7: $1,125 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) at the World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) at Seminole Coconut Creek.

Hastings created a sepulchre for 45-entrants on his way to his $16,248 score. Despite winning four gold bracelets, and earning more than $2.7m in WSOP earnings, this is his first gold ring.

Before we leave the live tournament news space and step into the shadows of online poker, we leave you with two interesting videos. Both come from Triton Poker’s impressive library of high stakes poker action.

The first two hands feature Xuan Tan. China’s top export prompted Triton commentator, Lex Veldhuis, to label Tan as one of the best live No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) players in the world.

In both hands, Tan lays down trips when facing a full house. What’s interesting about the first hand, is Dietrich Fast’s view on Twitter, that folding Hand #1 is a mistake.

What do you think?

The third and final video sees the Triton Champion, Rui Cao, talking about his $400k bluff with ten-high during a cash game in Triton Jeju.

Online News: Talal Shakerchi Comes Close to WCOOP Win

Talal Shakerchi believes one of the critical criteria to life success is luck. Seneca once said that “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” When it comes to major online poker series, Shakerchi is prepared and ready to take the opportunities that come his way.

The 55-year-old, hedge fund manager from London, recently finished third in the $5,200 World Championships of Online Poker (WCOOP) on PokerStars. Shakerchi collected $846,528.35 for his troubles. Had he won, he would have become the first player to win Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) and WCOOP Main Events.

It wasn’t to be, but it once again underlines, Shakerchi’s incredible talents at the poker table, live or online. The high stakes non-professional wading through 2,236-entrants before slipping through the rungs of the ladder two steps from the summit.

Shakerchi was the last person to exit without a seven-figure score. The biggest pile of cash, $1,665,962.04 went to the high stakes cash game player, ‘BigBlindBets’, and Brazil’s, Danilo “dans170′” de Lima Demetrio, earned $1,187,553.01 for finishing as the runner-up.

Life Outside of Poker: JC Alvarado Retiring

The high stakes poker world is down by one after JC Alvarado declared his intention to step down from his position as a professional poker player. Alvarado made the declaration on Twitter after busting the WCOOP Main Event.

The Mexican star became a revelation both online and live thanks to his fearless gambling style. In 2009, Alvarado won the SCOOP Main Event for $502,086, after outlasting a field of 3,198-entrants.

Alvarado has also won more than $4.7m playing live tournaments, including a near million dollar score for finishing second in a €50,000 Super High Roller at the European Poker Tour (EPT) in Barcelona, in 2012.

Alvarado is keeping his powder dry on what comes next and is not ruling out a return to poker.

The Debate: Stockfish v Poker

High stakes poker players remain fresh by making sure they have something else to fill the gaps in between games. For a select few, chess fits that mould.

Dan Smith, Daniel Negreanu and Bill Perkins are three high stakes players who like a game of chess. This week, the latter laid out an open challenge to poker’s hierarchy.

After nobody took up Perkins’ freeroll, the hedge fund manager threw in ten hours of private jet time.

Still, nobody stood up, so Mike “Timex” McDonald bumped the reward up even higher.

Perkins and McDonald’s confidence is well-founded. Stockfish is a chess AI from the womb of another chess AI called Glaurung. Glaurung is a fearful dragon from Tolkien’s Middle Earth, and it seems likelier for a human to defeat a fire-breathing dragon than beat Stockfish.

The Beef: Perkins v The Clown

It all began when Perkins sent this Elon Musk related tweet into the universe.

Next, a Twitter user, ‘@keegold305,’ branded the man he chose to follow with the following statement.

“Bro, you’re so out of touch with real people. I’m done following this moron. Daddy gave him money. He thinks he knows shit.”

Perkins retaliated.

And did his ‘Daddy’ give Perkins all of his money?

The Poll: Angels v Aliens and Another Shot at God;

Two Twitter polls emerged from the fingertips of our high stakes brethren, and both came from Daniel Negreanu’s whorls.

Last week, Doug Polk polled his followers on their religious beliefs, with 36% being agnostic, 33% atheist and only 15% religious. This week, Negreanu ran a similar poll, and 41% of the 9,222 who voted are atheist as opposed to 17% believing in God.

Poker players tend not to be religious.

If there is no God, then there are no angels.

Does that mean that sightings of angels are merely aliens?

Quote(s) of the Week

We leave you with three quotes of the week.

Did you know that it was illegal to give or receive a blowjob in Virginia back in the day?

You do now.

The author, Ryan Holiday, has a new book called ‘Stillness is the Key.’ In a recent guest post on the Tim Ferriss blog, Holiday lays out ’28 Ways to Find The Stillness You Need to Thrive and be Happy.’ Haralabos Voulgaris liked two in particular.

Here is that article.

28 Ways to Find the Stillness You Need to Thrive
https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/1177307477051731969?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Finally, have you ever wondered how Patrik Leonard behaves after firing five bullets before dinner break?

Now you know.

Or where Erik Seidel got his dance moves?

Now, you know that too.

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

Silence. 

Tongues of steel, please.

I know you have the Pinnacle burned into the back of your eyelids, so find a groove, close your eyes, and we’ll get going.

Last week, we opened with the British Poker Open (BPO), and a rather flat Super High Roller Bowl (SHRB) London. This week the current takes us to the shores of PokerStars and the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP).

Before the last WCOOP, Shaun Deeb stood alone as the undisputed king, with six wins. Then Denis ‘aDreNalin710’ Strebkov got the bit between his teeth, pulled hard on the leash, and won five in little over a week, to take the crown with ten wins. 

In our previous Pinnacle, we told you that Deeb had closed the gap after beating Strebkov, heads-up, to win his seventh title. This week the gap is narrower after Deeb became the first double WCOOP champ of the series with a victory in Event #37: $530 Pot-Limit Omaha 6-Max. Deeb made 599-entrants his slave on his way to collecting the $52,371 first prize. 

Another player who earned his second WCOOP title of the series is Joao “Naza114’ Vieira. The Winamax pro turned a single into a couple after winning Event #52 (H) $530 No-Limit Hold’em Midweek Freeze for $86,876.70. 

Adrian Mateos conquered a field of 326-entrants to win the $130,468.21 first prize in Event #50 (H) $2,100 No-Limit Hold’em PKO for $130,468.21. Alex Foxen also made the final table. It was Mateos’s second WCOOP career title.

Bartlomiej “bartek901” Machon also won his second career title after beating 573-entrants to collect the $101,148 first prize in Event #31: (H) $1,050 No-Limit Hold’em. The former Triton Poker commentator, Celina Lin, finished ninth.

Michael ‘mczhang’ Zhang remains as locked into the high stakes orbit as Venus is to the Earth. The UK-based star vanquished 175-entrants to win Event #48 (H) $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller for $253,810.

Like Zhang, Thomas Boivin has also enjoyed recent success in live high rollers, and the Belgian translated that good fortune into the online surf. Boivin won Event #48: (M) $1,050 No-Limit Hold’em Super Tuesday, banishing 1,112-entrants to the rail on the way to collecting his $178,331 bounty.

Dario Sammartino is another high roller having the year of his life. The Italian finished runner-up to Hossain Ensan in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event for $6m. Not that he needs the money, but another $371,186.76 joins the band after Sammartino took down the 148-entrant Event #57 (H) $10,300 No-Limit Hold’em 8-Max PKO High Roller. The final table housed David ‘dpeters17” Peters, and Steve “Mr. Tim Caum” O’Dwyer.

It’s WCOOP’s 18th year of war.

It’s never been bloodier. 

Live News: Doyle on Dead People; Ivey & Borgata Latest; Antonius Heading to Malta

Twitter can be a weary place, but not when you play ‘I Spy’ along the drainpipe of Doyle Brunson’s Twitter feed. We know that Doyle is the Godfather of Poker, we know he likes his guns, and this week we learned he also likes watching a spot of TV. 

So what’s on Doyle’s box?

Brian Koppelman’s ‘Billions’ is on his watchlist as are old reruns of Dallas.

Your read it right.

Doyle saw a guy get shot at the poker table. 

Why?

What happened?

I thought so.

From guns to chums, and this week it transpired that Daniel ‘Jungleman’ Cates had been helping his buddy Phil Ivey in the wake of his baccarat problems. Cates and Ilya Trincher backed Ivey into the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championships (PPC) at the World Series of Poker (WSOP). Ivey finished eighth, but the money went to the U.S. Marshall’s Office, and not the pockets of Cates and Trincher. 

You can read about the whole sorry mess, right here. 

Phil Ivey v The Borgata Update: Trincher & Cates Join The Cast

Another good friend of Ivey’s is Patrik Antonius, and if you’re a fan of the iceman, and you live in Malta – you’re in luck. Antonius will star at the Battle of Malta in October. The Fin will host and play in a special €300 (unlimited rebuys) No-Limit Hold’em tournament christened the Patrik Antonius Poker Challenge (PAPC) Pop-Up Cup. Antonius is joining forces with the Battle of Malta to market his app: First Land of Poker (FLOP). The event takes place over two days: Fri 18 & Sat 19 Oct.

Finally, if you’ve been feeling like you’re stuck on a raft without any oars waiting for the next instalment of the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series Montenegro Short-Deck Cash Game action, you’re in luck.

Here is Episode #4.

It’s time to get on bended knee.

It’s time for the beef.

The Beef: Polk v Venetian; Deeb v Identity Theft; Yong v NYC Poker Rules

Dinner is served, and there is a lashing of irony as Doug Polk refuses to dine with The Venetian Poker Room. 

The live poker room, situated on the Las Vegas Strip, belongs to Sheldon Adelson, one of the men responsible for the stunted growth of legal and regulated online poker in the not so United States of America. 

Given the villain operates a live poker room, you would think that the live pros would have boycotted the gaff a long time ago. Not so. But this week, Doug Polk has led the charge for a boycott, this time because of a tournament format designed to bleed poker players dry. 

The $225,000 GTD Lucky Shot Poker Series runs Oct 21-27, and the highlight is a $250 buy-in, $150,000 GTD No-Limit Hold’em event. The fine print dictates that irrespective of the final headcount, all funds above $150k go to the poker room, and not disseminated to the players as is standard in all tournament formats. 

Polk is not happy.

One of the few states that don’t treat online poker players like law officials treat people suffering from erotonophonophilia is New Jersey. A skipping stone’s throw away is New York City, but you can’t play online poker in the Big Apple because it’s illegal. 

Here is partypoker’s Rob Yong highlighting the stupidity.

💪

Rob Yong was our guest on ‘I am High Stakes Poker’ this week. His mother wasn’t happy and gave him a telling off for saying his parents never said ‘well done’ when he was a kid. 

Before U.S online poker laws became so rigid, Shaun Deeb used to crush the New York scene. At the top of the article, we described how Deeb had won his eighth WCOOP title. It could be his last if PokerStars doesn’t do something to halt the agony of stalling in the high stakes limit games.

Deeb also has a beef with partypoker.

During the recent whitewash of player identities, Deeb was a little slow off the mark in reclaiming the name that has made him such a legend (the imaginatively titled ‘shaundeeb’). Someone grabbed it though, and it’s ruining Deeb’s image. 

The Debate: Greenwood v GTO Haters; Staples v Polk

The sky is blue, and that’s how a portion of the poker community feel when watching high stakes poker players deploying Game Theory Optimal (GTO) strategy during live tournaments. 

Erik Seidel leapt to GTO’s defence after hailing Stephen Chidwick as a GTO operational genius during the BPO. Sam Greenwood backed the legend by breaking down a hand between Chidwick and Christoph Vogelsang. 

It’s a fabulous read, and it starts here.

After Polk’s ‘Boycott The Venetian’ march, he debated Jaime Staples. The matter at hand was starting bankroll for a poker pro. Polk believes that figure is $100,000; Staples, thinks it’s a lot lower – here are the two debating the issue.

The Business: It’s Fedor Holz Again

When it comes to bankrolls, few have built one as quickly as Fedor Holz has, earning $32m in five-years. 

Holz rarely plays these days, preferring to spend his time public speaking and building products. His current project is called The Poker Code.

Here he is talking to Robbie Strazynski at Cardplayer Lifestyle about the new project (https://cardplayerlifestyle.com/an-in-depth-interview-with-fedor-holz-about-pokercode-and-impacting-the-future/), and he found time to set up a YouTube Q&A.

Check it out.

Life Outside of Poker: DNegs Wants Rounders 2; Voulgaris on Holiday.

‘Hope for Prisoners’ is a foundation helping prepare the incarcerated to re-enter a fast evolving life without bars. This week, Daniel Negreanu appeared as a guest speaker at one of their events. 

Negreanu also found the time to watch ‘Rounders’ for the billionth time. Desperate, Kid Poker wrote to Brian Koppelman demanding a sequel, and the Koppelman gave poker fans hope with his response.

Ryan Holiday has a new read called ‘Stillness is the Key’. A free copy ended up on the desk of the recent Triton Million London competitor, Haralabos Voulgaris. Holiday is the author of ‘The Obstacle is the Way’, ‘Ego is the Enemy’, and ‘The Daily Stoic’ – books that seem to go down well in poker circles.

The Polls: Polk on Religion, and Negreanu on the Man With The White-Glove

Two polls this week to give you a flavour of the poker community’s belief systems. 

Doug Polk on religion.

Daniel Negreanu on Michael Jackson.

The Quote of the Week

Michael was scheduled too moonwalk us over the finishing line with a sterling rendition of ‘Man in the Mirror.’ After that poll, I will hand the honours to Tim Gallwey courtesy of David Benefield.

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

Image by pokercentral

The award-winning Pinnacle is back. Apologies, to our thousands of ravenous fans. I know we pulled the needle from your compass by drifting off into hypersleep. 

Ah, the impermanence of fame.

Here we go.

Two titans of the world of poker have cleaved the high stakes poker community right through the chest cavity, with an up and comer also taking a chunk of Shylock’s flesh. 

We begin in the realm of the real.

Poker Central’s attempts to indoctrinate the British poker viewing public is over, and methinks, the splash was more big toe than full-on elephant bellyflop. 

Field sizes at the British Poker Open (BPO) were small but more alarming for the organisers was the lack of non-pros in the field.

Sam Soverel was the star, making money in half of the events, including two wins, and earning close to £800,000 in gross earnings. The win also inches Soverel closer to a successful defence of his Poker Central High Roller of the Year title. 

Towards the end of the BPO, headcounts began to fall as PokerStars, and the GGPoker Network launched the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) and the GGSeries III. With $125m in guaranteed prize money hanging lower than the fruit consumed earlier in the week, the last £25k event, the £50k event, and the £100k event, all failed to register high on the attendance scales. 

That spelt bad news for the Super High Roller Bowl (SHRB) London, with only 18-entrants turning up for the shebang (The previous outing outside of Las Vegas saw 75-entrants compete in Macau).

The man who created the SHRB won it. Cary Katz went on a double-up heater that seemed almost illusory, to take the £2.1m first prize after beating Ali Imsirovic, heads-up, for the title. 

Will it return?

We hope so.

In the meantime, if you’re craving some live action, check out the Triton Poker YouTube Channel. We’re currently in the process of publishing some juicy Short-Deck cash game action from Montenegro. 

Online News: Shaun Deeb and Timofey Kuznetsov Headline.

It wasn’t that long ago that Shaun Deeb was the undisputed king of WCOOP. The man had so much passion for online poker’s premier event that three years ago, he chose to play over the birth of his child. 

Then last year, Denis “aDrENalin710” Strebkov, stuck a stepladder next to Deeb, climbed to the highest rung, and kicked his crown into touch. Five wins propelled the Russian to the top of the WCOOP Event Winning Leaderboard with nine. 

Deeb wants his crown back.

Within the first week of WCOOP, Deeb has moved up to seven victories, and he did so after beating Strebkov, heads-up, for the title and $25,375 in Event #9 (H) $1,050 No-Limit 5-Card Draw PKO.

The biggest winner of the opening week of WCOOP was Timofey “trueteller” Kuznetsov. The Russian won the $527,458.43 first prize after topping a final table in Event #25 (H) $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em Eight-Max High Roller. Stars who went deep in that one included Jordi Urlings (2nd), Justin Bonomo (3rd), Dominik Nitsche (5th), Mustapha Kanit (6th), and Timothy Adams (8th). 

Michael “imluckbox” Addamo, won a WCOOP title after beating a field of 272-entrants to win Event #13 (H) $5,200 Sunday Million High Roller. The Aussie beat Samuel “€urop€an” Vousden, heads-up, to take the $258,952.34 first prize. 

And two of Portugal’s most excellent also booked WCOOP wins. 

Rui “RuiNF” Ferreira won his seventh COOP title after vanquishing a 97-entrant field in Event #21 (H) $1,050 Limit Hold’em 6-Max for $23,896. Joao “Naza114” Vieira topped a 213-entrant field to win the $88,846 first prize in Event #26 (H) $530+R Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) 6-Max. Vieira won his first World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet in the summer.

For once, WCOOP isn’t the place to be for high rollers looking for the juiciest games. The GGPoker Network slapped 14 $25,000 buy-ins onto the schedule of the GGPoker Series III with the nonchalance of an operator destined for greater things. 

There were two $25,000 buy-in events on the opening weekend. ‘Omar Bingo’ collected $344,893 after beating a 33-entrant field in the first one, and the man who won the only $25,000 event of GGSeries II, Andras “PokerBluff1” Nemeth, took down the second one for $226,237 (Nemeth also finished second in a $10k for $104,848, and won the PokerStars Sunday High Roller). 

Bryn Kenney is the face of GGPoker, but it’s been interesting to see a few of his high rolling buddies joining him to promote the event. Mike “Timex” McDonald is streaming some of his action during the GGSeries, and Jason Mercier is also advertising the series via his Twitter channels. 

The Beef: Bill Perkins v Alcohol

Every story has to have a cracking villain; this week, ours is alcohol. Triton Million London 6th place finisher, Bill Perkins, posted a Bloomberg article entitled: “Europe Needs to Cut Back on the Booze.”

The piece came from the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s publication of their “Status report on alcohol consumption, harm and policy responses in 30 European countries 2019.”

In a nutshell:

Alcohol killed 291k people in 30 European countries in 2016, more than ten times the number of deaths caused by traffic accidents. In comparison, the US opioid epidemic kills a quarter of that number.

Expanding further than Europe, the 2014 WHO report on the global state of alcoholism showed that more than 3.3 million people died from alcohol-related deaths, more than war, murder and homicide combined. 

The cognitive dissonance within the thread was palpable.

Here it is.

The Debate: How Much Money Does a Pro Need?

The most interesting debate on Twitter’s hight stakes circles this week once again came from the fingertips of Perkins. 

“What Bankroll do you think is necessary to start a decent career and cover your living expenses as an online cash and tournament poker player. Assume rent is covered?”

More than 7k people voted in the poll, with “$50kish” the most popular answer. It wasn’t an answer that met with universal acceptance in the high stakes realm, with most comments suggesting the figure should be much lower.

Chris Kruk believes the amount should be ‘way less’, stating that he started with $2k.

“You can grind a better hourly than minimum wage at 0.25/0.5 w/ that. Especially if you play soft sites etc. there’s really no reason to mess it up w/ 2k. You just put in a lot of hours and move up/down aggressively.”

Joseph Cheong also did it on the cheap, although he doesn’t believe people can repeat the feat these days.

“Went broke multiple times and grinded freerolls on every site. Then saved up $500 to grind $3mtts. So $500. Not possible these days, though.”

Ditto Scott Seiver.

“If rent is covered and no dependents 5k or less for sure if you’re making >$15 / hour at low enough variance for online multitabling .25-.50.”

What are your thoughts?

The Business: Dominik Nitsche Releases DTO Poker App

On the business front, Dominik Nitsche released his highly anticipated poker training app ‘DTO Poker’. Based, on the Game Theory Optimal (GTO) approach, the app allows you to test a broad range of different scenarios, with the AI rating you on your decision-making. You can find the app across all of the app stores, and we will be having Nitsche as a guest to talk about his new app soon. 

GTO Poker has its detractors, and Erik Seidel is not one of them. Check out this buddy hug for Stephen Chidwick.

Life Outside of Poker: Dan Smith on Meditation, Zang & Charity; Holz on Stage, Sontheimer on Coaching; Rast on Bitcoin

A quickfire catch up on the rest of the week’s social media highlights and Dan Smith suggests using the Calm Meditation app, particular the cool ‘Walking Meditation App’ feature. In a recent article, I wrote on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Poker Players, meditation was in the Top 7, so it’s worth a punt. 

You may recall that Aaron Zang collected £13.8m for winning the Triton Million London event. The event accrued £2.7m for charity, but the actual figure is much more. One example emerged on Twitter this week when Bill Perkins announced that Zang had donated to the hurricane ravaged Bahamas.

Fedor Holz also played in the Triton Million, and this week, Holz posted a shot of himself on stage speaking at ‘Entrepreneurship Avenue’. Holz said a change in mindset was crucial to his advancement in the game. Check it out.

🔑

Holz is an ambassador for No-Limit Gaming (NLG), an Esports and Poker streaming/training company spearheaded by Stefan Schillhabel and Steffen Sontheimer. This week, Sontheimer announced plans to turn some of their Esports stars into poker pros. You can check out the live coaching on the NLG Twitch Stream.

Finally, if you are interested in learning more about Bitcoin, then the former SHRB winner, Brian Rast, penned a long-form blog post on the topic. Check it out.

The Quote of the Week:

We picked up this little beauty from a Bill Perkins retweet.

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

The click of the receiver.

Silence. 

There’s nothing left to do, except to dig into the scrambled egg world of high stakes poker. 

We begin with a look into the lives of the people who gnaw their way out of the womb and into the largest buy-in live multi-table tournaments (MTTs) in the world – first stop, the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, FL.

The World Poker Tour (WPT) set up camp from Thu 4 April – Tue 16 April, and one of those tepees contained the largest buy-in event in the world last week:  $25,500 No-Limit Hold’em.

The $2m GTD event attracted 99-entrants, and the double WPT Main Event Champion Aaron Mermelstein defeated the Global Poker Index (GPI) #1, Alex Foxen, heads-up, to bank the $618,955 first prize. It was the first time Mermelstein had cashed in a $10k+ buy-in event outside of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event. 

Aaron Mermelstein

ITM Results

  1. Aaron Mermelstein – $618,955
  2. Alex Foxen – $545,000
  3. Joe McKeehen – $305,665
  4. James Calderaro – $210,295
  5. Shannon Shorr – $136,935
  6. Niall Farrell – $100,255
  7. Alan Schein – $83,140
  8. George Adams – $70,915
  9. Ben Yu – $68,470
  10. Sean Winter – $66,025
  11. Andjelko Andrejevic – $63,580
  12. Sam Soverel – $61,135
  13. Ali Imsirovic – $58,690
  14. Rainer Kempe – $56,240

Ali Imsirovic sneaked into the money in that one, and three days later turned up at ARIA and beat 24-entrants in a $10,500 No-Limit Hold’em event. It was the Poker Masters’ fourth tournament victory of 2019. The third-place finish for Seth Davies was his third top-three finish in $10k Vegas events in April.

$10k ITM Results

  1. Ali Imsirovic – $102,480
  2. Jake Schindler – $75,120
  3. Seth Davies – $38,400
  4. Sean Perry – $24,000

There were zero $25k+ events in Europe this week, but a high roller reg did win a tournament during the World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) UK at Dusk till Dawn (DTD) in Nottingham. Orpen Kisacikoglu won the £5,300 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller, beating Sam Trickett, heads-up, to claim the £90,000 first prize. The event attracted 31-entrants. It was only Kisacikoglu’s second live tournament win despite making 11 final tables in High Roller events in 2018.

In other live tournament news, the $25,500 WPT LAPC winner, Maria Ho, hopes to become the second female to win a WPT Main Event after making the final table of the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown. Ho sits second in chips, and the final takes place Thu May 30 at the HyperX Esports Arena in Las Vegas. Dan Smith will not feature in either the PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) in Monaco, or the Triton Poker Series in Montenegro instead keeping his powder dry for Vegas. And speaking of Triton, the brand has added the online betting company 12Bet as their Official Betting Partner. The new deal begins in Montenegro in May. 

The Third Rail: Andras Nemeth is the New World Number #1

There was a $25,500 buy-in partypoker POWERFEST Championship event the week. The game engaged the minds of 105-entrants, and the Russian PhileasFogg won the $643,125 first prize, a record for that pseudonym. 

And we have a new PocketFives World #1.

Andras ‘probirs’ Nemeth replaces Roman ‘Romeopro’ Romanovskiy at the top of the world rankings for the first time in his career. The Hungarian high roller star hit the top spot after a fantastic first half of April that has seen him win the $10,300 buy-in, $1m GTD partypoker POWERFEST Championship for $311,150, the $1,050 buy-in, $100k GTD PokerStars High Roller Club Daily Warm-Up for $30,435.89, and the $1k Blade on the GGNetwork for $29,340.51. Nemeth has won $12.8m playing online MTTs.

High Stakes Insights: Koon Wants a Union; Hellmuth to be Roasted; Kitai Wins Awards

Triton Poker and partypoker hired Jason Koon, not just because he turns his high stakes opponents into suckling pigs, but because he is also a leader, and this week Koon has turned his attention to the possibility of creating a poker player’s union.

What are your thoughts?

Martin Jacobson appeared in the London Evening Standard this week. The article is a little cat on the leash, but it’s worth pointing out that Jacobson believes to compete with the best in the business you have to consider yourself an elite athlete. 

Check it out.

One man who knows a thing or two about elite athletes is Harabalos Voulgaris, and the occasional, high stakes poker punter, has been falling in love with the meditation app Headspace this week. 53 days and climbing.

https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/1117221790571319296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Headspace isn’t the only meditation app on the market. We have one in the higher echelons of poker in Fedor Holz’s Primed Mind, and this week, the German star was in Coachella playing Connect 4 as mindfully as he could.

🌴

In other high stakes jinks, Sam Trickett has sold his home in Retford and moved lock, stock and two smoking barrels to Ibiza, Phil Hellmuth is going to be the victim of a WPT Roast, and a few folks in the poker community are none too pleased that it will be a private affair. One man who has been on the end of a few Hellmuth roasts is Davidi Kitai, and this week the Belgian HR picked up three awards at the Belgian Poker Awards.

Igor Kurganov and Philipp Gruissem’s Raising for Effective Giving (REG) released their 2018 Transparency report. In 2018, REG donors gave $5,160,173 to cost-effective charities, a 20% increase YoY. Chris Kruk is still banging on about the Global Poker Awards and suggests Eric Danis and the team should consider a ‘Bubble of the Year’ award instead of a ‘Live Tournament’ award. And finally, Tom Dwan tweeted something for the first time since July 2018. 

I know.

It’s like Stone Roses albums. 

High Stakes Tweet of the Week

We end with this week’s High Stakes Tweet of the Week, and it goes to Bill Perkins, who throughout his recent tour to Japan, continued to force humanity to think about the most pressing matters in life – like not getting splashbacks on your white chinos. 

And that’s this week’s Pinnacle.

If the Global Poker Index (GPI) had an award for Resurrection of the Year, Elio Fox would have made the nomination list. In 2011, Fox earned $2,669,311 playing live tournaments, including winning the World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) Main Event in Cannes for €1.4m.

Then nothing.

I doubt Fox became a tree surgeon, dedicating his time to saving the dying elm from the microfungus dispersed by bark beetles. There were games. Fox was in them, winning, but they weren’t live multi-table tournaments (MTTs).

Then last year, Fox returned from his deep freeze after a stunning showing at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) saw him win a bracelet in the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Super Turbo Bounty, and then finish runner-up to Nick Petrangelo in the $100,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller for $1,798,658.

Fox allowed the tugboats to pull him through the high stakes water for a full year, earning $4,277,915, his best-ever haul, and with it, five tournament wins, including a victory in the $50,000, $1m GTD No-Limit Hold’em Super High Roller at the World Poker Tour (WPT) Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown in Florida.

He’s just defended that title.

Elio Fox

Fox defeated a field of 20-entrants to capture the $440,000 first prize and then finished 5/182 in a $2,200 No-Limit Hold’em event at the same series. With the WSOP in tripod range, is Fox getting ready to leave his burrow once more?

$50,000 ITM Results

  1. Elio Fox – $440,000
  2. Sam Soverel – $260,000
  3. Alex Foxen – $180,000
  4. Ali Imsirovic – $120,000

Fox was in esteemed company. Sam Soverel is the reigning Poker Central High Stakes Player of the Year, Alex Foxen is the current Global Poker Index (GPI) World #1, and then you have Ali Imsirovic.

Imsirovic was one of the stars of 2018, and the poker community recognised him as such in awarding him the Breakout Player of the Year at the Global Poker Awards (GPA) in Las Vegas a fortnight ago. Imsirovic has started 2019 brightly by winning a $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller at the Bellagio, beating 21-entrants to claim the $105,000 first prize.

$10,000 ITM Results

  1. Ali Imsirovic – $105,000
  2. Kristen Bicknell – $63,000
  3. Seth Davies – $42,000

There were two $10,000 events on the schedule, and Davies won the other one.

$10,000 ITM Results

  1. Seth Davies – $105,800
  2. Aram Zobian – $64,400
  3. Rodger Johnson – $36,800
  4. Alex Foxen – $23,000

When the GPA Jury pondered the Breakout Player of the Year award, it couldn’t have been a massacre with Michael Soyza also in the shortlist. The Malaysian star didn’t allow the snub to affect his performance on the felt, after winning the KRW 10,000,000 No-Limit Hold’em Super High Roller at the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) in Paradise City, Incheon, South Korea.

Soyza conquered a field of 65-entrants to win the $157,164 first prize and tweeted: “Ran like God, shipped a tournament. May the heater never end.”

It’s a sweet spot for Soyza after winning the KRW 1,800,000 buy-in Main Event at the same APPT last year for $148,628.

APPT Super High Roller ITM Finishes

  1. Michael Soyza – $157,164
  2. Jiang Chen – $112,834
  3. Huahuan Feng – $73,341
  4. Irshat Shaykhov – $55,342
  5. Wayne Heung – $42,983
  6. Yake Wu – $33,315
  7. Wai Chan – $26,330
  8. Jun Obara – $20,418
  9. Hideki Izutsu – $15,582

Sticking with the Asia-Pacific region and Michael ‘The Grinder’ Mizrachi is becoming a frequent feature down under. In 2018, the 3-time WSOP Poker Player’s Championship winner joined forces with the former WSOP Main Event Champion, Joe Hachem, to add some spice to the Australian Poker Tour (APT), and this year he returns May 23 – 26 to compete in the APT Sydney series.

Finally, partypoker is the Official Live Tour Partner of the Triton Poker Series, and the first event where these two titans will join forces is Triton Poker Series Montenegro – a massive ten-day festival of poker featuring two €110,000 buy-in Main Events in both No-Limit and Short-Deck formats.

High Stakes Insights: Negreanu’s Diet; Smith’s Love for Chess; Hellmuth’s Business Deals & Fedor Flabbergasted

Most of us drop the fishing line and come up with a tiddler or two. These guys and gals have an uncanny knack of pulling in more whales than the nasty lot that were caught on hidden cameras filming The Cove.

How do they do it?

When you and I are squeezing blackheads, what are the princes and princesses of poker up to?

The last time we caught up with Dan Smith, he was snowboarding in Japan before spending time in Jeju at the Triton Poker Series. Today, you can find him in Rejkavik, Iceland, where he is competing in the Rejkjavík Open chess competition, an event that predates the WSOP (it began in 1964).

Phil Hellmuth Jr’s brief alliance with partypoker is on the back burner after his first visit to South America where he appeared in the MILLIONS South America event, and that’s given him time to delve into his business dealings. This week the 15-time WSOP bracelet winner joined the advisory boards of Lasso Compression Socks and a gaming company called Shake It Up Dice.

Fans of Fedor Holz got a treat this week when the German star appeared as a guest on Jonathan Little’s Primed Mind spot to answer a series of questions about poker and life. Check it out.

And Holz also got the opportunity to turn into a fanboy after posing for a picture with his idol, the Paris Saint-German (PSG) coach, Thomas Tuchel.

Finally, what do vegans eat when they get to poker’s top table?

Not a lot.

Here’s Daniel Negreanu’s diet for the week.

High Stakes Battles: Negreanu v Chip Race; Johnnie Vibes v The World

In between eating, ‘big hearty salads’, and drinking ‘magic mushroom lattes,’ Negreanu found the time to get involved in two high profiles spats last week.

The first occurred during the GPA a fortnight ago and rolled into this week when allegations emerged that Negreanu said “Ewww” when the Chip Race won the Podcast of the Year award.

There is no love lost between The Chip Race founders Dara O’Kearney and Dave Lappin and the PokerStars Ambassador, and their feud recently came to boiling point after the Irishmen lambasted Kid Poker for his comments on what type of players are good and bad for poker.

Well, it seems this one is never going to end after allegations surfaced that Negreanu hinted that there might have been some subterfuge within the GPA Jury that may have helped the Chip Race get over the finishing line.

Of course, this resulted in an angry exchange on Twitter between Lappin and Negreanu (I believe Negreanu blocked O’Kearney during the last battle), where Negreanu declared that he didn’t like Lappin, thought he was a sanctimonious wanker, and even went as far as to call him a liar, liar, pants on fire!

Lappin responded in print, penning a blog post called ‘Who is The Real Troll?’ critiquing Negreanu for bashing a show he has never listened to (http://rocshot.com/lappin/269-who-is-the-real-troll/), and Negreanu reacted by posting a soundbite of the DAT Podcast episode defending himself against the allegations that he suggested the award was rigged.

“I am pretty sure what happened with this one – and I don’t want to ‘reveal’ because I have an inside source – I don’t think the panel listens to all the podcasts, and some voices may have been louder than others and convinced others to vote,” said Negreanu.

The second time Negreanu surfaces this week is in the role of protector after Doug Polk and Shaun Deeb publicly shamed GPA Poker Personality of the Year nominee Johnnie “JohnnieVibes” Moreno for selling a WSOP package to his fans at 1.38 markup despite only winning $66,844 in live tournament earnings.

Deeb began the fight by telling Moreno that in selling a package for almost 1.4 markup means ‘you’re scamming people,’ and Polk added a dose of sarcasm by pointing out his $66,844 in Hendon Mob cashes stating, “Not cool Deeb, Johnnie is an excellent tournament player (He talks about it in his vlog all the time). If he wants to sell at 1.38 on 43k worth of buyins, investors are getting a deal!”

As the debate raged on with most of the voices seemingly siding with Deeb and Polk, Negreanu ran to his aid pointing out that it’s ‘IMPOSSIBLE to get a totally accurate ROI for any tournament. You can ballpark, but no one knows. It’s not scamming at all IMO.”

You can have your say by following Negreanu’s involvement from this point onwards. (https://twitter.com/RealKidPoker/status/1116771239572332544)

Tweet of the Week

And that leads us nicely to the Tweet of the Week.

We considered Sorel Mizzi’s recent fascination with the duck on duck violence that is plaguing our planet (think twice before letting your kids throw bread to them unless you want to explain duck rape to a two-year-old).Another day another duck fight. #SunsetPark pic.twitter.com/r3zUQ3mTJf— Sorel Mizzi (@sorelmizzi) April 9, 2019

We also thought long and hard about giving the award to Bill Perkins for his thoughts on shorting the sperm bank to egg bank spread, and his subsequent reversal of thought after seeing this dandy little machine.

But in the end, the award went to Chris Kruk for the sheer passion that led to this War & Peace take on the Johnnie Vibes affair.

https://twitter.com/KrukPoker/status/1116532438082179072
https://twitter.com/KrukPoker/status/1116534630902042624
https://twitter.com/KrukPoker/status/1116535576591777792
https://twitter.com/KrukPoker/status/1116535973746290688
Image by PartyPoker

It’s not easy to pin the tail on the Nebuchadnezzar of the poker industry. Is the king of poker a cash game player; tournament player; online; live; or the perfect blend of both. And who casts a vote? Should we shrink the crowd to the droplet of the poker community, or should we broaden it across the ocean of hundreds of thousands of people around the world who have the game running through their veins?

If we did the latter, then one name would surface as the king. A name that the poker industry insiders would scoff at when naming him as the top man, but the poker industry is like Hogwarts. The muggles don’t get to see what’s going on beyond the train station wall.

Phil Hellmuth Jr. spent the last week in Rio de Janeiro as partypoker’s guest during their inaugural MILLIONS South American adventure. As is standard with the man who seems to dwarf any tournament that he rocks up to, his performance off the felt seemed to attract more attention than on it.

On this occasion, Hellmuth Jr’s PR team thought it would be a cracking idea if he entered the $10,300 MILLIONS Main Event accompanied by a samba band resplendent with thong-wearing women, and drummer boys. Only Hellmuth decided to jig into the tournament arena late, drawing precious attention away from the action, and onto him (although I suspect most observers were looking at her, her and her).

Chance Kornuth wasn’t a fan of the grand entrance, posting on Twitter that it ‘shouldn’t be allowed unless ur early/on time. Not fair to distract other players who are making big poker decisions for 15+mins imo.’

Andrew Teng was one of those people making a ‘big poker decision’ while Hellmuth danced his way around the tournament room like the pied piper. Posting on Twitter, Teng wrote, ‘Had to make decision for whole stack while some guy is in the corner dancing with a flag and some kind of carnival band.’

What are your thoughts on Hellmuth’s grand entrances – are they good or bad for the game, and should time be built in for them to avoid bugging the rest of the field?

Hellmuth didn’t have a great run on the felt. The 15-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner only cashed in one event, finishing 3/67 in the $550 No-Limit Hold’em – Win The Button.

MILLIONS South America held two $25,000 buy-in events.

In the first event, 41-entrants created a prize pool of $994,250, in the $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em Enjoy Punta del Este Super High Roller. partypoker’s decision to use the South American casino as a sponsor provided $500,000 in casino chips distributed between the final five players.

The winner was Jonathan Depa, who defeated Alex Keating, heads-up, to win his first live tournament, after losing heads-up on four separate occasions in the past eight months. Depa picked up $400,000 for his win plus $150,000 in Enjoy casino chips.

By the time the second $25,000 event came around the corner, those who could afford such a sum seemed to have left fearing the plague with Joaquin Melogno topping a field of 14-entrants to win the $180,000 first prize. It was a cracking MILLIONS series for the Uruguayan who also finished 3/97 in the $10,300 High Roller.

The next partypoker MILLIONS event takes place 13-26 May at the Playground Poker Club in Montreal, and there is a two-day CAD 25,000 Super High Roller on the schedule for Sat-Sun 25-26 May.

partypoker Ink Deal With No-Limit Gaming

During the Triton Poker Series in Jeju, we sat down with the Dusk till Dawn (DTD) owner, and partypoker insider, Rob Yong, and learned more on his strategy to make partypoker the #1 live streaming powerhouse in the world.

The revolution began when partypoker became the sponsor for Bill Perkins’ The Thirst Lounge and then continued when the likes of Jeff Gross and Matt and Jamie Staples joining the team.

And this week, more news hit the grapevine.

partypoker is now the primary sponsor of No-Limit Gaming (NLG), the Esports and poker outfit spawned by high stakes poker players Fedor Holz, Stefan Schillhabel and Stefan Sontheimer.

The news means that NLG streamers will play on partypoker’s software, and the team will be present at as many MILLIONS events as they can muster. High rollers live streaming for NLG include the Triple Crown winner Niall Farrell, one of the best players in the world right now, Rainer Kempe, and former Triton Poker Series winner, Manig Loeser.

Fedor Holz on Goals, Bryn Kenney on Magic, Sam Trickett on Football

As a partypoker ambassador, Fedor Holz would have been instrumental in carving out the NLG deal, and this week, the former Triton Poker Series winner, wrote a blog post on his 2019 goals.

Amongst his list is things like:

  • Be vulnerable in relationships.
  • Do a TED Talk.
  • Give one day for others.

And don’t worry.

  • Launch top-tier poker content.

You can catch the full list, right here.

Holz wasn’t the only partypoker ambassador ‘sharing’ this week. PokerNews caught up with Sam Trickett to talk his life before poker, specifically, his experience as a semi-professional footballer.

You can read the two-part article right here.

And Trickett wasn’t the only high stakes poker player talking about his life before the game. The Aussie Millions Main Event winner, Bryn Kenney, also joined the fray to talk about the importance that Magic the Gathering had on his life.

Check it.

Finally, it’s not often that you see Alex Foxen sitting down for an interview, but SoMuchPoker got the scope recently. Learn more about the Global Poker Index (GPI) #1 right here.

An interview with Alex Foxen – #1 GPI 

High Rollers Feature in GPA Award Shortlists

Foxen and his partner Kristen Bicknell will be in Las Vegas on April 5 to pick up their awards for the 2018 GPI Player and Female Player of the Year at the inaugural Global Poker Awards (GPA).

The GPA is the amalgamation of the European and American Poker Awards, operated by the GPI, and the industry widely criticised the nomination process, particularly in the Live Streaming and Vlogging Categories.

A 130-person nomination panel nominated Jason Somerville as Streamer of the Year despite the PokerStars ambassador hardly putting out any content, and noises of discontent clanged over Doug Polk’s nomination in the Vlogger of the Year Category, with Polk himself calling the awards a joke.

The GPI reacted by posting a statement on social media reassuring the community that they had taken the feedback on board and would make the necessary changes in 2020.

In the meantime, here are the High Rollers up for nomination.

Justin Bonomo and John Cynn fight it out with Maria Lampropulos and Dylan Linde for the Tournament Performance of the Year.

Ali Imsirovic and Michael Soyza feature in the Breakout Player of the Year Category alongside Ping Liu and Maria Konnikova.

Doug Polk and Daniel Negreanu feature in the Vlogger of the Year Category alongside Marle Cordeiro, Joe Ingram and Andrew Neeme.

Maria Ho and Nick Schulman are in the running for the Broadcaster of the Year award. Cary Katz and Rob Yong could win the Industry Person of the Year prize. ARIA’s Paul Campbell is a favourite to win the Tournament Director of the Year award, and Triton Poker Series livestream broadcaster, Lex Veldhuis, features in the Streamer of the Year and Broadcaster of the Year Categories.

Tournament Dates Live and Online

PokerStars announced the dates ( May 12 to May 27) for the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP), but have so far left the meat out of that particular sandwich.

The Triton Poker Series returns to the Maestral Resort & Casino in Montenegro May 5 to May 17. It’s going to be the biggest Triton event ever, with ten events spread over 13-days, including new formats such as Short-Deck and No-Limit Hold’em Turbo, and Pot Limit Omaha.

You can read the full schedule here.

Triton Poker Returns to Montenegro For Record-Breaking 10-Event Series

The Tweet of the Week

We will leave you with the tweet of the week, and this little gem from Erik Seidel.

And that’s this week’s Pinnacle.

We begin our weekly peek into the lives of the supernatural forces that suck up poker’s money with the efficiency of one of those ugly looking fish that suck up the ocean floor by focusing on the Far East, and the best goddam high stakes poker tour in the world.

The Triton crew set up camp in the Landing Casino on the island of Jeju in South Korea, and it was another sunny success for the team as they continue to provide world-class high stakes content.

Two events ended on the weekend: the HKD 2,000,000 (USD 255,000) Triton Poker Series Main Event and an impromptu HKD 1,000,000 (USD 127,000) No-Limit Hold’em Short-Deck tournament.

The Main Event attracted 48-entrants, and the Canadian Timothy Adams secured the first seven-figure score of his career after beating Bryn Kenney, heads-up, for the title, banking $3,536,550 in the process – the single biggest prize of 2019 so far.

The winner of the HKD 1,000,000 Short-Deck event was Timofey “Trueteller” Kuznetsov, who bested a field of 23-entrants, and Robert Flink, heads-up, to take the $1,859,940 first prize.

During the event, the Triton team announced that the Maestral Resort & Casino in Montenegro would host the next event 4-16 May.

Triton Ambassador, Jason Koon has become symbolic as the Triton Poker Titan, and he was once again the undisputed star of the series making four final tables, winning two events, and earning a gross income of $4,552,604.

But the man is tired.

It’s official.

In a new blog penned for his role as partypoker Ambassador, Koon, talked about the toll that competing at the highest stakes in the game is having on his health.

“It’s as though there is a callus that has thickened around my soul,” said Koon before continuing. “The calloused mental state can help you perform at your highest levels in poker; there is no doubt. That said, I’m not sure it’s a place any of us should linger for too long. In my opinion, it’s essential for us to try to reconnect with our human side as often as possible. The only way for me to achieve this is to get back to the basics of things that provide fulfilment in my life. Getting outside, being around loved ones, exercising, or slowing down for a minute to appreciate a beautiful sunset.”

You can check out the blog right here.

https://problog.partypoker.com/2019/03/im-tired.html

Maybe Koon will get to appreciate a beautiful sunset during his tour of duty in Rio for the partypoker MILLIONS South America. The tour runs from March 15 – 24 and features a couple of $25,000 High Roller events. One high roller in town is Phil Hellmuth Jr., who partypoker has flown in to give the game some pomp and circumstance, and on Monday the 15-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner will be hosting a special poker seminar.

Hello James Bond (and Jaws)! Top of Sugar Loaf: great view of Rio De Janiero #PHNiceLife #POSITIVITY #JawsAttackingBondOnCableCars pic.twitter.com/oWU8fddobp— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) March 14, 2019

Live Tournament Round-Up: Cheong is a Winner; Mizrachi in Charitable Mood

One man who likes to flick in a $25,000 buy-in on occasion is Joseph Cheong, and it’s been a decent week at the tables for the former November Niner.

Cheong finished 8/280 in the World Poker Tour (WPT) Rolling Thunder Main Event for $38,190 and then went on to win a 113-entrant event at the Wynn Poker Classic for $73,269.

It hasn’t been a stroll in the park for Cheong though, who came across an interesting problem this week.

What do you do when a bad player at your table subjects you too racist chants, and it’s not +EV to land him with a penalty?

Some redneck said something racist to me just now. But hes so bad I dont want him to get a penalty. Thoughts?— Joseph Cheong (@subiime) March 10, 2019

Robert Mizrachi was in a more charitable mood that Cheong’s bully. The high stakes cash game star is giving his new Twitter followers the chance to win 1% of his action in the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship at the WSOP, and donate a further 1% to a charity of your choice.

With four WSOP bracelets already in the bag, it’s a fine freeroll.

Follow me and retweet for a chance to win 1% of me in the 50K championship this year wsop. Feeling good. And 1% donation to a charity of you’re choice. 😉.— Robert Mizrachi (@PokerRob24) March 12, 2019

On Life: Doug Polk and Bonomo Debate Immigration; Negreanu on Adoption

Jason Koon isn’t the only high roller writing about the need to take better care of himself. This week, Doug Polk continued to ease his foot off the accelerator by suggesting he may follow up with his retirement from poker by ending his vlogging exploits.

Havent had the passion to make videos lately. Been really happy spending my time working on being healthy and spending time with friends and family. I dont see that changing in the near future, not sure if im gonna get back into make videos or not.— Doug Polk (@DougPolkPoker) March 14, 2019

If Polk wants to reduce activities that negatively impact his health and wellness, maybe he should consider retiring from social media. Not one to shy from a Twitter debate, this week, Polk crossed swords with Justin Bonomo on the topic of immigration, specifically anti-Muslim bigotry in the States.

Bonomo began the debate by suggesting that people who choose not to speak out against Donald Trump and his ‘Muslin ban’ have blood on their hands.

Anti-Muslim rhetoric, hate, and violence are a disease. They spread, like a disease

We currently have a Muslim ban in the US

If you did not speak out against Donald Trump and his Muslim ban, you are responsible for the spread of this disease

You have blood on your hands today.— Bonologic (@JustinBonomo) March 15, 2019

Polk responded by stating that “blaming those who do not speak out against the Muslim ban as having blood on their hands, is completely ridiculous,” while voicing his opinion that you can’t hold Donald Trump responsible for ‘horrible people’ who ‘will kill people who do not share their beliefs.”

The back and forth even forced Polk to produce one of his famous graphs; only this one had nothing to do with poker.

Given that 49 Muslims were shot dead in New Zealand this week, it’s a timely debate, and you can have your say by following Bonomo’s post above.

Not many people can match Polk for kicking up a social media storm, but Daniel Negreanu is undoubtedly one of them.

On March 5, Negreanu told his Twitter followers that he had limited social media use to zero and then to 30-minutes a day, and how his quality of life is now ‘noticeably better along with my happiness level.’ Maybe he should have extended that ban to podcast appearances.

During an episode of the DAT Poker Podcast called “Twitter Questions, Crazy Stories…” Negreanu shares his plans to build a family with his fiancé Amanda Leatherman, and Unibet Ambassador, Dave Lappin, was not happy with his views on adoption.

Quoting Negreanu from the podcast:

“A boy first, a girl second + then we ‘re gonna buy a couple. I know you’re not supposed to say ‘buy’ because it’s somehow offensive to people but fuck it, I don’t care! ‘Adopt’ might be the word you use because it’s cute, but it’s fucking buying,” Negreanu said before continuing, “You pay these people money, and they give you a baby. I am going to purchase a couple of babies, along with a couple we are going to have. That’s the plan we are going to have four.”

When his host asked him if he would adopt home or abroad, Negreanu said, “I think you will get a much better deal going abroad. Maybe a two for one deal, we’ll see.”

Negreanu is laughing while making the statement, but Lappin didn’t think it was funny, and posted the quote on social media, resulting in this response from Negreanu.

Man is planning to adopt children and give them a better life.

He jokingly describes the process as “buying kids.”

Faux Twitter outrage focuses on the term “buying” rather than the act of helping children in need.

You can’t make this shit up.— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) March 15, 2019

What’re your thoughts?

Is Negreanu out of line, or is it ok for him to have a bit of banter seeing as he is likely to give two children a better life?

And that ladies and gentlemen, is this week’s Pinnacle.

I hope someone from Hasbro was watching the Aussie Millions Main Event livestream because it produced a cracking Trivial Pursuit question for when Santa’s little elves start chucking them into his sledge come December.
aussie-millions-2019
Question: “Name the person who won the Aussie Millions Main Event without eliminating a single player.”
Answer: “Bryn Kenney.”
822 LAGS, TAGS and WAGS competed in the AUD 10,000 Main Event smashing its attendance record for the second successive year. Kenney started the final table with the shortest stack of the lot (18 bb) but doubled up twice to put him amongst the favourites to land his first Main Event title.
The chip lead didn’t arrive until he was three-handed, and it was during his fist fight with Andrew Hinrichsen and Mike Del Vecchio (who was making the final table for the second successive year) that the action stopped. The trio stepped away to cut a deal, and Kenney returned as the champion in a damp squib of a final scene.
Final Table Results
1. Bryn Kenney – $923,269*
2. Mike Del Vecchio – $922,953*
3. Andrew Hinrichsen – $796,410*
4. Clinton Taylor – $350,417
5. Mathew Wakeman – $275,908
6. Gyeong Byeong Lee – $224,180
7. Hamish Crawshaw – $175,571
*Indicates a three-way deal
Kenney jumped straight into the AUD 100,000 Challenge but wasn’t so lucky. The event pulled in a 42-entrant field, the third highest in the event’s 14-year history, and Cary Katz won the $1,066,867 first prize after beating Johannes Becker, heads-up.
It’s the second time Katz has won a $100k event after winning the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) version in 2018. Rainer Kempe continued his excellent run of form finishing fourth to take the early lead in the Global Poker Index (GPI) 2019 Player of the Year race, and it was fantastic to see the GPI Ladies #1, Kristen Bicknell, firing multiple AUD 100k bullets on her way to a sixth-place finish.
Final Table Results
1. Cary Katz – $1,066,867
2. Johannes Becker – $681,610
3. Abraham Passet – $444,528
4. Rainer Kempe – $325,987
5. Jack Salter – $329,280
6. Kristen Bicknell – $207,446
And there was an AUD 25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event for the first time. 67-players gave it a shot, and Anton Morgenstern beat the lot to win the $382,061 first prize after beating Farid Jattin, heads-up. It was another excellent performance for Jattin, who made the final table of the $25,000 buy-in PokerStars Player’s No-Limit Hold’em Championship (PSPC) finishing seventh for $746,000.
Poker Central Power Rankings; Run It Once Launch; And More

Bryn Kenney’s victory in Melbourne ensured the top berth in the Poker Central Power Rankings this week.

Sitting in second place is Phil Galfond, who finally launched Run It Once (RIO) Poker in public beta mode, and Chris Kruk was one of the first players to live stream RIO Poker action on Twitch, and the former partypoker MILLIONS $25k High Roller winner agreed to hand all donations and subs to Dan Smith’s next Charity Drive.
Daniel Negreanu made the number three spot without doing anything (perhaps they gave it to him for NOT creating a war on Twitter?) Cary Katz picked up a fourth place spot for his performance Down Under, and I assume Phil Hellmuth made the top five because of this:

Poker Central Power Rankings

1. Bryn Kenney
2. Phil Galfond
3. Daniel Negreanu
4. Cary Katz
5. Phil Hellmuth
Eli Elezra Successful But Painful, Book Launch; Bill Perkins Celebrates 50-Years on the Planet and Joins Vegan Debate
With Negreanu having a quiet time on social media, the baton in the race to piss people off fell to the unlikeliest of poker players.
Eli Elezra hopped onto 2+2 to host an Ask Me Anything (AMA) in a bid to market his new biography ‘Pulling The Trigger,’ and what a disaster it turned out to be.


Here are the cliffs:
Someone asks Ezra where he got his money from to play high stakes, and during his response, Ezra comments that he always has 100% of himself, and always pays his debts – cue Cole South.
South comes onto 2+2 and states that Ezra owes him $40,000 of a $100,000 loan given to Ezra in 2010. It then emerges that Ezra also owes Shaun Deeb some money. Then Abe Mosseri breaks radio silence and tells all and sundry that Ezra owes him $853,000 and that Ezra had threatened his family.
Ezra eventually makes a statement on 2+2; talks to PokerNews and the ChipRace Podcast to confirm that he does owe South the money and they have since come to a satisfactory arrangement. Ezra admits that he does owe Mosseri that obscene amount of money and that his safety has been threatened, pointing the finger at Mosseri’s partner.
During the statements, Ezra also said that he is on good terms with Deeb despite owing him some money, but I wonder if that’s still the case after Ezra appeared on Poker Central’s Dolly’s Game where each man pays $50,000 to take a seat.


Bill Perkins is celebrating his 50th birthday in style this week. Most people book a room in a pub for a birthday party; Perkins rented the entire Necker Island from Richard Branson.

 

Happy bday to The PERK!!! @billperkins knows how to turn 50 ????????????

A post shared by Antonio Esfandiari (@magicantonio) on


It takes time to blow out 50-candles, so Perkins decided to hop onto Twitter and get involved in the vegan debate started by this tweet from Doug Polk.


The tweet got the effective altruist community in a headspin with the likes of Liv Boeree and Justin Bonomo duelling with the outspoken carnivore. Somewhere along the way broadcaster, David Tuchman, suggested a vegan prop bet, asking how much people would need to go vegan for a year. Dan Smith was briefly in the running at $200,000, but eventually, Jamie Kerstetter fell into the crosshairs saying she would give it a bash for $10,000. Perkins took the bet. Should Kerstetter fail then she has to do 100 hours community service at Perkins’ pleasure.
And we will end with a vegan high roller as Andrew “LuckyChewy” Lichtenberger took a timeout from producing YouTube videos on emotional intelligence to stream a few online poker sessions on twitch, and won a tournament playing on WSOP.com on only his second night.
And that’s this week’s Pinnacle.