There’s a famous New Yorker cartoon, featuring two men, clearly residents of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, which has its de facto northern boundary at 14th Street. One says, “I haven’t been north of 14th Street in 20 years.” The other thinks for a moment, then replies, “I’ve never been north of 14th Street.”

Sometimes the poker world, and its heroes, can be like that. Particularly for the youngsters among us, it’s easy to get completely wrapped up in this game and its milieu. Especially if you’re one of those chasing SuperNova or SuperNova Elite status, and/or you follow the various online forums, track the SCOOP results, and so on – suddenly it seems like there’s not much time left for anything else.

Then there’s Barry Greenstein. I’ve known Barry since the late 80′s, when we played in the same cardroom (Garden City in San Jose, California). That’s not to say we were playing at the same table; Barry was playing in the biggest games and I was in some of the smallest. But the point is that 25 years ago, Barry was plying his trade, and that’s pretty much how he’s supported himself and his family since.

But along the way, even while becoming a world-class cash games player and major tournament winner, Barry has studied and learned the world around him.

This was brought into sharp relief yesterday when Barry was kind enough to spend a couple of hours chatting with his fans in the SCOOP Fan Club¹. When the questions were typical (“Do you feel good about making play X on televised hand Y?”), Barry’s answers were more or less what you’d expect from a serious professional player. But I knew he had a broader range and threw some non-standard queries at him. For instance, “Discuss the strategic importance of U.S. President Obama publicly supporting same-sex marriage in an interview yesterday.” Barry’s replied that it would force Obama’s likely opponent in November, Mitt Romney, to face up to the question of “equality for all Americans” during the campaign. Clearly he was aware of that interview and had thought about its implications.

Greenstein in a similar Q&A at the 2012 PCA

Then another member of the club asked Barry about his mathematics background. Barry said something about “(W)hile I was working on my PhD in mathematics…” That surprised me; while I knew he was a serious computer scientist and programmer, I didn’t know he had that advanced background in math. Hearing that, I asked Barry for his Erdös number (a measure of a mathematician’s publication-fu). Somewhat to my surprise, he said, “Well, I thought it was going to be 2 (an impressively low number), but I didn’t get author credit on (a paper) I did some computer work on, so I guess it’s infinite.” This impressed both me and the math-geek who’d asked Barry the original question.

Other questions elicited uncharacteristic (but wonted for Barry) replies that showed his forward-looking nature. “What was your favourite poker moment?” “I don’t know – it hasn’t happened yet.” This from a guy who has WSOP bracelets, WPT titles, and has been inducted into the poker Hall of Fame.

But lest you think that this has distracted him from his day/night job, you should have seen the discussion about his session lengths. “I generally average 16-hour sessions… Given my age, I’m trying not to go over 20-hour sessions.” Barry takes his job very seriously, and yet somehow finds time to inspect both the world around him and himself.

Perhaps we got a glimpse of how he does that on a recent EPT broadcast. He said he was reading a book on (I believe it was) “etiology”. When broadcasters James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton sounded confused, he explained that one of his kids was taking a philosophy class and Barry had a standing offer to read any text book that his kids had to use in school. Thus did professional poker player Barry Greenstein find himself wading through a philosophy text.

This method of supporting your kids has the excellent side effect of occasionally throwing a new and different subject in your face. While that may not hold specifically for dry philosophy tomes, I suspect that in general, PokerStars Team Pro Barry Greenstein relishes the opportunity to stretch his brain and learn a new thing or two. That’s how one keeps his Renaissance Man chops up to date.

¹ The SCOOP Fan Club is in Home Games club #634789, invitation code “scoopfan”. It’s open to everybody and we’ve already visitors such as Talonchick, Nanonoko, and David Williams. There’s plenty of room for new members so come on in.

Tags: 2011 | barry-greenstein | entertainment | italian poker tour | latin-america | news | planets | portugal poker series | russian poker series | tournaments | wcoop

Following the successful and exciting SuperStar Showdowns on PokerStars, the first ever PokerStars Limit Hold’em Challenge was contested on Saturday afternoon between one of the poker world’s best-known players and a relative unknown… at least for the time being.

On one side of the table was a player in little need of introduction — Team PokerStars Pro Daniel “KidPoker” Negreanu. Among Negreanu’s many accomplishments are four World Series of Poker bracelets, the last two of which were in limit hold’em events.

Meanwhile we knew considerably less of KidPoker’s challenger, a player referred to by Negreanu over Twitter as “a young German genius.” Beyond that endorsement — and a reputation as a LHE specialist — all we had to go on was a username that could be read as questioning the humanity of his opponents: rUaBot.

Negreanu has long professed both a love for limit games, especially hold’em. And rUaBot, too, shares an appreciation for the game and its many intricacies.

“Fixed limit is more strategic than no-limit,” rUaBot told PokerStars’ Brad Willis before the match. “There is much more space for general strategic adaptations than in no-limit,” he added.

In addition to challenging Negreanu, rUaBot challenged traditional ideas about LHE, too, when talking to Willis, such as the idea voiced by Poker Hall of Famer Crandall Addington long ago that “limit poker is a science, but no-limit is an art.”

“Setting up your standard game is pure math,” conceded rUaBot. “But exploiting your opponent’s patterns is an art… and always will be!”

For Saturday’s inaugural Limit Hold’em Challenge, Negreanu and rUaBot were scheduled to play 1,250 hands of heads-up, fixed-limit hold’em across two tables. The stakes were $200/$400, and each player would begin with $75,000 bankrolls. The challenge would end if one managed to grab all $75K from the other.

Before starting, players spent a little time sorting out their buy-ins — $8,000, with auto-rebuy boxes clicked — and after wishing each other good luck hands were in the air.

Hands 1-250

rUaBot grabbed the early advantage over the first 50 hands, despite Negreanu claiming a $4K pot in a hand in which he rivered two pair with [8c][2c] and got extra value on the river when rUaBot check-raised with king-high.

After 58 hands, rUaBot was in front with a $6,500 profit, but Negreanu soon stormed back and by the 103-hand mark was leading himself by $1,100.

An interesting hand then arose in which rUaBot opened with a raise and Negreanu called, then Negreanu check-raised a [5s][2c][4c] flop, with rUaBot calling. The turn brought the [Jc], KidPoker bet, rUaBot raised, and Negreanu called. Both then checked the [3d] river, at which point Negreanu showed [5d][3c] for two pair. But rUaBot had [Ah][3h] for a flopped straight, and he claimed the $3,200 pot.

The pair remained close, and after 167 hands Negreanu was up by only up $300. rUaBot then began to move back out in front. Along the way he picked up [Ac][Kc] and he and Negreanu capped the betting preflop. rUaBot then check-raised a king-high flop and got calls on both the turn and river to pick up a $4,000 pot. A little later rUaBot turned a Broadway straight with [Ac][Td] to grab another $3,200 pot.

The rush was on. After 185 hands, rUaBot was up $5,400. Twenty hands later, he’d increased his lead to $9,400, then by the 227-hand mark he was up $14,600. Negreanu closed in a little after that, and after nearly 250 hands rUaBot was up $11,800.

Hands 251-500

Both players began to get a little more aggressive, with the average pot size going up. Negreanu grabbed a $4K pot on Table 1 after rivering a four-card nut flush. Then over on Table 2 KidPoker took a $5,200 pot — the biggest of the match thus far — in a hand that saw heavy-betting start to finish as the board came [8h][Qs][3c][7c][4h]. On the river, Negreanu check-called with [Jc][8c] for eights, better than rUaBot’s [9c][6s]. Take a look:

RSS readers click through to see replay

rUaBot held steady, though, and continued to maintain the advantage. Through 289 hands he was up $10,500, then through 317 he led by $11,300.

Then came a blistering sequence in which rUaBot won 11 of 12 hands on Table 1 while winning 10 straight on Table 2, and the run would continue over the next few dozen hands. Take a look at how rUaBot’s lead swiftly grew…

– after 353 hands, rUaBot up $17,900
– after 367 hands, rUaBot up $29,200
– after 382 hands, rUaBot up $36,700
– after 407 hands, rUaBot up $44,200

Just over 400 hands in, and rUaBot had already clawed away more than half of Negreanu’s $75K challenge bankroll, one bet at a time!

Things leveled off a bit over the next stretch of hands, and by the time they reached the 501-hand mark Negreanu had chipped back to cut the deficit to exactly $35,000.

Hands 501-750

The battle continued, with Negreanu whittling slowly at rUaBot’s big lead, then seeing his opponent push back.

A hand arose in which rUaBot raised his button and KidPoker called. Both checked the [6c][5s][2h] flop, then rUaBot check-called the [7s] turn. The river was the [Jh] and when Negreanu checked, rUaBot bet and Negreanu called. rUaBot showed [Js][3h] for a rivered pair of jacks and Negreanu mucked.

“That is starting to get really annoying LOL,” typed Negreanu, noting how the river jack was representative of how the match had been trending of late. Still, KidPoker managed to net enough bets to continue to close the gap, and at the 553-hand mark rUaBot’s lead had shrunk under $30K to $29,700.

The pair took a short break, then after resuming it was rUaBot once more extending his lead further. One hand saw the pair building a huge pot by the river with Negreanu the aggressor through the turn, by which point the board read [Qs][3h][6d][9h][4h]. On fifth street Negreanu bet again, and when rUaBot raised Negreanu typed “really” before calling.

rUaBot showed [Qh][2h] for a rivered flush, and Negreanu mucked.

RSS readers click through to see replay

That one was followed soon thereafter by a hand in which rUaBot rivered two pair with [Jd][3c] for another $3,200 pot. Negreanu shared his incredulity in the chatbox.

KidPoker: no way
KidPoker: in a word “creepy”

They reached the 605-hand mark, and rUaBot’s lead was back up to $46,800. The next 75 hands were roughly even, then another push by rUaBot saw his lead move up to $52,900 after 698 hands.

Things continued to go rUaBot’s way. After one hand on Table 2 that saw a board run out [Ts][7d][8d][3h][5h] and rUaBot turn over [6c][4s] for a rivered straight, Negreanu again had to respond.

KidPoker: one day you need to teach me how to keep doing that lol
KidPoker: any 5 then Bink!
rUaBot: if i just knew

By the 713-hand mark, rUaBot was up $58,200, starting to close in on the last of that $75K bankroll. “OMG dude this is too much!!! haha” typed Negreanu after another good river for rUaBot — this one bringing a four-flush — gave his challenger another pot.

A hand followed in which KidPoker raised from the button and rUaBot called, then the pair capped the [8c][7c][Ts] flop. The turn was the [6h] and when rUaBot led, Negreanu raised and rUaBot just called. The river was the [Td], pairing the board, and this time rUaBot check-called KidPoker. Negreanu showed [6c][3c] — tens and sixes, and a flush draw that didn’t get there — while rUaBot had [9s][7d] for the straight.

At 748 hands, rUaBot had momentum and a big lead of $58,900.

Hands 751-937

With Negreanu’s bankroll depleted, he fell down below $1,000 on Table 2, and soon was all in before the flop with [Jd][3h] against rUaBot’s [Td][6c]. A jack turned and Negreanu’s hand held, then he’d win another all-in after committing his last chips on a [6s][Ac][Ah][Qh] board with [Jh][7h] against rUaBot’s pocket jacks, then a heart arrived on the river to save KidPoker.

Still, Negreanu only had $2,200 after that one, and a few hands later he was once more down to just a couple of big bets. He’d double again with [Ah][Jc] against rUaBot’s [7h][5s], but soon saw his last chips on the table wiped out when his [9c][4c] couldn’t catch versus rUaBot’s [3c][3s], meaning Negreanu was out of chips on Table 2.

After about 810 hands, rUaBot was up $62,400. The match was momentarily paused in order to divide KidPoker’s remaining bankroll of $12,600 — $6,300, or just under 16 big bets — on each table.

rUaBot would soon grind Negreanu down to just $2,100 on Table 2. Then came a hand in which they capped before the flop. rUaBot check-raised the [Js][Kc][2c] flop, then Negreanu called bets on the [9c] turn and [7d] river. rUaBot showed [Tc][5c] for a flush, and Negreanu mucked.

Down to $100 on Table 2, though with $8,900 on Table 1, the match was paused again to balance Negreanu’s stacks, and they continued anew.

Once again Negreanu saw his stack dwindle on Table 2. He’d survive a couple of all-in situations, but was finally felted in a hand in which his [As][4d] couldn’t hold against rUaBot’s [Kd][8d]:

RSS readers click through to see replay

After 925 intense hands of heads-up LHE, Negreanu was down to his last $5,500 on Table 1.

Nearly a dozen hands later Negreanu sat with just $2,000 when rUaBot raised from the button. KidPoker responded with a three-bet, and rUaBot called.

The flop came single-suited — [2h][9h][Jh]. Negreanu bet the $200 and rUaBot called. The turn was the [9c], and again rUaBot called Negreanu’s bet, this time $400.

The river was the [2c] and KidPoker bet one more time — exactly half his remaining stack — and when rUaBot raised Negreanu made the call. KidPoker had [3c][3d] for nines and treys, but rUaBot had [Js][Td] for a better two pair, and the match was over.

RSS readers click through to see replay

It took just over four hours and 937 hands altogether for rUaBot to claim $75,000 from Negreanu. The pair chatted a bit afterwards, with rUaBot acknowledging the cards had certainly run his way.

KidPoker: gg
rUaBot: gg
rUaBot: sorry for the sick run
KidPoker: its ok just glad its over!
KidPoker: have never in my life played 2 tables HU LH and I never will again
rUaBot: big thanks for playing here
rUaBot: oh
KidPoker: good night

We’ll see what the future holds as far as the Limit Hold’em Challenge goes. In any event, congratulations to rUaBot for claiming the first one, along with a handsome $75,000 payday. A good night indeed!

Tags: archives | Battle of the Planets | harrah's | italian poker tour | lapt | PokerStars news | russian poker series | SCOOP | twitter | videos | world cup of poker | world-series

Tournament poker is a tough way to make a buck. It can be a brutal game with players sitting on a knife’s edge, knowing that their tournament life could be over at any moment with the lethal strike of the fall of an unlucky river card.

It gets even worse when you’ve been playing poker for two days and you are eliminated within a breath of making the money. That elusive cash that you’ve been chasing all tournament. It’s heart-breaking stuff as many of our players experienced today at the ANZPT Perth Main Event.

We started with 136 players and quickly they dropped away. After seven full levels we stopped at 40 players and just four eliminations from the money. Some of those to fall during the day included Kristina Griffith, Brian McAllister, Josh Barrett, Aleks Lackovic, Tony Tartaglia and Australian Poker Hall of Famer Leo Boxell.

At the other end of the scale, the story of the day was again the duelling between roommates Didier Guerin and Anthony Aston for the chip lead. It passed hands on several occasions throughout the day, with Aston taking control with a flopped set of jacks before losing a late pot to slip from the top spot.

Guerin also had a day to remember. Pocket queens were again favourable to Guerin as he collected a massive three-way pot with the ladies for second time in two days. After getting himself up to 430,000 at one point, Guerin ended with a stack of 304,000 which was good for the chip lead.

It’s a bit of a log-jam at the top with the top dozen players all sitting within 100k of each other. With plenty of chips at the top, that also means there’s quite a few short stacks. Tomorrow there will be 15 of the 40 players starting with fifteen big blinds or less. That means that once our bubble bursts, there’s likely to be a fair rush of eliminations as the shorties look to double up or bust.

It should provide us with plenty of action to report here on the PokerStars Blog, with play kicking off once again at 12:30pm (GMT+8). We look forward to your company then!

Tags: entertainment | European Poker Tour | events | festival | france poker series | harrah's | italian | planets | russian poker series | SCOOP | season 4

12:40pm: Man down

Well, we already mentioned how good the structure is for this event, but that hasn’t stopped two players from getting all of their chips in within the first five minutes of the tournament.

We arrived at the table to see a flop of [3h][3s][8d] and a bet of 6,500 in front of Ian Harding. His opponent was Vanda Williams, and she moved all in with Harding giving a shrug before calling it off with [tc][ts]. He was well behind as Williams tabled [8s][8h] for a flopped full house.

The turn was the [5c] and river the [2h] as the Barry Greenstein of WA poker becomes our first casualty of the day. Meanwhile Williams now sits with a double stack to be our early chip leader.

12:35pm: ANZPT Perth kicks off!

We’ve settled into our new home for the week on the floor of the Burswood Casino Poker Room as the ANZPT Perth Main Event kicks off!

For a $1,100 buy-in, the players will enjoy a quality structure today with one-hour levels and 20,000-chip start bank. Today’s field is likely to be the smaller of the two flights but we’re still on track for a record field here in Perth.

The rules and regulations have been announced to the room and before the mic was handed to Australian Poker Hall of Famer Leo Boxell to give instructions to the dealers to shuffle up and deal as Day 1a of the ANZPT Perth Main Event is now underway.

Tags: 2011 | Asia Pacific Poker Tour | australian | Baltic Poker Festival | Battle of the Planets | entertainment | napt | news | season 4 | tournaments

Come to any APPT event and it will be impossible for you to miss a tall, fit fellow in a suit and tie scurrying around the tournament floor. His accent gives him away as an Aussie, though from his last name – McDonagh – you might never guess that until he opened his mouth. His first name is Danny and he is, without a doubt, the soul and energy of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour.

Danny does it all for the APPT. He’s the President. He’s the Tournament Director. He takes turns in the cage dealing with registrations. He’ll try to hustle erstwhile poker bloggers out of hard-earned pesos by prop betting them on anything tournament-related. He’s the first in the door in the morning and the last out at night. He always has a smile for the players, a joke for the staff, and the work ethic and dedication that has made him an Australian Poker Hall of Famer.

Danny, with PokerStars.tv host Sarah Grant

Like many of the great tournament directors of the world, Danny puts the players first and foremost. He recently tweaked the APPT standard structure to give the players more play on Day 2 by removing the 800-1600 level and substituting a 700-1400 and a 900-1800 in its place. He was among the first TDs in the world to insist that if the final table chip average was less than 40 big blinds, the clock would be rolled back to the point that it became 40 big blinds.

In between events, when he’s not on the APPT floor and when he’s not dealing with the day-to-day business of running the APPT, Danny participates in some of the regional poker forums, soliciting feedback and responding to questions as appropriate. He is, in every sense of the phrase, a player’s TD.

But don’t think Danny doesn’t find his fun along the way. Despite the long days sorting things for the APPT – or maybe to counter-balance them, he leads the charge at night. We wound up at the Battle of Mactan festival the other night, after the qualifier party wrapped up, at Danny’s insistence. When the power went out, plunging the festival into darkness, he brought us all back to the Shangri-La for more drinks. At 2am he even cajoled the last stragglers into returning to the Battle of Mactan festival.

Today also happens to be his birthday. In addition to a (delicious) chocolate cake, the other APPT staff presented Danny with a gag gift – a giant cardboard gift certificate to Jollibee, the McDonalds of the Philippines, for 100,000 pesos ($2,500).

Danny wouldn’t reveal his age, preferring instead to say only that that he’s a Dragon in the Chinese Zodiac. “So hopefully I’m 36,” he added with a grin.

Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. But as long as he continues to run the APPT with all the energy of youth, nobody will care how old he is.

Tags: 2011 | Battle of the Planets | business | chinese | harrah's | lapt | planets | pokerstars macau | russian | Super Tuesday

Seven years ago today, I pressed publish on the very first post of the PokerStars Blog. On that day in 2005, I’d been playing poker my whole life. I’d been blogging for six years. I’d been blogging about poker for almost as long. There was no reason to be nervous. And yet I was. As I sent the first PokerStars Blog story out into the ether, I wondered, “What is this going to turn into?” I had no way of knowing how big it would get.

Today, we here at the PokerStars Blog celebrate our seventh anniversary. In the seven years since that first post, we have grown from one guy with a notepad and a camera to an entire team of writers, photographers, and tech gurus that we like to think has no equal. How we got there is a road so winding, I don’t even remember all the turns. The long version of the story is told in a post I wrote last year chronicling our story for PokerStars 10th anniversary: How the PokerStars Blog got its start. If you’re interested in how we grew, that story tells it in a really big nutshell.

How we looked seven years ago

Today, there are more than a dozen PokerStars Blog outlets in just about any language you need. We have writers all over the globe who work tirelessly to bring you the best PokerStars online and live coverage there is. Our readership has grown exponentially since 2005 and we welcome millions of readers to this page every year.

How?

Well, I think there are a lot of reasons. First and foremost, PokerStars’ eye for and dedication to innovation has meant a great deal to the PokerStars Blog. There is no arena PokerStars enters that it doesn’t strive to be the best, and the PokerStars Blog is no exception. There is a top-down philosophy that mandates the people of the PokerStars Blog work to be the best at what we do. Despite our admitted and transparent bias toward PokerStars, we maintain the strictest of standards in our reporting efforts. We aim to not be a machine that spits out press releases. We actively work to offer you the most accurate, entertaining, and comprehensive poker reporting available (you can also read how that came about in this post. If our readership is any indication, we feel pretty confident we succeed most of the time.

Furthermore, over the years, we have all kept our eyes open on new innovations and technologies to help us better report the news. In the past few months, we have expanded our live coverage team such that we now can report all the hand-by-hand action while simultaneously providing the best color and features on tour. Here’s a look at a day in the life of a PokerStars live blogger.

It goes beyond that, however. All the philosophy in the world won’t matter if we don’t have the people to execute it. Fortunately, over the years, we’ve put together a staff of people who know how to report the news and tell good stories. A majority of the people who work for the PokerStars Blog were professional storytellers before they turned their focus to poker. Our staff is made up of former newspapermen, broadcasters, novelists, English professors, and top bloggers.

The result is what I consider to be the best team in the business turning out some of the most interesting stories around. In the end, we turn out hand-by-hand action of live events, in-depth features and interviews, and breaking news as it happens. Even when you don’t have time to read us here, we update the PokerStars Blog Twitter feed.

The blog team in Monaco

A few of the bloggers at the PCA

If you’re new to the PokerStars Blog or haven’t been able to read us daily, here are a few stories from the past few years that have stood out to me as representative of what we do and how we do it.

The long, lonely walk of Matt Affleck (by Howard Swains)

Slaying the EPT Monkey (by Simon Young)

Finding Isildur1: Viktor Blom cops to his secret identity (by Brad Willis)

Seventeen steps with Barry Greenstein (by Brad Willis)

The PokerStars Blog One Time Chip (by Howard Swains)

It got hot in here (by Stephen Bartley)

Drama with 30,000 chips (by Stephen Bartley)

How you can back Tom McEvoy for the Poker Hall of Fame (by Simon Young)

The real reason Stephen Bartley looks so odd (by Simon Young)

Safari so good (by Simon Young)

A public health message (by Brad Willis)

Perspective (by Brad Willis)

The Post-Modern American Dream (by Paul McGuire)

Cinderella (Wo)man by Kristin Bihr

Baptism by bloco (by Dave Behr)

The best thing I’ve ever seen on this tour (by Brad Willis)

There are many, many more that I could list here from the likes of Rick Dacey, Martin Harris, David Aydt, Jennifer Newell, Kevin Mathers, Marc Convey, and the long, long list of other writers who contribute here. They are people who put their hearts and souls into blogging for us, and we’re lucky to have them on our team.

So, today we celebrate our seventh anniversary. It’s a happy day for us, and we’re looking forward to many more years of making the PokerStars Blog even better.

Tags: archives | Asia Pacific Poker Tour | European Poker Tour | italian poker tour | news | philosophy | tcoop | UKIPT | world cup of poker | World Series of Poker

I’m not one to preach. I’m a laissez faire kinda guy. You live the life you want. If you feel like pretending the Spring Championship of Online Poker doesn’t exist until it begins on May 6, I say more power to ya. Go in blind if you want to. However, if you’re a planner and would like to map your course for the next few weeks, there are a few buttons you can press to make that happen.

By now, you probably know SCOOP kicks off in a couple of weeks with 40 events with $30 million in guarantees and 120 different tournaments. It’s kind of a big deal.

With 120 different tourneys playing out over two weeks, putting together a winning plan is probably a little more difficult than your average tournament series. Fortunately, the smart people behind the scenes at PokerStars have made it pretty easy for you.

Here’s what you do:

Click on the 2012 SCOOP Tournaments page. There you will see the SCOOP schedule in all its glory. It looks just like this.

Now, look just a little bit closer.

In the top right corner of that schedule, you will see three little clickable buttons. If you click the first one, it will download an Outlook (ICS) version of the SCOOP schedule for you. The second button gives you a version that will fit perfectly into you Google calendar. Finally, if you press the third button, you get a handy dandy printable version for you refrigerator.

Now, if you’re anything like me, once you start planning, you won’t want to stop. To make it a little easier on you, here are some more helpful links:

Research past SCOOP winners

Brush up on past SCOOP statistics

Plan your attack on the SCOOP leaderboard

Get inspired in the SCOOP Hall of Fame

Check in on all the SCOOP FAQs

Happy planning!

Tags: archives | entertainment | featured-video | france poker series | italian poker tour | latin-america | pokerstars macau | portugal poker series | SCOOP | twitter | videos

There’s a special buzz in the air on a cool Spring Saturday evening in Toronto. The streets are packed, cars are jockeying for every foot of progress – clearly people have somewhere to go, somewhere to get to. For 9 PokerStars Supernovas last Saturday night there was nowhere they’d rather be than where they were: enjoying a luxury box suite, watching two original six NHL squads do battle at the Air Canada Centre.

The evening’s festivities began at 6 o’clock at the gargantuan Real Sports bar, the perfect setting to pique even the most casual sports fan’s appetite. It’s hard to take 2 steps without discovering a previously unnoticed big screen TV. After the necessary introductions, exchanges of PokerStars UserIDs (to ensure no beefs needed settling between arch-rivals) and the consumption of mandatory pre-game beverages, our eager group headed up to the luxury suite PokerStars had accorded us to take in the night’s entertainment. Awaiting them was wide selection of culinary delights, an open bar with a private bartender to ensure that no glass was left empty and some of the best seats in the house.

Supernovas Tnx4urmoney, Mr.Smith12, Oxota, Mat12124, BankItDrew, Ncabw, Flush_Entity, and Aacademikk (focusing on the on-ice proceedings and not shown is Khk24)

For much of the evening, the hockey game itself took a back seat to the mingling and story-telling going back and forth. There’s a Toronto game every Saturday, but it’s a rare occasion to be able to swap stories with some of the best players in town. Just as we settled in for the second period, we were surprised by a visit by Leafs great and Hall of Famer Darryl Sittler who came in to shake hands and sign pucks for a group of star struck Supernovas.

As we headed deeper into the night, it became apparent that by a stroke of luck (something Leafs fans are unfamiliar with), a great game was playing out in front of us. Likely due to the presence of so many esteemed Supernovas, the recently floundering Maple Leafs were showing heart, and pulled ahead by a goal in the third, only for the opposition to dramatically (and predictably) score minutes later to tie up the game and send it to Overtime.

With a shootout imminent, the poker talk dimmed as we prepared for one of the more dramatic finishes in sports. As a Rangers forward sent a wrist-shot over the shoulder of the Leafs goalie to crush the arena’s hopes of a Leafs victory, it was hard to take the loss too hard surrounded by newly made friends and decadent surroundings. As the Supernovas made plans for post-game celebrations and we headed into the chilly Toronto night, it was undeniable that it ain’t that bad being a Supernova VIP…even if you’re a Leafs fan.

Just ask him.

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We love the bubble. It scares a lot of players, but for the media, it’s great fun. Poker tournaments aren’t everything that you see on TV. There are plenty of lulls, which we do our creative best to make sound exciting for you at home. Fortunately when it comes to the bubble, there’s no need for us to exaggerate, as it is one of the most exciting stages of a poker tournament.

We’ve talked in the past about the fine line between pleasure and pain that is endured by players on the money bubble. Quite simply, it’s the difference between 3,688 Aussie dollars and zippo.

However within the bubble itself there are many games within the game.

The game of cat and mouse played by the short stacks is usually what we associate with the bubble. Everyone is watching the shorties, and praying that they will bust. These guys are desperately clawing their way from one hand to the next with survival their only goal. They will tank, stall, fold and occasionally be forced to move all in to steal the blinds to stay alive. They know all they have to do is outlast the other shorties to reach the glorious cash. And if they can do that, then it will feel as good as winning the whole damn thing.

Dean McIver is one shorty who is a bit nervous at the moment as he commented to us, “I hate this time of the tournament. All this for nothing…”

At the opposite end of the scale are the big stacks. They love the bubble because they can flex their considerable muscle to bully pretty much everyone. Unless they are met with resistance, they will pillage and plunder relentlessly to build their empire. Many tournament victories have been won with super-aggressive bubble play and we can expect the likes of Oliver Speidel and Liam O’Rourke (pictured below) to push their edge to the max around this time.

In between those two we have the medium stacks. They are sitting back in their chair smiling down upon the shorties. Of course, they know they should make it into the money, if they don’t do anything silly, so they will often stay out of the way of the big stacks. But if the opportunity to attack a shortie arrives, they can then play the role of the bully.

Two players who didn’t have to worry about the bubble were our international stars in Maria Ho and Angel Guillen who were recent casualties just a few places short of the cash. Our Mexican PokerStars Team Pro was all in with pocket jacks against the pocket aces of Tony Kondevski. Guillen was hoping for a repeat of his WSOP Main Event bubble hand from a few years back where his opponent spiked a jack to crack his own aces, but once again it wasn’t meant to be, as the board bricked out.

And just as this piece hits the airwaves, it appears that the bubble has now officially burst. The unfortunate sole was Luis Arrilucea who actually finished runner-up in this event last year. I guess that’s little consolation.

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When thinking of a story to write for my next piece here at the ANZPT Sydney Main Event, I turned to colleague Josh Bell who has been bringing you all of the live updates at this event. Without missing a beat, Josh said, “What about Oliver Speidel? He’s a beast and goes deep in every tournament ever…”

Hmmm, I guess he had a point there…

The 2012 Aussie Millions champion is the hottest player on the tour over the last twelve months with success throughout Asia. After winning an Aussie Millions side event last year, Speidel went on to final table a Macau Poker Cup side event before winning another title in an event in Manila in the Philippines. He came to Melbourne full of confidence where he landed two Aussie Millions final table results before claiming victory in the big one.

We’d recently come back from Seoul where Speidel had put in another deep run at the APPT and looked particularly threatening before falling during Day 2 play. It’s a similar story here today, so we decided to venture out into the Oasis Lounge to check on his progress.

Speidel entered today well-placed with an above-average stack of 70k but really got his day going when overnight chip leader Toby Ryall sat down to his direct right. Since then, the chips have slowly found their way to the stack of Speidel. Just as Josh had described earlier, Speidel was in beast mode.

We watched for a while and witnessed Speidel pretty much in control of his table. He twice raised it up preflop and found a single call, before taking down the pot without further resistance with a continuation bet on the flop. Next hand, his opponents gave him a walk in the big blind. It’s the ideal formula for a tournament player, especially in the middle stages of the tournament where the antes are significant.

The antes are now up to a healthy 300 which means that every pot earns the winner more than a stack of black chips. Looking at Speidel’s stack, it contained ten full stacks of blacks, as further evidence of his dominance.

The only recent hiccup came for Speidel when he called the all-in shove of Kristina Griffiths. Speidel held pocket fives as Griffiths had her tournament life on the line with pocket nines. The flop was bare but Speidel caught a five on the turn to take the lead, only to see a nine fall on the river in a classic suck, re-suck!

Speidel sits with 240,000 to be in the top five stacks in the tournament with 80 players to go. Liam O’Rourke is the current chip leader after snatching a big pot recently while Michael O’Grady, Gordon Huntly and Tam Truong are others in good shape as we head towards the dinner break.

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