Sumerki-2012 looked strong throughout the final table. From the time the final five paused to discuss a deal, sumerki-2012 was either the chip leader or the strongest fighter to regain that lead. Flakon2010 was the biggest obstacle, but when sumerki-2012 took a huge chip lead in the heads-up match, it looked like it was over. That was until sumerki-2012 mentioned a job and sat out the remainder of the tournament. Flakon2010 may have been able to mount a comeback but never got the chance, winning the tournament because he was literally the only player left participating in the game. Nevertheless, a win is a win and should be treated as such.

*****

Why would thousands of players line up to play a game like Limit Triple Draw 2-7 Lowball? To win a SCOOP title! (It’s not a riddle, just a question and answer. Relax.) Put a price tag of $11 on a tournament with a $25K guarantee, and players will sign up for just about anything. But with Triple Draw gaining popularity among the greater players, everyone wants to become an expert, and there’s no better way to gain experience than to register for an $11 SCOOP tournament.

Event 25 offered a low buy-in version of the event with that $11 buy-in, and nearly 3K players wanted in on the action. And again, the guarantee was shot down by the actual prize pool:

Players: 2,911
Guarantee: $25,000.00
Prize pool: $29,110.00
Paid players: 390

After the money bubble burst, courtesy of Team Wispy in 391st place, DBS2THELIMIT was the first player to cash for $16.88. Among the hundreds who also cashed were several Team PokerStars Pros, like Chad Brown, who cashed in 320th place, and Team Online’s Anders “Donald” Berg in 275th place and George “Jorj95″ Lind in 182nd.

Approximately 15 minutes before the 11-hour mark of the tournament, the elimination of Gase10 in eighth place started hand-for-hand play, and about 10 minutes later, jickgh_ty was at it again. After a previous double-up, jickgh_ty was anxious to move and ended up all-in after the second draw against sumerki-2012. They both stood pat on the third draw, and the [6d][7d][4d][3s][8d] wasn’t good enough to beat the [6c][4h][2c][7c][5s] of sumerki-2012. Jickgh_ty exited in seventh place with $349.32.

Sumerki-2012 strong as final table begins

The final table began just after the 11-hour break in Level 40, with blinds of 60,000/120,000 and starting player stacks as follows:

Seat 1: Dac*ROkaL (1,545,922 in chips)
Seat 2: sumerki-2012 (3,529,642 in chips)
Seat 3: vyatka6666 (2,914,552 in chips)
Seat 4: Flakon2010 (2,543,670 in chips)
Seat 5: toffee74 (1,545,050 in chips)
Seat 6: Dranik26 (2,476,164 in chips)

Play went on for quite some time, with a break for the final six players to discuss the possibility of a deal. When it became clear it wasn’t going to happen, they resumed play.

Dac*ROkaL doubled up through Dranik26, and the latter was never able to fully recover. A while later, Dranik26 pushed all-in and found callers in sumerki-2012 and Flakon2010. Flakon2010 and Dranik26 each drew one card and sumerki-2012 took two. The second draw saw sumerki stand pat but the other two each took one card again. Flaon2010 stood pat on the third draw, as did sumerki-2012, and Dranik26 took one more card. Sumerki showed [6c][7c][3s][4s][2h] to collect the side and main pot after Flakon2010 showed [4h][5h][8h][2s][7s]. Dranik26 simply mucked and left in sixth place with $520.19.

Five-way deal

The final five again paused the tournament to discuss a deal, and after a bit of adjustment to the chip-chop numbers, they agreed. With $500 set aside to be added to the winner’s payout, these amounts were set in stone:

Seat 1: Dac*ROkaL (2,681,844 in chips) = $2,338.65
Seat 2: sumerki-2012 (4,090,126 in chips) = 3,057.96
Seat 3: vyatka6666 (934,552 in chips) = $1,696.19
Seat 4: Flakon2010 (3,413,428 in chips) = $2,712.32
Seat 5: toffee74 (3,435,050 in chips) = $2,723.36

Flakon is a force

Flakon chipped up continuously and with aggression, soon to be the dominant force at the table. And when Dac*ROkaL pushed all-in, Flakon2010 was there with the call, though toffee74 came along as well. Flakon2010 and Dac*ROkaL each took two cards to start the action, and toffee74 took one. Flakon2010 and Dac*ROkaL each took one card on the second draw, and toffee74 stood pat, and the same actiosn were reflected in the third draw action. Flakon2010 then showed [3d][2d][6s][8d][5d] for the low, and both other players mucked their hands. Dac*ROkaL exited in fifth place with $2,338.65.

Toffee74 was the next player at risk, all-in after the first draw against sumerki-2012. Sumerki stood pat at the next two opportunities, while toffee74 took one card each time. Toffee74 showed [9s][Kd][8h][2d][7h], but sumerki-2012 had [3s][4c][9h][6c][5h] for the lowest of the low. Toffee74 left in fourth place with $2,723.36.

Vyatka6666 struggles

After vyatka6666 lost a big pot to sumerki-2012, the former doubled through Flakon2010 to stay in action, even doubling through the same player again to gain more ground. But as sumerki-2012 collected chips, vyatka6666 lost them. Finally, vuatka6666 tangled with sumerki-2012 again and pushed all-in on the first draw. Sumerki-2012 called, and each player drew one card, while vyatka6666 stood pat on the third draw and sumerki-2012 drew one. Vyatka6666 hoped for a double-up with [9c][4s][5d][2c][8s], but sumerki-2012 produced [7s][8d][2s][6d][5s]. Vyatka6666 exited in third place with $1,696.19.

Good match goes bad

The final two players began their battle with these counts:

Seat 2: sumerki-2012 (7,481,540 in chips)
Seat 4: Flakon2010 (7,073,460 in chips)

Sumerki-2012 took some momentum into the match and didn’t look back. With mostly average-sized pots, sumerki-2012 took chips after chips and climbed above 12 million chips. Flakon2010 doubled through sumerki-2012 at one point but left sumerki-2012 with over 10 million chips.

Suddenly, though, sumerki-2012 typed in the chat box: “I go on job” followed by “congrts.” Sumerki-2012 then sat out and never returned. Flakon2010 could only say “wow” and continue taking the blinds.

We’re not making this up.

So, when sumerki-2012′s last 8,080 chips went all-in with the small blind, Flakon2010 posted the big blind. Sumerki-2012 folded and took second place with $3,057.96.

Flakon2010 won the tournament, which came with a SCOOP title, Movado watch, and $3,212.32. Congrats!

2012 SCOOP Event #25-L ($11 Triple Draw 2-7) Results (reflects deal):

Total players: 2,911
Paid players: 390

1st place: Flakon2010 (Latvia) $3,212.32*
2nd place: sumerki-2012 (Russia) $3,057.96*
3rd place: vyatka6666 (Russia) $1,696.19*
4th place: toffee74 (United Kingdom) $2,723.36*
5th place: Dac*ROkaL (Romania) $2,338.65*
6th place: Dranik26 (Netherlands) $520.19

*Based on a five-way chop with $500 added to winner’s money

Looking for more SCOOP reporting? Visit our special SCOOP 2012 coverage section.

Tags: 2011 | action | chat | european | game | latin-america | SCOOP | tcoop | team pokerstars pro | TOC | wcoop

It’s the game that was played by Civil War soldiers, Wild Bill Hickok, and painted dogs on a 1903 calendar. The original poker game — five-card draw — here finding a place in the 21st-century virtual card rooms at PokerStars as part of the wildly popular SCOOP series. And despite the attractions of no-limit hold’em and other more popular, modern variants, draw can still draw, as evidenced by the turnouts for Event #6.

The “low” version of the no-limit five-card draw event cost $11 to play, and 4,883 players took up the invitation, thereby creating a $48,830 prize pool — nearly twice the $25K guarantee. The top 660 finishers would come away from their five-card draw experience with a profit, with $7,449.46 due the winner.

Once the money bubble burst there were still three representatives of Team PokerStars in the hunt, although one — Marcin “Goral” Horecki — would soon be gone in 652nd for a $17.09 min-cash. Henrique “Henrique.P” Pinho made it much deeper before finally falling in 127th ($43.94).

That left just one player with the red spade to battle onward, the WCOOP/SCOOP superhero Anders “Donald” Berg of Team Online. Berg battled with an average stack as the field shrunk below 100, then began to move upwards, establishing himself on the first page of the counts as the tourney wore on.

With 50 left, “Donald” was in the top 20, and once the field was whittled to 35 Berg had already been in the top 10 for a while. By then it was Born2Ca$h leading all as the only player with more than 2 million chips, with serzhinho the nearest challenger with a little under 1.6 million.

As they crossed the 11-hour mark of the tourney just a dozen remained, with Berg still there with an average stack and SLAH 97 having pushed ahead of Born2Ca$h to sit in the top spot with more than 6 million.

Over the next half-hour five more fell — valetudo22 (12th, $402.84), comeback17 (11th, $402.84), Zach Loh (10th, $402,84), pesho_lulin7 (9th, $512.17), and bustos14 (8th, $512.17), with SLAH 97 staying in front while Berg slipped to short-stacked status.

Finally with blinds at 50,000/100,000, “Donald” shoved his last 215,434 and got one caller in Mazinho1977. Both players took two cards, and in the end Mazinho1977′s pair of sevens bested Berg’s pair of fours, sending the latter out in 7th ($512.17).

The final table was set.

Seat 1: carabinatos — 80,524
Seat 2: PUCIPUCO — 3,040,763
Seat 3: Mazinho1977 — 2,707,177
Seat 4: SLAH 97 — 7,535,520
Seat 5: Born2Ca$h — 4,584,692
Seat 6: serzhinho — 6,466,324

On the very first hand of the final table, carabinatos called all in for his total stack of just over 80,000 from UTG, and Mazinho1977 reraised to 400,000 a couple of seats over to force folds all around.

carabinatos took three cards while Mazinho1977 took two, and they tabled their cards. Both had made a pair of aces, but Mazinho1977′s [Ah][Ac][Kc][Td][6d] meant he had a better second kicker than carabinatos with [Ad][As][Kh][9s][7s], sending the latter out in sixth.

A little while later the blinds were 70k/140k when PUCIPUCO open-shoved for 840,319 from UTG, getting a single caller in serzhinho in the big blind. Both players took three, then serzinho turned over [Qs][Qh][Qd][9c][7d] for trip queens, better than PUCIPUCO’s [As][Ac][4s][4h][6c] to eliminate him in fifth.

After a while the remaining four found themselves all hovering above or below the 6 million-chip mark, inspiring Mazinho1977 to remark on the fact and to suggest they perhaps consider looking at the numbers for a chop. Not everyone was on board, though, and play continued.

A half-hour later Born2Ca$h had tipped things back in his favor, pushing up over 11 million while SLAH 97 and Mazinho1977 slipped back to below average stacks. Then with the blinds at 100,000/200,000, serzhinho raised to 400,000 from UTG, then SLAH 97 shoved from the small blind for 2,907,945. It folded back to serzhinho who called, and SLAH 97 discarded two cards while serzhinho threw away one.

At showdown SLAH 97 turned over [Kd][Ks][Ad][4h][3h] for kings, but serzhinho had [Kh][Kc][5c][5s][Qs] for two pair and SLAH 97 was gone in fourth.

A while after that a hand arose in which Born2Ca$h called a big post-draw bet by Mazinho1977 holding two pair while the latter had but king-high. That left Mazinho1977 with only 575,177 — just over two big blinds. On the next hand, Born2Ca$h min-raised from the button, serzhinho called from the small blind, Mazinho1977 pushed all in for a little more and both of his opponents called.

serzhinho and Born2Ca$h each took three cards while Mazinho1977 took two, and when serzhinho showed [6c][6c][4d][4h][2d] the others mucked and Mazinho1977 was out in third.

Heads-up play began with Born2Ca$h leading with 15,394,950 to serzhinho’s 9,020,050. After just a few hands serzhinho pulled even, but Born2Ca$h pushed back out in front, chipping up over 19.7 million to serzhinho’s 4.7 million. Then, just over 13 hours after the tourney began, the final hand was dealt.

Born2Ca$h started it with a 2x raise to 500,000 and serzhinho called, taking two cards to Born2Ca$h’s three. Born2Ca$h led for 750,000, serzhinho made it 2,193,750, Born2Ca$h pushed all in, and serzhinho called.

serzhinho turned over [As][Ac][2h][2c][9h] for aces up, but Born2Ca$h had [6d][6h][6c][5d][2c] for trips to take the pot, the title, and the SCOOP watch.

With such a name, it just had to be, didn’t it? Congratulations to Born2Ca$h, a SCOOP champion in five-card draw — the version of the game played when poker was born.

2012 SCOOP Event 6-Low, $11 Five-Card Draw results:
1st: Born2Ca$h ($7,449.46)
2nd: serzhinho ($5,371.30)
3rd: Mazinho1977 ($3,906.40)
4th: serzhinho ($2,473.23)
5th: PUCIPUCO ($1,464.90)
6th: carabinatos ($781.28)

As more events complete, the SCOOP leaderboard is starting to take shape. Take a look to see who is on top here in the early going.

Tags: Asia Pacific Poker Tour | attractions | Baltic Poker Festival | Battle of the Planets | flash | game | micromillions | news | russian poker series | Top 10 | world-series

Amarillo Slim passed away this past Sunday (April 29th, 2012) at the age of 83.

Those relatively new to poker might recognize his name only vaguely, which is a pity. He won the 1972 World Series of Poker, defeating seven – yes, seven opponents. Actually six because Doyle Brunson bowed out when they were three-handed.¹

Slim took that win and parlayed it into national (and international) prominence. Unlike most other poker players (of his heyday or any time), he was a born extrovert and people loved to hear him talk. He was an old Texas road gambler and hustler; he was just doing what he always did – trying to make a buck. But while he was doing that, he yanked poker into the public spotlight. He appeared on the Tonight Show 11 times, and every major TV morning show of the time.

He was the face of poker for a couple of decades; an entire generation of Americans, when they think of a professional poker player, has a vision of Amarillo Slim, even if they couldn’t tell you his name. But with his height, slender frame (“I look like the advance man for a famine”), cowboy hat, and boots, he became an icon of the game.

He could have – perhaps should have – gone on to be one of the grand old men of the game, the gambler emeritus invited to every major poker tournament, creating a wake of gawking and tweeting admirers in his path. But in 2003 he was arrested for indecency with a 12-year-old girl (his granddaughter). He pled guilty to misdemeanour charges, paid a fine, and that was that. The case was over, but so was his career. A movie about his life, with Nicholas Cage playing him, evaporated. Later, Slim said he pled guilty only to save his family the agony of a trial; he produced signed affidavits saying that the original charges were not true.

As Greg Dinkin, the co-author of Slim’s memoir, says in a wonderful blog piece:

Because he had been telling his own version of the “truth” for so many years, no one knew what to believe. Including me. As well as I knew the man, your guess as to what really happened is as good as mine.

But that’s not why I’m here. I want to thank Amarillo Slim for the stories, for two reasons. First, because those stories allowed him to spin a world that America found intriguing, and helped poker on its first tentative steps toward respectability. Second, because he told a great story and we need to be told stories. We are a race of story tellers and story listeners; Slim captivated us with his stories.

He ran black market cigarettes in Germany after World War II, looked down gun barrels in poker games, and almost died winning a prop bet involving rafting the Salmon River. He was from an older, wilder time and his adventures, forgive me, trump the coolest new sushi bar our SuperNova Elites are visiting.

Are all of his stories 100% true? Unlikely. But many of them are probably 100% true and there’s a kernel of truth in most of the rest. But every one, bar none, is a wonderful tale. You forget where you are and are absorbed into Slim’s story, his world. As my colleague, Nick Williamson, pointed out, “You’re entertained – that’s what matters – not the absolute truth of the story.”

The other thing about Amarillo Slim was that he knew one of his jobs was to promote poker (a lesson that wouldn’t go amiss with many of today’s superstars). I met him only once, in the late 90′s at a tournament at the Orleans. People wanted to talk to him, get autographs, have their picture taken with him. He worked the crowd, shook hands, and cracked jokes. He never forgot that he was, first and foremost, a salesman.

Go read Slim’s memoir, Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People. The stories, almost without exception, are fantastic; the book flies by.

Whatever, whoever Amarillo Slim was, we owe him a debt of gratitude for growing poker and for leaving us with a wealth of tales interweaved into our game.

______________

¹ The circumstances around that departure are unclear; poker was a lot less transparent then.

Tags: archives | Asia Pacific Poker Tour | colleague | delicious | doyle-brunson | estrellas poker tour | game | Super Tuesday | twitter | wbcoop | wcoop

It takes a certain kind of personality to be a talker at the poker table. Most people, when placed in stressful situations where a single decision could be the different in hundreds of thousands of dollars, clam up tight as a snare drum. You put the withering gaze of Phil Ivey on me and I’d probably close my eyes, never mind my mouth.

But there are others, like Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu, who retain their natural talkativeness at the poker table and use it as a weapon to extract information. Three disciples of the Negreanu School of Poker Chatter are seated together on Table 2.

Vietnamese player Hoang Anh Do’s English is rudimentary, though he doesn’t let that stand in the way of a constant stream of speech. American Carter Gill’s English is often unintelligible, as if his brain is thinking at light speed and it’s all his tongue can do to keep up. Australian Jacky Wang’s English is often hidden behind a smile and a laugh. Combined, the three are more than making up for the silence of the other 11 players left in the tournament.

Jacky, Do and Carter played a recent pot that Jacky opened from under the gun for 15,000. Do called from the small blind, then let out a noise of exasperation as Carter announced a re-raise. After thirty seconds he settled on 41,000 as the appropriate amount. Jacky thought a long time before folding. Do did likewise.

“No no. It’s ok, you can play,” pleaded Carter. “You know I only play one hand.” He showed the black aces.

“Whew!” said Jacky, wiping his hand over his face for dramatic effect. “I was so close to jamming on you so hard…”

“You go all in, I call!” Do told Carter.

“I wish I’d known,” replied Carter. “You have to tell me that next time!”

“What if I’d gone all in?” Jacky asked Do.

“No. You always kill me.”

“I always kill you? No way. You always kill me!”

A short while later they were at it again, with Do opening for the minimum 16,000, Carter three-bet shoving for 100,000 and Jacky re-shoving for 200,000.

“Bye bye bye!” Do said to Carter, laughin maniacally as he pitched his cards into the muck. But it wasn’t as bad as all that – Carter was flipping with [ac][tc] against [8d][8d]. Jacky flopped a set, [8h][4h][9d].

“Well I’ve still got a 7 draw, right?” said Carter, always optimistic. He did pick up an open-ended straight draw with the [jh] turn but bricked out the river. He turned to Jacky, shook Jacky’s hand, and said, “See ya later buddy.”

That’s one talker down, but the other are two are still in, competing hard against each other, jockeying for chips and for position in a tournament where the top prize isn’t chump change ($141,000). They’re having fun, with the game and with each other, while doing it. And who can argue with their success? They’re both still sitting at the table with 12 players left in the tournament. 232 less talkative players have already hit the rail.

Tags: Battle of the Planets | ept | eureka poker tour | European Poker Tour | game | lapt | phil ivey | pokerstars | portugal poker series | TOC | world-series

Christophe De Meulder is on my nemesis list. He may smile that twin grin beneath a swoop of well-coiffed hair but I know what’s going on. He’s evil. He must be. No-one with a clear conscious slowrolls aces in a media tournament freeroll surely? Especially not a Team PokerStars Pro who knows that you’re writing an article about the event to appear on their sponsor’s blog. What kind of sadist does that?

De Muelder joins EPT photographer Neil Stoddart on a scribbled piece of paper headed with the title ‘TheY mUSt PAy’. The snapper is another soulless beast: he slowrolled me with aces to bust me out of the last media tournament on tour. Native American Indians used to believe that a camera could steal a person’s soul. They were right, Stoddart has been harvesting them for years. If you’ve played an EPT then chances are a little piece of your humanity is locked up in the photographer’s hard drive. If you’ve played a ladies event then it definitely has, he circles those tables like a vulture.

Yesterday a €2,000 media freeroll was laid on by the Monte-Carlo®Casino mixing local and tour press with members of Team PokerStars Pro and, as it would happen, some random promotional girls who were just hanging around texting and showing their legs off.

My plan was to sit down, interview a Team Pro at the table, bust and write up the account. My table draw did not permit this. Across the four tables there were Vanessa Selbst, Arnaud Mattern, Richard Toth, Joe Cada, Ville Wahlbeck and, of course, De Meulder. None of them were at my table. I may be one of the only players to ever be gutted that they’ve got a soft draw; the ‘star draw’ at my table was PokerStars Blog video presenter Laura Cornelius. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t last long. Thankfully neither did our table, it was a turbo freeroll after all.

I was bumped onto Mattern and De Meulder’s table. This was more like it. Mattern I know well, he’s always willing to help out with the media, a forward thinking sponsored player. I told him as much and asked why he was always happy to get involved. Was it for the PR? Was he bored or was he thinking about his career?

“I have a lot of free time on my hands to be honest. I lead a very boring laugh,” said Mattern with a straight face before laughing. The Frenchman likes to laugh.

“It’s not that I never hang out with players, I do sometimes with normal players like Vanessa Selbst, but a lot of players are making bets all the time or only talking about poker. I like this sometimes but I really like normal people and in this world that means hanging out with the media, the dealers, the interviewers and the TV crew. They’re normal fun people to hang out with. Most of them have good and funny personalities. It doesn’t mean that I don’t like the players, it’s just that when you’re away so much it’s nice to have a break from the game,” said Mattern.

If he was playing the media long game then he was doing some with aplomb, which is obviously somewhat different from doing so with a plum (which would cost you approximately €12 here in Monaco).

“I think I had the best table draw but not only was it the funniest but I was beside the two cutest chicks and I had Mad (Harper) on my right, which is good value. She’s good to have around,” said Mattern.

I think he meant it in terms of good table chit-chat but given that Harper, the EPT media co-ordinator, tried to fold her option on the big blind and couldn’t get her head around the denomination of chips he could just as easily have meant about her play.

Mattern, having already said that he was ‘not made for gambling, I’m made for love,’ proved his point by getting sent to the rail but, quite possibly still (unsuccessfully) trying to hit on the ladies at the table, the Team Pro took to the dealer’s seat. A couple of misdeals later the Frenchman dealt my short stack pocket sevens and my chips went into the middle.

“Oh, it’s a good one,” said De Meulder, picking up his cards from the big blind, the last player left in the hand.

The Belgian peeled out the second card.

“Hmmm, this one’s pretty good too,” he said with friendly grin.

De Meulder slowly put the cards down on their back, smiling way too much for my liking. Aces. And Mattern was dealing… Okay, false accusations of collusion aside, De Meulder did seem to be a nice guy. But it was true about Stoddart; he is harvesting souls. You have been warned.

Tournament snapshot
Level 11: blinds 600-1,200, ante 100
Players: 252 of 665
Click here for live coverage and more features from The PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final.

Tags: Baltic Poker Festival | cards | game | joe cada | monte-carlo | napt | news | planets | pokerstars macau | portugal | season 4 | wbcoop

The poker culture in the Philippines has been lively and thriving since the first time the APPT set foot in the country, during the Season 1 event in Manila in 2007. Filipinos, like many people in other parts of the world, have taken to the game with passion and fervor, helped in no small part by a governmental regulatory apparatus (PAGCOR) that supports the game and legitimate poker rooms run by organizations like the Metro Card Club that makes live poker as accessible as the online variety.

The game’s growth here in the Philippines has been made possible by a number of people, not the least of whom is Wally Sombero. Some refer to him as the Godfather of Filipino Poker. Others call him, simply, “a good man”. No matter who he is to the speaker, all speakers agree that he has helped popularize poker in the Philippines.

Even a good man can have his dark days, and for Wally those days came a few years ago when he was the victim of an assassination attempt. In a former life, Wally was a well-regarded police lieutenant in Manila. I can’t sugar-coat that there isn’t crime and corruption in the Philippines. It exists and it’s a problem. In the course of working to solve that problem, working to prevent crime and to root out corruption, Wally made some of those proverbial “powerful enemies”. One of them tried to take him out.

The hit took place while Wally was in his car. He was shot six times and yet miraculously didn’t take any lasting damage. He was hobbled for a while, and had to undergo an extensive amount of physical therapy to recover from his injuries, but he sits in the tournament room today fully healed from what could have been a life-ending tragedy.

We’ll be the first to tell you that Wally’s live tournament results are limited. He has only cashed on the APPT twice – in the Macau Main Event in Season 3, and in a side event at Cebu the same year. More recently he made the final table of a $2,500 no-limit hold’em event in Manila. He’s much more of a cash-game player, the type of player that often goes unnoticed and unheralded by the poker world.

But sometimes, in poker and in life, it’s not about big, splashy results. It’s about a person’s presence, his impact on the world around hiim. It’s about the measure of a man and the mark that he makes. The measure of Wally Sombero, at the poker table and away from it, can’t be disputed by anyone. Hopefully he continues to attract Filipinos to the game for many years to come.

Tags: 2011 | European Poker Tour | game | pca | planets | portugal poker series | russian poker series | UKIPT | videos | wbcoop | world cup of poker | world-series

This was always going to happen, wasn’t it? From the very first hand of the very first SuperStar Showdown in December 2010, it was always going to end up right here at this moment when Viktor “Isildur1″ Blom and Isaac Haxton agreed to face off for $1 million.

Today we learned Blom and Haxton have negotiated the terms of a play-to-the-death duel beginning in just two days. The rules are not the ones you see in the average, everyday SuperStar Showdown.This is where, to borrow and corrupt a phrase, stuff gets real.

Blom and Haxton are both putting up $500,000. Beginning Saturday at 1pm ET, they will sit down for a SuperStar Showdown-format match. The blinds will be $200/$400. The game will be no-limit hold’em. The hand-cap?

There isn’t one.

In normal SuperStar Showdowns, the match ends after 2,500 hands or whenever somebody has won $150,000. In this special match, the game will go on for four hours a day until one guy has a million bucks and the other guy has nothing.

You read it correctly. If four hours passes on Saturday without one guy felting the other one for the full half-million bucks, Blom and Haxton will start again on Sunday. And then Monday. And so on until one guy’s stack sits at zero.

Let’s take just a moment to examine the scope of this agreement. In the first SuperStar Showdown (December 2010), Blom and Haxton played the full 2,500 hands and Haxton finished with a profit of $41,701.

After that, Blom was forced to carry his grudge for more than a year. It was only a few weeks ago that the pair engaged in a rematch that ended with Haxton coming back from a gigantic hole to beat Blom for $5,093.

Both matches got a great deal of attention, both for the stakes and the men involved. Now, the stakes and stacks have grown. Blom is down to Haxton by less than $47,000. He now stands to win or lose more than ten times that amount.

We have scrambled our jets and have full coverage planned for every day of the event. We’ll have full wrap-ups of all the action every day when it finishes up.

So, start your betting now.

Who is going to win?

How many hands will it take?

How many days will it take?

Let us know in the comments section below, because we honestly have no idea. We only know this is going to be one of the craziest things we’ve watched on PokerStars in a very long time.

If you want to watch it live, tune in to PokerStars at 1pm ET Saturday and use the “search for a Team PokerStars Pro” function. Or, just follow the smell of a million bucks.

Tags: archives | Battle of the Planets | entertainment | france poker series | game | napt | portugal poker series | UKIPT

Great strides have been made to make poker if not a more welcoming place to women, then certainly more accessible. While tournament fields are hardly equality levelled it’s certainly no surprise for any table to have one or two female players seated at it. While the internet provides the playground for online poker, which of course knows no gender boundary, it also provides the anonymous forum for cowardly comments and unaccountable trolling.

While it’s not a major problem, thankfully increasingly less so it seems, it is an issue that some high profile women in the game have had to come to terms with. Few more so than Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree who’s been in the public eye of poker since successfully auditioning for a reality TV poker show. In the aftermath of that Boeree made a few tournament scores before hitting the big time with that €1,250,000 EPT San Remo title but was forced to deal with some snide comments, both online and off.

“I guess that it’s annoying but actually I just don’t care anymore to be honest. I used be very paranoid about it but after San Remo and some other results, including online where I’ve been killing it, I just don’t care anymore. It’s quite nice to have disassociation from that now,” she said with some obvious relief and a chuckle.

But how do you best distance yourself from some of the more unsavoury and juvenile comments? What approach would you recommend to those entering the game?

“Develop a thick skin and develop it quickly. It can be really hurtful, really, really, really hurtful. Unfortunately it’s always going to exist, there’s not much that you can do about that. I’d say either avoid reading it, that’s the number one thing, but if you can’t, such as someone tells you about it, then just be prepared to have a thick skin and believe in yourself. That’s the best thing that I can recommend,” said Boeree, whose $2,138,989 in live winnings prove to be the best response, putting her eighth in the women’s all-time money list.

While the ‘haters-gonna-hate’ motto is a good one to brush off unfounded criticism, Boeree easily has enough ammunition to fight back against any detractors. Her online results – remember the ‘killing it’ comment? – are painfully good according to tracking sites: $380,935 won for a net profit of $162,681 for a *rub your eyes, now rub them again* overall ROI of 75%.

Any argument levelled by, let’s face it, jealous online critics that she just happened to run good in one tournament simply doesn’t wash. Her online record is just too impressive with firsts in a WCOOP $100 Second Chance ($40,448) and the Sunday Warm-Up ($147,781) backed up by other victories in notoriously tough online comps such as the $109 and $109 rebuy.

However when it comes to live performances no-one is as tough on Boeree as she is on herself. When asked how much pressure she feels to score another title or final table I barely get a chance to finish the question:

“All of it. Yup, all of it,” she said quickly.

And where does that pressure come from? Inward from yourself or outward from other people?

“Both, I think. Definitely inward, definitely outward,” said Boeree.

Poker as we know can be a fickle game, the turn of a card rocketing one player to a major final table and another player to the rail. The successful grinders know that it’s about consistently getting yourself into the position where you stand a chance of making the money that matters. This is something that Boeree has done multiple times; 37th in the $25,000 WPT Championship ($40,855), 36th in last summer’s €10,000 WSOPE main event (€27,500) and 12th in the £3,500 English Poker Open (£9,500).

Any of those could have gone differently, but we don’t operate on a coulda, woulda, shoulda system in poker. That’s just variance, I’m afraid. Will Boeree score another live final table soon? While you can’t guarantee it, she’s certainly got the credentials and competiveness to do so. She’s currently on 45,000 here and set to cruise through to Day 2. She’s got a good record against Italian opposition, you know…

Is it just sponsored female players in the spotlight that have to deal with a (thankfully very limited) number of abusive online critics? It seems not.

Melanie Wesiner, the fast talking and often acerbic American, has had to deal with bouts of chauvinism but – and this is unlikely to surprise you if you’ve met her – she seems to enjoy meeting any abuse head on.

“I guess it depends on what kind of mood I’m in. If I’m in a playful mood I’ll just troll them right back but I rarely turn the chat off because I’d hate to miss someone saying something that is indicative of anything. I got into the habit of either trying to play it off or not responding and not dignifying it, if you know what I mean. I play a lot of heads up sit-and-gos and there’s a lot more chat in those than in MTTs,” said the American.

Weisner, one of the up and coming women in the game with $419,071 in live cashes and six EPT main event cashes, plays under the name of Callisto 5 and oddly enough shares a near identical online tournament profit as Boeree with $162,207. The success no doubt helping the 25-year-old to be typically whimsical about online trolling.

“People like to try and tilt you. In heads up sit-and-gos I get a lot of whining and general insults, people just trying to piss me off but I’ve got a really good handle on that. The plan is usually to just try to give them some kind of bad beat and then make their lives hell. I try not to get too dirty into it but if something’s really funny then I appreciate it. It’s part of the culture, you know what I mean? Honestly, I think it’s a real mistake for anyone to take themselves too seriously in internet poker,” said Weisner.

Well put, Ms Weisner. Let the cards do the talking.

Tournament snapshot
Level 7: blinds 250-500, ante 50
Day 1B players: 295 of 392
Click here for live coverage and more features.

Tags: Battle of the Planets | chat | game | micromillions | team pokerstars pro | twitter | World Series of Poker | WSOPE

Poker players are used to running on little sleep and grabbing a bit of rest wherever and whenever they can. The online grinders are usually up before the birds to grind on PokerStars, with many known to have fallen asleep at the table during the breaks. Then there’s the cash game grinders who enjoy nothing more than pulling an all-nighter at the cash game tables if the game is juicy enough. Of course with so much travel available for poker players nowadays, they’ll happily steal a few winks on the plane to their next destination.

A few poker reporters have also been known to be able to back up after a late night on the town to stagger through the next day patrolling the tables. Perhaps our age is starting to catch up with us, but following a late finish last night, we’ve got the coffee extra strong this morning as we attempt to kick-start the motor for another big day in The Star Poker Room as the second flight of the ANZPT Sydney Main Event takes off.

There’s a massive field here this afternoon, with Danny McDonagh confirming that we’ll beat last year’s number of 393 entrants, and possibly even push the all-time ANZPT record of 493 players from back in 2009.

While it’s going to be hard to match yesterday’s throng of past ANZ poker champions, we have already spotted a lot of heavy hitters in this Day 1b flight. Some of the notables we’ve spotted include Gary Benson, Julius Colman, Minh Nguyen, Mel Judah, Graeme Putt, Leo Boxell, Lee Nelson, Patrick Healy, John Maklouf, Vesko Zmukic, Martin Drewe, Ali Khalil, Mike Ivin, Dennis Huntly, Josh Barrett, Haibo Chu and 2011 Aussie Millions champion David Gorr.

We also have a few international stars among us today with poker starlet Maria Ho making a surprising appearance here in Sydney, while our lone representative of Team PokerStars is Mexican Angel Guillen.

It’s been a busy time for Guillen after travelling from the APPT in Seoul to the EPT Madrid before heading back down under for this event at the ANZPT in Sydney. That’s one way to clock up the frequent flyer miles!

The cards are in the air on Day 1b, and already in the early stages of play we have a clear chip leader as Josh Barrett recalled to us a virtual double up on his very first hand. He sat down in the big blind and found pocket kings – must be nice! However when he committed his chips on a J-T-9 flop he was in trouble when his opponent tabled K-Q for the nut straight! Barrett has been suffering from whooping cough for the past four weeks, but perhaps his luck is turning around after catching running hearts to make a backdoor flush and double his starting stack!

With another eight levels to be played today, there will be plenty of interesting stories developing throughout the day at the 2012 ANZPT Sydney Main Event and we’ll bring them to you right here on the PokerStars Blog.

Tags: birds | european | france poker series | game | planets | pokerstars | russian poker series | tcoop | twitter | world cup of poker

Every once in a while, the stars align, the poker gods smile, and some lucky poker player goes on a run the likes of which fuels dreams for years. I’m not saying that Enot.cool’s run at the final table of 2012 MicroMillions Event 39, $8.80 No-Limit Hold’em will necessarily hold up as one of those runs, but it should definitely rank highly for it’s combination of skill and luck.

Funny that it should happen in an $8.80 MicroMillions event. In some East Asian cultures, 8 is a lucky number. Nearly 10,000 PokerStars players must have been feeling as lucky as Enot.cool on Monday, as 9,901 registered for Event 39. Their combined buy-ins created a prizepool of $79,208 that obliterated the event’s guarantee of $40,000, as has been the hallmark of the 2012 MicroMillions through 40 events. The smallest payout of $14.25 began at 1260th place; the largest payouts, including a five-figure 1st-place prize of $11,658, were reserved for the final nine players.

Exactly three members of Team PokerStars entered Event 39. Maxim Lykov flamed out early; Shane Schleger came up just short of the bubble; and Marcin Horecki netted a modest payout of $19 with his 777th-place finish.

They were not nearly as lucky as Enot.cool and the eight other final table players.

Seat 1: gottsch1337 (8,270,146 in chips)
Seat 2: jociasiee (8,940,398 in chips)
Seat 3: Enot.cool (13,545,711 in chips)
Seat 4: ivan_ivanoff (1,946,322 in chips)
Seat 5: vprincipe (1,245,060 in chips)
Seat 6: kolokol0906 (869,136 in chips)
Seat 7: giomar26 (829,162 in chips)
Seat 8: noeschi (5,188,133 in chips)
Seat 9: orna_d (8,107,832 in chips)

Blinds: 125k / 250k, ante 31,250

The average stack as the final table began was 5.5 million, or 22 big blinds. There were huge disparities, however, as four players has fewer than 8 big blinds in their stacks. One of those players, giomar26, was forced to make a move from the small blind, all in with [ks][3s]. Big blind noeschi called with [6c][7s] and flopped a six. That was enough to drag the pot by the time the river fell, as giomar26 never improved and busted out in 9th place.

The other short stacks, however, continued to hang on and to accumulate chips as blinds rolled over to 150k / 300k, then 200k / 400k and then 250k/500k. Nobody busted. Each time a short stack was all in, that player seemed to have the best of it – and their hand held. But naturally someone had to bust out next; ivan_ivanoff was the unlucky victim when Enot.cool made a bully shove from the small blind:

Enot.cool had slowly been accumulating chips. The elimination of noeschi, when Enot.cool flopped a pair of jacks with [qd][jd] against noeschi’s all-in shove with [as][7c], only consolidated Enot.cool’s death grip on the final table. With six players left, Enot.cool had more than 25 million in chips. Nobody else had more than 7 million.

A three-way pre-flop all in among gottsch1337, jociasiee and Enot.cool didn’t result in any elimination, but did cripple jocisiee. gottsch1337 shoved the button with [ac][4c] for 3.7 million; jociasiee re-shoved for 3.9 million with pocket 9s; and Enot.cool called both bets with [js][3s]. An ace on the flop paired gottsch1337, giving gottsch137 the 11-million chip main pot. jociasiee took a side pot worth only 225,320 with unimproved 9s and then simply blinded out in a matter of hands.

That small setback didn’t deter Enot.cool. Down to five players, Enot.cool limp-called a small pre-flop raise from orna_d. The rest of the chips went into the middle on a flop of [ah][5d][jh]. orna_d showed down the nuts, a set of aces [ad][ac], but Enot.cool’s speculative play with [2h][4h] flopped a huge draw. It filled twice; first with the [qh] turn, then with the [3s] river. A baby flush was good enough to send orna_d to the rail in 5th place, set or no set.

Enot.cool could not be stopped. kolokol0906 was in prime position for a double-up with [ah][9h] in a pre-flop all-in battle against Enot.cool’s [as][2h]. The [ks][5d][kh] flop was safe; the [8d] turn was safe. Than a little itty-bitty deuce on the river, [2s], paired up Enot.cool’s kicker and sent kolokol0906 to the rail in 4th place.

It only got better from Enot.cool from there, as vprincipe jammed [kh][jd] into Enot.cool’s pocket aces pre-flop. Notch another elimination for Enot.cool, leaving gottsch1337 as the only player left standing between Enot.cool and the Event 39 title. It would be a tough climb for gottsch1337. Enot.cool started heads-up play with a 9-to-1 chip lead.

But gottsch1337 did not go gently into that good night. A small double-up, and then a more sizable double-up with jack-deuce offsuit against queen-six offsuit thanks to a river jack, gave gottsch1337 a stack to work with. gottsch1337 even took the chip lead, turning a six with ace-six versus Enot.cool’s ace-ten. It was a hand that prompted the only little bit of table talk at the final table.

Enot.cool: lucker

An interesting comment from someone who had ridden a wave of luck (and effective big-stack play) to get heads up. The tide turned from there, however. The two players were all in again the next hand, with Enot.cool’s king-jack holding against king-ten to re-take the lead. That same scenario played out to end it, with Enot.cool riding ace-seven to victory against gottsch1337′s ace-three. There was no doubt on the last hand; a seven on the flop and a seven on the river gave Enot.cool the emphatic victory.

2012 Micro Millions Event 39 $8.80 No-Limit Hold’em results:

1st: Enot.cool ($11,658.03)
2nd: goettsch1337 ($8,514.86)
3rd: vprincipe ($5,940.60)
4th: kolokol0906 ($3,960.40)
5th: orna_d ($3,168.32)
6th: jociasiee ($2,376.24)
7th: noeschi ($1,584.16)
8th: ivan_ivanoff ($871.28)
9th: giomar26 ($613.86)

You, too, can go on a run like that of Enot.cool. But only if you get in the game. There are still 60 more MicroMillions events to come. Get the lowdown at the MicroMillions home page.

Tags: estrellas poker tour | game | harrah's | italian | lapt | pokerstars | pokerstars macau | russian poker series | SCOOP | UKIPT