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Tips for satellite success

Ladbrokes_Poker — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:46:12 +0000

The vast majority of prestigious tournaments in this day and age command buy-in in excess of $10,000. The World Poker Tour Championship requires players to part with $25,000 whilst the WSOP has offered a $50,000 buy-in event for the past few years.

These prices are beyond a significant percentage of poker players and even those who can afford them are rarely willing to put such a large amount of money on the line for a single tournament. So how come most of these events, the WSOP Main Event in particular, often attract thousands of players? The answer is satellite tournaments.

Satellites are tournaments that do not pay a cash amount, instead they award a certain number of seats instead. There are a number of different tyes of satellite, usually in based on the format and they include multitable tournaments, double and triple shootouts and basic sit ‘n’ go tournaments.

Game selection is important when you are entering a satellite tournament and I would urge you to stay clear of double and triple shootout events. This is because by their very nature they converge all the better players together at the final table so it is unlikely you have an edge over the field, whilst some weak players will go deep in a 1,000 event that awards 40 or 50 seats.

Although many satellites are played in a multitable tournament format you must remember that satellites are all about survival and not chip accumulation. If there are 50 seats available then it does not make any difference if you have a single chip or one million chips when the prizes are awarded so you should not be worried if your stack reaches 10-12 big blinds, you should sit tight and start moving all-in at a lower level such as five to seven big blinds.

Tight, almost nitty play will often be the best strategy to follow, especially in the early and middle stages of a satellite event. There is no need for fancy play because as mentioned previously you are simply looking to survive, not add chips to your stack.

Finally, satellites are one of the very few tournaments where folding Aces preflop is correct. Say you have a decent stack with the bubble approaching and a larger stack than you moves all-in. You estimate that even if you fold every hand you are dealt for the next 30 minutes you have a 90% chance of winning a seat then you have to fold aces as you will only be an 82% favourite to win at best.

Phil Laak goes Guiness…

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 21:01:48 +0000

Phil “The Unabomber” Laak will be attempting to set a new Guinness World Record for the most hours of poker played in a single sitting.
Unabomber Poker will be flying out three lucky winners to Las Vegas to stay at the Bellagio for a chance to play heads-up against a completely sleepless Laak.

There are three ways you can win the flight, three night’s accommodation and chance to step up against a disadvantaged Unabomber in a heads-up cash game.

CHANCE #1:
The first trip will go to the winner of the Unabomber Freeroll – “See Phil Laak make history in Vegas!” Registration for this tournament is NOW open so go sign up! Buy-in for this tournament is $50 but, as there will be no prize pool, all buy-ins will be refunded to player accounts making it a completely free chance at the prize! The tournament takes place at 6pm PST on Thursday, May 27th.

CHANCE #2:
The second will go to the person who sends in the best 100-250 words, by May 23, stating why they should get a chance to play against a sleep deprived Unabomber. Your player should send all submissions to blog@unabomberpoker.com.

CHANCE #3:
The third prize will be awarded to the winner of a random draw among all real money Unabomber Poker players. To be eligible, players must have an active real money account on UnabomberPoker.com by May 27th.
Laak will be starting the poker endurance challenge on June 2nd, and will be looking to break the current world record of 78 straight hours of playing poker which was set by Paul Zimbler in the fall of 2009.

TJ Cloutier selling WSOP bracelet on eBay

Ladbrokes_Poker — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:27:16 +0000

Ask any poker player what their dream is and a large percentage of them will tell you they would love to win a World Series of Poker bracelet. For many this is the ultimate goal of their poker career.

Some players are lucky and talented enough to win multiple WSOP bracelets. While the novelty of winning several of poker’s most sought after accessories may start to wear off, I am surprised to see one of poker’s true legends putting one of his bracelets up for sale on the auction website eBay.

Thomas James Cloutier, or TJ as he is more commonly known, is one of the most successful tournament players in history. He has bagged 53 major titles, won cash at the WSOP a total of 55 times and has six bracelets to his name. The last of these came in 2005 when he outlasted 466 entrants in a $5,000 No-limit Hold’em event for a cool $657,100.

It is this bracelet that is being sold by a company called Plano Pawn Shop from Texas, Cloutier’s home town. The advertisement promises the bracelet is “100 per cent authentic,” that it was “acquired from Mr Cloutier directly” and the sale price will be at least $2,999. The advertisement can be seen in full on eBay.

Why a player who is tenth in the all-time money listings with live tournament career winnings of $9,787,199 would need to sell one of his poker trophies is beyond me. However, the 2006 Poker Hall of Fame inductee has always had a well documented fondness for casino table games, especially craps, so maybe he is finding cash hard to come by at present. Only time will tell.

Regardless, the bracelets are one of the reasons many people decide to play Texas Holdem poker and it will no doubt find a loving home.

WSOP Final Nine

admin — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:59:45 +0000

So the WSOP is over, well nearly. The final table has been decided and they now take a four month break, before returning to play the Final table.

The World Series of Poker has been a great success, and everyone is now looking forward to finding out who is going to be crowned the WSOP main event winner. Current chip leader with 58,930,000 in chips, is unknown Darvin Moon. If Moon was to win the WSOP main event, he will go down as a great icon for the working class people. Moon won his seat to the main event through a satellite in a local casino.

However, fans favourite, Phil Ivey is still hanging in there. Ivey on 9,765,000 chips is short stacked. But if any player can turn a short stack into the big stack you would bet on Ivey. Phil Ivey would be the biggest name at the final table. But that does not mean anything. Phil Ivey would be the biggest name at any final table. With Ivey already cashing in 5 WSOP events, he was always looking to final table the main event.

So the final table looks like this:

Darvin Moon – 58,930,000

Eric Buchman – 34,800,000

Steven Begleiter – 29,885,000

Jeff Shulman – 19,580,000

Joe Cada – 13,215,000

Kevin Schaffel – 12,390,000

Phil Ivey – 9,765,000

Antoine Saout – 9,500,000

James Akenhead – 6,800,000

The WSOP will resume on the 7th of November. All players will be looking forward to sitting down at the biggest event in the poker world. Make sure you mark your calendar and return back to TPD for updates from the WSOP.

WSOP main event winner odds.

Darvin Moon – 2.7/1

Eric Buchman – 4/1

Phil Ivey – 5/1

Steven Begleiter – 5/1

Jeff Shulman – 5/1

Joe Cada – 11/1

Antoine Saout – 13/1

Kevin Schaffel – 13/1

James Akenhead – 23/1

I might actually stick a wee cheeky $1 on James Akenhead.

Phil Ivey Looking strong in the WSOP main event.

admin — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:45:33 +0000

With 64 players left in the main event of the WSOP, Phil Ivey is looking strong and currently sitting in 3rd position with 6,345,000 chips. The chip leader, Darvin Moon, is currently on 9,745,000 chips.

Phil Ivey has already had a notible WSOP, having cashed 5 times and winning 2 bracelets already. If Ivey was to go on to win the WSOP Main Event, which is very much possible, he will no doubt be the player of the WSOP.

Coming into the later stages of the main event, Ivey will be the bookies favourite, but there is still a few big named players who you couldn’t bet against.

Player Chip Count

Phil Ivey 6,345,000

Antonio Esfandiari 5,610,000

Leo Margets 3,650,000

Tom Schneider 2,895,000

Joe Sebok 1,000,000

Matt Affleck leading WSOP after day 4

admin — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:44:57 +0000

Day 4 at the WSOP has finished and a fairly unknown live player, Matt Affleck is currently leading with just above 400 players left. Out of the 400 left there are still plenty of big named poker players doing well.

Phil Ivey is on just over 1,290,000 chips and currently in 15th position, and right behind him in 16th is Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier, who is sitting on 1,270,000.

Day 5 of the WSOP is due to kick off at 12:00 on sunday the 12th of July.

Phil Ivey starts well in the WSOP main event

admin — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:44:20 +0000

After the conclusion of day 2b, Phil Ivey is currently sitting 10th with under 2000 players left. Ivey is currently on 346,200 chips. The chip leader, Amir Lehavot, is currently on 610,500 with plenty of play left.

Day 3 of the WSOP main event is due to kick off at 12:00 July 10th.

Here is a list of some of the big name players left and there chip stacks.

Player Chip Count

Troy Weber 453,200
Phil Ivey 325,000
JC Tran 254,600
James Akenhead 240,000
Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier 200,000
David Benyamine 199,000
Justin Bonomo 190,000
Dan Harrington 183,000
Antonio Esfandiari 164,000
Noah Boeken 158,000
Phil Hellmuth 135,000
Joe Hachem 130,000
Stephen Devlin 116,000
Peter Eastgate 98,000
Andre Akkari 98,000

Joh wins sell out World Series of Poker Event 51 $1,500 No Limit Hold’em Event

admin — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:43:12 +0000

The World Series of Poker 2009 tournament schedule is very much alive, seeing over 50 tournaments completed and only a few left to play out.

The tournament has offered a number of surprises and milestones for a number of players, ranging from professionals crashing out of tournaments without placing to one player who has become the first player to take 3 World Series of Poker winners bracelets in one tournament schedule since 1973.

A tournament that offers such a vast amount of quality and ability could only offer spectators some of the best live poker available to date.

World Series of Poker Event 51 recently came to an end, crowning yet another player a champion, taking home one of the infamous WSOP winners bracelets and a very tidy prize pool.

The $1,500 Texas Hold’em No Limit event was the first tournament entry within this years tournament schedule for winner Carsten Joh and he certainly picked the tournament to win.

The tournament offered a full participation list, selling out completely leaving the player field been a long and star-studded track that the winner would have to walk.
The event started with a majority amateur crowd on day one but day two brought some well known names such as Men Nguyen and Tony Cousineau to the tables, intensifying the competition for any player who was carrying the dream of winning the tournament.

With some of the big names joining into the tournament on day two, you would have been forgiven for thinking that they were going to be gracing the final table on day three but the truth was that they took to the tables and began crashing out one by one, taking their plays to the spectator rails.

Day three brought the final table action but not until the final players who were looking to claim their final table seat completed to whittle down their starter tables.
The tournaments field was so large that it took until day three to offer the tournament its final 10 players who would fill the final table standings, taking until 8pm to get the final table underway.

Entering into the final table, Nathan Helder was carrying the chip leader status and was confident on taking his seat.

It was Nathan Page that was first to fall at the final table but he was soon followed by his name sake Nathan Helder after the former chip leader clashed with another large stack holder, losing the majority of his chips in one hand.

Georgios Kapalas, known for this victory in the Greek Pour Tour was the next player to hit the rails, finishing in 7th place.

The Greek’s exit seemed to open the floodgates with Thibaut Durand, two time European Poker Tour winner and Canadian Owen Crowe crashing out of the tournament in 6th place and 5th place respectively.

The tournament lost a further two players in fast succession with Steven Levy taking the 4th place and 21 year old David Walasinski finishing in a respectable 3rd place.
The heads up section of the tournament was now underway with Andrew Chan and Carsten Joh locking horns in the bid to become the champion of the $1,500 No Limit Texas Hold’em event.

Chan entered the heads up game carrying the chip lead and must have been feeling comfortable until he lost a couple of hands in quick succession to Joh, who managed to grind Chan down to take the over all victory.

The final section of the tournament took just over an hour to play out and Joh accepted his winner’s bracelet and $664,426 as a reward for his consistently good playing approach.

Guest article written by How To Play Stud

Rumours of Doyles Death Fake.

admin — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:41:15 +0000

Around 21:30 UK time rumours of Doyle Brunson’s death shocked the poker community. I can now confirm these to be fake. Doyle him self has confirmed he is alive.

Doyle left a message on his twitter about 30 minutes later confirming that he is alive after getting a phone call from Doug Dalton asking if he was ok as his friend had heard the same.

To follow Doyle on twitter search for Texdolly.

So praise the Lord, The legend is alive.

Rumours arise that legend Doyle Brunsons Has Died

admin — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:40:24 +0000

Rumour Have arising that the poker legend Doyle Brunson has just died.

This is breaking news , around 21:30 uk time on Saturaday 23rd of May, Rails on some tournaments on Fulltilt’s exploded with RIP Doyle, leaving many players and fans guessing what’s going on.

Doyle Brunson is probably one of the most influential poker player to ever sit at a poker table. So if this is true, which I hope is not, I wish his family and friends my best regards but no confirmation has arisin and as I write this I slowly think this might be a hoax, , this goes to show how much the thought of Doyles death can effect the poker community, by even suggesting that he is dead a whole poker sites rail can be filled with RIP messages, but check back to get more info.