June Poker News

June 12th, 2006 - This past weekend has been very frustrating, I was the 'nearly man' of most of the major online poker tournaments. 3-Outed on the bubble of PartyPoker Million guaranteed, then I squeezed in to the money and finished 505th in the PokerStars Million guaranteed. The biggest disappointment was finishing 17th in the UB $200,000 Guaranteed, after moving all-in pre-flop with King Queen suited against the busy button raiser's Ace King. The whole tournament was a rollercoaster, I built up an enormous stack after about 2 hours only to see it disappear in one hand. Another big stack, for some unknown reason, decided he wanted to make a play against my pocket Kings, on a Jack, Ten, 2 rainbow flop. I 3-bet all-n and he called with Ace Queen, he commented "Made a move and now I'm committed". Ace on the turn and I was crippled. 

After that "move", I had an incredible run of luck. With 2/3 of my stack invested in the big blind, my J6 unsuited beat A4, then on the next orbit, K8 beat AT and then a miracle river saved my pocket 8's against King Ten. My chip stack went up to T75,000 after the big blind pushed all-in with Ace Queen against my raise on the button with Ace King. Then I lost 4 coin flips versus short stacks and was down to around T25,000. Topsy-turvy to say the least. Down to the final 2 tables, I had around T120,000, slightly below average but in a playable position with the blinds being 3000/6000 and an ante of T600. The exit hand was very disappointing, the situation required a fold and I made a bad mistake risking 20 big blinds to win 5. A costly mistake, 1st place paid $45,000.

There's a PokerStars deposit and reload bonus available until the end of June.

June 2nd, 2006 - The World Poker Tour Paris event starts on the 12th of June. This year the entry fee has been reduced from €10,000 (approx. $13,000) to $10,000, most likely in an attempt to increase the number of entrants. Only 160 players signed-up for 2005 WPT Paris event, If I remember correctly, there were 2 other $10,000 buy-in tournaments being played in the US at around the same time, which accounted for the small turn-out. Expect a bigger field in 2006. Last time, I lost/spent way too much money on a 2 week trip with my Brother, so unless I win an online satellite, I probably will not play.

Online Poker is going well. I logged in to my Ladbrokes poker account yesterday, which has been dormant for well over a year, and found $480! Bad memory!? Good beat! Then I pulled off my biggest online tournament win, taking down the PokerStars $150 No Limit Hold'em tournament on Friday.

The final table took an age as the Danish lady 'herself76' disconnected for what seemed an eternity, in reality it was about 20 minutes. Every hand, the table had to wait for the software to automatically fold her hand, elapsing a minute each time. After she returned it was a case of stealing blinds. My ferocious blind and ante thieving only met resistance against 'Obertay', who kept pushing all-in on my button raises. It seemed all the other players were waiting to move up the prize ladder and couldn't deviate from that passive strategy. Short-handed the table was a piece of cake until there 3 of us left. Then, the Poker Gods came to my rescue as I defended my blind, all-in with Doyle Brunson's hand, Ten Deuce. Obertray quickly called with Ace King off. Never before have I seen such a beautiful deuce of Hearts hit the flop. No Ace, no King, and my pair of twos took down the T300K+ pot. It was about 7 a.m. on Saturday morning that we got down to heads up, my offer to chop the first and second place prizes was swiftly declined (must have been the 10 2 incident). We both started with around T350K chips and it was all over within 7 hands! He decided he didn't like my constant raising and called all-in on the turn with a open-ended straight and flush draw against my two pair.

PokerStars Game #5136293276: Tournament #25455697, $150+$12 Hold'em No Limit - Level XX (4000/8000) - 2006/06/03 - 02:27:55 (ET)
Table '25455697 38' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 6: FrinkX (210714 in chips)
Seat 8: VENTUREACE (476286 in chips)
FrinkX: posts the ante 400
VENTUREACE: posts the ante 400
FrinkX: posts small blind 4000
VENTUREACE: posts big blind 8000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to VENTUREACE [3s 9h]
FrinkX: calls 4000
VENTUREACE: checks
*** FLOP *** [Jh 9c Ac]
VENTUREACE: checks
FrinkX: bets 12000
VENTUREACE: calls 12000
*** TURN *** [Jh 9c Ac] [3c]
VENTUREACE: bets 24000
FrinkX: raises 48000 to 72000
VENTUREACE: raises 383886 to 455886 and is all-in
FrinkX: calls 118314 and is all-in
*** RIVER *** [Jh 9c Ac 3c] [5h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
VENTUREACE: shows [3s 9h] (two pair, Nines and Threes)
FrinkX: shows [Ts 8c] (high card Ace)
VENTUREACE collected 421428 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 421428 | Rake 0
Board [Jh 9c Ac 3c 5h]
Seat 6: FrinkX (button) (small blind) showed [Ts 8c] and lost with high card Ace
Seat 8: VENTUREACE (big blind) showed [3s 9h] and won (421428) with two pair, Nines and Threes