Online Poker Directory

Archive for January, 2012

It was a great run on day two for our eight Party Poker online qualifiers who attended the Aussie Millions. When the day wrapped the team had the following in chips:

• Robert Labelle (CAN)  27,600
• Robin Ylitalo (SWE)  192,600
• Christian Glissmann (DE)  89,900
• Jeffrey Hakim (CA)  58,900
• David Sonelin (SWE)  186,200
• Sayed Jabbour (AU)  74,900
• Diego Zeiter (CH)  142,900
• Armin Zoike (DE)  84,400
• Antanas Guoga (LITH)  74,400

When play returned at the main event naturally the action started to heat up a bit down under,  ending our qualifiers day in the sun with them one by one slowly being sent to the rail. It wasn’t all bad news though as two managed to cash with:

56th Diego Zeiter from Switzerland taking home AUD$ 20,000 who you may remember sent our good friend TonyG packing and off to look for the Professor once again.

60th Armin Zoike from Germany  AUD$ 15,000

Play continues with Brett Watson sitting pretty with the $ 257,400 in chips, and a  good friend of Party’s James Dempsey who you’ll remember took part in our Premier League event back in November is sitting on a nice stack of $ 189,000 in chips, but it seems all eyes are now squarely on Phil Ivey, could this be his year?

Every Sunday on PokerStars is a big day. There’s a reason the big tournaments that play out on Sundays are called “the majors.” Big guarantees and even bigger prize pools award millions of dollars to players who compete and make it into that money. January 29 was no different – maybe even a little better than usual.

That is attributed to TCOOP, the inaugural Turbo Championship of Online Poker, which wrapped up its 11-day, 50-event series tonight. The last day of action offered six tournaments, with the Main Event boasting of a $ 1.5 million guarantee and coming up with an actual prize pool of $ 2,438,555. The other finale events found similarly positive outcomes, making for a busy Sunday of poker action.

Players were pleased to find that the Sunday Million was also in the lineup, along with some of their other favorite Sunday tournaments, and they showed up in force. Here were tonight’s Sunday Million numbers:

Players: 7,302
Prize pool: $ 1,460,400.00
Paid players: 1,080

The first Team PokerStars Pro to cash in tonight’s tournament was Martin Staszko of the Czech Republic, finishing in 1030th place for $ 306.66 just after the money bubble burst. Fellow Team Pro Angel Guillen of Mexico exited in 550th place, followed a bit later by Nuno Coelho in 126th and Jose “nachobarbero” Barbero in 104th. That left Andre “aakkari” Akkari of Brazil waving the PokerStars flag well into the deeper levels of the event.

Akkari made a run at the final table but unfortunately exited in 25th place with $ 3,402.73.

As the 10-hour mark passed, only two tables remained, and 20 minutes later, hand-for-hand play ensued after the 11th place finish of gforrai83. That led to the all-in move by yoohoo79 with [Qd][Qc] against the [Ac][Jc] of hownorez, and the board of [8c][Ad][5d][8h][2d] gave hownorez the best two pair. Yoohoo79 exited in tenth place with $ 8,032.20.

Curiplop leads final table action

The final table was set in Level 37, with blinds of 125,000/250,000 and a 25,000 ante. Players’ starting stacks were listed as follows:

Seat 1: CharlesTY. (12,454,649 in chips)
Seat 2: Meewams (1,968,672 in chips)
Seat 3: hownorez (14,354,996 in chips)
Seat 4: bas0r (7,129,652 in chips)
Seat 5: rasputoon (2,972,269 in chips)
Seat 6: curiplop (17,658,012 in chips)
Seat 7: Joroy70 (2,919,884 in chips)
Seat 8: Chikakaa (7,103,988 in chips)
Seat 9: K0VAK (6,457,878 in chips)

After the 10.5-hour break, Meewams made a move and doubled through curiplop to get things going.

Rasputoon then made a move, all-in from the button for little more than 2.1 million chips with [Th][Ts]. Original UTG raiser Chikakaa called with [9h][9d] and immediately hit the flop of [9c][2h][8c]. The [7s] on the turn and [7c] on the river then gave Chikakaa a full house and eliminated rasputoon in ninth place with $ 11,318.10.

Joroy70 was the next player to move. After a raise from curiplop, Joroy70 pushed all-in with [Ac][8s], and curiplop called with [Ks][Th]. The very first card on the flop was [Kc] to give curiplop the advantage, and the other cards that followed on the board were [7s][Qc][4d][2s]. Joroy70 did not improve and finished in eighth place with $ 17,524.80.

K0VAK doubled through curiplop, and Meewams scored another double through hownorez.

Meewams still had trouble, though, and moved yet another time. The hand started with an UTG raise from Chikakaa, and Meewams responded by moving all-in for nearly 3.5 million chips with [Ac][Kc]. It just so happened that Chikakaa was able to call with [Kh][Ks], and nothing could save Meewams on the [8s][2d][2c][7d][4h] board. Meewams finished in seventh place with $ 31,398.60.

Then it was Chikakaa’s turn. When curiplop made a preflop raise from the button, Chikakaa called all-in for just under 10 million chips with [Ac][As]. Curiplop showed [8d][3h] but flopped an amazing [Jh][8h][3d] two pair. The [5h] on the turn and [2c] on the river gave the pot to curiplop, and Chikakaa departed in sixth place with $ 45,272.40.

CharlesTY. doubled through bas0r in a huge pot shown here:

RSS readers click through to see replayK0VAK got involved in a raising war preflop with curiplop, and the two were dealt a [4s][6c][Kc] to start the board. K0VAK moved all-in for 1.8 million, and curiplop check-called with [Qs][9h]. K0VAK was ahead with [Ac][Kd] and top pair, but the [Td] turn and [Js] river gave curiplop the straight. K0VAK exited in fifth place with $ 59,876.40.

Bas0r doubled once through hownorez but had to move again soon and did it with [Ad][Ks]. Hownorez was in the hand holding [Kc][9c] and hit the nine on the [4d][8h][9d][5c][4s] board. Bas0r had to leave in fourth place with $ 77,401.20.

Three to a deal

The final three players paused the tournament in order to discuss a deal, and with a few adjustments to chip-chop numbers, they found harmony. With $ 20,000 set aside for the winner, these were the payouts agreed to by the players:

Seat 1: CharlesTY. (18,000,298 in chips) = $ 148,000.00
Seat 3: hownorez (16,106,977 in chips) = $ 148,000.00
Seat 6: curiplop (38,912,725 in chips) = $ 181,080.74

Big pots and action ensued, and hownorez finally moved all-in with [Ad][3c]. Curiplop reraised, which prompted original raiser CharlesTY. to fold. Curiplop showed a dominating [As][Ks], which only improved on the [2d][8h][Td][Qc][Js] board to a straight. Hownorez left in third place with $ 148,000.00.

South American heads-up battle

The final two players – CharlesTY. from Brazil and curiplop from Chile – started their match with these counts:

Seat 1: CharlesTY. (16,879,298 in chips)
Seat 6: curiplop (56,140,702 in chips)

On the second hand, CharlesTY. doubled through curiplop with pocket jacks over 3-2, and the former was able to keep the stacks close to even for more than a few rounds, even taking the lead toward the end.

The two then got involved in a raised and reraised pot to see a flop of [4c][Qh][Kh]. CharlesTY. bet, and curiplop raised to 12.8 million. CharlesTY. reraised all-in, and curiplop called all-in with [Qs][Js]. But CharlesTY. showed [Kc][Jh] for top pair, and those kings faded the [Ah] turn and [2d] river to eliminate curiplop in second place with $ 181,080.74.

CharlesTY. of Brazil won the Sunday Million and $ 168,000.00 to go with the title. Congrats!

Sunday Million Results for 01/29/12 (reflects deal):

1st place: CharlesTY. ($ 168,000.00)*
2nd place: curiplop ($ 181,080.74)*
3rd place: hownorez ($ 148,000.00)*
4th place: bas0r ($ 77,401.20)
5th place: K0VAK ($ 59,876.40)
6th place: Chikakaa ($ 45,272.40)
7th place: Meewams ($ 31,398.60)
8th place: Joroy70 ($ 17,524.80)
9th place: rasputoon ($ 11,318.10)

February is a big month for CarbonPoker, PDC Poker and Aced Poker as we are running on all cylinders. With a facelift to all three of our brands, restructuring of our rewards programs across all brands and some great benefits and rewards to both our players and affiliates we are really excited about the way the year has started so far and look forward to some amazing months upcoming. To celebrate and help reactivate some dormant players we want to promote a massive 50% reload bonus for the month of February. Bonus code is FEB50 and is live for February only for all three brands.

 

1. FEB50 awards 50% up to $ 250.00.
2. Bonus valid for CarbonPoker, PDC Poker, and Aced Poker.
3. Enter the code “FEB50″ in the cashier with any reload deposit.
4. This bonus is claimable from Fri 3^rd February 2012 until 11:59 PM server time on Tue 14th February 2012.
5. Bonus awarded in $ 5 increments and completed after earning 100 VIP points for each dollar of the bonus amount.
6. All players must meet these Terms & Conditions, and ChipSplit, CarbonPoker, PDC Poker, and Aced Poker reserve the right to modify these rules at any time, and for any reason, at their sole discretion.

In response to being selected as Poker Player of the Year at the 11^th annual European Poker Awards ceremony in Paris last week, Team Titan’s Sam Trickett commented, “Extremely proud to be European Player of the Year. Thanks everyone for voting for me! ”.

Sam had been nominated in two European Poker Award categories – Player of the Year and Best Tournament Performance. The European Poker Awards were established to recognize the best Europeans poker pros and newcomers. The jury is composed of some of the top names in European poker and avid poker fans participated in the online voting.

Sam’s competition in the Player of the Year category included some very talented poker players: Jake Cody (England); Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier (France); Pius Heinz (Germany); Eugene Katchalov (Ukraine); and Andrey Pateychuk (Russia).

Sam did not win the Best Tournament Performance award, as that honor went to Pius Heinz for winning the 2011 WSOP Main Event.

Sam was not present at the European Poker Awards ceremony, held at the Aviation Club de France in Paris last week. According to media reports, Sam sent his friend, PokerStrategy blogger Barry Carter to collect his award.

Sam has been playing poker at the Aussie Millions events in Melbourne, Australia, however he was unable to repeat his huge successes from last year. He was eliminated from the Aussie Millions Main Event, as well as from the $ 100,000 Challenge and the $ 250,000 Super High Roller events.

Sam did comment that he “ran pretty good” in the $ 1,000,000 cash game staged as part of the Aussie Millions. As for his lack of success in the other events, Sam commented, “Ran like 2009 Sam Trickett in the high rollers this time! Kind of annoying to lose 4/5 flips in these comps! Next stop is probably Macau.”

Lets rejoin where we left off with TonyG and his Real Professor to find out the result of that massive 100k Scrabble game. Will the elusive Zasko appear on the board? And like Tony told us before remember about Party Pokers rake free tournaments!

When I was in school, I took a semester-look seminar in negotiation. The class taught me that, as much as negotiation is a science (employing myriad acronyms like BATNA to explain why people will behave in certain predictable ways during a negotiation), it’s also an art form. The science only defines the boundaries within which a deal will take place; the actual form of the deal is where the art comes in.

2012 TCOOP Event 38, $ 55 No-Limit Hold’em (Ante Up) provided an object lesson in deal-making: its potential and its pitfalls. And although gabrieldin6 won the tournament after a five-way deal was struck, rejecting an earlier 9-way deal almost cost gabrieldin6 several thousand dollars in prize money.

Big antes created big prizes for the final table of Event 38. With 3,814 players entering the tournament, the minimum payout at the final table was $ 1,525.60 – about 28 times the $ 55 buy-in. The winner stood to receive nearly $ 30,000 of the $ 190,700 prize pool. Once again, as has been the case throughout TCOOP, the guarantee set for this event by PokerStars ($ 100,000) was shattered.

It was another tough day for Team PokerStars. Nine Team Pros and Team Online players entered the tournament but not a single one cashed. Team Pro Marcin Horecki came closest, but he fell more than 500 places shy of the money. Sometimes, in this game, demonstrably high levels of skill aren’t enough to take you all the way home.

The deal-making started in earnest just moments after the tournament reached its final table:

Seat 1: LeviTheKing1 (1321973 in chips)
Seat 2: zcedrick (1241903 in chips)
Seat 3: Nyefated (613368 in chips)
Seat 4: all IQ (1441670 in chips)
Seat 5: Ilkinopoulos (2042620 in chips)
Seat 6: gabrieldin6 (4210503 in chips)
Seat 7: ImlykwagwanG (5266232 in chips)
Seat 8: german brain (1892347 in chips)
Seat 9: falldown666 (1039384 in chips)

Let’s make a deal

The blinds were fixed at 5/5, as they had been all tournament. The ante was up to 90,000, representing 23 antes against the average stack of 2.1 million. 810,000 was in the middle to start each hand, about 40% of the average stack. Nyefated took the first pot uncontested with ace-queen, then doubled up on the second hand to about 4 million by winning a traditional “ace-king versus queens” flip against gabrieldin6.

With a more dominant chip position secured, Nyefated suggested the table should discuss a deal. Surprisingly, everyone else agreed and the tournament was paused after only four final-table hands.

ImlykwagwangG: $ 23,535.10
Nyefated: $ 19,537.17
gabrieldin6: $ 13,200.04
Ilkinopoulos: $ 9,044.31
LeviTheKing1: $ 9,446.04
german brain: $ 8,368.78
all IQ: $ 6,342.95
zcedrick: $ 5,444.93
falldown666: $ 4,534.52

Now if you know anything about groups of 5 or more people, you know it’s difficult to get them all to agree on where to eat for lunch, never mind a deal in which almost $ 100,000 is up for grabs. So when the numbers came back from PokerStars support, I expected there to be a long period of dissent as each player tried to angle for a better deal. Although the dissent was muted, the bartering dragged across 20 minutes. The horse-trading that ensued produced this second suggested deal:

ImlykwagwangG: $ 22,835.09
Nyefated: $ 18,837.17
gabrieldin6: $ 13,200.04
LeviTheKing1: $ 10,000.00
Ilkinopoulos: $ 9,044.31
german brain: $ 8,194.28
all IQ: $ 6,342.95
zcedrick: $ 6,000.00
falldown666: $ 5,000.00

That deal got agreement from 6 of the 9 players – all but zcedrick, all IQ and gabrieldin6. zcedrick wanted $ 7,000; all IQ did not want zcedrick to get more than all IQ got. While gabrieldin6 continued to remain silent, zcedrick convinced the four biggest payouts to give up $ 250 each to make up the extra $ 1,000 that zcedrick wanted to receive. all IQ acquiesced, creating a third proposed deal:

It was at that moment that gabrieldin6 expressed opposition to the deal, despite the fact that gabrieldin6′s 3rdd-place chip stack would earn just shy of 3rdd-place money at a high-variance, short-stacked, turbo-paced final table. gabrieldin6 wanted to resume play, and so after 33 minutes of fruitless negotiations, play resumed, leaving eight players incredibly hot under the collar with gabrieldin6. They pestered gabrieldin6, asking what deal would be acceptable, but received no response other than, “No.”

The trials of gabrieldin6

The players got back to the action, trading antes and expressing frustration, until all IQ pushed in for 750,000 and was called by none other than gabrieldin6. all IQ’s pockets queens were ahead of gabrieldin6′s pocket 9s, but a 9 flopped to give gabrieldin6 a set and what would be the winning hand.

Again the table tried to get gabrieldin6 to agree to a deal; again gabrieldin6 refused. While the gabrieldin6-bashing continued, a three-way all in produced two more eliminations. falldown666 (8th) and zcedrick (7th) were both all in as short stacks and both hit the rail after ImlykwagwanG rivered a straight:

RSS readers: click through to see replayThe elimination of Ilkinopoulos in 6th place when [ah][5d] failed to improve against the [th][tc] of Nyefated renewed calls from the players for a deal. gabrieldin6, now in 4th chip position of the remaining five players, finally agreed to re-pause the tournament. Chip chop numbers now produced the following proposal:

ImlykwagwanG: $ 27,496.72
Nyefated: $ 23,938.60
german brain: $ 11,361.51
gabrieldin6: $ 11,265.88
LeviTheKing1: $ 10,993.28

In this version of the deal, gabrieldin6′s share actually dropped by $ 2,000 despite the elimination of four players. Everyone quickly agreed to the new deal except german brain, who requested $ 13,000 total. After all the previous negotiations, however, it seemed german brain’s heart wasn’t in a protracted fight. Within another minute the unmodified proposal was agreed to by all players.

Play resumed. lmlykwagwanG, as the big stack, began to play very aggressively. But nobody was knocked out until gabrieldin6 moved all in with [ac][tc]. german brain called all in for less with [ah][9c] and lost the battle of kickers on a board of [7h][2s][5c][8h][3c]. The very next hand LeviTheKing1 shoved a short stack with [as][9d] but lost the hand when gabrieldin6′s [qd][8d] made a pair of 8s, [8c][kd][2d][ks][5s]. LeviTheKing1 finished in 4th place.

Nyefated put a tough beat on ImlykwagwanG by getting all in after the flop with unimproved [ad][4h] against ImlykwagwanG’s unimproved [ac][9c]. A 4 promptly spiked on the turn, leaving ImlykwagwanG with about 6 antes. Those 6 antes wound up in gabrieldin6′s stack the next hand as ImlykwagwanG ‘s [tc][9c] couldn’t overtake gabrieldin6′s [ks][5s].

The last two players, Nyefated and gabrieldin6, took turns with the chip lead. The ante by the time heads-up play started was 20,000; total chips in play were 19 million, giving the final two players about 95 antes between the two of them. They were deeper than they’d played for most of the final table, especially given that 40,000 was all in that was in the pot to start each hand.

Yet somehow all the chips went in pre-flop anyway. On the final hand, gabrieldin6 checked the small blind for 5, then called Nyefated’s all in shove of 8.2 million. Nyefated showed [3h][3d]; gabrieldin6 showed a disguised [9s][9d]. A single 9 would have been enough for gabrieldin6 after the board rolled out [8h][8d][6h][qh][6d] to overcoat Nyefated’s starting hand.

In the end, with the $ 2,000 set-aside for the champion, gabrieldin6 received exactly the payout under the 5-player deal as gabrieldin6 would have received under the 9-player deal – but with much more volatility and variance. It was certainly an unusual way to crown the lastest TCOOP champion.

2012 TCOOP Event 38 $ 55 No-Limit Hold’em (Ante Up) results (reflect five-way deal):

*1st: gabrieldin6 ($ 13,265.88)
*2nd: Nyefated ($ 23,938.60)
*3rd: ImlykwagwanG ($ 27,496.72)
*4th: LeviTheKing1 ($ 10,993.28)
*5th: german brain ($ 11,361.51)
6th: Ilkinopoulos ($ 6,197.75)
7th: zcedrick ($ 4,290.75)
8th: falldown666 ($ 2,383.75)
9th: all IQ ($ 1,525.60)

We’re in the home stretch of the 2012 TCOOP, but it’s not too late to get in the game. Find all the information about TCOOP that you could possibly want – leaderboards, stats, and the schedule of remaining satellites and events – at the TCOOP home page.

Here on the Party Poker blog we love hearing stories from the virtual rail as such.

Starting off this week it’s lmtheoceans (pictured here on the right) turn who recently won a staggering $ 16,000 Aussie Millions package.

When we caught up with lmtheocean recently it sure seemed he was living the highlife in Mexico, in between learning to surf, working-out and writing he’s turned to playing poker professionally.

(PartyPoker:Dany Willis): Congrats on your big win, tell us when did you first start playing poker?

(Imtheocean): Well I started to take poker seriously when I was about 18 years old. I played poker in the past, I even read a poker book or two, but it hadn’t become my passion up until that point.

Mixing it up

DW: So tell us what kind of stakes and games do you normally play when playing online or live? Do you mainly play online poker, live poker, or a mixture of both?

ITO: I’m living in Mexico right now, so I’m mainly playing online. I play as high as $ 1k buy-in heads-up sit-n-gos, and am hoping to start grinding $ 2k buy-ins soon. I visit my family about once a month, and I try to play some live poker when I’m there. I play as high as $ 25/$ 50 live.

First major live event

DW: How about live, ever played something like a WPT, EPT, or WSOP tournament?

ITO: No. I’m only 20 and have only been playing professionally for a couple of years so I haven’t had too many opportunities to play major live events so far in my career. I’m thrilled this will be my first major.

DW: Okay so outside of your poker life tell us a bit more about yourself, any cool hobbies and interests?

ITO: Since I’ve moved to Mexico, I have started to learn to surf. I’m still pretty terrible at it, but I’m hoping I’ll be ready to ride giants 6 months from now . I love traveling. I plan on living out my dream of traveling the entire world while playing poker for the next 5 or 6 years. I also enjoy working-out and writing.

DW: Sounds great, so you mentioned you play professionally now, how did you get to that point?

ITO: Well I play poker full time now. When I graduated high school at 18, my dad was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. I had planned on going to college on the east coast of the United States, but after he got sick I decided to postpone college so I could be at home with my family.

After passing on school, I quickly realized that poker was my passion, and I wanted to chase my dream of becoming one of the best poker players in the world. I remember telling my dad, and he was furious with me.

Looking back, I know it was much less anger he was expressing and more so fear that I was going to throw my life away chasing a pipe-dream. Sadly, my dad passed away before he got to see me start to excel at poker. It kills me that he might have died worrying that I might wind up being a total screw-up in life. I like to think he checks in on me and the family every now and again from heaven, and gets to see that we’re all doing well.

Poker Idols

DW: Well tell us then who are some of your favourite professional poker players?

ITO: There are a lot of less famous poker player’s out there who I would call my favorite’s, because they did so much to help me to get to where I am. Jon ‘Croixdawg’ Ford staked and coached me when I was first getting started, and without him I have no idea where I’d be right now.

I’m a fan of Phil Galfond, Tom Dwan, and Olivier Busquet. Galfond just seems like a great guy, and I learned a lot from watching his training videos. Dwan has been part of some of the coolest tv hands ever to air, and he’s a great ambassador for the game. He’s also the face of the internet generation, and watching him play provides a great illustration to how winning poker strategy has evolved into what it is today. Olivier Busquet is the godfather of heads-up sit-n-gos. In addition to being a great ambassador for the game, he’s also the best husng player in the world and he pushes guy’s like me to be better. I wouldn’t be scared to play with anyone, but I don’t like having to play Olivier, and I’m sure I wouldn’t be too happy to have Galfond or Dwan at my table. They’re all amazing.

The Ultimate Question

DW: Okay lets play that fun hypothetical game called “Winning Big”, you’ve won a big live event what is the first thing you’d buy with the prize money?

ITO: I’m not planning on settling down anytime in the near future, so I probably wouldn’t buy a house, car, or anything like that. I would definitely, use a fraction of that money and continue to travel and explore the world. I would also donate a good chunk to my church. The rest of the money, however, would likely go right into my poker bankroll. I plan on continuing to climb limits, until I honestly believe no matter how hard I work I can’t be good enough to win at a certain level.

DW: How about you let us in on how you ended up winning this promotion?

ITO: I had decided a couple of days prior to playing the Aussie Millions qualifier that I wanted to put more of an effort into trying to win satellites to live events. I had actually played a qualifier the night before where first prize was guaranteed to trip to Seoul to play in an APPT main event. I was fortunate enough to get to heads-up where obviously I felt like I was pushing a pretty big edge. Unfortunately, it was one of those heads-up matches where everything goes wrong, and I busted the tournament in second. Truthfully, I almost started to cry I was so upset that I came so close, and then lost it in heads-up of all ways.

Maybe it was for the best though, as I found redemption in winning the Aussie Millions qualifier the next day. Funny, when we got heads up in the Aussie Millions qualifier, I had a 3:1 chip lead, and the guy I was playing had very little heads-up experience. I ended up losing my huge chip advantage, and even coughed up the lead at one point though. I’m really thankful that I was able to keep my composure and hold when we got it in with my 2 pair vs his pair plus nut flush draw.

Party Time!

DW: So how’d you celebrate your victory?

ITO: During heads-up of the quallifier, my 3 roommates were huddled around the computer with me sweating the action. One of my roommates also had 4 other guys on a skype conference call. My headphones were on the whole time, and I was blaring music to try to block out all the chat circling around me.

When I won, there were just cheers all throughout the condo, coming from myself, my roommates, and from the computer speakers. I called my mom and my brothers and sisters. I hopped on Facebook, and messaged some buddies. After that though, I went right back to grinding lol. I think I managed to squeeze out a couple thousand in profit not including the Aussie Millions qualifier win that day, so all in all I would call it a pretty solid day of poker

DW: Thanks for your time Imtheocean, and good luck at the Aussie Millions. And there we have it folks, a few good tales for us all to learn from, chasing his dreams sure seems to be paying off for Imtheocean.

Split, split, scoop. Split, split, scoop. Sounds like a popular children’s game, doesn’t it? And in fact it does involve a group of people sitting in a circle, trying not to be “It” – if you define “It” as “the person with no seat in the circle.”

The salient difference: split, split, and scoop were the mechanics of a Stud Hi/Lo poker tournament where 1st prize was more than $ 10,000 and where one player’s wife demanded that he win the tournament. Which, being a good husband, is exactly what he did.

2012 TCOOP Event 31, $ 22 Stud Hi-Lo was on the PokerStars menu on Wednesday. It fared slightly better than its $ 22 Stud counterpart did yesterday in attracting players. 3,119 signed up for Event 31, exactly 82 more than did for Event 26. That turnout meant that once again, the top prize in a TCOOP stud event would reach five figures. Finishing in 1stt place in Event 31 was worth $ 10,606.46. I’m not mathemagician, but that seems like an exceedingly healthy ROI for a $ 22 investment.

Exactly 400 of the 3,119 players in Event 31 would receive prize money. Among the vying 3,119 were precisely 10 members of Team PokerStars, Pro and Online. Team Pro Marcin “Goral” Horecki split and scooped his way to 309th place ($ 38.67); fellow Team Pro Nuno Coelho did slightly better by eking out a 277th-place finish for $ 39.92.

And then there was Team Pro Andre Akkari. With 40 players left in the tournament, Akkari was leading the charge. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to bring it all the way home to the final table. A few quick beats ushered Akkari out the door in 17th place. He earned $ 233.92 in prize money.

Fifteen minutes after Akkari’s elimination, the final table was set:

Seat 1: rl1965 (1581431 in chips)
Seat 2: BeltBuster (758144 in chips)
Seat 3: went24 (714208 in chips)
Seat 4: I travel OZ (2608180 in chips)
Seat 5: kr.GeNa (3526566 in chips)
Seat 6: rxacht (1901476 in chips)
Seat 7: barrakko (3815363 in chips)
Seat 8: Partorg (689632 in chips)

Not “It”

The 300k/600k level was just about over as the final table began. Average chip stacks of 1.9 million ensured that the eliminations would be quick and frequent. The first occurred on the first hand.

went24 started the hand with a pair of split 9s, [qh][9d] / [9s]. I travel OZ had been dealt buried kings. The full house, kings full of fives, that I travel OZ made by the river was overkill; went24 never improved from a pair of 9s for high and didn’t make a qualifying low. went24 hit the rail in 8th place.

As Stud Hi-Lo is a split-pot game, an all-in confrontation does not necessarily result in an elimination most of the time. In fact, over the next eight hands, a few different players were all in but got a portion of the pot back by the river. That changed when rl1965 was dealt three babies, [8s][7h] / [ac]. With about one-half of a big bet in rl1965′s stack, this was an obvious “go” hand. BeltBuster also had three babies, [2c][7s] / [3s]. The race was on and was won by BeltBuster, whose hand improved to a pair of 3s for high and 8-7-6-3-2 for low. rl1965 showed high-card ace and a worse low, 8-7-6-5-A. rl1965 exited in 7th place with $ 1,185.22.

Within another eight hands, rxacht became the unenviable player in the position of “incredibly short stack who has to move with anything”. For rxacht, “anything” was three clubs, [6c][jc] / [7c]. A new competitor stepped to the fore to try to notch the knockout, as barrakko got in there with three small cards, [as][5c] / [6s]. Two pair, aces and fives, won the hand for barrakko as rxacht could only improve to a pair of jacks and no low. rxacht’s 6th-place reward was $ 1,871.40.

A blur of bust-outs

The next three bust-outs staccato. Partorg (5thh place), BeltBuster (4thh place) and I travel OZ (3rdd place) were all eliminated during the 600k / 1.2MM level – in the space of five hands. Partorg was first on the chopping block, as buried kings never improved and failed to hold against barrakko, who drew into a board of [4c][as] / [6d][4h][4d][2h] / [3s], trip 4s for high and a 6-4 for low.

BeltBuster’s 4thh-place elimination by kr.GeNa was what most players would describe as “standard”. Take a look:

RSS readers: Click through to see replayI travel OZ tried to propose a deal with three players left, but before anyone else could agree I travel OZ was eliminated. I travel OZ moved all in on 4thh street holding [9c][3s] / [2h][3h], a pair of 3s. kr.GeNa called with [6d][3c] / [qc][6c], a pair of 6s. Nothing changed for either player by the river. I travel OZ busted in 3rd place.

Split, split, scoop

At the start of heads-up play, limits were up to 600k and 1.2 million. barrakko had seven big bets (8.3 million); Kr.GeNa had six (7.2 million). The last two players paused to the tournament to work out a deal. Chip-chop numbers were very close: $ 8,895.31 for barrakko, $ 8,686.75 for Kr.GeNa, and $ 500 for the champion.

At first it seemed as if barrakko had a change of heart on the deal. “Sorry,” he said. “My wife says I have to win this tournament.”

But after another minute or two, barrakko agreed to the modified payouts. kr.GeNa also agreed. The deal was in place.

From there it was seven hands to the winner. Twice kr.GeNa was all in; twice each player got half of the pot.

Split, split.

The third time, kr.GeNa was knocked out:

RSS readers: click through to see replaySplit, split, scoop.

Congratulations to barrakko on his TCOOP victory. I hope your wife is proud!

2012 TCOOP Event 31 $ 22 Stud Hi-Lo results (reflects two-way deal):

* 1st: barrakko ($ 9,395.31)
* 2nd: kr.GeNa ($ 8,686.75)
3rd: I travel OZ ($ 5,614.20)
4th: BeltBuster ($ 4,366.60)
5th: Partorg ($ 3,119.00)
6th: rxacht ($ 1,871.40)
7th: rl1965 ($ 1,185.22)
8th: went24 ($ 591.36)

If you’ve got a spouse to impress – or you just like cold, hard cash – there’s still plenty of time to get involved in the 2012 TCOOP. Find all the TCOOP information you could possibly want at the TCOOP home page.

Starting Sunday, January 29th we are going to be running qualifiers to our exclusive $ 25,000 freeroll to be held on Sunday February 26^th at 14:00. This will be an exclusive event and will get 2012 off to a great start with some free cash!

1.  FREEROLL Qualifiers

From Jan 29th-Feb 25th inclusive there will be 3 freeroll qualifiers running per day. Each qualifier will be FREE to enter and will award a seat into the 25k Bankroll Booster Freeroll to the top 10 finishers.

Freeroll Qualifier Schedule: Daily at 13:30, 17:30 and 21:30.

Format: Turbo, 5 minute blinds, 1k starting stack, top 10 advance.

2.  VIP POINTS EARNED Qualifier

Beat the crowd and earn eligibility for the VIP POINTS EARNED Qualifiers running daily from Jan 29th-Feb 25^th. These tournaments will have smaller fields as the Points Qualification increases All points earned since 00:01 the previous day count towards eligibility for the VIP POINTS EARNED Qualifiers. For example if you wanted to enter the Tuesday 16:30 75 points freeroll you need to earn 75 points between Monday 00:01 and Tuesday 16:29 and click the “Register” button.  The top 10 finishers will be awarded an entry coupon to the 25k Bankroll Booster Freeroll.  You can track your qualification for all tournaments in your Player Admin.

VIP Points Earned Qualifier Schedule:

Time – Points required

00:30 – 100 points
04:30 – 20 points
08:30 – 50 points
12:30 – 100 points
14:30 – 300 points
16:30 – 75 points
18:30 – 15 points
20:30 – 100 points
22:30 – 500 points

Format: 10 minute blinds, 1.5k starting stack, top 10 advance.

3. 2012 Bankroll Booster 25k Freeroll

Start time: 14:00 on Sunday February 26^th

Format: 10 minute blinds, 3000 chip starting stack.  1^st place wins $ 5000.

I’ve been playing poker at the Aviation Club in Paris for the last week.

I busted out on day 2 of the 1k Silver EFOP event in 17th or 18th place which was in the money and tantalisingly close to the bigger payouts.

It was a tough event in some respects. I’m not exactly well known for being a night owl so any poker tournament that doesn’t even start until 8pm is going to be tough for me.

The idea of playing until the wee hours and then having to come back with a small stack didn’t appeal to me which meant that I grew very used to saying the phrase ‘Tapis!’ which is French for ‘all in,’ in my attempt to go big or go home.

Sometimes in poker though, this just isn’t in your hands. I’d win one against a bigger stack, lose one against a smaller and stay hovering right around the same amount. Frustrating

Day 1

Our Day 1 ended up going an extra level (I have no idea why although I’m sure they explained it at length in French) so we didn’t even finish until 5am. That is not a time that I see often from the back end. Right at the end of the day, I lost a flip to Elky’s girlfriend. I really like Cathy and was glad to see her at my table but was less than happy to shovel most of my chips her way. It was such a standard spot though and we both made Day 2.

Day 2 – Bubble day

I began Day 2 with about (~21k) 9bb and as we were still 16 players away from the money, I wasn’t expecting much. It was my day though! I said ‘Tapis!’ five times in the first hour and managed to build up to 70k. I changed tables quite a few times and then ended up on the bubble, sat beside the lovely Remy Biechel. We’ve known each other for a few years and although we struggle with his English and my French, I love being able to chat to him. Mostly, we just smile at each other as he has one of the happiest smiles around. Sadly, he was the bubble boy so it was a short conversation with fewer smiles.

Once the bubble finally burst, everyone was quite short stacked. I was trying to find good spots for my stack and was involved in quite a few pots which meant my stack was fluctuating wildly. I lost a couple of flips and then got my last 15bb involved with A7 against an opponents A10 and that was it for me.

And on to the 2k Event

It was a hell of a lot of fun though and I’m really looking forward to getting into the 2k event tomorrow. I was incredibly grumpy at 5am this morning when I stomped back to the hotel thinking about Day 2 with 9bbs, but I’m glad I didn’t give up. It feels good to get a cash under my belt early in 2012!