I finally left the USA a few days ago and am now back in China to continue my trip around my ancestral homeland. Before heading back to China, I rewarded myself for my hard work in Vegas with a road trip. There's way too much to write about so I guess I'll just show you the highlights in pictures and let them do the talking.

After the WSOP, I spent around 10 days on the road and that took me to plenty of diverse and interesting spots in the Western USA.

My trip started when I moved out of my luxury accommodations in the Palms Place and went to stay at Down Town Vegas. Down Town Vegas has a really different vibe from the Las Vegas Strip. It's not as luxurious and "bling bling" as the strip but I really enjoyed the quirky atmosphere they had over there.

There were lots of people dressed up as famous characters roaming around Fremont Street. My favourites by far were Elmo and Cookie Monster.

  While I had a room in Vegas, I also took some time to drive to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon which was about 4 hours away.

A giant chunk of the earth fell out  due to years of strain and left a gaping hole in this rocky outcrop. If you stand on top of it, you can see a few bends of the Colorado River below. 

 

  After 7 days on the road, I finally landed in San Francisco. I spent a few days here after the WSOP last year and absolutely loved this city (I hated Los Angeles)

 

From San Francisco, I also drove further north to visit the wine country around Napa Valley. The views there were awesome and the wines I had there on the tasting tours were really good too.

If you ever find yourself in Northern California and itching for a poker fix, there were quite a few casinos / card rooms around. I spent some time at the Bay 101, in San Jose (about an hour from San Francisco) and the action there was really good. There were games running around the clock.

The rake there was quite a bit steeper than Las Vegas and you got no comps, but the atrocious players more than made up for it. They also played a weird format where you paid 3 blinds, $1 on the button and $2 from the small and big blind, and a limp was for $4. The games were filled with regulars and prop players during non peak hours, but they were pretty bad too, so it didn't really matter. If you're up for higher staked action, i think the fixed limit games ran up to $100/$200 and the highest No Limit game (which Faraz Jaka played on) was $5/$10/$10 there.

Finally, I think you've all probably read the news now that Team PokerStrategy has already been disbanded. I also only heard the news a few days ago and am definitely sad to see it end. I had a great time reporting about the team and hopefully I will get a chance to bring you guys more stories from the various icons of our community in the future.

Being a WSOP media reporter sound like a really awesome job. After all, you do get to go to Vegas for a couple of months every year and you get to meet all the famous poker players that you see on TV!

However, it's not all fun and games though as it's a pretty tough job. If you think playing the entire 50 days of the WSOP is a sick grind, well, being a reporter for the full 50 days is as much of, if not more of a grind.

Basically, I wake up at around 10 am every day, make some brunch, get a shower and I go  pick up my car to head to the Rio at around 12pm. On the way to the Rio, I stop at a nearby drive thru tarbucks (yes they have drive-thru Starbucks in Vegas!), pick up my doppio espresso macchiato (same drink every day) and then park near one of the back employee entrances and head to my desk at the WSOP Media Room.

   My trusty Ford Focus, I decided to rent a car this year rather than take a cab every day. I paid more, but I don't think I still think it was a great decision.

After that, it's the real start of my day where I alternate my time between the tables and the Media Room. I walk around trying to look for interesting stuff to report on or some famous faces and hot girls to get some pictures of. I also hang around and chat with the Team PokerStrategy.com members and PokerStrategists that I am covering, hoping that they will share with me some fascinating nuggets that I can that relay on to all you railers in the live ticker thread.

Once in a while, the players also ask me for information, about how the rest are doing, or even information about their opponents on the table (like name, online ID, tournament or cash player etc) and I will try my best to get the info for them. You find out so much about people on Google, if you can't find anything, there probably nothing worth knowing about anyway then.

Once I've gathered sufficient notes in my notebook, I'll also go around the tables to get the chip count updates, once that's done, It's back to the media room to type out my updates for the hour.

During the break, I also venture out to the break areas where most of the guys are hanging out. Unfortunately, they will be chatting in their native languagues most of the time, so there's not too much I can pick up from there. I usually don't hang around for too long as it's just way too hot outside!(Asians hate standing in the sun). I do pretty much the same thing for the rest of my 14 hour day so I guess there's nothing too exciting to report there.

On my off days this year I didn't do too much either. I found a nice indoor lap pool where I would go do a few laps in the morning, buy some groceries and do my Laundry.

My favourite Laundromat. The place is pretty clean, has food and a Walmart nearby and has free wifi! (It didn't work half the time tho)

Other than that, for leisure I usually just go plant myself down at a poker table for half the day, and hope to catch some fish that are giving away their money. I hit another Royal Flush this year (one last year too!) and overall the poker tables and the fish were pretty good to me.

The Palazzo in Vegas. I spent a lot of time playing in the Venetian which is connected to the Palazzo (I guess they are essentially two wings of one giant hotel). 

After spending about 100 days in Vegas, I still haven't been to a strip club or to see any of the shows yet, I'm not a big party person, so obviously I've also not been to any of the clubs in Vegas, other than the PokerStars party last year (no party this year for obvious reasons).

But I did get to eat in a few nice Japanese restaurants around Vegas. I've been to the Little Buddha at the Palms plenty of times, went to a Teppanyaki place called Musashi where RobbieV bought me and Nazgul dinner to celebrate his second final table and also went to the Nakes Fish once with Guennilicous. Last year, Trader also bought us dinner at the Naked Fish. All of them are awesome and if you ever come to Vegas. you probably should try eating in at least one of them.

I'm not too sure yet if I will be back next year as I still haven't made concrete plans for what I will be doing in the near future, but if it is possible, I would definitely love to come back and give it another go. I love this job!

Isn't it every Asian geek's dream to have hot girls pose and let you take photos of them? :p

After going through my first WSOP I left Las Vegas last week. Although I can not exactly tell I was running well there, I am far from regrets because it gave me a lot of experiences, stories and chance to meet interesting people. I am not exactly a hardcore grinder, but this was for sure the longest break in my on-line playing since I started play fulltime as professional.

I don’t consider staying in Vegas as a holiday, actually I felt extremely tired at the end as I have to admit, that playing so much live action seems more tiring than on-line. That is because I count myself as one that wants to use every EV+ opportunity and Vegas was a big one :). My schedule was quite simple – playing, eating, and sleeping. I was really surprised how bad players came here to spend the month by losing money.
Especially I was fond of satellites and SNG satellites. It is completely sufficient to play abc and posses some psychology skill (fish must be your friend) to beat these games by scale, which was to me unbelievable in the beginning. I was afraid it will be boring because of its primitive natur :) as it is mostly 7-8bb deep, no antes. But I still could find some improvements over time. I might even miss these live SNGs a bit  :DDD.
Finally I would like to make a conclusion about my famous WSOP run. I played 14 tournaments, 1 ITM – the cheapest BI obv. I only got over double starting stack in 3 tournaments! This does not look good at all. Partly it could be caused by lack of experiences with this series. I am a bit doubtful about some plays I made, mostly because I might not realize how bad some opponents are. The bright side is that there is still plenty room to improve :D

After my return back home I was really impressed while watching Martin Stazsko running so good in the ME and even finishing as the chipleader of the Novermber Nine. I wish him good luck! I hope, Martin's run is a good signal for Czech participation at the EPT season and hopefully I will have a good use of all the experiences from Vegas, so I will achieve a really good result at one of the tournaments.

Wish me GL

Hello from Dublin

I just returned home after a long month in Vegas! It should have been more, but for personal reasons I had to travel to Italy for a family visit and sort out a few things here in Ireland before I could fly over to Vegas, therefore I missed the first 3 weeks of the WSOP, and believe me, I regret that! It was hard to follow the blog from home and see my team-mates playing while I was stuck in my living room, but at least I had a really nice online score the week before leaving that made me feel better! It was my third time in Vegas in the last 12 months, but this was going to be a special one because it was my first time grinding WSOP Events for Team PokerStrategy.com.

I played 9 WSOP Events in total, and only cashed in one of them – so had a very disappointing WS overall

My WSOP did not start too well, the first event I played was the 1k with a very shallow stack from the beginning – I lasted about 1 hour, then my KK crashed vs AA and gg. I then cashed in the 2.5k event, I think I played well on day 1 but had a pretty uneventful day 2 where I don’t think I played too well and quite frankly I barely deserved to cash, but I guess I take it! I was also witness to one of the most shocking poker moments at my table, when a guy at my table folded AA face up with 10bb behind on the bubble…I couldn’t believe that!

The event I was looking forward the most though was the 10k 6-max, even more than the Main Event.  This was by far the event with the toughest field but also the most fun to play! 6-max MTT are also my main game, and wish there were more tournaments like this. I had a really tough table, we played together the same 6 players for 9 hours straight, it was pretty funny that on level 9 the average stack of the tourney was 60k, when the average stack at our table was still 30k (initial stack), so once the table broke we were all going to be semi-short wherever we were going to be moved. When a guy finally busted, Elky moved to our table and a live “misclick” from my side launched him for a deep run: with effective stacks of 35bb, Elky opened from the CO and BTN 3bets – I was in the big blind with TT and didn’t hear the 3bet from the BTN and thought he just flatted, so I was planning to squeeze and hopefully induce a spew from Elky (it was such an obvious squeeze spot that I expect him to shove light there) so I could call it off, but once the dealer made me notice that the BTN 3-bet before me I was no longer allowed to 4bet (or fold) as my chips were already on the table and that counted as a call. Elky came along and the flop was Qc 7c 3c , with me holding TcTs . I check, Elky checks, BTN overshoves the pot, I fold, and Elky calls with 9c 6c for a flopped flush VS BTN Jc Jh. I guess my “miscklick” turned out to be beneficial for Elky and also for myself (I would have shipped with TT if I had seen the 3bet and would have busted as BTN had JJ and table dynamics tell me that he was never folding preflop there). I ended up busting out after losing a flip vs Aaron Jones for 65bb just before the end of level 10. Elky finished 3^rd in that tournament. Talk about running bad!

I then played a couple of smaller events before the Main Event, in which again I did not last long. As oppose to the 10k 6-max event the level of play in the Main Event was really bad (at least at my table, but maybe I just got a lucky table draw), probably like playing a 50$ online MTT – I don’t want to go into details too much and talk about coolers, etc – but let’s say I am not good (or crazy) enough yet to get away from KK preflop or not to go broke with them on a 9 3 3 board. I let you guess the rest!

It was great to meet Robbie for the first time (smashing WSOP for him!) and to see several deep runs from the guys of the Team! Hopefully it will be my turn in some future tourney.

WSOP aside I enjoyed playing cash games around Vegas, there are so many nice poker rooms to choose from that is unbelievable! The Wynn, the Aria, Caeasar’s, Venetian, etc., etc. and the general level of play was really soft, so I guess many former US online pro, can make an easy living in Vegas playing 5-10 (or even just 2-5!) against random tourists. One thing I noticed is that cash games were running really deep…it is kind of normal in 5-10 games to have 5k behind. Vegas is the only place where I play live cash games really, but I don’t think it is normal to play so deep everywhere – pretty cool though! I also played smaller MTT at the Wynn and Venetian and actually did better than in the WSOP, as cashed in 2 out of 3 I played, and had my saddest day in Vegas when I busted in 22^nd /890 for a 1.2kk flip when average stack was 550k at the Venetian. That was a standard “I hate this stupid game” moment – soon forgotten though!

Beside poker I had pretty busy days in Vegas, doing random gambling (got hooked by 3-card poker! ), but also a bit of partying and whenever I had a day off just relaxing by the swimming pool, even though it is hard to last more than a couple of hours as it is way too hot (there is a reason why I moved to Ireland!  ) . Vegas is a great place to stay, however I would never actually live there. It is fun of course, but a bit too “fake” – money buy everything there, actually it is all about money, and after a while you grow a bit sick of it.

Greetings from Vegas:)

I’d like to kick off my blog entry with a Tweet from Bertrand Grospellier:"Played unreal good and busted first flip of tourney. Story of my life I guess. Wow so disappointed UNFUCKING real sick... when will it end"

If you don’t recognise who this quote comes from (no, sadly it’s not me, although it does quite accurately describe my busts), I can tell you it’s ElkY. Yes, ElkY! The hand was in NL 50k Championship. It was the very first flip and he lost. Extreme, sure, but it’s ElkY, right? And he thinks a 50% chance is like around 102%, not cool... ;)

The hand which demonstrates this best came 5 days earlier at the 10K 6 max NL Championship, where the Final Table was packed. Apart from ElkY, there was Taylor Paur, Mike Sowers, Chris Moorman, Joe "ender555"Ebanks and many more... What more could an online player ask for? It goes without saying the event was heavily railed, even if the outcome was pretty clear...

I’ll spare you too many details, suffice to say it was a 3-handed play: ElkY shipped his remaining stack for around 15BB all-in in the SB against BB, the BB, ender555, snapped with pocket 88 and a murmur spread through the audience. Ender555 just barely covered ElkY. ElkY stood up, ran his fingers through his hair and started to mumble something in French, God only knows what he was trying to say, but it didn’t seem to phase him particularly, as the flop came 4 4 2 rainbow, 6 on the turn and Q on the river...

Greetings from Las Vegas,     

Getting here was interesting to say the least. The original plan had been to travel from Madrid, where I played the EPT grand final, straight to Las Vegas, but with the extended stay in Madrid to play scoop (since, as you know, we can't play in the US anymore) the new arrival date in the states happened to be the day before game 5 of the NBA western conference finals in Dallas - where our final connecting flight to Vegas was. It's no secret I am a huge sports fan and I have been following Nowitzki for over a decade so I was really happy to get a chance to see the game. We decided we would just not take the connecting flight and stay in Dallas to go to the game... seems simple enough right?

Good news is we made it to the game and Dallas won (obviously) but it wasn't just as easy as not taking the last flight. The chaos of it all began when we were pulled out of line at customs in Dallas because of tornados in the area and was followed by cancelled flights, unused flights, missed flights, our luggage going to Vegas without us, and detour road trips through Texas from Dallas to San Antonio to Houston...

Before we were at the airport we said to each other there would be at least one thing go wrong before we arrive at the Rio hotel in Vegas. And the first thing went wrong at the airport in New York, Ingrid wasn't allowed to pass the Duane.  Her fingerprints didn't match with our trip of 2 years ago. So I had to walk through the Duane and had to wait with our luggage and Ingrid had to go with a man to the so called 'dark rooms', which I know from last year when a friend carried too much money with him. Exactly 50€ too much, that he forgot to take out of his wallet. 1 hour later, I saw Ingrid again and she was allowed to enter the US. What happened? Her fingerprints didn't match because 2 years ago they linked my fingerprints to Ingrid's ID.
 
So now we were in America! Everything was going well, and then we landed at the airport in Las Vegas! And of course now it was my turn, my luggage was not on the plane. That was just the 3th time this year! So we had to fill in all the papers again. (One day later they brought the luggage nicely to my room!)
 
So now we were ready to go to the Rio hotel where we are going to stay for about 6 weeks. Checking in went ok, till we asked for internet in the room. They said it was 15$ dollar per day or 35$ for 3 days for 1 laptop. We have 2 laptops, so times 2. I complained about it, and so I got to speak one of the managers. They didn't want to make a deal or something, because they wouldn't make any money with this (I think they forgot that we are going to spend 6 weeks in the Rio). But we have a good room with a good bed so it's pretty ok.

This week we went to the Antony Cools Show, which is a hypnosis show. You can try to be hypnotized as well, which i tried. (it didn't work with me :P) He lets people think that they are audititing for a porn movie, or that they are the Chippendales or something. This show is so hilarious, when you go to a show in Las Vegas for sure you have to go to a hypnosis show.

For the next time I hope I can tell you some great, funny or winning a bracelet story :)!

hey guys,

2 weeks passed since I arrived in Vegas and pretty much all I did was grind the WSOP events at the Rio Resort Hotel. Though this is not my first WSOP it is a whole new experience for me playing live-poker continuously for a such long period. As a surprise, it doesn't piss me off the way I expected it does ;) So far I played 10 Events and cashed in two of them. In event #31, 3k Pot-Limit Omaha I ran semi-deepish and placed 25th. I really was disappointed when I busted because people were so bad and I gave myself a massive edge over the field. Obviously I was crippled at the end of day 2 by a, in my opinion, a questionable play. thus there was no room anymore to take advantage of the edge and finally I flipped myself out with a reshove with AA44ss. you just have to run good in those spots and eventually, I will.
The second cash was a mincash in the 2,5k NL few days after that, nothing too exciting. Didn't run too well either running twice into Aces and getting sucked out in major pots a few times, guess I should be happy I made it to the money.

Overall this makes 2 cashes out of 10, on paper this looks like a decent result but I'm obviously not satisfied at all. luckily the biggest events are left to play, tomorrow is the NLHE 10k 6m Championship, 2days after the 5k triple chance and of course the main event.

After the Triple chance I will take off to Santa Monica with few friends to take a break from vegas and the grind, to recharge myself for the main event in which I will hopefully last till November ;)

 thats my quick recap, hopefully my next entry will be associated with the word "Bracelet" somehow ;)

gl at the tables,

Tsubi 

Hey guys and gals,

I've been in Vegas for a week now, and I guess it's time for a blog to tell you about what has happened in Vegas so far, and my awesome trip to Tibet.

As promised in my last post, I'll be telling you a little bit about my trip to Tibet. It exceeded all my expectations and we had a real blast there.

88 Hours on the train

The train to Lhasa, Tibet from Beijing, took 44 hours each way. and the journey is a staggering 3,753km long, passing through some amazing scenery, including the highest point of the track which was 5,072m above sea level.

The most spiritual place on earth?

We spent our first couple of days in Lhasa visiting several temples around town. The temples were ancient and serene and always busy with pilgrims who are constantly showing their devotion by praying throughout the day. 

Besides temples, there are also plenty of monasteries in Tibet. Here you can see the monks engaging in theological "debate". It is basically a question and answer session where the monks pair up, the questioner is the one doing "kungfu" pose, and the one seated answers.

Tibetan Buddhism is an interesting mix of their ancient Bon religion and Buddhism imported from India. They believe that buddhist gurus from India have tamed the demons that once plauged their lands, and have tamed them. Now these demons are their protectors, like this one pictured above, who protects a temple from evil forces.

Journey to Mount Everest

After visiting the sights in Lhasa, we started our journey towards the Northern Everest Base Camp , also called the Qoomalangma National Park. The trip took a few days in our Toyota Land Cruiser and we stopped over in several more small towns, visiting the local sights and temple. We also passed through a variety of landscapes, ranging from glaciers, farmland to sand dunes. 

 

   A closeup view of the north face of Mount Everest. The base camp was a 1 hour trek from hour yak leather tents. It was a tough hike at 5,200 meters above sea leve. Unfortunately, we were stopped a few hundred meters away from the actual camp due to political reasons.

We spent a night in a rented yak leather tent. This little girl must belong to one of the tent keepers. She was just walking around the tent site. When I showed her this picture I took of her. She didn't look impressed. She just frowned and left.

At sunset, Mount Everest looks like as if it's on fire. A truly amazing sight. The night at the tent site was surprisingly comfortable. The tent was warm and the tent keeper kept a fire burning throughout the night, fired by yak dung. We spent the evening playing "Big Two" in the tent, a kind of poker popular in Asia. 

Tibet to Beijing to Las Vegas

I left Tibet on the 10th day since my arrival there, and arrived in Beijing 44 hours later. Two days after that, I was already in Las Vegas.

Since reaching Las Vegas, I've been privileged enough to witness some great success by the Team PokerStrategy.com members, I'm sure you've all read about it now from our comprehensive news coverage, so I won't repeat them here, but I'm truly enjoying my time here again this year.

Vegas almost feels like home for me now, after 4 months on the road. I have a permanent "home" here, I have my daily work routine, I have a car and I go shopping for groceries every few days. After spending two months here last year, I already know the area around my hotel pretty well, so everything is familiar to me, just like home.

Hey guys,

It's been a long time since I last posted in this space, and I believe I have some awesome news to share with you... I will be bringing you the live coverage for Team PokerStrategy.com at WSOP 2011!

I hope you guys are looking forward to following my coverage as much as I am psyched to bring you another round of coverage from Las Vegas. Let's hope this year's coverage will be even better than last year!

There have been quite a lot of exciting developments in the Team recently, and I'm sure you guys have read all about it in the news coverage. I'm looking forward to talking to the guys about their recent successes and also meeting all the new team members for the first time. I'm sure we will all have a blast in Vegas.

Just as there has been a lot of exciting news coming from Team PokerStrategy.com, I'm also happy to report that there has been some pretty exciting stuff happening in my life as well. I finally received my Masters Degree, and both my girlfriend and I decided to quit our jobs to embark on a year long trip mostly around Asia.

We've been on the road for almost six months now (okay that's not exactly true, we did spend 3 weeks back at home in Malaysia to celebrate the Chinese New Year with family). There's just way too much to write about in one blog post, so I guess the best way is just for me to share with you some pictures of the places I've been to, which includes Botswana, South Africa, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and China.


Botswana and South Africa

We spent about a month in these two beautiful countries in Southern Africa. We went on a Safari, ate lots of delicious beef, and saw lots of wild animals and spectacular scenery. If I ever get the chance, I'm definitely going back again!

An aerial view of the Okavango Delta, Botswana taken on our brief flight over it

The cheerfully coloured huts at Muizenberg beach near Cape Town, South Africa, just like the country it's in, beautiful, colourful and so welcoming

Myanmar

After South Africa, we went home to spend some time with family members for the annual Chinese New Year celebrations before heading off again on Valentine's day. I had my reservations about visiting the Junta controlled Myanmar, but after going there, I truly believe that everyone should pay it a visit.
    

Myanmar is a land of buddhist temples, and in the ancient town of Bagan, you'll mind thousands of these ancient buddhist shrines. The scenery from a high vantage point during sunrise and sunset, is truly breathtaking.

Because of the under developed economy and the few job opportunities, many young people join monasteries so that their parents will have one less mouth to feed at home. You see monks everywhere in Myanmar

Vietnam

Vietnam is my favourite country in the world and this is my fourth time visiting. For this trip, we spent a whole month in Vietnam, starting from the South in Ho Chi Minh city and ending at the north in Hanoi.

I love Vietnamese food, and while the Vietnamese beef noodles called pho (pronounced as fuh) are the most famous of them all, there is so much more food in Vietnam and I would need at least 10 pages to show you all the delicious food I had there.

If Vietnam is my favourite country, Hanoi is my favourite city in Vietnam. I think the crazy telephone wiring that you can see all over Hanoi's old quarter sums up the city pretty well. Insanely busy, rapidly modernizing but still retaining a lot of old school awesomeness.


Laos

We wanted to spend a week or two here, but ended up only spending five days in this truly laid back country. Due to time constraint, we didn't manage to visit too many places except a few small riverside towns on our way into Southern China.

The towns of Muang Khua and Nong Khiaw were a world away from the ever busy Hanoi. The scenery here was truly stunning and everyone seemed to live a laid back and content life.

Our own charming but basic bamboo bungalow cost us only $5 a night, and I had a great time just sitting at the balcony taking in out pleasant surroundings and imbibing a few bottles of delicious refreshing, cheap and deservedly world-renowned Beer Lao.

China

After Laos, we finally arrived at our intended destination of China. We plan to spend the rest of the year here, and I will be returning to China after the two months in Vegas. After spending more than a month here, I feel like we've barely even uncovered the tip of the iceberg - there's just so much to see and do here.
    

I have a love hate relationship with many of the towns we've been to in China and nothing epitomises it like Lijiang, in Yunnan, China. This "old town" is truely beautiful and charming, but almost everything here is a reconstruction and the streets are constantly filled with tourists.

Chinese medicine is the preferred form of treatment here and everything is natural. Turtle shells, starfish and centipedes all supposedly cure various ailments and are supposed to make you stronger. I guess they really take the phrase "what doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger" very seriously here.

Meeting Jonas in Shanghai

Since I was in China and the head of PokerStrategy.com's editorial department, Jonas, was also here for his vacation, we decided that he will bring all the equipment i need for Vegas and pass it all to me in Shanghai. We've talked and chatted a lot before, but this was the first time we met in real life.

After some delicious afternoon tea and cakes, we talked a lot about everything that has been happening with the Team recently. Jonas also handed me a PokerStrategy.com hoodie and a few t-shirts that I will be wearing proudly in Vegas. Although it was brief, it was a nice afternoon and I'm looking forward to meeting up with the rest of our editorial team in the not too distant future.

After Shanghai, I continued on my trip and am now in Beijing, the capital of China. I will be going on a two day tour of all the major sights around the city before hopping onto the train to Lhasa, Tibet. After Tibet, I fly directly to Vegas to begin our WSOP 2011 coverage.

Check this space for more updates, and I will definitely be posting up more pictures and impressions of my time in Beijing and Tibet in the next posting.
    
Cheers and beers,
Edwin

I started managing Team PokerStrategy.com from Gibraltar about 3 months ago. Communication with the players has mainly been via e-mail and Skype, so we decided it was time to finally meet in person. The Grand Final of this year’s EPT season in Madrid was the perfect opportunity, as nearly all members of Team PokerStrategy.com were there to play. Here's how it went:

Spain and punctuality
It's not a big secret that the Spanish adopt a laid-back approach to life, so it was no big surprise that our one hour flight to Madrid had a 45 minute delay. Oh well! Living in Gibraltar or Spain, the number one thing you have to remember is to take it easy...

Spain and the English language
I was quite surprised to discover that even in a major and touristy city like Madrid, there are hardly any people who speak English... and without any Spanish skills, we actually had a pretty tough time making it to our apartment. It's about time I started taking those Spanish classes!

The big show: live tournaments
The casino is located about 30km outside of Madrid. We weren't able to find any suitable hotels nearby, so we booked two apartments in Madrid's inner city. This meant that to get to the casino, we had to use the shuttle bus, operating from the two huge official 5-star EPT hotels. These hotels were crowded with poker players and it was quite amusing to watch them in their shorts, flip flops and hoodies mingling with elegant businessmen and wealthy vacationers - the regular guests in such high-end hotels.

During the first two days, you could easily tell from a distance where the big stars of the poker scene were seated. Huge crowds of reporters and visitors gathered around the tables of Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan on Day 1A and Daniel Negreanu on Day 1B. The EPT massage girls were also very popular with the photographers as well as the players. Some players got their backs massaged for several hours a day, even though the "best hands of the EPT" charged a good €1.80 a minute for their services.

I also noticed that the number of female poker players seems to be increasing: you will usually find at least one or two women at each table now and there were around 80 women participating in the Ladies Event. Liv Boree was showing off quite a nice outfit and not the casual clothes she has sported at previous occasions. Maybe that’s because her boyfriend was there with her.

The daily dinner selection was also good. We had a choice between a 3-course meal, a snack and a barbecue. We chose the barbecue, but apparently the casino didn’t expect that it would be so popular, which might have been why the quality of the food left much to be desired: Most of the burgers weren’t cooked properly, the steaks were still bloody, the sausages looked like charcoal on the outside and were raw in the middle. But okay, I guess it takes some practice to be a good barbecue chef but hey, the beer was cheap at €1.60.

The bubble in the main event lasted for over 75 minutes. Suddenly all the press people and players started running to the table where the dealer announced "all-in and call." It took about 10 minutes to get the cameras in position for every hand and throughout the rest of the tournament there were two to three camera teams filming every action.

Nazgul's table was pretty entertaining as well. After every hand, the winner had to turn over one of his cards. The highlight of the table was when a slightly tipsy player took a seat and went all-in for around 100 BB with an insta-3-bet from the SB against an open-raise from the button. The button called with AA and when the other player turned over 9Ts, the button was confident that he would win the 200 BB pot.

All this changed when the drunken player flopped a straight. Our inebriated friend then did a charming victory dance through the casino, ordered a few more drinks for himself and bought a round of beer for everyone at the table. Only two hands later, Nazgul opened the betting and the same player 3-bet pushed again, this time for 200 BB. Nazgul laughed and folded. The player kept the table entertained for another two hours, was the hands-down chip leader at the end of the day and announced he would be partying hard after his success. As far as I know, he didn’t make it into the money on the second day.

A poker player’s life
So, what did I learn about the life of a professional poker player during the EPT? The tournaments, especially the side events, sometimes didn't end before 3am. There were four of us staying in the apartment and we only had two keys, so I was really worried no one would be awake to let me in. But all of them were still up, playing online and grinding the SCOOP tournaments.

The following day I heard that they had continued to play until 6am, which means they didn’t get up until 3 in the afternoon – just in time for the next tournament. But it’s not all late nights, drinking and grinding: the life of a poker player can be a hard one too. Many times over the weekend a forlorn player could be heard uttering the question: “Hey, can you pay for me? I only have €500 notes..." Overall, we had some very interesting insights into the tournament circus. All that’s left to say is: hasta la vista Madrid, see you all again soon!

One of the key persons in Las Vegas' history, Steve Wynn once said, "Las Vegas is sort of like how God would do it if he had money." After being here for over four weeks now, I find it hard to disagree with his assessment of this place. If i were to pick five words off the top of my head to describe Vegas I'd go with exhilarating, delicious, sinful, sexy and amazing.

If someone were to ask me how was my trip to Vegas, I'd tell them that I wouldn't be able to do it justice and they should come here themselves to experience it for themselves.But I would also give them a list of reasons to go to Vegas and they are:

1.  Girls, girls, girls. Las Vegas is just filled with really good looking people (and some terrible looking ones too) everywhere you look. Nowadays with the Internet, you can find lots of pictures of beautiful people online, but nothing beats the real thing, in flesh and blood. Come during the summer when the sun is out, and drop by one of the pool parties that get thrown all the times in different hotels all over Vegas. I've not been to one yet (except the really nice pool in my hotel), but I've heard it's life changing.(hint: just Google "Las Vegas Pool Party")

 2. Great hotels at affordable prices. Besides beautiful people, the next thing that Vegas has in abundance is great hotels. The Venetian, Caesars Palace, Bellagio and Palazzo are just but a few of the really amazing hotels they have in Vegas. The service is top notch, the rooms are big and luxurious and the prices are always affordable because of the intense competition. I couldn't be happier with my room at the Palms Place, the bed is super comfy, i have a nice fridge and a kitchen to cook in, the view from the balcony is amazing and the jacuzzi in the bathroom is great after a long day at the WSOP.

3. Awesome food. Las Vegas is probably one of the top culinary destinations in the world, if you are looking for some great fine dining experiences. It is jam packed with restaurants that are fronted by some of the most famous chefs in the world, Wolfgang Puck, Joel Robuchon and Hubert Keller are a few that i recognized immediately. While we've been here, we've ate at a few nice places like the Little Buddha at the Palms, Yellowtail at the Bellagio, Nove at the Palms and I've enjoyed everyone of them. I have to confess though that the food at the Poker Kitchen at the WSOP is a disaster, avoid it unless you have no choice.

4. Poker. It's not just the WSOP that you can come for if you're a poker player. Poker games are running all around town all the time and you can find a game at pretty much any stake you desire (lowest is $1/$2) at any time of the day. If you're up for the challenge, I'm sure some of the high stakes games would offer up a challenge to even the best poker players. But if you're like me, who is a relative novice and don't have too much of a bankroll, the low stakes tables are a great place to earn some money while having a good time. The games as so soft at the lower limits, and the rake is also pretty affordable. Let me tell you about a hand i saw last night at the $2/$5 table (NL500). UTG limps, UTG+1 limps, MP3 raises, CO re-raises, BB calls, UTG calls, UTG+1 calls, MP3 4-bet all in (~35BB), CO folds, BB calls, UTG calls, UTG+1 calls. Flop K 7 9, BB checks, UTG goes all-in, UTG+1 calls, BB goes all-in, UTG+1 calls. Turn and the river blanked everyone and UTG shows 79o to take the pot, BB shows JJ, the other two muck. I could only go, WTF???

5. Free drinks. One of the best things about the casinos in Vegas are that drinks are all free when you are playing. You of course have to pay the customary $1 tip to the waitresses, but you can pretty much order almost anything that you want (excluding the super premium label of course). Bourbon with coke, goose and cranberry, vodka Redbull, coffee, milkshakes, cocktails, wine, Perrier, a wide selection of local and international beer and the list goes on. Everything is on the house, as long as you're sitting down and playing at the tables.

6. Meeting new friends. The last great reason to come to Vegas for me is that you get to meet so many awesome people when you are here. I've had a great time hanging out with the PokerStrategists that I've met in Vegas so far, but it's not just them that I've got to meet. Vegas attracts people from all over the world, from all kinds of backgrounds and when you sit down at a poker table here with complete strangers, you never known who you'll meet. A doctor from Alaska, a banker from New York, a businessman from China, students on holiday from Norway are just some of them I've had the pleasure of playing poker with.

So after all this, would I consider moving to Vegas to live here? No. I love the ocean too much to live in a desert and I think Vegas is better taken in with small doses. Too much of a good thing is never good for you. But if I were to be offered a chance to come to Vegas for 2 months every year for the WSOP, that could be an offer that is too good to refuse.

For all of you reading this who've never been to Vegas, what are you waiting for? It's an experience everyone should have for at least one time in their life. Start planning your trip for WSOP 2011 now, if that's too long to wait, there still a few more weeks of WSOP 2010 to go too.

Hope to meet you in Vegas soon,

Edwin

Thank you Trader! Thank you BongBob! The last two days were a truly awesome ride to say the least.Congratulations for your awesome achievements! 

I never would've imagined that I would be railing a WSOP final table before I came to Vegas. To have two people that you know, have spent time with and had dinner and drinks with to cheer for at the final table, that was something else. Everyone can show up and cheer for Ivey or Negreanu or Dwan, but being able to cheer for someone you know personally, makes it so much more special.

 

At both final tables, a bunch of Trader's and BongBob's friends showed up to root for the. There was of course beer going around, cheers and claps ringing out every time they took down a pot, big or small. We celebrated every win with gusto and shared our joint disappointments in every loss or bad beat. It was all great fun and something that I will always remember.

Trader's run into the final table was so great to watch. His match against David Williams had Trader completely crushing his opponent in every aspect. The match against Vanessa Rousso meanwhile, was an absolutely gruelling clash of wits that saw two really good heads-up players, trying their hardest to outplay their opponent. Unfortunately, Trader fell at the final hurdle after putting another two great performances, as the cards just didn't fall for him. That's the game of poker for you.

I am also really happy for BongBob after he finally made his first huge score in a live tournament. The $10k Pot Limit Hold'em field was full of some of the best players around. For him to outlast so many of them and come in fourth is an achievement worth celebrating. He tangled with some of the best and came out with his head held up high. 

I can't wait for the next final table. I'm sure we'll be having another one really soon.

Check out more pictures from the final table at our image galleries for Day 24, Day 25 and Day 26.

Trader made a spectacular run in the $10,000 Heads-Up at the world series. He's battling it out for a bracelet later this evening, starting 0-1 behind. This means he now has to win 2 games in a row to be the first PokerStrategist(afaik) to take home a bracelet. He took out Vanessa Rousso at the final 8, who is by many considered to be one of the toughest Heads-Up players around. This match already lasted 4.5 hours and was pretty close. Luckily the next match was over quickly vs a high stakes Russian player. Before the blinds could increase Trader found himself all-in with trip kings vs pocket aces on the turn.

The final went on to be a huge grind. They started at 22:45 in the evening and the final blow was dealt around 5:30 in the morning. This means they played close to seven hours already. It could have been over so much faster when Trader had a 6:1 chiplead early on and put his opponent all-in with AJo vs K2s. Unfortunately that didn't hold and we were up for 5 more hours. The longest heads-up match at the world series belongs to Chip Reese and Andy Bloch in the 50k horse 4 years ago. This match lasted 7 hours and 10 minutes. I do not know if it counts, but considering Trader is playing a best of 3, he's definitely going to break this record. 

It was good to see many PokerStrategists coming out to support Trader at the final table. It was not always exciting to watch as it was a lot of raise/call/check it down situations and a lot of small pots. But if you are rooting for someone every pot is important anyway. Let's hope we can rail him tonight to see him take down the bracelet. It's pretty impressive from Trader who's main game, as you might know from his videos, is Heads-Up. At least he underlines once again he is one of the best in the world in this discipline. Ship the bracelet one time;)

  For more pictures of the Heads-Up Final Table: here

Today is my 20th day in Las Vegas and boy has it been an awesome experience so far. If I were to be asked to point out one thing that has been the highlight of my stay so far, it would have to be how amazingly approachable and friendly everyone is. I've made so many new acquaintances in the last 3 short week, especially among the PokerStrategy.com community that came here. But this will have to be a topic for another blog.

In this post, I would like to talk about the amazing number of famous poker players that i get to meet every day. I might sound like a complete n00b when i say this, but being able to stand 5 feet away from people you've only seen on TV before really does feel surreal.

You read about their exploits, watch them play their games on TV and now they're all just there, in flesh and blood. In that moment, you realise that they are actually just real people too.  

 

Before I came to Vegas, a friend of mine who has been to the WSOP before this, told me that one of the best things about the WSOP and live poker in general is how approachable all the famous people are to the fans. He was spot on! Unlike in many other sports where the stars maintain a certain distance from their fans, the poker stars here are just like any other player.

They eat the same food, drink the same drinks, hang out during the break with everyone else and when they sit down and play with you, you play as equals. If you were to have a beer on the table, many of them will have a beer with you too.

 

For me personally, here are the top 8 poker star moments I've had so far:

1. As I was walking around the tables, I turned and Phil Ivey looked me in the eye. In that moment, I could feel him reading my soul.

2. Seeing Phil Ivey in person for the very first time during the start of the $50k Poker Player's Championship. He was much taller than i expected and just as imposing a presence as i imagined.

3. Shannon Elizabeth, asking me for a favour. She asked me to look for a Palm Pre charger, but unfortunately i couldn't find one. Otherwise, she'd be owing me a favour. ;)

4. Changing my mind about durrrr being gay after seeing him in real life. I've always thought he looked so gay on TV, but my gaydar didn't says no in real life.

5. Phil Hellmuth walking off the feature table after a beat and mouthing the words mo****f***er. I just happened to sit right in front of him in the press box as he did that. Don't think anyone else saw it.Still waiting for the real blow up though.

6. Having Doyle Brunson almost running me and Guennilicous down with his scooter as we were standing on the rails. He got off it, but his walking stick pressed down on something, and it continued moving.

7. Hearing Antonio Esfandiari trying to start one of his "What does Johnny Lodden think" prop bets on his table. Not too many people were interested.

8. The now famous exchange of words between Nazgul and Liv Boeree. "Liv, are you tight?", asked Nazgul as he made his decision after Boeree's raise. If you've not read or heard about it yet, go here.

Before I end, don't forget to check out more pictures I've taken at the Team PokerStrategy.com WSOP 2010 galleries.

This might not turn out to be the typical blog that you'd expect in the Team PokerStrategy.com category, but it is something worth reading. Health is overlooked by many poker players. Players might consider a lot of different ways such as Hold'em Manager, PokerTracker, discussing hands on the forum or watching videos in order to improve their win rate. Though almost never is physical and mental fitness mentioned in the same breath, but it really ought to be. Being physically and mentally fit does improve your results as well as your overall quality of life - which is ultimately why you play poker professionally in the first place right? Financial freedom-> better quality of life.

Typically I used to play cash games online for short sessions of 2 to 3 hours each a few times a day. The reason for this is to keep your focus at a maximum. Whenever you play longer your focus tends to drift away and you'll start making costly errors. When you play tournaments you do not have the luxury to quit whenever you feel your focus slipping. The WSOP tournaments typically start at noon and go on until 1 in the morning. A lot of players are really done when it's 10pm and are just waiting for the day to end, because they get tired. This means they miss out on 2 levels of play that are getting at a critical stage and probably even played under their maximum capacity before that as well. It needs no further arguing that this is far from optimal for your results. So you need to increase your focus time span. I will argue that any serious poker player who has high goals for himself should maintain a perfect health in order to achieve those. If you don't, then you are not doing it right.

What I have noticed over the last 2 weeks is that I can keep on playing much longer than less fit people without a problem. Being healthy improves your focus, happiness(tilt resistance), mood balance (ultimate tilt resistance), endurance, you'll never be sick(no down time!), energy levels(ready to play all day), productivity and it even makes you brighter. Sounds good? Thought so too. So how to get there? Well let me first tell you the way NOT to do it. One and a half year ago in April I started my first attempt of getting fit. However, it was for the wrong reason. All I wanted is to look better and didn't care about all the other things.  What happened was some intensive training for 3 months with little result and gave up when I left home for 2 months in Vegas where I indulged in pancakes and other delicious foods Vegas has to offer. After December I noticed that I actually gained 9kg instead of losing any. 

My 2010 resolution was being healthier for the purpose of being healthy, live longer and better. I started following the primal blueprint or paleo diet which gets its' name from the theory it's based upon. It suggests that Humans have evolved for tens of thousands of years and for 99% of that time have eaten like a 'caveman'. Only in the last few hundred years our diet has drastically changed and not for the best. Therefore our digestive system and metabolism are not fully adapted to the recent changes in our evolution. Do you honestly think refined sugar, genetically enhanced and poor fed grown chicken improved our health? The result of the paleo diet I follow is that I sleep only 7.5 hours a day instead of 9 to feel completely rested. I have lost 15kg in 5.5 months and I'm stronger( e.g. no longer 10 push ups, but 100), faster and can play 24 hours in a row if I have to whereas before I'd be done after 4-5 hours. I've never made more profit at poker before. I'm playing 60 hours per week and do not feel fatigued. And in general I can truly say I feel happier.

This diet works for me. Probably because I believe in it, it makes sense to me and it's easy to do. There are probably other diets out there that work for others so I will not be preaching the way I got there as the only way. As long as you try to improve your health for the right reasons and are convinced it's the right thing to do, you too will feel an improvement in your life. You too will increase your win rate, your amount of hands played and in general you'll be more productive than before. So maybe you can change the notorious reputation of laziness from poker players ;)

If you are interested in the diet you can check out the following links:

Definite Guide The Primal Blueprint

Primal Eating Plan

Crossfit Training

 If you'd like to know more just leave a comment;)

Last week has been a pretty intense series of tournaments. Starting Saturday 29th there has been a NLHE tournament each day and in almost every tournament I've played more than 6 levels at the very least. Whenever you make it into the next day you have to be at the tables from 12:00 until 01:00. Compared to the EPT tournaments this is quite long and that combined with the fact you'll be doing this every day for weeks is quite tough. Yesterday I survived day 1 again, but luckily this field was so big they had two starting days - which meant I would get a day off from playing. A much welcome break.

I took the time off to do some protein and vitamine shopping with Nazgul & Edwin. Had the chance to stock up over $150 worth of protein bars and vitamine drinks; D Also used the day off to move hotels. Was staying at the Rio before, since it's quite convenient with the tournament just downstairs, but I didn't like it at all. I think it has been a while since the Rio was popular. It is now outdated and compared with all the other great resorts in Vegas I can't understand why anyone would even go there at all. Now I'm staying in the Palazzo which is quite cool. They have got a great gym with personal trainers, classes and even a rock climbing wall. So whenever I make a bad play I can take my rage out there. 

Tomorrow I will start in day 2 with only 12 big blinds. The bubble will probably burst pretty quick, but there's a chance I'll be out even quicker. I'll be looking for a good spot to get my stack in and chip up. When I double I might ask Edwin to get me some breakfast though as then I could be playing for a little longer. Overal I really like the tournaments. It's lots of fun to play for a bracelet and the fields have been, apart from a few stacked tables, ridiculously soft. Every tournament with a smaller buy-in is like a Sunday Million on Stars or worse. Especially because you play live which means 1 table and more reads it's so nice to own worse players completely. Still with the blind structures you do need as always with tournaments, a decent amount of luck. 

Well let's hope my flipping skills will be unreal tomorrow. 

Hey guys,

It's been about a week since my last post, quite a lot has happened since then, so let me just go ahead and give you the highlights of the week. Let's start with the story of how I landed in Vegas with just one change of clothes. My journey started in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and I had transits in Hong Kong, and San Francisco, before eventually landing in Las Vegas.

My flights were pretty uneventful, but things started to get interesting when I landed in San Francisco. When it was my turn to do the immigration check, my counter was manned by a Chinese lady who spoke English with a heavy Hong Kong accent. The first thing she said to me was, "do you speak Cantonese?". I did, so we proceeded to discuss my trip in Cantonese. That was a pretty strange experience.

After that, I proceeded to reclaim my bags, as I had to manually check them in for my flight to Vegas. I waited and waited, for almost 15 minutes, and after all the bags had come out, mine was still missing. I reported it to the staff there, they double checked again, but they still couldn't find my bags. I was then told to try again in Vegas, and to file a missing luggage report there if I don't see them. So I just moved on, with just my laptop bag and the single change of clothes I had inside.

My flight to Vegas was delayed for more than an hour,and when I finally arrived in "Sin City", the first thing that welcomed me to Vegas, was the rows and rows of slot machines at the airport waiting halls. Where else can you find this other than in Vegas?

Unfortunately, my bags did not show up in Vegas as well, and I had to file a "Delayed Baggage Report". To keep the long story short, I made multiple calls to United Airlines after that, to find out when my bags would arrive. In the end, they showed up in my hotel about 24 hours after I landed.

BongBob, Nazgul and Allanon flew in to Vegas at around the same time i did, but i did not see them at the airport. RobbieV who was scheduled to arrive in the evening of the 27th, was delayed for a day because of the British Airways strikes. He was stuck in London for a day, and arrived just in time for the meet and greet dinner between me and the four Team PokerStrategy.com members that have already arrived in Vegas.

We had dinner at the excellent Nove Italiano restaurant at the Palms, which is just across the road from the Rio (where the WSOP is held). Unfortunately, I couldn't get any pictures there as the setting was just too dark to take pictures without proper equipment.  Me and Nazgul who both live nearby arrived earlier and had to wait for the rest, but the food was well worth the wait.

Nazgul and BongBob both had a steak each, i had the house special pasta, RobbieV ordered a rabbit risotto while Allanon who was still full from an earlier meal only had a plate of crudo (raw fish dressed with olive oil, sea salt and citrus juice). We also had some nice white wine to go with the meal. The table talk was lively despite everyone being visibly tired and somewhat jet lagged.

After dinner, we decided to walk over to the Rio, where RobbieV is staying. The four of them registered for Event #3, and I picked up the DSLR camera. Robbie also took the opportunity to distribute the new stickers for our clothes that has our site's logo (pictured below).

The logos are really well made, and attracted quite a bit of attention when the players were playing in their first event. Quite a few people asked about the site, especially on Allanon and BongBob's table when they were seated together. Players were all quite interested to know what PokerStrategy.com (or .net in this case) is about.

I think that is all from me at the moment. Don't forget to check out the English and German live ticker threads for the story on what happened to RobbieV, Nazgul, BongBob and Allanon during Event #3. Come back next week for more stories of Team PokerStrategy.com at WSOP 2010.

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas goes up on this blog.

Edwin out.

If you frequently visit the English Community forums, then you probably would've seen my name before. Am I the latest member of Team PokerStrategy.com? I really wish so, but no.

Who am I then, and why am I posting in the Team Blog? In short, I will be the guy that will be bringing you the live updates and daily round-ups for WSOP 2010 direct from Vegas.

I have been a member here for almost 2 years and have been working as a freelancer news writer for around 10 months now. I was responsible for the Weekly Quiz and Community Round-ups for some time, and also write a lot of the high stakes and tournament reports. When I'm not writing or playing poker (currently playing $6.50 SnGs on Full Tilt), I am a teaching assistant in a university.

This will be my first ever trip to Las Vegas, and in fact my first ever trip to the United States. Needless to say, when i heard about the offer to go to Vegas for 2 months, I accepted without much hesitation, even though it meant that I will have to leave my super comfortable existence in Malaysia for quite some time.

To say that i am really excited about the trip, would be an understatement. I am a pretty well travelled guy, but the next 2 months in Vegas will certainly be the most awesome experience yet of my life so far.

Not only would i get to experience Vegas, i will also get to be a part of an event that every poker player dreams of attending. I was told that one of the best things about the World Series of Poker is that, you never know when you will rub shoulders with some of the top pros. It would be amazing to have someone like Daniel Negreanu standing in line behind me, when I'm queueing up for a sandwich.

I am of course also really looking forward to meeting up with and hanging out the Team PokerStrategy.com guys. I've written and read so much about guys like Nazgul, PokerNoob, RobbieV, Allanon, BongBob, ScHnibL0r, Bokkie, and CuCbKu in the last year, it would be great to finally to meet them and just shake their hands.

As a show of my dedication to bring you the best coverage that I possibly can, I have even consented to having "PokerStrategy.com"  permanently branded onto my passport.

It's been a little over a year since the original four players, Allanon, Nazgul, PokerNoob and Trader signed up and thereby creating Team PokerStrategy.com. The team got off to a rocky start in Vegas only cashing 4 times during 61 tournaments - with the only notable one Nazgul's deep run in the Main Event for $69,000. After that the team picked up pace by cashing at least one time at every single EPT event. The first final tables were made in January during the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure where Nazgul made it third in the tough $5,250 6max for $53,700 and PokerNoob, after cashing  four EPT Main Events in a row made it to the final table, at the star studded High Roller Event. The cards didn't want to cooperate with PokerNoob that day and even though he started as a chip leader he eventually finished sixth for the first 6 figure amount for the team $107,250.

The highlight of the team came right when the sixth season of the EPT drew to an end in Monte Carlo. First two newly joined Team PokerStrategists, ScHnibl0r and Bokkie cashed in the Main Event, then followed by Bokkie's third finish in the €5,250 6 max. But the real fireworks came of course with PokerNoob's stunning performance at the Monte Carlo High Roller final table. PokerNoob who didn't start as the chip leader this time eventually got Heads-Up with Olivier Busquet, who is also known as livb112 or Adonis112, one of the best online HU SNG players in the world. During the Heads-Up it was PokerNoob who showed he has nerves of steel by making a bluff with pure air in a monster pot that largely affected the final result. When all of the chips finally went in with Olivier's hole cards A2 and PokerNoobs QQ the first 7 digit cash was looming for Team PokerStrategy.com. When the board bricked off PokerNoob won €956,000 a little shy of a million, but in US Dollars well over it;) (according too www.oanda.com we are even billionaires in Zimbabwe)

 With the increasing performance of the team I'm excited to see what we'll do this season. We've got 4 new players: Bongbob, Bokkie, CuCbku and 'Der Grinder' ScHnibl0r from the original 4 of last year. Vegas kicks off the 29th of May with a $1,000 tournament that will probably be sold out creating a 6 million USD prize pool. I know the performance of PokerNoob at the High Roller will be hard to best, but we're surely going to try!

  Unlike last year we expect to have a full coverage of the team's progress during the World Series of Poker. Of course we'll update you as much as we can about your fellow PokerStrategists who are taking a shot at the coveted bracelets this year. So make sure you'll follow the news and the forum Live-Tickers!

Just woke up and had one of the best breakfasts in such a long time. Spanish sausages, veal sausages, egg, pancakes, croissant with chocolate, melon, dragonfruit and so on. Sounds like something only a winner deserves! It makes me hungry again.

I've played the 1k side event here and it had about 140 entrants if I remember correct. I must have dropped somewhere around 50th place. My AK which I had a couple of times didn't connect to any board and every hand was often 4-5 way. The blind structure was awesome for a 1k event. Even after 5 hours of play and losing half my stack I still had 30bb. I eventually lost shipping in AJ with 19bb or so after 4 limpers and got cold called by the button who had AT. He's a PLO reg at 10/20 and we've talked quite a bit. I think his screenname is Gohan. Nothing too special about the event except that Pavlovic was at my table. It's the guy who won the 5k heads-up tournament and he basically confirmed again you can be lucky in poker. This guy was so annoying. He wore a big metal chain around his neck proudly flaunting his 5k hu win here and then proceeded to limp 4-5 times per orbit whilst berating others for their play. I think he eventually busted after 5bet shoving with T8o from the bb against UTG open who played tight and had, surprise suprise, AA. Flop came T68 and a big cheer from the Slovakian, turn meh and river 6 which made him scream YES I WON! When he found out from the dealer that AA makes a better two pair he kinda snuck out from the tournament area ;)

 The Main Event was great. We started with 400bb and 1 hour levels. The dealers were pretty decent and haven't seen a single mistake other than 1 flying card once. I hadn't picked up any big hole cards like big pairs or made sets, straights or any of that. I mostly maintained my stack by showing down top pair in some 3 way pots. I went from 20k to 32k or so playing barely any hand. When the blinds moved up to 600/1,2k with 200 ante my patience was tested quite a bit. My last couple of moves, even though I was playing uber nitty, just got stomped on. One guy, who opened pretty much 30% of his hands I reckon, made it 2.5bb to go and I repopped it to 9bb with TT while playing 50bb from the button. SB flatcalls and the OR made it 39bb.... I let it go. I open AJ and face a reraise+rereraise when it comes back to me and so on. After that I was dealt only bad cards and with so much action in front of me I couldn't do much. Especially since their stacks were deeper and they liked to gamble.

I met Masterflow briefly(sorry if I didn't get your name right) on the stairs at the casino. He's a German diamond member and told me a typical French move that sounded quite familiar. Starting stacks were 20,000 and blinds were 50/100 in the second level. It's folded around to the SB who completes. Masterflow from the BB makes it 400 to go and the SB repops to 5k saying he shouldn't steal his blind. That reminded me of a hand where I had AT during the first level. I opened from the CO and the bb calls. Flop comes AQ5 and I cbet and he check/calls. Turn is a Q and he says: "Tapis!" Which is French for carpet, but also means all-in at the poker table. He had 390bb more on a 15bb pot. So I made a tough fold. Good bluff on his part! ;) He said he had Q2.

Anyway eventually raised AJo in the SB after folding for nearly 3 hours. BB makes a big theatrical over confident show and moves all-in for 24bb. I had him slightly covered and eventually decided to call, mostly based on the read he's simply bluffing too often and I'm just way ahead of him. He shows A9o and binks it so meh. I think I went out around 40 players left with 130 starting, pretty similar to the 1k event. It was definitely a good structure and the tournament is well organized. I'll definitely play here again as sort of a relaxation week with some fun poker.

So now I'm gonna get a girly treatment at the Spa with some sports massage and foot massage etc. I have some time until my flight tomorrow, so I might as well enjoy it. I will probably be playing some tournaments again tonight on my laptop from the hotel room as it's Sunday after all;)

Hi guys,

 I'm in Evian at the moment, you know the place in France where the bottled water comes from. I'm here to participate in the Evian Poker Open and the French Heads-Up open, which was invite only. PokerStrategy.com basically got two seats they could fill in a 32 field Heads-Up 5k Euro buy-in tournament which is going to be broad casted on Eurosport France and Eurosport international for 5 times 52 minutes. Here's a link to the full program.

First of all Evian is a great place, for you and your girlfriend that is. I've spent most my time in places like Gibraltar, Vegas and Bangkok so the scenerey here with the Lake of Geneva and the Alps surrounding it is really great and refreshing. Although there's just nothing else to do here, but if you are into golf and Spa stuff you should definitely head over here one day. Make sure you have a good month at poker first though ;)

Before coming here I checked how far Evian was from the Airport I landed on, Geneva, and google maps said it was 34km. So not bad, I could take the taxi then. I hopped in the taxi after a 7 hour travel from Malaga and expected to be in the Royal Resort in half an hour or so. Then 1 hour later, going through small villages I got the feeling the driver was ripping me off or something. But he was just following the signs that pointed to Evian every time, so hm. When I finally got to the hotel it said 330 Swiss Franc and I had to pay 230 Euros... I checked with the hotel reception how far the airport was and they too said 35km and that 230 Euro is fairly standard. I just thought Amsterdam taxi's were the most expensive in the world, I guess I was wrong :- )

 The Heads-Up itself went great and not so great. Out of a field where 80% is French, I drew James Akenhead who was on the final table of the WSOP Main Event this year. He recognized me from online and some live events and we had a little chat, very friendly guy overall. He seemed to be fairly tight in the blind level when the match started and I was just opening every hand and 3betting and calling a fair amount too. He took some time when folding a few hands and then asked when the blinds would go up. It gave me a hint that he was waiting for playing back when stacks got more shallow and the reward for aggressiveness would be greater. Second hand after the blinds go up he 3bets me, which I kinda anticipated. I've decided to instantly 4bet him with A2(blocker) and fold to his shove. He mucked. Two hands later I 3bet him with AKo and he calls. Flop came Q42o and I bet out on the flop. We were still about 40bb deep at this point and he decided to raise me. Now to me this didn't make any sense. It's a really dry flop without any two pair combos or draws. I expect him to 4bet QQ pretty much all the time pf. I think he wouldn't call my 3bet too often with 22-44 and he wouldn't raise QK or AQ on that board. So I ended up shoving over his flop raise and he folded. 

At this point I had about 28k to his 12k and things were looking good. Then I had to give up a few pots and he came back to 15k. When I picked up AJo again. He 3bet me and I call, because he was starting to do it way more frequent now and I'm well ahead of his range. He 3bet a8 before etc. Flop came QT8cc and he checks it to me. I've the Ac as well and check it back. If he's giving up on the hand I prefer to take it away on the turn than to risk a check-raise on the flop and another club on the turn would only improve my hand. Turn came another T putting two hearts out there and he checked to me once more, so I decided to stab at it by betting 70% of the pot and he ended up calling quite fast. Now I think he either has a draw or a Q or something like JJ, but rarely a T because he'd probably think a bit longer to potentially shove his hand. The river brought a King of Clubs and he donked pot into me. There are a lot of hands that he could do it for value that I still beat such as 9J, KQ and maybe a few Tens anyway. He could very well have completed the flush too, so I elected to just call instead of raising. He ended up having KT, which is pretty much a cooler. 

Then the blinds went up quickly again and stack sizes were about 14k to his 26k with 300-600 blinds. I 3bet him once more with AQ and he folded, two hands later when he opened again I see I picked up ARs(this is on the French cards for AKs) and I 3bet, He 4bet half my stack and I shipped it. He sigh called with 77 and won the race.

However, It wasn't over yet! There was still a losers bracket albeit a slightly awkward one. In a field of 32 players going to the loser's bracket in this particular tournament meant you now had to win 10 matches to win it and only 8 to get into the money! Seemed like a hard task, but a cup of green tea and I was good to go.

I had to play a player I've started playing poker with at the same time. We were both posting on a smaller forum 5-6 years ago and grinding the low stakes 50nl together back then together with players like Ryan Daut and Mig.com. This guy was Ludovic Lacay, who is now really famous in France and getting really good sponsorship deals. We respect each others game and were joking how we were gonna win the next 8 matches easy peasy. 

It was the longest match I've played and it was a tough one. He was very aggressive post flop and I have to admit that he got away with bluffing me a few times in sizable pots. I've not 3barreled him the entire match either and that says quite a bit. I was down to 5k vs his 35k during the 3d 4th and 5th blind level, after which it meant I had only 10bbs. At this point I just shoved my stack in pf pretty much and did nothing else. He was really passive and folded a bit too much to it. I had about 7k when he finally called me, but unlucky for him I happened to have  AJs vs his K7o, 60-40ish. I held and he seemed upset. After that I shipped it with KTs and he calls with A2o, T on the river!. Now I had the chiplead and I kept jamming on him when he limped in. He decided to make his first shove with 11bb and I insta called with K6s and he shows QT fairly standard, but I won it. So he definitely outplayed me a bit when we were deep, but he just messed up when we were playing short by being too passive and I got lucky in the flips 3 times.

Match after was quite boring to be honest, but I won that one too! I don't even remember against who. I finally lost against a person whose name was Jamal, but didn't speak any English so can't say anything else about him. He was definitely OK, but just ran well. Finally got it in with AQ vs AK when we were about 20bb deep and didn't suck out. GG. I was only 7 matches away! 

Next I'm gonna play a side event of only 1k probably. Just because there is nothing else to do in Evian other than sitting in the Spa or looking at the lake ;) The Main event is on Saturday and I'll let you know how I shipped that one.

I can still remember the whole thing as if it only happened last saturday.

The very first thought that came through my mind was: "why are the ladies in the hall playing tag?". Giving a closer look to the face of one of the ladies, the situation changed from playing tag to running for their lives.

She shouted: "There's a raid!"

Yes I was a bit scared but being a journalist and with Steve Irwin in the back of my head I started walking towards were the girls where running from. (He's the: "Over there we see the most dangerous snake in the whole word, one bite will kill you for sure, it looks really mad, let's go pick it up" guy). A few people who were walking in front of me suddenly turned around, and started running back with fear of death in their eyes. Ok, back to the press room it is.

Most of the people in the media room were taking cover or started lying down. I was going to my computer thinking how sick it would be to have some live coverage of this in the ticker. I guess I am kind of brain washed: Something happens, put it in the ticker!

One kazillionth of a second later, cause that's how fast things go in these moments, I thought: Friends and family of the players reading: "Everyone is now Under The Gun and running for their tournament lives"... not a good idea. On top of that: Gangsters storming in the media room and seeing me at the computer being in contact with the outside world -> Here lies EliasVeritas, the first one to report about the robbery at EPT Berlin. His last update ever.

Alright so this wasn't the best idea in the world. So I left my computer for what it was and I was looking at the ground picking out a good spot to fall down in case the gangsters came in and shouted "Everybody down on the ground now!" like they always do in the movies.

The point where I got really scared is when I saw what happened on the live stream (there was a big TV in the media room). Things looked... bad. I really thought people were getting shot and I was thinking how incredibly bad I wanted to be anywhere else in the world at that moment.

After what seemed like half an hour later but probably just took a few minutes, the door of the press media was opened. In came a few guys from the press who told us the most exciting words in tournament poker: "It's all over, noone got hurt"

After that I wrote the first update about the raid. In retrospect I should have immediately included that it looked like everyone was fine. I'm pretty sure people who watched the live stream at home must have expected some pretty bad things. I remember typing was kind of a big issue though since my hands were shaking like they had never done before. By that time a lot of people were coming back up the stairs or were crawling out of whatever place they were hiding in.

They all looked shocked.

A few minutes later, when we were really sure that everyone was fine stories began to be told and jokes were being made up. Here are some stories I heard:

I talked to one of the Tournament Directors at the bar later that night. You can see him on the phone in the video of the robbery. He said it took the police 6 minutes to pick up. Someone else also called the police for 5 minutes without a reply. When the police finally picked up the conversation went like this:
Tournament director: "There's an armed Robbery going on at the Grand Hyatt in Berlin"
Police: "Ok sir, could you please give me the address?"
...

Jan Veit wasn't there to play the Main Event but for whatever reason he just decided to randomly travel to Berlin to play the 1k side event. It was cancelled after the robbery.

Two players were All In in the Main Event. AT vs AQ with no Ten on the board and one card still to be dealt.All hands who were still going on when play resumed were declared dead since there was no way to guarantee the deck was still in the same order. However Tahkokallio holding AT agreed to shuffle the deck and deal one more card, an incredible act of fair play. In the name of epicness I was really hoping for a Ten but the river was a blank. Tahkokallio became second in the tournament though.

This is something one of my colleagues wrote and it still makes me laugh every time I think about it: Everyone was walking behind Alexander Kravchenko who looked like the leader of the pack. In a constant steady walk he marched to the door and explored every corner before we went on. I felt so safe behind this old Russian guy who looked like he had seen this stuff like a thousand times before.

Apparently there was another armed robbery at a poker tournament in Paris a few years ago. I'm not going into details here as it's quite irrelevant. However Josh Arieh wrote the story from his point of view and I thought this part was quite interesting:

In the midst of all the chaos, there is no group of people I would rather be in this situation with than a bunch of poker players. When all the chaos started there had just been a flop in the 800-1600 game that Lindgren, Ivey and Greenstein were playing, so to say the least the robbers interrupted their game. Ivey and the boys have some sort of way of betting on the side if certain hands win each pot. While I was in the fetal position praying for my life, Ivey was under the table calm as can be and, turning to Lindgren and Greenstein said "Boys, I wanna' double up this hand".

To summarize: Sick story! I am one life experience richer and experienced a kind of fear which I never felt before. Props to PokerStars, the tournament directors, all the players, the waitresses and the security people. Impressive how everyone tried to make the best out of this situation.


See you at EPT Snowfest!
My readers I mean...

Elias

Just a short update to let you all know what's going on with Team PokerStrategy.com. After the PCA at the Bahamas, where we had our first really good tournament, you haven't heard much about the team. So here it goes: After the PCA which ended on the 14th, Allanon and Bongbob flew all the way down under to Melbourne in order to participate in the Aussie Millions. Basically a AUD$ 10,500 buy-in tournament with a pretty big player field. Almost 750 players entered this year which was good for a 2,2m first place. The same as the PCA, but with a different pay out structure and these being fake Dollars obviously;) Bongbob was eliminated on the first flight, but Allanon managed to get twice the average after day 1. Unfortunately he didn't make it into the money eventually. Nico Behling did cash in 35th place for AUD$ 30,000 and my ex-colleague ChrisTuff did a bit better finishing 28th for $AUD 40,000. Congrats.

 Next up on the EPT Schedule is the Scandi city Copenhagen. This is to be one of the smaller venues of the EPT circuit and not very appealing. The field is expected to be quite tough and smallish; so many team members have decided to pass on the event. Bjorn1987 though is still fresh and can't wait to get more experience after his first tournament at the PCA. He will start on Day 1B at the 17th of February. As he will be the only one EliasVeritas won't be there to do provide live coverage, instead he will be saving his energy for the EPT Berlin - which is going to be both awesome and chaos.

So as said in my previous blog I have high expectations regarding the EPT Berlin. With a guaranteed first prize of a million Euros and the capital of Germany I hope to see a lot of PokerStrategy.com members show up either to participate or to spectate. For Team PokerStrategy.com I expect almost a complete line-up to participate. It would be great if we can put down a great result here. Hope to see you all there!

The Caribbean Adventure as every year took place in the always sunny Bahamas. The tournament itself is held yearly in the massive resort, Atlantis. This resort is so huge you can walk for 15 minutes in a single direction, without ever leaving the premises. There is a ton of stuff to do with the main attractions being the beach and the numerous pools. The grandeur of the resort combined with the exotic location makes the PCA one of the most successful tournaments in terms of size and prestige. Last year's winner of the Main Event was awarded 3 million Dollar for his success.

  All of the above leads to the PCA being incredibly popular amongst the young online poker generation. Out of the 1,529 entrants in the Main Event over 900 qualified themselves online through satellites. The amount of online qualifiers normally tends to be about 3 times lower, relatively speaking. Seeing so many young faces in the tournament area triggered some reactions from the older and established generation. I think it was Barry Greenstein who at one point during the tournament Twittered something like: "So many online kids playing here, it must be the worst time of the year for the sunscreen industry".

 The PCA MAin Event of 2010 had the biggest prize pool world wide apart from the WSOP Main Events. There was over $15,000,000 to share amongst it's participants. It made sure the entire top 4 was guaranteed a million Dollars or more. This years winner was Harrison Gimbel who just turned 19 and is now a multi-millionaire. He's the youngest PCA champ thus far.

 For Team PokerStrategy.com the PCA was also a great success and one of records. We had our first final table during a major event, the PCA High Roller with PokerNoob who eventually finished 6th. We had 4 cashes during one event worth total $223,700. Nazgul made an impressive contribution to it by getting third in the $5,300 6 max event for $53,000. This was definitely a tough field where pretty much 50% of the field were very strong online players.

A new record was set in PokerStrategists participating. Over the course of 1.5 week we have followed more than 30 PokerStrategists in the Main Event. This is for example 5 times the amount of EPT Prague.

We also had a record in our viewings. Altogether there were 298,681 views in the Live-Ticker. A thank you to all of you who followed it. The pictures received 68,883 views on Flickr itself. This picture somehow received the most clicks from the PokerStrategy.com community during the PCA and is also the most viewed picture we have taken life time. It received 3 times more clicks than for example the most viewed picture of any PokerStrategy.com member. We see where your interest lies!

 Meanwhile PokerNoob is working on a record as well. In the EPT he has now cashed 4 out of 4 Main Events he has played in season six. He cashed 5 out of 6 events altogether. The only one where he didn't cash was the Main Event in London. It seems like it's a matter of time where he makes it to real big money. Not discouraged by his unlucky run at the High Roller final table, he will play Deauville tomorrow and also join in the High Roller event there. Best of luck!

The Team is now somewhat scattered as Allanon and Bongbob travel to the other side of the world to play in the Aussie Millions, PokerNoob plays in France and the others are taking some well deserved rest. Most likely the next event where everyone will play is going to be EPT Berlin. Pokerstars is taking out a lot of money to turn this into a big success and guarantees at least a €1,000,000 first place. Looking forward to it!

Hi everyone

I arrived at the Bahamas yesterday and I decided to write my very first entry for the Team PokerStrategy.com blog. Feel free to give me some feedback about it because there are more of them coming in the future.

I spent the last month being back in Belgium which I enjoyed after a few months of intense traveling. It gave me some time to meet up with a lot of people I didn't see when I was doing the reporting thing.

This is how I found out saying: "I'm a reporter for major poker tournaments around the world" usually brings up a lot of questions. Unfortunately, this is also how I found a lot of people have a serious desire for sharing random bad beat stories from their home games.

Some people do have problems with the work I'm doing.
These are the people who grew up believing the best way of life is to study, get a job and try to stay out of trouble. The kind of people that will try to make you understand that if you don't do what society tells you to do, you will inevitably end up regretting it. But off course, I'm not really listening. They do make me realise I should care a bit more about money, something I tend to forget when traveling around with succesful poker players. But really, I think they should enjoy life a bit more by not worrying so much about unimportant stuff, something I also learned by traveling around with the players.

Most people are actually pretty jealous about what I do, offering me to switch jobs and so on. I'm usually a big fan of bragging about myself because I think it hides my ego issues. To be honest though, when it comes to the reporting thing, I don't really get exited about people telling me how lucky I am.

It's because I think they don't really know what I'm actually doing. By that I mean that I didn't just travel to the Bahamas to lay on the Beach all day long being fed strawberries by two sexy half naked girls. I actually spend most of my time traveling, working quite a stressful job and getting some sleep, if there's time. But if you think I'm complaining then I'm probably confusing you.
Because I enjoy every single second of this!

As for now I'm looking forward to bring you 9 days of coverage about the PCA events.
See you at 18:00 for coverage of day 1A of the Main Event.

Elias
Bringing the good stuff since September 2009

Which reminds me: Happy New Year!

Waking up at 7 am to the sounds of a vacuum cleaner from the 80's. Welcome to a random hotel in Prague. When traveling a lot you grow accustomed to these type of things. It gives you plenty of time for preparation of the day ahead and leaves room for some early morning thoughts. It gave me the idea that I should blog about the latest add-on for Team PokerStrategy.com, Bongbob AKA in real life as Konstantin Bücherl.

 First of all how does one get to join Team PokerStrategy.com? In order to answer that you should know that the team is created around the principle of breaking even. We pay their buy-ins for the full 100%, but they have to pay a significant share back to us when they cash. Apart of that each player that is in the team has to create a certain amount of videos on a monthly basis. And this is where the great benefit for the community is. Normally we'd either have to pay for these videos or they would not be possible to obtain at all( a player might not be interested in getting money for his video, as for him the effort outweighs the reward). 

Now in order to break even, we have to make the assumption that the player joining is a winning player. If he's not a winning player then the formula couldn't work. Therefore winning is the priority to join the team. But this is also a vague territory to tread upon. How is a winning player defined? And if he is indeed a winning player, for which tournament does this count and by what margin? These are questions that require too long of an answer for this blog, but I might touch upon in another entry.

So given that the player needs to be able to beat the tournaments entering by a decent margin and make videos that will educate the community, the player needs to be a proficient poker player. There is no magic number that can tell the story of someone's skill set. Every number you will find online about $ won or ROI%(Return on Investment, which is the most common used to see how hard someone is beating the games), cannot be looked upon by itself. You need to link the numbers with others and no one so far has figured out how. The most reliable approach to see whether someone is beating the games or not is the holistic approach.

The statistics you can find online similar to the ones displayed right can function as a good indicator whether someone is winning or not. With this in the back of your mind you can explore further.  The problem with statistics for example is that they are selective. We tend to look at players that have great results already and therefore consider them great players. With the huge variance at tournaments, it could very well be that a player has simply gotten luckier than he should have been and his stats are skewed. You can have winning players and they show very bad statistics online over smaller samples, Phil Ivey, cough. This doesn't mean he actually is. Reliable sample sizes in the tournament fields are well over what anyone has actually played. The reverse might be equally true. A mediocre player might have shipped 3 tournaments in a row against the odds and now appears to be a solid winning player, by his stats at least.

A way to eliminate this factor is to review entire hand histories of the player from start to end for multiple tournaments. Any donkish play can easily be spotted and identified. However, it still doesn't tell you the complete story. Player in question might have gotten good run of cards and his decisions might have been correct, but for the wrong reason. His moment of brilliance could actually be utter ignorance and it turned out to be a great decision.Knowing a player in person will further help you. He can tell you the reasons behind his play. He can explain lines to you and show you that he has a solid understanding of the fundamentals of poker. One last thing that's a problem with hand histories only is that they do not show whether a player tilts, or gets really nervous at the table when playing live. All these things can only be assessed if you have been following a player and got to know him well.

Now Bongbob is a player whose stats are definitely impressive. Over a sample size over a couple thousand tournaments his ROI was still over a 100%. On top of that his explanations of certain lines taken are often spot on. I've known Bongbob ever since the WSOP of 2009 where he has played many tournaments. He has convinced me on every account and left no doubt that he was a winning player that will play these tournaments profitably. There has been no sign of tilt or scared money or any of the sort. Therefore I was happy to hear when he was convinced to join the team. I'll be looking forward to watch Bongbob play under the Team PokerStrategy.com banner and of course hope to see him do well.

Let me just start off by congratulating PokerNoob for his achievement so far. This year he only participated in three EPT Main Events and he managed to cash in every single one of them. He played in Barcelona, London and Vilamoura finishing 29th, 11th and 32th respectively. Money wise it's not the biggest achievement for sure, but it's a display of talent at the least. The most cashes in one EPT season is five at the moment (as far as I know). It's at least a good start to break or equal the record, with most events still to come.

 A little more important: ScHniBl0r has joined the team! For me as a manager this is great stuff. Schnibl0r, whom's name tilts me already by the weird use of capitals, is truly one of the better players out there. At a very young age he managed to play at the highest stakes online: $1,000/$2,000 FLHE. Being barely 20 he already had more than one million Dollars. That is an achievement for which I can only have respect. He never stopped to work on his game and develop as a player in every aspect. Right now he is playing the highest limits of No Limit Hold'em cash games. He featured recently on the European High Stakes Cash Game in London, where the buy-in was €10,000. Before that he just as easily sat down in the German High Roller with an equal amount. It will be great to see how he performs for the team. He is in my eyes a valuable addition.

I can already give you guys a little scoop. EPT Prague, first of December, is the next on the list of tournaments for Team PokerStrategy.com and will be the last one for the year 2009. At this event you will see one new face in Team PokerStrategy.com. We've been following him a lot in the Live Ticker already and he has an impressive tournament history. He is, much more than Schnibl0r, a pure tournament player. If you look up his statistics you will find that he has played thousands of tournaments and tens of thousands Sit and Go's. I'm really happy that we can finally announce his debut next week. Hope to see you all following the Live Ticker and cheer for the guys ;)

The last two weeks have served as a break for the players. After a tough couple of weeks in The City - London - followed by a sunnier Marrakesh the players were in need of a break. In London alone the four players together have played a combined total of 187 hours in 11 days. Though it's less than you would as a normal working week, it's probably more tiring. Poker players know that long sessions can be mentally draining. 

 PokerNoob who did really well and was close to his first final table at the EPT of London took a little earlier break as he decided not to go to Marrakesh. This wasn't a bad decision for him, because whilst Trader and Nazgul were battling it out with the French, PokerNoob took down the Super Tuesday. One of the toughest online events all around for $68,000.You can read more about it in a news from last month. Be sure to watch the videos from this tournament. I'm lucky enough to have caught a glimpse of it. It's good stuff.

Next up is Amsterdam with the yearly Master Classics of Poker at the 10th of November. Last year over 200 players entered the event and we'll be sure to cover it. Not the entire team will be present. It's going to be Tobias PokerNoob Reinkemeier and most likely Daniel Allanon Drescher. Your favorite news reporter Elias Veritas will provide the entertaining pictures and most important updates. 

 The same two players will venture southwards to the Algarve, where they meet up with Tim Nazgul Kahlmeyer for the EPT Main Event of Vilamoura on the 17th of November. This is a new event on the list of tournaments and let's hope it will be a good one. 

 After the finished first, second and third they move on to bring fear to Central Europe in the capital of Czech - Prague. Last year the event boasted a number of 570 players from 40 different countries. The prize of €775,000 was brought back to Italy. Let's see if someone can smuggle it across the border to Germany this year.

I've been on the road, traveling, for the last two weeks. From the 26th of September until the 7th of October two of the biggest live tournaments took place one after another. First the World Series of Poker Europe kicked off. Personally I really like the ambiguity in the name. It doesn't make any sense. Anyways it was followed by the European Poker Tour, which booked a major success as it can claim the biggest tournament ever played in the UK. Another record for PokerStars & co ;)

  There's not much to say about London really. Team PokerStrategy.com had three deep runs in the WSOPE Main Event and a lot of potential there. In the EPT Main Event Allanon and PokerNoob ended quite high in the ranks, PokerNoob flipping for top two chips with 12 left etc. We're getting closer! Special mention to Psychobenny who finished 12th right before PokerNoob. He lost a major pot for a final table stack etc.

The way tournaments are structured makes the first place by far the most important finish. In fact the structure of a tournament actually makes every placement in the money almost insignificant. It's the times you finish in the top three that create the +EV factor. Since the payment is so top heavy and the times you actually reach the money, lowest places paid more a variance reducing factor than anything else. If you will never win a tournament it's quite difficult to make a big profit. This combined with the huge fields and the chances of actually getting first makes it so that theres a large variance factor. Hence I guess the often used expression "One time!" 

After the team went to Marrakesh where we played the World Poker Tour. Psychobenny here did make it to the final table and finished sixth. €56,000 for a really great performance. I'd like to thank Psychobenny this way for wearing the PokerStrategy.com logos as well;)

 Lastly I've met with Black Member DrAction in Marrakech. He also cashed in the event finishing 27th for €11,494. He does look a bit like Michael Ballack and said he heard that a lot. He didn't take offense to it, so here you can see for yourself.

Anyway the dealers in Marrakech were horrendous to say the least. They've let people muck, when they weren't supposed to. They've opened mucked cards when they were allowed to muck. Many misdeals etc. DrAction was at one point forced to pay the small blind twice, because the dealer couldn't remember if he moved the button around... DrAction lost some chips from his stack during the break. The dealers are supposed to guard that stack.

 These small things have a huge impact when you are playing live. You have to focus on the game and only the game. You can't afford to be distracted by such things. You don't want to do the dealers job by counting every chip yourself, because you don't trust him enough to do it correct etc. But seriously how can chips be gone from your stack during a break? That's insane and should never be allowed to happen. DrAction for sure suffered from improfessional dealer behavior. 

 I understand the player quality in Marrakech wasn't that high, but that's no excuse to take worse tournament dealers! Isn't there an association that stands guarantee for the quality of dealers? In my opinion every dealer should pass a standardized test in order to prove sufficient quality. 

Three players of Team PokerStrategy.com: Allanon, PokerNoob and Trader all made a deep run in the WSOPE ME. On day three with, only 90 players left, each player was still in with a decent stack. Yet all of them busted halfway to the money. The reactions to their hands were expected.

And I'll be honest with you: Often I disregard these reactions quite quickly, because they aren't very credible. However, in this case the concern that players overplay their hands seemed legit. I too, was looking sceptically at two hands in particular.

I'm talking about the hands of PokerNoob vs Devilfish and the hand of Trader where he pushed AQo in the big blind. I'd like to take a closer look at the hand of Trader.

 Information is taken from the live ticker so not all amounts are 100% exact: Blinds 1,000/2,000 ante 300. CO opens to 5,500. New guy 3bet to 15,000. SB flat calls 15,000. Trader has AQo and pushes for 90,000.

 Now the given reads from Trader about the 3better as well as the open raiser are that they are both English pro's and the open raiser is very loose. He assumes that the two players know this about each other.

This means that the original raiser has a very wide range of which he can only call a certain range. The three better knows this and seeks to abuse this with a wide range as well. Their range certainly doesn't consist of AA/KK/QQ. But more something along the lines of Axs to PP and some high card combos like KQs/o or KJs and even some SC like 56s 98s.

The cold caller is another story. What hand would you cold call with oop, giving the original raiser a huge amount of equity to just flat call. Cold calling the SB ends up in a 3 way pot where you play out of position against two opponents. This a really undesirable situation and you wouldn't like to play KK that way. The chances that he's trapping are not that high, because who would shove over him? Flat calling the SB is seemingly quite strong or at least gives him a range of decent cards. Furthermore the original raiser is really loose so his range to shove over it isn't that great and he will most likely end up calling rather than shoving. Conclusion: SB has a hand like 99-JJ that he doesn't want to fold right away, but is afraid to push or something like AQs etc. Let's mix in KK in there as well, just for the sake of it.

 Now there is 40,200 chips in the pot already. Trader risks 90,000 in order to win 40,000. Roughly that means it has to work a bit over 2/3rds of the time to make it break even without any equity on the flop, about 70%. Let's say the original raiser opens 30% of his range(Axs, some Axo, High cards, all pairs en some suited hands) on the CO and the 3better does it with 14% of his range(High Axs, some SC, pairs 77+, KQ etc). The small blind is really bad and he flats roughly 10% of his range.

 Now let's assume that CO calls all in with AK, QQ+ that's 2.6%. The 3better calls the same range +JJ which is 3%.The small blind who is quite bad actually calls with AQs+ and TT+, 3.8%. Now the cut-off doesn't have a random hand, but a 30% selection by raising already. So 100% / 30% times 2.6%= 8.66% that the CO will call. 21.4% that the button calls and 38% that the sb calls. 

Everyone folds: CO doesn't call 91.4%, button doesn't call 78.6% and sb doesn't call 62% = 44% nobody will call. Now what's his equity for shoving?

The formula is like this:  [(+40k) x 0.44] +  0.56x { [ (-90) x (1 - EQ)]  +  [(+205) x EQ] } =EV.

40k is what is in the pot, multiplied by the fold equity + the 56% chance he gets called and loses 90k for the equity + the 56% chance he gets called and wins a 205k pot.

 AQo against JJ+ and AK is actually 28.15%. So we can fill it in as: 

EV = 17.6k + 0.56 x { [-90k x 0.7185 ]  +  [+205k x 0.2815] }

= 17.6k + 0.56 x { -64.665  +  57.7075 }

= 17.6k + ( 0.56 x -6.9575)

= 17.6 -  3.896.48

= 13704 profit :)

It's a gain of 15% and honestly don't know if it's a good move or not. I did use the tighest ranges for calling, if players would call loser Trader would make MORE chips. So this is the worst case scenario. It's still borderline whether you want to risk your tournament for a small gain or not. I just wanted to show a little math that goes behind poker :)

Tomorrow(Sunday) the WSOPE Main Event starts for our Team PokerStrategy players. At 12:30 they will all be playing for millions, but I'll be here in Gibraltar. Unfortunately I sprained my ankle during one of our football matches. It doesn't really allow me to walk and so it would not make a lot of sense to venture to London. However, fear not! EliasVeritas who did a great job in Barcelona did not sprain his ankle and will start the coverage as we planned. I'm sure he'll do a great job even though it just became a lot harder with my absence.

 Best of luck to Eliasand best of luck to the players. And for you, enjoy the coverage ;)

There has been a lot of fuss about the Qc6c hand the past couple of weeks. Poker players of every breed, fanatics, pro's and recreational players, have all expressed their opinions about one of the most widely debated hands from the EPT. Even websites spent articles about this single hand. Some were even portraying it as a sign that poker was going down a bad path.

I'm not going into detail about the hand itself, that has been done on plenty of ocassions already. In brief what happened was that Pokernoob called with Q6 on the river and Roland de Wolfe showed one King, Pokernoob asked to see both cards and then Roland de Wolfe mucked his hands and the pot was shipped to Pokernoob. This is a huge simplification, if you don't know the hand already I advise you to catch up here before continuing reading. Only the first 3 paragraphs.

Now on big fora  e.g. 2+2 users, though most leaning towards Pokernoobs side, there were plenty of users accusing Pokernoob of bad behavior. Claiming what he did wasn't in line of a real sportsman and not gentlemen like. From a poker player who just took a quick glimpse at the hand I can understand such comments. However, from a news site such as Pokernews, who ought to put thought and effort into their writing, I really don't expect an article like this.

The article basically claims what Pokernoob did is close to angle shooting and nothing short of breaking the unwritten rules at poker, later stating that he should man up. The author continues by making comparisons to sports. Now I'm all for following unwritten rules at poker that are ethical. There is no need to say "look I have your chips!" after you win a big hand. You should never slow roll someone on the river while smirking at him and so and so forth.

The author of this article is short sighted on multiple accounts. First of all he fails to see that it was actually Roland de Wolfe who was breaking the ethical code. He got called on the river and was forced to table his hand. By not tabling it and waiting for Tobias to react he was trying to hide information, by breaking the rules. When Tobias only asked to see both cards to get the information he deserved, Roland picked up his hand and he put both cards in the muck. He then lost the hand. 

Secondly the author makes the comparison to sports where players follow some kind of ethical code and provides a few weak examples such as: "In baseball, it's never OK to break up a no-hitter with a bunt. Also, you never swing at a 3-0 pitch when your team has a comfortable lead. In football, every coach knows it's not OK to call for an onside kick when your team is well-ahead." How about making substitutions in soccer five minutes before the game ends or all the players in sports faking injuries when their team is winning? So not only does the author fail to realize that in sports where money counts this type of behavior happens more frequently than he could imagine -  he also misses the point that this is not even similar to that what happened. Tobias didn't make a Schwalbe(dive in soccer) or do something unethical. He made the call and waited to see both cards, he never announced having king high beat or anything of the sort.

 Quoted from the article: "but when Reinkemeier finally saw that his queen-high was trumped by De Wolfe's king-high, he should have had enough honor and respect for the game to muck his own hand on the spot, allowing the pot to be awarded to De Wolfe." This would basically allow Roland de Wolfe to get away with bad behavior and his unwillingness to share information about a hand he played badly. If Tobias actually mucked his hand, we would never have gotten to see Roland's hand for sure. Where is the fairness in that? Getting away with a hand without showing it completely? Therefore I would even encourage everyone to wait until the person who is to show first, actually makes the showdown. Else just sit there and stare at him until he does. If they muck their better hand in the process, the better for you. That will punish them for wasting the time of other players on the table. There's no option online where you can choose "Waste time to show by only showing one card and do a funny dance". A player playing for such amounts of money should be able to table their hands correctly or even read the board correctly. If they don't then it's really their own mistake. There's a limit to where we should protect a player for their own mistakes.

Thomas Kremser (pictured right) who is the tournament director of the EPT and made the ruling at Barcelona had to say the following on 2+2, to which I completely agree: "Regarding the decision I am more sure than before that I made the right call because Tobias didn’t do anything wrong as he asked to see Roland’s hand. He was waiting to see a showdown from Roland that never happened.

On the other side Roland did everything wrong – he never made a showdown, he never showed his second card, he put both cards face down and slides them below the burn cards and he releases them. My question would be, how far shall the player be protected for his actions? Shouldn’t be a player be responsible for his actions? It is clear that Roland wanted to muck his hand, as a professional player he should know how to win a pot, a player needs to show 2 cards to win the pot. The dealers reactions made the situation even worse as he tried to protect the muck and also opened the cards!!! Concluding I would say that Tobias reacted within the rules and there is nothing to be criticized."

 Tobias should of course never have tabled his hand and made a fist pump like that. Instead just having his hand mucked while receiving the pot would have been the most gentleman thing to do. If the author were to convey that point, I would agree entirely. Tobias realizes this and apologized on multiple occasions about the fist pump. It's not hard to forgive him though. He made the call under the assumption Roland was bluffing and could even muck better hands. When you make an important call like that at a critical stage in the tournament and you are right about it a huge adrenaline rush will go through you. He said himself that when he saw Roland muck and his call was good a lot of tension was released and in the heat of the moment he celebrated his call a bit exorbitantly and again gave his apologies for that. Poker is not a game where we celebrate victories excessively.

In my opinion we don't, because IT IS a gentleman's game and we realize that the pot you win hurts your opponent. It's big money that goes around in it and you can enjoy your victory later, but theres no need to rub it in the face of the losing player. The essential difference for me is that you don't play as a team, and you mostly play for money. Your own important money. A football player who scores a goal will want to celebrate it with their team mates obviously, but the losing party in this case can share the loss with their teammates and they don't suffer the direct financial consequences of it either. Tennis which is an individual sport for example is celebrated less enthusiastically. Remember when Nadal was shouting Vamos and making a fist pump after a hard fought point? At first this was scandalous behavior according to some critics and fans. How can you celebrate a 30 stroke rally with a fist pump? That's outrageous! Nowadays it gets more acceptable though. Maybe in poker it will become more acceptable as well. Because making a thin call and feeling the adrenaline pump through you when your opponent mucks his cards it's arguable one of the best feelings and most joy you can get from poker if you are a real competitor.

So the author on Pokernews is basically wrong on all accounts in his arguments. Not only does he seem to fail to grasp the situation completely, he also seems to draw the wrong comparisons. On a funny side note they didn't even have the hand correct afterwards either ;)

Hello,

 First of all bad news. Pokernoob just busted from the Main Event. Flipping for a top 5 stack, but couldn't hold. Happens! It was however, very nice to follow him. He probably played the hand that caused the most fuss during the entire event, and might be one of the most well discussed hands for quite a while. Were it Elky to make this call, you'd hear everyone talk about this for the next year for sure.

 The hand was where Pokernoob limped into the big blind from the small blind. Roland de Wolfe who was in the big blind checked behind and they saw a flop Ah,Tc7c. Pokernoob held Queen Six of clubs and went for a check raise to 30k. Roland de Wolfe called and the turn an 9h went Tobias bet 74.5k Roland calls.. On the river, which completed a runner runner flush draw of 4 of hearts, Pokernoob checked it to Roland whom bet 80k.

The tournament was in a deep stage already(45 or so remaining) and Pokernoob actually called with his Q high, expecting Roland de Wolfe to muck K high. Anyway Wolfe says K high and Pokernoob looks at him, like a rock, saying show both. His voice was rather intimidating and Wolfe closed the card showing a king and put his hand into the muck. Pokernoob said yes and shows Q6. Roland's hand was already dead though. So the pot got shipped to the only player left in the hand at the showdown, Tobias Reinkemeier.

 The hand is slightly different from what we said in the news. Mostly because at the time the table was so crowded with press that we couldn't see the action clearly. Pokernoob helped us clear the hand out though! And I hope I wrote it down correctly like this. 

As an overall performance I'm quite happy. Three out of four players made it to day two. At the end of day two you are already in the money. On day two, two players Nazgul and Trader, went out with a 'bad' beat. Allanon flipped for a big stack on day one with AK vs JJ and didn't hit. Pokernoob of course put down a solid performance by getting 29th and playing some good poker. The players will achieve something real nice sooner or later if they keep up their level of play, I'm convinced of that. I just hope it's sooner rather than later;)

 There have been many improvements to the team so far. For example we've improved minor things, such as the logo. Now we have awesome stickers that look pretty good on camera. I prefer it would be bigger, but media restrictions you know. 

Major improvements have been in the coverage. There were a lot of complains during WSOP and rightfully so. During the first EPT event you could enjoy a live ticker for the days PokerStrategists were in, full time. You could enjoy fresh pictures that were taken throughout the day and the news was improved. 

Also we've started to make video interviews which I think is a really cool feature. You can really see that I'm improving in my interviews, which I think is funny to see. I've linked the videos below in chronological order and the last linked video is definitely better than the first. It's always good to see yourself progress.

If any of you have other suggestions regarding the coverage, be sure to let me know. I always enjoy good ideas.

Youtube videos

Nazgul interview at day 1B

Interview Nazgul at day 2

Dutch Video with Pinowww

Interview with Pokernoob at end of day 2

Some action packed weeks for Team PokerStrategy.com are coming up. The team will be on the road travelling from tournament to tournament back to back for a month. Conveniently two of Europe's biggest tournaments take place right after one another in the same city, London. The World Series of Poker Europe and the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour take place from the 22th of September until the 7th of October. You can follow the action on PokerStrategy.com. Fresh pictures and live updates will be provided throughout the day.

 This Sunday, the 27th, day 1b of the Main Event World Series of Poker Europe kicks off. All four players of the team will participate in this event. For a main event the buy-in is pretty high, in some series or events it would easily be classified as a highroller event. The WSOPe Main Event buy in is equal in amount to the main event of the WSOP in Vegas, however the currency is Pounds rather than Dollars. With £10,000+£350(USD16,772) this event will be the biggest 'main event' of the year. The live Ticker will start at 13:00(Berlin/Rome) time. 

 After this event the team will move on to the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Main Event in London, which will start third of October with day 1b and has a buy-in of £5,000+£250. Having spent two weeks in London, the team will venture southwards to a warmer(better) climate in Marrakech for the WPT. From 12 until 18 October the team will be taking up arms against mostly French players that participate in this event.

IF the team is not completely drained after this three weeks - we might consider playing the EPT in Warsaw. However, we'll first have to see how tough it's going to be in the upcoming month.

By the way Pokernoob will enter in the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour High Roller Event. The buy-in for this event is £20,000+£500. Pokernoob is quite accustomed to playing with such high amounts by now. He played the $40,000 buy in at the WSOP and plays the $25,000+$500 Heads Up tournaments online, whenever he can. Best of luck to him and the the team and other PokerStrategy.com members that might participate in the next couple of weeks. Hope you will enjoy the coverage.

Hi guys,

I'm currently doing the coverage of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour in Barcelona for PokerStrategy.com. Of course I'm following all the members, but our special focus is on Team PokerStrategy.com. It's been a few busy days. Around 20 PokerStrategists actually participated in the Main Event out of a total 478. EliasVeritas is here as well and he's been more than great with the pictures so far, which you can see constantly being updated on the English and German forum in our live tickers.

 Day one was pretty good for everyone as 12 PokerStrategists actually appeared at the start of Day 2. However, I think there's a saying that goes something like after a good start, you will run even worse. It doesn't exactly go like that, but it's close. And it seemed to be true for the guys at day two. Within the first two orbits three of the soldiers already surrendered. Nazgul ran into KQ with his AK.. yes! Oh no a queen on the flop. Trader ran into KQ with his AQ... yeah! Nope KK on the flop and Morgoth made a 4bet all-in, but got called by TT when all he had was 98s.

 Unfortunate start of the day obviously, but at the moment players are doing quite well again. We'll be seeing a couple of players in the money for sure. That will make the coverage a lot more exciting. A couple of improvements we've made are: We now have video interviews; we now have live updates from day 1; we have a lot more visual content and the news is more organized. Personally I like the new coverage and I hope you are happy with it as well.

 Back to reporting and rooting for my favorite players. Pokernoob is still representing Team PokerStrategy. Don't forget to follow the live ticker in English or in German!

Hey Leute,

wie die meisten sicherlich schon aus den News wissen, ich habe leider den ersten Tag im Main Event in Barcelona nicht überlebt.

Hatte eigentlich einen relativ guten Start. Direkt in den ersten zwei Blindlevels hatte ich zweimal Aces, einmal Kings und zwei Sets gefloppt. Leider hatten die anderen keine Lust mit mir zu spielen und so konnte ich meinen Stack "nur" auf 40k ausbauen.

Nach ein paar weiteren kleinen gewonnen Pots war mein Stack dann bei etwa 50k Chips und es kam zu folgender Hand: Ein etwas looser Spieler raised UTG bei 150/300 Blinds auf 900 und ein relativ solider Spieler called ihn in Middle Position. Ich sitze im BB mit QQ und squeeze auf 4000. UTG entschließt sich zu callen und als der Spieler in MP an der Reihe ist, pusht dieser instant für 24k total all in. Da er hier relativ selten AA und KK hat und sowieso schon genervt war von den ständigen 3bets, ist das natürlich ein easy call. Er zeigt AQs und ich bin favourite. Das Board kommt aber leider 89J, T, A und ich habe Glück, dass er am River nicht auch noch den King hittet. Wir splitten also und mein Stack steigt nur minimal dank dem deadmoney an.

Nach dieser Hand ist nicht mehr all zu viel passiert. Ich war die größte Zeit carddead und hab versuch mich durchzustealen, was aber leider nicht all zu gut geklappt hat. Musste einige male auf 3bets folden und mein Stack schrumpfte so auf ~40k. Dann wurde ich an einen neuen Tisch gemoved.

Direkt in der ersten Hand raise ich 85s und ein Shortstack pusht all in mit seinen letzten 9bb. Aus Odds Gründen muss ich leider callen und er zeigt KQo, immerhin livecards. Der Flop kommt leider KKK und ich habe relativ wenig Chancen die hand noch zu gewinnen :).

Eine Hand später raised der selbe Typ auf 2500 bei 500/1000, ein anderer Spieler called in middle Position und ich finde AK im bb mit 27000 Chips left. Ich pushe all in und werde vom Spieler in mp gecalled. Er zeigt JJ, ich treffe leider nichts und bin somit busto.

Habe jetzt somit erstmal spielfrei und werde am Sonntag wohl zuerst ein bisschen die anderen deutschen Spieler railen und danach die WCOOP spielen. Live werde ich wohl noch das 2k Sideevent spielen. Wünscht mir Glück.