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Germany rocks the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) 2009

Sunday, January 11th, 2009 | Tournaments | No Comments

At the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) 2009 on the Bahamas, the players from Germany are really incredible:

1. Team Germany wins the World Cup of Poker V and is therefore the inofficial Team-World Champion. Every Member of the team wins $20.000.
2. In the 5000$ side-event of the PCA 2009, two German players reached the final table. Florian Langmann finished in second place behind Peter Eastgate, the winner of the wsop main event 2008 and Jan “50 outs” von Halle finished in ninth place. Florian Langmann gets $184.300 and Jan von Halle $25.000. Peter Eastgate, the winner of this event, enhanced his bankroll with $343.000.

Last but not least Benny Spindler, a 23 year old German player, finished in third place at the main event of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) and received $1.100.000. After 5 hours of play in a threesome, Benny Spindler lost an important flop with A K against A 8 (his opponent made a full house) and was then extreme short-stacked. After that, Benny Spindler lost his last chips to Poorya Nazari, who finally wins the tournament against Tony Gregg.

Also mentionable is the ninth place of Jan Collado Fernandez in the same event. He was busted only one place before the final table. Overall twelve players form Germany finished in the money at the main event of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) 2009.

Here are the results and the payouts of the final table:

So, as you can see, the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) 2009 was really a good tournament for the German players. Congratulations to this incredible performance!!

Tags: EPT, PCA 2009

Munich, I’m coming!

Thursday, December 4th, 2008 | Tournaments | 3 Comments

On Tuesday, I won the second Webmasters on the Roof Series of Poker qualification-tournament on Everest Poker which was hosted by Mediadonis and Fridaynite, two well-known German webmasters. Therefore, I will travel to Munich in January 2009 to play the final table against the six other qualifiers, Fridaynite and Mediadonis, who was part of the PokerStars-Beat the Stars-tournament in Germany and is a regularly participant of EPT- and WSOP-Events.

So cross your fingers for me!!!

If I finish this tournament first or second, I will get an EPEC-Package for the final-tournament in Sardinia at the end of may with a prize pool of 100.000 €.

Here is the list of the participants of the final table in Munich

• Mediadonis
• Fridaynite
• Patrick Stöhr
• Markus Roth
• Tobias Grallert (SkyLowLow)
• Thomas Luk
• Nils Hennig
• Gianfranco Murgia
• Markus Ostertag
• Silke Burghardt

Tags: EPEC, everest poker

Phil Hellmuth now has his own poker clothing line

Friday, November 28th, 2008 | Miscellaneous | No Comments

Phil Hellmuth launched the Poker Brat Co. apparel line. At PokerBrat.com you can find a big assortment of various clothing articles, like T-shirts or hats. The hats have a “PH” logo on them and the shirts have a poker tree in the front or “Poker Brat Clothing Co.” written across the middle. Some of the designs are pretty cool but i think, that he won’t sell much outside the poker world.

Nevertheless, after his deal with the Miller Brewing Company of Milwaukee, who print his face in front of their beer cans, this is another great deal from Phil Hellmuth. He really knows how to market his image as a poker brat.

Tags: Phil Hellmuth

Cycalona „Clonie” Gowen sued Full Tilt Poker

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 | Poker rooms | No Comments

Cycalona Gowen, better known as Clonie Gowen, has sued Full Tilt Poker and the various people and companies associated with Full Tilt for the sum of $40 million dollars. The list of defendants is impressive. First, there are the various companies like Full Tilt Poker, Tiltware LLC and Pocket Kings Ltd. Second, Clonie Gowen sued also the founders of Full Tilt, Howard “The Professor” Lederer and Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, and all the equity holders in the company, including Jennifer Harman, Erick Lindgren, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Erik Seidel, Mike Matusow, Gus Hansen and Patrik Antonius.

Clonie Gowen claims that the defendants are guilty of a number of things, including Breach of Contract and Unjust Enrichment. In 2004, she had the opportunity to become a member of Team Full Tilt Poker. She was offered a 1% stake in the company for represent and promote Full Tilt. Till now, she says, this stake is not paid. The problem is, that she had no written contract. It was only an oral agreement. Therefore it is likely difficult for Clonie Gowen to prove her statements.

Nevertheless Full Tilt Poker will do anything to keep this case out of court. If this case would go to court, all the associations between the poker pros and the various companies written above will rise up. This will be very interesting for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the US government agency responsible for tax collection and tax law enforcement and the worst case for Full Tilt.

If we hear something new about this case we will update this post. So stay tuned!

Tags: full tilt poker

Playing Badugi for real money: New Sit-and-go’s at pokerstars.com

Thursday, November 13th, 2008 | Poker variants | No Comments

As we mentioned earlier, you can play the poker variant badugi at PokerStars. Until now there were only play money games. Yesterday I discovered, that there are Sit-and-Go’s (SNG) for real money as well. As you can see in the next image, there are all kinds of limits, from buy-ins of $1 up to $200 (click to enlarge):

If you can’t find badugi SNGs, you may have to activate the checkbox in the options:

I don’t know, if it is a good idea for me to play badugi for real money. I used to play a couple of play money games and it is really fun. But otherwise, badugi should be new to most of the players at pokerstars. So maybe there are more fishes and donkeys than in other poker variants? What do you think? Have you any experiences?

Tags: badugi

Peter Eastgate youngest winner of the WSOP Main Event 2008

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 | Tournaments | 1 Comment

Peter Eastgate is the winner of the main event of the WSOP 2008. He defeated Ivan Demidov and is the youngest winner so fare. He displaced Phil Hellmuth from this title, who won in 1989 at the age of 24.

After a marathon final table, which lasted more than 14 hours, Peter Eastgate won the tournament when he turned a street from Ace to five and his opponent had only two pair.

Peter Eastgate gets $9.152.416 and the bracelet. Ivan Demidov as second gets anyhow $5.809.595.

Congratulations to Peter Eastgate!

Here are the results and the payouts of the final table:

Tags: wsop

It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 | Miscellaneous | No Comments

It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings is a very important guideline in a poker game and means that you shouldn’t assume the outcome of a hand until the river is dealt and the hand is actually finished.

If you are ahead and big favorite to win the hand and you lose instead, this is often called a bad beat. There is no consensus among poker players, which situation is a bad beat and which is not. In my opinion, there are no bad beats, its all math. With Pocket Rockets e.g., you have only a 80% winning chance preflop. That means, that you lose one time out of five when you are dealt pocket aces.

In the following hand, I had 7♥ 7♦ and my opponent held K♥ K♠. I was a 19% underdog preflop to win this hand.

As you can see, I won the hand with a straight. The most players would call such a hand a bad beat, but as I stated above, its all math. Preflop I had a 19% winning chance and therefore in one hand out of five, I will win the hand.

The question is, how do you handle such an outcome. Do you go on tilt like Phil Hellmuth or do you accept bad beats as an unpleasant but necessary drawback to a tactic, that works the majority of the time and let you win more money? Good players will never lose their pokerface and endure such situations.

Tags: odds, outs

Never lose your pokerface

Sunday, October 26th, 2008 | Miscellaneous | 1 Comment

I found three funny videos on youtube, which are showing, that, if you want to be a poker pro, you should never lose your pokerface. No matter how strange the situation is, you have to be cool and self-controlled. These videos are commercials from Full Tilt Poker. I’m not sure, if these commercials are shown on tv in the USA. Maybe someone could leave a litte comment with this information.

In the first video you can see Jon Juanda, winner of the WSOPE Main Event in 2008 and owner of four bracelets.

In the second video you see Eric Seidel, who won 8 bracelets till now. Eric Seidel was runner-up in his first major tournament, the 1988 WSOP main event, to Johnny Chan. The final hand of this match was featured in the movie Rounders with Matt Damon and Edward Norton.

In the third video you can see Phil Ivey, who won five WSOP bracelets till now and who is, in my opinion, the most talented player in the poker circus. Phil Ivey is a regular participant in the Big Game at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas (a $4,000-$8,000 mixed cash game with extreme big pots).

Tags: fun

Eli Elezra admits multiaccounting on Full Tilt Poker

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 | Poker rooms | 1 Comment

Yesterday, I found an interesting video on tinypic.com. In this scene, Eli Elezra announced in front of Howard Lederer, who is a co-owner of Full Tilt Poker, that he has 17 accounts on Full Tilt. Please note especially the non verbal efforts of Howard Lederer to quieten Eli Elezra (at second 18).

Although the most online poker rooms, e.g. including Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars und PartyPoker, doesn’t allow multiaccounting, this practice seems to be usual among the poker pros. In August 2008, Brian Townsend was found to be playing under multiple account names on Full Tilt and PokerStars. Also Guy Laliberte admits that he has several accounts on the most popular online poker rooms. For a poker pro, it is surely difficult to get action at the online poker table when they use their normal nickname. But in my opinion, a poker pro should be able to handle such a situation.

The question is: Should the online poker rooms allow multiaccounting or should they punish or expel the pros, who break their terms of service? What do you mean? I’m waiting eagerly for your comments.

Tags: full tilt poker, law

My personal experiences with Holdem Genius

Sunday, October 12th, 2008 | Poker software | 5 Comments

In this post I will tell you about my experiences with the poker analysis software Holdem Genius.

First a few words about the software. What is the sense of Holdem Genius? How could it help to improve your game?

Generally speaking, Holdem Genius is an odds calculator which gives you real-time betting advice based on the strength of your hand, your outs, the community cards, and what your opponents likely have.

I bought Holdem Genius at the beginning of September 2008. As you can see in the graph below, I lost a little money in the first 250 hands I played with the software (click on the image to enlarge it). How could that be?

Before you can use this software profitably, most time you will have to adjust the settings of Holdem Genius to match your personal playing style: making it e.g. more aggressive in late position or tighter pre-flop. Between hand 1200 and 1600, I tried another adjustment which cost me a little more money. But after that, I found the perfect setting for me.

After I found the right adjustment, the software really helped me playing winning poker. In the screenshot below you can see a normal situation in a poker game: You have a flush and an inside straight draw on the turn and want to know your odds and outs. Holdem Genius shows you all that facts in a second, so you can concentrate on your opponents and not on the math.

On the right side you see that you have overall 12 outs: 3 for a straight and 9 for a flush. You can also see, that your percentage of winning this hand on the river is only 19%. Therefore Holdem Genius gives you the advise to check this hand or, if the turn is bet, to fold. Your holecards, the betting advice and the strength of your hand is also shown in the middle of the table. A feature, which helps a lot if you are multitabling.

But there is one thing, that you must always keep in your mind: Holdem Genius is only an advanced odds calculator, not a “magic software” or a “miracle pill” that wins all hands for you.

There are a few limitations:

• Holdem Genius can’t tell you if your opponent is bluffing or not. The software will only show you your outs, odds and winning percentages, but its on you to decide if your opponent has a hand or not.
• Holdem Genius doesn’t track your opponents playing behavior. If you want to track your opponents playing style, you have to use a software like Poker Tracker or Poker Office.
• Holdem Genius won’t tell you exactly how much to bet or raise on a strong hand. It will usually just say something like “Raise or Re-Raise” or “Check or call one small raise”. It’s on you to decide how much you will bet or raise.

In my opinion, these are just minor limitations of the software, which are in fact obvious. The benefits are much greater. Playing winning poker is much easier since I use this software.

Holdem Genius is for free. All you have to do is opening a new account at one of their partner poker rooms. You can get a free license on the Holdem Genius website.

If you use another software or if you have a different opinion, please let me know. Criticism and comments are welcome.

Tags: analysis software, odds, outs