Poker Tournament Blog

Heat 1
1. Bo Sehlstedt (Qualifier) - wins a seat at the Grand Prix Final table
2. Tony G - wins a seat Grand Prix Semi-Final table
3. John Shipley
4. Devilfish
5. Peter Roche
6. Luke Patton
7. Juha Helppi
8. Steve Vladar

Heat 2
1. Johnny Lodden - wins a seat at the Grand Prix Final table
2. Ross Boatman - wins a seat Grand Prix Semi-Final table
3. Dave Colclough
4. Xuyen Pham
5. Voitto Rintala (Qualifier)
6. Marcus Bebb-Jones (Qualifier)
7. Willie Tann
8. Pascal Perrault

Heat 3
1. Wayne Hutchins (Qualifier) - wins a seat at the Grand Prix Final table
2. Roy Brindley - wins a seat Grand Prix Semi-Final table
3. Mickey Wernick
4. Andy Black
5. Joe Beevers
6. Kevin Poast (Qualifier)
7. Vicky Coren
8. Tore Lagerborg

Heat 4
1. Jeff Lisandro - wins a seat at the Grand Prix Final table
2. Brian Cassidy (Qualifier) - wins a seat Grand Prix Semi-Final table
3. Paul Jackson
4. Anthony McConnell (Qualifier)
5. Surinder Sunar
6. Barny Boatman
7. Liam Flood
8. Julian Thew

Heat 5
1. Antonio Esfandiari - wins a seat at the Grand Prix Final table
2. Ben Grundy - wins a seat Grand Prix Semi-Final table
3. Shelley Mullett (Qualifier)
4. Sami Yusuf (Qualifier)
5. JP Kelly
6. Ram Vaswani
7. Keith Hawkins
8. John Duthie

Heat 6
1. Ken Lennaard - wins a seat at the Grand Prix Final table
2. John Kabbaj - wins a seat Grand Prix Semi-Final table
3. Julian Gardiner
4. Phil Laak
5. Marc Goodwin
6. Oliver Puhr (Qualifier)
7. Jeff Kimber (Qualifier)
8. Harry Demetriou

Heat 7
1. Martin Wendt - wins a seat at the Grand Prix Final table
2. Stuart Fox - wins a seat Grand Prix Semi-Final table
3. Ben Roberts
4. Christer Johansson
5. Robert Williamson III
6. Tony Bloom
7. Russ Taylor (Qualifier)
8. Roland de Wolfe

Semi-Final
1. Ben Grundy - wins a seat at the Grand Prix Final table
2. Brian Cassidy - wins £10,000
3. Ross Boatman
4. Roy Brindley
5. John Kabbaj
6. Stuart Fox
7. Tony G

Final
1. Martin Wendt - wins £175,000
2. Wayne Hutchins - wins £100,000
3. Antonio Esfandiari - wins £70,000
4. Ben Grundy - wins £50,000
5. Johnny Lodden - wins £35,000
6. Bo Sehlstedt - wins £25,000
7. Jeff Lisandro - wins £20,000
8. Ken Lennaard - wins £15,000

The prestigious team poker tournament, hosted by PartyPoker.com, was played in Cardiff, Wales, last week. The United States had put together a strong team that included the team captain Robert Williamsom III, Antonio Esfandiari, Jennifer Tilly, and Phil Laak.

Team USA made it all the way to heads-up play against Sweden and was in the lead when Robert Williamson III sat down to face Anders Henriksson. The Swede managed to turn things around, however, and knocked Williamson out.

Besides the honor, first place was worth $100,000 in prize money.

“We are really pleased with this victory. We had a pretty big side bet going with the Americans, so it was very nice to win,” said Mats Rahmn, one of the Swedish players, and just like Anders Henriksson a 2006 WSOP bracelet winner.

In total, six countries competed in the 2007 Poker Nations Cup. Besides Sweden and USA, England, Germany, Denmark, and Holland participated.

The team captains:

Sweden: Bo Sehlstedt
USA: Robert Williamson III
England: David Ulliot
Holland: Marcel Luske
Germany: Michael Keiner
Denmark: Theo Jorgensen

“Ultimate Poker Challenge” has announced the launching of “Cash Poker”, a new game format, where top-notch pros and hungry amateurs battle it out for cold hard cash in the biggest televised cash game ever. This is not a tournament!
On “Cash Poker”, actual fortunes are won and lost with the turn of a single card.

“Though broadcast television has long been filled with game shows, most recently including poker,” states Supervising Producer Eduardo Eguia, “There has never been a contest of this magnitude where contestants risk their own money in a game of skill and courage- this is truly The Ultimate Gamble!”

“Cash Poker” requires a $25,000 to $100,000 buy-in from its participants and this Texas Hold’em event promises to bring home all the excitement of high-stakes, casino-style poker! Our players bet with real money (no fake tournament chips used here) with hopes to end up on top. In this game anyone can play, as long as they have the cash and THE GUTS to sit down.

”Fundamental Theorem of Poker states that the best way for players to play is the way they would play if they knew their opponent’s cards”. In other words, “duh”. Obviously though, this is more complex then just the words stated in the theorem. Unless you have superpowers, or somebody behind your opponents with binoculars, there is no way you can actually know what they have in their hands.

Let’s say you’re holding:

Jh & 10h

While your opponent is holding:

Ks & Qd

The flop comes:

Qh, 8c, 7h

You check, your opponent bets, and in response, you call. Then the turn comes:

Qh, 8c, 7h, Ad

You bet, trying to represent aces. If your opponent knew what you had, his correct play would be to raise you so much it would cost too much to draw to a flush or a straight on the last card, and you would have to fold. Therefore if your opponent only calls, you have gained. You have gained not just because you are getting a relatively cheap final card, but because your opponent did not make the correct play. Obviously if your opponent folds, you have gained tremendously since he has thrown away the best hand.

How could the opponent have known what was in your hand? How would they have known raising was the correct call? You are dealing with odds and probability. The odds of you completing your flush or straight were not good. If you pulled another Jack, the opponent could still beat you with a pair of Kings or Queens. The odds that you would pull three Jacks were equal to the odds the opponent would a triplet of Kings and Queens. You can see where this is going.

Staying on the happy side of the odds will result in more wins then losses. Occasionally that 10% chance that a player is going to beat you with an unlikely straight, is going to happen, and you will watch your money go into their stack.

“Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponent’s cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. Conversely, every time opponents play their hands differently from the way they would have if they could see all your cards, you gain; and every time they play their hands the same way they would have played if they could see all your cards, you lose.

While it may seem like everyone and his brother is playing poker these days online, there are still players who are just new to the game, and would like to ease their way into an online poker experience. Online poker rooms that offer beginner tournaments are a great way to start, and Bodog Poker is just such a room. Playing in a Bodog Poker Beginner Tournament you get twice the normal chance to land “in the money”, which means you finish high enough up the ladder to get paid! Typical poker tournaments pay out to the top 15 - and some Bodog events pay out the top 50!

Online poker room Bodog Poker has had a running event that pitted online poker players against poker pros in a one-on-one poker game called a Heads-Up Match, and recently one pro has been showing he knows what he is doing. During the weekly TLB Heads-Up Poker matches Atlanta poker pro Josh Arieh has been dominating, winning the last five events in a row. His opponents have rotated but more than once he has faced head2782, an online player who has beaten Arieh in the past.

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While the World Series of Poker has been confined to the United States in the past and the World Poker Tour has stops only in the States, France, and the Bahamas, many countries are launching their very own poker tours, such as the recently announced All-Japan Poker Championship. The event, conceived by the All-Japan Poker Championship Committee, will be a No Limit Texas Hold’em event and will take place in Tokyo, Japan on June 2 and 3, with the winner taking home a seat to the WSOP in Las Vegas this year. Much of the proceeds from this event are planned to be set aside for charity.

The WSOP (World Series of Poker) is the major event of the poker calender.

Originating at Binion’s Casino in 1970, it has run every year on an ever increasing scale. Harrah’s bought Binion’s in 2004 and moved the event to their casino The Rio (for the 2005 & 2006 events).

The WSOP is a series of poker tournaments of various formats and of various buy-in levels (ranging most recently from $1000 to $50,000). Winning any of these poker tournaments earns you not only lots of money, but also a very prestigious WSOP Bracelet. Winning several bracelets is often seen as the benchmark of success for professional poker players.

The players with the most bracelets are Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, and Phil Hellmuth, all with 10 bracelets each.

The main event of the WSOP is a $10,000 buy-in tounament of NL Holdem. In 2006 this event attracted over 8000 entries and the 1st Prize was $12,000,000