Jerry Yang is the new champion

Personally I'm not happy with that champion as he played bad poker for most of the time (Phil Hellmuth called it corectly "amateur poker"). I also disliked some of his habits. But ... he is the champion for the next year!

I liked the performance of the silver fox. Even with that semi-bad-beat were he lost a big pot with QQ against Tuan Lam he remained patient for most of the time. Rahme was on tilt shortly after that beat but fortunately went back on track and regained a lot of his lost chipstack. He showed that patience is a good tool as long as you have a comfortable chipstack in regards to the blinds. Unfortunately he lost that patience again at the end when he pushed his KK against a flop containing an Ace. He must have known that Jerry Yang would call this most probably with anything as low as A2. But Yang hesitatet and in my opinion was close to fold when Rahme said to him something like "it's your decision" and talked him into the call. Too bad as this sealed not only his fate but also made it almost impossible for Tuan Lam to beat Yang heads-up. Up to this point Rahme and Lam had been still in good shape to win the event. But once again Rahme showed his class a little later in the WSOP interview. He didn't blame anyone than himself because he knows that it was his own mistake. He knows that he blew a big opportunity but still is happy about the result in general and what he acomplished as being the first player from south africa to make it that far.

For the profitability of poker Yang might be the best that could have happend. Not only that he is asian but also there will be a bunch of new "any-two-can-win" players after this has aired on TV.

A long World Series is over. It started before our three week holiday. I got a part of it live during our one week stay in Vegas and it ended with the final table shortly after we were back to Munich. But there are plenty of tournaments to come and there will be another World series of Poker in 2008. Even better and bigger? Most probably, because poker is still on a hot run. The peek in Germany isn't reached yet and Asia is just starting to take off.

Read more...

My prediction for the WSOP winner

After reading their bios and looking at some of there interviews I think this will become a very interesting table even without Scotty. I still feel sorry for Scotty to bust out on 11th but as he said he "blew it".

Who do I think will win? Hilm, Lam and Kalmar are the Chipleaders. Hilm seems to be the most experienced. So if he can keep his lead I tend to call him the favorite. If Lee Watkinson can double up early he can become very dangerous.

Who do I want to win? My personal favorite is the "silver fox" Raymomd Rahme. He showed so much class in his WSOP interview. While the oldest guy is my first choice the youngest guy will be my second. Hevad "Rain" Khan is a hell of a character. But like Watkinson he has to double up early to become dangerous.

In about 20 hours we will know...

Read more...

Are you a Pro?

I'm back to Munich and start to find my way back to real life.

But before we flew home we had a nice day in Boston with our friends. As we went to lunch we talked a little about Poker and if it is really important to get the right cards. We were still talking as we entered the subway and I told them about "playing the players not the cards" and other stuff including some things that happened during my visit to the WSOP. Next to us was a young guy (obviously barely 18) who tried to follow our conversation and finally asked "Are you a pro"? Isn't that funny? Just talking about some advanced concepts makes some people think that you are a professional poker player.

It's hard to imagine that you play against this kind of people online every day. But at the same time I realized again the big difference between live play and online play. Of course you get a lot of information about a player if you stay aware playing online. But if I imagine to play against this guy live seeing his personality, following the way he talks and acts I get a whole lot more information to realize who am I playing with. In fact just talking to him on the subway for a few minutes gave me a good picture of him before even playing a single hand of poker. On the other hand I can leave a different mark on my own action if somebody has to look into my eyes instead of just looking at my avatar. Nothing new but still good to remember from time to time.

On our sightseeing tour we also went up to the Prudential building and got a nice view of Boston from above. And I got a nice shot of MIT (Massechusats Institute of Technology). Seeing MIT is something special for somebody who played advanced Black Jack. As you may know some of the best Black Jack card counting teams came out of MIT. The now famous poker player Andy Bloch was a member of one of these MIT teams in the past.

Today I had my first online game again (the Xing tournament) but it was uneventfull. I never was able to improve my stack in a good way and finally busted 30th out of 53 after I was forced to give up pocket tens on a bad flop (A-K-7) and a great draw against a decent reraise. Hopefully the next tournaments will run better.

Read more...

Blue Man Group

Our vacation is almost over. Friday morning we will first fly to Boston and visit some friends before we are flying home on Saturday. It was a great time. Not only the poker in Vegas but all the things we did in the last three weeks. So for the last day in Chicago we decided to do a thing that we didn't do in Vegas due to all my tournament play: Going to a show. We went to "Blue Man Group" (which also plays in Chicago) and if you haven't seen it I can tell you it's a "must see". It's hilarious. But you have to be open minded. Don't expect anything ... just let it happen and enjoy. Oh, and don't take a seat in the first rows ;-)

On Monday the next Xing tournament is coming up and it looks like we may get a good number of participants again. Of course it helps that PokerStars added some prizes (like the buy-in for the sunday million). And Tuesday to Wednesday will become a long night for me (as for many others). I already signed up for the ESPN PPV live stream to see the WSOP final table live.

Read more...

6,358 is the magic number

That's the total number of participants at this years main event. You may remember my last prediction after the fabulous start with event #1? I put it to 6,000+ and was quite close with it. As I was close with predicting last years number ;-)

So what does this mean for the poker world and the WSOP? In my opinion this is a great number. There was almost no way that we get a new record for various reasons. But there were enough reasons (esp. UIGEA) that the number could have been much lower. The WSOP 2007 is the second biggest main event ever (a few more players than 2005) and that is just great. It's great for the future of the WSOP and it's a clear sign that poker is still running hot.

Just to quote Nolan Dalla again: "Anyone who thinks the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) will kill the WSOP is in for a big surprise."

While I'm writing this we are sitting in a pub next to our hotel at Niagara Falls. Of course I'm checking the WSOP main event updates and on the table next to us is a bunch of people partying. This group is obviously from Australia. How do I know? Well, since the 2005 main-event there is probably no poker player in the world that doesn't know what "Aussie, Aussie, Ausie, Oy, Oy Oy" means ;-)

Read more...

WSOP is over ... at least for me :-(

First, let me congratulate Cort to his 6th place. Good job!

Yes it's true. The week in Vegas is over and it went so fast. But it was a great time. I'm somewhat sad that I couldn't play a WSOP event but it just wasn't the right time for me. But I played lot's of tournaments and learned many things. It had a nice ending as I cashed again at the Planet Hollywood with a 9th place out of 88 players in my last tournament.

Unfortunately I lost some money in that week (about $800 with a total of $1,600 for buy-ins invested). I played 11 tournaments and 3 WSOP SnG's. I cashed in 4 of the 11 MTT's. That sounds like a decent number? Well, it could be but unfortunately I cashed only in the smaller events but failed in the bigger ones (like the Venetian and Binions). Was I playing over my bankroll and abilities? My bankroll allows higher buy-ins on occasions so I don't think this is a problem here. Was the competition tougher? Not really. Indeed I got the worst beats in the bigger ones (like the AK vs. 78 hand at the Venetian). I just didn't get the cards to play a good game in the bigger ones. Of course No Limit Hold'em is mostly a "no showdown" game if it's played correctly. But getting cards and flops that fit with your betting action will help a lot.

Beside that I had three bad beats that had an actual accountable influence on not getting any money (two times) and getting significant less money (one time).

So I can say that I'm quite satisfied with my own game in that week. I know about some mistakes I made but those had only minor impact on the actual result. And of course I will avoid them in the future. For now I will take a short break from poker as we are currently in Chicago for some vacation time. So don't expect much updates in the next 10 days.

Read more...

Breaking News: Cort Kibler-Melby made the final table!

Cort (last seat, next to the dealer) who runs the poker-tester forum made it to the final table of what is now the third biggest live tournament in the world. Event #49 of the WSOP (the $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em) had 3,151 participants. From the nine left only Greg "FBT" Mueller is a well known name.

Cort, who lives in Berlin turned 21 about half a year ago. So making a final table at is first WSOP event is a huge accomplishment. Congratulations and good luck. He's sixth in chips (little below average) so anything can happen. Unfortunately we can't watch it live as they play this finale again behind the black curtain.

My day wasn't that good at all. At the Planet Hollywood tournament I lost my stack early with set over set. I got QQ UTG an raised it to 3BB. Got reraised from seat two. One caller in MP and I called too. My first thought was he has AA. But then I remembered that this guy took down a lot of pots by just overbetting them so the range for his reraise was much bigger. Flop came QA8 with two spades. I loved the queen but hated the ace. If he had aces and I bet he most probably would just call and I would get no information. So I checked and he made a pot-size bet. The other caller folded. I was sure he wanted to represent the aces but his bet was way too big for a huge hand like a set of aces. Most people would check their set here and hope for a bet on the turn. So I put him on AK of spades. I reraised him and he went all-in. The pot was now too big to let this hand go and I called. He hand indeed AA and busted me. But he also put me on the wrong hand as he was very surprised to see my QQ's. Seems we had simmilar thoughts and he put me on AK of spades too. Therefore his bet was the best he could do. Unfortunately this trapped me into a wrong assumption about his hand. And to be honest: I made to critical mistakes in this hand. The first one was not to go with my first impression and the second one was to underestimate his fear regarding a possible flushdraw.

As this was a shorter tournament than expected I tried to play a $70 SnG at the Mirage. But their organisation is plain horrible. They offer three buy-in sizes ($70, $115, $175). Several people had put there name on ore than one list. But instead of scratching the names from the board after the $175 SnG had started they left it like it was. At the end they had ten names for the $115 and ten for the $70. As the casino wants to make as much money as possible they announced the $115 SnG first which was abolute senseless as half of the people from the list already played in the $175. And ten people that wanted to play the $70 SnG just had to wait. Well, not ten anymore because I told them to scratch my name form the list. Now they had two tables short of players.

Quite soon I found out that this was a good decision. Because back to the Rio I decided to have a look at the Amazon-Room. I was almost there when Cort crossed my way. We said hello and had some nice chat as I hadn't seen him since he arrived in Vegas. But he looked somewhat like being on the run. And of course he was. He told me he's still in the tournament and they are just on a short break. 15 people left. "Wait! You mean you are one of the 15 left in this big tournament with over 3,000 people"? It was exactly that and of course I joined Sutti and Olli to cheer for Cort on his way to the final table.

One more small tournament for me tomorrow and the Las Vegas vacation is over. But the WSOP isn't and the most important event is still to come. But I loved this week even so the results weren't as good as I hoped. And of course I will be back next year!

Read more...