Posts Tagged ‘phil ivey’
Daniel Cates Tops Online Poker Winners in 2010
December 28th, 2010
It’s been a very good year for jungleman12.
If things continue the way they have for the last 12 months, Daniel “jungleman12” Cates will be the top winner in online poker for 2010.
Cates has really made a name for himself this year, winning more than $4.9 million this year playing both no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha. at stakes as high as $500/$1,000. Just two years removed from the $.25/$.50 heads-up tables where he got his start, he has consistently held his own against top-class competition at the high-stakes online poker tables throughout 2010. Included in his win total for the year is a $500,000 win against Tom Dwan over the course of the first 14,000 or so hands of their Durrrr Challenge. Perhaps most impressively of all, Cates has enjoyed all this success while continuing his studies in economics at American University.
Behind jungleman12 on the list of top winners in online poker for the year is Norwegian pot-limit Omaha specialist Andreas Torbergsen, known online as “skjervoy.” He has won $3.7 million in 2010, just ahead of Dwan ($3.6 million) and Phil Ivey ($3 million). With a few more days left on the calendar there’s still time for things to change, but as it stands right now it’s been an impressive year for Daniel Cates and his high-stakes competition.
Big Omaha Cash Game Action in Marrakech
November 22nd, 2010
Casino de Marrakech offers some of the world’s biggest Omaha action.
It looks like the historically huge cash games in Macau are done for a while as Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan head back to the United States for business, giving their Chinese hosts a break for a bit. That doesn’t mean the international cash game action is finished, though. This week the World Poker Tour is heading to Casino de Marrakech in Morocco, where the pot-limit Omaha cash games are some of the biggest in the world.
Cash games in Marrakech are played in the local currency, the Moroccan Dirham, which converts to the US dollar at a rate of about 8 to 1. That means that the highest-stakes Omaha game offered, with 2000dh/4000dh blinds, is played with blinds of $250/$500. The blinds are bigger than those in the $200/$400 Omaha games played online by the likes of Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan and Phil Galfond. Even the middle blind levels on offer like 1,000dh/2,000dh ($125/$250) and 500dh/1,000dh ($62.50/$125) compare well with some of the bigger live Omaha cash games in the United States.
Even more attractive to international high-stakes than just the money on the table is the fact that Morocco’s Omaha cash games have a reputation for being extremely juicy. The locals love to gamble it up, so anyone looking for an Omaha action fix will want to hop a flight to Marrakech ASAP. There’s also the value of playing against those same super-loose local players in the €5,000 WPT main event, which starts November 27. Of course, with the pot-limit Omaha games so juicy, you might find yourself trying to bust out of the tournament durrrr-style just so you can get back to the cash game action. If that happens, don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Daniel Negreanu Falls Short at EPT Vienna
November 1st, 2010
“Almost” turned into “not quite” for Daniel Negreanu in Vienna.
Daniel Negreanu entered the final table of the EPT Vienna Main Event yesterday holding more than a quarter of the chips in play. He’d held the chip lead for most of the three previous days and looked like a good bet to not only take down the tournament, but also to make poker history at the same time.
A win for Negreanu would have been big news. It would have been Negreanu’s first significant tournament win since taking down the British Columbia Poker Championships in November 2008. (He won a side event at EPT Vilamoura in September, but the win was worth just more than $10,000.) A win would also have made him the third player to capture poker’s Triple Crown – a WSOP bracelet, a WPT title, and an EPT title – putting him in company with Gavin Griffin and Roland de Wolfe. But biggest of all, a Negreanu win would have catapulted him past Phil Ivey to the top of poker’s all-time tournament earnings list.
With all that riding on him, Negreanu appeared focused and ready to seal the deal – at least until a three-way pot developed between him, Luca Cainelli and Martin Hruby. Cainelli opened preflop for a raise and Negreanu and Hruby came along to see a K-8-5 flop. Cainelli continued his action with a big bet, and both of his opponents called. Holding A-A, Cainelli then shoved all-in when the nine of spades hit the turn, and Negreanu immediately did the same with his K-9 for two pair. Hruby paused and then called with 7-6, which had both men beaten with a straight. Another five hit the river, Cainelli was eliminated in fifth place, Negreanu was crippled, and Hruby seized the chip lead.
From there the short-stacked Negreanu managed to double up once, but soon afterward he found himself on the rail in fourth place, collecting his fourth place prize of €175,000 (US $243,915) giving an exit interview where he complained about Hruby slowrolling him. Hruby went on to finish in second place behind Germany’s Michael Eiler, who rode a short stack all the way to his first EPT title.
With his fourth-place finish at EPT Vienna, Daniel Negreanu remains in second place on the all-time money list, his $13,080,190 in lifetime earnings ranking him behind only the $13,642,275 earned by Phil Ivey.
Daniel Negreanu Cruising at EPT Vienna
October 29th, 2010
Daniel Negreanu: please, please, please, let me get what I want.
It hasn’t been the greatest of years for Daniel Negreanu at the poker tables. With $403,644 in winnings and no single score worth more than $80,000, he has earned less money in 2010 than he has in any year since 2001. But a strong performance at EPT Vienna so far has him close to turning this year around in a big, big way.
Negreanu ended Day 2 of the tournament as the chip leader, and he cruised again on Day 3 to end up in second place as the chip bags were distributed at the end of play. With 1,954,000 in chips, Kid Poker trails only Konstantinos Nanos (2,007,000) with just 24 players remaining from the original starting field of 587. Much of his progress over the last two days has come thanks to finding himself in dominating positions against all-in opponents – from holdings aces against kings to aces against queens to A-J against A-5, Negreanu has often been the recipient of some fantastic pre-flop pairings at the Vienna event. And even when he starts with the worst hand he still finds a way to win, as he did with pocket tens against one opponent’s pocket kings and with 6-4 against another opponent’s K-6.
Of course, anything can happen in a big-bet poker game, and with 24 players remaining the EPT Vienna main event is still anyone’s to win. But with a chance to reverse this year’s fortunes – not to mention the opportunity to pass Phil Ivey for tops on the all-time money list with a first-place finish – Daniel Negreanu will have plenty of motivation to keep up the good work when play resumes tomorrow.
Golf Pro Bails on Tournament After Boozing With Phil Ivey
October 21st, 2010
Anthony Kim exercised a little too much freedom of speech in Vegas this week.
People may call Phil Ivey the Tiger Woods of poker, but hitting the town with him may not be the best way to improve one’s golf game, or image. That’s the lesson learned this week by pro golfer Anthony Kim, who’s in Las Vegas for the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospital for Children Open, but made headlines for something else entirely.
The story goes that during a booze-fueled game of high-stakes craps at the Bellagio, Kim was swearing so much that casino management had to step in and tell him to tone it down. One dealer quoted in a Las Vegas Review-Journal story called Kim a “loose cannon”. The incident reportedly came around the same time he and poker great Phil Ivey were spotted sharing a table, and a whole lot of cognac and top-shelf whiskey.
And then today, Kim withdrew at the last second from the golf tournament that brought him to Vegas. The official story is that he’s experiencing a flare up of an existing thumb injury. But then what’s he going to say, that he has to skip a charity event for sick kids because he’s too hungover?
Interestingly, this all happens the same week as another alcohol-and-craps-related Phil Ivey story. This one’s unsubstantiated, but comes from a TwoPlusTwo poster who said he saw Ivey at the craps table at the Wynn. Upset about something the dealer did, Ivey reportedly said he’d never play there again and told a supervisor “if you see me playing dice here again, I’ll suck your d**k.” He then pointed at another supervisor and said: “your’s too.”
2010 Festa al Lago Begins Today at Bellagio
October 8th, 2010
The eighth installment of Bellagio’s Festa al Lago series begins today.
It’s once again time for big poker action at one of the most famed poker rooms in the game as the 2010 Festa al Lago gets started at Bellagio.
Festa al Lago has been running at Bellagio since the summer of 2003, when poker pro Curt Kohlberg defeated a field of 137 players to grab the $280,960 top prize. The third installment of Festa al Lago, held in the autumn of 2004, saw the tournament become part of the WPT schedule. It was there that Carlos Mortensen won his first WPT title, taking home $1,000,000 after defeating Kido Pham in heads-up play.
This year’s Festa al Lago schedule sports 13 events in all, ranging in buy-in from two $540 no-limit hold’em events up to the $10,000 price of admission on the World Poker Tour’s main event. There are two Omaha events – one hi-lo, the other straight hi – and the rest of the schedule is an all-NLHE affair. The first of those is a $500+$40 tournament starting at noon PT today.
The last big tournament at the famed casino on the Vegas Strip was also a WPT event, the Bellagio Cup VI. Phil Ivey made his record 10th WPT final table there despite entering the tournament as registration closed on the third day of play. Ivey will have the chance to repeat his Bellagio final table performance – and maybe even improve on his third-place finish – when the WPT main event gets underway next Friday.
Phil Ivey Busts From WSOP Europe Main Event
September 27th, 2010
No more bracelets for Mr. Ivey this year. (Photo: WSOPPhotos.com)
If you’re big fan of schadenfreude, or maybe just of watching train wrecks in action, you’ll want to be sure to tune into ESPN3 in just a bit to catch Phil Ivey’s departure from the WSOP Europe Main Event.
Ivey entered the day sixth in chips, carrying the hopes of the poker world – at least, the members of the poker world who don’t have any bracelet prop bets with him – on his shoulders. He started the day off well, seeing off an old foe – Jani Sointula, who won the 2004 Monte Carlo Millions when Ivey finished third – by winning a coin-flip with pocket fours against Q-J. Sointula flopped a jack but Ivey peeled a four on the river, perhaps foreshadowing the kind of luck he would need to make it through the day.
Alas, Ivey must have forgotten to fill up on run-good before the day’s play began, because that two-outer was the last bit of of good fortune he would find. He called off about 175,000 chips in a pot against Bojan Gledovic, mucking on the river when Gledovic showed A-J on an ace-high board with no straight or flush possibilities. Then came the final blow, with Ivey four-betting all-in holding on to just A-T and chip leader Ronald Lee holding A-K. Lee called and a king hit the turn to send Ivey home in 19th place (£26,400).
Though Phil Ivey is out, there are still a few bright spots left in the WSOP Europe Main Event lineup. The volatile Viktor Blom sits in the middle of the chip counts but is capable of moving up at any point, while online star David Peters, Event #1 runner-up Andrew Pantling, two-time bracelet winner Hoyt Corkins, poker Triple Crown winner Roland de Wolfe and French pros Nicolas Levi and Arnaud Mattern are also still in the mix. You can catch all the action on ESPN3.com at 12:00 p.m. ET today.
Top Poker Pros Chase WSOP Europe Main Event Bracelet On Day 4
September 26th, 2010
Phil Ivey returns on Day 4 with a strong shot at making the WSOPE Main Event final table. (Photo: WSOPPhotos.com)
Of the 346 poker players who turned up for this year’s WSOP Europe Main Event, an unusually high percentage were players with serious tournament credentials. It’s no surprise, then, that there are still plenty of household names among the 22 players in contention as the fourth day of play begins.
Busting out before Day 3 was through but still taking home some pocket change were Irish Open winner James Mitchell (31st place), Freddy Deeb (30th), Bryn Kenney (29th), Yevgeniy Timoshenko (24th) and Barry Greenstein, who ended the day in 23rd place when his aces fell to Daniel Steinberg’s pocket tens. Though none of them cashed big, they did make the money, outperforming fellow pros like Huck Seed, Daniel Negreanu, Eli Elezra, November Nine member John Dolan, Nam Le, J.P. Kelly, Matt Stout and Nick Schulman.
Of those who will return to play more poker tomorrow, Brooklyn’s Ronald Lee is at the front of the pack with 947,000 in chips. Lee won two critical coin-flip hands early in the day before turning a flush in a big pot that sent John Eames home in 27th place and allowed Lee to make his first move toward the chip lead. A little further back in second and third places are David Peters (829,000) and Andrew Pantling (821,000), who finished right behind bracelet winner Phil Laak in Event #1 of this year’s WSOP Europe. And then there’s Viktor Blom, the Swede everyone in the universe is sure is Isildur1, sitting in fifth with 705,000 in chips.
As for the rest of the field, there’s a lot of hardware being toted around by poker pros at both ends of the leaderboard. Greg Mueller (151,000 in chips) and Roland de Wolfe (113,000), three WSOP bracelets between them, occupy the bottom two spots and will be looking to double up in short order. Meanwhile Phil Ivey (657,000) and Hoyt Corkins (566,000), who have 10 gold bracelets between them, occupy the sixth and seventh spots. And in between are two French players with titles from other tours, 2007 EPT Prague champ Arnaud Mattern (468,000) and 2009 WPT Merit Cyprus Classic winner Thomas Bichon (308,000).
Play down to the final table gets started in London at noon. American audiences who don’t want to follow live updates can watch Day 4 of WSOP Europe in its entirety, with hole cards, on ESPN3 at 12:00 p.m. ET.
WOPE Main Event: Ivey and Blom in Top 10 as Money Bubble Bursts
September 26th, 2010
Viktor Blom mixing it up at the 2010 WSOPE. (photo courtesy of WSOPPhotos.com)
Poker forums are buzzing today, as two of the most talked-about players in the world are running well in the World Series of Poker Europe main event. As the money bubble bursts, both Phil Ivey and Victor Blom (aka Isildur1?) are sitting in the top 10.
The event is still underway, with action scheduled to run for the few more hours it will likely take to reduce the field to 27 players. At that point they’ll break, with Day 4 getting underway tomorrow with three tables.
The man that many assume to be online poker legend Isildur1 actually had the chip lead as action got underway today. But a few minor roadbumps later and he’s sitting in the #10 position with 387,000 chips. Phil Ivey, meanwhile, is in 6th place with 530,000 chips.
Other notable names still in the runnning: Barry Greenstein, Roland de Wolfe and Freddy Deeb. The chip lead is held, at least for now, by Andrew Pantling, who has 975,000.
Big-Name Poker Pros Survive WSOP Europe High Roller Day 1
September 22nd, 2010
Phil Ivey is easily the biggest name left in the WSOP Europe High Roller field.
The first-ever WSOP Europe High Roller heads-up tournament started yesterday and drew 103 players, meaning that 25 of the field drew a bye in the first round. Everyone else drew an opponent in the first round and got down to business.
A slew of players who have solid years in 2010 fell by the wayside yesterday, including Sam Trickett, Justin “Boosted J” Smith, Jeffrey Lisandro, Sorel Mizzi, Tom Dwan, Daniel “jungleman12” Cates, and November Niners John Racener and Joseph Cheong. Others who failed to make it to round three included 2010 WSOP Player of the Year Frank Kassela, former WSOP Europe Main Event winner John Juanda, 11-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, WPT Player of the Year Faraz Jaka, November Niner Michael Mizrachi, EPT London winner Jake Cody and LA Poker Classic High Roller winner Scott Seiver.
As for the winners, Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies defeated Mike Matusow in round two only to draw WSOP Tournament of Champions winner and former NBC National Heads-Up champion Huck Seed in round three. The November Nine’s Matt Jarvis conquered Brandon Adams and drew EPT Prague High Roller winner Martin Kabrhel. And Jani Sointula will play Phil Ivey for what might be the first time since they were both in the final three of the 2004 Monte Carlo Millions. (Sointula won that time.)
Other poker pros who survived to round three include Shawn Buchanan, Howard Lederer, Ram Vaswani, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, McLean Karr, Amit Makhija, Daniel Negreanu, Andrew Robl, Neil Channing, Chris Moorman and Ludovic Lacay. They’re already back in action and you can check in on their progress via WSOP Europe live updates.
