Poker News

Hand Dissection with Steve Gross (gboro780)

Steve "gboro780" Gross is the epitome of consistency in the world of online poker. The 24 year-old poker pro from New Jersey has been among the world's top tournament players for several years across every major online poker site offered to U.S. players. In 2009, Gross had nine online scores of $40,000 or more. Three of those are for six-figures, including a $275,601 win in a Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) event in February. Gross also took second in Full Tilt Poker's $1 Million Guaranteed in January for $126,506.

Gross' other six-figure score came during the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) in April. He took second place in Event #11, a $3,150 Six-Max No Limit Hold'em event, for $128,000. Fellow high-stakes tournament whiz-kid James "Andy McLEOD" Obst was the winner of that event, coming from behind to defeat Gross in what was a heads-up match for the ages.

Gross took some time with Poker News Daily to discuss a hand he played against Obst with a few tables remaining in SCOOP Event #11.

Hand Setup:
Seat 1: Andy McLEOD (70,681 chips)
Seat 2: gboro780 (100,397)
Seat 3: get crunk (55,251)
Seat 4: HarrisMP (19,088)
Seat 5: ely_cash41 (8,229)
Seat 6: Brian Strahl (75,785)
Blinds are 250/500 with a 65 ante

Cards are Dealt:
get crunk folds
HarrisMP raises to 1,350
ely_cash folds
Andy McLEOD calls from the small blind
gboro780 calls with Jd-9d from the big blind

Flop: Ts-4d-2c
Andy McLEOD checks
gboro780 checks
HarrisMP checks

Turn: 8c
Andy McLEOD bets 3,100
gboro780 raises to 9,742
HarrisMP folds
Andy McLEOD raises to 24,000
gboro780 raises to 94,794 (having Andy McLEOD covered)
Andy McLEOD folds
gboro780 wins the pot with Jack-high

Gross' Analysis:
For Andy McLEOD to want to get it all-in on the turn, he needs to have two pair or better. If the villain were a random, I would never make this assumption, but knowing McLEOD is world-class, I don't see him wanting to get it in with one pair here with so much behind and such a small amount in the middle at a crucial point in the tournament.

I didn't think he was slow playing anything pre-flop. Andy has a bit of a maniacal image, but he is very bright and knows how to use it. He's super active, 3bets a lot, and in turn also gets played back at a lot. So, I thought he was trapping pre-flop here very rarely and would play his big hands fast more often than not in this setting.

I recognized the opener, HarrisMP, from watching nosebleed cash games on Full Tilt Poker and knew he had some game. At a six-max table with 40 big blind effective stacks against really good players, 8-8 and 10-10 become pretty huge hands that I believe McLEOD would have chosen to 3bet before the flop, particularly being out of position from the small blind.

So, of the two-pair-or-better hands we're worried about that would be in McLEOD's get-it-in range, we are left with 2-2, 4-4, and T-8 suited. Now I love T-8 suited, but I'm hardly ever flatting with it and, speculating in McLEOD's shoes here, it's just not the right part of the tournament for that. But it's still possible. Pocket fours and pocket twos are certainly a concern, although I think they get folded pre-flop a decent amount too.

When McLEOD leads at the turn, the rational part of my brain told me to take one off and try to hit the nuts with my straight draw. I can possibly take it away from him on the river if some scare cards come or if he checks and appears to be giving up. Then, the nutso part of my brain clicked in and told me to raise it up on a semi-move where we could take it down with jack-high, still potentially hit the nuts, and still potentially take it down on scary rivers (for bigger pots).

McLEOD and I have played together for years and know that we are both quite capable. So, when I raised the turn, I wasn't entirely shocked to see him keep the pressure on and come back over the top for 24,000. However, I felt that there were so few hands he actually wants to get it in with and a player of his caliber has air and random hands here way more often than 2-2 or 4-4. If by chance he does have those hands, I still have outs and 60 big blinds if I lose.

World Championship Of Online Poker starts today

$1.25m is guaranteed in prize money for the opening event of the PokerStars World Championship Of Online Poker, which kicks off later today. The six-max No Limit Hold’em tournament - starting at 14:30 EST (7.30pm BST) tonight - is the first of 45 tournaments scheduled throughout September.

Strategy– Playing In Position with Phil Galfond

Phil "OMGclayaiken" Galfond discusses playing in position a hundred big blinds deep in a six-max No Limit Hold'Em cash game.

Team RPM Poker Features Internet’s Top Players

RPM Poker, a new site on the popular Merge Gaming Network, has unveiled its team of poker pros. The squad features some of the top names in the world of online poker, including Aditya “Intervention” Agarwal and Mark “dipthrong” Herm.

A total of 19 players comprise the original Team RPM Poker. The group will travel to live events and represent the Merge Gaming Network site, which accepts customers from the United States. Aditya “Intervention” Agarwal has wins in the Full Tilt Poker $1K Monday and PokerStars $100 rebuy, the latter of which boasts one of the most competitive fields for any recurring tournament. In January, Agarwal took down the $200 rebuy, which also plays out on PokerStars, for $48,000. He’s also a regular on the live poker scene, having taken 15th in the 2007 European Poker Tour (EPT) Barcelona Open for $34,000.

Mark “dipthrong” Herm took the online poker world by storm when he won not one, but two Sunday major tournaments on the same day last July, the Bodog $100,000 Guaranteed and Full Tilt Poker $750,000 Guaranteed. The week before, Herm was the champion of the Sunday Mulligan. In December, he took down the Full Tilt Poker $100 rebuy and finished as the runner up in the site’s Sunday Brawl on February 1st for $54,000. He regularly backs fellow online poker players and is allegedly a top-tier beer pong talent.

Dan “djk123” Kelly is one of the top-ranked players in poker. Last November, he took down a $216 buy-in No Limit Hold’em Turbo event during the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) for $104,000. In February, he was up to his winning ways once again, taking third place in a $300 Rebuy Six-Handed No Limit Hold’em FTOPS event for $116,000. He has multiple wins in the PokerStars $100 rebuy and took down the $500 buy-in $100,000 Guaranteed on Ultimate Bet earlier this month for $26,000. He sits in seventh on the PocketFives.com Online Poker Rankings.

Also a part of Team RPM Poker is Randy “Randers” Haddox. In September, he took down a $320 buy-in Six-Max No Limit Hold’em event held during the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP), banking $73,000. In March, he won the challenging Full Tilt $100 Cubed (one rebuy plus one add-on) for $19,000. The Texan also finished 11th in a $1,000 rebuy event during last year’s World Series of Poker (WSOP) for $36,000 in a tournament ultimately won by Michael “worldsgrtest” Banducci. At 29 years-old, Haddox is one of the elder statesmen of Team RPM Poker.

Steven “Zugwat” Silverman can regularly be found playing $200/$400 Heads-Up No Limit Hold’em with the top players in the game. The Maryland native won a $1,060 buy-in FTOPS event in February for a colossal $350,000. In November, he took down the PokerStars $100 rebuy. Silverman is fresh off a 12th place showing in the EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final for $126,000.

Other members of Team RPM Poker include Andrew “luckychewy” Lichtenberger, Stephen “Stevie444” Chidwick, Dan “KingDan” Smith, Chris “cdbr3799” Dombrowski, Jim “Mr_Bigqueso” Collopy, Terry “Asiandude7” Eischens, Daniel “Luie Sojo” Santoro, Brent “astrolux85” Roberts, Anthony “holdplz” Spinella, Jeff “jpapola” Papola, Russell “rcrane082985” Crane, Shawn “jordankickz” Busse, Brett “threatnasty” Switzer, and Kory “s00tedj0kers” Kilpatrick.

Team RPM Poker will battle against players on other Merge Gaming Network sites such as ACED, Carbon Poker, IronDuke, Poker Nordica, and Rumble Poker. The Merge Gaming Network is the 17th largest worldwide in terms of cash game volume with a seven day running average of 345 players, according to PokerScout.com. It is the sixth largest site or network that accepts players from the United States.

Max Speidel, Operations Manager at RPM Poker, commented in a press release unveiling the group, “We’re thrilled to have some of poker’s most recognizable young players as a part of our team. Their results speak for themselves. They’re all world-class players that represent the next generation of poker and they’re all well-respected by their peers and fans. We couldn’t be happier with the team that we’ve assembled.”

The Pot Limit Omaha Book Due Out April 30th

Poker players who want to learn how to transition successfully from No Limit Texas Hold'em to Pot Limit Omaha should look no further than “The Pot Limit Omaha Book,” a product of Tri Nguyen. The newest poker publication is available for pre-order at DailyVariance.com and will set readers back $275 for the e-book and $375 for the published edition. Poker News Daily sat down with Nguyen to learn about his brand new book.

Poker News Daily: Where did the idea for The Pot Limit Omaha Book originate?

Nguyen: After writing a No Limit Hold'em book, I realized that I could do the same thing for Pot Limit Omaha. There's currently not a lot of literature on the game and I want to be the standard for all Pot Limit Omaha books.

PND: Why is there a lack of literature in Pot Limit Omaha right now?

Nguyen: I have read a few Pot Limit Omaha books and the only strategies seem to be drawing to the nuts and avoiding certain hands pre-flop. Although that's good advice, it's too simple and doesn't teach a person how to think about the game. Pot Limit Omaha is new and the current authors just don't approach teaching the game correctly.

PND: What sneak peak can you give our readers?

Nguyen: You can't write an effective poker book if you don't have equity calculation of a hand versus a certain range. There is a section on 4-betting that hasn't been talked about before. Every decision we teach is based on your hand versus your opponent's range, not your hand versus whether your opponent is strong or not.

PND: What about Pot Limit Omaha makes it so much different than Hold'em? In other words, why should someone making the jump want to get serious about learning?

Nguyen: Because Pot Limit Omaha is so new, the games are filled with a lot of bad players. There is a lot of content on Hold 'em right now, so it's harder to win. Everyone is playing well and making fewer mistakes in Hold'em. In Pot Limit Omaha, it's hard to know if you are good or not and that's what makes the game so sick. Bad players take longer to know they are bad, which means more money for you.

PND: What other books have you produced that our readers might be interested in?

Nguyen: I wrote a No Limit Hold'em book with Cole South called "Let There Be Range!" It is considered to be the best literature for Six-Max No Limit Hold 'em. It's popular because it helps a lot of small winners become medium winners and medium winners become big winners. Usually, it's only one or two concepts that separate one group from another. However, it's difficult to know what's missing because one player might lack one concept while another player lacks another concept.

PND: What was the biggest challenge to you personally of writing the Pot Limit Omaha book?

Nguyen: The biggest challenge was writing the boring pre-flop chapter because it's a mundane process that you can learn for free reading online. However, since Pot Limit Omaha is so new, I had to write a pre-flop section in the book.

PND: What other concepts have you thought about writing books on?

Nguyen: The donk bet, which is a bet you make when you're out of position and your opponent has had the initiative in previous streets, is very powerful in Pot Limit Omaha and I talked about it in-depth in this book. The difference between 3-bet and 4-bet, value-betting, betting for protection, and fold equity are also very different in Pot Limit Omaha than in Hold'em.